Our reads: August 2020

First up I see. Just about done with The Outside and the other books I have in hand are The Raven Tower, Finder, and The Stars now Unclaimed. (Ada Hoffman, Ann Leckie, Suzanne Palmer & Drew Williams).

oops,great minds think alike! lol.Dont know if there is a way to remove a thread?Just ignore this :0)
Dusty's TBR for August
Richard Morgan -Altered Carbon
V E Schwab - A Gathering of Shadows ✔
Catherine Fisher - Obsidian Mirror ✔
H G Wells - The Invisible Man ✔
and possibly more of the short stories from the Locus all time list,depending on what I can find.
But I am way way behind in other genres. I have at least 8 vintage crime reads to do,so my SF list must stay short this month.

Continuing with my reread of the Wheel of Time, now on The Fires of Heaven. Only a chapter in and already having trouble picking up the plot from the previous books...

ETA: touchstones not working again...

EATA: touchstones are now working.

Yeah...funny about those touchstones...that's why I made parenthetical references to the authors of the books I have on deck for the month.

Havent been here for a while, good to see you all. Havent been reading as much sci fi as I'd liked so far this year, but Last month I read the amazing The Poppy War and have on line the sequel Dragon Republic Last week started Fifth Season and am rather hooked on it right now, amazing storytelling.

Also read this year
solaris 2/5
annilation2/5

seeing what I missed on your lists

Currently reading:

- Facets; a collection by Walter Jon Williams
- The Stone Canal; book #2 of the Fall Revolution tetralogy by Ken Macleod
- The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip

Next e-book after the McKillip will be Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler and next print books will be The Cassini Division and The Sky Road, both by Ken Macleod

Currently reading Agency by William Gibson. Good so far.

TBR list for this month (subject to change)

Silver - Linda Nagata
Firewalkers - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Mirror Mirror - Lois McMaster Bujold
couple nonfiction books

What's with the lack of science fiction touchstones?

Facets includes my favorite WJW story, "Dinosaurs".

Still reading Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 164 and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May/June 2019.

>7 daxxh: I think the system is just slow. If you type your post and wait a while, the touchstones box over on the right will populate after a few minutes. At least that's what I've been experiencing lately...

>8 lansingsexton: Haven't reached that one yet. So far, I have only read the first story, "Surfacing", which I found to be both excellent and memorable, (not always the same thing for my sieve of a memory).

This month I am reading
Various Fantasy and Non-Fiction..
Municipalists by Seth Fried
Analog Magazine March/April

Ionce tried to read Well's The Invisible Man as a teenager. Way back then there was an ancient TV series based very loosely on the book. I remember being disappointed that the series was nothing like the book and gave up on it. Here's hoping I enjoy it more this time,50 years later! lol
I am really enjoying V E Schwab's excellent follow up to A Darker Shade of Magic. A Gathering of Shadows is another rich,sharp,elegantly written tale of two young people confrontingdark,dangerous challenges in an intriguingly conceived multiverse,of a series of alternate Londons. Great characters,lots of swashbuckling but with a dark tone of fantasy. Great stuff,purportedly YA,but making no concessions for YA readers.

Finished The Outside yesterday evening and it's a good exercise in "Lovecraft subversions." If there is a problem there is a tension between the main character's necessary voyage of self-discovery, which is kind of meandering, and how you would expect a little more tautness in the plot if it were really a thriller. Still looking forward to the next book in what is going to be a trilogy.

I'm really enjoying Wild Seed. Very happy that I started with Patternmaster and then Clay's Ark, because so far the series is getting better with each book I read.

Finished The Blue Hawk which I really liked, starting They Fly at Ciron.

Made a start on Ken Macleod's Newton's Wake.

>5 cindydavid4: You're in for a treat. The entire The Broken Earth trilogy is excellent.

Hee well the universe spoke to me yesterday. Went to my local used (open yay) to find the sequels. Opened the door and saw all three books sitting on the kiosk, just waiting for me. Needless to say I brought them home and once I finish the book for my book group, I intende to dive in!

Currently reading Hex by Allen Steele...

