I've been in a rut recently of not finishing books I've started. But yesterday I picked up and started one that I will certainly finish: Patrick Ness's The Ask and the Answer. This is the followup to The Knife of Letting Go . I really liked Knife as a refreshingly original YA novel, although I thought the ending was really lousy if one cares at all about wrapping things up in a novel, whether it is in a series or not. Much left unresolved with knife. I'm counting on The Ask for some resolution.

Message edited by its author, Nov 3, 2009, 8:55am.

Let us know if it provides it. I've got Knife on my TBR pile here.

Well it moves the story along quite a chunk. Things aren't left in a stable point at the end of The Ask And The Answer. We do understand more of the history however and it is a much better structured book IMO.

Loath as I am to treat fantasy as anything to do with Science Fiction, I'm reading Prachett's Maskerade.

Having fully enjoyed Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games, I am now a couple of stories into The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks. Bloody good.

Well, I've just finished The Last Colony by John Scalzi and am starting up Zoe's Tale.

I'm nearly done with Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. It was slow going at first but I'm really glad I've stayed with it. It's turning out to be really vivid and remarkably moving.

#4

Note that this thread is for what is being read in November, not what SF is being read in November. So, feel free to mention anything you want to here.

Message edited by its author, Nov 5, 2009, 12:23am.

8: In that case, I'm about 120 pages into Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. It's my first by this author, and I'm already very very impressed. Absolutely beautiful writing.

Midnight's Children is one of my favorite books.

Currently reading: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, pretty good so far.

Didn't Midnight's Children win the Booker of Bookers?

I have a reread of Stranger in a Strange Land planned for this month too.

11: Wow, just looked that up and Midnight's Children won the Best of the Booker prize TWICE.

I knew it had won the Booker, although that's not why I chose it - I've found a few to be disappointing, or at least undeserving. This however, does not seem to be one of them.

Oops, got it a bit wrong, MC won the Best of the Booker and then the Booker of Bookers.

Message edited by its author, Nov 5, 2009, 9:05am.

Just started The Eternal Prison today.

> 13 Have you read The Electric Church? If so, please let me know your opinion of Eternal Prison in comparison.

Nope, this is my first Somers book, courtesy of a blog giveaway.

Here's hoping it can stand on its own and I won't be lost for not having read the first two books.

Last night I finished Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. This was my first introduction to the author and I'm happy to say he did not disappoint. I loved the alternate world he created where steam-driven machines and bio-engineered creatures exist on the eve of the First World War. I really enjoyed following the adventures of Alek, son of the Hapsburg heir, and Deryn, a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service as the war erupts around them forcing their paths and lives to cross. Leviathan may be young adult, but it's also very well written. Strongly recommended.

#16 - thanks for the comments. I just bought it and plan to read it. After nanowrimo of course.

Posted this is the wrong month, will re-post here.

I just finished Terminal Cafe by Ian McDonald. Like a dark stained glass window that is broken into shards. The shards, assembled in no order, are the story fragments. Pretty incomprehensible, waste of an interesting idea.

Now starting The Repossession Mambo by Eric Garcia for a RL book group. Black humor about a repo man who works repossessing artificial organs from those who have fallen behind in their payments ...

Yesterday I read The Women of Nell Gwynne's by Kage Baker. It's a novella about prostitute spies in a steampunk London. It was entertaining, but very slight.

#18

And like a lemming I followed FicusFan.

I've just finished Winter Song by Colin Harvey which was competent but wasn't a particularly ambitious novel. The Snow Queen is probably next on my list.

Just started Christopher Priest's The dream archipelago, which draws together many of his linked stories from the past twenty/thirty years.

(Cross-posted from October, where I'd erroneously posted but was unable to correct before someone blew me a raspberry...)

I'm about 39% into Oryx and Crake. I really need to find more time to read it, although it's somewhat slow.

I just finished Ellen Hopkin's Crank and am about to start Jon Krakauer's Where Men When Glory.

nanowrimo! woot!

I'm reading Eifelheim for my book group. I picked it up back when it was a Hugo nominee, but had to return it to the library only partly read.

#22

Thirty nine percent is a rather precise amount. Did you use a calculator to work that out?

