The Sword and Laser discussion

Based on the comments I've seen, Fourth Wing seems like it might be the most disliked club pick of all time, even beating Memoirs Found In A Bathtub.
What are your favorite and least favorite club picks?

My favorite which I read because of S&L would be a toss-up between The Name of the Wind and The Martian.
My favorite S&L picks that I read before joining the club are Ender’s Game and Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.
My least favorites were 1Q84, which I lemmed and Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr which caused me to stop reading club picks.

Oh, I dunno if I could pick. The club has always served its purpose which is to introduce us to works we might otherwise not read. I've been introduced to some things I would not necessarily have read.

So for "most surprising" I think I'd pick the romance-heavy Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik. Would have passed it by, found it surprisingly interesting and am looking forward to the third in the series which comes out soon.

For most tedious, probably the Elric book. But that included a bangup foreword by Gaiman and I found two of my fave comics heroes, Warlock and Sandman, were heavily influenced by him. Definitely worth doing.

Or maybe those both are recency bias as it's what I can remember. Anyhoo, after a decade or so around here I say it's all good. We're getting what we came for.

Phil wrote: "What are your favorite and least favorite club picks?"

I don’t want to harp on things I dislike, and looking at the S&L Bookshelf I see just as many 4- and 5-star ratings as there are 1- and 2-star ones. So in the interest of balancing my karma and securing an invite to Shambala, here are a few of my faves:

The Forever War - one of my all time favorite books. Just as good as everyone says. Proving once again that the best war stories are actually anti-war stories.

Elatsoe - one of the best examinations of colonialism wrapped up in a Fantasy story. And that climax with the ghosts? Perfection.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - quite possibly the greatest zombie book ever written.

The Martian - who knew growing potatoes could be so entertaining?

The Hum and the Shiver - probably only the second Appalachian Fantasy I’ve ever read. Completely different from most fantasy novels. Bonus because I felt like I knew these people.

The Golem and the Jinni - if Hum & Shiver is my mom’s side of the family, this is my dad’s. Great story and perfect sense of place in NYC circa 1900.

The Calculating Stars - amazing book. Placed in my hometown about an era I know quite a bit about, without a single false note.

Jade City - The Godfather meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon starring an Asian version of the Rat Pack. The trilogy fizzled out but this book is brilliantly realized.

Network Effect - Murderbotttt!

——

Bonus plug for my favorite Three Dog Night song, Shambala: https://youtu.be/SlWrMpV1vy0

I'm with Trike on Murderbot

I'll name two S&L picks that were surprisingly enjoyable for me, Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, and Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis.

On the SF side, I think Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice was one of the top picks that I might not have tried otherwise. On the &F side, The Empress of Salt and Fortune introduced me to Nghi Vo and I've read everything I can find of hers since.

I feel like I've kvetched on 4W enough for one month, that's more than enough negativity, I won't name a worst pick.

Since I've been more of a fantasy reader all my life, I've enjoyed reading the SF picks. I never would have picked up Pandora's Star, Aurora Rising, or Consider Phlebas without the book club.

Dune is my favourite Sci-fi book of all time. I read that 30 years before S&L so I will leave that out of my best S&L books.

My favourites would be:
Bitter Seeds
A Game of Thrones
Promise of Blood
Three Body Problem
The Calculating Stars
Rivers of London

Honourable Mentions:
Children of Time
Pandora's Star
Fire Upon the Deep
The Martian
Wool
We Are Legion, We are Bob
The Sparrow
Parable of the Sower

Books I struggled with:
The Once and Future King
Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits
Rule 34
Night's Master

Among books that others have not already mentioned:

Best:
Wyrd Sisters (I read this before S&L however)
Ready Player One
Station Eleven

Worst:
Machinehood
The Mists of Avalon
Slan
Arrows of the Queen

So bad that I hesitate to mention it:
Brightness Falls from the Air

Phil wrote: "Based on the comments I've seen, Fourth Wing seems like it might be the most disliked club pick of all time, even beating Memoirs Found In A Bathtub.
What are your fa..."

I dunno, remember the reaction to Brightness Falls from the Air? That was a book many people found morally reprehensible, whereas the objections to Fourth Wing seem to be more about the quality of the writing. Some people dislike the sexytimes but at least the participants are over 18.

Anyway… l haven’t been able to get hold of a copy of Fourth Wing, and I tend to avoid or Lem quickly any books that aren’t for me, so I don’t really have a worst club pick.