Indulging myself with some nice old fashioned Arthur Machen short stories.He excels at describing ordinary everyday life,while subtlely building up an unsettled anxious feeling before a fraught ending! lol The narrator of the tale is a Mr Dyson.and I have met him before......
Any fans of his The Three Imposters here?Nice little adventure tales in a typical old fashioned framing sequence,you think. Then the explosive horrifying ending.Mr Dyson has some hair raising adventures in his life.
I would bet that anyone finishing Imposters would immediately rush back to reread the first chapter.Surely Machen's masterpiece.
Not sure however how many people read him today. Too leisurely,literary ,subtle for the taste today for fast pace and brute action.Lovecraft revered him though and thats good enough for me!

>20 dustydigger:

Machen is a regular feature in The Weird Tradition group's "Deep Ones" reading group. This month we read "The History of the Young Man with Spectacles" from The Three Impostors.

Finished Finder yesterday evening and my overall opinion is "meh." While I kinda like the main character the overall execution didn't impress me. Keep in mind that I was not expecting anything more than a routine space adventure, but a modern "Stainless Steel Rat" this was not.

After being knocked flat for nearly a month by a bad bout of food poisoning, I am finally feeling well enough to read something other than comforting old favorites. Yesterday I read The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison. It's a Sherlock Holmes retelling in a world where magic works and there are supernatural creatures. Quite an absorbing read, and I enjoyed the development of the friendship of the two main characters, though the stories are very familiar to anyone who's read the original material.

Finished The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May/June 2019 and started The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July/August 2019. Added Network Effect by Martha Wells to my reading rotation.

I'm about to start an advance copy of Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick, which I'm pretty excited about since I still talk about a funny bit from the beginning of Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits several years later.

I'm reading a quirky Women's Press SF title, The revolution of Saint Jone.

>26 Sakerfalcon: I used to have a lot of Women's Press SF, much of it now lost and dispersed over the years, but this is one I've managed to retain. Hope you enjoy it.

>25 Unreachableshelf: I've got the first one in the library pipeline. Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of Jemisin's The city we became. I like it so far, not least because I often like books where the location is also a character. It's not usually quite so literal, though.

>23 gailo: Glad you're feeling better.

Finished They Fly at Ciron, started a bio-thriller by Kress Oaths and Miracles.

Over the weekend, I finished Facets by Walter Jon Williams. An excellent and diverse collection of stories. Only one or two 'short' ones. The rest ran to 80+ pages, which allowed for some decent character development.

Roughly 20% into The Bone Clocks, which pulled me in from the first paragraph. I'm not seeing the connection with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet yet.

Also about to start Brightness Falls From the Air.

Just finished Newton's Wake, which I enjoyed; now started Alan Steele's Coyote, which is a bit of a jarring transition. Its dystopian America of 2070, written in 2002-03, seems oddly prescient.

>26 Sakerfalcon: >27 SChant: My collection as of 2015, currently in storage.

>32 iansales: Wow - impressive!

>32 iansales: Beautiful! Your copies look to be in better condition than mine which were all acquired second hand.

>27 SChant: So far I'm enjoying Jone quite a lot.

>31 RobertDay: I enjoyed Newton's Wake. If my memory serves me well that is the one with the opera about the end of the USSR performed by a visiting troupe to a Chinese colony on a distant planet. Is it also the one in which soldiers download their latest backup into clones if they are killed on a mission? If it is, then I loved how Ken dealt with the expiring clone. There are so many writers who use back-ups and new bodies as a route to immortality while forgetting that the dying person ceases to exist. It is a bit like the use of tele-porting without mentioning the destruction of the original. (See The Prestige)

I just finished Mazes of Power by Juliette Wade. At first I found it rather slow going but then the machinations of the noble class to pick an heir for the new Eminence drew me in. I'm interested to see where this series goes.

I finished Glory Road and posted my review. Now my sf reading is Pynchon's Against the Day. (It definitely qualifies; it's more sfnal than Gravity's Rainbow, which I recall seeing on a few lists of top sf.)

>35 pgmcc: That's the one. Yes, Ken's treatment of that trope does give rather a better idea of how the trick would work in practice than nearly every other writer I can think of.

And the play-within-the-novel, 'Leonid Brezhnev, Prince of Muscovy', is worth the price of admission alone.

Just started The First Time Lauren Pailing Died, which I stumbled across on a Kindle Daily Deal. Looks like it covers similar ground to Life After Life and The End of Days, but we shall see. Doesn't so far seem to be as well written as those two novels, and certainly not the latter, which turned me into a big fan of Jenny Erpenbeck's writing.

Added LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff to my reading rotation.

