May 2014 Reading

What?!? Four days into the new month and there's still no May thread? No matter - that's easily rectified.

I'm still working on The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies (Clark Ashton Smith) which is, well... fantastic! How about you?

ETA: Author touchstone

Just finished Cyberstorm, by Matthew Mather. This was a reasonably good thriller by a reasonably good writer, trying to document what might happen in New York City when a cyberstorm and a snow storm both hit at once. The ending wound down a little suddenly, and not very believably, as if the author wanted to hurry the book onto the market before someone else got there with the same idea. The book's front matter indicated that a movie deal for this book had been made, so maybe Hollywood will fill some of the holes left in the plot and come up with a better ending. I gave it 3 stars.

I just finished Ken MacLeod's Descent. Very interesting and, as with all Ken's books, of particular interest to the politically aware.

I'm been going slowly through Nova Swing with many distractions from other reading, but I think I've hit the final sprint, and I'll probably wrap it up in a day or two.

Now reading Queen of the States for review on SF Mistressworks.

Just read The Ship who Sang by Anne McCaffrey; trying to write a review for SF Mistressworks (and the own blog).

Currently reading Undertow by Elizabeth Bear as well as Tricia Sullivan's Maul.

Started The Margarets. My first Sheri Tepper. Pretty good so far.

This morning I read an anthology of Christopher Anvil stories called The Trouble with Humans, a selection of early Cold War era stories full of alien conquerors squaring off against that plucky human race. It wasn't very good, especially in terms of the un-alien aliens and the utter lack of female characters (with or without lines). On the other hand, some of the naive 1950s-1960s pulp approach was mildly amusing, especially in its preoccupation with the West vs. East narrative. I was also entertained by the assumptions that spacefaring civilizations would look human enough to blend in, or have a technology roughly equivalent to that of a post-WWII USA.

Working on A Rising Thunder by David Weber...

Listening to The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough. If you like your sci-fi set in a post-apocalyptic world, with political intrigue, space stations, mercenary scavengers with their hearts in the right place, and even zombie-like infected humans, this is a decent book. No aliens yet but they could be on their way.

I'm rereading Inversions. When I read it before I hadn't read any other Culture books, so I expect to notice more detail this time around.

Well, about SF-reading in May. Just finished Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett (= Fantasy, I know). I'm know digging into The Player of Games by Ian M. Banks who sadly passed away at a way to young age in 2013. I'm only 20 pages into the novel but already having a fun time reading about his typical Culture society. After reading Consider Phlebas and The Algebraist a few months back, i'm turning into a huge fan.

The Elysium Commission by L.E. Modesitt was a fun sci-fi thriller. Lots of action, evil and crazy characters, and the mixed up but lovable private eye-type with a protective older sister who has a business partner who is just too good to be true.

The Finisher by David Baldacci - girl barely survives in a post-apocalyptic village where the leaders control by fear using magic. She challenges the system and does she have a hard time. There's magical mystical dangerous critturs too. The story has good pacing and I can hardly wait for the next book. Character development good for the main character, but sketchy for most of the secondary and tertiary characters. Yes, it is a teen book, but, like Crater by Hickam, will appeal to adults who like action. Has a slight steampunk feel. Also feels a little like the movie The Village by Shyamalan.

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin - listened to the audiobook narrated by Oliver Wyman. He is a very good narrator, makes every character sound unique (& this book had plenty of characters) and can do male & female voices equally well. As for the book - felt like a batch of short stories strung together with overlong descriptive and philosophical passages. Some of the stories were entertaining - the initial love story, the cross country hitchhiking with a crazy dwarf, but at the end it did not feel like it was worth the journey. However, the author has a fantastic way with the turn of a phrase. Sometimes lyrical.

> 13 Baldacci does Science Fiction ?? I love his "Camel Club" series having read 4 of 5 in the series. His style of writing is easy and satisfying. The Finisher sounds like a book I would like to read...I shall be looking for it.

About halfway through Sacrifice of Fools by Ian Mcdonald. Not a bad take on race and gender.

Back to rereading Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks...

You clearly mean Reconsider Phlebas.

Not SF but I am reading The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku which has cutting edge stuff that I am sure will be extrapolated into SF themes. Very interesting so far { first 40 - 50 pages}, he visits the actual labs where the work is being done in some cases so far and speaks with the researchers. I can only read it in small time segments at this time so it is a slow go

>17 anglemark: Nice one.

>18 DugsBooks:: Michio Kaku is One Of Us.

We went to see him at the Hay Festival a couple of years ago. Hay is very much a top-drawer literary festival, so when Michio opened his talk with "How many people here read science fiction?", it was no surprise that only about 15% of the audience put their hands up (us included).

His response was "To those with their hands up - well done! To everyone else - GET WITH THE PROGRAMME!"