As for my favourite… I’ve enjoyed lots of books we’ve read together, although one I don’t think I’d ever have discovered on my own is Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr

We have read a lot of really great books, aaaaannnndd a few not so great ones. Not sure whether Fourth Wing is worse than All the Birds in the Sky but it is at least close. Of the great books the ones that I enjoyed the most or have stuck with me the most are:

Station Eleven
A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1)
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1)
Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1)
1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3)
Bitter Seeds (The Milkweed Triptych, #1)
The Windup Girl
Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)
Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)

Those that I actively disliked for various reasons are:

Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)
All the Birds in the Sky (All the Birds in the Sky, #1)
Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)
Shadow & Claw
The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)

I know there are some controversial selections in that "disliked" section but I have my reasons.

I know we don't like to repeat authors but it is criminal that we didn't read the first book of Ian Tregillis's Alchemy Wars trilogy - The Mechanical.

Seems that the books on everyone’s best and worst list are incredibly varied. I think this speaks a ton as to the quality and the variety of books read. Not every book is going to work for every person, and not every book is going to be great for everyone.

I usually don’t read along with the group as I usually set my tbr list 6-9 months out into the future But I always listen and always enjoy the conversation on goodreads.

Kevin wrote: "I know there are some controversial selections in that "disliked" section but I have my reasons.
..."

Actually, I'd like to hear those.

In general (not just in this thread or even just in S&L) there's too much "I liked/disliked X" without any explanation and honestly... I don't care if someone liked a book or not, I care about WHY they felt that way. That can lead to interesting discussions whereas the simple "liked/didn't like" doesn't usually.

For example, I loved "Long Way..." and while I can see it not working for some readers I'm a little surprised to see it on a most disliked list. Discussing that could be fun.

There's a lot on my shelf that I loved but if I consider only books that S&L got me onto in the first place (I think) I'd go with...

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
Parable of the Sower

My least favourite was Terra Nullius.

Been a while since I read with the group but I remember enjoying the discussion on The Fifth Season and A Fire Upon the Deep.

I've read 121 books with S&L
5*: 12 (Night Circus and The Calculating Stars prob my favorites)
4*: 71
3*: 34
2*: 4 (Sword of Shannara and Night's Master prob my anti-faves)
1*: 0
I lemmed Black Leopard, Red Wolf and flat out skipped Children of Time

I didn't read most of these with the group, but here's my best and worst:

BEST
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Gateway by Frederik Pohl
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

WORST
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley (I still see italics in my nightmares)
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

Rick wrote: "Kevin wrote: "I know there are some controversial selections in that "disliked" section but I have my reasons.
..."

Actually, I'd like to hear those.

OK - Fourth Wing and All the Birds in the sky are just objectively bad (feel free to disagree). Long Way to an Angry Planet felt like a bunch of character vignettes slapped together where the plot is lost completely. Not poorly written but an actual story would have been nice. On Shadow & Claw my perspective is the Gene Wolfe is a great writer but a terrible story teller. I've read most of his works and this is a consistent problem for me. The Magicians made me angry to read as I had a burning hatred for every single character in the book. I wanted them all to die fiery deaths. Hyperion is just an over hyped "classic." I'm an old guy (60), most of the classic SF that we read I read 40 years ago. Most of that stuff is really not good. I've started skipping anytime we read anything more than 20 years old.

🤣😂

Best, Gideon the Ninth

Worst Time and Again

Iain

Kevin wrote: "Rick wrote: "Kevin wrote: "I know there are some controversial selections in that "disliked" section but I have my reasons.
..."

Actually, I'd like to hear those.

OK - Fourth Wing and All the B..."

Love all that. Didn't read 4th wing. Agree on All The Birds. Long way... I thought that might be your objection - its appeal is based on how much you like her characters and how much (or little) you need plot throughlines.

On The Magicians... *chefskiss* :)

Kevin wrote: "… most of the classic SF that we read I read 40 years ago. Most of that stuff is really not good...."
I have to agree with you on a lot of classic SF. Some interesting ideas but wow, many of these guys just can’t write. Sorry to all the classic SF lovers, a large portion of it just doesn’t hold up on a re-read.

I'm a huge classic SF fan and prefer it to much of today's stuff but I understand what you mean. The style is completely different as was the perceived audience at the time.
I still think it's worth reading the classics once in a while for modern readers just as it is for me to read the occasional new writer. You never know when you're going to hit something that really speaks to you or gives you some new insight.
Going the other way, I recently read a bunch of Sherlock Holmes stories for the first time and although I had a lot to criticize about the writing, it was cool to see the origin of all those cultural references.

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "I didn't read most of these with the group, but here's my best and worst:

BEST
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Cloud Atlas by [author:David Mitch..."

Leviathan Wakes?? Interesting :D

I have not put mine (forgot if I read these with the group or not):
Gideon the Ninth - worst ever
Updraft
Ringworld
Blindsight
Shadow and Claw
The Windup Girl

I have read 97 of the picks.

