Our reads in January 2020

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Our reads in January 2020

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1dustydigger
Jan 1, 2020, 8:17 am

New decade,new year,new month,but always a new pile of books to share.

2Shrike58
Modifié : Jan 1, 2020, 8:57 am

Ain't that the truth, as I'm looking at a substantial stack I picked up from assorted libraries just before the end of 2019. If I read nothing else in January The Elfin Ship is on the immediate TBR list, due to it being my book group's choice for the month. The Light Brigade and Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City are also likely to get read.

3dustydigger
Modifié : Jan 29, 2020, 4:43 pm

Dusty's TBR for January
SF/F
Naomi Novik - Spinning Silver
Katherine Addison - The Goblin Emperor
Daniel O'Malley - Stiletto
Leigh Brackett - The Sword of Rhiannon
Pat Frank - Alas,Babylon ✔
Ransom Riggs - Map of Days

u> from other genres
Barbara Michaels - Ammie, Come Home
Rachel Howsell Hall - Trail of Echoes
Robert Van Gulik - Murder in Ancient China
Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake
Charles Todd - Wings of Fire
Nora Roberts - The Liar
Katie Fforde - A Secret Garden



4dustydigger
Modifié : Jan 6, 2020, 6:38 am

At the moment I am riveted to Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver. I am always fascinated at how many authors are attracted to fairy tales and how they are inspired to produce such a wide variety of interesting work.Novik starts off and for a hundred pages she sets up her highly detailed, rooted in reality mediaeval world,it could almost just be an historical novel. Only then does she lure us into the fantasy world,which seems utterly believable.Long time since a book has gripped so hard and I am eager to get back to it whenever the holiday mayhem allows me to.Remarkable.

5seitherin
Jan 1, 2020, 4:17 pm

6Stevil2001
Jan 1, 2020, 10:37 pm

>4 dustydigger: I really enjoyed Spinning Silver; it got my top vote in the Hugos last year. I'm not one for fairy tale retellings, but Novik takes the basics and makes something with an astounding sense of character and deep, complicated themes.

7leslie.98
Jan 1, 2020, 11:44 pm

I have been reading the Sector General series - finished Ambulance Ship this morning and dove right into Sector General which kept me busy for most of the day. I am taking a short break and reading something else before going on to Star Healer...

8Unreachableshelf
Jan 2, 2020, 9:30 am

I haven't started it yet, so don't know where on the axis of horror, dark urban fantasy, and SF on which Welcome to Night Vale lives this will sit, but today I'll be starting The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home.

9SChant
Jan 2, 2020, 11:01 am

>8 Unreachableshelf: I love the Nightvale podcast. Would be interested to know what you think of the book.

10johnnyapollo
Jan 2, 2020, 1:01 pm

Reading Hexarchate Stories by Yoon Ha Lee....

11dustydigger
Jan 2, 2020, 2:19 pm

Loved Spinning Silver.Novik uses the fairy tale asinspiration,but with a very light touch.The use of the Jews and their cuture added an intriuing twist too. She was very deft in handling all the complex strands of plot,character and motivations. A worthy Mythopoeic award winner.
Now its on to The Goblin EmperorTwo fantasy orientated books in a row,in keeping with my new year resolution to read more fantasy - as long as it has some originality. :0)Could bear searching for a hidden sword,a ong lost prince,or a road quest.

12iansales
Jan 3, 2020, 2:20 am

Currently reading Old Man's War. The prose is readable but bland, the Earth of the future seems little different to today - other than the Colonial Union, etc - and the characters just keep on lecturing each other all the time. The book could have been published any time during the 1960s or 1970s.

13Sakerfalcon
Jan 3, 2020, 5:56 am

I'm enjoying Rose Point, second in the Earthrise series. This should appeal to anyone who liked The long way to a small angry planet.

14leslie.98
Jan 3, 2020, 8:47 am

I have finished Star Healer and now face a dilemma - neither my library nor Open Library has the next book in the series, Code Blue - Emergency. One of my New Year's resolutions was to reduce my book buying but how else am I going to continue with this very enjoyable series?? For now, I am shelving the problem and moving on to other books.

15daxxh
Jan 3, 2020, 11:39 am

>14 leslie.98: I bought the omnibus editions of the Sector General series since my library didn't have them all. There were four volumes. I will hopefully start them this month.

I am almost finished with Antediluvian by Wil McCarthy and have the novella Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky next.

