Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

It's August. (originally Sextiles, it was renamed in 8 BC by Roman Emperor Augustus. 'Cause, he could.) So, what are we reading this WorldCon month?

I'm reading Dragonsbane, and Dying Breath - A Thriller by J.A. Konrath.

Hello! I'm hoping to pick up my reading this month. I'm in the middle of Age of Swords on Audible and Doctor Who: Fear of the Dark on my Kindle. I also started The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins last night and it's already so much fun! I would highly recommend the graphic novel & the podcast.

I have 8 books in my to-read pile for this month, no idea if I'll get through them all, though 3 or 4 of them should be pretty quick to get through so I'm hopeful.

Finishing New York 2140 in the nick of Time and then have still too many lined up :
To say nothing of the Dog, Arcanum Unbounded, Competence, new Murderbot and B Chambers books.

The Reavers of Skaith by Leigh Brackett

Finally read Frankenstein. There's no Marty Feldman? It's not surprising the movies differ from the book, but I do find it interesting that the movies have all glommed onto many ideas in common that they have taken from each other. So the idea of a high stone tower with a lightning strike, peasants with torches & pitchforks, and a dim-witted, awkward "monster" have become cannon, in spite of the novel.

Also, should you, in your various time travels, encounter someone from the 19th century, never ask "what happened?', for they will sit you down and spend a day or more regaling you with their life story in every detail.

G33z3r wrote: "Also, should you, in your various time travels, encounter someone from the 19th century, never ask "what happened?', for they will sit you down and spend a day or more regaling you with their life story in every detail."

There were nested elements of "let me recount for you my tragic tale." Someone reading a tragic letter about someone telling a tragic story about someone else telling a tragic story.

The Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds, and hopefully the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton.

Actually read these in July but I was on vacation and forgot to post. Anyway, read Red Sister and Grey Sister last month. The best fantasy I've read in quite a while. Great story, great characters! Can't recommend these enough. Only drawback is that the third book doesn't come out until next year!

Okay, back to this month, reread a favorite from my childhood. Down a Dark Hall Nice gothic YA book. I've read it many, many times but not in years. Still love it.

I'm back to my polar obsession and am currently reading In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

G33z3r wrote: "Finally read Frankenstein. There's no Marty Feldman? It's not surprising the movies differ from the book, but I do find it interesting that the movies have all glommed onto many ide..."

Same with Dracula, in the book he actually walks around in daylight but pretty much every movie has his getting torched because it happened in that original Nosferatu movie. In some way the movies became the lore and then people are all confused about the books getting it wrong :)

As for the folklore -- if you want to know the pre-Dracula vampire, check out the zombie movies.

G33z3r wrote: "Finally read Frankenstein. There's no Marty Feldman? It's not surprising the movies differ from the book, but I do find it interesting that the movies have all glommed onto many ideas in common that they have taken from each other."

Especially the idea of stitched together corpses. I know they didn't give many details about how Frankenstein "created" the creature but that's just ridiculous.

Good Deeds Gone Unpunished by Rich Burlew

Jenny wrote: "Hello! I'm hoping to pick up my reading this month. I'm in the middle of Age of Swords on Audible and Doctor Who: Fear of the Dark on my Kindle. I also started...

Also in the middle of Age of Swords :) I love it so much :) Hope it will be a great fantasy series

I've been taking my time with Stranger In A Strange Land while burning through other books. Trying to figure out what's next

Finished Kindred yesterday. 5/5 stars, easily one of my favourite books this year and possibly on my list of all-time favourites. Hard to put my feelings on it into words.

Last night I picked up My Best Friend's Exorcism for a bit of horror comedy and to lighten my mood a bit before diving into Farseer.

I finished Darkness Reigns by Jill Williamson, what I thought was a short story prequel to a series actually turns out to be just the first third of the first book...which means it didn't exactly end in a satisfying way, but that's what free books are for, to try to hook people to read the rest. Not sure I will but it wasn't a bad start either.

Since that was on my eReader my next eBook in line is Resonance by Chris Dolley. So far the first few pages is a bit like Speed of Dark as the main character appears to be autistic.

