Our reads in April 2026

Another month,another tottering tower of books on our TBRs
Share your plans with the group.

Dusty's TBR for April
Andy Weir - Artemis✔
Robert E Howard - Tower of the Elephant ✔
Isaac Asimov - Caves of Steel✔
Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun
David Brin - Startide Rising✔
Poul Anderson - Tau Zero✔

Dorothy L Sayers - Murder Must Advertise ✔
Jean Fritz - Homesick:My Own Story ✔

Somewhat truncated TBR. I am about halfway through Tau Zero but got sudden word a few days ago that my stepson from USA is coming over on Good Friday. Cue hasty preps plus Mr Dusty is being unruly barely sleeps so my sleep is sporadic and reading isnt high on the agenda so the ship in Tau Zero is still accelerating. Its quite heavily into hard,very hard SF so I will postpone it till after the visitor has gone. My science and maths are terribly sketchy I need all my wits about me to at least grasp some of the story! :0)
So I'll start on Artemis I think. Doesnt sound much to my taste,but I surprised myself by really enjoying Project Hail Mary,to the point I actually reread it. So we'll see how it goes

Not much progress since the March list, since I've been doing a lot of other reading outside of genre fiction. I'm also hoping to start in on Pynchon's Shadow Ticket in April.

Completed
The Erstwhile by Brian Catling
Taarna by Alex de Campi

Currently Reading
In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente
The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock

On Deck
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

I’m about 1/4 through Solaris. Very interesting. Haven’t yet decided what I will follow that with. Maybe The Alteration.

SF&F books in my April TBR:

Silverthorn - Raymond E. Feist
Now Wait for Last Year - PKD
11/22/63 - Stephen King
Flux - Stephen Baxter
Return of the Griffin - JCM Berne
Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb

>2 dustydigger: Artemis is on my list for April as well. It's been sitting on my TBR since it came out and got weak reviews. I saw the Project Hail Mary film last week, and I was reminded of it.

Due to some reshuffling last month, the April line-up is Carl's Doomsday Scenario, The Unkillable Princess, Slow Gods, and Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me.

I'm still working on finishing Tigana, not sure what's up next.

Finished Silverthorn by Raymond E. Feist. You could either call this the 2nd of a trilogy or 3rd of a tetralogy, depending on editions. The revised version of the first book was greatly lengthened & split into two volumes, which is what I read. This continues the adventures of the characters introduced previously & definitely leaves enough loose ends for another volume of the epic. Good, solid, traditional fantasy.

I just scored a copy of The Affirmation, and I'm sure it will make it onto my TBR this year.

I finished The Erstwhile, and I still lack a copy of the series' conclusion in The Cloven. Maybe in late 2026?

I am slowly reading my way through the classic anthology Adventures in Time and Space, a book I first encountered as a teen but have never tackled comprehensively. I am just starting the seventh story, Eric Frank Russell’s Symbiotica. One thing that strikes me in these stories so far is how often scientists fail to follow basic scientific protocols, because if they DID follow them, there would be no plot. This has nothing to do with levels of technology per se, but a lot to do with the imperatives of pulp fiction. Sometimes the results shade into the inane; this is especially true in A.E. van Vogt’s Black Destroyer, where the handling of an alien life form is so slipshod it would embarrass an apprentice zookeeper.

Well, I don't use this so much as a prediction as to what I am going to read, but rather what I completed for the month.

A Talent For War by Jack McDevitt

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke
Slant by Greg Bear

I completed Solaris today. I enjoyed it. It is a very different style of SF than I typically read. It is psychological in the vein of Dying Inside or Beyond Apollo. Lem treats human frailty and anguish with tenderness and truthfulness.

Next up, The Alteration.

Fantastic to see astronauts flying round the moon. I always love seeing the beautiful earth hanging in space.
I was a 21 yr old college student back at the time of the first moon landing,and stayed up all night to watch it on a tiny 12 inch black and white TV. Really blurred and the screen was rolling you had to bang the top to stop the rolling.
Great memories

>15 dustydigger: Yes, it almost feels nostalgic, which is a funny thing to say about a spaceflight. I watched the launch of Artemis II and I felt that I was holding my breath and found it hard to watch after watching the Challenger, gathered around the TV at work.

What was cool for me about the moon landing was watching my great-grandmother, who was born in the late 1800s in the horse and buggy era, stay up to watch every second of the TV coverage in amazement.

>16 vwinsloe: Wonderful for her and everyone. at the time
I have a slight family connection with the Challenger disaster. My stepson's mother in law was the sister of Ronald McNair the black engineering and physics whiz kid who had chalked up 120plus hours fiight time in an earlier Challenger mission.Brilliant scholar, had to work twice as hard as anyone else to achieve anything because of the racism of the time. Him getting into MIT was a big thing at the time ,black student from a small minor black university,and someone stole two years worth of his special research in lasers and he had to spend an extra year redoing it so as to get his doctorate.
His death was devastating to his family and now there is always that extra nervousness on flight takeoffs and relief when all goes well.
His sister the other grandmother of our joint grandkids is a livewire still strong and active in her late 80s
, but these space flights are still stressful even today. Always a relief when it goes well
https://wordinblack.com/2026/01/we-remember-ronald-mcnair

>17 dustydigger: I didn't remember him, but now I will. Thanks for mentioning him and providing the link.

