Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

So, I just realized that this group didn't have a "What are you reading?" topic - most of the other groups I'm in do. It can be a good way to find new stuff to read.

I just finished Lock In by John Scalzi - it was good, not great IMO. Looking forward to the discussion on it this month (I listened to the Wil Wheaton audio version BTW).

Today I started A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but now I'm really liking it (it really dumps you into the urban fantasy world without any explanation, so I was all WTF is going on?). It's kind of nice to read an urban fantasy with a heroine who isn't a hardboiled PI or sarcastic cop or tough cookie ass-kicker. I'm both listening and reading to this one and I have book 2 and 3 and plan to read those next.

I'm going to try and get to Cyteen also.

So what about you?

busy making my way through a whole lot of classic have on my Reader that Just have been meaning to get to from months :)

I just finished The Book of Life, the third book in Harkness' All Souls trilogy. It was a fun read, not my favorite ever. I thought book one was the best of the three. Before that I read Robin Hobbs' newest, Fool's Assassin. I laughed, I cried. Hobbs can't write a bad one as far as I'm concerned.

Right now I'm about half-way through Between Shades of Gray by Suta Sepetys. (Not at all related to the shades of gray you're thinking of!) It's not fantasy or sci-fi at all, unfortunately. It's a teen historical fiction novel about the Soviet's forced evacuation of the Lithuanians during WWII. My step-son is reading it for his 8th grade Honor's English class and I'm reading along with him in a show of solidarity. It's a heartbreaker of a book.

I am about half way through "Treaty At Doona" by Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye. This is the third in a series. Book one, "Decision At Doona" was written in 1969 by Anne McCaffrey alone. Book two, "Crisis At Doona" was written in early 2000's. Immersing myself in McCaffrey's earlier non-Pern titles has been a delight.

I have rediscovered why I fell in love with this author in particular and the genre in general. Not a lot of blood, guts and violence as seen in many titles in the last decade or two and not overboard on the hard science either - just darn good stories in alien worlds with alien characters learning how to get along - or not.

The Doona series attempts to show that we are not alone in our problems of over-crowding and pollution. It shows that often it's the politicians & military who screw things up not the people who are actually involved. I found this to be true when I was in Ukraine ten years ago. without the politics, the people are just that - people, just like us. McCaffrey demonstrated this beautifully in "Decision At Doona" and almost twenty years later she collaborated with Nye to continue the story twenty years later. I loved seeing how the characters grew up and the society developed. The series is worth a reading or a revisit.

I'm just finishing re-reading Cherryh's Cyteen for the just-opened discussion.

I'm now reading Hurley's latest, The Mirror Empire. It's been a bit of a heavy slog in the early going trying to grok her world (Hurley belongs to the "jump in and hope the reader figures it out eventually" school of exposition.)

Then I'd like to get through Kress's latest, Yesterday's Kin before Thursday (because then football will take 20 hours of so of weekly reading time away for the rest of the year. And then to Lock In for our contemporary discussion ;)

And I'll have to squeeze in a re-read of Enemy Mine (or maybe read the expanded directors cut for the first time, haven't decided.)

Also I'm borrowing Hunter's Trail from the Kindle Owner's Lending Library for September, latest in an urban fantasy series I've been following.

And there's the usual digital pile of magazines (already finished Analog, have Asimov's Lightspeed, Fantasy & SciFi, Clarkeworld, and whatever shows up on Tor.)

That's the plan, but I'm often distracted by small shiny objects...

Because I'm deep in the writing of a fantasy book, I'm avoiding reading fantasy at the moment.

Just finished Mr. Mercedes, which was excellent. Currently reading Just What Kind of Mother Are You?, which is OK up to now.

Just finished the Doctor Who audio book Dead Air, and the non-SF Breakfast at Tiffany's, Re-reading The Early Asimov (just the introductions this go around...Isaac was at his best with those long, chatty intros IMO, and it's a cool insight into the early days of magazine SF). Tomorrow I pick up this month's comics at the comic shop. Also have some Ellison on tap, as well as some van Vogt.

Just started reading Snuff by Terry Pratchett, three pages in and so far so good :-) .

Currently churning my way slowly through Time and Again which I have been reading a few pages a week. Also have Sleep Smarter: 21 Proven Tips to Sleep Your Way To a Better Body, Better Health and Bigger Success on my iPad which is quite a good non-fiction book about learning to sleep better.

