Our reads in April 2022

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Our reads in April 2022

1dustydigger
Bearbeitet: Mrz. 31, 2022, 2:59 pm

Another month,another pile of books. What's on the TBR for April?

2dustydigger
Bearbeitet: Apr. 30, 2022, 2:12 pm

Dusty's TBR for April
SF/Fantasy
Patrick Rothfuss - Name of the Wind
E E Doc Smith - Second Stage Lensman
Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage and the Thousand Headed Man
Anne McCaffrey - Nimisha's Ship
John Wyndham - Stowaway to Mars
Sarah J Maas - Throne of Glass
Gareth K Pengelly - Where's My Mummy?

short stories
R A Lafferty -Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Hal Clement - Hot Planet
Clifford D Simak - New Folks' Home

the rereads
Anne McCaffrey - Pegasus in Flight
Anne McCaffrey - Restoree
Clifford D Simak - Way Station

other genres
John Meade Falkner - Moonfleet
Dick Francis - Bolt
Kathy Reichs - Bones Never Lie
Kathy Reichs - Bone Code✔
Kathy Reichs - A Conspiracy of Bones
Charlaine Harris - Ice Cold Grave

old favourites and new reads.....perfect

3haydninvienna
Mrz. 31, 2022, 4:04 pm

>2 dustydigger: Does that mean you’ve never readNine Hundred Grandmothers? Oh boy, are you in for a treat!

4dustydigger
Bearbeitet: Mrz. 31, 2022, 4:29 pm

>3 haydninvienna: LOL. I know of its reputation of course,but havent yet read it. I also have Lafferty's Past Master on hand,have you read that? looking forward to the Simak story too,but having read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream recently I am feeling a bit wary. Our Harlan can be a bomb,you can never be sure if it has safely been defused,or will blow up in your face!

5RobertDay
Mrz. 31, 2022, 4:29 pm

Finished The Sword of the Lictor and about to start Ken MacLeod's Descent.

6paradoxosalpha
Bearbeitet: Mrz. 31, 2022, 4:41 pm

I am a great Lafferty fan, and Nine Hundred Grandmothers is an excellent collection. Past Master is good, but not among my favorite Lafferty novels. I think The Devil Is Dead and Fourth Mansions are tops.

7Shrike58
Bearbeitet: Mrz. 31, 2022, 6:02 pm

The line-up for April is The Last Graduate, Escape from Yokai Land, The Employees, and, probably, Machinehood.

I have about eight other novels with holds on them, and this year's Hugo nominees get announced on April 7; that'll be setting my reading agenda for the next two or three months!

8Stevil2001
Mrz. 31, 2022, 7:19 pm

>7 Shrike58: Oh gosh not sure I can cope with the Hugos. I feel like I just finished! At least they'll be over in three months instead of eight this year.

9AnnieMod
Apr. 1, 2022, 3:11 am

I am having fun with Cyber Mage - mixing science fiction with jinns may sound weird but he tends to pull it off. :)

10Shrike58
Apr. 1, 2022, 8:31 am

>9 AnnieMod: It does answer the question that if any sufficiently advanced science looks like magic, what happens when magic users apply that technology!

11Karlstar
Apr. 1, 2022, 11:16 am

The Weapon Makers and Dark State are on the list for me this month. I'm hoping that The Weapon Makers isn't a repeat of my experience with The Wanderer, so far it is much better.

12ChrisRiesbeck
Apr. 1, 2022, 3:26 pm

13davisfamily
Apr. 1, 2022, 8:20 pm

Just started Empire Games and so far, so good. I am only on page 82.

14seitherin
Apr. 2, 2022, 1:38 pm

After a brief reading respite, I'm back to reading The Kaiju Preservation Society and Memory's Legion.

15seitherin
Apr. 3, 2022, 2:47 pm

Finished The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Fun read. Enjoyed it muchly.

16Sakerfalcon
Apr. 4, 2022, 5:39 am

Still reading Ministry for the future. Lots to think about in it.