Fingers crossed, it is going well this time. Artemis is on its way back.

>15 dustydigger: >16 vwinsloe:. I was 5 when the moon landing happened and my parents sat my sister and I in front of the TV to watch. It was so cool. I would sit in the window in the hall and try to see the man on the moon at night. I wanted to be an astronaut so bad. I actually applied for years as an adult, even after Challenger. But, color blindness kept knocking me out. Oh well. I am so happy to see Artemis and hope all continues to go well.

I am currently reading Pluto. Figured I would finish the trilogy.

We spent the last weekend at the UK Easter SF Convention (Hi, Andy!) and agreed that the Artemis II coverage was both exciting and at the same time gave rise to feelings that we both remembered from fifty or more years ago. The exterior views were taken from Go-Pro cameras mounted on the solar arrays, which accounts for their low resolution, but still way better than the tv footage from the Apollo era. And the interior of the Orion ship looks way more spacious than the Apollo CM ever could.

The mission got the occasional mention in convention panels, when appropriate, but what we found more amusing was the juxtaposition of the mission with the UK release of Project Hail Mary, which we took some time out from the con to go and see. (Great film, cute alien, bonkers science, happy endings all round.) Looking online afterwards, it seemed that there was a lot of fortuitous read-across on social media between fiction and real life for both parties.

>21 RobertDay: bonkers science

I certainly noticed that the, uh, scientific process was collapsed from years or decades into hours and days, and Ryan's character benefited from the nifty Star Trek-like ability to point a tricorder at something for precise and accurate identification of life or atomic composition. It's also great to know that the Babel Fish will be available to us in the near future. What else did you notice?

Did wrap up Carl's Doomsday Scenario; more bonkers RPG Lit with the satirical edge to stand up to our own worst of all possible worlds.

Note this month's LT crowdsourced list: https://www.librarything.com/list/47672/Favorite-Science-Fiction

>24 paradoxosalpha: That could so easily turn into a rabbit hole for me, so for the moment I'm pretending it isn't there.

>22 elenchus: Where to start?

Well, there's the whole astrophage thing. And then using the astrophage as superfuel that enables a near lightspeed ship.

And then there's the Erid materials technology. Crystal sheets that can withstand an ammonia-based hot atmosphere. And Rocky's enclosure, which seems to operate without an independent atmosphere supply or any sort of means of venting expelled waste gases.

I found myself speculating on the Erid language, which seems to be based on a mixture of sounds and gestures. That Babel Fish is working overtime, especially as we can't guarantee that elements of the language aren't in frequency ranges too low or too high for us to hear. But hey, we've got an AI handling that at our end, right?

Considering that I'm pretty scathing about AI on other platforms, I'm a bit aggrieved by the treatment of it in the film. The Hail Mary's AI is grievously glossed over in the film. It appears to have a degree of personality and it does a lot of the heavy lifting but gets little or no recognition in the story. I wonder how much of it ended up on the cutting room floor? (If you look at social media posts, there seems to be a fair amount of material in trailers and posts that never made it into the theatrical cut.)

But having said all that, it's still a highly entertaining film. Rocky the alien is 95% a practical effect and it shows. The Hollywood requirement for a feelgood factor guarantees happy endings all round when stuff could have gone very differently. And after looking at online interviews, I've come to the conclusion that Ryan Gosling is playing himself. Especially in his choices of knitwear.

Go and see it: you will not be disappointed. Even if you then spend days picking holes in it afterwards.

>24 paradoxosalpha: Well, I added my fav SF books to the list.

>26 RobertDay:

I agree it is entertaining, and the feel-good ending was no surprise. I haven't read the book, so unclear on where it diverged (or whether it did), but no complaints, I pretty much got what I expected. The main draw for me was my teenager agreed to screen it with us, those are rare circumstances these days.

>27 Neil_Luvs_Books: I see you added some great ones! I added my top 10 also, wish I could nominate more than 10. I was shocked to see how few Iain Banks and Peter Hamilton books made the list.

>29 Karlstar: I am still thinking over which will be my 10th and last one to add to my list.

>29 Karlstar: I've got some Hamilton that is as of yet unread. Where should I start?

>30 Neil_Luvs_Books:

I totally agree with you that the Short Sun books are the best of the Solar Cycle, all of which are amazing. But the Wolfe pick for my list was The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

>31 HugoNebula: If you want to read a stand-alone and see if you like his style, Great North Road was good. If you have it and want to dive right into his Commonwealth universe, start at the beginning with Pandora's Star. I really like that series and the Void series that follows.

Well my american visitor has got back home safely and i can relax and try to get in some reading. For some reason I am finding Tau Zero a bit of a grind and slow going so I indulged myself to a pleasant hour reading one of the most interesting and original Conan stories,The Tower of the Elephant. Full of some wonderful Howard prose some adventure including an encounter with a nasty giant spider ,and a delightful description of an alien with a human body but an elephant's head. Conan has neve seen an elephant before so its fun seeing his gobsmacked amazement at the strange character. Also some sadness and pity,so all in all a great read.

