Our reads in March 2021

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Our reads in March 2021

1dustydigger
helmikuu 28, 2021, 5:06 pm

Another month,another pile of books. What are we all reading in March?

2dustydigger
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 29, 2021, 5:21 am

Dusty's TBR for March
SF/F reads
James A Owen - Here There Be Dragons
R A McAvoy - Tea With The Black Dragon
Andre Norton - Storm Over Warlock
Lois McMaster Bujold - Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
Bob Shaw - Light of Other Days(short story)✔
Nathan Lowell - Half Share
Johan Harstad - 172 hours on the Moon
Clifford D Simak - Highway of Eternity
Clifford D Simak - Grotto of the Dancing Deer ✔
Brian Aldiss - Moment of Eclipse

other genres
Rachel Carson - Silent Spring
Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop

3DugsBooks
helmikuu 28, 2021, 10:36 pm

I just reread Dune (the first of the series) for the first time since the 6th grade maybe? Some advice from aching wrists, try to avoid the 4-5 inch thick paperback edition out now. It is physically taxing to hold the darn thing open and can precipitate repetitive motion nerve pain I believe.

The read was great, held up well without any of the misgivings (perceived by me a least) that come with later additions to the series by other authors. Ready for the movie now & will be able to notice adaptations made by the screenplay, if any, I think.

4ScoLgo
helmikuu 28, 2021, 11:05 pm

Just finished The Gone-Away World. Was vacillating between 4.5 and 5 stars towards the end. Settled on 5 because the denouement pulled the whole thing together in a beautifully fun way. A new favorite.

Also about 2/3 of the way through the original Dangerous Visions collection. The stories are (mostly) better than I might have expected from the era in which they were written. Some are excellent while others would never be allowed to lurch from the shadows in this day & age.

Next up: Precursor, book #1 in Cherryh's 2nd Foreigner arc.

5fuzzi
helmikuu 28, 2021, 11:17 pm

>2 dustydigger: I love Tea With the Black Dragon, have reread it several times.

6chlorine
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 1:53 am

I've started yesterday The Bards of Bone plain by Patricia A. McKillip for 2021 Category Challenge's march SFF Kit with an archelogy theme.
I never had heard of Patricia A. McKillip before looking for a book for this challenge. I've read two chapters and find it very well written.

7iansales
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 1:58 am

Finished Settling the World, a surprisingly coherent collection given the length of the period from which the stories were drawn. Some of the earlier ones that sort of very mannered, very English, almost a pastiche of mid-twentieth-century English fiction, but about something far from the quotidian. The title story is a case in point. Not every story worked for me, but Harrison does have a genius for dropping in phrases from overheard conversations that do actually sound like part of a conversation.

8dustydigger
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 1, 2021, 6:42 am

Finished a reread of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen,the wrap up book of the Vorkosigan saga. LMB upset an awful lot of fans with this one,introducing a new factor about Aral Vorkosigan which had never come up EVER in the whole saga,and that upset and annoyed millions of fans. Typical LMB,she has to stir the pot! lol.
It reminded me a little of Jane Austen's autumnal melancholy tone in Persuasion after the flash and verve of her earlier works.Fans of Austen often feel disappointed somewhat,but approaching it the right way and we gain a lot.
LMB was courageous in her final book,as she always was with this series, bringing forth over the years bold and (at the time) quite sharp takes on gender issues,all under the guise of following the little git through life!. An interesting,gentle end to a wonderful series.
Now on to Tea with the Black Dragon

9SChant
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 6:49 am

>8 dustydigger: I've always loved the Vorkosigan saga but negative reviews of this one have made me reluctant to pick it up. Your generous comments have changed my mind. I will definitely read it now.

10Sakerfalcon
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 6:55 am

>8 dustydigger:, >9 SChant: I was reluctant to read it too, and found the first half of the book to drag somewhat. But the second half was full of the old magic.

I read Electric forest by Tanith Lee this weekend. It's a short novel, novella really, that packs a twisty story and a vivid world into its short length.

11Shrike58
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 7:24 am

Starting this month with a completion: Things in Jars, a Victorian murder mystery with elements of the weird, but it's probably "mainstream," as opposed to genre. I suppose that I was expecting it to go full cosmic horror but it stays in the gothic wavelength. I still found it worth reading.

As for the rest of the month, the lineup is Vagabonds, The Bone Ships, and By Force Alone.

12pgmcc
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 8:20 am

>4 ScoLgo: The Gone-Away World hooked me on Harkaway and I have not been disappointed by any of his subsequent books.

13SChant
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 8:44 am

>12 pgmcc: Heartily agree on Harkaway! Gnomon was engrossingly twisty. Can't wait for his next one.

14AnnieMod
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 11:30 am

Starting the month with Jodi Taylor's Hope for the Best - the library wants it back... :) So no more "keep it for rainy days" delays. Then back to the Dick nominees (and the earlier books in their series...)

>9 SChant:

People complain about everything. Half of the negative comments are for the relationship >8 dustydigger: mentions, the other half because it was not the book they wanted it to be - it is pretty much designed to be a last book in the series so it has a very "something ends here" feeling (had it been a weaker author, we would be seeing one or more of the characters remembering old scenes from older books verbatim). Instead she threw in a new story and managed to get you the "good old days" feeling without it. I liked it when I read it - not the strongest in the series but nowhere near as bad as the reviews will make you believe.

15terriks
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 11:45 am

>2 dustydigger: I love Earth Abides! Have fun with that one if you haven't read it before. You'll likely be amused at realizing what an impact it made (written in the 1940s), based on the number of similar themes that came after.

I recently finished Eon by Greg Bear, and really enjoyed it.

Just started The Book Thief and am slowly getting into it.

16iansales
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 12:12 pm

Just started Walking to Aldebaran. It's... not very good.

17paradoxosalpha
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 12:21 pm

I'm just about to crack open Epiphany of the Long Sun and I've got The Sentinel on my agenda for this month.

18seitherin
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 1:39 pm

Not reading anything overtly SF at the moment so I'm just marking my space for the time being.

19Maddz
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 1:57 pm

>2 dustydigger: I reread Tea with the Black Dragon last year I think; I managed to find ebooks for that and the sequel, Twisting the Rope. I also have an ancient copy of Earth Abides lurking in my library, although my memory of it was depressing enough not to want to reread it.

>8 dustydigger: I thought Aral's preferences were alluded to in earlier books, although never made explicit. I mean the whole Ges Vorrutyger (sp?) relationship that was mentioned several times. Easy enough to miss.

Currently reading Guns in the North; just started the 2nd book in the omnibus. Less fantastical than the David Becket and Simon Ames trilogy which also includes Sir Robert (mostly in passing).

20Petroglyph
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 1, 2021, 2:10 pm

I read To be taught, if fortunate, a novella by Becky Chambers, about a team of four astronauts on a crowd-funded mission to explore four habitable worlds. It was my first Chambers, and I'm not wild about it: it errs on the side of info-dump and it may be a few pages too long. But it also managed to keep me interested and read pleasantly -- ideal for bedtime reading, in other words. Chambers' approach to SF reminded me of Carl Sagan as mediated through non-committal pop culture: eager to share their awe for the Universe, but also a call to unspecified action.

I've also started The year's best science fiction: thirty-second annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois (the 2014 collection, picked entirely at random). It should last me a few weeks at least.

21gypsysmom
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 4:03 pm

I am currently listening to Recursion and am totally fascinated by it. I keep finding reasons to stick the ear buds in my ears so I can listen to more. I even darned 3 of my husband's socks!

22RobertDay
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 4:44 pm

Currently in the middle of The Right Stuff, which would have been sf if written in the 1930s or '40s. Enjoying it despite a rather nasty Bantam A-format paperback with very narrow margins (and hardly any at the foot of pages). Wolfe's writing is very 60s but none the worse for that and he has some quite funny passing phrases.

23fuzzi
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 5:02 pm

>22 RobertDay: I loved that book, though I never saw the movie.

24rshart3
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 6:15 pm

Just finished The Rosetta Codex by Richard Paul Russo. It was OK, but too episodic for me -- picaresque adventures with not enough focus, and a deus ex machina to tie it up (old trope of vastly superior aliens). I didn't like it nearly as much as the Carlucci books, which are the only others of his I remember reading. But it was competent enough to finish....

