Our reads in Feb 2018

Another month,another pile of books

Dusty's TBR for February
SF/F
Catherine Asaro - The Quantum Rose ✔
Robert Silverberg - Nightwings✔
David Drake - Some Golden Harbor ✔
Poul Anderson - The High Crusade ✔
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Diving into the Wreck✔
Parker&Cruz - X-Men:The Wonder Years ✔
Joe Haldeman - Camouflage ✔
Karen Chance - Ride the Storm

other genres
Catherynne M Valente - The Girl Who Soared Above Fairyland
Gladys Mitchell - Come Away Death ✔
Craig Rice - Home Sweet Homicide✔
Miranda James - No Cats Allowed ✔
Judith Cutler - Head Start ✔
Joyce Stranger - Zara ✔

I've been away from the sight for a bit. I interrupted the third volume (chronologically) of Brian Stableford's Emortality series, Dark Ararat, in favor of a mass market paperback of Kristine Kathryn Rausch's Duplicate Effort, the seventh volume of her enjoyable Retrieval Artist series while travelling over the holidays. I'm now back to Stableford's equally enjoyable series.

I was sorry to miss the discussion of Bob Shaw and his work. I also love his great story, Light of Other Days, though I was disappointed in the later novel length mash-up. Bob's novels The Two-Timers and A Wreath of Stars are favorites of mine and I also liked his immortality thriller One Million Tomorrows.

Heading into February near the halfway point in All Flesh is Grass by Clifford D. Simak. Interesting and quirky story, so far.

Also still reading a fantasy, Wreckers Gate by Eric Knight. It's quite good, and it's taking this long to read due to my being sidetracked by a group read on Facebook - Altered Carbon The group is called, simply enough Science Fiction Book Club - spam free and civil. Recommended, if you're a FB user.

Am not liking Every Heart A Doorway. Too much Exceptional Adolescent Female stuff for my tolerance levels.

OTOH, I'm loving the spit out of Queen of all Crows by Rod Duncan.

I have just started Robert Silverberg's Nightwings and its fabulous! Mankind got through the First Cycle of earth's history the technology phase,but during the Second Cycle thy tinkered too much with genetic manipulation and also ruined the climate bringing catastrophe on the world - and aliens. Now,hundreds of years later humans are living in a sort of mediaeval style in a world that has remnants of all of history.The protagonist, a Watcher,is a weak old man with a ritualistic job looking out for the return of the aliens However no-one really believes they will return,they think it is just a legend.The Watcher,with a winged female and a Changeling are about to live through turbulent times.
The novella form of Nightwings won the 1969 Hugo and this is made up of 3 novellas following the old Watcher.This is a rich and complex story in Vance's Dying Earth tradition.I've got to wonder if Gene Wolfe read and was influenced by this. I keep expecting Severian to come round the corner in the city! He would definitely fit in well!
I am alsoreading David Drake's Some Golden Harbor and also am intending to start Kate Griffin's The Minority Council

>5 dustydigger: I remember reading the original Nightwings novella in an anthology some years ago. Hadn't realized with expanded into a full book. I'll need to look this one up.

>6 ThomasWatson: If you have read the novella, then you've read the best version. The recent publication in full length is actually a fix-up. Here's two (differing) descriptions of the contents:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?14913

http://www.majipoor.com/work.php?id=799

Great story, though. I have it as part of a double, myself.

I was very lucky that for once in a blue moon my library system had the Gateway omnibus of Nightwings, A Time of Changes, Lord Valentine's Castle available.
I wasnt at all keen on A Time of Changes but intend to readLord Valentine's Castle sometime.I did like his Downward to the Earth which I read a couple of years ago. Interesting writer,now somewhat eclipsed. Glad this omnibus became available to me.
I see the omnibus is available on Amazon.com for under $12,which isnt too bad.

>8 dustydigger: I remember really liking A Time of Changes when I read it. I have a copy - the Gollancz Classic SF edition - so I really ought to reread it one day. Lord Valentine's Castle is fun - see https://iansales.com/2009/09/18/reading-challenge-9-lord-valentines-castle-rober... - although Silverberg did drag out the series for far too long.

Still slogging away at Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories.

Finished The Long Earth, started Ancillary Justice.

In the omnibus volume Firefall, I've just finished Peter Watts' Blindsight.

>8 dustydigger: Despite the passage of years, I hate to think of Robert Silverberg as somewhat eclipsed, although the numbers of copies of his books owned by LibraryThing users suggests you're right.

Until his Lord Valentine phase, Silverberg belonged to that ancient breed of SF writers who prided themselves on the variety of their plots and settings rather than their creation of a franchise spawning unlimited sequels.

