First Quarter 2021 Reading

[Peadar]

2 hours ago, Wilbur said:

I am working through the Peter F. Hamilton Salvation series currently, and just finished up Salvation Lost.

In this second of the three books the plot and ideas are very interesting, but in a similar fashion to the first book, the characters seem flat to me.  The one set of characters with the most depth, and who I was most interested in, were drug-addicted gang members in London, and their story seemed to be an adjunct to the main thrust of the tale.

I think that Peter F. Hamilton has written some of the best SciFi of the current century, but so far these books don't have the spark for me of some of his earlier works.

I'm enjoying the first book a lot, but I agree with your point about the characters. The structure (so far) is remarkably similar to that of Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" with individual characters each telling a tale as they slowly travel towards a mystery. Unlike the Simmons book, all these stories, while good individually, have the same feel for me.

Happy to keep reading, though!

[Wilbur]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Really? I thought that was the worst part of the books. It goes to show how differently people can read the same books I suppose.

Well, I didn't enjoy that sub-plot and I disliked those characters, and it seemed like a plot line that went nowhere, but the characters did have more depth than any of the rest of the cast.  So we probably agree that the story contained in this book could have worked just as well without it.

I just wish that the rest of the characters had been drawn with anything to make them interesting.  Perhaps the next best was Ainsley's granddaughter and her ex-husband.

Thinking about it, perhaps the sense of place that these two groups of characters shared, a future London, gave them some grounding that the rest of the characters lacked.  The rest of the characters lives take place in bland environments - space ships with no serious differentiation, board rooms, hotel rooms, etc.  I enjoy a story more with a setting that affects the characters and the story, maybe?

Ideas and conflicts are interesting, and Hamilton is good writer.  I just don't connect with the characters in this series.

[Astromech]

I finished T.R. Fehrenbach's history of the Korean War, This Kind of War. Good overview of the conflict with most of the work focused on the front lines battles and fighting from the soldiers' perspective. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Astromech said:

I finished T.R. Fehrenbach's history of the Korean War, This Kind of War. Good overview of the conflict with most of the work focused on the front lines battles and fighting from the soldiers' perspective. 

Good to know -- I know nothing at all about this era and the events.

[Astromech]

22 hours ago, Zorral said:

Good to know -- I know nothing at all about this era and the events.

There  were several books on my list to read about the Korean War. Fehrenbach's seemed the most approachable. Clay Blair Jr.'s The Forgotten War and David Halbertstam's The Coldest Winter are two more on my list. H.W. Brands's The General vs. The President MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War also looks very interesting.

[Zorral]

15 minutes ago, Astromech said:

There  were several books on my list to read about the Korean War. Fehrenbach's seemed the most approachable. Clay Blair Jr.'s The Forgotten War and David Halbertstam's The Coldest Winter are two more on my list. H.W. Brands's The General vs. The President MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War also looks very interesting.

It really helps to read several books on the same subject fairly close together, doesn't it.  Since there are different axes ground, and everyone adds something that someone else didn't.

What I've found continually weird though, is all the books I've been reading about Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson -- not a single one mentions the Great Influenza!  All of them were published before 2020, of course, but not very much before.  

[Ser Not Appearing]

I've been reading (listening to) the Greatcoats series by Sebastian De Castell. I'm on book 3 or 4. They're getting a bit repetitive without character growth (as far as I looked to see) in the main character. Pleasant enough overall, though.

[ljkeane]

So The Raven Tower is written in the second person apparently, which is really annoying. I've read about five pages so far because it's irritating me so much.

[Astromech]

18 hours ago, Zorral said:

It really helps to read several books on the same subject fairly close together, doesn't it.  Since there are different axes ground, and everyone adds something that someone else didn't.

What I've found continually weird though, is all the books I've been reading about Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson -- not a single one mentions the Great Influenza!  All of them were published before 2020, of course, but not very much before.  

Wow, there have been a  lot of books written about TR since 2000.

Have you read John M. Barry's The Great Influenza? I saw it the other day at the bookstore and was tempted to purchase it.

[Zorral]

Yes.  It's the right book to understand not only the Great Influenza but what is the same and not the same between then and now. I read it when it came out, and like everyone else, re-read it as soon as possible in this crisis. So much though, that I read, and understood the first time?  It meant a whole lot more this time around, and made me think I've never understood, really, never had the vaguest idea, really, no matter how much I may have known intellectually, what it was actually like to experience what he was describing.

His book, Rising Tides, is equally brilliant in a different area, but was The Book to understand Katrina, though it too was written long before Katrina, just as The Great Influenza was written long before the covid-19 pandemic

[Inkdaub]

I was sitting on the Ottoman warming up and plucked Gardens of the Moon off the shelf and started reading.  I might be in trouble.

[williamjm]

I recently picked up Ursula Le Guin's The Books of Earthsea omnibus. I've now read the first part, The Wizard of Earthsea. I've previously read half a dozen of Le Guin's Science Fiction novels but I hadn't read what might be her most famous work. In terms of plot it perhaps wasn't quite what I was expecting from its reputation as one of the classics of epic fantasy because other than the switch of genres it had more in common with Le Guin's SF novels such as City of Illusions or The Left Hand of Darkness than it did with the likes of Lord of the Rings. It was often an introspective story with a lot of focus on Ged himself and his troubles even if he does spend a lot of the novel trying to prevent something that could be very dangerous to others. I thought it was a good novel, it does cover a lot of events in a fairly short page count and gave a good introduction to the world of Earthsea, and the plot manages to be interesting despite lacking any of the battles or political intrigue that show up in most epic fantasies.

