Reading in June 2013

Hobbit said:
Good news/bad news day!

Good news: Books 2, 3 & 4 of Stephen Kent's Clone Republic arrived. Really enjoying this series... and some of them have SFFWorld quotes on them! Very pleased.

BUT

They've been trashed in the mail, to an unreadable state. Some look as if they have bitemarks on them, the rest are piles of loosely attached paper... and not really readable.

*sigh*

M.
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How the heck did that happen?

Loerwyn said:
And I've now moved onto another 40k item, Shadowsun: The Last of Kiru's Line, which is a Direct Exclusive release from Black Library (£12 for a ~128pg novella) that is about one of the few prominent female characters in the 40k minis line, Commander Shadowsun, one of the named character models you can field as a Tau HQ unit. I've only read a few pages but I've really liked what I've read so far.
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Finished it this afternoon. Quite good, though some rather obvious grammar mistakes irked me a little (including a missing word at one point). I also feel like it kinda tried to go down a route it probably shouldn't have done. Or maybe it should have. I'm undecided. Not entirely sure it was £12 good, but it was enjoyable.
 
Danogzilla said:
Whoah. What goes on in the Hobbit Towers mail room?
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ROUSs, clearly.

I sat down and finished David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas earlier. It's a modern classic, definitely, and a great example of how sci-fi can be considered literature and other poncy things. But it is a really good book - hard going at times, yes - and one I enjoyed.
 
Whoah. What goes on in the Hobbit Towers mail room?
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LOL. Clearly a fight over the next book to review! I really should sort a picture out.

They do look like they've been mauled though. Generally my mail is great: though there are often minor bumps and scrapes, my postie is very understanding, and most of them manage to find and use my parcel box.

But basically this one is probably because of what they've been sent in. 4 books in a flimsy jiffy bag probably isn't the way forward.

I have asked the publisher very nicely if they'd mind sending new copies out: it's just a tad annoying that they've got to do so.
 
I jumped on the bandwagon last night by also starting Bester's The Demolished Man. Not entirely sure I'll come out of this with the clearest idea of what's happened, but I am quite liking it.
 
It does settle down, Kat. A lot of the ideas about psychology in the book are now thought to be wrong, but it still holds up pretty well, I think.

M.
 
Well, considering it has mind-reading in it, I can perhaps give it a pass on that front. I quite like the word play and so on, though. Takes a little bit of time to get your head around it at first, but when you realise they're not typos it's actually kinda cool.
 
Hard to believe the book is 60 - SIXTY- years old this year, and yet still holds up as a story pretty well.

M.
 
Hobbit said:
Hard to believe the book is 60 - SIXTY- years old this year, and yet still holds up as a story pretty well.

M.
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Bester is pretty good for that, from what I've read. The Stars... read pretty well for its age.
 
Haven't finished a lot of sff recently - started a few books, most notably The Disestablishment of Paradise by P. Mann which I really like and should finish sooner rather than later, but mostly rereads, short fiction (Aethernet 3 still going strong) and non-genre, while i expect to get Adjacent in a few days and that is of course an asap, but I finished The Quarry by Iain Banks

Not sf, though it has its allusions and its themes of 'real" vs "virtual: and also as Mr Banks put it in his last poignant interview with the Guardian, not the book he would have chosen to go out with "I'm still very proud of The Quarry but … let's face it; in the end the real best way to sign off would have been with a great big rollicking Culture novel."

a bit to my surprise I really, really enjoyed The Quarry and read it twice as it has very engaging stuff - especially due to narrator Kit's voice. It has moments of humor, moments of sadness, lots of dialogue that is sparkling on the page and very memorable characters so i highly recommend it.
 
Stopped about half way through Stephenson's Snow Crash - I can appreciate the ideas and the action that happens from page one, as well as the fairly well described cyber future setting, but for some reason it didn't work for me. Maybe it was the writing style or the characters, but I just didn't find it that fun to read after a while.

After that I started on, and just finished, When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger. I thought this was a very good read - it's a sort of detective novel set in a future Arab ghetto in which people can get surgical implants to enhance senses or even personalities altogether. I liked it not only due to the author's fluid writing, but also the mix of ideas which made it a bit different/original than much of what I've read of late. Looking forward to reading more in the series - recommended.

