What are you reading? Fourth Quarter 2023

[Wilbur]

Since Ser Not Appearing plans to eventually feature a novel by Lawrence Watt-Evans on his podcast, I was prompted to take one with me on the family trip to the cabins on Lake Patagonia State Park this past week.  I chose the first book of The Lords of Dûs, which is The Lure of the Basilisk.  Fortunately, I still possess the original paperbacks, which featured some excellent cover art, unlike the heated garbage of later re-printings.

LWE is a very workmanlike author from the 70s / 80s / 90s, very much in the line of John Maddox Roberts, in that he wrote (and still does write) a lot of books and stories published in various mags, and his writing is technically proficient.  Futhermore, much like John Maddox Roberts, the stuff he writes has nothing to do with popular conventions or trends current when he is writing.  You can't read their books and guess within five years the publishing date such as you can with a lot of other writers from that time period.  I don't know how popular writers like LWE or JMR are in the Eastern US, but their books are among those that you can still run across in used book stores in Western states.  But I digress.

The singular attraction of The Lure of the Basilisk (click me!) is that the plot does not follow the traditional quest milestones or usual twists and turns.  First of all, the protagonist is an Overman, the result of magical experimentation and a race defeated by humans three centuries past.  Unmotivated by sex or greed or the lust for power, he seeks something quite different.  As in many other LWE works, the process of achieving his goals is described in detail, and if you are a reader who finds that JRR Tolkien could have eased off the poetry and explained in slightly more detail exactly how you climb a cliff wearing a loaded pack, then this is the book for you.

In this manner, LWE touches on the territory of Jack Vance, who never, ever wrote a story with a straight storyline where the reader can predict what will happen next.  LWE doesn't delve quite as deeply into the random plotline mines, but you are not necessarily going to find the story going in the direction you expect.  And the same is true of the three following books in the storyline.

LWE himself doesn't seem to hold these books in high regard, but I find their sheer novelty of unexpected plotlines very refreshing.  In fact, I had forgotten how much I enjoy this aspect of these books until this week.  For this reason alone, these are great to read.

[Peadar]

7 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Since Ser Not Appearing plans to eventually feature a novel by Lawrence Watt-Evans on his podcast, I was prompted to take one with me on the family trip to the cabins on Lake Patagonia State Park this past week.  I chose the first book of The Lords of Dûs, which is The Lure of the Basilisk.  Fortunately, I still possess the original paperbacks, which featured some excellent cover art, unlike the heated garbage of later re-printings.

Strangely, this is an author I totally missed out on. Might try to rectify that soon.

 

For now, I am starting Adrian Tchaikovsky's House of Open Wounds. As always, a few pages in, I know I'm in good hands. This is set in the same world as his excellent City of Lost Chances, but apparently, you can read them in any order. Let's see...

[TheLastWolf]

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, one of the 10 Indian Booker winners ever, a must read. Man was up there with Rushdie in his command of the prose. It's epistolary (email, ahem) but not constrained in any way. Miss the meh movie if you can. 

[Wilbur]

6 hours ago, Peadar said:

Strangely, this is an author I totally missed out on. Might try to rectify that soon.

His early stuff had a lot of re-printings in various paperback forms and is available freely around the web:  The-Lure-of-the-Basilisk.pdf (readerslibrary.org)

The same is true with his short stuff, which was included regularly in a lot of anthologies that were a popular year-end product back in the day.  Particularly the Hugo-award-winning Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers - Wikipedia, which is all over the place.

His Facebook page is the typical grumpy-old-man reports of his travels with his wife to various cons (China this past month, for instance) with a dash of humor here and there, and regular reports on how many pages he got down each day in each of the three or four stories he has on the boil.  GRRM should be so transparent on his progress.

I don't want to make you think he is a transformative writer.  Just very competent, busy and a little off the mainstream in terms of his product.  I like his world building.

