It’s not horrible. So it’d be a good rainy day read.
It’s getting GoodReads reviews, so I may be in the minority on this one.
For non-fiction I am reading a chapter in Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Khaneman every now and then. Very interesting read.
I am also about 1/5 into Range of Ghost by Elizabeth Bear, which I got as a free ebook courtesy of the ebook bargain thread. So far so good. Some sections are a bit GET ON WITH IT!, but the world and magic system seems interesting.
Took a break from my usual stack of fiction to read Joe Buck’s memoir Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, and the Things I’m Not Allowed to Say on TV. Thought it was very well written, which is not always the case with these things. As a sports fan I enjoyed the various anecdotes from the people and events that he’s been involved with over the years, of course. The personal side of his story is just as interesting, though. Wrote a bit more about it here. Short version: Definitely worth reading for sports fans, and even non-fans might find it entertaining.
Now am I not mistaken that you also read the Imperial Radch trilogy by Anne Leckie recently as well? I found that, reading LHoD in the middle of that, did diminish it somewhat in my eyes.
As for my reading? Well I’ve been on a Pratchett kick lately, reading several parts of the Moist von Lipwig series, latest among them Raising Steam. Now I thought the other books in this character series were excellent, most specifically Going Postal, but this one was a cut below.
Still excellent, but something of the manic energy and verve that the better books have. Still a fun story, some inventive action, but lacking the same charm. I think this is because the character Moist needs a bit more chaos, and the plotting seemed to not really fit what makes this part of the Diskworld universe shine. Time to shift over to Mort or something next time I dip back in, Moist has run out of steam after this one.
Still a solid 3/5, and worth reading if you like the world. Just would not put it as an entry point.
However, after a series of lighter books, my newest choice is something that is abundantly cheerful and not at all topical, The Handmaiden’s Tale. Because happiness and optimism is for suckers.
You are correct, and I agree with you. I already thought Leckie is no Banks, and neither a Le Guin.
Then we are at opposite ends then ;)
I thought Ancillary Justice and the series were better than Left Hand of Darkness. That LeGuin’s novel had aged, and that many of the similar conceits (mainly perceptions of gender) were done better by Leckie, and that the quality of prose flowed better as well.
This is not a knock on LeGuin, mind, LHoD is some 46 years old, I would hope it has been surpassed.
Aha, ok. I did enjoy both, but LHoD a bit better. It was more contained, focused. I found myself thinking the book didn’t feel almost 50 years old.
In general I do enjoy books that use 250 instead of stretching out a point to 1000 pages, though. So that skews my perspective a bit :)
Finished out Jo Walton’s Thessaly series (I posted about the first book at the top of this thread). The other two books are The Philosopher Kings (my thoughts here) and Necessity (my thoughts here). Short version - if you read the first one and liked the ideas therein, definitely read the other two. Lots more going on in the same universe, still centered around the folks involved in setting up that experiment in implementing Plato’s Republic. Walton’s left plenty of hooks for future stories, too, if she wants to go back at some point.
One of the advantages of traveling away from the distractions of work and home during the Thanksgiving week is that I get a chance to get some reading done. So over the break I finished Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and also The Gathering Wind.
Billy Lynn…it’s an interesting book with a nice parallel and plenty of satire about American stupidity but the accolades made it sound like it was civilization’s pinnacle. Well, maybe for some people but while I liked it I wasn’t floored by it. And I hear the movie is shit.
Now Gathering Wind…no dramatic relevance here either, but it’s a great rescue story. Gregory Freeman does a nice job making these historical incidents an engaging read. True, he also picks events that lend themselves naturally to it. Still, I enjoyed it and look forward to reading some more of his work.
For some reason I have been reading movie director autobiographies:
Friedkin pretty much sticks to his movies and the actors in them. Not really dirt just a director with a workaday attitude. He had a few good ones and a few bad ones, and he pretty much knows which ones are which. It seems like he may have a lower view of Sorcerer than I might expect. Maybe because it was really hard to make and he borrowed the story from another director.
Holy crap. Ingmar was an unrepentant womanizer but he was also an auteur. You can probably base your expectations for this book on your affinity for his movies because the book kind of flows like one of his movies. He doesn’t really dish either (except about himself and his family). I think it’s a great book but I love a lot of Bergman’s work. I’m also a big fan of Erland Josephson who gets one measly paragraph dammit.
And this one is in the queue:
Picked up Little Brother’s World by T. Jackson King from the library recently. It’s a moderately interesting story, decent writing but too formulaic for my taste. Boy from the gutter meets high-class girl down on her luck, dangerous adventures, they fall in love. The setting involves future tech like space travel and genetic manipulation of entire populations, but the story doesn’t really use those themes except as window dressing for a stratified class society. Could have just as easily been feudal lords-and-peasants with the exact same plot, just change the descriptions. The writing is good enough to keep me reading to see if some kind of twist was coming, but it never did. I’m not sorry I spent the time to read the book, but I’m also not about to go out looking for more of the same.
Would that make a good introduction to the series or would you recommend another?
I need some good sci-fi for the holidays, and pretty much anything since 2013 would be new to me as I haven’t read much since the kids appeared.
Any recent favorites others can recommend? edit: I realize that it’s sort of like asking me what kind of bike you should get… so I’m looking for more sciency than fantasy and more optimism than dystopia - Peter Hamilton has done ok for me in the past so that’s why I ask.
Naw, depending on how you track it, A Night Without Stars is either the second or fifth book in the series. Although the story itself is stand-alone, there are large swathes of exposition and/or events that would make little or no sense to someone who had not read The Abyss Beyond Dreams.
I’d say that - although it’s not as good a book - The Dreaming Void would be a good place to start since it’s the first book of the “Commonwealth/Void” series.
But I think that the first book of the Commonwealth series, Pandora’s Star is one of Hamilton’s better efforts:
Crap. Just saw this when checking on Shadow Police #4:
https://www.paulcornell.com/2017/10/the-future-of-the-shadow-police/
Readers have been asking me for a while now about when the next Shadow Police novel is coming out. The unfortunate answer is: I don’t know, verging toward never. I’m afraid Tor UK have dropped the line.
Oh God, it’s November 2016 again, get us out of here!
Dammit.
¯_(ツ)_/¯