The Sword and Laser discussion

July is here and so is a new thread. What will you be reading this month?

I am going to do a Summer of Lois McMaster Bujold. Just finished The Hallowed Hunt the first book of the World of Five Gods series in Chronological order. On to The Witness for the Dead the follow up to the stand alone but not any more The Goblin Emperor. Two pre ordered books set to come to me in July. New series by Becky Chambers starts with A Psalm for the Wild-Built which comes out July 13. Then Hawkwood's Sword by Christian Cameron AKA Miles Cameron. Christian writes the Historical fiction and Miles writes the Fantasy fiction . Here is a short clip from his Writing Fighting You Tube clips where a can dies .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Elb8...
Have to admit the cover of Hawkwood's Sword got me right in the heart. Plus i really like Miles' The Red Knight .

Stephen wrote: "I am going to do a Summer of Lois McMaster Bujold."

Excellent idea.

I love her Penric and Desdemona novella series and it saved my butt in meeting last years challenges. I was intimidated by the sheer number of books in the Vorksigan Series but in an essay Bujold wrote at the end of the lastest Penric novel The Assassins of Thasalon I got an idea of how to read her books and get the most out of it. Plus I am newly retired and need some goal other than getting an even tan .

Highly recommend the Vorkosigan series.

I'm reading The Master and Margarita for another book club.

Also planning on reading Crooked Kingdom. I just finished Six of Crows and it is excellent.

Chris wrote: "Highly recommend the Vorkosigan series.

I'm reading The Master and Margarita for another book club.

Also planning on reading Crooked Kingdom. I just finished Six of Crows and it is excellent"

I really liked both of those, as well.

You’re all making good choices!

BTW, Bujold has a 2022 update for her reading order.

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

I recently finished:
Project Hail Mary 5 Stars!
A Deadly Education High 4 Stars!
Now I'm listening to a full cast recording (basically an anthology & each story has a different narrator) From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back I gave the 1st one 4 stars.
Lots of good stuff in the Library holds & Audible!

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "I recently finished:
Project Hail Mary 5 Stars!
A Deadly Education High 4 Stars!
Now I'm listening to a full cast recording (basically an anthology & each story has ..."

I really liked A Deadly Education. The sequel, The Last Graduate is due out at the end of Sept.

Yesterday I finished Inkspice, the second Mapweaver Chronicles novel. I liked how the main characters continue to grow. The stakes got higher, but it didn't seem to me that the stakes got too high too fast. I'm also enjoying the world-building. I'm looking forward to book three.

I finished book 2 of Marko Kloos's Palladium Wars military sf series. Book 3 comes out in August. It has a lot of mentions of a "gyrofoil" which I guess it like a gyrocopter? Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Finished The Journeyer and am starting a reread of Michael Shea's Nifft the Lean.

Joseph wrote: "...starting a reread of Michael Shea's Nifft the Lean."

Trying to find a copy of this book. I always loved the cover when I was younger but don't think I ever got around to reading it.

I started reading


Dawn by Octavia E. Butler - the science fiction classice, first in the Xenogenesis series (also called Lilith's Brood)

Finished two books recently.

First up, Project Hail Mary. I'd thought perhaps Andy Weir was a one-hit wonder. The Martian came to be on his blog (or maybe FB page, memory is dim.) It used real locations and Martian artifacts like Pathfinder. He put it in a book partly because fans kept asking him for ways to pay him. Matt Damon got involved and presto, he had a book deal. His second book did nothing to allay those fears. Serviceable at best.

Well, this one was a triumph! It's a return to the "science mystery" that worked so well with The Martian. Plenty of real science, plus some fudges necessary to move the plot along. A great alien race, the situation fairly plausible once you grant the Macguffin.

There's a little bit of predictableness to the plot. Big crisis, end chapter. Start of next chapter, solve problem, then exposition, then big crisis. Eh, you gotta organize the story somehow.

Good twists along the way, and some nice ones at the end. The "recovering from amnesia" bit gets a solid explanation. It's also hilarious to see the top "don't" in writing get used in such an entertaining fashion. That's "don't start a story with the MC waking up" and yet it's been used well here and for that matter in Altered Carbon. Take that, writers' advice!

Second book was a recommendation from my wife, the time travel themed Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. It's a little bit "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis, a little bit romance, and a little bit "coming of age" altho the MC is in her 20s and a PhD when the main action starts.

People go into the past as observers, and if they try to change any part of the past it will aggressively preserve itself. A building block on the head might be the least gruesome way to go. It's all done by one British university, which is explained away by their taking orders by various big shot organizations. Of course those organizations IRL would never allow a sleepy university to control time travel, but hey, if it was good enough for Connie Willis it's good enough here.

