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Big thanks to @JaymesRS@literature.cafe and @misericordiae@literature.cafe for all the work they do to arrange these!
As for books, reading Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (first book in her October Daye urban fantasy series). Didn’t get much time, but slowly making progress.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
Just finished “service model” and halfway through “when the Moon Hits your eye” by Tchaikovsky and Scalzi respectively. Both are good, not great.
Starting “Platform Decay” today! Very excited for more Murderbot!
I finally wrapped up all 7 books in Asimov’s Foundation series and shew, what a chilling ending. highly recommend.
picked up a copy of The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey (the writers of The Expanse series) and finished it in absolute record time. I’m hooked. now on to book 2, The Faith of Beasts!
I’ve made a start on The Lies of Locke Lamora! It’s been fun so far, with some really great worldbuilding. The last few days I haven’t had much time to read unfortunately - but hopefully come the weekend I’ll get more of a chance.
I started The Pastel City by M. John Harrison last night; it’s been on my list for so long I don’t remember why it’s there. Kind of a Dying Earth setup, where it’s thousands of years after the fall of civilization, and a medieval-style society has blossomed in a world full of rusting. ancient tech. I’m barely out of the prologue, so no real impressions yet.
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Finished Extremity by Nicholas Binge, which is about a police investigation into a billionaire’s death that goes sideways in very scifi ways. It sounded really good, but it wasn’t really a mystery, wasn’t long enough to lean into the tension it tried to do, and swerved into a subgenre I’m not fond of. It’s not bad, just not for me.
The Pastel City sounds pretty cool, I’ll add it to my list!
If you like that genre (post-apocalyptic future) you may want to give Davy by Edgar Pangborn a shot too.
I’ll give it a look, thanks!
Just started House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski yesterday.
Finding it a little difficult to get into at the moment but will stick at it based on the book’s great reputation.
About 70% through Chaos Vector by Meghan E. O’Keefe
This series is great! It’s really scratching the Expanse itch I’ve had since I finished the last book 4 years ago.
Finished “A canticle for Lebowiz”, the ending was tough, and for some reason i decided to listen Endless Nights by Agatha Christie, and wow, talks about double whammy, both were very bleak…
I’m reading Warren Ellis’s Transmetropolitan. An old favorite of mine, this comic book, heavily inspired by Hunter S. Thompson, has many themes that are all too relevant even today.
Man, I have it, read the first chapter, but it failed to grab me :/ will retry though, it’s a trip!
I mean, I love the series, but its brand of chaos, insanity, humor and obscenity is definitely not for everyone. If you can accept it and go with its flow, there’s some really good bits in there.
I’m currently reading This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El- Mohtar & Max Gladstone.
I really love it and it feels like I’m reading poetry.
It took me 2 tries to read it, I knew there was something beautiful there the first time but I wasn’t in the right place mentally.
Such a good book. I love the epistolary format.
If you love epistolary things, give Ella Minnow Pea a try.
(Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention DraculaDaily.com)
That’s understandable. I’m glad you gave it a second try.
Just got the brand new Murderbot book by Martha Wells (Platform Decay) and I’m excited to tear into it.
Me too!
Started Starship Troopers and couldn’t get through the first chapter. Not for me, as warned by others in this sub it was quite dry and a mere inspiration for the movie.
Now I’m on to Neuromancer, which is already much better. First time read for me so no spoilers please if you choose to comment!
Hey! I’m one of the people who commented about Troopers. I don’t fault you for stopping it, there’s a whole chapter in the middle of it where they flashback to gradeschool and all of the kids agree with the teacher that corporal punishment for adults is really the only way to ensure a society doesn’t fall apart
Neuromancer is great though! If you ever feel like you don’t really understand what’s going on that’s pretty normal. It takes a couple of reads and even then a lot of the concepts are abstract rather than concrete
Thanks for your comment! It was just too military heavy and dry. I’m a very visual thinker and the writing was quite dry and didn’t grab me at all.
So far I actually like the ‘dropped in the middle’ effect of Neuromancer, as it can be a bit tiring to read through a ton of explanations early on in a story with so much world building. I’d rather discover concepts through context and ‘living’ in the story a bit first. At this time I’m simply blown away by the fact the story was written over 40 years ago, however it’s still early on so that might change.
Love Neuromancer have the audiobook.
Was that Robert Heinlein? I read almost all his books back in the 70s as a teen. We loved them at the time but in retrospect he seems like kind of as ass.
It was. Interestingly enough, from many of the reviews I read a lot of people love the author but don’t like this book. It made the use of the word ‘controversial’ on the cover description of the copy I have much funnier to me.
I have started a reread of This Inevitable Ruin, Dungeon Crawler Carl #7, just to refresh myself before the new book releases in a
few weeks.week!Path of Daggers (WoT 8) is on a bit of a hiatus, stuck at about 30% done with it, by chapter count anyway. Not that I don’t want to finish it, but have put it off for DCC. WoT will be there, but I don’t want to accidentally get spoiled on the new DCC book haha.
I just finished book 1!
DCC or Wheel of Time? Thoughts on either? Haha
DCC. I was expecting it to be a little more traditional in terms of ‘fighting through a dungeon’ but things immediately got more interesting when Carl started engineering exploits and has the added wrinkle that it’s also being livestreamed. As someone with far too much time spent in MMOs, this was actually a remarkably realistic take on how someone would approach challenges in the dungeon. Though, it’s not as laugh-out-loud funny as I’d hoped, it is amusing.
I started doing the same thing with the inevitable ruin, then realized I do not remember nearly as much as I should, and started rereading the entire series.
I have just found out there is a recap chapter in my books! Might just have to read all of those haha.
I must have skipped them all on my first read cause it’s before the prologue. And I think my e-reader jumps to the prologue by default.
Yeah…. I should have started a proper re-read a few months back haha.
Stormlight archive. Again. No, I don’t care. Yes, I will reread it many times after.
Journey before Destination.
I finished listening to Neuromancer today. Not once did I want to DNF, but I still don’t know what the fuck was happening. Just enjoyed the vibes I guess. I’ll have to reread, maybe in print next time, to get some more out of it.
Started Reaper Man as well, I’ve found Discworld to be so comforting.
I’ve read through the entire Discworld series at least twice over.
I think I’m due another re-read very soon.
- Tolkien, ‘The Hobbit’. A re-read, started last night.
- If I can get my hands on an English edition at a reasonable price, next I would like to read Narnia (the full cycle). As a non-believer myself, I have a lot of respect for CS Lewis as an essayist (pieces like ‘The Abolition of Man’ is an almost perfect description of why/how most Western educative systems are indeed failing and, well, most of what I’ve read even when he focuses on spirituality was quite… rich and stimulating), and I would like to see how =I will appreciate his work as a novelist :)
- Just finished the first volume of the French edition of Cordwainer Smith ‘Instrumentality of Mankind’ which I started almost by accident and ended-up liking so much I ordered the next 3 volumes of that translation (I was not able to find an English edition). Fascinating work.
