Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

JULY IS HERE! Second half of the year starts today. So whatcha reading?

New Becky Chamber's book on the 12th A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. Loved the first in the series. Bom Hunt the Stars about 50% in . Loved the first half, but the second half has hit a snag. Will restart Locklands which I paused to fit in the BOM, Then Becky's new one and hopefully end the month with The Martyr. And the audio of The Hod King which I got on sale during Audibles $5 sale last month,

CJ Cherryh’s Fortress of Ice. While I I struggled to get into this series when it was first written, I tried it again a few months ago and have devoured the first 4 books. It is still very dense and while don’t like it as much as her SF work or the Morgaine series but even at her worst I find CJ Cherryh better than many of her contemporaries. I identify with her character’s struggle to understand the events going on around them while trying to act with agency. It makes things very realistic to me - trying to do the right thing without holding all the answers.

Just got the BotM so that is next.

Listening to Psalm for the Wild-Built while driving. Another example where I liked her earlier book - Angry Planet - more than this but it’s still worth the listen.

In addition to the BoM selection, which I'm enjoying so far, I'm listening to Seeds of Yesterday by V. C. Andrews. It's the fourth of the Dollanganger series. I read the first two years ago but no more. So I decided to re-read/listen to the first two and read/listen to three and four. I don't think I'll read any of the ones ghostwritten.

I think the first two, Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind hold up. Not great literature but still a compelling story. The third one, If There Be Thorns went very dark.

Also, I just started Binge Times: Inside Hollywood's Furious Billion-Dollar Battle to Take Down Netflix.

Oaken wrote: "CJ Cherryh’s Fortress of Ice. While I I struggled to get into this series when it was first written, I tried it again a few months ago and have devoured the first 4 books. It is still very dense an..."

If nothing else, Fortress in the Eye of Time is one of the most evocative titles I've ever come across.

Finished listening to this months pick Hunt the Stars.... Will share my thoughts elsewhere in another thread when they start showing up... A light hearted romp with very little content (other than lust)...

Stared listening to Sea of Tranquility which is extremely well written but is self indulgent at times (book tour during a pandemic). Short and to the point which is a relief.

Reading Shards of Earth which is suitably apocalyptic in scope.

This year is apparently a horror themed year for me. I am tackling House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski finally and have two more chapters

Reading Pushing Ice. Can't think how I missed this before.

Coupla books recently. First up Flandry's Legacy, the last of a seven book collection of Poul Anderson's sweeping shared universe. This includes two short-novel length stories featuring Flandry and standalones set thousands of years later.

It's all fine for what it is, a nostalgia run. Anderson studied physics and he brings it for the hard science side. His solar systems and planets feature serious analysis. I didn't notice so much as a younger person as I was more interested in the adventure.

The stories have a sameness to them. Both novels feature Flandry trying to prop up the Terran Empire not because it's great, but because the alternative is chaos, war and death. Good point, but it's used here and in several previous works.

The later stories both involve humanity diverging with biological consequences. The stories are decent enough one by one, but read in group the similarities are too much. They seem copies of each other, with different astrophysics and weird aliens plugged in.

There's frequently a love story, and in no Poul Anderson story can lovers actually be together. Not just here, but other works in the same universe and completely different Anderson works. Get a new schtick!

Fun to read for nostalgia. I respect the effort that went into the astrophysics even if it doesn't hit me quite the way Niven's works do. A bit dated.

Then from one Terran Empire with divergent almost-aliens to another: The Book of the Month, Hunt the Stars! I've posted on that a bit in the podcast thread and will do so elsewhere in S&L now that I'm done.

It's a fun, silly book. Lots of setup drama, a by-the-numbers romance, and a captain who cooks for her crew. Er...okay. Little bit of Firefly, a dash of Deep Space Nine, liberal helpings of contemporary romance, and a fiendish plot of dastardly proportions!

It plods until about the halfway point, where there are some pretty good twists. Plot points develop acceptably. I'm also amused at the idea of a ship's gym that allows sparring. I did this with fellow Shotokan students in my day and that required a large amount of trust. Almost-aliens you just had a war with? Not so much.

The faux kitty also provided a running current of levity, and a later plot point made me laugh instead of being endearing. Such a bludgeon, but why not.

Now that I'm invested I'll probably read the sequel. It's fine as a casual read.

And, in keeping with my current health focus, another nutrition book. This one is Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspe. The idea in this book is to study what gives a blood sugar spike, then work to reduce that. A fine idea and a nice addendum to Dr. Fung's work.

Seems that food order can reduce blood sugar spikes. The science seems fairly good here. Anyhoo, the order is: small amount of any vegetable (easiest is a few leaves of lettuce) followed by fiber (cooked veggies, more salad, raw veggies, lentils, lots of choice.) After that protein and fat, and only then carbs.

I've tried it a few times and it seems to help. I'll continue.

