Reading in November!

Hobbit

Hobbit

Cat Wrangler and Reader
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The name November is derived from the Latin novem, meaning ninth. Outside Hobbit towers, autumn turns to winter, the nights grow darker - time to get more reading in! (Whereas some of you are thinking of barbeques and beach reading - also time to get more reading in!)

OK - tell us - what have you read this month? Was it worth it or have you moved onto something else better?

Hobbit
 
I just finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds.
It was entertaining albeit not the earthshattering experience I had hoped it to be. I guess I'm more into stuff like Honor Harrington or Miles Vorkosigan when it comes to SF these days. I definitely need something light and fluffy after this.
That's why my next dive into SF will be The Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F. Hamilton........huh? :confused: :eek: :rolleyes: :cool: :p
 
Ahem... the world is round, Mr Hobbit. I know, it is hard to keep up with these new fangled theories but as a round world it has two hemispheres, one of which is currently tilted TOWARDS the sun.

'Heavytime' by CJ Cherryh because I haven't read enough sf written by women. It's good. Excellent world-building, realistic characters and an interesting style. I give it a hoof's up and say it is definitely worth it.
 
I just finished two books, one is definitely SF: A Place so Foreign, and Eight more by Cory Doctorow. It is a recenly published collection of short stories. Not bad. I will read more of his stuff.

The other book is a bit of a puzzle as to what it is, and that is after I finished it. It too has been recenly published in the US, and the UK, though there is also an edition by the same author, with the same title in the UK that was published in 2000. So who knows perhaps they are trying again. :)

The Year Zero by Brian Stableford. It is what I would call surreal. It is set in London as 1999 turns to 2000 and the main character is an ex-junkie, ex-prostitute who has turned 30, is living on the state, and trying to get back custody of her kids. She meets Elvis in the supermarket one night, and its off to the races: the story includes, aliens, space travel, men in black, fallen angels, demons, the devil, the end of the world, medical experimentation and bio-engineering.

It was ok, but I had hoped to enjoy it more. I saw a review on the SF site, and I knew it was funky when I got it. But it was perhaps not quite funky enough.
 
I'm kinda stuck reading "N-Space" by Larry Niven. It is supposed to be a collection of his short stories, but there are a lot of book excerpts in here that don't work terribly well. The stand-alone shorts are great, though.

Also, it is time for my annual re-reading of Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I may not have as much to contribute this month.
 
The latest round included:

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. Another first novel by an author. It was stunning. I didn't like it at first, and will probably have to re-read it at some point to pick up what I missed in the beginning. But, by the middle I was hooked. I think this book gets a bad rap sometimes from people who think of it as solely a "lesbian feminist" novel. Quite frankly, I didn't really see it as pushing some ideology at all. It does involve a world wherein there are no men, but it seems more an exploration of what that world might be like, rather than a degredation of masculenity.

On a completely different tone, I read Chindi by Jack McDevitt. Like Deepsix, it was your basic action packed thriller. It was a fun read, but nothing stellar. :)

Finally, I read Brainrose by Nancy Kress. I really enjoyed this novel as well. Unfortunately, it is already terribly dated and it was only published in 1991. It turned the AIDS scare into a full-on plague with world-wide political and moral ramifications. It is always dangerous for a SF author to use current events in their novels as often, looking back, the events don't carry as much weight as they seemed to at the time. At any rate, despite that, it was an interesting look at memory and racial memory. Another aspect I enjoyed was having a political group called "The Gaists". Rather than another pseudo-pagan group, the Gaists called for an end to conservation and ecological safeguards because "Gaia" will alter herself to deal with our polution. It was an interesting devil's advocate kind of argument.
 
LOL... whoops! Thanks, Rocket - I will adapt my statement accordingly. :o

Hobbit - clearly a member of the Flat Earth Society! :)
 
Next you'll be trying to tell us it is balanced on four giant elephants on the back of a turtle swimming thru space!
 
Of course it is!

As for reading, in between books, but need to take something to work today for lunchtime reading. Maybe Neuromancer. Have had trouble getting into it in the past.

Susan
 
I just finished Singularity Sky by Charles Stross last night. Very good book, though I had a trouble finding time to read it. This is one that I would like to read again soon, but when I have more time to commit to it (like a weeklong vacation). Lots of great characters and new/original ideas (at least to me).

Has anyone else noticed how much quality reading time their job takes away? ;)

Before SS, though finished in October, I read Gridlinked by Neal Asher. Very good book as well. Great ideas and concepts (like Stross, Reynolds, Hamilton and many other new British writers these days). There could have been more about the "gridlinked" withdrawal the main character was going through, but it was covered by the fact that the story and surroundings were great.

