Our Reads in January 2019

Another year,another pile of books!
Happy New Year!

Dusty's TBR for January
SF/F
Michael Chabon - Yiddish Policemen's Union✔
Connie Willis - Blackout ✔
C J Cherryh - Emergence✔
Simon R Green - Death Shall Come✔
Ben Aaronovitch - Lies Sleeping ✔
Nalini Singh - Archangel's Viper ✔
Elizabeth Moon - Into the Fire✔
John Scalzi - Unlocked ✔

other genres
Victoria Sorensen - Miracles on Maple Hill ✔
Laurie R King - Justice Hall ✔
Cyril Hare - Tragedy at Law✔
Clamp -X/1999 ✔
Nora Roberts - Year One ✔

Yeah, it's not January yet. I won't know until it's actually January.

I have a list of books that I've set as priorities for the coming year, but haven't broken it down by month. It's a mix of fiction (indie and trad published) and nonfiction.

I'll be starting out the 2019 fiction list with a rare bit of horror (a genre I almost never touch): How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addision. The motivation for this read is curiosity brought on by having become acquainted with the author, who is a truly (and wonderfully) unique individual.

Its 5 am here,got up for a drink,couldnt sleep and finished off the last 20 pages of a book I have been attempting to finish for weeks now! had such high hopes of doing lots of reading this last week but Mr Dusty has been poorly and I had to take care of him.He's improving rapidly now thank goodness. Elizabeth Moon's Into the Fire is an amiable enough outing in the Vatta's Peace series.
I am well into Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policeman's Union,a dazzling display of verbal pyrotechnics,and am also just starting Ben Aaronovitch's Lies Sleeping
OK,back to bed now,I'm freezing! :0)

>5 dustydigger:

I read the Chabon right next to Lavie Tidhars Unholy Land, some interesting parallels between the two.

Still reading Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear.

Recent genre reads:
Red Moon by KSR is so very KSR both good and bad. There's a plot, but it's not very important, there's drama, but it's not very dramatic, and much of it is off stage. Oh, and there's Frank, only he's disguised as Fred this time. Still, it's a great story about technology and politics and people and I loved it.
Roadside Picnic by the Strugatskys I've been meaning to reread for 20-ish years now and finally got round to it by way of audio book. One of the true classics of the genre, and I need to go dig up a copy of Stalker now.
Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson is the so-called final installment of the Fractured Europe series and adds a lot to the back story of the previous three books. I think this might be the best of the series, and even though Hutchinson says it's done, heck he might even believe it's done, it's not done.

Plans for January:
Already started The Diamond Age, after being semimocked for not having read it. Looks good so far, but I sense some of Stephensons long-windedness coming along soon. Planning to pick off some more older stuff I've missed throughout the month, probably something by Octavia Butler and Larry Niven

This is a test.

Happy New Year all...or at least one can hope!

At the very least this month's books will include The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter and The Revenant Gun.

>9 seitherin: Did we pass the test?

I start this year vowing to return my overdue library books - before “they” come after me.

Still working my way through Swan Songs; now read half of the six novels in the omnibus and enjoying them. Stableford's take on technobabble works well (especially given how early these books were) for his being a biologist, not a physicist.

>11 DugsBooks: Yes, you did.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy new year everyone! I'm starting the year with Uprooted by Naomi Novik, which seems very well written, and The Weird:a compendium of strange and dark stories edited y the VanderMeers.

I picked up The Consuming Fire and The Powers of the Earth from the library yesterday. I also have Elysium Fire and the omnibus Swan Songs. I got a copy of Sisterhood of Dune for Christmas, but it's 500 pages of size 4 font. No more Simon and Schuster paperbacks for me. I will be holding the book two inches from my face to read that one.

Happy New Year, everyone!

>8 pan0ramix: re Europe at Dawn I expect that the universe will be expanded, too rich not to use to the full.

>15 daxxh: I am having difficulties reading Yiddish Policemen's Union because the print is small and tightly packed,and a light grey print. I find I cant read it for more than about 15 minutes without eyestrain.Still 120 pages to go,it will take quite a while to finish this book!....sigh...
I do have a physical copy of the next up Hugo,1100 plus pages of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell,but it is so thick and heavy my poor old arthritic hands couldn't cope. I have bought the Kindle version.lol.
Not at all a fan of the book. I read 200 pages about 3 years ago and gave up,I found it boring! I am not a fan of historical novels,even with magicians,so I am not looking forward to it at all,but needs must if I am to complete the Hugos and Nebulas this year. :0(

>17 dustydigger:
I felt the same way when I started Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell when it first came out. And I like historical novels, England and the period... I should try again, I've been reading more and more and should like it better but... So much to read, so little time.

>15 daxxh: Are they still churning those terrible Dune books out? I managed to work my way through the Legends of Dune trilogy but it nearly broke me. I love the original books, but the new ones are awful.

>16 richardderus:

I certainly hope so. Poor Rudi might need a rest, but as you say there are many interesting things to expand on that doesn't require the same cast. We'll probably have to wait until he's done playing in the Shelter/Aftermath universe though.

I am doing the Pick & Mix challenge again this year on Worlds Without End.
Anyone who can manage to read a minimum of 10 SF,Fantasy or Horror books in a year are very welcome to join me there.

>20 pan0ramix: *sigh* Most likely so. Hard to train authors to harness their creative urges to our literary desires. The whole break-them-on-the-wheel thing was vetoed for some reason. I suspect the Author's Guild opposed it.

The sad thing there is that David Herbert seems to think that he's really doing good work and is not simply a hack, at least if you want to believe Darrell Schweitzer.

Speaking of hacks I finished up Astounding (A) yesterday and my overall impression when I was done was one of sadness, particularly in regards to John W. Campbell, in that here we have a man of real talent who could never rise above his sense of entitlement and victimhood and, frankly, arrogance. In fact, it's arguable he didn't particularly realize that these were problems despite his obsession with creating first the "competent man" on the way to creating the superman; impeccable logic from bad assumptions gets you nowhere.

