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When you're not foolin' around, what have you been reading this month?

Just finished The Vor Game - next in the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan. Felt like the beginning did not belong to the rest, but also easy to see why it got the votes for the Hugo that year.

Still need to finish a few Nebula/Hugo Award Finalist shorts and keep up the streak of finishing a new story each day (some non sff):

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Completed:
Longs:


Shorts:

The Lightning Tree (The Kingkiller Chronicle #1.5) by Patrick Rothfuss
Claudius Rex by John P. Murphy
The Thing About Ghost Stories by Naomi Kritzer

Authors:
Brooke Bolander, Seth Chambers, Zen Cho, Nicky Drayden, Sarah Gailey, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Jane Harper, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, Stephen Graham Jones, T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), Barbara Kingsolver, Dean Koontz, Nancy Kress, Naomi Kritzer, Rich Larson, Ann Leckie, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, John P. Murphy, Daniel José Older, Malka Ann Older, Tochi Onyebuchi, Helen Oyeyemi, K.J. Parker (Tom Holt), Gareth L. Powell, M. Rickert, Patrick Rothfuss, Christopher Rowe, Jeremy C. Shipp, Neal Shusterman, Tade Thompson, Genevieve Valentine, Kai Ashante Wilson, Isabel Yap
=======================================

Working my way through Safehold (Weber) series, having gone back a ways. Also through the Brother Cadfael historical mysteries.

Lance Roberts wrote: "Working my way through Safehold (Weber) series, having gone back a ways. Also through the Brother Cadfael historical mysteries."

I've been curious about that series for years. I liked his Honor Harrington stories,... but reluctant to start another series.

G33z3r wrote: "...I've been curious about that series for years..."

I didn't care for the Safehold series much, although I really liked Honor Harrington & it was a great setting. His repetitiveness & data dumps were too much in evidence. I only gave the first a 2 star review here:
/review/show...

Finished the Riddle-Master of Hed. I didn't love it, but I definitely want to know more, the riddle of Morgon's destiny has caught my interest.

Much as I wanted to join the buddy read for the second Long Price Quartet book, I have a library book I've kept renewing over and over and I'll run our of renews soon :) So next in line is Acorna's Rebels by Anne McCaffrey. I'm using this for "features an alien" bingo slot since it also happens to go with my unicorn reading theme for the year.

Not precisely sci-fi, but some group members might be interested. 😊💥🌟


Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking

The brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking provides answers to questions he's been asked over the years, such as 'Is there a God?' and 'Will we survive on the Earth? and will artificial intelligence overtake us? (and more). Very interesting book. 4 stars

My review: /review/show...

I finished We Are Legion (We Are Bob) & loved it. I'm starting the next book & plan to finish the trilogy before reading anything else. I gave it a 5 star review here:
/review/show...

Jim wrote: "I finished We Are Legion (We Are Bob) & loved it. I'm starting the next book & plan to finish the trilogy before reading anything else. I gave it a 5 star review here:."

I liked the first one, too; it made me laugh, and it's really geeky. Unfortunately, as the series goes on, creating more & more Bobs, it got too hard to keep them and their plotlines straight through all the PoV-switching.

Just finished Witchmark and I'm mixed on it. Need to go back and finish Trail of Lightning and then I'm probably gonna pick up A Hat Full of Sky since I have the audiobook and really like the way Stephen Briggs narrates Pratchett's stories.

I finished The Ironclad Prophecy on the last day of March and have started The Alleyman which is the final book in the No Man's World Omnibus. I only have a little over 100 pages left and there are still a lot of things to be resolved.

I had a light break and read Dazzler: The Movie which featured lovely artwork but I felt Jim Shooter's story didn't live up to his usual standards.

I'm reading Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. My first Terry Pratchett and my first Neil Gaiman book. Enjoying it. Laughed out loud a few times.

Just waiting for Holy Sister.

The Wrath of Cons by Robert Kroese

Finished Acorna's Rebels, I enjoyed the fact it was on a planet that worshiped cats :) Otherwise nothing special.

Starting on A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham to join the buddy read for it...that omnibus is heavy!

I did finish


Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Rating: 3 stars
Review: /review/show...

I enjoyed it as social commentary, but I wouldn't call it Science Fiction (although there is an early reference to an atomic war).

I started reading


The Terror by Dan Simmons

which is also not Science Fiction

Just finished Lock In by John Scalzi. Took me a while to get used to the paralyzed Haydens using Integrators or Threeps to get around
(or the Agora to interact), but once I did I enjoyed it well enough to reserve his next in the Hayden world, Head On, with my Library.

I finished The Alleyman, the last book in the No Man's World: Omnibus. Despite a slow start, it's a good adventure yarn, although disappointing that the story ends on a cliffhanger and he hasn't written a sequel in the last 7 years. I have started The Moon Pool which will fill the pre-1950 slot in bingo.

In Plain Sight by Dan Willis

I finished Magician's Gambit, and started with the next book in the series, Castle of Wizardry. My enjoyment of this series goes on unabated.

