June 2016 Reading

Still working on The Book of Phoenix.

>1 seitherin: Was not impressed by that.

I liked Zero World, and look forward to the next one.

Still working on The System of the World. Also just began The Snow Queen

One story into The best Australian science fiction writing. Still reading The best from F&SF, 8th series and The year's best science fiction: second annual collection. Trying for one or two stories a day. Haven't quite got to The demolished man, yet. Bogged down in The war that ended peace!

My TBR for June
C J Cherryh - 40,000 in Gehenna ✔
Milton Lesser - The Star Seekers ✔
Michael Bishop - No Enemy but Time ✔
Isaac Asimov - The Currents of Space
A E Van Vogt - Voyage of the Space Beagle
Roger Zelazny - Isle of the Dead✔
Marissa Meyer - Winter ✔

Now on the last story (a novella, actually - My Sister's Brother (aka Open to Me, My Sister)) in Philip Jose Farmer's Strange Relations.

>2 iansales: I'm not impressed either, but I like it well enough to keep reading. At best, I mildly like it.

I finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and really enjoyed it! I'm definitely going to read the rest of the series but I like to read a few books inbetween books of a same series, because otherwise I tend to tire from it.

>9 chlorine: Great series. The Ancillary books are all topnotch.

Just finished The Hammer of God by AC Clarke. I was sort of disappointed... to me it was an outline of a novel, not a complete one

>9 chlorine: >10 jnwelch:

Though I am not a big tea drinker, I thoroughly enjoyed the Ancillary series as well... ;)

>12 ScoLgo: I am not a huge tea drinker but that novel _did_ make me crave for some! :)

Finished The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Finished Graham Joyce's The Year of the Ladybird (The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit for US readers). Taking a break from sff for a while, though I am still ploughing through a wodge of mammoth Bruce Gillespie fanzines from Australia, courtesy of http://efanzines.com/ ...

Finished The philosopher kings by Jo Walton, now on Touch by Claire North

>4 ScoLgo: I read Snow Queen last year and I gave it 4/5. Hope you enjoy it.

I just started the Nebula winner, Uprooted, which turns out to be fantasy (magic) rather than sci-fi.

>18 jnwelch: Well, they do cover both from at least 1968 onwards.

Just finished: Strange Relations by Philip Jose Farmer. Highly recommended if you're interested in the development of themes relating to sex and sexuality in SF, or if you want to see how timely a book published half a century ago can still be!

Just started: taking a break from fiction with Eric Clapton's autobiography. Thus far, it's a pretty quick read, as I had hoped it would be.

Currently reading Abaddon's Gate by James SA Corey...

Just finished a re-read of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Finished C J Cherryh's Forty Thousand in Gehenna,and dont quite know what to think about it.It tells the story of the colonists sent out to open up a planet,but they are deliberately abandoned and should have degenerated into bloodshed and degeneration which they do to a certain extent,but somehow survive and build up a strange symbiotic relationship with local supposedly non semtient creatures.Its very stark and rather downbeat. The tale takes place over a period of 200 years with multiple POVs. We can follow a character in that very focused Cherryh way,seeing everything intensively from his point of view,only to disconcertingly abandon him without any further mention after 20 or 30 pages,picking up the story maybe 30 years later. The aliens,which look rather like dragons are very alien indeed,and we never really learn anything about them. But as ever the tale is gripping and intense,just rather confusing.Cherryh kindly gives us family trees of the most important characters,i would have been lost without it. Probably would need a second reading to grasp this more fully,but it didnt grab me enough to want to do so
Next up should be Michel Bishop's No Enemy But Time.

Finished up Dark Intelligence (A) this evening and found it to be a fine addition to Neal Asher's collected works.

Finished The demolished man. This is an exceptionally fine book. Taking a slight break from long form sf until I've finished Wolf Hall

Forty Thousand in Gehenna is sort of an odd duck in that particular universe. Definitely one of her darker novels. Seems to me other novels refer to the consequences of that colony, and its true purpose as a long-term political move, but I can't recalled the titles just now.