She also recommends vinegar before any meal that includes carbs, also to reduce the blood sugar spike. I've been doing this for two years and can attest it helps.

There's also the suggestion to do ten minutes of light exercise after a meal, also to reduce the blood sugar spike. With a bad knee and now a bad shoulder I honestly don't know how I would implement that. Well, I'll give it some thought.

Dr. Fung's works still remain my go-tos and intermittent fasting remains my focus. This book provides some nice info around the edges of that.

Read Mickey7 and wasn't too thrilled with how the interesting premise played out - but it was a fast read at least. And I also finally finished the Expanse with Leviathan Falls, which I enjoyed but plodded through as if I didn't really want the whole thing to finish. It's tough to wrap up a big series and I thought they did it pretty well.

Finished Sea of Tranquility which was a nice time travel story following the loop trope with good effect. I found the section based on an authors book tour at the start of a pandemic to be rather self indulgent and over long. The rest of the book was extremely good and the episodic nature of the story worked very well... If you like Becky Chambers this should work for you...

Now listening to a A Catalogue of Catastrophe which is full of Max's normal shenanigans

Finished with Amongst Our Weapons (one of the better entries in Peter Grant series) and starting The Witness for the Dead.

Posted on Discord, but sharing here too. Finished Wilder Girls last night. YA Feminist Horror. It wasn't bad, a nice start at something and I thought the character building was off to a nice start. (view spoiler)[ Might have been too soon for me after Covid, with the mutations (and possible Monkey Pox) I would like to see the conspiracy around the blue iris/testing/isolating the girls. (hide spoiler)]

Finished The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. Not SFF, but definitely speculative.

I'm skeptical about geopolitical predictions, but do enjoy Zeihan's always plausible narratives.

Reading a couple of interesting (if slightly depressing) non-fiction books atm: The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World by Tim Marshall and Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft.

Also listening to the audiobook of a southern gothic ghost story: Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

I had two doctor's appointments last week (regular check-up and mammo, nothing major). So I wanted to read something I didn't have to pay much attention to (because nerves) so I've been re-reading The Eyre Affair. This is probably the fourth or fifth time that I've re-read it but I had forgotten so much.

I finally finished The Priory of the Orange Tree on Audible yesterday. While I thought the reader was excellent, I kind of wished I had read the actual book. It was a little difficult to keep up with the characters.

After this month's pick I thought I would break up my light summer reading with Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun.

Finished Klara and the Sun. It is interesting to compare it to Machinehood. (view spoiler)[Both have key themes around the impact of AI and robotics on society and how they affect our work and social lives. Machinehood is a mystery/suspense told from the pov of the people living in this world, Klara is a book about relationships; she is an AI herself and her story is told first-person. (hide spoiler)] But whereas I found Machinehood to be very overt and fact-based and full of explanation (which I didn't really enjoy,) Klara is very much the opposite. It takes a while before you really understand how she fits in the world and the whole concept of what is going on with Josie, her friend. Having said that, I can't say I really liked it any better. This novel is very experimental, written in a way that reflects who Klara is and I don't think the experiment worked very well.

Whizzing through the audiobook of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I’m also revisiting a childhood favourite: The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit.

In my seemingly never ending quest to finish the Malazan series, I've started Midnight Tides.

I started reading:


City by Clifford D. Simak

Got The Grief of Stones from the library, very happily reading it now that I'm done the book of the month.

Read Neal Asher's "Weaponized." It's billed as the second book in the Jack Four series. It's not. Weaponized is set 1500 years before Jack Four and has nothing to do with that book. It's a Polity book, but set so far back in that timeline that it's billed as book 0, predating the previous first book in the timeline.

It's also extremely violent. I skipped Asher's Spatterjay books for that reason and would not have read this one had I known. Thought about lemming it but once I'm into a story I almost always finish. I know there's people who enjoy the fictional violence but this was well too far. Nihilistic as well.

I felt like this book was bait and switch. It didn't even have the redeeming quality of being a good insomnia read. Blech.

Just finished Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky which was a blast. A completely gonzo space opera that has almost everything in it. Inscrutable aliens, alien super weapons, a fine pace. One of the better space opera's I have read recently.. Tchaikovsky is turning into a must read. Not sure how he keeps up the pace but I am enjoying it.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Read Neal Asher's "Weaponized." It's billed as the second book in the Jack Four series. It's not. Weaponized is set 1500 years before Jack Four and has nothing to do with that book. It's a Polity b..."

Thanks for the warning.,.,,.

Finished Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men which was interesting and informative, if heavy going at times.

Just about to start We All Fall Down by Rose Szabo, which is this month’s Illumicrate book. The blurb tells me it’s “The first book in a dark fantasy YA duology� about the power and danger of stories and the untold costs of keeping magic alive, perfect for fans of Rory Power and Marie Rutkoski.�

I have no idea who those name-checked authors are but nvm, I’m going to give it a try!