16DugsBooks
Jan 3, 2020, 1:03 pm


"Asimov at 100" is an interesting one page article in Science magazine about Asimov who was born in 1920. I did not realize his cause of death was " Asimov had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion during open-heart surgery".

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6473/20

17leslie.98
Jan 3, 2020, 2:14 pm

Perhaps this will be a good year for me to reread the Foundation series then!

18iansales
Jan 3, 2020, 2:27 pm

19vwinsloe
Jan 3, 2020, 3:25 pm

>16 DugsBooks: Interesting, thanks for posting it.

20leslie.98
Modifié : Jan 3, 2020, 3:49 pm

21iansales
Jan 4, 2020, 4:50 am

>20 leslie.98: No year is a good year to read the Foundation series.

22leslie.98
Jan 4, 2020, 3:33 pm

>21 iansales: I guess that we will have to agree to disagree about that.

23Fraz-Ahmed
Jan 4, 2020, 7:51 pm

Ce message a été signalé par plusieurs utilisateurs et n'est plus affiché. (afficher)
Start of the new Year and I have just published my first book on Amazon called Qalandar Earth Needed a Superhero. I will read more and more books this year & hope to publish the 2nd part of my first book by the end of this year.

24iansales
Jan 5, 2020, 12:26 pm

Finished Old Man's War. Meh. A surprising amount of swearing, but the whole thing read dated in style with identikit world-building. Now reading The Man in the Darksuit, which I found in a local secondhand sf bookshop, and which is proving pretty bad.

25leslie.98
Jan 5, 2020, 1:08 pm

I have started Red Mars - I had planned to read it last year but for some reason never got around to it.

26Shrike58
Jan 6, 2020, 6:58 pm

Finished Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (A-) this evening. This is the secret history of the defense of a capital modeled on Byzantium from the perspective of the unlucky bastard of an engineering officer who got stuck with the job. Mordant and ironic, I suppose that I'm going to be reading more of Tom Holt's alter-ego in the future.

27SChant
Jan 7, 2020, 5:24 am

>26 Shrike58: On a similar theme, his Engineer trilogy is very good.

28Shrike58
Jan 7, 2020, 5:28 am

I'll take your advisement on that. As always; so many books, so little time.

29Unreachableshelf
Jan 8, 2020, 2:19 pm

After pulling several things off of the shelf of books that accumulated during four years of award committee reading and discovering that they weren't actually worth keeping all that time, I've settled into a three and a half year old ARC of Dark Matter.

30RobertDay
Jan 8, 2020, 6:17 pm

Finished The Fractal Prince. More of the same weirdness that was in The Quantum Thief. next up is Pat Cadigan's Synners.

31AnnieMod
Modifié : Jan 8, 2020, 7:40 pm

Just started The Divide by Alan Ayckbourn - a dystopia set post plague which killed most of the population and changed the social order (technically the story is about overturning that new social order but we seem to be getting the "how it came to be" as well.

32iansales
Modifié : Jan 9, 2020, 4:49 am

Currently reading Crimson Darkness, a self-published novel by William Barton, whose novels I really liked back in the 1990s. Some pretty heavy world-building going on.

33dustydigger
Jan 10, 2020, 4:31 pm

Really enjoyed Katherine Addison's The Goblin EmperorRefreshing in this day of unreliable narrators,moral ambiguity and dysfunctional characters as a whole to be able to take to heart a lovable,principled and in general all round good guy as protagonist! Two good fantasy novels in a row for me,good start to the year.
I was occasionally reminded of C J Cherryh's writing style,when we so closely followed the pov of our young hero,in a very immersive style which made the book gripping and intense.Loved it.

34paradoxosalpha
Jan 10, 2020, 4:40 pm

I'm currently at the mid-point of From the Legend of Biel. I'm still not sure where it is going--it's got a bit of a 2001: A Space Odyssey feel to it--but the writing is decent so far.

35dustydigger
Jan 10, 2020, 4:43 pm

If anyone from this group fancies joining the WWEnd challenges this year,you would be most welcome.Once again I am doing my Pick N Mix challenge.Choose10,20,40 or 80 SF/Fantasy or Horror books to read over the year. There are many challenges to suit everyone.

36Shrike58
Modifié : Jan 11, 2020, 7:55 am

Basically bounced off The Light Brigade (C+) as it simply didn't move me; even if I give Hurley full credit for all her good intentions. The dystopian corporate army angle seemed hackneyed and time travel/displacement usually doesn't interest me. I might have to try Hurley's fantasy. As a point of comparison The Stars are Legion seemed a lot fresher, even if its characters were so post-human that it was sometimes hard to relate to them.

