Our reads in May 2022

Another month,another pile of books. Share your plans for May

SF/F reads
Arkady Martine - A Memory Called Empire ✔
Sheridan Le Fanu - Carmilla✔
Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle
H P Lovecraft - The Rats in the Walls✔
Arthur Machen - The White People✔
Anthony Van Aardvark - Katie Kincaid Lieutenant ✔
from other genres
Katie Fforde - Wild Designs✔
Joanna Spyri - Heidi ✔
Anthony Horowitz - Magpie Murders ✔
Selma Lagerlof - Wonderful Adventures of NilsϬ

Very little SF this month. I am way behind on challenge reads from other groups and genres. But at least there is Horror MAYhem! on Book Tube :0)Horror .
We have to read shorter horror stuff,less than 250 pages each, 4 weekly categories,all quite wide so even wimps like me can do some reading in the horror genre.lol.Here're my picks
Week 1 - Supernatural monsters/creature - Carmilla
Week 2 - Gothic horror - We Have Always Lived at the Castle
Week 3 - Cosmic horror - The Rats in the Walls
Week 4 - Folk horror - The White People

Looks good fun.

Machinehood got kicked to May and The Kaiju Preservation Society is in hand. All the Horses of Iceland and Battle of the Linguist Mages should be showing up for me in the coming week or so; if not, I guess I'll just have to read something else!

May will see me finish The Gone-Away World and probably tackle 2010: Odyssey Two (I just got a copy), Elric: The Dreaming City (the Julien Blondel version, ditto), The Blazing World, and perhaps Consider Phlebas.

I'm finally about to start re-reading Hyperion - it's one of those "I wonder if I'll like it as much, 30+ years later" reads. After that, a reread of Ulysses by Joyce -- not SF, but another tale honoring the format of a much earlier classic. In time for Bloomsday, I hope.

I’m about half-way through Sarah Pinsker’s We Are Satellites for my SF&F book group. It’s a tantalizing but narrowly focussed look at how a new brain-implant technology affects a single family. It's interesting to follow the developments with each family member but I could do with it opening out more to see the wider social impacts.
Also picked up Ben Aaronovitch’s latest Rivers of London novel Amongst Our Weapons from the library - always an entertaining read.

Currently reading The Best of Cordwainer Smith collection. So far, the stories feel rather dated but I'm compelled to give Smith credit for writing female characters with agency way back in the 1950's and 1960's. Also in print form, I just cracked the covers to White Queen, which is dense and rather difficult to latch onto so far. On the e-reader, I'm finally getting around to a TOR freebie from a while back: Ninefox Gambit.

>9 vwinsloe:. The Lady Who Sailed the Soul is one of my all time favorite stories of his. I believe that it is in that collection.

Not sf per se, but related; I just read the Hugo finalist True Believer by Abraham Riesman, an unvarnished, strong, insightful, moving, depressing biography of Stan Lee. Now about to start whatever the next Wayward Children novella is, for my sins.

>9 vwinsloe: It is and yes, I liked that story quite a bit. The one I just finished from the collection is The Dead Lady of Clown Town, which I also really enjoyed.

Still stuck in a reading slump so I'm kind of reading Memory's Legion and mostly ignoring The Echo Wife.

I've completed my read of The Gone-Away World and posted my review. I definitely liked it, even if not quite so much as Gnomon.

>5 paradoxosalpha:, I see what you did there with Consider Phlebas.

>6 rshart3:, Brave to revisit that Joyce, I made it through once and will leave it at that. (Portrait, on the other hand, I'd read again.) If it's Simmons you're also revisiting, it suggests trying Ilium / Olympos for more Homer rather than Chaucer.

I finished Shards of earth which was really good, and am now on Serpent's Reach by C. J. Cherryh.

>13 paradoxosalpha:. Good to know. I have both Gnomon and Angelmaker sitting on my TBR shelf. They both look like rather large investments of time, so I think I'll go with Gnomon first.

>16 vwinsloe: Gnomon is the larger time investment. Both are well worth any time you invest in them.

>16 vwinsloe:

Nick Harkaway was on "Book Club" (a BBC Radio 4 programme) on Sunday talking about Angelmaker.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016wx5

The programme contains a few spoilers so don't listen to it if you don't like that kind of thing

>18 andyl:
Thank you for the link. I have read Angelmaker twice (so far) and listened to, and really enjoyed, the interview. Thank you again.

Listening to the interview has given birth to a desire to read it again.

I'm super interested in Angelmaker, but since I already own a copy of Tigerman, I'll probably read it first.

>6 rshart3: I've re-read the Hyperion Cantos twice now and it held up very well for when I re-read it just a couple of years ago.

>14 Cecrow: 👍 for Ilium and Olympos. I think I enjoyed that more than the Hyperion Cantos. I'll probably read it a 3rd time in a couple of years.

I just finished reading Nemesis Games. Wow! I am enjoying The Expanse series. In Nemesis Games, I really appreciated how the authors wove in amongst the very riveting action the relationship development of the crew of the Rocinante despite the fact that the four crewmembers are in different parts of the solar system for the bulk of the novel. I've just started Babylon's Ashes and am enjoying it so far.

Have finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - very impressive, though not 100% perfect. Review follows. I want to finish off the book on narrow gauge railways in Transylvania I started on before launching into The Urth of the New Sun.

>24 RobertDay:, always thought I'd like to try reading Urth, but thought I'd wait until I trip across a copy in a used bookstore. Never happens.

