SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Talk about all the books you're reading!

Instead of merely linking to a book/review, please tell us a little bit about the book(s) and how you're liking them to give us something to discuss.

Also check out Group Book Discussions if you're reading a book that's on the group shelf. Even if it's a book the group read several years ago, you're very welcome to add to the discussion!

We also have lots of buddy reads, you can find all of those in Buddy Read Recruitment.

Happy reading! :)

Well, I was attempting to do some catching up on reviews from last year, but that conversation line is shut down so I guess I have to drop it in here. It is what it is and life goes on. That will teach me to wait so long to get caught up. LOL.

Endangered Phrases: Intriguing Idioms Dangerously Close to Extinction

Phrases that are endangered due to lack of use. This book doesn't just give you the phrase that appears to be going out of style but also the reason it got started in the first place as well as the meaning. At least where they are know the answer to that. Sometimes this part of the book is more could be than is. It makes for some interesting reading. Although I was a little depressed at some points. It is kind of depressing to find out that a phrase that you use is endangered from lack of use. A little like finding out your favorite band is now classic rock.

Shadow and Bone

For me, this was a slow read, for two reasons. First I kept trying to superimpose a map of Russia and the Baltic states in my mind to conform with the nations of the story. Second, the passing was a tad off from either what I was expecting or what I am used to. This didn't really impact on my enjoyment of the story but it did slow me down in the reading of it. I found it to be well-thought-out and other than the pacing, presented story. In fact, I liked it so much I am already looking forward to starting the next book in the series.

Superhuman

Evan Currie seems to put out small unit tactics combat novels that are very easy to enjoy and read. While sometimes stretching the realm of plausible deniability he never fails to deliver the action. This book starts with a basic premise and then stirs it up. The premise is two biker gangs are ready to throw down for dominance and a group of ex-special operations command individuals on vacation are caught in the middle.

In the mix-up, the alien probe picks up parts of these groups and does some gene manipulation, and gives them superpowers. Once that is done mad cap mayhem commences.

Exploring Facts: Extraordinary Stories & Weird Facts from History Trivia Book

More fun and amusing than enlightening, but hey every book doesn't need to be deep and meaningful. All things considered, it was a book that was able to provide entertainment while also putting up some thought-provoking tidbits from time to time.

Dj wrote: "Well, I was attempting to do some catching up on reviews from last year, but that conversation line is shut down so I guess I have to drop it in here. It is what it is and life goes on. That will t..."

I wonder how many phrases in that book I use. There's a period in the 90's where I was cut off from American idiomatic English (I lived in Germany and the internet hadn't taken off yet), so I can imagine most of my idioms are from the 80's or earlier and probably endangered. I'll see if I can find it on Scribd or Libby.

DivaDiane wrote: "Dj wrote: "Well, I was attempting to do some catching up on reviews from last year, but that conversation line is shut down so I guess I have to drop it in here. It is what it is and life goes on. ..."

I would imagine that there may be some. Although to be fair some of the phrases were quite old. As in the 20s and 30s.

Dj wrote: "Well, I was attempting to do some catching up on reviews from last year, but that conversation line is shut down so I guess I have to drop it in here. It is what it is and life goes on. That will t..."

I grew up with my grandmother and loved the phrases and syntax she used so I have always sounded a little old-fashioned.
I frequently annoy the Microsoft gods with my fondness for the passive voice.

I, too, am interested in Endangered Phrases. Thank you for alerting me/us to it!

I've been listening to The Secret of Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene and From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Esther wrote: "Dj wrote: "Well, I was attempting to do some catching up on reviews from last year, but that conversation line is shut down so I guess I have to drop it in here. It is what it is and life goes on. ..."

Well I use some old phrases, but I am nearly 60 now so I guess that would go without saying, but having worked tech support, the Mircosoft Gods need to be beaten with a sick on occasion. I have really grown to mild hate the spinning wheel of doom. LOL

Cheryl wrote: "I, too, am interested in Endangered Phrases. Thank you for alerting me/us to it!"

No worries it was my pleasure, maybe due to being such a poor English student I enjoy books like that.

Stupid app won't let me link... But I'm reading Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley and loving the heck out of it. I went into it completely blind and had no idea it was so heavily focused on Native Americans, but you won't hear me complaining. I'm finding it interesting and super immersive. Well written, overall.

Kirsi wrote: "Stupid app won't let me link... But I'm reading Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley and loving the heck out of it. I went into it completely blind and had no idea it was so heavily focused on..."

Firekeeper's Daughter

I hope this was the link you were aiming for

I borrowed Elantris yesterday - I looked at the Brandon Sanderson section, just in case there was something I wanted to read there - and between the time I picked it up and went to borrow (it was a while), someone had placed a hold! And on another book I'd gathered. It's okay; I got to borrow it... it just means I only have a month, and there are several books to read - as always.