Besides Nightwings, you've already mentioned Downward to the Earth, and A Time of Changes. I've also enjoyed The Masks of Time, The World Inside, Tower of Glass, Up the Line and Dying Inside.
I do think that Slverberg has a tendency to rush, or otherwise seem impatient to finish his books, which weakens his endings, but he's clearly one of science fictions greatest treasures and happily, he's still among us.

Finished reading Simak's All Flesh is Grass the other day. Thoroughly enjoyable tale, cleverly written in that quiet voice Simak uses to such good effect. The ending left me hanging though. The worst part is that to tell you why it left me hanging would spoil the entire thing. So, read what follows at your own risk.

Seriously.

By the end of the book the situation is both confused and dire. The hero has just lost his home and is quite probably about to be lynched by an angry mod. Oh, and the government is about to drop a nuclear weapon on his town. The solution to the strange, almost gentle alien invasion - which may not actually be an invasion at all - appears to be to offer the aliens, who appear as beautiful flowering plants, love and appreciation for their beauty. Apparently, only an appreciation for beauty for its own sake sets humanity apart from other alien species. It's the one thing these strange plants can't find anywhere else. Great idea, the hero seems to think, and he decides to run to the authorities with this idea, in the hope of avoiding being nuked. The book ends at this point. There is nothing of how the idea might be implemented, or of its consequences. To say the story felt incomplete would be an understatement.

Ah, well... Next up, The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin.

Four-Day Planet surprised me by feeling very relevant to our dismal political day.

Finished reading The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream by G.C. Edmondson. Not much to say about it, just a bog standard time travel story.

Next up is a re-read, another of those books I know I've read but remember absolutely nothing about, The Shores of Death by Michael Moorcock.

>13 lansingsexton: Ok, based on the comments of the good folk here, I worked my way through the crowds at my nearest indie (kidding, almost empty, everyone is watching SB) to pick up Nightwing. Wow there are a ton of Silverbergs work on the shelves! But I found the book. Its in very tiny print so Im not sure my eyes will thank you but I probably will :)

Tonight I started Commencement by Roby James. Over the first eight pages, the book seems to be, at least, well written. Time will tell as to the quality of the storytelling. I see there is a sequel, so I guess that means some folks liked it. I am only an occasional science fiction reader, though I did recently enjoy a Harry Harrison trilogy. Anyway, I picked Commencement from the shelves of my used bookstore more or less on a whim.

Yay,finished my first book for February,Catherine Asaro's Nebula winning The Quantum Rose,another in her Skolian series,nice mix of romance,family ties,and space opera,with an interesting new world description and an intriguing new mystery in the mix.. Nice light comfort read really,not too sure how it won the Nebula - but the Nebulas are like that,they come in all sorts of subgenres and I am never quite sure why they pick certain books.
That makes 44/53 Nebulas read. Next up on that list will be Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio,if I can find it . Its not on Open Library,nor in my library system so looks like I'll have to buy it.Couple of months time maybe,as I have a cluster of family birthdays (4 in 10 days beginning of March EEK) then lots of easter eggs for grandkids end of March.
........ooh,just seen Mother's Day in UK is early this year,11th March........hmm,book vouchers????......
I feel a list coming on.Nebulas still to read

1. Greg Bear - Darwin's Radio
2. Lois McMaster Bujold - Paladin of Souls
3. Joe Haldeman - Camouflage
4. Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policemen's Union
5. Ursula K LeGuin - Powers
6. Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl
7. Connie Willis - Blackout
8. Kim Stanley Robinson - 2312
9. Charlie Jane Anders - All the Birds in the Sky

Apart from the Bujold,cant say I fancy any of them..... Kim Stanley Robinson AND Connie Willis together,one after the other.oh dear......
I have reluctantly girded up my loins to get back into KSRs Blue Mars STILL 300 pages to go,its mindboggling how slowly I trudge through this trilogy.KSR has introduced another female character for me to thoroughly dislike,Zo,daughter of the horrible Jackie.lol. Will attempt to plod through it hopefully by the end of this month if I can stand it.
I will definitely desrve a very large whiskey as a reward.

>19 dustydigger: I really loved All the Birds in the Sky, but it is definitely more fantasy than sci fi, so YMMV. Could not get tho Darwins Radio. Liked Yiddish Policement's Union but its certainly not my fav of his. (that would be Kavalier and Clay not scifi/fan but an amazingly well written novel.

>19 dustydigger: You do realise, dusty, that in only reading 'Blackout', you'll finish the book with the story hanging in mid-air? Not even a cliff-hanger, just a break in the story. Mind you, by the time you get to the end of it, you might just be past caring.