I am reading The Vor Game, another installment of the Miles Vorkosigan saga. It's pretty good. Miles is growing up quickly!

I am also reading The Eternal Moment and other stories by E.M. Forster. It is a collection of six short stories that were written in the 1910s, but (at least the first story, "The Machine Stops") it could have been written yesterday.

>32 paradoxosalpha: Fifth Head of Cerberus is on my list to read later this spring. I’ve heard from many that consider it to be Wolfe’s best. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Just finished The Alteration by Kingsley Amis. I enjoyed it. Buried within the narrative is his commentary of how hegemonic power leads to hypocrisy. Seems very relevant to current political leadership in some parts of our world.

Next up for me is The Paradox Men. I seem to have a hankering for shorter novels this month.

I am reading The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. I think this is sf, one chapter in, but not 100% sure yet!

>36 Neil_Luvs_Books:

As an experienced Solar Cycle reader, you are equipped to enjoy it. Like those books, it's not for the lazy or inattentive!

Just finished The Man-Kzin Wars ed. by Larry Niven. This book is the first of a series in a shared universe created by Larry Niven. It contains 3 stories, one by Niven, one by Poul Anderson and one by Dean Ing. I found it to be fairly entertaining & will continue the series (I'd better since I bought a batch of them on ebay).

I finished Project Hail Mary at the start of this week. I'll be doing a reread of The Martian and a reread of All Systems Red soon! I didn't read further in the Murderbot Diaries yet, but I want to and figure a restart is the best way since I listened to the audio book of A.S.R back in 2022.

I've been debating starting Contact again after years of having it on my Home TBR, but I think I'll put it off for now.

>41 royallyreading: Project Hail Mary has been promoted a long way up the TBR pile after I saw the film last weekend. Others named will have to wait their turn, though. (In the case of Murderbot, that would be a re-read, to be fair.)

>41 royallyreading: I really enjoyed Project Hail Mary when I read it last year. Haven’t yet read The Martian. His newer one Artemis I received for Xmas so will eventually get to it.

Contact has also been sitting on my book shelf unread. I must get to it! I very much enjoyed the Foster/McConaughey film years ago.

More than 15 months after starting, I finally finished The Science Fiction Century, and completed my review (which, as usual, mostly consist of micro-reviews of each story).
I got bogged down a few times by some of the older novellas that were a bit tough to get into, and I read plenty of other things in that time, and while I'm happy of having finished it so I can move on to other scifi, I enjoyed reading this one.

>44 igorken: thank you so much for this very useful review of the Hartwell anthology.
I am a big fan of David G Hartwell's fine anthologies. I have his Dark Descent}yours discussed above,and Age of Wonder a hard science anthology,. Not being the marathon type,I am just reading/rereading single picks at a time of shorter fiction. I am falling back more and more on the short stuff as my reading time and my attention span are decreasing. :0)

For such a short book,175 pages,it took me a long time to read Poul Anderson's Tau Zero Not just hard SF,but diamond hard,this novel speculates just what would happen if a ship off to colonise a planet 30 light years away,a trip taking about 5 years(five years missions of Star Trek come to mind,this was after all a 1970 Hugo nominee ). 2.5 years speeding up as near to light speed as necessary,then deceleration to reach the planet. On board time 5 years of course,outside decades will go by.. Of course catastrophe strikes , and the velocity inexorably increases,the ship's acceleration becomes impossible to control. Lots of relativity info here a bit hard for this science ignorant lady,and I often had to read a paragraph several times to understand,so progress was slow. I perhaps unkindly and unfairly despised the colonists who all fall apart mentally quite soon into the flight.Hah! Our dear old Enterprise folks would not have fallen to bits.lol. The protagonist is a security/police officer and its his job to encourage even bully people into having at least a smidgeon of hope .The cast of characters are rather bland barely sketched in. The science is the star here,not the humans.
Of course it all gets sorted,a happy ending but the last 30 pages were just bonkers,I was gobsmacked at the ideas . But the descriptions of the universe throughout were vivid and glorious.There were still big ideas being depicted in SF in 1970!
Tau Zero didnt win of course,Ringworld took the prize. More big ideas,a magnificent Big Dumb Object and a focus on a small group of well depicted characters naturally beat a story with a difficult premise and dull characters.
Still Tau Zero is a worthwhile read,and actually has been very influential on later hard SF writers.

After getting bogged down for a bit, I decided to make a forced march of Slow Gods. This is another case of a good novel that I really didn't have the patience for at this moment. How much one likes it will also probably depend on whether you prefer Ursula Le Guin/Ann Leckie or C.J. Cherryh/Martha Wells (less so). Maybe a lot of my attitude boils down to having read too many novels about (in part) overbearing corporate criminals when our real-life batch are still running rampant.

>46 dustydigger: I remember reading Tau Zero a couple of decades ago and enjoying it, but not as much as Ringworld. As you say, the ideas were great but I didn’t find it as engrossing as others. And I like your assessment of the final 30 pages: bonkers!

>47 Shrike58: "whether you prefer Ursula Le Guin/Ann Leckie or C.J. Cherryh/Martha Wells"

That's an interesting way to pair these 4...