Enjoyed a reread of Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla for Horror MAYhem.26 years before Dracula most of the vampire tropes are already established. Lesbian overtones are barely hidden.
Surely Bram Stoker must have read this novella,so many similarities of setting,characters,vampire traits - and even a predecessor of Van Helsing! Much less prepossessing than Van Helsing,but barely there - not something you could say about Van Helsing!
My next Horror Mayhem book will be We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Also finished a Horatio Hornblower in Space fix,light stuff really,Katie Kincaid - Lieutenant,and am revisiting my childhood with Selma Lagerlof's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

Finished Memory's Legion by James S. A. Corey. Liked it.

>17 pgmcc: & >18 andyl: Thank you. Looks like I should get to both of them if I ever finish the interminable, non-genre The Mirror and the Light. (Only kidding, just 200 out of 757 pages to go!)

Finished Witch Week, now doing a decades-delayed re-read of The Shadow of the Torturer.

I am in theory reading Victories Greater than Death but I only got as far as the dedication when I had to abandon lunchtime reading for an impromptu meeting. My first Lodestar finalist...

>25 Cecrow: I have had a request in with my local used bookstore to email me when they get a copy of The Urth Of The New Sun. It’s been awhile… so I gave up and ordered a copy from The Book Depository via AbeBooks. It just arrived this week. So… once I am done Babylon’s Ashes I’ll be reading Urth of the New Sun. Looks like a few of us are reading Gene Wolfe these days. I read Book of the New Sun last year for the first time and really enjoyed it. I’m listening to the ReReading Wolfe podcast which is discussing New Sun since last year. It’s filling in a lot of stuff I missed the first time round.

I did a full Solar Cycle read last year (rereading the New Sun, and making a first approach to the rest). It's great stuff, all the way through.

Half-way through Urth right now and enjoying it. The first time I read it (not long after it came out), it'd been a while since I'd read Book of the New Sun and so there was a lot I missed. On this re-read, it's only been a few weeks since I finished Citadel and so much of Severian's inner thoughts and memories are still clear for me. It's pretty much like a first reading, frankly.

>31 Neil_Luvs_Books: I am way overdue for a reading of the New Sun books and I never have read Urth. Something else to add to my list. I'm reading Raise the Titanic now, after I recently got a (used) replacement for my lost book.

>12 seitherin: I couldn't bring myself to read Echo Wife because it was I think too depressingly plausible. I love her stuff, though, so maybe someday? Not this year though.

>24 RobertDay: Harry August was my introduction to Claire North, and it was good. Funny how the many-lives-lived thing popped up in a couple of other recent books after that.

>30 Stevil2001: The Anders was great fun. I also enjoyed the heck out of Iron Widow, which provided excellent escapism last Monday. Now, the Novik is the only Lodestar nominee I haven't read yet. (I'm not voting, but I like to check out the nominees.)

Currently in more fantasy than skiffy with Ophie's ghosts by Justina Ireland.

Knocked off The Kaiju Preservation Society and I got all the amusement I hoped for out of it. Back to Machinehood for this month's book-group meeting.

>35 karenb: Not very plausible in the near future unless the Republicans decide they want Stepford wives instead of real ones.

Couldn't be bothered to finish The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. Too self-absorbed for my taste. Decided to dive into A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers.

Just completed reading Babylon's Ashes. I really enjoyed it. Another good mix of action and personal relationships. Next up, The Urth of the New Sun. I never read any Gene Wolfe until stumbling upon his Book of the New Sun last year. I had to let that one sit for a while before picking up Urth. I suspect I will eventually read the rest of The Solar Cycle over the next few years.

I have said this before someplace on LT... how is it that I, a rabid Sci-Fi fan never came across Wolfe before last year? Very weird... Probably has to do with the fact that many of his works were first published when I was in graduate school and then trying to get myself established as an adult. Career and school were like a black hole that sucked everything into it. And now I am making up for lost time.

:)

>37 seitherin: My problem with the book is that it started reading like "Weekend at Bernie's" at a certain point.

As for Republicans wanting "Stepford Wives," you have to wonder sometimes.

I am pausing Victories Greater than Death (it's not doing much for me, but I might come back to it if I have time) to start a different Lodestar finalist, Iron Widow.

>38 Neil_Luvs_Books: Also, a lot of Wolfe was packaged to look like fantasy. Moreover, he has suffered a lot from the death of the mid-list as far as a lot of publishers are concerned.

I finished Hyperion while on a camping trip. I had been curious since it was decades since I'd read it, yet have kept recommending it; I was hoping not to get the "disappointed revisit" syndrome. I liked it just as much this time. But (not to do a spoiler) I had the same reaction this time to one thing, the final image in the book: it was jarringly out of step and inappropriate to the tone & content of the rest of the book. Very unfortunate.

>41 RobertDay: I had to look up what you meant by death of the mid-list. I get it now: Wolfe may be more demanding than the average reader is willing to work for and so despite the awards isn’t necessarily a best seller. I guess that may be true of much literature: critics may love it but most readers don’t buy it. I remember reading somewhere on LT that most of the books that are purchased are never read. 😳

>43 Neil_Luvs_Books: "...most of the books that are purchased are never read."

Well, I'm certainly guilty. I have a lot of unread books - but I'm working on it... ;)

>44 ScoLgo: Yes, but you're reading, so not guilty!

I was surprised that when I counted my unread books here on LT that the total was just over 100, I have a lot of work to do! Those are all used books though, so does that actually count?

