Reading in October 2010

Hobbit

Hobbit

Cat Wrangler and Reader
Staff member
Joined
Jul 16, 2001
Messages
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Just in case you didn't know, this is where you tell us what you've been reading in SF this month. Good or bad, we want to know what and why.

As it is October (one of my favourite months of the year!) and Halloween, we've coerced Horror expert Randy M to suggest some of his favourites for discussion. The thread's HERE.

Feel free to join in!

Mark
 
Just start in on Hamilton's Pandora's Star and it seems pretty impressive so far.
 
i finally got a copy of The Quantum Thief and it will be my next sf read, though I have some highly expected fantasies first
 
I finished Feed by Mira Grant. Excellent. There is no other word for it. Probably in my top three reads of the year, and if anything can knock it down it's got to be one hell of a book.

I think I'm going to try and finish Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second Locke Lamora book, but I'm very eager to get my teeth into Out of the Dark by David Weber. And Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne. And Empire of Light by Gary Gibson. And Will Power by AJ Hartley. And The Technician by Neal Asher. I could go on and on...
 
I sacked of Bujold in favour of The Technician also. Really nice so far. His characters have come on so much in later books, the pace is nice, there's good assumptions about the readers knowledge of the Universe so far interspersed with handy compact recaps. He's just ramping up the usual work shaking alien tech around a third of the way in. Happy so far.
 
Suspect it's 'sacked off', which isn't some strange sexual term, but basically means to give up on or just stayed away from...

Oh yeah.... down with the kids n' stuff, me! Wiggity-wiggity, and so forth. :D

Mark
 
I've never sacked Bujold off myself. Which reminds me I need to get back to Ethan of Athos. It's the only Miles book I haven't read, probably cause there's no Miles there...
 
yeah, typo on my part. I shall be going back to it as soon as The Technician is done.

:)
 
the kids? That must have 20 years under its belt!

Even the British Council teaches it!
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ng.htm+"sack+it+off"&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

and according to the above link

Over-reliance on the formal language makes you sound quaint and outdated, which may suggest you are inadequately socialised or “out of touch”
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so that's all yous told.

:p

back kind of on subject. I ran into a bit of 'street talk' in The Technician which is the sort of this editors are for in theory. It just placed the sentence in a specific time/date/place that had no relation to the setting of the book, light years away and 1000 years from now. This would be a better story if I could remember it really.
 
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speaking of Bujold: has anyone tried Cryoburn?
The last 2 Vorkossigan novels leaned heavily towards romance and less on technology / conflict so I wonder where the story heads to?
 
Just finished David Weber's Out of the Dark. It was decent not outstanding but the equivalent to a good popcorn movie. Keep me interested and let me shut off my brain.

Nice way to spend a raining weekend indoors. Will more than likely check out the second book in the series just to see where it goes.

Going to start The Mirrored Heavens by David J Williams. Haven't heard much about him but the latest book in the series seems to be getting quite a bit of attention.
 
Well, after a couple of weeks of procrastination, I finally wrote up my review of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin for the SF and Fantasy Masterworks Reading Project. It's good, really good. It earns the right to at or near the top of 'best of' lists for SF. I also finished up Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes - a review will come shortly.

Now I'm reading the Swords and Dark Magic anthology edited by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan while I wait on my copy of Towers of Midnight.
 
After wading through Peter Hamilton's last Void book last month Ive decided to start reading some of the shorter, 2-3 hundred page books in my stack.

Just finished The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Once you get over the dated tech and social attitiues its a very good book. And some of the tech wasnt dated at all... The main charater could 'accelerate' is mind and body using an implanted enhancement to his nervous system. Ive seen this idea in many modern books, the only difference was the technologies used. And Jaunting, being able to teleport yourself almost anywhere instantly using your mind, total BS... but, Hamilton did have personal wormholes to acheive the same thing, so, same trick different pony :)

Now reading The Integral Trees by Larry Niven. I enjoyed his Moties books and Ringworld. This one sounded interesting.
 
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Anyone else find Pandora's Star a little overboard on the wordiness? Just starting Judas Unchained. Looking at the physical size of the Commonwealth novels, I'm hoping the editing on the first 2 Void books will tighten them up a little. Then again when you pick up a Hamilton novel, you know it's not going to be a 3-4 hour read :)
 
Well, the guy is legendary for not knowing when to stop. I've yet to read his stuff (probably will start with the Night's Dawn series, which is supposed to be better than the Pandora thing), but from what everyone says, it would benefit greatly from a 60% of it being just cut.
 
Roland 85 said:
Well, the guy is legendary for not knowing when to stop. I've yet to read his stuff (probably will start with the Night's Dawn series, which is supposed to be better than the Pandora thing), but from what everyone says, it would benefit greatly from a 60% of it being just cut.
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Wouldn't be much left if you cut over half ;) Some of my favorite authors are usually very wordy (Tad Williams for example), but sometimes I do like things a little more streamlined!
 
livens said:
Just finished The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Once you get over the dated tech and social attitiues its a very good book.
Click to expand...

I loved this book when I first read it (also check out Bester's Demolished Man). Didn't quite stand up to the reread- for revenge stories, I'd read the Count of Monte Cristo in the meantime and it's more vindictive than Tiger,Tiger IMHO despite an onerous bit of padding halfway through (trip to Rome).

Anyway, I'm halway through Peter Watt's Starfish for the old bookcub discussion from a few months ago.
 
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