What Are You Reading? Second Quarter 2022

[A wilding]

Been on a small genre fiction binge, working through some books on my list. I think all have been recommended here.

Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. The plot is nothing special, but the first person PoV of a high functioning autistic person is extremely well done, and does make you think. I perhaps found it particularly easy to empathize with him as I am a few steps along the spectrum myself.

Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. Shallow and implausible even on its own terms. Particularly notable by the way characters repeatedly travel vast distances between sentences. Felt very YA.

Gideon the Ninth. Much more pulpy than I was expecting but great fun. Reading it I kept feeling that it really should be a graphic novel, sometimes I could positively see the panels in my mind's eye. Which says something for the vividness of the writing. Looking forward to the (apparently completely bonkers) sequel.

A Memory called Empire. Serious themes, but mainly an excellent and enjoyable story of political manoeuvring in the capital of a bureaucratic empire reminiscent of Byzantium or imperial China, with the protagonist (a visiting ambassador) and the reader both initially out of their depth. The sort of place where a character can say "Our light emitting starlike Emperor, to whom I am sworn, and for whom I would spend every last drop of my blood" and leave both the protagonist and the reader unsure as to how close they really are to the Emperor and how loyal. I was also amused that the protagonist finally got a handle on what had been going on at exactly the same moment that I did. Also read the sequel A Desolation Called Peace, which was sadly not quite so good.

[Wilbur]

I loaded up and listened to the second of the The Demon Princes books by Jack Vance, The Killing Machine.  This second of the five books is the most linear, and as a result, possibly the one with the fewest interesting Vancianisms.  However, the story is incredibly efficient in its uses of Chekov's Guns throughout, even when Kirth Gersoen is incarcerated at Interchange, the Ransom World.

The killing machine from the book's title is revealed and used in a clever fashion as Gersen travels from planet to planet, but the antagonist, Kokor Hekkus, is the weakest of the five demon princes because he is least evident within the story.  Also, the plot of this book reveals that Jack Vance's knowledge of business dealings between corporations was pretty limited, or else business relations in the 50s and 60s were a bit odd.  However, as an adventure or space opera, this story would have been excellent reading in 1965, and for the most part it holds up well today.

Stefan Rudnicki's reading of the audiobook is excellent throughout, and either I have become acculturated to his voice for these stories, or else this story of straight revenge-seeking is more suited to his rough baritone.  Good job, whoever brought him on board to read these books, and I am looking forward to starting the next one shortly.

 

[dog-days]

Read H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald, the deserving winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson award for non-fiction. 

It's a book that weaves a number of elements together. The main 'plot' is the author's attempt to train a young female goshawk, a bird with a reputation in falconry for being difficult. At the same time, McDonald writes about grief - she acquires her goshawk not long after the unexpected death of her much-loved father - and about human-animal relationships, their functionality and dysfunctionality, the latter mainly owing to humans attempting to project way too much onto the animal and getting lost in their own ego. 

Leading us to the meta protagonist, Terence "Tim" White, author of The Once and Future King, who also once trained a goshawk and wrote about it. His life is examined, discussed and contrasted to McDonald's own; a brilliant technique that hugely widens the perspective and emotional depth. This also leads into an important look at the problems of a strain of white English mythologizing, present in White, present in the present, that veers towards a blood-and-soil sort of mindset. That looks at the English countryside and sees an impossible continuity instead of hares (brought by the Romans), rabbits (probably brought by the Normans),  fallow deer (brought by the Normans) swallows (fly to the UK from Africa every year) etc. Goshawks themselves were more-or-less extinct in the UK and had to be reintroduced from European populations. 

McDonald writes very, very well:

Quote

And with the last bow pulled free, he reached inside, and amidst a whirring, chaotic clatter of wings and feet and talons and a high-pitched twittering and it’s all happening at once, the man pulls an enormous, enormous hawk out of the box and in a strange coincidence of world and deed a great flood of sunlight drenches us and everything is brilliance and fury. The hawk’s wings, barred and beating, the sharp fingers of her dark-tipped primaries cutting the air, her feathers raised like the scattered quills of a fretful porpentine. Two enormous eyes. My heart jumps sideways. 