>45 Karlstar: Back in the 70s, when I realized I had over 50 unread books, I went on a reading spree to catch up. A lot easier to do with the standard 180 page paperback than today's doorstops. After about four months, I finished the last unread book... and felt at such a loss that I started buying books without any thought as to when I'd get around to reading them. So now I have probably 5000 in the TBR pile. But that's OK. I hop between the decades, mix serious with fluff, etc.

>46 ChrisRiesbeck: I wonder if there is a support group for folks like us who purchase books faster than we can read them? On the other, I view this as the habit of an optimistic personality. One who is certain that they will live long enough to read all of those books they bought either before they die or before they lose their eyesight.

I know that is true of me! 😀

Or lose their glasses after an atomic war.

>46 ChrisRiesbeck: That's a lot of unread books!

>46 ChrisRiesbeck: & >47 Neil_Luvs_Books:

I have taken the approach of refusing to die until I have read all my unread books. The more books I buy the longer I will live. Win-win.

>47 Neil_Luvs_Books: I wonder if there is a support group for folks like us who purchase books faster than we can read them?

I thought that's what LibraryThing is?

I've just started Salvation and I'm enjoying it so far.

Not been well (how unusual - not) and reading has been sporadic,and I cant settle to sustained reading of a book. At the moment I am reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle,A Memory Called Empire,The Rats in the Walls,Magpie Murders,Wonderful Adventures of Nils and a couple of trashy Kindle Unlimited urban fantasyamusing rubbish really,which I confess is easier on my brainfogged noggin,- like to like I suppose - than Memory of Empire. That is excellent,intelligent,complex and I am struggling with all the names and places,and who is doing what.Nice to see a worthy Hugo contender that I like for once,but not when I only have half a brain. Cant sit at the computer to read,so have to use my phone,and its very heavy plus I keep getting handcramps! lol.

>46 ChrisRiesbeck: Same here, without the reading spree. At one point I switched from buying exclusively buying new books to also buying second-hand. With second-hand it is always what you find at the moment, so I usually buy what I find interesting. Combine that with the availability of copyright-free ePubs and Humble Bundles.... 5532 books in my possession that I still aim to read someday :D. But it truly is a personal library, and I enjoy looking at my collection to pick out my next read.

"Tsundoku" anyone?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44981013

I'm reading Cyteen and really enjoying it so far. And for a contrast, I've just started The galaxy and the ground within as my commuting read.

>47 Neil_Luvs_Books: If you find such a group, let me know! LT just makes my problem worse as I learn about so many good books that I just HAVE to get!

>46 ChrisRiesbeck:, >47 Neil_Luvs_Books:, >49 Karlstar:, >51 anglemark:, these are great thoughts for the Unread Support Group, https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/1766/Unread-Support-Group where we chat about this nice-to-have problem. 5000 ... !!

>57 Cecrow:. Nice to hear that I am not the only one with thousands of books on the TBR pile, although I don't think I have 5000 yet. More like 4000. Last time I moved I got rid of old college texts and random fiction that I already read. I got a good look at just how many unread books I own. And realized that I need to update the inventory.

I am almost finished with Stars and Bones. I am liking it enough that I will read the sequel. Still slogging through The Exiled Fleet. Having a hard time with this one. The main character, the captain of the ship, is not a very good leader. I am getting tired of the repetitiveness of her flawed personality. If there are more in this series, I doubt I will read them.

>57 Cecrow: Unread Support Group

Joined, thanks!

>47 Neil_Luvs_Books: ,>46 ChrisRiesbeck:
I've read a couple of essays/blog posts which argue that it's healthy to own a lot of books one hasn't read yet. It's a state of abundance & possibility. Like many on LT, I'm very healthy! :-)
Besides, I've always felt safer surrounded by books; which is why librarianship was a great career choice (not that it's limited to books).

Hmm. Does it count if you read a paper edition years ago and have replaced it with a so-far unread ebook edition? On the grounds that the likelihood of re-reading it any time soon is unlikely, and the paper edition is a dust magnet...

>61 Maddz: That's called a Schrödinger book. Or should be anyway - you can count it as both read or unread - wherever it will be better for you (definitely read when you are making a point to someone on why you need new books) ;)

And I am back at the Alliance-Union universe with Rimrunners.

>60 rshart3: That's how it feels to me. My library of the unread is a forest to explore, not a mountain to climb.

>60 rshart3: I once heard having a library with a lot of unread books compared with a wine connoisseur having a large cellar. Would you expect the connoisseur to have drunk all the wine in their cellar?

I finished reading 2010: Odyssey Two and posted my review. I'm starting in now on The Blazing World.

Getting into weird, Xeno's Paradox territory with The Urth of the New Sun: seemingly only pages from the end, and Severian is having a whole sequence of transcendent encounters and I never seem to get any closer to the end!

>67 RobertDay:

Not your fault! It's Wolfe taking his trademark slingshot ending to new extremes.

Finished a forced march through Machinehood, mostly because it's a book-group book for me; lots of interesting ideas but if I had ruthlessly followed the "50-page" rule I would have totally set it aside.

>52 bernsad: Glad you are enjoying it, let us know what you think when you are done. I thought it was quite good.

>55 Shrike58: Huh! I never knew before that I practiced the art of Tsundoku. I guess I don’t need a support group… its an art!

🤣

>63 AnnieMod: I really enjoyed Rimrunners. One of the things I find fascinating about many of Cherryh’s novels is how she takes her time setting up the chess board and then something sets it off and it is an incredibly fast (seemingly) romp through the climax that cannot be put down until the denouement. I also remember Hellburner being like that.