Just started China Mieville's The Last Days of New Paris. I was shopping in the mall at Christmas and spied a cart put in the mall by the local library full of books free for the taking, and grabbed it as soon as I saw who wrote it.

>22 richardderus: We're just funny that way...

>24 Shrike58: We all have the ability to deceive ourselves if we aren't careful. Campbell apparently used that ability to the fullest.

>26 ThomasWatson: Wimps. :-P

>28 richardderus: ;-)

Just finished the Hugo-and Nebula-awarded Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. I was quite underwhelmed. Too much plotting by convenient coincidence.

My first read of 2019 is The Technicolor Time Machine by Harry Harrison. I'm hoping it will at least be entertaining.

I finished Dogs of war by Adrian Tchaikovsky where genetically engineered bioforms and other intelligences struggle and win their places alongside humans. Interesting

I've finished Brilliance - better than I expected. And The Wrong Stars which I really enjoyed. Now reading Hunting Party and, out of genre sort-of, Deadhouse Landing.

Ain't that the truth! A salient example here is that I get the impression that Samuel Delany probably scared the $#!+ out of Campbell as a case of meeting his version of an alien and failing the test, as by Campbell's lights this person couldn't by definition exist and so had to be avoided. Again, sad and pathetic; though by that point Campbell was a shadow of what he had been.

>34 Shrike58: Campbell gave science fiction an enormous boost, but then the genre out-grew him. My impression of his later life was of a man losing touch with what mattered most to him, and unable to grasp why it was happening.

Delany... no, that would not have been a happy meeting.

>30 Carnophile: Thank the goddesses it wasn't only me. I was so irked by the coincidences that I resigned my seat on the Willis board of trustees.

>34 Shrike58:, >35 ThomasWatson: ...now mentally casting Donald Glover as Delaney and Tom Selleck as Campbell in a feature film...

I'm deep into The Rise of Io as a precursor to my DRC of The Fall of Io, and The Outlaw and the Upstart King for my next Rod Duncan review.

>19 iansales: I think they still are churning out Dune books. I haven't read them all - I don't think they're very good either. But, I keep hoping they will get better.

>30 Carnophile: and >36 richardderus: I have Doomsday Book on my TBR list for this year. After all the recent reviews I've read, I am considering not reading it. I'd rather spend my time reading something good. I wanted to read all the Nebula and Hugo winners, but the past few years have left me rather ambivalent about reading anything recent from those lists.

>37 daxxh:, while not a big fan of Doomsday Book myself, I did think the historical portions were excellent. Those are still springing to my mind whenever that period of history is mentioned. The author went for portraying the medieval period as it really was, not dressing it up as is too often done.

>38 Cecrow: I agree. The medieval portions of the book, (anachronisms notwithstanding), were the more compelling. The modern day sections were what made the book fall a bit flat for me. Though I must admit to feeling a bit misty during the denouement...

>37 daxxh: I think >38 Cecrow: and >39 ScoLgo: have very good points about the medieval parts of the book. I resort to the argument that I didn't buy an historical novel, I bought a time-travel novel, and the parts that fell flattest were as important to me as the medieval ones.

But I'm pretty much a non-Connie so my words should be filtered through that lens.

>37 daxxh: I would support >38 Cecrow: and >39 ScoLgo:. Read 'Doomsday Book' but then be very careful over tackling any of Willis' other time-travel novels because it's all downhill from there, notwithstanding any glowing reviews you may have seen elsewhere. The whole concept of time-travelling academics and the sort of messes they'd get into through being academics is a nice angle, though it's a shame Willis knows so little about Britain.

>8 pan0ramix: read Roadside Picnic for a book group; never heard of it or the author and now determined to read more of his work. Most everyone loved it.

Speaking of book group, trying to read The City by Clifford Simak I generally like his books but for some reason this isnt working for me. Will be interesting to see what others think next week

>17 dustydigger: I like historic fiction and sci fi and this book should have been up my alley. I tried several times and just gave up. I know a series was made of the book, and heard it was pretty good, so I might try it that way.

>19 iansales: i didn't realize they were writing more! Read the first three (think the second one was the best, but the first one was probably the best example of world building ever) I stopped reading them when I realized they were shadows of its former self.

Finished Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear. I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting.

>44 cindydavid4: The original six written by Frank Herbert are very good, and though Dune is probably the premier example of worldbuilding in sf, it's also the worst-written of the six books on a prose level. Herbert's son, Brian, teamed up with Kevin J Anderson in the 1990s to expand the Dune universe. They also finished off the original series, based, they claimed, on notes by Herbert for his "seventh Dune book", but most Dune fans consider that rubbish given how crap the two sequels by Anderson & Herbert Jr are. They're still churning them out, but given that at least one trilogy was ditched partway through, I'm guessing they're not selling that well...

Started reading Space unicorn blues, a mix of SF with magic. It's fun so far.

>48 Sakerfalcon: That would make me pretty mad. I don't see how you can mix SF with magic. Magic can't work in a scientific world.

Just finished up Redemption Ark yesterday. While I enjoyed it, and gave it 4 stars, as soon as I put the book down, almost all memory of it fled my mind. Not a good sign, sigh...

>49 SFF1928-1973: I haven't read that book, but I thought All the Birds in the Sky was an effective blending of sf and fantasy.

>49 SFF1928-1973:
"That would make me pretty mad. I don't see how you can mix SF with magic. Magic can't work in a scientific world."

Arthur Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

And of course, a whole lot of "hard SF" is based on space travel which is impossible according to current science.... (only a generation ship would get a pass)

>36 richardderus: I was so irked by the coincidences that I resigned my seat on the Willis board of trustees.

Lol, for a moment I took this seriously and was like “Huh, Board of trustees?”

>37 daxxh: I have Doomsday Book on my TBR list for this year. After all the recent reviews I've read... I'd rather spend my time reading something good. I wanted to read all the Nebula and Hugo winners, but the past few years have left me rather ambivalent about reading anything recent from those lists.

