Science Fiction Reading in December 2016

[Hobbit]

Here's where you tell us about what you've been reading in Science Fiction this month. Good or bad, we want to know what you think.

As as this is our last one for this year - where did that go? - I'd like to wish everyone at SFFWorld, on behalf of the staff and owner all the compliments of the season and all the best for 2017. Here's hoping you get lots and lots to read, to keep you entertained whether it is Summer or Winter where you are.

Thanks all.

Keep an eye out nearer the end of the month for our usual Best of the Year, which has become a tradition. Hope there's something there for you to try if you haven't already.


Mark

 

[Windshadow]

I decided to pick up some of the kindle Science Fiction Megapack volumes to revisit the short fiction of my youth. The favorite authors and their novels might get into sort of a reread cycle but for me the short fiction if I caught it all it was in the days i read the pulps in the 50s and 60s so I think I missed or I have forgotten a lot of it. I am enjoying Greylorn right now.
here it is:
The 35th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack Keith Laumer
GREYLORN
THE FROZEN PLANET
GAMBLER’S WORLD
THE YILLIAN WAY
IT COULD BE ANYTHING
END AS A HERO
A BAD DAY FOR VERMIN
A TRACE OF MEMORY
DOORSTEP

Laumer, Keith. The 35th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: Keith Laumer. Wildside Press LLC. Kindle Edition.

 

[Hobbit]

I regularly buy these Wildside Megapacks, Windshadow: they are very cheap and usually good value. Makes me try lots of things I wouldn't otherwise have bothered with.

 

[Westy]

I picked up Kill Process by William Hertling on a whim after seeing it short-listed as a Goodreads best book in SF.

I'm glad I did because it was a surprisingly great read. Angie's an experienced employee in the tech industry, working for a large social networking company. She decides to quit and create her own company, but one that's made of individual companies integrating their platforms so that there's no one central multinational controlling people's data - but the owners of the old company don't like it. Add to that she's a domestic violence survivor, the story has a realistic punch to it.

It doesn't read as your standard SF novel, more computer science thriller, but there's a huge amount of technical information on hacking, exploits, data analysis, etc., as the author is ex-industry himself.

It also delves into the psych of abuse victims, which is at times quit heartfelt, and also the unconventional way Angie finds out about and helps current victims. The pace is quick throughout the whole novel, the characters believable (many in the typical geek-introvert way), and the ending is one to savor.

Recommended if this sounds like your thing.

 

[Hobbit]

Sounds interesting, Westy. Reminds me of Charlie Stross, who also worked in the industry, if I remember right, and possibly Cory Doctorow?

 

[Westy]

Sounds interesting, Westy. Reminds me of Charlie Stross, who also worked in the industry, if I remember right, and possibly Cory Doctorow?

That's it, with a bit of William Gibson thrown in!

 

[chitman13]

I've just read Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz, the fifth Odd Thomas book. While the previous books are very much thrillers with supernatural elements (the main character, Odd, can see ghosts), this one had some firm SF thrown in too in the form of a contraption built by Tesla. Very interesting and rather enjoyable.

 

[Window Bar]

This hasn't been much of a Sci-Fi year for me, with the exception of the odd scraps of science that have bled over from the many fantasy books I've read. Also, many of today's magic realism books (such as Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, along with Orfeo by Richard Powers -- both of which I read in 2016) have used scientific themes convincingly, although maybe they are more science-in-fiction than straight up sci-fi.

 

[Hobbit]

This hasn't been much of a Sci-Fi year for me, with the exception of the odd scraps of science that have bled over from the many fantasy books I've read.

Funny how these things go in cycles, isn't it? It's been the opposite for me this year. More SF than I realised, until it came to summing up the year, whilst the Fantasy was a much shorter list.