If I get nothing else read in terms of fiction this month it'll be Infinity Engine and The Girl with Ghost Eyes.

>21 RobertDay: lol! That bad,Robert? Yeah,for my sins I will have to read All Clear as well.Was disappointed by the irritating last section of To Say Nothing of the Dogafter a promising start. Even more irritated by Doomsday Booktoo long,too detailed for me as I am so not keen on historical fiction,which 90% of this was. and I am getting a distinct feeling that the WWII books are going to be not my cup of tea either. Did I say I I dont like reading books about WWII?:0).I found her writing about WWII just a little askew as a Brit,didnt come across as quite real somehow. But thats pretty normal with American authors anyway!
But she certainly has a majorly impressive list of awards and nominations.Just as usual I am underwhelmed,my fault! lol

>23 dustydigger: I actually enjoyed Doomsday Book, whilst acknowledging some faults. I found the picture Willis painted of the cold, hard season of Medieval England very real and immediate. I was less happy with the sections set in Oxford. But overall, I was impressed.

Then I turned to 'To say nothing...'

I was appalled. I was falling over major faults from the first chapter onwards. So much of it was an American's belief about what Britain is. or was, like, starting out with a member of the British aristocracy commanding a major public expenditure project and authorising unlimited expenditure on it. Then there was Birmingham and Coventry being 60 miles apart. Then... well, you get my drift. I did keep thinking of it as being more Wodehouse than Jerome (though when I later read JKJ's Idle thoughts of an idle fellow, I realised that Wodehouse lifted a lot from Jerome...). And yet there was some great writing in it - the sequence about the destruction of Coventry Cathedral was visceral and exciting, and for that I consigned my copy to my storage unit instead of casting it off into the outer darkness.

"Blackout"/"All Clear" was worse, IMHO. The inaccuracies about Britain in the war were many. Perhaps the worst one on an intellectual level was that Willis conflated the number of V1s launched against Britain with the number that actually got through. In fact, about 60% of them didn't reach their targets. And she couldn't tell the difference between the V1 (a pilotless drone that fell out of the sky when it ran out of fuel) with the V2 (a ballistic missile that was fairly precisely targeted). There was more besides, including somer fairly basic assumptions about 1980s Britain that she got wrong. And all the running around here and there and everywhere.

I've not so long ago finished Passage, and although there was a similar amount of frenetic running around, I actually found that it worked and just at the points when I thought it was going to get irritating, something happened to make me think "Ah! That's why we're doing all this running..." and I got on with that novel much better than the previous three of hers that I've read.

Not all American authors get it so badly wrong. A couple of years back, I enjoyed John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting, a late Plantagenet alternate-world story disguised as a fantasy. Apart from having the murderers of the Duke of Clarence (of 'butt of malmsey' fame) talk in voices that immediately made me think of 'Thunderbirds' ' Parker, he got most of the history and detail pretty well spot on. It CAN be done! (And sometimes is...)

>24 RobertDay: Similar reaction here to Doomsday Book. Kivrin's adventures in the past were much more downbeat than I had expected, but I found myself truly immersed in that part of the story. But yes... all that semi-incoherent running around is so very irritating to me - and Willis seems to have included that in every book I've read by her, (Passage, Remake, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book, Bellwether). Not being British, the anachronisms you mention don't affect me as much. While I've visited London a couple of times, I have no real sense of geographical details where I would know the distance from Coventry to Birmingham, for example. Still, if I was an author writing about an unfamiliar place, I like to think I would visit long enough to research those types of details before writing about them.

>19 dustydigger: I have Yiddish Policeman's Union and Darwin's Radio on my TBR. Not sure I'll get to them this year, but maybe...? Also not sure how well you will get on with The Windup Girl. I liked it quite a bit - but there are some dark situations in those pages.

I finished The compass rose - some excellent stories and a strong collection, though I think I found The wind's twelve quarters more satisfying overall. I will be going back to both in the future.

I've started C.J. Cherryh's Rider at the gate but am finding it heavy going so far.

>25 ScoLgo: "... if I was an author writing about an unfamiliar place, I like to think I would visit long enough to research those types of details before writing about them."

Well, precisely. CW made a big thing about visiting the Imperial War Museum in London and talking to Blitz survivors for 'Blackout'/'All Clear'. But on its own, that research is insufficient. The war took place against a background of an established society and culture, and unless you know about that as well, your research is incomplete.