17SChant
Apr. 4, 2022, 6:58 am

Finished Quantum of Nightmares, the 2nd in Charles Stross's New Management series set in the Laundry universe but with a different cast of characters, and enjoyed it very much.
Now about to start A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine.

18Shrike58
Apr. 4, 2022, 7:37 am

Finished The Last Graduate, which definitely blows up the notion that the middle book of a trilogy is usually an exercise in marking time; this felt like a hard reset.

19dustydigger
Bearbeitet: Apr. 5, 2022, 5:33 am

Read a few short stories in Lafferty's Nine Hundred Grandmothers A little goes a long way,I will read a few at a time. Quite amusing,but not quite my cup of tea,but I'll read it a bit at a time
Anne McCaffrey's Nimisha's Ship was one I'd missed somehow (read 58 of her books),pleasant enough but rather bland.
FINALLY finished Name of the Wind. Read about 100 pages 2 years ago and abandoned it as boring. Started again this January,and quite enjoyed the section with Kvothe at the university and then got very bored with his journeys with Denna and put it aside once more. But I am very annoyed when I see it on WWEnd lists and I cant tick it off so I plodded on through the last 100 pages this week and am relieved to be done with it.Not a fantasy fan at the best of times and this YA stuff just bored me stiff most of the time. Will NOT be reading the follow up,and am unfazed that book 3 is yet to surface . lol
This week I will be rereading one of my fave books,Simak's Way Station,Hal Clement's Hot Planetand a Doc Savage tale,just fun enjoyable pulp :0)

20Stevil2001
Bearbeitet: Apr. 5, 2022, 9:40 am

I keep meaning to do it, but not have actually done it, but very soon I ought to start reading my next Philip K. Dick novel, Now Wait for Last Year. Tonight if I don't fall asleep on the couch grading papers (again)!

21elenchus
Apr. 5, 2022, 11:59 am

>20 Stevil2001:

Reminds me, I'm due for a dip back into PKD land, with 2 more stories in my LOA edition waiting on the shelf.

22Karlstar
Bearbeitet: Apr. 5, 2022, 1:00 pm

>19 dustydigger: You are one of the few people I've read about who did not enjoy Name of the Wind. The 2nd book was a bit disappointing, to me and his attitude about finishing has put me off.

23Karlstar
Apr. 5, 2022, 12:59 pm

Recently finished The Weapon Makers, which was fun to read, though really dated. Still, worth reading.

24ChrisRiesbeck
Apr. 5, 2022, 1:34 pm

> I just finished Now Wait for Last Year last night. I thought it started out rough and too similar to The Game Players of Titan but then, for me, it turned the corner a couple chapters in and I think it ended well.

25paradoxosalpha
Apr. 5, 2022, 1:50 pm

I finished the first long novella at the start of Flight from Nevèrÿon, and although I enjoyed it (very much in keeping with the previous volumes of the series), I'm setting it aside in order to pivot to The Price You Pay which was just delivered by the hold fairy.

26gailo
Apr. 6, 2022, 9:50 am

>22 Karlstar: I didn't enjoy The Name of the Wind, either. I probably would have loved it if I'd read it when I was 15. As a well-read adult, it didn't work for me.

27gailo
Apr. 6, 2022, 10:00 am

I'm currently reading The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes. I'm grimly plodding my way to the end, but I am finding it frustrating. It is supposed to be set within a military organization, and I'm pretty sure the author wants the reader to believe the commander is hyper-competent, but I'm mostly just incredibly frustrated how incompetently run the entire operation is. The commander has no idea how to manage--to communicate and delegate and plan. This story would have worked better within the context of a very small crew instead of a military installation with hundreds of personnel who never do anything but make trouble while the commander is personally doing everything herself.

28paradoxosalpha
Apr. 6, 2022, 2:42 pm

Well, I tore through The Price You Pay and posted my review already. It's not sfnal in any significant way, but I sought it out because of my admiration for Gnomon.

29RobertDay
Apr. 6, 2022, 6:23 pm

I've now finished Ken MacLeod's Descent, which he dedicated to Ian Banks and reads a lot like one of his "non-M" novels, though it is solidly SF. Now made a start on a second-hand discovery I made a few weeks ago, with an author probably now mainly forgotten - Rick Raphael's collection of short stories, The Thirst Quenchers.

