December to Dismember: Books we're offing this month

[nickg]

Reading Germline by T C McCarthy and its awesome. If it keeps up the way it's going, I will have to add it to my best reads of 2011 list. I haven't heard much about it. Received it as a gift from my mom ( she always chooses the best hooks, I don't even give her suggestions anymore ) and im loving it.

I also finished Downbelow Station and its now one of my favorite Sf books. Definitely look forward to reading some more from Cherryh.

I also plan to start White Luck Warrior sometimes soon.

[The Winged Wolf Bran Stark]

Finished The Thousandfold Thought. Quite good. I'll hold off on starting The Aspect Emperor trilogy for a little while.

Won't start another book until the new year though.

[williamjm]

I finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It was fun, although also flawed, I've posted more about it in the other thread.

Current I'm reading Cyberadad Days by Ian McDonald. I liked River of Gods a lot, so it's nice to return to the setting. It's a good read, the poignant Dust Assassin story was the best of the shorts so far.

[Swift]

Finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last week. It was an overall entertaining book, but it got a little bit boring towards the end. I'm not drawn to read the rest of the books in the series. The first book seemed to have a lot of plot closure, and I'm not particularly enthralled with the characters, so I'll put the rest of the series on hold for now.

I'm almost done with Shadows of the Empire, a Star Wars novel that takes place between episode 5 and 6. The prose is much better than what was in Fifteen Hours (comparing because they are both kind of genre sci-fi).

I think next I will read The Hunger Games. Some of my coworkers have been recommending it to me, so I think it is worth a shot.

[Cuchulain]

Current I'm reading Cyberadad Days by Ian McDonald. I liked River of Gods a lot, so it's nice to return to the setting. It's a good read, the poignant Dust Assassin story was the best of the shorts so far.

Cyberabad Days isn't bad, but I didn't like it nearly as much as River of Gods. The last story in the collection, Vishnu at the Cat Circus, is the best imo (probably because it's the only one directly related to the events in River of Gods).

[Inigima]

It is the end of the month, just about, but I am taking the opportunity to visit Goodreads and wipe the slate clean of the five or so books I started and to which I did not return. Feeling guilty about not wanting to read them, and about having started so many books, has been keeping me from doing very much pleasure reading. I am now celebrating my newfound freedom with Harkaway's The Gone-Away World, which comes highly recommended by nearly everyone.

[Cuchulain]

I recently read Alastair Reynolds' House of Suns. It's different from the Revelation Space series, but still retains all the elements which make Reynolds' fiction so great. Really loved it.

Earlier today I finished A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. This novel is hilarious. Only rarely do I come across books which can make me laugh out loud like this.

[Larry.]

Finished a few books lately (and hope to finish at least two more tonight):

Catherynne M. Valente, The Folded World - I'm familiar with the Prester John myth and I liked her take on it. Strong second installment.

Edward Hirsch (ed.), Theodore Roethke: Selected Poems. Roethke is one of my favorite mid-20th century American poets, so this was a joy to read.

Michael Warner (ed.), American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr. - interesting to see how the language and context shifted over time.

Marcel Proust, Albertine disparue - more thoughts later, but the sixth volume of Proust was not as interesting to me as the previous five. Onwards and upwards for the final volume.

Geoff Ryman, Paradise Tales - Damn good collection that was released earlier this year. One of the year's best, easily.

J.M. McDermott, Women and Monsters - More akin to his Last Dragon novel than Never Knew Another in style. Very good transposing of Greek myths to modern situations.

Honor Moore (ed.), Amy Lowell: Selected Poems - another in the Library of America The American Poets Project, this was a discovery for me, as I was previously unaware of Lowell's contributions to Imagist poetry.

Nearly 900 pages into Péter Nádas' Parallel Stories. Will be writing a formal review sometime in January. It's an extremely ambitious book whose flaws are magnified due to the sheer scope of exploration, but its failures are stronger than most novels' strengths.

Should finish reading Caitlín Kiernan's Two Worlds and In Between collection later today or tomorrow. Very good, up there with the Ryman.

The Library of America two-volume edition of Edmund Wilson's criticism is enjoyable so far, a little over 200 pages into the first volume.

Petrarch's Il Canzoniere di Petrarca is delightful so far, a little over a third of the way into it.

Plan on starting Carlo Ginzburg's Threads and Traces: True False Fictive shortly. Ginzburg's classic The Cheese and the Worms was a major reason why earned two degrees in history and concentrated on cultural history for grad school.

