The Sword and Laser discussion

Happy July. The year is half over. What other books are you enjoying this month?

Just finished 20 sided sorceress book 1 it was okay 2/5 the nerd in jokes felt forced and it was just bland to me. Thay being said it was really short and the ratings go way up so I might read more.

In terms of better things I just finished Black Sum the final phantom server book. It was a bit too short but otherwise a strong ending to a strong series 4/5.

Struggling through the Eoin Colfer "sequel" to Hitchhiker's Guide, called And Another Thing... It got better and is now up to 2/5 from "it's the middle of the night and is the only book on my kindle fire available" level of desperation reading. There is a modestly interesting sequence involving Asgardian gods. But really, this book is not at all recommended unless you are completely out of anything else to read. The storyline is a disservice to the great subtlety of the originals.

I'm hoping Endymion, the followup to the Hyperion books, comes off hold at the library soon. I'd like to read that next. Also have some comic trades from the library. And if I'm feeling really ambitious, I may get my reading glasses on and try to squint through my copy of Wizard of the Pigeons. Had no trouble reading it 30 years ago, the print must have shrunk...

I'm almost done with the second part of 11/22/63 by Stephen King. It's really good so far.

EDIT: I really like how Stephen King describes all the little details about the main character's experience in the late 50s / early 60s, making it a point to contrast those details with modern times.

The Three-Body Problem and The Perdition Score currently. Three Body problem is... odd. The Kadrey is great but I've just started it. Next up is the 3rd novella in Matt Wallace's Sin du Jour series, Pride's Spell.

I have been reading R. Scott Bakker's The Warrior Prophet, but I left my copy in a friends car last night. Since I need to be reading something, I started The Gene: An Intimate History.

Last night I finished A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin. To sum it up: a bunch of people quarrel over the throne, and there's plenty of illicit sex. Not so different from the upcoming presidential primaries, is it?

To take its place in my reading pile I've chosen Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny. I have only read Zelazny's first Amber quintology so I'm looking forward to it.

I'm still working on Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card.

In the next few days I'm probably going to also start plugging away at The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition ed. by Rich Horton.

I recently finished Too Like the Lightning. It was an experience, a mostly good one.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Joanna wrote: "I recently finished Too Like the Lightning. It was an experience, a mostly good one.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Great review. Matches my experience 100%. In a similar vein to Lightning, have you read The Just City by Jo Walton? I enjoyed that one quite a bit too.

I read the first chapter of Theft of Swords yet again. It's really good, but the book is imposingly large and I'm afraid it won't live up to that first bit.

So I read about half of Karen Memory last night instead. Also quite good, but the steampunk and Weird West aspects so far act more as slight flavoring rather than integral parts of the story. You could literally remove them and no one would notice.

Brendan wrote: "Joanna wrote: "I recently finished Too Like the Lightning. It was an experience, a mostly good one.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Great review. Mat..."

That IS a great review. Here, have a Like, Joanna. :)

Trike wrote: "I read the first chapter of Theft of Swords yet again. It's really good, but the book is imposingly large and I'm afraid it won't live up to that first bit."

Well, keep in mind that it's an omnibus, so you can just read the first story and take a break.

I will say the first story is by far his weakest, but they each get better than the last. And they are a lot of fun.

Just got the two volume Library of America edition of Dashiel Hammett's work, have never read any of his stuff before now. Beginning with Red Harvest.

Walter wrote: "Just got the two volume Library of America edition of Dashiel Hammett's work, have never read any of his stuff before now. Beginning with Red Harvest."

Great place to start! Love his stuff.

Trike wrote: "That IS a great review. Here, have a Like, Joanna. :)"

Huzzah! Thanks! I had to think a little bit before writing it because it's one of those books where almost any mention of the plot is a spoiler. I suspect the experience would be very different the second time around when you know more about who everyone is and even have some of the basic vocabulary that you don't the first time.

I'm listening to The Dragonbone Chair. I'm almost halfway through and mostly enjoying it, though the narrator isn't my favorite. The pacing of this book is better than City of Golden Shadow and the other Otherland books, at least so far.

I've also started reading The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (the 2016 version). I don't know why I continue to subject myself to studies of the disaster.

I'm also looking forward to starting The Time Traders.