25aspirit
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 2, 2021, 8:12 am

My reading plan for this month includes The Martian by Andy Weir and Martians Abroad by Carrie Vaughn.

26Stevil2001
maaliskuu 1, 2021, 8:03 pm

I'm still working on Raven Tower. I am moving faster now!

27SeanNicholls
maaliskuu 2, 2021, 7:41 am

Tämä käyttäjä on poistettu roskaamisen vuoksi.

28daxxh
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 3, 2021, 7:53 pm

Currently reading The Warship. Pretty good so far.

29Karlstar
maaliskuu 3, 2021, 4:25 pm

>28 daxxh: Is your touchstone correct?

30Karlstar
maaliskuu 3, 2021, 4:25 pm

>4 ScoLgo: If you liked it that much, I'll have to add it to my TBR list.

>25 aspirit: Have you seen the movie? The book is fantastic.

31dustydigger
maaliskuu 3, 2021, 5:25 pm

Tea With the Black Dragon was quirky and charming. I wanted more of the delightful relationship between the Zen lady and the dragon,so was abit miffed when she was kidnapped and was missing for most of the book :0(
The early 80s computer stuff was such fun to read.I suppose it is the equivalent of the Wright brothers early stages in flight development,but truly cutting edge in the early 80s. Cool!:0).

32fuzzi
maaliskuu 3, 2021, 5:46 pm

>31 dustydigger: there's a sequel and a prequel...

33daxxh
maaliskuu 3, 2021, 7:54 pm

>29 Karlstar:. Oops. Didn't notice that. I fixed it.

34Karlstar
maaliskuu 3, 2021, 10:57 pm

>33 daxxh: I wondered if that was the book you were talking about, I read a Neil Asher in that series, but not that one. I also read another book with a similar title by Joshua Dalzelle recently.

35dustydigger
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 4, 2021, 4:43 pm

>32 fuzzi: Hmm...I didnt know about a prequel. My ebook of Tea has a quite big chunk of Twisting the Rope at the back,and I read that but wasnt too keen.Not a lot of charm there,nd Iwasnt tootaken with the characters,I wont bother with it,at least for now.
However,I have located her The Third Eagle which looks like good fun.I hope to read it next month.
Started Simak's Highway to Eternity a time travel romp. Hope it will cheer me up while I am reading Silent Spring.Such an inluential,important book.Its 60 years old next year!.Rachel Carson herself died in 1964,barely into her 30s.Wonder what she would think of the world today?

36SChant
maaliskuu 4, 2021, 4:34 pm

>14 AnnieMod: So, now that my concerns are allayed I've just bought my copy of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen and will dive into it tomorrow.

37AnnieMod
maaliskuu 4, 2021, 4:39 pm

>36 SChant: Have fun :)

Meanwhile Hope for the Best was exactly as much fun as I expected it to be (and absolutely unsuitable to be read as a standalone). Next on the SF schedule is Reynolds' Revenger (because someone managed to nominate the third in this series for the Dick and I hate even trying to read a third in a series without the previous ones).

38justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 5, 2021, 9:40 am

>32 fuzzi: What's the prequel? I'm only aware of the two books and the ISFDB only lists the two.

39RobertDay
maaliskuu 5, 2021, 5:08 pm

I'm currently on a break from the sf genre, reading Ian Rankin's Fleshmarket Close, though this was inspired by my recent read of Ken MacLeod's The Night Sessions. My background reading for that book revealed something I'd previously not known - that Rankin was in the same coterie of friends as Macleod and Iain Banks. 'The Night Sessions' had something of Rankin about it, so I thought I ought to make his literary acquaintance.

40AnnieMod
maaliskuu 5, 2021, 6:12 pm

>39 RobertDay: That is a pretty late novel in the series. I love it but I am not sure how well it will work as a standalone (or how much will be lost from it by missing the backstories). Have fun though - Ian Rankin had been one of my favorite authors for decades.

41RobertDay
maaliskuu 5, 2021, 7:08 pm

>40 AnnieMod: It just happens that 'Fleshmarket Close' is the first one I've been able to put my hands on. I'm prepared for the fact that I'm dipping into the Rebus books fairly late on. And I know Edinburgh slightly, so I'm not having too much difficulty thus far with setting and style.

42AnnieMod
maaliskuu 5, 2021, 7:10 pm

>41 RobertDay: Have fun! :)

43Shrike58
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 6, 2021, 6:40 pm

Finished Vagabonds and, on the whole, I can see why it's being touted for the Hugo short list. You can't fault Hao for lack of seriousness, but I still had more fun with the last novels by Rebecca Kuang and Tamsyn Muir. Certainly worth your time but it'll take awhile, as it's not a knock-your-socks off story; to be fair, it's far from the most ponderous thing I've ever read.

44dustydigger
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 8, 2021, 6:12 pm

Did a reread (took all of five minutes) of Bob Shaw's exquisite short story ''The Light of Other Days''. I read it years ago,and have read it several times since,and it is still as haunting and affecting today as when I first came across it in the 80s in Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder. Great anthology that! I intend to read No Woman Born,Hothouse,Fondly Fahrenheit....oh,and PKDs notorious Colony! :0)
Silverberg was always an excellent editor,choosing interesting stories for his anthologies.. Still alive too,at 86!

45RobertDay
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 6, 2021, 6:00 pm

>44 dustydigger: Bob always tried to put as much reality as he could into his stories. In the case of "Light...", the setting is a real place on the A85 road down to Oban past the Bridge of Awe; I have picked out the patch of hillside where the slow glass farm is located in the story a few times. No cottage there, however.

I saw Silverberg in the throng at the 2019 Dublin Worldcon. Looking good for his age. He now claims to be "the World's oldest surviving Hugo recipient"!

46pgmcc
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 6, 2021, 12:53 pm

>44 dustydigger: Is that the story with slow glass? I read it in a Silverberg anthology called Science Fiction 101. Could be the same anthology under a different title.

ETA I see from >45 RobertDay: that it is the same story. Carry on. Nothing to see here.

47igorken
maaliskuu 6, 2021, 3:18 pm

>46 pgmcc: Same anthology, it seems. The mention of the Bridge of Awe caught my attention. Spent a great week walking in that area a few years ago, so I must've passed there a couple of times. The book looks interesting as well!

48pgmcc
maaliskuu 6, 2021, 3:51 pm

>47 igorken: It is a long time since I read the book. I went to Oban in 1978 but never drew the connection with the location in the story.

49fuzzi
maaliskuu 7, 2021, 8:56 am

>38 justifiedsinner: under the series link there's a book Raphael listed as a prequel to Tea.

50Stevil2001
maaliskuu 7, 2021, 8:57 am

Finished The Raven Tower last night, which I liked but did not love. Not as good as Ancillary Justice but definitely better than the sequels! About to start Doctor Who: The Age of Chaos, a comic book by one of the actors who played the Doctor.

51fuzzi
maaliskuu 7, 2021, 8:58 am

While not technically listed as SCIFI, I'm slogging through Conan of Cimmeria, my first Howard. It's okay, reads a bit like FanFic.

52justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 7, 2021, 9:08 am

>49 fuzzi: Raphael belongs to a different series set in the Renaissance.

53DugsBooks
maaliskuu 7, 2021, 8:00 pm

>44 dustydigger: I think the link for Colony is off it comes up as a work by Anne Rivers Siddons .

54fuzzi
maaliskuu 7, 2021, 9:10 pm

>52 justifiedsinner: guess the series needs to be edited, then.

55SFF1928-1973
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 6:21 am

I'm re-reading Halcyon Drift by Brian M. Stableford. It's old-school space opera, and the first book in the Grainger series which I believe ran for about half a dozen volumes. I read the first couple of books in my teens and revisiting the series is a somewhat guilty pleasure.

56SChant
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 6:24 am

Started Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Finding it a bit too facetious so far but I'm only 50-or-so pages in.

57SFF1928-1973
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 6:25 am

>51 fuzzi: By an odd coincidence that was my first Conan too. I enjoyed it but the better books in the series are more Howard and less De Camp and Carter.

58bnielsen
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 7:33 am

>55 SFF1928-1973: Hmm, Halcyon Drift is sitting unread on my shelves, so maybe I should give it a chance. (Currently reading The Voice of the Dolphins which is sort of fun, since he predicts German reunion and negative interest rates amongst other things.)

