Our Reads in August 2023

Watch out for teetering TBRs!.
What are you reading this August?

Dusty's TBR for August
Charles de Lint - Someplace to be Flying ✔
Algis Budrys - Who?✔
Isaac Asimov - David Starr,Space Ranger ✔
P Djeli Clarke - A Master of Djinn ✔
Rebecca Ore - Alien Bootlegger ✔
Nathan Lowell - Hard Knocks ✔
Anne McCaffrey - No One Noticed the Cat ✔
Seabury Quinn - The Chosen of Vishnu ✔
Murray Leinster - Proxima Centauri ✔
Jack McDevitt - Engines of God
Charles Sheffield - Summertide
Christopher G Nuttall -Ark Royal

Still working through Epiphany of the Long Sun. After that is a fantasy break with L. E. Modesitt’s The Order War.

In priority order:
Season of Skulls
Dweller on Two Planets (already in progress)
The Ravening Deep
Use of Weapons
These I'm likely to finish this month.

Also on the near horizon:
Angelmaker
Free Live Free
Radon Daughters

>2 dustydigger: I read several Charles de Lint books about 15-20 years ago & rather liked them.

August 2023 Reading Plan

Ancillary Sword - Ann Leckie
Tau Zero - Poul Anderson
The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu
The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula LeGuin
The Mote in God’s Eye - Larry Niven
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) - Dennis E Taylor
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Klara & the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

A nice combination of newer & older SF works...Starting off by diving into the Bobiverse...

>6 ChrisG1: I just read The Lathe of Heaven a few weeks ago with my neighbourhood book club. I enjoyed it but I didn’t find it quite as rich as others by Le Guin. But then, The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness, and the Earthsea Cycle are literary classics. I guess you cannot expect an author to always be able to ascend to those heights with each and every piece they publish.

Currently working on Translation State, which I have to get back to the library before I hit the road for Ohio this weekend. Next up will be Mechanical Failure, which has been sitting in limbo in my personal collection for a long time, but has now gone to the top of the pile, as the follow-up books are readily available in Ohio. After that, we'll see; that'll depend on what I can forage in my new situation.

I'm about to start Rachel Pollack's Unquenchable Fire, Clarke Award winner from 1989. I've been rather unimpressed by other works of hers I've read but hopefully this one will be more engaging.

After not reading any SF for awhile (it just happened that way),started Beyond the Burn Line by Paul McAuley last night. So far it is engaging enough (but I am very early in it).

I'm reading The Orpheus Plot which is aimed at the YA crowd (which I am definitely not part of). I'm enjoying it as it sort of reminds me of some of the Heinlein juveniles.

One third of the way into Season of Skulls and it sure feels like Glasshouse!

It looks like fantasy is on the roster for August. A silly fantasy romance last night and back to the Imager Portfolio until I get an ARC copy for Library Thing early review.

>13 elorin: How far have you read in the Imager Portfolio? I stopped at book three.

I am working on completing the Jack Geary books, reading The Lost Fleet: Outlands: Resolute.

Inspired by the 2023 Hugo nominee list I just started The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal. Not quite sure what to think yet. It should be just the thing, but somehow the overly descriptive language is a little too much for me. Or maybe I just find the characters a little off-putting, or the worldbuilding lacking. I'll give it a chance and see if it improves.

>15 amberwitch: I was a little underwhelmed; though I'll admit that I probably didn't give the book much of a chance to impress me.

As for a book that did meet expectations, I finished up Translation State and found it very strong; I had been not that impressed with Provenance.

>14 Karlstar: I'm reading book 4 Scholar now

>17 Shrike58: that’s good to hear about Translation State. I liked Provenance but found it wasn’t as strong as the other three Ancillary volumes in The Imperial Radch series. Provenance was interesting but I found I had to work a little harder to stay engaged.

>19 Neil_Luvs_Books: I agree with >17 Shrike58:, Translation State lived up to my expectations as well. It was as strong as the original Radch trilogy, whereas Provenance was nice enough, but more of a 'filler'.

>17 Shrike58: Sounds like we are in agreement on Ann Leckie, so I'll probably join you in being underwhelmed with The Spare Man:-)

Just finished Embers of War which I really enjoyed. I especially liked having the ship as a narrator.

Moving on to The Eternity Artifact.

Started Nettle and Bone today.

Finished Barnacle Bill the Spacer. Not overwhelmed; I commented upstream that the title story had characters who spoke in Mockney, and I also began to stumble over Shepard's stream-of-consciousness 100-word sentences. As an occasional device, this could be excused; but not as a habit, especially when they appear in the internal narrative of a character who otherwise presents as an "ordinary bloke".

Two of the stories weren't remotely science fiction; one might qualify as borderline fantasy, or fantastic realism. Interestingly, both of these stories first appeared in Playboy. All the stories dated from the late 1980s or early- to mid-90s, and show their age. One, All the perfumes of Araby, is set in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, and although it refers to an early 21st century that never quite happened, it does reflect the real-world political concerns of the Middle East in a recognisable way, including war in Syria (although Shepard's knowledge of the practice of Islam is a bit lacking). For me, this story and Human History were the stand-out stories of the collection. Human History relates a story of a marginal settlement in Arizona in the aftermath of a (historical) socio-environmental catastrophe. Shepard leaves the backstory open to speculation, which was probably the right thing to do even if I found it mildly unsatisfactory.