[williamjm]

I read N.K. Jemisin's The World We Make. In the author's afterword Jemisin comments that it was originally intended as a trilogy but they were finding it difficult to write a fantasy story about a troubled New York in such a troubled time in the real world so the series ended up being a duology. I think that does explain some things about the book, although the story is brought to a satisfying conclusion it does sometimes feel a bit rushed along the way and some plot points are skipped over. Since it has seven protagonists it does struggle to find something for them all to do so while some do get some character development in this others such as Bronca don't get much. It does have some interesting twists along the way, such as the revelations about Manny's background, and I liked the vignettes where New York's avatars meet those of other cities. Overall, it was a good series but does not really compare to Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

I've now started Kate Elliot's Furious Heaven, the second book in her space opera trilogy. After reading a hundred pages I think I've mostly managed to remember most of the plot points from the first book, there is a lot to keep track of.

On 12/22/2023 at 6:42 AM, mcbigski said:

I will second this.  Read it probably in the previous century, but parts of it still stick with me still.  Fine read.

In some ways it's probably dated, because it's old.  Also it struck me because the heel turns and anti-heel turns were much less obvious in that era.  I blame GRRM and Jamie Lannister.  Zelazny had more than his share of ambiguous characters, but I feel like he was breaking tropes here before it was cool.

I think it does have a timeless feel to it that would make it difficult to really place when it was written. It doesn't necessarily feel like a book that would be published today, but I think that would also have been true when it was first published in the early 90s.

[Zorral]

40 minutes ago, williamjm said:

N.K. Jemisin's The World We Make

She got a long, thoughtful piece on the novel by Francis Gooding in the LRB --Vol. 45 N0. 23 November 30 2023.

[ljkeane]

I read Kevin Wignall's A Fragile Thing. His books are usually pretty good spy/spy adjacent thrillers featuring fairly amoral protagonists but this one didn't really work for me. The main character's a bit too dislikeable and the thriller part of the story is a bit lacking, it's mostly the dislikeable main character feeling sorry for himself because his family don't like him and his university girlfriend broke up with him. A bit of shame because I usually enjoy Wignall's books so I thought this'd be a solid option for a good read for me.

Next up I'm going to read Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells.

[Liffguard]

Just finished two books that honestly stunned me, one fiction and one non-fiction.

The fiction is Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. I saw it recommended on Cory Doctorow's blog. An alternate history, classic noir murder mystery with hard-bitten detectives, roaring 20s industrialists and smokey jazz parlours. The pacing moves along at a good clip without ever feeling rushed, and the atmosphere and sense of place is deeply immersive.

The non-fiction was Instrumental by James Rhodes. This was a random charity shop find. Rhodes wrote an article once that still haunts me; Find What You Love and Let it Kill You. This is a memoir of brutal childhood abuse and the attempts of living with the long-term trauma of it. It's also a memoir about music and the power of music. Raw, frequently "problematic," anguished. Rhodes almost seems to go out of his way to paint an unsympathetic picture of himself that isn't warrented. At times I felt uncomfortably voyeuristic when reading. It also contains several passages of staggering beauty and insight. Major trigger warnings for graphic depictions of child rape, self-harm and suicide attempts. Nevertheless, definitely recommended.

[Fragile Bird]

I just finished the latest Murderbot book, System Collapse, which is essentially a continuation of the previous book, Network Effect. Murderbot finds out how much it shares with humans, like Dr. Mensa. It’s tightly focused on a small group of characters. I was concerned that this would be the final Murderbot book, but I trust that the dangling plot lines means we’ll see more of the series. I thought Three would get more development, for example, but it plays a very minor role here. And we learn more about the University which should also open up future possibilities. Wells is very comfortable in this universe and seems to know where she’s going.

I was waiting for The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, so took out another book by the same author, Claire North, called Touch. The premise here is that there are people who can possess your body merely by touching you. You don’t remember anything while you are possessed, so it can be quite disconcerting when you wake up. The protagonist discovers it’s being hunted and is desperately trying to figure the why and the who. I found the book interesting until it got repetitive and bogged down in the middle, so I skipped to the end to see what was really happening and then started to work my way back, but the book expired before I finished it.

