SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Sarah Anne wrote: "Bhavana wrote: "This book has got me totally hooked to it and i am wondering what would i do once the book finishes (i am done 50% already) ..."

Don't you love it when that happens?"
Ofcourse i do ! Just that i wonder how much i might miss this book once i finish it :)

Don wrote: "just finished the trilogy The Dread Empires Fall by Walter Jon Williams. GnashTag: Space Opera, Hard scifi. I very much enjoyed it, several great story lines. always looking for good scifi and this..."

I really have to check this series out apparently.

Listening to Acceptance audiobook. Didn't like Authority very much but I want some answers.

I am reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

Planetary, Volume 1: All Over the World and Other Stories by Warren Ellis

"Elijah Snow, a hundred year old man.
Jakita Wagner, an extremely powerful and bored woman.
The Drummer, a man with the ability to communicate with machines.
Infatuated with tracking down evidence of super-human activity, these mystery archaeologists of the late 20th Century uncover unknown paranormal secrets and histories..."

I just finished Raven's Peak and the second one Raven's Fall. The final installment comes out next month. It's an awesome series with a great story and wonderful characters. If you're a fan of the show Supernatural you will love these books. Also, I got them free with Amazon Prime.

Kaitlin wrote: "I just finished Raven's Peak and the second one Raven's Fall. The final installment comes out next month. It's an awesome series with a great story and wonderful cha..."

Added to my TBR!

I just started reading Wen Spencer's new book, The Black Wolves of Boston. Its a whole new universe not tied to any of her previous books and so far includes the sort of interesting characters, exciting action and enjoyable humor I expect from this author.

Allison wrote: "Kaitlin wrote: "I just finished Raven's Peak and the second one Raven's Fall. The final installment comes out next month. It's an awesome series with a great story a..."

You won't be sorry! I easily sped through them because the story is so entertaining.

Just over half way through Natural History and really liking it. I think I might start on Memory of Water next.

I finished The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge about H.P. Lovecraft. My review:

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

I just finished Dare (by Philip Jose Farmer) and a book about Red Dwarf (the tv series) and now I'm reading Old Mans War by John Scalzi. I have not read any books by him, yet, but I love what I've read so far.

Finished The Thirteenth Tale. My favorite thing about that book was the cover . Starting on the February bookshelf group reads.

Simon wrote: "Just joined and currently reading Station Eleven by Emily St.John Mandel."

I read that over Christmas. What do you think?

Jan130 wrote: "tudio Ghibli pretty much wrecked Earthsea in their strange mish-mash of a film. They took so many liberties they may as well have made the whole thing up. "

Ugh, I know -- awful.

Hank wrote: "In the middle of The Silkworm and almost finished with both The Lions of Al-Rassan and Crooked Kingdom. All three are solid 4 stars so far."

Excellent choices. I've enjoyed the Cormoran Strike series far more than I expected to. And Guy Gavriel Kay is always a win (well, except for Ysabel lol).

Finishing a re-read of The Journals of Ayn Rand. It's refreshing to immerse myself in the thoughts of a rational mind, given all the irrationality currently on display.

Working on The Last Star. Got sucked back into The 5th Wave series after watching the movie. Hoping to have it finished this weekend.

I finished The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin yesterday. It wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. My full review is here.

I started the second book in the series, The Dark Forest, this evening.

Michele wrote: "Finishing a re-read of The Journals of Ayn Rand. It's refreshing to immerse myself in the thoughts of a rational mind, given all the irrationality currently on display."

While I'm on board with the whole rational = good paradigm, I do feel that a purely rational mind is also one that has put aside much of its humanity.

I've just finished Splintered by A.G. Howard and am now reading A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet which I'm really enjoying.

I am reading and it is AWESOME!

Normally I find marine life boring and seldom even watch nature shows featuring it, however I did love the movie Cannery Row, and could watch it over and over!

