What Are You Reading? Second Quarter, 2023

[Teng Ai Hui]

double post; sorry

Edited April 17, 2023 by Teng Ai Hui

[baxus]

15 hours ago, Starkess said:

I finished listening to Dune. It had been a while since I read it and it was fun revisiting a great book. Didn't love the narration style with voice actors for the dialogue though.

I've finished reading Dune a few days ago. It's the first time I've read it and I quite like it. It's an ok standalone novel, but I did get the impression it's just an intro into a whole universe, so I googled it and saw there's a whole bunch of other books in the series. I'm not sure I'll dive into that anytime soon, though.

Started reading The Fall of Gondolin after that, which is just the top of my to-read pile.

[Fragile Bird]

Who mentioned T. Kingfisher? I just finished A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, a title I had seen mentioned on lists but never got around to reading, and absolutely loved it. Young adult, but such a likeable female lead character. Funny, smart, observant, insecure, inexperienced, fast learner - dare I say it - rises to the occasion! And I like to bake. I hope there’s a sequel, it sounds like this will be a series. I’ve now borrowed and put holds on several other Kingfisher books.

[Ormond]

Recently finished Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente.  

This was one of the weirdest books I have ever read.  I kept thinking it was like the literary equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting. Almost every page has completely off the wall unique imagery --a small boy who is somehow also a house, groups of girls who braid their hair together into a large net to catch fish, commuter trains that are living beings who have sex with each other, etc.  Palimpsest is a city in another reality that some people from our world access through sleep and dreams.  They are considered "immigrants" to Palimpsest and are admitted in random groups of four.  Though it wasn't clear to me why it was the case, if the four people in the group can somehow meet each other physically back in our world that can be admitted to Palimpsest permanently.  I could see why the four main characters in the novel might want to become permanent residents of Palimpsest, but as that world itself has lots of poverty, war, injustice, and tragedy, I don't think most of us would really want to live there.  Still it was a fascinating surrealistic experience to be exposed to it.  

[polishgenius]

Yeah, I really enjoyed Palimpsest, but it's so weird.

I should get back to it. Haven't been able to re-read it for a long time because I bought it from an e-book shop that no longer exists, and the file I had saved was on a laptop that died and an e-reader that broke. So I'd have to rebuy it. But I like Valente a lot, so...

Rather oddly, her children's series of Fairyland books span out of Palimpsest (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making being mentioned as a book within the world here, then after that she wrote it for real). 

[Iskaral Pust]

Three more of my recent reads:

Fleshmarket Alley by Ian Rankin one of the Rebus series of gritty policing In Edinburgh.  I like this author a lot: good prose and characterization, good observation of people and some occasionally great turns of phrase.  Highly recommended author.

The Children Of Gods And Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless is historical fiction set in Viking Ireland with some incidental and mostly peripheral fantasy aspects. If you recognize the reference in the title then this book is for you.  I think this was recommended by @Peadar in one of these threads and it’s an enjoyable read.  For me, the most notable aspect is that in an era of warfare and violence, both POVs are women with their own agenda and their own way of pursuing their interests without swinging a sword.  Well written and I plan to read further.

Worth Dying For by Lee Child is a Jack Reacher novel and despite my repeated meta criticisms of what the character represents, these are extremely well written and enjoyable as an occasional change-up.

Three good reads in a row was a nice streak during our spring break vacation.

[Ormond]

11 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Rather oddly, her children's series of Fairyland books span out of Palimpsest (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making being mentioned as a book within the world here, then after that she wrote it for real). 

I almost mentioned that. The same thing happened with the author Rainbow Rowell, who first in 2013 published a young adult novel called Fangirl about a college freshman who was obsessed with the "Simon Snow" fantasy series, and then starting in 2015 published the three books in the "Simon Snow" series. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Rowell

[Underfoot]

Took me longer than expected, but I finished The Jasmine Throne, by Tasha Suri. Promising start to a trilogy. Love the worldbuilding and the hints of magic and religion and lore. Some really dark moments sprinkled throughout, too. 