These books, like all previous ones, were ordered as 'dead tree' items. I am seriously pondering the purchase of an e-reader, of the Kindle variety. I am still investigating whether I would have the same restriction as with paper-based books: since a few months (possibly since the turn of the year) Amazon US won't deliver to Switzerland any longer, I have to go through Amazon UK (or another Amazon in Europ but I haven't tried any other sofar) and the choice of books there has either restrictions or outrageous prices for some books.

I'm not reading any sci-fi or fantasy at the moment. I'm in the middle of "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, "This Dangerous Book" by Steve Green, "Your Dad Stole My Rake, and Other Family Dilemnas" by Tom Papa, and Murasaki Shikibu's "Tale of Genji" (yes, I'm a serial reader). Concerning fantasy/sci-fi, however, I have Caroline Yoachim's "Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World, and Other Stories" checked out of the library and I'll start once I finish one of the others.

Pierre wrote: "I finished Magician's Gambit, and started with the next book in the series, Castle of Wizardry. My enjoyment of this series goes on unabated.

These books, like all previ..."

What are "dead tree" items?

Garyjn wrote: "Just finished Lock In by John Scalzi. Took me a while to get used to the paralyzed Haydens using Integrators or Threeps to get around
(or the Agora to interact), but once I did I enjoyed it well en..."

I read "Agent to the Stars". Pretty funny if you don't think about the creepiness factor, but maybe that's the point?

Lorna wrote: "Reading and continuing the The Lord of the Rings series and am about half way through the 2nd book. I like Gandolph and Aragon."

Still one of my favorites.

Steven wrote: "What are "dead tree" items?,..."

Information recorded via ink stains on dried wood pulp. cf ebook. :)

Garyjn wrote: "Just finished Lock In by John Scalzi. Took me a while to get used to the paralyzed Haydens using Integrators or Threeps to get around (or the Agora to interact), but once I did I enjoyed it well en..."

So, have you settled on Chris's gender? ;)

G33z3r wrote: "Steven wrote: "What are "dead tree" items?,..."

Information recorded via ink stains on dried wood pulp. cf ebook. :)"

Was that the definition from Glasshouse? :)

Pines by Blake Crouch was really good. I gave it a 4 star review here:
/review/show...

It was an amazing read. About halfway through, I thought I'd finally figured out what was going on, but I'd only guessed part of the answer & the story just kept getting better all the time until a really satisfying ending.

Pierre wrote: "I am seriously pondering the purchase of an e-reader, of the Kindle variety. I am still investigating whether I would have the same restriction as with paper-based books."

If you have a tablet, or even a phone with a good sized screen, you don't really need a separate e-reader - the Kindle app is free. and there are plenty of good e-reader apps for epub versions (Kindle is mobi).

However, living in Australia, I have to order through Amazon AU and they have a smaller range of titles, and often don't offer the specials available in the US Amazon site. The same applies to physical books, they have to be ordered through the AU webstore, even if they are being shipped from the US.

Thanks for your tip. Tony! I do have a Samsung tablet. I remember downloading some books in pdf format some time ago, and finding their reading very tiring for my eyes, so I gave up on that option. However, I'll try the Kindle app, possibly the presentation of the pages will be better and allow for a more comfortable reading.

I have a Kindle DX. I like it because it's epaper, no back lighting, & has a big screen, 10.5", so works with my old eyes very well. It doesn't hook up to the Internet well, the browser is terribly primitive, but I only use it for reading books. The battery is still holding up well. I guess it's a few years old now & I can easily read for a week.

It was the only one of its kind available when I bought it. Do they have anything similar on the market today?

G33z3r wrote: "Garyjn wrote: "Just finished Lock In by John Scalzi. Took me a while to get used to the paralyzed Haydens using Integrators or Threeps to get around (or the Agora to interact), but once I did I enj..."
"So, have you settled on Chris's gender? ;)"
Never gave it any thought, just assumed Chris was male. Hope I didn't miss something obvious. Haven't started Head On yet, but picked it up this AM and see on the jacket that Chris and his partner are on another case so I'll be on the lookout for clues to that question.

I've got three on the go this April:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and, yes, I must be one of the only people who hasn't read this yet!

Wild Seed

More Than Human This had a slow, confusing start for me, but I'm glad I stuck with it, even if it is a bit disturbing and ... odd.

Finished another Drizzt book Sea of Swords (Drizzt Book 14, Paths of Darkness Book 4) and decided to rate it 4/5. Generally another fun read. For me these really just scratch that itch for cheesy questing and adventuring. I liked The Crystal Shard and the refocus on Entreri and Jarlaxle, but the minute I started reading Sea of Swords it felt like coming home again.

That said, in this one I had to skim through a lot of the ogre battle scenes because I thought my brain was going to explode with the absurd frequency Salvatore used the word "brute" to describe an ogre...like you could literally see him following a pattern alternating between saying "the ogre" followed by "the brute" followed by "the ogre" followed by "the brute"...like please for the love of god find another word! lmao Or use some kind of personal pronoun or something. Just not "the ogre/brute" 4 times per sentence.

Anyways just started The Sunlight Pilgrims to change things up a bit before I dive into the Rainwild Chronicles. Scottish near future apocalyptic fiction.