30paradoxosalpha
Apr. 6, 2022, 7:55 pm

>29 RobertDay:

I liked Descent. My efforts to press it on my Other Reader met with failure, even though she's very interested in ufology.

31elenchus
Bearbeitet: Apr. 6, 2022, 11:48 pm

I finally got around to summarising my reaction to Iain M Banks's The State Of The Art, which I read primarily for the Culture content, and ironically for an essay that wasn't in my edition.

I'll review the essays separately. Normally I wouldn't, as typically they're not considered part of the Culture series itself. But my read-through of the Culture novels is driven by my curiosity about the prescriptive norms embedded in the story, and Banks addresses a good many of these more explicitly in these essays than in the novels themselves. If nothing else, I want a ready reference on what I find there.

32Maddz
Bearbeitet: Apr. 7, 2022, 1:19 am

>29 RobertDay: I had the Panther edition in my library for many years... I now have the Gutenberg edition of the novelette; I can't remember what were the other stories...

ETA Just been through the editions and separated the anthology from the novelette. There's 6 unknown editions left over - no ISBN and no cover - which I've combined into a single unknown edition. I see also the same thing probably needs to be done with Code Three...

33elenchus
Apr. 7, 2022, 9:51 am

>24 ChrisRiesbeck:

I liked your parallel of PKD to a good chef, experimenting with new combinations of favourite ingredients.

34ChrisRiesbeck
Apr. 7, 2022, 2:46 pm

>33 elenchus: I have a soft spot for his talking cabs and how surprisingly sweet they often are.

35karenb
Bearbeitet: Apr. 7, 2022, 11:58 pm

Now visiting The Paradox Hotel, where time travel is even trickier than they thought it would be.

36Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 8, 2022, 1:08 pm

I just finished Abaddon’s Gate and really enjoyed it. I liked how the Corey’s dealt with both revenge and forgiveness. I am taking a break from SciFi for a bit. I started Moby Dick a few weeks ago and it’s time to finish it. MD has a similar feel to me as Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun but I am still only 1/4 of the way through MD so we’ll see if that similarity continues for me. So far I am really enjoying MD. Good characters and interesting commentary on religion and belief.

37dustydigger
Apr. 8, 2022, 6:13 pm

I loved rereading Way Station,one of my all time favourite SF books. Amazing how many different themes Simak packed into around 200 pages. A very leisurely pace,which I enjoyed as it allowed for contemplation on Simak's deeper themes as well as the usual delightful descriptions of nature ,as one would expect from this master of the so called pastoral SF sub genre. Add great characters,weird alien tech,philosophy and the hero's longevity (120 and counting,and this book still pleases me and shows new facets every time I read it. Doubt if younger people new to SF would have the patience to read this though. Modern tales are so quick paced the oldfashioned style of Simak would probably be frustrating ,boring or annoying to some. Tough ,I still love it.
Next up is Simak's New Folks Home

38Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 9, 2022, 1:48 pm

>37 dustydigger: Cool! Good to hear that Way Station is still an enjoyable read. I have not yet read it. It has been on my TBR pile for some time now.

39ScoLgo
Apr. 9, 2022, 2:19 pm

>38 Neil_Luvs_Books: I didn't get around to reading Way Station until 2012. The book was 49 years old at the time and I thought it was a great story.

40RobertDay
Apr. 9, 2022, 7:01 pm

Finished The Thirst Quenchers: two good stories (though with the odd eyebrow raising), one stinker and one that was better than I expected, though still a specifically American story of exceptionalism. Now made a start on The Citadel of the Autarch.

41Karlstar
Apr. 10, 2022, 8:09 am

Working on my old TBR pile, I recently finished The Weapon Makers, which was good but very dated and I'm now reading Serpent's Reach. I haven't quite yet gotten to the point where the title makes sense.