There's plenty of twists regarding characters and Things Are Not What They seem pretty much all the way through. They are able to harvest the past by going where items would already be destroyed, hence taking them doesn't affect the timeline. Presto, money! I'm thinking perhaps the writers of Loki have read this. Okay, it's not all that uncommon an idea. Well done here tho. There are definitely some saves on the wish-list of any SFF fan.

Some silliness along the way. Romance tropes require a Black Moment where the couple just Can't Be Together, *big tear* It's usually due to a stupid misunderstanding. The Black Moment in this book is one side of the relationship acting so egregiously bad that it really shouldn't be forgivable in any amount of time, let alone the almost-instantaneous forgiveness here.

There's also an event which established in gruesome fashion what happens if you try to save people intended to be dead. In the very next mission people are flouting that rule. Um, okay. Pick one and stick with it perhaps?

Big rah rah ending with plenty of violence to move the plot along. The series goes on for at least ten more books, and it's set up well. I'll likely read more as I work through the TBR. Solid storytelling if a little silly around the edges.

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Trying to find a copy of this book. I always loved the cover when I was younger but don't think I ever got around to reading it. ..."

Good luck! I know that Linda Shea (his wife) has talked about trying to get his older works back into print; right now, they seem to be going for fairly ridiculous amounts of money on the secondary market.

Read most of Million Dollar Demon by Kim Harrison over the holiday weekend. In audio I'm currently more than 75% through The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington.

Hopefully I'll get Witchshadow by Susan Dennard from the library again soon. I delayed checking it out (this is a handy feature, I'm glad they added it) to finish Million Dollar Demon and Consider Phlebas first.

I'm also reading boys and pieces of The Variegated Alphabet by Caitlín R. Kiernan when I have a few minutes.

Just finished reading A Desolation Called Peace which is nearly as good as a A Memory Called Empire. Solid return to the well and a worthy sequel. Not sure where we are heading next but Arkady Martine is an author to follow closely. (view spoiler)[Fungus is definitely a trope that I have come across a lot in the past few years.... (hide spoiler)]

Finished listening to Six of Crows which is a paint by the numbers caper story set in a gritty fantasy setting. Most of the story beats are pretty predictable. Enjoyable but not as good as I had been led to believe.

Now reading Consider Phlebas and listening to
Plan for the Worst

Joseph wrote: "RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Trying to find a copy of this book. I always loved the cover when I was younger but don't think I ever got around to reading it. ..."

Good luck! I know that Linda She..."

I know! There just aren't enough of them out there. I read his A Quest for Simbilis a few years ago while reading the Dying Earth books. It wasn't as good as Vance's stuff of course but then again what is?

Yesterday I finished The Falls. It's an amazing SF mystery that starts with the discovery of two pairs of shoes by a waterfall. There's several interesting characters, the plot moves along at a good pace, and it has quite the ending.

Continuing on with Nifft's adventures, I just started Mines of Behemoth.

Robert wrote: "Yesterday I finished The Falls. It's an amazing SF mystery that starts with the discovery of two pairs of shoes by a waterfall. There's several interesting characters, the plot move..."

Yes, nice twisty SF flavored whodunit, that.
I reckon Rusch's entire Diving Universe series is quite good.

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Tempting distraction! Can I start with that one in the series?

Tamahome wrote: "By Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Tempting distraction! Can I start with that one in the series?"

I reckon The Falls can be read alone. It does have some tie-ins to other stories in the series, but they don't get in the way of the story.

Reading Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. I hope I am strong enough till the end ;D

Tamahome wrote: "By Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Tempting distraction! Can I start with that one in the series?"

I agree with Clyde that you could. I've read books 1 through 4 in the series and I really enjoyed them. And Rusch does keep the ebook price low if you read them that way.

Is anyone else reading Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott? I’m listening to the audiobook (I’m about halfway through) and I’m struggling with it a bit, tbh. I think the basic problem is that it was sold to me as “genderbent queer Alexander the Great in SPAAACE” and it hasn’t really delivered on that marketing promise so far.

I read and enjoyed Unconquerable Sun, but i feel like it's best enjoyed without that particular tag-line, which seems to consistently lead to disappointment for a lot of people, so you aren't alone there.

It does have a space empire (like a million other SF novels do) it does have people with a variety of orientations and preferences in it (but again, not alone in that). I think the queerness is a lot more background-level instead of a focus, so the line kinda oversells that too. Years ago it would have been "Wow! Look!" but happily the world keeps moving forward, and it's no longer a standout aspect of it so much. (happily for the world, not for the marketing, which suffers from having been caught up with)

I didn't enjoy most of the Greek and Roman Empire era history i ever heard, so I'm not sure where Alexander's history was supposed to come into things other than a vague awareness that he did a lot of war, and there is a war happening, but I assume that's also where at least some of the disappointment people are having comes into things?

