EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone,

I'm really sorry, I somehow forgot to do a post last week! So I'm posting a double one for both.

Book club

I set a poll up for the next book selection: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

In a week or so I'll announce the winner, so don't forget to vote!

The last two weeks I finished:

The Library of the Dead - this was interesting. i liked it overall. I wanted a little more world building. There was a feeling that this was our world, Edinburg existed for example. But it mentioned a catastrophe, no plumbing, national health care being disbanded, but cell phones and the internet existing, but cell phones charged with kinetic chargers. Was hard to place if it was future, or an alternate present. And there was a catastrophe mentioned, but never really described or explained. Also magic was considered a reasonable profession, and ghost talkers were well known, wasn't clear if that was the way things always were, or if it was related to whatever catastrophe happened.

Fugitive Telemetry- always here for murderbot, this was a fun one in the series.

Stealing from Wizards: Volume 2: Burglary - I loved the first enough to go ahead and preorder the second and tore through it too. Downside is it'll probably be at least a year before the third comes out. boo!
I think it holds up really well as a second book.

1Q84- FINALLY I finished this! admittedly i wasn't trying super hard before, just reading a few pages here or there and putting it down for weeks. Got tired of it hanging over my head, so just pushed through and got it done. It's my longest book on my TBR for popsugar, plus door stopper for book nerds, book I was intimidated by for read harder, author with a career of over 21 years for around the year. I didn't particularly like it, but at least i read it.

Currently reading:

Act Your Age, Eve Brown - need a brain break after the last, so this hold came in at a good time.

QOTW:

Borrowing from popsugar this week, How do you feel about in-between additions to series? Short stories or novellas that take place in between the main books of the series.

I personally don't mind that they exist, but I like them to either be a) not important to the overall series plot so it's ok if I miss them, or b) be easily accessible. It annoys me when they are in short story collections, or cost as much as a full length book as a stand alone, or are only available in some special publication etc. My preferred option is that they are stand alone and available from the library, like the rest of the series, or else a very cheap kindle version (like a dollar or two, not 5+), or free on a site like Tor.com. I don't want important plot to be inaccessible, and feel confused that I am missing something when I read later books.

Let's see, since the last check in, I finished both the books I had been reading.

I really enjoyed The Traitor Baru Cormorant. The weird thing is, Baru's a sympathetic but not a likable character, and yet I'm still invested enough in her story to try the sequel. I'll probably wait a little while, though. This was my Popsugar book that's been on my TBR the longest.

Gods & Lies - I had been listening to this as a podcast serial, but it's got an entry on Goodreads, so adding it here, too. I really liked the world building in this one. It's got a modern technology level, but doesn't seem to be Earth, and there's a full pantheon of Greek-style gods and goddesses causing mayhem.

From Little Tokyo, with Love - this was an adorable YA romance. I really liked the main character, and her struggles with anger issues were something I don't see addressed as often. I'm tempted to put this down as my Popsugar book set mostly outdoors. While there are a few indoor scenes, most of the action involves the two leads exploring the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. I'm not sure if it quite works, so I'll see if I read anything else that fits the prompt better.

I also finished a few comics/graphic novels: Blue Flag, Vol. 6, Blue Flag, Vol. 7, Blue Flag, Vol. 8
Shattered Warrior - this was good, if a little predictable, but an interesting read alongside Baru
The Girl from the Sea - Lovely little YA f/f selkie romance
Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Lost Adventures - Uneven collection of short comics set during the TV series. Some were great, some were forgettable, some had artwork that I really didn't like which detracted from the stories

I'm currently reading The Bird King, which will be my book by a Muslim-American author. Enjoying it so far. The beginning's a little slow, but it's just starting to pick up.

QOTW: I pretty much agree with everything you wrote, Sheri. I also like when authors release a short story collection of all their series-relevant stories, like Butcher does with the Dresden Files (i.e. Brief Cases). That way, I don't have to worry about finding everything across other anthologies, etc.

I had a sort of unintentional dive into the history of mystery novels.

At the Villa Rose: I read this because the detective was apparently one of the inspirations for Christie's Poirot. I thought that the characters were well done, and the plot wasn't bad (kind of a complicated solution to the mystery), but somehow I didn't really get on with the writing. There's a character who is sort of the Watson or Hastings, but it's written in third person, and he didn't quite come off. It was interesting to see what Christie might have drawn from this detective.

Arsène Lupin, gentleman cambrioleur: Francophone literature doesn't have quite the same whodunnit tradition as the anglophone world, and Lupin is probably the closest equivalent to a French Sherlock Holmes. In fact, in one of the novellas in this collection he meets Herlock Sholmès (because apparently Doyle threatened legal action when it was originally published with the actual name). I enjoyed this pretty well, kind of a typical anti-hero situation. I had to look up a lot of words related to parts of locks and windows, and I learned a new French idiom: to sleep on one's two ears, meaning to rest easy (like the opposite of sleeping with one eye open). Now I have the proper background to start the show on Netflix.

The Old Man in the Corner: As a teen I enjoyed the swashbuckling romance of The Scarlet Pimpernel (though not so much the anti-Semitic and frankly tedious ending), and the author also wrote a series of mystery stories in the wake of Sherlock Holmes. They were not very good! They were so obvious, it was just a revolving door of me going, "Wife did it. Son did it. Husband did it." There was a twist at the end involving the title character that I did not in fact see coming, but I thought it was fairly asinine. Not recommended, will not read the other collections.