Then Harry August arrived and I found I had the same problem, it was very interesting until it bogged down for me in the middle. Once again I skipped to the final chapters and now I need to pick it up in the middle again to complete it. The plot of this book is that there are people who are born, live their lives, die and find themselves being born again, but it’s back to the same life. After doing this a few times, with their memory of past lives eventually returning to them as they grow up, they find they can shape their lives differently so they can in fact live a different life. The problem is some of their fellow travelers really try to change history, which can turn out very badly.

I’ve just finished a book with a fairly high level of creepiness, enjoyable creepiness, called Foe, by Canadian author Iain Reid. It’s been turned into a movie but has pretty mediocre reviews. We’re in a dystopian future where a Tesla-like company is deeply involved with the government in running things. Our hero is told he’s made it to the long list, one he never applied for, to become part of a group going to a space station for a long period of time. Then he makes the short list and then is chosen, and the company tells him they need to gather information about him so that they can help his wife during his mission by providing her with a companion. The phrase “you can be replaced” becomes a reality. It occurred to me after a while that here in bilingual Canada the word “foe” is a homonym for the word “faux”, which I hope is exactly why the author picked the title. The creepiness builds up nicely and steadily, leading to a surprise/not a surprise ending. A decent read.

I tried to read The Art Thief, which I’m seeing in bookstores and on lists, but after reading the first 6 or 7 chapters I returned it. It’s the true story about a young man who loves art and decides he should steal beautiful pieces of artwork. He’s joined by his girlfriend. The two of them live in his parents house and commit brazen acts of daylight thievery, their room eventually filled with pieces worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Not my cup of tea. I just read the Wikipedia article about him and that was enough.

[Pellert]

I am about 30% into “The Darkness That Comes Before” by R Scott Bakker. 
 

So far I am extremely stoked, and I think these books are right up my alley in terms of what I like (in very broad terms relatively classic fantasy setting with swords, magic, globals wars, political plotting and twists/surprises), even though I could have easily lived with it being a bit less dark/grim, but it’s not a showstopper, it’s just not a necessity for me. 
 

but I have to admit, I am getting a bit confused struggling to follow all names, places/kingdoms, factions (/Schools), plots/plans and how they are connected and “who is where” and so on.
Can someone pitch in if this is normal for this and you just have to get used to the world and writing style and then it will fall into place by itself (I would say this is normal for most books I read, it takes some time to really get familiar with the world, but I seem to find that I am a bit more confused than normal in this series), or is this series “extra confusion” and require above-normal focus when reading? 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Pellert said:

I am about 30% into “The Darkness That Comes Before” by R Scott Bakker. 
 

So far I am extremely stoked, and I think these books are right up my alley in terms of what I like (in very broad terms relatively classic fantasy setting with swords, magic, globals wars, political plotting and twists/surprises), even though I could have easily lived with it being a bit less dark/grim, but it’s not a showstopper, it’s just not a necessity for me. 
 

but I have to admit, I am getting a bit confused struggling to follow all names, places/kingdoms, factions (/Schools), plots/plans and how they are connected and “who is where” and so on.
Can someone pitch in if this is normal for this and you just have to get used to the world and writing style and then it will fall into place by itself (I would say this is normal for most books I read, it takes some time to really get familiar with the world, but I seem to find that I am a bit more confused than normal in this series), or is this series “extra confusion” and require above-normal focus when reading? 

While I have the first book I have never read it. There’s a lot of discussion about Bakker in these threads, and a lot of jokes about his characters that go over my head because I haven’t read the books. But there’s thread after thread about his books here on the Literature section. I don’t know if they are active right now, but if you search Bakker or the book title lots should come up that you could check out.

Apparently Bakker gets quite weird in some of his books…

[unJon]

9 hours ago, Pellert said:

I am about 30% into “The Darkness That Comes Before” by R Scott Bakker. 
 

So far I am extremely stoked, and I think these books are right up my alley in terms of what I like (in very broad terms relatively classic fantasy setting with swords, magic, globals wars, political plotting and twists/surprises), even though I could have easily lived with it being a bit less dark/grim, but it’s not a showstopper, it’s just not a necessity for me. 
 

but I have to admit, I am getting a bit confused struggling to follow all names, places/kingdoms, factions (/Schools), plots/plans and how they are connected and “who is where” and so on.
Can someone pitch in if this is normal for this and you just have to get used to the world and writing style and then it will fall into place by itself (I would say this is normal for most books I read, it takes some time to really get familiar with the world, but I seem to find that I am a bit more confused than normal in this series), or is this series “extra confusion” and require above-normal focus when reading? 