>45 dustydigger: I mainly write those types of reviews for myself, but I'm glad they're of use to someone else as well!

>50 igorken: Well, your reactions seem very similar to mine when I read it a couple of years ago, so it's always nice to get validation!

>34 dustydigger: Tower of the Elephant and Red nails are my fav original Conan.

I Love Poul Anderson but Tau Zero is a little longer than it needed to be. I still liked it though.

>51 RobertDay: I'd seen your review in the past, but going back now, some remarkably similar opinions. Your observation about the abundance of pipes in mid century sf also rings true!

I've embarked on my initial expedition into Area X. I've never doubted I would make the trip eventually, even as it never seemed urgent enough to place a loan from my local or seek out a purchase. But I used a gift credit recently to pick up my own copy and last night seemed the right time to start. My hope is I've avoided enough spoilers (and/or forgotten enough) that I can be impressed by the alien landscapes.

Reading from the 10th Anniversary edition for Annihilation and skipping the intro for now.

I posted my review of Orson Scott Card's The Worthing Chronicle today.

Made a start this morning on Green Mars.

I pulled an old book off the TBR pile, The Berserker Throne. I thought this was one of the better Berserker novels I've read, with a fairly interesting plot and good characters. Not as good as Berserker's Planet, but still good.

>55 Stevil2001: Thanks for all of that information on the history of the Worthing* books. I actually have The Worthing Saga, but I do not recall much about it, I didn't know any of that history.

>58 Karlstar: I read it as a teenager and knew none of it either; I think Card goes through it in notes in The Worthing Saga, which I read later.

If you just found the book somewhere in the 1990s, you'd perceive it (rightly) as a one-off standalone. I think it's a funny side effect of our list-obsessed, order-obsessed online culture that now The Worthing Chronicle gets listed as "book #3," so there are a bunch of reviews that say things like, "I didn't read the first two books" (as though they've done something wrong), when in fact Card's whole point in writing it was to replace those books so you didn't have to!

I came back from the UK Eastercon the other weekend with an interesting stack of books, all from independent publishers: a collection of Chris Priest essays, The Recollections; an anthology in commemoration of Eric Brown and a collection of Ken MacLeod short stories A Jura for Julia from NewCon Press; another collection of short stories from Gustavo Bondoni, Off the Beaten Path; and from Flametree Press, the three novels of The Fractal Series by Allen Stroud and a handsome volume of the Kalevala and other Finnish folk tales.

I wrote a blog post on the convention and some thoughts on the state of publishing: https://robertday154.wordpress.com/2026/04/14/houston-houston-do-you-read/ .

>60 RobertDay: A Jura for Julia

Wishlisted!

>60 RobertDay:

I bought A Jura for Julia at Worldcon in 2024. but haven't got around to reading it yet - too many books. I've also got the Stroud novels in The Fractal Series and have read the first couple I think (and have read all the connected novellas)

>61 paradoxosalpha: Hah, I did the same.
I've never purchased a physical book from Newcon, and received a few good ones through Eearly Reviewers in the past.
This sounds like the perfect excuse to finally get one/some, once my TBR is reduced.

I finished reading Salvage by Jennifer Mills and started The Left Hand of Darkness bu Ursula K. Le Guin, which has been sitting in my TBR pile for way too long.

Not exactly a review, but I thought the folks here might be interested; I recently acquired the last of the seven SFWA Hall of Fame volumes, which include the well-regarded Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthologies but go beyond them, so I wrote up a blog post to provide some brief history of them and celebrate my accomplishment: https://lessaccurategrandmother.blogspot.com/2026/04/science-fiction-fantasy-sfw...

>65 Stevil2001: How cool to be able to look at your shelf and see all of those together. Congrats!

>66 ScoLgo: >65 Stevil2001: that is cool!

When Asimov wrote Caves of Steel a murder mystery set far in the future the world population as around 2.5 billion,and he postulated that a world population of 8 billion was almost incredible. Humans live in huge towers and in deep subterranean levels. Many humans had left for colonies on 50 worlds and big rifts of fear and suspicion have divided mankind into 2 different cultures. A small number of spacers liaise with humans and when a spacer is mrdered in a sort of locked room mystery detective Lige Baley is sent to solve the crime with an extremely human like robot Daneel Olivaw in support. Very creaky now but still good fun.It spawned an awful lot of buddy stories of all sorts over the decades,and a lot of TV series.
Next up is Artemisand then probably a reread of Startide Rising Great! :0)

>68 dustydigger: I made a fun project of reading nearly all of Asimov's robot tales a few years ago - both novels and short stories. I also included the trilogies by Roger McBride Allen and Mark W. Tiedemann, both of which were very worthy additions to Asimov's invention. I also enjoyed Have Robot, Will Travel, but did not really get on with the Susan Calvin trilogy by Mickey Zucker Reichert, (I made it through two of those before calling it quits).

As you say, the stories are a lot of fun, even if the predictions today seem a bit... optimistic. Not much has changed in that regard, predictions will rarely be spot on. For instance, I'm currently 2/3 through KSR's Mars Trilogy and, in the first volume he had the Ares expedition landing on Mars in 2026. Again, optimistic.