>25 dajashby: Glad to hear you enjoyed The Demolished Man. It remains one of my favourites.

>26 ThomasWatson: IIRC it comes in play in Regenesis, and is likely at least a background element in Cyteen too.

>25 dajashby: Loved The Demolished Man. His Stars My Destination is really good, too.

Uprooted was good, but not as much of a standout as I had hoped.

>27 EnsignRamsey: & >29 jnwelch: It's occurred to me that the book is the direct ancestor of cyberpunk. This is odd, because I can't stand cyberpunk.

Finished Sand by Hugh Howey (tag doesn't work). Very good. Just downloaded Descent. Heard good things about it.

Finished The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

Over the last few days I read and very much enjoyed Version Control.

Finished Downbelow Station and Planet Joe and The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 2. Abandoned Foucault's Pendulum.

Now reading Tea from an Empty Cup by Pat Cadigan and Days Between Stations by Steve Erickson.

>33 Unreachableshelf: I was impressed with Dexter Palmer's first novel and very much look forward to reading Version Control.

>27 EnsignRamsey: & >29 jnwelch: & >30 dajashby: I've never been disappointed when I return to read The Demolished Man, every three years or so.

I needed something to read on the plane for a cross country trip, so I picked up Great North Road. This looks like it will do the trick!

>35 vwinsloe:

I think you will be OK even if you have a flight cancelled and you are stuck at the airport for hours.

>36 andyl:
Or a few days...

>26 ThomasWatson: Was it Cyteen,Thomas? I think,though written long after Gehenna it was set a little before it,but my memory is shot,its an awful long time since I read Cyteen.
What did you think of the alien lizards/dragons. They could be incredibly creepy and some of those scenes set in the total darkness underground were very intense.These dragons were most definitely NOT the delightul kind found on Pern in McCaffreys work. Cherryh did a superb job in Gehenna of depicting aliens which are truly alien,we never really grasp their thought processes

>36 andyl: & >37 AnnieMod:. That's what I was hoping to hear!

>34 psybre: Just tried to read Rock on, a short story by Pat Cadigan. In The demolished man Bester made the occasional attempt to report telepathic conversations. Modern cyberpunk is entirely like that,. and I just can't be bothered trying to decipher it.

Reading City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin...

Reading Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks. This is my second Culture novel.

Finished The Enemy Stars, which was surprisingly immersive for such a short book. Next up, my deep space journey continues with Seed of Light by Edmund Cooper.

I finished Planetfall by Emma Newman and loved it. The narrative slowly reveals secrets and lies and ends up being something other than what it seemed at the start. I'm still thinking about it.

Finished Judas Unchained and On Writing, started Century Rain.

Just finished The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge. Liked it pretty well. I'm wondering which book from the series to read next? Is it best to jump directly to The Summer Queen or take a detour with World's End?

>46 ScoLgo:
As I remember, I would say Summer Queen.

>47 rshart3: Thank you!

I'm reading now The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. I liked a lot The Three Body Problem, so I had high expectations from this one. And it's quite good, but I guess I'm still waiting for that amazing stuff from the first book. But I'm only halfway through it, there's still time.

>6 dustydigger:

I read Isle of the Dead a couple of years ago and thought it was ok. Not one of RZ's better efforts in my opinion but a second-rate Zelazny is still better than a lot of other stuff out there.

Looking forward to your thoughts on No Enemy But Time and Voyage of the Space Beagle. Both are on my 2016 WWE Pick & Mix so I fully expect to read them this year.

I think I read the Asimov a long time ago but... memory fails me...

Just starting Mostly Harmless to finish off the Hitchhikers series.

Just starting Alliance Space by C.J.Cherryh

I'm currently reading Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is my 1st Kay novel and after 120 pages it's quite enjoyable. It seems to be his take on the Italian Renaissance. Pretty good so far.

