Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

So, what are you reading during the dog days of summer... (well, assuming you're in the northern hemisphere. Those of you who can see the Magellanic Clouds in the sky can tell us what you read for winter.)

Promise of Blood - first of the powder Mage books. I've read some good comments from members here, so thought it was time I tried them. About halfway, and so far, not disappointed!

I started and finished Clariel in a day which I really enjoyed - I hadn't realised that there were another two books in the Abhorsen series until I stumbled across them in the bookshop! This one was more of a standalone but set in the same universe book. It was a really different perspective and gives us (view spoiler)[ a better understanding of Free Magic and Chlorr the Mask (hide spoiler)] plus female berserkers, who doesn't love that?!

I'm also reading The Lie Tree which I am not enjoying anywhere near as much as I'd hoped but it's due back at the library tomorrow so I have to get my act into gear and finish it!

And then I will finally get into reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I swear one day I'll get my act into gear and actually read the book before the discussion starts... but not this month...

I'm wading into The Grace of Kings - and looking forward to The Stone Sky, Borne, and The Sanctuary of Wings in August.

Just started listening to the audio for the The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. and its really great!!! Three discs in and I'm hooked. Its a bit of a tome...over 700 pages in print or 19 CDs...but I would recommend it nonetheless.

Gonna be a busy month with leftover from last month, plus Railsea, and some sequels like The Stone Sky and Black Lung Captain.

I'm working through Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances and planning on starting my second read of Lord of Chaos sometime this month.

Currently reading for group reads:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? AKA Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

And looking to start these when I get a minute:
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Ringworld by Larry Niven

Still plugging (slowly) away at:
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke

Finishing up Retribution Falls and Kings of the Wyld hopefully by the weekend.

Also planned:
Age of Swords
The Rook
The Black Lung Captain

And I am hoping to squeeze in a reread of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with one of my other groups this month.

Started working through Dan Davis' Orb Station Zero. The opening is interesting enough but I'll see how it holds up in another hundred pages.

I'm going to try and finish A Memory of Light. And probably start with The Drawing of the Three before I go and see the movie. Meaning I most likely will have to interrupt AMoL to be sure I'm on time ...

I just finished the 3rd installment in the Gunslinger series, The Wastelands. Actually rereading and listening on audio. Really enjoyed it. I've read all of Game of Thrones, Speed of Dark and Do Androids Dream? All these several years ago. I'm new to the group and looking forwrd to the discussions.

I'm reading The Shadow of What Was Lost. I'm really enjoying this one. It's pretty huge, but I'm finding that I'm flying through it. It's been a while since I've read something that I can't wait to get back to when I put it down.

Finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Since I'm neurotic about completing series, I'm starting The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of the Belgariad and the Malloreon by David Eddings but I'll read it in installments in between reading other things since this is kind of the equivalent of the Silmarillion, only for the world of the Belgarion.

I read Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi. My review:

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

Decided I will read the novella The Monarch of the Glen by Neil Gaiman tonight since I'm still on a roll after having read American Gods and Anansi Boys. It basically got delayed by Do Androids...?

Black Dog will have to wait till I get my hands on Trigger Warnings (or anything else that might contain it)

Finished Arcadia, which I had mixed feelings about

Just starting Synners by Pat Cadigan; I'm finding the beginning introducing the setting & POVs a little slow, but I'm curious to see where the action will go (seems like there's at least one Evil Corporation in the mix)

Looking forward to starting Jemisin's Broken Earth books later this month.

Finished The Monarch of the Glen, clearly Beowulf is a gap in my mythology. Ended up wondering who represented a supernatural being and who was just a regular human. Didn't like it as much as the novels but still good. For anyone into American Gods, you get to find out Shadow's real name here so it's an important piece of the whole.

Starting The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. I finally got fed up with book prices in Canada being nearly double the prices in the US and decided that it's time to sign up for the local library again. Haven't done that in at least 15 years, and longer than that for anything not related to school. I like owning my books but it's silly to pay more than $30 for a paperback (not this book in particular, think this one was a "cheap" $16 or so but didn't want to read it so badly I'd spend even that much). Used bookstores have been getting a lot of my business lately too.

I loved Speed of Dark by Moon. I usually donate my paper books to the local library after I've read them but this one stays on my "real" bookshelf. I have also listened to the audiobook which was great.

I am supposed to be reading Underground Railroad for my hometown book club but got involved in The Essex Serpent and Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan. The Tan book is an ebook with audio which is fun when I'm too tired or too lazy.

Yesterday I finished The King's Justice by Katherine Kurtz

Starship Grifters by Robert Kroese

Kings of the Wyld
Really enjoying this

I finished The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein. My review:

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

Finished The Speed of Dark which I enjoyed far more than I thought I would. Lou is just an incredible character.

Had a big internal debate if I should *finally* get around to continuing the Dying Earth with the second book (when did we read that, Jan or Feb?) or finish the New Sun series. Actually getting myself to finish a series I started won out so now I'm reading The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.

