One of Yahtzee Croshaw’s books (of Zero Punctuation fame) is on sale today. Anyone know if it’s any good?
AmazonSmile: Will Save the Galaxy for Food eBook: Croshaw, Yahtzee, Gist, EM: Kindle Store
JoshL
1906
I haven’t read that one, but I read “Mogworld” and “Jam” and they were both enjoyable, goofy adventures. Not high literature, by any means, but if you wanted a light adventure thing, you could do worse.
I enjoyed Mogworld. Haven’t read any others.
Seppey
1908
I listened to that one, I enjoyed it. Like @JoshL said it is entertaining.
geewhiz
1909
I was hoping for a sequel.
Also the third Poppy Wars book by R.F. Kuang, the sequel to Fancy Suits and Futuristic Violence (by David Wong, of John Dies at the End, now going by his real name, Jason Pargin), The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson, The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, and The New Wilderness by Diane Cook. I cleaned like six books off my wishlist in one daily deal. Waaay better than the usual fare!
rshetts
1912
Nabbed that, thanks! Probably the best spy novel ever written.
Can I jump into the series at TTSS, or do I need to read the earlier books first?
It’s a standalone book. It fits into a broader history, but it is in no way reliant on that history. This is not the case with some of the others.
The series TTSP, The Honorable Schoolboy, Smiley’s People should be read in order, but that’s about it.
The others mostly don’t even focus on George Smiley, spy. The first two are murder mysteries, not spy stories. Then he’s a minor character in The Spy who came in the Cold and The Looking Glass War. He’s part of the history in some later books.
rshetts
1916
Like a lot of series, there are ties to earlier books here but this is, as previously mentioned, easily read as a stand alone. None of the past references you may miss detract from the overall story.
Really, attaching series numbers to le Carre’s books is a bit silly, a bit of marketing given current bookselling trends. The only legitimate ‘series’, as I said, are the three Smiley / Karla books: TTSS, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley’s People. The recent book A Legacy of Spies relies on those three books and on The Spy Who Came in From the Cold as history; if you haven’t read them you might be a bit lost. But all the others are not really related. You can call The Secret Pilgrim a Smiley novel if you want, but it has little to do with Smiley.
rshetts
1920
For those of you who may have missed past sales, Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life, is available on Amazon for $3. Its a fantastic trip though the 60’s in the deep south, seen through the eyes of a teenaged protagonist, wrapped around a possibly supernatural event.
https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Life-Robert-R-McCammon-ebook/dp/B005T54I2W/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Boy's+Life&qid=1612442707&sr=8-1
Thanks, I have been meaning to pick that up one day.
Boy’s Life is a wonderful book. Definitely worth a read.
DTG
1923
I’m almost through this on audiobook. The narrator is excellent and I’ve bought the next two. It rates up there with the audio version of the First Law trilogy with great voice acting. A lot of twists and turns with good world building.
I haven’t heard the audiobook, because I have no patience for such things, but I agree it was a great book. The only maddening thing about the series is that I’ve been waiting 8 years for the fourth book. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from GRRM it’s not to get more emotionally invested in a book series than the author is in finishing it in a timely fashion.