It gets easier to follow. It also gets very much grimmer and darker. But mostly that’s the second trilogy. 

[williamjm]

9 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

While I have the first book I have never read it.

I also bought the book about the time it was being discussed a lot on the boards but never actually got round to reading it. I think some of the reactions I've read to how the series progressed didn't really encourage me to start it.

[LongRider]

5 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I also bought the book about the time it was being discussed a lot on the boards but never actually got round to reading it. I think some of the reactions I've read to how the series progressed didn't really encourage me to start it.

I read all but the last book.  Waste of time really.  However, YMMV, so I wouldn't discourage someone from starting the series,

[Pellert]

Thanks all.

Let’s see how it progress, for now at least I am very very content with how it has started and outlook going forward, but it’s still early days  

 

@Fragile Bird - yup, I just decided not to dig into those threads in fear of spoilers, seeing that I am only 30% into book 1 out of 6.. 

 

[Fragile Bird]

14 hours ago, LongRider said:

I read all but the last book.  Waste of time really.  However, YMMV, so I wouldn't discourage someone from starting the series,

This is the problem, do you want to invest the time in a series that will eventually seriously disappoint you, or worse, either disgust you or just bore you to death.

[Pellert]

4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

This is the problem, do you want to invest the time in a series that will eventually seriously disappoint you, or worse, either disgust you or just bore you to death.

I’m not sure if this want intended to me specifically or not (if not just disregard) but at least for me I have already heard lots of positive stuff about the (full) series and when I have listed my favourite series, Bakker came up many times as something to check out. Obviously, who knows what I will feel in a book’s time (or two, or three, or four) but at least I am very confident in trying it out and see where it takes me, so far so good at least  *fingers crossed*

[Fragile Bird]

32 minutes ago, Pellert said:

I’m not sure if this want intended to me specifically or not (if not just disregard) but at least for me I have already heard lots of positive stuff about the (full) series and when I have listed my favourite series, Bakker came up many times as something to check out. Obviously, who knows what I will feel in a book’s time (or two, or three, or four) but at least I am very confident in trying it out and see where it takes me, so far so good at least  *fingers crossed*

More of a general observation than anything else. Though when it comes to Bakker, people have had polar opposite opinions!

There are a lot of people in these threads whose guidance to or away from books has been very helpful.

[mcbigski]

Been devouring Abraham's Dagger and Coin series.  My local library has had vol 2-4 on the shelf for the last three years or so.  Finally got off my ass and read vol 1.  Enjoying them for sure.  If you like the Expanse, and you like multi point of view fantasy with relatively low magic, imperfect characters, and a solid back story and world building, you should probably give it a go.  Hopefully that's not too narrow a niche around here. 

[RhaenysBee]

Since I’m unlikely to finish any more books before the end of the year, here’s some of my books from the past couple months: 

Prisoners of Geography and The Power of Geography  both were incredible, insightful and opened a whole new tangible reality. It expanded my knowledge of the world and the put a new angle on my understanding of current events. Definitely a new and additional building block in my critical thinking and I’m truly grateful for it. Highly recommend. Lovely stuff.

The New Silk Roads was a bit too much detail for me but it’s possible that listening to it after the above two works, my brain just couldn’t soak up any more of the same. Well not same, obviously, but quite similar. I loved the Silk Roads a lot more, because it was about history. I recommend that to anybody and everybody. This one, check it out, but lower your expectations. 

The Hidden Life of Trees I’m actually a tad conflicted about this one. I loved the insights and learning so much about trees. But I never love the implied guilt package and moral high ground. Moving past that, highly recommend for the insights and the glimpse into an amazing world.

And I re-read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (the scientifically proven bestest, funniest, most amazingly paced and characterized Harry Potter book ever in the history of Harry Potter books), and I’m reading Goblet of Fire now.