April 2015 Reads

[polishgenius]

Aside from Star Trek, I cannot readily think of any SF that is positive on the future of humanity. And I doubt those are quality books either.

Banks' Culture isn't technically 'future of humanity' but it's very much optimistic (nay, utopic) SF.

Alastair Reynolds decided to go the positive route with his current Poseidon's Children sequence. It's pretty strongly influenced by Clarke, who of course tended to shed science-is-awesome positivity like rainbows.

Eric Brown is a little less-well known but he's written some great stuff on the optimistic side of the scale (in fact, he's a fairly inconsistent author in terms of quality but his best seems to come when he's looking out at space with wonder on his mind - Kethani is an astoundingly good book in particular).

It's not as strong as pessimistic SF, but it's around.

[Iskaral Pust]

Polish - thanks for recs. I had forgotten about Clarke. I'll give Culture a try.

[deleted01]

Finished Jeremy Poldark. I love this series, can't get enough. Lucky there are like 12 books!

Moving on to The Vanishing Witch by the amazing Karen Maitland. Been looking forward to this for ages.

[Er Rn]

I finished Justice by Jennifer Harlow and found it to be a quick and enjoyable read, suspenseful though I figured out the big twist pretty quickly. I'll continue the series.

Now on to The Three Musketeers, as I've yet to read a classic this year.

[SilentRoamer]

Terry Goodkind owes me the time I will never get back - I could have spent that time in isolation committing acts of self flaggellation - oh sorry thats what I was actually doing...

EDIT: Totally posted this in the wrong thread.

[polishgenius]

Polish - thanks for recs. I had forgotten about Clarke. I'll give Culture a try.

Just a word of warning now that I think about it though - don't start with Use of Weapons. Excellent book, probably the best Culture though not my favourite, but probably the most depressing one.

Having had a bit more time to ruminate, the series isn't as relentlessly positive as my previous post makes it sound, as though the Culture is a utopia the series concerns mostly with its contacts with neighbours that aren't, and the cost of protecting it is one of the themes, so there are dark spots. The general direction of the series is positive, though, so I still recommend it. Maybe look at Excession in the context of this particular discussion (although Use of Weapons and Player of Games are my usual start recs).

[HexMachina]

Finished Jeremy Poldark. I love this series, can't get enough. Lucky there are like 12 books!

Moving on to The Vanishing Witch by the amazing Karen Maitland. Been looking forward to this for ages.

I'm going to pace myself, thinking I'll read one each month maybe. I don't think I could read them back to back and still enjoy them as much. Bought Demelza already though!

About 50% through the Steel Remains. It's...alright. I'm finding it a bit difficult to get into it though. Feels like huge info dumps and references to people, places and events I have no idea about is bugging me. The characters are pretty nicely developed though.

[Starkess]

Finished The Dragon's Path. Had to readjust my whole opinion on the pacing when it suddenly ended before the 50% mark. Turns out there was a bonus e-book tacked on the end, so when I was thinking I was just 25% in to the book, I was actually over halfway! Well. Anyway, I did like the book, although it did strike me that basically every POV character was an unsympathetic asshole that I would likely consider the antagonist. Except maybe Cithrin. Her plot was really the only thing that made the book good.

I do plan to continue the series, but I am taking a break first to read Adaptation for my book club this weekend.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Finished Desolation Island and Fortune of War in the Aubrey-Maturin series this week. Thoroughly impressed so far that the books have been so strong, and with just enough variety to spice things up, but enough of the old reliable mix of action, intrigue, and the Capt and the Doc jamming out, drinking, and commiserating. I'm bummed that I don't have the next one in the series; might have to buy it online. I've managed to find the rest in used book stores, minus a couple of the later ones but now I have to wait a bit to start the next. In the meantime it's a toss up on what to start next... Urth of the New Sun, Rum Punch (Leonard), or a reread of I am Charlotte Simmons.

[Darth Richard II]

Oh Man, Urth of the New Sun is by far Wolfe's weirdest book. I liked it, but it can be polarizing.

[mashiara]

I finished Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet and didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought I would. It had an interesting concept, and then it tried to get too fancy/smart/sophisticated or whatever. The writing just felt flat, the characters didn't feel real, they were more like caricatures than actual people. So... I don't recommend it.

I'm hoping to start The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton next.

[aceluby]

Finished The Dragon's Path. Had to readjust my whole opinion on the pacing when it suddenly ended before the 50% mark. Turns out there was a bonus e-book tacked on the end, so when I was thinking I was just 25% in to the book, I was actually over halfway! Well. Anyway, I did like the book, although it did strike me that basically every POV character was an unsympathetic asshole that I would likely consider the antagonist. Except maybe Cithrin. Her plot was really the only thing that made the book good.

I do plan to continue the series, but I am taking a break first to read Adaptation for my book club this weekend.

The series gets better as it goes. I really enjoyed how grey all of the characters are. They have their flaws (and could be considered assholes), but they also have their endearing qualities. You'll also like that Clara gets her own POV for the entire next book, which is another character that is mostly just good.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Oh Man, Urth of the New Sun is by far Wolfe's weirdest book. I liked it, but it can be polarizing.

Sweet. Will start it tonight based on your recommendation. Anything less than three stars and your soul is forfeit.

[williamjm]

I'm most of the way through Hugh Howey's Sand. It is a book which feels a bit like it's largely built around a single piece of technology, namely the sand diver's suits that allow them to travel hundreds of feet beneath the desert. Take that away and it's a fairly standard piece of post-apocalyptic fiction, the main story and characters are reasonably interesting but other than the sand diving nothing really stands out.