But SF is really more about the ideas and how an author's predictions might affect their characters. Going back to Elijah Baley, being a dweller of one of those subterranean cities, he has severe agoraphobia as a result, and that plays a pretty large part in the narrative and speaks to that characters growth throughout the Lige/Olivaw books.

So yeah, the speculation is a large component of the fun for me as a reader.

>68 dustydigger:
>69 ScoLgo:

I revisited the Robot stories fairly recently and enjoyed them in a similar way. Have not picked up the novels though I'm open to that, many will be re-reads though I'm not sure I got to them all before college.

Agree that while prediction is unavoidably a part of future-set SF, for me it's not a measure of its success. Rather, how interesting is the prediction? How nuanced was the author's treatment of the various influences of that prediction, on characters, on the future society? Those are far more interesting to me than the accuracy, and more helpful in better understanding people today, and in the future.

I just finished The Paradox Men. It was meh. It’s sometimes hard to read what may have been great in its time now. But SF has developed into something much better now than it was a century ago. It’s hard to compare Harness to Gibson, Simmons, or Wolfe, for example.

The Easton Press published TPM as part of its Masterpieces of SF series years ago. TPM might have historical significance for SF but I would not label it as a masterpiece. For me a masterpiece is as good a read now as it was a century or more before. War of the Worlds comes easily to mind as an example of a masterpiece that was written over a century ago.

So what elements make a historical SF piece a masterpiece? What gives it staying power? I think the previous posts about Asimov’s robot stories are getting at something about the ideas being thought provoking even if the predictions don’t bear out. But of course plot, character development and writing style all contribute.

So, now on to what many consider a masterpiece: The Fifth Head of Cerberus is up next for me. Been looking forward to reading this for some time since I completed Wolfe’s Solar Cycle a couple of years ago.

>65 Stevil2001: That was great, thanks for all the info in the blog post!

>71 Neil_Luvs_Books: I guess I liked The Paradox Men slightly more than you did, mostly for this part, (from my review) "It has some strange scientific ideas, but mainly it is a warning about the corrupting power of dictators and totalitarianism." I read it in 2023, relatively recently.

I think I'd agree many of Asimov's robot books are masterpieces, but The Paradox Men is not.

>73 Karlstar: I think the strange “sciency“ exposition distracted me from the deeper issues being explored.

>66 ScoLgo:, >67 Neil_Luvs_Books:, >72 Karlstar: Thanks for the kind words all!

Just finished the first novella of The Fifth Head of Cerberus in one sitting. Fascinating! I don’t think I caught all the clues of what was going on but I clued in enough to enjoy what was going on. Typical Gene Wolfe.

Looking forward to how the next two novellas deconstruct (or reconstruct) that first story.

>76 Neil_Luvs_Books: Alzabo Soup - The Fifth Head of Cerberus ... ;-)

Arent you all glad that Dusty reads really old but interesting books. Its gratifying to see it sparks some nice little discussions! lol.
Oh dear I'm not enjoying Artemis.Love the descriptions of the moon,and the McGyver in space vibes,but I dont like the protagonist and its first person narrative so that aint good,being subject to her to me rather unpleasant character.
I'm reading one chapter a day and instead am thoroughly enjoying Startide Rising.I enjoy books about uplifting and also about aliens,so this hits the spot.
Also started a reread of Neuromancer after a gap of 12 years. The settings and themes are even more to be found everywhere in books and films that even when I read it then but what I had forgotten was just how vibrant and distinctive the prose is .read a nice little article today about it
check out ; https://iwl.me/writer/William_Gibson

>78 dustydigger: I read Artemis this month, and it was not good. I guess that was the general consensus.

>78 dustydigger: Like most people, I disliked Artemis. I tried the audiobook and DNF'd it after 5 or 6 chapters. On the other hand, I'm a big fan of Startide Rising. Glad you are enjoying it.

>78 dustydigger: Why yes, I am glad you read and post about old but interesting books!

That was an interesting profile of Gibson. Wasn't aware of the I Write Like website. Don't disagree with it's take of Gibson's style, exactly, but think I detect several areas where while correct, it somehow makes a causal connection that is more happenstance than chosen. The myriad plotlines that mirror internet networking, for example. Technically true, but it suggests Gibson selected it in order to have that effect, which I don't see. But always interesting to read a pithy description of something I'm deeply familiar with, and marvel at what is included and what not.

>41 royallyreading: & >43 Neil_Luvs_Books: I am currently listening to Contact and enjoying it very much. I've forgotten so many of the details which shouldn't be too surprising considering it's been 40 years since I read it.

>79 vwinsloe: & >80 Karlstar: Well, I'm glad it was not just me. I think I only made it about a quarter of the way through before I bailed.

>78 dustydigger: Having recently finished a re-read of the Johnny Mnemonic short story, I'd decided I should re-read Neuromancer as I've forgotten most of the details. Reading your post this morning again brought that idea to mind, but looking for a new audiobook to start while doing some chores today, I eventually settled on The Peripheral.
I'm enjoying it so far, but it might not have been the best choice. Gibson's sparse prose, clipped conversations, and quick scene changes require more concentration than I was able to give it, and I found myself frequently skipping back.