I've heard mixed things about it, given that it's the author's first published book, so I'm hesitant going in, but I'm sure it'll have good elements. I know the outlines of the story/plot from reading about it, so hopefully that won't detract.

I'm almost finished The Stardust Thief. I got bored partway through, then gave it another go, and am enjoying it again. I think it will go the way I thought it would go 😎.

I also borrowed The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, which has been on my list for a while. It will be a little like the TV series I like watching (Korean/Chinese), so I look forward to that; but the claim on the blurb that it's a 'feminist retelling' worries me a bit - this is what Ariadne purported to be, and definitely was, and that wasn't enjoyable. I want a balanced tale, not one deliberately aiming at one interpretation. Hopefully this is just a publishing line, not what the author meant.

Tamara wrote: "I borrowed Elantris yesterday - I looked at the Brandon Sanderson section, just in case there was something I wanted to read there - and between the time I picked it up and went to ..."

Elantris was my first Sanderson. I really enjoyed it and thought it was an interesting, well developed story and world. I read it first because it was a stand alone and I didn't want to start with one of his series.


Kirsi wrote: "Stupid app won't let me link... But I'm reading Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley and loving the heck out of it. I went into it completely blind and had no idea it was so heavily focused on..."

Firekeeper's Daughter was one of my favorite books last year. Glad to hear you are enjoying it.

Thistlefoot - My husband gave it to me for Christmas, and I'll finally be able to start it. I've been wanting to read it for a while.

Trying to finish Emma Newman's Planetfall series with Atlas Alone. This series is an interesting one, I almost never gave its books more than three stars, but somehow I want to finish all of them. I think Newman is a good character writer but she also tends to have us stay in their heads too long.

Our Wives Under the Sea: I'm about a quarter of the way through and deciding whether I'll actually end up finishing this. I expected something eerie and atmospheric and so far all I'm getting is mostly boring. People seem to love this though, so I think I'll give it a little longer before I dnf.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: I'm liking this a lot so far! I really love the characters and every time I pick it up I find myself reading more than I intended. I was worried this wouldn't live up to the hype, but so far it is.

My review of The Broken Room by Peter Clines

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

I just finished listening to The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin - my first completed book of 2023. A good start to a new year of reading. I really enjoyed the book, which left me with a lot to think about. (I'll have to check out the past discussion here, since I think this was a previous BOTM choice.) I may borrow the print book from my library, so I can go back and re-read some of it more slowly. Thanks to the group member who recommended the audiobook to me - the narrator was great!

The Lathe of Heaven >> First | Final & Series (First has some spoilers)

:)

Anna wrote: "The Lathe of Heaven >> First | Final & Series (First has some spoilers)

:)"

Thanks, Anna!

I finished A Time of Courage ; the "Of Blood and Bone" series. Author, John Gwynne, gets a bit obsessed with battle scenes. Three stars.

I have been reading Anatoly Dneprov [1919-1975] and that is Анатолий Днепров in Russian. I don’t speak Russian by the way, but I do use google translate a lot for stories that have never been released in English.

Unfortunately, only 10 of his stories have been translated, and on my count he has 60 short stories, novelettes and novellas and 1 novel; all but 15 are easily available on the internet.

I am currently reading ‘Candy Man’ by ‘Vincent King’ out loud to my girlfriend, and while sometimes I do read multiple novels at the same time, in this case I am sticking to just the one; I find ‘Vincent King’ works to be both thoughtful and intense and I am doing about 40 pages a read, with, as of writing this, one read to go, and I am subsequently propping up the rest of my read-time with said shorter stories.

Candy Man was published in 1971 and I probably did my first read about 1975 or 1976. This is one of those novels that begs to be read multiple times and is not for everyone; the 191 pages are packed with thought-supposition, philosophy and social commentary.

The story is told through the enigmatic central character of Candy using a variant of unreliable narrator in that there is no helping god-narrator to reveal all or to give hints of the whys and wherefores; if Candy doesn’t get what’s going on and he quite often doesn’t or if he misunderstands and he quite often does, then so do we as the reader.

This is a story full of plot twists.

The setting is in the far future in a time after global warming where the greenhouse effect has raised the oceans leading to the eventual building of a World City sitting upon a structure supported by anti-gravity engines where there are layers and layers of streets. We have Eugenics in process controlled by the Deep Machines and enforced by the Teachers who are Cyborg-like people but the system has got out of control, and as with any system that needs a big red emergency stop button—enter Candy.