>53 Kammbia1: Croatia apparently and not Italy. Not that Italy is not close enough to influence a lot but it is not Italy directly and you get the Ottoman Empire influence as well (which is not there in Italy at the time) :)

Reading Lock In by John Scalzi.

Just read the famous High-Rise by Ballard (while in New Orleans over the weekend), and started on the cyberpunk (classic?) Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams.

>6 dustydigger:
The Currents of Space brings back memories as it was the first Asimov book I read. I found an old copy of it lying in the upper floor of a barn in NH in the early 90s, and read it by flashlight in a tent on an island in Maine.

Finished The Baroque Cycle last night. An amazing achievement, (the books - not me finishing them! ;). I know many people don't like how long-winded Stephenson gets but I took my time with this immensely detailed series, (I began with Quicksilver in early March), and thoroughly enjoyed the journey. I'm actually sort of sorry it's over. Ah well, a re-read of Cryptonomicon is coming up soon...

Now picking up the latest from Tim Powers, Medusa's Web, while also reading Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population on the e-reader. I'm about halfway through and it's intriguing so far. It's not every day you read a first-contact book that features an 80-year old grandma as a protagonist!

I finished Ken MacLeod's The Corporation Wars: Dissidence earlier this month. It is Part I of a new trilogy and it is excellent. While it is set in the far future it is about today's problems with globalisation, corporate dominance, rising unemployment, sentience, equality and the meaning of being a being.

The Science Show on the ABC today had a feature on H.G. Wells because 2016 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth (21st September). I've decided to mark the occasion by reading some of his science fiction that I hadn't previously read. I'm starting with The island of Doctor Moreau, which is available on Project Gutenberg.

Finished Touch by Claire North , now on Ultima by Stephen Baxter

nicely into Alliance Space by C.J.Cherryh now about 1/5 of the way. Thoroughly enjoying this book. Some might not like the detail but I revel in it. This is my second Cherryh book now and she is drawing back into reading hard SciFi again.

Finished Alien Emergencies by James White and Lock In by John Scalzi. Liked both.

Started General Practice by James White.

>63 seitherin: .I have always had a soft spot for the Sector General books. Dr Kildare in space in a weird hospital made up of patients of numerous alien species. Amusing ,warm,cosy and downright delightful. How dare you bring them to my attention so that I want to rush off and have a nostalgic reread of old favourites,when I have a HUGE TBR I will struggle to read this year? lol.OK I'll let you off this time,because of your good taste.but I really miss my dear old rereads because of so many recommendations and important lists I am working through. So many books,so little time....... The dear old comfort reads tend to get edged out

>60 dajashby: I really enjoyed Island of Doctor Moreau, one of my all time favorites.

>64 dustydigger: That sounds interesting, I must check those books out... Edit: Ok, just had a look at the blurb and you just totally hit me with a book bullet...

>61 AlanPoulter: How did you like Touch? I liked Claire North's The first fifteen lives of Harry August.

I've just reread The long way to a small angry planet. Loved it again! There is so much to it, yet it doesn't feel contrived or pretentious. Chambers keeps it small. No heroes, but plenty of normal people/beings doing heroic stuff on occasion.

Just started Warren Ellis and John Cassaday's not-sure-what-genre-it-is-but-it sure-is-awesome comics series Planetary.

>64 dustydigger: Comfort read is right. The Sector General books, of which this is the last in my TBR pile so I won't be tempting you anymore, are my bedtime read which is why they take me so long to finish. They are very soothing to fall asleep to.

>67 artturnerjr:

Planetary rocks.

>69 paradoxosalpha:

Yes indeed. I read the first trade paperback collection (All Over the World and Other Stories) a while back and it knocked me out. Now that I've acquired the entire series, I'm looking forward to it with enormous anticipation. 8)

>61 AlanPoulter: AlanPoulter: How did you like Touch? I liked Claire North's The first fifteen lives of Harry August.

I thought it was a really neat re-tread of an old model, it is built for a tv series...