Next up is the second book, The Tombs of Atuan.

[Starkess]

I finished The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang. I feel like most of my thoughts about it are complaints (it was too long, weirdly paced, inconsistent in tone and plot, and was an exact carbon copy of our world with different names which is a personal pet peeve of mine, and the main character was awful [intentionally, mostly, but sometimes I couldn't tell]), but overall it wasn't terrible. I'll still check out the sequel at some point. 

Now I'm listening to the second Percy Jackons, Sea of Monsters, which so far is a fun romp and a nice change of pace (The Poppy War is a very dark and bleak war novel).

I'm also reading Death's End by Cixin Liu, the last in the Earth's Past trilogy, and finding it so far a much easier read than book 2. I'm about a quarter through it and rolling my eyes at humanity's dumbassery so hard, it's great.

[Peadar]

I'm reading the third in Peter F. Hamilton's Salvation series -- The Saints of Salvation. I probably should have waited a few months -- it's a bit much to read three of them in a row, I think.

[aceluby]

At the end of last year my MIL asked how many books I read, and I couldn't remember a single one besides a few parenting books.  So this year I said I needed to read at least one enjoyable book.  My wife got me The Institute by Steven King the year before and I read the first chapter and never got around to getting further.  Picked it up again on Saturday morning and finished it on Sunday morning.  It was one of the best Steven King novels I've read that went into pretty new territory for him.  I loved everything about this book and was sad to let the characters go.  Not sure where I'm going from here since I already hit my goal, but was very happy to get a book under my belt so early in the year.

[Iskaral Pust]

I read A Nice Rebellion by Artemus Root, a comedic novel in the vein of a hapless Arthur Dent protagonist.  Very funny and an enjoyable read.  I do enjoy a good comedy between more serious reads, so I’ll look for more from this author.

Next I read Tyrant: Storm Of Arrows by Christian Cameron (aka Miles Cameron), the second in his series of military historical fiction in the era and geographical area of Alexander.  I really enjoyed the exposure to Scythians, Sarmations and Persians in this series because otherwise they’re often the under-represented other for the protagonist to defeat.  Well written and a good read.  I didn’t love the constant supernatural premonitions but the characters, setting, tactics, logistics and the historical expression were all very good. 

I also read On Love by Alain de Botton, a literary novel that reflects on the experience and emotional self-deception of falling in love.  Not a typical read for me but it was highly recommended and turned out to be very good.  It’s structured as a first person recollection of a romantic relationship, progressing through the various stages from the meet-cute, but the emphasis is always on the reflection and examination: what are we really doing as we fall in love?  How much is willful or unconscious self-deception?  Do we really love the other person or just the fiction we create around them?  And it plays with some fun philosophical themes like love vs liberalism (love, apparently, is jealous and controlling and the very opposite of detached liberalism), Platonism, Pascal’s wager, etc.  I really enjoyed the writing: it felt clever and cerebral but also had very good structure for tempo and flow, and always had a healthy dash of humor and humility.  An unusual but very good read.

And then, feeling like I was on a pretty hot streak, I started Foundryside by Robert Bennett Jackson.  Based on reviews here I was expecting this to be the most certain pick of the bunch, but the early chapters didn’t land well for me.  In just the first few chapters the steampunkish magic system and the internal monologue of the protagonist felt very kiddish.  So I have set it aside and perhaps I’ll go back to it another time.  Perhaps it’ll land better when I’m in a different mood.

[Teng Ai Hui]

5 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

And then, feeling like I was on a pretty hot streak, I started Foundryside by Robert Bennett Jackson.  Based on reviews here I was expecting this to be the most certain pick of the bunch, but the early chapters didn’t land well for me.  In just the first few chapters the steampunkish magic system and the internal monologue of the protagonist felt very kiddish.  So I have set it aside and perhaps I’ll go back to it another time.  Perhaps it’ll land better when I’m in a different mood.

I personally really enjoyed Foundryside.  But, I have to agree that those first couple of chapters -- the ones that focus solely on a character named Sancia -- are weak.  The real intrigue doesn't start until the second key character is introduced.  If you haven't read the first 5 chapters, please give the book a second chance.  If you have already done that, then the book is not for you.

[Iskaral Pust]

49 minutes ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

I personally really enjoyed Foundryside.  But, I have to agree that those first couple of chapters -- the ones that focus solely on a character named Sancia -- are weak.  The real intrigue doesn't start until the second key character is introduced.  If you haven't read the first 5 chapters, please give the book a second chance.  If you have already done that, then the book is not for you.

That’s helpful, thanks.  I dropped it before a second POV was introduced.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Finished On the Nature of Things, the first century BC poem by Lucretius. Heavy going in large part - the notion of exploring scientific concepts via lengthy poetry is an unusual one. Lucretius was an Epicurean, of course, though his poem focuses on the Natural Philosophy of Epicurus (atoms! materialism!), rather than Ethics. Notable for getting some things right - light travels faster than sound, though his guess about subterranean winds causing earthquakes does not hold up so well. The poem is also clearly unfinished, tailing off into a grim description of the Plague of Athens.  

[Wilbur]

Yesterday was The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout, a Nero Wolfe mystery, as an audiobook read by Michael Pritchard.

Best line, from Archie Goodwin to a uniformed officer who tries to make a joke about him: "Take your shoes off and rest your brain a while."

10/10 for the book, and 10/10 for Michael Pritchard as a reader of Nero Wolfe mysteries.