Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Finished Way Station which was okay. Currently reading Destiny's Road.

I didn't find Null States by Malka Ann Older quite as interesting as its predecessor, Infomocracy. Older created a fascinating (if totally impractical) idea of micro-democracy, non-geographic world government based on thousands of tiny precincts, held together by the global network known as Information. Null States looks at how that coexists with the nations that didn't join (e.g. China), and a bit at the transition process of going from a traditional nation (e.g. Sudan) to a "micro-democracy". The ending of the main plot (an assassination of a political leader) is left hanging open (I assume for a 3rd book to deal with.)

Finished The Red Knight by Miles Cameron a couple of days ago. Rated it 4/5 stars. It was overall very good medieval epic fantasy/military fantasy mainly following the Red Knight and his band of mercenaries who are hired on by a Convent after a nun is killed and monsters from the Wild keep appearing more and more nearby. Its multi POV but very much centres around the Red Knight. Combat and fight scenes in particular were highlights, Cameron really knows his stuff. There were a couple things I took issue with but otherwise very good book.

Now reading The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron, the next book in the Traitor Son Cycle.

Finished The Mermaid, my GR ARC win. Was actually quite good, I really enjoyed it, a light read.

Since I'm getting sick (side effect of long plane flights I guess it was unavoidable) I'm still debating what to read next. I've got The Illustrated Man for the group read which is good since the stories are short so will probably start with that one. I may also start A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms which was a recent used bookstore score. Will give me something to read while I *cough* wait for the next ASoIaF book.

*edit*

When I'm sick it's hard to concentrate, so I was a little all over the place. Still didn't start Bradbury yet, felt he deserved a few more functional brain cells to do those stories justice. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is hardcover so found it hard to hold for long spans. Decided in the end to really dumb things down and go with A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons by Cressida Cowell, about the only thing I could really concentrate on (also flipped through a bunch of magazines...)

Scalzi's Head On is a sequel to Lock In, which you'd need to read first. FBI Agent and robot pilot Chris Shane is back, gender still unrevealed (to the reader.) This time the crime involves a new sports league playing a Robot Demolition Derby / Rugby hybrid. The crime mystery becomes progressively easier to solve as most of the suspects end up dead (I don't think that's the way Agatha Christie solved them.) Lots of witty dialog makes it a quick light read that doesn't require a lot of thought.

G33z3r wrote: "I don't think that's the way Agatha Christie solved them"

Actually she does in And Then There Were None :) It was unique in that sense as Murder on the Orient Express was unique in a different way.

Andrea wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "I don't think that's the way Agatha Christie solved them"

Actually she does in And Then There Were None :) It was unique in that sense as..."

Oh gosh, I remember the first time I read And Then There Were None, it was pretty impressive!

This month I've finished off Winter's Heart (not as bad as book eight, but still so slow), Herland (see book discussion), and The Feline Plague which is a translated Slovenian magical realism book - it had some moments of beautiful description, but I found it overall to be quite confusing! Especially the style of writing the conversations. So that was a challenge.

I've got one story left to read in Rogues, and I'm a bit disappointed with this anthology. I found the switching of genres jarring and the quality ranged from half a star and did not finish, to five stars and loved it. But the majority of stories were 3 stars or under,

Well, I'm on a bit of a winning streak.

Newitz's Autonomous proved a really well put together adventure story in a future of robotic AIs seeking manumission, drug pirates and really brutal intellectual property law enforcement. She tells the story with some really complicated characters, and builds a rich, complex future around them. A lot of interesting ideas floating around.

I finished:


The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
Rating: 4 stars
Review: /review/show...

Now starting:


The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Finished reading Circe, which i liked, and it really tested how much of The Odyssey I remembered from Uni. Interesting how it made Circe into the Forrest Gump of Greek mythology.

Currently reading The Doomed City by the Strugatskys.

Brendan wrote: "Finished reading Circe, which i liked, and it really tested how much of The Odyssey I remembered from Uni. Interesting how it made Circe into the Forrest Gump of Greek mythology."

Been eyeing that one, good to know it would be a good idea to read the Odyssey first. Many times, even if it's not strictly needed, you just get more out of one book by having read the other.

I finished A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons as well as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms...there were enough mentions of the word "dragon", as well as dragon illustrations in the latter to kind of consider it a dragon book, even if no dragons actually appear.

Currently reading Dragonhenge by Bob Eggleton which is more about the art than the text.

I will start the Illustrated Man soon, really I will! Think it's been sitting on my currently reading list for over a week without my getting past the first two pages...

Read Destiny's Road (good but not great Niven). It was an odd book.

Read Artemis . I liked it. Didn't love it like "The Martian", but I enjoyed it.

Read The Voyage of the Star Wolf Good old-fashioned sci-fi. Fun read.

Kivrin wrote: "Read Artemis . I liked it. Didn't love it like "The Martian", but I enjoyed it."

I intend to read Artemis soon. Phil Miller and Chris Lord (21 Jump Street, The LEGO Movie) are directing an adaptation soon. Was already on my TBR, so might as well be ahead of the curve when everyone starts talking about it like The Martian.

Been a minute since I checked in.

Recently, I've read Carnival which was disappointing but had lots of things that would have been cool if the story had been err...appointing?