Jim wrote: "I have a Kindle DX. I like it because it's epaper, no back lighting, & has a big screen, 10.5", so works with my old eyes very well. It doesn't hook up to the Internet well, the browser is terribly..."

I found that was the big selling point of a dedicated eReader, the eInk/ePaper display looks exactly like real paper (I remember the first time I saw it in a store I thought they glued a screenshot on the screen). It has horrible refresh as you switch pages, but then that's no different the what your eyes see when you flip pages in a book. And yep, the battery seems to last forever, at least compared to any other device.

One downside is that PDF's squash into the small screen (other ebook types can repaginate), usually with wasted margins (you can zoom in a scroll around but it's painful, again, terrible refresh), to read those I had to buy a Kindle Fire tablet. But those were mainly work related text books, all my regular novels are epub.

In fact the eReader opened a world of free books to read that you couldn't do with dead tree copies (for those still need to pay for paper, ink, transport, storage, etc). Found so many free ones, classic stuff like Barsoom, or Tor keeps giving stuff away, and even some free self-published books are really good. I think the few I did buy we were reading as a group and at the same moment the book went on sale (after the third or fourth time that happened I began to wonder if publishers are watching what we're reading and timing their sales appropriately...)

It's nice to see someone else notices the slow screen refresh. I thought it was just me. I usually don't have problems with PDFs. I change them to .mobi with Calibre or use a program at work to change them to RTF & they're just fine. Like you, that's where most of my PDFs come from.

Pierre wrote: "I finished Magician's Gambit, and started with the next book in the series, Castle of Wizardry. My enjoyment of this series goes on unabated.

These books, like all previ..."

You are in luck. Eddings stuff is not available in the US in ebook format. The ones that were available about two or three years ago were terrible in their conversion to ebook format. The word thine got translated to throne. So Mandorallen's flowery speech was full of errors. If the Edding's estate wants someone who cares about the original text to proofread a future release I work cheap and I have multiple dead tree copies to work from.

I am in the middle of clearing several mysteries from my Nook and Kindle. I have some sf and fantasy on the horizon though.

I'm spending a lot of time in airports this week, so have been blowing through the books.

I finished Legendary Lex: An ODD Beginning, which is a YA fantasy that was a lot of fun and pleased my inner middle schooler.

I also finished Rendezvous with Rama. I am trying to read more classic sci fi, and this turned out to be a good choice.

I'm now working on Off Armageddon Reef, which is looking to be a good start as a series for me to binge read.

Certainly pdf is not my preferred format for reading ebooks on a small screen such as a tablet or phone, although they are fine on my laptop.

For any ebooks I get through Amazon or Google play, I use the relevant reading app, but for ebooks from other sources, I use an app called Moon Reader. It handles epub, mobi and pdf formats equally well. There is a free version which works well and won't expire, but the full version only costs a few dollars.

Finished A Betrayal in Winter, enjoyed it, look forward to the next one. Unlike your standard epic fantasy where you can tell where things are going to go, I have no idea here, which is interesting.

Starting on the group series read Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher

And on the way home from work finished Werehunter, that was a pretty decent collection of Mercedes Lackey short stories, particularly enjoyed the Skitty ones.

Since that opens up my eReader, started downloading the contemporary reads and converting them to epubs, more comfortable than reading them on a computer screen. Got all the novelettes done and I'll start reading If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho

My review of Delta-v by Daniel Suarez:

/review/show...

Finished The Sunlight Pilgrims last night and rated 4/5. Am now back with the Realm of the Elderlings, reading The Dragon Keeper. It's the first of the Rain Wild Chronicles.

I (finally) finished


Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Rating: 3 stars
Review: /review/show...

I finished The Stone Sky, a satisfying conclusion to a great trilogy.
I just started Red Country, did not realize how much I missed Abercrombie's writing.

Love, love, loved the Broken Earth trilogy. Glad you enjoyed it too, Bryan!

Having a bouncy month--some great highs, and some really absymal lows.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was perfect for me. Fairy tales plus Regency manners? I will take as many of those as you can find, please.

A Stranger in Olondria would have been great if it told a story. Alas, it was just pretty.

Here and Now and Then is time travel that twists itself into black holes trying to keep track of the rules and a story of family love from the universe's worst dad and husband (and fiance).

The Bone Witch is another of the purple teen fantasy ilk. This one's got mood ring necklaces and geisha training.

The Vela was fun! I got an ARC of the whole series being released and it was worth reading if you like the authors involved.

The Mere Wife is probably the best retelling I've ever read and one of the most thoughtful books I've found. It's jam-packed with meaning. I think it floundered on a few messages, but not in the writing, which was so immaculate I exclaimed out loud multiple times.

Assassin's Apprentice was fun! Pretty classic set up, great characters. I'll be continuing the series.

Now reading Semiosis and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which so far is very cute.

Finished Hugo nominee The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections and starting Nine Last Days on Planet Earth

Andrea wrote: "Finished Hugo nominee The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections and starting Nine Last Days on Planet Earth"

Last Banquet was well done, I thought. What did you think?