Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Not to trample on Michele's bailiwick, but I noticed the change in the Calendar (Also, my outdoor thermometer tells me it never got over 100°F yesterday, so the seasons are a'changin'.)

So, what books are you reading this September?

For those of you interested in what's going to be new on the shelves this September,....


Tor.com offers:
September Releases in Fantasy
September Releases in Science Fiction
September Releases in Urban Fantasy & Horror
Genre-benders for September

SFSignal offers:
A Cover Gallery of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Books Due in September

IO9 offers:
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Books You Can’t Afford to Miss in September!

I am currently reading:

The Ghost Brigades
Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files (as I get to the stories that chronologically need to be read, I will knock this off)
The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft (I finally started knocking some more of this out)

I also received my giveaway copy of The Miniaturist and have Death Masks sitting on my shelf. I'll probably knock both of those out after finishing Ghost Brigades. Then I'll have to either buy some more or grab stuff I have on my shelf from years ago that I either never finished or never got around to starting and I just integrated into the bookshelf over the years. I have a collection of the first three Dragonriders of Pern books that I never got more than 100 pages into, maybe that'll be next up.

Currently rereading The Scorch Trials in preparation for seeing the movie. It was my favorite of the trilogy.

Next on my list: Knight's Shadow

Just started Resonance by Chris Dolley. Picked it up at the library bag sale, and so far seems interesting.

Taking a break from my normal fare to read Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, after which I plan to finally finish the Hyperion story with the 2 Endymion books. It's been almost a year since I read the first 2 books and the old memory ain't what it used to be, so I'll look for a good condensed plot somewhere to refresh. Maybe Wikipedia? Any suggestions?

I'm suffering through the end of the Sword of Truth series . Love the first four... after that, don't bother..

Reading a first novel by a Canadian writer: "Lorelai You'll Never Die". It's a post apocalyptic story. I did not care too much for the opening but it gets to be interesting after that. Not a bad first novel. Worth a read. I would put it around PG-13 plus. I wouldn't let my ten year old read it. Maybe when she is 17. So recommend you keep that in mind if you pick it up.

Started reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas a couple days ago, and I'm almost finished, which is pretty impressive for me because I'm a slow reader.

I'm totally blown away by how Mitchell put this book together: the genre hopping, the mirrored storytelling, the interconnectedness of it all. Beautiful.

Any recommendations on which of his books I should read next?

I'm also hoping to start Blood Child, and Other Stories when I get back from The Keys. I haven't participated in a discussion in quite some time.

About to start The Shepherd's Crown. Then I have a bit of historical to read and then back to SFF.

Jessica wrote: "Started reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas a couple days ago, and I'm almost finished, which is pretty impressive for me because I'm a slow reader."

Jessica, if you really enjoyed Cloud Atlas you should absolutely give The Bone Clocks a read when you are ready to take up another Mitchell novel. It's a bit more playful than Cloud Atlas, and is structured in a very similar way.

Just started Flex by Ferret Steinmetz

I just started Lucifer's Hammer as recommended by my ol' friend, G33z3r.

Bobby wrote: "I just started Lucifer's Hammer as recommended by my ol' friend, G33z3r."

Ooo, that's a classic apocalyptic read! Another paperback that I've owned forever! Enjoy! My fave quote (as a teenager)..."You can fly, but we control the lightning!"

Kivrin wrote: "Another paperback that I've owned forever! Enjoy! My fave quote (as a teenager)..."You can fly, but we control the lightning!" ..."

I remember the "control lightning" line, but the quote I remember most clearly from Lucifer's Hammer is, "Hot fudge sundae comes on Monday." :)

G33z3r wrote: "Kivrin wrote: "Another paperback that I've owned forever! Enjoy! My fave quote (as a teenager)..."You can fly, but we control the lightning!" ..."

I remember the "control lightning" line, but the ..."

Spoken like a true "mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragger".

Right now I'm almost finished with Niven's Fleet of Worlds, the first of his multi-part Ringworld/Known Space series. It introduces the Pierson's Puppeteers race to humanity. I read a lot of his Known Space stories, but not this particular set. It's going "okay" So far.

Last week I tried Card's Earth Unaware, start of his prequel to Ender's Game. A bit disappointing.

So looks like I'm catching up on some prequels to some classics these days.

I'm also currently getting started with Bujold's Cetaganda, one of the Vorkosigan books I skipped. No know why, Bujold can really write entertaining stories.

So, a lot of space opera.

Also just finished Low, Vol. 1: The Delirium of Hope, collection of first 6 issues of the comic Low, a little apocalypse in progress undersea adventure. At the rate it's killing off characters, I figure 8 issues max.

And I plan to start on Bloodchild and Other Stories tomorrow for our planned discussion starting Friday.

I read The Shepherd's Crown earlier this month, and am currently reading Cory Doctorow's For the Win.

Shepherd's Crown has a pretty huge O_O very close to the beginning. No spoilers, but there was a lot of "But, but, but--?!?!" when I got there. :( Great story, though. I've liked all the Tiffany Aching books, and this was a great novel to tie her even more firmly into the rest of Discworld.

For the Win so far is another of Cory's kid-power YA novels, with a tone similar to Little Brother, if you liked that one. The main characters are teenagers who work as gold farmers based in various third world countries, abused and exploited, but very tech savvy. They're in the process of rebelling against the bosses and trying to take control over their lives, at the spot where I left off. Good stuff, if you're a teen yourself, or remember what it was like to be one.

Angie

Doug wrote: "Jessica, if you really enjoyed Cloud Atlas you should absolutely give The Bone Clocks "

Thanks, Doug. I'll definitely check it out.

I recently started Elantris and I'm really liking it so far

Just started Seraphina

It's not exactly adult ficion...but, there's a dragon in it and that is all I require.

i just started Triplanetary by E E 'Doc' Smith, first in the Lensmen series...Smith use to be known as 'Skylark' Smith, after his novel The Skylark of Space, but later became known just as 'Doc' (a title to which he was entitled...he had a Phd, in organic chemistry i think....note Isaac Asimov was known as 'the good Doctor' and had a PhD in chemistry)...Doc always painted his space operas on a large canvas, showing us SF was truely unlimited in scope. In the late 20s and the 30s he was THE writer of SF, the Master of Super-Science, with future Astounding editor John W Campbell running a close second for the title. Yes, Smith's writing is pulpy...he'd win no awards today...but his stories had HEART....he's best known today for the Lensmen series. The Lensmen series was originally only 4 (i think it was 4) novels long...later he added to it, makeing it 7 novels...in the early days of the Hugo awards Smith and the Lensmen slugged it out with Tolkien's Ring series and Asimov's Foundation series for the greatest SF series of all time (Foundation won).

I finished Peacemaker, winner of last year's Aurealis Award for science fiction. It's actually a bit of a genre-bender: set a bit in the future, and thus some sci-fi, it's an urban fantasy about a park ranger and her spirit animal, and so has a bunch of low-tech outdoorsy stuff, too: Six shooters versus EMP guns, horses racing hover cars. After a rough start, I decided it was "OK".

YOU WON'T SEE IT IN GALAXY!!!

if you get that reference, give yourself a Old Pharts Award

:-D

Hitchhiker's? Wild guess...

nope...back in the 1950s Galaxy Magazine first hit the stands...it was a outstanding SF mag....they ran a add in the first issue, two columns of type...one column was from a western, the other was the same story as SF..."six-shooter" was changed to "ray-gun", Indian was changed to martian, you get the idea...then in bold print they had "YOU'LL NEVER SEE IT IN GALAXY"....point being, Galaxy wouldn't print the "low-brow" SF story that would be at home in any ol adventure pulp magazine....

anyway, i thought of that ad when G33 said the book he read was a mix of western and SF motifs....hope ya ain't mad G33

:-)

I've been reading The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez from a couple of years ago. It's a futuristic space opera. It's a gunpowder fantasy. Space opera. Fantasy. Space opera. Fantasy. Stop arguing, you two. It's both a space opera and a gunpowder fantasy! Yes, it's two, two, two books in one. One story is set on 2130 Mars, where unusual tectonic activity is messing with commercial mining operations. The other story this set in an alternate 1779, where the British Royal Navy flies the void between the planets in wooden tall ships powered by alchemy. The two stories just alternate chapters for most of the book. (The alternate-1779 story has an odd structure: each entry begins as a journal entry in 1st person, then after a couple of paragraphs transforms into a 3rd-person narration with the same PoV character.)

Anyway, eventually these two stories from different universes will find a way to interact for the reader.

It's kind of a fun read. I confess ever since I read Reaves' The Shattered World I've been in love with the idea of sailing vessels flying between the planets (also the short-lived comic book Meridian from Barbara Kesel & Crossgen Comics.) So it's a bit like Hornblower in space, without an actual spaceship.