February 2012 Reading

At the moment I am reading Catherynne M. Valente's In the cities of coin and spice, the sequel to her absolutely fabulous In the Night Garden.

IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Breakfast in the Ruins by Michael Moorcock

Hive Tim Curran's sequel to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness and Nathan Pennington's disaster thriller Bacterium.

Working my way through Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books, a re-read, and I'm loving them, again. I haven't read anything of hers I didn't like.

Read Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds. Most of the stories were fairly good. Of the last story, the title of the book, I wished Reynolds had included most of it in Absolution Gap instead of making it a separate story.

Reamde. Not SF. Yeah, I know.

I finished Ringworld and enjoyed it. The only thing that bothered me and dated it was the attitude towards women, which was probably progressive at the beginning of the '70's but isn't now. I really found the character of Teela really annoying and just wanted them to leave her somewhere so I didn't have to read about her and her luck ever again.

Am now about 1/3 way through A Talent for War and am enjoying it.

I read Young Miles last year and I really didn't like it. I just hated Miles and kept hoping that someone was going to do something horrible to him for me. That's my one foray into Lois McMaster Bujold and I'm not going back for seconds.

#8 by bj> I really found the character of Teela really annoying and just wanted them to leave her somewhere so I didn't have to read about her and her luck ever again.

I think Niven began to feel the same way, given how her luck also boxed him in as a writer. Though the later novels do address it somewhat.

Never read any Bujold but you're kind of reinforcing what I suspected about Miles from what I've heard of the character. Now I'm even less likely to read the series.

Vorkosigan saga nice light fare. I like the ones around his academy days more. I couldn't make it thru Cryoburn

bj> I liked Ringworld Engineers the most of the series. Its had lots of technical stuff and a struggle from a euphorigenic dependancy, both things near and dear. Also. **SPOILER** Your favorite lucky lady Teela Brown (Protector) gets hers :-)

On audio: finished Pandora's Star and started Judas Unchained. I read somehere on LT that Hamilton can't write endings. Well PS didn't have a big finished. Actually had to made sure I had heard the whole file. It would have translated well to film...an assasinated main character on his back in a train station...last thought...could envelopes. You can do that in a series.

Reading Resplendent. Picking n choosing which shorties I read. I have to give my library cudos again for getting me an ILL the 18.5 million miles from Bloomington Indiana to my library in Dover Delaware. Wow! Still messes my head up. Brings a (sniff) tear to my eye.

10) I always liked Miles as a character and all the books except the last one, but I'm pretty sure I'd find him annoying in person. :-)

I got more reading done in the last month than usual but didn't get any of them into these threads, so here's the whole list.

1635: The Eastern Front and 1636: The Saxon Uprising by Eric Flint. The series is getting too big and widespread for me, but I liked these books.

I quit buying books by David Weber about a decade ago but I got Out of the Dark and How Firm a Foundation out of the library. Neither of them changed my mind about buying his books but at least I didn't ask myself why I was bothering to read them every 20 pages or so, so they were an improvement over some of his recent attempts.

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells is fantasy but if you ignore the rare magic I thought it read like some of the more original SF. I really liked it.

After the Golden Age was Carrie Vaughn's take on superheros and I liked it a lot.

Kitty's Greatest Hits was a short story collection from Vaughn's Kitty Norville universe and I liked them too.

Reamde by Neal Stephenson. I liked the first third and the last third, but thought the middle third dragged and that's 300 pages in a 1000 page book to slog through.

Saints Astray by Jacqueline Carey was a worthy ending to her previous book Santa Olivia.

Another author whose books I've stopped buying is Orson Scott Card. Read Shadows in Flight and was glad I hadn't spent money on it. I thought it average at best.

And finally, Legacy of Kings was the final book of C. S. Friedman's Magister fantasy trilogy. I liked the entire trilogy.

edited to correct two!?! mis-spellings of author names.

