Reading in June 2006

[kron]

I was feeling in a similar mood and started reading some Christopher Priest: it is SF but not like anything else - far broader. There is a recent thread you can look at.

Thanks a lot, Ropie! Seems Priest is worth the try. But I have to finish Singularity Sky first. I'm stuck 'cause I have a new processor for my guitar and don't have time for anything else

 

[Jack]

Hey hey!

Reading Accelerando by Charles Stross for the book club this month. Class & Mervyn Peake share the blame for it taking me so long to begin the book club books - and since next month's book club books are in the mail, I'll have to set aside some special reading time to get through them all before the 1st (Accelerando, Peace, Spin, Bridge of Birds).

I'm 100 pages into the Stross and I honestly don't know what to think yet. It's certainly is a crazy book. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on any conflict besides Macx vs. his wife and Macx vs. himself. But I'll keep reading.

Reserving further comments for the Book Club thread which I'm avoiding at the moment, though it appears to be moving swimmingly.

 

[Ropie]

I've just finished Red Mars by Kim Robinson. For the most part I really enjoyed reading this and felt involved with the proceedings, if not so much with the characters. Kim Robinson's writing varies (throughout the novel) between competent and very good, with flashes of excellence. He seems particularly good at summing up ideas and philosophies in a paragraph and conveying the feeling of the crowd, rather than the individual.

His main characters, particularly the more flamboyant ones such as John Boone and Arkady, were quite annoying. The women faired better and I actually thought Ann was very well portrayed, so I'm pleased to see she carries on into the next book.

As has been mentioned many times, the descriptions of the Martian landscape are central to the book, but they didn't always grab me in the way that writers like Wolfe and Clarke can, vividly capturing a whole vista with just a few words. Robinson is good at pointing out the details and the disasters but he didn't quite capture the atmosphere all the time. Still, he's better than most!

I got a bit bored during the last quarter, with the revolution and the political situation and the vast list of not-very-memorable characters, but there were enough high lights to keep me going until the end. 4 stars.

 

[intensityxx]

I've just finished Red Mars by Kim Robinson.

I haven't read this, but have big hopes for his current series beginning with Forty Signs of Rain. I plan to see An Inconvenient Truth this week (the global warming documentary in the theatres), which would be interesting as a kickoff to the Robinson reading.

 

[intensityxx]

Does anyone in the U.S. know what's going on with the publishing of Woken Furies(Takeshi Kovacs), by Richard K. Morgan? It's been out in hardcover since September, but there are no copies available at Amazon or B&N. There's no mention of an upcoming paperback either. I thought his first two were good sellers. Now I'm wishing I hadn't been holding out for pb.

*edit* found at Powell's, but I still think it should be more available...

 

[Ouroboros]

Finished 'Cally's War' by John Ringo and Julie Cochraine.

The short version of my opinion is that this isn't a particularly strong novel. Now, a lot of Ringo fans have slammed it, and the usual form of their criticism runs like "this isn't remotely like the original four military SF novels that hooked us". (Incidentally, Ringo's ultimate response to this was: "I'm going in directions that don't involve huge quantities of bodies being blasted into yellow goo. (Shrugs) I can only write what _I_ like. If you want more yellow goo, write it yourself.")

That's not necessarily why I don't particularly like 'Cally's War'. On it's own merits, it still isn't my cup of tea.

After the initially promising first third or so, it runs to being a sort of spy-romance novel, almost like a modern update of 'The taming of the shrew' mixed in with a little 'Alias'.

However, it feels a little flat. A central premise of the plot is that the Cally O'Neill character is emotionally deadended by her job, and her falling is love is supposed to be a kind of 'awakening' for her. However, Cochrane and Ringo write her as such a steely-eyed zombie for so much of the book that it's hard to actually empathise with her. Frankly, I normally really dig amoral anti-hero types in fiction, but perhaps here the authors are victims of their own realism in the sense that it's just plain hard to like the Cally character. I frankly didn't give a damn whether she found love or was ejected out an airlock into outer space.