37ronincats
Jan 10, 2020, 10:04 pm

>33 dustydigger: I figured you would like this, dusty! It is very good.

>35 dustydigger: I haven't participated for a couple of years, since the year they did the new to you women writers! I'll check it out.

38daxxh
Jan 10, 2020, 10:29 pm

Just finished Walking to Aldebaran. Meh. Loved the mythology this seems to parallel. Didn't love this novella.

39ronincats
Jan 10, 2020, 10:43 pm

Got a freebie to review, the second in a series, Spoilers: Things Get Worse by Galen Surlak-Ramsey. Here's my review:

I received an ebook of this for the Early Reviewers, without reading the first book in the series.

That said, enough is said about the events of the last book in this one for me to have a pretty good idea of what went on and, since there isn't any character development, it doesn't really matter anyway. This is a non-stop sequence of crises, all action mostly avoiding whatever aliens are trying to kill the group at any given moment, with highly improbable escapes. The author attempts a light hand with some humor, but it mostly thunks and throws the reader out of the story, not that we're really invited into it as more than an audience anyhow. I have no sense that Dakota has any depth to her (or even that she is a woman) any more than any other of the characters, although it is clear the author is attempting to create a "kick-ass heroine". And I would refuse to be an AI in this story categorically!

If the author would stop trying to do so many things at once and concentrate on a story that one could care about, as opposed to mindless action entertainment, I think he could develop some potential.

40karenb
Jan 11, 2020, 4:26 am

>30 RobertDay: Haven't read the Jean le Flambeur books yet, but I did enjoy Rajaniemi's Summerland: WWII spying with ghosts (and subtle math).

>24 iansales: The thing I liked about the Old Man's War books was how they dealt with aging in a youth-driven society. There aren't many old protagonists in SF books.

>36 Shrike58: I thought God's War was good, but I haven't read TLB book yet. Would it make a good book for a book group, do you think? My SF-only group is picking more books next month.

I've been catching up on series, mostly fantasy, for the last few weeks. The latest Incryptid book (That ain't witchcraft from Seanan McGuire was entertaining enough, and now I'm caught up there. I also finished up Marjorie M. Liu's Hunter Kiss books, only a few years later than the author did.

Next month's book for SF group is The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, who seems to be a new author who is definitely new to me. Anyone else read it yet?

41iansales
Jan 11, 2020, 5:12 am

>34 paradoxosalpha: I've read that. I actually remember buying my copy of the book from a junk shop in Bridlington in the very early 1980s on a trip to the seaside with my grandparents. I reread it a few years ago and reviewed it for SF Mistressworks. I was... disappointed.

>40 karenb: I thought The Quantum Thief over-hyped and over-rated, but I did like Summerland. I reviewed the latter for Interzone. I really liked the Bel Dame Apocrypha but bounced out of The Mirror Empire. I should give Kameron's books another go.

42iansales
Jan 11, 2020, 5:33 am

>40 karenb: About Old Man's War... Except it didn't do that, really. It harped on about the physical degradation caused by ageing - in fact, that was given as the chief motivation for joining up. The treatment of old people in society was pretty much ignored - but then the protagonist was well-off. There were, however, lots of lectures, especially about invented technology and future history. And the latter didn't really work - a giant galactic federation constantly at war and Earth was pretty much the same as the time the book was written?

There are plenty of sf novels and stories about old age. Some friends were putting together a list specifically about older women in sf. Now, if only I could find it...

43dustydigger
Modifié : Jan 12, 2020, 4:14 am

Just heard Mike Resnick has died. I intend to read his typically rather bonkers book,Stalking the Vampire in honour of this acclaimed and well liked author and editor. RIP, Mike

44rshart3
Jan 11, 2020, 12:03 pm

>43 dustydigger:
Sorry to hear that. Some of his stuff was pretty canned & junky, but when he was on a roll he was fun. Maybe I'll reread Santiago or one of the others.

45ChrisRiesbeck
Jan 11, 2020, 5:30 pm

After a detour in non-SF (American on Purpose and Away with Words), started John Dies at the End.

46leslie.98
Modifié : Jan 12, 2020, 8:09 pm

I have finished Red Mars and despite some misgivings, I will be starting Green Mars soon.

47johnnyapollo
Jan 13, 2020, 8:46 am

Currently reading the Magicians by Lev Grossman....

48Sakerfalcon
Jan 13, 2020, 8:52 am

I'm reading Sound mind, while I still remember the gist of Double vision.

