SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Binge read the rest of the Tales of the Ketty Jay series. Fun series!

The Black Lung Captain
The Iron Jackal
The Ace of Skulls

Now I'm reading Kings of the Wyld.

Chris wrote: "Chris | 291 comments
In June I read The Wise Man's Fear (★★★★★), The Left Hand of Darkness (★★★), MaddAddam (★★★★★), Trapped (★★★★), and Too Like the Lightning (★★½)."

Ooh, Chris, good stuff!!!

Veronica wrote: "Binge read the rest of the Tales of the Ketty Jay series. Fun series!

The Black Lung Captain
The Iron Jackal
The Ace of Skulls

Now I'm reading [book:..."

I need to finish that I have the last 2 books, but haven't gotten around to it.

Julia wrote: "I am listening to Joe Morton read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I am avidly listening, but it's not something I'm enjoying, so far.

Last night I finished Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken, which I thoroughly loved. I laughed out loud often and cried a little, too."

I listened to Invisible Man narrated by Joe Morton as well this year. I loved Joe Morton! The Invisible Man is an uncomfortable book. It is a searing critique on society and humanity. I'm not convinced it is meant to be enjoyed, just experienced. I was really amazed by how current/applicable this novel written over 60 years ago was.

Love Al Franken!

Rob wrote: "I need to finish that I have the last 2 books, but haven't gotten around to it."

I think he did a good job of closing it out. The last book was pretty full though.

Veronica wrote: "Binge read the rest of the Tales of the Ketty Jay series. Fun series!

The Black Lung Captain
The Iron Jackal
The Ace of Skulls

Now I'm reading [book:..."

I started reading BLC and was enjoying it until I set it down and it disappeared. House gremlins, prolly.

The Machines of Bellatrix by Cary Caffery - its book 2 of 3. It's a nice light sci-fi series.

The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood- I'm not too far in, but I always love her books. Also it's free on KU.

I am reading The Black Company, well more like suffering through it. Pining my hope that the review that said the three first chapters are awful but the book is way better after is right. Though there are only 7 chapters and I am only in the 2nd chapter.

Reading too The Collapsing Empire. I should finish it fast though the two first chapters were boring.

Ilona wrote: "I am reading The Black Company, well more like suffering through it. Pining my hope that the review that said the three first chapters are awful but the book is way better after is right. Though there are only 7 chapters and I am only in the 2nd chapter."

It's hard to say. I guess it depends on what you dislike about it. I didn't love that book while I was reading it. The characters and world weren't really properly developed... or more specifically, the author had developed them in his mind but didn't really deliver that to the reader.

I read the rest of the trilogy anyways though, and it grew on me. I think the series ended up being more than the sum of its parts.

Finished last night; the best book in the series so far...

Here's my review...

I just finished The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley and really enjoyed it. A female author writing about an all female society on these gigantic living spacecraft was so deliciously different from most of the sci fi I've read over the years

I just read THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE by John Scalzi. It was fine, nothing to get excited about IMHO. I probably will read the sequels but I won't feel bad if I don't catch up the story as soon as it gets out.

Beggars in Spain (Sleepless, #1)
The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur, #1)
Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future
River of Gods (India 2047, #1)
Down on the Farm (Laundry Files, #2.5)
The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry Files, #3)
Walkaway

might also reread panodra's star.

Najaf, how was River of Gods?

Sarah Anne wrote: "Najaf, how was River of Gods?"

its going pretty well so far. i think i am 3 hours in... we'll see. the author put in some hours researching the subject matter though. now pandora's star is calling me.

Trike wrote: "I started reading BLC and was enjoying it until I set it down and it disappeared. House gremlins, prolly. "

That or Slag, the Ketty Jay's cantankerous cat, dragged it off to his lair.

I've read since I last posted American Street by Ibi Zoboi, Wonder Woman: Odyssey, Vol. 1 by J. Michael Straczynski, Wonder Woman: The True Amazon by Jill Thompson, Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham, Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson. The last two were great, the other three less so. Can anyone recommend a really good Wonder Woman book, possibly for teens &/ or tweens?

I'm currently reading American War by Omar El Akkad.

I'm behind on my bookshelf challenge so I just finished Zodiac and now I'm trying to finish Neuromancer but it's not really my thing. I always have trouble with Noir-esque stuff. But I'm appreciating it for what it meant when it came out and all that.

Hey hey, HeyT! almost finished with Zodiac myself!

MadProfessah wrote: "I just read THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE by John Scalzi. It was fine, nothing to get excited about IMHO. I probably will read the sequels but I won't feel bad if I don't catch up the story as soon as it g..."

MadProfessah, did you like it more or less than Old Man's War, enjoyment-wise? I read Collapsing Empire first and it swept me up, but OMW was a harder thing for me to fall in love with, personally.