Beyond that, it's worth mentioning that Ringo and Cochrane have both defended the book in reviews on Amazon.com. On the one hand I applaud any willingness on an author's part ot step up to the plate and answer their critics with well-reasoned responses. However, you also get the feeling like they're a bit on the back foot. It can also quickly become the equivalent of brawling with your hecklers, if it goes downhill and turns nasty.

 

[Hobbit]

It's a good point, Ouro - how far do you go as a writer to defend your work before it becomes heckling and nasty?

Anyone remember the Anne Rice incident, not to mention many others (Pauses for a G**dkind moment, amongst others.)?

I guess writers have an attachment to their work - after all, they've invested a lot of time and love into it! - but it can all very easily go pear-shaped.

Many writers refuse to get involved, but is this necessarily a good thing?

Back to task - just finished The Engineer Reconditioned. Very good - a nice introduction to Neal Asher's work, if you've not read it before, though I missed the depth in the bigger novels in places. Now all I've got to do is write up the review.....

Hobbit

 

[FicusFan]

Does anyone in the U.S. know what's going on with the publishing of Woken Furies(Takeshi Kovacs), by Richard K. Morgan? It's been out in hardcover since September, but there are no copies available at Amazon or B&N. There's no mention of an upcoming paperback either. I thought his first two were good sellers. Now I'm wishing I hadn't been holding out for pb.

*edit* found at Powell's, but I still think it should be more available...

You can also probably get a PB version from Amazon.UK. I haven't checked if its still available, but I got mine from the UK (quite a while ago).

Also check the used books available on Amazon in the US. Sometimes they aren't used and sometimes they are selling the PB version from the UK. I have bought books from the different sellers and had very good luck.

 

[ricoboc]

I finished a few recently, many older novels I just got around to.

1. The Cornelius Chronicles by Michael Moorcock
2. Code of the Life Maker by James P. Hogan
3. Queen of Denial by Selina Rosen
4. Big Planet by Jack Vance (Currently reading)

Last month I finished:

1.The Long Result by John Brunner
2.Planet Probability by Brian Ball
3.The Pastel City by M. John Harrison

Planning on getting to Showboat World and Blue World by Jack Vance before the month is over.

 

[UberDarkLord]

I'm starting Richard Morgans Woken Furies tonight. If only it's half as good as the other 'Takeshi Kovacs', I'm in for a jolly good read.

 

[ArthurFrayn]

Last month I finished:

1.The Long Result by John Brunner

Hey what did you think of that?
That's on my TBR pile as a cool off book.

 

[Keyoke]

Been awhile since I picked up a scifi book, so, this month, I am started "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge. I Had started this book sometime ago, and stopped.

Why? God knows...reading it again, and I'm just loving it. Make me want to read Fire Upon the Deep all over again.

Anyone read his new book?

Keyoke

 

[Archren]

I read a quirky book over the weekend: Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's either the first or second book they ever wrote together. It was... interesting. Very fast read. It's already got all the prose style that made them the master team, but doesn't quite have the plot and pacing down yet. It's basically a re-telling of Dante's Inferno from the perspective of a dead American SF writer. It's got lots of in-jokes and some naive poilitics, but on the whole it's pretty fun. The balance of fun to serious is a little wierd, sometimes the transitions are jarring. But in the end it's nicely ambiguous. I enjoyed it, especially coming to it with no idea what to expect.

 

[Hobbit]

I've read Inferno! It was the book I read after Mote in God's Eye, and after that I remember being very disappointed. Being a young thing then, I didn't get all the Dante references. Thought it was OK rather than the megabook I was expecting.

Finished Neal Asher's The Engineer Reconditioned. 'Official' review HERE.

Summing up, this is perhaps a good place to try Neal’s work if you’re new to his writing. It gives you a great flavour of his likes and dislikes and his style. If they whet your appetite, then the longer novels such as Gridlinked or The Skinner will be the place to go next. If you are a fan, you will be very pleased to fill some of the gaps and earlier concepts revisited in later books. The Engineer Reconditioned is a very welcome reappearance of earlier material. With that condition, recommended.

Hobbit

 

[Karwats]

Like some of the other people here,I'm also going for rereads.