Just finished up Madhouse (B+), a worthy addition to the series.

Finished Zoe's Tale, moved on to The Android's Dream and finished it. Now I'm working on The Gathering Storm. I liked the sarcastic, dry wit from Zoe's Tale that was missing from The Last Colony. The Android's Dream was a lot of fun to read (although my significant other was less amused by my interrupting their reading to read aloud passage after passage)

Currently reading The Quiet War. I've always enjoyed McAuley's writing, but I need to catch up on his last few books.

I'm re-reading an old favourite, The Dragon in the Sea by the late Frank Herbert. Actually it seems kind of dated now, but it's still a good story.

Just finished The New Space Opera 2, edited by Jonathan Strahan & Gardner Dozois. I like space opera - it's the sub-genre which got me into sf, and some space opera books remain among my favourite sf novels. When "New British Space Opera" appeared, I knew it to be a good thing. But over a decade later, and I'm not so sure. Because there's little that's "new" about this anthology. Half of its contents could have been written twenty or thirty years ago. There are some good stories in it, but most are bland and dull and seem to have forgotten what it is that made "New (British) Space Opera" interesting. As for the back cover blurb's "some of the most beloved names in science fiction"... beloved? Wtf does that mean?

26

Plucker for one will tell you how far into a book you are to the nearest percentage point.

Just finished reading The State of the Art collection by Iain Banks, of which several stories were interesting. A good mix of humour and gravitas. The title novella was delightful, examining the Culture's take on Earth circa late 1970s...and when a Contact rep goes native, well, Banks gave himself great opportunity for social commentary, and runs with it.

Just picked up Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I think it is just because it was on a lower shelf. This should be a quick read so perhahps I'll still get to Playgrounds of the Mind or Harvest of Stars or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress before Thanksgiving.

Just about to start The Ebb Tide by Blaylock. Especially good as I didn't pay for it - it was a competition (on tor.com) win.

re: #1-#3

I finished up another novel before diving into The Ask and the Answer.

I am really enjoying The Ask and the Answer. The first book in the series was truly chaos, walking or otherwise. This is a much more compartmentalized book. As Andyl noted, it really does move the story along quite a bit. I also agree that it is a better book, but the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, really laid the groundwork for this. It continues to keep one's anticipation at a high level for the development of the story and events. I'm a bit more the 2/3 through the book.

re: #16 The comment about Leviathan really caught my interest and it is now on my wishlist for the future. Has anyone read other Scott Westerfeld novels? How good (or not) is he? I saw a handful of his books on the YA shelves at the library.

Message edited by its author, Nov 11, 2009, 2:29pm.

> 35

I've recently read a number of Westerfield's books (the Uglies series, the Peeps series, and the Midnighters series.

Clearly I like him well enough! I do think that he reads very YA (not all YA does), so if that's not your taste, you might not love him. But I found both the Uglies and Peeps series to be quite addictive. Midnighters was more mediocre.

I'm currently reading another YA sci fi series, Gone (which I finished a couple of days ago) and the sequel, Hunger.

Reading second in Stephen Baxter Manifold series, Manifold; Space. Hard sf, sometimes confusing concepts, but fascinating. First is Manifold; Time, third is Manifold; Origin.

I finally finished The Repossession Mambo by Eric Garcia. It is a SF book for a RL book group. Strange symmetry with the Health Care debate.

In the future commerce runs the show, to the point that they will sell you an artificial organ, at usurious rates of interest, and if you default they send out the Repo man who will extract your organ(s) and leave you dead - all legally protected.

It was full of black humor, and it had a SF premise, but it didn't do much with it, and it was too long.

I'm currently reading "The Family Tree" by Sheri S. Tepper. Its slow going but but it passes my 50 page chuck rule

I suppose Patrick Ness fans all know this, but I didn't. There is a prequel to The Knife of Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer available for free online to read or download as an ebook. Here is one of several places to get it:

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/show/feature...

It is a story about Viola's crash on New World.

#30: Give it a few more years and it might not seem so dated! At least in terms of the scenario.

I also knocked off Monster (B).

Read and reviewed Hover Car Racer by Matthew Reilly. Just to ruin any shred of reviewer credibility that I have on LT, I decided it was worth a 4/5.

