Shut Up & Read discussion

I tend to vary my reads. In this case it's what I've borrowed from my physical library (I need to borrow more and buy less *lol*) In this case I have 7 borrows:







The other two on my current challenge are in my kindle:



and one I own a hard back copy of:


So the challenge is to finish this list by July. I'm not a slow reader, but we shall see. After I finish with this lot, I'll have another personal Challenge. This also fits right in to my year challenge of reading at least 50 books before the end of the year. That one's ahead of schedule.

I'm currently focusing on Cyteen and I'm now up to page 395 of 680.

I'm up to 501 now and the intrigue and political actions are getting even more interesting and deep.

Yikes! LOLOL 🤣💕

Do you read 24/7? I'm not slow.. but other life 🤪 gets in the way too often...
I wish I had the ambition to borrow more from library!! Good for u on that!👍❣️
Liz🌷

Hey girl-
Ck this out:
Your compatibility with Carol D is 73%.
CategoryScore
popular90 classics0 popular fiction20 thrillers0 nonfiction80 fantasy90 romance85 science fiction0
I sent a friend request, looks like we have somethings in common!✌️🌷

Hehe, not 24/7 but as often as I can get away with - at work that would mostly be breaks and lunch, plus quiet moments since I work till 9 pm ;) I do wish Cyteen had a kindle version, it would be easier to do comments and highlight the parts that interest me. With a library book, I'm reduced to writing out those sections that interest me in my kindle scribe notebook section; and make commentaries.


Liz~In~Colorado wrote: "Yikes! LOLOL 🤣💕

Do you read 24/7? I'm not slow.. but other life 🤪 gets in the way too often...
I wish I had the ambition to borrow more from library!! Good for u on that!👍❣️
Liz🌷"

Carol wrote: "I'm up to 501 now and the intrigue and political actions are getting even more interesting and deep."

I'm at 587 now; the home stretch is on the horizon. ;) And this is with 'note taking.' Of course I've had to renew at least twice from my library, but hopefully I'll be done in time to drop it off at my library this weekend (I got the physical book. 680 pages). I still have the follow up novel Regenesis to go through though.

Done! :) Always happy to have new friends to gab books with. :)

Liz~In~Colorado wrote: "Hey girl-
Ck this out:
Your compatibility with Carol D is 73%.
CategoryScore
popular90 classics0 popular fiction20 thrillers0 nonfiction80 fantasy90 romance85 science fiction0
I sent a friend req..."

👍 great!!🫶

Up to page 603 now; less than 80 pages left. I'll say more when I get home from work. Er, or post a link to a blog for it and make sure to indicate spoilers in case anyone wants to read the book.

I had to stay up to 3:10 AM but I finished Cyteen! I also wrote my thoughts on it as a review. Now on to the follow up called Regenesis. I may try reading two books since I actually paused reading Forty Thousand In Gehenna as the prior two are library borrows and I own the latter.

Ok. So I'm at that proverbial first page of Regenesis and I have to pause to ask what the hades is wrong with Mazian?!? Here's a partial quote from the book:
Page 1
"...now lacking a safe port."

What the eff was he hoping to accomplish by pirating both Sol/Alliance and Union side? I swear, Rejuve has to do something to the human brain after a while. Make it more prone to craziness as one gets older past the normal, unenhanced lifespan? Or maybe, being afforded such longevity, it just brings forth some hidden or inactive traits, such as greediness or craving more power and influence?

I've only had examples of Mazian and the Nye brothers, I haven't gotten to the other novels yet. Though Mallory seems fairly sane, but aside from Downbelow Station, she's only indirectly referenced, and even there, she's still kind of a mystery character outside of actions observed by others; you don't really 'see' through her eyes except for a couple of very brief passages.

So up to around page 7 or 8, and we learn something new about Cyteen, that while the womb tanks are used, not all women will choose to have their child artificially gestated. Use is usually due to those who for whatever reason can't carry a child or have one and if a person isn't inclined to experience regular pregnancy. Very interesting. I wonder what the population number ratio is for that?

So, a slight change, I'm still reading Regenesis, but I'm doing what I haven't done in over a decade; I'll be reading more than one book this time around. I'd originally paused reading Forty Thousand in Gehenna when I focused on Cyteen, but really, I should have finished that first. However, it's an old habit I curtailed after a while since it originally came from Jr. High and High School when you had to read different texts for different classes, and you had 7 to 8 classes a day. It sort of carried over into my reading habit outside of school, and I'd read up to 10 books at a time. I think a dual read won't tax me too much. *lol*

Mostly, it's because those three novels are closely linked. So buckle up, buttercups!

So for Gehenna, it looks like at this early stage, they know minimal about the flora and fauna. I'm to the part where the species, Caliban, has been introduced in a lecture on board the spaceship ferrying them to Gehenna.

For Regenesis: More of a commentary at this point, I can't help but wonder what kind of childhood Denys and Giraud had. The observations Ari Junior makes about Deny made me think he had some kind of neurosis or maybe some kind of high-functioning autism. My other guess is that being on rejuvenation has some kind of deleterious effect on a person's brain chemistry that they aren't fully aware of, that affects their ability to truly empathize, or perhaps it's something in their gene set? Giraud is slightly less neurotic than his younger brother, but apparently, a good portion of what he does for Denys, he does willingly. According to Ari Jr, he really isn't a 'Special' but Denys is.

It's really fascinating.