I agree. Life’s too short to plow through works you’re not enjoying.

>38 Cecrow: and >39 ScoLgo: I felt the same way. The medieval parts were interesting enough that they prompted me to haul out one of my wife’s history books on the medieval period last night and start in on it.

I actually really liked both Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog when I read them both ~10 years ago now. I haven't got to Blackout and All Clear yet, but I assume I will as I move through the Hugo Award for Best Novel winners. (I'm back in 1955, though!)

>37 daxxh: I have read Doomsday Book and found it pretty average overall. The first 200 pages are a real struggle to get through, they are quite boring. I almost put the book down because of it. The only reason I kept on reading was that I saw the book had a 4 star overall rating and there had to be something of interest in the 600 page book. Well I found some interest but I could not give it more than 3.5 stars.

Dear me,I have looked back to my comments on Doomsday Book in 2016.I had only been here on LT a few months,and was fairly polite about it really,butWillis is not a favourite with me! lol

''Is it only me or does 2054 Oxford seem instead very much like 1954?Particularly a 1954 hospital? :0) I swear if Dunworthy looked out of the window he would probably see Tolkien and C S Lewis talking about LOTR and Narnia on their way to an Inklings meeting!. I am only 100 pages in,so maybe the reason for this shadowing of the 1950s becomes clear,but its distracting me somewhat from the story. Also distracting is Willis's insistence of giving intricate details of every action or event. Sadly historical fiction is one of my least fave genres anyway,I look upon all the historical detail as a sometimes tiresome detour from the story or characters,slowing down the pace.
....
I am being driven nuts by the way Willis hammers home points repeatedly,and is obsessively detailing everything. 45 lines to describe an old shed/stable/sleeping area for a minor character? (yep,I counted them because I just couldnt believe my eyes! lol). One sentence would be enough,since she only sat there to rest,and never saw anyone except for seeing a rat in a cage.. Looking for a person?Three pages looking around in detail at every place the person wasnt at does not appeal to me.
I keep getting distracted about the translator she has. After 20 pages showing that she couldnt understand or make herself understandable to the ''contemps'' she now just speaks modern English into it and somehow they hear mediaeval. Cant get my head around that at all.And when Kivrin talks about the people as ''contemps'' I keep doing a double take thinking she meant ''contemptables'' :0)
Back in 2054 Oxford,which looks and sounds like 1954,though described by someone who has been reading old 1930s Dorothy L Sayers Peter Wimsey stories,I am irritated at the repeated tale that ''The NHS phoned you''.Really?
When I can stop tearing my hair out and can overcome these irritations the story goes smoothly and quite engagingly,but I cant help but wish an editor had cut out 200 pages or so,it would be a much better book.255/587 pages read,still a long way to go.......sigh........
And if I am having problems with this one,I can see why you dont even want to talk about the WWII books. :0( ''

Yep,and the time is upon me to read Black Out,and I am not looking forward to it. Reading the old review has brought back all the irritations I felt back then! :0)

btw,one point I didnt mention at the time,but which is annoying everytime I see it on the page,is the spelling of Doomsday. I wince every time since I was brought up with the old Domesday spelling,so everytime I look on here and see Willis'version,I want to swear! :0)

>56 dustydigger: Then why in the world are you reading Black Out?

>57 BookstoogeLT: I am a masochist? lol
Nope,I am challenging myself to complete all the Hugo and Nebula award winners. I have completed 61/67 Hugos,49/54 nebulas.There's some overlap of titles so I have only 7 actual books left to complete,and feel duty bound to read them all without skipping. I have been doing this for a few years,as and when I could locate titles freely or cheaply,not exactly an easy task at times,but I have now located the last books,and hope to finish this year. And of course I read the most appealing/available first and have left myself with all the doorstopper sized books,or genres I dislike till last.Serves me right ! lol. I have some humdinger mighty tomes coming up,especially the Clarke and Willis .This is the full list

Lois McMaster Bujold - Paladin of Souls
Susannah Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Vernor Vinge - Rainbow's End
Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Ursula K LeGuin - Powers
Paolo Bacagalupi - The Windup Girl
Connie Willis - Blackout

I happen to have a weird thing about massive books. I will happily read two 400 page books a week,no problem, but hand me a doorstopper and I fall apart,read barely 20 pages a day,if that,and all in all make a mountain out of a molehill and it becomes a marathon task. Oh boy,the time I had getting through KSRs Martian trilogy,as regulars on this thread can attest :0),or indeed the two Connie Willis books I have suffered through so far.To say Nothing of the Dog nearly killed me,it seemed an endless,repetitive,annoying nightmare. I felt I would go crazy if there was even one more return to the cathedraland start tearing out my hair,so I can guess what I am have ahead of me......probably in April or May.I dislike war books,and historical novels as a whole leave me cold,they are my least loved genres,but all Willis's annoying traits added on makes for a not very enjoyable read!.
But I'm on the home straight now,will hopefully complete them this year.......and have my eye on the Locus winners after that,about a dozen books I think. But there are some real nasty ones on that list,including pet bugbears like Neal Stephenson,( I took one look at the 1100 page nightmare that is Anathem and literally ran away from the library shelf!)KSR,and Dan Simmons that I may defer that list for quite a long time! :0)

>58 dustydigger: Well, I can understand that now. It is a "Goal" and not just "Because". But yeah, I'll be thinking of you as a masochist from now on ;-)

Why do you consider the Mars trilogy a single massive doorstopper and not 3 individual normal-sized books? That aside I understand the struggle as KSR's style isn't to everyone's liking.