The Art of War. I'm still confused why people reference this for modern leadership. My takeaway is that we should always be on hills near streams and for God's sake someone bring the snacks.

The Three-Body Problem was cool, except that it kept doing science stuff when I wanted people stuff.

Lord of Light was really fun! A really nice re-imagining of Hindu mythology.

Shadow Man was a DNF. A the half way point, the story still hadn't kicked in and life is short.

Nimona was really sweet! I wasn't expecting as much depth as it carried for such a short story.

Trickster's Choice was so painful. Holy white savior complex, Batman! Really unfortunate, Tamora is one of my lifelong favorite authors and this was just garbage.

Night's Master was definitely my sort of book. I love her sense of the macabre, and even the yucky parts were brief and purposeful.

The Farthest Shore felt like a remix of Wizard of Earthsea, so I liked it, but I'd been hoping for a bit more.

The Dispossessed was one of the best books I've ever read, though, and I can't stop thinking about it. The technical mastery she displayed while writing this is just...I don't know how someone does that, but I'm impressed.

Now reading and enjoying Planetfall, trying to enjoy The Eye of the World and looking forward to Into the Drowning Deep.

Allison wrote: "The Farthest Shore felt like a remix of Wizard of Earthsea, so I liked it, but I'd been hoping for a bit more."

If you're going through the series, the next one is my favourite.

Brendan wrote: "Allison wrote: "The Farthest Shore felt like a remix of Wizard of Earthsea, so I liked it, but I'd been hoping for a bit more."

If you're going through the series, the next one is my favourite."

Sweet! I'm hoping to get to it in the next couple months, so we'll see!

Allison wrote: "The Art of War. I'm still confused why people reference this for modern leadership. My takeaway is that we should always be on hills near streams and for God's sake someone bring the snacks."

Never read it but love your summary. Snacks are definitely key.

So I finished The Philip K. Dick MEGAPACK ®: 15 Classic Science Fiction Stories, thus giving me a full line on my bingo card. I've moved back to Simon R. Green's Secret Histories series and began Daemons Are Forever last night. This is going to go onto the Genre Blender square. (Imagine a collaboration between Jim Butcher and Ian Fleming.)

By strange coincidence, my first read of the original James Bond novels is up to Diamonds Are Forever. I'm thinking I just might read both of these similarly titled books one right after the other.

Andrea wrote: "Allison wrote: "The Art of War. I'm still confused why people reference this for modern leadership. My takeaway is that we should always be on hills near streams and for God's sake someone bring th..."

See? You don't need to read it, you've got about 60% of his wisdom already ingrained in you!

I finished:


Night's Master by Tanith Lee
Rating: 2 stars
Review: /review/show...


The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Rating: 3 stars
Review: /review/show...


Rhialto the Marvellous by Jack Vance
Rating: 3 stars
Review: /review/show...

It's fascinating to me that the words I keep seeing for Night's Master are "revolting" and "gorgeous." I feel like there's definitely some sort of Rorschach psych thing in this. Something about how some people see the demons, and some people see the endless night of wonder and horror around the demons. I'm pretty sure it was Jung who had a theory about that. Like 87% sure.

Hmm, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ wiped out all my progress on my currently reading books, not that I care really, just interesting bug.

*update*
Ah, think it's wiping all the dates from all the books, my reading challenge tells me I've read 0 books when I had read 61 so far this year. It also thinks I planned to read 41 when I had set my goal at 100.

Anyway, finished Dragonhenge and started another coffee table sized book The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern by Jody Lynn Nye. I didn't read any Pern at all in May which was kind of a big gap, got three planned for June to make sure I don't fall behind my goal of getting through all of them this year.

Gah, and I was planning on reading Diamond Age too, forgot that was starting today. Would be my first time reading that author. Anyway, off to my library this weekend so will grab it then.

Andrea wrote: "Ah, think it's wiping all the dates from all the books, my reading challenge tells me I've read 0 books when I had read 61 so far this year...."

Yeah, it appears Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ has lost of a lot of read dates – they pinky-swear they haven't actually lost them, just hidden them where they can't find them. (When I did my monthly GR shelf export last night, I noted the dates are in the export file even though they don't show up on GR.) There's a pretty long topic on lost read dates in the GR Feedback group, as well as some of the collateral loss such as Reading Challenges. For some reason people find it upsetting. :)

Allison wrote: "It's fascinating to me that the words I keep seeing for Night's Master are "revolting" and "gorgeous."..."

I hear "Yanni". And that dress is white with gold stripes.

G33z3r wrote: "Allison wrote: "It's fascinating to me that the words I keep seeing for Night's Master are "revolting" and "gorgeous."..."

I hear "Yanni". And that dress is white with gold stripes."

lol xD

G33z3r wrote: "Andrea wrote: "Ah, think it's wiping all the dates from all the books, my reading challenge tells me I've read 0 books when I had read 61 so far this year...."

Yeah, it appears Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ has lost ..."

Seems the that started way back in November. In the end I don't really care but so sad I was making such good progress on my reading challenge LOL. It's funny because I'd seen that blue banner on my Read books shelf saying dates had issues but I never had it actually affect me before. Anyway, for my BINGO challenge I have the comments where I keep track of which book is for what square so I know my progress anyway :)