Finished up Daughter of the Sword (A) yesterday, which essentially poses the rhetorical question of how little of the fantastic you can incorporate in your plot and still have a fantasy novel.

Finished Seed of Light, a good idea given a rather perfunctory treatment. I'm back to Barsoom next for A Fighting Man of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

>67 artturnerjr: I just started the Planetary Omnibus, too. So far I'm enjoying it.

I'm reading Counterfeit Unrealities, a collection of 4 novellas by Philip K. Dick which includes Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the basis for Bladerunner. I thought for sure I had read that one before, but just having finished it, I probably didn't - there were some interesting differences from the movie.

>72 Shrike58: How much fantasy did it have? I'm just curious.

Finishing The Line of Polity which is a good addition to the series - may not be as surprising and innovative as the first two but adds a layer to the Polity universe.

Had been reading quite a lot of SF in the last month: Hamilton's The Abyss Beyond Dreams was as expected), Cherryh's Brothers of Earth is not the best book on the topic but still very readable (that's part of a project to read all of her book in order (~ish)), McDevitt's The Engines of God and A Talent For War are readable if you do not expect high prose (another one of my "read in order" projects) , Anathem worked wonderfully for me (but I can see why people may have issues with it) and Altered Carbon was a lot better than I expected.

>67 artturnerjr:
I love Planetary :) I think it is Ellis's best series.

>77 AnnieMod:

I think I like Transmetropolitan just a little bit better.

>78 paradoxosalpha: Tastes vary I guess. I like Transmetropolitan well enough but I still prefer Planetary. :)

>77 AnnieMod: I enjoy McDevitt's work but I find very much that it makes me feel as though I'm watching a 1980s tv mini-series - something to do with his plotting or his characters, I think. In one novel, I even automatically visualised the female lead as being dressed with shoulder pads and a bubble perm.

OTOH, 'A Talent for War' amazed me because the setting, a far-future human-colonised galaxy, somehow gave me a huge sense of history, and extent of the human sphere, and of this convincing society where Earth was a known place, but an unimportant backwater. I've never had that visceral sense of 'historicity' from any of his other novels (though I'm a bit behind on recent work); like any other workmanlike writer, McDevitt obviously has the capacity to produce one remarkable book out of a whole career, just as anyone can take one stunningly good photograph; but to be a proper professional, you have to be able to produce stunningly good photographs on demand, all day, every day. The same with books.

>80 RobertDay:

Sometimes you need a 80s tv mini-series in your life. :) They are popcorn SF for the most part- they have their brilliant moments (and those are absolutely brilliant) but they are also great stories. He is not a great author in most of his work but in what I had read so far, he is a good storyteller - he is telling adventure stories in the future - which is what I need now and then. And I would rather read a good story than someone's overambitious and failed attempt at something more innovative.

>77 AnnieMod:, >80 RobertDay:, >81 AnnieMod: I just read McDevitt's The Engines of God last month. I liked it - didn't love it - but I will continue on with the series, as he is a good storyteller. Workmanlike is a good way to describe him. The only other book I have read by him is Eternity Road which was a pretty good post-apocalyptic stand-alone novel, without too much dystopia thrown in, and a reasonably unique premise.

>69 paradoxosalpha:
>74 jnwelch:
>77 AnnieMod:

Sounds like I'll have a lot of people to bounce my thoughts on the series off of when I'm finished. 8)

I have finished The Dark Forest and was not disappointed. What I love most about the series is the hard science, great stuff, that's some mind boggling stuff. A raised eyebrow at times with regard to characters motivation, but not entirely implausible.
This 2nd volume reminded me a little of Forever War, many of the characters go into cryogenic sleep and wake up a couple of hundred years into the future - they discover a much changed society and are trying to cope with the new reality. I think this aspect was much better handled than in Joe Haldeman's classic (possibly not Haldeman's intention, but I found the main character 's homophobia disturbing).
I don't know when the 3rd volume will be released in English, but I'm looking forward to it.

Right now I'm reading Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, so far I don't like it much, the storyline is way too similar to the Harry Potter books, I hope it improves...

