Our reads in May 2026

Another month another attempt to curb the tottering TBR pile.What are your reading plans for May?

Dusty's TBR for May 2026
Emily Tesh - Some Desperate Glory
William Gibson - Neuromancer✔
Algis Budrys - Rogue Moon
Robert A Heinlein - Double Star ✔
Rick Riordan - The Lightning Thief graphic novel✔
Rick Riordan - Sea of Monsters✔

Completed
The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock
BLAME! Master Edition, 1 by Tsutomu Nihei
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
The Affirmation by Christopher Priest

Currently Reading
In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

On Deck
Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Ordered/Requested
BLAME! Master Edition, 2 by Tsutomu Nihei
Platform Decay by Martha Wells
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

Current Reads:
•Last First Snow
•Titus Groan
•Blue Mars

Upcoming:
•New Amsterdam
•Remains
•The Mills of the Gods

Almost done with Roadside Picnic, which impresses enough I'm curious to read more Strugatsky Bros though have not settled on a specific title.

Tentatively planning to follow that up with the critical essay collection on Picnic I mentioned in the April thread, but I do leave the decision to when I'm actually ready to read, so we'll see.

This months line up is Spread Me, Volatile Memory, Jade Legacy, and The Regicide Report.

I’m reading Heinlein’s Friday at the moment. After that I want to re-read Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and then a first read of its sequel, The Testaments.

I am currently reading The Hungry Gods and have Jitterbug on deck.

Still reading Children of time. I'm not enjoying it as much as Tchaikovsky's more recent SF, although I admire what he's doing.

>7 Neil_Luvs_Books: Enjoy. I read The Testaments a few years ago and it was very satisfying. I was a big fan of the TV series, but I stopped watching it after the 4th season for some reason. I still have Hulu so I really should make an effort to finish it. Sometimes it's painful to watch.

Just today finished Green Mars. Next SF up is Project Hail Mary, which got promoted a long way up the TBR pile after we saw the film over Easter. We enjoyed the film immensely, despite the bonkers science, the hugely telegraphed happy endings and the fact that we spent the next two days picking holes in it. Now I want to see what was in the original novel....

I have started my first Lodestar Award finalist Sunrise on the Reaping, a Hunger Games prequel. To be honest, I went into this with a faint sense of dread, but I am enjoying it so far.

Planned SF&F reads for May:

The Mad Ship by Robin Hobb
A Darkness at Sethanon by Raymond E. Feist
Flux by Stephen Baxter
One the Beach by Nevil Shute

Whizzed through my reread of Heinlein's Double Star. I have a soft spot for impersonation novels of all sorts from Prisoner of Zenda to Brat Farrer to The Prince and the Pauper and Double Star is a fun addition to said genre,a romp about an out of work actor who is roped in to impersonate a politician who has been kidnapped just when said politician is due to be ceremonially induced into a high level Martian family.His not turning up would be an unforgivable insult which could lead to war.
Next I return to Neuromacer and as a relief I am reading The Lightening Thiefas part of a group challenge. I am suffering badly from back pain and a raging earche,so when I cant focus enough on the intricasies of cyberpunk a nice mindless bit of Rick Riordan is a welcome change,no heavy brain lifting required! lol

>3 paradoxosalpha: looking forward to your review for In the Night Garden, been eyeing that one.

>15 Cecrow:

I hope to finish it this month. It's a beefy book, and it's bedtime reading with my Other Reader. (I already own a copy of the sequel, with my prior reading of Valente's work giving me a lot of confidence about it.)

>12 Stevil2001: I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I think you will not be disappointed.

>13 ChrisG1: On the Beach is well worth the time. Enjoy!

I brought my Kindle to work to read Sunrise on the Reaping at lunch, and then left it there, so I have switched to They Bloom at Night (which I got from the library) for the weekend.

>10 clamairy: I also stopped watching The Handmaid’s Tale around the 4th season. It is tough to watch. I started watching it again a few weeks ago and think I will finish it this time. It’s what inspired me to put its re-read back to the top of my TBR list. That, and I’ve also wanted to read The Testaments since it was published a few years ago.

>13 ChrisG1: That's a great list! I'll second what >17 clamairy: said!

I really should get back to Hobb, but I've been told not to start with the Liveship series, which is where I tried and failed, with Ship of Magic, I just can't get through the beginning, I've tried three times.

