What Are You Reading? Second Quarter, 2023

[Ser Not Appearing]

21 hours ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

I'm reading (listening to) Foundryside at the suggestion of a friend.

I'm no physics buff and could be wrong but I suspect this author has never heard of or didn't research terminal velocity.

[Gaston de Foix]

2 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

I'm guessing these are advanced copies which are sent out for reviews. Lucky you. 

Cause my pre-orders will arrive in July! 

I'll try to get my (spoiler-free) reviews out this week to whet your appetite .  

[Gaston de Foix]

1 hour ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

I'm no physics buff and could be wrong but I suspect this author has never heard of or didn't research terminal velocity.

Idk what it means either, but can I offer this thought?

One of the reasons I won't write the fantasy novel bumping around my head (apart from laziness, apathy, and parenting responsibilities) is that I'm scared to death of people fact-checking me. 

As a reader, I don't care about fantasy maps because it's fantasy and I'm happy to accept authorial decree that you can get from point A to point B through the Gap of Rohan in 6 days continuous running or what have you.  I don't care about fantasy physics because it's fantasy.  I don't care about the rules of magic because I kind of believe with GRRM that magic should always be mysterious and somewhat unknowable, and also because, it's fantasy.  

I get the suspension of disbelief works very differently for different people.  

I also get that introducing real world physics and logic can be a potent story telling tool to build verisimilitude.  But I think we have to take these things with a pinch of salt no? 

[Ser Not Appearing]

41 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Idk what it means either ...

In a nutshell, you can write magic words on stuff to make it act differently. There are arrows inscribed with language that causes then to act as if they've been falling for thousands of feet (this makes them go extra fast, in theory). Other arrows are super powerful because they've been inscribed to act as if they've been falling for  thousands and thousands of miles.

... terminal velocity is (bad layman terms) the speed at which something ceases to accelerate because the force of resistance of the air is so strong it cancels out the acceleration. For example, skydiver reaches terminal velocity of 120 mph in just 3-5 seconds after exiting the plane. They could fall for hours and would still only be traveling 120 mph.

I don't know how quickly a more aerodynamic object like an arrow reaches terminal velocity, nor what speed that would be, but it probably occurs within the first few thousand feet and certainly before thousands of miles. Heck, there's a possibility that an arrow only slows down when falling because it was fired so fast from the bow that it's already above terminal velocity. Bows can shoot stuff pretty fast.

... anyway, I get the idea of the magic and prefer to set aside disbelief ... but this one stood out to me because it seems a pretty blatant oversight.

Edited May 11 by Ser Not Appearing

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Finished The Broken Earth Trilogy a few weeks back - I really enjoyed it, blasted through all three books in a short amount of time.  It’s been difficult for fantasy/sci fi to hold my attention or build anticipation like it used to, but it hooked me.

The Stench of Honolulu by Jack Handey was a silly laugh-out-loud book, the sequel just came out and you can order it directly from his website with a personal inscription.

Re-reading Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Suzuki - a Zen primer with some instructions and basic ideas/tenets) along with Hope is Not a Method (Sullivan, a look at transitioning the US army from Cold War, methods and how they can be applied to businesses). I have been struggling with some apathy and aimlessness in my work life, and these helped.

Edited May 14 by VigoTheCarpathian
Spelling

[Theda Baratheon]

I’ve been reading Discworld for the first time properly this year. Last year I read Wyrd Sisters and Monstrous Regiment but this year I’ve started from the top. Just about to finish off Pyramids. I’m bloody loving these books. 
 

What is everyone’s favourite Discworld book(s) ? 

[Curled Finger]

18 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I’ve been reading Discworld for the first time properly this year. Last year I read Wyrd Sisters and Monstrous Regiment but this year I’ve started from the top. Just about to finish off Pyramids. I’m bloody loving these books. 
 

What is everyone’s favourite Discworld book(s) ? 