I really liked Howey's Wool but the other three books I've since read by him haven't been as compelling.

The series gets better as it goes. I really enjoyed how grey all of the characters are. They have their flaws (and could be considered assholes), but they also have their endearing qualities. You'll also like that Clara gets her own POV for the entire next book, which is another character that is mostly just good.

I don't find Marcus to be unsympathetic either, he's probably less grey than Cithrin is. I agree the series does improve as it goes along.

[dbcooper]

Polish - thanks for recs. I had forgotten about Clarke. I'll give Culture a try.

Start with Player of Games or Use of Weapons. The series doesn't have an overarching storyline, so you can read it in any order you like for the most part. Might miss the occasional reference or crossover at most.

[Iskaral Pust]

I'm most of the way through Hugh Howey's Sand. It is a book which feels a bit like it's largely built around a single piece of technology, namely the sand diver's suits that allow them to travel hundreds of feet beneath the desert. Take that away and it's a fairly standard piece of post-apocalyptic fiction, the main story and characters are reasonably interesting but other than the sand diving nothing really stands out.

I really liked Howey's Wool but the other three books I've since read by him haven't been as compelling.

I enjoyed both Sand and Wool, although I preferred Sand. I agree that it's pretty standard post-apoc fare but I enjoyed the immersion in the setting. I swear I could feel sand trickling under my clothes as I read it. By contrast I found Wool to be too claustrophobic and melancholic and told from the POV of elderly, worn-out characters dwelling only on what they have lost. Sand had more defiance and hope, justified or not.

After Wool got progressively dreary, I lost any interest in reading his other books.

[Starkess]

The series gets better as it goes. I really enjoyed how grey all of the characters are. They have their flaws (and could be considered assholes), but they also have their endearing qualities. You'll also like that Clara gets her own POV for the entire next book, which is another character that is mostly just good.

That is something to look forward to! The greyness can be interesting for sure (I don't like almost any of the ASOIAF characters, after all), but it does feel a bit tedious after a while to be rolling your eyes at the terrible internal philosophies and external actions of every character, like it's a race to the bottom.

I don't find Marcus to be unsympathetic either, he's probably less grey than Cithrin is. I agree the series does improve as it goes along.

Marcus was just boring. His backstory, personality, plotline...all of it seemed very cliched and predictable. Plus the hints that

he and Cithrin are going to have a thing

really squicked me out.

Most of the best characters were the non-POVs. Yardem, Clara, Jorey, Master Kit.

[Shagwell Snow]

The Pale Horseman by Cornwell

Also maybe gonna pick back up the WOIAF and finish it cause I lost interest about halfway when I first got it

Love this series, and also heard its been adapted for UK Tele.

[Peadar]

Reading Legends, a collection of stories inspired by the writings of David Gemmell. The editor is Ian Whates.

[Maester Llama]

Re the Culture: I'm no Banks expert, but one thing I would mention is that it would probably be good to read Use of Weapons before Surface Detail. As is usual with the Culture there is no direct story connection, but the brief tie-in / nod is unusually large; the moment in Surface Detail I'm hinting at is very short, but knowledge of Use of Weapons would I think materially change your experience of it, and by extension the rest of the plotline. I get the impression that it's widely agreed that the earlier books are better anyway -- I don't know that Banks ever wrote a shitty book, I'm not sure he knew how [though I've only read a few], but there certainly are some that are stratospherically good while others are just solidly okay, and I think most of the former really incredible home runs are pre-2000. I started with The Player of Games, which is ace.

Re Abraham's The Dagger and the Coin: This is coming from the perspective of a big fan of the series, so apply salt, but I think it does improve very substantially and is worth continuing, and not in a just-soldier-through-another-800-pages-and-you'll-start-to-see-the-genius kind of way; I thought book 2 pretty much immediately took the solid ingredients established in book 1 and started jogging and then running with them. I was quite happy with book 1, but that happiness was definitely bolstered by being an Abraham fan in general. By the end of book 2 I was down to read the whole thing. As for Marcus, I enjoy a good tropey character of this type when I think they're written well, but I can certainly see why you find him somewhat flat and boring. I think there are a couple things coming up that might save Marcus for you: I find Marcus works well when he's half of a double act with another, generally less straightforward, character. There's more of this with Yardem in book 2, building up to a really great moment that Abraham's been laying pipe for since the beginning; Yardem's got some great stuff in the next two books. Then Marcus gets a great buddy storyline with another character that sends him off in an unexpected direction and would be a spoiler. Speaking of which, re your spoiler:

I can definitely see how you were getting signs that Marcus and Cithrin were going to have a thing. It's been quite a while but I recall getting them too, and being disappointed. The series isn't over yet of course, and I haven't read book 4 yet, but based on books 2 and 3 this isn't where Abraham goes at all even a little bit, and I'd be surprised -- and, yes, very squicked out -- if he changed tack in the last two. It becomes a kind of very supportive but quite messed up and unhealthy -- because of Marcus' I-lost-my-family-and-am-all-man-broody-about-it issues -- father/daughter bond, at least where I'm at in the series.

And Clara is the best.

I'm reading several really impressive novels at once, including William Gibson's new sf book The Peripheral, which is cracking my brain open and dancing around lighting fireworks inside. I haven't read an sf novel this engagingly complex and mind-melting in many moons. Incandescent at the 1/4 mark.