49SChant
Jan 14, 2020, 5:08 am

Started The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss. So far it's got Jeckyl & Hyde and Sherlock Holmes in it, so I'm expecting Frankenstein and Dracula at some point. A bit ho-hum but will persist to see if it picks up.

50iansales
Jan 14, 2020, 1:48 pm

>49 SChant: Hmm, you might have missed the point of the book if you're looking for male characters from Victorian fiction.

51ScoLgo
Jan 14, 2020, 2:43 pm

Began the new year with a good one: The Shore of Women is more than competently written and, while she seemed to be laying out a predictable ending, Sargent wound things up in a different manner than I expected. 4 stars.

Next up was The Armageddon Rag. This should have been right up my alley with a rock & roll apocalypse in the making but... an unlikable protagonist coupled with overly repetitious concert descriptions pulled it down to 3 stars.

Asimov's Caliban by Roger MacBride Allen was a competent contribution to the Robot Universe - but at 3 stars was a bit of a step down from the Mark Tiedemann trilogy I read last year. Inferno and Utopia are both on my WWE Pick & Mix list for 2020.

Now e-reading The City and The City. About 1/4 of the way in and it's interesting but has not yet completely grabbed me.

My current print book is the non-genre Complicity by Iain Banks. This one has fully pulled me in and actually kept me up long past bedtime last night. The use of 2nd person perspective during the murders seemed strange at first but I think I know why Banks made that choice. We'll see if I'm right as we close in on the denouement tonight.

52RobertDay
Jan 14, 2020, 6:57 pm

>51 ScoLgo: I've been catching up on Banks' non-genre novels myself recently. Something I find interesting is to see how often he puts words into the mouth or ideas into the head of his pov protagonist that I look at and think "And there's proof positive that Banks was a proper, 100% science fiction fan, because that's exactly the sort of thing a fan would say (or think)."

Certainly, there are things in the "no M." novels that non-genre readers will miss, or at the very least not appreciate the hinterland behind an odd throwaway comment.

53ScoLgo
Jan 14, 2020, 7:36 pm

>52 RobertDay: I must admit to not being all that well-read when it comes to Banks. This is only the 5th, (and 2nd non-SF), novel of his that I have read.

He has yet to disappoint. My first foray into his catalog was Consider Phlebas and I will say that I have enjoyed the other four novels more than that one, (hang on... 'enjoy' may be the wrong word for The Wasp Factory, but I was impressed with the writing and how Banks managed to get under my skin). I do plan to re-visit Consider Phlebas at some point because I suspect I simply was not prepared when I dove into it... ;)

54SChant
Jan 15, 2020, 2:01 am

>50 iansales: I'm not "looking for male characters", I'm well aware that it's the daughters of some of those characters, I just find it a girly version of Penny Dreadfuls and not very original.

55iansales
Jan 15, 2020, 2:27 am

>54 SChant: I don't know of any other novel featuring popular Victorian Gothic characters that's told from the POV of a group of female characters, so I guess that makes it original in one sense. Plus the way the text is structured, as a "fictionalisation" of the Athena Club's adventures, with interjections during the writing process, is something I've not seen before. I enjoyed the books (I've read the first two and have the third on the TBR), although I thought the prose not as good as Goss's short fiction and the second book was a bit longer than it needed to be.

56iansales
Jan 15, 2020, 2:37 am

>51 ScoLgo: I was disappointed by the ending of The Shore of Women. I reviewed it for SF Mistressworks: https://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/the-shore-of-women-pamela-sarge...

Complicity is easily one of Banks's best mainstream novels.

57andyl
Jan 15, 2020, 6:40 am

I've just finished Song For a New Day by Sarah Pinkser. Which is a novel that starts with an ending, and ends with a beginning. I liked it a lot. A novel of found family, music, and corporate power set in a dystopic USA where it is illegal for groups of any size to congregate.

I think I will be starting Velocity Weapon by Megan O’Keefe next.

>41 iansales:
Ian, If you haven't read it you should try The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. It is much more tightly plotted and generally more focused than any of her other books IMO. Partly because of what it is trying to do it has to be.

58dustydigger
Jan 15, 2020, 7:27 am

Just starting Leigh Brackett's Sword of Rhiannon. Love the cover by Robert E Schultz!

59RobertDay
Jan 15, 2020, 8:08 am

>53 ScoLgo: Consider Phlebas was based on a very early unpublished novel that Banks wrote; I've always felt it to be very much a 'first sale from a new author' book because it is at heart a basic adventure/thriller story, with a McGuffin. All his later SF novels have more depth to them.