59Stevil2001
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 7:33 am

I just started Gladiator by Philip Wylie (of When Worlds Collide fame). The book features a "super man" who some think may have influenced Siegel and Shuster's creation; I'm curious to see to what extent it holds up.

60paradoxosalpha
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 9, 2021, 11:20 am

>57 SFF1928-1973:

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend the old De Camp and Carter "series" editions, as ubiquitous as they might still be in secondhand markets. They suffer from the editors' pastiche supplements, as well as the general project of retrofitting a loose set of non-sequential episodic tales into the form of an "epic" continuous narrative.

The Karl Edward Wagner Berkley editions were the good Conan books in the 20th century, and the 21st-century Del Rey editions (three volumes, starting with The Coming of Conan) are better still.

61justifiedsinner
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 9, 2021, 9:18 am

>55 SFF1928-1973: I enjoyed that series, Hooded Swan, I think it was. I believe I read all six.

62fuzzi
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 9:21 am

>57 SFF1928-1973: thanks! I've not finished the Conan book, got derailed by Locked Rooms but will return to Cimmeria, probably tonight. The book is on my bedside table.

63iansales
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 11:04 am

>56 SChant: I wasn't impressed. Reads like 1970s Silverberg trying to pastiche Gene Wolfe.

64SChant
maaliskuu 9, 2021, 12:01 pm

>63 iansales: I enjoyed Children of Time but the few other things of his I've read have been less successful. I'll probably give him a rest after this one.

65dustydigger
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 24, 2021, 5:58 pm

Finished Here,There Be Dragons a YA novel with Tolkien,Charles Williams and C S Lewis as protagonists! Nice ideas,but the execution is not the most skilful.I wont pursue the series.
Just received Last and First Men. That and Earth Abides,and a few short stories should use up all my available reading time this month.Mr Dusty is going stir crazy with this interminable lockdown and demands constant companionship,so my reading is a bit sporadic. :0(

66Shrike58
maaliskuu 10, 2021, 7:17 am

Finished up The Bone Ships and, on the whole, rather liked it. That I'm not a huge fan of epic "grimdark" fantasy probably tempered my enthusiasm. I'm also not quite buying Barker's world building, but I can't say that I was bored!

67Karlstar
maaliskuu 10, 2021, 11:02 am

After my current fantasy read, I'll be moving on to Salvation Lost by Hamilton. I'm looking forward to it.

68paradoxosalpha
maaliskuu 10, 2021, 4:59 pm

I just checked a copy of I'm with the Bears out of my local public library. It's first for my Other Reader to read the David Mitchell story in the collection, and I'll be reading that and a bunch of the others.

69RobertDay
maaliskuu 10, 2021, 6:23 pm

>55 SFF1928-1973: I read them (for the first time) a couple of years back. I found Stableford's departures from the usual space opera model, if not radical, then certainly interesting.

70rshart3
maaliskuu 10, 2021, 10:53 pm

Just finished The Faded Sun: Kesrith as a start in rereading that trilogy. It shows that they're early work (a bit thinner, somehow) but it's amazing how fast she picked up some of her biggest strengths: depiction of alien species & different worlds, with much detail and exploration -- the attempt to communicate between species -- and an arc of personal growth through adversity in the main characters. I always remembered liking this set, but don't think I've ever re-read them. Hard to believe they came out over 40 years ago!

71pgmcc
maaliskuu 11, 2021, 4:03 am

>68 paradoxosalpha: I see Wu Ming 1 has a story in that anthology. I have not read anything written by a single member of the Wu Ming group. I will be interested to hear your thoughts on that story if you choose to read it. I liked all their novels, well, the ones that have been translated into English so far.

I have not read any David Mitchell short stories. I was a bit disappointed with Slade House. I have not ventured into his latest novel as a result.

72pgmcc
maaliskuu 11, 2021, 4:07 am

>69 RobertDay:
if not radical, then certainly interesting.

"Interesting" is the word my mother used when asked to comment on my sister-in-law's new shoes. The shoes were shocking-pink* six inch platforms. It was the 1970s and since that day my family has used "interesting" as a euphemism for "I don't like it!" :-)

*For those not familiar with "shocking-pink" think Lady Penelope's Rolls Royce.

73anglemark
maaliskuu 11, 2021, 4:36 am

>72 pgmcc: I think that's a rather common use of "interesting" ... :)

74pgmcc
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 11, 2021, 5:57 am

>73 anglemark: I think that might have been what I was implying. :-) What my mother actually said was, "They're an interesting colour." My sister-in-law understood the message.

Regardless of the message, she still wore the shoes with her pink trouser suit and matching handbag. It was her going away outfit after the wedding.

75fuzzi
maaliskuu 11, 2021, 8:18 am

>70 rshart3: I need to reread the series, too...

76karenb
maaliskuu 11, 2021, 8:54 am

>72 pgmcc: I have admired Lady Penelope's vehicle for far more years than I haven't (I went off pink for a bit in my teens). That is a very pink pink.

Currently reading Sue Burke's Interference for book group tonight. Doesn't seem to require knowledge of the previous book (Symbiosis), which I never finished for some reason. This one starts on Earth, though, which answers some of the questions from the first book (which is about a lost colony of Earthlings).

Next up: Cramming more 2020 works in for the Hugo nominations, which close on the 19th.

77RobertDay
maaliskuu 11, 2021, 9:42 am

>72 pgmcc:, >73 anglemark: Perhaps I ought to have said 'intriguing'.

At least I didn't describe it as 'courageous'...

78paradoxosalpha
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 11, 2021, 11:11 am

>71 pgmcc:

Sure, I'll report back. So far, I've just read the Bill McKibben introduction.

I've also read Slade House, which I liked, and The Bone Clocks which I liked a lot, as well as enjoying the movie of Cloud Atlas, so I'm well-disposed towards Mitchell. But my Other Reader has tackled his whole oeuvre this year, only rejecting Number9Dream. She reports back that the Mitchell story in I'm with the Bears (2011) is an earlier variant of the final section of The Bone Clocks (2014).

79Darth-Heather
maaliskuu 11, 2021, 11:01 am

>76 karenb: I just finished Interference recently, and I'm not at all sure I would understand a lot of it without having read Semiosis. I will be interested whether you and your book group have a similar experience?

80iansales
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 12, 2021, 2:30 am

>71 pgmcc: >71 pgmcc: Have read all of Mitchel''s novels. The best, by a long shot, is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Slade House is more of a pendant to The Bone Clocks, and doesn't make much sense on its own.

81elenchus
maaliskuu 12, 2021, 11:33 am

>80 iansales:

Thus far I've read only Slade House, and adored it. I've got The Bone Clocks on my TBR list and will be curious to find out how (if at all) my appreciation of Slade House changes after reading. I've not read any other Mitchell as yet.

82karenb
maaliskuu 12, 2021, 5:55 pm

>79 Darth-Heather: I enjoyed Interference just fine with knowing that a) Pax is a lost colony of Earth, and b) the bamboo is a sentient being.

(Now I wonder what I missed because I never finished Semiosis!)

83igorken
maaliskuu 12, 2021, 6:19 pm

>80 iansales: I liked Slade House slightly better than The Bone Clocks, but indeed I wonder how you'd make sense of it all if you haven't read the latter first. I have to agree with iansales, that The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is very good, though Cloud Atlas will probably remain my favourite. His latest, Utopia Avenue is a fun read, but storywise wasn't all that interesting. The genre elements are almost non-existant here, although there's one part of the plot that deals with Horologists. It actually felt a little out of place in this one; I wonder what readers who haven't read his other books make of it.

84ScoLgo
maaliskuu 12, 2021, 6:49 pm

>80 iansales: I have been buying up print copies of Mitchell's novels this year with the intent to read them all in publication order. Cloud Atlas, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and The Bone Clocks will all be re-reads. I'm hoping to get more out of The Thousand Autumns the second time around as the connections with the Horologists didn't really click for me until I read The Bone Clocks just a few months ago. Really enjoyed that book. I also did like TTAoJdZ quite a bit but it didn't fully grab me on that first read. Haven't gotten to Slade House yet - it's an interesting-looking little hardback...