Now I am onto Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
 
Finally reading Neuromancer. I'm probably the last SF fan to do so. Pretty interesting so far, once you get the hang of the language.

Gibson's future reminds me of Phillip K. Dick.

Susan
 
Scooter, good to see you loved Singularity Sky. I've been convinced to pick it up. BTW I read in Locus that Stross has handed in the sequel, so I take it SS didn't read like a standalone?
 
Been reading a few old "classics" recently. Namely Brainwave by Poul Anderson, which has a really cool idea, but once it got into motion it struggled to maintain my interest. Having glandular fever at the time probably didn't help my concentration though.

Also read The High Crusade, again by Poul Anderson. This is a really fun story about of knights about to leave for the Crusades who run into an alien scout ship, overpower the crew and find themselves in space and decide to continue their Crusdade their against the aliens. It has a lot of great lines in it, my favourite being "Sir, I am no petty noble... my decent is as lofty as any in your realm. An ancestor of mine, by the name of Noah, was once Admiral of the combined fleets of my planet".

Next was Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys, which was entertaining enough but I got the feeling that there was a point to the novel which I must have missed.

Finally, The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein. As with all the Heinlein books I've read (which is a few) it was very enjoyable, even if it is just your (now) standard "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" fare.

Currently reading the John Varley short story collection In the Halls of the Martian Kings (which I believe was published in the US as The Persistence of Vision). Pretty good so far.
 
Originally posted by Mithfânion
Scooter, good to see you loved Singularity Sky. I've been convinced to pick it up. BTW I read in Locus that Stross has handed in the sequel, so I take it SS didn't read like a standalone?
Click to expand...

It read like a standalone to me. Sure, there is room for the story to continue. But I would be very satisfied with the ending if it was a standalone. Maybe others that read it can comment on what they thought.
 
Currently reading Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver" which is weird but cool. It's set in the "Cryptonomicon" universe but in the past (17-18th century) and features some familiar family names from "Cryptonomicon" (Root, Waterhouse, Comstock) as well as familiar names from history real and fictional (Franklin, Boyle, Newton). It's kind of alternative history in the same way "Cryptomonicon" was and I'm really enjoying it so far. I get the feeling that those who enjoyed "Cryptonomicon" will like this too i.e. it's a book for the science geeks.

Also on my stack for this month (being the DUNE fanboy that I am) is Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's "The Machine Crusade". Don't worry, I didn't pay money for it; it's a library copy.

And if time permits I'll make a start on a few more "Year's Best Science Fiction, Annual Collections" edited by Gardner Dozois that I managed to find in a second- hand bookstore.
 
To me Singularity Sky read like a standalone, but some of the characters that survived the book may in fact be good enough to hang another story on in the same universe. I hadn't thought of it in that way, but it could definetely work. The universe is certainly interesting enough to set more stories in.
 
I've just started The Steerswoman's Road by Rosemary Kirstein. This book is actually a re-release of two novels-The Steerswoman and The Outskirter's Secret. It's been sitting on the shelf for the last few months at my local mega-bookstore and I've kept it on the backburner.

At first it appears to be a fantasy story, but once you get into it, its becoming more and more evident that it's actually scifi. The story is set in a medieval world and what appears to be "magic" is actually advanced technology. It's pretty good so far. ;)
 
I just finished reading John Shirley's latest book, Crawlers. While this book is listed by the publisher as horror, it more a science fiction tale with horrible things happening.

It's all about intelligent nanotechnology that is taking over a town one person at a time. Some people are used as parts, the others become part of the "All of Us" collective. They are constantly trying to improve themselves and integrate other creatures. Not quite Borg-like. Bodies are simply resources to them. Some of them are very good at concealing what they are, but others are obviously changed. (a normal head can spin on a metal spoke sticking out of your neck and then reattach.)

A bit predictable at times, but I found it all interesting enough. I've always enjoyed John Shirley's writing and he did enough research to make me happy.

-Neil
 
I just finished Singer From the Sea by Sheri Tepper. I enjoyed it up until about the last 70 pages. Prior to that it was a character driven story that depicted a group of people and a society which had at its core a great secret, which was also a crime. The reader got to watch the innocent try to function without knowledge of the crime, and the guilty try to hide it. There were good guys, bad guys, and people you were not sure of.

In the ending she brings in all kind of fairytale oddities and melds that with the previous quasi realistic story. At the end it seemed to be much like the odd mobile body parts of Six Moon Dance , though this time it was sea creatures. Not sure why she sorta ruined the story at the end, but I thought she did. Still it is worth it for the first 3/4 of the book.

Now reading Monsterous Regiment by Terry Pratchett (HC borrowed from my local library).
 
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