I'm struggling to read The Illuminatus! Trilogy right now. Yes, there are lots of ideas there. Yes, it is funny. But it's the first book I've ever read where the prose seriously interferes with the storytelling. The narrative jumps between different characters and different periods of time, sometimes within the same paragraph, and the huge cast of characters and viewpoints makes the story even more difficult to follow.

I think this is one book I'm going to have to give up.

I've just read Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. It was okay, but didn't blow me away like Sunshine did. There was much too much of Beauty and her family and how they were so happy in their cottage in the woods, and not nearly enough interaction between Beauty and the Beast for it to be convincing when she decided she loved him.

> 44 Beauty is a much better retelling (from the same author), in my opinion. While I like Rose Daughter well enough, I don't think it's one of McKinley's best.

I'm not sure if Dean Koontz is a guilty pleasure, but I generally enjoy his writing. Currently reading The Taking and liking it enough to continue. Writing is a bit over the top (florid prose), even for Koontz, but that's OK sometimes. I like the story idea. End of the world.

@43 Rojse: I too bogged down in The Illuminatus trilogy. I do intend to finish it some time, but it would have somehow been easier to read in the 1970's...

The Stainless Steel Rat is Born total fluff but enjoyable

#47

I don't care what period it is read, the large cast of characters and constant time-hopping does not make for easy reading.

It is a pity, because it did show a lot of potential...

Just finished an all-time classic. Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers by Harry Harrison. A lampoon of the Golden Age, which rips familiar tropes to shreds. You need to have read a bunch of 1950s and 1960s stuff to appreciate it fully.

ETA: Review

Message edited by its author, Nov 21, 2009, 7:49am.

#50, I'm fairly sure it's a direct lampoon of one of the Morie & Wade books by John Campbell, "As the Black Star Passes". It's been a lot of years since I read either, but that's what popped into my head.

As an editor, I think Campbell was really into all his writers doing the 'WASPs good & smart, aliens evil or dumb' thing & it upset some of the authors that he turned down or squeezed. He was very influential.

#51> You just killed any desire I had to ever read Star Smashers. I had such great expectations for Black Star Passes...and I hated it...

#52> Sorry about that. I actually enjoyed both, but I was quite young when I read about Morrie & Wade. I loved the Lensmen, too. I read Harrison's book in the late 70's or early 80's, I think, about 10 years after Campbell's books. I thought it was great fun. You could practically hear the holes being poked in the various prejudices, especially at the end.

I may yet pick it up, if I find it cheap ;)

Completed or discarded this month:

A Lonesome Night in October by Roger Zelazny, found it during a library browse. Told from the view of their animal familiars, a bunch of supernatural-ish characters gather to prepare for a Halloween night battle for (of course) the fate of the Earth. Basically a children's Halloween fable, made more so by the animations by Gahan Wilson. Liked it more than I expected to.

Prospero's Daughter by L. Jagi Lamplighter. More than four hundred years after the events of Shakespeare’s "Tempest" the sorcerer Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and his other children have attained everlasting life. One day, Miranda receives a warning from her missing father and sets out to find and warn her estranged siblings. Basically the author took all the magical, mythical and legendary things she has ever heard of and dumped them into one narrative. Angels, demons, elves, dragons, Father Christmas, Norse mythology, Dante's Inferno, The Odyssey, etc. A bit choppy as it jumps back and forth between action sequences and meeting yet more family members and back-stories. A fast inconsequential read, I will be looking for the sequel.

Discarded Nightlife, Rob Thurman, after a hundred pages or so. Characters were interesting concepts terribly executed. Not worth the time I wasted. For a much more stylish version of the "I'm a good monster fighting the bad monsters that are secretly all around us in the world" I suggest the recent Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. The plot may just as shopworn but a lot more fun with tons of style.

Singularity's Ring by Paul Melko. Picked it up based on the excerpt "Singletons in Love" however many years ago in Dozois. Until this I never really knew how annoying the "pod-mind" concept could be. Five kids, each with a single faceted personality constitute the perfect, well-rounded pod entity. Intellectually they're kids? Tweens, or something? But they're having sex? This would have come off better as a straight YA novel I think.

