Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Welcome to May - at least in Australasia and eastern Asia 😁I'm currently about halfway through The Dark Forest and thoroughly enjoying it.

I'm reading the Grimms War series, specifically #5 Know Thy Enemy. This series is pretty good!

I'm also at the midway point of of a book in the Kris Longknife series called Furious. At a stretch I could finish today but will likely need a bit of tomorrow to wrap it up.

I'm also about 15 pages from the end of A Crystal Age: A Dystopia by William Henry Hudson...not the most exciting of books I've read and the fact it was a scan with a lot of typos, that didn't help either. But its my pre-1960 book so need to wrap it up for my BINGO. Its pretty short at 140 pages so almost there.

*edit*

Wait, I am starting a new book today, the last book in the Amos Daragon series! La Fin des Dieux by Bryan Perro

Re-reading The Bands of Mourning and The Knights of Crystallia. Plan to start Yumi and the Nightmare Painter next. It's going to be a big year for catching up on my Sanderson.

Almost done with Drumindor.

Finished a Crystal Age so I can pick something new on my eReader. Takes me forever to read a book on this device because I give preference to my dead tree books. Up next is a Kris Longnife novella which actually comes before the one I'm reading right now, but I didn't want to stop Crystal Age right near the end - Welcome Home / Go Away by Mike Shepherd

I'm limping along reading The Fox Wife for our bingo slot set in Asia. It is interesting but not captivating. I think I should've waiting until I was finished with the 3 series I'm reading. I think I'm impatient to get back to them and can't read this one fast enough.

Making use of OpenLibrary to find hard-to-find and out of print books, I caught up on 9 Dinotopia books. There are still 6 that OpenLibrary either didn't have or had it set to preview only. I'll check back again in a few years, see if more have popped up over time.

Of Breaking Waves by George Phillies

Finished the Kris Longknife book Furious.

Now for whatever reason I have a few series I traditionally read during may one of which is the Chronicles of Elantra. I'm reading the Severn spinoff this year (for my bingo slot) The Emperor's Wolves by Michelle Sagara

Rereading Brandon Sanderson's Rhythm of War

I just finished Red Country by Joe Abercrombie and loved it! Will be reading A Little Hatred by Abercrombie soon

No Man's Land by David Baldacci

Army investigator John Puller looks into a cold case that involves his mother's disappearance 30 years ago.

Action packed thriller with a sci-fi vibe. 3.5 stars

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

just finished the strange case of dr.jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and just started dune Messiah, and deadhouse gates, book 2 of Malazan book of the fallen

I just started rereading #9 of the Wars of Light and Shadow Initiate's Trial. I'm rereading this one and then #10, because the last book will be out less than 20 days from now. I'm SO EXCITED 😁

Eric Smith wrote: "just finished the strange case of dr.jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and just started dune Messiah, and deadhouse gates, book 2 of Malazan book of the fallen"

Jekyll and Hyde is a good one. 🙂

Michelle wrote: "I just started rereading #9 of the Wars of Light and Shadow Initiate's Trial. I'm rereading this one and then #10, because the last book will be out less than 20 days from now. I'm S..."

Curse of the Mistwraith has been staring at me from my pile for a few years now. Really want to read this series, but the rest of my book pile also stares lol

WoLaS is sooo good. Looking forward to Song of the Mysteries. Ideally I would do a complete re-read since it’s been 7 years since the last book came out.

Andy wrote: "WoLaS is sooo good. Looking forward to Song of the Mysteries. Ideally I would do a complete re-read since it’s been 7 years since the last book came out."

I just did a reread of the entire series last year!

NekroRider wrote: "Michelle wrote: "I just started rereading #9 of the Wars of Light and Shadow Initiate's Trial. I'm rereading this one and then #10, because the last book will be out less than 20 day..."

It's a terrific series- very dense and intricate. Her narrative style is completely unique. It took her almost fifty years to complete this series.

Rising Tides by Marion Harmon

I just finished The Hunger of the Gods, the second book of the Bloodsworn Saga. Dare I say the world building of Vigrid is on par with Arrakis! These books are so fun and chock full of Nordic lore that I’m already counting down the months until the third entry is released.

Michelle wrote: "NekroRider wrote: "Michelle wrote: "I just started rereading #9 of the Wars of Light and Shadow Initiate's Trial. I'm rereading this one and then #10, because the last book will be o..."

It sounds like I will really enjoy it. I didn't realise it had taken her 50 years to complete!

Watchers by Dean Koontz. I’m about a third of the way through and it’s quite riveting.

I have finished The Dark Forest. An excellent sequel but not, I thought, quite as good as The Three-Body Problem. It has a very different tone.

Finished La fin des dieux, though it is the last book in the main Amos Daragon series, there's one short spinoff trilogy so I'll consider the full series done only after I read those three. This fills in my Translated BINGO slot...it might not technically have been translated but I figured since I'm reading something originally written in another language, that was kind of the point of that BINGO square.

In fact, I had 5 BINGO books planned for this month but...then I went to the library because finally they had the rest of the Senlin Ascends series! And someone hadn't borrowed them! I read the first book AGES ago as a group read here but no library I had access too had copies, not even electronic ones. But now they were there, along with a few other loose ends so I made this trip to a harder to get to library than my usual one and really stocked up. I go this this other library maybe once a year now so I've got a lot to keep me busy for the rest of this month...

Yrret wrote: "Watchers by Dean Koontz. I’m about a third of the way through and it’s quite riveting." Loved this one! Loved the dogs!

Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen Vol. 3 by Hiromi Satō

My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's Manga, Vol. 5 by Hiroyuki Aigamo

I finished Protector, and I am starting Peacemaker in the Foreigner series.

Finished The Emperor's Wolves, a good addition to the Chronicles of Elantra series.

And now after I don't know how many years, returning to the Senlin Ascends series with Arm of the Sphinx by Josiah Bancroft

Also starting on AMOS DARAGON LE GUIDE DU PORTEUR DE MASQUES by Bryan Perro which is a companion book for the Amos Daragon series. It can conveniently be read just a few pages at a time.

I have started Death's End, which will complete the Three-Body Problem trilogy.

The Fallen Fruit by Shawntelle Madison

The African-American Bridge family has a unique 'curse.' One sibling in each family falls back in time.

Very intriguing story. 3.5 stars

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

I finished reading The Talisman (The Talisman #1) by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It’s a fantasy with an alternate dimension Earth called the Territories that can be entered under certain circumstances. I also read Half the World (Shattered Seas #2) by Joe Abercrombie. This novel is set in the same world as the first book but features a totally different cast of characters. I am reading Half a War by Joe Abercrombie (Shattered Seas #3) and The End of All Things (Old Man’s War #6) by John Scalzi. I plan to read Royal Assassin (Book #2 of the Farseer Trilogy) by Robin Hobb next.

I loved Royal Assassin.

Ghost in the Veils by Jonathan Moeller

I finished The Will of the Many last night, now I'm stuck waiting for the next book in the series to learn where the crazy reveals at the end are leading to! A common high quality problem for readers to have, I think :)

I finished Jane Yellowrock #8 Broken Soul . I have the advantage, Robert, for this series is finished! No waiting!

Re-read Age of Legend; finished Drumindor. It has some tie-ins to The Rise and Fall trilogy.

Started Yumi.

Invincible Under Heaven by Kit Sun Cheah

Finished reading Arm of the Sphinx. I actually went back to read the posts on our group read for Senlin Ascends to help refresh my memory (one person did wonderful summaries of every floor of the Tower). The story does continue to be "Gulliver's Travels x Disneyland" only now with Pirates. With lots of really weird and strange things lurking around the corners. I have the next book ready to go but they are long books so need a bit of a break in between.

Thus switching to the other series that I come back to every May (for no particular reason other than I started that tradition and it stuck) - Clockwork Twist: Depth by Emily Thompson. This will fill my Indie Book slot in the BINGO. I think I downloaded the first book or two for free through GR when GR still had that feature, but I now buy the dead tree version I like this series so much. I get warm fuzzies whenever I come back to it every year. I have all the books but I'm saving them, to stretch them out longer, so keeping to just one a year. I'll probably do a full re-read once I'm done.

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

In this seriocomic sci-fi novel, a valet robot kills his master, and then tries everything he can to get a new valet job.

Tchaikovsky is a good sci-fi writer. 4 starts

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

Last night I finished The Spirit Lens by Carol Berg. It was the first of the Collegja Magica trilogy and verh enjoyable. I get the impression the "lower than normal" ratings tend to be because it isn't your standard epic or military/battle centric fantasy. The MC is a librarian without magical or fighting abilities. His role instead is to covertly investigate an attempted assassination.

I'm now reading the next book in the trilogy, The Soul Mirror

NekroRider wrote: "Last night I finished The Spirit Lens by Carol Berg. It was the first of the Collegja Magica trilogy and verh enjoyable. I get the impression the "lower than normal" ratings tend to ..."

She's one of my favorite authors!

I'm about halfway through my reread of book 10 Destiny's Conflict. The final book Song of the Mysteries will be published next Thursday :)

NekroRider wrote: "Last night I finished The Spirit Lens by Carol Berg. It was the first of the Collegja Magica trilogy and verh enjoyable. I get the impression the "lower than normal" ratings tend to ..."

I really liked The Spirit Lens, but I could not get into the second book of the series. Maybe I'll revisit sometime.

I finished Peacemaker and just started the next book, Tracker.

"Kivrin wrote: "I really liked The Spirit Lens, but I could not get into the second book of the series. Maybe I'll revisit sometime."

I didn't think I was going to be able to get into Soul Mirror (book 2) myself because of the character switch (I really liked Portier), but now I'm almost 120 pages in and enjoying it a lot!

"Michelle wrote: "She's one of my favorite authors!"

She really is great! I have also read Bridge of D'Arnath (the first book is definitely a favourite!) and Song of the Beast and plan to read the rest of her books after this too. She is very underrated imo!

Finished Depth, the story is clearly moving forward towards its conclusion in a few more books as the blanks in Twist's past start getting filled in. But I'll wait till next year to enjoy the next installment. This fills my Indie BINGO slot.

Back to the Books of Babel with The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft

I'm also starting The Maze Runner by James Dashner to fill my Dystopia BINGO slot.

Gamma Bots by Ava Lock

This is the third book in 'the womanoid trilogy', about female AI androids, their quest for freedom (from humans), and their adventures. The books are quirky and full of action.

Though they're in the genre of 'women's fiction' I think men would like these novels as well because there's plenty of fighting and shooting (and some sexy scenes 🙂).

Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Trying to get back into reading. Started with the Shatter Me series last month to ease back into it and am currently on book #4, Restore Me. Very fun Y/A read

Ana wrote: "Trying to get back into reading. Started with the Shatter Me series last month to ease back into it and am currently on book #4, Restore Me. Very fun Y/A read" Welcome back to reading!! Have fun and enjoy. Sounds like you're off to a good re-start!

Finished Rift in the Soul . Last book in the series (so far). It quickly moved to one of my top favorite series!