Our reads in October 2019

Once more its Halloween month. Do tell us of any special reads you may be planning.

Dusty's TBR for October
SF/F reads
Roger Zelazny - My Name is Legion ✔
Clifford D Simak - Cemetery World✔
Clifford D Simak - Goblin Reservation ✔
John Jakes - Time Gate✔
Jack Vance - The Killing Machine ✔
C J Cherryh - Angel with the Sword✔
Vonda N MacIntyre - Starfarers ✔
Graham Masterton - Rook7#10004
Ted White - Jewels of Elsewhen✔
Patricia Briggs - Storm Cursed ✔

reads from other genres
Tove Jansson - Tales from Moominvalley ✔
Tove Jansson -Moominvalley in November ✔
Amanda Lee - Quick and the Thread✔

for Halloween
H P Lovecraft - selected stories stories
Caroline Mitchell - Murder Game ✔
Angela Marsons - Silent Scream ✔

all light easy stuff this month,no heavy award winners or massive tomes! :0)

Tonight, I will begin my re-read of A Night in the Lonesome October.

Also continuing with House of Leaves and Fevre Dream. The latter is currently taking most of my attention. As I was warned by pgmcc, House of Leaves is requiring a handful of bookmarks to help keep track of things. I am not in a hurry to finish the book and am enjoying the digressions and weirdness of the narrative(s).

I do expect to be through with the GRRM within the next couple of days. My e-reading will then likely return to genre with either Leviathan Wakes, or perhaps Rimrunners.

For October I have lined up The October Man (strictly a fluke), Angles of Attack and Embers of War.

I'm still re-reading the classics. Just finishing up The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, then on to The Ice Schooner by Michael Moorcock.

>5 SFF1928-1973: I detect a theme.

Reading City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett...

>3 ScoLgo: I got away with three bookmarks. :-)

My concession to October's creeping Goth-liness is attempting to bookhorn in Goblin Reservation by Simak.

I'm having to re-read Elysium so my review will make sense and not be "I likeded it a real lot," I'm a little stalled on Amatka which I am admiring more than enjoying at the moment, and (look, Claire!) Trinity Sight is already on its way to my local library! Again, my name was on the holds so they bought a copy; I'll get it soon, they'll be able to lend it out to other hold-queue-rs.

Not reading anything SF at the moment, but I do have two fantasies going: The Black Company by Glen Cook and A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie. I am enjoying the Cook more than the Abercrombie.

>10 seitherin: How does The Black Company compare to the Malazan books? I am on Memories of Ice right now and have Black Company as a possibility for after Malazan (if another shiny object doesn't distract me!)

>11 drmamm: The only Malazan book I've read was the first one and that was 17 years ago. I don't really remember anything about it, but based on my rating at the time, I wasn't very impressed with it. On the other hand, I'm enjoying The Black Company.

I'm planning to tackle Dracula this month, and then possibly one of three Roger Zelazny books I snagged through Ebay.

I just finished Turning Darkness Into Light by Marie Brennan. I have started Fleet of Knives by Gareth Powell.

In honor of Halloween, I have The Shadow at the Bottom of the World, The Halloween Tree and The Goblin Reservation to read. I might also read The Castle of Otranto some Shirley Jackson short stories or A Night in the Lonesome October if I can find my copy.

Not much sci-fi so far this month. I have Velocity Weapon on hold at the library, but I am not sure if I will get it this month.

>14 daxxh: Oh! The Castle of Otranto! I wonder if a re-read would give me the delight of the first one...tempted to unearth it and try. Thanks for the reminder.

>2 dustydigger: Dustydigger
Tove Jansson also wrote some good adult books, like The Summer Book and The True Deceiver. Different mode than the Moomin books -- more spare, even bleak, in a Scandinavian sort of way, but beautifully done.

>11 drmamm: Same sort of atmosphere, somewhat simpler world and narrative in the sense that there isn't the explosion of other races, other planes, or simultaneous action on multiple continents that you can see in the Malazan books. It's mostly humans, and the narration seldom strays far from the members of the company or others who are either involved with them or will in time be.

Finished Ninefox Gambit. It's basically fantasy with a spaceship on the cover. The plot consists of people lecturing each other, and the level of violence is way past gratuitous. Not impressed. Now rereading The Dragon Reborn as part of my foolish project to reread the Wheel of Time and ACTUALLY FINISH IT THIS TIME.

>16 rshart3: I read The Summer Book last year and thought it was fantastic,definitely one of my top reads of the year.Subtle,haunting,and the grandmother is such a great character. Both she and the girl seem to be aspects of Jansson herself. Great stuff
>14 daxxh: some good stuff there,daxxh. Goblin Reservation seems popular lately,richardderus wants to squeeze it in,and I actually have about 40 pages of it left to read.Its certainly off the wall,almost farcical,but good fun. Just not like any other Simak I have read. Still,as always we get those lyrical descriptions of his beloved Wisconsin.
Yesterday I got out a book about SF that caught my eye,George Mann's Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction(pub.2001) which is quite nice,but was annoyed that Clifford D Simak was not among the list of authors discussed,which didnt please me,since Ron Hubbard was in there! lol. Actually apart from not having Simak,the list of authors was very interesting,and George Mann has some sharp points about the authors and some of their best books.so I see the TBR increasing rapidly in the near future! :0)

>18 iansales: my masochistic project to reread the Wheel of Time and ABANDON IT FOREVER THIS TIME

Fixed it for you.

>19 dustydigger: Simak not discussed in a "Mammoth Encyclopedia"?! Like, at all?!? Or just not part of a special group of in-depth discussions? Because if he's simply not there, the book should auf Jesus geleben.