12 pjfarm: Do you know if there will be a sequel to Out of the Dark? Seemed to be set-up for one.

Currently reading In the Mouth of the Whale by Paul McAuley.

Finished Chanur's Venture by C. J. Cherryh

I read The God Engines by Scalzi yesterday after seeing the reviews here. I had about the same opinion as everyone else, great concise story, immediately engrossing without a lot of nonsensical ancillary "padding". I also think the end was disappointing because of its depressing nature but it certainly avoided a lot of cliches I thought it was headed towards. {I was thinking there would be a " Planet of the Apes Statue of Liberty on the beach moment" ;-) } It ranks just behind The Old Mans War as Scalzi books I consider worth reading.

>13 I hadn't heard anything but it would be atypical if I had. I agree Weber left plenty of room for a sequel but he had pretty much the same ending in The Excalibur Alternative and there's been no sequel for it ten years later.

It could be argued that he had a similar ending for the 'March to the' quadrology but I'd disagree with that. I thought that series described a boy maturing to a man and king so it didn't need the final space battles and thus ended at the right point.

>8, 10: 'Young Miles' is a compilation by the publisher, AFAIK. Reading Bujold's Vorkosigan stories in order of writing - which isn't the same as their internal chronology - might have thinned out the early Miles stories with other stuff that might make you think differently about Bujold's wriitng and her characters. Probably too late now, though.

Reading Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold...

More Chanur The Kif Strike Back by C. J. Cherryh. Now I have to wait...the remaining two Chanur books are in transit :-(

Great book...terrible title...looks like the original title was going to be Chanurs Revenge.

Fomenting revolution with Manuel O'Kelley and company in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

I realized I had read the book long ago after starting, but I have no recollection of the end.

Cinder was an entertaining YA sci-fi, with cyborg Cinder, a skilled mechanic exploited by her stepmother, fixing the prince's android and then trying to help him fix the impending war with Lunar Queen Levana.

>21
I couldnt stand the writing style in that book.
Or as Heinlein would have written that:
Couldnt stand writing in book.

> 11 ok, I'll keep an eye out for a cheap copy of Ringworld Engineers as my library doesn't have it.

>18 I didn't like any of the three stories in Young Miles and wouldn't have liked them even if I had read them on their own. I just didn't like any of the characters and the plots were so contrived. Are these meant to be YA?

Finished The Tales of Pirx The Pilot. Enjoyed all the tales, except for Albatross. That one just fizzled a bit to me. Would have made an okay chapter in some longer book, though. The last story (Terminus) was one of the best "spooky" scifi stories I've read.

23> it's disconcerting for the first few chapters; then you get used to it...by the end of the book, I had to make a concious effort not to talk like that for a while :)

#24

No, I don't think Bujold wrote them as YA nor have they been published as YA. They are all early works though and I think Bujold has improved as a writer. I don't have to like or identify with the characters to like a book, but if you do then I can see why you may have had problems.

#24: Yah. They feel YA to me too but not so much as to not be readable. The Ender books have a similar feel to me but less so.

23&26> I agree with PaulFoley. I found the style distracting at first, but quickly got used to it. I also think Heinlein backed off some as he went on.

I just can't shake the "I've read this before" feeling on every page. I'm sure I actually have read it before, but I unlike the style, it continues to bother me ... oh, the burden of an aging brain ...

Re: Moon is a Harsh Mistress I keep hearing about how bad it is, but I could never see it. I thought it was pretty good.

While reading it I thought the odd wording and diction were to convey a sense of language having changed with time. Either that or he was experimenting with Sandoz or was learning Urdu or something.

Just started 11/22/63. So far so good.

Listening to Firebird an Alex Benedict story.

Couldn't hack the book on tape poor sound quality and reading by Nick Sullivan of Judas Unchained. Sullivan is an irritating reader. Its a good book and I'm gonna try to see if there's a CD version with a new reader and get my library to get it.

