Reading in SF, September 2024

Hobbit

Hobbit

Cat Wrangler and Reader
Staff member
Joined
Jul 16, 2001
Messages
18,434
Welcome to September 2024!!

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(Apologies to those of you in the Southern hemisphere.)

Anyway, last month's discussion of SF books is HERE.

It is the usual message here - this thread is where you tell us about what you've been reading in Science Fiction this month.

Remember, good or bad, we still want to know what you think.

Hobbit/Mark
 
Hobbit said:
(Apologies to those of you in the Southern hemisphere.)
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Well it has felt like summer this weekend - around 34C both days, and still officially winter for one of them!

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I read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem over the last couple of days - Kris Kelvin is a psychologist who arrives on a research station on the planet Solaris.

It was quite original in approach for an "alien" novel - where the alien is the whole ocean of the planet, and its unusual psychological impacts it has on the humans in the station. The first half was better; the strange apparitions, the sometimes perplexing actions of those already in the station, the mystery that begins to unfold - made it an interesting read.

But there were sections mainly in the last half that were long info dumps that really disrupted the flow. They did help explain what was happening, but they were too verbose with irrelevant information. I lost my way a bit after that to find it just an average to good overall.
 
You know, Westy, I have a copy of this, and keep meaning to try it, but my memories of watching the 1972 movie keep coming back. It might be better now I'm more adult but my viewing in a cinema in the 1980s was one of the most boring experiences of my life. I remember looking at my watch, thinking considerable time had gone to only find it was for a couple of minutes. Repeat action for about 3 hours. :)

It does sound like the book has some of that as well. :)
 
Finished Echo of Worlds by M.R. Carey book 2 of the Pandominion duology. While I enjoyed it, Echo did not quite live to the high expectations that were instilled from book 1, Infinity Gate. Book 2 doesn't invoke the same page turning frenzy/excitement that Book 1 gives us. I agree with a reader who posted in August's reading thread ..that Carey really gave us EVERYTHING with book 1 and it is hard to follow up on something so brilliant in concept and execution.
 
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I finished Artifact Space and Deep Black. As with the Pandominion series (see Diosces' comments in previous post), this too suffered from a slightly... flatter second novel, but all in all, a pretty good overall story.

Also, I couldn't put my finger on it right away, but after reading this series and the Infinity Gate series, I finally figured out why both didn't reach their full potential for me.
The younger protagonists gave the books young adult vibes. And because of this, there was never any doubt of them wrapping up in nice and tidy happy endings.
That was my biggest qualm with, ironically enough, both series. That being said, I do hope the authors of both Artifact Space and Infinity Gate revisit their respective universes down the road if there still are original stories to be found.

Now! The book I've been waiting for all year finally drops tomorrow - Not Till We are Lost by Dennis E. Taylor. It's time to run the bath, light the lavender scented candles, and break out the expensive red wine! :p
 
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Westy said:
But there were sections mainly in the last half that were long info dumps that really disrupted the flow. They did help explain what was happening, but they were too verbose with irrelevant information. I lost my way a bit after that to find it just an average to good overall.
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I had a tough time getting through Solaris too.

dannymcg said:
Re-read of the Conqueror trilogy by Timothy Zahn
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Was the Conqueror series good? I tried Icarus Hunt a while back and it didn't really work for me.
 
krisbslick said:
Was the Conqueror series good?
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I originally (years ago) messed up because I bought book 2 in the trilogy thinking it was a standalone.
I puzzled my way through it, realised about halfway that there must have been a prior book.
So I then felt compelled to buy books one three and read the entire trilogy as a long novel.

Yes, I enjoyed it a lot once I got the characters sorted in my head - recommended!
 
I started reading Dark Matter by Blake Crouch after watching most of the new Apple TV series, and the writing style is not my favorite. The whole idea around quantum states and superposition is intriguing, but the MC’s perspective feels choppy and rushed- almost young adult. Maybe that’s intentional since he’s thrown out of his world? I’m also reading it alongside The Archimedes Engine, so it could be an unfair comparison against Hamilton’s verbose and descriptive approach to storytelling (which I am absolutely enjoying).

