I’m pretty sure that he’s stated that there will be one more book to make it a trilogy.
I guess I need to get around to reading Echopraxia.
I am past halfway through Cryptonomicon now, so only the lenght of a full normal novel left.
Finished up a couple of books recently.
1776, by David McCullough. Did a nice job of fleshing out events and people that were covered only at surface level in school, and particularly the military campaign side of things, which was always ignored in favor of the politics and philosophy. It did a nice job with showing the month-by-month march of events, the logistical factors, the indecision, and the effort and buildup that went into initiatives that ultimately went nowhere, which are a crucial part of how actual events unfold, but often get glossed over in presenting a tidy narrative in history. The writing is a bit dry, and I did struggle to keep some of the secondary figures straight, but still enjoyable and informative.
The Broken Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin. I really enjoyed the first book in this series (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms), and this one improved on it further, picking up 10 years later with shift from palace politics down to street level and a new protagonist, an artist who is blind other than being able to see magic. As with the first book, the biggest strength is the interaction between gods and mortals, with the gods striking a believable balance of relatable and alien traits.
I am binge reading the Vorkosigan Saga books, starting from the beginning. They are alright, but I find I identify better with Penric in Bujold’s other series.
When does The Red Knight get good? I’ve had it on the back burner for a while, and am about a quarter of the way through it, and it’s fine but hasn’t grabbed me at all yet. I’d probably drop it at this point, but I think someone highly recommended it here, so I’m willing to push through some more if it’s a case of slow buildup that eventually pays off.
I am pretty sure the major battles have not started at that point, which are one of the selling points. I ended up really enjoying the whole series, which is now concluded, FYI.
I picked up Jeremy Robinson’s Infinite because Audible has been mercilessly drowning me in ads for it over the last few months, and it was fairly highly rated.
I put it on the lower end of “good”, maybe edging downward into “decent”. The audiobook production values are top-notch and RC Bray (the guy that does the Expeditionary Force novels, among others) is really great. But as a story it really doesn’t do much for me. The science is pretty far out there and requires that you bring a stout cable to suspend your disbelief from… like Star Trek Voyager level. The main character is bland bland bland.
The plot itself is also a bit wanting – I figured out the major plot twist even before it was fully set up, and I imagine that most folks here would too. There are some interesting ethical and philosophical questions posed, but in a ham-handed way. The action and writing are pretty good, and that was enough to keep me going as well as the increasingly-ridiculous situations. And to be fair, the author did justify a lot of the stupid things that happen in a way that made sense after the fact… which also made me want to keep reading until the end.
Startide Rising by David Brin
This book is really nothing like the first in the series, although you can see how they are connected by the worlds they inhabit. While the first was a sci-fi detective story this one is adventure and action all the way. It is also features some of the more original characters I have ever read about.
This is good old fashioned sci-fi with some interesting twists, and while it has it’s slow moments, the last 200 pages are a race to the end.
I liked Startide Rising, the first Brin book I ever read. I was disappointed by absolutely everything else, including after going back to read Sundiver, and then eagerly awaiting the Uplift War only to dislike that too.
Startide Rising is my favorite of the cycle but I liked the whole bunch of the Uplift books.
Just finished Slow Horses by Mick Herron, an excellent British spy thriller. It’s an ensemble cast of characters, a bunch of MI5 screwups known as the “slow horses” because they screwed up their careers and are consigned to dead end intelligence jobs. As you might expect, they get dragged into a real mystery. Lots of great spy drama. First in a series of 4-5 books.
I do think reading them in reverse order would probably make Sundiver a disappointment. I enjoyed it, it reminded me of some of Asimov’s work. But it is an entirely different kind of book than Startide Rising.
I already have the next book, having found all three in a used book store near me. But I don’t plan on reading it for awhile.
Don’t know if it’s been mentioned but my daughter has to read a book over the summer for a class and I decided to read it before her so we can discuss it. It’s an old apocalyptic fiction book by Pat Frank called Alas Babylon. No zombies, this is classic cold war nuclear scare stuff. It’s from the fifties and certainly reads like it but I enjoyed it.
Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to undermine The Uplift War for you. A lot of other people have liked it.
I had to read that in high school over 40 years ago. I enjoyed it. I’m a bit surprised they are still reading it, though.
I had a class called This is the End. We had to read the above plus Fail-Safe, On the Beach, Hiero’s Journey, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and that’s all I remember. Fun class once you got beyond the nuclear apoc stuff.
Some of the books you mentioned are also mentioned in the edition I read’s introduction. It was written by David Brin and he was discussing how the fiction of the time reflected the fears of the time. Of course Brin wrote The Postman, also about an apocalypse.
Alas Babylon was one of several books the class listed as acceptable books. I wish I had choices like that when I was in school.
Also had to thank you for mentioning Hiero’s Journey. I’d read that ages ago, and the sequel, and forgotten about it. They were entertaining reads.
The English Department in our high school was progressive. We had quarter classes available, so you’d take two a semester. We had a class on Faulkner, one on Victorian Literature, a SF class, etc. You’d take those along with your year long English class. We also had a bonehead class called How to Read a Newspaper. We’d come in, sit, and read a newspaper. That was the class!
No, problem. I didn’t take your comment that way at all. In any trilogy or series there are books some people prefer over others. I just prefer to not read most series in order. I think you almost grow to used to the material.
Every kid in high school should have to take a few weeks of a class like that.