 

 

[williamjm]

I read Shelly Parker-Chan's She Who Became The Sun. I thought it had an interesting setting, a lightly fictionalised China during the latter years of rule by the Mongol Khans with some subtle fantasy elements. However, I struggled a bit with the characters, particularly the two main protagonists. Zhu is the more likeable of them but it is difficult to really empathise with their motivations as they do increasingly ruthless things and seek power apparently for its own sake or an obsessive belief in being destined for greatness. The other protagonist, Ouyang, has a more understandable motivation for seeking revenge but he is a deeply unpleasant character even when he's not trying to achieve that. Some of the supporting characters are interesting but mostly don't get enough time to become fully developed characters. It does move along at a good pace but there were times when the plot felt a bit rushed, Zhu has to face a lot of trials along the way but they often seem to be easily overcome and the resolutions of some of the subplots felt a bit too convenient.

[Jaxom 1974]

On 6/10/2022 at 9:40 AM, A wilding said:

 

Gideon the Ninth. Much more pulpy than I was expecting but great fun. Reading it I kept feeling that it really should be a graphic novel, sometimes I could positively see the panels in my mind's eye. Which says something for the vividness of the writing. Looking forward to the (apparently completely bonkers) sequel.

 

I'm still making my way through this one, but as I read, I keep thinking, "How is this not an anime?"

[WarGalley]

I finished Spin by Robert Wilson Charles. I give it a 5/5. It's one of those stories that will stay with me for awhile. I think reading it after finishing the Expanse was also a stroke of luck even though the stories are very different. This was a Forrest Gump style character drama, a first person narrative that felt more like contemporary fiction than sci-fi for a lot of parts of it.

Tyler Dupree, and his childhood best friends Jason and Diane, witness the stars go out one night, when an artificial shield encapsulates the Earth from the rest of space (stars, Moon, Sun). Humans learn that time passes much faster outside of the shield, to the point where the Sun will die in a few decades. We then follow Tyler's life over the course of the ensuing decades, and his relationships with genius Jason (a major figure in the human scientific response to the "Spin" event) and Diane who becomes involved with the religious cult formations that cascade the world as a response to the "Spin."

Wonderful story, and good build up toward the end. I've never seen The Leftovers (TV show) but I imagine it carrying the same themes and level of drama.  

[Starkess]

I finished listening to Miss Moriarty, I Presume?, the 6th book in Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock series. I like this series but this was the weakest entry for me by far. Very little actually happened, mostly setting up what seems to be the last book in the series. I also felt the main character is getting a bit flanderized by this point. Anyway, still love the series and am looking forward to the next one, but this was a bit of a letdown.

Now I'm listening to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab. This came highly recommended but I'm a bit iffy on it so far. It's taken a reallllly long time for what seems to be the story to start. A lot of filling in of how Addie LaRue came to be invisible, and it's a backstory that makes her look like a complete dunce, so I haven't been loving it the most. Curious to see how it goes on though (I'm about 33% done).

[ljkeane]

Amongst our Weapons was good fun like all the Peter Grant books. Although

Spoiler

I did get the strong impression Aaronovitch wrote the book in large part as an extended excuse to make a 'no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!' joke.

On the series in general I'm expecting Peter to have to head to the US for a book soon although that seems to have been hinted at for quite a while now.

 

[williamjm]

2 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Amongst our Weapons was good fun like all the Peter Grant books. Although

  Hide contents

I did get the strong impression Aaronovitch wrote the book in large part as an extended excuse to make a 'no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!' joke.

On the series in general I'm expecting Peter to have to head to the US for a book soon although that seems to have been hinted at for quite a while now.

 

Spoiler

You might be right, since Lesley's mysterious employer seems to be based there and I assume we're going to see more of him in future.

There have also been plenty of mentions of Agent Reynolds so I imagine she will be back in the series at some point.

I've started Ryka Aoki's Light of Uncommon Stars. So far the plot seems to involve someone trying to collect the souls of violin prodigies as well as a family of aliens running a donut shop in Los Angeles with a spaceship hidden beneath it. I have no idea where this story is going but it's certainly different.

[Underfoot]

Picked up The Old Man and the Sea on a whim as a post-Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn palette cleanser, and, ehh... I am not the target audience for that story, I think. Despite being rather boring and a completely unrelatable subject, it was kinda compelling and tugged me along anyways, kinda like the marlin tugging the boat. 

I then dove into The Goblin Emperor, which I finished in two days. What a wonderful story and a very refreshing take on fantasy. Very hopeful, which is what I needed this week. 

[TormundsWoman]

On 6/8/2022 at 6:05 PM, sainttriple7 said:

Reading Fire and Blood.  A couple hundred pages in.  It reads like a history book mixed dragons. Political and religious drama, weddings, and conquering kingdoms are the events explored so far. Anticipating the history of The Dance of Dragons that make up the second half of the book.

I personally still enjoyed the chapters that focused on the Jaehaerys and Alysanne best just like I did on the first time I picked up the book but I was looking forward myself to the history of the Dance of the Dragons because I forgot so many details. And I wasn’t disappointed.