>60 igorken: No,I thought each one was a massive doorstop! lol.I took months over each one,and kept putting them aside for a while,so the whole lot took over two and a half years.
Basically I couldnt be bothered to individually list each title on here last night :0)So sue me!And I certainly dont count 672,784 and 800 densely packed pages respectively as normal sized books,they trigger my phobia. lol .Once upon a time I read 40-50 pages an hour,now in old age I can barely manage 30 pages,and cant concentrate on a book for long any way. Ah the good old days where I could dig in to read for a 3 solid hour sitting or read ashorter novel in a day....sigh.....long long gone......
There's just something about KSRs ''why use one word when I can use 100?'' style,and delving excruciatingly deeply into the thoughts of characters that I dont feel empathy for in the first place,that just annoys me. The plodding minutely detailed style does work to make Mars itself have an impressive reality,and I always am willing to give KSR full marks for that,but sorry,everything else irritates me.I can read for what seems ages,struggling to hold the brick sized and shaped book,and then am surprised to find I've only read 10 pages,with 630 still to go. Very disheartening to say the least :0)
Even with the Willis irritations,the writing is fairly smooth and flowing,so I read slightly faster than with KSR,so it doesnt drag so much. A different set of reading obstacles,but still annoying. We'll see how Blackout goes.

>61 dustydigger: Ok i guess they're bigger than I remember. I found them page-turner exciting, but I hear you :)

Respect for your Hugo/Nebula target though. The Clarke will be tough, but luckily there's some quicker and lighter fare left on your list as well.

I've decided to reread the Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin, starting with The Fifth Season - I originally read the series last year. The first book starts at the end, with the remainder of the series explaining how things got there - I'm interested in any additional insight I get through the reread...

>63 johnnyapollo: I'll be starting The Fifth Season before the month is out. I've read some short fiction by this author and was favorably impressed.

Reading the recent comments regarding Doomsday Book and other works by Willis, I'm glad I don't know a great deal about England. Would have spoiled an otherwise entertaining read. I had no problems with Doomsday Book that I can recall.

My feeling about Robinson's "Mars" books is that I liked Red Mars quite a lot, I like Green Mars somewhat and by the time I got to Blue Mars I was really sick of the characters after about the first 80 pages and skipped to the last chapter to see how the trilogy was wrapped up.

Also, I need to get back to Jemisin just on general principle.

Having dealt with Connie Willis before, I'll remark that this discussion began at the precise moment a horrid cold seized me and rendered me unable to focus on any book long enough to enjoy it. It lasted for 85 hours. Coincidence, or causation?

Re-reading The Rise of Io before getting to the DRC of The Fall of Io. I really enjoy Wesley Chu's writing. And his eyebrows. Enviable eyebrows.

Added The Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F. Hamilton to my reading rotation.

>66 Shrike58:

They are not really meant to be read back to back - the first time I read them, I read them based on when they were available in translation back home (one per year in 1996-1998) and the last one works better if you read it with enough time between them... :) I still prefer Red Mars to the other two but still...

There was a significant gap of time between reads but I was just tired of the characters by that point.

>70 Shrike58: I was already tired of them 100 pages into Red Mars.Then KSR just had to tell us that the only character I liked was going to be killed off,and then made us travel with him all over Mars for hundreds of pages before finally killing him off.. - and then having the others lament over him for even more hundreds of pages in two more books!Then there was the conspiracy plot,the hiding someone on the ship plot,and following boring characters' every thought in minute detail.Especially dull and depressed Ann.I wanted to kill her or myself whenever she went wandering off to commune with the rocks for another 40 pages,every time narrowly avoiding death.(shame that). If she hated terraforming so much why in hell's name did she join a space mission with 99 others to do that very thing? And all those political meetings and parties......
Oh-oh,I can feel my blood pressure rapidly rising,I am ending this post right now before I burst a blood vessel! ;0) Sorry,but KSR and I are never likely to be bosom friends!

Have just started The Ninth Rain, on the recommendation of a friend. It's totally not my bag, and she has completely different taste to me, but I thought I might as well give it a go...

Nice undemanding and enjoyable quick read was John Scalzi's novella Unlocked,which gave an account of the initial outbreak of the virus that caused the lock-in syndrome featured in Lock In and Head On .
Still making my way through The Yiddish Policemen's Union. I enjoyed the first half of the book, in the hard boiled detective mode,but I am not so enthused with the later sections with the rather bonkers plot developments about Jerusalem etc. The detailed descriptions of Sitka grounded the idea of a Jewish homeland in Alaska well enough to make the story at least credible,but I'm finding it much more difficult accepting the plot as the book goes on.Could still do with a primer on Judaism and a dictionary of Yiddish to get more out of the book.lol.
At least the author's underlying themes are clear in the book,but I am floundering with Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.I keep thinking,now this won awards,there must be some important underlying theme,or major genre development for this massive book to be so dominant at that time.Well,290 pages in I am still clueless,and cant see what all the fuss was about!
According to WWEnd,the book is ''sophisticated,witty,and ingeniously convincing.Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England.She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that 800 pages leave readers longing for more'' Not this reader who doesn't like historical novels much at all,thats for sure.lol .
Sorry,looks like this book is going to be one of those 10 pages a day slogs for me.though it has lightened up a little since Jonathan Strange finally appeared 230 pages into the book. Maybe I will manage 20 pages a day instead of 10 :0)

>73 dustydigger: I like Dickens, Austen, etc and I found Strange&Norrell to be utter tripe...

My New Year's Resolution was to only read from my TBR pile in January (didn't want to put too much strain on my willpower) so am part way through Aliette de Bodard's Servant of the Underworld , a mix of Aztec magic and murder-mystery. It's OK but not thrilling in either respect. I prefer her short stories.

I'm enjoying a combination of steampunk and time travel in Alice Payne Arrives.

>52 rshart3: True, although most writers at least had the decency to propose some kind of workaround: a shortcut through hyperspace. Although how they ever came out where they wanted to is a mystery. Or. E.E. "Doc" Smith's Inertialess Drive; a useful affront to the Laws of Physics.

>45 seitherin:. I am enjoying the hell out of Karen Memory right now. Has anyone read the sequel that came out last year entitled Stone Mad?

>78 vwinsloe: Glad you're enjoying it. It was a fun read. I have Stone Mad on my wish list.