Discarded Dies the Fire, S.M. Stirling, after 50 pages or so. When some magical event renders all technology and gunpowder useless, survivalists and LARPers take over the earth After like three weeks. Nobody has died, mind you, it just appears that the government and everyone else in country simultaneously comes to the conclusion "Oh my, it's a Wiccan with a sword! That's change I can believe in!" I'm into post apocalyptic fiction but "Oh goddess!" Excrement.

Currently reading:

The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny 1 : Threshold Didn't know these collections were out there until last month. I had forgotten how much I like Zelazny. Haven't read most of this stuff for twenty years or so. Some great stuff work in the first volume, including "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" and "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth." His poetry is included as well for completeness sake which is more interesting than enjoyable.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

and Faust again.

ed. to fix a touchstone

Message edited by its author, Nov 18, 2009, 9:33pm.

#49: Rosje, what I meant to say is that in the 1970's, in my late teens/early 20's, I had a much higher tolerance for non-linear writing than I do now. I loved William Burroughs, and Moorcock's Cornelius Chronicles. Illuminatus would have fit right in.

#56

I don't mind non-linear writing at all. I just don't like it when it is incoherent.

I finished Little Brother a couple of days ago. Not only was the book an enjoyable read, I raced right through it, and look forward to re-reading it in a few years. Highly recommended for ages 13+. My copy was an ARC and there were two afterwords and a bibliography and an acknowledgment following the novel. Does anyone know if all of this got into the trade edition?

Now reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. First time, too!

I'm reading Bruce Sterling's collection, Visionary in Residence, right now without much enjoyment.

#59

There's only one solution for that - get another book to read.

Just finished Risk by Dan Gardner. (Non-fiction. Subtitled: The Science and Politics of Fear.) Highly recommended, but the style is incredibly dry.

Read and reviewed Mindswap. It's been quite a while since I have read a book with such varying quality. Some parts are excellent, others are excrement.

Started on World Made By Hand:A Novel by James Howard Kunstler; I seem to be in a dystopian state of mind these reading days. A tale of the near future in a small community.

As these things go, this is a slow, richly drawn novel so far. I'm several chapters in. After The Ask and the Answer and The Taking this month, this is a 180 turn on pace and approach for me.

ETA:Touchstones

Message edited by its author, Nov 22, 2009, 4:22pm.

Read The Ask and the Answer and was rather thrilled with it.

Finished Gathering Storm, it felt a bit different than the previous ones. Which is probably a bit of Brandon Sanderson vs Robert Jordan and partly because I haven't read the others in 3 or 4 years.

I've gone back and continued reading Roger Zelazny's The Great Book of Amber, although I'm having a hard time getting through it. I'm throwing in Phule's Paradise for some fun while I'm at it.

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2009, 2:26pm.

#64

I thought the Ask and the Answer actually made the first book a better book. I was really frustrated when The Knife of Never Letting Go ended the way it did. That is no way to end a novel, series or not. It is the way to end a TV show cliffhanger but not a novel. But The Ask really built off of all that was set up in Knife. It is an exciting series.

Message edited by its author, Nov 25, 2009, 10:52am.

> 66

Yeah, I agree! I felt like The Ask and the Answer was both a better structured and more interesting book. The pacing was nice, I was very invested in the characters and who they were becoming, and I thought that some of the exploration of ideas - especially what it means to a society when men's thoughts are heard, but women's are not - were very interesting.

I think you're right that I view The Knife of Never Letting Go with more interest now (I liked it the first time, but I didn't LOVE it). Especially in terms of Mayor Prentiss' history, who we trust and who we don't, and what the cyclical nature of mistakes we make.

I'm eager to see where he goes with the third!

Message edited by its author, Nov 25, 2009, 9:44am.

I see The Ask and the Answer is up for a Costa Book Award.

I've just finished The Edge of Reason by Melinda Snodgrass. It was a pleasant surprise.

Just finished The Flood by Ian Rankin. (Review.)

His first novel, and it shows. OK - but nothing to write home about.

I am now reading The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan. So far I am enjoying it. Loved his SF stuff, and got the PB from the UK for this book.

Reading Makers, the new Cory Doctorow novel. Liking it a lot.