Resplendent is turning out to be a great short story collection of Xeelee universe stories.

I've recently read and reviewed Declare (though I wouldn't call it SF) and Logan's Run (? *shrug*).

I've just begun The Long Tomorrow. I'm a fan of Brackett's planetary romances, and this novel of hers comes well-recommended, even if it's in a different vein.

>20: I too have just finished The kif strike back and will start Chanur's homecoming when I get home tonight. I read somewhere (no idea where) that the title "The kif strike back" was the result of a bet or dare with her publisher.

>30

I liked The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, although I also found the language awkward. I'm sure it was mean to be the dialect of a future time and a different culture, but it was still awkward.

Reading Banner of Souls by Liz Williams . Very good so far; striking & original worldbuilding, as usual. I'm not quite sure what's happening yet -- all the better!

Started Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi.

I'm reading Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright. I've never read anything by this author before and I'm not sure I will again. The story is engrossing enough but I'm finding the plenitude of grammatical and spelling mistakes offputting. Now I know some of those could be the publisher's fault but aren't writers supposed to proof read before a book is printed? And at least one of the mistakes (using "effected" when it should be "affected") seems to me the kind of error that a writer who isn't sure of the difference would make. Any comments?

>33
Declare is probably my favorite Tim Powers -- one of the very few fantasy authors I've sampled and liked. Be curious to get your report on The Long Tomorrow. I've heard it's quite good, but haven't read any great amount of Brackett.

The only thing close to sf I'm reading is Inverted Kingdom, translated Japanese Cthulhu Mythos.

>38 Typos and bad editing distract from the story but are sometimes funny. My favorite one recently was in Earthbound where Kuala Lumpur was spelled 'Koala Lumpur' and I can't work out if it was intentional or not but it made me giggle. Come to think of it, that was the highlight of the story for me, the rest was pretty ho-hum and boring.

#40

I'm currently reading Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds. I'm about 2/3rds the way through and it is good so far. Unfortunately a couple of misspelled words have slipped through to the final product. The United Aquatic Nations is the United Aqatic Nations the first time it crops up.

Continuing Vatta's War with Engaging the Enemy by Elizabeth Moon - this space opera series is quite good, I think...

Reading Leviathan Wakes and it's pretty bad. Clichéd and old-fashioned, and more military sf than space opera. It also features an "inverted V" that's wider at the top than the bottom - that's one the line-editor missed.

#43 Really? It's gotten some wonderful reviews.

Which only proves the poor state of genre reviewing...

Just finished off To Say Nothing of the Dog. Very enjoyable. It's probably been 20 years since I last read Connie Willis.

Finishing up The Hunger Games trilogy with Mockingjay. It sure helps that I am borrowing these for free on the Kindle. I wish there were more books I wanted to read in the Prime Library but haven't found any others yet.

Just finished A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky and found both disappointing considering their reputations. They were decent enough books but I feel both could have benefited from some editing, especially A Deepness in the Sky - the pace was entirely too slow for my liking. I thought A Fire Upon the Deep was better - the zones of thought concept was very original and interesting. Moving on to Eifelheim next.

#44. 45

Well I think it is the writers' first long form SF. Daniel Abraham has of course produced well received fantasy, and I think Ty Franck has only had one piece of short fiction published beforehand. Transitioning from fantasy to SF can have its problems.

However from reading stuff like the following on the io9.com review
- "Most of the book is given over to the worldbuilding and intense space station combat you'd expect from military science fiction rather than pure space opera"
- "The book's big reveals are a bit too simplistic"
- "Still, the book is a fun ride and the perfect thing for a long summer afternoon by the beach"
- "Leviathan Wakes" is as close as you’ll get to a Hollywood blockbuster in book form
then it should be pretty clear what you are getting.

I also think it is likely to be written primarily for the US market (although published internationally) where milsf is quite a bit more popular.

