Still reading The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore. First book of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, and The Legend of Drizzt / Forgotten Realms series (publication order).
Book is pretty fast paced and full of action. Really enjoying it.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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Just finished the telling, by le guin. With that I finish the novels in the hainish cycle. I’m not sure why but I never quite got into the flow with the telling, though I do think it was good. Usually when that happens to me it’ll only be a part of the book, but for this it was most of it. I ought to give it another go at some point . Probably just the influence of life’s going one on my mood and my adhd.
Next will be four ways to forgiveness and then I’ll start Earthsea
Already made a post on here but I went down a Brandon Sanderson rabbit hole. Still working through the Stormlight novellas, but my library has his secret projects on audiobook and they’re fucking spectacular. (Read Tress and Yumi so far.)
The premium hardcovers look gorgeous, too, but I haven’t convinced myself to pay $55 apiece for them, even though I really want to. (The regular hardcover of Tress isn’t bad, but the Yumi one is really disappointing.)
Currently reading Venomous Lumpsucker and enjoying the hell out of it. It’s ~350pgs of snark sniping at our ecological apathy and “market based solutions” to the problem. It’s so on point it hurts sometimes: Imagine if Wall St financialized species extinction so that the invisible hand of the market could solve the problem, but the solutions all end up being fraud and fraud derivatives.
Recently finished James S.A. Corey’s new Captive’s War books The Mercy of Gods and the novella Livesuit. Both good, though Livesuit was the more engaging. Looking forward to more in the series when main events kick off on the human side.
Finally read Blindsight last month after seeing it endlessly recommended over the last few years. It’s good, definitely worth the read, but I enjoyed Freeze-Frame Revolution and the Sunflowers short stories a bit more. I think I’d have been more impressed with Blindsight if I read it back when it was released, I feel like the shocking big idea has diffused into other works over the last decade and a half so it’s not quite as arresting now as it would have been then.
Read Linda Nagata’s Pacific Storm as a palate cleanser between Blindsight and the Captive’s War books. This one was interesting, Nagata writes a good near future thriller and I’ll probably recommend it to family members who are into those sorts of things.
Read the anthology Shine in an afternoon at some point as well - while I appreciate the optimism it feels forced at this point. It was published just over a decade ago now and it feels distinctly out of place in the current timeline.
I’m currently reading the first book of the 3 body problem series. Still trying to decide if I like it or not even though I’m almost done with it.
I read the entire trilogy a couple of years ago and I’ll say a couple of things about it: the big ideas are great and the plot is interesting but the characters and the actual mechanics of the writing are solidly mediocre at times. I’m not sure if that’s down to the translation between languages (Ken Liu’s two translations are much better than the middle book IMO) or just the style of the novels but it’s definitely a pain point for the series.
Parts of the later books read like bad western SF from the 60s or 70s and some of the later themes are ridiculously reactionary. Like women being incapable of aggressive choices necessary for survival or the decadent feminized men who are incapable of things in general. There’s some large scale human social critique involved later about societal wishful thinking that’s 100% on point but I won’t spoil that for you.
It’s definitely worth reading, pieces of the trilogy are great, but it also goes in decidedly reactionary directions at times as well. It’s sort of like reading Ringworld - lots of neat concepts with some chauvinistic social commentary.
Holy shit! Me too, except I’ve decided I like it. It is a compelling story. It goes a bit hard on the scientific accuracy which can kind of interrupt the flow, though.
I find the most interesting part is the insight of modern Chinese commentary of recent Chinese history. I wasn’t sure what popular sentiment was, or what criticism / critiques would be allowed to be published by the party.
I’ve read the English translations of the trilogy. If you like mystery, high-concept sci-fi, and epic storytelling, the series is pretty terrific. But if your into rounded and compelling characters, especially if those characters are women, your going to have a bad time.
Kinda reminds me of classic authors like Heinlein.
Kinda reminds me of classic authors like Heinlein.