I had heard enough complaints about the line that i went in with expectations re-set to "standard space empire, war, and some political hijinks" and from that mindset i enjoyed it. But "Yet another Empire/War/Politics story" isn't a line that makes for great marketing.

Ruth wrote: "Is anyone else reading Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott? I’m listening to the audiobook (I’m about halfway through) and I’m struggling with it a bit, tbh. I think the..."

I thought I had read it, but I was confusing it with Black Sun by Roanhorse.

It seems most readers are like you and Malaraa in not caring for it, so while it’s in my library TBR I’m not chomping at the bit to get to it.

oh i liked it, i just think the "genderbent queer Alexander the Great in space" line doesn't sell it well. It may be just another Empire/War/Politics story, but it is a good one. It needs a different tag-line though, i'm just not sure what it ought to be.

Malaraa wrote: "I read and enjoyed Unconquerable Sun, but i feel like it's best enjoyed without that particular tag-line, which seems to consistently lead to disappointment for a lot of people, so you aren't alone..."

Yeah, it’s really not living up to its billing. I studied Greek and Roman history at university (with Alexander the Great as my special subject) and I’m struggling to see much in this book that resembles any of that history or culture. It’s a story about a sprawling space empire with plenty of political intrigue and a vaguely classical flavour, and there are definitely queer relationships, but these are not foregrounded. It’s possible that the planned sequels will have a more obvious influence, but for this book that tagline is misleading.

I guess I’ll keep reading and try to modify my expectations (it’s not bad, just not what I was expecting) but... I really wanted my lesbian Alexander the Great space opera!

^ Ruth, have you read the Parasol Protectorate books? I'm curious how you feel about a certain Alexander the Great plot point if you have.

Unconquerable Sun is Alexander only really in that the protagonist is the child of an accomplished military leader who rules a country (corresponding to Philip of Macedon) and the child is even more gifted than the father in military matters (as Alexander was). At least so far - remember this is the first book in a series

"Genderbent" is a funny way of saying "we changed the men to women". As for queer... I mean that was Alexander too - at least some paint his relationship with Hephaestion as sexual, so that's not really a change aside from the gender flip.

I liked the book fine. Elliot is a good writer and while it suffers from first book in a series pacing, that's the nature of it being part of a planned series. It didn't blow me away as special though and part of that is that it's basically a fantasy plot and fantasy trappings, translated to an SF setting, space. This isn't surprising given Elliot is mostly a fantasy writer, but it does mean we get a book that doesn't have any special reason for being SF vs straight fantasy.

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ Ruth, have you read the Parasol Protectorate books? I'm curious how you feel about a certain Alexander the Great plot point if you have."

No, I haven’t read any of the Parasol Protectorate books. I’ve had them on my radar for a while now but never got round to them.

^ I won't spoil then. It's not a major plot point, really a spiff. FWIW I enthusiastically recommend the Parasol Protectorate, in publication order. If cost is an object, most big city libraries in the US will have e-copies. Not sure about the UK.

I second the recommendation of the Parasol-verse. I found all three series very fun to read. Gail Carriger has also been putting out side-stories with some of the minor characters in that world as well.

I third the recommendation. Ruth I think these books are likely to be something you would enjoy...

The Lancashire library has a lot of them in print and can be ordered

Finished out the last two in the Takeshi Kovacs series and didn't like them nearly as much as the first one. I have The Witness for the Dead up next and hope to like it better.

I also highly recommend Carriger's work. I've enjoyed all her books.

Finished The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker, the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni, and it is every bit as good as the first. 5 stars.

Now reading The Blacktongue Thief which I’m enjoying so far.

Got two Vernor Vinge books in quick succession. Now, I disliked "Fire Upon the Deep" so much I didn't bother with any other Vinge for two decades. Finally decided to read "A Deepness in the Sky" and found it subversively good. So on a slow TBR period I picked up "The Peace War." That one was fairly good, so I tagged two other Vinge books. Thanks to library oddities I got one with an expected six month wait after about three weeks. (It was "license expired" but came in quickly.)

The one that came in was "The Children of the Sky," the sequel to "Fire Upon the Deep." I didn't really care for the group mind quasi-dogs the first time and didn't warm to them in this book either. There's a lot of lengthy running around with minute details of events. That's come into vogue in my lifetime and I don't care for it.