Finished Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb. First of her Liveship Traders Trilogy within her larger Realm of the Elderlings series. Hobb is at the peak of her craft with this creation, with wonderfully imagined world-building and strong, well realized characters. Highly recommended.

>83 igorken: I quite liked The Peripheral but you are correct that it requires focused reading to follow the clipped phrasing and pacing. Fascinating idea. The sequel, Agency was also good but not as good. Still worth reading though. I had to think about it afterwards why Gibson entitled it Agency. I think I got it and thought it a clever title in retrospect. I’m waiting for his third book in this trilogy to be released. From what I’ve heard The Jackpot is giving him troubles because current reality has ended up being crazier than the fiction he was dreaming up. At least so says the social media world…

>77 ScoLgo: excellent! Thanks for the link to Alzabo Soup. I knew they podcast about Gene Wolfe but had not yet tracked down their Fifth Head of Cerberus episodes.

Just finished the 2nd novella in The Fifth Head of Cerberus, entitled “A Story,” by John V. Marsch. Not sure I understood it with the interweaving of dreams and reality and the seeming exchanges of persons between bodies. It reminded me of The Book of the Short Sun and the Inhumi species on Green and their ability to change form and cast consciousness.

I hope the last novella, V.R.T. brings things together.

>82 clamairy:
I loved the film of Contact and have the book about thirty years but have not read it yet. A treat in store for me.

>88 pgmcc: Yes, you have a treat to look forward to. I also loved the film. I wonder how well it's held up.

>89 clamairy:
I loved John Hurt’s performance. His line which I remember most dearly is:

“First rule of public expenditure; why have one when you can have two at twice the price?”

I should think it stands up well. The part with a billionaire using space for his own ends would appear prescient.

>89 clamairy: I re-watched Contact a few months ago. Have no fear; it holds up well. I also really enjoyed the book when I first read it. It is long overdue for a re-read.

>89 clamairy: and others: I echo the views about the film of Contact. The novel is still on my TBR pile, too, though it's not been there for all that long.

The only thing that saddens me about the film is that the radio telescope at Arecibo is now no more, although there are other observatories on-site.

>92 RobertDay: It broke my heart to watch that collapse. I have been running the SETI@home screensaver (now called BOINC*) on various computers for 27 years. I still have all my fingers crossed that something will turn up.

*It still processes SETI@home data packets, but it does a bunch of others, too. The only other project I have my PC attached to is ASTEROID@home.

Finished The Fifth Head of Cerberus and enjoyed it even though much went over my head. Reading discussion boards in Reddit I was pleased that I actually caught on to some of the implied plot development. But the bit about the abos being insect natives I completely missed!

BTW have any of you yet heard Angine de Poitrine? I think it sort of suits posting here. They are a Quebec duo that plays prog rock updated for the 21st C as aliens from another solar system. So sort of adjacent to reading SF?

Anyways, likely not for everyone but it is a real kick to watch.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi-9wS1so

I really enjoy them. They are clearly outstanding musicians even if you don’t appreciate the musical genre. But prog rock is what I grew up with in the 70s. So… it’s my genre. 😀

>95 Neil_Luvs_Books: Hmm. Saturn's answer to the White Stripes?

>95 Neil_Luvs_Books: Appreciate the post, had not heard of them specifically and will have a listen.

>96 justifiedsinner: apparently Angine de Poitrine is opening for the White Stripes in Toronto sometime in the next few months. So… maybe there is an interplanetary connection between them!

>94 Neil_Luvs_Books:. How fun. I am listening to them now. Love the costumes!

>60 RobertDay: Way back in the 60s (or 70s?) I read a bunch of books by Emil Petaja, some of which made me aware of the Kalevala. They were among the first books that made me aware of how well myth could be adapted to SF. I should reread a couple & see if I enjoy them as much now.

>94 Neil_Luvs_Books: In reading Wolfe, it's often useful to have a high tolerance for ambiguity.

Just posted my review of Peter S. Beagle's In Calabria.

The Hugo finalist shortlist is out, and I always diligently read everything and vote in most of the prose fiction categories, so on Saturday, when my copy of my first finalist shows up (I usually do the novels in hard copy), I will set aside my other reading to get in as much as I can by the end of July. I will probably start with Death of the Author.

>102 Stevil2001: Thank you for this review. I will stay far away from this book.

>102 Stevil2001:

I also found this a useful review. My Other Reader is something of a Beagle fan, and I might have been tempted to get this book for her as a gift. I'll find something better.

>101 rshart3: Yes, I agree - I can live with ambiguity and enjoy evocative prose. But sometimes I catch myself thinking “is this what is really going on?” And then I fall into a black hole searching the web for discussions of the issue raised in a Wolfe book. It’s fun!

The best resource I have found so far for The Book of the New Sun is the ReReading Wolfe podcast. Though they have slowed down their output over the last year. Not sure when they will finish it. They are still discussing Sword of the Lictor which I finished reading a few years ago.

>102 Stevil2001:. I am interested in your thoughts on Death of the Author.

>95 Neil_Luvs_Books: That was... something.