Bloodstone by Wagner (I enjoy Kane) and Dorsai (all of them) from Dickson.

 

[ricoboc]

Quote:
Last month I finished:

1.The Long Result by John Brunner


Hey what did you think of that?
That's on my TBR pile as a cool off book.

If you like John Brunner, I am sure you will enjoy this book. Then again, I don’t know what you enjoy as far as sci-fi goes. All I can tell you is I enjoyed the book. It was a very quick read. I read nearly the entire book in one sit. It clocks in at a whopping 190 pages, it’s really more a novella than a novel.

If you like a good Alien contact story and enjoy a mystery this book will be right up your alley.

 

[Erfael]

Two interesting ones of late:

First was Richard K. Morgan's second Takeshi Kovacs novel, Broken Angels. This was a pretty light read. Morgan has a pretty good flair for description. You really get a gritty feel for his worlds. There wasn't too much by way of make you sit up and think here, but it was a rip-roaring fun ride. The bulk of the novel has to do with assembling a team to go claim a Martian precursor wreck. There were some interesting views on the Martians and it's interesting to see a different angle on Takeshi.

One thing that concerns me with this one and Altered Carbon, which cause me to deduct a few points is the anti-climax/climax. For some reason, I really liked the body of these books. By the end, though, there's usually some kind of big fight. He completely loses me in these. I space out and start skipping ahead to get back to interesting stuff. Small concern on an otherwise interesting book.




More recently was C.J. Cherry's 40,000 in Gehenna. Late last year I read and really enjoyed The Faded Sun, so i was all set for another really interesting take on alien life. In some ways I was satisfied, in others not. The book spans a little over 200 years in not many more pages than that. It has to do with a group sent to colonize a planet that has a type of lizard-like life form they call calibans already established on it. The first third of the book pretty quickly deals with the departure from Cyteen, the landing, the first generation, the second generation, and the colony spreading out into the world. Then we quickly move on to the bulk of the book, which is the story of some of the descendants and a follow-up scientific mission and how they all interact.

The story overall was interesting, but suffered a little for blitzing through so many generations so quickly and not really having any central characters that were with us through the whole of the book. I thought perhaps picking one of the characters from the last section of the book and telling the earlier parts of the story through research or stories or something might have worked better to tie things together, but all in all, it was another interesting take by Cherryh on a different kind of alien thought.

 

[ezchaos]

I just finished Children of Dune, thus ending the original Dune trilogy. First impressions are that these books are some of the best sf I've ever read. I sort of knew what to expect with the first book, but had no clue what the other two books would be like. I think I'll give the Dune universe a break for now and read the final two Frank Herbert Dune books a try later.

 

[FicusFan]

I just finished Children of Dune, thus ending the original Dune trilogy. First impressions are that these books are some of the best sf I've ever read. I sort of knew what to expect with the first book, but had no clue what the other two books would be like. I think I'll give the Dune universe a break for now and read the final two Frank Herbert Dune books a try later.

There are 3 books by Frank Herbert after Children of Dune.


God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune

I didn't enjoy them, but others have, and they are the completion of the part of the series that FH actually wrote.

 

[Soon Lee]

Just finished "PARATIME" by H. Beam Piper which I got because it was cited as an influence of CHARLES STROSS' "MERCHANT PRINCES" series. It is a collection of short stories about a civilisation that exploits less developed timelines by transporting materials & people back to the home timeline. The home timeline depletes other timelines to feed its own needs, which raises ethical concerns.

The Paratime Police are there to ensure that this situation persists, that the more primitive timelines are kept ignorant while their wealth is siphoned out. A very colonial philosophy. I can see how STROSS would cite this as an influence for the series. The writing is o.k. & the stories are an enjoyable enough read but I wouldn't be rushing to recommend them to anyone.

Also managed to finish "BEGGARS & CHOOSERS" by NANCY KRESS which is the sequel to "BEGGARS IN SPAIN". She is a terrific writer and this one gets two thumbs up.

The basic premise is a genemod that makes sleep unnecessary. The Sleepless are more intelligent & productive than baseline humans. Their inventions & efforts have the potential to improve everyone's lot, yet they are feared & persecuted.