I just finished Dark Matter. I seem to be stuck in a multiverse motif lately. I just watched 'Everything Everywhere all at Once' the other day and the latest Dr. Strange movie a few weeks ago.

Good book, very interesting ideas. I did not love the last chapter or two. I expected a more science derived solution to resolve the plot of the book considering the main character is a quantum physicist.

Tomorrow I'm starting A Psalm for the Wild-Built.

Finished The Grief of Stones and loved it. I don't think there's any fantasy world where I'd rather spend more time than this one. Hopefully the author doesn't get bored of it any time soon.

Finished The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. It was pretty good as a fable of mental health but from a fantasy reader perspective I couldn’t help picking holes in the world building and the story was a bit (very) predictable.

I finished A Psalm for the Wild-Built 4 stars! Tomorrow I'm starting The Good House It's a July read for a horror group/book club I'm in.

I’m listening to the Project Hail Mary audiobook. The narrator is fantastic. I’m really enjoying this.

Just starting The Origin of Storms, the concluding volume in Elizabeth Bear's Lotus Kingdoms trilogy.

I just finished The Kaiju Preservation Society which I described as an 'easy going' read when I started it back in June, but which in hindsight I'd call disappointingly free of substance. Sure, it definitely has some humour, but it's not clever humour.

Somewhere along the line I also finished listening to Against a Dark Background in my ongoing re-read of all the Iain M Banks books. Can't remember what I made of it 25 years ago, but this time through I though it had a lot of clever ideas that somehow didn't quite fit together to make a great story. (But still worth more stars the aforementioned Scalzi book!)

In need of a literary pick-me-up, I've started listening to the audiobook of Rivers of London (having previously read the text version). And I'm loving it all over again!

I finished the third book in one of my favorite fantasy series:


The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rating: 4 stars
Review: /review/show...

and the fourth book in the Vampire Chronicles series:


The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice
Rating: 3 stars
Review: /review/show...

and I started reading the third Narnia book (publication order):


The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

and I also started reading the latest book by the author of World War Z:


Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks

Tina wrote: "I’m listening to the Project Hail Mary audiobook. The narrator is fantastic. I’m really enjoying this."

Ray Porter (The Narrator) is a god amongst men!

I'm reading The Affair of the Mysterious Letter. It's an excellent Sherlock Holmes-fantasy-twist. I love when the narrator breaks the fourth wall to apologize and tries to conceal the offending language spoken by some characters. Example below:

I have done my best to conceal the substance of the offending terms from my audience while preserving the clarity and character of the lady's speech. If you are easily shocked you may wish to turn to the end of this segment.
"Who the --- are you? And what the --- do you think you're doing? Have you any idea of the --- you've caused and a ---ing mess I'm in now?"

--The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall (16%)

I’m reading a non-fiction book atm, Georgian London: Into the Streets which accidentally makes quite a good companion piece with our book of the month.

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "Tina wrote: "I’m listening to the Project Hail Mary audiobook. The narrator is fantastic. I’m really enjoying this."

Ray Porter (The Narrator) is a god amongst men!"

Whilst the narration was good in a stern American style the book lacked a bit. The representation of the alien was interesting though.

Our antagonist (Grace) is a thinly disguised avatar of the author who sciences the shit out of stuff to save the world. For a world wide problem the book takes a very simplistic approach to solving it. If you liked the Martian this may be a decent read in the SF chosen one genre.

(view spoiler)[Its a good thing Grace does not go back to Earth as he would have been pissed off to find a bunch of orbiting mirrors keeping Earth warm removing the need for a mad rush to another solar system. If you have magic space fuel then you can fly anywhere in the solar system at little cost and build as many small mirrors as you like.... Got to thin about the simple solutions if you are willing to use the antarctic (hide spoiler)]

I read Escape from Yokai Land - a short novella in Charles Stross' Laundry Files universe. An amusing little side-quest, not at all necessary for following the thread of the main novels, but well worth a read for fans of the series. You'll never see Hello Kitty in quite the same way again!

Away from SF&F, the latest Christopher Brookmyre novel hit my Kindle this week - The Cliff House. One of my favourite novelists - broadly speaking he writes in the "crime" genre, although I prefer the term "Tartan Noir" that I've seen attached to his writing.

I finished two books this week, starting with the Retro-Hugo Award-winning Science-Fiction Classic:


City by Clifford D. Simak
Rating: 3 stars
Review: /review/show...

and I also finished the excellent anthology of stories set in Jack Vance's Dying Earth:


Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin and the late Gardner Dozois
Rating: 4 stars
Review: /review/show...

and I started reading another Science-Fiction Classic by one of my favorite authors:


The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

Gave up on We All Fall Down about 50 pages from the end. Interesting ideas but the execution was a hot mess and I simply didn’t trust the writer to bring it to a satisfying conclusion.

I’m now continuing my Discworld read with Sourcery.