Much of the book feels like New British Space Opera never happened. Its universe is entirely US, with organised crime, poverty, manly men and women prostitutes. It's a complete throwback to 1980s space opera. It's the sort of crap we've been spent the past 20 years trying to get away from.

Chanur's Homecoming has arrived and I've started it in the midst of Prepping for Capricon.

#49

Oh dear. I didn't realise that it was that bad for sexual stereotyping and lack of diversity (in a widely populated solar system).

I finished A Talent for War and I really enjoyed it. Think I'll read The Atrocity Archives now.

>52

Just finished The Atrocity Archives and now I am waiting on The Jennifer Morgue before I can read The Fuller memorandum which I got on special. Ha!, my wife walked in the door with the package just as I was writing that!

Nice!

Just started Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi...

Right now I'm working on Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams, a little cyberpunk affair with a dash of Old West spirit. There's the requisite cyber hacking and net jockey stuff, but it also has an interesting set up with the Earth being more or less under the control of orbital colonies following a nasty war. Smuggling across the war-torn landscape of futuristic America is fairly commonplace. I wasn't really expecting much, but it's actually pretty good.

Now reading Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon...

I've just finished The Prague Cemetery and started Reamde. Only 998 pages left. :-)

Finishing up Planesrunner. Love McDonald, but this one may be a bit too YA for me. Emphasis on the Y.

> 59

Huh. I didn't know McDonald wrote YA. I observe that the LT recommendations for the book include no other McDonald novels! I've still got Cyberabad Days and The Dervish House to read at a minimum, before I decide whether to try that one.

#60 I'm very fond of Ian's work, but the YA on Planesrunner is putting me off reading it. I loved The Dervish House.

I loved TDH and River of Gods -- McDonald is right near the top among my current preferred SF authors -- and Planesrunner is quite good if you are a young YA. If you are an adult, you may derive more from his other works. Still, it's fun.

I just started The Service of the Sword

Finished Leviathan Wakes. Not impressed. Will be putting up a review of it later on SFF Chronicles.

Have now started Native Tongue, which I'll review for SF Mistressworks.

Just began Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. My first read of a book by this author.

I have put up my review of Leviathan Wakes on SFF Chronicles here.

Paul McAuley's In the mouth of the whale sounds to have the exact opposite set of issues. It is very much 'New Space Opera' with humanity diverging into clades. Although I have read the previous two books this one dumps you deep into 'what is going on' territory till much needed info dumps finally appear near the end. Some good old classic SF/fantasy for me next with Strahan and Brown's Fritz Leiber selected stories.

I have In the Mouth of the Whale, tho I've yet to read The Quiet War, or its sequel.

#65 majkia
I've had Spin on my shelves since it won the Hugo award but haven't read it yet. I'll be interested to learn what you think of it.

Finished Magic for Beginners and The Dream of Perpetual Motion, now re-reading Red Shift, which I last read when it first came out. I remember being impressed and confused. After Margo Lanagan referred to it in several interviews, I figured it was overdue for a return visit.

#67

Yep - I had loads of fun trying to connect the strands before the reveal towards the end though. Didn't manage it though. Didn't even get close to realising exactly what was really going on even though I had read the previous two books.

Is it necessary to read the previous two books, or can you read In the Mouth of the Whale without doing that?

The McAuley topic is interesting to me since I recently finished Banner of Souls by Liz Williams , and both fit into a sub-genre which I don't know a name for: far-future solar system space opera, with competing factions and various elements of cybertech, biotech, and contrasting cultural/political structures. Two earlier books of exactly this type (I liked both a lot) are The Helix and the Sword by John C. McLoughlin and Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling.

One interesting thing is that the two earlier books, both from the early 1980s, are much more upbeat in tone and positive in outlook. Banner of Souls, and the McAuley series, are darker and more cynical. I like "dark" SF and fantasy, but my favorite is still the McLoughlin book, partly because of its sweeping and lyrical feeling. And who could not love an AI lodged in a panther body, called Pantalog? (Better even than the eponymous cat in Divine Endurance .) Not to mention a far-future SF that unabashedly ends with a Beethoven symphony.