Heinlein or Niven are pretty accurate comparisons IMO
I’ve never read anything by Heinlein, is there a particular book you would recommend?
Been wanting to read this, but I’m halfway through book 7 of 8 of the witcher series, and I don’t want to leave the series undone before switching to the next book. The witcher series has been great, but this book is getting slow and hard to finish.
I finally got bored enough on a plane to watch the 3 body problem TV show. Based on liking the TV show, I’m hoping I’m gonna like the book too.
Ah, I set the Witcher books down halfway through but gotta get back to them! Glad to hear you’re enjoying them. At least they’re mostly short-ish.
They’ve been pretty fun reads so far, but this 7th book has been a bit of a slog. I think I finally got over some of the more boring parts last night, so hoping the rest of the book is easier to finish.
I watched half of the first episode before it was mentioned to me that there were already elements of the second book there. To keep me interested in the tv show, I decided to read the books first but I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The prose is beautiful and mesmerizing. It forces me to read it at the speed of speech, to let it flow. I’m a sucker for long and winding sentences (when they’re done well), and this doesn’t disappoint.
It’s also quite disgusting, just as everyone says about it. If you can’t handle brutal senseless violence, don’t pick this up. It’s pretty interesting to see the racism/xenophobia of today reflected in American history (1850-ish). It reminds me of the Dark Forest theory from Three Body Problem: these guys go around killing not just out of a love of violence, but because it’s the only guaranteed way to come out on top. If you aren’t the killer, someone else will be. Capitalism and greed work like this too.
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I’ve been on a bit of a Tchaikovsky binge lately. I read Children of Time years ago and enjoyed it, but for whatever reason, didn’t read anything else by him then. I had a copy of Made Things knocking around though, and I finally read it a few weeks ago and was so impressed I started reading him in earnest. This is the… let’s see… seventh book of his I’ve read lately.
He sort of reminds me of Michael Crichton. He’s not a particularly notable prose stylist - his writing is entirely competent and sufficient, but not in any way really remarkable. But he tells very imaginative stories very well, so he’s a satisfying read.
This one is a sort of political thriller wrapped around a mystery that plays out a bit like a science fiction update of a Lovecraftian eldritch abomination story, leavened a bit with Emily St. John Mandel style misfit spaceship crew slice of life. I’m enjoying it.
I bounced off of Children of Time hard, finished, but hated it by the end. I might not have been so harsh if the praise for it wasn’t so high, but it just didn’t seem to deserve it imo. I think the premise was interesting, and it had good parts (I did enjoy the spider parts, though less towards the end), but things kept happening that eroded my suspension of disbelief for the setup until it collapsed completely. Looking back at the start of the novel, a bunch of the world building and piece setting just seemed silly under scrutiny.
I was thinking it was a 3/5, but when reading reviews it was the more thoughtful 1/5 and 2/5 reviews that reflected my feelings
Not to yuck your yum, and I certainly seem to be in the minority based on good reads
I bought shards of the earth but I’m currently reading wheel of time again! Hopefully I like it!
I have his Shadow of the Apt series, though haven’t started it yet. Your comparison with Michael Crichton is making me want to start it soon.
I haven’t read those yet, but I intend to. And I expect that, like every one I’ve read yet, they’ll be solid 7 or 8 out of 10 books.
That’s the thing that reminded me of Crichton. He has that same ability to start with some fascinating idea and run with it and deliver a solid, well-told and satisfying story, then move on to some completely different fascinating idea and run with it and deliver another solid, well-told and satisfying story. He’s not locked into any specific genre or any specific approach to telling a story - just whatever works for that idea, that’s what he does, and it just works.
Service Model was excellent.
Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson. It’s the Third book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I just started it but the second book blew my mind. I really enjoyed the first book, Gardens of the Moon but at times it came across as a bit generic fantasy perhaps aimed at a bit of a younger audience but Deadhouse Gates fully flipped that on its head. For a high fantasy series the battles of ‘the chain of dogs’ in Deadhouse Gates particularly stood out to me as some of the best depictions of historical warfare I’ve ever read. While a few battles from the entire wheel of time series stick with me I don’t think I’ll ever forget the chain of dogs. Looking forward to seeing what’s to come from book 3. Highly recommend the Malazan Book of the Fallen if you’re into high fantasy. Don’t be intimidated by the crazy wordcounts, they’re easy reading so far.
I’m planning on doing this at some point but I am slightly intimidated by the length. I like to read a series through as a one shot and it’ll take around 6 months based on the audiobook length and my average rate. I think I might start it after I finish earthsea, but I might start a less hefty series instead
Oh man, I finished that series last year. Definitely some incredible parts, but it also drags a bit at the end. It finished with like 2000 pages of matching through a desert which was rough, but by that point you’ve read enough that you can’t stop.
Younger audience is a crazy critique though, I can’t say I ever though that.
Haha it was mostly the Crokus centred part I got that impression from, plus a few other elements like edgy Anomander Rake. I got that impression a bit with the daru cabal plot but it is probably too harsh a criticism for most of the book.
Man, spoilers much? So much of the beauty of book four was having that click in my brain. There’s a reason Erikson doesn’t use his real name through dead house gates…
Not sure if Lemmy supports comment spoilers but that would have been the time to use them, might not be too late to prevent others from getting spoiled.
I removed that sentence from my comment, but I didn’t think it was a spoiler. How is his name relevant? I knew that ahead of time and didn’t think it spoiled anything for me.
Two books:
- Bullshit jobs by David Graeber
- Crack-up capitalism by Quinn Slobodian
BS Jobs was good!
Good to hear. I just started it.
Finished Rhythm of War. The end hit hard, and I’m definitely impatiently waiting for Wind and Truth now.
Rhythm of War Spoilers
Right after Kaladin jumps through the battle for the tower were all super emotional, and I also really enjoyed Eshonai’s last ride with the Stormfather. I had kind of been holding out hope that she was Venli’s spren somehow, but I appreciated giving her that send off, at least.
I have used hard copies of Edgedancer and Dawnshard that should be showing up today to add to my collection, so I’ll probably start into those.
In the meantime I read book 5 of CJ Archer’s Glass Library series, The Secret of the Lost Ledgers. I think I prefer Glass and Steele over Glass Library so far, but that’s partly because magic was more secretive at the start of the arc.
edit: the novellas are itty bitty.
I wish I could experience all of Sanderson’s books again for the first time and agree Rythm of War was great! I can’t wait to get to Wind and Truth either. Being an audio book only guy though I’m going to have to wait a bit longer until I can continue that story!
Have you read Mistborn?
I’m mostly an audiobook guy, though I have both hardcover and audiobook preordered. I doubt I’ll really read the physical copies, but I recently decided to refresh my bookshelves with some of my favorites just for the sake of having them and the Stormlight Archive quickly became a favorite once I finally buckled down and just bought all the audiobooks to listen straight through.
I’ve read some of his random smaller stuff. I thought the premise of Rithmatist could have been a pretty fun VR game. I haven’t read Mistborn yet, but it’s definitely on my radar. One of my biggest things is availability, though. My binge on physical books the last couple weeks was an outlier, but I generally can’t afford to actually buy anywhere near as many books as I read. They’re mostly not as substantial as Stormlight Archive, but according to goodreads my new books this year are still comfortably in the triple digits, so I need libraries and subscription libraries to fill in most of the volume or I’d go broke pretty quickly. I definitely want to read Mistborn, but I’ll probably wait a while, because my self control on buying books can get me in trouble if I’m not careful.
The first mistborn book is a bit on the nose, it comes across as a bit of a weird mix of teen romance meets classic teen fiction rebels vs fascist empire. Probably not Sanderson’s best work as it is on the older side now, but it gets way way better after the first book (as many Sanderson series do). The Wax and Wayne mistborn books are awesome, so don’t give up after the first one!
lol if you looked at my goodreads you’d see plenty of cheap, casual reads. I like a variety of styles, as long as it’s not super stilted and I can get some flavor of the author’s personality. I’m guessing that it won’t be an issue.
