williamjm Posted October 1 Share Posted October 1 We are now somehow 3/4 of the way through the year. I'm not sure how that happened. I finished Ann Leckie's Translation State. It's loosely connected to her Ancillary trilogy but mostly focusing on new characters. In the previous trilogy the Translators, humans bred to be able to be intermediaries between the largely incomprehensible alien Presger and humanity (and other alien races), had played a significant role in some parts of the story but we did not learn much about them. The two main plot threads here both involve Translators, one focusing on a juvenile intimidated by the thought of following the path its elders have laid out for it and another focusing on a seemingly hopeless search to track down a Translator who went AWOL decades previously. The portrayal of how the Translators grow up is memorably unusual. This is a book in which there are potentially huge events happening in the background but most of the focus is on the characters and their efforts to try and live their lives they way they want (if they can figure out what it is they want). Overall, the plot is perhaps a bit less compelling than in Ancillary Justice and occasionally seems to rely on some pretty huge coincidences but the characters are engaging and it does come to a satisfying ending. I have now started Neil Gaiman's Death : The High Cost of Living. Luzifer's right hand and Peadar 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted October 2 Share Posted October 2 Has anyone read, or planning to read, Cat Bohannon's newly published Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution? https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/eve-cat-bohannon-review https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780385350549 https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cat-bohannon/eve-Bohannon/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/books/cat-bohannon-eve.html https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/30/how-women-drove-evolution-cat-bohannon-on-her-radical-new-history-of-humanity https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/75494215 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted October 5 Share Posted October 5 I finished Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham. It had a nicer feel to it than Age of Ash, perhaps a reflection of the circumstances of the characters. Overall I enjoyed it with the format of the series meaning I already had sort of an idea what was going to happen it took me a while to get through it. Next up I'm going to try Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint. williamjm 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peadar Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 On to Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragile Bird Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 I’ve been struggling through Kala, by Colin Walsh. Maybe I wanted to be punished (I think that Tana French does that to me at times). You friggin’ Irish, are you all such sick bastards? It’s about six teens who hung out with each other, in a tourist town on the west coast of Ireland, a place that’s supposed to be idyllic but is actually a seething pit of vipers and shit filled mud that the residents have to plod through all their lives. One of the teens disappears (our titular teen) and events pick up years later when three of them are back in town, Helen, who fled to Canada, Joe, who fled to become a famous rock star, and Mush, who never left. Lots and lots of angst and guilt and dirty secrets. And then human remains are found. I had the audio book on and fell asleep, waking up three hours later and suspecting I skipped over a lot of deep reflections about inter-personal relationships and the confusion of teen years. And grim, ugly Irish secrets. If you like the dark side of the Irish, God bless, this is the book for you. Peadar and dog-days 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Not Appearing Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 (edited) I'm continuing False God in the Horus Heresy series. Each new interaction produces additional reasons for disappointment. The first book was pretty good but the second book has transformed formerly thoughtful and well reasoned military minds into temperamental, impulsive children blundering around. Spoiler Particularly troublesome is this invasion of the moon. It's presented as if it's a hot headed decision but there was time leading up to it and nobody reconsidered or looked for evidence or proof for anything. That itself is out of character but then the invasion is executed in such an excessively childlike manner. There's no other way to describe it. On approach, they get this vox signal and decide to make that the point of attack. One guy noted that it could be a trap and the others essentially respond that they're so awesome and powerful it doesn't even matter. No caution, just hubris. They do no reconnaissance from the air and have no idea what to expect upon landing. They put down in the middle of fog and are surprised by how the landscape isn't right and there's a pervasive and odd decay around the whole area. This still doesn't spark any sort of caution or slow anything down. In fact, they push into the fog at such a high speed that one guy notes they're getting separated ... but once again the reply is that it doesn't matter because they're just too awesome to need to stick together. Surprise surprise, it is an ambush and people die. It's just not written in a way that flows from who these people are. It flows from where the author needs the story to go. And that drives me nutty, especially after a fairly well executed first novel. Edited October 6 by Ser Not Appearing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLastWolf Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 Read halfway through the Blade Runner original, ...dream of electric sheep? Found it obtuse and unlike any 20th century dystopian novel I've ever read maarsen 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilbur Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 unJon had recommended Claire North's Songs of Penelope in the Q3 thread, and my wife had also enjoyed the first book, so I reserved a copy from the library. The library offered me the audiobook of Glyn Iliffe's King of Ithaca, which seemed like a good warm-up. The audiobook is read by Steve Watts, who does a terrific job. Excellent voice, great reader. The story itself is fine, and it covers the period of Odysseus' life from his journey to Sparta, the Oath of Tyndareus, and the return to Ithaca and restoration of Laertes as king. The POV is a fictional character who is a sort of sub-altern to Odysseus, and the Greeks gods are real and interact with the characters. However, the story doesn't really grab me because the writer doesn't really immerse the reader in the place and time. The politics and interpersonal relations all work just fine, and the minor mysteries are also well written, but the action could just as well take place in Tudor England or Sumeria or Majapahit Java without much damage to the plot. This may be my own personal baggage, but there isn't anything much in the story that says, "This is pre-Bronze Age Collapse, and these guys are all suffering from severe PTSD as a result of recent events such as the Journey of the Argonauts, the Seven Against Thebes, and the Conflict of the Epigoni." So as an action story or general Fantasy novel, it works just fine, and the reader is outstanding. As a look into Mycenaean culture, it isn't great, but that isn't likely the author's intent. Larry of the Lawn 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 8 hours ago, Fragile Bird said: I’ve been struggling through Kala, by Colin Walsh. Maybe I wanted to be punished (I think that Tana French does that to me at times). You friggin’ Irish, are you all such sick bastards? It’s about six teens who hung out with each other, in a tourist town on the west coast of Ireland, a place that’s supposed to be idyllic but is actually a seething pit of vipers and shit filled mud that the residents have to plod through all their lives. One of the teens disappears (our titular teen) and events pick up years later when three of them are back in town, Helen, who fled to Canada, Joe, who fled to become a famous rock star, and Mush, who never left. Lots and lots of angst and guilt and dirty secrets. And then human remains are found. I had the audio book on and fell asleep, waking up three hours later and suspecting I skipped over a lot of deep reflections about inter-personal relationships and the confusion of teen years. And grim, ugly Irish secrets. If you like the dark side of the Irish, God bless, this is the book for you. Thank you for reading it so that now I never need to! