Beyond Reality discussion

What are you reading this month? Tell us about your current reads and recommendations.

Just started CHILDREN OF RUIN, the sequel to the brilliant CHILDREN OF TIME by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I finished A Shadow in Summer and am looking forward to discussing both it and our SF read for August!

Now reading Playing God, a stand-alone SF novel by Sarah Zettel. She writes such intriguing aliens, and this book in particular seems to be about how "we" relate to those who seem "other" to us. Very thought-provoking so far!

Kathi wrote: "I finished A Shadow in Summer and am looking forward to discussing both it and our SF read for August!

Now reading Playing God, a stand-alone SF novel by [author:Sarah Zet..."

Awesome to see you reading and enjoying Sarah Zettel's SF, she's so drastically underrated it infuriates me - great stuff!

Janny wrote: "Awesome to see you reading and enjoying Sarah Zettel's SF, she's so drastically underrated it infuriates me - great stuff!”
This is the third of her SF books that I’ve read, and like the other 2 (Kingdom of Cages and The Quiet Invasion), it is so well-written. She creates fully-realized worlds, even if we only see parts of them, intriguing sentient species, and plots that are absorbing and filled with challenging ideas. I also read her Isavalta fantasy series, which was also good but quite different from her SF novels.

Just finished The Impossible Dead, by Ian Rankin. Good book, could hardly put it down
Now back to Dust of Dreams

Religions of China in Practice by Donald S. Lopez Jr.

I did not have a copy of A Shadow in Summer like I thought I did and I'm heading out of town in a few days so I'm not going to bother requesting it from the library yet. Dangit! Instead I read The Fairy Godmother in one sitting today, which was great light reading, and I'm trying to decide whether to bring City of Dragons (which I own in print) along on my trip or just bring my kindle, which has LOTS of unread books loaded.

Now about 25% into Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott. So good!

Gave up on Downbelow Station, it just wasn't holding my interest.

Started The Passage over the weekend. Approaching about half way through the beast. Not really my usual style, but its fitting well with the mood thing and I've been staying up way too late to read every night.

Just started The Shining by Stephen King

I finished Celtic Empire a couple days ago; it's a good summer read. Remaining out of genre, I started Dark Tribute which I abandoned after only 50 pages. I've enjoyed this author in the past, but no longer. Now on to Vicious

Random THE PASSAGE is quite good and the other books in the series do not dissapoint. The 3rd book goes in some surprising directions.

Monster Hunter Guardian by Larry Correia and Sarah A. Hoyt

MadProfessah wrote: "Random THE PASSAGE is quite good and the other books in the series do not dissapoint. The 3rd book goes in some surprising directions."

Its really not my usual type of book, but for some reason, this one keeps just pulling me along. I'm about 2/3 through it now and I'm thinking I will get the rest. :)0

Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott was fantastic, and while I am looking forward to the final book in this series, I will be sad to see it come to an end. 10/10

Without Fail, another Jack Reacher book by Lee Child, was good. More thinking, less mayhem. 8/10

Starting City of Dragons for our group series read.

I did end up bringing City of Dragons on my trip and read it pretty quickly! I also just finished Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain, which was interesting, then got distracted by a new book of nonagram puzzles that's cut a little into my reading time ;)

I have also spent the past few months reading the Harry Potter series to my son at bedtime, and we've finally reached Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's been loads of fun revisiting the series with him; I never re-read them after the last book was published, though I've meant to for a long time. I've never read any of the later published materials - he's already bugging me to get us a copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two, so I guess that's in my future as well! Is it also worth finding a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?

I just finished Vicious which I really enjoyed and highly recommend. Now I'm out of genre with Redemption

Really enjoyed Ancillary Justice so I started Ancillary Sword. The characters and world building keep me coming back!

Shel wrote: "Is it also worth finding a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard? "

I can't speak to The Cursed Child but I enjoyed The Tales of Beedle the Bard, especially after HP#7. I'm looking forward to reading HP with my oldest in a few years!

This month I've read The Best of L. Sprague De Camp, Mike Grell's Green Arrow Vol. 9: Old Tricks, and the cozy mystery The Jasmine Moon Murder. I'm about halfway through the classic Her Smoke Rose Up Forever and The Liberty Amendments (which I don't think I'll be recommending when I'm done). When I'm done with those, I'm hoping to get to The Outskirter's Secret and/or Midst Toil and Tribulation before the end of the month.

@Lindsey I’m also reading Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. I find Tiptree’s work to be incredibly powerful. Do you agree?

Anthony wrote: "@Lindsey I’m also reading Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. I find Tiptree’s work to be incredibly powerful. Do you agree?"

I like it much better than the de Camp collection I read just prior, for sure. This is the first of her work I've ever read and like most short story collections, some of the stories work better than others for me. She has a serious energy to her stories. I wish I had "discovered" her at the same time I locked onto Asimov and Bradbury.

