Finished The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. Book 1 of 2nd era of Mistborn. This was a very interesting book. Set about 300 years after the first era. The changes in the world, and to learn about some of the characters, it was all very interesting, and I am very glad that I re-read the first era before reading this.
Finished Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton. The book was surprisingly good. I quite enjoyed it, and it didn’t even feel old.
My kid is already on book 5. So, highly recommended your for your 9-12 year olds.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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I try to read books without knowing anything going in; just the title and author. I just finished Piranesi and The Sparrow, which were both good and benefitted from knowing nothing. I grabbed The Witches are Coming off my pile because some more fantasy sounded good. Definitely a bit of whiplash coming off some dark sci-fi, expecting some lighter Pratchett-esque witches, and getting a collection of non-fiction feminist humor essays. It’s a good read, but I really set myself up for disappointment.
A Feast For Crows, by GRRM. I recently finished up The Three Body Problem. It’s a decent book, and I enjoyed reading it, but I don’t feel the need to read it again.
I recently started reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. I want to see if I can somehow regain control over my focus
時をかける少女. I suck at reading japanese and the only way to get better is to (try to) do it. Not the most interesting as a dude in his 40s who’s not generally into this sort of genre (written in the 60s, it’s about an elementary school girl with some sort of ability to experience other times), but the internet was correct in that it’s about the right level of difficulty. I do kinda dislike some of the dated stuff (not useful, which is my primary concern) and there’s a ton of jargon to learn. Overall, it’s ok for it’s purpose, though it’s certainly not something I’m excited to pick up when time allows.
I was really happy with the mistborn era 2 books! I loved the original trilogy and hated the idea of the second era books, but when I actually read them I was blown away and now am an avid Cosmere reader.
I just recently finished Green Mars, book 2 of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. Really interesting series. It has a peculiar narrative that makes it feel like the planet or the civilization of the planet as a whole is the driving force of the narrative and the characters are secondary. I didnt really find myself attached to the characters in the first novel but by the end of the second one they had grown on me quite a bit.
I also finished re-reading Dawn by Octavia E Butler. I’ll re-read the other two books in the series soon but needed a break because that book is a bit heavy emotionally. Just very bleak in some ways. Super good though, and very provoking.
I also also am casually re-listening to Steven Brand’s narration of Anthony Ryan’s “Raven’s Shadow” trilogy which is really cool.
Finished Sandman and Joyce’s Dubliners.
Restarting Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson after setting it down over a decade ago. Usually I can just pick up a book I paused right where I left off, but I completely forgot what any of those made-up words meant.
I have been reading Anathema by Neal Stephenson. I’m about a fourth of the way through and it’s been great. I’ve read two or three of his other books which I’ve really enjoyed. Cryptonomicon became one of my favorite books. But so far this has been up there as something that may top that, it’s been pretty good so far. I hope it ends well.
Anathem is one of the strangest and most rewarding books I’ve ever read. I absolutely love it. Like many of his other works it is a TOME but totally worth it. I did Termination Shock already this year and it was really cool. I hope you enjoy the rest of Anathem, it’s a helluva ride!
I am still reading Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight book 2). I’m about 3/4 of the way through and enjoying it immensely. However everything I’ve read so far feels like set up, which is a little frustrating because mistborn did not have this feel to it.
I’ve been going through the nights watch series of discworld books, I need a funny distraction from all this bullshit in the real world.
Their commentary on the common person thinking a king will fix everything is too fitting though, especially now…
Ho boy. It’s a good read, but I wouldn’t count on it being distracting. Be prepared to be confronted with potent reflections of the bullshit.
But in a funny way.
Definitely, but also in a very real way. And those real problems seem bleaker when you don’t see a Vimes in the real world to fix them.
- Finished Hyperion - excellent tale all round and I am impressed with Simmons’ breadth of styles within the each of the pilgrim’s tales. To me, the open ending was perfect and since there seem to be some division around the later books and they way that they resolve the mystery, I will leave it there for now. I may return to the other ones at some time though.