Whilst on vacation, I read The Gunslinger, Midnight Riot, Sandman Slim, Old Man's War and Deathless!

I found Gunslinger to be brilliantly crafted but the story and characters didn't really grab me. I'll keep reading as I still enjoyed it and have heard it picks up in the next book.

Midnight Riot was hilarious! A light but well researched popcorn UF.

Sandman Slim was another UF and I think this one would likely be less universally enjoyed but was almost perfectly suited to me sense of humor and perversity.

Old Man's War did that thing I see not infrequently in sci fi where it has a lot of great ideas and strong writing ...with no plot. I called it "Elder's Game by Nicholas Sparks" because it felt like a septuagenarian version of Ender's Game with a "The Notebook" style love story appended.

And Deathless was basically what I want all retellings to be like. I hope the next one is as good! If so, she's going up there with Robin McKinley and Juliet Marillier as masters of the folk story retellings.

Now I'm trying to make Written in Red download (anyone else having issues converting .ascm files with Digital Editions??) and the library should have both the group's books for the month in soon!

The .ascm is epub that is DRM protected. You should be able to open that in Digital Editions or ebook reader (like Adliko). You just need to sign into DE.

Soo wrote: "The .ascm is epub that is DRM protected. You should be able to open that in Digital Editions or ebook reader (like Adliko). You just need to sign into DE."

Thanks, Soo! Yeah, DE is just not connecting. I'll try again now that I'm on a better wifi (and back in my home country, maybe that was an issue?)

David wrote: "It's hard to say. I guess it depends on what you dislike about it. I didn't love that book while I was reading it."

I don't care about the characters. Nothing to cheer on them at the beginning since we don't really see them do anything heroic or good, on the contrary, they killed sleeping men. They aren't described well. Some fights are skipped while we are given lengthy descriptions of the boring things they do like card games.

Well I read through the three first chapters, and it is a big improvement after since the writer now takes the time to develop the scenes.

I finished The Collapsing Empire, interesting reading but made weaker by the stupidity of the bad guys, I thought at first it was interesting to see their plans were still a big nuisance but overall it was a letdown.

Agreed that THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE was nothing special. I'm glad I read it but overall I was not overly impressed.

I was reading Discount Armageddon earlier last month. It was a great urban fantasy comedy where the main character...well she combines combat and ballroom dancing. The fight at the end was so damn funny!

I read about 53% of Stormlord Rising It's a middle eastern fantasy novel. I shouldn't have wasted my time.

Right now I'm reading Every Dead Thing About 21% through and about 98 pages in. NOW THIS is what I'm talking about! It's about this ex cop whose wife and kid were killed. When someone else is killed in a similar fashion, Charile Parker seeks them out. Plus, his families ghosts are hanging around.

Oh, and I typed this and forgot to hit post, I'm now 33% through the book and I've read about another 56 pages, for a total of 154/467 pages. The words are just flying off the pages I tell ya!

I finished Aurora and gave it 3 stars. Here's my review if you're interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I just finished Ninefox Gambit. Weird and not for everybody, but I loved it.

agrees with Madprofessah. "The collapsing empire" was not very good. "The Dread Empires Fall " by Walter Jon Williams was levels of magnitude better.

Allison, I was going to re-read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever but Spouse is re-reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series and talked me into joining him. So now I'm halfway through The Gunslinger :)

I still have NINEFOX GAMBIT on my kindle but can't get myself to pick it up again despite the Hugo nomination for Best Novel. I got to about 8% before I gave up, confused and uninterested in continuing.

MadProfessah wrote: "I still have NINEFOX GAMBIT on my kindle but can't get myself to pick it up again despite the Hugo nomination for Best Novel. I got to about 8% before I gave up, confused and uninterested in contin..."

I can't fault you for that. He insists on dumping us in a pile of jargon from his weird space fantasy worldbuilding without explaining anything, which I find more than a little annoying myself. It does start to come together in good time though, and I thought it was worth the effort.

I guess I'm strange. I really enjoyed The Collapsing Empire and Ninefox Gambit.

Everyone else seems underwhelmed by the former, but it's probably one of my favorite Scalzi books, and I've read most of his at this point.

I really liked Collapsing Empire precisely because it was silly. I don't watch Modern Family expecting Shakespeare, I merely want funny jokes executed well. Collapsing Empire succeeds on that level.

I loved Ninefox Gambit. I'd heard so many people say how strange and hard and weird it was that I wasn't even going to try, but then I did anyway and it was simply amazing. Raven Stratagem was so much easier to get into, obviously, but I kind of missed the weirdness of the first book. It was still good, just in a different way. Can't wait for book three.

Rob wrote: "I guess I'm strange. I really enjoyed The Collapsing Empire and Ninefox Gambit.

Everyone else seems underwhelmed by the former, but it's probably one of my favorite..."