>83 igorken: I loved Cloud Atlas. Saw the movie first. Reading the book after really cleared up a ton of questions! ;)

Change of subject: Is anyone else stoked that Kindred is being developed by FX channel?

85SFF1928-1973
maaliskuu 13, 2021, 10:13 am

So I finished Halcyon Drift which was a pleasant, undemanding read. I did like the spiky, self-deprecating hero, who would have been played by Humphrey Bogart had he lived. Or possibly Harrison Ford.

Speaking of things pleasant and undemanding, next up I'm reading Book 9 in the Dumarest series: Mayenne by E.C. Tubb. I'm beginning to think most of the Dumarest books were named after the author's girlfriends.

86justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 13, 2021, 10:24 am

>85 SFF1928-1973: Or perhaps, would-be girlfriends.

87Karlstar
maaliskuu 13, 2021, 12:16 pm

>71 pgmcc: >80 iansales: >83 igorken: >84 ScoLgo: Ok, you got me, I'll have to give some David Mitchell a try!

88pgmcc
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 13, 2021, 5:19 pm

>80 iansales:

My first Mitchel was Cloud Atlas. I loved the book, its structure, its hints and red-herrings. I have not watched the film in its entirety having only caught bits of it as I channel hop. My next Mitchel was Black Swan Green, another book I quite enjoyed but it was not nearly as good as Cloud Atlas. Apart from his latest novel the only one I have not read is Number9Dream.

I really enjoyed the first half of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. While the latter half was entertaining I felt it had just descended into a thriller escape and chase. I was quite disappointed with that aspect.

The Bone Clocks I enjoyed quite a bit. it was a good exposé of his horologists.

When Slade House came out I was expecting something great. I was quite disappointed with it as it was basically a pretty mediocre story to reinforce the existence of the horologists. If you read it simply as a ghost story it was prettey run-of-the-mill, and as a story about horologists I felt it was weakened by the attempt to make it look like a ghost story. It is this let down that has made me reluctant to try Utopia Avenue.

I must say I thought it interesting in The Bone Clocks when he tries to retrofit the horologists into Black Swan Lake. It is a nice bit of creating an additional layer of meaning to a previous book to build a concept, in this case the horologists, which he will be using for future stories.

Bottom line, I have liked most of Mitchell's works but have felt he is going a bit off the boil for my tastes. Any remarks or comments I have come across regarding Utopia Avenue have not altered this impression. Mitchell was on my "buy his work as soon as it is published" list but I have relegated him to my "wait to see the reactions of others before reading" list.

89Shrike58
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 14, 2021, 9:30 am

So, I finished up By Force Alone, this morning. I liked it quite a lot but it is to be admitted that some parts worked better than others. This might be just the ticket for someone who wants a modern Bored of the Rings, though Tidhar writes delivers a book with much more sympathy than the National Lampoon gang of idiots came up with; it's not all in jokes and dumping on people Tidhar has come to hold in contempt.

90iansales
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 4:02 am

>89 Shrike58: I really liked By Force Alone. It didn't read like a comedy to me, more of a pastiche of a Guy Ritchie movie - at least in the opening section. Then it turned into a mashup of science fiction and fantasy.

91dustydigger
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 9:37 am

I enjoyed Clifford D Simak's Highway of Eternity,his final novel,published when he was 84.I was expecting a major fall off from his high points in the 60s,but this wasnt too bad at all. Actually he won the 1980 Hugo and Nebuls awards for the short story Grotto of the Dancing Deer so he was not to be written off. :0)
I am currently reading Rachel Carson Silent Spring.Not sure whether to say she is like a remorselessly pounding hammer,or a very sharp scalpel. I'll say both - alternating.Its the 60th anniversary of this important workand she died of breast cancer in 1962,in her early 30s.
Why post this here? It seems that Frank Herbert was blown away by the book,and it had a remarkable influence on a certain little story he was working on at the time. Something called Dune I think :0)

92dustydigger
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 9:41 am

This is the opening page of Silent Spring
A Fable for Tomorrow

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings.

Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.

Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children, who would be stricken suddenly while at play and die within a few hours.

There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs—the litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.

The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died.

In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams.

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

This town does not actually exist, but it might easily have a thousand counterparts in America or elsewhere in the world. I know of no community that has experienced all the misfortunes I describe. Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened somewhere, and many real communities have already suffered a substantial number of them. A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.

Still packs a punch,doesnt it?

93vwinsloe
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 9:56 am

>92 dustydigger: Rachel Carson could see the future in the present.

94SChant
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 11:08 am

Started Recognize Fascism a SF&F anthology that does what it says on the tin. The first couple of stories are OK - a bit YA but quite readable.

95ScoLgo
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 1:37 pm

Finished Dangerous Visions this past weekend. Rating: 7/10. It took me two months to read the 33 stories (and forewords and afterwords). That length of time is not the fault of the book, I intentionally took breaks between stories to let them percolate while reading other things. Speaking of which...

Taking a break from my read-through of the Foreigner series after the excellent Explorer and having another attempt at Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. My first try (several years ago) ended after just a few pages. Now, at approximately 1/4 of the way in, I am still not finding it all that gripping but am committed to seeing it through this go-round. The writing style is engaging enough but fae magic stories are generally not my cup of tea and I am having to force myself to pick it up instead of switching to something more to my interest. Hoping it improves as I persevere.

96AnnieMod
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 2:08 pm

Alastair Reynolds's Revenger is almost neo-pulp in places and definitely reads like an YA for most of it but once you get into it, it actually works better than I expected it will. And the world building is as always fascinating.

97Stevil2001
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 15, 2021, 5:10 pm

I am reading one of Orson Scott Card's earliest, Capitol. I have read the stories from it that were re-collected in The Worthing Saga, but the others are new to me. Actually, the ones I've read before are new to me, too, since I last read The Worthing Saga around 20 years ago, in high school! A couple have been vaguely familiar, but I remembered the world and set-up more than any individual tale.

98Karlstar
maaliskuu 15, 2021, 10:59 pm

>97 Stevil2001: I've read the Worthing Saga, but not Capitol. How is it?

Currently working on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

99DugsBooks
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 12:40 am

>98 Karlstar: I like all incarnations of Doug Adams work but I think I liked the serialized radio broadcasts the best, they must be stashed in a dusty corner of net somewhere.

100pgmcc
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 5:19 am

>99 DugsBooks: The first time I heard of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy was when I was at college in the 1970s and a friend told me they were recording the broadcasts on cassette.

To my shame, while I have several of Adams's novels and have watched both the TV and movie versions of Hitch Hikder's Guide, the only book by Douglas Adams I have read is Last Chance to See, a non-fiction book about endangered species. It was a wonderful read.

101fuzzi
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 8:22 am

Anyone see the women SciFi writer's list?

https://www.librarything.com/list/42911/all/

I was horrified to not see Cyteen listed!

Have fun!

102justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 10:58 am

Anyone see the Nebula Award nominees? Not a man in sight!

103andyl
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 11:23 am

>102 justifiedsinner:

Except that isn't true is it.

I see 4 (out of 6) in the novella category, and another 2 in short story, and plenty in the game writing category.

104paradoxosalpha
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 22, 2021, 11:06 am

>92 dustydigger:: Still packs a punch ...?

Yes. I just finished reading I'm with the Bears and posted my review.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/16/climate-change-here-europes-recent-...

Now I'm looking to cheer up with some far-future imaginings in Exodus from the Long Sun.

105Stevil2001
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 1:17 pm

>98 Karlstar: So far some have been really good, some are fine, and a couple have been bad. The bad ones are the ones not reprinted in Worthing Saga, though, so it seems like Card made the right call.

106rocketjk
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 16, 2021, 5:57 pm

>99 DugsBooks: Yes! I first learned of the Hitchhikers Guide via those BBC radio productions when the radio station I was working at (WWNO, the New Orleans NPR affiliate) aired them in the early 80s. I'm pretty sure that the radio shows came first and the books afterwards. Still the best version for my money, too, although I did love the books, as well.

Anyway, I don't post here often because I don't read as much science fiction as I used to, but I do enjoy following along to see what folks are reading. However, I have just finished, and quite enjoyed, Voice of the Whirlwind, the second novel in Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired series from the 1980s. (There is also a novella slipped between the first two books.) Voice of the Whirlwind was not quite as good (in my opinion) as the series' first book, Hardwired, but it was still fun, basically a loner-against-world political thriller but with some inventive world building. I was disappointed that the second novel book takes place 100 years on after the first, but I got over that.