[SkynJay]

Oh, Black Lung Captain was an awesome book(thank you in-laws!). Damn if that golem didn't bring me close to tears again. So toucing

Is Iron Jackal out in the states yet? Or is it just not available as an e-book?

Started God's War today for my next read.

[nickg]

I'm not a fan of zombies, but I bought Toothless by J P Moore today on my kindle for pretty cheap ( $4.99 ). It follows a reanimated templar in 12th century France forced into the service of an ancient evil rampaging across Europe. Sounded interesting to me. Don't think I have seen it mentioned here before. Going to dive into it after I finish Germline.

[beniowa]

Is Iron Jackal out in the states yet? Or is it just not available as an e-book?

It's not out in the states yet, no. Only in the UK. No idea about the e-book.

[RedEyedGhost]

It's not out in the states yet, no. Only in the UK. No idea about the e-book.

Amazon.co.uk has a kindle edition, and someone said in a thread the other day that you can change your address to a UK address and be able to purchase.

[Jojen]

I'm closing out the year with Old Man's War. Really enjoyed it. Great mix of action, pathos, humor, and crazy and interesting aliens. Looking forward to Ghost Brigades, but not sure what I'll start the new year with yet.

[RedEyedGhost]

I'm going to be lazy and just quote myself from the Best Of 2011 thread:

The book I just finished is M.J. Locke's Up Against It. It's about a colony in the 25 Phocaea asteroid cluster, and how shit hits the fan when there's a problem with a much needed shipment of methane ice (and why the problem occurred). I was surprised with how well written it was, but after reading the acknowledgements page I can understand (you can use the Look Inside feature on Amazon to see what I'm talking about). The structure is similar to ASoIaF's on a much smaller scale except the POV shifts occur within individual chapters, and this is an area in which Locke excels - each and every POV character feels like a unique person and their personal spin on the situation and other characters is always there. The climax was very exciting, and kept me up reading about 2 hours longer than I had planned last night. Highly recommended (and the paper back comes out next week which means the ebook prices should be dropping too :))

So it's not Tor Fantasy, but it's a great book from them and really deserves to be read. In fact, I think this might be my favorite Sci-fi book of the year; depending on whether or not I choose to classify The Iron Jackal as Sci-fi this week or not, and it's also slightly ahead of the similar Leviathan Wakes (similar in the way that Hollywood seems to put out multiples of the same movie: Armageddon and Deep Impact, Volcano and Dante's Peak, the two Snow White movie in '12).

I then started The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones, I've been looking forward to this one for awhile now. I haven't read enough to form an opinion yet, but it is very readable.

Reading Germline by T C McCarthy and its awesome. If it keeps up the way it's going, I will have to add it to my best reads of 2011 list. I haven't heard much about it. Received it as a gift from my mom ( she always chooses the best hooks, I don't even give her suggestions anymore ) and im loving it.

There was a bit of discussion about a couple of months back, when I was trying to decide between it, Up Against It, God's War, and Embedded. I've yet to see any bad reviews of it. (It's weird how Germline and Embedded have very similar premises as do Up Against It and Leviathan Wakes...) I'll have to pick up Germline early next year; I think the sequel comes out in February.

[SkynJay]

Amazon.co.uk has a kindle edition, and someone said in a thread the other day that you can change your address to a UK address and be able to purchase.

Know any details? Gotta change my address in Amazon or what?

[RedEyedGhost]

Know any details? Gotta change my address in Amazon or what?

I don't have an e-reader, so I'm probably not the best to answer this but here's the posts I was referencing

Also,if you are outside the UK,just change your address to a UK one in your Amazon account settings,i have been buying from the amazon UK (and US) store by changing the address ,it's pretty simple.

So, to me it sounds like you just need to add it too your cart, and at check out change your address to somewhere in the UK because it will reject the sale if you use US address. Give it a try and see what happens. If it doesn't work you could always pm AncalagonTheBlack and see if he can help.

[Peadar]

Don't think I have seen it mentioned here before.

You would be wrong about that :)

For my part, I have just finished Farlander. No idea what to read next. Not feeling very inspired.

[kcf]

Finally got a review of Leviathan Wakes up. It was good. I've also got forthcoming reviews for Blackdog by K.V. Johansen and The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer. I'm currently reading Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch.