SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I had a record breaking month and I'm very excited!

Audio
Map of Bones 1*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame 3*
Darker Angels 5*
United States of Japan 3*
The Concrete Blonde 4*
The Last Coyote 5*
The Absent One 4*
Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction
Trunk Music 3*
A Conspiracy of Faith 5*
Weaveworld 3*
The Purity of Vengeance 4*
Oryx and Crake 4*
A Midsummer Night's Dream 4*
The Mysteries of Udolpho 4*
The Year of the Flood 4*
MaddAddam 4*
Love in a Dry Season
The City & the City 5*
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch 3*
Moll Flanders 4*
Infomocracy: A Novel
The Abominable 2*

Print
Long Man 3*
The Talisman 2*
Maurice 5*
The Tempest 3*
Jacklight 4*
The Education of Little Tree 5*
A Natural History of Dragons 4*
House of Small Shadows 4*
The Three-Body Problem 3*
The Green Mile, Part 4: The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix 4*

Sarah Anne wrote: "I had a record breaking month and I'm very excited!

Audio
Map of Bones 1*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame 3*
Darker Angels 5*
[book:United States of Japan..."

Holy cow, that many audiobooks in a month?? You must do some serious commuting!

I use them for everything :) I particularly like the fact that I can use them when I'm grocery shopping, which I hate to do. I even plug in to do laundry or dishes. I love accomplishing something while I'm doing something I dislike.

Sarah Anne wrote: "I use them for everything :) I particularly like the fact that I can use them when I'm grocery shopping, which I hate to do. I even plug in to do laundry or dishes. I love accomplishing something w..."

I'm the same Sarah Anne!
Cooking dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the floors etc. still don't get through that many though! Wow!! Well done!

Thanks :)

Sarah Anne wrote: "I had a record breaking month and I'm very excited!

Audio"

Holy cow! I thought I was doing okay with nine. I guess I'm going to have to cut back on some of my less important activities, like eating, sleeping and working.

I do audio a lot. Or so I thought. Dishes, laundry, shopping. Check. Also bike rides, etc. I still only get about 20 hours on a good week.

And then I do 30 hour books. Quite jealous. :-)

It used to take me all month to get through a 10 hour book :)

Sarah Anne wrote: "I had a record breaking month and I'm very excited!

Insane!! You've read 6 books more in June than I've read in 2016 so far!! And my reading progress is waaay better this year than ever before. Congrats!! You may be the first person to ever read all of the books you actually want to in your lifetime. Keep striving!! ;-)

Congratulations! I cannot even imagine listening to that much of someone else talking. I saw that you had read MaddAddams - how did it compare to the previous two books? An acquaintance started to tell me he did not like the book much before I stuck my fingers in my ears and started singing the War Hymn at him but I do wonder whether I should wait a week to read it or pick it up next.

Sarah Anne wrote: "I had a record breaking month and I'm very excited!

Congrats!

I will say that I started doing a lot more audio books because of issues with migraines, but now that I have my migraines under control, I kind of like the audio, especially when multi-tasking and commuting. It's also a great way to do a "re-read" of a book. The different format kind of highlights different aspects of an old favorite.

Sandi wrote: "An acquaintance started to tell me he did not like the book much before I stuck my fingers in my ears and started singing the War Hymn at him ..."

Ha! It was worth reading. It continues the story from The Year of the Flood and pulls a lot of things together. I liked both of those better than Oryx & Crake. I would read them back to back and I don't normally do that.

Melanie wrote: "The different format kind of highlights different aspects of an old favorite..."

I've found this, too. It's fascinating.

I had a pretty good month. I did take a few days off reading so I didn't get as many read as I usually do. Not all are Scifi/fantasy.
Age of Myth 5*
Cinder 4*
Caliban's War 5*
Ender's Game 5*
Storm Front 4*
Paradime: A Novel 4*
The Dream Thieves 5*
Son of the Black Sword 5*
Non fantasy or Scifi
The Killer Next Door 4*
All Is Not Forgotten 5*
I got really lucky this month with so many great books. All these books were really good and a few were great.

Age of Myth was that good? I've been kind of curious about that one. It's awesome that you loved all of your books :)

Sarah Anne wrote: "Age of Myth was that good? I've been kind of curious about that one. It's awesome that you loved all of your books :)"

I'm not done, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Doing a group read with some friends.

Sarah Anne wrote: "Age of Myth was that good? I've been kind of curious about that one. It's awesome that you loved all of your books :)"

It is really that good. I think this is the best month I have ever had as far as getting one good book after another. The last few chapters of Age of Myth was so amazing. It really was a roller coaster ride of emotions. Michael J Sullivan does such a great job of painting a picture in your mind of what is happening.

Sold!

The audio is fantastic. Tim Gerard Reynolds is over of my favorite narrators.

A tad disappointed with

Should I give Brandon Sanderson another chance??

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Melissa wrote: "A tad disappointed with

Should I give Brandon Sanderson another chance??

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

In general, or do you mean should you read Firefight?

Personally that series turned me off on reading non-Cosmere books of Sanderson for the foreseeable future.

I'd recommend his Stormlight Archive series (starts with: The Way of Kings), or his Mistborn books (starts with The Final Empire). Both are far better than the Reckoners in my opinion

Mistborn is brilliant.

I use audiobooks here and there but I could never listen to that many in a month. I find I just don't pay as much attention to the story as I do when I read the story myself. As a result I feel like I'm not giving the book it's best chance to hook me and I find that I tend to rate audiobooks lower. I feel a disconnect from the story, an emotional distance. Obviously others have a much better experience with them, which is great.

And speaking of audiobooks, I'm currently listening to (b/c I already had it in this format and it came up as a BoTM for another group) and reading by Kelly Armstrong. She's written UF before but I'm starting to think this book won't have any paranormal elements to it.

Sarah Anne wrote: "Mistborn is brilliant."

Thanks, Yes I have heard that Sarah Anne! I think I'll try that series next!

Rob wrote: "Melissa wrote: "A tad disappointed with

Should I give Brandon Sanderson another chance??

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

In general, or ..."

Excellent thanks Rob! Yes I meant in general. Steelheart was the first I have read of his. Think I started with the wrong series!

Thanks for the recommendations!

Melissa wrote: "A tad disappointed with

Should I give Brandon Sanderson another chance??

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

I liked Steelheart, it was fine. But Mistborn is fantastic. You really should read that.

Sterling wrote: "Melissa wrote: "A tad disappointed with

Should I give Brandon Sanderson another chance??

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

I liked Steelhe..."
Thanks Sterling! I found Steelheart to be quite average, but Mistborn looks great :-) I'll get to it soon :-)

Missed a few since the last time so I'll just list them:

John Adams - 5*
Autumn Princess, Dragon Child - 4*
Ninefox Gambit - 4*
Under Witch Moon - 4*

Last night I finished A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin. To sum it up: a bunch of people quarrel over the throne, and there's plenty of illicit sex. Not so different from the upcoming presidential primaries, is it?

To take its place in my reading pile I've chosen Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny. I have only read Zelazny's first Amber quintology so I'm looking forward to it.

I'm still working on Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card.

In the next few days I'm probably going to also start plugging away at The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition ed. by Rich Horton.

Rob wrote: The audio is fantastic. Tim Gerard Reynolds is over of my favorite narrators.

Tim Gerard Reynolds is one of my favorite narrators too. I'm listening to him read The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence right now. I won a copy of Age of Myth so hopefully that will arrive before I finish my current book and I can jump right into it!

Tad wrote: " Rob wrote: The audio is fantastic. Tim Gerard Reynolds is over of my favorite narrators.

Tim Gerard Reynolds is one of my favorite narrators too. I'm listening to him read [book..."

Congratulations on winning Age of Myth. A lot of people signed up to win that book. I had signed up originally but I preordered the audio book so I pulled out of the drawing to give others a chance to read it. I just hope that everyone that won a copy reads it. It really is a great book. I haven't got around to reading The Red Queens War yet. It's on my TBR. It looks great and I have heard really good things.

Finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I liked very much. Now almost done with The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. Flavia is as much fun in this second book as she was in the first! Up next: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street.

I just finished Peter Cline's THE FOLD. Earlier this week I finished RAISING CAINE by Charles Gannon.

Just started Jennifer Foehner Wells second book in the Fluency series, REMANENCE.

Looking forward to switching to murder-mystery soon. Probably Deborah Crombie and Elizabeth George.

I'm finally finally finally getting around to listening to Lexicon :)

Michele wrote: "Finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I liked very much. Now almost done with The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. Flavia is as much fu..."

Can you let me know what you think of Watchmaker of Filigree Street?

Tad wrote: Tim Gerard Reynolds is one of my favorite narrators too. I'm listening to him read The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence right now. I won a copy of Age of Myth so hopefully that will arrive before I finish my current book and I can jump right into it! ."

That is exactly what I am doing/doing next too. Listening/reading Wheel of Osheim, jumping into AoM next - still waiting for my signed hardcover to arrive but I got the ebook from NetGally and also bought it in audio.

I reached the end of an audio of Children of God to find that the recording cut off about an hour before the end of the book. I'm glad it did as I ended up enjoying the last chapters a lot more because of it. Here is my review.

Since my last post in early June, I’ve read:

1. Breath and Bone, the second book in the Lighthouse duology by Carol Berg. I absolutely loved this. It was one of the best books I’ve read in the past few years. I really enjoyed the story, and I became really attached to some of the characters. My review.

2. Guards! Guards!, a Discworld novel. It was ok, but I didn’t like it as well as some of the others I’ve read. My review.

3. Dust and Light, the first book in the Sanctuary duology by Carol Berg. This duology is set in the same world and during the same time period as the aforementioned Lighthouse duology, but with a different set of characters. My review.

4. Ash and Silver, the second book in the Sanctuary duology by Carol Berg. I really enjoyed this series. As before, I loved the story and the characters. Of the two, though, Lighthouse was my favorite. I definitely need to fit more of Carol Berg’s books into my future reading. I’ve now read seven books by her and loved all of them. My review.

5. Eric, a very short novel in the Discworld universe featuring Rincewind. This is another one that was ok, but not particularly memorable. My review.

6. Flowers for Algernon. I had read the short story in seventh or eighth grade, but I’d never read the full-length novel. I enjoyed it, but I found the middle part to be sadder and more depressing than I had remembered from reading the short story as a child. My review.

7. Moving Pictures, another Discworld novel. This was my least favorite of the Discworld books I’ve read so far. My review.

8. Death and What Comes Next, an extremely short story in the Disworld universe My review.

I just started the Red Rising trilogy this evening.

Sarah Anne wrote: "Can you let me know what you think of Watchmaker of Filigree Street? "

So far (p. 85) it's great -- very different, well-written, interesting characters. Enjoying it a lot.

Michele wrote: "3/4 of the way through The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and it's wonderful. So much better than what I was expecting!"

I LOVED this book. Not in this genre, but delightful.

I won an ARC of The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan. Django Wexler described this as "Part Indiana Jones, part Pirates of the Caribbean, and part Mistborn", which is pretty accurate. I liked it quite a bit.

I'm listening to the audio of Lovecraft Country, which is quite fascinating so far. I finished Lexicon yesterday and I highly recommend it.

Benjamin wrote: "I won an ARC of The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan. Django Wexler described this as "Part Indiana Jones, part Pirates of the Caribbean, and part Mistborn", which is pretty accurate. I ..."

That is one on my TBR. It looks really good.

Finished a bunch of stuff recently.

Books:
Battle Group Avalon - 2/5, disappointing overall the first half was weak and more of a 1.5/5 the second half picked up but it wasn't as good as the last 2, hopefully the next in this series is better.

Black Sun - 4/5 solid and conclusive ending to the trilogy, it felt a tad rushed like it needed just 20k more words and it would of been perfect.

Dead Man's Debt great ending to a great series. 4/5. It's a bit atypical in that in many ways it kind of has 2 climatic scenes broken up with a decent amount of space instead of just one.

Stiletto great sequel to an amazing novel - 4/5, start was a bit slow. It kind of released quietly so quick pick it up those of you who wanted more of The Rook

Shorter stuff:
Days of High Adventure - fun portal fantasy trash, warning some erotica 3/5

Justice Calling - ehhhh urban fantasy with nerdy in jokes, it never really got me tense or excited 2/5.

I'm in the middle of a bunch of stuff right now and I found this which is tempting me though it's great tag line
Into The Abyss

"Turns out: "The Demon Weed" really is a Gateway Drug!

Who knew?"

Benjamin wrote: "I won an ARC of The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan. Django Wexler described this as "Part Indiana Jones, part Pirates of the Caribbean, and part Mistborn", which is pretty accurate. I ..."

Dang that sounds cool, too bad the 3rd book of his Ravens shadow series is on my very short burn it with fire list. I guess it just means I'll have to wait until the whole series is out and see what people say.

Benjamin wrote: "I won an ARC of The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan. Django Wexler described this as "Part Indiana Jones, part Pirates of the Caribbean, and part Mistborn", which is pretty accurate. I ..."

I entered the giveaway for this one too but didn't win. Good to hear it's as good as I expect. Congrats!

Finished The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (most excellent), now on to the newest by Iain Pears, Arcadia. I was hugely impressed by his An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio, so I have high hopes for this one.

I finished reading Death of Kings. Another enjoyable entry in that series (My Review).

I also tore through Age of Myth in audio. Mr. Sullivan has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I already can't wait for book 2. I highly recommend this one (My Review).

I finished Our Town by Thornton Wilder a few hours ago, now I've got a 60 page Afterword to read, maybe.

Up next, I'm not sure, but I have a lot from the library: Outcast, Vol. 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him by Robert Kirkman, City of Secrets by Stewart O'Nan, Rocket Girl Volume 1: Times Squared by Brandon Montclare, Lowriders in Space by Cathy Camper PLUS Just My Luck by Cammie McGovern, Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author by Herman Wouk.

Julia wrote: "I finished Our Town by Thornton Wilder a few hours ago, now I've got a 60 page Afterword to read, maybe."

Ah, such a classic! What did you think?

The Anachronist Girls

If you loved The Time Travellers Wife--do be sure to find and read this excellent new book. I'm halfway through and trying to slow down, so I can make it last.

Also be on the lookout for:

All Our Wrong Todays

Another great time travel book--it's a memoir. :-)