>20 Karlstar: The Liveship series is 2nd sequentially. While it's an entirely different cast of characters, a lot of the worldbuilding takes place in The Farseer Trilogy. But no doubt, Hobb's books are loooooong and require a lot of patience.

Just posted my review of Green Mars.

>21 ChrisG1: Long books and long series don't bore me, but most are at least a little engaging at the start. Ship of Magic was not.

>22 RobertDay: great review! One of the things that most impressed me about the Mars trilogy is how Robinson was able to make the planet a character in a sense. And once you see it that way it is difficult to sit comfortably with how humans are manipulating and sculpting this character without consideration of it.

KSR clearly cares about the natural environment but understands that in order to live something else has to die. So in some sense, this trilogy is considering what is the best balance. Should humanity always trump nature? But what makes it complicated for me is that it is in every living being’s nature to survive no matter the cost to other living beings.

I am currently reading Slow Gods by Claire North, and it is very immersive, so I need to take a break every so often.
Although since it has actual Gods in it, I guess it might be classified as fantasy rather than science fiction.

>25 amberwitch: Your touchstone is pointing to a different book.

I just finished Platform Decay by Martha Wells.

Currently reading Paradox by Douglas Preston and Aletheia Preston and Radiant Star by Ann Leckie.

>26 clamairy: fixed, thanks!

>23 Karlstar: My main point was that starting with the 2nd of 5 series' in her work made a difference.

>22 RobertDay: I read Red Mars many years ago & even though I liked it, never got around to the other books. I now have all three (in 1st edition hardcovers) and plan on reading the whole thing.

>28 amberwitch: You're welcome.

I'm very envious that some of you got your hands on Platform Decay ahead of the release.

>27 tottman: I read an ARC of Radiant Star back in January, and I think it might be the best Radch novel (possibly barring Translation State, which I haven't read yet).

Platform Decay is up next, as I picked up a copy on Friday but didn't get any reading done over the weekend.

I'm reading This is How You Lose the Time War which was on last month's LT list which was for favorite science fiction.

>31 clamairy: envious

Yeah, me too though my pre-order will be here in short order. Of late my booklife has been interrupted so I console myself that there would have been no time to read it even had I received a copy earlier.

I fully expect to read Platform Decay, but I don't mind being a laggard. I have plenty of other things to read until a copy becomes available at my local public library.

Finished Orbitsville, about to start Orbitsville Departure.

>34 elenchus: & >35 paradoxosalpha: I put myself on the notify list for Libby, but if it takes forever I might buy the e-book. I am in the middle of reading something that's probably going to take me at least another week so I'm not going to get my proverbial knickers in a twist over Murderbot just yet.

Finished up Spread Me. Not for everyone, but is too grim and desperate to be approached as mostly being exploitive thrills. The question is whether one basically has an "idiot plot," as the main character seems to have a taste for self-destruction. I thought it was worth the investment of time.

Some Desperate Glory is really irritating me so I've cast it aside for a few days to indulge in a fun John Scalzi light piece of enjoyable fluff,Starter Villain and am now putting off a return to Desperate Glory with a kindle unlimited piece of fluff,a guilty pleasure to cheer me up! lol.

>39 dustydigger: I had mixed feelings about that book too, though it ultimately came together for me.

>39 dustydigger: Starter Villain is perfect for that! Fluffy fun.

>22 RobertDay: Enjoyed your excellent review of Green Mars. I read Red Mars in the early 1990's and got a bit bored with all the geological descriptions in the book and didn't read any more in the series. I note however that the first colonial voyage to Red Mars takes place in 2026 so it is a portentous moment for a re-read.

One of my favourite authors from the 1960's/1970's was J G Ballard and I thought I had read most of his books. Scrolling through the list of his publications I came across Vermillion Sands which is a collection of short stories.

I have started Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series:

>43 baswood:

My current reading for the throne room is J.G. Ballard: Quotes, which sorts isolated paragraphs and epigrams into topics, irrespective of their sources in novels, interviews, short fiction, and nonfiction essays. It's the sort of provocative stuff I like when I poop!

