September 2014 reading

A new month: time for a fresh thread!

After speeding through the series The Shipwrecks of Ythaq, I'm now rereading Sheri S. Tepper's Grass.

Currently reading Fortune's Pawn. All feeling a bit derivative at the moment.

Started Lock In by John Scalzi today. Only about 100 pages in, but I think he's got another winner here. Scalzi is just stupid good. I think he's my favorite writer working today.

Still reading Manifold: Space by Stephen Baxter...

I'm currently reading All Those Vanished Engines by Paul Park.

>5 andyl: That's near the top of my TBR. Big fan of his writing. (Apparently I've already read a third of the novel, anyway.)

>7 imyril: I'm tiptoeing back into the Southern Reach to find out how it all ends in Acceptance. Considering I bought Annihilation on pure whim because the jacket was pretty (yep, shameless), I've been very pleasantly surprised by these.

Almost finished with Cthulhu's Reign.

Yesterday I read The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells. I used to read her books as soon as they came out. I don't know why I stopped. But it was very good, and I'm going to track down all the others of hers I haven't read.

Only realising after Worldcon that no, Thomas Olde Heuvelt wasn't a funny named American writer or South African, but actually Dutch put me in the mood to explore modern Dutch science fiction for a while. Currently reading Zwarte Sterren, an anthology of short stories.

I'm reading Look to windward for the first time.

Almost finished Tomorrow by Philip Wylie....a dated (1954) but really well written book describing civil defense and the bombing of a mythical city...The bombing has started so not much more to go....very good book though.

I've finally reviewed Ancillary Justice, an Early Reviewers win, in my thread...post #224.

Five major awards won by this book, and I can't for the life of me comprehend why. Not a bad book, but it's...~meh~

>13 richardderus: I agree with you Richard. I didn't get interested in this book and didn't finish it.

>14 nhlsecord: I wish I hadn't felt obligated to, since it was an Early Reviewers win I did. I don't know why I bothered. I liked it not one whit more (nor less, to be fair) than on p30.

>14 nhlsecord: I didn't end up finishing that one, either.

I've reviewed the excellent and seemingly forgotten "YA" SF novel Red Shift over in my thread...post #132.

YA! HAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAAA! Not a damn chance. And SF, well, time travel and other suchlike goins-on...but I dunno...just a terrific modernist novel, IMO.

Just read Parable of the Sower by Butler. I've enjoyed some of her other books. The post-apocalyptic part was well thought out & done, including the characters' actions & reactions & relationships. But the Earthseed religion part was half-baked and unconvincing, including the cliched "scriptural" quotes. It was OK enough that I'll probably read the sequel at some point, but right now I'm not in a hurry.

>1 Petroglyph:: I just love Grass. The opening hunt scene is brilliant, and the sense of menace grows from there on.

Finished Fortune's Pawn, won't be bothering with the sequels even though nothing is explained or resolved in this first volume. Now reading The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.

>20 iansales:

Now reading The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.

Excellent. Is this your first time sampling Lovecraft, Ian?

I have just started Venus of Dreams by Pamela Sargent. I don't know if I will finish the book is slow and the print seems small. Although I may just be getting older.

>19 rshart3:
That opening scene and the staged realization that mounts and hounds are not at all ordinary was about the only thing I remembered from the book, and it's what drove me to reread it. Very well handled, indeed!

>19 rshart3: Sense of menace! That's exactly what her books have. I have been trying to think of the way to describe that and you did it for me.

Reading Lock In. Haven't read Scalzi in a while. So far so good. Bonus points for an interesting premise.

The Waking Engine by David Edison. So far, it's a little meh - feels like he read Perdido Street Station and thought "gosh, I can do that" without really getting a sense of why that one worked. Frankly, I'm not sure why that one worked, now that I'm thinking of it, but it did. And so far this one isn't working.

>21 artturnerjr: No, I read one of his collection many, many years ago. And I'm pretty familiar with the mythos - from a variety of sources. His prose is a bit, um, turgid - cf, when is a door not a door? When it's a "panelled portal".

Started last night on Adam Roberts' The Snow. As the first part of the novel references a part of London I'm reasonably familiar with - even though it's completely transformed in the novel! - it had a fair amount of immediacy for me, so I'm probably getting more out of it than some of my other recent Roberts reads, such as 'On' or Polystom.

(Touchstones offered a pile of books with the word "on" in the title, but none where the word "on" was all of the title. Pah.)

Reading The Golem and the Jinni, pretty good so far.

