Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Well, that was scary. So, now that Halloween is behind us and the leaves have been raked, what are you reading this month in the lead up to Black Friday?

I guess I should have posted what I'm reading this month here, which reminds me I need to flip my calendar :)

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick

I am going to read Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, am looking forward to it, but went to the library today and their copy is gone, so now I have to wait for them to order it back in

I'm currently reading


Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

And in a couple weeks I will start reading


The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny

And later this month I might try to get to a re-re-read of


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I finished Rosemary's Baby late last night. 3/5 stars. I liked it and was an entertaining read but not much more than that. Wasn't particularly scary unfortunately. This October's reads in general not as spooky as last year's. I liked Rosemary, Hutch and her old friends...but everyone else I wanted to wring their necks. Would be interested in reading a critical analysis of it actually.

Anyway thus concludes my spooky October reading for 2018! The plan was to jump back into Realm of the Elderlings but Liveship Trilogy is nowhere to be found at Indigo when I went yesterday. I plan to hunt around BMV and the SFF bookstore this weekend. In the meantime trying to decide what to start before then. Possibly Takes Us to Your Chief (Indigenous sci-fi short story compilation) or Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. I bought War of the Wolf by Bernard Cornwell yesterday...but I've been anticipating this book so much (have been waiting on the edge of my seat for 2+ years/whenever Flamebearer was released) and its my favourite series of all time, but am now having trouble convincing myself to read it. I feel like all conditions must be perfect before I read it. A full weekend of nothing but that with no interruptions or other responsibilities. Maybe reread the end of Flamebearer too. That weird moment where you love an author's writing/series so much you're almost afraid to read it because all outside conditions must be perfect for optimal enjoyment lol

I'm reading A Court of Thorns and Roses at the moment.

Completed:
Longs:

Shorts:

Ghost in the Stone by Jonathan Moeller

SA wrote: "To read: ..."

That's coming up for me too in a couple months or so. I really enjoyed the first one in that series.

Currently I'm trying to motivate myself to finish Rift Breaker.

Lined up for Nov I've got The Fall of the Kings, whatever the next book is in the Princes of Amber series for our group read, Rosewater and Passing Strange. I did have Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was on my list but I think I might put that on hold till I think I can handle a multi-narrator book again.
I need to find my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before Dec, and I'm waiting to see if The Fifth Season wins the nomination for contemporary read in Dec.

I recently finished Ball Lightening and am now working on Stories of your life by Ted Chiang; Rosewater, and The word for World is Forest the classic Le Guin.


Also finished the last Kate Daniels book - always nice to finish a series (although it looks like there will be plenty of spinoffs)

Cat wrote: "I need to find my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before Dec"

I just dug it out of my closet today

I finished Take Us To Your Chief And Other Stories in the early hours and I really enjoyed it! 4/5 stars overall for me. Emotional, funny and just some cool ideas and reinterpretations in general. Im not often super crazy about short stories and short story compilations but this one I truly did like and possibly my favourite that I've read.

Next I'm back with Robin Hobb for Ship of Magic to kick off Liveship Traders.

Started rereading The Hand of Oberon for the group read. Am also reading The Fall of Dragons.

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie by Garth Nix and Sean Williams

I'm halfway into Version Control. Not sure where it's going to go, but so far I'm intrigued, entertained and amused, and I love the writing. I'll definitely check out more from the author.

Ghost in the Mask by Jonathan Moeller

Finishing:


For the rest of the year I've lined up:

Finished The Iron Dragon's Daughter...that was one dark and depressing book, full of slavery, sex, abuse, drugs and lots and lots of anger and hate. However, very inventive take on the Faerie Realm, where stork people rub shoulders with dwarves and changelings. It's kind of our world but take out science and replace with magic and then make the reasonable mental leaps from that (jet plane = sentient iron dragon war machine)

Picked up something that is the exact opposite - A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans by Laurence Yep. It's a cute middle grade thing where the human thinks she has a dragon for a pet, but the tale is told from the POV of the dragon who considers the human is her pet (and will give humans pet names like Fluffy while at the same time acknowledging they have human names too...makes me think of the musical Cats and the song about the naming of cats and how they each have three names). Just a quick break before I read the next Amber installment.

A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans was really cute and quick, finished it already. Maybe I can even squeeze in the other two books in the trilogy by the end of the year...

Reading The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny. It certainly drops you back in right where we left off, as if it was one book split in two.

The Word for World is Forest packs quite a punch. Not surprised given Le Guins genius. Terrifying POV that explains Trump(ians) almost too well for this centrist.

Rosewater is interesting (Nigerian alien SF/weird) but jumps around which is getting a bit annoying

Ghost in the Surge by Jonathan Moeller

Still working my way through A Crown of Swords.

Ghost in the Cowl by Jonathan Moeller

Finished Hand of Oberon, a 188 page book is a pretty quick read.

Back to Pern again with Dragongirl by Todd McCaffrey. Only three more Pern books to go!

I also started reading The Book of Dragons by Michael Hague. I'm a huge fan of his unicorn artwork, they look like magical creatures, not just horses with horns on their heads. Of course this one is dragons and I'm not as big a fan of how he portrays those but enjoying the tales he chose to illustrate, never heard of some of them before. Others are well known like Bilbo meeting Smaug or Narnia's Edmund becoming a dragon.

Ghost in the Maze byJonathan Moeller

Andrea wrote: "Back to Pern again with Dragongirl by Todd McCaffrey. Only three more Pern books to go!..."

Congratulations! I wasn't aware it was possible to finish that series. I thought it was like the bottomless pasta dishes at The Olive Garden.