>107 Karlstar: I think that is an appropriate response. :)

I have had the anthology of Canadian science fiction, Northern Stars on my bookshelf since it was published in 1994 and have not read a single story… until today.

I wanted a good short story so opened it to the ToC and noticed that William Gibson has a story published in there, The Winter Market. It was very good. I have read other short stories of his in Burning Chrome but I thought this was one of his best.

Part of my enjoyment, I suspect, is that I hung out on some weekends on Granville Island in Vancouver when I was an awkward teenager looking for a comic shop.

This story is worth reading.

I started reading Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. It’s very readable. I already finished in one sitting the first of three parts in this novel.

I've started Children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A bit late to the party, but better late than never!

>100 rshart3: I had the same experience with Petaja's Kalevala books in the 60s, and like you should revisit them.

Oh yes, did finish up Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me, which did turn out to be pretty good in the end. I might have like it better had I not already read some Matt Dinniman this month, who does this sort of thing better. About 10 years ago I would have read it pretty uncritically.

Finished Artemis.
Hmm. After The Martian made such a big splash people were eagerly awaiting this book,and sadly were quite disappointed. I was put off reading it for years because of that but finally read it now. I liked the descriptive bits about the moon and the single lunar city. My problem lay with the character of the protagonist. I think Weir got the tone all wrong. Maybe a male character speaking and acting this way would have passed muster,but I did NOT find the wild maverick 26 year old Jazz charming or admirable. Instead she was abrasive and somehow not someone I could empathise with which is bad news in a first person narrative.
I also wasnt a great fan of the humour either but thats probably just me,grumpy old woman.
I did like Weir's next book Project Hail Mary a little more but Weir would not be a great favourite writer for me.
Not a problem,though. He hasnt published a novel for 6 years!lol.
.....
I have about 150 pages of Startide Rising. The middle section seemed to drag a little,so hoping the excitement ramps up again soon.
Life is hectic but after Startide I hope to fit in a good short story before month's end.Only 40 pages into Neuromancer,but I've put it aside for now for a quieter time as it needs focus.It i easier to read tahn it seemed 14 years ago,but I supposed thats due to reading a hundred books influenced by it.

Having completed Annihilation I've picked up Roadside Picnic in hopes the juxtaposition will be more than novelty. I think it will be based on what little I know of the preoccupations of the Strugatsky Bros being different than those of VanderMeer. In any case the conversation in my head should add an interesting layer to each work.

>115 elenchus:

I found Annihilation and Roadside Picnic far less similar than reputation would suggest. I liked both, preferred Annihilation. (If memory serves, VanderMeer expressly disavowed having read Roadside Picnic prior to writing Annihilation.)

>116 paradoxosalpha: That the broadly similar premise would play in out in dissimilar ways makes the prospect of comparing more interesting for me, so it's cheering to hear that!

I've also got a compilation of essays on Roadside Picnic on my shelf so I'll see if I'm tired of the concept once finishing Strugatsky or if I pick that up next: Roadside Picnic Revisited. I do expect I'll re-watch Stalker though, and maybe screen the Annihilation adaptation for the first time.

I just finished Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. It was good. There was only one part near the end of Part 1 that didn’t feel genuine to me when a main character started to destroy a lab when the character started out the book thinking this was the only way to save humanity. I guess I felt there should have been an alternative in their head before destroying what was still their only hope of survival.

But other than that, it was a strong book that ended well.

Not sure what I’ll pick up next. I may read some short stories this week. I have Gene Wolfe’s Endangered Species that I may delve back into. I’ve only read one or two in that collection.

>117 elenchus: I feel like Roadside Picnic is "premise forward," and Annhilation is ... not.

>114 dustydigger: Your feelings and observations about Artemis are very similar to my own. See my short review.

I wrapped up my read of Shadow Ticket, allowing me to shift my focus to The Eternal Champion -- of which I have so far read only the front matter.

>120 vwinsloe: Thanks for the heads up! I was gifted Artemis for Xmas and was going to get to it soon.

:(

Finished The Unkillable Princess, I probably wasn't as open-minded to as I should have been, but the novel tested my patience in regards to flash-back structure. A your mileage may differ book.

>119 paradoxosalpha:

I'm only one chapter into Picnic, but certainly agree with your take so far.

An interesting parallel is that neither novel seems particularly interested in the origins of the mysterious landscape, only on how it affects people now and most specifically, how people behave toward it -- or even merely the idea of it, whether or not their understanding is accurate.

I enjoyed my reread of Startide Rising though the middle section dragged a bit,and I am not really a fan of multi point of view narratives,though with such a scattered collection of characters and locations I suppose it was necessary to tell the story.
What irritated me though was the shocking lack of editing of the text. Never seen so many spelling mistakes,typos etc,italicised words for no reason etc etc etc.Pretty egregious in a Hugo,Nebula and Locus winner.
Happy to have located a Zelazny Hugo nominated novelette I have wanted to read for a while,For a Breath I Tarry
I have been wary of dominant machines ever since I traumatised myself reading 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream but apparently this is a much more benevolent tale! lol.

Week before last I read through The Pride of Chanur, which I don't think was a very good choice for my first Cherryh. I didn't dislike it, but it did get put in the crate for the secondhand store. Should I try Cyteen instead? Or something else?