>28 RobertDay: you can include the book's work id to get a direct link to it: On - sq bracket 48904 :: On sq bracket

>27 iansales:

His prose is a bit, um, turgid

Yeah, Ernest Hemingway he's not; then again, he never intended to be. Taken on its own terms, however, I think his work is remarkable effective.

There's an extended discussion of the topic here, if you're interested:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/153936

>30 iansales: The collection I'm reading contains mostly early work, I think - and there's a lot of "indescribable" horrors being described and a tendency to build atmosphere by simply piling on the adjectives until they're just about all you can see.

I'm back to the Heinlein reread with The Puppet Masters.

Jumping into the middle of G. W. Thomas' Black Sun series with The Book of the Black Sun II: The Book Collector.

>32 iansales:

Interestingly someone has done a word-count on Lovecraft's canon (ebooks makes this dead easy where in the past it was a right pain).

He only uses "indescribable" 25 times - not all of them associated with descriptions of the noun. But you are right the worst cases of using indescribable and then describing are in the early stories. However I do have a little sympathy for when this is done in a first person narrative, or in direct speech. It seems a very human thing to do, to try and come up with words that do not describe exactly but give a sense of the wrongness that you are confronted with.

The Unit was mentioned last month. It sounded interesting enough to try since I generally am a fan of dystopias. My library had it and I'm about a third of the way in. I like the story but my brain is rebelling against how in the world the world could have gotten to this step. The very brief explanation near the beginning was unconvincing. I am hoping that somehow the elaborate arrangement makes sense by the end.

Since it shares a certain similarity with Never Let Me Go, age shifted, I can't help but compare them as I read.

Currently reading Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt which will be published in English next year, as well as Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis, which already is.

I've just finished Defenders by Will McIntosh. Which was quite a better than I had feared - I don't like military focused alien invasion stories all that much.

The Unit was a fail. There is a good story in there but much too much was illogical and it spoiled the book. Whatever the book equivalent of jumping the shark is, The Unit did it several times. Details would be spoilers so I'll leave it at that.

currently reading A World out of Time by Larry Niven

>26 kiparsky: Hate to say it, but I returned The Waking Engine to the library unfinished. I tried hard to like it, but it just wasn't working. And when I flipped to the end and saw that the ending was both completely unsurprising and also a pathetically obvious setup for the sequel, I knew there was no point.
I have a few titles near the top of the pile, including The Hydrogen Sonata and Kraken, but there are a few non-SF titles on the go, so those will wait a few days at least.

Reading Star Soldiers by Andre Norton...

I'm about halfway through Sassinak by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon. I'm enjoying it, it has a nice clear writing style, and I love the main character. She's competent and resourceful, and I also rather like that she is fair in the face of prejudice, and that she makes no fuss about having relatively carefree relationships.

Finished Look to windward, and I can see why so many people rate this as one of the best Culture books. The non-human, non-Culture protagonists were interesting and I enjoyed the descriptions of the various habitats. Really appreciated the final resolution to the plot, too.

I've just started rereading The gate of Ivory which is fun science-fantasy. I have the omnibus edition of the trilogy and am planning to read it straight through.

Working my way through Eclipse One edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Currently reading non-SF (although it is on three genre award nominee/finalist lists) - Hild by Nicola Griffith.

Most of the way through The Eternal Flame which I've read back to back with The Clockwork Rocket. Cracking stuff, as long as you don't mind plenty of S in your SF; he wouldn't be able to get away with it if the story wasn't great too. Might indulge in some light relief before tackling the third part.

>39 RBeffa:. Apparently, unless you are one of the gender whose body is regulated by or attempted to be controlled by others through legislation, I think that The Unit will not resonate with you. I compare it more to The Handmaid's Tale than Never Let Me Go.

I have started The Bone Clocks, and, speaking from 100 pages in, it seems to be fantasy. In fact, it somehow reminds me so far of The Ocean At the End of the Lane, which will be good news to the many fans of that book, although I found it just so-so. I expect David Mitchell to be a bit cleverer than that, so we'll see.

Working on Neuromancer by William Gibson.

Finished up Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute (A), the latest installment in the adventures of everyone's favorite hard-bitten necromancer.

Finishing up this round of Heinlein rereading with Starship Troopers. I'll revisit some of the linked books some other time.

Finished the awesome Lock In by John Scalzi as well as Supercritical by Shawn Kupfer which ends in a little bit of a cliffhanger so I jumped right into the sequel, Fear and Anger .