>23 dustydigger: I am reading C. J. Cherryh's Alliance Space which is an omnibus of 2 novels. The first is Merchanter's Luck which I found to be a treat... a story of a marginal trader, on the fringe. not a pirate and not really a thief but is working with faked papers and his wits. The Lucy was his family's ship and when he was little, all were killed except him and he suffers pretty major trauma and distrust of anyone... until he meets Allison from "The Dubliner" a huge freighter with a crew of thousands all related. this story by itself I would rate 4.5 stars at least as you really get to understand what it is like to go through "jumps" when traveling through space... the details may be too much for some readers but it was just right for me.

Now I am into Forty Thousand in Gehenna which is the second novel in this Omnibus. Man! what a different story. It is a world building novel. I am about 50 pages into this section and wow...what an imagination this author has. The detail that is presented in this book, the separate lives of the AZI (clone workers) and how they are brainwashed into being solid reliable workers who are stacked like cord wood into the berths 20 units high and how they are controlled/prepared during the long journey to their new world... then there are the civis, born men with specific skills and then the military.

They have now landed and starting to erect a base and now are dealing with the seemingly benign flora/fauna. It took a while to adjust from the other novel but I can hardly put this down.

I will be reading and keeping everything she has written... She has made hard SciFi interesting again for me.

>85 Lynxear: I have been a fan of Cherryh since the 1980s,she is a fave author of mine. I read Merchanter's Luck way back,and I felt it had a melancholy tinge,I felt so sorry for poor Sandy,who is manipulated so badly by almost everyone he encounters. I think the whole Merchanter/Alliance series is a remarkable achievement. Cherryh never makes it easy for us,but as we read each book we add to our knowledge and see the conflicts from many points of view,and it is only by reading the whole lot that we can put together a fascinating view of their situation.Even years afterwards I sometimes think of what occurred in those little tin cans of the pirate ships,or the intricate Merchanter ships,they just seem so real,the characters have gone off but somehow still have an existence in my mind. Cherryh's people are often lonely damaged people,isolated from their old companions,desperately trying to achieve a home,a family. Sandy is doing that in Merchanter's Luck
Yes,Gehenna is much darker but intensely gripping,if often frustrating with the way characters are cavalierly tossed aside and never heard of again! :0)
In a few months I hope to read The Paladin and Serpent's Reach. I've read about 30 of her books so far,and will happily continue to do so!

>85 Lynxear:

Guess you and me will have some parallel reading in the next months - I am reading Cherryh's novels in order of publication :)

>60 dajashby:
>65 davisfamily:
The Island of Dr. Moreau is a powerful & haunting book, for sure. On a lighter note, I've often passed thruway signs for a "Moreau State Park" in New York, and keep imagining the park warden as a reclusive doctor, and all the park employees strangely animalistic. :-)

>86 dustydigger: >87 AnnieMod: I guess what I like about her novels is two fold.

First she builds a very detailed world that grows with each novel, especially within the space ships themselves... I almost feel that I could enter Lucy in Merchanter's Luck and with the help of Ross I could fly the thing.

Secondly, I love how you get into the head of her characters. It is not a case of the characters do this and that but you really get to understand the motive behind their actions. I don't know if there is a sequel to Merchanter's Luck but I would love to read about the "new" Sandy and how he gets along with Allison and crew now they know something of his past. I would hate to see a character like his disappear.

I have not read her works in order but I have read The Pride of Chanur and fully intend to read that series in order. Otherwise I will look at her body of work and pick out the series in it and read from start to finish.

I am not on a complete focus to read her... I think you should read another book SciFi or not to clear your mind... Cherryh is rapidly becoming my favourite SciFi writer.