>19 dustydigger: Have read The Summer Book, The True Deceiver and A Winter Book, and from what I remember A Winter Book was probably the best of them.

Due to returning to school and other life events in the 1990s I missed a lot of great books. At the recommendation of a friend I took Snow Crash out of the library and finally filled that lacunae in my reading. Even though it was written over 25 years ago I didn't find it was dated; in fact Stephenson did a pretty good job of predicting some things about the future of computing considering what the status of that field was when he was writing. And the refugee problems seem taken right off the news sites today. I also liked the main characters especially Y.T. the teenaged skate boarder.

>20 richardderus: Simak isnt not named anywhere that I can see,not in the index,not on the author list. Not even in the short articles on humanist or literary SF authors,as I would have expected. Nor is Way Station,one of my favourite novels in the list of books in the appendix.
On the other hand,Kevin J Anderson,Brian Herbert and Randy Rucker are on the list. Go figure! :0)
It is heavily weighted to 80s and 90s writers,and he is generous and astute in his comments,and choice of their best works.
Mann pays very high tribute to John Campbell,and at a time when the Big Three were coming under attack he is very kind to Asimov,reveres Clarke greatly and is very fair on Heinlein.
He finds Stranger in a Strange Land overblown and over rated,and is candid about the sad,often embarrassing decline in his work but says;
''It is a shame that a writer who started out with such power and ability should decline so sadly in his later years.Nevertheless he remains one of the giants of American SF.and was one of the most influential authors the genre had seen since H G Wells.His Future History sequence will be remembered for its vitality and originality,his juveniles for their exuberance and sense of adventure,and many of his singletons for their complexity and depth.Heinlein was one of only a handful of truly great writers that the genre has so far seen,and the SF genre itself,to the extent that he heled to shape it,is his works most abiding monument.''
So I will reluctantly forgive Mann for his omission of Simak,and wont throw the book at the wall,but will continue enjoying his opinions,and will surely be addingto my towering Mount TBR

>23 dustydigger: Well, happen I agree with him about Heinlein, but the issue I have is with the decision to call this work an "Encyclopedia" when it is a survey. Eando Binder, Barrington J. Bayley, many other second- (or lower, depending on whom one asks) writers are bound to be left out. But hey, it's only $1.99 on Kindle, so worth it...and worth noting that it came out first in 1999 when Rudy Rucker was lookin' like Somebody.

Knocked off Embers of War (B+) yesterday evening and rather liked it, this is while admitting that you could make a drinking game about spotting the influences. Not to mention that, if you wanna ask me, there were better novels on that 2018 BSFA slate.

>25 Shrike58: I was unimpressed. It was all very identikit.

>23 dustydigger: I think it's Rudy Rucker not Randy Rucker. But perhaps you know more about his personal life than I?

>27 justifiedsinner: Oops,JS,my mistake! lol. I read a couple of his books but wasnt too impressed.Aimed at guys,not a lot to attract me

>24 richardderus: Well,it is just a title in a whole series of ''Mammoth Book of....Dogs,Bridge,British Kings and Queens etc etc. So I suppose they called it an encyclopaedia just to align it with the rest of the series.

I know you weren't impressed. Still, "like" is not the same as calling something the best thing ever; and this novel is not all that. I thought it was a perfectly good entertainment but not worthy of an award.

Jumping into Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams, enjoying it quite a lot so far.

>31 rocketjk: I loved Hardwired and have been meeting to get back to that series for a long time, now.

I finished and reviewed Ark by Veronica Roth, she of the Divergent series that I, for one, found very very wanting. This story, while not breaking fresh ground, had some nice phrase-making and a likeable protagonist.

Knocked off The October Man (B+) this evening; not as over-the-top as the "Peter Grant" stories but still worth reading if you enjoy Ben Aaronovitch's take on urban fantasy.

Ted White's The Jewels of Elsewhen was a odd little book,leaning more towards horror at timesbut quite fun as we learn that the jewels can open the way to different timelines. Turns out Leonardo Da Vinci is doing time experiments! :0)
Simak's Goblin Reservation was a bit bonkers too,with a disparate cast including a doppelganger,a neanderthal,a ghost,Shakespeare,a bio-engineered sabretooth tiger,trolls,goblins and even a dying Banshee.Plus a dragon and some nasty aliens. Not at all like normal Simak,but amusing fare. And the gang all end up drinking a lovely new batch of October wine,so its appropriate to October.:0)
Next up Vonda N McIntyre's Starfarers.
Sorry for some reason the touchstones are not working.

>34 dustydigger: Site search is down, and when that happens touchstones also stop working. You can add them later when search is back up again.

Edit to add: Hey, search is back again!

Reading City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett, finishing up the trilogy (all have been quite good and engaging)....

Summer Frost by Blake Crouch gave me collywobbles. Almost five stars'-worth of 'em.

>37 richardderus:. Collywobbles. Good old fashioned word that. I rarely read horror,I am a wimp,I hate the stuff with too much blood and gore,can only read ghost stories and lighter stuff like Lovecraft.
I do however strongly remember about 10 years ago starting out on a Robert Aickman's ''strange tale'' and having to give up after a few pages because I was so scared,and have never tried any of his works since. :0)
Anyone else have a particular author or book that gave them the collywobbles?

>38 dustydigger: John Saul...read one of his books The God Project, couldn't put it down, but would NEVER EVER read anything by that author again.

I'm not a wimp, I'm just not interested in graphic descriptions of gore, sex, violence. Give me dialogue any day!

