Shannon > Recent Status Updates

I’m listening to this as an audio book. It jumps around a lot from stories of the great outdoors to research studies and observations. Unfortunately I feel that this discontinuity is impacting my enjoyment of the book and my ability to focus on it.

Best audio book in a long time and I love listening to it. Very dark.

I’m actually reading this giant book in a hardcover, rather than my Kindle. It starts out like it’s going to be a lot of different stories - about different new characters - and it’s a prequel in the universe of the Priority of the Orange Tree. So I wasn’t sure but now I’m sucked in and I’m starting to see the threads come together. This is my bedtime reading so i’t’s going to take me a while.

Man, Tad Williams can just write & write & write. When the book was at 75%, most of the threads were wrapped up and I was like, oh, this book will be over soon. 20% later, it’s still going, no sign of an end, just endless denouements. I mean, it’s nice that he’s tying up every single thread from the last four books.

This book is great, and I’m listening to the audible edition that has really the one of the best narrators I’ve ever heard. I love the humor and the horror. My friend recommended this book at a party and I’m so glad that I read it (he hasn’t steered me wrong yet).

It’s been really exciting to read this book, both the adventure/survival aspects, but also the technology that made it happen. Just this week, several new cities were discovered using the same LIDAR technology, including a large new Mayan settlement in southern Mexico.

I can’t believe this was included with Audible! It’s so good.

I’m curious why 2049 feels like 1949. Why aren’t women in government? Maybe author will explain eventually.

It started out so good but then became a total slog. How many battle descriptions can you read? There are three perspectives in this story. Two of them are warbands that are hard to distinguish from each other, so much so sometimes I forgot which one I was reading. The third is more engaging as it’s about a mom on a mission to avenge her husband and find her son - that character has more personality.

So far this one is dragging a bit. It’s a lot of stories to follow and it’s more about humans being bad to each other than about exploring space & new technology.

my mom recommended this book. i can already tell where it’s going to end but I’ll enjoy the ride on the way there.

Tad Williams has matured as a writer. I have read almost every book he has ever written, and this one really shows his maturity. There’s less fluff to meander through. He has really mastered his craft, unlike some famous authors that seem to get worse and less edited the more they write.

Reading this makes me want to visit Ireland again.

Turns out that everyone else in an agile transformation team I was in had read this book. I thought they had all these original ideas but as I read the book I keep going “ohh, so that’s where that came from.” Even one of the original ideas I had turned out to be in this book, perhaps why it was so readily accepted. Should have read it BEFORE I joined the team.

Vampires and vampire hunters in Prague. It’s fun.

Still a bit of a slog. But I’ll finish it and then I think no more Dune books. It’s like late night college philosophy students while drunk discussing the nature of power.

Just as exciting as the last installment.

It isn’t as immediately fascinating as the first book, but at the same time, I like the direction it’s going. There is a lot of complexity here, a lot of philosophy, some of it you do get tired of, and you’re wondering when the action will start. I’m not sure if I’m going to read the third book if it’s more like this one.

This should be on high school reading lists. And it’s fun to read.

Really engaging book. Reminds me a bit of Roots, in that it starts in Africa and follows an ancestral line to the Americas, but also has another parallel story of the ancestral line that remains. Really good storytelling - only sometimes I wish I could read more about a particular character before we’ve moved onto the next. Still quite a sweep of African and African-American history that I’m glad is covered.

I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend with great taste. So far so good!

Hasting has become a complete idiot. I realize that some of the things he did were part of some historical record, but man. He has one of his friends killed for being gay (after I was like, oh, gay characters, that’s unexpected but nice). Then he captures a woman and trades her away to be caged and raped. Sure he tries to help her escape later but man. Also all characters completely wooden.

So far, loving it. After months of reading about Viking or Anglo-Saxon times, the modern language is refreshing. Jacqueline Carey excels at descriptions that you can breathe in and take in the aroma. The characters are relatable, and the world-building is interesting - something you can imagine, yet different from any setting I’ve read a book in before (basically set in a DMZ between Mexico & the US).

So far, I am enjoying this. Of course I LOVE to work out but this book is really interesting,breaking a lot of myths. Our caveman relatives were not muscle-bound; they were modestly fit based on the tasks of their everyday lives. Hunter-gatherers don’t move that much more than modern humans, and only by necessity - they too enjoy sitting (though not in chairs).