42rshart3
Bearbeitet: Apr. 11, 2022, 12:54 am

Finished The City We Became by Jemisin. Quite different from previous stuff of hers I'd read. Great fun, and she makes a really out-there story work. Lots of nods to H.P.L. I appreciate the aspect of being a love song to NYC. I spent most of my life, until 15 years ago, just outside the city and spent lots of time in there.

43Shrike58
Apr. 11, 2022, 3:18 pm

While a bit slight, reading Escape from Yokai Land made my afternoon.

44Karlstar
Apr. 12, 2022, 1:18 pm

>42 rshart3: I've heard a lot of good things about that one, I'll likely get to it someday.

45Karlstar
Apr. 12, 2022, 1:19 pm

>43 Shrike58: Tell me a bit more about that one? I've been reading his Merchant Princes series off and on.

46Shrike58
Apr. 12, 2022, 7:24 pm

>45 Karlstar: The "Laundry" series started out as a pastiche of British spy thrillers with a Lovecraftian flavor, and evolved into gleeful evisceration of the tropes of urban fantasy. The current side series, referred to as the "New Management," has nothing at all to do with parodying the current Tory government in Britain; not at all! Right now there is a certain marking of time until Stross wraps up the series.

47bernsad
Apr. 12, 2022, 8:31 pm

Finished the other day Hyperion which I quite enjoyed, I will chase up some of his other work.

48pgmcc
Apr. 13, 2022, 7:25 am

>47 bernsad:
I loved Hyperion and immediately read The Fall of Hyperion. It felt like the second half of one story. The two books together were great. I could not get into the subsequent books. I recommend your catching The Fall of Hyperion while the first one is fresh in your mind.

49paradoxosalpha
Apr. 13, 2022, 12:26 pm

I've wrapped up (and reviewed) Flight from Nevèrÿon and started in on The Algebraist. (Still on deck: The Gone-Away World, The Blazing World.)

50ChrisRiesbeck
Apr. 13, 2022, 12:36 pm

51RobertDay
Apr. 13, 2022, 4:51 pm

>47 bernsad:, >48 pgmcc: The two Hyperion novels are indeed one novel split into two volumes. The later sequels (Endymion and The Rise of Endymion ) are written as two separate books; they do complete the story but are not completely essential to your appreciation of the first two books. I recommend Phases of Gravity, which is not sf as such, but rather a fine novel about Apollo-era astronauts and their adjustment to life after the Moon. It would have been sf had it been written in the 1950s.

52bernsad
Apr. 13, 2022, 6:25 pm

>48 pgmcc: >51 RobertDay: Thanks for the recommendations I'm going to see what the library has available. I was disappointed that Hyperion just stopped mid-journey so I'll chase up the 2nd part soon.

53Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 14, 2022, 9:21 am

>52 bernsad: I really enjoyed all four volumes of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos. The two Endymion books that follow the initial two Hyperion books are still well worth reading if not quite as strong.

But my favourite books by Simmons are his Ilium and Olympos duet. I have read them both a couple of times and likely will again. But I have friends who have attempted them and they did not resonate with them. For me I loved the mix of SciFi and Greek mythology. And there is one character arc whose transformation throughout the narrative I found fascinating: It is really redemptive.

54Karlstar
Apr. 14, 2022, 10:42 pm

>53 Neil_Luvs_Books: I also enjoyed all four books and of them, Hyperion is probably my favorite Simmons, but I'm also a big fan of The Abominable, which is not scifi at all. I liked Ilium and Olympos, but I suspect my complete unfamiliarity with The Tempest reduced my enjoyment.

55Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 15, 2022, 1:16 am

>54 Karlstar: I do not know The Abominable. I’ll have to look for that one.

56Karlstar
Apr. 15, 2022, 12:24 pm

>55 Neil_Luvs_Books: It is a fiction/thriller set in the 1930's with a focus on Mt. Everest, but the most common complaint I've heard about it is that there is too much mtn. climbing before it gets to that point. That did not bother me at all, it was necessary setup.