Now taking another break from genre, though I shall be reading Fitzroy Maclean's Eastern Approaches. Maclean is generally considered to be one of the key sources for Ian Fleming's James Bond; in the chapters I've read so far, Maclean, serving as a diplomat in the pre-war Soviet Union, has already blagged his way out of a couple of encounters with the NKVD in Central Asia, in one instance by exploiting the fact that he was the only person in the room who could actually read Russian, thus allowing him to pass off an entry ticket to the diplomatic stand for the Moscow May Day parade as a Foreign Ministry diplomatic travel pass.

Finished Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. The second installment of her popular Imperial Radch series. Leckie has plenty of story to tell in this universe she has created & I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I'll be adding the 3rd installment to my September reading.

Finished K is for Killer, started Timequake. Most Vonnegut is "associational" with SF but this one more than usual because of its focus on Kilgore Trout and an unfinished SF novel.

Just finished The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin. Written in 1971, with a near-future dystopia backdrop, a man finds that his dreams can affect the world around him. His psychiatrist becomes obsessed with "curing" the ills of the world in his treatment, with results reminiscent of 3 wishes to a genie. As always with Le Guin, well written & worth reading. Recommended.

I'm almost to the halfway point with Barrayar, part 2 of Miles Vorkosigan's origin story. Although there is a lot of political intrigue that slows down the pace, it's an enjoyable read. I watched an interview with Ms. Bujold and she mentioned that she worked as a Nursing Assistant at a hospital before becoming a full-time writer and her knowledge of medical settings definitely shows in this story.

p.s. My brain gets absolutely tied in knots trying to say or spell "Vorkosigan!"

>28 drmamm: It's way too long since I read any of Bujold's Barrayar books. As for avoiding verbal knots, just remember that the Barrayaran nobility are referred to as the Vor: so the name is 'Vor-kosigan'.

>29 RobertDay: Now I am really curious - how else would you read that word?

>30 AnnieMod: Well, that's what I thought, but the OP said they were having problems with it.

Starting my next Hugo book, Blood, Sweat & Chrome, a making-of for Mad Max: Fury Road that's a finalist for Best Related Work.

>30 AnnieMod: My brain transposes everything after "Vor" - it wants to say/spell "Vorsakigan." lol.

After finishing (and reviewing) Season of Skulls, I am now halfway through McSweeny's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, which includes short fiction spanning a variety of genres with contributions from Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, Kelly Link, and Neil Gaiman, among others.

>28 drmamm: >33 drmamm: Vorkosigan is one of those words where it helps me a lot to hear someone else say the name out loud, I admit. Not that that helps with words/names I have still only read.

Just finished T Kingisher's Clockwork Boys, which was a very quick read. Big threats including centaur-shaped siege engine creatures of unknown origins, very intriguing. Mixed quest group consisting of a forger, an assassin, a paladin (literally), and a very sheltered cleric. (Not too happy about the name of the trickster/variable hills region, but nobody's perfect.) Of course that book was readily available, but the sequel has several holds on it, so reading the next book will have to wait a bit.

Only book finished so far this month is a Rebecca Ore novella Alien Bootlegger,southern gothic - with aliens.My poor old brain is barely coping with vertigo ,brain fog and bad eyesight so its a bit of an effort to keep up with the complexities of plot and the huge cast of Someplace to be Flying,and the barrage of cultural points of A Master of Djinn,so I keep popping off to read some fun but rather pedestrian military SF on kindle. Little intellectual effort needed at all :0)

>36 dustydigger: I'm always surprised at how overlooked Rebecca Ore is. This reminds me to put Alien Bootlegger on my TBR.

Just started Three Miles Down; it's been awhile since I gave Harry Turtledove a try, so we'll see how it goes.

>36 dustydigger: I think I am going to need to read something that requires very little intellectual effort after I complete Epiphany of the Long Sun. I am still working my way through it and am enjoying it but it is not a quick easy read.

Finished Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Like Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro creates an intriguing alternate dystopian Earth, which he slowly reveals through the lives of his characters. Always interesting & insightful, I was fully hooked into the story. I'd put Never Let Me Go a half star better, but a good one, all the same.

I just started The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Before I started this I had never heard of kaiju before but I guess that's why one reads, to learn new things. It's pretty fun so far.

Now working my way through the third book in a trilogy, Promises stronger than darkness by Charlie Jane Anders. A lovely counterpoint to the run of assassins and serial killers from the last week or so. Space opera, found family, saving the universe, etc.

Finished the Eternity Artifact and starting Quarter Share.

I enjoyed The Lost Fleet: Outlands: Resolute, now I'm sad that I'm all caught up! There are a couple of the Lost Stars books that I haven't gotten to yet, they'll be on the list soon.

>41 gypsysmom: just finished The Kaiju preservation society too.
A little too fan service for me. And I dont appreciate the ‘People with ovaries’ language at all. It may be very popular and woke, but as a woman I don’t appreciate the erasure.

>45 amberwitch: Didn't bother me; I just passed it off as millennial speak (which most of them are). As a Canadian I got a chuckle about the announcement that only the metric system would be used at the facility.

Finished Timequake -- it worked really well reading it in parallel with the documentary Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time on Hulu.

From Vonnegut's last novel to James Morrow's first, The Wine of Violence.