Randy it is b/c her daughter just came out with one 😆

Rachel wrote: "Randy it is b/c her daughter just came out with one 😆"

Exactly!! I started this year thinking I could finish it and what do you know, in October Gigi McCaffrey came out with a book of her own. So now I'm debating whether to read it so I can consider the series "complete", or does completeness only count from the moment you start reading it :)

I'm not sure she did a good thing going over a time period Anne herself wrote about (it features the Masterharper and Piemur), it will be hard to 1 say something new 2 not mess up the existing chronology 3 make it feel like the rest of the Pern books (Todd achieved that actually, perhaps because he co-authored most of them with his mother). At least Todd picked a Pass that Anne hadn't already covered so he had a bit more free reign in what he wrote.

So I'm not sure I even *want* to read it...but argh, then the series won't be complete, what a dilemma LOL

Thanks for the news! I have been reading fanfic of Pern since Compuserve in 1996 - Anne gave it official sanction. But given only the family is allowed to publish it for profit, how can we know if it is just more fan fic or real creativity? I would be inclined to invent my own world, but not everyone is creative enough.

Clare wrote: "Thanks for the news! I have been reading fanfic of Pern since Compuserve in 1996 - Anne gave it official sanction. But given only the family is allowed to publish it for profit, how can we know if ..."

I guess something officially published should be considered more or less cannon, even not written by the original author. But I can completely see people saying the series ended when Anne stopped writing (although that's fuzzy since Todd alternated working with her and working alone) and the rest is just a kind of official fanfic. Like all those authors that dabbled in the world of Conan. And all those writing Lovecraftian-themed tales.

However I'd say if another author was pulled in to finish a series that the original didn't complete before passing away then that's back to being canon (presumably the ghost writer is working off some outline and just completing the original vision). Frank Herbert's son may be working off of his father's notes but I'm pretty sure his father's vision wasn't to write quite that many books, maybe just one or two more not to leave the original Dune series hanging like it was :) Not to more than double the original and fill in all possible aspects of the back story! Tolkien is a bit different again since he did write it, his son just polished and published it.

Anyway, if I like I series I usually try to read everything related to it...well, published anyway, could spend a lifetime reading all the fanfic out there!

Maybe I'll wait and see what reviews are like. That's if I can't snag a review copy.

Just had a look at the excerpt Dragon's Code
and it's one long infodump.

I was die hard Anne McCaffrey girl growing up but her sons work....I never read them. Just were not the same quality and never held my interest.

I thought the first prequel trilogy that Herbert jr and Anderson wrote were good, fit in well with the universe, and generally added to the story. After that however.....
(I think that first set they were working from more extensive notes from Frank iirc)

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe library...$30+ for the hardcover is holding me back. But then I won't complete my original goal of the year to read the entire Pern series *smirks*

So I finally finished reading Varney the Vampire on my eReader, that is one loooong book (well it's not a book, it's a written soap opera really), so long in fact I read the first half last year, not knowing it was only half a book. But I found myself oddly entertained and it worked as I read it in 10-20 minute increments as I commuted to work. No way one could read it in a normal hour long sit down.

Now reading an eShort called The Smoke Dragon by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair

I'm currently reading Have Sword, Will Travel

Great fun.

Ghost in the Hunt by Jonathan Moeller

Andrea wrote: "So I finally finished reading Varney the Vampire on my eReader, that is one loooong book (well it's not a book, it's a written soap opera really), so long in fact I read the first half last year, n..."
I've been wanting to read that but the length keeps putting me off.

Finished The Fall of Dragons. Very satisfying end to the Traitor Son Cycle. No one does battles better than Miles Cameron. I was on the edge of my seat through the entire book. Too bad the books are so long or I'd nominate it for the series read.

Book Nerd wrote: "Andrea wrote: "So I finally finished reading Varney the Vampire on my eReader, that is one loooong book (well it's not a book, it's a written soap opera really), so long in fact I read the first ha..."

It's...wordy. Basically there will be a scene where so-and-so is led to the library to wait for someone and they'll pick up a book and the next two chapters is the story in the book that has nothing to do with the actual story. There are also a lot of places where person A experiences something so he tells person B. Then person C walks into the room and he needs to have it explained to him. Maybe some stuff happens and we get joined by person D who needs the whole story retold again :)

There are also huge swatches that have nothing to do with vampires at all.

That's why I call it a "soap opera", not be cause it has all those ridiculous romantic adventures, but because a week can pass and the plot won't have advanced at all.

But I was amused to see all the different ways the author could drag out the plot so that kept me going.

I finished The Fifth Season earlier this month, and I then started The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin. I liked the first book a lot, and unfortunately I am not as enthusiastic about the second one. Some critics described the story as 'intricate', I find it rather confusing. Still, I'll also read the last book of the trilogy. And I may comment about the first book when the group discussion about it starts in December.

Enjoying Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant #7) by Ben Aaronovitch.

Ghost in the Razor by Jonathan Moeller

Silvana wrote: "Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant #7) by Ben Aaronovitch." also looking forward to that, but need to read them in order. A little vexed that titles and series names do not always concur on opposite sides of the pond. Went to the library to find Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1) but had to settle for Midnight Riot (Peter Grant, #1)

Finishing a re-read of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, starting Saturn Run.

Rosemary wrote: "Finishing a re-read of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...."

I just started re-reading that one also.

I finished:


The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And as mentioned above I started a re-read of:


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

RJ wrote: "Rosemary wrote: "Finishing a re-read of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...."

I just started re-reading that one also."

Oddly I just picked up Eoin Colfer's 6th book in that series at a book fair today for a dollar. Don't intend to reread the series but I was always curious about this add-on.