There's a booklist in there somewhere, but after a long career that included many booklists, I'm giving myself a rest, at least for a while..... -- Rick the retired librarian

just finished The Player of Games which I enjoyed, fun stuff. Almost through with The Lathe of Heaven which I'm also liking.

Just finished Erebos by Ursula Poznanski which was a pretty decent YA Sci-Fi thriller. It had some flaws, but was mostly fun. Now I've started a short one, Grave New World. Post-apocalypse with zombies. What's not to like?

#73 Have you tried Ceres Storm by David Herter? It's also very good.

>73
+1 for The Helix and the Sword! I can't help wondering what ever happened to McLoughlin - was he too busy with the day job, or just not marketed well, so didn't get the sales at the time? Either way, it's a great shame he only produced the two SF books (unless anyone knows better?).

I just finished The Lost Fleet: Dauntless and am now starting on The Lost Fleet: Fearless. I can already tell why some have issues with Campbell repeating simple facts, but I've heard he's stated that it's for the benefit of those simply jumping in at any book in the series.

Overall, I'm enjoying the series, but I hear after book 3 it gets a bit tedious.

#72

I don't think that you need to have read the previous two books. In The Mouth Of The Whale is set some 1000 years after the first two books.

#77 I've never even heard of that book, and it was apparently published in the UK. Though that edition has a pretty dreadful cover...

About halfway through The Old Man and the Wasteland on my Kindle ... well-done post-apocalyptic read so far.

Finished The Atrocity Archives which I enjoyed and have started Pirates of Venus. I'm hoping that it's trashy-fun not trashy-bad.

79 andyl

Thanks, maybe I'll give it a try.

>76 Thanks, Ian; I'll seek it out.

>77 I'm not aware of any other SF books, but for those interested in evolution & natural history, he's written several very good books on (respectively) dinosaur evolution, mammal origins, and the canids. Well illustrated, too!
Archosauria
Synapsida
The Canine Clan
Probably a bit dated now, for science books, but fun.

Taking a break from SF - reading heroic fantasy...

Just finished a short story by Lawrence Watt-Evans - Why I Left Harry's All-night Hamburgers

Starting Under the Green Star by Lin Carter.

73> Since I have read and enjoyed all the books you mention bar The Helix and the Sword I will look out for that.

76> I will also give Ceres storm a look...

I've stuck the McLoughlin on my wants list too.

Read an advance reader copy of Caught by Margaret Peterson Haddix, book 5 of her Missing series, and apparently far enough from its publication date that it's not on Touchstones yet.

I'd guess it's written for younger teens so I'm a few years over the target audience. :-) I still thought it was pretty good.

Deals with time travel and Albert Einstein's family when he was in his twenties. And no, Einstein doesn't get to do any time traveling. :-)

I finished Pirates of Venus and I think I've found my all time favourite line in a book:

"Fortunately, I am extraordinarily muscular...."

This all had me laughing out loud so I found this book trashy-fun, not trashy-bad.

68 + 69: I liked The Quiet War and its sequel and some of its shorties and Spin was ok but its immediate sequel Axis I had to bail on.

I picked up an Arthur C. Clarke collection The Nine Billion Names of God after having taken a break from hard sf, and after reading the title story closed the book and haven't been able to pick it back up. Does it get better? Did I miss something? I was terribly disappointed.

Racing with Lorq Von Ray in Nova.

Today is the 100th birthday of the late SF Grand Master Andre Norton, one of my childhood heroines. Here is a personal reminscence of Miss Norton by Sherwood Smith.

Just Finished The Listeners by James E. Gunn. Very enjoyable, although sometimes the relentless quotations can be a bit jarring.

Finished John Scalzi's Agent to the Stars, which was a really fun read. Also, it's available for free online:

http://scalzi.com/agent/

Started A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.