Overall the book seemed most interested in building up characters and relationships and motivations, some of which fell flat to me, but others worked really well. 

The pacing was a bit uneven, with a little too much time spent on the central romance in the first half, trying to build it up organically when you really knew exactly what was going to happen the moment they laid eyes on each other. Big plot moments felt rushed by comparison. Hopefully the pace evens out in book 2 - looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. 

In the meantime, I picked up Clockwork Boys by T Kingfisher at the library, which so far is exactly what I need right now. Suicide Squad but make it fantasy. Thanks again for the req @dog-days

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Just finished Trust by Hernan Diaz.  Wow. What a book.  Definitely deserves all the praise it has gotten.  

[Fragile Bird]

3 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Just finished Trust by Hernan Diaz.  Wow. What a book.  Definitely deserves all the praise it has gotten.  

Borrowed! I hope that being a non-New Yorker won’t diminish the enjoyment!

[Wilbur]

Have you ever wished that the concept of, "The economic formation of society [is] a process of natural history" from Karl Marx's Das Kapital was expressed in the form of a pulp science fiction space opera from 1961, with an Archie Goodwin-style protagonist exploring different worlds of the United Planets, each in its own stage of political-economic development and in the throes of moving to the next?

Then you are in luck, because Mack Reynolds has written exactly such a book in Ultima Thule, and Karen Savage has read the audio version on Librivox.  Reynolds also includes a few cheeky plot twists that aren't too difficult to foresee, as well as some ostensible sexism and racism that may actually be a critique of the typically WASP-y viewpoint of a lot of Golden Age SciFi.

A reader today is going to see a lot of creaky allusions and painfully on-the-nose references to Eisenhower-era military industrial complex actors and 1950s social conventions, but if you can work your way past them, this is a completely typical pulp story.  In fact, there was a copy in my own elementary school library, and I read it as a primary school kid because of that truly excellent cover illustration.

I am going to guess that no one in the school administration had actually read it and considered the lessons of classical Marxist-Socialism other readers were likely to receive in doing so.  As a kid I didn't even think about the "$30 on Thursday" reference in the tale, but now the power of the internet enlightens me as to the Ham and Eggs Movement in California.

Finally, one of the things that makes me laugh about a lot of pulp era SciFi is the way that the authors will slam the door shut on a story as soon as they read the required word- or page-count.  It is as if they said to themselves, "Whoops, I have hit the necessary 120 pages as required by my contract, time to end this tale RIGHT NOW."  I guess it did leave their readers wanting more, quite literally.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Wilbur
Ham and Eggs movement

[Starkess]

On 4/15/2023 at 8:17 AM, Peadar said:

Oops! Posted this in the wrong thread...

 

I'm about a quarter the way through M.R. Carey's Infinity Gate. Excellent so far and reminds me a bit of Robert Reed. I shilled for Mr. Carey's Ramparts Trilogy everywhere I could, but I still know few people who gave it a go. Anyway, looking forward to the rest of this.

The Ramparts trilogy is so good!! I should check out Infinity Gate, then!

[Zorral]

On 4/19/2023 at 12:07 AM, Fragile Bird said:

Borrowed! I hope that being a non-New Yorker won’t diminish the enjoyment!

For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I didn't like it as much as I expected. 

[Jaxom 1974]

Been on a strange kick of various proportions latey...been doing another listen of the audio for Team of Rivals...which led me to do a re-read of the first of John Jakes' North and South trilogy (which didn't have quite as much romanticism of the pre-Civil War South as I remembered, though it is absolutely there...) but after that I needed something lighter so it's been on to a re-read of Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy...but I also recently stumbled on to Diane Fanning as a book cover caught my eye and now I have Scandal in the Secert City queued up as a mystery sounds good now too...

Edited April 21, 2023 by Jaxom 1974

[Wilbur]

A friend gave me the audiobooks for The Covenant of Steel, books one and two, The Pariah and The Martyr by Anthony Ryan.  Both are narrated by Steven Brand, who does a good job throughout.