On 6/10/2022 at 9:40 AM, A wilding said:

A Memory called Empire. The sort of place where a character can say "Our light emitting starlike Emperor, to whom I am sworn, and for whom I would spend every last drop of my blood" and leave both the protagonist and the reader unsure as to how close they really are to the Emperor and how loyal. 

Lol that sounds more like a veiled hate from the character toward the Emperor, based on the incredible pompousness of the verbiage… 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:14 PM, williamjm said:

  Reveal hidden contents

You might be right, since Lesley's mysterious employer seems to be based there and I assume we're going to see more of him in future.

There have also been plenty of mentions of Agent Reynolds so I imagine she will be back in the series at some point.

I've started Ryka Aoki's Light of Uncommon Stars. So far the plot seems to involve someone trying to collect the souls of violin prodigies as well as a family of aliens running a donut shop in Los Angeles with a spaceship hidden beneath it. I have no idea where this story is going but it's certainly different.

Weirdly, on surface that almost sounds to me like it could be Vonnegut book. Except for all the eccentricity of his apparent universe and plots, stories always had deeper human condition meanings to be explored.

EDIT: read a “Man called Ove”. Brilliant. It encapsulates Clint Eastwood’s grumpy character in Gran Torino. Except I found Ove to be so much more: much more depth and better fleshed out. Writing is incredibly good and structure of the book between his present and his memories of the past is flawless.

The book was hysterically funny and heartbreaking at the same time and I was impressed how beautiful was the end. They really don’t make people quite like that. And it makes sense obviously, because Saab is no longer Swidish. In fact is defunct.
 

And I drive a Subaru. At least is not French…

[Starkess]

Finished listening to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I did not, overall, like it very much. I guess I liked it enough to listen for ~11 hours so it wasn't the worst, but I kept waiting for things to happen and they just didn't. So many words for so little story, so much time detailing the portrait of a person who just kinda sucks and continues to suck even after 300 years. And her sadboi boyfriend. Blech. Not for me.

I finished my re-read of Cyteen. Was as good as I remember. Cherryh is absolutely one of my favorite writers and this book is so good. Layered, philosophical, tense, and so human all while exploring the far-flung future of humanity. Also despite the fact that it's from the late 80s, I don't find the technology projections too jarring. (True, they use "tapes" that are actual literal tapes, but I totally believe people would still call them tapes even in a digital format so that's how my brain interprets it. And yes her estimates of computing power are a little off but again not terrible, especially given that I know scientific simulations even nowadays can takes months of wall time.) Now I feel like re-reading 40,000 in Gehenna, which is another fave of mine, but I did read that relatively recently so maybe not. I might tackle Regenesis (Cyteen's sequel, but written decades later), but from what I recall it was a little disappointing as a follow-up so maybe not.

I'm still working on The Arm of the Sphinx. Just haven't really felt like picking it up lately.

[Leofric]

Read All the Seas of the World By Guy Gavriel Kay it didn't seem to have a deep plot, more of a travelogue through the various realms that border the Middle Sea, explaining their internal working and the religious and political relationships with their neighbors.   It was fascinating look at this world and I enjoyed it.

and then I read Brothers of the Wind by Tad Williams showing us the Ineluki's first steps on the path that led to the Storm King in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and possibly laying the groundwork for the current series.   

Just finished The Witness for the Dead and immediately jumped into the The Grief of Stones, both by Katherine Addison, follow ups to The Goblin Emperor.   Loved the first book and the second feels similar.    They remind of the Penric and Desdemona novellas by Lois McMasters Bujold with the mix of mystery and religion.   

[dog-days]

1 hour ago, Starkess said:

Finished listening to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I did not, overall, like it very much. I guess I liked it enough to listen for ~11 hours so it wasn't the worst, but I kept waiting for things to happen and they just didn't. So many words for so little story, so much time detailing the portrait of a person who just kinda sucks and continues to suck even after 300 years. And her sadboi boyfriend. Blech. Not for me 

 

Amazon keeps trying to flog this book to me, and it seems to be somewhere prominent whenever I walk into a bookshop. Despite finding the title unappealing (would much rather read about 'The Thrilling Life...' of somebody), I was about to resign myself to the will of Fate and get it. Will now not bother.  Thanks for taking the bullet instead of me. 

[felice]

On 6/14/2022 at 9:14 AM, williamjm said:

I've started Ryka Aoki's Light of Uncommon Stars. So far the plot seems to involve someone trying to collect the souls of violin prodigies as well as a family of aliens running a donut shop in Los Angeles with a spaceship hidden beneath it. I have no idea where this story is going but it's certainly different.