Not that I'm saying that Phlebas is without merit - far from it. I'm still gobsmacked by the opening line: "The ship didn't even have a name." I read that when Phlebas was Iain's first SF novel and thought little more than "Punchy opening line." I read it again 25 years later and my jaw hit the floor, because we learnt in the meantime that The Naming of Ships is a difficult matter (as Eliot might have written if he'd lived in the Culture), and so "The ship didn't even have a name" has ramifications way beyond the simple statement of fact.

60pgmcc
Jan 15, 2020, 9:32 am

>51 ScoLgo: Complicity vies with The Bridge for the title of "My Favourite Iain Banks" novel.

61pgmcc
Jan 15, 2020, 9:35 am

>53 ScoLgo: Consider Phlebas was the first Banks book I read. I really enjoyed it. I re-read it a couple of years ago and found additional layers of meaning I had missed the first time through. I have found that with all my Banks re-reads.

62pgmcc
Jan 15, 2020, 9:38 am

>59 RobertDay: I remember my reaction when I firsst got to the end of Consider Phlebas; "That was a ripping yarn." I think that fits your description of it.

On my re-read a couple of years ago I realised there is a very strong anti-war message.

63ScoLgo
Jan 15, 2020, 2:23 pm

>56 iansales: Thanks for the link. I rather liked the ending. As I was reading the novel, (and I agree with just about everything in your review regarding the overall narrative), I found myself expecting an overly trite, "And the walls came down as men & women strode hand in hand into their new uncertain future...", type of ending. While I grok your disappointment, I had anticipated so much worse at the finale that, by comparison to my expectations, I ended up liking where Sargent went with it.

Finished Complicity last night and... wow! Yes, a very good book. Thanks to everyone that commented about Banks in this thread. I need to move more of his catalog into my 'read sooner rather than later' queue.

>58 dustydigger: Hard to go wrong with Brackett!

64RobertDay
Modifié : Jan 17, 2020, 5:27 pm

>63 ScoLgo: and others: my last word on Banks (for now) - I think of his non-genre novels, the one that impressed me most (of those I've read; I still have four on the TBR pile) is Whit, because the protagonist and her situation is as diametrically opposite to Banks himself as you could imagine.

'Whit' is set in a religious cult, but Banks writes about it, the people in it and their beliefs completely straight. He resists the temptation to take that character and do a hatchet job. Oh, he has some fun with some of the trappings, but no more than he has with the trappings of modern urban life or big cool spaceships. Anyone can take their betes noir and poke satirical fun at them; it takes a clever writer to treat their antithesis with equality.

65SFF1928-1973
Jan 17, 2020, 10:38 am

Off topic, I'm reading Lord Tyger by Philip Jose Farmer. I say off topic because Farmer's updating of the Tarzan scenario definitely doesn't qualify as SF.

66daxxh
Modifié : Jan 18, 2020, 2:46 pm

Just finished Nine White Horses by Judith Tarr. I really liked the second story, Classical Horses. I am pretty sure the horse on the book cover is my horse's half brother. How cool is that?

Next book is Medusa in the Graveyard and then maybe Made Things or Brothers in Arms.

67dustydigger
Modifié : Jan 18, 2020, 5:13 pm

Stiletto was a pleasant enough read,but I preferred The Rook. which was more focused on Myfanwy Thomas,she is rather sidelined in this outing.
I am suffering from an athritis flare up at the moment,so have had to put aside the very heavy Map of Days. It seems to be made of art paper,and is extremely heavy,too much for my weak wrists at the moment. Instead I am starting Leigh Brackett's Sword of Rhiannon and Pat Frank's Alas Babylon.

68karenb
Modifié : Jan 19, 2020, 1:18 am

>67 dustydigger: Ah, reading that's easier on the body -- there's a whole series of threads we could start. Robots could be useful, there, to hold books and turn pages.

re: Iain Banks
One of the best contemporary writers, for sure. I've enjoyed and liked everything I've read of his, with or without the M.

>57 andyl: I loved A song for a new day. Two protagonists, our possible future, and everything you said. Are you reading the PKD nominees, then?

>51 ScoLgo: I enjoyed Armageddon rag most when I first read it, in my twenties. I reread it a few years ago, and yes it has flaws. It's one of the few reasonable SF/F novels about music and musicians, though, liked by actual musicians.

Me, I just finished the third Athena Club book, The sinister mystery of the mesmerizing girl by Theodora Goss. As seems usual with trilogies, I thought it hung together better than the second one.