An example: at one point in 'Blackout', a character who is in service sees a letter delivered to her employer's house and knows who it is from "because of the return address on the envelope". But in the UK, we don't regularly put return addresses on envelopes and never have (except for letters going to the USA, because we know you Americans expect that sort of thing). That seems to have misled Ms.Willis into believing that we do that for every letter. And this was far from the only example of the author believing that the US and the UK are alike.

Nightwings has one of the sleaziest treatments of a female character I've seen. Since she's the only female character of any importance--even if she does disappear for half the book--it's kinda hard to miss. Or so I'd think...

She's described as looking "no older than fourteen", exceptionally childlike and freakishly thin. Both her thinness and childlikeness are brought up again and again, practically every time she's mentioned.

As she arrives in a city with her two male companions, one of which is the narrator (a geezer so ancient he's impotent but nevertheless lusting after the 14-year-old-child-avatar), she gets grabbed on the street from between them, pulled into a carriage and raped on the spot. Then she's taken to the rapist's palace for some more raping.

When she's reunited with her companions, there's a mention that she looks distressed, but hey. When did a little rape ever hurt anyone, why make a fuss. The geezer apparently thinks the best thing is not to mention what has happened, even to offer any sympathies, at all. That's actually not the more insensitive attitude. The second male companion, who turns out to have been the girl's lover, launches a full-on jealousy attack, demanding to know with whom she enjoyed sex more. Guess what... a) she answers and b) the rapist is better in bed.

Soon after she's gone, and when she reappers she "looks even younger than she did before". Which was, in case we've forgotten, when she looked fourteen.

Happily, the ancient geezer rejuvenates so he can bang her too.

Let's just say these "little" things make the tale less fab for me.

>28 LolaWalser:, haven't read it myself, and I don't know which I find more disturbing: its content you're describing, or that out of fifteen LT reviews only one of them remarks on this.

>28 LolaWalser: ugh
>29 Cecrow: double-ugh

"Twas the times."

People were/are used to this kind of thing. They even expect it, and some, let's face it, actually look for it. The "rape is the best sex" is a motif common in literature far beyond pulp fiction (for reasons I won't go into here).

But as for the age thing, that actually did surprise me when I came back to old sci-fi. Sexually objectified early-teens girls seem to be disturbingly common.

>26 Sakerfalcon: I just bought a copy of The Compass Rose and am looking forward to reading it. I agree that The Wind's Twelve Quarters was excellent. If you have not read it yet, I highly recommend The Birthday of the World and Other Stories. I first acquired it as part of my mission to read all of her Hainish books/stories and it remains my favorite Le Guin collection to date, (haven't read Changing Planes yet but I have it on the TBR shelf).

>28 LolaWalser: Also odd is the fact that the''old geezer'' while disturbed by the abuse of the girl, then spends months traveling with the rapist,who has been blinded,caring for him and accepting his nasty abusive arrogant behaviour. I never did grasp just why he did this.But the protagonist is really strange on all levels!

>28 LolaWalser: UGH

I've always seen praise for Silverberg's "open sexuality" which, while I understand it was unusual in 1969 (when one part of this book appeared), is skeevy on the teenieboppers and deeply heteronormative to my 21st-century self.

Off topic but just watched SpaceX heavy launch - and ...yep... They had the dummy/StarMan driving Musk's red roadster on live TV after the faring popped off of the rocket showing him piloting the thing into space while David Bowie was playing on the stereo! The side boosters landing simultaneously were quite the sight to see. SpaceX.com where I think you can replay the scene.

http://www.spacex.com/webcast

Edit: the actual take off is at 29 minutes into the webcast and I would start there and then back to start for background

And given Musk's liking for Iain M. Banks, is it coincidence that he put one of his old cars into orbit, given that in The State of the Art, the Culture Contact team that came to Earth in the middle 1970s had their orbital shuttle disguised as a Volvo estate...?

>27 RobertDay: Bitter Seeds is another book that fails badly on the research front. It's set in the UK during WWII. At one point, the main character marries his girlfriend in his boss's garden. People in the UK get married in a church or a registry office, and even if some do in their garden these days they certainly didn't in the 1940s.

>32 ScoLgo: Hope you enjoy The compass rose. The birthday of the world is on my shelf of tbr books; I'm trying not to read all my unread Le Guin at once and not have anything new to look forward to. Some of her collections seem to be out of print and are expensive even used, so I shan't be adding those any time soon :-(

It's good to see people talking about Le Guin's short fiction. Most of the time the discussion is devoted to novels.

>32 ScoLgo: and >38 Sakerfalcon: What are some of your favorite Le Guin stories? As I've mentioned once before, I'm partial to "Solitude".