>20 RobertDay: Cool...

Back to reading some Sci Fi and latched onto an oldie in the used bookstore, The Guardians of Time by Poul Anderson ...the first complete edition.

Just finished V-S Day by Allen Steele.

Started The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey.

Reading some fantasy for a change - God Stalk.

#24 You realize of course that at no time should you compare Avatar to Dragonriders of Pern as there is copious amounts of legal verbiage denying any resemblance between the two. ;-)

I have bogged down 2/3 of the way through Empty Cities of the Full Moon by Howard V. Hendrix. It's both over-long and disjointed. Books cut up between multiple timelines and places are a hard sell to me anyway - I prefer a more direct tale - but I can live with that and have loved some of them. Also I tend to like postapocalyptic fiction. What really ruined it for me was the endless pseudo-scientific jargon to try describing how the bio-tech plague resulted in the mystical lifestyle of shamanism, shapeshifting, and mind-travel. I think he's trying to write hard SF. One of the last straws for me was:
"In pumping up neural gain and brain chaos, the trigger reformats the state space attractor in your head - enough that its energy does one of two things, as nearly as I can figure it. Either the gun's 'firing' quantum-mechanically 'opens out' the individual's ontogenetic and mythologic surround from the holographic field where that information is stored, or - and this is the more likely option when you consider what the psi circlets do - the energy of that shifted-around state space attractor becomes detectible by the nanomechanical complements of the prionoid the pandemic loaded up into us."

Really!
By 300 pages of this, I've lost interest in what happened, what's going to happen, and how the characters or their world make out. I'll hold on to the book for a while in case I drum up enough interest to skim the rest. Meanwhile I've read a very good fantasy by Michael Sullivan, and am now clearing my palate even further with the second-to-last Aubrey/Maturin book of Patrick O'Brian.

Just finished the excellent love minus eighty. I am very surprised it does not seem to have garnered any awards. It desverves a wider audience.

>27 rshart3:; That's not hard SF, that's difficult-to-the-point-of-bloody-impossible SF.

Since there seem to be lots of Fantasy book readers this month (not to mention YA), I'm not too embarrassed to mention that I just finished Poison Study. It was more enjoyable than most of the YA stuff that I have picked up since The Hunger Games, but the rest of the series has been fairly universally panned, so I won't be going on with it.

>27 rshart3: You managed to read 300 pages of that?!?

some interesting books mentioned in here. And I had no idea Baldacci writes SF. Hope to start on Andy Weir's The Martian tonight. Recent SF read was Garbiel Mesta's (aka Kevin Anderson when he is writing in a good fun mode) The Martian War about H.G. Wells which I really enjoyed more than I should have. Also the third "Last Policeman" book by Ben Winters (also good) as well as Heinlein's Door Into Summer which disappointed.

>32 RBeffa:

Speaking of Kevin J. Anderson and H.G. Wells - has anyone here read a collection that he (Anderson) edited called War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds:_Global_Dispatches)? Always wondered if that was as interesting in execution as the concept ("each story envisions a famous individual's reactions to the Martian invasion and the impact of the invasion on a different part of the world" - Wikipedia) was.

>32 RBeffa: Why were you disappointed with Door into Summer?

I'm currently re-reading it, and I realize that memory and age has much to do with it. It's easier to forgive things having grown up in the era the book was written in. I'm still enjoying it, but I loved it when I first read it (and it was newly published). There's much not to like about his later works, but I read this one every now and again.

...I just read your review. I suspect that having the love of tech may have made this a more pleasant experience for me.

>34 Lyndatrue: My review pretty much covers my reaction. I did really enjoy the Pete the cat stuff a lot. But compared to other Heinlein juveniles I thought this was pretty weak. and the creepy part which gets more creepy the more you think about it.

I both enjoy The Door into Summer and recognize that yeah, it gets creepy.

I'm reading an ARC of The Girl in the Road.

Finished The Ship who Sang (and reviewed it), read The Dark Griffin by new to me writer K. J. Taylor, which was a decent enough fantasy novel. Also bought and read Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots and Velveteen vs the Multiverse, Seanan McGuire's superhero crackfic series. Finally, Undertow, which I'd started last month.

Now I need something with a bit more substance to read. Any suggestions?

>30 vwinsloe: I'm a huge Maria Snyder fan and I loved the poison series. I actually enjoyed all 3 books in the series. The next series, the Glass series I didn't enjoy as much. She also has a good SF duology, Inside out, Outside In.

>32 RBeffa: The Martian is by far my favorite book this year and I think it's going to clean up on year-end awards.

I'm currently still working on The Flight of the Silvers by Daniel Price which is fascinating and weird and really engrossing.