Next up: Gods of jade and shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It's been on my TBR since before it came out, but a book group discusses it next week.

69iansales
Jan 19, 2020, 5:14 am

Currently reading Spinning Silver, a story about Jewish moneylenders in an invented Slavic country.

>68 karenb: I hadn't realised the Goss books were a trilogy. I though it was a series. I have The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl on my TBR. Btw, if you liked the Goss books, try Lisa Tuttle's Jesperson & Lane series.

70vwinsloe
Jan 19, 2020, 9:28 am

>67 dustydigger: A friend gifted me a lap reading pillow after I had rotator cuff surgery on my shoulder, and I have continued to use it with heavy tombs because of arthritis in my hands. Here's the one-

https://www.etsy.com/listing/756673054/padded-lap-reading-stand-for-your-books?r...

I think that there are less expensive ones available, but this one has worked wonderfully well for me.

71andyl
Jan 19, 2020, 9:44 am

>68 karenb:

PKD nominees, I guess I will read them all, or at least all the novels, just not in a deliberate way en-bloc. I had previously read Rosewater Redemption. I have The Outside sitting on my kindle. I don't have the two short story collections but I may get around to them (although I probably have read a chunk of their contents already). I don't have The Little Animals by Sarah Tolmie and I am not sure how much of the fantastic is in there, but then it didn't stop Nicola Griffith from doing well with Hild (which I enjoyed).

BTW I have finished The Velocity Weapon and I thought it was a big improvement from O'Keefe's Steal The Sky which I had previously read and thought was a bit meh. It is also very hard to talk about without spoiling it.

72paradoxosalpha
Jan 19, 2020, 11:24 am

Having finished and reviewed The Legend of Biel, I'm now in the midst of the 1950s neo-yog-sothothery of the recent Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys. I'm enjoying it. These Aphra Marsh books seem somewhat sfnal to me, since the horror tropes are mitigated by identification with the "monsters," and the occult magic is considerably rationalized, after the fashion of Stross' Laundry books.

73RobertDay
Jan 19, 2020, 4:52 pm

I've just finished 2001: Building for Space Travel, a book to accompany an exhibition of architecture and design contributions to both space-related sf and actual spaceflight. The exhibition was held at the Art Museum, Chicago and then moved to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, starting in October 2001. Of necessity, all the essays in the book were written before 9/11, and so even though this is a very recent vision of the future, the diversion of funds away from space projects for the War on Terror meant that a lot of the future projects depicted never happened.

No-one in this book is anticipating that the replacement for the Space Shuttle would be a family of full stack rockets with hardware that looks outwardly little different from Apollo. Where now are the McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper, or the Lockheed Martin X-33?

Interestingly, there is a lot of commentary about the series on "The Conquest of Space" from Collier's Magazine in 1955, where Wernher von Braun confidently predicts that a crewed Mars mission would be perhaps a century away - so not too far out on that one.

Just started Pat Cadigan's Synners.

74ChrisRiesbeck
Jan 19, 2020, 10:51 pm

Finished John Dies at the End, now reading Hollow City.

75iansales
Jan 20, 2020, 2:18 am

>70 vwinsloe: "heavy tombs"? Are you reading epitaphs? :-)

76vwinsloe
Jan 20, 2020, 8:28 am

>75 iansales:. LOL. I need an editor! Thanks.

77RobertDay
Modifié : Jan 21, 2020, 9:44 am

Something else I've been reading over the past few months has been a fanzine - Warhoon 28, Richard Bergeron's 1978 tribute to Belfast sf fan Walt Willis - all 600+ hardbacked pages of it. I've just added a review of it:

https://www.librarything.com/work/24146927/reviews/177990295

78karenb
Jan 20, 2020, 10:03 pm

>77 RobertDay: Excellent! I haven't read Warhoon 28, but I know a few people who own copies. I was lucky enough to meet Walt Willis and James White in 1992, at the relaxacon ReinCONation in the Twin Cities (MN), the weekend after MagiCon in Orlando. I think someone reprinted The Enchanted Duplicator that year, too?

>76 vwinsloe: Everyone needs an editor, so you're in good company.

79anglemark
Jan 21, 2020, 2:30 am

>77 RobertDay: I really appreciated reading Warhoon 28. I should reread it sometime. I have combined your copy with the others, now.

80Stevil2001
Jan 21, 2020, 9:08 am

I've just started the Library of America edition of Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Novels & Stories. I've read all eight novels before, but none of the short fiction. Last time I read chronologically, so this time I am going to do publication order, which the LoA editions almost (but not quite) use. Thus I am starting Rocannon's World, which I literally remember nothing about!

