What Are You Reading? Third Quarter, 2023

[Fragile Bird]

We’ve hit July, so it’s time for a new thread.

I’m painting my house and got rid of a lot of books, but I hesitated over my Dick Francis novels. I don't think I’ve read one in 20 years, and decided to see what audio books were available. I’ve now listened to Under Orders, Crossfire, Dead Heat, Driving Force, 10 Lb. Penalty, To the Hilt, High Stakes, Come to Grief, Blood Sport, Wild Horses and Bloodline. I have to confess, I enjoyed them all. I also listened to a BBC presentation of Proof, a 3 hour piece, and didn’t really care for it.

Francis’ books always follow a formula, stories about lead characters involved in the horse racing business in some way, who suffer some form of unfortunate event, getting robbed or cheated some way, a friend or family member getting murdered, or if a jockey or trainer, getting used by someone evil (usually rich and often important). The main character fights back, even though they are worried they don’t have the know how to succeed, upsetting the evil character, who strikes back. The thing I always felt queasy about was the fact the hero always gets beaten or tortured. Oh, and the press is venal and evil too.

Anyway, an easy, enjoyable read/listen. Short novels filled with detail about the main character’s business, jockey, trainer, horse carrier by road or plane, private investigator, artist, chef etc etc. Only one character has several books, a second has two, and I’m sorry the books are mainly one-offs, because I’d love to read more about some of them.

Dick Francis was, of course, a champion jockey, forced to retire due to injuries. The very first book he wrote was an auto-biography, a book I was never previously interested in but which is on my list of ones to read now. He wrote over 30 novels, his son started helping him in the later years and now continues to write Dick Francis novels after his father’s death. And I see that last year a company bought the rights to books to create a tv series.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Fragile Bird

[Zorral]

16 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Dick Francis

 

Neither have I re-read Dick Francis, though I enjoyed the books well enough.  Though for me it never felt enough about the horses. Ha!

I do believe there was a television series made from his books back in the day; I watched it on dvd quite some time after the broadcast, IIRC.  It wasn't very good.  It featured horses even less than the books!

[Fragile Bird]

17 minutes ago, Zorral said:

 

Neither have I re-read Dick Francis, though I enjoyed the books well enough.  Though for me it never felt enough about the horses. Ha!

I do believe there was a television series made from his books back in the day; I watched it on dvd quite some time after the broadcast, IIRC.  It wasn't very good.  It featured horses even less than the books!

I think the star was Ian McShane. I swear, that man was everywhere on British tv!

[Deedles]

Currently reading Ithaca by Claire North. About 10% in. The language feels choppy with the word twerp used 3 times so far. Not entirely sure where it’s going, but I’ll stick around I think.

Just finished Magic Forged by KM Shea. I felt that this was very slight, even for urban fantasy. Never really got into the story. The aworld building was poor. Unlikely to pick up sequels.

 

Death under a little sky by Stig Abell was a fun murder mystery. Very rooted in the physical. A little rough but kept me reading.

 

Listened to The Warriors Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold. That woman really can write. Looking forward to listening to the rest and hearing Miles grow. Particularly looking forward to A civil campaign. Cried (again) at Barryar which was a trifle embarrassing given I was on a tram at the time.

 

 

[Wilbur]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I think the star was Ian McShane. I swear, that man was everywhere on British tv!

I remember being thoroughly enchanted by these movies when they were broadcast.  Ian McShane was super cool, which was why he was on so much British TV.

[Fragile Bird]

15 hours ago, Wilbur said:

I remember being thoroughly enchanted by these movies when they were broadcast.  Ian McShane was super cool, which was why he was on so much British TV.

I first met Ian McShane as Lovejoy. I really liked that series. I don’t think I saw any of the Dick Francis series.

[Zorral]

Lovejoy was fun, even though I saw them long after they'd broadcast.  Bet they were even more fun back then.

[Peadar]

I'm reading The Anomoly by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter. Very good so far, but only two chapters in...

[Luzifer's right hand]

Catched up on the most recent book by Linda Nagata Needle in the The Nanotech Succession setting. A slow book but I still enjoyed it. 

She is among my favourite when it comes to far future SF without FTL together with Alastair Reynolds and Robert Reed.

[williamjm]

I read James S.A. Corey's Memory's Legion, the collection of short stories in the Expanse Universe. I had previously only read The Butcher of Anderson Station out of them, and in retrospect I think it would have been good to read some of these while reading the main series because some of them do have important backstory for some of the characters. I thought The Churn, Auberon, The Vital Abyss and Strange Dogs were the best of them, and I think there's a good variety among those stories and they do bring some new perspectives on the setting.

[Starkess]

I listened to Children of Eden, a dystopian YA novel. It was...pretty meh, tbh. But it didn't actively offend me so I will probably pick up the sequel at some point when I need more running entertainment. When I went to add it on Goodreads, I saw apparently the author is some YouTube personality?? I mean good for him for turning that into a novel (and I think he had an uncredited co-writer), but maybe could have used some more work first.

[Iskaral Pust]

Tyranny Of Desire by Morty Shallman is a literary fiction about an unremarkable and unprepossessing guy possessed of an outsize member that takes over his life.  Quirky, witty and odd.  I enjoyed it.  The character is slightly manic and his experiences are slightly farcical as he staggers implausibly onward, but there’s an underlying redemption arc that parallels substance abuse.  The narration has a quintessentially Jewish wry humor that I enjoyed.