I knew nothing about them, and I hadn't even seen a cover for the books, so I went in completely blind.  I still am not sure What The Protagonist Wants, as the narrative device is an unreliable narrator who has already written the story, or maybe dictated the story, but in reverse and to someone from another time.  Again, I am not entirely sure.  But it works, perhaps mainly because the narrative device is only revealed in full in the second book, but even in the first book the reader begins to peel apart a series of layered narrative devices as the work progresses.  And there are Gene Wolfe-like references to a possible previous (and maybe future) cataclysm, the possibility of ancient science or possibly contemporary magic, and various religions based on some combinations of beliefs about both.

The writer has the kind of hidden ball tricks GRRM likes to use in order to both subvert expectations as well as tell a covert story based on the inconsistencies portrayed in the overt narrative.  Because I know nothing about the protagonist or what he wants, I don't have the sort of cognitive dissonance that GRRM creates early and often with things like the death of Lady or Ned Stark, so there is a bit of a distance between the reader and the characters, which again, is much like my experience of reading Wolfe.

So overall these books are both very refreshing despite being a little grim and dark, because I have no idea what will happen next, nor exactly why.  I will look forward to the future volumes, though, because I feel like they will likely reward me with better understanding in retrospect, plus the writing is very good.

[RhaenysBee]

I finished Intercept which proved itself as an interesting and for me, just deep enough discussion of internet, data, cyber security and what they meant for international relations and espionage throughout the 20th century. 
 

I also listened to Genghis Khan the making of the modern world this one was a cognitive orgasm for me, it’s been ages since I consumed a book that I enjoyed to this degree. All the game of thrones spin offs can go F off, I want a series about Genghis Khan. What a life, what a legacy, what a book. (I don’t care about how historically accurate this work is, I’m sure there’s professional disagreement and varying interpretations, the point for me is and was that listening to this book sent fireworks into my weary brain and it was the best non fiction read of the past 12 months at least). The book is quite strong at storytelling, it’s not scientific, boring or dry at all (in fact in the beginning I felt like the author was being super dramatic - emphasized by narration as well). Highly highly recommend. 
 

I am however struggling to finish The Hobbit. Yet again this is something I should have read in my early teens and would have appreciated it a lot. Now it’s just not enough to stimulate my brain. But I would read it to my hypothetical child.

[Zorral]

13 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Genghis Khan the making of the modern world

Jack Weatherford's work on the Mongols is terrific.   Plus, he can read, speak and write Mongolian!

You would love his Mongolian Queens . . . .

[RhaenysBee]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Jack Weatherford's work on the Mongols is terrific.   Plus, he can read, speak and write Mongolian!

You would love his Mongolian Queens . . . .

I will check it out  thank you 

[Zorral]

3 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

will check it out

This isn't a Weatherford work, but this one too, is splendid, telling those of us like me who are not taught medieval history for anywhere outside of Europe, focused almost entirely on England and France.  I didn't write up in that thread here, "History in Books" yet, because I haven't had time to finish reading it, but ooooo, does it tell me about eastern Europe and Central Asia, and all those nations about which people like me are trying so hard to learn, as both geography and history:

The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East (2022) by Nicholas Morton.

[Fragile Bird]

I’ve now read a second T. Kingfisher book, Nettle and Bone. Just like The Wizard’s Guide, it has the feel of being the first in a series. I hope that Kingfisher doesn’t do that for every book and then just leaves them as standalones because I’m looking forward to meeting the characters again. I was surprised to see the release date was just in December.

The main characters are a nice change, no plucky ingenues here, we have a 35 year old princess stashed away in a nunnery because her older sister’s husband, Prince in the land to the north, doesn’t want her to marry and give birth to a rival heir for her tiny city state which he wants for his kingdom, and the male lead is a 40-year old noble who killed a couple of scum bag lords he served, for doing something heinous, and got taken by the fey and enslaved. The princess decides she needs to kill her sister’s violent scumbag of a husband and goes off to find magic help of her own. Very entertaining!

I’d like to read another book now but that mention of Jasper Fforde a few posts up makes me want to read some stories a certain young woman named Thursday Next.

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Fragile Bird