Will start today the third Book of the New Sun, The Sword of the Lictor.

Just finished We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor. The author is a retired computer programmer & it fits - in the geeky-techy material & cultural references. It's a fun, light read.

I finally finished Epiphany of the Long Sun. What an interesting story. I didn’t find it as engrossing or as lyrical as Book of the New Sun but still a fascinating situation. But similar to New Sun, I think much of it went over my head. What I particularly liked and what made it a particularly challenging read is the way that Wolfe is able to wade into the fog of war and how luck and misunderstandings can have a profound impact on the outcome. Additionally, how is it ever possible to trust anyone who has a vision and asks others to trust their interpretation of that vision? Such an odd contrast to write a science fiction story in which one would assume that science and thus evidence should weigh strongly yet the story leads with a vision which the main protagonist follows diligently and blindly. So, do you follow blind revealed knowledge or does one adhere to tangible evidence? This question, I think, is still relevant today.

Finished Three Miles Down, which turned out to be a pretty good novel; I had wearied of Turtledove's pot-boilers years ago. Next up is Stars and Bones.

Hmm.....I was a little underwhelmed by P Djeli Clark's Master of Djinn I thought a good editor could have cut up to a hundred pages and it would have sharpened up the tale. A massive amount of world setting tended to hinder the tale a bit. I felt overwhelmed with all the egyptian clothing,food,and history detail. And it took till near the end to realize I felt as if this was a video game with bosses at various levels ,lots of flash and bang but not a lot of real emotion. I definitely preferred Clark's short fiction much more.
Oh well,that makes all Nebula winners completed up to 2021.

>52 dustydigger: Yeah, I was disappointed in it. Too much fighting, not enough deduction.

I neded to read a book about a cat for a challenge,so rereading Anne McCaffrey's No One Noticed the Cat was relaxing fun. Must buckle down to finish Someplace to be Flying.I'm enjoying it but the print is small and light,I get eyestrain quickly,so I only get through 10-20 pages at a time. :0(

>51 Shrike58: That one sounds interesting, thanks.

I've finished Season of Skulls and The Ravening Deep (reviews posted, as always), still plodding through the first half of A Dweller on Two Planets, and I've just started in on Angelmaker.

Enjoyed the gloriously pulpy Isaac Asimov David Starr,Space Ranger.Probably wpuld be classed as YA today. I am always surprised at how violent,in a very casual way,the old pulp stories were! lol.. Mars is often just the old Wild West transferred to rocky old Mars.

Reading Binti at the moment and have Titanium Noir and Hopeland next in line.

>58 SChant:
I really enjoyed Titanium Noir and Hopeland.

Finished Stars and Bones, which I didn't find all that compelling, at least until the climax; Powell can still write a set-piece where things blow up real good. It didn't help the Powell's cause that Translation State really impressed me, and I want to get on with Silver Nitrate.

>59 pgmcc: Good to know. I've enjoyed previous work by both authors so have high hopes!

I am about a quarter of the way into my next Hugo finalist, The Spare Man.

>62 Stevil2001: i was seriously underwhelmed by both The spare man and The kaiju preservation society so I am curious what your thoughts are on this years Hugo nominees

>63 amberwitch: Spare Man hasn't grabbed me yet eighty pages in. I want someone to do some actual investigating in this detective novel!

I normally am a Hugo completist, but this year I am skipping The Kaiju Preservation Society; I don't think I've ever enjoyed a piece of fiction by John Scalzi, and this one sounds to have all his worst attributes as a writer in full force.

>58 SChant:, >59 pgmcc:, >60 Shrike58:
Both those books are already on my wishlist. But I'm reading a different Harkaway right now, as mentioned earlier. Angelmaker will bring me up to speed so that Titanium Noir will be his only novel I haven't read, I think.

I've been reading a book on the British space shuttle project, British Secret Projects 5: Britain's Space Shuttle (gloriously code-named Mustard; a spin-off was named Crest, because calling it Cress was deemed too obvious and frivolous). Could be essential background reading for anyone writing alternate history set in Britain in the 1950s and 60s.

Off on holiday tomorrow: taking Cibola Burn with me.

Just finished The Golden Space by Pamela Sargent. A rather early one of hers, it's a bit stiff, but as usual filled with interesting scenarios. Quite liberated on sexuality, for over 40 years ago. The factor of the genetically different young people would make it an interesting companion read with Beggars in Spain and the earlier Children of the Atom .

>65 paradoxosalpha:
Have you read his Aidan Truhen books?

>66 RobertDay: I was highly impressed with that book, and have read other works by Sharp.

>64 Stevil2001: I was also unimpressed with that work; I don't care at all about classic Hollywood so it just isn't my thing. As for Scalzi's novel, I enjoyed it quite a bit, but Scalzi in full-snark mode does seem to set a lot of people off.

>66 RobertDay:
Have a great holiday. Are you travelling by secret shuttle?

>68 pgmcc:
Yes, I read each Aidan Truhen book in a blink. So far I've read Gnomon, The Gone-Away World, The Price You Pay, Seven Demons, and Tigerman, in that order. I'm halfway through Angelmaker with Titanium Noir on my wishlist. Gnomon is still my favorite, at this point.