Finished The Shores of Death by Michael Moorcock, a story of a far-future Earth which has stopped revolving, while humans have ceased to reproduce. The "science content" is laughable, but it's a great story, told in Moorcock's usual gothic style.

Next up I'm reading The Gates of Creation by Philip Jose Farmer.

Just started The moon is a harsh mistress, my first read by Heinlein.

>42 Sakerfalcon: We NEED a rail gun on the moon! ;-)

>39 lansingsexton: I am always excited by LeGuin's shorter works...especially novellas like Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight.

>39 lansingsexton: Difficult for me to narrow down - she has written so many great short stories. Definitely have to include many of the Hainish shorts since they fill in around the novels...

- The Day Before the Revolution (Dispossessed tie-in)
- All the stories in Four Ways to Forgiveness (plus Old Music and the Slave Women from either Five Ways to Forgiveness or The Birthday of the World and Other Stories)
- Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
- The Birthday of the World
- Paradises Lost (odd touchstone - sorry)
- Darkness Box
- Semley's Necklace (appears as the prologue to Rocannon's World)
- The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (salem, Oregon - hah!)

I'm probably forgetting a couple, and I have not yet read The Compass Rose or Changing Planes so can't speak to those at all, (they are on my list to read this year).

no one has mentioned my favorite: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

>46 cindydavid4: *ahem* ;)

>42 Sakerfalcon: I always thought that was the best place to start with Heinlein, or at least with his adult novels. I'm not sure I'd venture to pick a best work to start with that took the short fiction and juvies into account as well.

Adding Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky to my reading rotation.

>47 ScoLgo: sorry, my bad! .....

>50 cindydavid4: No worries, Cindy! It's a great enough story that it should get multiple mentions. I actually just read it for the first time recently when I finally got around to The Wind's Twelve Quarters and it was a stand-out from that collection.

>39 lansingsexton: I can answer this now as I have my copy in front of me!
April in Paris, Things, Vaster than empires ... , Omelas, Semley's necklace (from The wind's twelve quarters), Two delays on the Northern line, SQ, The diary of the rose, The eye adjusting, The wife's story and Sur (from The compass rose). I still have a lot of Le Guin's short stories and novellas to read but I'm really looking forward to them.

>44 richardderus: I read Buffalo gals... so long ago that I barely remember it, and now I want to find another copy but it's out of print and prices are ridiculous.

>48 Unreachableshelf: Only if you want it to be your last Heinlein. I'm not sure that any of his adult novels are actually worth reading these days, although some of the juveniles are still readable.

The Gates of Creation was disappointing. It didn't maintain the standard of the first World of Tiers book The Maker of Universes. I may never be able to psych myself up to attempt the third book in the trilogy.

It looks like I'm at the bottom of my reading pile now, so I'm hoping something will soon turn up in the post.

>54 SFF1928-1973: I read it a long time ago, but I remember A Private Cosmos as being closer to the level of the first volume and quite enjoyable. Like you,I was disappointed in The Gates of Creation.

>52 Sakerfalcon: A few of the stories from the Buffalo Gals collection (including the title novella) were reprinted in 2016's The Unreal and the Real.

>56 Euryale: I have one of the original hardback Subterranean Press volumes; I'll have to check if my one has those stories in it.

The postman just delivered Robert Conquest and Kingsley Amis' anthology Spectrum 5, yay!

About to start Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn. This looks like a different take on the dog-eat-dog world we've come to expect from post-apocalyptic fiction. Here people generally try to co-operate on sustainable living and population reduction after an evironmental crisis, though of course there are disagreements and disruptions. I read her short story "Amaryllis" set in the same world and quite enjoyed it. I'm hoping for a cross between KSR's Pacific Edge and Ursual LeGuin's The Dispossesed.

>52 Sakerfalcon:, >56 Euryale:, >57 Sakerfalcon: I'm re-reading a lot of the novellas in that collection, and that was one of them.

I refuse even to rate the *dreadful* Every Heart A Doorway. There isn't an "ickyptooptoo" choice and 1/2 star is too many.

Just starting a reread of Resonance by Chris Dolley.

Finished Robert Silverberg's Nightwings and Kristine Kathryn Rusch Diving into the Wreck and am almost through the preposterous,ridiculous but fun The High Crusade by Poul Anderson.
Then its on to Kate Griffin's The Minority Council Just wish the print for that was a bit bigger,my eyes give out after about half an hour! :0(

>60 richardderus: Young Adult fantasy in an LGBQT boarding school? What could possibly go wrong?

I just finished the first 3 books in the Culture series by Banks; Consider Phlebas, the Player of Games and Use of weapons. I have been wanting to read these for awhile but they were not available at the library until they got ebook editions.