Read This Island Earth, Raymond F Jones on a train trip yesterday. The first half resembles the film, but the second half does not at all. In fact, the name "Metaluna" appears nowhere in the book. Nor does a giant mutant. And it's rubbish too - typical 1950s sexism and nonsense science. Ruth Adams has a doctorate in psychiatry but works as an assistant in personnel! One trip it takes all day to reach the Moon, the next it takes a matter of minutes - in the same spaceship. Earth is apparently a couple of hundred light years from the edge of the Milky Way... Avoid.

Still working on Cryptonomicon, which is, like #7's Reamde, another not-science-fiction Neal Stephenson novel (at least it's not SF the way the term is conventionally understood), taking little breaks to read the odd graphic novel or short story (one of which was Damon Knight's "To Serve Mankind", which I enjoyed so much I wrote up a blog post on it), which is probably why it's taking me so long to finish the Stephenson novel. :/

#100 I'm reading REAMDE and am enjoying it more than I enjoyed Cryptonomicon. REAMDE won't let me take a break and I'm making what is for me great progress through the 1,044 pages.

I've been wanting to take on REAMDE but want to get through the Baroque Cycle and Anathem before tackling it. I'm currently into a fantasy novel but then plan to start in on S. M. Stirling's Change series with Island in the Sea of Time - I've managed to pick up most of the series at second-hand stores so it's time to get reading...

This weekend I finished Chanur's homecoming, a great finale to the trilogy that forms the centre of this series. I'm saving the last Chanur book for later in the year, so I still have it to look forward to. I also read By light alone, an interesting look at what might happen to our world if the need for food were removed. Although I had some quibbles and questions regarding his predictions, I found the plot kept me gripped despite this and it was a good read.

My next read is Cryptonomicon; I would rather read Reamde but can't face the thought of carting that huge hardback to work with me.

#103
I would rather read Reamde but can't face the thought of carting that huge hardback to work with me.

I'm carting it to work and it is paying off as I'm getting through it very quickly. I'm on page 571 having only been reading it for one week. That's good for me. The book is really grabbing me by the collar and dragging me through.

Finished the fifth Wild Cards book, Down and Dirty.

Just read and reviewed Douglas Rushkoff's A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division.

Finished re-reading Red Shift -- am going to have to hunt down the more recent edition to read Garner's introduction -- and started The City of the Sun. Edit: found the intro in Amazon's "look inside."

> 107

I had to click through to see whether you meant Campanella's City of the Sun. It was pretty much science fiction in its day, after all!

I read Carson of Venus and had a good giggle because Carson is one of the dumbest heroes I've read in a long time. It just so funny because I don't think that he's meant to be.

I've moved on to Spin Control and have liked the couple of chapters that I've read so far.

Starting the third Burton & Swinburne book from Mark Hodder Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.

Wrote about This Island Earth, which I read last weekend - see here.

My next is Native Tongue. It is a book I have been interested in reading for a while, but could never find a copy. Ian's post upthread prompted me to look again and I found that there is a new edition.

Just enjoyed Flowers for Algernon though it probably only marginally qualifies as SF, just like After many a summer there's one speculative/fantastical premise introduced but the whole thing was rather an exploration of the writer's present.

Andy, I'm still working on my review, though it's likely it won't appear on SF Mistressworks for a few weeks yet.

I finished up The Doomsday Vault (C-/D+), though it might be more accurate to say I washed my hands of it. One good character trapped in a congealed mess of steampunk tropisms.

Not at all SF, but since the members here are probably more likely to be into alternate history than any of the other groups that I'm in (and since, as it has been said before, the title of these threads is "What are you reading?" and not "What SF are you reading?"), I thought I'd share that I just started The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln.

