Finally got some reading time and finished Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (first book in her October Daye urban fantasy series)!
It’s a very quick book, which is kind of ironic for me to say, since I took months to finish it, but finished the last third or so of the book in a single sitting.
There were certain things in the start that I didn’t like, but was enjoying the book by the time I finished it. Would love to read more in the series.
What about all of you, what have you been reading or listening to lately?
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No new post this week? I finally finished “the regicide report” by Charles Stross. Great book, and a good ending to the series. Last weekend I suddenly had a lot of time to read with the heat wave in Europe, so I read “BuyMort: Grand opening”. The book was ok, but only started becoming a page turner towards the end. I’m now reading part two of the series “BuyMort: Smart shopper”, and this is a lot more captivating to me. Started reading it monday, and am about 3/4 through. Also started reading the latest DCC book, “A Parade of Horribles” by Matt Dinniman. Read only a few chapters so far, still getting the hang of it.
Just finished Maddaddam, the last part of the trilogy. I think it is very well written. It ties the different storylines together in a way that I did not see coming. 4,5 stars Looking forward to reading more Margaret Atwood.
I finally got “This is how you lose the time war” out from the library. I dont think ive been this excited for a book in ages. Im 50 pages in and enjoying it so far,
spoiler
even if red’s letters are a bit cheesy.
The book is very well written I really appreciate that the author can paint a good picture of the scene without droning on(I hate tolkien for this)
Hey reading buddy! I just started reading this last night, unexpectedly devoured the first 25 pages, didn’t know what to expect but have been pleasantly delighted and excited to know where it’s going. I think this might be my first epistolary novel.
Mad Eden by Morgan Thomas, and I started the his dark materials books to read with my nephews.
Mad Eden is a difficult read. I don’t really like the main characters. The book is good still. I wouldn’t tell others not to read it.
His dark materials is great. Pullman does an awesome job of showing how confusing it is for young people to understand the complexities of navigating and growing into the adult world. Very anti religion too, which was part of why I got it for them.
I just finished the final book in the Throne of Glass series. I didn’t dislike the series overall but it was fairly basic and I was a bit disappointed by how the characters “developed” over the course of the series.
I think the ending of the final book in particular was just not very interesting. There were no twists or hurdles really in the final battle… random factions appear out of thin air to help in the battle but as a reader you have no idea why you’d care.
I am going to find a one off book to read next as I like to do after a long series. After that, maybe I’ll start Dungeons Crawler Carl.
Rereading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin definitely recommend it for its depiction and criticism of a potential utopian anarchist society.
I was about to grab that from the library the other day, but then I saw it was the listed as being in the middle of a series. Does it fare well on its own or should I start with something else?
Yes it fares well on its own none of the books in the “Hainish Cycle” are really in the same story they just share a vague universe with intersecting technology and multi-planet organzations but barely intersect so all can read on their own very easily.
Just the other day I found a copy of this at a yard sale. A vintage, cheap feeling paperback, which (materially) feels so classy now by way of contrast with moat of my other books.
Glad to see the high praise of it! Grabbed it on a whim. When I get to it, will be the first of Le Guin’s that I’ve read.
Listening to The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. About halfway through and enjoying it a lot. Great performance by the narrator Michael Page!
Might be my favourite book of all time.
Just finished reading Bloom by Delilah S Dawson for the podcast which is a sapphic horror. My teen offspring tells me its called ‘cottagecore’ whatever the fuck that means. I’ll reserve verdict until we record the episode!
Currently dipping in and out of The Real and the Unreal , which is Ursula K LeGuin’s short story collection. Brilliant as you would expect. Just about to start King Sorrow by Joe Hill. Got mixed opinions on his previous stuff so we’ll see how this one pans out.
I’m about 1/4 into The Aeronaut’s Windlass. Might be my first non-Dresden Butcher book. I’ve had the paperback on my shelf for some years but I picked up an invisible copy from the library to read on my commute. I like it so far. It’s an interesting steampunk setting, action forward, likable main cast.
And my beloved and I are reading the Hobbit to each other. Just got to the spiders
I started reading Witch Beast by Bernard King, it’s a fairly okay supernatural horror, I’m not entirely certain what to make of it yet, I’m in the mystery building section so far. But, folks, I really wanna highlight that a vast amount of this books fiction is dedicated to minutiae of urban development in England in the late 80s, to an absurd degree for a supernatural fantasy horror, it comes out of nowhere and just as suddenly disappears into the background
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien, for the first time in like twenty or so years.
I finished Spook Street (Slough House book 4) by Mick Herron. This is the first book where I found myself wishing I hadn’t watched the show yet. The author wrote some beautiful foreshadowing. I wonder how I would have reacted to it if I hadn’t already known what would happen.
Just finished this:
People say that writing an anti-war war story is impossible. Even if the patriotism, the institutions, the politics and the propaganda are all revealed to be hollow excuses to justify sending another generation to their doom, the camaraderie, the sacrifices and heroic deeds of the individual soldiers will make war look glorious. Many have tried to avoid this trap; most have failed. William March’s Company K succeeds in this goal, but at a high price. There are two main techniques that are instrumental for this: First and foremost is the structure of the text. The book is a collection of 113 short vignettes, each one about a soldier of the company. This results in the reader never getting attached to any particular person, since we never have time for that attachment to form. But this also kills any semblance of an objective for the narrative and therefore the tension. Joseph Heller‘s Catch22 has a similar episodic structure, but we stay with Yossarian and his companions for a long time. The objective is clear: Survival. This allows for the narrative to develop stakes and tension. Will they survive? Who will die? In Company K we follow the collective, but a company can’t die, and we already know how the war ended. So there isn’t really any objective. There aren’t any stakes and neither is there tension whether the objective will be achieved or not.
March’s second method of achieving the anti-war war story is the tone of the story. It’s remarkably bleak, even amongst its peers. The “good guys” do terrible things and commit horrible crimes, justified only by hollow propaganda that is also portrayed as such. Even the humor is black as night. This makes for a quite depressing reading experience.
In summary: this might be one of the best tries at achieving the anti-war war story, but it definitely isn’t the most readable try.
Who says writing an anti war war story is impossible? Its easy, war is inherently bad and its extremely easy to ignore the reasons for the war and focus on the bad. Its harder to write a pro war war story in my opinion.
Still reading “the regicide report” by Charles Stross. Almost through, and a great book. Still mot a lot of time to read due to other fun things.
Just finished Moneyball by Michael Lewis. I think the movie adaptation told a better story, but the book was full of interesting tidbits.
Almost done with Canon by Paige Lewis. A fun, madcap adventure about two women charged by God to defeat The Bad Guys.
Who’s the next Lewis you’ll be reading?
Hah! Hadn’t noticed that… no other Lewises in my queue