Trying to finish Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde and then will move to this month's book club choice, Relic by Alan Dean Foster.

Just starting in on A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine...

My book group is reading that in a few months. Be curious what you think of it

Finished The First Time Lauren Pailing Died. Not bad, although the payoff was weak. Now reading Episodes, a collection of short stories by Christopher Priest.

>43 cindydavid4: Thus far it's fairly engaging - about 5 chapters in. It's more a political romp set in a fairly complex culture.

Today I read Exit Strategy by Martha Wells. Next up will be either Falling Free or something by C.J. Cherryh

Finished Jemisin's The city we became, which was engaging. Read it in two days in order to pass on the library book to another member of the tiny book group.

The SF book club mostly enjoyed Rosewater by Tade Thompson. After all the wildly inexplicable tech in This is how you lose the time war, telepathy via airborne alien spores was easy to accept. I don't know if we'll discuss the second book in the trilogy, but I think two people at least will read it eventually and report back. (It's so much easier to start reading a series when all the books are out already. A painful lesson learned from John Crowley's Aegypt.

Started Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. So far so good: interesting and engaging, and only a little bit scary-stressful. I might join that (yes, third) book group this coming week.

The Man in the High Castle, Amazon screen adaptation.



I have been watching Amazon's screen adaptation of The Man in the High Castle. So far I have watched two seasons and the first episode of Season 3.

First off, it, like nearly every other screen adaptation of Philip K. Dick's stories, is based on the ideas in the book rather than keeping to the books exact story line. This is what I expected from day one, and when I saw a second season being produced my suspicions were confirmed. I do not see this as a flaw; just a reality.

Season 1 was very good. I quickly got into the characters and enjoyed the story.

Season 2 was also interesting and the Japanese and Reich politics made it very intriguing.

I have only watched one episode of Season 3 but feel it is suffering from the traditional fate of multi season series: the first season is strong as it is based on a strong idea and story; season two carries on the momentum with another good core story; season 3 suffers form the paucity of story lines and gets a bit maudlin and...boring.

If I had one gripe with the show it would be the character of Frank Frink. He is the least plausible character and he behaves out of character too often. Also, he has a talent for forging antiques which is revealed in a very short time with no indication that he has had any knowledge of the items he forges beforehand. He did work in a replica gun factory and is supposed to be an artist, but how he can suddenly become this amazing antique forger who produces items that can fool the best and most knowledgeable collectors is too much of a suspension of disbelief for me. It reminded me of the main character in the show "White Collar". It just taints the story for me slightly.

The character also changes character too easily. I think the character as written is flawed, but also the actor does not pull it off convincingly.



I do not think I will watch the rest of Season 3. It has run out of steam in my opinion. They told two good stories in the first two seasons and now it appears to me they are trying to keep a good thing going.

In relation to the comparison with the book, one of the book's strengths was the mystery it posed. Dick did not try to explain the situation. Unfortunately the screen adaptation goes too far in this regard. It reminded me of the mistakes made in the sequels to K-PAX; K-PAX II & III should never have been written. Again, the strength of the original work was in the questions it left unanswered.

Finished The Raven Tower yesterday evening and to me it's an interesting deconstruction of certain fantasy tropes when you take the perspective of the gods. The perspective taken though inevitably flattens and distances the reaction you might otherwise have to the characters.

>49 Shrike58: Agreed. I found the book less than engaging, more admirable than enjoyable.

I'm about to start Harrow the Ninth, having recently finished The revolution of Saint Jone and Sabella. It's good that DAW are reissuing so much of Tanith Lee's work now.

Leckie is never anything less than interesting.

Then again, if you REALLY want interesting, there's Tamsyn Muir!

Finished Episodes. Annoyingly my paperback had been bound with the last 24 pages missing. The "before" and "after" were interesting, although I found the stories, while well-crafted, somewhat variable. And surprisingly gruesome.

Then read The Caltraps of Time. Masson was certainly a singular voice, and it's a shame he didn't write more. Not all of the stories in this collection work - a couple fall completely flat at the end. But 'Mouth of Hell' is very good, and so is 'Traveller's Rest'.

Now reading The Pursuit of William Abbey, my second Claire North this year.

Finished Network Effect by Martha Wells. Still like the Murderbot.

Added Ballistic by Marko Kloos into my rotation.

>52 iansales:
"Traveller's rest" is one of those stories that randomly pop up in my head every so often, even though I haven't read it since I was a teenager.