Rob wrote: "Trike wrote: "I read the first chapter of Theft of Swords yet again. It's really good, but the book is imposingly large and I'm afraid it won't live up to that first bit."

Well, ke..."

What he said.. I ended up loving that series.

Blasted through Time Traders.. looking forward to the discussion. Was inspired to pick up City of Blades after seeing some talk about the series in last month's thread... really enjoying it so far. Also have Furies of Calderon from the library since I finally got all caught up with Dresden and I've heard Veronica talk so highly about the series.

Currently reading New Moon
Definite candidate for a laser pick

I would love to read New Moon too. I like the Kindle sample. Been in my wishlist since it was included in one of the polls here (but lost).

Rob wrote: "Trike wrote: "I read the first chapter of Theft of Swords yet again. It's really good, but the book is imposingly large and I'm afraid it won't live up to that first bit."

Well, keep in mind that it's an omnibus, so you can just read the first story and take a break.

I will say the first story is by far his weakest, but they each get better than the last. And they are a lot of fun. "

Kristina wrote: "What he said.. I ended up loving that series. "

I shall press on, then.

I did read part of chapter 2 before falling asleep, so there's that.

Not that it was boring, but it *was* 4 am and I had just watched All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Avengers: Age of Ultron, A Mighty Wind and the latest episode of Preacher.

Yes, that was only 4 hours ago. I don't sleep much.

I finished reading Death of Kings. Another enjoyable entry in that series (My Review).

I also tore through Age of Myth in audio. Mr. Sullivan has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I already can't wait for book 2. I highly recommend this one (My Review).

Kristina wrote: "Blasted through Time Traders.. looking forward to the discussion. Was inspired to pick up City of Blades after seeing some talk about the series in last month's thread... really enj..."

Furies of Calderon is a great read. Butcher stated he started this series based on a bet that he couldn't write a story combining the Lost Legion and Pokemon.
I talked my son into reading it this summer and now he can't put the series down. :)

Work has been getting the better of me and I'm not finding much reading time at the moment. Apart from the monthly pick I'm making very slow progress on The Annihilation Score but too soon to have much of an opinion about either.

Halfway through Seveneves and cannot put it down. So much going on and I have no idea where it will end. Love that. This would be such a great movie, but only if they do it right, building in the human drama and not turning it into another sci-fi roller-coaster ride.

BTW: does the title ever get explained? It makes no sense to me yet.

Maclurker wrote: "Halfway through Seveneves and cannot put it down. So much going on and I have no idea where it will end. Love that. This would be such a great movie, but only if they do it right, b..."
The title does get explained at the end of Part 2. People have mixed feelings about Part 3.

What Shad said. Although the cover art kept tricking me into thinking it said "Seveneyes."

It kind of felt like he ran out of time or got bored with it toward the end. Great start, terrible finish.

Nearing the end of Ghost World, book 3 of the Warp World series by Kristene Perron and Joshua Simpson, and working my way through the stories in Clockwork Canada edited by Dominik Parisien.

Concerning Seveneves: That's funny. I felt differently about the sections. The first two parts were so maddeningly long and pointlessly detailed that I wanted to bail. The third part was interesting enough and left me wanting more. I wouldn't run out to buy it if it existed, but for me the third part rescued the book.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Concerning Seveneves: That's funny. I felt differently about the sections. The first two parts were so maddeningly long and pointlessly detailed that I wanted to bail. The third part was interestin..."

It's not the third section isn't interesting, it's that it feels truncated and compressed. So many ideas to explore, so few pages. As I said in my review, I felt that it needed to be longer. Which is something I never think about 900-page novels.

My review has two parts, a non-spoiler and spoiler section: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

John (Taloni) wrote: "The first two parts were so maddeningly long and pointlessly detailed that I wanted to bail."

Agreed about the first two parts, but for me the third part showed why physicists make bad anthropologists.

I think there's some discussion about whether Seveneves is a 300 page book with a 600 page prologue or a 600 page book with a 300 page epilogue.

Dang, Trike, that's a heck of a review. I'm with you on almost all of it, especially (view spoiler)[when the diggers make it for thousands of years and fully funded governments don't. You would think they would be better at hiding underground, given their vast resources. (hide spoiler)]

He could've written entire books about each of the gambits, really.

I read the Niven/Benford book Bowl of Heaven. Didn't realize it was a two parter until most of the way through the book. Now reading Shipstar.