>38 dustydigger: I spoil myself before picking anything new-to-me by Stephen King, to make sure it's the kind of horror I can enjoy, mainly because of Misery. Gore (beyond a point, admittedly largely arbitrary depending on how engrossed I otherwise am in the story), torture and restraint or confinement seem to be some big no-noes for me and it has the last two in spades.

I'm listening to the Serial Box app series "Orphan Black: The Next Chapter" by Malka Older. Serial Box is an app for science fiction and fantasy ebooks and audiobooks. This is my first purchase from the app. I was a big fan of the Orphan Black television series, which had a suspense plot featuring a variety of clones. The reader on the Serial Box series is the brilliant Tatiana Maslany herself, who played the clones on TV, and the audiobook production is very well done. I admit I'm not a very critical audience on this one since I love the characters so much, but I recommend it. I believe that you can read or listen to the first chapter on Serial Box for free.

Finished Zelazny's My Name is Legion about a covert investigator in a near future(the 3 linked stories written in the 60s and 70s) when all info about a person is collated by the government. The protagonist has got out of the system,and is a sort of spy and investigator for a PI company,changing his name and profile repeatedly,hence the title.Engaging enough,but a little skewed by too large dollops of philosophy IMO.Often the fantasy part is rather slight,its more of a James Bond sort of romp.The final story,''Home is the Hangman'' was aboth a Hugo and Nebula nominee.
Starting Jack Vance's The Killing Machine book 2 of the Demon Princes series.which I was frustrated about when I couldnt find a free copy anywhere. Then this week I found a cute little website with a lot of interesting old SF to read free,and there was the second Demon Prince tale.so after reading it I can go on to book 4 and 5,and finish the series :0)
I found Poul Anderson,Algis Budrys, ERBs Carson of Venus series ,PKD, Kornbluth,Kuttner/C L Moore, Le Guin's first three Hainiah novels,loads of Andre Norton,Edgar Pangborn,Joanna Russ's Picnic on Paradise and Female Man,Margaret St Claire(very pleased with that!) lots of Sturgeon,some Van Vogt(which cost an eyewatering £44 to buy) a alot of other old stuff.I am working my way through Jim Wallace Harris Defining SF of the 1950s over on WWEndhave read 75/125 on his list,and between Open Library and Luminist I will be able to read about another 20 books on the list. Great.
Plus for some reason,masses of Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross's Accelerando .
checkout - www.luminist.org/archives/ (sorry,cant make the link work)

Just finished Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief. I enjoyed it, though there were times when I felt like someone displaced in time from the 16th Century being shown computers or a photocopier or even a modern kitchen for the first time.

Next up will be an excursion into fantasy, with Steph Swainson's The Year of our War.

I reviewed Nora Jemisin's Emergency Skin, a pleasure to read despite some tendency to Instruct before entertaining the reader.

Back to reading Ben Bova's Moonwar as I attempt to complete the Grand Tour....

Finished The Highest Frontier, Tales from Outer Suburbia, The Philosopher Kings, and Binti: The Complete Trilogy. Glad to have read all of them. Now reading Among Others.

>37 richardderus:. I had to read Summer Frost to see what kind of book could give one collywobbles (love this word). Yep. It sure did. Cannot say that for all the horror stories that I have been reading this month.

>47 daxxh: Didn't it just, though! I was and am wobbled in my collys and still thinking about the very very very disturbing ending.

One I suspect is being played out before my appalled eyes, in fact.

Finished my reread of The Dragon Reborn. It's a definite improvement on the previous two books, although that's not a high bar to clear. Nynaeve's tugging of her braid has now gone beyond annoying. Mat and Perrin's teenage angst over women is becoming increasingly irritating. Rand is pretty much a blank in this novel. And the plot is the usual travelogue for 80%, history lessons for 15% and everything wrapped up in a big action set-piece at the end. Except not for this one, as the ending is a straight-forward hook for the next book.

Now reading a different genre: Greeks Bearing Gifts, the last-but-one book of the excellent Bernie Gunther series of crime novels.

I've started reading The record keeper which is more dystopian than SF but interesting.

>49 iansales: Its along time since I read any Philip Kerr,whom I think is somewhat underated.I found him an interesting author right from his firstnovel,A Philosophical Investigation. He always has a slightly offbeat take on things,and has quite a wide range of subgenres.And of course the Bernie Gunther books.I have been trying to locate a copy ofhis Dark Matterabout Sir Isaac Newton.
Ouch. Jut checked up and found he died in 2018,aged only 62. Sad.

btw,I am getting together next year's SF/F lists,and since I am woefully under represented with female authors on my shelf (apart from Bujold,CherryhMcCaffrey and Norton of course) I had a look at your Mistressworks list on WWEnd and was shocked to find I have only read 17/100 on the list.Oops,that pretty bad,isnt it? lol.
So I want to aim to get that up to about 30 in 2020.

As usual getting hold of C L Moore's work is difficult,or pricey or both,but there is a kindle edition of Judgment Night for £4. better get it now before the Brexit mess makes all the prices go up! :0).I see that the cheap megapacks which were all 59phave already jumped to 85p,a hint of whats to come I suppose.

Reading Ben Bova's Privateers as I continue on the Grand Tour....

>51 dustydigger: The first three Bernie Gunther novels were published before A Philosophical Investigation. I've read everything he's written - bar the current book, and its sequel (his last ever book), and his children's books. There were a couple of potboilers, but most of his novels are very good.

I've not been able to tackle any books from the SF Mistressworks list since I moved countries. However, I picked up Herland for 99p on Kindle, Woman on the Edge of Time too, and I found a copy of Missing Man at secondhand bookshop here.

Judgment Night is an excellent space opera. I should give it a reread. I bought a slipcased facsimile first edition a couple of years ago, but unfortunately it's in storage with the rest of my books.