Finished Scalzi's Starter Villain just a nice fun read which I just thought was a normal sort of light read and didnt take itself too seriously. Yet there it is as a Hugo nominee for 2024 and his Kaiju Preservation Society nominated in 2023. I seriously wonder what the award criteria are these days.Nominated books are just nice light reads for the most part,pleasant I suppose but not so many tough difficult but important themes ,or original settings or pyrotechnic prose.We need some new wonderkind young person setting off fireworks to get us out of the rut.
For now I am still sticking for the most part to the last century for my reads. Every time I read the latest stuff from the Hugo/Nebula I am either irritated bored or bewildered as to why some books are even nominated.lol. Oh dear I am really showing my age talking about the good old days and not finding new reads up to snuff. Just ignore me. :0)
Now I must settle down to Neuromancer and Some Desperate Glory,so that I can on to my eagerly anticipated reread of Rogue Moon

Mediocre later novels by once great writers are perennial Hugo favorites, otherwise Foundation's Edge and Fountains of Paradise wouldn't have won back in the 1980s. It does seem of late that Scalzi has enough fandom to land on the ballot, but not to win it.

>46 dustydigger: >47 Stevil2001: Are all of the SF awards fan determined? Is there no award for literary SF that is judged by esteemed writers and critics?

What is the SF equivalent of the Booker, Pulitzer or the Giller prize?

>48 Neil_Luvs_Books: Nearest equivalent is the Arthur C. Clarke Award, judged by a panel from the British Science Fiction Association, the Science Fiction Foundation and the London SF Film Festival.

https://www.clarkeaward.com/

How 'literary' that is may be judged by the fact that recent winners have included Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad and In Ascension by Martin MacInnes.

The Nebulas are awarded by the SF Writers of America specifically for works published in the USA.

The John W. Campbell Memorial Award (not to be confused with the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, now called the Astounding Award) is also a juried award (though it stopped in 2019).

Finished Orbitsville Departure, about to start Confluence by McAuley.

Just finished The Mad Ship by Robin Hobb. Second volume of her Liveship Traders series, a subset of her Realm of the Elderlings universe. Hobb's imagination astounds me. Her books may be a bit lengthier than I prefer, but she does make the journey worth it. Strongly recommended for fans of epic fantasy.

Started Positive Obsession, a biography of Octavia Butler.

I finally unburied Red Mars and cracked it open. I admit to confusion about the first chapter but I am soldiering on to continue reading.

Continuing to solider on with Hugo reads, but in the meantime, I've posted a review of Broken Angels, the second Altered Carbon book.

Decided that in preparation for reading the newly-published Murderbot novel, Platform Decay, I'll re-read the immediate precursors to remind myself of various events and characters. Recently completed Network Effect and read the first chapter of System Collapse, which effectively is the conclusion of that story arc. They prove to be as enjoyable as ever.

>55 Stevil2001: Thanks for that review. Though it's been 15 years since I read these I generally agree with you, though as far as I remember the drop-off from Alered Carbon was even larger for me. I did very much enjoy the third book in the series.

I read one more of his books, that I didn't like at all and I haven't gone back to him since. I assume he has written a few more good ones since.

I've not watched either the Altered Carbon tv show or the animated series, but I've heard good (and bad) things of both.

I just finished reading Heinlein’s Friday. Have you ever had that experience that what you are reading feels familiar but you just cannot remember how the book plays out? I am now certain that i have read Friday before but honestly I wasn’t sure how it was going to end until the last page.

Which means that this was a fine book. Not an excellent read but mildly interesting. Interesting enough that I finished it but not sufficiently interesting that I remembered the story from the first time i read it (I am certain now that i read it before).

It is certainly not up to RAH’s standards of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Starship Troopers or his short story collection The Past Through Tomorrow, which I think is outstanding.

Friday has some really interesting themes such as Heinlein’s exploration of racism in the guise of Artificial Persons (i.e., genetically engineered test tube babies). Also, some interesting points about the breakdown of society when it is run by multinationals.

But like much of RAH’s later work there is the running theme of free love. RAH, in his later years continually banged the drum of sex not tied to sexual politics. Is this possible with the way that humans are wired?

If you are looking for something to read by Robert A Heinlein there are better places to start. I listed three above. Another excellent read is his Door into Summer.

Now on to my reread of The Handmaid’s Tale. I first read this way back when it was first published in the 1980s and remember thinking it was good. Looking forward to this reread in preparation for my first time read of The Testaments.

I've now read and reviewed Project Hail Mary. There's all sorts of things wrong with the book, but I enjoyed it despite being able to pick holes in it miles wide. I happen to think that Andy Weir is the true inheritor of the torch that Hugo Gernsback lit for science, and that this is as necessary now as it was a hundred years ago. My review:

Finished a big old omnibus.

>59 RobertDay: Enjoyed your excellent review of Project Hail Mary I have not read any Andy Weir (he is too contemporary for me). I particularly liked your thoughts on early science fiction (before it was labelled as science fiction).

>59 RobertDay:
I was about to start reading Project Hail Mary when I spotted your review. It has taken a lot of people saying they enjoyed the film for me to consider reading the novel as I was put of Weir by The Martian. Having read your review I may just watch the film. My nickname for The Martian is "McIvor in Space". I found it tedious and repetitive and your review indicates that Project Hail Mary is the same, something I would not like to go through again.

Knocked off Volatile Memory, which gave me the fast-paced, but smart, space adventure that I've been missing for awhile.

>48 Neil_Luvs_Books: The World Fantasy Award takes some fan input, but is ultimately decided by a jury of relevant authors.

>62 pgmcc: A lot of the tedium in crisis after crisis in Project Hail Mary is made up for by the dialogue between Grace and the alien, Rocky. I would be inclined to watch the film first, but then perhaps be prepared to give the novel a go, perhaps dipping into it rather than trudging all the way through it from beginning to end. The novel illuminates some of the things that the film glosses over.

The Martian is still on the TBR pile, and I see no real reason to bump it up any. I gather that there is less detail in the sciency bits in PHM than in the earlier novel (which doesn't bode well for The Martian), and PHM has the benefit of another character for Ryland Grace to bounce off.

>60 paradoxosalpha: I had read the Elric and Corum books in the 70's & had never gotten around to the other multiverse characters. I did recently get & read the omnibus you reviewed. It was nice to return to his writing, but not sure I want to commit to more of it.

>66 ChrisG1:

I chose to read this one as background to the forthcoming third volume of The Sanctuary of the White Friars. I've read an awful lot of Moorcock across his various series, and I still have more on my shelf un-read! I especially liked The Dancers at the End of Time, and I read it long enough ago that I could be due for a re-read any time now.

>62 pgmcc: Probably a wise choice. I enjoyed The Martian well enough, (book and movie), but did not think as highly of Project Hail Mary. I read the book last year and we saw the film in theater just a few weeks ago. Turns out I liked the movie better than the novel. At nearly 500 pages, I found the book a bit long and repetitive, (something goes wrong, Grace finds a fix. Something else goes wrong, Grace finds another fix. Grace meets an alien & how we have a buddy flick where other things go wrong and the dynamic duo fixes it, etc, etc). So yeah, McGyver in Space is a fair comparison. That said, the film's visuals and acting talent does help elevate the material.

Of course, many people seem to love both the book and the movie so I may be an outlier on this...

>68 ScoLgo:
I enjoyed the movie of The Martian and the trailer for Project Hail Mary struck me as promising. Normally I am a “book is better than the movie” sort of guy but I do have examples where the film was better than the book, e.g. The Firm and The Da Vinci Code.

I have started my next Lodestar Award finalist, Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe.

>68 ScoLgo: I'm with you. I enjoyed reading The Martian more than I did Project Hail Mary, but I thought they did a very decent job with the recent film.

Touchstones are not loading.

I finished my audiobook version of The Peripheral today. I repeated the first 1.5 hours because I hadn't paid enough attention, and took my time getting through it afterwards, but I really enjoyed it.

I'm not sure why I enjoyed it so much though because, looking back, I have to admit that the plot doesn't have a lot going for it, most of the characters are archetypes, and the ending was over the top. I guess that Gibson style, some cool tech, and a likeable main character are enough for me.
And of course I must not forget to mention I found Katie Leung's narration quite impressive.

i might need to try an audiobook version of Gibson, imagine it could be a different but positive reading experience.

>72 igorken: I really enjoyed The Peripheral. Gibson’s follow up book, Agency, I thought was also very good. It was not as fascinating as the world was created in The Peripheral, but still really enjoyable. I appreciated the title of the book in that the main character had no agency. Very clever that way.

I've started To Say Nothing of the Dog, and I've added a book to the very top of my TBR pile: I had stopped listing Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME! Master Edition, 1 in my Ordered/Requested titles, because I had despaired of delivery by the hold fairy. But she coughed it up today!

Sat down this morning and read Paul McAuley's monograph for the British Film Institute in their BFI Film Classics series on Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Reasonably straightforward, it tells the story of the film's conception, the struggles over getting it released, and then continues with an analysis of the film itself. McAuley wears his genre credentials proudly on his sleeve, so this book doesn't go down the route of too much academic filmic navel-gazing.

>76 RobertDay:
I love Brazil. It is one of those films I take out every so often and watch again.

>77 pgmcc: >76 RobertDay: Brazil is a brilliant film. I haven’t watched it for years.

>76 RobertDay: >77 pgmcc: >78 Neil_Luvs_Books: "'ere I am, J.H."

Saw Brazil multiple times in theater when it first released. I also have the Criterion DVD box set. Love that film, (the 'studio cut' version, not so much).

Add me to the Brazil admirers! I was just recommending it the other day in a discussion about excessive plastic surgery.

Anyone seen Gilliam's The Zero Theorem? Soem great acting by Christopher Waltz.

Anyone seen Gilliam's The Zero Theorem? Some great acting by Christopher Waltz.

Wrapped up Jade Legacy, which I approached as being a chore that needed to be done, and came away being impressed that Fonda Lee successfully pulled off this exercise in urban fantasy crime-family epic. I might have liked it even better if I didn't currently feel like a victim in a real-life crime family epic.

Just about to start a re-read of Bob Shaw's A Wreath of Stars.

>82 justifiedsinner: I didn’t realize that The Zero Theorem was a Gilliam production! I’m going to have to find where I can stream it.

>74 Neil_Luvs_Books: Did you watch the TV series, The Peripheral?

I have been reading Bujold's World of the Five Gods books and a scattering of non-scifi lately.

>80 vwinsloe: "My complication had a bit of a complication." LOL

Brazil is my favorite Xmas movie.

>86 Karlstar: yes, I did watch the tv series, The Peripheral and really enjoyed it. Although it altered somewhat from the novel, which I preferred, I still liked it. I thought the alterations may have better served the visual medium.

I’ve read File: The Death of Designer D. a short story by Christian Kirtchev read from The Big Book of Cyberpunk volume 1, this is the 6th story I’ve read from this collection that are more like commentary than short story, but I’m still working this and I have lined up another 6 to read from this book.

>85 Neil_Luvs_Books: It's on Amazon Prime if you get that.

>91 justifiedsinner: Adding this to my watchlist. Planning to get back to Prime for a while to watch Good Omens season 3 and Fallout season 2 anyway.

Finished The Handmaid’s Tale. It is just as excellent as when I first read it in the 1980s. The beginning and end I found to be riveting. The middle is difficult just because of the description of oppressive Gildean life.

I have read a number of Margaret Atwood’s novels and my favourite is still The Year of the Flood and The Madadam trilogy as a whole.

On to The Testaments.

I have really hit my stride on To Say Nothing of the Dog, and I finished the first volume of BLAME!.

>93 Neil_Luvs_Books: I'm glad you enjoyed that Atwood, and I can't wait to see your review of The Testaments.

Doing a couple Hugo novellas: just finished Murder by Memory, about to do The River Has Roots.

A classic from 1970?

>97 baswood:

I'm curious to revisit Ringworld even as I suspect it won't be quite the marvel it was when I first read it, probably early 80s. I've long paired this along with PJ Farmer's Riverworld as iconic and memorable, beckoning for a re-read but with some ambivalence for the science as well as the characters / characterisation. I imagine eventually I'll get to it but thus far not a high priority.

Just finished Dungeon Crawler Carl as a bit of comic relief while reading Red Mars.

>98 elenchus: How strange because I tend to get Philip José Farmer and Larry Niven mixed up possibly because of the similarity of Ringworld and Riverworld. I loved Riverworld when I read it back in the day and I am looking forward to a re-read of To Your Scattered Bodies Go

I am starting in on my next Hugo novel, The Everlasting by Alix Harrow.

Despite the number of reasons not to, I'm taking a stab at "the Dispossessed" by Ursula LeGuin because it's on my Hugo-Nebula list. I'll admit it is not what I thought. I'll also admit I'm not sure what it's supposed to be. Assuming it doesn't get any worse, there are a few other LeGuin on the H-N list that I might be able to try.

Edit: Right then, I finished it. Not bad, not great; also not science fiction. Three out of five.

>101 Stevil2001: Have you read The Six Deaths of the Saint? I have a copy of The Everlasting but haven't read it yet so I'm unsure how the two relate - but I know that they do.

>102 HugoNebula: You puzzle me. What made you fearful of The Dispossessed? It is an important, rewarding read.

I have wrapped up To Say Nothing of the Dog. I'm getting a lot read this month!

>103 ScoLgo: I have not, I didn't even know about it until just now! The Internet seems to indicate the novel is an expansion/evolution of the short story.

>104 paradoxosalpha: I don't think fearful is the correct term, rather, unwilling. The author checks a few boxes of authors I wouldn't normally read. Now that I am a little further into it, I think I do see what it's supposed to be, and I think it is in fact, what I thought it would be. What makes it an important read?

>107 HugoNebula:
Your vagueness is daunting. What's "what you thought it would be"? What are the "boxes" LeGuin "checks"?

The book is worthwhile because it is thoughtful and incisive. It is certainly important to the history of the sf genre, for those who care. As you know, it won all the major awards in its year. It also contains the literary invention of the ansible.

>105 paradoxosalpha: Doomsday Book surprised me at how much I enjoyed it. It caught me by surprise. Actually shed a tear or two while reading it.

>101 Stevil2001: I really liked this one. It's not the most mind-blowingly novel thing out there, but it was interesting to see a novel about nationalism-as-story in a way I don't usually see in fiction. Sort of a typical "power of stories" thing, but used for a negative outcome.

>105 paradoxosalpha: Two comments about To Say Nothing ...:

First, Ned Henry's escape across Oxford near the beginning: I'm reasonably familiar with the territory and I've never been able to make sense of his path across Oxford.

Second, she gets the date for the destruction of Coventry Cathedral right, but Henry muses that the US will soon be entering the war with the attack on Pearl Harbor which, he thinks, is only three weeks away. In fact it was more than a year (14 November 1940 and 7 December 1941 respectively).

Also, "Baine" does many, many things that no butler would have done.

But who cares? I love it anyway. I've just borrowed the ebook and may read it again.

ETA Verity Kindle may be my favourite fictional heroine of all time, despite her now-unfortunate surname.

>111 haydninvienna:

Yeah, I read one of the longer LT reviews that really took Willis to task for research failures on simple geography and other details of Victorian England. I've never been to Oxford or Coventry, and in general, I was fortunate that my ignorance allowed me to gloss over such errors with no stint to my pleasure.

In fact it was more than a year (14 November 1940 and 7 December 1941 respectively)
A number of Willis' forecast events for the early 21st century have failed to come to pass, so ... "slippage"?

>53 Stevil2001:
>70 Stevil2001:

I see that I'm not the only person reading Hugo nominees right now. Though I think I saw the coffeeshop book rec'd on social media first.

Me, I'm in the middle of Tales from the gunpowder chronicles a collection of Opium War steampunk novellas by Jeannie Lin.

In theory, my next SF/F titles are for book groups: Letters from an imaginary country by Theodora Goss and the Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky (once I pick it up from the library).

>112 paradoxosalpha: I wouldn't go so far as to say I don't give a rat's you-know-what about the errors, but I don't find they spoil my enjoyment. Yeah, let's write it all off to slippage.

>112 paradoxosalpha: "I read one of the longer LT reviews that really took Willis to task..."

I suspect that was me.

As someone who lived around Coventry for nearly thirty years, the errors did spoil any enjoyment I may have gotten from the book. This was a major disappointment for me, as I'd found Doomsday Book engaging and poignant (given the grim nature of what happens in that novel, I wouldn't say "enjoyable"), and I was impressed. I'd gone into To say nothing... prepared to like it, but the errors just got in my way. Sorry, everyone.

Having said that, when the protagonist does travel to the actual night of the Coventry raid, I found the description of the destruction of the cathedral vivid and powerful. Still, if you want an account of the Coventry raid within the structure of a novel that also uses the fantastic, I would recommend Graham Joyce's The Facts of Life. Graham lived even closer to Coventry than I did, and had family with connections to the raid.

And then I read Blackout/All Clear. And things got worse. But that's another story.

>115 RobertDay: I suspect that was me.

I think it was! ;-)

>110 Watry: Yes, I'm really liking it. Reminds me of two of my other favorites from recent years, Some Desperate Glory and The Ministry of Time, in different ways. It's my second Best Novel finalist, but it feels like the one to beat.

I posted my review of an Ursula K. Le Guin anthology I read a couple months ago today.

>116 baswood:

Fascinating. Added to my recon list, I hope I stumble upon a used copy and recognise it.

In my Bob Shaw re-read project, I've now finished A Wreath of Stars. After the disappointment that was Orbitsville, this came up fresh, assured and well-executed, even if it was still written to a short length in Bob's economical style.

I was quite surprised to find that it included scenes which hearked back to Bob's days as an aviation journalist, working for Shorts in Belfast. During the late 1980s, I happened across some of this writing, in the form of an article about flying Short Skyvans for the Sultan of Oman's Air Force. I was surprised to see that used as a setting for the opening of this book.

My review:

>115 RobertDay: "And then I read Blackout/All Clear. And things got worse."

I made it through Blackout but did not (and will not) pick up All Clear. Disappointing does not begin to describe my feelings after the positive experience of Doomsday Book.

>116 baswood:. >119 elenchus:. Sounds good. Amazon has the Kindle book for $1.99. Since my library doesn't have this, I am getting it.

>122 daxxh: Hope you'll post a review or a reaction here when you've read it!

On to The Raven Scholar!

>5 elenchus: Read Roadside Picnic over the weekend. Really enjoyed it.
I'd expected it to be heavier going but this was a quick read. Gripping story, enjoyable dark humour, just enough weirdness. The dialog wasn't great and some bits felt rushed but this still felt fresh despite its age.

(edit: fixed the touchstone)

I just finished The Shattering Peace, the seventh of John Scalzi's Old Man's War series. It was an improvement over the last couple of loose story collections. Gretchen Trujillo, who was Zoe's best friend several books back, is a diplomat who is assigned to a team looking for a colony that disappeared. She interacts with other races, kicks some ass, and creates a novel solution.

>125 igorken: Good take, I also anticipated something of a slog due to translation and general approach, but I needn't have worried, the story was efficiently told and quite entertaining.

I saw one reference to a sequel, finished by just one of the brothers, but haven't seen much else. That one reference suggests there are some interesting revelations as to what was going on, so I'm on the lookout for it.

Finished The Regicide Report and was pleasantly impressed that Stross came up with an effective climax to his long-running series.

I just finished reading The Affirmation, and to be honest, I found it somewhat harrowing. But I was duly impressed and glad to have read it.

As I mentioned in my review, my 2011 copy of The Affirmation doesn't have the Yeats epigram. It has been entered in LT Common Knowledge -- but only in French. If anyone in this group has an earlier edition and could take a minute or two to transcribe the epigram in English CK, that would be great.

>130 paradoxosalpha: And done.

Odd that the SF Masterworks edition omits the epigram. Still, Priest himself changed the epigram in his collection The Dream Archipelago between different editions, so whilst dropping the epigram from The Affirmation looks strange, it may be deliberate. Or not.

Last year, I wrote an article for Bruce Gillespie's SF Commentary on the Dream Archipelago stories. It can be accessed via eFanzines.com:

https://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC122L.pdf

- though you may prefer to leave my musings and speculations until after you've read some more of the stories.

>131 RobertDay: Thanks!

Had a nasty fall 12th May faceplanted on stone tiles outside house bringing in the bins at 7 am,split brow chipped underlying eye ridge and damaged my eye(actually felt it squidge a bit but the ridge took the most damage so sight was blurred a few days but soon recovered),and wrenched right shoulder and bruised thigh and knee. Have had the most horrific bruising all over face with frog like eyelids and a swollen nose. Looked like someone after 10 rounds with Mike Tyson or had visited Fight Club lol.
Hospital checkup showed no concussion,I have a thick skull and I am pleased with the progress of the bruising,I normally can take 8 weeks or more for bruises to go away,but I think my new meds against my pernicious anaemia seem to be kicking in well I am almost recovered,bit of a yelloew face but only slight bruises left.
Worst thing was i had to lie in soaking wet grass for an hour before a neighbour finally heard me and got me up off the ground.
But I am resilient,am fine now. Reading was out for a while but finally yesterday I returned to the last 100 pages ofNeuromancer with enough mental acuity to make some, if not much, sense of it.
Cyberpunk is not my cup of tea,I am barely even computer literate,but the sharp style was fascinating,the text was dense and intricate,the plot often mysterious but gripping,so it was an enjoyable read.Certainly understood more i this reread.
As I kept reading scathing opinions of corporations and their greed and selfishness the whole book seemed as fresh and relevant,even more so, than 40 years ago. OMG,all those multibillionaires put in pride of place at the president's inauguration! lol.
I suppose I will complete the last 150 pages of Some Desperate Glory next weel and then finally get on to Rogue Moon a mere month after I was expecting to!