I appreciate the advice that it picks up though.
Wow, that’s a really good number. Good luck reaching 200 books!
lol I pretty much listen to audiobooks all day while active doing other stuff. If I really wanted a high number, I’d either stop re-listening to stuff or go through the hassle of tracking every time I listen and let goodreads count all those towards this year.
I hate the effort of actually adding stuff to goodreads though, so I definitely don’t care enough to count how many times I read books.
Hehe, fair enough.
I can’t multitask at all. If I am listening to audio-book, I need to stop everything and just listen to it, but then it gets boring because I am just listening.
I like numbers though, stats, graphs, charts, lists. Those are fun, so try to log everything I can. Don’t care about sharing them, but they are fun for me.
I want to replace goodreads, because it kind of sucks and my preference would be showing (and tagging/blurbing/listing) books by author/series instead of individual books, but none of the alternatives do what I want and I never seem to have time to roll my own version.
But on the plus side you can export your lists through the website, so I keep up the tracking I can there with the intent of eventually doing it myself and doing some basic self hosting.
I just care about cataloging books, with proper info, and LibraryThing is great for that. My only non-complaint is that it’s not self-hosted, but I semi-regularly export my books, so it’s all good.
I can understand about not getting time to roll your own version. I have been trying to do that for a game cataloging app for over a decade, starts with some new tech every year or so then get busy with stuff and forget about it.
I just finished listening to We Are Legion (We Are Bob). It was a fun one to listen to and easy to follow even whilst working which meant I blitzed through it.
Now I’ve gotta wait almost a month for my next credit :( Not sure what I’ll try next though, I don’t usually bother with sci-fi but I’ve been on the lookout for something after finishing The Three-Body Problem trilogy. Nothing is really hitting the mark currently.
I’m enjoying “The Overstory” by Richard Powers for my fiction fix.
Just got in the mail today, currently on chapter 3, “The art of receiving and giving” by Betty Martin. This one I’m going to have to read piecewise.
Just looked up The Art of Receiving and Giving and it sounds interesting. Do share how you are liking it as you read it.
I’ll try to.
Related: I’m new to lemmy, is there such a thing as a remindme bot? Or should I just write a reminder message in the last page of the book to myself ;)
Heh, well, there are bots, but I haven’t actually used any, and haven’t seen anyone using anything like remindme, so not sure.
Just started listening to the audiobook version of Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker,” about Robert Moses and New York. Will also check out the book from library in case it has pictures or diagrams.
99% Invisible did a 10-part series on the book this year, so will be toggling back and forth to hear the commentary as well.
The audiobook is around 60 hours. Guessing this all will keep me busy for a couple of months.
Just finished “The Message,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Highly recommended.
I listen to A Night in the Lonesome October every October. It’s the diary of Jack the Rippers dog from October 1’st to October 31’st.
How are you liking it? It was recently recommended to me in another thread, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I really like it. This is probably my 10 listen. If you can find the version read by the author it’s better than the other audio book version.
I’ll probably be going for the paperback. Can’t listen to audiobooks.
Fair enough it’s great either way. I usually like to read rather than listen. However Zelazny does write in a style that works best read a aloud.
I read Mur Lafferty’s Station Eternity and then Chaos Terminal. I enjoyed them buuuuuuttttt… Station Eternity had hints that there may have been a breadcrumb mystery to solve outside of the narrative. After reading the second book, I think it was just plot holes, or else tokens that the author thought were wrapped up that I didn’t catch. Either way, having lost what I thought was a clever puzzle to solve, I’d say both books were pulpy.
I’m currently on Children of Dune. I’ve listened to the core six a few times on audio book but figured I’d actually put the time into reading them. Its honestly pretty close to a first time experience. There was so many little things sprinkled throughout that I totally missed in audio book.