I know Margaret Atwood prefers the term speculative fiction to science fiction for her work but I think that The Testaments which I just finished is science fiction for me. As you probably all know it is the follow-up to The Handmaid's Tale and I think it does justice to that story and to the oeuvre of the author.

>54 gypsysmom: And now she's co-won the Booker: Dual Booker Prize winner, neither one anything like the quality I'd expect. Depressing, if I'm honest.

>49 iansales: re: Wheel of Time. I'm not sure how far you got the first time, but "the slog" is going to kill you. The first three books had lightning-fast pacing compared to the slog. You will probably heave the book across the room midway through book 9. The slog is loosely defined as the entirety of books 8-10, with a little bit of 7 and 11 as well. Second half of 11 picks up the pace, then Sanderson slams the accelerator to the floor for the last 3. Even the biggest WoT fans admit that Robert Jordan lost the thread and just started meandering around.

With all that said, I loved Wheel of Time, and came to view all of the braid-tugging, skirt smoothing, lip licking and ear-boxing as endearing. (Although his obsession with breasts got a little old).

>56 drmamm: I think I got to about book 8 or 9. They all started to blur into one giant tome in which nothing happened. I know gave up before he died. I could have just read the books I'd not read but I didn't think I'd be able to pick up the story after a couple of decades way from it. Hence the reread.

Added Killing Gravity by Corey J. White to my reading rotation.

Another disappointment dealt to me yesterday: You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles, in the Amazon Originals series Forward, wasn't very good. So far I've really liked the series. This one, not so much. I just don't like Towles' writing, it would seem, having Pearl Ruled the Moscow and Civility ones.

Added The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction January/February 2019 to my reading rotation.

Thoroughly enjoyed Jenny Nimmo's The Snow Spider. Its amazing how many authors of junior fiction have transposed the ancient Welsh myths into impressive books,includingSusan Cooper (Dark is Rising) Alan Garner (Owl Service)and Lloyd Alexander' Prydain cycle,and even C S Lewis Narnia books were influenced by the Mabinogian as was Lord of the Rings.
Now reading Cemetery World and Starfarers

Just finished The Immortals by James Gunn. Struck me as very Asimov-like: exploration of ideas, with cardboardy characters, creaky plotting, and rather flat writing. It was readable but I wouldn't say much more for it. If SF really were about predictions, though, he did pretty well on that -- much of what he speculated in the 50s was on target.

Just started Farewell, Earth's Bliss, which is unfortunately showing its age.

>61 dustydigger: I first heard of the Mabinogion through the novels of Evangeline Walton; although they were never sold as YA fiction (AFAIK), I certainly first encountered them in my late teenage years (and haven't looked at them much since).

>63 iansales: As is the case for 'Farewell..." I saw a lot of D.G. Compton novels when I worked as Saturday assistant in my local library in the 1970s, and they were rarely shelved as SF. I remember them as being very Seventies novels, sort of psychological techno-thrillers but with not that much tech actually in them.

The Privateers by Ben Bova has been the most dated of the Grand Tour books - the USSR is the dominate power in space and the US is in decline both in space and economically (with a female president, no less). Besides the setting being all wrong the characterizations are very stereotypical - all the men are womanizers who sleep around all the time, etc. I'm hoping things change as the publication date progresses into modern decades.

I did start The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu last night - interesting how it starts shortly after China's Cultural Revolution and is bracketed by the Mao-era policies that once (and some say still) define Chinese politics. So far so good, about 3 chapters in.

>65 johnnyapollo: I don't think Bova ever gets much beyond what you describe.

>64 RobertDay: I rate Compton as one of the best science fiction writers the UK has produced. He started out writing crime novels under the name Guy Compton, and later wrote historical romance novels as Frances Lynch. But the sf novels he wrote in the 1970s and 1980s as DG Compton are among the best-written sf ever published - and yes, they're very much of their time in terms of aesthetic (and, occasionally, sensibility).

>67 iansales: Indeed, some of his later sf novels were very sfnal: The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe and Chronocules, especially under its very zeitgeisty original title.

(Oh, if you insist: "Hot wireless sets, aspirin tablets, the sandpaper sides of used matchboxes, and something that might have been castor oil")

Finished up Angles of Attack (B-) yesterday. Even keeping in mind the relatively low bar Kloos set for himself when starting this series he's reached a point where more depth of world-building is necessary as background, particularly since he's going to be leaving the gutter/worm's-eye level of his society and having his protagonist climb the chain of command.

Finished Killing Gravity by Corey J. White. It was OK.

The last two stories in the Forward Collection, The Last Conversation and Randomize, were very satisfying reads. Tremblay's story tells of the huge demands that loneliness makes on a survivor; Andy Weir's story is a deeply satisfying heist-with-a-happy-ending. Of all the collection, there was only one I wasn't fond of! Out of six! Amazing.

I just finished The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, a writer I had not run across before. I subscribe to John Scalzi's RSS feed of his blog mainly because of the Big Idea platform he offers to other writers and this book was one that was featured a few months ago. Although I didn't quite buy the technology of teleportation using light I can see how, if it was implemented, it could have the kind of unintended effects displayed in the novel. The world posited by Hurley seems pretty dire with corporations taking the place of governments and using the common folk to fight their corporate takeovers. However, that really doesn't seem like too much of a stretch from present day. I liked it quite a lot and I will be looking for other books by Hurley.

For a change of pace I am now reading a book of Spider Robinson's short stories By Any Other Name. This is a collection he compiled in 2000 of stories that had not been collected elsewhere and so some of them are now quite old but you can skip over most of the dates and still enjoy the story. Spider himself said in the foreward to the book that he was a little surprised at how optimistic he was when he wrote the stories but he decided that was not a bad thing. To the best of my knowledge Spider has not written anything since his wife and daughter died and I miss him. But I do understand.