Best = Theft of Swords a fun old school fantasy romp which was just what I was missing
Worst = Hunt the Stars no no no no no

123 read (will be 124 after I finish Planetfall today.) Best surprise read for me was 'Ready Player One'.
Worst of the ones I finished (not including several that I lemmed) - Ninefox Gambit.

Silvana wrote: "Leviathan Wakes?? Interesting :Ds..."

Yes, I was really disappointed. I had looked forward to reading it for a while. And then...VOMIT ZOMBIES IN SPACE! I just about threw it out the window.

Which reminds me of my reaction to Ringworld having an evolved species of "Vampires." Not enough to throw the book out of the window, but my center of balance definitely shifted from massive eye rolling.

So I rated a few as 5-star reads:
A Game of Thrones (rated 5 stars before we read with S&L but I stand by it even now)
A Wrinkle in Time (rated 5 stars before we read with S&L but I will note that that's based on the overall Time series, too, which I read multiple times as a kid)
Ender’s Game (rated before we read with S&L and ignoring OSC's problems)
American Gods
Among Others
The Hum and the Shiver
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter

Those last 3 I wouldn't have found or read without S&L, so I definitely appreciated those.

I'm not going to count the books that I started and abandoned - that seems unfair. So the one-star books that I believe I finished:
The Einstein Intersection - I don't remember this at ALL
Annihilation - I distinctly remember not liking this
Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus - I read this in college and disliked it then, too. I didn't particularly enjoy the re-read, either
Elysium

In memory, I also really remember hating Ancillary Justice and remember the S&L interview with Ann Leckie turning me off her writing pretty much forever. I still think that was a shitshow of a book. But apparently I was somehow more generous with my rating, a whopping 2 stars. I guess I gave it an extra star for ideas if not implementation.

Steve wrote: "So bad that I hesitate to mention it:
Brightness Falls from the Air"

😂 😂 😂

John (Taloni) wrote: "Which reminds me of my reaction to Ringworld having an evolved species of "Vampires." Not enough to throw the book out of the window, but my center of balance definitely shifted from massive eye ro..."

Did you read 'Blindsight'? The author doubled down on the space vampires idea making it one I wish I could un-read.

Yeah, and Echopraxia too. Lots of good stuff in there. Re-engineering vampires which apparently existed in our evolutionary past was not one of the high points.

Funny I very much disliked Blindsight, (I've often called it my most disliked book I ever finished). I didn't feel the same way about the vomit zombies in Leviathan Wakes. In general I'm not a fan of horror, or horror tropes, but it just worked much better for me in LW. I guess I saw the whole story as more of an adventure one with the horror elements being obstacles, then a true horror in space story.

Now I will say, there are times when really well done execution will change my mind. I very much enjoy both Alien and Aliens, and don't even mind 3 that much.

I really disliked the space vampires in Blindsight but I liked a lot of the rest of it. This concept of an intelligence that wasn't self-aware. So, "smart enough" to build an interstellar ship but still driven by basic evolutionary instincts of expand and grow and not something you can really reason with because it doesn't "reason" the way we think of it.

We all know what the best is.

Tamahome wrote: "We all know what the best is.

"

🤣!

Picking from more recent selections,
Loved:
NOS482 – Became more emotional to me than I anticipated
Piranesi – Deceptively simple story, beautifully written
Consider Phlebas – Even though most seem to have hated it, I will always love Iain M. Banks
A Memory Called Empire – Great discussions from a great scifi story

Not Loved:
The House in the Cerulean Sea – Too twee for my cold heart
The Calculating Stars – I know I'm alone in this, but this try-hard story forced me to put it down
Ninefox Gambit – A lot of scifi weirdness, not enough character or emotion
The Rook – I don't know why, just felt very blah to me

Books I wouldn't have read without the club:
How High We Go in the Dark – Amid pandemic blues, some rays of light
Light From Uncommon Stars – Surprisingly compelling and thoughtful

I'd be hard pressed to pick favorite reads, and like Trike I don't want to dwell on the stuff I didn't like.

I joined S&L in early 2012 and started reading along in August of that year if I recall correctly.

Of the 179 books on the shelf (which includes some alt picks) I have read 130 of them. Many were with the group, but a fair number I read on my own.

My participation in the group reads has dwindled to 1 or 2 picks/year since 2020 (and my reading in general has fallen off a cliff).

I thought it was at least interesting to look at my breakdown of ratings:

Skipped (after Joining): 27 (2 alt pick)
Lemmed: 2
Didn't Read (before Joining): 20
5 stars: 9
4 stars: 65
3 stars: 40
2 stars: 15
1 star: 1

One book that really sticks out to me is Assassin's Apprentice. It was possibly my first read with the club, and while it's not a favorite, it did start my love of Robin Hobb and her Elderling books.

I consumed all the books published in the series shortly after and then picked up the later books she wrote as well.