The book picked up at about the 1/3 mark and I wondered if I would wind up liking it. That was not to be. There's lots of talks about creating markets and making a technological society up from scratch when you have the knowledge but not the industrial capacity. (You'd think any civilization worth its salt would have some Von Neumann designs, but I digress.) It's the kind of thing I should like, but still left me cold.

To my amusement, while reading all of this I thought, "I'd rather (spoiler) (view spoiler)[they brought the bush beings back (hide spoiler)] and wouldn't you know it, that happened at about the 3/4 mark.

As for the existential threat from the first book, it's brought up but not dealt with. This feels like a middle book, with another to finish out the plot. Nope, this was the end. Vinge seems to like leaving plot points hanging, a complaint I had with "Marooned in Realtime" as well. The guy wins Hugos and Nebulas pretty much every time he puts out a book, so he clearly knows his audience. By my interests I should be among them. Didn't work for me tho.

I couldn't handle more Vinge at that point, so I went to the second book of the time-traveling "Chronicles of St Mary's" series. I've started thinking of these as a time traveling Parasol Protectorate. The author's wit and charm make these books. The plots are good but not great. There's a wish-list of historical events that any SFF fan would salivate to experience.

Seems there's a time anomaly that shouldn't be able to exist, involving both Shakespeare and Mary Queen of Scots. So of course the St. Mary's crew go to investigate. And, well, not to be spoilery, but there's an ongoing time-fight with a bunch of real jerks that you love to hate. So far no attempt to redeem the villains, but they're not cardboard cutouts either.

Paradoxes are supposed to be impossible, but in addition to the main one (well explained eventually) there's other plot points that should also fall under the "impossible paradox" rule, now spreading over two books. It looks like this is part of the slow burn of the series.

The ongoing romance is perhaps the worst part, as there is yet again a Black Moment that is silly beyond compare. And then the Unresolvable Conflict. Gosh, I wonder if they will get together again. *big eye roll*

Anyhoo, good, light fun. Well, in the modern sense, as there is plenty of violence and blood as well. The resolution of this book's plot is horrific and well played. I'll be layering in these books as spaces in the TBR come up.

Seth wrote: "Finished out the last two in the Takeshi Kovacs series and didn't like them nearly as much as the first one. I have The Witness for the Dead up next and hope to like it better."

I think my biggest complaint about the books after Altered Carbon were that he changed up the style so much. They went from a detective story to a mercenary and heist one, and it just wasn't as interesting to me. Once I realized what type of story they were, I was more OK with it, but I think the author did a better job with that character in the first one. Long way, of basically saying I agree with you. ;-)

King of slow this month. Read Shalako by Louis L'amour, and Pass the Butter Worms by Tim Cahill. Currently reading Scientific Creationism, and The Jester of Scar. I'll probably finish these two before the end of this month. Not really sure right now, just been feeling a little slow down coming on.

On to The A'Rak, the final Nifft the Lean book.

John (Taloni) wrote: "I couldn't handle more Vinge at that point, so I went to the second book of the time-traveling "Chronicles of St Mary's" series. I've started thinking of these as a time traveling Parasol Protector..."

These are definitely on my TBR list (now working my way through the 11th), light hearted enough to be a comfort read.

Ruth wrote: "Yeah, it’s really not living up to its billing. I studied Greek and Roman history at university (with Alexander the Great as my special subject) and I’m struggling to see much in this book that resembles any of that history or culture. ..."

I also studied Greek and Roman history at university and had a personal interest in Alexander. This book grabbed my attention, but after looking into it a bit more I didn't see much connection.

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ Ruth, have you read the Parasol Protectorate books? I'm curious how you feel about a certain Alexander the Great plot point if you have."

I have read the Parasol Protectorate books and they are brilliant. Very funny and with great characters (opposite of Consider Phlebas imho).

The Alexander connection is neither central, nor immediately obvious, but was extremely satisfying. Gail Carriger is just a really good author.

Rick wrote: "Genderbent" is a funny way of saying "we changed the men to women". As for queer... I mean that was Alexander too..."

Anyone who has read a bit of the writings of the Greeks will know that gender was just different back then. The boxes we put people in today would seem really odd to Alexander. A man being attracted to a woman and marrying her in the hope of producing children, while openly being in love with a young man would not have been seen as unusual at the time.

Tried an old-timey sci-fi classic in the form of The Stainless Steel Rat. I remember my brother loving this series when we were both teenagers, which would have been back in the eighties. I can only conclude that he enjoyed it because he was a teenager at the time and because that's just what sci-fi looked like at the time. I was fairly unimpressed. Does the series get any better?

Ok, I’m hearing loud and clear that I need to bump the Parasol Protectorate books up my TBR... are the audiobook versions good?