- Finished Project Hail Mary - which has a lot in common with Dennis E. Taylor’s Bobiverse books in overall approach. I suppose that they could be termed ‘procedural’ SF, with the focus being on the resolution of successive problems. Intellectually rewarding, but with limited emotional engagement, I found. It was certainly entertaining, and I enjoyed the worldbuilding but, between this and the Bobiverse, I far preferred the latter.
- (Re)Started Consider Phlebas - I had started this a few years back, but put it aside for some reason and never resumed. I can just about recall the overall scenes, but none of the detail. I have never read any of the other Culture tales and am eager to get to grips with these books. So far it is taking a while to develop, but I only started it a couple of evenings ago.
I think the second Hyperion book rounds out the story nicely. I’ve never read about what is said online but I listened to both a couple of times, loved them, but never felt the need to read any further than that.
Agreed! The first novel is by far the most unique and the second is a nicely paced sequel. The third and fourth books have a drop off in quality but I still really like them as sf novels in their own right. Much more tame in style and execution. Simmons is an interesting author to say the least.
Consider Phlebas isn’t really characteristic of the Culture series as a whole—don’t hesitate to start somewhere else if you tried Phlebas before and it didn’t hook you. (They all work as stand-alone novels, with just a few tangential recurring characters.)
I agree with you, also The player of games is a lot more accesible as a first book in the series. I’ve never read the last three books though, at some point I decided I had enough SF for a while.
Completely agree with this and the other comments, except I wouldnt really recommend anyone start with Inversions (because you’ll miss all the explicitly-unstated context) or Look to Windward (as it is essentially a sequel to Consider Phlebas). Absolutely love the Culture series, you can really see how Banks was just trying stuff out with the various books. Use of Weapons and Player of Games are phenomenal, in particular.
Yes, I had read that they were all stand alone and I may do, but I will give CP a while longer before I do. I don’t dislike it, but following PHM, it is a rather different pacing.
Finally read Animal Farm. My takeaway was that any form of government eventually devolves to corruption. Despite having read the last lines in the past, was surprised when it ended.
About to finish A Short, Sharp Shock by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s a bit surreal, not sure where it’s going, but it’s a quick novella.
Love his writing, but damn, the Mars trilogy burnt me out on geography. I have a fair vocabulary, but Robinson must have majored in the subject.
I have these on tap if anyone cares to comment. Guy on reddit shared his Gdrive ebooks with me years ago, these sounded interesting.
Read Eifelheim a couple of times, downloaded it because I don’t have a good copy. It’s a fascinating look at how crash-landed and ill aliens are treated in Medieval Germany. The author is sometimes a little heavy-handed with the, “did you know this was the origin of this belief\word\thing\whatever?!” But yeah, I did not know those things and it was a great learning experience.
I’m about done with Character Limit, it’s about Musk’s takeover of Twitter. It’s super fascinating, an absolute page-turner. If that whole shitshow remotely piques your interest I’d recommend it.
Children of memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky about 75% of the way through. What if jumping spiders and octopodes and slime mold and ravens evolved Human level intellect 9/10 series would recommend again.
The second in that series is one of my all time favourites.
We’re going on an adventure.
I also just recently finished book 3. Book 1 is phenomenal and somehow book 2 was even better. I definitely liked 3 the least but still really enjoyed it. The horror of book 2 was incredible. I was getting 11/10 heebie jeebies.
Finished the Bobiverse series. It was a nice read, but I don’t think the last one leaves room for another book in this series. I’m gonna start “all systems red” by Martha Wells next, see how that goes. I’m not to sure about the novella format though, I like doing a little longer with a story.
I did Bobiverse and Murderbot straight through a few months ago. They pair nicely!
I also caught up on the Bobiverse recently! According to his website, Taylor plans at least ten books, though I see what you mean with the most recent having few leftover threads to follow.
Cleveland, William L., and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, c. 2016), 6th edition
Nicholas Riasanovsky and Mark Steinberg, A History of Russia (Oxford University Press, 2019), ninth edition
Gatrell, Peter. Russia’s First World War: A Social and Economic History. London: Pearson Educated, 2005.
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy
All except the last one are for school and I have not finished them but I they are much less dry than I expected.