Have a whole queue of books by the Sterling and Stone guys to read as part of their kick-starter project I bought their whole back library (e.g The Beam: The Complete First Season ) so never sure when I will through it!

Three Sections into "Story Physics: Harnessing the Underlying Forces of Storytelling" by Larry Brooks. This is to help me organize my writing efforts and to better use story and character arcs. And I just finished "The Eagle Catcher" by Margaret Coel as I dip into mystery to change things up.

Dividing my reading between fantasy and science fiction as main courses with sides of mystery and nonfiction related to writing and an occasional romance for spicy relaxed dessert.

Just started reading " The Hound and the Falcon " by Judith Tarr. Picked it up at the local used book store over the weekend. I believe it's classified as historical fantasy.

That Sleep Smarter book sounds interesting. I might have to check it out, I always feel exhausted!

I'll probably read Libriomancer next. I've had it on my TBR pile for a while, and it sounds good. Magic plus books sounds like a winning combination. I just finished Prized, which was the second in a YA dystopian series. I wasn't intending to read it, since the ending of the first book annoyed me, but I saw it in a charity shop for $1, so I picked it up. Enjoyed it more than the first one, since the story had a better closure, though I rolled my eyes at the "love square". I thought the current YA trend for love triangles was bad enough!

The next heroic kind of fantasy I have on my radar is Glenda Larke's The Lascar's Dagger. Her worldbuilding is always amazing and original (not a medieval castle in sight) and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully will get to it this month.

Michele wrote: "I just finished Lock In by John Scalzi - it was good, not great IMO. Looking forward to the discussion on it this month (I listened to the Wil Wheaton audio version BTW)...."

I'm curious, were you also going to listen to the Amber Benson narration?

Just finished "Shadow Blizzard" by Alexey Pehov - not very impressed, if you read the first two, then you might as well have read the third. The ending was no surprise, and I honestly got extremely tired of it - it's about 200 pages too long. I respect and frequently adore the high fantasy tradition, but this was too much.

Starting "Swords and Deviltry" by Fritz Leiber! Very, very excited for that!

I am part way through loads of single author collections, anthologies and a biggish to read list of online short fiction. In terms of longer reads-

dabbling with a couple of tie-in novels - I normally snobbishly avoid these but thought I would read a couple and see if i am missing anything. Currently breezing through Planet of Judgment

Threshold I am slowly making my way through - its harder work than some of the other stuff i am reading but I am enjoying it

I have lined up Life on Mars - Pulitzer winning SF poetry!, Sister Mine,The Enemy Papers - read several versions of Enemy Mine and been meaning to reread and read the sequels for the first time....

Probably will skip the two months picks unless either get really positive or interesting discussions. Looking to give Dust Devil on a Quiet Street, Authority, something unpicked yet by Phillip k Dick, This Is the Way the World Ends and Leviathan Wakes at least a start this month. Might treat myself to the Nancy Kress G33z33r mentioned if/when it is available in the UK.

I watched any quite enjoyed a BBC version of Thirteenth tale - but I rarely want to read something after having seen an adaptation of it.

Marina - I am sure you will enjoy Libromancer - whilst it doesnt re-invent the wheel it is a lot of fun.

I want to read The Mirror Empire - but I am probably too ill with fatigue to cope with anything that doesnt go easy on me from the start - I might "cheat" and use some online summaries to help me get into it as I think she is a pretty great writer from the couple of short stories I have read and dipping into a sample of The Gods War.

Ben, you're going to really enjoy Leviathan Wakes - the duo of authors who wrote it are quite talented. You'll enjoy it especially if you appreciate physics, or if you ever had special place in your heart for Han Solo haha!

I wasn't planning to, but after finishing I think I might at some point, because I believe it will make for a completely different experience. I can't do spoilers on the app or I'd say more.

Michele wrote: "I can't do spoilers on the app or I'd say more."

s'allright. You can spoil it in the discussion in a couple of weeks. (I should have held my question for then, I suppose.)

Ben wrote: "I watched any quite enjoyed a BBC version of Thirteenth tale - but I rarely want to read something after having seen an adaptation of it.

Marina - I am sure you will enjoy Libromancer - whilst it ..."

Started it last night -- had to laugh at the "Sanguinarius Meyerii". He has a cheeky sense of humour!

I didn't know the BBC had done The Thirteenth Tale. Will have to look out for it. I really enjoyed the book.

Just finished up Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, which was fun, perhaps esp. the stand-alone, Western-style The Alloy of Law.

Right now, I'm reading Trainspotting (non-sf, incredibly intense dialect), interspersed with stories from the The Apex Book of World SF 2.

I've got Cherryh lined up next, with my eye on trying to get to Cyteen this month. I may not make it, though, since my determination to read the Alliance-Union Universe books in chronological order (which everyone pretty much agrees is entirely unnecessary) means I'm planning on reading the Rimrunners books first.

If I need some lighter fare before starting in on Cherryh, I may go for Fables, Vol. 20: Camelot, the latest Fables collection, which I started reading prompted by the graphic novel challenge earlier this year.

Bryce, I hope you enjoy The Hound and the Falcon; it's been some time since I last read those books, but they have a fond place in my heart.

Ben, I had a bit of a lovehate response to Threshold -- sometimes I thought too much was being sacrificed for the sake of atmosphere, but wow, what a creepy atmosphere.

I'm reading Colony by Ben Bova who is one of my favorite sci-fi authors. The story has a lot of thrillerish characteristics which I enjoy. An excellent read.

Hilary- I'm only about 100 or so pages into ' The Isle of Glass' but the further I read the more I'm enjoying it. As for Alloy of Law, it won't be a stand alone for long. I believe he's almost done with the next one. Personally I liked Alloy of Law more than the original trilogy. I enjoyed how the two types of magic evolved over the years, and Wax is just an awesome main character.

The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan and A Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Neither is the first book in a series, but I highly recommend both series. Jordan's Wheel of Time starts with The Eye of the World and Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles starts with The Name of the Wind. The Wheel of Time is finished. The Kingkiller Chronicles are not. Both are epic fantasy.

Glad to hear Alloy of Law is getting a sequel. Sanderson definitely left the door open w/his ending, although he also did a good job in giving some closure to the various character and plot threads.

I just picked up The Lies of Locke Lamora. Someone in this group mentioned it in another discussion and I just so happened to be on the lookout for a new series. It was kismet.

Ben wrote: "I want to read The Mirror Empire - but I am probably too ill with fatigue to cope with anything that doesn't go easy on me from the start..."

Let me share with you and with anyone else reading The Mirror Empire the single most important thing you need to know, and it isn't even a spoiler: There is an extensive Glossary in the back. People, places, things, titles,... (The Kindle edition at least doesn't have a table of content up front, so I didn't discover this until I finished! Nuts.)

I just pulled Martians and Misplaced Clues by Jack Seabrook out of my mailbox, start it tonight...it's about the life and work of one of my favorite SF authors, Fredric Brown. He could do the SF comedy like no one else (Martians, Go Home being the best SF comedy EVER) and was the undisputed master of the short-short story. He is credited with the shortest SF story ever ("The last man in the world sat alone in the world sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door..."). And his novel "The Lights in the Sky are Stars" is highly regarded. He also wrote mysteries, winning awards for his writing there. In one of the biggest passes of all time, Fred offered to teach his son everything he knew about the craft of writing, and was turned down.

I just started Shifting Shadows, by Patricia Briggs. It's an anthology of stories set in her Mercy Thompson world. So far a mix of supporting characters from the main books, and a few new characters original to these stories. So far the only one I've read before was Alpha & Omega, an older short story that she Kate developed into a spin off series. Good stuff if you are a fan of the Mercy world.

In the last month or so I've been catching up on some of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books - I'd read probably 15-20 of them over the years but in a random, haphazard fashion. Right now I'm taking a break from that to read Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry series - and again, I'd read one book out of the middle of the series years ago and always meant to get around to reading the rest.

This month I'm making a comeback to my favourite science fiction genre: hard SF of 50's to 70's. Just finished Strugatskys' "The Land of Crismon Clouds". Bookshelves and punch card electronic computing devices on interplanetary ships with photon drives in late 90's, oh yeah!

Re reading the first 3 Expanse books to prep for Cibola Burns - on bk 2 now.

Just listened to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, free from Audible, read by Tom Mison who plays Ichabod Crane on the tv show - fun and short.