Finished Simak's Cemetery World,one of his lesser works,but still very enjoyable if you just relax and ignore the improbabilities.Like The Goblin Reservation we have a slightly bonkers plot with a huge funeral company using he earth for a cemetery,a post nuclear world,some robots,sentient war machines ,a somewhat pioneer American society,grave robbers,robots,ghosts aaaaaaand even time travel! All enormous fun - and only 190 pages long. Perfect relaxation material when outside we are have torrential continuous rain,and inside the TV is wall to wall Brexit.

Finished Semiosis by Sue Burke. A bit episodic to start with - and some conclusions were reached rather too glibly at first - but the big ideas drew me in and I was fascinated by the exploration of ethics, sentience, and communication that developed. Highly recommended

Flames by Robbie Arnott is outstanding in its Tasmanian-tinged magical realism. I was up until 2am finishing it. I've posted a para from my blog review because this is gonna take all day to write, revise, and titivate. What a delight this quarter's reading is shaping up to be!

>73 dustydigger: That was one of my all-time favorite reads in the 1970s, and somehow I'd forgotten it until recently. It's fun to rediscover the good stuff from the dead past.

>68 RobertDay: I have that book hiding on my bookshelves somewhere. It's the edition with the original name.

Read The Shadow at the Bottom of the World. Some stories were ok, but some were boring. That is why I don't really like horror that much. I prefer the psychological horror to gore, but a lot is just boring to me. I like Stephen King, because he writes such awesome characters.

I read The Halloween Tree because it is the month of Halloween and it was by Bradbury. I am not much for kid books, but I liked this one. I also read, because it is the month of Halloween, The Thousand and One Ghosts (who knew Alexandre Dumas wrote ghost stories) and The Castle of Otranto (I seem to have developed a taste for old gothic stories after reading a bunch for a challenge). I also have Simak's The Goblin Reservation to read before the end of the month.

I read The Battle of Dorking for a challenge. I am not one for reading page after page of battle details. I prefer "there was a battle and now it's over" kind of read, but I can see how this was excellent for its day. I also read The Dispatcher which was good. It should make a good tv show. Read Emergency Skin which was also good. I am going to download the rest of the Forward stories since the first two that I read were good. (I really liked Summer Frost and need to read more Blake Crouch. That story was a lot creepier that any of the horror stories I have been reading and it's not a horror story.)

I am almost finished with Insurgent. I am not sure why I am reading this, as I thought Divergent was teenage drivel. I have also started Caine's Mutiny, which I expect that I will like as I have liked the others in the series.

>68 RobertDay: >67 iansales: I have never read any Compton, but have just ordered an omnibus containing Synthajoy, The Steel Crocodile and The Silent Multitude. >76 pgmcc: Had I ever come across a book with that title, I would have bought it, assuming that with a cool title like that, it would have to be good.

>76 pgmcc: And the original cover looks even more zeitgeisty!

>77 daxxh: Have read all three of those Comptons. Synthajoy is especially good. The Steel Crocodile has an interesting structure - the story is told from two viewpoints, and they often overlap. The Silent Multitude doesn't actually read much like sf. All three are very 1970s.

Interestingly, The Steel Crocodile became The Electric Crocodile in some editions and/or markets.

>80 RobertDay:
Yup, I have a Dutch edition from 1978 that is translated as "The Electric Crocodile" (De elektrische krokodil)

>80 RobertDay: The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe has several different titles too.

Enjoyed my reread of C J Cherryh's Angel With the Sword. You slide into Cherryh's worlds so softly,so easily,and then you are totally immersed in the mind,thoughts and emotions of the protagonist because of the strict adherence to her POV,and returning to the real world comes as a bit of a shock,and you want to dive back in again.Not the easiest of styles which is perhaps why Cherryh isnt more widely acknowledged she is ,but those who get her are very loyal indeed.I have been following her for over 30 years,and wish her really good health to keep on going for another decade - she's now 77! :0)

>83 dustydigger: My first-ever con experience, OKon in 1978, I rode the elevators every day with Cherryh, who was something official at the con. She was *tiny* and approachable and so very kind to a young, star-struck fan! I read her books with that good memory in my mind.

>83 dustydigger: >84 richardderus: Some of CJ Cherryh's books put me in a different headspace just by her use of language. Some of Gene Wolfe's books do too, but it is a different alternate space.

Finished off The Year of our War in pretty quick order. Unusual take on a fantasy world: the book opens with a flying man coming into town and buying a newspaper to read an account of the King's most recent press conference. The setting is sort of an identikit fantasy world, but odd stuff keeps intervening, such as intravenous drug abuse, T-shirts saying that the wearer ran the Hacilith Marathon in 1974, distances measured in the metric system, a twenty-four hour clock and a seven-day week using our Norse-originated names. So either the world-building is incredibly sloppy or this is an SF novel set on a far future lost colony world. (And indeed, whilst there are inexplicable things happening, there is no magic as such.)

But I enjoyed it immensely, possibly because of all these contemporary vibes elbowing their way in. (The dialogue is fairly contemporary, too.)

Now lining up Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect.

About C J Cherryh,though I have read over 40 of her books,and have no less than 38 of them on my physical shelf,I am still locating books to fill the gaps in my reading. I am delighted to have recently found Brothers of Earth,Hunter of Worlds,Voyager in Night,and best of all,Forge of Heaven. I read the first of this duology,Hammerfall about 8 years ago and have been looking for Forge for ages,so I am pleased to have one Cherryh book a month for the next few months.
Oddly enough,I have never had any urge to read her fantasy series,since I am not too keen on the fantasy genre as a whole.Maybe someday when I've completed her whole SF oeuvre.

