The Sword and Laser discussion

James this is not the place to promote your own work..

Please use this section linked below.

Author Promo (Share Your Stuff!)

Finished with Guardians of the Whills. Nice story of rebellion in Jedha.

Listening to The Collapsing Empire. Still does not understand how the Flow works - I might have dozed off during relevant exposition - but so far it's okay.

26 Sword, 16 Laser.

From what I read had Lucas done the next Star Wars trilogy it would have been about how the Whills were in charge of the Force. I suppose then inevitably one of the movies would have been called "Triumph of the Whills."

Yeah... Lucky the book did not mention anything about midichlorians. Has some nice artworks too. I prefer it than Claudia Gray's Lost Stars. Anywho, my next SW book would be Ahsoka!

Tassie Dave wrote: "James this is not the place to promote your own work.."

FYI, Dave's not crazy, I just delete self promotion without remorse. If James does it again, I may ban them. :-)

Rob wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "James this is not the place to promote your own work.."

FYI, Dave's not crazy, I just delete self promotion without remorse. If James does it again, I may ban them. :-)"

I almost deleted it, but as it was their first offence, I thought I'd give them a few hours to move it (Then delete it).

Plus I'm the good cop ;-)

If I'm feeling generous I might copy paste their self promotion in a message telling them the rules.

Then again, I'm rarely feeling generous with people who either don't read the rules of a club that is bulit around the concept of reading, or simply choose to ignore them.

If you ever have the chance check out Nigel Tranter's The Path of the Hero King
Excellent!

Anything by Tranter is a thorough education in history and in the indomitable human spirit.

Finished The Thief of Forthe and Other Stories (and coincidentally, one of the stories was a tale told by the former captain of a tramp steamer that happened to land on a certain, swine-filled Mediterranean isle) and now it's time to get back to my Hugo reading, this time with John Scalzi's The Collapsing Empire.

Finished Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's a little odd that I've never read this before since I'm pretty well-read in the SF classics but I never got to it till now. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would given that it was first published in 1932 but once I was a couple chapters in the writing didn't seem too archaic anymore. I was vaguely familiar with the story just from general cultural knowledge and from a tv-movie I saw in 1980 but I was still surprised at how modern the book seemed.
This would make an interesting club pick sometime with lots to talk about.
Starting Mortal Engines.

I finished Parable of the Sower this weekend. What a tremendous book. My review.

Going to read Circe before continuing with Parable of the Talents.

Parable of the Talents is even better than Sower.

I am starting Autonomous by Annalee Newitz. My reads this year have lots of bots it could be a theme.

I'm really looking forward to reading it!

I really enjoyed Autonomous.

After listening to the latest S&L Podcast this past Saturday, I requested the audio edition of Circe so I can start reading it before the end of the month. Yes, I'm a bit late to the party.

In the meantime, I'm 3/4 finished with Islandia and wrote two blogs posts on it (see my ongoing review for the links). Once I finish Islandia, I will continue reading through the Best Novel Finalists for the 1943 Retro Hugos, probably with The Uninvited next.

I hope to finish Roverandom over lunch today and I'll continue listening to the latest Binti novel, Binti: The Night Masquerade, when I commute home tonight. I'm also slowly reading through The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Atlas of Middle-Earth. No apologies for being overly Tolkien focused as I'm active in my local Smial in Kansas City (Smial of the Withywindle of the Tolkien Society).

Finished The Quantum Thief. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

Starting A Darker Shade of Magic.

Yesterday evening I finished The Custodian of Marvels by Rod Duncan, the third book is his "Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire" trilogy. This was a quite enjoyable book, and gave me more insight into the world, which I'd have to say is more alternate-history than steampunk. It began as a mystery about a book, then turned to revenge, then to a heist. Overall I quite liked this series. The author is writing more books in this universe. I'd like to know his next series ends before investing in it. That means I'll move on to another book next. Not quite decided which just yet...

Just finished Circe. Now back to fools assassin.

Finished the last two installments of the Sin du Jour series Gluttony Bay and Taste of Wrath. For a foodie and cooking enthusiast especially these were a ton of fun. Even if you're neither of those I highly recommend these seven novellas (start at the beginning)

Started Circe (what? I have FOUR DAYS). I can't remember if I've already mentioned it but read Revenant Gun which was a very good capstone to that trilogy.

Others... Knocked out The Citadel of Weeping Pearls and part of The Freeze-Frame Revolution as well as the Holly Black/Richard Kadrey Lucifer run that started in 2015 and ended last year.

Rick wrote: "Started Circe (what? I have FOUR DAYS). "

Ahead of me! At LA Public Library I am #178 on 52 copies. That puts me about six weeks out to get it. Not sure I'll read it at that point, we'll see.

Finished The Collapsing Empire (which was a very fast read) and am starting New York 2140 (which I expect will take quite a bit longer).

I just started Circe also, since I grabbed it as the Daily Deal instead of waiting for a library copy. I feel a little bad, since I was the one put it up for voting, lol. I don't think I'll get it done in 4 days, but I'm liking the first few pages so far.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Rick wrote: "Started Circe (what? I have FOUR DAYS). "

Ahead of me! At LA Public Library I am #178 on 52 copies. That puts me about six weeks out to get it. Not sure I'll read it at that point, we..."


It was on sale for a day. :)

Finished Circe so getting back to A Wizard of Earthsea

Listening to Gateway as well. I like everything going on with the Heechee ships but this main character is such a lame doofus. Not too enthused about the parts of the book that revolve around therapy sessions when the patient is boring and shallow. Still intrigued by the Heechee stuff though so it's been solid so far.