Finished Coyote. Fairly flat with few likable characters, despite Jack Cohen aliens. It starts out with a surprisingly (but hopefully not prescient) depiction of a totalitarian US Government, but Steele displays political naivety over how governments work at the end of the novel. I won't be rushing to find the further volumes in the series.

I've now started the Pratchett/Baxter The Long Mars.

After some particularly depressing non-fiction reads recently I'm going for a "comfort re-read" of Peter Watts' Blindsight, followed by a re-read of The Calculating Stars for my SF&F book group.

>52 iansales: >54 Petroglyph: Ah, yes, "Traveller's Rest" -- one of those stories you don't forget.

Finished Oaths and Miracles, about halfway through Resurrection Man by Stewart, not the zillion other touchstones.

>55 RobertDay: I read the Coyote entire series recently - I too found the first couple of books rather flat and couldn't understand why it's regarded so highly - however I found myself liking the books as Steele improved as a writer as I progressed through the books. They really read more like classic adventure stories, for the most part, with an interesting alien world setting, rather than what most people imagine science fiction to be - reminded me of some of the 40's and 50's novels I've read (some have noted the similarities to Heinlein but I think it's more an homage to the entire genre fiction from that era). Also the way the books are designed it's using short novellas or vignettes that snapshot interactions, culminating in later stories - I think Steele does a fairly good job of closing the loops of each story arc in a fairly imaginative way. Just my two pesos.

Finished LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff. Liked it well enough to keep reading the series.

Added Winds of Marque by Bennett R. Coles to my rotation.

Just finished The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and I am excited to get to the next book in the series. It's got everything that I like in sf: drama, different species, interesting interpersonal dynamics, fascinating characters.

I read Insurrection by David Weber and really didn't like it, it was far too unrealistic and bloody. Warship: Book One of the Black Fleet trilogy by Joshua Dalzelle was the same type of space opera, but it was much better.

>20 dustydigger:,>21 paradoxosalpha:
I always loved Machen & his unique, mesmerizing vision. I think of him (to the extent he can be put in a category) more as fantasy & horror, than SF. But as you say, nothing is quite what it seems in his world. :-)
Haven't read any for quite a while. Must pull one out....

Machen's most famous story "The Great God Pan" is that sort of 19th century tale that straddles (what we now distinguish as) horror and science fiction, like Frankenstein--and even Dracula, to a degree.

Finished up The Stars Now Unclaimed yesterday and it's another book where my reaction is essentially "meh." Williams admits that he basically structured his world to tell the story he wanted so it feels very much like a video game "rail" adventure. Hard to see myself continuing with the trilogy considering my existing backlog and the never-ending onslaught of new works.

Finished Resurrection Man by Stewart and The Borrowers, about to start Ancient Shores.

Currently reading Total Eclipse. Better than expected.

Enjoyed Catherine Fisher's young adult tale Obsidian Mirror.Well written with strong characterisation,Fisher can ratchet up the tension and danger for her young protagonists.
Whenever our library finally decides to reopen(1st October currently} I want to read her Incarceron series.
Still plodding through The Invisible Man.It has a somewhat farcical take on the tale,and as the invisible bloke is extremely unlikable I only read a small chapter at a time. Cant wait for him to come to a bad end! lol.
Also reading J G Ballard The Burning World,so dreamlike and surreal,its quite gripping.Not at all cheery of course,set in a world where a layer of pollution has covered the oceans and disrupted the rain cycle. Much less farfetched today than it must have seemed at the time of writing 56 years ago. we are well along in our polution agenda!

Just finished the Pratchett/Baxter The Long Mars. I was getting ready to bail out of this series, as any semblance of plot seemed to be wandering off into the infinite Earths, never to be seen again, not to mention the fact that in a book called 'The Long Mars', no-one does much about Mars until at least half-way through; but then the series takes off with a search across parallel Marses for sentience, preferably with artefacts. And meanwhile, back on the multiple Earths, a new group of super-competent humans are arising who look at us ordinary folk with disdain and amusement. I had chilling visions of some of our more opinionated politicians who Know What Is Best For Us.

Taking a short break from fiction, but then Ian McDonald's Hearts, Hands and Voices ('The Broken Land' in the US) will be next up.

>68 dustydigger: I loved Catherine Fisher's Oracle trilogy, set in a world rather like Ancient Greece/Egypt. It reminded me of Peter Dickinson's The blue hawk.