Finished reading How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addison. Dark fantasy/horror isn't usually my style, but having met the author and been impressed by her approach to writing, I gave it a try. Glad I did. It's a collection of short stories (some would qualify as flash fiction) and verse, and all of it was very well done. Recommended without hesitation to anyone who strays into neighboring genres.

And now I'm torn. My plan for my next read was The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, but today a copy of Alliance Rising: The Hinder Stars by C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher just arrived in the mail box.

Decisions, decisions...

I just finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. It was a fun read if you enjoy Gaiman’s work.

Just reviewed Croma Venture by Joel Shepherd and while I enjoyed it, it is now shown without a doubt that this has turned into one of those "Never Ending" series. The threats just keep getting bigger and farther away. Each book follows the formula of "Deal with Threat A while setting up Threat B for the next book". I don't mind long series, but there needs to be an end game in mind. Without that, I feel like I'm being strung along as a reader.

tldr: Enjoyable book but won't be reading any more by Shepherd until he finishes the series.

>80 ThomasWatson: From a purely selfish perspective, I vote for you to read the Cherryh/Fancher book. I'm torn about getting it because I'm not familiar with Fancher but I really enjoy Cherryh's SFF so I would appreciate someone else's opinion of the book.

Finished The Yiddish Policemen's Unionfunny,sad and haunting.I went slow with it,as there was so much to savour and ponder over. plus of course the scintillating exuberant writing style,verbal pyrotechnics on every page.That makes 62/67 Hugos,and 50/54 Nebulas completed.
I am almost finished Ben Aaronovitch Lies Sleeping then its Ursula K LeGuin Powers

>83 seitherin: I don't know if the two of them have collaborated before now, so I have no idea what to expect.

I don't usually do this, but because The Fifth Season is a group read for the only group I belong to that does such things (Science Fiction Book Club on Facebook) I'll be reading both this month. I'll get back to you. ;-)

>84 dustydigger: So glad you enjoyed the Chabon - he's one of my favourite writers in any genre. I highly recommend The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which, while not exactly SF&F is based around the rise of superhero comics in the U.S. during and after the 2nd World War - again from a very Jewish POV and with a dazzling writing style.

>86 SChant: I agree that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is his master piece, but I'll just warn dustydigger that it's rather long ;)

I'm in whatever kind of mashup of Fantasy and SF you'd call "in the future the earth gets conquered by mythological creatures and also there are spaceships" in Order of the Chaos.

>85 ThomasWatson: I've already read the entire Broken Earth trilogy by Jemisin. I liked it. I hope you enjoy the first book. And thank you for reading the Cherryh/Fancher. I look forward to your opinion of both books.

>86 SChant: >87 igorken: I do have his Summerlands on a YA challenge later this year,but Kavalier and Clay and their comic books are likely to be far down the road,behind other monster reads,but I'll probably get there in the end! :0)

>86 SChant: That is also my fav Chabon, and one of my all time favorite books. Made me see comics as something more than just a diversion, and got me reading some graphic novels (esp Gaimans) Plus the writing and structure is amazingly well done

The Technicolor Time Machine was rather disappointing. It seems to me like a good idea for short fiction that was inflated to novel length. That still could have worked if the humour had been sharper and the characters were somewhat developed. I'm rather hoping that we see a LolaWalser review at a later date.

Up next: The Jester at Scar by E.C. Tubb

I just read The Lucky Strike, and I would totally recommend it as a chaser for anyone who has just finished The Years of Rice and Salt and can't stop thinking about it. (Not that further ideas on those lines will stop anyone thinking.) The associated (and included) essay "Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions" is great.

Just reviewed Fool's Run by McKillip. I love her fantasy writing, and while I enjoyed this, it was just weird. Even as a re-read (given, it's been 12 years) it still threw me for a loop.

Good times :-D

>76 Unreachableshelf: "I'm enjoying a combination of steampunk and time travel..."

This might augment the experience;

Researchers Create Steam-Powered Space Probe

I read stone mad last year. It was a little thin, compared to karen memory. But then, it is billed as a novella as I recall.
Much less worldbuilding (which I missed) and a lot more relationship development.

Finished The Jester at Scar, which I now remember was a re-read. Not much to comment, a standard entry in the Dumarest series. Next up I'm reading The Heaven Makers byFrank Herbert.

>97 SFF1928-1973: How much of Herbert's other stuff have you read? I've not had a real good success ratio with his non-dune stuff so now I'm very hesitant to try any more.

Continuing my TBR pile reads with Venus of Dreams by Pamela Sargent. OK so far - but at over 500 pages I may get bored if the story doesn't pick up.

Just finished up Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn. Have to admit, I kept waiting for the mask he was given by the aliens in the first book to be used in the rest of the series and since this was the last book, and it was never used again, I'm just disappointed. I feel like Asimov peered into the future, saw me and personally wrote this to disappoint me! ;-)

>98 BookstoogeLT: I don't know about anyone else, but I read The Eyes of Heisenberg a long time ago; it was OK but didn't make me immediately rush out to move heaven and earth to find his other non-Dune novels.

Then I read The White Plague when it came out and I found it awful.

"Under Pressure" might be worthy of your time.

>98 BookstoogeLT: Herbert can be hit and miss. The good ones are The Santaroga Barrier, Hellstrom's Hive, The Green Brain, Dragon in the Sea, Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment, and assorted pieces of short fiction.

ETA: touchstones apparently completely fubarred.

ETA: Now seem to be working.

>98 BookstoogeLT: I was going to mention both Whipping Star and its follow-up The Dosadi Experiment as well. They are both pretty good but fall short of the incredibly high bar he set with Dune.

>103 iansales: Also having trouble with Touchstones lately, but they suddenly began working again. Seems to be a transient issue.

>103 iansales:
>104 ScoLgo:
It's related to site search being down quite often these past few months. If site search is down, touchstones are too...

>105 divinenanny: Ah, ok... that makes sense. I was having trouble with the touchstone for Whipping Star - and was also unable to find it using site search. But it showed up when I searched on 'My Books'. Now I now why... Thank you.