I also finished The Skies of Pern, I rather enjoyed it even though I felt the Ninth Pass storyline ended a couple books back.

Now I have two library books I've had to just renew a second time, which means I'd better hurry up and read them

- How to Betray a Dragon's Hero by Cressida Cowell, second to last in the series, almost there!

- L'héritage de Thuban by Licia Troisi which I'm reading for the Bingo challenge, it was originally written in Italian and then translated into French. I decided that the bingo square "translated into English" can count as "translated from a language I cannot read into one I can" because it's been a long time since I've read a novel in French and could use the practice.

G33z3r wrote: "Finally read Frankenstein. There's no Marty Feldman? It's not surprising the movies differ from the book, but I do find it interesting that the movies have all glommed onto many ide..."

You may find a watch of the '90s Kenneth Branagh version worthwhile, then.

I'm about half into Words of Radiance and expect to not be done with it for a while.

Almost done with Leviathan Wakes and I really like it. Great. I really need another series lol.

Next I'm going to finally read The Three-Body Problem that I've heard so much about. It's always interesting to read a book written from the point of view of a different culture.

Book Nerd wrote: "Almost done with Leviathan Wakes and I really like it. Great. I really need another series lol.

Next I'm going to finally read The Three-Body Problem that I've heard..."

I like The Three Body Problem 🙂

Finished My Best Friends Exorcism: A Novel, 3/5 stars. I especially liked the end but overall I had expected it to be more horror comedy similar to Horrorstor but it just didn't live up to what I was hoping for I guess. The story definitely kept me reading and I did like it...just didn't have that something extra of the humour o was hoping for.

Now a quick side trip back into Forgotten Realms before I start Farseer. So am currently just starting Starless Night

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse was fantastic - a truly unique collection which amazed me since I've read a lot of post-apocalyptic SF. My 4 star review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Just finished The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter which I definitely enjoyed even if the ending felt almost interminable. Had a League of Extraordinary Ladies vibe that I enjoyed. Still have a bunch of books in my currently reading pile to finish this month so I'm not sure what I'll pick next.

Caitlin wrote: "Just finished The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter which I definitely enjoyed even if the ending felt almost interminable...."

i felt that way, too. I enjoyed the read, but the denouement went on so long I was almost expecting another complication to appear. It also got me to finally read Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde.

G33z3r wrote: "Caitlin wrote: "Just finished The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter which I definitely enjoyed even if the ending felt almost interminable...."

i felt that way, too. I enjoy..."

I definitely feel like I need to go back and read some of those classic monster stories. I have enough pop cultural knowledge to get some of the references but I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I'd had that background.

Quozl by Alan Dean Foster. So far it's pretty good

I've been a bit quiet on the fantasy/sci-fi reading front lately (what's wrong with me?!?) but I have read Nine Princes in Amber for our group read and I'm really looking forward to the discussions. I kind of want to jump straight into the next story but I'm afraid I'll get mixed up with the discussions. I'm just too impatient to see what happens next!

Cat wrote: "I've been a bit quiet on the fantasy/sci-fi reading front lately (what's wrong with me?!?) but I have read Nine Princes in Amber for our group read and I'm really looking forward to th..."

Putting a little time between the first 2 Amber books is a good idea. Zelazny wrote the first as a standalone & didn't write the second until a couple of years later. He didn't have any character notes & didn't reread the first book, so there are a few inconsistencies that are irritating. Not a big deal, but it's nice if you don't catch them.

Nearing the end of Saint Camber by Katherine Kurtz. The old covers are way better than the recent generic covers.
Recently started Guardians of the West by David Eddings. Sadly not available for purchase in E book format in the US. Good thing I have the series in hardcover. Also have Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber in the currently reading stack. Another case of the older edition having a better cover.

I finished reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi some days ago; I enjoyed it. The next book in that series, The Ghost Brigades finally appeared in my mailbox today, so that I will start reading it tonight.

Finished both How to Betray a Dragon's Hero and L'héritage de Thuban. Given the latter was a young adult book I had no problems with the French, in fact I was surprised to find I was able to read about the same speed.