>89 Lynxear:

Agree - I am reading her novels in order but not reading just them - I have a few authors on the same plan plus the usual "whatever catches my eye" :) I just like seeing good authors evolving with their works

State of the Art by Iain M. Banks, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (10 time reading it, still hilarious)

I'm reading a lot of fantasy at the moment. Just finished Charlie Stross' The Annihilation Score, his most recent Laundry novel, and liked it better that The Rhesus Chart. Have also got Cat Valente's Radiance and M.D. Lachlan's Valkyrie's Song out of the library.

As part of a project reading some of Kathe Koja's work, I've been reading 1990s anthologies where she appears. Just finished Dinosaur Fantastic, which got a surprising amount of mileage out of the concept, and am now on to Future Crime

Just starting Lois Bujold's latest in the Vorkosigan Saga - Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. I hope Miles is in this one. His antics are the best part of the saga!

>94 TempleCat: Would be interested to hear what you think of that one. I've mostly enjoyed the Vorkiverse but didn't care for her last one Captain Vorpatril's Alliance - too romcom for me.

I've just started reading The Children Star by Joan Slonczewski.

Not that much, it's really a police procedural thriller and a historical novel; with a cursed sword. That sword is the one real overt fantasy element.

Finished a rather amusing little juvenile book from the Winston Press series,Milton Lesser's The Star Seekers,a generation starship tale where after 200 years,six generations, the inhabitants of a hollowed out asteroid have separated into 4 societies and have forgotten entirely there was ever anything outside.A lot more simplistic than Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky which I read last month,and only 200 years to totally forget EVERYTHING? Bit unlikely,but it was a light fun agreeable read
The writers of generation ships always seem very pessimistic about mankind. The technology of the ships always seem to survive quite well,but socially and culturally its a very different story,always intolerance,superstition and ignorance seem to be the rule! lol.

>98 dustydigger: Reminds me of Dust by Elizabeth Bear

>99 Foghorn-Leghorn: Good book. I enjoyed that entire trilogy.

>98 dustydigger: If you happen across The Birthday of the World by Ursula K. Le Guin, it has a cool generation ship story called Paradises Lost that was a highlight of that collection for me. Being Le Guin, there is the expected social/anthropological angle to the story.

Just started Old Man's War by John Scalzi, and am really enjoying it.

I happened across The End of all Things earlier this year and enjoyed it, though I saw it was a series and realized I was reading the latest. So, I thought I should check out the first one. He makes me laugh, and I like his writing style, so I'll probably continue on through.

Just finished reading Who Goes There? The Novella, found it to be very gripping and well plotted and imagined. I can see why people keep making new versions of it, John Carpenter's 1982 attempt probably the best of the lot.

>101 terriks: I read the first 3 of the old man's war up to The Last Colony. I enjoyed every one of them. I didn't realize there were more until now. I will have to continue with it.

Finished A Fighting Man of Mars, another enjoyable instalment in spite of an element of predictability. Just started on Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick.

Started The Passage. I heard that Justin Cronin writes SLOWLY, so I waited for the entire trilogy to come out before wading in. It's off to a very good start. He is a good writer, in a "knows how to put together a sentence" way.

Just finished: the Planetary series (https://www.librarything.com/series/Planetary). Although this is, I think, primarily, targeted toward fans of the superhero genre, there is a great deal for the SF fan to enjoy here, too (references to Rendezvous with Rama, From the Earth to the Moon, and more quantum physics theorizing than you can shake a textbook at, for starters). Batman fans take note: Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth is most likely one of the finest tales of the Caped Crusader you will ever read. In short - highly recommended.

Just started: pivoting to a genre that I am significantly less familiar with than SF (crime fiction) with Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

>102 Cecrow:

Hurray! I liked that one, too. We discussed that in one of my LT reading groups, if you'd like to see some other LTers' reactions to it:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/158389

Just started The girl in the road. It's intriguing so far.

>105 drmamm: I have read The Passage and The Twelve and really liked them. Thanks for letting me know that the third book has come out because it has been so long that I've forgotten about it.