107pgmcc
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 4:49 pm

>106 rocketjk:
I'm pretty sure that the radio shows came first and the books afterwards.

That is correct.

108ScoLgo
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 16, 2021, 4:57 pm

>106 rocketjk: "(There is also a novella slipped between the first two books.)"

I assume you mean Solip: System? There is also another short story called Wolf Time and Angel Station is listed here on LT as being part of the Hardwired universe - but I can't claim to have noticed any direct correlations back when I read that one.

I was originally turned off WJW when a friend loaned me the original Praxis trilogy. Didn't care for it at all and planned to avoid him going forward. Another friend then recommended Days of Atonement so I gave it a try. I then read Hardwired and realized I had written him off much too quickly.

I agree with you that VotW - while still very good - didn't quite live up to the promise of Hardwired.

(edited to fix a touchstone)

109rocketjk
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 5:56 pm

>108 ScoLgo: Yes, I was referring to Solip: System, which I read in one quick gulp. I actually sent off for a signed edition of that one. I did note the short story you mention, though I'm not sure I'll search it out. I'm disappointed to learn that Angel Station has no (or little) correlations to the earlier books. I have that book and was planning to get to it relatively shortly. In fact, I bought Angel Station in a local Goodwill, looked it up here on LT, and saw it was part of a series, which is what led me to reading Hardwired, Solip: System and Voice of the Whirlwind. I hate reading series out of order. Oh, well. I've enjoyed all the reading, so I'm ahead of the game either way. Cheers!

110ScoLgo
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 7:11 pm

>109 rocketjk: There may be more connections than I recognized; details of stories fade from my memory fairly quickly and I must have left around a decade between Hardwired and Angel Station so you may very well notice more cohesion than I did... ;)

BTW... I highly recommend Facets. It is an excellent collection that happens to contain Wolf Time. While it is not the strongest story in the book, there are really no duds either.

111rocketjk
maaliskuu 16, 2021, 9:23 pm

>110 ScoLgo: Re Facets: Thanks! I will check it out.

112justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 17, 2021, 9:55 am

>103 andyl: I should clarify: the Nebula nominations for best novel. Still an historic moment.

113fuzzi
maaliskuu 17, 2021, 9:56 am

>106 rocketjk: you got me with that BB...with Hardwired that is.

114rocketjk
maaliskuu 17, 2021, 1:16 pm

>113 fuzzi: I will look forward to reading what you think of Hardwired. I've read it twice, now, and it held up well the second time for me. It's fun to see what Williams gets right and wrong in his guesses about what the future would hold in terms of technology, but mostly it's a really good story.

115fuzzi
maaliskuu 17, 2021, 1:38 pm

>114 rocketjk: I've had several good book bullets this past year, including those by authors Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley, Tony Hillerman, and Martha Wells, and now possibly Jon Williams.

116iansales
maaliskuu 17, 2021, 1:44 pm

>112 justifiedsinner: One of whom is Rebecca Roanhorse whose career to date has been frankly hard to believe...

117rshart3
maaliskuu 17, 2021, 10:13 pm

Williams also wrote a very fun series about a high-society intersteller burglar named Drake Maijstral -- 1st one The Crown Jewels . I've often told friends about Drake's gourmet chef, an alien whose metabolism makes our food poisonous to him. He creates all the meals like chemistry experiments (can't taste!)

118rocketjk
maaliskuu 18, 2021, 2:46 am

>117 rshart3: Thanks for that recommendation. I will keep a lookout.

119Shrike58
maaliskuu 18, 2021, 7:24 am

>90 iansales: Fair statement; while the situations Tidhar puts his characters in are often absurd, there is still a certain underlying respect there. At a certain point I suspect that Tidhar was also satirizing "Game of Thrones;" a really big ax was being swung!

120Shrike58
maaliskuu 18, 2021, 7:28 am

Speaking of current Nebula award nominees, I finished up Ring Shout yesterday. File under like, but not love, though I suspect that I'll be revisiting this issue once the Hugo reader's packet goes out.

121justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 18, 2021, 10:08 am

>116 iansales: Well at least it's not Charles Gannon whose repeated inclusion year, several years running, is completely mysterious. I tried reading one and it struck me a misogynistic pulp. McDevitt was another so-so writer who kept appearing in the nominations. Log-rolling?

122iansales
maaliskuu 18, 2021, 12:05 pm

>121 justifiedsinner: McDevitt was definitely logrolling. I think Gannon might have been a puppy favourite.

Roanhorse - a single short story, and two novels, all nominated for (or won) awards. And yet Trail of Lightning was pretty ordinary, and not unlike several urban fantasies from the late 1980s and early 1990s...

123SFF1928-1973
maaliskuu 19, 2021, 10:38 am

>86 justifiedsinner: Wikipedia tells me he was married since 1944 so he had to keep those relationships quiet!

124SFF1928-1973
maaliskuu 19, 2021, 10:43 am

>101 fuzzi: Cool I will check that out! Although my experience of the subject is rather limited.

125justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 19, 2021, 10:57 am

>103 andyl: I stand corrected again. Apparently C. L. Polk is non-binary.

126Karlstar
maaliskuu 19, 2021, 11:46 pm

>121 justifiedsinner: I've read some McDevitt, but I usually get to 'new' scifi years after it has been published. Looking back at my collection, I was surprised to find I've actually read 4, but 2 of them have average or below average ratings for me and I didn't remember a darn thing about them until I scanned my review.

What should I be reading from this year's nominees?

127justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 20, 2021, 11:19 am

>126 Karlstar: Like you I usually get to reading some of the nominees after the award season is over, my TBR is too large as it is. I am interested in reading Piranesi. I read and was an eventual fan of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell. I also will probably read the Jemisin. I generally like her work.
The others are unknown to me but the Murderbot Diaries has a following. I would trust Ian's judgement about Roanhorse.

128SChant
maaliskuu 21, 2021, 6:04 am

Finished Recognize Fascism, a collection of short SF&F stories on a similar theme. I bought this for the story by the excellent Octavia Cade, not having heard of any of the other authors before, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing and ideas.

129pjfarm
maaliskuu 21, 2021, 3:05 pm

Finished the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy last night. While it's obviously not SF, I don't know that the extravagant lifestyles depicted could be much more alien to me if the characters were actually extraterrestrials rather than human.

Of course, if I had a few billion dollars to my name, my lifestyle would probably change. The library would certainly be fancier. 🤔😃 (They say the first billion is the hardest!)

130fuzzi
maaliskuu 21, 2021, 3:07 pm

Revolt in 2100 just isn't doing it for me. I think the first story in the collection would have been better if it had been edited down to a short story.

131RobertDay
maaliskuu 21, 2021, 6:20 pm

I'm not actually reading any sf at the moment, but I've just started on a biography of the Italian Futurist revolutionary Gabriele d'Annunzio, The Pike. D'Annunzio was highly notorious in his day, a proto-fascist leader who was also regarded as perhaps the best living Italian poet and playwright by many people, not all of them d'Annunzio. He considered Mussolini to be a "vulgar imitator" of himself.

What makes this worthy of mention in an sf thread is this: I'm about 70 pages in, and what I've read so far made me think that in some alternate reality, Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream would have been about d'Annunzio emigrating to the USA and becoming an sf writer, rather than Hitler. (The novel within the novel would have been rather better, for a start off.)

132Shrike58
maaliskuu 21, 2021, 6:27 pm

>131 RobertDay: I've read that book...I'm probably d'Annunzio's worst nightmare...an American of Croatian descent! It would be interesting to know if his work is still in the Italian literary canon, or whether he's someone who's quietly ignored outside of neo-fascist circles.

133karenb
maaliskuu 21, 2021, 7:21 pm

>127 justifiedsinner: Ian Sales apparently doesn't understand that representation matters; in Roanhorse's case, that involves ethnicity and poverty, among other things. I wouldn't dismiss Roanhorse (or any author) entirely on his say so. Note that Roanhorse's third book, Black Sun, is historical and very different from the first two. Takes place in the Americas, so it has representation in common with the first two books, but very different cultures.