Next on the list is Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

Completed:
Longs:
Shorts:
No Flight Without the Shatter: A Tor.com Original by Brooke Bolander
Carouseling by Rich Larson

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie Yikes, this is distilled Grimdark: An ugly, violent, cynical, amoral tale of revenge, murder, war, betrayal, torture, sex and general mayhem, without a shred of common decency.

You may recall the putative Chinese saying, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig two graves.” For this book they'd need to dig at least a hundred, and that doesn't count the war dead. (Assuming anyone here bothered with graves; "buzzards got to eat, same as worms.")

Well-written in a tone quite self-aware of its own butchery.

Now on to re-reading Nine Princes in Amber....

Finished Nine Princes in Amber which was a lot of fun to read.

Now back to Pern with Dragon's Kin

G33z3r wrote: "Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie Yikes, this is distilled Grimdark: An ugly, violent, cynical, amoral tale of revenge, murder, war, betrayal, torture, sex and gene..."

I really disliked "Best Served Cold". It just went too grimdark for me. Hated everyone in the book, or if I liked them even a little, they died. So I was glad to finish it and cast it away forever!

From reading G's review here i couldn't tell if he liked the book, but if he gave it a 4 i guess he must have liked it well enough.

I loved Best Served Cold. It's the totally standard Kill Bill style revenge plot, but the characters are great (almost all terrible people, but still great fun), and it features a lot of my favourite character in the series, Vitari.

Brendan wrote: "From reading G's review here i couldn't tell if he liked the book, but if he gave it a 4 i guess he must have liked it well enough.
I loved Best Served Cold. It's the totally standard Kill Bill style..."

Yeah, I liked it in its over-the-top brutality because Abercrombie wrote everything with such total cynicism.

Hero: "That’s what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short."

It's certainly not for everyone, and had it been less extreme or less cynical, I'd not have enjoyed it.

Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein, For Love of Mother, Not - Alan Dean Foster

Finished Starless Night, 4/5 stars pretty much everything I look for in Drizzt books. Looks like I will be continuing my Forgotten Realms re-read with Siege of Darkness. I have been planning to start Farseer but think I'm going to postpone it another week just because this week is gonna be busy. Want to be able to focus a bit more when I finally do start it, whereas FR re-read works well for busier weeks.

I finished Saint Camber and am now slightly over one fifth of the way through Guardians of the West

Dragon's Kin went really fast. Fun to learn more about the watch-whers but don't think all the descriptions of the whers match what we've seen in other books, but then Pern is fairly inconsistent, just need to shrug that off and enjoy the story.

Started on Mistress of Dragons by Margaret Weis

I also stumbled across Figment in my library. I had gotten a stuffed Figment when I went to Epcott oh so long ago so couldn't resist grabbing the graphic novel :)

Hello I'm reading Hugh Howey's Wool and loving it! I am reading the ebook version which is super cool, it's kind of like a graphic novel with all of the illustrations and some of the illustrations move and change.

Draigon Weather by Paige L Christie. Picked it up as a free rental on the kindle. Halfway through, and pretty good so far.

I finished:


The Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started:


Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny


The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

Now at the 67% finished point in Guardians of the West. I love the characters in the Belgariad and the Mallorean.

Andy wrote: "Draigon Weather by Paige L Christie. Picked it up as a free rental on the kindle. Halfway through, and pretty good so far."

I really liked it. Thought it was a fresh take on dragons, and I like the female characters a lot.

I finished Guardians of the West. Now taking a break from fantasy and reading the second Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout.

I finished reading A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer and The Speed of Sound by Eric Bernt. I am reading Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway. I plan to read The Black Echo by Michael Connelly and How to Write Best Selling Fiction by Dean Koontz next.

Lately I've been enjoying re-reading some Discworld novels -Monstrous Regiment and Soul Music. I also picked up A Pocketful of Crows which was a fae/fairy-tale style book. I enjoyed her writing and the illustrations but the plot lacked spark. Since then I have started on the next group read of New York 2140 but I'm finding it bit of a challenge to really get into it.