Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

So, what may you be reading this month to kick off the Reiwa era?

多くの物語は皇帝にふさわしいが、女性はその中に含まれるだろう


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Completed:
Mid to Longs:


Shorts:

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The Book of Magic by Gardner Dozois:
The Biography of a Bouncing Boy Terror: Chapter Two: Jumping Jack in Love by Ysabeau S. Wilce
A Night at the Tarn House by George R. R. Martin
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Authors:
Joe Abercrombie, Eleanor Arnason, Elizabeth Bear, Rhett C. Bruno, John Crowley, A.M. Dellamonica, Gardner Dozois, Andy Duncan, Kate Elliott, Mariana Enríquez, Matthew Hughes, Marlon James, Margaret Killjoy, Yoon Ha Lee, Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb), Scott Lynch, Ling Ma, George R. R. Martin, Megan McDowell, Annalee Newitz, Garth Nix, K.J. Parker (Tom Holt), Rachel Pollack, Tim Powers, Rebecca Roanhorse, Patrick Rothfuss, Jodi Taylor, Lavie Tidhar, Greg Van Eekhout, Carrie Vaughn, Sage Walker, Peter Watts, Ysabeau S. Wilce, Liz Williams, J.Y. Yang
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Mark Lawrence strikes a different tone from his usual Grimdark in his short, contemporary YA SF novel One Word Kill. (well, the protagonist is a teen dealing with leukemia in 1986, so no all rainbows & unicorns.) Interesting enough plot to hold my attention.

I'm finishing Trail of Lightning (it's taking me forever because Maggie makes me as anxious as Jessica Jones did) and working on the other Nebula nominees in the novella and novel categories. I'm trying to finish them before the winners are announced but not sure that I'll quite make it.

Finished City of Dragons tonight and rated 4.5/5 stars. Rain Wild Chronicles are turning out to be consistently awesome and I'm having a lot of fun with them. Also using this one for the Lost Civilization Found square.

Next I'm starting Blood of Dragons, the fourth and final book of the Rain Wild Chronicles.

I recently finished:


Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Neil Gaiman And Charles Vess' Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And I started reading:


Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett


The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eleven edited by Jonathan Strahan

Finished The Gods Themselves, a good first experience with Asimov, though I could see why people are saying this isn't exactly his best, which means his best must be pretty good :)

Now something light and related to unicorns - Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures by Jackson Pearce

Just finished Firefight, book 2 of The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson. Enjoying the series. Book 1.5 (Mitosis) was fine, but just a really short story on one the hits on an Epic. Going to pick up Calamity next.

Ghost of a Chance by Dan Willis

Finished Hyperion and it was blast! Moving on to The Fall of Hyperion. Read 200+ pages and I'm so hooked!

Starting on the 12th installment of the Chronicles of Elantra - Cast in Flight by Michelle Sagara. Looking forward to this one since it's been 12 books now and we haven't had one that centered on the Aerians, one of the main cultures/species in this world.

Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence was an excellent climax to his Book of the Ancestor trilogy. Interesting world mix of SciFi and Fantasy, and while it leaves a pile of corpses, it's not as grimdark as his Broken Empire trilogy.

Read The Library at Mount Char. It was a very...odd read.

Currently working my way through American Gothic Tales which I picked up at the Old Book Sale. Mostly horror but there are some classic Bradbury, Le Guin, and Ellison tales included. Creepiest story so far was "The Yellow Wallpaper". Shivers!

Also reading Birthmarked which I think may be young adult (again picked up at the Old Book Sale), but I'm liking the world building so far. It's set in a dystopic future (of course) where the poor people outside the walls are forced to advance (give up) many of their children to the rich people living inside the walls of the city. Only a little ways in, but I am intrigued.

G33z3r wrote: "Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence was an excellent climax to his Book of the Ancestor trilogy. Interesting world mix of SciFi and Fantasy, and while it leaves a pile of ..."

Thank you. Now I know not to try the Broken Empire series. Like my stories with some good characters hanging onto their hope! I was considering it because I do like his writing. Maybe I'll try One Word Kill instead.

My review of A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I finished:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which remained very cute.

Semiosis which did a lot of neat stuff but didn't quite gel for me. More plants, fewer humans please! Sort of my life motto, tbh.

Rocannon's World was very Le Guin-y but not as polished as some of her later works.

Dreamsnake surprised me! I don't tend to love 70s scifi but this was so much fun. Love me a medicine woman type story. With sneks!!

Penric's Demon was my third time with McMaster Bujold and it ended up being the charm. I chuckled quite a bit at our hapless narrator and his multifaceted uh...friend.

Leviathan was cute for an alt history steampunk war novel? I didn't know what I was getting into. The audiobook was especially impressive.