Silk Road by Colin Falconer is a medieval historical fiction about a Templar knight who journeys across the Silk Road.  Reasonably entertaining and well written, but hardly groundbreaking.  There’s a good juxtaposition between the secular skepticism of the main character and the fundamentalist zeal of his Dominican co-traveler that allows the author to contrast cultural beliefs while having a likable (too modern?) open minded hero.  Although this is a well-told tale since Marco Polo, this particular version spends more focus on the cultural tension between the traditionalist Mongols and the increasingly Han-ified Kublai Khan.

Lifting The Lid by Rob Johnson is the first in a series of comedic fiction about a nebbish, hapless young man and a PI woman stumbling into misunderstandings and possibly crimes.  I thought it was unfunny and found myself actively disliking the whiny main character.  DNF

Edited July 8, 2023 by Iskaral Pust
Edit to expand slightly. I need to give more color.

[Iskaral Pust]

Hotel Bars And The Art Of Being Conscious by August Delp is a literary fiction that opens with a rumination on the meaning of life once the career and family stage are complete.  As someone facing becoming an empty nester in a couple of years, this contemplation resonated with me.  The conclusion — here, at least — is to hang out at hotel bars enjoying fleeting human engagement and occasionally deep connections.  But this really could have been an essay rather than a novel.  This A plot converges toward a B plot about a cult (another way of looking for meaning in life) and it loses form and purpose.  @Ser Scot A Ellison came to mind as I read it though.  I think there’s signs of a decent author here but he needs some help on planning his structure and determine whether he wants a speculative essay or a novel.

Night Wolf by James L. Nelson is the fifth in his historical fictions series about Vikings in Ireland.  I enjoy the historical setting and insights on the respective cultures (historical accuracy seems good) but the prose and characterization always seems too simplistic, which is why I leave long gaps between visits to this series.  The author could use a workshop with Joe Abercrombie.

By His Own Hand by Neal Griffin is a crime fiction that should be called By The Numbers.  Stock characters, so many tropes, predictable plot and rote tensions.  ChatGPT could have written this.  I would not recommend.

[A wilding]

I have been reading Arcadia by Iain Pears after a tip off by @Starkess

Unlike some of his other books, this is clever and entertaining rather than deep, except perhaps for the ending, which needs some thinking through. The story does not so much borrow from a range of other authors as gleefully steal from them. I spotted Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, William Gibson, Shakespeare and John Le Carre, and I am sure there were others. One of two of these authors actually have cameo roles in the story. Basically it is a bit of fun, despite some very dark stuff which nearly all happens off stage.

The associated app would appear to be a bit of a gimmick, which allows you to read the story in a different order. Though I understand it contains a certain amount of extra material. As the story involves multiple PoVs, from several alternate worlds (of a sort), and time travel (again of a sort), many reading orders are indeed possible.

[Gaston de Foix]

Starting the Lost War after seeing favorable reviews.  

[briantw]

On 7/7/2023 at 6:01 PM, williamjm said:

I read James S.A. Corey's Memory's Legion, the collection of short stories in the Expanse Universe. I had previously only read The Butcher of Anderson Station out of them, and in retrospect I think it would have been good to read some of these while reading the main series because some of them do have important backstory for some of the characters. I thought The Churn, Auberon, The Vital Abyss and Strange Dogs were the best of them, and I think there's a good variety among those stories and they do bring some new perspectives on the setting.

I just finished that yesterday after doing a re-read of the entire series.  I hadn't read The Sins of Our Fathers or Auberon prior, so it was a nice surprise to see a couple of familiar faces in those.  Auberon was my personal favorite.  That character arc felt like it was written by Joe Abercrombie. 

On the whole, it's a really well done set of short stories / novellas.  I don't think there's a single clunker in the bunch.  Gods of Risk is the only one I think was forgettable, probably because the show fleshed that one out so much more.

Edited July 11, 2023 by briantw

[Ser Not Appearing]

Just started re-reading the Dragonlance Chronicles series in preparation for a podcast next month. Moderately excited, haven't read it in decades

Hope it carries as much fondness as our Belgariad re-read did.

[TheLastWolf]

Read the original Marx-Engels manifesto finally. Can't believe how right they turned out to be. Yet ideal utopian solutions are none at all.

[Wilbur]

On the recommendation of several kind board members, I read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time.   It was also fine, just as I had found the first book of his that I read.

It incorporates a number of tropes and ideas found in other stories, but the author handles them well and weaves a story that is interesting if not engrossing.  The writing is smooth and lacks any of the irritating hitches that detract from a story, and the plot works itself out with an equal facility.

Perhaps because I have read several earlier books that contain the ideas that comprise the story in Children of Time, none of it felt original or exciting to me.  Furthermore, the characters are fine, but I haven't been invested in any of Tchaikovsky's characters yet.  The story ends on a cue for a sequel, so I should go and get that one, in case the overall arc develops into a more gripping tale.

I feel like I am damning Tchaikovsky's books with faint praise, but really the issue is probably as an older reader, I have met most of these concepts before.  If you give this book to an intellectually curious 15-year-old, they would very likely be fascinated as it is all new to them, and the writing is high quality.

If you found that this book worked well for you, I recommend Vernor Vinge as an author who, to my taste, wrote the "rise of alien consciousness" novel par excellence, A Fire in the Deep, the 1993 Hugo Award winning novel of the Zones of Thought.

[dog-days]

Perhaps he's just not for you? I don't think anyone's made big claims about Tchaikovsky's originality. Speaking for myself, I don't go to fiction for originality. And if I wanted an in-depth character study I guess I could pick up some experimental literary fiction to fall asleep over to admire. What he does do is create engaging novels and novellas drawing on a variety of influences that retain a kind of zest for existence without pretending that humans are any better than they are.