Now going over to fantasy for a change.
 
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Hi There,I'm new,I'm old and I'm reading a lot of stuff including a lot of Sci Fi and related.

Just read Abaddon's Gate,James S A Corey (pen name for a dynamic duo).I've read the other two Expanse books (just found out there will be at least three more!!).This is great stuff,as good as you'll find in this form.Space Opera greatness,love the Crew of the Rocinante,Holden,Naomi,Amos,Alex...just great stuff.(Would love to see these books go to film or TV but recognize the technical difficulties).

Also just read The Shining Girls,Lauren Beukes.Great read,very compelling,solid character studies,good pay off even if it is a bit telegraphed.

And read Man In The Empty Suit,Sean Ferrell.How to describe this book.I had to make myself finish it.It reads like an over written too long episode of the Twilight Zone.Sections to me seemed added in to make a full size book out of the concept.Just came across to me as pretentious and sort of like a movie I spent time watching,wouldn't watch again and am glad I didn't pay for.

Now reading an old book,A book of 100 shorts by Ray Bradbury.

Then I'll go after the second Divergent book,The second Empire State book by Adam Christopher and NOS4A2 by Stephen King Jr (Joe Hill).
 
Just finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. A good read that at least got me interested in Neutron Stars. :) I don't know if you would call it hard Sci-fi but Reynolds does make an effort to put science with a bit of explanation into his story. Some of the plotlines were predictable but overall I'd recommend it!
 
Just finished Use of Weapons by Banks and thought it was sheer class. Brilliant. Such a good story and his use of language is phenomenal. Took me longer to read than a book of that size normally does but that was only because I was savouring Banks' writing.

Not sure what is up next. I think jumping straight into another novel would probably do it a disservice after UoW so I'll probably just read some short stories until I've stopped churning UoW over in my mind.

DDCOrange, I read Revelation Space a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, but although I've got the sequel Redemption Ark I haven't got round to reading it yet. I have read Chasm City though, which is set in the same universe, and would recommend that definitely. I've also read Galactic North, a novella set in that universe, which I really enjoyed.
 
On my lunch break today, I started reading the recent US reissue (January 2013) of George R.R. Martin's Tuf Voyaging. Only into it a little bit but like it a lot so far.
 
Rob B said:
On my lunch break today, I started reading the recent US reissue (January 2013) of George R.R. Martin's Tuf Voyaging. Only into it a little bit but like it a lot so far.
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Great book! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that I'm still reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which I started in June 1993 (not really - it was April this year). I won't pretend it's been fun but I refuse to start anything else until this is finished because I know I'll get drawn away from it forever. Not an easy read, nor an easy plot to follow, though it is frequently interesting. It's also billed as being riotously funny but the humour is lost on me. I am almost at the end of book 2.....
 
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I'm nearing the end of Guy Haley's new book called Crash. It's been great so far. I'll briefly give my opinion about it here, once I finish it.
 
Still working my way through Great North Road by Peter Hamilton. Now that the action has finally shifted to St. Libra things are getting much more interesting. After that, I've decided to give SciFi a hiatus for a bit and take on some fantasies I've collected since joining this website.
 
Just finished In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford.

This is the first of his "Galactic Center" books. I've already read Great Sky River, which is the third one. (I know, that's not optimal. :-) The plot starts with the discovery of what turns out to be an alien artifact hurtling towards earth. This eventually leads to contact with an alien AI. The story is largely about people trying to figure out what it means, and how people respond to it, etc. The book was written in the 70s and mostly takes place roughly now, so naturally Benford's version of the teens doesn't exactly match up with what they're really like, but you can't hold that against him. It's mostly a pretty good book, though there were a couple of things that annoyed me.

I've got the second book of the series waiting on my shelf. What's interesting here is that the third book takes place so far in the future, that I was surprised to see the first book taking place here on earth as we know it. It will be interesting to see how the second one fills the gap.

--Dave
 
Finished Abbadon's Gate by James SA Corey - review soon! - but basically, I enjoyed it.

Now reading Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter's The Long Earth, which I am enjoying more than I thought I would. Not as jarring a combination as I expected.

M.
 
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