Spinning Silver was a-may-zing. I was on the fence about starting it because I didn't particularly like Uprooted but this blew me away. I loved every second of it and closed it with a happy sigh.

The Invisible Man was a trip! I don't think it was meant to be humorous, but I found it very funny. And bigoted, but let's focus on how precious this dude's plot for world domination was.

Now reading Theft of Swords which I'm cautiously optimistic about and Arrows of the Queen which I almost got into a fight with, but we worked it out.

Faith wrote: "My review of A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher:"

Kind of sleazy to steal the title of Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog.

Faith wrote: "My review of A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Have you ever read or seen Ellison's story? I'd be interested in a comparison.

Just finished The Calculating Stars, which I'm using to fill the Cli-fi box on my Bingo card. It is an alternate history book, where climate change is induced by a meteor strike shortly after WW2. This provides the impetus for an accelerated space program so that humans can colonize other planets. Loved the book and found the main character very relateable. Can't get the next book in the series yet though, so for May I'm switching to The Inheritance Trilogy

Also working through the Safehold Series on audiobook. Currently reading By Heresies Distressed.

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

This is a science fiction-mystery.
After four brilliant women invent time travel, a whole culture develops around the phenomenon. When a murder occurs, some people before and after the crime (chronologically) become intent on investigating.
Very complex plot but it's a good story. 4 stars

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Currently working on:

Store of Infinity: Stories by Robert Sheckley. All the stories in this collection are from the late 1950s. One of the stories, The Humours, was reworked many years later into the novel, Crompton Divided.

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber

Just started The Harrowing of Gwynedd by Katherine Kurtz

I finally finished The Moon Pool which took a ridiculously long time, mostly because work got stupidly busy, partly because I think could easily have been 25% shorter and still told the same story. I have started The Templars' Secret Island, which is strictly speaking non-fiction, but I find most of these types of books have a LOT of speculation in them :)

I'm about half way through The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. Haven't enjoyed a new (for me) author this much since I picked up The Terror by Dan Simmons about 5 years ago. Looking forward to finishing this trilogy.

Fade by Daniel Humphreys

I finished reading Enchanters' End Game, which concludes the Belgariad series, this was fun reading, even though the ending was perhaps a bit too neat.

Since I have been advised not to jump directly to The Mallorean, for a change I am starting The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This will be my first e-book, that I just downloaded on my tablet, to be read with the Kindle app there.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Entertaining, if you can track all the PoV switches. In setting reminiscent of last year's The Bear & The Nightingale, but with more action. I guess Russia is the new England, fantasy-wise. I keep thinking the Staryk are winter faeries.

Now starting on Captain's Fury for series discussion.

I finished The Alteration and I'm beginning a reread of The Path of Daggers.

Allison wrote: “I finished:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which remained very cute.

Semiosis which did a lot of neat stuff but didn’t quite gel for me. More plants, fewer …”

I love Theft of Swords. I’m planning to re-read it after this current book (All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault). I also loved Spinning Silver, which I read a couple months ago.

Started The Eye of the World...

Finished Blood of Dragons earlier in the week and rated it 3.75/5 stars (3/5 on GR). It was a hard book to rate for me due to mixed feelings. It was a book that I loved for the most part, but was also disappointed in the way that one character's progression/development over the course of the three previous books essentially got thrown out the window in this one. Barring that, I thought it was a great and satisfying conclusion, and makes me curious if Hobb will continue this thread of the Realm of the Elderlings in a subsequent mini-series after the last Fitz trilogy. I also have to say I can't express how much I loved (view spoiler)[ Sedric/Carson and Leftrin/Alise (hide spoiler)] throughout these books and the conclusion of those story lines!

After that I decided to jump into a gaslamp mystery I had bought a couple years ago at a booksale and never got around to reading, The Shadow in the North. I finished that one today. It ended up being good fun and I rated it 3/5 stars, despite a somewhat ridiculous ending.

I've now started the 2nd book in Eden Robinson's Trickster trilogy, Trickster Drift. I'm only 22 pages in, but its already hit me in the feels. I absolutely adored the first book, Son of a Trickster, which I read last summer. I've been very excited and almost nervous to read this follow-up

Finished Cast in Flight, it was probably one of the simpler books in the series, meaning for almost the entire book I could understand everything that was going on. I know, sounds like a weird review but I think people familiar with the series will know how surreal it can get at times, which doesn't make it bad, but I can see it not being for everyone :) But happy to finally have a book focusing on the Aerians!

Starting the group series read, Captain's Fury by Jim Butcher. The third book was an improvement over the first two, let's see if the trend continues.

Finished a few of the online magazine issues that contained Hugo Award winners (the Uncanny one that was all dinosaur themed was an interesting one) but though I'm not quite done doing that yet, I'm picking up a Clarkesworld (#94) that has a short story from the Broken Earth world by N.K. Jemisin since I've been wanting to get to that story for a while now.