57ScoLgo
Apr. 15, 2022, 12:32 pm

>56 Karlstar: Simmons must be a mountain-climbing enthusiast. There was a fair bit of focus on that activity in The Rise of Endymion too. For me, it was one of the more boring aspects of that book. Not the settings or the idea of mountain-climbing being a required part of those settings, but rather the excruciating detail Simmons went into in describing those scenes. Much could have been cut without harming the plot. In fact, editing those sections would have helped the book, IMHO.

58ScoLgo
Apr. 15, 2022, 12:34 pm

Finished Finity's End last night. Easily my favorite Company Wars novel.

Now picking up The Anubis Gates for a re-read.

59Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 15, 2022, 2:20 pm

>58 ScoLgo: I also really liked Finity’s End. I can’t remember if I liked it better than Tripoint. I thought Tripoint was also really enjoyable.

60ScoLgo
Apr. 15, 2022, 2:45 pm

>59 Neil_Luvs_Books: Yes! I actually just read them both within the past month. I rated Tripoint at 4 stars and gave Finity's End 4.5, (I'm usually pretty stingy with star ratings so that means I really liked them both).

61RobertDay
Apr. 15, 2022, 5:27 pm

>57 ScoLgo: Agreed. There were four pages describing the view from the top of that mountain in The Rise of Endymion. I like mountains as much as the next person, but that was really too much.

62AnnieMod
Apr. 15, 2022, 5:33 pm

>10 Shrike58: True. Review of Cyber Mage is up for anyone interested (non spoilery and I really really liked it).

I seem to be in the middle of a non-SF spell so will probably not post much this month (she said and probably jinxed it so we shall see).

63AnnieMod
Apr. 15, 2022, 5:35 pm

>61 RobertDay: When he goes that way, he reminds me of some Victorian authors. And as I tend to like them as well, it usually works for me - despite being long winded. I need to read some Simmons soon again...

64Shrike58
Apr. 16, 2022, 8:11 am

Finished The Employees, an SF novella that came out of literary left field and which pretty much lives up to the hype.

65vwinsloe
Apr. 16, 2022, 8:36 am

>64 Shrike58:. I'm putting that on my wish list. Thanks.

66Karlstar
Apr. 16, 2022, 10:26 am

>58 ScoLgo: I had The Anubis Gates on my Amazon wish list for ages, so long I finally removed it. Looking forward to your review.

67paradoxosalpha
Apr. 16, 2022, 10:30 am

I thought The Anubis Gates was okay, but not worthy of a reread. I was far more entertained by Declare.

68Unreachableshelf
Apr. 16, 2022, 12:45 pm

>53 Neil_Luvs_Books: It has been a long time since the last time I read those but they were my favorite Simmons, too. (And I remember seeing him at a signing once where he referenced the cartoon where an author is in an office being told "We'll bring out War now and then Peace next year," which I think of whenever I encounter one of his duologies which is really one book in two parts.)

69Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 16, 2022, 2:28 pm

70ScoLgo
Apr. 16, 2022, 2:31 pm

>66 Karlstar: The Anubis Gates was the first Tim Powers book I read, way back when it was first published in hardback, (1989). I've been a fan of his writing ever since. This is my third time reading and I'm doing so now because I recently picked up The Properties of Rooftop Air and want everything fresh in mind when I read that novelette. I'll probably re-visit Nobody's Home while I'm at it.

>67 paradoxosalpha: Though I am a big fan of Powers, I get that he is hit or miss for other readers. I agree that Declare is one of his better efforts. It is, IMHO, a masterpiece of secret history centered around post-WWII cold war espionage. Powers sums up his approach to writing secret histories in the Declare afterword, where he talks about how he developed the idea for the novel while reading about Kim Philby...
In a way, I arrived at the plot for this book by the same method that astronomers use in looking for a new planet -- they look for "perturbations," wobbles, in the orbits of the planets they're aware of, and they calculate the mass and position of an unseen planet whose gravitational field could have caused the observed perturbations -- and then they turn their telescopes on that part of the sky and search for a gleam. I looked at all the seemingly irrelevant "wobbles" in the lives of these people -- Kim Philby, his father, T. E. Lawrence, Guy Burgess -- and I made it an ironclad rule that I could not change or disregard any of the recorded facts, nor rearrange any days of the calendar -- and then I tried to figure out what momentous but unrecorded fact could explain them all.