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 (edited) Finished Desperate Undertaking (Lindsey Davis). One of the darker instalments in the Flavia Albia series, which itself generally has a somewhat grimmer tone than most of the Falco books. The murders – and there are many – are themed on deaths in Greek and Roman plays, often on ones adapted for use in the amphitheatre, including Pasiphae. I think in the Falco series, Davis either minimised through humour or carefully limited/fenced off some of the nastier aspects of Roman culture, so we saw it, but its implications, its full workings were less raw. Now Davis is less able or less inclined to turn away from it. Despite the grimness, I did enjoy it. Davis must have a truly encyclopaedic knowledge of the geography of Flavian-era Rome by now. Edited October 6 by dog-days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragile Bird Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 1 hour ago, dog-days said: Thank you for reading it so that now I never need to! I might have been exaggerating in the bleak hours of night, but my heavens, it’s like Midsomer Murders, where do the bodies and the assaults come from? The most recent numbers I saw show the US murder rate/ serious assault rate per 100,000 population at 6.81/246.84, Canada at 2.07/150.81 and Ireland at 0.44/93.51. The Irish murder rate is down to 0.44, and ffs, it’s only the 11th lowest in Europe! And the way Irish writers come up with murder and crime stories, you’d think it wasn’t safe to walk around! At least one of the characters has given me some words I may add to my page here: You’ve got to believe in the world if you want to save it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said: I might have been exaggerating in the bleak hours of night, but my heavens, it’s like Midsomer Murders, where do the bodies and the assaults come from? The most recent numbers I saw show the US murder rate/ serious assault rate per 100,000 population at 6.81/246.84, Canada at 2.07/150.81 and Ireland at 0.44/93.51. The Irish murder rate is down to 0.44, and ffs, it’s only the 11th lowest in Europe! And the way Irish writers come up with murder and crime stories, you’d think it wasn’t safe to walk around! At least one of the characters has given me some words I may add to my page here: You’ve got to believe in the world if you want to save it. I think part of the Irish literature scene is determined to be anything but the stereotype -- write a charming comic novel with a surrealist bent? Hell no. Give us black paint, family breakdown and used syringes in an empty bottle of Guinness. Ok, I guess many people growing up had to deal with things like the Church and small-town group-think and writing is a way to process that. Still, better you than me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted October 6 Share Posted October 6 9 hours ago, TheLastWolf said: unlike any 20th century dystopian novel I've ever read Welcome to the celebrated Philip K. Dick, an original within one of the most lemming-like genres ever! maarsen 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II Posted October 8 Share Posted October 8 I’m looking for my next grimdark fix, how’s Ember Blade by Chris Wooding ? Heard good things about it. Need to decide between that and the kithamar trilogy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Patrek Posted October 8 Share Posted October 8 Finished Jim Butcher's The Olympian Affair. The author is a bit overindulgent with the cats, which creates pacing issues that had me concerned for a while. But once he gets back on track, this one is even better than The Aeronaut's Windlass. Still too self-contained for my taste, but another fun and entertaining read. You can find the full review here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted October 8 Share Posted October 8 12 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said: ....a bit overindulgent with the cats... Admit this made me click through to the review and look up the book online. Overindulgence with dogs, octopuses, Welsh or haunted historical buildings would also have worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted October 8 Share Posted October 8 I'm reading The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon, a book about the corpses of AI mecha-gods being revived and piloted by tortured revenants. Which doesn't begin to get across how weird it actually is. I'm enjoying it a lot. Fragile Bird and Wilbur 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted October 8 Author Share Posted October 8 16 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said: I’m looking for my next grimdark fix, how’s Ember Blade by Chris Wooding ? Heard good things about it. Need to decide between that and the kithamar trilogy. I wouldn't say Ember Blade is really 'grimdark'. At the time I think Wooding said that he wanted to write something more akin to the epic fantasies of the 80s and 90s than most modern series although I think the series does have more cynicism than a lot of those did. I did enjoy it, although I don't think it's Wooding's best work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted October 8 Share Posted October 8 Just finished Lionel Davidson's Under Plum Lake, a short 1980 "young adult" novel which I'd wanted to get around to for years. It turned out to be worth reading but not spectacular. It was more a description of Egon, the fantasy or science fiction world he created, with not a great deal of characterization. I actually found the very beginning and the very end a bit creepy in how the young protagonist was presented. Before that I read Raft by Stephen Baxter, a science fiction novel about humans stranded in a universe where gravity is stronger than ours. I found it very interesting though parts of it were a bit gross. The viewpoint character, Rees, ends up being drafted as the leader of the refugees from a dying nebula at the end precisely because he is the one person who has lived in all three different human societies of the nebula. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted October 9 Share Posted October 9 On 10/6/2023 at 5:44 PM, Zorral said: Welcome to the celebrated Philip K. Dick, an original within one of the most lemming-like genres ever! Beat me to it. I have been a Philip K. Dick fan since the mid 70s. Yes he was a true original. I just wish he could have seen the huge impact his books have made in these latter years. Zorral 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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