>72 paradoxosalpha:
Gnomon is great. Such scope and depth. I loved his overview of the 2008 global crash. Angelmaker might be my favourite. I enjoyed them all. He does not produce books that are easily compared one with the other.

The Blind Giant was an interesting discussion.

>73 pgmcc: I think Angelmaker is my favorite too - but I need to re-read Gnomon as it was my first Harkaway and I was not prepared... :-D

A large part of my affinity for Angelmaker is the Edie character. For anyone that hasn't read it, the short story Edie Investigates is well worth checking out too - but I would recommend doing so after Angelmaker.

>74 ScoLgo:
Eddie is brilliant and the short story is a must-read.

I'm only 1/3 of the way into Angelmaker, but I admit, I'm enjoying the Edie parts more than the Joe parts.

I finished Barrayar, the conclusion to the Miles Vorkosigan origin story. Very good - I liked it a bit better than Shards of Honor. I think the author was able to dig a little deeper into the characters in this one and flesh them out a bit more.

I was going to start the first "Miles book," but have decided to commence a re-read of The Great Hunt, since the Wheel of Time TV show premieres Season 2 on September 1st. The Great Hunt along with most of the third book of WoT is covered in the upcoming season. I wasn't a huge fan of Season 1, but I also acknowledge that the production was pretty chaotic from day one, with multiple stoppages due to COVID and a lot of meddling from Amazon. It was a 6/10. Hopefully the team will get into a better groove this season.

As a side note, I am less hopeful about the Rings of Power series. It just rubbed me the wrong way, and Amazon is trying to make a show without a story, since they don't have any rights to The Silmarillion. I will still probably watch it out of curiosity.

Finished The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I've been meaning to read this for ages and enjoyed it pretty well. It's a bit dated in some respects - not surprising in a 50 year old novel. At almost 600 pages, it could have benefited from some editing, but overall a good tale.

I had a bit of a hard time getting through Charles De Lint Someplace to be Flying. I only have half a brain these days and the book has a big cast of characters,from various groups or factions so can be very confusing at times.The print was very small too,and rather light,and that made it difficult too. But I always enjoy the humanity of De Lint's work,so I persevered. Next book of his will have to be digital,I think,the old eyes are getting worse rapidly. Poor old NHS is sinking fast and the cataract/eye op waiting list is HUGE,nearly half a million.Only 6 dedicated Eye Infirmaries in the country,am glad I am only 6 miles from one of them.Hospital treatment has been put off two years running and I finally got on the ''probable''list in March,so maybe by Xmas I will be able to read and watch RV easily once more.......
Hope to finish Aldis Budrys Who this week,plus Oedipus Rex. Wow,not the lightest and most cheerful reads,so I will continue with a military SF fluff Kindle Unlimited read book as a tonic,Ark Royal

My reading list has been almost all fantasy lately with nary a SF break in sight. I'm considering a Heinlein juvenile chaser after my current reread. I'm rereading Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart preparatory to reading the recently released Cassiel's Servant

>79 dustydigger:

I don’t usually think of mil-sf as “cheerful”, I confess.

>79 dustydigger: Sounds like the NHS is much like the health care system in my Canadian province of Manitoba. Health care positions and emergency wards were slashed by the current Conservative government about a year before COVID-19 hit. When there were so many people seriously ill in the hospitals because of the virus surgical staff had to be deployed to deal with them and surgeries were postponed. There are still long waiting iists for cataract surgery, hip and knee replacements and other surgeries. We have a provincial election scheduled in about 6 weeks and the health care issues will no doubt be a deciding factor. Good luck with getting your surgery soon. I know from relatives' experience that it is a miracle for the vision.

>78 ChrisG1: I really enjoyed The Mote in God’s Eye. I read it for the first time 3 or 4 years ago and it is what rekindled my love for science fiction after a decade or so of not reading. I cannot get enough now. It’s like I’m a university students again! 😀

I've been going through a bunch of books that's aren't science fiction. The one I'll likely get to is Mickey7 by Edward Ashton for a book group. The author is new to me, which is one reason I do book groups, so it's all good.

Algis Budrys Who? was a real blast from the past. I was a rather nervous,imaginative child,about 12 years old in 1960 when brainwashing,spies and sheer paranoia were very very prevalent in the news,even in a small English village,never mind in the USA!
I found the book a little frustrating.very obscure,and the ending as annoyingly vague,our questions were never really answered. Still,it was a fascinating visit to those paranoid times. And those 20 years post war produced some magnificent classic SF out of the fear and hysteria of those times under the shadow of the Bomb.

>65 paradoxosalpha: Really enjoyed Titanium Noir. Judging by the quote at the beginning, Harkaway is going for a Damon Runyon-esque style and he certainly achieves it – sometimes arch humour, slangy chat , louche characters - though he does drop in a bit of Sidney Greenstreet from the film version of Maltese Falcon for one of his larger-than-life characters. A highly entertaining read.

Seabury Quinn's The Chosen of Vishnu was a gloriously pulpy over the top outing for Jules de Grandin. According to the blurb for this story from Weird Tales,1935,its ''A blood-freezing story of venomous cobras, Hindoo vengeance, and a beautiful dancing-girl-a brilliant exploit of Jules de Grandin''.Just a great garish pulp adventure with every possible cliche of the exotic east piled on top of each other,but such fun to read. De Grandin talks in that ridiculous way that Hercule Poirot did contemporaneously,so naturally I see De Grandin very very similar to David Suchet's wonderful characterization of Poirot,especially the voice! lol.