Finished A World Out of Time by Larry Niven just recently. It was a pretty good read until the last 20 pages which were disappointing for an ending. Then I found that this was the first of a series.

I have recently found the remnants of a collection of 1950 pocket books I used to collect and thought I had sold off 15 years ago. A nice surprise find. So I have lots of reading ahead.

I like end of world novels and I have another one, The Unending Night by George H. Smith. It is unrated or reviewed and in look at other books he has written they seem to be pretty average...but we shall see.

>53 Lynxear:
It's a long time since I've read them, but The Integral Trees and its sequel are only very loosely connected to A World out of Time, so don't feel obliged.

I'm on to End of Empires by Toby Frost, which so far is maintaining the very silly standard of the Space Captain Smith series.

Finished The Wizard Hunters - liked it more than I did when I started it, but the writing bumbled from serviceable to bad.

Currently reading Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer. It is the third in the Southern Reach trilogy.

Just finished The Rhesus Chart (A+), in which Charlies Stross mixes and matches the tropes of urban fantasy with his "Laundry" milieu and detonates a whole lot of narrative dynamite.

well that was quick...it is not often that I read a book in a day but it was pretty short at 125 pages. The Unending Night by G.H.Smith has a misleading title in that potentially there could be a long period of darkness as the Earth has been knocked out of its orbit, eventually. Not a bad book for what it is. I will add it to my library and review it.

Just starting Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, first in the Southern Reach trilogy

Finished Neuromancer by William Gibson. I actually liked it more than I was expecting. The only thing that kind of tweaked me, and it is a very tiny thing that only happened a very few times, was the use of 'alphanumeric' instead of 'alphameric'. I don't know when the latter became part of computer speak, but I've gotten so used to it that the former felt out of place.

Next up is The Maze Runner by James Dashner.

>60 seitherin: Interesting. I've never EVER heard of "alphameric" and have always used alphanumeric. I should also point out that I read Neuromancer when it was new.

Those were interesting times.

Never heard the word 'alphameric' before either.

Add me to list of people who haven't heard alphameric. I am a software developer, and have been interested in computers either as a hobbyist (in the home computer days), or as a student, or as a professional continuously since the early 80s.

Interesting. It seems to:

1. Be primarily American English
2. Have had its heyday in the late 1960s

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=alphameric%2Calphanumeric&year...

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=alphameric%2Calphanumeric&year...

That is perfect grist for the ngram mill, I'll say.

The falloff in "alphanumeric" since 1985 is interesting. I wonder what it's been replaced with by and large. "Text"?

All part of the American tendency to contract words until they disappear up their own fundaments.

I started in the computer biz in 1979 (in the U.S.) and things were still alphanumeric when I started. Somewhere along the line, things became alphameric (which appears to have been around since the 1950s). I don't actually remember when it became prevalent, especially in the various tech magazines/newspapers I read, but I remember being kind of tweaked the word was shortened. I haven't worked in the biz in a while and I've stopped reading the tech rags, so I can't say when/if alphameric fell out of use.

I've never seen "alphameric"; I've been a geek for a long time, and working professionally in software since the mid-2000s. Google finds almost exclusively definitions and uses in company names (the first textual use is on the bottom of the fourth page, and that is in the title of an article from 1969), arguing strongly that it's currently disfavored.

I don't think the decline in "alphanumeric" is real; I think it's reflecting an overall change in the corpus that Google Books uses. "Alphabetical", which I tested as a control, shows a similar decline from 1985 onward.

I don't think that I've seen "alphameric" except for this thread. If I did I would have considered it a typo.

Currently reading Profiteer by S. Andrew Swann...

I am currently reading Blood Out Of A Stone a collection of short stories by Élisabeth Vonarburg.

I am reading Anthem's Fall which I received from the Early Reviewers a couple of months ago. It's about scientists at Columbia University who invent an artificial cell. I'm not very far through the book, but it seems to be about the arrogant Professor versus some of the other members of his team who are worried about the potential dangers of their research.

And I've never heard of alphameric either. Everyone says alphanumeric where I work (in the UK).

Just started Stranger in a Strange Land. Been on my "to read" list for a long time.

Just started The Grasshopper's Child which is a YA novel in the Bold As Love series.

I haven't read much but it is a lot different to the previous Bold As Love books and I am not sure exactly when it is set. I'm not sure many young teens would recognise the Stone Roses from a line from "I Wanna Be Adored" today, let alone in the future when this book is set (although maybe Heidi's musical knowledge will be explained).