>101 RobertDay:
>103 iansales:
>104 ScoLgo:
I've read White Plague, Green Brain, Santaroga Barrier, Hellstrom's Hive and one more that I can't remember.
I know I tried Whipping Star but the beginning really turned me off and I can't even remember why now.

>107 BookstoogeLT: It opens with a torture scene, IIRC.

Of his other novels... The Godmakers is a fix-up about an exploration bureau, The Heaven Makers is a close encounter story, The Eyes of Heisenberg is about a rebellion against a genetic elite on a far future Earth, and The White Plague is a near-future thriller about a manufactured plague that kills women.

Whipping Staris about an alien creature so alien(its a star!) that communication is very difficult,almost impossible,and so the book is also difficult to follow.Herbert makes few concessions for us . The Dosadi Experiment is my fave Herbert book,and I've read it 4 times,and still only partially get it! lol.Good mental workout.Dune seems quite simplistic beside them.Its 50 years since I read it,of course,but I was reading LOTR at the same time,and I much preferred that,and have never felt the urge to reread Dune since.

>98 BookstoogeLT: So, besides the first four Dune novels I've read The Dragon in the Sea, The Eyes of Heisenberg, The Santaroga Barrier, The Green Brain and Whipping Star. Of those my pick would be Whipping Star or The Green Brain, the others are a tad bit slow for me. I can't honestly recommend The Eyes of Heisenberg, having read it twice now.

I loved Dosadi. At the time I also enjoyed the Destination Void / Pandora trilogy with Bill Ransom but I don't know how it would hold up now.

I've now finished 'Swan Songs'; I originally thought I could pick up this omnibus of six novels and put it down again fairly easily. Instead, I found that I had to plough through all six novels in one go because they read very much as one single narrative in six episodes. I suppose the fact that Stableford wrote all six in the space of three years explains this.

A Question:

What are the unspoken social rules for posting in this particular post? Does it have to be SF or just what we're reading? I've been reading a lot of SF this month but foresee a good bit of fantasy and "other" genres coming up in the coming months.

Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

I have always assumed it should be SF or of obvious interest to SF readers in particular.

There is a fantasy fan group here, Im a member as well as this one. Sometimes its hard to categorize books as either/or but generally sci fi is the focus here.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/tag/fantasy

Yes, I have just posted the SF stuff, or associational, like a mystery by Sheckley, but not when I'm off reading Pogo or a mystery by a non-SF author.

Basically, SF - but hard as we try, other stuff leaks in now & then. :-)
For one thing, there's so much cross-genre material these days (SF with historic setting - romance with an SF element - etc). I've gotten some interesting reading ideas from non-SF titles mentioned here.
Literature is not neat.....

Just started The Girl King, a fat fantasy, for review. Looks like a Chinese-inspired fantasy written by an American of Chinese extraction. Totally not my bag - the fat fantasy element, that is - but you have to read outside your comfort zone when reviewing every now and again. Besides, the other books available looked awful or were middle volumes in series :-)

>113 BookstoogeLT: I don't know, and I've been here for years. Personally I post my non-SF reading elsewhere but that's just me. I could argue that a lot of the stuff posted here is Fantasy but that is just me being pedantic.

I'm sure when Dune became the best selling SF novel since The Day of the Triffids there was huge interest in anything with the Frank Herbert byline. That's really the only plausible explanation for The Heaven Makers finding its' way into print.

For completely unconnected reasons I'm taking a break from SF to re-read some Conans.

>120 SFF1928-1973: Kevin J Anderson's WordFire Press has put a lot of Frank Herbert's unpublished early novels into print, like High-Opp. They're not very good.

Generally I post all genre fiction here and related books...but I would almost never post books relating to science, technology and history even if sufficiently out there. I recall posting a book about actual human life-support in space last year as that DID seem relevant.

Someone used the phrase "of interest to" somewhere in this discussion. That's pretty much how I've worked it. I mostly post science fiction reads, but if a fantasy novel really does it for me I'll mention it here, knowing that many people read both genres. Also some nonfiction. Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee would be an obvious example, but I've also given the work of Brian Green ( Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality among others) a mention here. No one objected.

Im reading H.P.Lovecraft

I have been posting my monthly TBR at the top of the page here for years now,its a convenient place for me to keep track of my multi genre reads,but I only discuss the SF/F books on the list on here..

Thanks everyone! This is exactly the kind of input I was looking for.

Just reviewed Odysseus Awakening and I have to say, this is a space opera series that I keep on loving...

Finished reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin last night. Decided to give it a try due to the number of favorable recommendations from other sci-fi fans I know. Fascinating and occasionally disturbing story, first rate writing, world building, and character development, with the latter was done in an unusual way for one character in particular - and I especially enjoyed way the author braided together aspects of that character's life in a way that came together nicely at the end. The other two volumes in the trilogy are on my list for this year. They weren't when I drew up the list - they are now.

Already well into the next read: Alliance Rising by Cherryh and Fancher. So far, so good.

Just reviewed Count to Infinity. John Wright is one of the few authors I follow on wordpress, as I enjoy reading his more philosophical oriented posts. However, reading a book sized philosophy wank-off didn't do it for me. Not sure if I want to read any more of his series now or not.

I finished Space unicorn blues which was a surprisingly dark read. A unique concept with lots of potential although some flaws in execution. Although the Bala are aliens, they do possess magic so for anyone who doesn't like a blend of SF and F this wouldn't be a great read.

I've also finished Rosewater which was excellent. The Nigerian setting is vivid and unusual and makes a great background for this story of contact with aliens. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel.

>128 ThomasWatson:. My experience with The Broken Earth trilogy is that, if you liked the first book, then you will find that each subsequent book in the series is even better than the previous one. Folks who just don't like the first book--should probably not continue. I haven't seen anyone change their mind.

>129 BookstoogeLT: Seriously? He's a fully paid up rabid puppy, a homophobe, a misogynist, and a rightwing nutjob.

>131 vwinsloe: Have only read The Fifth Season and The Stone Obelisk so far, and I thought the first book much better than the second one.