This is what I enjoy so much about Powers books - that he takes known facts and events and then imagines supernatural elements to explain all the weird, yet real, facts of the lives of historical figures. His treatment of the romantic poets in The Stress of Her Regard, and Hide Me Among the Graves was also impressive, and undoubtedly arrived at using a similar method.

71rocketjk
Apr. 17, 2022, 12:59 pm

Greetings! I don't post here often, as I'm not reading that much science fiction these days, but do enjoy following along. Thought I'd pop in, though, as my monthly reading group assignment this month was The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. I thought the novel did a pretty good job of providing a plausible look at how climate matters may well progress, and of individual components of the problem that many of us may not be specifically aware of, followed by a speculative and mostly hopeful view of how things might get turned around. Not all of the latter elements felt particularly likely to me, sad to say. The characters themselves are mostly razor thin, though Robinson does make some attempt to deepen the characterization of his main character somewhat, giving her a personal side issue that at first is quite interesting but which eventually becomes (or at least became for me) mostly extraneous. A lot of this novel is quite good, although Robinson's scattershot approach can become wearing, and I got the feeling eventually that Robinson was simply determined to tell us everything he knew and crowbar in every piece of research he'd done. Of course, the problems are global and massive, so in Robinson's defense we might agree that they needed a massive novel to do them justice. My paperback edition checked in at 563 pages. After page 400 or so, I was ready to be finished. But, as this was a selection of a member of my monthly reading group, I was obliged to carry on. Mostly I'm glad I read this novel, though I doubt I ever would have selected it on my own (which I guess is one chief value of book groups). I did learn a lot, assuming of course that Robinson knows what he's talking about.

72igorken
Bearbeitet: Apr. 17, 2022, 2:22 pm

>71 rocketjk: Heh, I found this a quick read for a KSR novel, but yeah his stuff can wear you down sometimes. :)
In my memory it was just over 400 pages, but I may be a little off.

73rocketjk
Apr. 17, 2022, 3:18 pm

>72 igorken: "In my memory it was just over 400 pages, but I may be a little off."

563 pages in my paperback edition.

74davisfamily
Apr. 17, 2022, 3:56 pm

I am currently reading Empire Games by Charles Stross. I am also re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo, forgot how much I loved this book.

75Neil_Luvs_Books
Bearbeitet: Apr. 17, 2022, 5:56 pm

>71 rocketjk: thanks for that review. I’ve been thinking of picking up The Ministry for the Future myself. And yeah, that’s what I look about book clubs: makes you read what you would not necessarily read yourself. That’s how I ended up reading Indians On Vacation last month which I thoroughly enjoyed. Would not have picked it up if not for my book club.

76Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 17, 2022, 8:50 pm

Just finished Cibola Burn. Another great volume in The Expanse series.

77dustydigger
Apr. 18, 2022, 1:47 pm

I have mostly been reading really light fluff stuff this week,and some crime fiction. I saw Throne of Glassand decided to read it since Booktubers who read a lot of YA fantasy were in raptures over it for about a year.
Actually it wasnt too bad a read at first,it was fun reading about this young assasin,but the middle dragged as the inevitable love triangle developed. Oh boy,I cant stand love triangles! lol.SoIi read the last 200 pages quite slowly.Wont be reading more of the series. Name of the Wind and Throne of Glass were quite enough for me for a long while.
Still have Deathbird and A Memory Called Empire to keep me out of mischief for the rest of the month.Oh,and Moonfleet a book for a challenge. I have been meaning to read it for years.

78karenb
Apr. 18, 2022, 3:35 pm

>71 rocketjk: Yes, that's the good thing about book clubs: introducing me to books I otherwise might not read.

>62 AnnieMod: I bounced off of that one: for some reason I just couldn't read another book about a smart, smug teenager. I'm glad you enjoyed it, though.

OTOH, I finished Kundo wakes up, though, which takes place at the same time but in Chittagong. Gaming is involved, but part of the problem is that some gamers have disappeared. This is about the people going to look for those gamers.

