Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Let us know what you're reading this month instead of enjoying Spring.*

*Your hemisphere may vary.

Actually, so far I was doing the "enjoying Spring" bit, so nice and sunny here today, with the leaves just coming out and flowers starting to pop up.

But later this evening when there is no more sun to bask in, I'm going to start on Inquest by Emily Thompson, pretty much the only indie authors who I not only buy the ebooks, but actually enjoy so much I take on the expense of acquiring a dead tree copy.

I also decided to finally get around to catching up on Apex Magazine. About a year ago it looked like it would stop putting out new issues so I hurried to download everything before it was taken down (since then it seems to have revived with a couple new issues coming out recently), so I'm working on Issue #2 right now, the early ones were short with just 3 stories and a couple editorials.

Up next for May :
Elatsoe - indigenous fantasy looks interesting
The Stone Weta - new zealand SF
Cage of souls on audio - new Tchaikovsky - why his publisher doesn’t get his books to US market more/better is unclear

Completed:
text:

audible:

==========================================
Authors:
Intisar Khanani, Stephen King, Ann Leckie, Brian C. Muraresku, Annalee Newitz, Anthony Ryan, Kawai Strong Washburn
Narrators:
Adjoa Andoh, Grover Gardner
==========

I JUST finished A Desolation called Peace! I liked it as much as the first / some folks seemed to think it lagged but once I got to know the new characters I enjoyed it (I’m still not sure about the first winning the Hugo last year tho).

Nolyn just arrived in my email inbox!! I am about to start it :)

Michelle wrote: "Nolyn just arrived in my email inbox!! I am about to start it :)"

Hey that's great! Thanks for the early support. Getting the book 3 months early is a nice perk of backing the Kickstarter pre-order.

Wearing the Cape: A Superhero Story and Villains Inc. by Marion G. Harmon

I'm about to finish Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire #2) by Michael J. Sullivan
I'm also currently reading Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

Next will read (listen) Small Gods (Discworld #13) by Terry Pratchett

and we'll see what else...

Happy reading everyone!!

Bite Me: Big Easy Nights by Marion G. Harmon

I finally finished the penultimate book of the Foundation series - Foundation's Edge. Well-written but too many inconsistencies - both within the book and with the earlier books of the series.

Young Sentinels by Marion G. Harmon

Finished Inquest which I knew would be some light fun.

Making my yearly visit to the city of Elantra with Cast in Oblivion by Michelle Sagara (book 14 and the series still going strong). I'm intentionally a little behind, in case Sagara misses a year, I'll still have a few in wait, but she's pretty prolific, even starting a prequel series about Severn's time with the Wolves so I'll have even more to catch up on.

It even fits my reading theme of the year since it does involve gods and demon-like things.

Small Town Heroes by Marion G. Harmon

I finished reading The Martian; this went very well, I liked the book and went through it rather fast. Trying for something a bit different I just downloaded Countdown by Michael Atamanov, and I will start to read it later today.

Currently reading Seven Days by Alex Lake. :)

Well, Nolyn was just as terrific as I had hoped! Now I'm back to continuing The Tiger's Time

I read a few more stories in Rogues. While most of the ones I have read so far have are fantasy, including a story from Westeros from George Martin, a sequel to Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and a Patrick Rothfuss story, not all have been. The story by Gillian Flynn is a very dark psychological horror.

I have now started the last book in the Foundation series - Foundation and Earth.

Ronin Games by Marion G. Harmon

Read Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary and loved it. I can't rank it ahead of The Martian (one of my alltime fave books), but I really enjoyed it. Snarky protagonist, huge global disaster, and LOTS of science (that was way over my head by the way). Some great scares and really emotional scenes as well. I highly recommend this one.

Finished Cast in Oblivion, the books are tending towards more info dumps and less plots but for whatever reason I still enjoy reading them.

Now onto the heaviest book still on my to-read pile for the year - Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan

Team-Ups and Crossovers by Marion G. Harmon

I finished Countdown and started to read the next book in the series, External Threat. I am not certain that I will read all 7 books in the series, but sofar this is fun.