81johnnyapollo
Modifié : Jan 21, 2020, 9:38 am

Currently reading Seeds of Earth by Michael Cobley, not sure what to think about it thus far - the alien protagonist (Uvovo) has more a fantasy feel...

82RobertDay
Jan 21, 2020, 9:53 am

>78 karenb: I met Jim White a couple of times at Novacons (and of course, Bob Shaw was ubiquitous and good fun). I never (knowingly) met Walt.

My copy of The Enchanted Duplicator was reprinted for the 1979 Seacon (Brighton Worldcon) bid - but now when I go to look for my copy, I can't find it and it's not in my catalogue, which is concerning.

83iansales
Jan 22, 2020, 2:24 am

Just started A Memory Called Empire, which has been getting a lot of praise but isn't impressing me so far.

84dustydigger
Modifié : Jan 22, 2020, 6:39 am

I thoroughly enjoyed Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon.She can keep up with the boys with the swashbuckling sword and sorcery, while unobtrusively adding interesting world building,beautiful lyrical yet economic prose,and at least some inner thoughts and motivation of the characters,a rare thing in this genre.
Also gobbled up Pat Frank's Alas,Babylon about survivors of a nuclear war.
I was amused where the survivors packed their fridge with ice cream and delicacies,hinking the situation wouldnt last long.Then the electricity died,and the women were crying bitterly and the floor was awash with melted ice cream. Not smiling so much this morning when I awoke with the same situation,the fridge had conked out,packed with meat and vegetables and three enormous beautiful fresh trout,which I will have to cook today or £75 worth of fish goes in the bin :0(
No wonder we were so paranoid in the 60s about disaster with all those catastrophe novels around! Certainly didnt soothe us!:0)

85daxxh
Modifié : Jan 22, 2020, 12:20 pm

>83 iansales:. I thought A Memory Called Empire started slow, but got better as I continued reading.

>84 dustydigger: I read Alas Babylon when I was a kid and it scared me. When my power goes out , it can be days before it comes back on. I eat the ice cream before it melts no matter what. Can't waste the ice cream!

Right now I am reading Medusa in the Graveyard. I am having a hard time remembering what happened in the first book, which might be why I am not liking it that much. It reminds me a bit of Neal Asher's Dark Intelligence series, but not as dark or as good.

86Shrike58
Jan 23, 2020, 6:02 am

Bummer...

87Shrike58
Jan 23, 2020, 6:06 am

Anyway, I finished The Violent Century (A) yesterday and I enjoyed it as much as I did Unholy Land. Whatever else Tidhar does well he has a keen eye for the rationalizations and excuses people tell themselves in the pursuit of dubious ends.

88NorthernStar
Jan 24, 2020, 12:11 am

I've been reading the Linesman trilogy by S. K. Dunstall - (Linesman, Alliance, and Confluence). Enjoyable space opera.

89vwinsloe
Jan 25, 2020, 8:36 am

Thanks to >54 SChant: who recommended Tehanu in this group back in November. I just finished my first complete read of The Earthsea Trilogy, and without that recommendation, I would not have gotten to Tehanu which I thoroughly enjoyed. For me, it was one of those rare books that I savored and didn't want to rush through.

Interesting that in writing Tehanu LeGuin revisited Earthsea some 20 years after she created it, and continued the story with a style and content that was more adult than the original books.

90ChrisRiesbeck
Jan 25, 2020, 4:50 pm

Finished Hollow City, started Farthing

91SChant
Jan 26, 2020, 8:26 am

>89 vwinsloe: Glad you enjoyed Tehanu. If I remember correctly there were some grumbles when it first came out because it was more adult.

92rshart3
Jan 26, 2020, 10:22 am

>89 vwinsloe:,>91 SChant:: Of course the original trilogy is that kind & quality of YA that's really for all ages.

93Shrike58
Jan 26, 2020, 8:17 pm

Finished with The Elfin Ship (C-) this evening; though washed my hands of it might be a better term. While it takes real talent to maintain that level of "twee" at a certain point I simply found it a wearisome exercise.

94vwinsloe
Modifié : Jan 27, 2020, 8:00 am

>92 rshart3:. Yes, although I think that YA these days is more for teens (think Hunger Games, etc. ) Tehanu was more like that, even though it was published in 1990. The Earthsea Trilogy seemed to be more of a Children's story that was written in a way that was more readable for ability of Young Adults. But the trilogy was written in the late 1960s, I think, and teens were more "sheltered" from reality then. I know that I was!