The Murderbot Diaries are fast-paced space opera books that also manage representation -- in gender. I think that that because the Murderbot rejects gender, and yet is humanoid, it's a partly empty slate that's easy for more readers to identify with and/or project onto. The occasional snark doesn't hurt, either.

>132 Shrike58: Hey, me too! Well, Croatian among other things. Those darn fascists, so easily disturbed by the simplest things. Talk about your snowflakes!

Me, I'm about to wrap up Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. Great first novel wrapped around the Arthur legends, without being about the Arthurness of it all (a refreshing change from many Arthur fic). YA I suppose because they're all teenagers/college students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Hey, I wonder if Jacob Tobia reads fantasy?

134rocketjk
maaliskuu 21, 2021, 7:28 pm

>131 RobertDay: I read D'Annunzio's first novel, The Child of Pleasure, a year or so back. I found it pretty tedious, all in all. I read it in English transation, but I did actually buy the book at an outdoor bookstall in Turino, so that part was kind of cool. I don't know if he's read by Italians any more, but I can attest to the fact that that Italians do sell new paperback editions of his books to tourists. :)

135iansales
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 22, 2021, 5:26 am

>133 karenb: And if representation trumps all other elements for you in a genre work, then fine - read it and vote for it. But some people might need more than just that to consider a book good.

136AnnieMod
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 3:44 am

>133 karenb: Ian dismisses Roanhorse because of her writing, not because of who she is. The awards are for the best works of fiction, not for "best fiction from under represented groups".

I am all for diversity in both the nominations and the awards but it should be achieved by having the best works out there visible (and nominated and read), not by voting only because of diversity and ignoring better works due to the name of their author...

With this being said, everyone is free to read the book and make their own decision - I had disagreed with Ian often enough but that is what makes the genre interesting - there is something for everyone. But let's not go on the "representation before quality" bandwagon - that's not how you win hearts and minds.

137Karlstar
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 7:11 am

>127 justifiedsinner: Thanks. I have what I think is the first of the Murderbot series on my wish list, so I'll get to that soon-ish. I've seen a lot of people recommend Susanna Clark, so I'll move that up my TBR list too.

138fuzzi
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 8:29 am

>137 Karlstar: Murderbot is a fun, fun series. I've read all but the last one published, and there's another one coming up this year!

139vwinsloe
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 9:26 am

>133 karenb:, >135 iansales:, >136 AnnieMod:. I think that the discussion of "representation" misses an important element. While "representation" in an of itself does not necessarily make a book "best" in anything for everyone, it may indeed be the best book for a lot of people who can relate to it culturally. So, in order to be "best" in a certain year, is it necessary to have the widest appeal among the majority of readers? Maybe, but you can see where I am going with this. The most widely appealing book may not be the most appealing book to people from a minority culture. People who are from that culture or who have a closer association to that culture may find it very appealing indeed. Viewed through that lens, I suggest that the "best" may be plain vanilla.

140justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 10:16 am

>139 vwinsloe: It would be nice if the works in question were both otherwise we are doing the equivalent of social promotion. It also does a disservice to writers such as Aimé Césaire who was both a great poet and defined the concept of Négritude.

141AnnieMod
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 22, 2021, 11:00 am

>139 vwinsloe: Some books will click with some people, others will click with others. If it is because of what the book is about - all is good - I do not expect everyone to like the same books. Diversity in the books themselves is what makes our genre interesting.

But if the quality of the book is irrelevant as long as it is written by someone from a minority group, that becomes a problem.

It is the books vs authors conversation basically - I do not care who wrote the book when I nominate and vote for awards - I nominate the books I liked and I vote based on how much I like the books. If a book clicks with me because of who I am, it is in my top 5 so I nominate it. I expect everyone else to do that for the books that clicked with them and worked for them. But I am not going to vote for a work that I do not like just because of who wrote it.

142aspirit
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 22, 2021, 12:40 pm

>141 AnnieMod: "I am not going to vote for a work that I do not like just because of who wrote it."

Have you been asked to? I've been under the impression voters may choose eligible works they like.

143aspirit
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 22, 2021, 12:42 pm

I think everyone in this conversation wants voters to nominate works they actually engaged with. Making sure they can seems to me an important goal, and it's in my opinion far, far better than trying to get other people to vote on the same works for the same reasons.

The specific weighing for what gets votes in an awards process will always vary. Some people care who created the work. Some people don't. That there will be variety in how selections are made won't change.

144nrmay
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 12:42 pm

>21 gypsysmom:
Struck by yet another BB.. I just checked out the ebook edition of Recursion

Now reading
Devolution: a Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks

145Karlstar
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 3:24 pm

>141 AnnieMod: I think over time, topics come and topics go. If you look at some of the past winners from the 60's and 70's, what was 'topical' then is no longer as interesting and the books feel dated or worse. That doesn't mean that core issues will change or become unimportant, just that they have peaks and valleys.

146karenb
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 22, 2021, 3:36 pm

>143 aspirit: I think "engagement" is a key word here. Works don't necessarily have to be the highest "literary quality" for people to enjoy them. Works that get and keep people reading are important too.

147AnnieMod
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 4:48 pm

>145 Karlstar: And that is how it is supposed to be - it will be boring if we keep getting the same topics year in and year out :)

>146 karenb: Engagement is indeed the key word. Not representation per se (which you started with and which I reacted to). If the engagement is because of representation for some people, that's fine - although I hope they find something else to like in that book besides who wrote it (style, culture, world building, heroes - whatever).

But if someone does not like something, throwing the "XXX apparently doesn't understand that representation matters" when they share that they do not like a book or an author's style is a bit too heavy handed and even a bit insulting. If a book does not work for me, I do not care if the author is a member of 4 minorities or is a white man in his 60s. It is all about works clicking with people - not about who the author is. As much as that is important on another level, it is about books and not authors. Do we agree on that? :)

148karenb
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 6:05 pm

>147 AnnieMod: As much as that is important on another level, it is about books and not authors. Do we agree on that? :)

Yes! Yes, we do.

149Stevil2001
maaliskuu 22, 2021, 8:40 pm

I finished Capitol over the weekend. I think Card made the right call on what stories he omitted when most of the contents were reprinted in The Worthing Saga. I have also decided I should reread The Worthing Chronicle now that I'm done with Capitol, but that will take some time to get around to.

150LShelby
maaliskuu 23, 2021, 11:48 am

The only SF I've read recently is Want, by Cindy Pon. (Had to force the touchstone.)

151Karlstar
maaliskuu 23, 2021, 12:03 pm

>149 Stevil2001: Thanks, sounds like I can put that way, way down on the TBR pile.

152seitherin
maaliskuu 24, 2021, 2:19 pm

Added The Trials of Koli by M. R. Carey to my reading rotation.

153gypsysmom
maaliskuu 24, 2021, 7:57 pm

I am reading one sf book The Robots of Gotham by Todd Mcaulty and listening to another The Book of Koli by M. R. Carey. And while totally different I am enjoying both. And I just have to say that I am delighted to find another Canadian sf writer in Todd Mcaulty. It used to be I could count published Canadian writers in sf on the fingers of one hand but the field has grown substantially in the last few decades.

154Karlstar
maaliskuu 25, 2021, 11:44 pm

I finished Space Team. It was definitely not serious scifi, but funny.

155paradoxosalpha
maaliskuu 26, 2021, 10:13 am

As promised, I finished and reviewed Epiphany of the Long Sun. I've begun The Sentinel, and I'm pleased to find that not only does it contain the eponymous story which was the predecessor of 2001, it also includes "The Guardian Angel" which turned out to be advance work for Childhood's End.

156elenchus
maaliskuu 26, 2021, 10:48 am

>155 paradoxosalpha:

I've not read any Clarke for a long time, and that could be a good place to revisit. I have few detailed recollections of either book, but think well of them and the short stories could be interesting.

157dustydigger
maaliskuu 26, 2021, 3:07 pm

Finished Brian Aldiss' Moment of Eclipse winner of the BSFA award 1970,a collection of fantasy and SF short stories Was it chosen because of the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long? Its very patchy,and all too often I get the feeling of Aldiss showing off his intelligence and writing ability,rather than focusing on the tale itself. Rather slight to me.

158SChant
maaliskuu 27, 2021, 6:06 am

Started Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. So far it has a surreal, Gormenghast feel to it.