I ran across this item as I meandered about the Internet, and thought it would interest some here:

"Neil Gaiman has started his own audiobook line called Neil Gaiman Presents. Using Audible’s platform, he’s working with authors and narrators to produce audiobooks of some of his favorite novels that have not yet been produced in audio. I listened to two of his first offerings this week: Light by M. John Harrison and Pavane by Keith Roberts. Light was too dark (that sounds weird) but I enjoyed Pavane. I also read the graphic novel Agatha Awakens, which is the first hardback omnibus of the first three volumes of Phil & Kaja Foglio’s GIRL GENIUS comic. It is absolutely gorgeous and the best way to experience this comic."

Just finished 11/22/63. I liked it a lot. Stephen King finally wrote a coherent ending!

Back to Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (put it down a month ago and and now pressing through it)...

Just finished reading Zoo City. Terrific. Best of the current crop of 2011 SF award winners.

I've just read Jo Walton's Ha'penny which was almost as good as Farthing.

Just finished Grave New World. Pretty standard post-apocalyptic zombie fare. It was entertaining. I'll probably check out the next book when it comes out.

Reading The moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury

Finished reading Resplendent. It was most excellent. I just can't get enough Xeelee universe SF.

Started selected shorties from The year's best science fiction : twenty-second annual collection

Listening to Judas Unchained

Finished reading REAMDE last night. It's a good read, but nothing special.

Just finished The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack. Enjoyed it enough to order the next two in the series, The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man and Expedition to Mountains of the Moon .

Now starting on S. M. Stirling's Change series with Island in the Sea of Time...

Finished The prefect, which I enjoyed as much as Reynold's other Revelation Space books (ie. a lot). It made me laugh that one's ability to speed read is measured on the "Klausner index"! Next up is Polar City blues because apparently I'm still in the mood for SF police procedurals . . .

Still ploughing through Cryptonomicon at work; it's very good but dense, and will take me another week or two to finish.

>127

I'm on the third book now, and the series is maintaining its quality.

I finished Spin Control last night so it just makes it in February. I haven't read the first book, Spin State, but I still really enjoyed this one and didn't have any problems working out what was going on.

I'm not sure what my next book is but I'm thinking of going back to a old one again, maybe Master Mind of Mars just because it is literally on top of the pile next to my bed. The old books are great because they are less than 200 pages and I can get them read in a couple of evenings bringing my number of books read this year up really quickly!

>116 I'll be curious what you think of The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln. It sounded interesting but I have too many other things to do and read if it's only so-so.

Currently reading After The Apocalypse a collection of short stories by Maureen F. McHugh.

>133
Does McHugh's collection live up to the title? I haven't liked the few short pieces I've seen by her over the years, but I'd be interested in giving her another look if the book is full of disaster and apocalypse.

#134

The collection is named after the last story in the collection.

I've only read the first 3 stories. Apart from the first story (which is a zombie story set in the US), the other two are typical McHugh stories. Low-key with personal despair ending on a slight upbeat.

Four of the nine stories are linked to from the Small Beer Press page.

Not sure anymore if I'm still reading SF or Fantasy.
A Santa thing gift Bridge of Birds by Hughart

SF or Fantasy?

Well, I am an old SF reader (55+ years reading SF) and did go on a bit of an 'urban fantasy' jag recently - Jim Butcher , Glen Cook and Kim Harrison

I liked these, amongst the the other "trash" I have read recently. Just check my recent additions to my library.

ETA. Sorry, you might have to go back a little while to find when I added "Cook", "Butcher" et. al.

New month! Move on: http://www.librarything.com/topic/133538

Read The Unorthodox Engineers, Colin Kapp, which I was lucky to find a cheapish copy of. Bit meh. Old-fashioned, even for 1979, with engineers trumping everyone by solving seemingly intractable problems on alien worlds.

Followed it with Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which does not resemble the film very much. Or vice versa.

And then Arkfall, a novella by Carolyn Ives Gilman, which had a really neat setting - the bottom of the ocean on an ice-covered water planet, like Europa - and an interesting society, but never quite generated enough wonder for me.