>105 drmamm:, >108 Foghorn-Leghorn: I received The Passage as an Early Reviewer book - the best book I've gotten so far through that program. I saw that it took Cronin a long time to write The Twelve and was waiting to read The Twelve until I had my hands on The City of Mirrors, which was years late. I plan to re-read The Passage and then plow through the other two as soon as I finish the couple of books I'm working on now.

>109 LisaMorr: Sounds like a good plan. I will probably read both again before I read the third, also.

I believe you are correct with those titles. It figures prominently in Regenesis.

I think Jarandel got it right. Regenesis is the book I was thinking of.

About halfway through Dying of the Light by George R. R. Martin. I haven't read much by him since the '80s, and hadn't gotten around to this one until now. Strange, dark tale, but quite compelling.

Most of the way through The Risen Empire. Cracking STL space opera - thanks to whoever mentioned it on here!

>114 mart1n: Hope you managed to track down the complete edition and not just volume 1 of the split version.

>115 AHS-Wolfy: I have indeed. They could have tried a bit harder to make it less confusing though...

Starting Red Mars, right after watching The Martian on Netflix. I've had this book and its two sequels kicking around the house for at least eight years.

>117 Cecrow: I bought Red Mars when it first came out and have never built up the enthusiasm to start it. I look forward to reading you comments on it. You might tempt me to read it.

Finished State of the Art by Iain Banks. Weird series of short stories, especially the one's at that end, didn't make any bloody sense.

Started Excession by Iain Banks. Hoping to finish the entire Culture series by the end of the summer

>103 Foghorn-Leghorn: Glad I could let you know about it! I bought the first three as a box set, and the next two are The Ghost Brigade and The Last Colony. So I'll be right with you when I'm done, with the exception of having read The End of All Things. I believe there are a couple more in between them.

I noticed I'm unconsciously reading Old Man's War much slower, now that I'm past the half-way point. It's something I seem to do when I'm really enjoying a book and not in a hurry to get to the end. Kind of silly.

I've just finished The Nightmare Stacks by Charlie Stross. I will probably move onto False Hearts by Laura Lam. Then I have Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee lined up.

Finished another McDevitt last week - Ancient Shores which had a great idea and a really bad ending - it suits the book in a way but it is a cop out.

And in my Cherryh's read through, finished Gate of Ivrel - the first of the Morgaine books which is even more closer to fantasy than Brothers of Earth was. It is SF but the way it is built and executed could have been fantasy as well (magic vs science). Readable though - if you know what to expect.

Started Cherryh's Hunter of Worlds last night and that has a lot more SF-inal feeling than the previous 2. ~50 pages in and besides being slow so far (the real story had not even started yet and that is 1/4th of the book), it is actually quite engaging.

The final book of last month for me was Your Hate Mail Will be Graded (B+), the collected wit and wisdom of John Scalzi from his blog. It's a nice selection of his work but it's also a reminder that he'll do nothing greater than putting a picture of a cat on the internet with a slice of bacon taped to it.

Now back to the pile of doom.

>95 SChant: Hmmm ... yes, I think I would kind of agree - there may have been too much romcom or, maybe, not enough, you know? I usually enjoy character-driven plots, but there was simply not enough going on in Gentleman Jole. There were a couple of nice scenes, but that's not enough to carry an entire book. There was only one main conflict and the book's length only served the purpose of building suspense around Jole's decisions, which were pretty foregone from the onset. The story might have been better published as a novella.

>125 TheWormholeJourneys: Uh-oh, better duck! Incoming!

Finished off Counterfeit Unrealities on 30 June - four novellas by Philip K. Dick. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was great and A Scanner Darkly was very good. I found The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik to be just good.

Book #68 Space Hostages by Sophia McDougall (442 pp.)

This is the sequel to Mars Evacuees, read last year. These are children's books, but they hark back to classic science fiction tropes and so I would recommend them to lovers of that genre just for the fun of it. They are space adventure stories with a melodramatic twist.

>130 ronincats: I loved Mars evacuees. Glad to hear that the sequel is also good.

>124 TempleCat: thanks for the feedback, think I'll give it a miss for now.