Enjoyed the books so far, nice world building but some pages of mental navel gazing by characters is a little bit of a put off. Banks technique seems to be having some great vignettes tied together in an overall scheme.

Speaking of ebooks they sure didn’t waste money hiring someone to write instructions for using “Overdrive” and the other ways to download the books. I figured it out eventually {I think} but it was really irritating having to guess how the apps operate.,

>43 DugsBooks:, >48 Unreachableshelf:, >53 iansales: I finished The moon is a harsh mistress and, while it wasn't awful or offensive, I can't see myself rereading it. I picked this one because I thought (and still think) it is the Heinlein most likely to work for me, but I didn't love it. The plot of the former penal colony on the moon revolting against tyrannical government and building its own free society should have been exciting, but it was mostly told through the dialogue of the main characters sitting around talking. Mike the supercomputer (AI) was the best personality of the bunch, but his omnipotence took most of the tension out of the story, as he was able to find a solution to all problems and manipulate the environment so that it worked in our heroes' favour. There was some casual sexism, despite the supposed power that women have on the moon due to their scarcity (which I found implausible in itself, given that societies where women are scarce, such as India and China, have not valued women more) and a couple of skeevy references, but nothing as bad as I've seen mentioned in reviews of other books. No, it was really the interminable talking that caused this to be a let-down. Most of the time while I was reading it I was thinking of Ian McDonald's Luna: new moon and wishing I was rereading that instead - so that is what I'm doing now! Conveniently the sequel has just been released in the smaller paperback edition so I'll carry straight on to that.

>65 Sakerfalcon: TMIAHM was tentatively on my reading "list", but in view of your post I think I can cross it off (with a slight sigh of relief).

Speaking of novels that give some pause I've finished up Infinity Engine (A for the novel...and for the whole trilogy). What I liked about the book is that it does seem to be a wrapping up of the themes of the whole "Polity" collection of novels, as Asher works through the implications of his stories, which have depended a lot on technicolor wide-screen violence and body horror, and his main characters call BS on the agendas of their state; even if said policies were defensible in an existential war of survival. That said I'm not sure that I really want to read more stories set in the Polity, as the first novel in a new trilogy is coming out this year and the plot machinery in this trilogy seemed more than a little creaky at times; sort of as though Asher was not sure himself he wanted to work more (the untimely death of his wife haunts this trilogy) but wanted to tie up all the strings regarding his Human-Prador conflict.

>65 Sakerfalcon: Sorry about that! When I was in the 6th sixth grade myself and all my SF/comic fan friends thought The moon is a harsh mistress was killer. ;-)

>65 Sakerfalcon: I read it a few years ago for the first time, although I'd read plenty of Heinlein as a tennager - https://iansales.com/2013/09/13/summer-reading-1-the-moon-is-harsh-mistress/

I finished Commencement by Roby James. I had to force myself to finish it. It was too bad, because many elements of the story were nicely done. Rona, a young girl with the most potent sort of telepathic power her universe knows has been trained since childhood in the use of that power by the dominant authoritarian government that rules many planets with an iron fist. But upon graduation, as she is ready to take up her role supporting that dominant paradigm, she suddenly finds herself crash-landed on a primitive planet with a male-dominant tribal system, with the most potent part of her power gone and no memory of what has occurred. Drama ensues, and not necessarily in a bad way, except for two crucial factors.

First, much has been made of our heroine's accumulated arrogance, not surprising in a young woman who believes she has telepathic power over just about everyone in the known universe. But within a couple of weeks of her arrival on this planet, she is quickly acquiescing to a society where men refer to their fiances as "my claim" and to their wives as "my bracelet." Rona is quickly referring to the man who has bascially bought her from another tribe as "my lord." She doesn't just call him that to his face in order to get along, she calls him that throughout the first person narrative. It's almost as if the author meant to write a regency romance novel but got a call from her publisher at the last minute asking her to switch to science fiction.

Second, there is a lot of flabby writing on the sentence level. Useless adverbs drive me nuts. You don't need to tell me "I was completely nonplussed." "I was nonplussed" is fine. I mean, has anyone ever been partially nonplussed? At one point we are told that a character is shaken by a piece of news. Well, but not quite. We are actually told he is "slightly shaken." Those are two words that don't go together, unless you're a martini, maybe. That sort of thing is extremely distracting to me, and it happens often enough to interrupt the flow of what could otherwise have been a good, nicely imagined story. If the sort of thing I've described does not seem like it would be as much of an irritant to you as it was to me, this might be a book worth trying. Bear in mind, though, that the book ends mid-story, and there is a sequel which, presumably, ties things up. I have to admit that upon finishing Commencement I was tempted to try to find the next book, for the plot had by this time become intriguing. I had to remind myself how often those adverbs and "my lord"s made me feel like I was being poked in the eye.