>72 paradoxosalpha: I really need to makee time to read one of Nick Harkaway's books. I rarely add multiple books from an author who I haven't read to my wishlist, but for some reason I've now got 4 of his there...

>88 igorken: Nick Harkaway's books are so long. I read The Gone-Away World and loved it, but it took me many years to get to Angelmaker which I liked, but not as much. I still have Gnomon sitting on the TBR shelf along with 3 of Kim Stanley Robinson's books.

I much prefer shorter books these days. It's not that many of these larger books aren't really good, but they are such a time commitment which means that other things don't get read, and you never really know whether it will be worth it in the end.

Aidan Truhen's books are short!

I find Harkaway such compulsive reading once I get underway that his 400-700-page tomes finish in under ten days each. So it doesn't feel like such a heavy commitment.

>87 dustydigger:

I have read a mess of de Grandin, but not that one!

>89 vwinsloe: I also prefer shorter books these days. Maybe it's the big disease of our time (short attention span), maybe it's just a lack of time, but all the brick-sized tomes are just collecting dust on my TBR shelf these days. It's one of the reasons why I've held off from getting his books, even if I've literally had them in my hands in a bookshop before.

>90 paradoxosalpha: I guess I should start with one of those; I wasn't aware until this thread that they're the same author.

On the topic of short attention spans, surely some people must have attempted to explain that while that phenomenon is going on, there has also been a trend - that seems contrary to that but perhaps isn' - for quite a while of books getting bigger. Any insights?

>92 igorken: books getting bigger

I think it's true of f&sf in particular. My guess is that longer books appeal to readers in search of immersive world-building. Although I am willing to tackle big reading projects, I do find the trend a bit off-putting myself.

Wrt Harkaway, I too held off for years in fact, after being attracted to Gnomon in the collection at my public library, because the thing was so damned big and by an untried author. Eventually I bit the bullet and was glad to have done so.

>90 paradoxosalpha: "I find Harkaway such compulsive reading once I get underway that his 400-700-page tomes finish in under ten days each. So it doesn't feel like such a heavy commitment."

This describes my experience with Harkaway's novels to a T.

>92 igorken: "I wasn't aware until this thread that they're the same author."

Adian Truhen is an anagram for Diana Hunter, a character from Gnomon. I didn't pick up on that little fact until after the cat was out of the bag and Harkaway had confirmed in an interview that he and Truhen were one and the same.

>85 dustydigger: Haven't read Who? since college many decades ago, but it was one of my favorite books by Budrys. I hated the movie. My memory is that the truth of who was in the metal helmet was clear but also irrelevant, and that was the point.

Just finished Tau Zero by Poul Anderson. An interstellar exploration gone wrong. The ship is unable to decelerate. Quite a bit of conceptual physics involved, no doubt much of it speculative, but it ends up making for a good story.

>71 pgmcc: Not-so-secret Eurostar and other trains.

We had the delight in the Eurostar terminal of watching a young, Wednesday Addams-esque girl sitting cross-legged reading a book whilst surrounded by thousands glued to electronic devices. It looked like a fairly fat fantasy tome, too. There is hope for the next generation!

>97 RobertDay:
That was a hopeful image.

Finished Silver Nitrate; I esteem it a tad less than Gods of Jade and Shadow and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, but I was happy to have the chance to read it sooner, rather than later.

Next up: Mickey 7.

>90 paradoxosalpha: Okay, I'll have to give Aiden Truhen a try.

>92 igorken: I'm not sure that it's a matter of our attention spans getting shorter. In my youth, I always used to wonder why retired people liked Reader's Digest books. Those books of abridged novels did a fairly good job of shortening works while staying true to the original work. But it seemed crazy to me that people who were retired and had the time to read would seek out shorter books. But here I am. Lol.

Well,that was depressing. Just finished Oedipus Rex.King Laius,a nasty piece of work,ambtious,envious,careless of sacred oaths,pederastic rapist of the child of a (first mention of a offends some of the gods and in typical feckless greek god fashion they devise a labyrinthine plot for his punishment,bringing misery shame and death to his descendents. lol. Poor old Oedipus. Harrowing sad and as I said, depressing.To cheer up I am going to do a reread of Charles Sheffield's Heritage series. I do so love Big Dumb object stories!

Completed a rattling good yarn from Murray Leinster.In Proxima Centauri first contact with a race descended from predatory flesh eating plants doesnt go well,lots of human deaths, the crew cannabalised,but,as ever,we come through in the end,destroying them all,including the home planet. Typical 1930s brutal pulp,but fun.I have a soft spot for Murray Leinster! :0)

I finished my read and posted my review of Angelmaker, so now I'm pivoting back to A Dweller on Two Planets. It looks like I'm doing an unusually good job of fulfilling my TBR agenda this month, although the public library still hasn't managed to cough up the copy of Use of Weapons I expected to have in my hands by now.

>103 paradoxosalpha:
Nice review of Angelmaker.

>104 pgmcc:

Thanks, I felt like I should have had a bit more to say about it, but I needed to crank out the review before moving on to the next thing. I just this minute got back from the public library, where I picked up Doctor Who: Time Trips that includes a story by Harkaway ("Keeping Up with the Joneses").