79AnnieMod
Apr. 18, 2022, 3:49 pm

>78 karenb: Well, he got a lot less smug when he went to school. :) Although between the main character and all the gaming, it almost made me not finish it. If that was my first book by him, I may have bounced out as well - I just decided to give it a bit more time than I would have otherwise based on the Tuesday book and it payed off. But yes... it can be a bit grating I think.

80seitherin
Apr. 18, 2022, 4:53 pm

>76 Neil_Luvs_Books: I've read the Expanse novels and I'm currently reading the collected stories and novellas which I didn't read when they came out individually. One of the stories I've read does a dive into the backstory of a main character. I really enjoyed that one.

In other news, I've started The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. I think it's probably more thriller than SFF, but it does involve a clone (or so the blurps claim}.

81Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 18, 2022, 8:21 pm

>80 seitherin: Is the collection of short stories in The Expanse called Memory’s Legion?
https://www.jamessacorey.com/books/memorys-legion/
I’ll probably read that one after I finish the series of novels. The story about Fred Johnson intrigues me.

82paradoxosalpha
Bearbeitet: Apr. 19, 2022, 1:23 am

I finished reading and reviewed The Algebraist and now I am starting The Gone-Away World.

83Sakerfalcon
Apr. 19, 2022, 8:59 am

>71 rocketjk: I too just read Ministry for the Future and have to agree with you. It was an interesting read but definitely more about the ideas than characters or plot. I rarely found it hard to put down. I liked the scenes showing Mary's relationship with Frank, that for me was the emotional heart of the novel. But events like Tatiana's murder didn't really have an impact because we'd never got to know the character. All that said, I think world leaders and anyone with influence should read it to see how we should be working together to save the planet as we know it.

I've now just started Shards of earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky which is good so far.

84rocketjk
Apr. 19, 2022, 1:23 pm

>83 Sakerfalcon: "All that said, I think world leaders and anyone with influence should read it to see how we should be working together to save the planet as we know it."

I agree with you here in principle, but what Robinson's book really calls for and/or predicts is a rather radical change in human nature, a development I don't foresee being in the cards. But, still, Robinson presents ideas worth considering at least.

85seitherin
Apr. 19, 2022, 4:05 pm

>81 Neil_Luvs_Books: Yes, the book is Memory's Legion. The Fred Johnson story is probably my second favorite. Unfortunately, the book is my bedtime read so it's taking me much longer to read than my normal daily speed. I only manage about 5-10 pages a night before I drop off.

86Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 19, 2022, 5:28 pm

>85 seitherin: And a lovely way to fall asleep that is! 😴

87RobertDay
Bearbeitet: Apr. 20, 2022, 11:01 am

Finished The Citadel of the Autarch. Understood it better than when I first read it, and i feel I have a fighting chance with The Urth of the New Sun, which is up in a couple of books' time.
Just now, I am taking a break from genre and reading a book in German on a local railway in central Europe, though if I translate the title, you might wonder just how non-genre it is: 'Secondary railways in Transylvania". (Touchstones fall over gibbering at this one, so here's a direct link to the LT workpage: https://www.librarything.com/work/22354719/book/165418924)

88Shrike58
Apr. 20, 2022, 12:59 pm

>87 RobertDay: Sounds like a title you throw at a fantasy or horror writer with the remit: Write the first paragraph in a book with this title!

89Karlstar
Bearbeitet: Apr. 20, 2022, 11:34 pm

>82 paradoxosalpha: Glad you enjoyed it! Currently reading Dark State, though I've realized I don't enjoy the direction he is taking this series.

90paradoxosalpha
Bearbeitet: Apr. 21, 2022, 12:38 am

>89 Karlstar:

I like Stross' work a lot, but I haven't read any of the Merchant Princes books, just The Laundry Files, Accelerando, Glasshouse, and some short stories. I'm likely to tackle Neptune's Brood before I ever get around to Merchant Princes, unless I get a strong reason to pursue the latter.