Commencement was published in 1996 and is part of the Del Rey Discovery series. Reading this book didn't make me anxious to seek out others on the list.

>63 SFF1928-1973: Just about everything. And it did.

Finished Ancillary Justice, started Deep Secret.

Finished Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Really enjoyed it despite being a card carrying arachnophobe.

With the passing of Ursula K. LeGuin I was reminded that I haven't read all of her work, not by a long shot. As step toward fixing that, I opened the ebook copy of The Lathe of Heaven I've had on file for a while. It came as no surprise that it was a fine book, well-crafted and with an intriguing, thoughtful story. Sorry I waited so many years to read it.

As soon as I get caught up on a few things, I'll launch into the next chapter in C.J. Cherryh's "Foreigner" series, Emergence

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) was fun. I enjoyed my time in the Bobiverse, but I noted a complete absence of gynergy no matter how notional. Not one woman to be seen.

Started Son of the Morning by Mark Alder. I've enjoyed his fantasy as M D Lachlan, but so far this one is quite confusing. Will press on (there are over 700 pages of it!) and see how it turns out.

Currently reading A Calculated Life. It's good.

Finished the Spectrum 5 anthology, which disappointed me slightly. I think if I was putting together an anthology of vintage SF, these aren't the stories I would have selected.

Next up I'm re-reading The Eyes of Heisenberg by Frank Herbert.

>78 SFF1928-1973: Not one of Herbert's better ones, it has to be said. I'm a fan of his stuff but that's a weak one. The Santaroga Barrier is a good one.

Just finished The collapsing Empire by Scalzi . It seemed somewhat alike in the choice of ship names to The Culture series - maybe just a tribute. Nice world building with several subplots in a story spanning a section of the galaxy. The ending came early/suddenly it seemed, leaving room for a sequel no doubt.

Another e-book, the library has no more culture series books.

I'm on what could be a long SF hiatus, as I am tackling the Wheel of Time series over in Fantasyland. Currently on Book 5 (of 14). It's a good series. Most of the characters carry over book to book, so the author is able to go pretty deep with them as the story develops. He does get repetitive with the characters' little tics and habits. "Nynaeve tugged hard on her braid" so much I'm surprised she has any hair left! But, I'm glad I'm doing this, and hope to be back in the SF world soon!

I'm reading An Argumentation of Historians by Jodi Taylor. It's fun so far. First book of hers I've tried.

>82 tottman: What? A british author writing fun books about historians using time travel to solve mysteries? I must try these. The first in the series is Just One Damned Thing After Another: but Im wondering if thats the first one I should read (I loved Disc World, but started it in the middle and didn't read the early books until way later and glad I did) Suggestions?

>83 cindydavid4: It makes sense to start at the beginning - it's not essential but there is some degree of story arc. They're good fun!

>83 cindydavid4:

I tried the first one and I didn't think it was any good. Poor enough to put me off reading any more.

>79 iansales: I read The Santaroga Barrier way back, that one stayed with me although I didn't understand it. Hoping to re-read that one soon.

>75 richardderus: What I would call a "sausage fest".

Now finished Peter Watts' Firefall; about to start Ian Whates' Pelquin's Comet.

>87 SFF1928-1973: Heh, it could be indeed.

>83 cindydavid4: This is the first in the series for me and I'm having no trouble picking things up as I go. There are certainly things referenced that have gone on before, but they are easy enough to piece together through context. I did the same thing as you with Disc World. I got an early copy of this one, but I might have started at an earlier point in the series otherwise. Either way, it's a lot of fun so far.

>90 tottman: Cool, thanks for that! Where did you start in Discworld? Mine was Small Gods, the only one in the series that was available in my towns bookstore! I read it after loving Good Omens that he wrote with Neil Gaiman. When we went to England, and I checked a bookstore there I felt like I had died and gone to heaven when I saw a whole booksefl filled with DW books! I carried back with me all the ones that came before SG!

>1 dustydigger: enjoy High Crusade by Poul Anderson... I read it in my teens and reread it a few years ago. It is a bit on the juvenile side but well thought out and I think it would make a great movie. Apparently a movie was made in the 1990's but they butchered it and Anderson refused to be associated with it at the time. It is a bit of a romp but thought provoking in places.

Finished Luna: new moon and have started the sequel, Luna: wolf moon.