Recursion by Marion G. Harmon

Repercussions by Marion G. Harmon

Finished Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, definitely a fun take on the old myths. I love his commentary on hard to pronounce names and the ickyness of how all the gods had kids with siblings and offspring (but then there weren't too many divinities to pick from, especially at the start), and of course the ones that just willed themselves pregnant...or Zeus technically bearing a child not once but twice...

Now to finish The Shadow Campaigns, The Infernal Battalion by Django Wexler

Beta Bots by Ava Lock

An AI womanoid named Cookie and some friends set out to rob gold bars from The Central Bank of Russia, which leads to big trouble.

Amusing sci-fi, LGBTQ adventure story. 3.5 stars

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

Stephen King's "On Writing".

Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery by Brian Murphy

Finished the second book in the Northworld Trilogy - Vengeance - and since I'm reading an omnibus version, started right in on the third one, Justice.

Finished The Infernal Campaigns, somehow I just didn't love it the way I enjoyed the others, it was still really good, but certain romances just didn't interest me, and there was one "twist" I had already figured out in the previous book. But I think it wrapped up pretty well even if the outcome wasn't in question...maybe that's the difference in this book, you knew what the end goal was, where in the first three or so it wasn't exactly clear what everyone was fighting for so added a level of mystery. But it did a good job of wrapping up all the storylines.

Now I'm eagerly starting on Circe by Madeline Miller. I'm already 75 pages in and loving it, there's just something about the way Miller writes that just draws you in and makes you want to read it just for the sake of reading it.

I'm just wrapping up #2 in the Tales of the Seventh trilogy, Fort Covenant, which are prequels to the Imperial Legionaire series which I read. I love these books. My only major complaint is that the author sometimes tosses in modern vernacular, which boots me right out of the story! Otherwise, I am highly entertained.

My review of The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

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

I finished External Threat and decided to read the third book in the series, Game Changer.

How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life by Ruth Goodman

I finished Rhythm of War! It took me 67 days, but I did it! There are some interesting characters and intriguing world, but it's gotten too complicated for me to grok anymore. I'm going to read something really simple now...

How to Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman

Finished Circe. I really loved it, again Miller's writing style was just lovely to read and she did a great job showing just how nasty the Greek gods could really be (Riordan can take that and make it funny but Miller makes it pretty scary at times). That filled my Mythology/Folkore BINGO slot and I also added Song of Achilles for the Award Winning slot (with 11 slots filled I still haven't gotten a single BINGO though!)

Started on Riders by Veronica Rossi. Now that the library opened up and I've got my vaccine I can start filling in those harder slots, this one is for the Apocalyptic slot, I just felt a strong urge to read something based on the Riders and there weren't really that many to pick from, thought there would be more selection. Annoying bit is that the library (nor OpenLibrary) doesn't have the second book of the duology. Not that I need both for the slot but it will leave things hanging till I can hunt it down. Don't think I'll like it enough to buy it but we'll see, only just started...I do like the fact that it is a YA novel, written by a woman, but actually has a male lead, I know we need to promote those female role models but seems they are all female leads these days in YA and an occasional guy is kind of nice. And no worries, there's a girl too it seems...

I've also gotten back into the Sandman graphic novel series, with Death by Neil Gaiman. She's such a cute quirky character.

Just got my hands on Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and am enjoying it.

Have been reading Master of One by Bennett and Jones. Finished Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen. I was hoping it would be a little more of a romp than it turned out to be, but still a good book. Got my nose into A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White for the second or third time. I think the mix of magic and SF is right at the edge of my tolerance, though.

I finally finished Foundation and Earth, which brings to an end my reread of Asimov's Future History series. It took a ridiculously long time (both this book and the entire series) as work is really cutting into my reading time at the moment.

I finished Game Changer, third book in the Reality Bending series by Michael Atamanov. I stop here and do not intend to read the other three books. I will now start reading A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine.

Finished Riders, it was pretty good, too bad the second book is so hard to find.

Back to basic mythology with Mythology by Edith Hamilton which I understand is a kind of classic about the classics.

Finished reading Write Away: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life by Elizabeth George and The Moon Maze Game by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. I’m reading Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells. I plan to read Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson next.

I read a few more stories in the anthology Rogues - about halfway now. I have started the novella Ironclads by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's military sci-fi set in a future in which America is a libertarian state run by corporations.

Just finished reading The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng by K.S. Villoso and it was awesome!