Finished Among Others. For something completely different, started The Road to Mars.

>87 dustydigger: Hunter of Worlds is one of my favorites.

My favorite Cherryh is the Chanur series, for its action, its characters, and the wonderful array of aliens (who become more understandable as the series goes on). Love the T'ca, with their six-part brains that communicate in matrices of six concepts at a time -- and the technologically superior Knnn, who are incomprehensible and whose idea of trade is to swoop down on other species' ships, take what they want, and leave something behind. And the evolving understanding & acceptance of the Kif is skillfully done.

Also have a fondness for the Faded Sun books, possibly the first I read of hers. Rather derivative of Dune in some ways, but she does it very well.

I know she's been around a long time, but it's rather a shock to hear she's 77.

>83 dustydigger: >87 dustydigger: >90 rshart3: I'm a big fan of Cherryh's books too, and just her science fiction - never really took to her fantasy. Angel with the Sword is probably my favourite of her novels. Did you know there was a series of seven "mosaic novels" (anthologies, IOW) set in Merovingen? I also have the signed limited editions of the four Chanur books, and a signed first edition of the fifth one. I have about 50 of her books in total, and while I have about 15 of the Foreigner novels I've only read the first two so far... And now they're all in storage. I should see about getting ebook copies, so I can at least read them. Incidentally, I reviewed a lot of her books on SF Mistressworks: https://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/category/cj-cherryh/

>91 iansales: I have all the Merovingian novels - Mercedes Lackey re-worked her canal girl stories for The Shadow Of The Lion the first of the Heirs of Alexandria series of collaborations with other authors Eric Flint and Dave Freer.

I need to get back to her work at some point!

Finished Vonda N MacIntyre's amiable enough but unspectacular Starfarers,and another enjoyable outing for Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson in Storm Cursed. Briggs is keeping up the standard very well in book 11 of the series,quite tense and gritty.
Rest of the month is devoted to Lovecraft,and serial killers! :0)
I am on the verge of fulfilling my Pick N' Mix challenge over on WWEnd. 77/80 read,so I will start John Sladek's Tik-Tok and a couple of 1980s SF to finish off that challengenext month.
Mind you,Cherry's Port Eternity has arrived,so if I get immersed in it,I may not surface for a while.Or maybe one of HPLs creepy creatures may have taken me away!I would probably prefer that to another day of Brexit. Mr Dusty and I are on opposite sides in the debate and have spent months quarreling about it,and insulting the MPs,and marvelling in despair at the convolutions. A visit to Cthulu's house at R'lyeh would be a relief.......;0)

>94 dustydigger: Cthulhu, take me away!

Lol! Richard,we could probably fill a plane load of likeminded people with ease. When the Speaker of the House said that Boris's pause was officially known as being in Limbo,one MP wryly said perhaps he should have said Purgatory!:0)
We have to laugh,if only to avoid screaming. R'lyeh,here we come.

>95 richardderus:,>96 dustydigger:
During the U.S. 2016 election, when many people felt they had to choose between candidates and didn't like either, one of the funniest things I saw was an "election poster" with an epic image of Cthulhu, and the caption: "Why Choose the Lesser Evil? Vote Cthulhu 2016"
(I myself was and am a great admirer of Hillary Clinton, but I still thought it was very funny.)

To make this a more legitimate post, I'm going to read "The Whisperer in Darkness" as soon as I finish the Absolute Watchmen comic omnibus -- which is quite brilliant, of course -- Alan Moore equals brilliant & dark.

Jack Vance's The Killing Machine was quite a fun read.Of course,everyone was smoking like chimneys,and to my delight the hero used a sliderule! dear old sliderules.....
Unfortunately I cant locate a free copy of the last 2 in the Star Kings series,The Face and The Book of Dreams even the kindle editions are £4 each,and used paper copies are around £30 Maybe I'll get some amazon vouchers for Xmas to acquire them :0). Fingers crossed.I did find The Dying Earth,Emphyrio and The Languages of Pao free online, so I can continue to read more Vance.I did see the whole Lyonesse saga omnibus in the library,but it was absolutely HUGE. It would probably break my fragile arthritic wrists. lol
I am enjoying some favourite Lovecraft stories this week from the Cthulu Mythos Megapack . Now I want to sample some of Clark Ashton Smith,Henry Kuttner and Frank Belknap Long tales from the same anthology. Cool. :0)

A mock campaign slogan I've been seeing around the DC area (I work in Washington) is 'Any Functional Adult in 2020'!

Charlie Stross has taken to referring to the current UK political morass as "Code Nightmare Blonde."

>51 dustydigger: (and others) love seeing more fans of CJ Cherryh!

I am not much into her fantasy, either, but I did finally read her Fortress saga, and I highly recommend it. I also recently read Wave Without a Shore for the first time, and I'm ranking up there with my favorite Chanur series. And Morgaine. And Faded Sun. And...

My SciFi read this month was Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny, another challenging favorite author of mine. Here's my review:

Pure Zelazny: a story that keeps you guessing until the end. I found myself turning back a chapter or two several times during my read to clarify, and even started reading it again once I'd finished. Definitely recommended for fans of this author, and for those who want something that challenges the reader.