There's a lot to like about it, but it's weirdly sympathetic towards the condemning souls to eternal torment thing, which I'm not comfortable with.

[Xray the Enforcer]

21 minutes ago, felice said:

There's a lot to like about it, but it's weirdly sympathetic towards the condemning souls to eternal torment thing, which I'm not comfortable with.

The jacket description of this book felt unbearably twee -- like the first Becky Chambers book, but somehow even more twee and shittier -- so I'm curious if the actual book stays away from the preciousness? 

[williamjm]

22 minutes ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

The jacket description of this book felt unbearably twee -- like the first Becky Chambers book, but somehow even more twee and shittier -- so I'm curious if the actual book stays away from the preciousness? 

I've read about 2/3 of it now and the tone does feel a bit inconsistent. Parts of the plot feel very whimsical, such as the aliens trying to run a doughnut shop. There are also darker elements such as the condemning souls to eternal torment that Felice mentioned and the abuse that the protagonist has suffered. There are bits I like about the book but I think possibly it could work better overall if some of the quirkier elements were toned down slightly.

54 minutes ago, felice said:

There's a lot to like about it, but it's weirdly sympathetic towards the condemning souls to eternal torment thing, which I'm not comfortable with.

Spoiler

I do agree with this. I don't necessarily mind Shizuka being so ruthless about it but I'm not sure why so many of the other characters feel okay about it.

 

[Inkdaub]

I am about a third into Carrick's The Mask of Mirrors and I am liking it quite a lot. It was one of those where I read about fifty pages and then put it down. When I came back to it recently I found myself enjoying it much more. 

[Wilbur]

I just finished the third of Jack Vance's Demon Princes novels, an audiobook read by Stefan Rudnicki of The Palace of Love.

Given the mystery structure of the previous book, The Killing Machine, the reader expects the protagonist, Kirth Gersen, to be able to find and identify the third of the demon princes, Viole Falush, using inductive logic and the other tropes of a mystery as he did in the story of the previous book.  Instead, Vance writes a sort of proto-psychological novel, mixed with an adventure story.  Viole Falush is a psychologically disturbed individual, and his mania is such that Gersen is unsuccessful in deducing who he is without resorting to heroic action.

Side note:  Viole Falush is sort of a practice run in character-building of a chaotic evil character for Jack Vance.  You can see the fully-formed version in the award-winning 1973 horror novel, Bad Ronald.  The horror novel is WAY more graphic, however, and it makes for hard reading.

The contrast between the psychological drama and the adventure story in The Palace of Love makes for an interesting read, kind of like getting a scope of mango ice cream and a scoop of dark chocolate in the same bowl.  This is also the book where the Mad Poet Navarth appears for the first time, and his pathos and Vanceian peccadillos add quite a bit of humor to the read.  Finally, given the outcome of the previous book, The Killing Machine, Kirth Gersen has access to incredible amounts of cash, so his solutions to the problems of finding Viole Falush's location are very different, but no less creative, than his attempts to find Kokor Hekkus and Attel Malagate.

Rudnicki's reading is great as always, although the one place where his manly rumblings are a little out of place are in the chapter headings, which are intentionally ludicrous.  Good stuff all around, and I am looking forward to getting my hands on the fourth, and my absolute favorite of the series, of the Demon Princes novels, The Face.

I strongly recommend these audiobooks to you.

[Underfoot]

On 6/18/2022 at 1:49 PM, Leofric said:

Just finished The Witness for the Dead and immediately jumped into the The Grief of Stones, both by Katherine Addison, follow ups to The Goblin Emperor.   Loved the first book and the second feels similar.    They remind of the Penric and Desdemona novellas by Lois McMasters Bujold with the mix of mystery and religion.   

I also just finished both of these, and enjoyed them both a lot. Very satisfying reads, though I think I preferred the first better (theater is a more lively murder mystery backdrop than a school of scared children).

I think you're spot on comparing them to the Penric and Desdemona novellas, VERY similar in both types of stories told and in method of storytelling. There's something cozy and comforting about both series that I can't quite explain, and I hope that Addison continues to publish these like Bujold has with the Pen and Des books. 

Something I love about this world is that so much of the mythology is just assumed; there no pages-long lore dumps, you just get introduced to things when relevant, and only in depth when relevant. It leaves a lot of room for future stories.

I will say I struggled more with remembering names and titles and ranks in these two vs The Goblin Emperor, maybe I was paying more attention during that one for clues in the political schemings.