Anyway, so imagine my surprise at finding myself, not just 'engaged' by a book featuring marine biologists and a male and female dolphin, but gripped/riveted by it! This is Breakthrough by Michael C. Grumley

Ryan wrote: "While I'm on board with the whole rational = good paradigm, I do feel that a purely rational mind is also one that has put aside much of its humanity"

Well, yes and no. I think Rand would argue that our rationality is our humanity -- that is, rationality is what makes us different from animals.

Her example: A tiger's main tools are its claws and teeth, and the best tiger is the one who uses those tools the best. By the same token, a human's main tool is its ability to reason, and the best human is the one who uses that tool the best.

In contrast to how she is sometimes represented, she does NOT say that you should never help anyone else. She says that you should never help anyone else out of guilt -- you should help them because you believe in what they're doing, or because you think they've been treated unfairly and deserve a hand, or just because it makes you happy to do so. Done that way, it's a rational choice based on your own values. Done the other way (out of guilt), it's an irrational choice based on someone else's idea of what you should do or think.

I think Tigers are extremely rational. They're just not very smart compared to us. The main difference between humans and other animals is that, while they are preoccupied with how things are, humans are able to be concerned with the way things ought to be. But from a purely rational viewpoint, there is no compelling reason why things ought to be any way other than the way they are already.

Ryan wrote: "But from a purely rational viewpoint, there is no compelling reason why things ought to be any way other than the way they are already. "

Well unless you're living in some kind of paradise, things can almost always be improved. And if you can reason out how things could be better, then the next step is to reason out how to make them better.

For those interested in American politics, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe in is a great read because it outlines some of the most profound problems plaguing America today.Here is my review for those interested.

Michele wrote: "Well unless you're living in some kind of paradise, things can almost always be improved. "

Sure, but improved for whom? Zero sum is a real thing.

Ryan wrote: "Michele wrote: "Well unless you're living in some kind of paradise, things can almost always be improved. "

Sure, but improved for whom? Zero sum is a real thing."

Not sure I understand. The polio vaccine improved life for everyone. Clean water improves life for everyone. Good public schools improve life for everyone. There are lots more examples.

I have a goodreads question: how do the "genre" classifications of books get made? I see on books that they have been classified by 200 users as mystery or mystery-thrlller. Is there some genre setting I missed somewhere? Or is that taken from the names of the shelves people make and put books in? Very curious about this...

I'm pretty sure it by shelves, which is where the numbers next to them come (how many users shelves a book with that).

I just finished The Grey King, which was quite good. I'll need to put a hold on Silver on the Tree soon.

Now, I'm starting Lirael. It's off to a good start so far.

Wolf_Maiden wrote: "I just finished The Grey King, which was quite good. I'll need to put a hold on Silver on the Tree soon. ."

Love those books. I discovered Cooper's series a long time ago, just before Silver on the Tree was published (so a REALLY long time ago lol!). That was my first experience with waiting in impatient agony for a book to come out.

(PS. Avoid the movie. Bad.)

Michele wrote: "Not sure I understand. The polio vaccine improved life for everyone. Clean water improves life for everyone. Good public schools improve life for everyone. There are lots more examples."

I'm sure you'd be hard pressed to find any modern person who would disagree with these emotive statements, and of course people faced with polio and unclean water benefit from those measures. But paying tax for children to receive a good education has far more cost than benefit for those who can afford a private education for their own children (and I'll point out that my daughter goes to a public school and the decision to live where I do was 100% based on her schooling). Not only that, but educating large numbers of people where the economy can't absorb them leads to enormous social unrest - look at Egypt. There is always the law of unintended consequences.

We are interested in educating other people's children because won't-somebody-think-of-the-kids, not because it's the rational thing to do. Likewise providing clean water in places where you are unlikely to ever need to drink it. Helping other people live longer increases competition for resources and environmental degradation. We don't make these decisions because it's rational, we do it because we are unable not to feel sympathy. Most of us refuse to consider that helping others might not be in our best interests. We completely avoid the rational consideration
because it is overridden by our humanity.