In between time, I read ‘The World In Which I Disappeared’ by ‘Anatoly Dneprov’ from 1961, a 3800 word short-story bordering on the supernatural that besides being a social commentary is also funny and romantic. The main character has committed suicide and his corpse has been sold to Doctor Woodrop for a paltry fee who reanimates him to perform a series of social experiments along with a girl called Susan, all accompanied by lashings of dry humour.

“I pulled the “president” out of his socket and hid him in my pocket.”
—(the ‘president’ is represented by a vacuum tube)
“Ah, a mutiny! . . . An attempt against the government? . . . Return the ‘president,’ if you please.”
I returned the neon tube.
“We shall provide for this human element too. I shall screen off the government and protect it with a high voltage line. Two thousand volts will do. . . . Now the government will be secure against domestic disorders.”

If anyone is interested in reading this story, the copy is available online in English starting on page 82 in the June 1968 issue of ‘International Science Fiction’ archived at Archive.org.

I also read the short 1959 story ‘Saboteur from Jupiter’, Диверсант с «Юпитера», not available in English; a story where a group of workers all start dying from radiation poisoning with no obvious cause, that is until the local cat is discovered to be eating irradiated fish; and I am currently reading the 1961 novelette ‘Striped Bob’, Полосатый Боб, also not available in English where one of the characters has a disease called ‘vitiligo’; a disease that I was unaware of before I started reading. I haven’t finished this one yet.

With having read ‘The World In Which I Disappeared’ and with this being a romantic tale, I went on to read Jack Kerouac’s ‘Tristessa’ again, which is not Science Fiction at all, but I’m sure I’m not the only one here who reads more than one genre.

Tristessa is a sad love-story novella, a slice of life tale, where the narrator falls for the charismatic junky Tristessa. The second part is set about a year later and gives a perspective on how time is no friend to the very immediate life of a junky. This story would probably have more impact for anyone who has ever fallen in love with a junky at any point in their life.

I was flicking through ‘The Infernal Desire Machines Of Doctor Hoffman’ by Angela Carter; a book I originally purchased without knowing her work, simply because I thought this was like the best title for a book ever. I still follow the Hoffman part with an evil-like vampire-sounding laugh every time I say the title out loud, recalcitrant immature that I am.

I quote from the book:

Introduction
————
I remember everything.
Yes.
I remember everything perfectly.

And in the next chapter:

1. The City Under Siege
———————
I cannot remember exactly how it began.

Not a book for the faint-hearted. There is a scene in chapter 3 where a little girl has a dead fish for a doll—‘I saw it was not a doll at all but a large fish dressed up in baby clothes.’. I still find that creepy when I am reminded of the passage, not sure why though; memories of Innsmouth possibly or maybe even Sarnath.

Happy New Year all.

I am working through Guideon the Ninth #1 by Tamsyn Muir. Its on a recommendation by my Daughter. Its really good but it took a few chapters for me to get into it.

There is no exposition or world building explanation, you are straight into the story and the background is slowly revealed as the tale proceeds.

It's a unique and interesting society that has been built but there is still clearly a lot to learn. Because it just throws you in, it took me a while to find my feet. It is now VERY exciting and I feel the pace of my reading increasing as the action escalates.

One of the features of the book I am enjoying is the voice of the narrator. Irreverent, young and cutting. It makes for an odd read as with such a well built world you almost expect a more formal language,

Gav451 wrote: "Happy New Year all.

I am working through Guideon the Ninth #1 by Tamsyn Muir. Its on a recommendation by my Daughter. Its really good but it took a few chapters for me to get into it.

There is no..."

Yeah it took me a couple of go's to get into Gideon the Ninth but once I did I loved it. I recently bought Nona the Ninth and will be rereading Gideon and Harrow before I start it. I'd read them on my ipad and I actually bought the dead tree books so that I could read them properly. The ipad just isn't the same in my opinion. I'm not a big fan of reading from screens.

I'm currently still rereading A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I don't normally reread anymore (except for Harry Potter when I'm feeling like shit) but I'm finding that some of my books that I've read on ipad just haven't stuck with me and the sequels haven't been making sense at all so I've been buying the dead tree versions and reading them again.

Kaia wrote: "I just finished listening to The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin - my first completed book of 2023. A good start to a new year of reading. I really enjoyed the book, which left me ..."

I am working through this book at the moment. I am enjoying it, but your words make me want to finish it even more.

You won’t regret it, Dj!

Feeling very luxurious. I spent most of the week between Christmas and New Year's reading a book a day and I read some real bangers to close it out.

This year is a bit more mixed. I really liked Taken, which is like Harry Dresden but British. I also started Shadow of the Apt and I see why Gabi likes it! Very cool and different human animal crossbreed things.

I was disappointed in my second Carol Berg, which finishes a story I started out really liking but then it shied away from what it had set up and rushed things. Oh well.

