May Reads

[Guinevere Seaworth]

The Book of Deacon by Joseph Lallo was boring.  Way to much telling vs showing and the main character was too much of a prodigy and Mary Sue for my likings.

Loving both Time of Grief, by Adrian Tchaikovsky and Legacy by Lois McMaster Bujold.

[Astromech]

I finally finished Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn. Atkinson did a terrific job of balancing tons of information with narrative pace. Loved it. Luckily it's only the first part of his Liberation Trilogy and I have two more to read.

I now have Glendon Swarthout's The Shootist and Charles Portis' True Grit lined up.

[Garett Hornwood]

I finished The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, which is omnibus collection of the first five novels plus a short story.  Overall I found everything so-so in both humor and in each story.  I'm going to have to check out the radio serial to see if that is funnier and just better than the book.  Next I read Night Watch by Terry Pratchett as part of my read through of the Discworld series.  I really enjoyed this book, as I've done of basically all the Watch books, and don't know what I can add to that.  I'm currently reading the GRRMartin edited Rogues and so far have found almost all the stories very good, but I still have a long way to go.

The following books are more religious oriented, so this is your warning...

I reread Sabbath Roots: The African Connection by Charles E. Bradford and read The Antichrist and the New World Order by Marvin Moore as part of my "tame" readings on Friday & Saturdays.  The first book is a look at evidence of Sabbath-keeping on the African continent before the arrival European Christian missionaries and is mostly an introduction to the whole decision.  The second book is a look at Seventh-day Adventist eschatology written in the early 1990s as can be determined the use of 'the new world order' in the title, the dated references to "current events" are the biggest flaw of the book but it's also a general read for both Adventist and non-Adventist audiences.

[C.T. Phipps]

WHERE LOYALTIES LIE by Rob Hayes came out today. I've already read it and recommend it.

Finished EVIL IS A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE by Grimdark Magazine.

Am going to start OLD MAN'S WAR now.

[Maester Llama]

Finished Ada Palmer's Seven Surrenders. I loved it as I expected to. It does feel to me, on first reading, perhaps slightly less elegant in its presentation of raw plot in some places, maybe because there are big hunks of revelation about story matters that the narrator has been teasing since early in Too Like the Lightning that are here dropped upon us quite quickly in several "we shall now explain to you what is going on here" scenes. But the intricacy of the world, and the ways its particular social structures and assumptions make a plot that seems sometimes almost farcical and absurd to an early twenty-first century reader both possible and deadly to the society, and the writing style that is so far as I'm aware almost unique in sf, and the factions, and the tonal shifts, and the dialogue, and and and oh wow it is so good. I can see how Palmer's series, now half-complete, is polarizing, but there is just not much like this out there.

 

Not quite sure what's next for me. Probably something action-oriented and compelling and quick to get myself, reluctantly, out of the Terra Ignota headspace until The Will to Battle comes out or I reread the extant books. I think I might have just the thing. I think it might be Scalzi time.

[Darth Richard II]

2 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Tbf, it's Stanek's conduct as an author, particularly his methods of self-promotion and his fascinating propensity for self-delusion, that drives most of the discussion on these forums, rather than the actual quality of his writing.

Oh I'm well aware. The really interesting part I've always found is trying to figure out how much of his own bullshit he actually believes, but I derail.

[Jo498]

Earlier this month:

Steffen Kopetzky: Risiko, A huge sprawling book about a slightly alternative (it remains true to the real events for most of the book) First World War. Definitely too long but brilliant at times (I had started this already last month); there is no English translation yet. The title means risk and this is also the name of the German version of the boardgame. In the book the German officers are playing a similar strategy game which is a also a pun on the Great Game for the Eurasian heartland the events of the book are part of.

Spoiler

The alternative ending is that a German-Austrian-Ottoman expedition to Persia and Afghanistan stirs up the Pashtuns and other tribes and destabilizes British India so that with the desaster at Gallipoli and the gridlock on the western front the combattants agree on a peace in late 1915 or early 1916. But this is only at the very end of the book.

R. Harris: The fear index (Angst, I read it in translation) not among his best, but an interesting take on AI  (in a comparably limited therefore comparably plausible way)

E. Baronsky: Herr Mozart erwacht (Mozart wakes up, apparently transported from his deathbed 200 years into the future where he has to find his way around modern Vienna. Not as ridiculous as it sounds, actually quite well done, except for a little to much lovestory and a strange ending)

Gene Wolfe: The devil in a forest. This is a shorter, rather early work by Wolfe. Well written in a basically realistic medieval setting but somewhat lacking in point, I think.

[Astromech]

The Shootist had some excellent characterization and one of the best, most vivid endings I've read in a while. I've never seen the John Wayne film and pleased to not have since it probably would've bled over into the novel and marred my reading enjoyment.

[Darth Richard II]

12 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Have you seen the message boards on his website?

Yes. I'm convinced some of his sock puppets have become self aware ala skynet.

[Plessiez]

On 5/21/2017 at 3:13 PM, Maester Llama said:

Foz Meadows' An Accident of Stars I also found enjoyable as a semi-deconstruction of a subgenre -- in this case portal fantasy -- that also served as a good example of that subgenre, a book that takes a type of story and points out the problems with it, but repurposes the type's appealing ingredients and rebuilds them into something cooler rather than just setting fire to the whole thing.

[...]

 A book not without problems, but a very positive reading experience; there's a sequel and I'll certainly read it.

I had a similar reaction to you when I read An Accident Of Stars last year, though I don't think I realised it was a debut novel.  Earlier this month I read the sequel (A Tyranny Of Queens) and I'd recommend that as well.

I was surprised by how much the sequel resolved the overarching plot -- for some reason I'd assumed there'd be more books in this series, but I'm not sure that's going to happen now...

On 5/25/2017 at 0:16 AM, Garett Hornwood said:

I finished The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams , which is omnibus collection of the first five novels plus a short story.  Overall I found everything so-so in both humor and in each story.  I'm going to have to check out the radio serial to see if that is funnier and just better than the book. 

The original radio series is much better than the books, I feel, though this might not be a majority opinion.  (I'd heard the radio series before I read the books, at an impressionable age, so I might well be biased.)

[Darth Richard II]

Whoever reccomended Wolfhound Century to me years ago, you get a gold star.

[RedEyedGhost]

Yay, I finally finished End of the Day by Claire North... Do not read this book, unless you're an insomniac.  She had been on my buy immediately regardless of the synopsis, not anymore!

[Isildur's Mane]

This month has been a good month for me, but that is mainly because I was sick most of the month and had to stay in bed a lot. 

Finished reading Reading Magic by Mem Fox - This is a good book if you are struggling with different ideas/techniques to help teach your children to read and the magic of reading to your children while they are young. 

[C.T. Phipps]

Just finished PLEASE DON'T TELL MY PARENTS I HAVE A NEMESIS by Richard Roberts.

It was very enjoyable and another great example of the series.

[Mark Antony]

Reading and enjoying the Song of Troy by Colleen McCullough.

[Leofric]

Finished Red Sister by Mark Lawrence. Loved the world setting, and the hints of how absurdly powerful Nona and her friends will become.       

Now reading The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Astromech]

True Grit. I couldn't imagine how different this book would be without Mattie Ross as the narrator. A great Western.

About to start Martin Meredith's Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa.