May 2010 Reading

Happy New Month!

Finished Wishing Season, on to Charisma by Coney.

Reading Under Orders by Dick Francis.

Still working on Von Braun's Project Mars. Slow going but SUPER detailed.

"We aimed for the stars, but hit London instead". -- Attibuted to Werner Von Braun.

With a V-2, you had to do it that way. If they'd aimed for London they'd have blown Adolf out of his outhouse. :-Þ

Or to put it another way, "we aimed for union workers and got slave labor instead".

Majestrum by Matthew Hughes excellent book. I'm a little confused by the series order if someone more familiar could take a look at the series pages it would be much appreciated they appear to be disorganized.

>6 jmnlman:

Well his website isn't explicit, and isfdb seems to conflict with Fantastic Fiction in their understanding. Can't see much wrong with the LT series page, based on those references.

Currently reading The Orphaned Worlds by Michael Cobley. It is the second in the Humanity's Fire series.

#8 Picked that one up myself only a couple of days ago. Check out the acknowledgments at the back of the book.

#6 Majestrum certainly made reference to an earlier Henghis Hapthorn story. I assumed it was a novel, but I see Matt Hughes' web page puts Majestrum as the first HH novel. Maybe it follows on from a short story. Certainly it's set after Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice as Filidor, the protagonist of those books, is Archon in Majestrum.

I am two stories into Alasdair Reynold's collection Zima Blue and other stories. Excellent so far.

Finished The Left Hand of Darkness which I found a bit slow and dense to start but the story really picks up steam and becomes really interesting about 100 pages in.

About 100 pages into Altered Carbon now, a really easy and fast read so far.

I'm reading Kage Baker's Not Less Than Gods which is a prequel to her company series.

So far, 50-some pages in, OK.

I've only read a couple of the company series but I don't think that affects this read, although perhaps I might appreciate something I'm missing if I had read them all first. dunno.

I will be reading The Algebraist by Iain Banks next. It is my RL SFF group read for the month.

12> I've been holding off reading it, since it's her last Company book. But from the synopsis, I'm not sure how much sense it will make if you haven't pretty far into the Company series.

#14 I've only read the first two Company novels plus a few short stories I think. I picked it up at the Library. Seeing it there on the new books shelf I couldn't resist borrowing it.

It (Not Les Than Gods) seems very self contained so far.

15> I can't say much more without pretty much spoiling it. But while it may be a self-contained story, the characters are not self contained and play a major part in the Company series. It's possible this might answer the "I might appreciate something I'm missing if I had read them all first" topic.

I should finish Cryptonomicon this week...

Thanks Noisy and iansales.

Currently, non-SF reading is The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and will (unfortunately) be followed by Wuthering Heights for my English A level. However, interspersed will be Friday, Rendezvous with Rama and either Spin or Fahrenheit 451 depending on which grabs my fancy..

Finished Soulless (A), which is a fine paranormal/alt-hist romp; the question is over how many books will Carriger be able to keep up the frothy character of her confection. 9Tail Fox will probably be the next novel.

Finished Prince of the Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, a supernatural mystery.
Excellent, very quick read.

Finished Charisma by Coney, on to Holes.

Finally digging into some of the stuff unearthed from the boxes in the garage. So, starting in on Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, with Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber. Now, I'm pretty antipathetic towards fantasy, but this has started pretty well.

I'm afraid my SF reading is on hold while I read my ER book Cro-Magnon by Brian Fagan. It's an enjoyable read so far. Dr. Fagan takes great effort to bring the life of early man alive. I'm also expecting another ER book soon, "Mothers and Other Liars", which has an interesting, if slightly farfetched premise. I expect my next SF will be a ways off, as I'm busy with some other things besides book reading.

I am reading The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks for my RL book group.

There seems to be a kernel of an interesting story buried in this overwritten mess, but its slow going.

Finished Altered Carbon, will read Yellow Blue Tibia next.

I'm currently reading Kraken and I have Monsters Of Men lined up before I go walking next weekend.

Continuing my tendency to never read anything newer than me, I'm now working on The Death of Grass.

I just finished The Lost Fleet Book 6. No, the series won't win a Hugo or Nebula, but it has an intriguing premise and I found the books to be fast-paced, enjoyable reads.

Doug

Finished The Man in the High Castle and was a bit disappointed. Just not my cup of tea at all. Starting on Highway of Eternity now.

Starting Otherland volume 1 by Tad Williams.

#30
The thing I enjoyed about The Man in the High Castle was the way it was based on a 1960s saying that my father often used in relation to Germany and Japan. "They lost the war, but won the peace!" It also ties in with another favourite saying of mine, "He who controls the present, controls history, and he who controls history controls the future!"

It is not until near the end of the book that you uncover that Germany & Japan took over the US through their commercial acumen, but that they had actually lost the war. I don't know if Dick meant this as a tongue-in-cheek tale, or a warning. In the 1960s Germany and Japan were forging ahead from an industrial and commercial viewpoint, based primarily on the success of the post-WWII rebuilding programmes.

I've gotten my hands on China Mieville's latest novel, Kraken, which is quite good. Somebody steals the preserved giant squid from the Darwin Center of the Natural History museum in London, which opens the door for our hero Billy Harrow to enter the other London. Think Neverwhere but harder edged.

> 31 - I liked the Otherland series quite a bit, however there is a lot to slog through: multiple plot lines, character threads, etc.

Finally completed Cryptonomicon and am taking a break from Stephenson. Just finished Birth of Fire and have a handful of shorter novels before tackling the Baroque Cycle.

32> Well, that's an interpretation of the ending, but the ending itself is ambiguous. An equally valid interpretation is that Abendsen is saying that the events of the book happened (the Axis really lost), but that they happened in another reality. Or that they happened, and that he's the only character in the book that realizes he's a character in a book and that everything that happened in TMITHC was fiction. The fact is that neither the outer story or the inner one of Grasshopper are what we'd consider to be the "true" reality. That just adds to the open-endedness of interpretations. Your interpretation wasn't the one that first occurred to me, but then again the last PKD book I read was VALIS and I think that permanently warped my brain. Unfortunately, none of the interpretations I could think I made up for the rest of the book.

34> A long slog indeed. The Otherland series was one of the most mentally exhausting I've ever read, and not because it contained really deep philosophy or cryptic writing. It was just due to sheer length and scope, which didn't really make it a better novel in my opinion.

Well, I finished The White Tiger and moved on to The Man in the High Castle, which poster #32 has successfully ruined the plot of. Great, thanks to him.

I'm enjoying it so far (about halfway through), I like the characters, though I'm not feeling any connection with Jessica Frink as yet.

@#25 --> I really enjoyed the Algebraiist - so much so that, having read most of it and then left it on a train, I re-bought it and read it through again. I always enjoy the imagination of Banks, and this is his most far-fetched and yet interesting imaginings I know of.

36> Don't worry, he didn't ruin the plot. Without any spoilers, let me just say that I totally don't agree with his conclusion at all. Don't read the rest of the book angry. I've done that before due to spoilers and it really colors the experience.

Phew! Thanks for that :D

Majestrum is the first of the three Hapthorn books, which kicked off from six connected stories that originally ran in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The stories, which total more than 50,000 words, were all included in the Night Shade Collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories.

The Archonate is not a series, as such, but a milieu. Under its umbrella there are: two Filidor novels, Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice; two Guth Bandar novels, Black Brillion and The Commons, which cover much the same action from two different points of view; the three Hapthorns; and one stand-alone, Template.

I've also written one novel and several stories about Luff Imbry, a Sydney Greenstreetish master criminal who appears in the Bandar novels; it's called The Other, and will be published by Underland Press next spring; I've just turned in The Yellow Cabochon, the second of three Imbry novellas I'm writing for PS Publishing. The first Imbry novella, Quartet & Triptych, will be out in the next few weeks.

The books I'm now writing for Angry Robot, the Hell and Back series, are contemporary fantasy, not set in the Archonate milieu.

I hope this helps.

39> Well, I'd say that counts as "someone more familiar"!

Welcome to LibraryThing, Matt. You might want to send Tim a personal message (just scroll down the page I linked to) so he can hook your LT author page up to your profile, thus also marking you as an LT Author.

Here's the series pages jmnlman was wanting someone to take a look at:
http://www.librarything.com/series/Archonate%20%284%29
http://www.librarything.com/series/Tales%20of%20Henghis%20Hapthorn%20%281%29

On LT, series can include both author-designated series as well as "universe" (or "milieu") series. If you need any help editing it, there are groups for new users (Welcome to LibraryThing, Frequently Asked Questions) as well as a group specific to series - LibraryThing Series. You can also feel free to post the relevant bits and ask people to do the editing for you if you feel like you haven't got your feet under you yet (especially in that last group).

39: Welcome to LT! I actually just ordered The Gist Hunter and Other Stories today. I'm not quite sure how the syntax works for milieu series I'll mention this over on the group. After all I've been here for years I should know this.

40:Thanks brightcopy!

Finished Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley, sequel to The Quiet War. I swore I wasn't going to read the sequel*, yet here I am. I very much enjoyed the Quiet War and was very happy to check in on all the major and minor characters in the aftermath of war. I'm a longtime McAuley fan and I think this duology is his best work, although to be honest, the many novels I've read in the past have blurred quite a bit over time.

Recommended for those who enjoy a rich, deeply complex world with interesting and credible characters, and who enjoy detailed biological/genetic information (which I definitely was overdosing on in the 2nd book).

Next up will be Kraken by Miéville, just as soon as hubby (dukedom) is done with it (or maybe before...)

*I seem to have grown out of enjoying being manipulated like that.

#42 I have seen Gardens of the Sun and been tempted to start the two books. Your comments are pushing me towards starting with The Quiet War.

I swore I wasn't going to read the sequel*,

I know what you mean. I read The Reality Dysfunction in 2008, having hmmmed & haaaed about it for years. Having read it I thought, good book, but I don't want to spend any more of my short life on Earth reading the sequels. Then, while browsing in Borders bookshop, I read the first couple of pages of the next book and, like you, started wondering about the characters and what happened to them. At Christmas that year I asked my children to buy me the next two books. I haven't read them yet, but they are in the pile.

Finished Yellow Blue Tibia, a very good and extremely funny book.

Just started The Lathe of Heaven which I'll probably finish sometime today.

Not sure what I'll read next, perhaps The Quiet War..

Currently reading PKD's Eye in the Sky...

I'm reading Stardoc by S. L. Viehl, it's kind of a meh read for me- I like the aliens but not much else.

Started reading Prador Moon, about 60 pages in and I don't find the story particularly engaging, character development is about nil and it strikes me as rather poorly written. Perhaps not the best place to start reading Neal Asher, or are all his books like this?

im reading The stars my destination, why have i not read this book before, brilliant. i was to obsessed with philip k dick i thinks.

47> I found Prador Moon to be an enjoyable read, but it's definitely not as good as his Agent Cormac series (only other stuff I've read by him yet). I would say the characters are weaker in PM than in those. But as we've had discussions about this many times, everyone has their own standard for character development, and there's often disagreements between people about any given book having adequate character development or not. I notice some of the books in your catalog you rated the highest are often given as examples by various posters as having no character development.

To me, with some writers it can go overboard and they forget that the pacing and plot are just as important. Asher tends to focus more on pacing, plot and world building, in general. He posts to the scifi group from time to time, so maybe you want to ask him which book he'd recommend.

I'm starting on The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker. Sad to know there won't be any more from her.

50> I guess it's just that 60 pages in, I feel I know absolutely nothing about the characters besides their current situation. It's like the situation and events are central stage whereas the characters are secondary. Perhaps the story would be more meaningful when put in context with better knowledge of the Polity universe. In any case, I'll keep going and see what happens. I also have Gridlinked, maybe I should have started with that one.

@49 spacejockey, that was the last book I've finished and thought it was excellent. I'll now have to keep an eye out for his other well thought of novel, The Demolished Man.

52> Well, I think that's a pretty fair assessment for Prador Moon. I felt it was really there to tell the backstory of the Prador invasion more than it was a solid standalone. Having read the Cormac series first, I probably gave it an extra star than I might had I gone into it cold.

51> Are you aware of Not Less Than Gods? I haven't started that one or Empress yet, but I know I'll be sad just as you are to know I'm hearing the last of the Company story from Kage Baker. On the plus side, I haven't yet read her Anvil of the World duo or The Women of Nell Gwynne's, which is has a tie-in with The Company.

Yes, I am aware of Not Less Than Gods. I actually have several of the Company books left to read, as I fell behind and felt I needed to reread several of the earlier ones to be prepared for the later ones--and never found time. I'm retiring in 5 weeks, and that is one of my projects, to read the entire series. I think Not Less Than Gods is the only one I don't own of the Company books and, yes, I want to read the other ones you mentioned as well.

55> Oh man, you just made me jealous. It will be a long time before I retire, and I never contemplated how much reading I could get done!

re recent posts

I read Kage Baker's Anvil of the World a number of years ago and found it just OK. I found Not Less Than Gods underwhelming. I don't think it is near her best work at all. It was one of those books much easier to put down than to pick back up.

Neal Asher on one of these threads suggested starting with Prador Moon as an entry point to his Polity, and so I did and I liked it more than a fair bit. I'll probably go for gridlinked next when I get back to reading him.

Into Revelation Space. Not sure if I'll return.

#58 You don't like?

#59> oh, no. I love it! Just a play on no one returns from revelation space.

Finished A Mask for the General, now on to The Man Who Mastered Time / Overlords from Space. "He raced through time to save a girl not yet born." "Beware the planet-wreckers!"

Read The Steel Crocodile, DG Compton, and Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, Brian Aldiss. Now reading City of Dreams and Nightmare. Ian Whates, which I'm reviewing for sffchronicles.co.uk.

>61 ChrisRiesbeck: That looks ancient. Any good, or just pulp fare?

Finished Highway of Eternity by Clifford D. Simak and started The Skinner by Neal Asher.

63> I'm halfway through Cumming's The Man Who Mastered Time, originally from 1929. Some things are much much better than I expected. Even today, there's a true sense of wonder in the descriptions of a device that projects a scene from the far future, and then in details of the actual trip to that future. That trip scene, while similar to Wells' The Time Machine, holds its own quite nicely for creativity and construction. The characterizations and plot are about as bad as I expected. Had that been the state of the entire book, I would recommend it highly as an enjoyable example of early SF. Sadly, on page 58, a quite definitely racist scenario for future evolution is put forth, which, if not altered by later revelations, will probably spoil this book for many.

I just finished His Majesty's Dragon and am now in Throne of Jade. After that it is the rest of the Tremeraire series so I can get to, and understand the ER copy of Tongues of Serpents that I recently received.

Catching up on some fantasy reading then back to Stephenson...

Finished The Boys From the Blackstuff and am making good progress through The Dragon's Tail. The latter is patchy in quality. Some parts are very gripping and others are weak and lack any credibility. Review will follow.

Took Sister Alice by Robert Reed to a conference with me. Enjoying it rather more than Marrow which was my last read.

I read Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis, which was quite a decent debut novel.

I am two chapters into Paolo Bacigalup's The Windup Girl. So far very "post-Global warming Neo-Dickensian/Malthusian" in sentiment.

Currently reading Halcyon Drift, the first book of the Star-Pilot Grainger / Hooden Swan sextet by Brian Stableford. I don't have the full set, though. It's a book of its time - slightly better prose than most of its contemporaries, but just as little thought given to worldbuilding.

Currently reading Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, enjoying it a lot so far, but the characters aren't very distinct.

Finished Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus last night. It was the first of his that I've read and don't expect it to be my last.

Just started Touching the Void.

> 70 Glad to hear you liked Bitter Seeds - I've just ordered it for plane reading this coming weekend!

Just got Feed from the library, am looking forward to delicious zombie mayhem.

75>

"Just started Touching the Void."

I'm sure it's legal now, but it could get to be a habit. ;-)

(Sorry.)

>77 RobertDay: You're just jealous.
:-)

I knew I should have specified it was a book about a climber surviving a tragic accident. I'll know better the next time.

I'm reading A Pleasure to Burn, Fahrenheit 451 stories.

I'm reading John Kessel's short story collection, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence. Nice mix of genres. I realized I've read a couple of these (including the title story) in other publications, but they're worth rereading.

72> ian -- interesting synchronicity -- I just started The Florians which opens the series Stableford did after Hooded Swan. It begins with a fairly realistic conversation scene between father and son ("they seemed to be strangers, lost in the desert of their conversation") then -- bam! -- info-dump! "When the last starship carried colonists into space seventy-five years ago the Earth was in ruins. Seven billion people were left with the wreck of a world which had used up everything it had to send seven million people to alien planets." etc etc. Paragraphs of that from the 17-year old boy!

I'm just about to start reading Absorption by John Meaney.

#81 Halcyon Drift wasn't too bad. Sort of like A Betram Chandler but better-written. The descriptions of space travel were complete nonsense - definitely a triumph of imagination over substance. And the world-building was a bit off-the-cuff.

Just read The Saturn Game by Poul Anderson. It was shite.

Finished Feed. Absolutely loved it. If you've read WWZ and liked it, I definitely recommend Feed. Heck, I recommend it anyway.

I just finished Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi and really enjoyed it. I was a little surprised this was marketed as YA. Aside from a lighter plot than normal and a teenage protagonist, it was much like Bacigalupi's other work.

> 85 Glad to hear Ship Breaker is good - I've been anxious to read it since catching it on Scalzi's blog.

Finished Working for the Devil (B-). Dark urban fantasy most notable for the bracing post-Christian melieu, and the fact that the author is prepared to subject her characters to some real damage. I'll probably continue with the series but there are more pressing matters first. It would make a good anime or manga series.

The Douglas Convolution by Edward Llewellyn

Actually a re-read, this is a strange semi-post-apocalypse novel. Great ideas, some slightly unbelievable behavior patterns but interesting characters if you like Campbellian "Everyman" style stories

Finished Kraken by Miéville and while it doesn't pack the punch of The City and the City it was quite a squidnapping adventure, set in modern day London, stuffed full of all kinds of groups of people (perhaps a little too stuffed).

Now reading "Meeks" a dystopian satire coming out from Small Beer Press this fall.

Finished The Florians. Moving on to The Elephant and the Kangaroo.