I'm alternating, but currently on FTIG. We see a scene where Jin is 'taking tape' (god that term makes me giggle) and I'm remembering something from Cyteen that makes me wonder just how much the tapes Ari provided affected the population after they were abandoned.

Up to page 49 on FTIG. So on that list of secret colonists, my biggest question would be: What the hades is a confessor-advocate?

Ok, so I got a bit side tracked. Latest Trinity book just came out (technically the last in the series). But I'm doing a mulit-read for the first time a a little over a decade or so.

Up to page 63 in Regenesis. A lot of things, I guessed, about a quarter of the way into Cyteen (previous book) seem to be something Ari Jr. is putting together too. Her 2nd Surrogate should have been Yanni, but Giraud blocked that and gave that to Denys, his brother. Makes me wonder what Yanni's true goals are and just how far he can be trusted.

As for FTIG, I'm still at the landing because Regenesis just got more interesting. I'm still wondering what the hades a 'confessor-advocate' is. It sounds both legal and religious all in one.

As for Archangel's Ascension by Nalini Singh(Her Guild Hunters Series), who can resist Illium and Aohdan (bluebell & Sparkles)? I'm around 51 percent in (I'd do pages, but my Kindle says 402 total and the Goodreads Kindle count says 411, making the count off, so the percentage is more accurate.) but this is one of the books I'd been waiting for a very long while. Out of 402 pages I'm on 192

Same with Control's Undoing (the latest - and last co-written book by the Authors in the Trinity Masters/Masters Admiralty series- and I'm on page 87 out of 396 on that one - 21 Percent in).

Add to my book list:

I'm up to page 135 in Regenesis and I'm impressed by the multi-level plotting and politicking is woven into this story so far.

I can't help but wonder at this point, just what Jordan Warrick is trying to get up to. He's really showing out his backside, especially to his 'son'. (who's actually his genetic duplicate via cloning tech). Is it because Justin is showing a more independent streak?

I'm up to around 184 - 185 in Regenesis, and I'm wondering if Jordan will ever stop being antagonistic towards his 'son' (really a replicate of himself) and make peace with Ariane 2. He seems rather focused on the fact that she is a replica of the original Ariane and keeps transferring his enmity towards her. I find it highly illogical and childish.

You know, I'm wondering what was up with that intensity between Denys Nye & Giraud Nye. I get that they were brothers and Giraud was older by 7 years but he seemed a lot more intensely focused on Denys than a protective older brother. At least that what it seemed to me. It was mostly in the background, but you could still 'see' it. I'm a bit curious. Did Giraud consider Denys like a son?

PP 209 - 210
That scene where Ari Jr. is putting her teddy bear away is so heart-wrenching. I feel for her.

Up to PP 214-215 now.

Sorry, I'm a bit slow on Regenesis, I've been writing my thoughts, questions, and favorite parts in one of my notebooks on my Kindle Scribe. I'm currently on page 298. :) (the physical book library borrow) I've gotten to an interesting part and I'm wondering just who put an assassination order out on Dr. Patil and Dr. Thieu. There's still this faceless puppet master behind the scenes in the shadows.

Yeah, I can see why Jordan hasn't gotten any of his old rights or licenses back. I'd be telling him, if you're going to act like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum and drumming your heels against the ground, you're not mature enough or responsible enough to have that kind of responsibility back.

I wonder if Reseune continues with its psychogenesis program all the way to 2654 (which is about the date Forty Thousand In Gehenna ends in). Would they continue to replicate the Specials and certain others?

It's getting really good. I'm up to page 440 - 441. It's looking like somehow Defense might have been involved in the first Ari's death.

Just finished all 585 pages of Regenesis today! Yay! It started really getting interesting about halfway in (the first part's a bit of a slow burn but there's enough subtle intrigue happening to engage one's brain that it's attention catching. Then you get about halfway in and it starts picking up and you have even more questions. There's still enough left that it makes me wish for more stories in and around Cyteen/Reseune and the Union side of things. But I still have to read some of the other books on the Alliance side too.

Just added my review here. I'm going one in my LJ which I'll post to my FB. And I actually learned how to italicize in GR. :D

I'm up to my biography on Margaret Sanger by Mirriam Reed, Ph.D.

Ok. Finished Archangel's Ascension and I'm 34% into Control's Undoing and started the bio on Margaret Sanger by Miriam Reed, Ph.D. That I borrowed from the library. I'm up to page 11 on that one.

Margaret Sanger is definitely an interesting person who was most definitely ahead of her time socially speaking in terms of health care. And very human. Up to page 35-ish. It's interesting to see the environmental health issues we take for granted today was an uphill battle for people, particularly women, at the turn of the 20th Century. Makes you appreciate the world one lives in today (21st Century). Though apparently the Comstock Laws 'doth' linger in one form or another. Now there's a creepy thought. But you have to respect the people who came before and paved the way for those of us who came after.

I had to wait to re-check out the Margaret Sanger biography because my first borrow, I'd extended the borrowing to the max, but I'm currently up to page 105, where early 20th Century Child Labor practices are discussed. I've got multiple library books, so I'm doing a multi-read of the books I have on my current read lists:

The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon (I couldn't resist, I saw it on a post by another Author who was reading it - Mia P. Manansala) and Chaos Lies (Kindle) by Sophie Gabrielle. I love the challenge. I also still have to finish Forty Thousand in Gehenna, but since I own that book, I've paused that one for now.