>105 paradoxosalpha:
I read "Keeping Up with the Jones" some time ago. I cannot remember much about it. It certainly did not leave as big an impression on me as his novels.

Nick was my Guest of Honour (GoH) at the Science Fiction (SF) convention I was running some time ago. 2010 I think. He only had The Gone-Away World published at that stage. I was due to have Iain Banks as GoH that year but Iain had to cancel at relatively short notice. I called someone I know who is well connected in SF circles looking for a replacement GoH. She suggested a few people, including John Clute who was on this side of the Atlantic at the time. In addition to Clute and a few other well known writers she mentioned, she suggested I could "take a punt" and ask Nick Harkaway whom she had recently become acquainted with. As it happened I had heard him being interviewed on the radio. He had read an excerpt from The Gone-Away World which had convinced me to read the book.

The rest is history. My friend gave me Nick's contact details and I sent an e-mail. He responded promptly and agreed to come over as GoH. He and his wife came to Dublin for the convention and they proved to be lovely people. Nick was a tremendous Guest of Honour. The crowd loved him. He has had a dedicated fan-base in Ireland ever since thanks to his participation in the convention. He sent me an uncorrected book proof of Angelmaker and inscribed it beautifully for me. As you can tell, I am predisposed to liking his work. :-)

>106 pgmcc:
It's good that Cornwell is as fine a person as Harkaway's voice makes him seem!

In addition to the Harkaway story, this Doctor Who book has a contribution from Jake Arnott, whose not-quite-sf novel House of Rumour I found excellent. I haven't watched any Doctor Who for a few years, but I'm sure I'll read the whole book.

I read Time Trips when it came out, it's a pretty fun collection. I liked the idea of getting good writers and just telling them to go nuts and do their thing in a Doctor Who framework, as opposed to getting the reliable media tie-in hacks to do it.

>107 paradoxosalpha:
I clicked the author link in your post to learn more about Jake Arnott and discovered I have The House of Rumour catalogued. Further investigation informed that I bought it on 18th March, 2022, and that it is in my Kindle collection. I find that I often forget what I have on Kindle. Out of sight, out of mind. The Peril of Kindle.

>109 pgmcc:

Originally, I didn’t catalogue e-books because I more-or-less definitionally already had an electronic record of what I had. I eventually realised the type of record makes a significant difference.

Read The entire Johannes Cabal Series by Jonathan L. Howard. I have to say they are some pretty good stories. Fun and original. Finishing up The Warrior with Broken Wings by Thorsten Brandl this week. A fairly gripping little sci fi/fantasy romp. His other book The Palladium is excellent.

Finished The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury's imaginary Mars has nothing to do with any attempt at a possible scientific representation, but rather is a useful metaphor for human aspiration, striving and, ultimately, our human failures. As always, his prose is finely written, full of nostolgia and his judgement of humanity is both bleak and affectionate.

>112 ChrisG1: I Love the Martian Chronicles but was very disappointed with the short length of it. Kind of a story that you do not want to see the end of. I am a huge fan of Dan Simmons. His Hyperion and Olympos series is beyond epic.

>113 Joligula:, I'd forgotten about Ilium/Olympos taking place on Mars. I recently read Bradbury's chronicles and didn't make the connection but in a sense they are both fantasy-like takes on a science fiction setting.

The Martian Chronicles were slightly disturbing as is most of the true Science Fiction of that era. Simmons is so spot on in his Sci Fi work. Hyperion is haunting when I think that it was written while our current state of technology and social media was in its infancy. It is almost prophetic. Much of that true blue Sci Fi almost makes you feel guilty for being a human and tugs on you.

I haven't read the Simmons books, but I thought McDonald's Mars in Desolation Road and Ares Express was top notch, with nods to Burroughs, Bradbury, and Robinson.

>112 ChrisG1: did you read the original text of The Martian Chronicles or the 1997 revision?

I have the 79 edition with the Michael Whelan cover.

>117 Joligula:

That's a great cover. I love Whelan's cover art for the ERB Barsoom books, even though the Frazetta covers are my mental touchstones for those.

My Barsoom series has the Whelan art. But many of my other ERB books have Frazetta work.

>116 paradoxosalpha: I read the original - at least, the book I read was printed in 1974.

The 74 Version from what I have read is a rare hardcover and goes for quite a bit. It's quite a catch. If you still have it...don't let go of it.

I read Bradbury's martian book under the UK title The Silver Locusts in a battered old 1951 copy from the library.Must have been around 1961.I was 13,an avid Bradbury reader then. There were a few variations in content,and the cover was so strange and ethereal. To this day I STILL feel odd calling the book The Martian Chronicles :0)

I recently acquired the Library of America The Martian Chronicles, which I think collects all the stories ever published under that title in any configuration. I am looking forward to reading it eventually; I grew up on my dad's 1972 Bantam edition.

Right now, though, I am reading Rob Wilkins's biography of Terry Pratchett, A Life with Footnotes (another Hugo finalist).

>123 Stevil2001:

In addition to switching out a few stories, the 1997 pass at the book changed all the dates to push them 30 years further forward into the future. I thought that was kind of silly, since even in 1950, Bradbury's yarns didn't qualify as credible futurist speculation. Keeping them in an "alternate timeline" signaled by the dates as readers advanced past them would have been a more sensible choice. I hope the LoA volume reverted the dates.

