Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Already halfway through the year! Good time to take a look at your reading challenges to see if you're on track. I know my to-read pile seems as big as when I started, so many books to read, so little time...

Last night I stated a book for a BR in another group: Master Assassins. It's told in present tense, which isn't my favorite. I'll wait to see how this goes since it's too early to tell.

Oldman_JE wrote: "Golden Son - any fans, not-fans?...

I thought the books went downhill. I really liked the first one & stopped after reading "Golden Son" although I believe there are a couple more now. When I read it, it was the last & I was glad to stop.

I finally finished Lotus Blue and I quite enjoyed it. I have discovered that being on holiday in Thailand doesn't leave quite as much reading time available as being on holiday at home 😛

Oldman_JE wrote: "Golden Son - any fans, not-fans?

I loved both Red Rising and Golden Son. The end of Golden Son had me tweeting crazily at Pierce Brown in excitement and dismay! I enjoyed Morning Star but not as much as the first two. I started the next book in the series with great anticipation but felt totally dismayed at the direction the story took and never finished it.

I finished Counterstrike and enjoyed the way the author wrapped up the story. It's nice to actually finish a trilogy and feel like it really was finished. A rather abrupt ending and not as many space battles as I would have liked, but still it was a satisfying read.

Oldman_JE wrote: "Sorry it didn't work for you, Jim. Could you, without spoilers, say what changed so much? I'm only 25% in. Doubt I'll be stopping though.

Was it the arrogance? The almost seeming omnipotence? (Did..."

It's been too long since I read the book for me to remember. I thought it was the third book, not the second, but I did write a review of them.

My review of "Golden Son": The adventure continues as Darrow enters high society & faces dangers that his fighting prowess is ill equipped to handle. I gave this only 3 stars since it dragged in places, especially in one part before a battle. There was a lot of repetition of the trust theme making people better, but there doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence either way nor does Darrow stick to one path, so it just became boring to listen to his thoughts on the subject. There was a fair amount of action & some interesting scenes around the solar system, though.

The ending is what pulled this down from a possible 4 star to a 3 star. I hate cliff hangers & this ends on the worst kind. I'm going to read the third book, but I'll read another in between to cleanse my palette. I'm a bit peeved at Brown right now & if I have to listen to Darrow whine about his guilt when someone else does something crappy again, I might scream.

This was very well narrated with an Irish accent that fit the story perfectly.

My review of the third book is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I rated it slightly higher than the second book, but not as high as the first. The few spoilers in my review are hidden under spoiler tags. They're not bad ones, anyway.

Completed:
text:

Audible:

==========================================
Authors:
Chelsea Abdullah, Melissa Albert, Becky Chambers, Blake Crouch, Akwaeke Emezi, Alix E. Harrow, Chuck Klosterman, Nina LaCour, Emily St. John Mandel, Cormac McCarthy, Erin Morgenstern, Ava Reid, Anna Smith Spark
Narrators:
Dominic Hoffman

Oldman_JE wrote: "@ Jim - Thanks, I actually typed brown on your read list, before, and it said no results found(must have been a typo is all I can think). Sorry. Guh, cliffhanger to look forward to.

@Kivrin too - ..."

Just to be clear, I gave the first book 4 stars & thought the rest of the trilogy would be better, but they only got 3 stars so my reviews reflected my disappointment & I didn't address all the good stuff - bad of me. Still, that sort of rating means they were pretty good, not a waste of time.

I read the Red Rising trilogy and it was all right. I wasn't excited about it but didn't totally hate it either. I don't remember a lot of it now. I haven't read beyond the first three.

I am starting Holy Sister so I can finish off that trilogy.

My review of Glitterati by Oliver K. Langmead

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

Icerigger by Allan Dean Foster

How is that, Jeff? I've always wondered but haven't gotten around to it.

Alright, had a bunch of stuff that kind of carried over from July.

Finished Metro 2033 - it has the same flaw as most post-apocalyptic novels (like The Stand) in that the main character takes FOREVER to get from one place to the next but it got weird enough by the end that I'm contemplating borrowing the next one from the library, just to see where things go.

Finished The Machine Crusade - these books are also way too long. It is multi-POV which is fine, except that the authors think our attention span is only as long as the current chapter so every time we return to a POV we're kind of reminded who that person is and what his motivation was. Also, they are stretching my belief that all key elements (Guild, foldspace, Bene Geserit, Fremen, Spice, mentats and more) all have their origins during this 30 year or so time period, when there are still at least a thousand years till we get to Paul's time. The chance of everything being invented (and mostly by one person!!!) is a bit much. Also I hate reading from the POV of an evil character since you get sentences like "And he squashed a few humans to vent his frustration". That just makes the villains feel like caricatures, the mustache twisting, hand wringing, cackling kind that take evil to the next level...but maybe that's just me :)

I've also bee reading the little kid version of Star Trek Academy books, most of which are available on OpenLibrary, about halfway through.