>38 tottman: I've heard from a lot of people that The Martian is not very good. I also suspect Weir doesn't have the profile among the Hugo electorate to get nominated. I'll be very surprised if it appears on any shortlists.

I am half way through The Guardians of Time by Poul Anderson and frankly I'm struggling to get through it. Yes it is juvenile but sheesh... the plot lines are dummied down to nothing and almost zero character development.

Actually on thinking I cannot remember the last time I read a really good time travel book. I guess that would be the Island in the Sea of Time by S.M Stirling though the subsequent books were not as good.

29 & 31:
Yeah, it IS a bit embarrassing to have read so much. The initial premise was interesting, and some parts of the world he built. I kept hoping it would pull out of that stuff and get better. Instead, it got worse.

I used to hate dropping books, and the further in I got, the more determined I was - like I'd be wasting the time already invested if I stopped. I still do that to some extent, but I've improved.

Reading Greenwar by Steven Gould and Laura J. Mixon, a "20 minutes into the future" techno-thriller with an environmental theme.

As a follow up to his collection Lovers & Fighters, Starships & Dragons, I've started Tom Purdom's Five Against Arlane. (And, yes, it does seem to be set in the same universe as the story "Haggle Chips" from the collection.

Robert Frezza, Cain's Land

>43 RandyStafford: Five Against Arlane sounds like an old Ace double title I thought, and sure enough ... Purdom has sure had a long writing career. I read three different stories by him in Asimov's magazine last year. I also have a story by him in Pohl's Star Science Fiction from 1959 ... and quite a few in between.

>38 tottman: As for Andy Weir's The Martian, I read the first 100 pages last night and only stopped because I couldn't keep my eyes open. It's different. I'm enjoying it.

>45 RBeffa: Purdom has been published since 1957, but he hasn't done a novel since 1972 and now finally has a collection out. I like his work since discovering him in 2001.

Currently reading Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor. A first contact novel set in Lagos.

Finished God Stalk. Not bad, learning curve a bit too steep which may be why it's not been that popular. Now reading a "long-unpublished" novel by Frank Herbert called High-Opp, and I can see why it was never previously published

I gave up on The Guardians of Time by Poul Anderson. It just could not keep my attention.

I would say Andy Weir's The Martian deserves the praise it has gotten. Very fun read. 4+ stars. I wrote a very brief review. I can understand some people not caring for it, but I can also see this one as a gateway to pull casual science fiction readers or non-readers into the genre. This will be one of the better books I read this year.

>39 iansales:

You must know different people than I do because pretty much everyone I know who has read The Martian has really enjoyed it, myself included. Though I agree it probably won't end up on any awards lists, that's just the state of genre awards these days. I reckon it might still pop up if it manages high sales figures.

51 Most of the nominees for this year's lists are out already. If it has a 2012 publication date it won't be eligible for many of the remaining.

>51 beniowa: Most of the people I know through Twitter or blogs who have read it weren't impressed. The only praise for it I've seen has actually be here and on GoodReads (and the Amazons too, of course).

>52 justifiedsinner: I was at the Del Rey launch for it at World Fantasy Con last November, so it's already missed the big genre awards. Having said that, it was self-published a year or two earlier, so it might not have been eligible anyway.

>49 Lynxear: Shame. I loved those stories when I read them a couple of years ago, but then I'm a sucker for that sort of time travel story.

So far this month I have read The Time Machine (which I didn't like as much as The Invisible Man) and The Outcasts of Heaven Belt. Maybe Comet in Moominland should count too, as a pre-cursor of sf movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact?

>54 MartinWisse: Shame? Simply because I have outgrown some juvenile SciFi?

I think "Shame" here was shorthand for "What a shame".

hahaha...open to interpretation

>57 anglemark: that's right.

You see I am 64 years old and back in my day "Shame" meant "Shame on you" .... You, Martin, seem to be of a much younger generation...different slang for the same words. Like referring to someone's actions as being "sick" as in "That is sick!" In my day that was like saying "you are crazy in a disgusting way" not the way it is meant now.

Lots of room for misunderstanding, right!

After reading Tom Purdom's Five Against Arlane, I flipped the Ace Double over and am reading Lord of the Green Planet by Emil Petaja. I am not enjoying it. (The Science Fiction Encyclopedia seems to think highly of Petaja though.)

>61 RandyStafford:

I read both sides of that Ace double and don't remember anything about either one. Actually I have a lot of books that I don't remember anything about, including books read in the last five years.

Also a bit of transatlantic misunderstanding? US vs UK usage?

{sigh} I am Canadian...not American :) Differences there too

I have finally got round to reading the last of my outstanding Early Reviewers books, Wasps at the Speed of Sound. I really enjoyed the second story about a journalist visiting a nature reserve in Madagascar, accompanied by an alien who is visiting earth. Such a fantastic story - I just have to hope that the rest of the collection lives up to it.