>131 vwinsloe: That's so often the case with a series or trilogy. There have been many trilogies I've started over the years and gone no further than the first book. That won't happen this time.

>133 iansales: Middle book syndrome?

>133 iansales: >134 ThomasWatson: I was impressed by The Fifth Season and hated The Stone Obelisk, second person narration gets old pretty quickly.

>133 iansales:, then the exception proves the rule, I guess. Everyone I have spoken to about the series either hated them from the get go, or they liked each one better in succession.

>135 justifiedsinner:. I don't care for gratuitous second person narration either, but since the POV shifted, it was not continuous and didn't annoy me too much. Then after the plot explained the 2nd person narration, I really appreciated it. It wasn't gratuitous at all, and I think that the author wanted the reader to question the use of the second person in order to create a sense of mystery that would propel the reader on to the conclusion. Worked that way for me anyway!

>136 vwinsloe: I have to agree with you on the second person narrative. It's rare that it works for me, but in this book, and the way the author twisted together the elements of that character's history, it worked and made sense. If the entire book had been written that way, I might not have gotten into it, but second person was just one tool the author applied, and the combination kept me reading to the end.

>133 iansales:

Adios folks. Good luck with your group if this is typical reaction...

Huh? Ok, whatever....

>138 BookstoogeLT:
What?

>139 cindydavid4: >140 Petroglyph: My guess is they didn't like the response in >132 iansales: but replied to >133 iansales: instead.

>141 ScoLgo:
ok, that makes sense. Still an overreaction, but it makes sense at least.

I read the short story The last voyage of Skidbladnir, by Karin Tidbeck, which was free on tor.com, and which I thought was a weak ship-and-her-crew type story.

>141 ScoLgo: etc
I assumed the same thing. Perhaps his was an overreaction, but at the same time, 132 was a bit stronger on criticism than on tact. (Edit: "criticism" in both senses of the term. And I don't care for Wright either, including as a writer.)

>142 Petroglyph: Par for the course for puppies.

>144 rshart3: Although I think >132 iansales: was a very unnecessary (obviously someone who finds Wright's political/"philosophical" writings to be interesting will be sympathetic to his politics and to the puppies), the very notion that a single post from one member out of 6,186 would be "a typical reaction" is less than clueful.

>144 rshart3: Not sure why I need to be tactful about someone who spews hate. And notice 138 didn't say "I disagree with/hate his politics, but I enjoy his books", but just straightaway threw their dummy out of the pram.

Now reading America city by Chris Beckett, about climate refugees in a future USA.

>147 iansales: Yes, "overreaction" doesn't even begin to cover it.

My new C J Cherryh ,Emergence arrived yesterday,and for 2 days I have been totally immersed in Bren Cameron and friends exploits,hating the sight of the pages left to read dwindling away. I know I normally hate long books,but I always wish the Foreigner books were longer. This is only 360 pages long.KSR would have barely finished the introduction at that point.It looks very much as if the series is winding down,only a couple of thorny problems left for our Bren-ji to sort out
19 books so far,and I wish there could be another 19! :0)
Reading an Ishmael Jones book Simon R Green's,Death Shall Come.Good fun with one of my favourite aliens.

Wright literally had a stroke on the road to Damascus (Maryland) and has never quite been the same. Some of his work I liked but as he has become increasingly annoying I really can't see that I'm going to be reading anything by him in the near or mid-term future; he has a lot of apologizing to do. As a practicing Catholic he ought to recognize the concept of penance. Though that would first mean cultivating a little Christian humility. My understanding is that he went from being a Libertarian jerk to being a Social Conservative jerk and that a mere near-death experience was insufficient to cure him of being, well, a jerk.

And...finally...I actually finished the first novel of the month. The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter probably deserves all the praise it has gotten but even though I wanted to like it a lot I had a hard time getting into it. Sometimes you just can't read a book if you're not in the mood for it.

I just finished Death of a Clone. I liked it - a murder mystery on an asteroid.

>151 Shrike58: I know someone who was friends with him, and they say he was a nice enough bloke. But now he's the mascot for the rabid puppies, which makes him way more than just a jerk. I won't ever be reading his books, and when I reviewed an anthology in which he had a story for a magazine I didn't even mention him.

I have friends who are friends with his wife so I stay civil if I see him at a convention in my area but I have no desire to interact with the man at this stage of the game and even if he produced a follow-up to the "Titans" trilogy, AND it was produced by reputable publishing house, I wouldn't touch it.

The Wright conversation finally induced me to go back to my database, where I found I *didn't* just read one, as I thought, but actually finished the first trilogy. After a lukewarm first book note (ending "but well enough done"), I noted for the second: "much weaker than first: implausible plotting; stereotyped, cardboard characters; cliched man/woman relationship; drags; almost didn't finish". Apparently I soldiered on through the last, commenting "Picks up a bit from the dismal vol 2". This was all in 2003. I haven't read him since.

Now into the second book of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy as a reread: The Obelisk Gate...

>156 rshart3: I read the first one but thought it a weak copy of Ceres Storm. Not sure why I bothered with the second book of the trilogy, but I was unimpressed. And I've not read anything by him since.

Finished Exit Strategy (A) this evening and it's a worthy capstone to this series of novellas, though maybe not quite as good as the 1st and 3rd books. It'll be interesting to see what Wells does with the novel because the concept of Murderbot as something of a lone paladin would seem to have reached its culminating point.

I'm currently reading one of the few fanzines I regularly pick up, Wolf von Witting's CounterClock 34. (http://efanzines.com/CounterClock/CoClock-34.pdf)

I wouldn't normally cite fanzines here, no matter how good (I don't look at many these days and so tend to be selective), but in this case I shall make an exception, for reasons that will become clear.

When I first looked at the contents, I immediately saw that the lead item was a twenty-page article on Swedish fandom. Back in the 1970s and '80s, when I was reasonably involved with UK fandom, Swedish fandom was invariably connected with interminable and (to us) incomprehensible fan feuds. I feared the worst. But then I started reading. The article concentrated on one Swedish fan's history - Stieg Larsson. Yes, the same Stieg Larsson who achieved fame - now posthumously - for his 'Millennium' series of crime thrillers.