95nx74defiant
Jan 27, 2020, 7:25 pm

Finally read The Giver Not sure if I like the ambiguous ending. I noticed it is the 1st in a series, are the other books worth reading?

96hurtgen77
Jan 27, 2020, 11:22 pm

Currently Reading
Larry Niven - The Ringworld Engineers

Finished
Robert Heinlein – The Door into Summer
Rimi Chatterjee – Signal Red
Harold Goldberg – How 50 Years of Video Games Changed Pop Culture
Robert Heinlein – Citizen of the Galaxy
Larry Niven – A World Out of Time
William Gibson - Agency

Heinlein and Niven are amazing. I hadn't read them much for the past ten years and picking up their books is like revising old friends. Citizen of the Galaxy has some particularly moving parts. Ringworld Engineers isn't as good as Ringworld but still carries much of the same element of wonder as the original. Chatterjee is an Indian SF writer who brings in an important non-Western perspective, very literary too. Gibson's newest novel is very hard to read but still winds up being worth it because of his cultural commentary. It's more like speculative history than speculative fiction.

97hurtgen77
Jan 27, 2020, 11:23 pm

And it didn't read like an Earthsea book. For one the magic is gone. And I mean, the magic is literally gone. Ged doesn't cast spells anymore.

98RBeffa
Modifié : Jan 28, 2020, 12:34 am

Tehanu was my least favorite of the Earthsea books. Too heavy handed among other things.

>95 nx74defiant: I think the first and the fourth of the 4 books in the Giver series were the best. The 4th perhaps my favorite. I rated the books 4 stars, 2 1/2, 2 1/2, 4 stars, in order. I wouldn't skip the middle two books however. For one thing they are short, but more importantly you see more of the world and it gets you to #4.

ETA: You will get an answer to the ambiguous ending if you read on. The later books are also different and I'd say it was OK to stop at just The Giver.

99iansales
Modifié : Jan 28, 2020, 2:08 am

A Memory Called Empire is improving as it progresses, but the plot reminds me a great deal of Ancillary Mercy.

100anglemark
Modifié : Jan 28, 2020, 10:32 am

Reading right now: Record of a spaceborn few.

Recently finished:
The good prince
The call
Exhalation
The volunteer
This is how you lose the time war
The deserter

I really loved This is how you lose the time war, which worked for me on every level. And The call was much better than Ó Guilín's debut trilogy.

101hurtgen77
Jan 28, 2020, 10:05 am

I really don't like those Ancillary books at all. So, that comparison has me checking AMCE right off my to-read list.

102ScoLgo
Jan 28, 2020, 11:50 am

>100 anglemark: "I really loved This is how you lose the time war, which worked for me on every level."

This is good to hear as I have TiHYLtTW on one of my WWE challenge lists for this year.

103dustydigger
Jan 29, 2020, 4:57 pm

Finished Clifford D Simak's Cosmic Engineers,originally serialised in 1939,with a distinct YA bias,and extended and published as his first novel in 1950.That was when he retired and became a full time writer.Most of it is simplistic gee-whizz stuff,humans off to help aliens prevent nasty creatures (strong whiff of Nazism here)cause harm,and then prevent two universes colliding.Made me think of Doc Smith with ever more amazing science and wonders revealed as we career through time and space,but here and there Simak lyricism,lush descriptions,and thoughtful philosophy manage to pop up. All this in a mere 161 pages!
Very uneven,and it would be 5 years till the wonderful Way Station,but its an interesting first book.

105anglemark
Jan 30, 2020, 1:32 pm

>104 jldarden: It says it's written a year ago, but I get the feeling that the author is years out of date. What he writes is no longer true.

106ChrisRiesbeck
Jan 30, 2020, 5:41 pm

I'm a steady reader of Locus and I can't recall seeing reviews, interviews, or their short book blurbs referring to some new brand of SF punk. Is "hopepunk" a real thing or just a counter-proposal to "grimdark" -- a term that DOES pop up a lot.

107iansales
Jan 31, 2020, 2:30 am

>104 jldarden: >105 anglemark: The article is a thinly-disguised advert for an anthology the author is published in.

108nrmay
Jan 31, 2020, 1:20 pm

In Jan I read -

Halfway Human by Carolyn Gilman
and
The List by Patricia Forde

109Unreachableshelf
Jan 31, 2020, 10:17 pm

Devenir membre pour poster.