>133 dustydigger: Sorry to hear about your real-life misadventures.

Back in the day Gibson noted that "Neuromancer" was not the most dystopian book he could have written; that would have been a full-fledged exercise in corporate serfdom. Guess what seems to be now being stuffed down our collective throats; I almost welcome a general economic crash if it aborts that future.

>133 dustydigger:
Very sorry to hear about your fall and consequent injuries and bruising. Glad to hear you are on the mend and feeling like reading.

I started reading Neuromancer in the 90s but abandoned it as I felt the various bits of human-tech interfacing did not sit well with me. Your post has persuaded me to give it another go.

The book not sitting well with me did not stop my using it in a work presentation. I was scheduled to give a talk on Corporate Knowledge Retention, a big topic in the late 90s early noughties. My presentation started immediately after the lunch break. It was a warm day, and, as anyone who has had to talk in that time slot on a warm day would know, the propensity for audience members to fall asleep was high. To have a chance of keeping some people awake for such a boring subject as the retention of corporate knowledge, I decided to focus on methods to ensure our organisation retained its corporate knowledge at a time when there was a lot of job hopping with people leaving the firm. I looked at three methods:

- The Neuromancer approach with everyone jacked into a central system where their knowledge could be retained and shared with colleagues.

- The Midwych Cuckoos method with everyone being telepathically linked and hence having access to everyone else’s knowledge.

- My recommended approach: Assimilation into a Borg hive-mind.

I concluded my presentation with a full screen image of Locutus the Borg’s face glaring at the audience with the message, “Resistance is Futile!”

They stayed awake.

>133 dustydigger: Happy to hear that you survived it as well as you did. Yikes.

>135 pgmcc: I loved the character of Molly Millions in Neuromancer I coveted her mirrored contacts and fingernail blades. Sounds like you gave a memorable presentation.

>133 dustydigger:

Yikes! Glad you've pulled though the damage from the fall, but being stuck on the ground hoping for help really must have been terrible. When I committed a bicycling faceplant about six years ago, I was able to get home and present myself all bloody, and I have no idea how long I might have been out in the deserted pandemic-lockdown street.

I am doing some late-to-the-party cyberpunk reads with my first go at Snow Crash last year, and maybe I should add Neuromancer to the list.

>133 dustydigger: Glad to hear that you were found and are well on the road to recovery. That must have been a strange experience to be waiting in the grass for help. I don’t think I have ever experienced such a helpless situation.

I read Neuromancer back in the 1980s and enjoyed it but not as much as everyone else did. Since then I have read a number of Gibson’s books and some have resonated more than others. I am greatly enjoying his current Jackpot trilogy. At least I hope he eventually publishes the last book, Jackpot.

My intention is to eventually reread Neuromancer and then go on to do a first time read of the next two books, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Yesterday, I finished Atwood’s The Testaments. It was excellent. It surprised me that I found it better than her Handmaid’s Tale which I also thought was excellent though more difficult to read. One of the things that makes The Handmaid’s Tale good is its ability to convey the oppressiveness of the Gilead regime. Which makes it an oppressive read, IMHO. The Testaments moves along at a much more engaging pace.

Currently I am reading Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. I have never read his Blue Ant trilogy and am looking forward to it. I have read online that many consider it to be his best work.

>133 dustydigger: Worst thing was i had to lie in soaking wet grass for an hour before a neighbour finally heard me and got me up off the ground.

As others commented, that sounds worse than the initial blunt trauma event. That you are able to read now is a very good sign, indeed.

I've loved all of Gibson's works, perhaps especially as they have a throughline but are not merely copies of one another. Contra >138 Neil_Luvs_Books:, Jackpot is perhaps my least favourite, which is not at all to say I don't admire it and look forward to that last installment to the trilogy.

>133 dustydigger: Pleased to hear you're on the mend. Not what you want to be having to cope with. On the odd occasion when I've had similar mishaps, my stock response to those expressing shock at my appearance has been "You should see the other feller."

Not long after Neuromancer came out, someone asked Bill Gibson if he had seen Blade Runner, which was released while he was working on the novel. He replied that he'd gone to see it, but had had to walk out after about twenty minutes, "because it looked too much like the inside of my own head."

>140 RobertDay: Yes the echoes of PKD surfaced several times in the book,it was surely an influence,so seeing it on the screen must have seemed weird.
Wonder what he thought of The Matrix? :0)