Ryan wrote: "We are interested in educating other people's children because won't-somebody-think-of-the-kids, not because it's the rational thing to do. "

Ryan, I disagree with both your characterization of my examples as "emotive," and your reasoning that these things don't have a broader benefit and are therefore not rational.

The polio vaccine, for instance, reduced medical costs associated with the disease, such as the need for lifetime care for those who were paralyzed. Reduced medical costs benefit everyone.

An educated citizenry makes better voters, is more likely to get better-paying jobs, is less likely to commit crimes or acts of violence, will have the tools to successfully start their own business, etc. So ensuring that everyone gets a solid education benefits society as a whole.

...educating large numbers of people where the economy can't absorb them leads to enormous social unrest...

It sounds like you're arguing that not educating them would somehow prevent social unrest? I'm pretty sure that history does not support that contention.

I totally agree that there are too many people in the world. But that is an entirely separate question from whether we can/should come up with ideas that benefit all of us. Some things are zero-sum, sure. But not everything is -- and with proper planning, very few things have to be.

Ryan wrote: "Michele wrote: "Not sure I understand. The polio vaccine improved life for everyone. Clean water improves life for everyone. Good public schools improve life for everyone. There are lots more examp..."

There are economic and biologic counter-arguments to everything you just said. Education is a staple tenet of economic growth and stability. Living longer allows us to progress the sciences further, and to allow for the "stronger" people to spend less time on domestic efforts and more time on societal ones.

I am not sure that you two have agreed on a definition of rational vs. emotive, and will therefore be unlikely to discuss this from the same viewpoint. Wanna start an Ayn Rand thread? That may be easier to use to hash it out than going back and forth in the "what are you reading?" thread. :-)

Michele wrote:

I'd say you've only given reasons why those things *might* benefit everyone, without any consideration of the cost. That's not rationality, it's rationalisation.

Allison wrote: "Wanna start an Ayn Rand thread? That may be easier to use to hash it out than going back and forth in the "what are you reading?" thread. :-)"

LOL Fair point :)

Ryan, I'll close with one of my favorite quotes from Walter Cronkite: “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”

We now return this thread to its original topic: What are you reading now?

Another unexamined generalisation Michele. We are taking about rationality. While we might agree that there are obvious net benefits to society, the fact there is the term 'net benefit' implies there is a cost. I'm sure we will agree that the costs and benefits to society's members are never distributed equally. Therefore how is it rational for anybody likely to bear an unequal measure of the cost to support a net social benefit? And yet many people still do because they have been taught to do the right thing rather than the rational thing.

And I'm still reading Gravity's Rainbow. I will update when I start a new one but at this rate it will be months. It's very dense.

Here are the reviews for the last few books I've read:

Winter's Heart - ★★★☆☆ - (My Review)

The Empty Throne - ★★★★☆ - (My Review)

Shards of Honor ★★★☆☆ - (My Review)

Well since my last check in I've read:
The Water Knife which I loved
All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation which was a good read if a bit of a slog at times (one of those titles that needs to done in bite size chunks, interesting as hell but something about the writing style kept me from blazing through it)
Revisionary which was a good, and can I just say how I love the cover? The people look REAL not like air-brushed models who would crack if exposed to sunlight, which is especially good considering Lena is a Dryad.

I'm currently reading To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis for RL book club Friday and Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly.

Glen Cook's Water Sleeps (Black Company #8) and Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey, both are great so far.

Igor wrote: "Glen Cook's Water Sleeps (Black Company #8) and Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey, both are great so far."

How do the later Black Company books stack up to the original trilogy? I read the original trilogy and liked it but didn't love it.

Furthermore. Very original. Main character reminds me of Luna Lovegood :)

I finished The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition edited by Rich Horton - I gave it 2 stars - "Best" is certainly debatable, but there's a lot of stories here and everyone will probably find something to like, and maybe even get introduced to a new author or two. The question is, how many stories will you have to slog through to find a good one? The answer is, unfortunately, a lot.