>67 RobertDay: I am a quarter of the way through Urth of the New Sun (first time reading) and I am still trying to wrap my head around what the **** is going on!

I am really enjoying it! 😀

>65 RobertDay:, >64 ChrisRiesbeck:, >60 rshart3:, >50 pgmcc:, >51 anglemark:, >56 Sakerfalcon:, >57 Cecrow:, >58 daxxh:, >59 paradoxosalpha:, looks like I am in good company. I’m heading over to LT’s unread support group…

>72 Neil_Luvs_Books: You named two of my favourite Alliance books. I must have read both of them at least 3 times..Next month I'll be reading Brothers of Earth. Cherryh's work is so immersive,even after multiple readings

Finished A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. Really enjoyed it. Next up is Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome by John Scalzi.

>73 Neil_Luvs_Books: I first read Urth not long after it came out, but some time after I originally read Book of the New Sun, so I missed the significance of all the referenced characters and situations. Now, re-reading for the first time and only a week or so after finishing the original sequence of novels, I found I could relate to the story better.

I first started reading sf in part because it was stretching my imagination in new and exciting ways; understanding was, at times, optional. (Especially with writers like A.E. van Vogt.) I have some ideas about Urth, but I'll reserve those for my review, which is still a few days away from being written. But like you, I found it an enjoyable read, at least until I got near the end.

Currently taking a break from fiction with a book on Lawrence of Arabia and his use of air power in the Middle East, to be followed by Alex Ross' Wagnerism, and then I shall plunge into Nightside the Long Sun.

>72 Neil_Luvs_Books: My only issues with these books is that I can see the bottom of the list of the books in that universe now... Not that I still do not have the Foreigner books (most of them anyway) and other Cherryh books but... :)

>78 AnnieMod: I still have a couple of books to read in Cherryh’s Alliance-Union universe. But like you, I have still not cracked her Foreigner universe. Two books by her that I did not like as much were The Faded Sun and the Cyteen trilogy. Not sure why, but those two did not grab me the same way as the many others: Merchanter’s Luck, Tripoint, Finity’s End, and still my favourite, Downbelow Station. I know I am in the minority for The Faded Sun and Cyteen. I don’t know… those two were simply not as engrossing for me as her other novels. 🤷‍♂️

>79 Neil_Luvs_Books: I liked both the Mri and the Chanur books but they need a different set of expectations (same applies for Morgaine and Merovingen but for a different reason). If anything, the Mri and the Chanur books are even more of chess puzzles which pays off at the end (if you read only the first 3 Chanur books, you missed the end of the story - the real trilogy is books 2-4, not 1-3 despite how they got published in the omnibus formats). They are single long novels really - the 3 Mri novels and the 3 middle Chanur books (with a prelude and postscript in the first and the fifth in this case). If you do not expect that, they can be overwhelming because the pay off in each book is just not enough. But them long novels have different balance and people may just not like that. :)

I've read the first 3 Foreigner novels -- I know I love the world and the story but I decided to finish the Union/Alliance before going back for more (I was reading semi-publishing order with some jumping earlier if I could not find a book so the first came up as next available at one point and I finished the first trilogy).

Finished The Shadow of the Torturer, halfway through The Shrinking Man, then onto to the second New Sun book.

>79 Neil_Luvs_Books: >80 AnnieMod: I read the first 5 Foreigner books, then it appeared as if it was just going to be a long cycle of the same thing, so I stopped there. I have 1 or 2 on my TBR pile, not sure when I'll get to them, if ever.

My TBR list here on LT says I still have Merchanter's Luck and Tripoint (both are actually re-reads), I'll try to get to those soon.

>81 ChrisRiesbeck: The Shrinking Man is on my TBR list. I am halfway through The Urth of the New Sun. The first part (quarter) of the book where Severian seems to be engaged in a number of altercations and battles on the starship was really odd to me; I could not see the point - how does this advance the story other than to illustrate that chaos and anarchy are present in some portions of the starship (actually all parts? because I have not come across any portions of the ship that were orderly). On the other hand, this middle section of the book of Severian's trial is really interesting even though I am having difficulties understanding how things that are happening are possible. I read Gene Wolfe as someone who is trying to write of a future experienced by someone (Severian) who does not really understand the technology and science they are encountering. But there are some parts I am reading that really seem like random magic. Which I guess is Wolfe's point - I am experiencing as a reader how Severian is experiencing things.

Weird, fascinating, and utterly enjoyable. :)

I am actually finding Urth of the New Sun somewhat more confusing than Book of the New Sun which I was not expecting. But I am still engrossed in the writing...

Finished Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome by John Scalzi. Enjoyed it. Next up is An Unnatural Life by Erin K. Wagner.

>82 Karlstar: I liked the first three even though they were somewhat slow (especially on comparison with other books). So we shall see. I still have 2 Merovingen anthologies, 4 company novels, the reread of Regenesis and the new Hinder Stars book (and by the time I get there, the next one may be out as well) to finish this universe. But then I like her style so I am having fun. :)

>84 seitherin: Normally I'm a Scalzi fan, but I thought that was a terrible value, too high a price for very little content.

I'm finally reading Autonomous, and finding it to be possibly more relevant to current events than it was when written.