Finished The Girl With Ghost Eyes (B) this evening. I thought it was well executed but that flair was sacrificed for respect of the source material. That said if more stories are forthcoming I'd certainly read them.

David Drake's military SF Some Golden Harbor was very enjoyable light fare,the kind of stuff I read on buses and waiting for hospital appointments,which doesnt need much focus or brain power but keeps the mind occupied lol.Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Diving into the Wreck was also full of adventure but with a rather more sombre tone to it.
And lastly,in this hasty update of my Pick N Mix reads I just completed a very odd mix of hard SF,romance,marine biology,aliens and large dollops of horror,Joe Haldeman's Hugo winning Camouflage,which I liked a lot better than his acclaimed Forever War sequence. That makes 55/66 Hugos read.
Now I will finally knuckle down to finish the last 200 pages of KSRs Blue MarsProbably take about 10 days.as I can read for what seems ages and then find I have barely read 10 pages.For light relief I will be reading some vintage crime and possibly some UF

>95 dustydigger: Don't you wish KSR would take the pages to explain the nuances of the Martian's political views? ;-) {I am being sarcastic. I usually skimmed the 5-10? pages of exposition on the mercurial political belief of a group of characters {which occurred, twice a chapter?} when reading the book but enjoyed it overall}

Just finished The left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and was prompted to read it, for the first time, by her passing. Slow to start for me but everything in the world/society building comes together quickly.

The edition I read has an introduction by Le Guin ,copyrighted 1976, where she has a very edgy rant on sex roles in society. I guess this was after the book had won the Hugo and Nebula awards.

96 Oh boy! Never use a sentence when 10 pages will do seems to be KSRs method.Then he will mention some revolution or some suchimportant event in two pages,off to the side.Weird. No plot really.....
Now he has got away from the politics to some extent but is instead obsessing on old age,memory loss and death. Great fun....not.
150 interminable pages to go! lol.

Adding A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle to my reading rotation. It's been almost a half century since I read it last.

>98 dustydigger: >96 DugsBooks: Looking back on my post I wanted to emphasize how much I liked KSR's "science" in his Mars series using terraforming. That sort of stuff made the novel enjoyable and conjured up a "sense of wonder" for me. I can think of maybe only one planet transforming technique that was not mentioned in the series - the one recent suggestion where they build an energy barrier to re direct the solar wind around Mars keeping the atmosphere from being stripped away.

>100 DugsBooks: On the subject of Mars itself I fully admit that KSRs massive and remarkable achievement is making Mars truly real.I cant think of any other work which manages to make you feel you are really there on a real planet,its certainly impressive .The landscape descriptions(though very detailed) and terraforming stuff is what I enjoyed most in the book,and each book showed a very different stage of the planet's development.I suppose the enormously detailed descriptions were useful in creating this sense of almost hyper reality,but unfortunately I did not enjoy it when the same technique focused on interior monologues of characters, and detailed politics,with interminable description and absence of action and plot!lol Not really a lot of events in 2200 pages.
And from the start I felt the terraforming was done far too quickly. I kept thinking that on earth we would find it difficult for instance to entirely transform some arid cold desert area in 100 years,so what about a whole inhospitable planet,especially after the sabotage of the solar mirrors.
Originally I expected an extended terraforming over 400 years or more,with different generations acting out their own stories.So imagine how annoyed I was when Green Mars had all the same people I mostly disliked in the first book.lol
However KSR was enchanted with his characters and seemed determined to do the whole transformation of Mars all in their lifetime,even introducing a longevity drug to ensure it! Sorry,I just cant agree that it was all done in about 150 years. (couldnt accept the nuclear bombs doing so much extensive change to the planet either)
Ah well,only 100 pages left to go,I'll get there in the end!

>91 cindydavid4: I think my first one was either Eric or Guards, Guards. I sometimes ordered the UK version of the book from Amazon UK because I thought the British covers were cooler.

Oh yes...I finished The Furthest Station (B+) the other day; a perfectly good side story to the continuing saga of Peter Grant.

>102 tottman: When I decided to give the Discworld books a try, the recommendation to start with Guards! Guards! was nearly 100%. Having followed that recommendation, I can't disagree. ;-)

Finished Deep Secret, started The Long War.

Finished Architects of Emortality, the fourth volume of Brian Stableford's six volume Emortality series. I'm reading these books in order of their internal chronology, but my experience so far is that the two best were the second Inherit the Earth and the fourth, written first and second.

>106 lansingsexton: I am often torn between chronological and publication order is such a situation. The habit lately has been to read by publication order and let the "big picture" take care of itself.