QOTW: I don't read any series for which this is relevant. I went from total completionist as a kid, to "I will only read series when the authors are dead," to reading the occasional first book (or even a random entry) in a series but not really keeping up with any ongoing ones. Maybe something will hook me and I'll have to make novella decisions, but it hasn't happened yet.

i set aside the Alienist for some library books. i read Real Men Knit - a cute little romance and a yarn store in Harlem. :D

I'm now reading Off To Be The Wizard, which is some good time travel fun.

i have another one out by Caleb Carr - Killing Time. I'll post more after I've read it XD

QotW - as Sheri said - as long as they're not needed for the main story... as well as accessible for me - if they're interesting enough, can i get them at my library?

I do not have any finishes this week. I am still reading The Anthropocene Reviewed. I will probably finish that next week. So far it is okay for me. Not stellar but I do want to keep reading.

I am almost done with listening to Agent to the Stars. Since starting it I discovered that this is Scalzi's first novel. It has some weird parts that go off on tangents but it is typical Scalzi entertainment. This one is based in Hollywood and about an agent for movie stars. There are some interesting caricatures in it. Wil Wheaton is as good as ever in his narration.

QOTW: I'll also jump on Sheri's bandwagon. Although that is what I think and agree with I'm definitely keeping up with the novellas, in correct order, for The Expanse. They give the right background at the right time. They're not required for the story but they definitely enhance the parts they tie into and help you understand a character.

Just a few little finishes from me this week. I picked up Agency without realising that it was set in the same world as The Peripheral, which I'd read ages ago. I think I would have benefited from at least refreshing my understanding of the context from that book before reading Agency, but it wasn't impossible to follow along or anything, and it was an enjoyable, if slightly confusing read. After that was a couple of odd little novellas - I don't normally do novellas, but I've unintentionally (ebooks, never know how long they're going to be) picked up quite a few this year. First was Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles, which didn't really grab me but was something a bit different at least. Next up wasI Am Sovereign, which was very strange but entertaining. Both were a bit unusual in having a mix of the narrative story and then bits with the author (or, in Weight I'm not sure if it was really the author or some version of some author) coming in with some chat, reflections, etc.

Currently listening to Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection with my partner, so it's just a story every now and then when it suits us both. I love the Rivers of London books, so this is a nice little thing to be able to dip into.

Which ties in rather neatly with QOTW: I pretty much agree with what others have been saying - I rarely read them, in spite of having one on the go at the moment. I don't mind if they're out there, but they should be bonus material rather than in any way integral to the series itself. I don't think you should be missing out if you don't read them, but it can be fun to pick up a little side story if you're missing the characters after a series ends, or impatiently waiting for the next book. It is frustrating sometimes to see these things getting published when you are desperately waiting for the next book though!

Looks like I have skipped a few weeks too. I read The Cruel Prince, which I found out of the blue searching for something related to air for book nerds, and it was billed as "Folk of the Air #1). When I finished, I had to double check that this is why I was reading it; it has fairies that fly but never really refer to themselves by the series title. It was fine but characters were a little on the miserable side for me.
Finished off Fugitive Telemetry. Have enjoyed this whole series. I particularly like having a great book that is short that you can polish off in a day or two.
I have been involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at work, and someone gave me How to Be Successful without Hurting Men's Feelings: Non-threatening Leadership Strategies for Women. It was funny but it was also sad because so much was true. It might be a good way to introduce oblivious men to problems women face in the workplace.
Shiver was something I finished as part of my effort to read books I have and get rid of them if I'm never going to read them again. It was fine, but I'm finding my tastes have changed and I often find too much to criticize in things billed as romantic suspense.
I read the The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, which I think is supposed to be the last one in the Wayfarers series. Liked this one much better than the third one which I found a bit sad. Really think the way Becky Chambers does alien interactions is very thoughtful.
I also jumped on the Jen recommendation bandwagon and read Stealing from Wizards Volume 1: Pickpocketing, which I also enjoyed.
Finally, I read The Grand Sophy that I had seen people talking about on FoE. I remember hearing Georgette Heyer's name, but not sure if I had read any of her books before. This one was written in 1950, and though completely predictable if you've ever read a regency romance, it was funny and had good characters.
For QOTW, I have enjoyed short stories best if they go back and add some backstory that isn't critical but helps answer some questions. The best example on how I'd like them done are the short stories in the southern vampire series by Charlaine Harris. She had written several short stories that were in anthologies over the course of the series, and I managed to catch a few. When the series was done, she published her own anthology that included them all, so I could get the book from the library and read the ones I missed.

It's just as well that you didn't do a week 26 post, because I had a week where I just didn't read at all. VERY unusual for me but I finally sent my kids off to day camp and just about collapsed on the couch with trash tv for a whole week. I didn't even have it in me to pick up a book, I just played dumb phone games. You KNOW I'm burned out when I don't have the energy to READ.

But I'm back at it and just finished Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (prompt - book with sun/moon/stars on the cover). I liked it a lot better than her first book Trail of Lightning, which I found a little uneven although I appreciated the grounding in Native American myth. This one, Black Sun, is the first in a trilogy (yet to be completed - book 2 is supposed to come out next April) and has a setting inspired by Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. Such a nice change!

QOTW: I pretty much agree with everyone else above on this one. I will sometimes pick up some of these short stories, but I get annoyed if it turns out that they are pivotal to understanding the main series, especially if they are hard to access. Like Susan, I've really liked the ones in the Expanse universe (although I still have yet to read the latest one!).

yesterday i finished Off To Be The Wizard, and then put in a purchase suggestion for book 2 (Spell or High Water) at my library. they're missing books 2 - 6, but if I put in a purchase suggestion for all of them, they'll get them in all out of order and then i'll be reading like 4 or 5 next! XD so, one at a time it is.

I've starting Killing Time: A Novel of the Future. it's a world in 2023 where they're watching you and making deep fake videos and there was a staph pandemic in 2007 and the oceans are polluted to no end.... and it was written in 2000!