I finished reading One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence and The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan. I am reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I plan to read Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow next.

Unfortunately I didn't get along with Theft of Swords and stopped after Crown Conspiracy. Ah well, there's always something new to move on to!

Finished Trail of Lightning which I really enjoyed until about 80% but that ending was seriously rushed and confusing. I'm still going to pick up the sequel Storm of Locusts so I'm hoping the ending of the first one was just debut jitters or something.

I'm not going to make it through the Nebula novels before the announcement so I'm trying to finish Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach (which isn't awful but isn't holding my attention either) and then Fire Ant so I can at least get through the short fiction.

Caitlin wrote: "Finished Trail of Lightning which I really enjoyed until about 80% but that ending was seriously rushed and confusing...."

Yes, I said the same thing when I commented on reading it a couple of months back. The ending just didn't make sense to me. I figured the magic hoops would do something inexplicable, but the motive baffled me: "A did it, so let's punish B & C"?

Binti — The Night Masquerade left me similarly confused. Either I or the author lost track of an intergalactic war someplace. I thought this was a conclusion. but now I'm guessing there's more coming?

I'm reading The Redemption of Time by Baoshu.

This started as fan fiction to "Remembrance of Earth's Past' trilogy by Cixin Liu and then was published.

It's a continuation of the story about the Trisolarans and all that jazz. 😎

G33z3r wrote: "Caitlin wrote: "Finished Trail of Lightning which I really enjoyed until about 80% but that ending was seriously rushed and confusing...."

Yes, I said the same thing when I comment..."

Yeah, I can't make sense of most of Maggie's decisions in that last bit. (view spoiler)[I somewhat understand her reaction with Coyote but her decision with Kai didn't seem like it really solved anything, other than getting on people's bad sides. (hide spoiler)] And compared to the slowish lead-up to it, it was strangely rushed. I really enjoyed the world building though so I'm hoping at least some of it will be resolved in the sequel.

I finished The Templars' Secret Island which, to my complete and utter lack of astonishment, didn't really shed any light on the Templars' secret treasure :) I have started Path of the Bold: Superhero Anthology, which I expect to be a pretty light read.

Finished Cursor's Fury, was decently good, not amazing but I'm really starting to like the series, looking forward to next month.

Diving right into the next group read, The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. I'll be honest and say I'd rather read a non-fiction book about women in the space agency and their accomplishments than some alternate history version with imaginary women, but I'll keep an open mind and give it a try. About 60 pages in and the story is moving fast and keeping me interesting and the fact it's a period piece adds to it (we're not just covering women in this book, it's also got race and religion relations from that time period).

Gene Wolfe's The Wizard and I am on my second read of Shadow of The Torturer. Ok, besides a lot of comics.

I finished Trickster Drift and rated it 5/5 stars. Eden Robinson is becoming one of my favourite authors with her Trickster series. In this one the supernatural is ever-present compared with the first book. The ending escalated really fast and I was confused about what some supernatural beings are or the meaning behind the ending but assuming that will be revealed in the third book. Excited for it whenever it's published!

Now going for some non-fiction with an autobiography called A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder. I started a couple pages last night but today got sucked into it and will soon be 100 pages in.

So far in May I’ve read The Finger Trap (a mystery), The Raven Tower, and All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault. I am now re-reading Theft of Swords, which I adore, and am also reading The Queen’s Poisoner, Cold Days, and a couple nonfiction.

Andrea wrote: "Finished Cursor's Fury, was decently good, not amazing but I'm really starting to like the series, looking forward to next month.

Diving right into the next group read, [book:The Calculating Stars..."

Somehow missed that this was a discussion for this month. Already picked up the audiobook awhile back so this will be good motivation to start it.

I really enjoyed The Raven Tower - hope it goes well for you

Rachel wrote: “I really enjoyed The Raven Tower - hope it goes well for you”

It was very different, but I think I liked it overall.

Tony wrote: "I finished The Templars' Secret Island which, to my complete and utter lack of astonishment, didn't really shed any light on the Templars' secret treasure :) I have started [book:Pat..."

Is it bad that when I saw the title of the book that I thought it was about Oak Island? I'm addicted to that stupid show.

Kivrin wrote: "Is it bad that when I saw the title of the book that I thought it was about Oak Island? I'm addicted to that stupid show."

Hehe, I hadn't ever heard of Oak Island (or the show) until I looked it up after seeing your comment :)

The Redemption of Time by Baoshu

This book started out as a fan fiction continuation of Cixin Liu's epic trilogy, Remembrance of Earth's Past.

The story picks up after an epic battle between aliens and humans.....where things didn't go so well. I applaud the author's efforts, but the book is only so-so. 3 stars

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...