I am somewhat surprised that Jones self-published this. I hope it doesn't mean her publishers have lost confidence in her in general and that it was just that they didn't think a YA novel in an existing adult series would work for them.

>75 andyl:

Maybe the publishers objected to the fact that it's the first book in the series to not have a Jimi Hendrix-related title. :)

>75 andyl: Perhaps she should have called it "Little Wing" instead.

I'm reading The wall around Eden by Joan Slonczewski, my first by her although A door into ocean has been on Mount Tbr for a while.

>75 andyl: She fell out with her publishers, perhaps no one else was willing to pick up the sixth book of a series.

In preparation for sitting in on a panel at a local convention, I'm reading the Library of America's Bierce.

Finished Arctic Rising, by Tobias Buckell, a competent thriller but otherwise bland. Now on The Martian.

Finished The Maze Runner and started The Scorch Trials.

Finished The Scorch Trials and started The Death Cure.

Author Ray Bradbury's Sci-Fi Art Collection Up for Auction
http://www.space.com/27245-ray-bradbury-online-auction.html?utm_source=feedburne...

I just noticed this article and have not had a chance to drool over the stuff for sale yet. Hope it is not too distracting being posted here.

Not sf, but I've just started Graham Joyce's The Silent Land - sadly, another memorial read.

I've just started listening to the audiobook of Hydrogen Sonata, which is the only Culture novel I haven't read, but I do still have Iain M. Banks' non-Culture novel The Algebraist to look forward to.

Finished The Death Cure by James Dashner and started The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Finished Profiteer, Partisan and Revolutionary by S. Andrew Swann. Currently reading Star Rangers by Andre Norton

Just finished City of Stairs, an excellent read!!

Just finished Moon-Flash and The Moon and the Face Some lovely SF from Patricia A. Mckillip.

I'm heads down making my way through The Folded Man, which is about an unlovable man in an unpleasant near future Manchester (are there any books with a positive outlook for Manchester?!)

Finding it hard going, but sticking with it - into the home stretch now, and the second half has definitely been easier digesting than the first.

*89: I'm halfway through City of Stairs. It is certainly imaginative and intrguing.

Finished The Silent Land. Very poignant.

Right, I need something cheerier and less icky. Back to London to investigate Broken Homes with PC Grant. This may well start a tour of magical procedurals, as I've got The Rook and London Falling on the shelf too!

I've just finished a diversion into fantasy with The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley and I am now on Bête by Adam Roberts.

>95 andyl: The Mirror Empire any good?

The things that Hurley does well in God's War she does well in The Mirror Empire. There strong world-building, just plain weird stuff, and the world is unflinchingly brutal and Hurley doesn't shrink away from that. It features a female dominant society, or rather a number of female dominated societies and I have seen some people complain that the men are generally treated as sex objects and holders of the seed for procreation and that spoiled their enjoyment of the book. Strange how you don't hear them complain about the opposite depiction which is far more common in epic fantasy. Hurley also plays games with people's expectation of sexuality and gender. Bisexuality is common and monogamy is rare in the book. There are six genders in the book and in addition there is even one character who cycles between male and female.

I think it has weaknesses. Like God's War it seems as if there is just too much, that Hurley cannot resist adding an extra ball into the juggling act. For me there were a few too many viewpoint characters, and of course not being a standalone not everything is resolved by the time the book ends. Finally some of the tropes used (orphan with hidden powers and a destiny for example) seem to be a little bit too well-trodden for Hurley to rescue by putting her own spin on things.

However that is being a bit picky. Overall, and I am not a big epic-fantasy fan, I liked it a lot and I will be reading the rest of the series.

>96 iansales: Loved it.

Hurley has thought and thought well about gender and making an alien society with gender assumptions that are different but believable; not just how they think about gender but also what gender is, which as much about the role you play in society as what your genitals look like. (And she's smart enough to know that even having five genders will still leave some people out.)

And it's a rocking great epic fantasy, without much of the dumbness of many epic fantasy series.

My review.

Reading Lock In by John Scalzi.
Loved his Fuzzy Nation

I'm reading an ARC of Near Enemy.

>97 andyl: and >98 MartinWisse: I'll likely pick up a copy as I did enjoy God's War, Infidel and Rapture, although I thought the third book lost the plot somewhat about halfway through and relied on frantic world-building for its climax.

>86 isabelx:. You reminded me that The Hydrogen Sonata was on my TBR pile. I started it this morning, and it grabbed me right away.

Started Eclipse Two edited by Jonathan Strahan.

moved to Oct