>83 Neil_Luvs_Books: Almost finished with The Shrinking Man. Since Matheson wrote the movie screenplay, reading the book is much closer to the movie experience in events, themes, and mood than is common. It becomes interesting to see what was changed, either for a smoother story arc or to avoid some topics that 1950s popular Hollywood films were not ready to explore.

>86 Karlstar: It cost me nothing. Got it as a Tor.com freebie.

>70 Karlstar: I enjoyed it enough to chase up the sequel from the library. Jumping back and forth between different timeframes, worlds, characters took me a bit to keep track of.

>90 bernsad: I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd done that!

Reading Earthblood by Keith Laumer and Rosel George Brown. I was hoping for a bit of Brown's Sibyl Sue Blue sparkiness, but so far it's a clichéd fish-out-of-water hero and predictable love-interest girl. There are plenty of weird aliens, but the story and characters are very much of their time. Still, I'm only 80 pages in and it might perk up.

Quickly wrapped up Battle of the Linguist Mages, which was simply too clunky to hold my interest, and transcend my distrust of novels based on video games (real or imaginary); though the first fifty pages or so were fun. Once the real conflict began, I quickly found it to be unconvincing.

Moving on to Fevered Star, and it's a relief to read a well-executed fantasy novel.

In space tracking multiple plot threads in Dreams bigger than heartbreak.

had a terrible reading month. I need laser surgery to remove a pocket of fluid which has made one eye almost useless. I am left to use what is normally my weaker eye,terrible myopia in it,and I can only read in small sessions. Still in progress - We Have Always Lived in the Castle,A Memory Called Empire,Great God Pan,The White People and The Rats in the Walls I've read HPLs The Rats several times,and it still gives me the creeps every time!.

>95 dustydigger: Had you tried audiobooks? When my eyes were causing me issues a few ways back, I found that as long as the narrator works for me, novels can work in audio.

Plowed through the most recent two Murderbot installments (the novel, Network Effect and the fifth novella, Fugitive Telemetry). I continue to struggle finding time for reading, which makes these books all the more appealing: they're comfort food without being completely empty calories, and they read quickly.

Still working on reviews from reading items completed back in February.

Started Mythago Wood for a book-group read. So far it has a bit of the atmosphere of On The Overgrown Path by David Herter - sultry and slightly distanced - crossed with a bit of Alan Garner's sense of place.

>95 dustydigger:, ah, this is the sort of thing I dread happening someday, even with no reason to think it will. Hoping it's a temporary state of affairs for you. Audio is a good idea, or e-reading where you can change font size. Doesn't help with what you're in the middle of though.

>96 AnnieMod: Sorry to be contrary but I cant STAND audiobooks! I made a few attempts but cant bear having a strange voice intervening between me and the atmosphere of the book. Plus its hard to concentrate,my mind wanders. Then I think,what did he just say? Rewind. Gone too far back. Fast forward,gone too far forward.Back again. By now I've forgotten what I'm looking for! Drives me nuts. Also most books I like to read are older SF,they are just not available in audio. And I dont want graphic sex or language. I can somewhat skim over it in book form,but not in audio,so cant really read most modern books.lol

>95 dustydigger: . Yes,it should be temporary. I had a cataract removed years ago. It seems it is quite a common thing this build up fluid at the back of the eye where the old lens was removed, It fills up with fluid so vision is seriously impaired,but laser surgery bores a new opening for the fluid to drain from the eye,with quite a good prognosis.But all sorts of surgery was delayed by covid. There are only a few dedicated eye hospitals in the country. Fortunately I live only 7 miles away from one. Massive waiting lists for every type of surgery so its impossible to give a time scale. NHS problems seem to being ignored now because of the cost of living crisis,we are all left up in the air,no one knows anything.
Yes e-reading is my best option for now. My kindle can make letters HUGE! lol. But sadly the eye I am depending on is weak,after a while I get eyestrain and have to stop for a short while.The good news is its not diabetic retinopathy which can be serious,its just a common by product of cataract surgery.

>100 dustydigger: I used to be like you :) Then my doctor ordered me to rest my eyes after my bad eye had misbehaved for a bit and I had over-strained my good one (thankfully just when I was going on a vacation) and I started looking around and something clicked properly. I cannot stand a lot of the narrators (including some who everyone seem to love) but some do work for me. I've re-read Peter F. Hamilton's long books in audio (I actually first listened to one of them before reading it).

It was just an idea - if it does not work, it does not work :)

Finished An Unnatural Life by Erin K. Wagner. Meh. Switching to fantasy with All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay and mystery with The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side by Agatha Christie.

>101 dustydigger: Glad that it's temporary and easily fixable. Not being able to read is a nightmare scenario for me. (Fortunately, I'm okay with some fiction in audio, at least as evidenced by years of listening to the "Selected Shorts" radio show out of New York City.)

Wrapped up Fevered Star, and it was a pleasure to read a novel that lived up to expectations for a change.

I finished reading Urth of the New Sun. Not as good as Book of the New Sun but still worth the reading effort. It helped clarify some things raised in BotNS and also painted some gorgeous tableaus in my imagination that I am still thinking about.

I am on the second and shorter part of The Blazing World and I should finish it this month anyhow. The small type and long unbroken paragraphs full of dialogue with multiple speakers have made it a bit of a slog.

Meanwhile, I snagged a nice matched set of US 1st edition hardcover Galactic Empires (both volumes) at the friends of the library book sale, and I have read the Aldiss introduction. It's still "old" stuff, even if it's not 17th-century like the Cavendish.