I had a similar dislike of Project Hail Mary where the tone and style weren’t for me. I’m going to keep going through Dark Matter to see the conclusion of the story, but it’s made me hesitant to check out more of Crouch’s work.
 
krisbslick said:
I finished Artifact Space and Deep Black. As with the Pandominion series (see Diosces' comments in previous post), this too suffered from a slightly... flatter second novel, but all in all, a pretty good overall story.

Also, I couldn't put my finger on it right away, but after reading this series and the Infinity Gate series, I finally figured out why both didn't reach their full potential for me.
The younger protagonists gave the books young adult vibes. And because of this, there was never any doubt of them wrapping up in nice and tidy happy endings.
That was my biggest qualm with, ironically enough, both series. That being said, I do hope the authors of both Artifact Space and Infinity Gate revisit their respective universes down the road if there still are original stories to be found.

Now! The book I've been waiting for all year finally drops tomorrow - Not Till We are Lost by Dennis E. Taylor. It's time to run the bath, light the lavender scented candles, and break out the expensive red wine! :p
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On Amazon, I'm only seeing the "Not Till We Are Lost" Audiobook available. Is anyone seeing something different?
 
Raf said:
On Amazon, I'm only seeing the "Not Till We Are Lost" Audiobook available. Is anyone seeing something different?
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Yes, unfortunately that's the only version available... Probably for at least 3 months, since Taylor has an exclusive contract to release only the audible version first.
 
Finished Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts - talked a bit about it but in the previous month thread so will include blurb again here; very ambitious in some ways and I quite liked it though it didn't quite pull off its major philosophical theme by the end. My Goodreads review:

Very interesting book - a mix of philosophical SF, (dumb- not Culture smart) AI based future utopia, world-building, and vignette-type action - that offers a lot in parts but ultimately doesn't quite pull it together at the end to truly deliver a memorable sf novel.

Still what we get is very good, entertaining, and with the usual flourishes of the author from a discussion about the mythical author Julie or (maybe Jule) Verne or the famous fictional character Alias in Wonderland, to walking on the core of a planet (see Verne) and so on.

Also typical are the sort of general conclusions of the author that we see in other novels, namely that utopia infantilizes humanity and people need toil and suffering to live meaningful lives as well as that religion blinkers are in practice worse than generic la-la land ones as the actual killers are Christians who believe they converse with the Devil and then try and stop him (he appears as The Gentleman) committing murder, while of course in the process doing the deed themselves, while the rest of the people there just argue about the meaning of the corresponding apparition as per their beliefs (benign aliens, genocidal humans etc) but do nothing...

Overall quite good but uneven in parts and ultimately not quite living up to the early promises. Still recommended and worth reading.

Blurb:

Good is a construct. Evil is a virus.
The Starship Sa Niro and the Starship Sß Oubliette were in orbit around a black hole, one afternoon... by the end of the day, the crews of both starships were dead, victims of a single Captain Alpha Raine.
Raine claims he's acting under the command of a voice emanating from the black Mr Modo. No one believes him.Everyone knows that things go into black holes; nothing comes out.
But something inexplicable has been happening to Raine, and whatever it is seems to be spreading. An historian studying serial killers from the 21st century interviews him... and then nearly kills someone herself. It becomes increasingly undeniable that there's something inside that black hole... and it's found a way out...
 
Finished Not Till We are Lost in one day. Wow... just wow

I really don't even know how to describe what I went through yesterday lol. Normal authors can barely handle one conflict effectively. It felt like Taylor juggled 5 razor sharp knives and had you on the edge of your seat the entire time. The story's pace was incredible and kept me completely enthralled. It was really a great callback to the first 3 novels in the series. The only negative I can think of is that it was over way too quickly and left me wanting for so much more. Definitely, top read of the year for me so far. (But, I still have yet to read Peter Hamilton's new one - out later this month for us... common-folk. >_<)

In the meantime, I'll be moving on to Craig Alanson's newest ExForce novel - Task Force Hammer. This will bring me current with the entire ExForce series... 21 books in 6 months. Can't say I slacked on my 2024 goals - September is shaping up very nicely!
 
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