I'm still wading through the article, but it is explaining a few things about Sweden that had puzzled me.

>160 RobertDay: That sounds interesting.

In 2007 I was in Copenhagen for EuroCon and met a representative of Swedish fandom. He provided me with a book of Swedish female SF authors. It was a very polished document. No, I do not know where I put it.

>161 pgmcc:, your post reminds me of the only work of science fiction that I have read by a Swedish woman. The Unit was excellent!

Whew! finished Connie Willis Blackout.
have you ever had those anxiety dreams where you are trying to go somewhere,and there are numerous delays and diversions,and you never get there? Well this book was like that. we have 3 historians from 2060 coming back to 1940. One is observing evacuee children at a country mansion. One wants to observe the populace sleeping in the underground away from the bombs. The third is posing as a war correspondent to watch the evacuation of Dunkirk.All goes well at first but then the ''drops'' the time machine portals hidden away from prying eyes break down or are unavailable panic sets in as their attempts to reach the ''drops'' fail.
Far too long,it should have been edited down to about 300 pages,then the other half of the book,published separately as All Clear could have been added.
I didn't find the historical research egregiously wrong,only a few minor blips really,but the characters were cardboard,the dialogue bland,and the whole thing very very repetitious as Willis as usual gave us excessive detail.All a bit bland,and Willis always dots the ''i''s and crosses the ''t''s -twice,if not 3 times,but Willis writes smoothly,and I got through it surprisingly quickly.490 pages down,640 still to go,but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.But there had better be some surprises and excitement coming up,I am very tired of hearing bombs go off and trotting off to work in a shop.
That's 63/67 Hugos,and 51/54 nebulas completed.!!! :0)

I'm starting Alternate Routes by Tim Powers and really looking forward to it. Partly because it's read by one of my favorite narrators, Bronson Pinchot.

>162 vwinsloe: I just picked up that book not too long ago! I saw it on a list of fiction in translation. I'll have to find a way to move it up my TBR pile. Glad to hear you liked it.

I'm on the verge of finishing up Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon and I'm probably done with this series. This is just not as much fun as the first two books and it seems to be morphing from a gonzo alternative-history romp to a time-war scenario, as Richard Francis Burton becomes Schrodinger's Man and has to try and put right the damage Spring-Heeled Jack has done; as I've mentioned before I'm very picky about what time-travel stories I consume.

>164 tottman:. The Unit got a rare 5 stars from me.

>162 vwinsloe: >166 vwinsloe: Welp... The Unit was just added to my list.

>164 tottman: Will be interested in your thoughts on Alternate Routes. I'm a big Tim Powers fan & have read just about everything he has written but haven't made time for his latest novel yet - though I did pre-order the hardcover when it was announced.

unit intrigues me. It sounds a little like Never Let Me Go which I liked at first but in the end had lots of problems with. Need to try this one.

>167 ScoLgo: >168 cindydavid4: Seems more rational to harvest the organs of the young as in Never Let Me Go than the old as in The Unit. Of course China is doing this all he time with it's political dissidents.

I did wonder about that harvesting the old - those organs will probably not last that long And you figure they are being put into very young bodies (well, younger than 50)

>169 justifiedsinner: Yes, that was just one of the problems I had with The Unit, along with the central character's passivity, after a long, active life, in meekly going off to be a lab-rat. I also found the "romance" squicky but that might just be my general aversion to romance tropes.

>171 SChant:

Since the subject of The Unit came up I've been trying to remember what it was that I couldn't stand about it, but I must have read it from the library because I don't have it in LT and therefore didn't save a review. Is that the one where the female protagonist was unnecessarily dropping stuff in about the existence of romance depending on old fashioned dominant men?

>168 cindydavid4:, >169 justifiedsinner:, >171 SChant:, >172 Unreachableshelf:. I found The Unit to be deceptively simple. There were a lot of issues raised by that book such as who society values as productive and worthwhile, motherhood, and internalized cultural values. It really considers more than just the ethics of organ donation. We had a nice discussion about it on another LT group thread. Link below
https://www.librarything.com/topic/179870

>172 Unreachableshelf: - Yes, something along those lines.

>173 vwinsloe: Thanks for that link! As far as the character's passivity - we do not know how the society developed, why they felt it was necessary to do this, and how long has it been going on, Often when one grows up in a authoritative culture, they accept its conditions, and don't question it. Tho , she would have nothing to lose and everything to gain fighting back, she likely woud think that such a thing was impossible.

This passivity btw is why I had so much trouble with Never Let Me Go. And again, we are not told the background story, that would explain many things. Regardless, i did not like that book.

From the above linked discussion, I thought this rather apt"

I think the book has to be read, in part, against the declining birthrates in Sweden (and the industrialized West generally) and the growing crisis of how to care for the elderly. Holmqvist sets up a tension between young and old. Older people are allowed freedom only if they have younger people in their care or have children who will take them in.

>175 cindydavid4:. You're welcome. Thought provoking books are my favorite.

Just finished reading the discussion; it turned into a discussion of how mothers, and those who choose not to become mothers , are treated in this society - both are questioned about their choices both are told they are doing something wrong, both are pulled by their own desires and what others expect. Both are damned if they do, damned i they don't. Mothers are looked down upon by some members of society, Interesting how much of that they shre with teachers. Been teaching for 30 years, and have never gotten the respect, praise or pay that other professionals get. Is this because they tend to be women? (speaking of teachers of course )

What I also found interesting is that so much of the discussion was about women's role in The Unit society, and little about the ethical questions that arise from organ 'farming' (and the issues we now have re who gets a new organ and who doesnt) as well as the basic idea of throwig away people yu do not think are worthwhile. Guess I do need to read this book after all :)

>177 cindydavid4:. As I said, "deceptively simple." I hope that you enjoy it!