And I also got my hands on a free copy of a Star Wars little kid book...OpenLibrary unfortunately does not have most of the rest of that series, oh well. Annakin gets on my nerves anyway, he's an annoying kid with a chip on his shoulder.

Now I'm behind in my reading plans, I've been reading one Ender book each month but didn't read one in June, just getting to it now - Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card - will see if I can fit two of them in this month to catch up.

I have started reading Yellowstone Hellfire, the first in the Yellowstone series. I had thought this was going to be post-apocalyptic, but this one may just be the lead up to the apocalypse, so the rest of the series (4 books in total I think) might be PA.

Secrets of Monet's Garden: Bringing the Beauty of Monet's Style to Your Own Garden by Derek Fell

I think since my last post I've finished two books and started a new one. The two I finished were Age of Darkness and Who Fears Death. Age of Darkness was the 16th book in the Horus Heresy series and I'm starting to think I'll like just about anything this franchise has to throw at me *knock on wood* (hopefully I haven't just jinxed myself).

I'm now re-reading Sword Song and already happy to be back again. A stressful work week and an injection of Uhtred-level "take no s**t" motivation is always nice, lol.

Oldman_JE wrote: "Andrea, did you ever read Wool Omnibus?"

I've heard of it but I've never read it.

I haven't read it either, but I have read both Sand, which is post-apocalyptic, and Beacon 23, which is SF, and enjoyed his writing in both of them.

Tony wrote: "I haven't read it either, but I have read both Sand, which is post-apocalyptic, and Beacon 23, which is SF, and enjoyed his writing in both of them."

There is a sequel to Sand coming out in October. It's called "Across the Sand". Can't wait to read it!

Andrea wrote: "Oldman_JE wrote: "Andrea, did you ever read Wool Omnibus?"

I've heard of it but I've never read it."

I agree with others. The Wool series is very good. And I enjoyed Sand and Beacon 23 as well.

Count me as another Howey fan; I've read the Wool trilogy, Sand and Beacon 23 and I love his writing style and his stories. I plan to read his short stories collection soon, also can't wait to see what they'll do with the TV adaptation of Wool.

I've read which was as usual fun and enjoyable.
I'm almost finished with ; I find it a bit confusing especially about the vampires and the rock things, it probably won't rank among my favorite Tim Powers books but I always enjoy the way he uses actual events and characters. He seems to like the same poets as Dan Simmons and this book even has the death of John Keats, which Simmons had on a reconstructed Earth in the Hyperion cantos.
I'm also reading ; the POV being only Billy's makes it feel a bit claustrophobic to me, and I don't think it does the "Flowers for Algernon" effect that well with the book Billy's writing, but other than that it's engrossing and hard to put down, and (with regard to a previous discussion) I don't find it too wordy.

Talking of Wool, since I was doing an SF themed year I collected all the books this group had read and put them on a "maybe" to-read list, and that was one of them (there were 35 in total). However I obviously wanted to give priority to the books I've bought and I had over 100 of those (anyone else have "bad" habit of buying books faster than you can read them??), as I get to the middle of the year and I've still got 95 of those waiting to be read, I guess I won't be squeezing in any extras from the group reads :D I also have 38 ebooks to read (mainly free stuff from Kindle/Baen/Tor) and about 17 I wanted to grab from the library to continue series I had already started. I won't get to many of those either.

So many books! Admittedly starting the year by deciding to read the entire Dune series (including books by the son of which there's about 20), Asimov's robot novels/short stories, and Card's Ender series (which has soooo many spinoffs duology/trilogy), it doesn't leave room for much else :o) Maybe 1 or 2 a month.

Herbert's son's books are ok, the first trilogy I actually enjoyed (Prelude to Dune), I'm mostly slogging through the next trilogy (Legends), but I look forward to jumping to the future to see where Frank Herbert left off since the last book ended threads dangling, I'm hoping to enjoy to two books his son wrote to wrap that up.

Asimov's stories were great, but the novels aren't impressing me all that much. On the other hand I've absolutely loved every Orson Scott Card book so far.

One thing I've been squeezing in are graphic novels/manga - gotten through L'expédition and Les cavernes. Someone here had mentioned this series and I've gotten quite into it, if for nothing else than the really inventive alien species. I've also been pillaging the library for every Star Trek graphic novel they have. Every time I thought I found them all I tried a different search criteria and found more.

Hard to believe but counting graphic novels, kid books and short stories, I've already read 107 books this year!!

107 books... Stop it Andrea, you are making me feel so inadequate. I haven't even found the time to finish reading that edition of 'The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I started. :-(

I do collect books faster than I can read them. I think my Kindle has about 300 to read and then there's about 100 owned books to read.

I finished reading The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. Chernow also wrote a biography of Alexander Hamilton that the play Hamilton was based upon. This is a biography of a company rather than an individual. J. P. Morgan and J. P. Morgan, Jr. figure prominently in the book but it covers the company’s history up to its publication date of the book. I am reading It by Stephen King. Amazingly enough, I’ve never read it before. I suppose it’s because the novel is over one thousand pages long but I did read The Stand which is almost as long, so that might not be the reason. I plan to read Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman, next. I’ve read great reviews on the novel and want to find out how good it is for myself.