Just finished Parable of the Sower and really liked it. Certain of its details truly do remind me that it was published in the early 90's, and that certain things that may have seemed evident truths then aren't as much now. But overall a really great and chilling book that in a lot of ways connects strongly with the world today.

Random thought when reading other reviews though is that it bugs me that books like this are called "YA fiction" by some. Not every damn book written from the perspective of a young person is "YA". There are very specific and obvious traits in the modern "YA" genre and people seem to ignore that and focus solely on the age of a protagonist as a determining factor. Irritating.

Now to try to hunt down Parable of the Talents! May or may not be able to do that today, but considering if I should start reading something else in case I don't find it tonight. Possible contender: Blood of Elves.

NekroRider wrote: "Now to try to hunt down Parable of the Talents! May or may not be able to do that today, ..."

Butler had intended to add a third book to her Earthseed trilogy, tentatively titled Parable of the Trickster.

Not every damn book written from the perspective of a young person is "YA". There are very specific and obvious traits in the modern "YA" genre and people seem to ignore that and focus solely on the age of a protagonist as a determining factor. Irritating.

Very irritating.

Aye, Robot by Robert Kroese

Finished with China Mieville's Railsea. Fantastic worldbuilding! A steampunk Moby Dick.

Rereading The Obelisk Gate for prep before The Stone Sky.

Also starting Scalzi's The Ghost Brigade.

Currently reading Legend and The Gift. Recently finished Lines of Departure and Cinder.

The Moon Platoon by Jeramey Kraatz

Well, I finished The Lie Tree which was a disappointing read. Very dreary.

I recovered by reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for the group read and two Brandon Sanderson novellas Legion and The Emperor's Soul which I thoroughly enjoyed - I definitely prefer his fantasy settings but his more sci-fi-based books have their enjoyable elements as well. I just love his writing.

I finally managed to get around to starting a group read ahead of time (yay) The Speed of Dark but am not finding it particularly to my taste so am struggling to get the motivation to finish it (oh well) - I do look forward to the conversations in the discussion, it seems like a good conversation starter kind of book!

After this, I'm hoping to start The Worm Ouroboros and also going to go raid my library for some fantasy/sci-fi (I've also read two non-fiction biography books this month)

Finished Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It was just as weird and confusing as the first four books, but I don't think the series could really be said to be finished without it. I mean the first four were originally all there was but it was left hanging in what seemed the middle of the story. This one wraps up a bunch of stuff and explains some things that were not explained in the first four (and I can't see why those things were in the first four in the first place if book five wasn't originally part of the plan?). Anyway, definitely more satisfying ending even if I was still left thinking this was just a bizarre stream of random consciousness with Severian doing utterly stupid things just to have some new weird experience thrown in :)

So....I was going to read the Dispossessed next. Now that I've opened myself up to the local library (and discovered that it had the vast majority of books ever read by this group, I was seriously impressed) I discovered that not only is the library well stocked, but also has a very active circulation. Dispossessed was checked out the day before I went and won't be back until the day the discussion starts *smirks* Guess that's library life.

However they did have Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky so I grabbed that before it could disappear on me too. So I'll be late to one discussion and early to the other :)

Just finished the series (for the first time) Sabriel by Garth Nix. Also read The Masked City and The Burning Page. I enjoyed the literary humor and interesting perspective on chaos influencing parallel universes but ultimately became bored with the cheesy romance and flat characters. I'm first time reading through Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle, read The Tombs of Atuan this morning and going to read book three, The Farthest Shore, today when I get home. I'm also reading the Chrestomanci series. I'm on book three currently and trying to find a library copy of book five. (it's only available in digital format I think). So far August has been a good month full of new reads and great suggestions from this group :)

Andrea wrote: "Finished The Monarch of the Glen, clearly Beowulf is a gap in my mythology. Ended up wondering who represented a supernatural being and who was just a regular human. Didn't like it as much as the n..."

I've been going to the library twice a month to harvest their goods. The libraries here (in Texas) have a hold system where you can request books within the city's library system and they will deliver books to the library of choice for you to pick up. This has allowed me to read series that are located at the North or South library, while I am closest to the Central library. I can also place books on hold that are in my library, so I just have to walk to the hold section and pick everything up!! Not sure if they have something like that in the Canadian libraries but if they do, it's wonderful and definitely check it out!

Rachel wrote: " The libraries here (in Texas) have a hold system where you can request books within the city's library system and they will deliver books to the library of choice for you to pick up."

Canada's the same. I just didn't think I would need to use a hold since, for whatever reason (perhaps because how rarely I myself use the library) I didn't expect the books to have such active circulation so never really thought it wouldn't be there when I wanted it. I mean I knew it could happen, just thought it would be rare. Now I have to rethink that (as this was just my second book) and to consider it as a common occurrence. I did expected a new release will be hard to get a hold of, but older books like Dispossessed I didn't expect to still be as popular. Though as I was going through random books the group had read in the past I hadn't even heard of before, not only did the library have most of them, but a good chunk were on loan. So libraries are definitely not dead, but rather a whole world I'd been missing out on ever since I got a job and could afford to buy my books!