>124 paradoxosalpha: LoA ToC can be viewed here: https://www.loa.org/books/659-novels-story-cycles.

I'm glad to see some of the stories that were removed from later editions have been reinstated in the LoA edition. I'm tempted to buy this though I already own all the titles in separate volumes, as it would help increase available shelf space.

They did revert the dates!

>124 paradoxosalpha: Yes, moving the dates up was just weird. They will get dated all over again, of course, and the whole book is very much 1950s America on Mars, changing the dates doesn't help that. (Not that it needs to be helped.)

>113 Joligula: I agree, both the Hyperion Cantos and Ilium / Olympos duology are great reads. Among my favourite books.

>121 Joligula: It's from The Limited Editions Club & yes, cost a pretty penny (by my standards).

Finished Alien Bootlegger and Other Stories -- she's so uniformly strong in her work, I can't understand why she's so under the radar. Started Endling #1: The Last.

>130 ChrisRiesbeck: Intriguing, interesting review! I have never heard of her but now she's on my list.

Just finished The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. I had high expectations for this one, but found it to be only a so-so offering. I suspect it's a function of being a translation from Chinese. For me, the writing style & dialogue was stilted. Not sure I'll go on to the next in the series.

Starting Don’t Panic Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

>118 paradoxosalpha: So you are saying this group has the right picture?

>134 Karlstar:
I hadn't even noticed it! LT Talk doesn't surface the group pictures so much unless you're looking directly at the group page.

I'm reading The Margarets, which has been on my TBR for a very long time. So far, it seems complicated, but I'm sure that I will get it sorted out by the end.

I've just about finished Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow. I'm not as caught up in it as I was withWalkaway but it will probably rate 3.5 stars. Part of the problem is that I just don't understand how bitcoin and cryptocurrency work so the initial part of the book is still a blank for me.

Rereading Leigh Brackett's post-atomic war apocalyptic novel The Long Tomorrow which I read way back in the 60s. It's holding up well so far. A middle U.S. without major cities, ruled by anti-technology taboos and religious fanaticism.

>137 gypsysmom: Have you read Cory Doctorow's essay on his blog titled, "Moneylike"? It gave me a good way to think about cryptocurrency, although blockchain is beyond me. Here's a link.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/16/nondiscretionary-liabilities/

>138 rshart3:. That one's been on my wishlist for a long time. Sounds like I should acquire it.

>138 rshart3:
I'm a Brackett fan, but mostly for her terrific sword and planet work, which I think does Burroughs one better. (It should be mandatory reading for the folks cranking out Star Wars stuff these days.) The Long Tomorrow is well outside that sub-genre, and I thought it was very good when I read it ten years ago. The decade since has perhaps made the story more believable, as the cultural divide between rural and urban has been sharpened in the US.

>138 rshart3: >140 paradoxosalpha: I had The Long Tomorrow sitting on the shelves for a long time, but didn't read until I saw it was included in a Library of America edition. Loved it.

Currently reading A Mirror Mended, a Tordotcom novella and sequel to A Spindle Splintered. Good so far.

>141 ChrisRiesbeck: I picked up that LOA recently, but haven't got to it yet. They are always good volumes, though, in my experience.

>139 vwinsloe: Thank you for that link. That did help a bit.

>100 vwinsloe: Way to make me feel old ;)

>100 vwinsloe:
Speaking for this retired person I have been reading longer books than normal since I retired. As you suggest, I have more time to read big books. Infinite Jest is one of the books lined up for some time soon.

I picked up Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not sci-fi but sci-fi adjacent.

After several weeks of no SF in my reading diet, I'm now reading We are satellites by Kate Sarah Pinsker. It's very good so far.

>145 pgmcc: I loved Infinite Jest. Here's the best possible advice for an enjoyable experience. https://infinitesummer.org/archives/215

Knocked off Mickey7. On the whole it's an okay space colony story that's been done better, and has been done worse. Maybe I'll read the follow-up, maybe I won't.

>145 pgmcc:, >148 vwinsloe:, not so active now but there is a LT group devoted almost entirely to that one novel: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/8790/Infinite-Jesters

>147 Sakerfalcon: Did you mistype her first name or is Sarah just a pen name?

>151 anglemark: Doh! No idea where my brain was when I typed that! It should of course be Sarah!

>147 Sakerfalcon:
I haven't read a novel by her yet, but Pinsker's short stories are great.

>148 vwinsloe:
Thank you for the article. My response to the eleven tips is presented below.

1. Read the endnotes: I do that all the time.
2. Use bookmarks: I used three bookmarks when reading Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel, House of Leaves. It was necessary to keep track of the endnotes and the paths through the book.
3. Persevere to page 200: Thanks for the warning. Dialect and accents are not a problem for me, so perhaps the problem mentioned will not be a problem.
4. Trust the author: I love books with may characters and multiple story lines and threads.
5. Flag, copy, or bookmark page 223: Not a problem.
6. Don’t do the thing you’re dying to do right now: I love to read a book in the sequence the author presented their tale. I do not read reviews before reading a book so as to avoid possible spoilers. I am beyond the temptation to do the thing it is suggested I am dying to do right now.
7. Abuse your copy: My copy is physical and is highly likely to be abused. I abuse other books that I love.
8. Keep notes: We shall see.
9. Brush up on your Hamlet: Hmmm… I think I may be reading Hamlet in the near future.
10. Employ a readers guide: We shall see.
11. Use online references: I have bookmarked the article, and hence its links to online resources.