That's just great!  I have been listening to as many Discworld books as I can get hold of.  I listened up to maybe the 30th book, with skips as I've been listening on Youtube. The entire series just makes me happy changes my outlook on everything.  Makes me embrace the irony and absurdism of life.  As you will be able to discern a bit later, I have appropriated Granny Weatherwax's warning for my own personal motto.  Honestly, some of the characters are more engaging than others, I got a huge kick out of a cop being named Cheery Littlebottom, but I think all of the stories I've listened to are great.  Like sunshine on a rainy day.  No favorites.  The whole series is worth it.  (As far as I've got at least)  I hope it brings you as many giggles as it brought me.   Note:  I tend to listen to series on Youtube.  That is how I found The Witcher series.  Bought the whole thing.  I will definitely be purchasing Discworld for my personal library.  

As for serious reading I am listening to Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove saga.  Had no idea I could be such a fan of Westerns.  The series centers around 2 men and it's an amazing look at character in both of them.   This one won a Pulitzer, I believe, though the prequel books are shorter, but no less important parts of their stories. Relistening to book 3 Lonesome Dove just now.  Got Streets of Laredo ready to play soon as it's done.  

Edited May 15 by Curled Finger
legal disclaimer

[Gaston de Foix]

22 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I’ve been reading Discworld for the first time properly this year. Last year I read Wyrd Sisters and Monstrous Regiment but this year I’ve started from the top. Just about to finish off Pyramids. I’m bloody loving these books. 
 

What is everyone’s favourite Discworld book(s) ? 

This is an exceedingly hard question to answer.  I think probably Sourcery, Men at Arms, the Truth, Guards Guards, Lords and Ladies.  Small Gods and the Thief of Time are probably the most philosophical.  Pratchett has many great protagonists, but the greatest (IMHO) is Granny Weatherwax. 

I'd be curious about @Werthead's thoughts, unless he already has a blog post up on this topic?

[Wilbur]

This past week I got through the Librivox readings by Mark Nelson of a series of Murray Leinster stories.  I can summarize ALL of them as follows.

1. Americans develop some sort of space ship / space platform / space tug / space engine / etc., which we will refer to as Item A.

2. Evil foreigners / thinly veiled Soviet spies attempt to sabotage the development or production of Item A, usually including some form of blackmail of immigrants or old maids, in what we will call Action Z.

3. A ridiculously young white guy, (Protagonist Q) usually the son of an important official or businessman involved in Item A, will be employed in the development or production work for Item A, and in doing so, will thwart one or more of the efforts of Action Z.

4. The experience for thwarting Action Z and exposure to the evils of the foreigners / Soviets will enrage Protagonist Q.  In the heights of his righteous anger, he will achieve a moment of clarity, in which he will invent some important improvement to Item A.  In response, the authorities put him and His Team in charge of whatever activity Item A is intended to achieve.  Repeat in slight variations from step 2. as many times as necessary to get to 120 pages.

Once the story reaches 120 pages, it is abruptly done.

Note: His Team will include a Normal White Guy, an American Indian, and someone odd (a little person is a popular choice) and a Romantic Interest who is usually the daughter of someone in authority.  Protagonist Q will announce that the Romantic Interest is "swell" at least twice, and he will ask her out on a date that never actually seems to happen, and she will wear his class ring.

Listening to them in rapid succession certainly highlights the strongly repetitive nature of these stories, so maybe limit yourself to just one.

Operation Terror // Operation Outer Space // Space Platform // Space Tug // Space Can // Wailing Asteroid

I guess these were very popular with 14-year-old-boys who were completely ignorant of how science, business, military operations, or the legal system worked circa 1961-ish.  They are pretty tough sledding for me.

 

 

[Zorral]

Kuang's Babel won the Nebula for Novel this year.  Her new book is being raved about this month too.  She'll never have a May this good again, but she sure has a May to remember with pleasure all her life.

BTW, at some point someone somewhere, maybe here, but I don't recall, criticized Babel for an empire being run out of a single building at Oxford.  But whoever it was seems not to know the East India Company empire was run out of a single, relatively small hq building in London.