91Sakerfalcon
Apr. 21, 2022, 6:17 am

>84 rocketjk: Sadly, I think you're right. The section that talks about the heatwave in the Southern US states and how the reaction of the rest of the country is "well it couldn't happen in our area" felt all too real

92rocketjk
Apr. 21, 2022, 9:02 pm

93Stevil2001
Apr. 21, 2022, 10:38 pm

After dragging through Now Wait for Last Year (my fault, not the book's; really liked how it ended), I am beginning my Hugo reading with The Galaxy, and the Ground Within.

94ChrisRiesbeck
Apr. 22, 2022, 2:32 pm

>93 Stevil2001: Yes, it was interesting on what part of the story Dick decided to end that book and a good choice IMO.

95SChant
Apr. 24, 2022, 7:11 am

After a couple of disappointments this month - Widowland was dire, DNF, and Childhood's End was OK but a bit dated - I've now started on an old C J Cherryh that I found in a second-hand bookshop, Voyager In the Night. Her space operas always cheer me up.

96Neil_Luvs_Books
Apr. 24, 2022, 1:40 pm

>95 SChant: Cherryh is great! I have never heard of Voyager In The Night. I look forward to your review.

97Sakerfalcon
Apr. 25, 2022, 8:19 am

>95 SChant: I've dithered over Widowland when I've seen it in a kindle sale. I'm glad I haven't bitten.

98SChant
Apr. 26, 2022, 11:25 am

Well I've sped through Cherry's Voyager In Night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not her usual Alliance/Union universe story, this is a first-contact novel with elements of horror. A small 3-person ore-prospecting ship is swept up almost casually by a passing ancient alien vessel, who's Minds study them down to the sub-atomic detail and replicate them as simulacra so meticulously that they think, feel and react as the humans they once were. It's quite a confusing book to get through because of the mutiplicity of replicas and the names of the alien minds formatted as symbols, but it is very worthwhile.

99Stevil2001
Bearbeitet: Apr. 26, 2022, 12:15 pm

From one Becky Chambers to another: started A Psalm for the Wild-Built, one of the Best Novella finalists, over lunch today.

100Karlstar
Apr. 28, 2022, 2:28 pm

>90 paradoxosalpha: I keep hearing good things about The Laundry Files, I'll have to give them a try.

101paradoxosalpha
Bearbeitet: Apr. 28, 2022, 3:04 pm

>100 Karlstar:

The early Laundry books really require a prior taste for Yog-Sothothery for best appreciation, I think. Rationalized supernatural espionage satire is definitely its own category though, even with Stross making overt homage to Len Deighton in the first book and other spy-fi writers thereafter.

102ScoLgo
Apr. 28, 2022, 4:08 pm

>100 Karlstar: I just read The Atrocity Archives last month. Enjoyed it quite a bit and plan to continue with the series.

103SChant
Apr. 29, 2022, 3:37 am

>102 ScoLgo: I've read the whole series twice - it gets better and weirder with each book.

104paradoxosalpha
Apr. 29, 2022, 10:36 am

For Laundry addicts particularly, there's a dedicated thread in The Weird Tradition group.

105Shrike58
Apr. 29, 2022, 6:19 pm

Set aside Machinehood to read Amongst our Weapons; if you're up to date on the "Rivers of London" books you have every reason to want to read this installment.

106RobertDay
Apr. 29, 2022, 6:21 pm

I've just started The First Fifteen lives of Harry August and I am very impressed so far. I'm mentally comparing it with Ken Grimwood's Replay; the North is a far deeper novel though the narrative flow gets a bit disrupted here and there. Not many novels take up this theme; I'm only aware of Kate Atkinson's Life after Life and Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days that take the same or a similar theme (both are on the TBR pile).

107AnnieMod
Apr. 29, 2022, 6:25 pm

>106 RobertDay: I loved it when I read it a few years ago - although there is a part in the middle that could have used some tighter editing.

108Unreachableshelf
Apr. 30, 2022, 11:13 am

>105 Shrike58: I wait for the paperbacks so my Rivers of London set will match but I LOVE the title.

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