I'm super excited because I just found Green Grass, Running Water on audio (I think) which I've been wanting to read for years.

Just started A Discovery of Witches. Also Timothy Snyder's* The Road to Unfreedom. I'll see which one gets its hooks into me first.

*Just finished Bloodlands yesterday, which was fantastic history and absolutely horrifying. I needed something light after a few similar books, but Legends and Lattes won't get here until the end of the month.

Yes, Happy New Year! My reading year started with At the Feet of the Sun (the sequel to The Hands of the Emperor), which I started reading over the holidays. A lovingly written book, with beautiful imagery and where character development and relationships between characters take centre stage. If you like emotional books and don't mind investing into ca 1000 pages per book, I cannot recommend this series highly enough.

My review :)

my girst book this year is the Fellowship of the ring. Great way to kick it off.

SneakySquid wrote: "my girst book this year is the Fellowship of the ring. Great way to kick it off."

Smart thinking on your part, picking that book :)

Thomas wrote: "Happy New Year all! My first read of 2023 took me back to Kelewan with Raymond E Feist's Servant of the Empire. A good solid start to my reading challenge for this year and I think ..."

Have you read the Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts? It is phenominal! I've read that series twice.

Throughout the months of January and February this year I will not only be looking at several works of Phillip K. Dick but also Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov as well.

I am currently reading Deus Irae

I just finished the first two books of David Brin's uplift saga, sundiver and a re-read of startide rising (initially read it over 30 years ago). Early last year I read his Uplift war (Book 3 of the uplift saga).

An FYI on his universe, and it's not a spoiler. Human civilization finally got out into space, and, similar to that star trek movie, got first contact. unfortunately, for Brin's universe, first contact was showing us how far behind we were. In his universe, there are lots of civilizations, but those were populated by species who were 'uplifted' by even earlier species who themselves were uplifted. Pretty much all of those civilizations were uplifted, and they looked down on humans because we didn't have any patrons (a civilization who uplifted us). basically, a client/patron relationship that we lack, hence, not really civilized.

I personally loved the latter two books of his uplift saga. sundiver was ok, and you can probably skip it, you are introduced to a few patrons and clients, and one character is referenced a few times, you'll get the gist from startide. Recommended to read in order (other than sundiver). Both sundiver and startide were really hard to obtain though, I ended up buying both used.

Now, I got the last two books of Lois McMaster Bujold's vorkosigan series (so far!) so I'm just now starting Cryoburn followed by Gentleman Jole and the red queen.

Reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón - such a delight! I miss magical realism so much and also The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories: A Collection of Chinese Science Fiction and Fantasy in Translation from a Visionary Team of Female and Nonbinary Creators by a bunch of authors - some I know, some are new. Still early in the book but there is a fox spirit story that I really enjoyed!

Finished The Sheep Look Up bt John Brunner = Wow!

If you liked that, try The Shockwave Rider

Rick wrote: "If you liked that, try The Shockwave Rider"

I have read it

CBRetriever wrote: "Rick wrote: "If you liked that, try The Shockwave Rider"

I have read it"

Have you read Stand on Zanzibar? Also one of his best.

Colin wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "Rick wrote: "If you liked that, try The Shockwave Rider"

I have read it"

Have you read Stand on Zanzibar? Also one of his best."

nope, that one I have yet to read

I am one of 5 judges in the final round of the Children’s and Young Adult book Lovers Literary Awards for specifically Middle Grade Speculative Fiction. I have 7 novels to read by Feb. 10th or so. The announcement is made on the 14th.

I can’t post reviews or speak about which I like best yet (couldn’t anyway since I’ve only completed one and am in the middle of 2 others!), but I will say, so far I like the ones I’ve read a lot:

Children of the Quicksands (finished) Trafitional African culture shines.
Eden's Everdark Islander culture off the coast of Georgia, USA, spirits/ghosts and grief
The Mirrorwood Pure Fantasy with elements of finding identity and Enemies to Friends (haha - I said I hated this trope in another thread, but I like this!). Maybe my fave, so far.

To see all the finalists in all categories go here:

https://www.cybils.com/

I've had this open waiting to check the Cybils list and now that I have, I see that I've read one of them already, and am going to add several to my TBR. I've really been loving all the new MG SFF lately, there's much more of it, altho it's still very fantasy heavy. I need more great MG scifi!

I've added The Mirrorwood to my audio TBR, DivaDiane, but not sure when I'll be able to listen to it. My TBR pile is insane!

CBRetriever wrote: "Finished The Sheep Look Up bt John Brunner = Wow!"

That book stayed with me a long time. A horrible but credible vision of a future. I thought it was amazing.

Bruner was often an amazing writer!

Finished Deus Irae...started Counter-Clock World, where they greet with Goodbye and depart with Hello