[James Arryn]

Finished LeCarre’s Night Manager last night. Upholds my belief that he was one of the greatest writers of the later 20th/early 21st centuries who gets overlooked because he’s a genre giant. That said, his female characters in this were not imo as fully formed, but that might be unfair because there were so few and in such positions that sustaining their positions while keeping them sympathetic either requires a certain superficiality and/or another sub plot in a LeCarre, ie already wormholed with subplots. The latter is the way the show went, as well as turning the second protagonist into a woman and was the better for it.

 

To his credit, LeCarre agreed with that opinion. 

Edited May 16 by James Arryn

[3CityApache]

On 5/14/2023 at 11:35 PM, Theda Baratheon said:

What is everyone’s favourite Discworld book(s) ? 

Their name is legion. But if I had to choose but a few, it would be Nightwatch (absolutely the best), The Truth, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo (generally the biggest fan of watch series within Discworld) and Going Postal.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Currently on a Jules Verne binge.

[ljkeane]

Like a few other people it seems I just read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Lords of Uncreation the last book in his sci fi trilogy. It was really good. It's a bit more conventional space opera sci fi than some of his other books/series but like everything he writes it's still very imaginative and the story itself is excellent. I don't know how he manages to be so prolific and maintain such a high standard but I'm glad he does.

Next up I'm reading Mark Lawrence's The Book That Wouldn't Burn.

[Altherion]

I also just finished Lords of Uncreation. I thought the second book was not quite as good as the first, but this one is really good -- I don't think I've seen the idea at the heart of the story anywhere before and the ending is very well done.

[HokieStone]

After hearing about Elric of Melnibone for...well, decades...I'm finally getting around to reading the stories.  TBH, I'm finding it a struggle.  

I got Volume 1 of an anthology at Barnes & Noble, and my understand is that the stories are in chronological order, rather than the original published order.  So the first story was about Elric combating his cousin for the throne, and how he got his sword, Stormbringer.  It was...ok, I guess.  Felt a bit dated (probably because it is).  The second story, which I'm in now, is called "Fortress of the Pearl" - and it's a slog.  It's mostly about him and a "dream thief" traversing various lands of dreams as they try to awaken a little girl who's been put into some kind of magical coma.  And, oh by the way, he's doing this because he's been given some kind of slow acting poison, and needs to find the titular pearl to give to his poisoner.

So...I dunno how long I'm going to stick with it.  I was expecting some sort of charismatic anti-hero with his magic sword having adventures, and I'm getting a whiny guy who doesn't even get to have the sword for most of the story.

[Ser Not Appearing]

Still reading Foundryside, about 70% of the way through. I'm enjoying the world and different elements of the story but the characters come across as rather dumb / oblivious and I just haven't consistently enjoyed the writing and plotting itself. Not sure if that's the author or the targeted age group (I feel like it's targeted young-ish).

Sticking with it but ... it's not quite my jam. Not yet, at least.

I feel like if the author catches their stride in future books, I might enjoy them better. We'll see.

Edited May 16 by Ser Not Appearing

[ljkeane]

On 5/14/2023 at 10:35 PM, Theda Baratheon said:

What is everyone’s favourite Discworld book(s) ? 

Oh, yeah, my favourite Discworld book is probably Small Gods although I haven't read them all. I meant to answer before but I forgot.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Still reading Foundryside, about 70% of the way through. I'm enjoying the world and different elements of the story but the characters come across as rather dumb / oblivious and I just haven't consistently enjoyed the writing and plotting itself. Not sure if that's the author or the targeted age group (I feel like it's targeted young-ish).

Sticking with it but ... it's not quite my jam. Not yet, at least.

I feel like if the author catches their stride in future books, I might enjoy them better. We'll see.

I enjoyed Foundryside, but I think his earlier trilogy, particularly City of Stairs, is Robert Jackson Bennett's best work out of those I've read by him. Foundryside does have some good ideas in it but felt a more straightforward story.

[felice]

On 5/17/2023 at 7:31 AM, HokieStone said:

After hearing about Elric of Melnibone for...well, decades...I'm finally getting around to reading the stories.  TBH, I'm finding it a struggle.

I found his Doctor Who novel sufficiently unpalatable that I no longer have any interest in trying his other works.