 

[Ropie]

I finished The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts. We had a bit of a discussion about him in last month's reading thread and at halfway through I thought I was reading a masterpiece. I did feel a lack of resolution by the end, as if the structure of the book and its main subject (Kant's nature of reality beyond reality) was getting in the way of the novel itself, though I also felt that was kind of the point. Like other Roberts' books I've read, the plot got so twisted up with the ideas the two seemed to become indistinguishable. I did enjoy and respect the book but as a novel it ultimately didn't quite satisfy me. There were shades of many other authors, some intentional (listed in the afterword) and some less so - Priest, Lem, Bester, Dick, Nabokov. Adam Roberts is on a very interesting journey with his work, but far from being his best novel, I think there will be better to come from him, at least from a reader's point of view..

 

[Hobbit]

I did enjoy and respect the book but as a novel it ultimately didn't quite satisfy me.

You've hit the nail on the head for me, Ropie. Adam's books are clever and usually start well but he can't finish a story.... as I result, I approach all his work with caution.

 

[chitman13]

Just finished with Rob Boffard's second Outer Earth novel, Zero-G. Much like the first, this was non-stop throughout, and a step up in terms of plotting and story IMO. Very much looking forward to the finale: Impact.

 

[Jason LaPier]

Finally got around to starting A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, which is great, of course. Kill Process is on my TBR short list - maybe I'll do that next.

Edit to say I also read Normal by Warren Ellis already this month. It was very short but so good. There are some concepts still rattling around my head long after I finished.

 

[Av Demeisen]

I'm two-thirds into the superb In The Mouth of the Whale by Paul McAuley.

 

[krisbslick]

I'm two-thirds into the superb In The Mouth of the Whale by Paul McAuley.

Good to know, I was thinking about starting this series after I get to Babylon's Ashes tomorrow

 

[Ropie]

You've hit the nail on the head for me, Ropie. Adam's books are clever and usually start well but he can't finish a story.... as I result, I approach all his work with caution.

I don't think he even wants to write novels with endings, but it does make them hard to judge against most other SF (which is actually a very conservative genre in my experience, despite the reliance on outlandish ideas and imaginary places). I did really enjoy the book, especially the incredibly well written fourth chapter set in the 17th C. Even so, it deals with a theme common to Robert's work - sexual abuse; it's something I find a little odd as it is a major theme in 3 of the 5 books I have read by him and I can't really work out why. He always approaches the subject without trepidation and never flinches from the details.

In other news, I have just re-bought the first SF novel I ever purchased, Dayworld by Philip José Farmer. I first bought and read it in 1987 so it will be interesting to see how it fares today.

 

[Hobbit]

In other news, I have just re-bought the first SF novel I ever purchased, Dayworld by Philip José Farmer. I first bought and read it in 1987 so it will be interesting to see how it fares today.

Oh, I remember the cover to that one, Ropie:

A Peter Ellson cover, I think. Be interested to see if it stands up. I find Farmer very much a mixed writer. Some of it I liked (Riverworld) but other work I really felt it was style over substance, designed to shock rather than tell a story or be entertaining.

 

[Ropie]

Oh, I remember the cover to that one, Ropie

Yes, that's the one - although it's a Tim White drawing - and the cover was the reason I bought the book. To the 12 year old me it looked like an image piped in directly from the future. Quite why anyone would build such a tall tower in the middle of farmland is a mystery but it looks so cool

 

[Hobbit]

the cover was the reason I bought the book.

Yup: shows covers can work! I'm horrified by some of the so-called cover art that seems to be used these days. Most of it wouldn't attract me at all...

Tim White. Of course. Thank you!

 

[mylinar]

I started to reread 'The Dreaming Void' by Peter F. Hamilton. I was kind of lost and not completely satisfied with the series and thought going through it again would fix that since it has such good reviews. I am going to put that on hold however. I think what is needed is to read the series before it. Since there was such a long gap of 1,300 years between them my feeling was that they could be isolated. After reading some posts here though I'm changing my mind. Perhaps I will drop some hints that these two earlier works 'Pandora's Star' and 'Judas Unchained' might make good Christmas presents.
Of course now I need to read something else until then.