After that I read What We Are Seeking, which I quite liked, and am currently reading Slow Gods. I'm glad I pushed past my initial reaction on the latter, which was "oh no, not another corporatist hellscape".

>126 Watry: I have read a lot of Cherry and, despite the love that Chanur seems to get from her fanbase, it is not one of my favorite works from her. Cyteen is excellent, but is also long and dense. Forty Thousand in Gehenna is tangential to Cyteen, (and to the sequel, Regenesis). You could try that one before picking up Cyteen? It's not a prequel or anything like that but events on Gehenna are mentioned a few times in Cyteen, making it obvious that it is all part of the Alliance-Union Universe.

Oh, and I have posted this before but it's worth mentioning that Hellburner is a direct sequel to Heavy Time so those two should be read in order, should you decide to pick up something from The Company Wars. The rest of the Company Wars books are pretty much self-contained and can be read in any order.

After a mystery detour through Fer-de-Lance, about to start Arcturus Landing.

>126 Watry: Have you read Cherryh’s Downbelow Station yet? I think it is her best work that I have read so far. It is excellent.

Death Wish by Ned Lang read from a fun entertaining read. A 3-space crew find themselves in a difficult situation unsolvable by humans, when the computer on board has the answer, it’s not the one they are looking for.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through The Vor Game - aka the continuing adventures of Miles Vorkosigan. Solid series overall.

I decided to read At the Earth’s Core having never read it. Sadly it hasn’t aged well. I remember really enjoying Burroughs’s Barsoom series when I read those 11 novels in high school. I wonder if I’ll feel the same way about them when I eventually attempt a re-read.

On to Heinlein’s Friday, one of his few later novels that I never read. I remember really enjoying Stranger in a Strange Land, The Past Through Tomorrow, and Time Enough for Love. But then detested The Number of the Beast. The cat Who Walks Through Walls was ok. The premise of To Sail Beyond the Sunset was a bit too weird for me. I never did read Job. But I loved his earlier what would now be called YA novels: The Door into Summer, Double Star, The Puppet Masters and others. Friday seems to generate a mixed response among readers so I’m curious whether or not I’ll like it.

>132 Neil_Luvs_Books:

I can't predict whether you'll enjoy Friday, but if you really hated The Number of the Beast, you're probably good to skip Job: A Comedy of Justice. It's the last Heinlein I read, and I liked it -- but mostly as an homage and reply to James Branch Cabell.

>132 Neil_Luvs_Books: If you have not yet seen it, the Netflix production of The Door Into Summer is a very nicely-done adaptation. I enjoyed it almost as much as Predestination, which is adapted from Heinlein's All You Zombies short story.

>134 ScoLgo: Thanks for the heads up about those two. I had seen The Door into Summer production available to stream but have not yet watched it. And I did not know about Predestination. What did you think of the movie All You Zombies with Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook? I liked it.

>133 paradoxosalpha: Thanks for the advice on Job. I so badly wanted to like The Number of the Beast but I just did not buy into the premise.

>135 Neil_Luvs_Books: Predestination is the movie starring Ethan Hawke & Sarah Snook that is based on Heinlein's All You Zombies.

I like that movie a lot. Other than The Door Into Summer, I haven't watched any other movies based on Heinlein's works, (and no, Starship Troopers does not count! LOL).

The Puppet Masters (1994) was worth the time it took to view it for free on streaming, although we did go a little MST3K on it.

>137 ScoLgo: Oh that’s funny. For some reason the movie title, Predestination, did not stick in my brain after I watched it! I just grabbed on to the fact that it was based on Heinlein’s short story. It was a good film.

I finished listening to Contact. It was as good as I remembered it, possibly even better. I really need to rewatch the film now.

>140 clamairy: I thought that was a really good movie, at the time.

>138 paradoxosalpha: I read that one a couple of years ago and I wasn't impressed, hopefully the movie was updated?

>142 Karlstar:

I never read the book, so I can't speak to any fidelity on that count, but the movie was set in the 1990s.

Oh wow. How have I missed out on this fabulous Zelazny short story all my life? I have been a Zelazny devotee since reading Nine Princes in Amber way back in 1970.I recently acquired The Best of Roger Zelazny to access the Damnation Alley novella version for a challenge and have just noticed For a Breath I Tarry among the titles and remembered elsewhere Chip Delany going into raptures over it,picking it as some of Zelazny's best work among those spectacular works in the first 4 years of his published career.
I wouldnt know where to start to try to describe the story it is so densely packed with themes about humanity versus machines.Also moving too. And full of sharp wit and humour,references to art and beauty. In barely 40 pages. Incredible stuff.Damn,every time I read Zelazny I grieve for the shortness of his life,taken by cancer at only 57.
The exuberant sparkle and brilliance of the first few years may have subsided a little but always his style his humour and originality shone through. And his so called lesser works such as the Amber series are absolutely adored by a myriad of readers.And a myriad of writers have been enormously influence by him too.

>144 dustydigger: For Breath I Tarry is still available in print, and I'm wishlisting it. Thanks.

Finished Arcturus Landing, started Orbitsville.