>69 RobertDay: I just picked up a copy of Hearts, hands and voices from one of the (few remaining) bookshops on Charing Cross Road. I'll look forward to your thoughts on it.

I finished Harrow the Ninth which was a good read albeit very confusing much of the time. I think Muir was quite brave to abandon the engaging and clearly very popular narrative voice of Gideon from the previous book and plunge the reader into a very different perspective.

Now I've just started Chaos vector; hoping I haven't forgotten too much of what happened in the previous book, Velocity Weapon!

Finished Obelisk Gate Just as good as the first, tho there were parts that were confusing. Ready to move on to the last one.

>69 RobertDay: I thought The Long Mars was the low point in the series; there was indeed hardly anything of interest throughout most of it. Luckily the next installment The Long Utopia was a lot better (still far from great) though. The series as a whole is a mixed bag, lots of cool ideas, some great humorous set pieces, but also a meandering plot with plenty of holes. Still it reads very quickly and it's nice light fun.

Started Trail of Lightning, and while I'm not a fan of urban fantasy, this really does seem very ordinary. The Navajo mythology is different, but everything else is just a string of clichés.

Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Walking to Aldebaran. Science fiction horror. Shouldn't be surprised to see it made into a movie of some sort (feature, Netflix, or Syfy, I'm not sure which), with just a few actors and lots of green screen.

I personally liked it but I also think that it was over-hyped. I also find it interesting that after only one other book in this setting Roanhorse has started a whole different series. One has to take this as a recognition of the limitations of this setting; or that Roanhorse was tired of taking flak from Navajo critics and beat a tactical retreat!

Currently reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson....

>76 johnnyapollo:, the epic journey begins!

>75 Shrike58: Or that there's more money in Star Wars, now that she's landed a contract with them...

>73 iansales: I agree with that; I thought Trail of Lightning was urban fantasy at its most generic. If you like that kind of thing, great, but I was surprised at the recs I saw that made me think it had wider appeal.

Last night I started The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, the third (but not final) Masquerade novel.

Could be; I gather that a lot of her law practice is pro bono and you gotta pay the rent somehow.

Still, I'll be very interested in how the new series plays out...that will say something about her staying power as a writer.

>73 iansales: Which cliches?

>81 karenb: The main character herself, the fact she's damaged, her relationship with the local law enforcement, the dynamic between her and Kai, the fact she drives a 1970s pick-up truck... These are all either standard tropes or cultural references that tell you more about the writer than they do the world.

>82 iansales: I'm confused about the 1970s pickup truck. I thought it showed that she was poor and can't afford a newer vehicle; that's usually what it signifies in other types of novels. (Mind, I read the book a while ago, so some details have faded.)

>83 karenb: No, the pickup truck is fetishized, to the extent that keeping it running is extremely difficult. I don't think her lack of wealth is ever mentioned. IIRC, she lives in a trailer through choice - chiefly because she doesn't want to put other people at risk. She can also afford to feed three guard dogs, so she can't be entirely without resources, and I don't think she goes hunting for food once in the novel.

I don't know how much Roanhorse is a car person but she's probably thinking that a 1970s machine would not be as dependent on finicky electronics that are no longer available...though that truck still has to be on its last legs. Even modern car restorers have a hard time keeping wheels of that period rolling. These days you'd wind up dropping in a modern "crate" motor; complete with modern electronic engine controls. I didn't think that much of it at the time but Ian has a point there. I still liked the main character so that was sufficient unto the day. The second book felt half-baked to me, and Roanhorse claimed to be proud to have knocked it out fast to take advantage of the buzz; I don't think she did herself any favors.

I actually really liked both books, and I gave them both 5 stars. But I see what you're all saying about cliches. I guess I just didn't mind so much.

>86 Julie_in_the_Library: I definitely see the cliche about the relationship with Kai.

Polished off the third book in Mick Herron's Slough House spy thrillers, Real Tigers, and I'm starting to go off them quite quickly. Which is unfortunate as I bought six of them on offer at 99p each.

Now reading The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man.

