Beyond Reality discussion

It's a brand new year! Let us know what you’re reading this month, January 2024. Tell us about your reads - all genres welcome here!

Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece by Joan Breton Connelly -- I'm still plugging along

I’m reading Mystic Warrior by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman, book 1 of the Bronze Canticles. I’m also listening to Out of the Mirror, Darkness by Garth Nix.

I'm hoping to start The Terraformers when I have the energy - I just picked it up from the library - but I may put it off to do some comfort re-reading because things are stressful right now.

I also just picked up Terraformers. But first I'm going to re-read all the Murderbot so I can catch up to the newest.

I hope your stressors back down if not go away soon.

A Superhero for Christmas by H.L. Burke

I have two books in progress, and I'm enjoying them both:

To Shape a Dragon's Breath is based on an Alaskan-like world culture.

The Fragile Threads of Power is the first book in a new trilogy by V.E. Schwab. I re-read the first trilogy before I started this one, and liked the original trilogy even better the second time.

I am finally getting to These Dead Lands: Desolation, I read the first book a couple years ago and never quite got to the second.

Mystic Warrior by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman was better than I expected, 7.5/10. This first book of The Bronze Canticles introduces us to the three linked worlds of the faeries (and other magical creatures), the goblins (and many mechanical objects and creatures), and humans (and dragons). The main characters in each world are struggling to find safety, truth, and a better understanding of the magic they discover. Because they don’t fully understand how the magic works and its consequences, neither does the reader, which was frustrating. Themes of love, loyalty, ambition, and power run through the narrative.

Change of pace now with Cardington Crescent by Anne Perry.

In audiobooks, I finished the short story Out of the Mirror, Darkness by Garth Nix (5/10) and have moved on to Undercover by Tamsyn Muir. These are part of an Amazon Originals collection called Into Shadow.

I've started Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. I'm not a fan of Gaiman, but don't know why... maybe a sampler would help me find a handle.

On the SF/F front, currently working through…

Star Bridge

Shadow & Claw

and

The Tar-Aiym Krang

Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell

I'm currently on the last volume of the Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan. It is a re-read: Percepliquis

Cardington Crescent by Anne Perry, 8/10. Two seemingly unrelated murders and a cast of suspects with secrets galore, amidst a vivid backdrop of Victorian London. Thomas and Charlotte Pitt eventually figure it out, even as the case strikes chillingly close to them.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle, 7/10. While I loved the aspect of the ancient Welsh/American Indian connection echoing through the centuries, the story itself was a little hard to follow because of the jumps through time and the similar names being used for characters in all those various episodes. There are far more fantasy elements than one might expect in a book generally classified as science fiction.

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler, 10/10. Never a dull moment in this book! The author does an amazing job of making this world real (of course, it is absolutely terrifying how close to reality some of it is!) and creating complex, believable characters. Unlike the first book in this duology (Parable of the Sower), this book is written from 3 very different perspectives—Lauren Olamina, her half-brother Marc, and her daughter Larkin/Asha. Each POV carries its own truths, its own burdens and betrayals, its own hopes and dreams.The story is heartbreaking, frightening, inspiring, brutal, hopeful. The poetry of Earthseed: The Books of the Living is simple and profound and those verses will stay with me. This book, written in 1998, hits awfully close to home in 2024. Here are 2 quotes that stopped me cold: From one of Presidential candidate Andrew Steele Jarrett’s campaign speeches, ”Help us to make America great again.” And from the interview with the author that was included in the book, ”Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than frightened, confused, desperate people looking for solutions is frightened, confused, desperate people finding and settling for truly bad solutions.” Jarrett’s administration as President was a nightmare for the country.

Chris wrote: "I have two books in progress, and I'm enjoying them both:

To Shape a Dragon's Breath is based on an Alaskan-like world culture.

The Fragile Threads of Power is th..."
I totally misrepresented To Shape a Dragon's Breath. It's set in the Massachusetts area, in an alternative history where the Norse settled the Americas. It's told from an indigenous point of view.

Recent reads have been a big mix of genres:

I quite enjoyed The Terraformers and am interested to hear what everyone else thought next month, because it was a strange book!

Next up was Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey, her latest in the long-running series. These are my favorite comfort reads and this one didn't disappoint! Probably best for readers who are already fans of the books, though.

Starter Villain was a treat and I've already posted my thoughts to the group's discussion thread.

My next two reads were out of genre- Murder on Cold Street, the fifth of Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock series, which are utterly delightful.

Then Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry, which was devastating to read after the author's death. I was always a big Matthew Perry fan and have been meaning to read this since it was published. It's absolutely heartbreaking. Addiction is a horrible, horrible disease.

I haven't yet decided what to pick up next.

I started the year by finishing the Gone World by Tom Sweterlisch. Then I read How High We go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, and now I'm reading The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. For my next read I have some choices to make.

I may either finish We Can Build You by PKD, or read: The City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Across the Sand by Hugh Howey, or purchase Upgrade by Blake Crouch and read that.

I'm planning on tackling a couple of big books this year (The Deluge by Stephen Markley, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace) so I need to train up.

I finished reading Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold. Game changer novel. Miles will never be the same again. I also read New Spring (Wheel of Time prequel) by Robert Jordan. This novel is interesting because of the POV of Moiraine and Lan twenty years before the main series. I am reading The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson. It contains a series of short stories set in his Mars Trilogy universe. I plan to read Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold next.

Looking back I think k Mirror Dance and Memory are two of the most powerful books of the ehole Miles series. I think k both rightfully won awards as well

The only novel I’ve finished recently was To the Sky Kingdom by Tang Qi Gong Zi, 4/10. The second half of this book was better than the first, mostly because I finally got accustomed to the style and the various gods, emperors, concubines, etc.; the story became more coherent. I found the style very off-putting, but I can’t say whether that’s due to the translator or the original author. Some of the word choices seemed too modern for this kind of Chinese fable/myth.

I’ve been listening to short stories from the Amazon Originals “Into Shadow” collection while I walk. I finished The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow (8/10), The Garden by Tomi Adeyemi (2/10), and Persephone by Lev Grossman, (7.5/10). While they are perfect for my walks, they also are frequent reminders of why I generally don’t like short stories. I often feel like I am reading (or listening to) a chapter plucked randomly from the middle of a book.

This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews

Finished We Have Always Been Here and honestly I ended up really disappointed.

Not sure what's next.