The Sword and Laser discussion

The January pick will be: In the Company of Others by Julie E. Czerneda

I haven't heard of this one before. Has anyone read it already?

There does look to be an audiobook but it currently has no rating at all. I guess because it only came out last week (12/12/19) despite the book being almost 20 years old now.

Also, the header makes me think of bad slang:

Person 1: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you"
Person 2: "It coo"

Oh, nice! I haven't read it yet, but I got my copy of it signed by Czerneda when I was at the World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore last year!

Guess I'll be reading it now. :D

Ima use ICO. :p

I must admit I never heard of Czerneda or the book - maybe because at the time of publication I wasn't really reading English language books and there don't seem to be German translations.

The synopsis however sounds quite familar but I don't know from where? Maybe "The Word for World Is Forest"?

Why is this the most expensive of her books on Kindle? That’s so weird.

Yay! Very glad we picked a Czerneda. She's got a lot of good things out (there are series as well as standalones) and I've long felt she's one of those SF authors doing really good work but who for some reason has never broken through.

I've not read this one so it will be interesting to see what it's like and how it's received. Some of her stuff can be a bit slow, others (A Thousand Words for Stranger) have more action.

Just be careful if you're looking at amazon on your phone because this one wasn't the first one that popped up when I typed in the title, a very different book came up first.

I'm not certain about this book, there are a lot of things in the description and Patreon background that give me pause, but I have a credit with Amazon so I'm going to give it a go.

I have never heard of it but can’t wait to listen to audiobook I just downloaded it

No kindle edition available in the UK - let’s see if my local library system has a copy! Failing that I’ll get the audiobook and hope it’s better than my experience with The Snow Queen...

Terpkristin notes that the first book to pop up on an Amazon search is not the correct book. I have noticed this on Amazon recently. When I do a book search, the first one or two books listed are sponsored Amazon picks, not the book I typed into the search bar.

Ruth wrote: "No kindle edition available in the UK - let’s see if my local library system has a copy! Failing that I’ll get the audiobook and hope it’s better than my experience with The Snow Queen..."

Christos wrote: "I have never heard of it but can’t wait to listen to audiobook I just downloaded it"

I went with the audiobook from audible and I'm afraid the narrator will have a negative effect on my enjoyment of the book (the autoplay that I cant turn off since the last update is also driving me up the walls).

Might try to go back to normal speed to see if it changes anything, I'm usually listening at 1.20x.

Isak wrote: "Ruth wrote: "No kindle edition available in the UK - let’s see if my local library system has a copy! Failing that I’ll get the audiobook and hope it’s better than my experience with The Snow Queen.

I went with the audiobook from audible and I'm afraid the narrator will have a negative effect on my enjoyment of the book (the autoplay that I cant turn off since the last update is also driving me up the walls).


Well, my local library doesn’t have a copy, and tbh with what you've said about the audiobook, and after my experience with The Snow Queen audiobook, I’m thinking I might give this one a miss...

When you buy this on Amazon is there a way to confirm S&L got credit for it? I clicked on a link from the S&L site & switched to the Kindle edition.

Ruth wrote: "Isak wrote: "Ruth wrote: "No kindle edition available in the UK - let’s see if my local library system has a copy! Failing that I’ll get the audiobook and hope it’s better than my experience with T..."

My advice is to listen to the audio sample first. I really enjoyed The Snow Queen audiobook, so tastes vary!

Just over 50% into the book and so far it's reminding me a lot of 'Down Below Station' that we read some time ago.

In NZ neither kobo or amazon have the ebook available.

First time participating with S&L bookclub. I like that the choice isn't something I would have found myself. Looking forward to it .

I just started a return on the audiobook. I found the narrator awful. Everything sounded very “important,” but with no sense of character or nuance.

My favorite of Julie Czerneda's works. You're in for a treat.

Ryan wrote: "I just started a return on the audiobook. I found the narrator awful. Everything sounded very “important,” but with no sense of character or nuance."

That's one reason I don't do audiobooks... The quality of the narration affects the book. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not, but it's like an interpretation vs the things I hear in my head.

Just purchased the ebook this morning. Looking forward to reading it later this month.

I was actually able to get the ebook from the library and just started it. I'm enjoying it so far.

Found myself not getting into this story at the beginning and then suddenly found I was over 50% through and enjoying it.

As we're now about a week into the month. I'm going to lock this thread. Please feel free to create as many new threads to discuss this book as you'd like.