I just ripped through Middlegame at a crazy pace - un-putdownable. Seanan McGuire can WRITE. :)

This morning I picked up Karen Memory to get ready for our September discussion - the start of the school year is crazy so I want to have it under my belt in case I don't have time to read it in September!

I've been reading The Crimson Deathbringer by Sean Robins

I finished City of Dragons and seriously, I thought it was the weakest book I’ve read by Hobb. 6/10

Then I read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, 8/10. I didn’t quite know what to make of this book. It is both science fiction and fantasy. It is a coming of age story and an apocalyptic end of the world story. It is a cheesy love story and a humorous memoir-type story. It is thought-provoking, romantic, horrifying, funny, touching, pessimistic and yet, ultimately, optimistic. I think the contradictions, while making it interesting, also made it somewhat uneven and therefore, hard to read and digest.

After that, I finished the Boudica series by Manda Scott with the fourth book, Dreaming the Serpent Spear. 10/10. If you like well-researched historical fiction with complex characters and a dash of fantasy, I highly recommend this series!

Now out of genre with another Jack Reacher book, Persuader.

Kathi wrote: "Then I read All the Birds in the Sky ..."

I'm reading this now. I can't seem to really get into it & yet I haven't really wanted to quit, either. I think I'm about 1/3 of the way through.

I quite enjoyed All the Birds in the Sky but agree that it's difficult to categorize.

I'm just getting into Karen Memory and just starting to get a feel for the setting, though nothing has happened yet. I absolutely love the character's voice, so far!

Jim wrote: "I'm reading this now. I can't seem to really get into it & yet I haven't really wanted to quit, either. I think I'm about 1/3 of the way through.”

If you finish it, I’d be interested in what you think. It did take me a while to get “into” it.

I think it's the characters as kids. They're almost sketches. They seem nice & quirky enough, but there isn't enough of them to really engage me. They're out of school now & things seem more interesting.

Jim wrote: "I think it's the characters as kids. They're almost sketches. They seem nice & quirky enough, but there isn't enough of them to really engage me. They're out of school now & things seem more intere..."

I agree.

I'm reading The Crimson Deathbringer by Sean Robins

I finished reading Redemption which I enjoyed and started Dark Matter which I'm really enjoying and will most certainly recommend

Winding down August... I finished Persuader by Lee Child, not one of the better entries in the Jack Reacher series, IMO. 5/10

Merchanter's Luck by C.J. Cherryh was very good, a tighter story than Downbelow Station, with fewer characters and a “smaller” plot that obviously still fits into the wider Union-Alliance story. I am looking forward to slowly working my way through these connected books. 8/10

The Twelve by James K. Burk was a real treat, 8/10. Valtierra is ruled by a Council of Twelve, people chosen for 2 year terms during which they never appear to anyone else without wearing a mask that defines their archetype/role (Fool, Crone, Wise Old Man, Farmer, etc.)—a clever concept for a book that never gets carried away by its cleverness. Although the reader never learns the names of the members of the Council of Twelve, other than the newest addition, the Warrior, one comes to know them as both the archetypes represented by their masks and the people behind the masks. The author’s prose is spare but effective and he achieves a fine balance between portraying the specific Council roles and the individual playing, or rather living, each role. By having different POVs for each chapter, the reader sees the action and the changes from the various perspectives of the Council members. The Warrior is truly a catalyst for the Council and for the city-state of Valtierra. How much are we bound by our roles? And how much is our understanding limited by our expectations of others based on their roles? Can we change? Can we be open to the changes that others make? Thoughts to ponder long after I closed this book.

And I am closing out the month with A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham, Book 2 in the Long Price Quartet and sequel to A Shadow in Summer, which was our Fantasy BotM this month. If I finish that, I may start Irene Radford’s Dragon Nimbus series with The Glass Dragon or our Fantay book for September, Janny Wurts’s Sorcerer's Legacy.

I finished Her Smoke Rose Up Forever and The Liberty Amendments. I still need to review the latter but I gave them 4 and 3 stars respectively. Instead of my first choice after that, I did a quick knock out of the non-fiction Ender's World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender's Game, which was fun and then serious, so it was a good mix of perspectives.

Now it's on to Midst Toil and Tribulation, which will probably spill over into September, as well as my IRL book club's September pick, The Little Paris Bookshop.

I finished Karen Memory just in time for our discussion tomorrow - looking forward to hearing everyone else’s take on it - I quite enjoyed!

I was talking about the Sandman series with a friend recently and was consequently struck by the urge to read it again, so I picked up Preludes & Nocturnes tonight. They are fast reads so I expect to breeze through the first few before it is time to get to Blood of Dragons.

(Posting from my phone - anyone know how to get the book/author links to work on the app?)

Oh, and I started reading Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men to my son tonight 🙂

Sadly, the app is so limited with such things. Not possible in the app, nor is the use of spoiler tags.

How was BOOK 2 of the LONG PRICE QUARTET

@Shel: yeah to reading Pratchett to your son! The very best way to get the young ones acquainted with good writing! (I do the same with my boys. Only 6 books to go and we are through the whole Discworld series)