Doing the audio of Blood Song which is a solid first person narrative voiced by Steven Brand who does an excellent job. If you need a sword book for your challenge, I highly recommend this one.

In the past week and a half I finished Too Like the Lightning. I don't know if I would have picked it up if it wasn't part of the Tor ebook club, but I really enjoyed it. I've moved onto the next book Seven Surrenders, but haven't made much progress during the work week.

In audio I put down The Song of Achilles and sped (x1.0) through Scourged, the last Iron Druid novel. As expected, I listened to Luke Daniel's narration in just a few days. Unfortunately, I really didn't care for the book. I originally found this series a lot of fun, but the last 2-3 books just haven't been keeping me engaged. I think it's a combination of the pending end-of-the-world story lines, and the multiple POVs.

I tried to pick up with The Song of Achilles this morning, and keep not listening. I could have had it finished with the way things are going this morning at work, but every time I put it down I just leave it.... I've managed to listen to an hour, but I have three more to go. It's not that I don't like it, but it's this weird I know the gist of what's going to happen and I just don't want to go there.

Circe came in from the library on a 21 day ebook loan, so I'll probably read that in the next couple weeks. I don't think I'm going prioritize it in front of Seven Surrenders since I won't finish by the 30th anyway.....

Yeah...For Circe I'm now #173 on 52 copies. Mortal Engines is looking good at #4 on 10 copies.

Currently reading Hilldiggers, a side-novel in the Polity universe by Neal Asher. Asher is always good for some space opera goodness. None of them are so great that they have been a 5 for me, but this one is a solid 4. Sometimes the excessive violence takes it down to a 3 but I'm still glad to get an Asher book even with stuff I don't like.

Just finished The Alchemist's Key in audio book. OK, the best thing going for it is the Australian narration. The colonial coming home to be a Baron and hijinks ensue.

Still reading Fool's Assassin with Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World waiting in the wings.

Slightly baffled by going from #1 to #2 on the wait list for Mortal Engines at the library. Interesting queueing algorithm.

Iain wrote: "Just finished The Alchemist's Key in audio book. OK, the best thing going for it is the Australian narration. The colonial coming home to be a Baron and hijinks ensue.

Still readin..."

At my library you can be on a wait list for a book, and then put the wait on hold. In case it's not a convenient time. If you reactivate the request you keep your spot in queue. I've never done it, but i've seen my wait list number drop one.

I have been speed listening through several Monster Hunter books lately. Ignoring the author's political beliefs, they are fun popcorn reads.

I also just realized that there are free audiobooks available from Audible channels so I started listening to Bloodchild and Other Stories. Butler's short stories are just as good as her novels.

Based on other threads I have also found that I can use Hoopla at my current library for graphic novels. Considering I haven't read comics in 10 - 15 years I have a lot of catching up to do. Currently reading I Kill Giants.

Tasha wrote: "At my library you can be on a wait list for a book, and then put the wait on hold. In case it's not a convenient time. If you reactivate the request you keep your spot in queue. I've never done it, but i've seen my wait list number drop one. "

I’ve done that at my library. Very good for vacations or Oops-I-Checked-Out-Too-Many-Books Syndrome.

My library will also extend a loan by a couple days if you’re going on a trip and won’t be back in time to return it.. I’ve only used that once for some audiobooks, which were 7-day loans and I was going to be on the road for 12 days.

Shad wrote: "Finished The Quantum Thief. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

Starting A Darker Shade of Magic."

I loved the 'Shades of Magic' series. V.E. Schwab has escalated to one of my favorites through that series. 'Vicious' is a must-read too if you enjoy that series.

Finished with Autonomous. I loved it. Very succinct, tightly plotted, intriguing worldbuilding. Evil patent-grabbing pharmas and human/bot autonomy, bot-gender and power dynamics, great stuff all around.

Now starting a book that I have dying to read since ages: The Scar by China Mieville. Had to order the deadtree since the Kindle price is ridiculous.

I am still listening to The Collapsing Empire. Hating one of the POVs since it made Wil Wheaton screaming annoyingly in my ear. Story wise, so far it is just okay, nothing special.

Working on Hugo nominees. Finished Six Wakes, Provenance, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and And Then There Were (N-One).

Many more to read...

Mark wrote: "Working on Hugo nominees. Finished Six Wakes, Provenance, Down Among the Sticks and Bones,"

How was Sticks and Bones? I loved Every Heart a Doorway, but my library delivered 4 holds in one day, so I'm trying to make my way through those first.

Speaking of which, I'm now reading Wrath of Empire, already starting out to be as fun as the previous entry.

Scott wrote: "Mark wrote: Working on Hugo nominees. Finished Six Wakes, Provenance, Down Among the Sticks and Bones

How was Sticks and Bones? I loved Every Heart a Doorway"

On it's own, it's an interesting parable, but the ending left me confused. I haven't read Every Heart a Doorway so I don't know how it fits together in this series.

One of the other nominated novellas, Home, is also the second in a series and I'm wondering if I need to read the first books to appreciate the followups.

In any event, All Systems Red is still my top pick for novella right now.

Finished New York 2140 and next up will be the last of this year's Hugo-nominated novels, Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes.

Mark wrote: "One of the other nominated novellas, Home, is also the second in a series and I'm wondering if I need to read the first books to appreciate the followups.
..."

For Home, yes, you need to read Binti (the first one) to make sense of it.