This was a good idea. I read the plot summaries on wikipedia. It still didn’t help me really remember it on an emotional level, but it kind of rang a bell, and I got a good gist of the characters involved. I then read another chapter of the book, and now all the names being thrown around are familiar. Thanks for the idea!
D’oh! It’s been a while since Book 5, so I just assumed this new part was just two books. So maybe I started too soon. Maybe I should read something else right now.
Interesting news about this:
Read Martha Wells’ first fantasy novel from back in 1995, City of Bones. It’s no Murderbot, but of course that’s as one would expect, given the different genres and her growth as a writer. I enjoyed it as an example of the post-apocalyptic fantasy genre. The main character is a good-hearted rogue, there’s lots of ancient mystery to uncover, pretty standard stuff for the genre but I found it well-written and enjoyed the ride.
I was reading that Martha Wells is having problems with her books being pirated. The real punch in the gut is that they are going to take down her actual book but the pirated copies will remain:
That’s from January 1st, and the legit ebook is up, so I’m going to assume it either didn’t get taken down after all or it got sorted out.
Element of Fire (1993) is actually her first. FWIW.
I tried City of Bones, but had a tough time getting my head into it, having no real idea what kind of world I was in. This is normal for a new book, but I was in the mood for something easier to read. So I tried Element of Fire next, and had the same problem.
So then I started the Silo trilogy omnibus edition thing. Man, so easy to get into! And I finished the first part, that would have made a great short story. I’m a little leary of somehow reading 1400 more pages of this story, if it’s going to all be like this, but hey, it’s an easy read, even if it’s kind of depressing.
Ah, that one wasn’t available at the library. Might have to track it down someday.
Finished Ghost Money, the new Eric Carter.
Very dark urban fantasy, Carter is a necromancer.
Almost done with The Breaker, the new Peter Ash.
Peter Ash is an interesting character, he begins as a Jack Reacher-like, a drifter of a bad ass war veteran who falls into situations.
He has PTSD which results in acute claustrophobia, one of the reasons he drifts, unable to stay indoors.
During the course of the now 6 novel series, he becomes more of a Spenser-like, complete with steady girlfriend and dangerous black sidekick. Although June takes a much more active role in the adventures than Susan Silverman did.
Both the series are recommended.
Carter for anyone that enjoys urban fantasy, and Ash for those who like the bad ass hero type in the Reacher, Bob Lee Swagger, the Gray Man, and 40+ years ago, Mack Bolan mode.
Read another of Martha Wells’ fantasy books, Wheel of the Infinite. It’s probably redundant by now to say that Wells wrote great characters, but I’ll say it anyway - I really liked the main character Maskelle, her boyfriend Rian, and their supporting cast of wandering actors. However, in this one, I had a hard time with the world-building and plot, which was largely driven around interactions of humans with otherworldly spirits. Every little twist felt like it was coming out of nowhere as a spirit did something that I had no idea was possible. But the book still kept me interested enough based on seeing how the characters got through everything being thrown at them.
Has anyone read a book about a nuclear sub that finally has to launch its nukes and then the aftermath on the sub?
Extraction by RR Haywood
This is the first book of a trilogy, what isn’t nowadays. I think I heard about the series from someone either here or at QT3. I am a sucker for time travel books and this fits the bill. I wouldn’t call Haywood a great author, there are some parts of the book where I kinda shook my head wondering what he was trying to convey. He is decent with the action, his characters are developing but he goes a little slap stick sometimes and those parts just don’t seem to work. But the story itself is interesting enough that I have ordered books 2-3 off Amazon.
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
A really great opening: Clones traveling on a generation colony ship wake up 25 years into a 400 year journey. But they’re not suppose to wake up, at least, not like this. Not all at the same time. Not surrounded by the dead bodies of their previous lives. Something very bad has happened, the ship’s AI has been hacked, all logs have been erased, and they have to figure out what happened, who murdered them, and don’t have any of the benefits of the previous 25 years to guide them: the mindmap they each wake up with is the one taken as they boarded the ship. And there’s another reason none of them can trust each other; they’re all convicted criminals, crewing the ship to start anew on a fresh colony world.
The point of the novel is to examine what it means to be human, how that changes when you can be cloned and become essentially immortal, and all the weird ethical and social issues that brings up. “Mindmaps” are just what they sound like; a copy of the mind taken at a discrete point in time for the purposes of loading into a cloned body, and in this world criminal types have figured out how to hack and edit these mindmaps, leading to all sorts of interesting scenarios. This premise and theme are pretty well explored throughout.