159pgmcc
maaliskuu 27, 2021, 6:44 am

>158 SChant: To me that is praise indeed.

160SChant
maaliskuu 27, 2021, 7:17 am

>159 pgmcc: Yes, I like the Gormenghast trilogy - quite hypnotic.

161anglemark
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 27, 2021, 8:00 am

>158 SChant: I finished it a couple of days ago. If I were to compare it to other books, I'd say it's a cross between Gormenghast, Flowers for Algernon, and a British police procedural.

162paradoxosalpha
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 27, 2021, 10:42 am

>158 SChant:

My Other Reader is reading it now. I've been a fan of the author's other work, so I'm sure I'll get to it myself.

163pgmcc
maaliskuu 27, 2021, 10:32 am

>162 paradoxosalpha: I have had that problem with some books in the past. If I really want to read it and "The Other Reader" is interested in it too, I get two copies. Luckily, in relation to Piranesi my other reader has no interest in the book. The books we clash on would be John Le Carré novels. Unfortunately there will be no more of those.

164paradoxosalpha
maaliskuu 27, 2021, 10:43 am

>163 pgmcc:

Oh, it's not a "problem"! My TBR pile is considerable. :)

165RobertDay
maaliskuu 27, 2021, 11:16 am

>164 paradoxosalpha: If my TBR pile was one of Iain M. Banks' Ships, it would almost certainly choose for itself the name 'Mistake Not...', which in this case would be the short version of 'Mistake Not My Current Reading Matter For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Stack Of Books On My Bedside Table That Is Itself The Mere Milquetoast Shadow Cast By The Vast Stupendous Edifice Of The Full TBR Pile'.

166pgmcc
maaliskuu 27, 2021, 11:51 am

>164 paradoxosalpha: & >165 RobertDay:
My current Unread tag count is 1,197. That does not include the books that escatped cataloguing, are non-fiction, or that I did not tag. The problem is not not having another book to read. The problem is when my other reader wants to read the same book at the same time.

Yes, before you say it, I realise my 1,197 is probably a mere drop in the ocean when compared to your TBR pile.

By the way, Robert, I love your Culture ship name.

167DugsBooks
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 27, 2021, 7:28 pm

>166 pgmcc: When the big alien space ship blocks most of our sunlight prior to invasion you guys will be the last defenders on earth - using one book at a time to stay warm and ready ;-)

168dustydigger
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 28, 2021, 6:32 am

I try not to have extended TBRs.I do have a list of 125 books over on WWEnd,(first books in series mentioned only or it would be much bigger)but as I get older and fully realize I can NEVER read all the books I would like to,I only do a monthly TBR,which I put at the top of this group for reference purposes and to give an illusion of control.
Also I only add completed books to my shelf. I get panic attacks at the sight of some people's TBR lists! books listed 5962,books read,234.lol.

169Maddz
maaliskuu 28, 2021, 7:23 am

>168 dustydigger: I'm a bit like that - it looks like I haven't read most of my collection, but you have to remember:

1. I've been reading SFF for 45 years. Titles with no review in my collection are likely something I read when I first purchased it over 40 years ago. It's not been read since because not enough time to read new books and reread old books (unless they're a favourite).

2. I often wait for a series to complete before binge reading.

3. The more hard SF in my collection are most likely Paul's books. We merged our libraries when we moved in together; I am less likely to read these.

4. I don't much bother with reviews.

170paradoxosalpha
maaliskuu 28, 2021, 9:39 am

I keep my "official" TBR to 100 titles or so. That gives me plenty of choice for my next read.
Books go on to the list as quickly as they come off.

I'm much less anxious about the books I haven't read than I am about the books I haven't written.

171rshart3
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 28, 2021, 11:02 pm

I gave up having a TBR list years ago. It just kept getting longer & longer (working in a library didn't help). I replaced it with watching what people recommended to me -- if I kept getting recommendations on a title, esp. from people who knew me & my reading, I prioritized it. Other than that I just read (or re-read) what I feel like.

However, a worse problem than the ever-growing TBR list is alive & thriving: the To Be Bought list. I keep buying books that sound interesting, or that I just want to own, even when I already have more unread titles than I could read in my remaining lifetime. I saw an article a year or two ago which argued that it's good to own more books than you can ever read. In that case, I'm in good shape.

172AnnieMod
maaliskuu 28, 2021, 3:58 pm

>168 dustydigger:
It really depends on how one uses their LT library. I had not added the books I had read before I moved to the States (except the ones I had reviewed and occasionally early books of series so I know where I am with these). As a result, my library is tilted towards the non-read ones because that’s what had accumulated here (it’s even worse than it looks now as most of my paper books are not cataloged yet so I have a lot more unread ones). They have a TBR tag of a type just because I had not read them. As someone said somewhere - book buying and book reading are two separate hobbies. :) I plan to read all I buy but I am also an impulsive buyer so sometimes books just sit there for a bit.

I pretty much read what I feel like reading. Just because there are a few thousand books around the house does not mean that I won’t read something from the library first (it is actually much more likely). :)

173Karlstar
maaliskuu 28, 2021, 4:09 pm

>166 pgmcc: Whoa, that's quite a TBR list. I'm guessing you add BB's from here on LT to your collection so they get on your TBR list? I just add them to my Amazon wish list, but at a much, much slower rate than you, I suspect.

>169 Maddz: My approach is very similar to yours. If it is in my collection but doesn't have a review here on LT I read it so long ago that I can't say anything intelligent about it. I don't read reviews on Amazon (or elsewhere) before picking up a new book, the folks here on LT are great reviewers.

174ChrisRiesbeck
maaliskuu 28, 2021, 5:43 pm

>172 AnnieMod: Me too. My TBR is basically everything in my library that I can neither definitely remember having read nor have I written a review in LT. So thousands. I often try to randomly grab something but since hardcovers are two-deep and paperbacks are three-deep, there's bias against the items in the back.

175Petroglyph
maaliskuu 28, 2021, 10:46 pm

I polished off in short order: Currently working on Newton's wake by Ken MacLeod, an author I've never read.

176anglemark
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 29, 2021, 2:47 am

>175 Petroglyph: Oh, I liked that one (Newton's wake). I hope you do too.

177divinenanny
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 2:52 am

Re: TBR, I am an absolute book hoarder. I love going to charity shops and finding books. As I sit here, working from home due to, you know, I am surrounded by my filled bookshelves and that makes me happy. My TBR (which is all the unread books in my collection I actually want to read, excluding kids books and my husbands books) stands at 5338. I don't feel pressure, I know I'll never read them all. But I always have something new to read, and maybe someday I will have some more time.

178Maddz
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 5:34 am

>177 divinenanny: I reckon I will have time in around 4 years or a bit less - assuming my retirement age doesn't get pushed back by the government to pay for COVID. When I started worked, retirement age for women was 60; then they brought it in line with men - 65. Now it's 67.

I will say I could do with the extra time paying into my pension fund.

179SChant
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 6:29 am

>178 Maddz: I took early retirement/voluntary redundancy aged 60 thinking I could now get through my TBR pile a bit quicker! Nope, not a chance, people just keep writing interesting-sounding books! They should just stop it!

180Sakerfalcon
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 7:05 am

>177 divinenanny: I am an absolute book hoarder. I love going to charity shops and finding books. As I sit here, working from home due to, you know, I am surrounded by my filled bookshelves and that makes me happy.

This is me!

>165 RobertDay: Brilliant!

I did take one book off Mount TBR and start reading it this weekend - Luna: moon rising by Ian McDonald.

181divinenanny
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 7:49 am

>178 Maddz:, Retirement age is far away for me, and moving farther away every year. Right now it will be when I am 70 years and 9 months, but nobody believes that anymore. That's still 33 years away, they will move it again for sure.

182vwinsloe
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 8:58 am

I thought that I might get more reading done when I semi-retired. I didn't consider the 2 hours of daily commute time reading on the train plus the time spent traveling for work when I listened to audio books.

These days, I'm lucky to get in an hour before bedtime, and part of that is not quality reading time because I keep nodding out.

My TBR bookcases and stacks have continued to grow despite my not making the rounds of used bookstores and library sales carts due to COVID. I am hitting all the Little Free Libraries in my area, so much so that, out of guilt, I have got my own Little Free Library now to install on my property at the corner of the road. I hope that the walkers and joggers who pass by like science fiction!