Finished Emil Petaja's Lord of the Green Planet and now reading The Cusanus Game by Wolfgang Jeschke.

Almost done with Ancillary Justice. Not bad, although pacing is VERY uneven.

struggling with The Kassa Gambit

Just finished Rebel Heart by Moira Young, #2 in the Dust Lands series. First one is Blood Red Road

Distopian trilogy for fans of Hunger Games

I would highly recommend the story collection Adam Robots by Adam Roberts which I have just finished - while a few stories baffle, there is invention aplenty in most. Just started Jo Walton's Half a crown, which has taken 6 years to appear in paperback....

Finished Ship of Fools (aka Unto Leviathan) by Richard Paul Russo. Very effective SF Horror. Onto The Time Traveler's Wife and hoping it's not too Chick-Litty.

Lest Darkness Fall, L. Sprague de Camp. The book I read was published by Ballantine Books in 1949. The story is strongly reminiscent of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court," but in this case our hero, Martin Padway, doesn't go back to Medieval Europe, he goes back to sixth century Rome. In Twain's version the hero introduces late nineteenth-century technology to early Europe to great effect, and in de Camp's version Padway introduces mid-twentieth-century technology to Rome, but with far less impact. His main goal, now living in the era of the late and decaying Roman Empire, is to avert the onset of the dark ages.
How he gets backward in time is a little vague, having something to do with time distortions that occur in historically significant places, with a mention of the fact that people do disappear and no trace is ever found of them afterward. The "how" doesn't seem as important in the story as the effect it causes, and, as in Twain's story, we do get to meet quite a few historic figures, some of them amusing and quite stupid. For today's reader the story may move a little slow in places, especially in the early going, but it does build to an effective ending, with an important battle, well described. I consider this a better than average Science Fiction story for its time, and rate it at four out of a possible five stars.

>72 KenDoggett: I think it was actually written as a response to Twain's story?

Probably not as a response, but as a modernized version perhaps. I'm assuming he was recognizing Twain's story as a classic, and paying homage to it. The book I had doesn't mention it.

Continuing Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's war series with the third book, Engaging the enemy.

Finished The Windup Girl, starting Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.

Finished The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies. My review is here:

http://www.librarything.com/work/14340042/reviews/103855363

About halfway through Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. Don't know much about Campbell's work but he really seems to have known what he was doing when he wrote this one.

I read The Ultimate Weapon by John W. Campbell years ago. I think it was written in the 1930s. It wasn't much on characterization, but I loved the story, and just read it again recently.

I actually finished a novel this month in the from of the approved translation of Roadside Picnic (A-).

Finished When Gravity Fails good but I would have liked it better if I had not read Jon Courtenay Grimwood's trilogy first.

>78 KenDoggett:

Oooh! Looks like that's up on Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23790

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll have to make it a point to check it out. :)

>81 artturnerjr: >78 KenDoggett: Thanks Ken for that Gutenberg link...I read the first chapter in HTML and it is amazing to me how well The Ultimate Weapon by John W. Campbell held up considering the book was written almost 80 years ago.

>78 KenDoggett: >81 artturnerjr: Thanks just added to my to read list.

I actually had that paperback when I was in the US Army in the mid sixties. I kept it for years, but I don't now know what happened to it. Now I own the ebook version. I think it was free at Amazon.com. You might check it out there.

#79 Shrike58
"I actually finished a novel this month in the from of the approved translation of Roadside Picnic (A-)."

A translator of Roadside Picnic is a member of LT and actually had a topic heading on the subject some time ago.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/135839

As we come to the end of the month - I'm midway through a Nancy Kress's collection Fountain of Age - good stuff, maybe not great all the way through but worth the reading in any case.
Also this month I read The Alteration by Kingsley Amis, in the NYRB edition. Kind of fun, kind of thought-provoking. Amis was definitely up on his science fiction, and it shows in this one. Suggestion: if you're going to read this one, avoid the blurbs, and save William Gibson's introduction for last. It's a lot more fun if you get the story from Amis.

In my quest to read as many Tiptree winners and shortlist as possible I'm now well into Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo and enjoying it immensely. She has a very light touch and quirky humour.

I'm reading a juvie.... Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce...

Urth of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe. Just wonderful.

Taking a stab at The Ultimate Weapon by John W. Campbell.

Before the end of May I sped through the final two volumes in Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War series: Command decision and Victory conditions. I liked them -- they weren't excellent, but what they set out to do they did to satisfaction. I'll probably read more by Moon in the future.

Finished Jeshcke's The Cusanus Game, a very good time travel novel which I should have a review done for sometime this week. Now I'm reading the William Nolan edited collection, with the thoroughly awful cover, The Future Is Now

That's a really disturbing cover.