December 2018 Reading

[Joey Crows]

Currently reading Fire and Blood. Once I finish that I'm moving on to Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. Never read her work before and I'm excited to dive in. Oh, also I'm re-reading some non-fiction on my commute to work; A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Love that book!

[Lord Patrek]

Just posted my speculative fiction top 10 of 2018 here.

Not a banner year to be sure, but a good one nonetheless.

May 2019 be even better!

[Mexal]

I just started Gnomon by Nick Harkaway. So far, very Harkaway.

[Inkdaub]

I finished Lawrence's Red Sister and continued on with Grey Sister.

[ljkeane]

I felt in the mood for straight forward sci fi so I’ve been reading the first two Honor Harrington books as I’ve heard they started out ok and they’re free on Amazon. The bits were things are blowing up are ok, which is what I was looking for I suppose, most of the rest is fairly irritating though.

Next up I think I’ll read Veil of Spears.

[williamjm]

I finished GRRM's Fire and Blood. It's a slightly odd book, there is enough raw material in here to provide plots for several novels and I think a more conventional narrative than the fake history could have made it more compelling. However, that would probably have required a few thousand pages and a couple of decades to write, so that wouldn't really have been an option. I did enjoy this more than I had expected since I had previously read the shorter excerpts that were published in anthologies and found them a bit underwhelming, but I think the stories work a lot better when put in context. I think the book was strongest in its two longest sections. The first was the tale of the reign of Jaeherys and Alysanne which has been briefly mentioned in the main A Song of Ice and Fire series as a period of piece and stability, but here it is made clear that things weren't quite that straightforward, and Alysanne becomes one of the more interesting characters in the story. The second was the civil war known as the Dance of Dragons, this is probably the best paced section of the story as a mixture of bad luck and stubborn pride quickly sees Westeros falling apart. I don't think I'd really recommend this for casual fans of Game of Thrones, but I think people more interested in the background of Martin's world should enjoy this book.

For something a bit smaller in scope I also read Lisa Tuttle's The Witch at Wayside Cross. Like the first book in the series, this is a Victorian detective story with an occult theme and a strong debt to Arthur Conan-Doyle. This time there is a Baskerville-like relocation from London to rural England, in this case investigating some murders in the small Norfolk village of Aylmerton and also investigating the village's mysterious Shrieking Pits (apparently a real thing). It was a reasonable good book to read, although I was a bit disappointed that the plot did rely on two completely unconnected crimes happening to occur almost simultaneously, which felt a bit unlikely.

I've now started Richard Morgan's Thin Air, which so far feels a lot like every other Richard Morgan I've read, except on Mars.

[Peadar]

I finished Cold Iron by Miles Cameron. It was very readable, but way too Gary Stu for my taste. Next up is The Armored Saint by Myke Cole, which Tor gave away for free to subscribers to their newsletter.

[ljkeane]

7 hours ago, Peadar said:

I finished Cold Iron by Miles Cameron. It was very readable, but way too Gary Stu for my taste. 

Really? I thought it was significantly less Gary Stu than most of his stuff. Aranthur’s somewhat conveniently in a position to be around most of the major events of the book but he’s a lot less awesome at everything than Gabriel Muriens was in his last series.

[Peadar]

15 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Really? I thought it was significantly less Gary Stu than most of his stuff. Aranthur’s somewhat conveniently in a position to be around most of the major events of the book but he’s a lot less awesome at everything than Gabriel Muriens was in his last series.

I didn't read the last fantasy series, so I'm not in a position to judge. But that was my strong impression. Maybe I need to recalibrate my Gary Stu detection device

 

[Little Valkyrie]

On 12/22/2018 at 12:51 PM, Triskele said:

I finished The Obelisk Gate by Jemison and am going to do the final book.  But while I think this series is solid and worth reading I am a bit baffled by the always in the Hugo thing.  I think it's just solid and not great.  

I can see it for the first one, where the narrative conceit is very, very well-done, but three years in a row?  It didn't fall apart at the end, which is very good etc., but I don't think the latter two books have the ingenuity and drive of the first one.

I also came to a realization about the inspiration for the Guardians/orogene relationship that explains so, so much about it and shades it for me.  (Think popular Bioware dark fantasy series, and you absolutely have it.)

[Darth Richard II]

On 12/25/2018 at 5:24 AM, Peadar said:

I didn't read the last fantasy series, so I'm not in a position to judge. But that was my strong impression. Maybe I need to recalibrate my Gary Stu detection device

 

Oh man someone needs to make a Gary Stu SFF chart. Obviously full Gary Stu is Kvothe, I wonder what a complete non Gary Stu would be...

Anyway I'm about 1/4th through Cold Iron and so far kind of bored and very disappointed. Hoping it picks up soon.

[Peadar]

10 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Oh man someone needs to make a Gary Stu SFF chart. Obviously full Gary Stu is Kvothe, I wonder what a complete non Gary Stu would be...

Anyway I'm about 1/4th through Cold Iron and so far kind of bored and very disappointed. Hoping it picks up soon.

The plot was kinda Kvothy too, IMO...

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, Peadar said:

The plot was kinda Kvothy too, IMO...

A bit, it’s picked up a lot in the second half, but yeah he has some Kvothe like tendencies, though I think it helps that it’s not first person.

[williamjm]

I finished Richard Morgan's Thin Air. It did feel a bit like Morgan on auto-pilot, the basic premise of a cyberpunk noir detective story whose protagonist is a super-soldier gone rogue with a propensity for ultraviolence, philosophising and sleeping with half of the women he meets is something Morgan has done several times before. It might be a shrewd choice of book to publish now to try to cash in on the Netflix Altered Carbon series, but I think it's a pity Morgan didn't manage to deliver something a bit more different to the Kovacs books. That said, Morgan does do a good job of writing this sort of story, the mystery plot is well-structured (even if it's hard sometimes to care too much about the outcome) and he hasn't lost his knack for action sequences. I liked the Martian colony setting, which is probably the thing that distinguishes it most from his previous books.

It's an entertaining read, but I think Morgan has done this sort of story better before.

[Starkess]

All I read this month was a re-read of The Lord of the Rings. I do this almost once a year and still love it. Doubt I will ever read the last chapter without crying (in this case, on an airplane in the middle seat ).

I am disappointed with myself for how little reading I did in 2018. I have no excuse, really. Just this morning I spent 5 hours in bed on my phone on facebook/instagram/reddit/twitter. Possible it's a manifestation of the depression I've been struggling with this year. Definitely hope to get back in the reading habit in 2019!

[Garett Hornwood]

I completed 7 books this month and here's a quick recap of them.

Divine Encounters by Zecharia Sitchin, this is a companion book to his ancient astronaut Earth Chronicles series but it hardly went over new material.  Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Tales from the Eternal Archives #2 edited by Margaret Weis, this collection of short stories were as high quality as the first Archives collection but there was one gem.  James White: Innovator and Overcomer by Gerald Wheeler, a biography of one of the three founders of the Seventh-day Adventist church.  The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus, probably the classical writer's best work (though unfortunately didn't survive complete) and a fascinating read.  The Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides was an interesting look into how Jewish religious thought and ancient Greek philosophy are synthesized through rationality.  Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, a little known fantasy author who is fleshing out the historical background of his world.  And finally Teaching History: A Seventh-day Adventist Approach by Gary Land, a small book that examines how Christian historians should approach the teaching and writing of history by staying true to their faith but within professional standards.

For the year I read a personal best 83 books for over 30000 pages. 

[Inkdaub]

I am on to Carey's Girl with All the Gifts and I can tell this is going to make me tear up at some point.