>99 Shrike58: Code Nightmare Blonde! Love it.
I am doing a reread of Charlie's Apocalypse Codex next week,a bit topsy turvy after just recently reading the Annihilation Score. I just read Lovecraft's ''Nyarlathotep'' this week,brushing up on him ready for The Labyrinth Index - whenever that finally hits our library. Getting a bit worried,as the hardback came out October 2018,the paperback May 2019.and still no sign of it here.Wont be amused if this is yet another of my favourite series that have been abandoned by the library. Grrr....
>100 fuzzi: - I love Roadmarks!Wouldnt you just love to travel on the Road linking the past and present I obtained the hardback in 1982,and have reread it many times.so my copy is looking a bit delapidated...as is my copy of This Immortal,and Nine Princes in Amber...... but I still love the cover with the dragon flying above the battered old car turning off on the ''Last Exit to Babylon'' Brilliant.
I couldnt count just how many hours of reading pleasure I have had from Zelazny,Cherryh,Anne McCaffrey and Lois MacMaster Bujold,and I am struggling to think of modern authors that capture me in the way those do.Individual books by people like Neil Gaiman,Jim Butcher,Charlie Stross,OK,but authors with a dozen or more books I would love rereading? Not a lot! lol.. I read a lot of SF but finding authors I actually want to reread is not so common!

>101 dustydigger: "...I am struggling to think of modern authors that capture me in the way those do..."

I really liked the Expanse novels by James S.A. Corey. I've read the first two and they don't read like they look ("chunksters"). I have the third volume waiting, and I will read it. However, I don't feel any desire to reread them.

Have you read Ender's Game? I've read three or perhaps four of the original series, and Ender's Shadow, would recommend them for at least a one-time read.

I still enjoy Mercedes Lackey, but like with McCaffrey, only a few of her works continue to enthrall me, mainly the two Exile's books, the original Arrows trilogy, and By the Sword.

Robert Heinlein is a love/hate for me. Some of his stuff is so good, and some is awful. I can't recommend Friday highly enough. I also really liked Tunnel in the Sky, an older "juvie" but goodie.

The Lathe of Heaven was a really impressive read for me, written by Ursula K. LeGuin. It's been years since I read the Earthsea trilogy, but I do recall I liked it.

Most of my Andre Norton have been fair to good, but I would definitely recommend The Beast Master. It's a twisty tale of space and revenge.

And while you're at it, find a copy of Little Fuzzy by H Beam Piper. Yes, it's scifi!

My favorite fantasy author is Tad Williams. His Otherland scifi series is supposed to be good, but I never got into it. I may try it again, just as I tried to read Cyteen three times before it dragged me into a rollercoaster ride that I loved.

Addendum: I have 39 CJ Cherryh books on my shelves...though some are omnibus volumes.

>102 fuzzi: Did you just call Heinlein, Le Guin, Norton, and H Beam Piper "modern authors"? :D

>101 dustydigger:

I too have read the Laundry Files by circulating them from local public libraries. Over the whole reading career of the series, I've used four different libraries, having moved my residence twice. When necessary, I've found it reasonably easy to persuade them to pick up the next volume of a series where they already had the earlier ones. (I've even pestered them in advance, so they could order a copy on initial issuance.)

>103 anglemark:, >101 dustydigger: And yet I have the opposite difficulty, thinking of Cherryh and Bujold in particular as NOT being modern authors! After all, my memory of meeting Lois at a convention is still fresh. I suppose it's as I said to Iain Banks on (almost) the last occasion I saw him: he'd just been described in the Guardian as the "Grand Master of British science fiction", following which I asked him "Last time I looked, you were still an Enfant Terrible. When did YOU become a Grand Master??"

So I suppose it's no surprise that I have Banks on my limited list of authors whose works I shall re-read as an ongoing activity. I have a fairly extensive list of authors whose work I seek out and will read automatically, without any prompting from others, but I'm so behind with my reading generally that automatic re-reads are not on the cards (Banks and Patrick Leigh Fermor being exceptions).

My big re-read, which has been queued up for years, is the Book of the New Sun, to be followed with the other "Sun" books I've never read. It's now in my dedicated TBR shelving, which is progress from earlier in the year.

>100 fuzzi: Agree, Wave Without a Shore is brilliant. Short, dense, and rewarding - as has been most of Cherryh's work that I have read. The Faded Sun trilogy is also one of my favorites. I'm still working on Alliance-Union/Company Wars and have not even begun with Chanur yet so there is lots of unread Cherryh in my future! Good to hear about the Fortress books. I'm more of a SF than F reader but plan to try volume 1 in that series soon.

>103 anglemark: When compared to Wells and Verne, perhaps...? ;)

>106 paradoxosalpha: I did that exact re-read plus new read of The Solar Cycle last year. Without saying anything spoiler-ish, it was very much worth the journey. Will definitely re-read the entire 12 books again at some point. But first, I have the Wizard Knight duology and The Soldier Trilogy to read. There are also a few stand-alone titles I have not yet gotten to. Wolfe created quite a large body of work considering he got off to a rather late start.

Twenty of my fave rereads ,which I probably have read at least 3 times,are;
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Anne McCaffrey - Restoree
Lois McMaster Bujold - A Civil Campaign {the dinner party from hell is priceless)
ERB - A Princess of Mars(I had a crush on John Carter from the age of11!)
J R R Tolkien - Lord of the Rings
Frank Herbert - The Dosadi Experiment
Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
Robert A Heinlein - The Door into Summer(love the cat!}
C J Cherryh - Rimrunner
C J Cherryh - Foreigner
C J Cherryh - Explorer
C J Cherryh - Hellburner
John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids
Harry Harrison - Deathworld
Clifford D Simak - Way Station
Larry Niven - Ringworld
Ray Bradbury - Martian Chronicles
Hal Clement - Mission of Gravity
Anne McCaffrey - Pegasus in Flight

>106 paradoxosalpha: I read the Book of the New Sun and Urth of the New Sun way back when they were all fairly new; but I never got around to reading the Long Sun and Whorl novels. They are on the tottering heap that is the TBR pile; but I rather feel that to tackle those, I'll have to re-read the first five books...