In the end, I figure we're not having live discussions anyway so if I'm a little late joining in, so not a big deal.

Well since I'm no closer to getting Parable of the Talents (will probably order it from a local book shop this week), I've read a couple other things since Friday.

- Moxyland, gave it 3/5 stars. Was a good read and thought some of the tech she brought in interesting. Also, for whoever else that read this what did you think of the very end: (view spoiler)[ Do you think that Toby suddenly had the tattoo/was glowing at the end because he slept with Kendra (noted that they didn't use a condom the last time) and she somehow passed the nano tech onto him, or some other way? (hide spoiler)]

- The Woman in Black decided to go for some gothic horror on this one. Gave it 4/5 stars, good if you want a quick, spooky ghost story.

- Now I'm reading The Last Wish. Picked it up at a thrift shop for $5-$6 and was very happy to see it there since I've wanted to read these books for ages. Enjoying it so far, and can definitely see why it made such a great video game too. In many ways reads very much like a game if that makes sense.

Read: Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire. The sequel to Hugo winner Every Heart a Doorway, unfortunately it did not live up to the quality of Heart. Down Among moved too slowly, relied overly on the omnipotent narrator rather than the characters, and skimped out just where the story was getting interesting. I'll probably drop this series here, but we'll see. ★★★☆☆.

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw. Noir detective lovecraftian urban fantasy. Some funny moments in this story, particularly the dissonance between the (deliberately) over the top Noir narrator and his (its?) present day setting. I would have enjoyed it more if i was more knowledgeable about the Lovecraft Mythos. There seemed to be a lot of references/in-jokes that the author assumes readers would already would be familiar with and i'm sure i missed most of it. ★★★☆☆.

Currently reading: The Stone Sky, like everyone else is.

I've been reading some "fluff", none of which was really as entertaining as I was hoping.

I was hoping NPCs by Drew Hayes would be funnier, something like Redshirts. While this story of a group of NPCs who decide to pick up the quest of some deceased D&D-ish adventurers has a few humorous notions and a couple of cute twists on stereotypes, Hayes lacks Scalzi's gift for snarky dialogue, so the storyline is more serious than witty. (But thankfully nobody stops to explain the rules for casting spells in D&D, an exercise in needless exposition that brings most D&D-inspired stories to a screeching halt.) It's a short story worth of humor spread over an entire novel.

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman is another in the trend of setting Librarians as the guardians of multidimensional space and time (e.g. Libriomancer, The Librarians). This one sends us on a gaslight/steampunk fantasy in London that includes fae, vampires, werewolves, etc. Someone has stolen the McGuffin book before our heroes arrive, turning the story into a mystery. It also performs the necessary set up for a continued gaslight fantasy series, suggesting possible romantic interests, a master villain who will undoubtably return, mysterious parentage, yada yada. Not badly written, just way too familiar.

All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor brings the Bobiverse trilogy to a sputtering close. The first book in the series wasn't half bad, with a 21st-century geek cryogenically frozen and defrosted in the 23rd century to provide the AI personality for a self-replicating Dyson probe to search the galaxy for other worlds humans could inhabit. By the time it finished, there were hundreds of Bob-clone spaceshhips, each to engaged in their own private space opera sub-trope (evil alien invasion, primitive alien species uplift, human colonies.) The final entry suffers from the author bouncing back and forth between Bobs at such a rapid pace that no storyline ever picks up any momentum (and it's mentally awkward to keep shifting context, like reading half a dozen novels at once, switching every five minutes.)

And now I get to start on The Stone Sky like everyone else is. :)

And I am starting The Stone Sky like everyone else, too :)

The Ghost Brigade is a casualty of that, needed to set that aside. Probably some other group reads experience the same thing when a highly anticipated book comes out.

I'm supposed to be getting The Stone Sky today (sounds like enough folks- side read anyone?)

Just finished All Systems Red - short fast, fun, with a surprising level of empathy for a murderbot

And Borne - good, slightly hard read - but smoother and of smaller focus (but still grand scale) of the Annihilation books.

I can't wait for All Systems Red's sequel! That book was so fun.

Re-reading an old favourite, Dark Cathedral by Freda Warrington.

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. i regret not starting The Sword of Truth sooner but I don't have to wait for the next book now.

About to finish up Wheel of time book 5. Also started Eragon the other day. Probably gonna take a break from WoT for a few weeks and dig deeper into Earthsea.

Finally got all caught up with The Dresden Files, a fun ride!

Just looked at the state of Peace Talks, the next Dresden book. Looks like the manuscript is only due in January, and then a few months after that to get it into production...though he's certainly staying busy writing short stories, wish they would get the second planned anthologies of stories out even if the next book doesn't.

Yes, I am suffering from Dresden withdrawal :)

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis. I read it as a kid, and am enjoying the second time through even more.

Reading The Thief-Taker's Apprentice.