>101 dustydigger: Glad to hear it is temporary and I hope it gets taken care of soon! When I have to read with my glasses on, my vision is not great, I've found it is near impossible to read paperbacks, but the Nook Glowlight is extremely easy to read.

Maybe a few more people can pile on with flagging that terrible description for the book that >107 paradoxosalpha: shared the touchstone for, Galactic Empires. It's clearly a description for the wrong work, but there's no alternative to vote for. All we can do is flag it.

>109 Cecrow:

Thanks! I had already flagged it, but it's totally nuked now.

Well, Mythago Wood being totally dreary, and diving so deeply into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, I've put it on hold for Leviathan Falls which is living up to expectations so far.

Loved my reread of The Rats in the Walls for Horror MAYhem,but was much less enamoured of Arthur Machen's The White People,too wordy and abstruse for me,but definite in the folk horror category of the challenge.
Just acquired Empire of the Vampire,no idea about it,except thats a ridiculous title.
Should be completing We Have Always Lived in the Castle,but am not in the right frame of mind.will roll it over to June. Will go off and relax with some crime fiction,and think about my TBR for June. Love trawling through WWEnd lists.

Been binge reading some series lately:

Jo Graham's Numinous World series.
I started with the Elza subseries, having had that kicking around for a while along with The Ravens of Falkenau. It took me a while to get into it; I didn't much warm to the title character although I like the background - Directoire France, going into the First Empire. OK, and they weren't too smutty - if anything the sex scenes tended to the clinical rather than the erotic.

I then read the 3 earlier novels. These are set in the Ancient World - Aeneas fleeing Troy Black Ships, the reign of Cleopatra Hand of Isis and the rise of Ptolomy I Stealing Fire following the death of Alexander. I found these more to my taste than the Elza books. Less smutty by far, and too my mind good.

Finally I read the short story collection, The Ravens of Falkenau. I found these rather unsatisfying, being in the main too short to actually get into the story.

The books are linked by the character's past lives - the lead characters (usually but not invariably heroines) are 'companions' to great people. Overall, if I had these as print editions I'd probably only keep the 3 ancient novels and let the others go.

Andrew Cartmel's The Vinyl Detective series
I finally got the book 2 earlier this year and read the 5 I have. Book 6 has only just been published and I'll wait for it to come down in price before getting it (or I shall get it as a birthday present later in the year). A fun read; stylistically reminiscent of Rivers of London (which isn't surprising). It's a similar setting too - modern-day London but without Aaronvitch's urban fantasy elements and are cozies rather than police procedurals. Recommended - it might be rather fun to read these with a suitable soundtrack.

Anne Bishop's Black Jewels series
I had the original trilogy in paperback along with a short story collection and one of the later series, but have now got the complete series in ebook. A dark fantasy series with trigger warnings. It was interesting reading the ones I didn't previously own; they are both sequels and prequels to the original trilogy. Recommended but be warned about the sexual violence.

Kelly McCullough's Ravirn series
Again, books I own in print as well as ebook. Fun - the Greek gods in an Amber-like multiverse.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Chesterton Holte series
Set in the Roaring Twenties, these feature a lady crime reporter and a ghost pairing. Not bad; a pity there's only the two.

Some stand alones:

Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. Edwardian children's books which I remember reading as a child. Somewhat sentimental and moralistic these days, but still charming.

Clive King: Stig of the Dump. Again, I recall this from childhood but I think it may have been one of my younger sister's books rather than mine. Reminiscent of the Green Knowe books.

Mark Alder: The Devil's Blade. A fictional portrayal of Julie d'Aubigny with occult overtones. Not very good, I thought - it was too like The Cardinal's Blades and I didn't take to that either. I thought the LGBT elements were over-egged.

Kristen Britain: Green Rider. I enjoyed this; much early mass-market fantasy hasn't worn well, but this kept my attention, and I will look out for price deals on the rest of the series (already got book 7).

Anne McCaffrey: Crystal Line. I have the original novellas published in Roger Elwood's Continuum and the first 2 novels, but not the last novel in the series. I don't really recall this bit in the novellas, although I recall the first 2 novels being fairly close to the novellas. I did think the ending being too much of a cop-out; the novellas have Killashandra choosing to suicide rather than the happy ever after ending here.

Joanne M Harris: A Pocketful of Crows and The Blue Salt Road. Short novels based on Childe Ballads. I preferred The Blue Salt Road to A Pocketful of Crows.

Diane Duane: A Wind From the South. I liked this - historical fantasy based on the Swiss independence from Austria. Yes, it does involve the legendary William Tell, but comes across as more like Michael Scott Rohan rather than Rossini.

Plus others which which I read on the computer not the Kobo.

I finished Falcon Fire, an Early Reviewer book, it wasn't bad. Time to go back to C. J. Cherryh with Forty Thousand in Gehenna.

>114 Karlstar: Cheeryh’s Forty Thousand in Gehenna has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for awhile now. I really do need to read it!

>115 Neil_Luvs_Books: Folks here pointed out that it helps to have read other books in the Alliance-Union universe and I'm already finding that I understand this a lot better since I've already read Serpent's Reach.

>116 Karlstar: That’s why I decided to read that whole universe in publication order. :)

And finally I've caught up on my LTER reading, finishing the last few so the only ones left are the books I never received.

Irene Radford: Ghostly Whistles, book 4 in the Whistling Lodge Mysteries series.
This time it's Halloween at the Lodge with a ghost hunting convention in residence along with Halloween themed parties, mafiosi and murders. To be honest, I found it rather incoherent and uninteresting. I probably won't bother with any more of this series.