>108 dustydigger: Rimrunner is an often overlooked treasure for sure. That is a great list, from what I have read of it, though of course mine would vary a good deal. While the dinner party from hell is a jewel without peer, wrestling with his conscience 2 out of 3 helps throw Memory to the top of my LMB favorites. I go to Trader by Charles de Lint for an absorbing comfort experience.

>109 RobertDay: The Book of the Long Sun is not bad, but The Book of the Short Sun reads like Wolfe is taking the piss and trying something so obscure not even Clute would be able to figure it out.

I'm not sure "modern" is a very useful term in regards to SF. I usually think in terms of Pre-Campbellian/Post-Cambellian (love or loath him you can't avoid the man) and Pre-New Wave/Post-New Wave. I'm not sure if we have enough perspective to carve any other broad periodic swathes of time. Maybe before/after Cyberpunk?

One man's take:

http://www.hilobrow.com/diamond-age-sci-fi/

I also do like the concept of "Radium Age" speculative fiction:

https://boingboing.net/2012/02/14/the-radium-age-science-fiction.html

https://www.hilobrow.com/radium-age-100/

https://www.nature.com/articles/489204a

>113 Shrike58: "Radium Age" is bloody brilliant!

>109 RobertDay:,>111 iansales:
I agree with Ian. The first set is a masterpiece; the second is weak; and the third is awful. Wolfe is like the little girl with the curls on her forehead. When he's good, he's very, very good -- and when he's bad, he's horrid.

>111 iansales:, >115 rshart3: Oh, the joys of completism! And there have been times, on either a particularly good day for me, or a bad day for him, when I have almost understood John Clute...

>103 anglemark: well, Corey is modern...

I guess I showed my age with that response.

>107 ScoLgo: be sure to check out the Morgaine series too. If you want a good stand alone in the Alliance books, Cuckoo's Egg is fantastic, and both Finity's End and Merchanter's Luck are several-times rereads for me. Oh, and The Paladin is also one of my favorites...

>110 quondame: I've reread Rimrunners many times, love Bet!

>117 fuzzi: The Paladin came out about the same time as series Daughter of the Empire and I felt the one book was better than the entire series - and I enjoyed the series.

>115 rshart3: "Wolfe is like the little girl with the curls on her forehead."

Ouch! ;-) I didn't think the Short Sun trilogy was all that bad. Granted, neither follow-up series - or even The Urth of the New Sun - were up to par with the original tetralogy, but that was an extremely high bar to set. I do agree that there is a ratio of diminishing returns as one progresses through each trilogy. But in the end, I was glad to have read them all.

>117 fuzzi: Thanks, I will keep an eye out for the Morgaine books. I have read most of the others you mention. Cuckoo's Egg was my first Cherryh while Merchanter's Luck was the most recent. Next up is Rimrunners as I continue with Company Wars. Sounds like I need to fit The Paladin in as well.

As far as current reading goes, I am still working on the creepy and very challenging House of Leaves. This book gets mixed reviews but I am enjoying the experience. It is like no other book I have ever read.

I still worry about Bet and Ramey in Rimrunners going off in that dlapidated tin can of a spook ship to who knows what or where.......But then I worry about the crew of Hellburner.Did they survive the war? And look at the Mazianni,from heroes to villains,what will they do? Bet has landed up (relatively) stable for now,though among former enemies,but Cherryh never really gives us a happy ending,just a pause in the hazards of life really.
Cherryh's universe is amazing,but its also frightening in its claustrophobia,its sparse culture,and the mundanity of the lives of its people(except when interspersed with absolute terror of course). Then there are the Azis,a disgusting blot on the culture. Cherryh is striking and awesome,but not the most optimistic of authors!Her universe is not the happiest of places. But by living alongside a wide variety of people and places,the Cherryh fan will always learn and understand more with each read.
For now I am starting Charlie Stross's Apocalypse Codex,another mad romp with the Laundry awash with snide comments on government and beaurocracy. It looks as if its becoming more realism and less fantasy by the day! lol.
Still snorting over his CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE comment. :0)

>120 dustydigger: It looks as if its becoming more realism and less fantasy by the day!

After The Labyrinth Index I'm half-hoping he'll just stop writing the Laundry. It seems to have reached the point where he's giving Them ideas.

Just hopping aboard Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi as well.

>121 paradoxosalpha: ''After The Labyrinth Index I'm half-hoping he'll just stop writing the Laundry. It seems to have reached the point where he's giving Them ideas.''

LOL! Oh dear! I have just started John Sladek's Tik-Tok.nearly 40 years old. A robot has rejected his Asimov circuits,which prevent robots from breaking the Three Laws of Robotics and it is doing a quiet sly rampage of murder,arson etc.
Tik-Tok has already murdered several people,laying the blame on innocents,and has now decided to go into politics,and finally ends up as a candidate for vice president of the USA!
What a pity Sladek died in 2000,he would have been wryly interested in current events!And you dont even need defective robots to do the amoral things,humans are doing very well being totally amoral themselves,without any malfunctioning circuits,thank you very much! :0)

Finished The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief by Lisa Tuttle. I like a lot of the stuff she's done in the past but this is pretty much fluff. Done well, but not very memorable.

I'm read Trade secret, one of the more recent Liaden books. It's okay, not sure I needed the chapter about Jethri's sexual initiation though!

Finished The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction January/February 2019 edited by C. C. Finlay. Liked it overall.