I must not have done a good job in my previous post (I blame jet lag) because I meant to say I really liked Collapsing Empire. It was very much my style humor and I L-O-V-E-D the lady characters. I am pretty sure these are people I know IRL suddenly punted to space, and while I'm not sure we should have let them do that, I'm delighted with the job they're doing so far.

I still need to pick up Raven. I'm kind of behind on my books atm because I'm only doing audio and not actually reading anything.

So Collapsing Empire is a comedy book about funny characters and the back plot just happens to be space opera stuff?

Same Rob only I'm also going through a pile of webnovels and actually reading a few manga's again. As for Audio did you see the David Gemmell books are now on audio, I kept hearing good things about them but never got around to them until now, working through Legend now.

Personally I think Collapsing Empire is a decent space opera story that is made into a really enjoyable book (for me) because of the characters and Scalzi Snark.

Like Trike said, I'm not expecting it to be very deep plot, or say Expanse-level Space Opera. It's just a fun-light read.

Rob wrote: "Personally I think Collapsing Empire is a decent space opera story that is made into a really enjoyable book (for me) because of the characters and Scalzi Snark.

Like Trike said, I'm not expecting..."

Yeah, Collapsing Empire is the popcorn read of space operas but I'd say the politics and world building are still quite sophisticated. It's just told through the viewpoints of characters who happen to have different types of humor that work well together. It's got a couple holes, but not more than Old Man's War, I think. It meshed better for me than OMW as a cohesive tale with a strong narrative. Definitely more character-driven than Old Man's War, and less about the science of it.

Michele wrote: "Allison, I was going to re-read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever but Spouse is re-reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series and talked me into joining him. So now I'm ..."

\m/ wicked!

Can't wait to hear your thoughts :-)

Rob wrote: "I still need to pick up Raven. I'm kind of behind on my books atm because I'm only doing audio and not actually reading anything."

I tried switching to audio halfway through Ninefox Gambit, heard Jedao's voice sound like a 12-year-old boy, and shut it off after about 30 seconds and returned it :)

It seems to me that would be a hard book to follow on audio.

I had no issues with the audio. However I do a lot of audio. When I first started doing audio books, I stuck to very light/easy books and rereads. Now I'll pretty much listen to anything.

I thought the narrator was fine (based on my review). I guess the fact that I had to look it up means it wasn't particularly memorable (positive or negative) narration though.

Popcorn read of Space-Opera seems weird to me because Space-Opera has tons and tons of popcorn reads, it's almost a popcorn-read genre. I guess Expanse isn't a popcorn read but I burned out after finishing book 1 because the detective POV was really bad and I just didn't care, and I wasn't getting a strong the 2nd book is better vibe.

If it's what the genre is, why is it weird? Or just weird that I noted it that way? Don't take me too seriously, I am not very well-versed in science fiction yet :-) I am, however, pretty sure about books that you can just shut down and enjoy, and this was one of them, for me. Scalzi has enough of a bibliography though that I can understand people having different favorites, and I would suspect witchcraft if everyone loved him universally, so I'm sure some people bounce off him entirely.

Or they better, otherwise I'm gonna see if he weighs as much as a duck.

Why a duck? (Not to mix comedy movie metaphors).

Mike wrote: "Why a duck? (Not to mix comedy movie metaphors)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMh...

I guess he might also weigh as much as a very small rock or an apple, but that hasn't been conclusively proven yet.

Well played, Mrs. H. Well played.

Allison wrote: "If it's what the genre is, why is it weird? Or just weird that I noted it that way? Don't take me too seriously, I am not very well-versed in science fiction yet :-) I am, however, pretty sure abou..."

"Yeah, Collapsing Empire is the popcorn read of space operas"

It was just the use of the word the, like it's the exception to the rule, when it's probably very much in style with it.

I generally like Scalzi, but I'm in no rush to get to the first book which is going to be a series when book 2 even isn't out yet. Book 1 always seems like the easiest book it's how you handle the next few books which I feel make or break a series.

I felt like Old Man's War series went downhill starting in book 3, but both book 1 and 2 were completely fine as stand-alones while I heard that this doesn't seem to be the case with collapsing empire yet.

Aaron wrote: "Allison wrote: "If it's what the genre is, why is it weird? Or just weird that I noted it that way? Don't take me too seriously, I am not very well-versed in science fiction yet :-) I am, however, ..."

Ah, I see. I likely should have said "the popcorn-read side of space opera." I'll get it in editing, though. ;-)

I dunno, having read both TCE and OMW I think I have about the same number of questions from each at the finale, and I found the narrative structure to be more linear in TCE, personally. TCE just took itself less seriously, and was (even) less focused on the science of it being plausible. But I'm just going to keep saying the same things. I look forward to your thoughts if/when you get to it!