>150 Cecrow:
Thank for that. I will check it out when I am reading the book.

I have started The Citadel of the Autarch, my last foray into The Book of the New Sun. So far I am following (and therefore enjoying) this one better than the previous two.

>147 Sakerfalcon:, >153 paradoxosalpha: I read We Are Satellites a couple years ago and really enjoyed it. It really got to me emotionally at a couple points!

I've finally finished with Niven's The integral trees, having forced myself to leaf through it until it ended (I may have skimmed a few chapters towards the end). I somewhat aspirationally bought an edition that also included the sequel, but I'm definitely not reading that one.

Two of his Ringworld books rubbed me the wrong way, and this one featured more of the same irritants (non-characters, oh-the-misogyny, unmotivated plot developments), and this is the point where I give up on Niven's solo output because it is clearly not for me.

>157 Petroglyph: I'm so glad that I read Niven's works back in the 1980s, when I was able to ignore that stuff while reading it in fiction (mostly). So glad that the literature has moved on so that we now have writers who can do the cool ideas and also more reasonable characters and plots.

I just finished Malka Older's The mimicking of known successes, which is a mystery story that takes place in the human habitats on Jupiter (now that the Earth is completely trashed). It's a pretty good mystery, and the science is okay too (AFAICT -- I am not a scientist). I think one of my book groups would definitely all enjoy reading it. (It'll have to wait for next year, though.)

I have read a handful of books over the past several weeks...

• The Many-Colored Land: (5/10). I probably would have liked this more had I read it back when it was first published. I won't be continuing the series.


• Children of Time: (6/10). Decent first-contact story. I found myself caring more about the aliens than the humans. My first Tchaikovsky; I will probably try more in the future.


• These Prisoning Hills: (8/10). A strong enough novella that I immediately bought Rowe's collection, Telling the Map


• Titanium Noir: (9/10). Harkaway has become a favorite. I will be re-reading this book.


• The City We Became and The World We Make: (7/10). I mostly enjoyed Jemisin's take on Lovecraft's 'Old Ones'. Five stars for the imaginative premise. Two stars for the heavy-handed social commentary.


• The Raven Tower: (9/10). Didn't love the 2nd-person narrative bits but got used to it after a few chapters. The story itself is a well-written and immersive re-imagining of Shakespeare's classic.


• The Emperor's Soul: (10/10). My first Sanderson turned out to be an excellent novella. Very glad I bought this in hardcover as I will definitely re-read it.


• Celestis: (6/10). I can see why people compare Paul Park to Gene Wolfe. Especially how this book has similarities to The Fifth Head of Cerberus. Compared to Wolfe's classic, this one fell a bit flat for me - but I enjoyed it more as it neared the denouement.


• The Mongoliad: Averaging around (7/10) across the first three books. Currently reading book #4, Katabasis and it is also headed toward the same rating. Historical fiction with a smattering of magical realism set (mostly) in Europe and Asia during the generation after Genghis Khan.


• Also just started reading Shardik. Only a couple of dozen pages into but already finding it intriguing.

>159 ScoLgo:, glad to hear that about Shardik, I'll be reading that soon.

>150 Cecrow: Who knew? Already a DFW fan when Infinite Jest was published in 1996, I read it when it came out. It looks like the thread on LT started in 2010. But when I eventually read it again, I will refer to that thread. Thanks.

>154 pgmcc:. That list was posted on a website (that I was surprised to see still exists) called, "Infinite Summer." It was an online project started by a writer in which participants were challenged to read Infinite Jest at a rate of about 75 pages a week from June 21 to September 22, 2009. There were several well known participants.

I finished my read of Doctor Who: Time Trips and posted my review. I also just ordered a copy of As the Green Star Rises to renew a long-dormant sword and planet reading project, so that will be on my September list.

>158 karenb:

So glad that the literature has moved on so that we now have writers who can do the cool ideas and also more reasonable characters and plots

Definitely! Also: I like to think that having different opinions about media from yesteryear means I've changed for the better.

Cibola Burn lasted for all but one day of my holiday. Still very pleased with the series, even though this one had more notable departures from the events of the tv show. Not that I see this as a problem, you understand.

>164 RobertDay:
I am about 80% through Cibola Burn.

>164 RobertDay: That was the last book I've read in the series, and I need to get back to it sometime.

We are satellites was a good, thought-provoking read, about how a technology that becomes ubiquitous can affect those left behind.

Finished Hopeland by ian McDonald and was absolutely blown away by it. An epic saga of found family, kindness, and above all hope. Highly recommended.

Next up, a complete change. Kameron Hurley's The Light Brigade- war, violence, brutality.

>167 Sakerfalcon: >168 SChant:

You're still posting in August. If you meant to post in September the link is here.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/353355#n8222919

>168 SChant:
I am pleased to see you are reading in a balanced fashion.

:-)

I also enjoyed, Hopeland, but I would add another attribute to your list; love. I thought the book exuded love.

>169 elorin: I'll book it down to a time-travel error ;D

>170 pgmcc: Wrong Hopeland linked. Someone else has not had enough coffee.

>172 vwinsloe:
Thank you for that.