Finished Wells .'Invisible Man,played at times as farce,as a scientist discovers the secret of invisibility,and uses it to his advantage in a most brutal and maniacal way He seems to have lost his mind as he lost his visibility! Once again I was somewhat taken aback by the seam of crude violence that shows up in Wells early works. The Island of Dr Moreau was another work that shocked me with its brutality and violence,not at all full of gravitas and solemn philosophizing that we expect from the celebrated author! lol
I am trying to finish J G Ballard's The Burning World before the end of the month.Rather strange and haunting,wonderful prose,but becoming rather bizarre in the later pages.
And yet again I am struggling with Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon. I find the brutality of this futuristic hardboiled crime noir a bit hard to take,and its slow going and the tension can be almost unbearable at times. As is the graphic torture. I think I need to stick with my old friend Philip Marlowe for my hardboiled detection! Still 100 pages to go. I'll get there in the end,but I am much reminded of Paolo Bacigalupi's Windup Girl which also had a brutal in your face no holds barred approach to the story,though they are quite different in most other ways.. Not at all my cup of tea. I have become a total wimp in my seventies.Better stick with the pre 80s eras,much more my sort of thing.Cozy catastrophes and gentlemanly protagonists are less shredding of my nerves.

>88 iansales: Yeah, I found Real Tigers a slog. I was thinking of buying a few to have in my stack since I was impressed with the previous books but luckily I restrained myself.

>70 Sakerfalcon: I'm about a third of the way into Hearts, Hands and Voices, and I'm finding it a fairly dense read (not that I'm calling that a bad thing, you understand). Fairly quickly, I've realised that it has elements of allegory about Northern Ireland, though most of that is covered in the first two chapters and we've now moved beyond that.

>90 justifiedsinner: The problem with arsehole characters is they're unsympathetic and you don't really want to read about them. The novels' plots are also getting a bit comic-book. You don't hear of MI5 bashing down doors and shooting terrorists. That's what Special Branch is for. Or, at a pinch, the SAS. The plot in Real Tigers was also far too convoluted to be plausible. And the computing in the book is nonsense - I think it was Dead Lions that mentioned an "ISP address". And, seriously, if MI5 had a hacker as allegedly gifted as Ho, they'd make serious use of him even if he was the most despised man on the planet.

>89 dustydigger: On a highway I travel frequently there's an exit for a "Moreau State Park". I always imagine it as the park with the reclusive, eccentric superintendant, and all those staff who look like animals.

>93 rshart3: EEK! rshart,keep to the highway,you just never know.........

Sounds like another series I don't have time for...though, regarding yet another series, I firmly expect Ben Aaronovitch's renegade cop Lesley May (Rivers of London) to pop up as a military intelligence asset at some point. Particularly since Aaronovitch seems to be taking a tack somewhat akin to Stross' "Laundry" books of late.

>92 iansales: I DNF'd Down Cemetery Road too. Just didn't like the characters.

>96 justifiedsinner: Is that a different series?

>92 iansales: I admit that I see the books more as spy fantasy than anything reality based. Perhaps I imprinted too much on the early James Bond movies growing up.

>97 iansales: Yes, Zoe Boehm. Although in this one she doesn't appear until the last few pages.

>91 RobertDay: Thanks for that. No surprise about the NI allegory. Have you read his Sacrifice of fools, where he adds aliens into the already volatile situation?

>91 RobertDay: & >100 Sakerfalcon:

I was trying to avoid that particular book bullet. I have read a lot of Ian's work and enjoyed it. After your earlier posts I even went as far as locating copies on-line but did not press, "BUY!", Now your posts are pushing that particular button for me.

Next stop, abebooks to see if those copies are still there.

Thank you very much!

:-)

>100 Sakerfalcon: Oh yes, though it's overdue for a re-read.

>101 pgmcc: I imagined you already owned, if not had read, all of McDonald's work already or I might have paused before spraying bullets around.

>103 Sakerfalcon: There are a few gaps in my McDonald collection and I still have to read some of the earlier ones. This particular gap was well targeted.

I like Ian's writing and was trying to avoid buying another book, but you hit me fair and square.

>104 pgmcc: "trying to avoid buying another book"? What heresy is this?

>105 RobertDay: I know, Robert. I am totally ashamed of myself.

>105 RobertDay: Haha! I had the same thought when I read that comment in >104 pgmcc:.

Interesting to see the recent Ian McDonald discussion. I just finished my fourth of his novels yesterday. River of Gods was amazingly complex and rewarding. Brasyl was my first foray into his catalog, and it remains my favorite - but River of Gods comes in a close 2nd.

Wrong month, never mind.