Paul Di Filippo: Worldshifter
An enjoyable Vancian SF novella. Big Klom, a gentle innocent, works in a shipbreaker yard and discovers a 'live' stasis bag in a decommissioned section of the spaceship he's working on. In it is a creature, apparently non-sentient, which he adopts as a pet. When it and his companions are killed, he embarks on a mission to rebuild the pet. Very much an innocent abroad read, with a great deal of gentle whimsy - which doesn't get in the way of the plot. Recommended.

B. Morris Allen: Chambers of the Heart
A very good anthology of speculative fiction. I really liked it, even the more horrific stories, and I don't actually like horror much. I think my favourite was the title story, Chambers of the Heart - very Gaimanesque! Recommended.

Kate Wolford: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers
Another thematic anthology edited by Kate Wolford. This time the theme is fairy godparents - usually fairy godmothers, but not invariably. The godmothers range from the traditional fairy tale to the punk. I particularly liked the feminist godmothers working to overthrow the Patriarchy, and the Baba Yaga take - here the godmother is not the traditional evil witch, but a woman who rejects societal expectations and teaches her goddaughter to do the same. Recommended.

Now I can crack open Aspects with a clear conscience.

I finished Cyteen and loved it! So complex and engaging, lots to think about, morally grey characters ... brilliant! I will have to add Forty thousand in Gehenna to my wishlist as it is referenced strongly in Cyteen.

Now I'm staying with Cherryh but going to a different world, in Defender.

>117 AnnieMod: is there a list someplace of recommended reading order(s) for Cherryh’s Company-Union-Alliance universe? I have read many but not all of her titles in this series and when I get to rereading them I would like to read them in some sort of order rather than the piecemeal approach I have used. Thanks!

>113 Maddz: About McCaffrey and cop-outs,its a repeating pattern in many of her series.The first books put the protagonists in often very harsh difficult situations,but as the series go on she tinkers with the situations so as to make her characters happy! lol. e.g.
In Dragonflight the whole experience of becoming a dragonrider is very dangerous,youngsters die,they are all terrified. Within a few books the whole siuation is rather warm and cozy,its just exciting and heartwarming for the spectators.The books become YA in tone.
In the Catteni - ''Freedom ''- series,the humans are under the harsh callous alien Catteni who use them as slaves. The heroine falls in love with one of them,and lo and behold in the next book we discover the Catteni are not really bad,they are exploited and dominated by another alien race,poor things.
In the Crystal Singer books the original premise is tragic really,the memory loss due to mining the stones is so sad. By the end they have discovered a cure. I felt all the emotion built up in the first book was belittled later.
Worst of all for me was in the Ship Who Sang series. The beginning is so tragic.,a quite horrific to me scenario,with severely crippled babies,but who have healthy brains ,being wired into space ships as cyborgs forever hidden away. The relationships with human partners in flight can be fraught,and I found the whole book tense and emotional. By the later books a ship's Brain ends up up a sort of virtual body so she can go off ship!
The first book should have stayed as a standalone because of its emotional story
But all of that doesnt stop me from loving many of her books,the perfect comfort reads for me! lol

>120 Neil_Luvs_Books:

It's a bit out of date but Cherryh's Website has something to say about reading order.

I also find her author page on WorldsWithoutEnd useful.

And then there is the ISFDB.

>120 Neil_Luvs_Books: I am not sure that the recommended is the publication one (her site has an explanation on how you can read Ion almost any order but I’ve found my way to work for me - I just prefer publication order in series by default).

I was using ISFDB with the chronological order turned on (instead of the default summary one) as I was going through all her novels initially. LT has the series as well https://www.librarything.com/nseries/2565/Alliance-Union-Universe-Publishing-ord... (it is missing the Morgaine novels at the moment even though they are indeed Union ones - or so is heavily implied in the last of them).

>122 ScoLgo: Both Cherryh’s site and WWE show the novels per subseries and mostly in internal story chronology. Which means that some early novels cannot get to you fully because of later novels giving you too much information - so they can fall flat. But it is a valid approach to read in that order of you prefer.

I'm absolutely true to publication order, with the exception of Narnia (despite the occasional quirk that introduces.) I'd rather follow along with the author's attempts to reconcile past/future, shed some light on earlier-published events, and to provide some fan service, than run into the accidental spoilers, strange references, etc.

I finished reading and wrote my review of Cavendish's Blazing World. I'm going to persevere in the Galactic Empires collection, even though the first couple of stories have been a little disappointing.

>125 Cecrow: Yep, exactly. The only times I’d go in a different order (when I have the books - which these days is rarely the problem it used to be) is if a novel is known to be an earlier one but was never published for one reason or another.

>117 AnnieMod:,>125 Cecrow:: (and more) This discussion has been going on for a long time. I much prefer reading series by internal order, even though it can be hard to figure out if the author has been working on the series for a long time. I find it more satisfying to read in the order it happens. Plus, I figure the author(s) filled in a gap for a reason which usually has to do with the development of events & worldbuilding.
The issue comes up in all genres & media. Whether to watch the Star Wars movies by internal order, or production, for instance.
I wonder if the preference (both are legitimate, as someone said) has anything to do with personality type -- or is it just a person-by-person thing?

I often enjoy books where the plot is not even offered according to a linear chronology within a single volume. I especially liked the way that The Book of the Short Sun see-sawed between the narrator's developing circumstances at the time of writing and the events that he wanted to recount.