183paradoxosalpha
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 9:28 am

>182 vwinsloe:

My neighborhood has quite a few LFLs. I'm quite sure that I put in more books than I take out!

>175 Petroglyph:, >176 anglemark:

I loved Newton's Wake. I'd say if you like it, though, try MacLeod's series (Engines of Light, Fall Revolution); they're even better.

184rshart3
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 9:48 am

A year ago more or less, I learned the Japanese word "tsundoku"; one definition is: "acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. The term originated in the Meiji era (1868–1912) as Japanese slang." I gather its base meaning is "pile of books or reading material".
Looks like a useful term for members of this group. :-)

185pgmcc
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 10:13 am

>177 divinenanny: It is not hoarding if it is books.
:-)

186pgmcc
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 10:16 am

>183 paradoxosalpha: Hear! Hear! on the Ken MacLeod books.

187fuzzi
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 12:47 pm

>185 pgmcc: bwahaha! I concur!

188RobertDay
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 5:00 pm

>185 pgmcc: The difference between hoarding and collecting is that collectors have catalogues. Ergo, none of us are hoarders.

189pgmcc
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 5:23 pm

>188 RobertDay:
Never a truer word was spake!

190ChrisRiesbeck
maaliskuu 29, 2021, 7:01 pm

Finished The Hydrogen Sonata. Like everyone else, it seems, just started Newton's Wake.

191Petroglyph
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 1:55 am

I finished Newton's wake earlier today. I enjoyed most of it, though the end felt a bit too rushed compared to the rest, too pat, even a little maudlin.

Re: >176 anglemark:, >183 paradoxosalpha: et al.:
I'm not really looking for more series to put off finishing right now ;). But Cosmonaut Keep does look interesting, so that'll likely be the next MacLeod I pick up.

192divinenanny
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 4:53 am

>188 RobertDay: I am going to remember that one :D And then just ignore the fact that despite two catalogues I still sometimes buy doubles

193anglemark
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 7:50 am

>192 divinenanny: Yes, occasionally you know for sure that you don't have this interesting book, since you have never heard of it before, and then you just buy it without double-checking. And when you come home to catalog it, you see that apparently you did the same thing a couple of years ago as well.

194iansales
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 8:17 am

>193 anglemark: This is why the concept of the list was invented...

195iansales
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 8:19 am

Currently reading Michel Houellebecq's Submission, which must surely count as science fiction as it's set in 2022 (and was originally published in 2015). I know very little about French politics, but a lot of the book seems very similar to the way Brexit has gone, which is an achievement given it predates the referendum.

196justifiedsinner
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 10:26 am

>195 iansales: His novel Platform also included an Islamic terror attack on a tourist resort in Thailand which presaged the Bali bombings of 2002. He's a little eerie.

197dustydigger
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 10:45 am

Enjoyed Andre Norton's Storm over Warlock,one of the coming of age tales she does so competently.She's never afraid to put her young protagonists in really hard,truly life-threatening places.And she sets upsolid world settings.and generally just respects her young audience. Oh that more of today's YA authors could do that!lol.

198gypsysmom
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 11:11 am

Finished The Robots of Gotham and thought it was quite good for a first attempt. Like a lot of first novels there were probably too many characters but I have to say they were all (both AI and human) quite interesting. It seems like the ending left it open for a sequel so I'll look for that.

Re: reading more when you retire, I retired almost 7 years ago at age 61 and I really don't have any more reading time than I did when I was working. I do listen to more audiobooks because I put them on when I'm doing something I don't need to concentrate on fully like walking by myself or knitting or cooking. But that just means I keep acquiring more downloads of audiobooks as I run across mentions of them and my TBR list keeps growing. Still it's a nice problem to have and I was quite glad to have access to audiobooks when the libraries shut down last year.

199iansales
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 31, 2021, 6:27 am

>196 justifiedsinner: Of François Bayrou, a French politician, Houellebecq writes, "... he's an utter moron. He's never had a political agenda beyond getting himself elected to the 'highest office in the land', whatever that might take, and he's never had an idea of his own..." Add in blatant corruption, serial adultery, a number of children with different mothers, and a pathological inability to tell the truth... and you could have Boris Johnson.

200RobertDay
maaliskuu 30, 2021, 6:22 pm

>199 iansales: Oddly, I've thought that as I've been reading 'The Pike' (see >131 RobertDay:), the bio of the Italian writer, libertine and proto-fascist Gabriele d'Annunzio.

201divinenanny
maaliskuu 31, 2021, 3:30 am

>193 anglemark: I used to get bitten by UK and US titles being different (looking at you Tiger, Tiger, oh no, you are also The Stars My Destination). Now it is mostly because of bad reception in the shop making me unable to search my catalog well. Ah well, for all the cheap books I score at charity shops I don't mind donating doubles (and abridgements, I hate those) back every now and then.

202dustydigger
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 31, 2021, 6:13 am

Over 200 posts this month on this thread (usually about 80),and FORTY participants.(usually a reliable 28 or29).Is it because its Spring?Vaccine rollout? No idea,but keep it up folks.All over the internet we see beloved websites sinking away.. Keep up the good work of being active to protect LT.:0)
I am feeling pretty chipper mentally today as Shielding has come to an end. Its been a pretty LOOONNNGGG year!Physically I am having an humdinger of an arthritic flare up,every joint is swollen and painful.Typing using 1 finger on right hand,so I am ending soon,but mentally I feel happier than for a long time.Full of the joys of Spring?
Stil only allowed to meet up with one person,outdoors,but from May 25 it will be 6 people indoors.Our libraries may reopen too after Apr 12.
Reading wise,I am reading First and Last Men more interesting than I expected,and Earth Abides What a book.I have had it on my shelf for several years,since the time I was reading a lot of post apocalypse/dystopian stuff,back in 2017. I really depressed myself and gave up on that subgenre.
I missed a treat. This book is awesome. More later when I finish it.

203Maddz
maaliskuu 31, 2021, 6:56 am

Yeah, we're both on leave this week and next, and have done various trips in the past couple of days. Went to the local recycling centre Monday and then a walk beside the New Bedford River before a drive through the villages looking at the spring blossom. Yesterday was a rare trip to another town to get himself jabbed - when he booked, our local centre wasn't available. We also took the opportunity to shop a different supermarket while we were in town. At some point I must get out to the garden centre - I still have a voucher to spend.

I've also been washing rugs and hanging them outside to dry. Today it's towels, and bedding tomorrow if the weather holds. I've also been sending the Roomba round various rooms followed by the Braava.

I also got my old Kobo Touch set up for his mother (she's been enjoying my Judith Tarr historicals) and she's talking about a trial period at home next week. We're not so sure about that as his brother won't be able to get over at the weekend until next month at the earliest.

204vwinsloe
Muokkaaja: maaliskuu 31, 2021, 8:40 am

>202 dustydigger:. Librarything staffer Megan Blakemore (Megbmore) has been active on Twitter, and I think that her lists efforts have drawn people to Librarything. Kudos to Megan!

205rshart3
huhtikuu 2, 2021, 12:06 am

>193 anglemark: That was my reason for joining LibraryThing; after a certain number of books it's impossible to remember them all when in bookstores (esp. used bookstores, a favorite pastime of mine). It has saved me a number of duplicate buys. I've now put my CDs in too (probably cheating since I mean music CDs, not audiobooks), because I was starting to buy dup.s of them also.

Of course now I enjoy & benefit from the groups, too.

206AnnieMod
huhtikuu 2, 2021, 12:24 am

>205 rshart3: "probably cheating"

Nope, not cheating. You define what is in "YOUR" library. :)

207Karlstar
huhtikuu 2, 2021, 10:39 pm

>206 AnnieMod: Agreed, this isn't a contest!

>205 rshart3: I had the same problem, I'm fairly good at remembering what I've read, but not quite so good at remembering what I own and in what format, I recently picked up a hardcover version of a book I already had and a paperback version of one that wasn't listed in LT. Oh well. I should learn to check my library on my phone first!

208LShelby
huhtikuu 5, 2021, 11:19 am

>205 rshart3:
I use LibraryThing to track my Asian drama watching. :)

...And to return to the topic at hand...

I just read MUNKi by Gareth Southwell

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