But…though it’s a fantastic premise I found the execution lacking. The characters aren’t super distinct; the author has a ball writing the comic relief guy, but everyone else is pretty serious and sortof boring, including our protag. Though she’s hired as the cook and cleaner, it turns out she’s a former super-clone hacker who’s responsible for lots of the issues the other characters have. She created personalities in one guy, and edited out part of another guy’s personality. The descriptions of her being forced to do this work at gunpoint are a little flat. A decent amount of the storytelling is a little flat, actually. It feels like someone working out ‘how everything makes sense’ and not telling a story with characters and drama.
There’s a lack of dramatic tension throughout, exemplified by the odd things the author chooses to focus on. I think she’s trying to give us insight into the personalities onboard and flesh out possible motives and alibis, but long descriptions of our protag fixing a food extruder while the rest bicker inconsequentially isn’t that interesting. There’s lots of descriptions of who met who while walking in the halls, and more minor annoyances.
Particularly annoying was that it’s set in like, 2250, but there’s still syringes in the med bay, a human is supposed to clean the ship, they carry tablets to interface with the ship, and a million other minor details that demonstrate the world isn’t fully fleshed out / thought-through in a satisfying SF way.
The author got the seed of the idea playing FTL though, so that’s cool. :)
Travelers, by Chris Pavone is a really excellent spy novel.
Without giving away some core story elements, this is a classic ‘guy in over his head’ story, but every beat is interesting. Like every little twist and turn in the story is well done. It never veers into that common thriller problem, where Every Chapter Has An Attempted Holy Shit moment…it’s more assured than that.
If you’re into modern day thrillers / spy novels, this is a no-brainer. If you want a little more of the premise, here: A travel writer for a struggling magazine is recruited by the CIA to spy on all the famous people at the fancy events he goes to, and he has to keep secrets from his wife, his employer, all while they keep their own major secrets from him.
One of many cool things about this book are the characters. They’re all distinct, well-rendered, and relatable, even the hilarious asshole magazine editor guy, who I became quite fond of while wanting to hit with a heavy object. Our protag, Will, works for a magazine in the modern era, and his low-key anxiety over his dead-end future is relatable while not overwhelming. A lesser writer would crank up the levers on how broke he is, how his mid-remodel-house is falling apart, how strained his marriage is–and all those things are part of the story, they’re just not belabored. They’re texture that informs his actions.
It’s at least 350 pages, paced wonderfully, and has many phases:
I can’t wait to read more of his work.
I enjoyed Six Wakes. It started slow for me but mid book on was a twisted tale.
Yeah, I think it’s got some cool stuff to offer, and some of the twisted things you learn about are pretty interesting explorations of the ‘we can clone people from recorded mindmaps’ premise.
The execution didn’t do much for me overall, but it’s not a bad book.
I’m reading A Private Cathedral, the new Dave Robicheaux novel.
This is a flashback story to “a time before 9/11”.
Not sure if this is because the author thought his heroes are getting a little long in the tooth, or because the story needed to be told in a time when Dave was not in his current happily married state.
Even for a series that has some mystical novels, this is a strange one, unless there is a twist at the end, it’s pretty much an urban fantasy.
Holy crap, Burke is still writing Robicheaux stories? I read what felt like 20 of those things on kind of a binge, really enjoyed them but yeah - totally hits the same notes after a while. Robicheaux has got to be over 60 at this point if he’s carrying the timeline forward I guess??
This sounds like it’s off the deep end:
Robicheaux must face a terrifying time-traveling superhuman hitman capable of inflicting horrifying hallucinations on his victims
Maybe even over 70, even though this is a flashback novel.
There is a reference to his first time ever fishing with his father in 1945 as a young boy.
Sounded 4 to 5 years old so the math is pretty easy…
Yep, it’s pretty strange.
I recently put down A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers, after just over 50 pages (which is a minimum I try to give novels unless they’re just terribly done). The SF seems reasonably strong (well-worked-out tech, etc.) and the characters were appealing (if tropey), but by 50 pages I had two issues.
I’m aware that things might change on page 60. But without a compelling plot and with a focus on a theme of difference and acceptance that feels a little too rosy, I’m gonna leave this to others.