Thanks for this. I notice from Cherryh’s website that I have really only attended to the titles comprising The Company Wars. I have a lot of enjoyable reading to do in that universe!

My two cents about reading order is that the first time I read a series a
I do it in publication order. But then the second time round I attempt what might be the internal chronological order. Just makes the second time round a little bit of a different reading experience.

Not that I have that much time to read entire series more than once. But it has happened for a couple and I hope to do so again. Cherryh’s Alliance-Union universe is one of them.

>130 Neil_Luvs_Books: Second time reading through a universe/series is a different animal altogether. :) There I can read creatively because I know the story and I am not worried about a 2002 book spoiling the end of a 1979 one (for example) - I already know how that 1979 one ended.

>128 rshart3: And everyone finds their own way to read through a series so they enjoy it the most. If story order works the best for you, then use that order - I know it does not for me because I'd rather read it in the order it came out and people who were around at the time experienced it. But we all find our own way :)

>123 AnnieMod: >131 AnnieMod: Thanks for the links. Having just read Serpent's Reach, then Forty Thousand in Gehenna, I think that order may have been the right one for me. There was just enough about azi and alien-human ecology in Serpent's Reach to make it easy to jump right into FTiG, but I think in the past, when I read FTiG first, it was a bit of a slog.

That's just me.

>132 Karlstar: Well, Gehenna is always after SR in either order anyway - starting with Gehenna cab be a bit disorienting I suspect. :)

>133 AnnieMod: Oh, I was going by Cherryh's list that shows Serpent's Reach way at the end of the list, far after Gehenna.

I've been following these threads for a while, but I don't think I've ever posted my own reading lists before. I know this is a few days late, but May was a good month for genre and genre-adjacent reading for me. I finished reading:

1. Memory's Legion. A few good stories, a few I thought were just okay--"Drive" was the standout. Now I need to finish watching the Amazon series.

2. Rosebud. I tried it because it was short, the premise was intriguing, and I enjoyed Paul Cornell's comic book series Saucer Country. Some good, weird moments but I'm not sure it all paid off. Parts reminded me of Little, Big, specificallythe connection between the world of faerie and first contact with extraterrestrials.

3. Mothman Apologia. A poetry collection that imagines the West Virginia Mothman trying to live in the human world while grieving the effects of the opioid epidemic.

4. Metamorphoses in the Charles Martin translation. I've been reading bits at a time for a few years (started during a pre-pandemic trip to Rome) and finally finished it this month.

5. William Blake's poems in the LEC edition. I had read some lyrics before, but none of the book-length poems. His private mythology is imaginative to the point of being impenetrable, but always evocative--just the sort of thing I look for in genre fiction, so I was pleased to find it in Romantic poetry.

And some short fiction:

6. Memorare. Gene Wolfe continues to be one of my very favorite writers--maybe a little less so in late-period works like this one, but still very good.

7. Fire Watch. I finally found an affordable hardcover (book club edition) of Doomsday Book, and I decided to preface it with this short story (having read maybe one or two by Connie Willis before this). Really good prose, and a moving story that ends in a much more emotionally resonant place than I would have expected at the beginning. I look forward to reading more like this!

>135 JacobHolt: a couple of the books you read are on my TBR list: Memory’s Legion and Doomsday Book. I had not heard before of Memorare by Gene Wolfe. Looks like it still needs a review written of it for LT. Wolfe’s writing haunts me, in a good way. I look forward to tackling his Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun at some point.

>135 JacobHolt: The touchstone for Rosebud that you picked (you went with the default one) is wrong.

>137 anglemark: Fixed, thanks!

>135 JacobHolt: As a Gene Wolfe fan, I am envious of your copy of Memorare. A bookfinder.com search just now located a single copy for sale on eBay at the low, low price of $1,490.00 plus shipping. That's a bit outside my book budget, I'm afraid.

>139 ScoLgo: I'm proud of my Wolfe collection, but I actually don't have that hardcover edition of Memorare. Instead, I read it in the special Wolfe issue of F&SF from April 2007 (https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/toc0704.htm), which includes essays from Neil Gaiman, Michael Swanwick, and Michael Andre-Driussi (all of which can be read online).

>140 JacobHolt: Thanks for the link. I ended up ordering a copy of Year's Best SF 13 just now. Looking forward to reading Memorare - and the other stories in the anthology too.

>140 JacobHolt: welcome!

>140 JacobHolt: >141 ScoLgo: Thanks for the tips folks, that Year's Best SF 13 looks like a collection I would like to have.

So I have a naive question about LT. I was interested in the Year’s Best SF 13 discussed by >142 Karlstar: >141 ScoLgo: & >140 JacobHolt: so I clicked on the link got the book webpage and then clicked on the link for work details but no place can I find the publication date. That should be easier to find on LT without me having to Google it. Where is the publication date for books catalogued on LT?

Sorry… I have run across this before. I must be doing something wrong because that seems like such an obvious datum that people would want easy access to in a library catalogue.

Thanks!

The original publication date isn't imported from the library source, but it can be added to Common Knowledge. You can then set up your catalogue to show the field CK: Orig. Pub. But it won't be there for all the books, just the ones where someone has added it.

>144 anglemark: 👍

Checking off another Hugo winner: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I probably would have liked this a lot better when I was 10 years old. Today, it was a bit of a slog. So that leaves twelve winners remaining unread, (plus whichever book ends up winning this year).

Now onto something more adult with The Mirror Empire.