Now, Protector was 180 pages, A Gift From Earth about 200, World of Ptavvs about the same...as I recall, even Ringworld topped out at about 300 pages. This story will go over 800 pages when done. It is not equivalent to three of Niven's best. It is at most equivalent to a single midlevel Niven book. The story bloat on this is ridiculous.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Struggling through the Eoin Colfer "sequel" to Hitchhiker's Guide, called And Another Thing... ..."

It was not nearly as good as I would have liked.
Jasper Fforde would have been a much better choice. His humor and writing style is closer to Douglas Adams'.

Done with Seveneves, on to The Fifth Season.

Finished my re-read of Gardens of the Moon. It was so much better this time around (My review) Moving on to Deadhouse Gates.

I'm reading A Shadow in Summer.
South-Asian inspired setting. Bound spirits. Trade disputes. Skullduggery. Diverse range of protagonists (including both a 16 year old boy and a middle-aged woman).
It's good!

June's Reading:

Seveneves: Disappointing one for me. Not up to the standard I expect from Stephenson, with somewhat dull characters and third-rate anthropology.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: Enjoyed the title story, but for how much this guy is talked up, was somewhat of a let-down. 3 stars, which is the average of the title story getting 5 stars and Lonelyache getting 1 star.

Silently and Very Fast: Fairytales about emergent artificial intelligence!

The Time Traders: A very ho-hum adventure with a lame sort of alien, but did love that it focused on an often ignored part of history.

The Gate to Women's Country: I really liked this one, an entertaining vision of a post-apocalyptic utopia organized around a combination 1960's feminist thought and Spartan Greece.

The State of the Art: Short stories were heavy on Banks's signature black humour, great stuff.

July's Reading: Ancillary Sword, Vermilion Sands

Can tick off Harlan Ellison and Andre Norton as members of the classic sci-fi firmament that I've now tried, but I doubt I'll be seeking out more material from them.

EDIT: Dara, this review has me strongly considering reading Gardens of the Moon. It's long been a "maybe" for me, but this review + Erikson being Canadian may finally push me into the buy it category. I do have a thing for books where the author throws you into an ocean and lets you drown.

Brendan wrote: "do have a thing for books where the author throws you into an ocean and lets you drown."

That certainly describes Malazan.

Brendan wrote: "EDIT: Dara, this review has me strongly considering reading Gardens of the Moon. It's long been a "maybe" for me, but this review + Erikson being Canadian may finally push me into the buy it category. I do have a thing for books where the author throws you into an ocean and lets you drown."

"Author throws you into an ocean and lets you drown" is Erikson's middle name. If you enjoy that kind of thing, that is Malazan's bread and butter. You need to read this series.

Brendan wrote: July's Reading: Ancillary Sword, Vermilion Sands

Two great choices! Just completing Leckie's trilogy myself with Ancillary Mercy. Have never found a copy of Vermilion Sands, but I return again and again to the enormous complete stories of J.G. Ballard, which contains most or all of VS. Ballard states in the intro that there are no perfect novels, but many perfect stories – then goes on to prove it many times over.

Joanna wrote: "I recently finished Too Like the Lightning. It was an experience, a mostly good one.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Thanks for the enlightening review. This one's on deck for me.

Rob wrote: "I finished reading Death of Kings. Another enjoyable entry in that series (My Review).

I also tore through Age of Myth in audio. Mr. Sullivan has quickly become one..."

I loved the Riyria books.. Soo looking forward to getting my hands one that... My birthday is this month! Bring on the books!

Happy birthday!

Is anyone else irked that Book #6 of The Expanse series, Babylon's Ashes, has been delayed to NOV 1 (previously AUG 16, and before that JUN 14), when all of the previous books were released in May/June? I mean, I will wait for however long it takes to be released. But I have just been used to the annual summer return to that universe. Spoiled, I know.

^Yeah, I was looking forward to reading it.

From my POV though, there is a lot of filler in the books. Now that they have to get it right over the next two, they may need more time. It's not just throwing up an idea, then having a lot of extraneous plot and a finale.

What??
Kameron Hurley's The Stars are Legion is also delayed till November 2017.

Silvana wrote: "What??
Kameron Hurley's The Stars are Legion is also delayed till November 2017."

:(