The Cold Fire trilogy by Friedman is definitely worth a read. It is said that you should never judge a book by its cover, but it was the very striking Michael Whelan picture on Crown of Shadows that drew me to the books in the first place, wanting to find out who they were.

William Shakespeare's Avengers: The Complete Works by Ian Doescher

I finished Yellowstone Hellfire. As I suspected about halfway through, this was just the lead up to the apocalypse, which happens right at the end of the novel. Still it was a fun, easy read - a bit cliched and lacking in much nuance, but that's not surprising for a disaster novel. 3 to go in the series.

Book 2 of the Farseer trilogy “Royal Assassin” by Robin Hobb. I’m enjoying the series so far.

Yrret wrote: "Book 2 of the Farseer trilogy “Royal Assassin” by Robin Hobb. I’m enjoying the series so far."

The first book was so slow; I don't know if I want to continue.

I loved the first six books of this series.

Finished the manga Remina - a lot of people running around screaming and one very creepy weird planet, but you're left at the end wondering what all that was about.

Looking at some of the reviews I'm kind of going with this guy, and also agreeing with them that at least the artwork was good:

"A story about a killer planet is always going to be goofy but, even accepting that, Remina is badly written and so coconuts as to be laughable. The dialogue is always awful, the plotting is child-like and one absurd thing happens after another until you don’t care about any of it. "

I like his choice of words "coconuts" :) I got through it as fast as I did since most of the dialog was "hah hah hah" i.e. a person panting as they ran, or "Aaaaaah!!!!" as they were tortured. Oh and lots of "KILL!!!", must not forget that. Those three syllables felt like a third of the dialog :)

Interesting thought though, if a giant planet had a giant tongue that would wrap around the Earth and then yank back to make it spin really fast, would it create a wind that would pick up an angry mob in Japan, and whip them around the world in a few hours? And where was everyone else? Were there several billion people flying around?

I think I'll go back and finish the last Betelgeuse book L'autre. This one also has a whole lot of weird but written in a way that you feel if you keep with it (the overall series keeps going for a LOT more books), at least some of it will be explained!

I am continuing the Yellowstone series with Yellowstone Inferno.

Finished Shadow of the Hegemon, it was good but didn't have the same emotional punch that the rest of Card's books had. But I liked that he centered it mostly in Asia, after all its the future and the balance of power has shifted from the current day. Reading his afterword I wonder what we would have written twenty years later...

And back to Dune, gotta keep working on those - The Battle of Corrin - by Brian Herbert

I also found A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Hope Larson in the library so that's what I'm reading after Remina.

I finished Rich Man's War, and the last 100 pages? Whew! Good book. Before I read the next in the series I went back to my Vlad Taltos re-read. I'm on #12, Iorich.

I started the last Percy Jackson novel, The Blood of Olympus.

I finished Total Eclipse. Another oldie from the Old Book Sale. I liked the premise and the archaeological angle but it had a very depressing ending which I always hate. Next up is John Varley's Titan.

Oh, I hate depressing endings!

Michelle wrote: "Oh, I hate depressing endings!"

Me, too! Yeah, I get the whole "reality" and real life is "messy" things, but that's not why I read books. I want hope and joy and at least some happiness when I finish a book. I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of reading 200 plus pages and "everyone dies". C'mon. Give me something! That's why I tend to avoid the grim-dark stuff.

Kivrin wrote: "Michelle wrote: "Oh, I hate depressing endings!"

Me, too! Yeah, I get the whole "reality" and real life is "messy" things, but that's not why I read books. I want hope and joy and at least some ha..."

Me, too, Kivrin. I like happy escapes. Or at least pleasant endings.

Same. Grimdark is not good for my mental health.

When all the characters are jerks and there's no one to root for, and their lives are meaningless, it's just not fun for me.

I have finished the second book in the Yellowstone series - Yellowstone Inferno. The apocalypse started at the end of book one, but this still doesn't feel particularly PA, although I believe that may change in the last two books.

I have started Yellowstone Fallout, the third book in the series.

Am reading and enjoying Shards of Earth. I've not read any Adrian Tchaikovsky before. This one is certainly my kind of space opera in that sometimes I just want to marvel at the imagination displayed in critter design!

Audrey wrote: "When all the characters are jerks and there's no one to root for, and their lives are meaningless, it's just not fun for me."

Exactly. Why would I want to read about people I despise? That's a big "did not finish" for me.

Audrey wrote: "When all the characters are jerks and there's no one to root for, and their lives are meaningless, it's just not fun for me."

Yep. Everything you just said. I have read some books like this, and they were horrible. For me, at least. There has to be hope and virtue in there somewhere.

Speaking of virtue, I really like the MC in the series I'm reading. I'm on the third, Dead Man's Debt, a really enjoyable military Sci-fi. There are many abhorrent characters, too, as well as some "ends justify the means" Sneaky Petes. But the MC I really like.

I read "The Power". I enjoyed it.