But I definitely recommend finding and reading these gems, either in this book, or another anthology, or maybe free online:
- "The Scrivener" by Eleanor Arnason - 4/5
- "Heaven Thunders the Truth" by K.J. Parker - 4/5
- "Selfie" by Sandra McDonald - 4/5
- "The Manor of Lost Time" by Richard Parks - 4/5
- "Drones Don't Kill People" by Annalee Newitz - 4/5
- "Petard: A Tale of Just Deserts" by Cory Doctorow - 5/5
- "The Magician and Laplace's Demon" by Tom Crosshill - 4/5
- "Sleeper" by Jo Walton - 4/5
- "Collateral" by Peter Watts - 4/5

These might interest some folks, depending on your tastes, but they weren't my favorites:
- "Schools of Clay" by Derek Kunsken - 3/5
- "Every Hill Ends With Sky" by Robert Reed - 3/5
- "The Endless Sink" by Damien Ober - 3/5
- "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i" by Alaya Dawn Johnson - 2/5
- "Ghost Story" by John Grant - 3/5
- "Someday" by James Patrick Kelly - 2/5
- "Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology" by Theodora Goss - 3/5
- "I Can See Right Through You" by Kelly Link - 2/5
- "The Wild and Hungry Times" by Patricia Russo - 2/5
- "Trademark Bugs: A Legal History" by Adam Roberts - 2/5
- "The Instructive Tale of the Archeologist and His Wife" by Alexander Jablokov - 3/5
- "The Hand is Quicker" by Elizabeth Bear - 3/5
- "Grand Jete (The Great Leap)" by Rachel Swirsky - 3/5
- "Pernicious Romance" by Robert Reed - 3/5
- "Aberration" by Genevieve Valentine - 2/5

And I thought these were just awful:
- "How to Get Back to the Forest" by Sofia Samatar - 2/5
- "Wine" by Yoon Ha Lee - 2/5
- "The Long Haul, From the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009" by Ken Liu - 2/5
- "Break! Break! Break!" by Charlie Jane Anders - 2/5
- "Skull and Hyssop" by Kathleen Jennings - 1/5
- "A Better Way to Die" by Paul Cornell - 1/5
- "Fift & Shria" by Benjamin Rosenbaum - 1/5
- "Witch, Beast, Saint: An Erotic Fairy Tale" by C.S.E. Cooney - 2/5
- "Sadness" by Timons Esaias - 1/5

Agree? Disagree? Let me know. I'll try the 2016 version of this anthology but if it's not an improvement over this edition I'm going to try a different "best of" series next year. Let me know if anyone has any recommendations in this area.

My review of the anthology is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Interesting that you have two stars to a couple of books you described as awful. If I don't like a book I give it one star. Two stars are for books that are merely ok.

Randy wrote: "I finished The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition -..."

Cory Doctorow (When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth is BRILLIANT) and Jo Walton are favorite authors of mine, but I don't recognize any of the others except for Ken Liu (whose The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories reduced me to tears more than once).

I read Year's Best SF 16 and gave it 5 stars, but I'm not sure if it's the same editor as this "best of" series.

C. wrote: "I am reading and it is AWESOME!

Normally I find marine life boring and seldom even watch nature shows featuring it, however I did love the movie Cannery Row, and ..."

Cannery Row was an oddity in that it made far more sense than the book in my opinion. Steinbeck was always great at describing scenery and local color, but in his book Cannery Row, that was all he really did. There were loads of subplots, but no true underlining story. The movie introduces the character of "The Seer," who never appears in the book, but this one character becomes the thread that makes the story work on the screen. You agree?

Ryan wrote: "Interesting that you have two stars to a couple of books you described as awful. If I don't like a book I give it one star. Two stars are for books that are merely ok."

Well, in the case of some of the stories, they may have been dull or over-stylized, or they might have been a genre I have a particular dislike for (vampires!) so they might be ranked lower than they truly "deserve." They were borderline awful-to-mediocre, in other words. Everything's on a spectrum.