Started listening to The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft, kinda boring so far but only 20 minutes in.

Will be starting Cyteen soon.

Michele wrote: "Re reading the first 3 Expanse books to prep for Cibola Burns - on bk 2 now...."

I wouldn't discourage you from re-enjoying the books, but the carry over to Cibola Burn isn't that great. You just need to remember who Jim Holden and his Rocinante crew are (including "Miller") Everything else is new, including the planet. (The oddest thing is the prologue: It's about Bobbie, the Martian Marine, who's back on Mars; then the novel starts and we're nowhere near Mars and Bobbie never appears anywhere else in the book. Huh?)

I wonder if we started a discussion on the Expanse if anyone else would join in?

Yeah, I started Cibola and got through to Holden and crew. Then I thought, huh I forgot a lot of stuff. So I'm plowing through pretty quick, skimming and stuff.

I think a lot of people have read them so a discussion thread should get some talk.

I told you I was distracted by shiny objects. Bellwether, a novella by Connie Willis, is absolutely hilarious. (Not actually sure it should qualify as SciFi... it's about scientists,... and it's fiction,... but not much fictional science (the plot's not the point, anyway.)

I'm reading The Commons: Book 1: The Journeyman which I discovered through some article. I thought the recommendation was by Scalzi, but I may be wrong. It's very intriguing, so much so that it sidelined Lock In, which I also started this week.

I currently reading A Clash of Kings after reading the A Game of Thrones less than a month ago. Also, the other two books I am reading are City of Fallen Angels, which is pure crap compared to the other three were great guilty pleasure popcorn reads and Storm is oaky, but I am not that hooked on the story yet.

just started Mechanics of Wonder by Gary Westfahl...I'm not that deep into it yet, but this is the skinny as I understand from the blurb and reviews I've read...I grew up when the Big Three (Asimov, Clarke, and RAH) were alive, and had it beat into my head John W Campbell jr is the man that created SF as we know it today while he was editor at Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog)...Asimov was a particularly strong champion of this viewpoint. Brian Aldiss, in The Billion Year Spree (later updated as The Trillion year Spree) made the argument that the first true work of SF was Shelley's Frankenstein and went on to say that Hugo Gernsback, founder of Amazing Stories (Amazing gets the credit as the first US SF mag) was the worst disaster to ever hit SF....in Mechanics of Wonder, Westfahl makes the argument the Gernsback was the actual creator of SF as a genre...I'm not far into this one yet, but judgeing from the contents page there is alot of contrasting Gernsback and Campbell.

I'm looking foward to getting down in the weeds with this one...I am fascinated by the early days of American SF, and I can't wait to see the various arguments, both pro- and anti- Gernsback cut, measured, and weighed.

triple post....sigh...it ain't my day....

I'm reading Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard. It's a different sort of zombie book from the mid 80's that I picked up with one or two others from the same publisher. The cool covers caught my eye. The other memorable one was Neuromancer by William Gibson.

So this month I reread the first 3 Expanse books and then Cibola Burn. I really like this series, so excited to see the show.

I also read A Discovery of Witches and the other two books in this trilogy. I liked it aside from the extreme "romance" tropes - a nice change of pace from Angry Kickass Female urban paranormal stuff.

I read Lock In by John Scalzi and enjoyed it a lot - easy read, maybe the mystery part was a bit weak and suffered from all the other stuff he was doing in the story, but still good.

And right now I'm halfway through The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein which I borrowed through Kindle Unlimited and I'm really liking it so far, very interesting world and good female characters. A lucky find :)

(sorry to all those in the same clubs as me - I'm copy/pasting this same post everywhere)

Read Jeremy Robinson, "Xom-B" which is a very neat take on the zombie theme and the meaning of human.

I have also read Robert Silverberg's "Downward to the Earth" for the October discussion.

I've been interested in the Expanse, but my reluctance to take up unfinished series remains.

This month, I've been reading a lot of C.J. Cherryh, with a small side of education reform theory.

In addition to those I mentioned above, I "read" The Magicians as an audiobook. I heard a bit of buzz about the trilogy. I found it incredibly boring. The premise of the first half seems to be that magic schools wouldn't be like Hogwarts, they'd be boring, and Grossman set about proving it. The second half seems to be premised on Narnia not being a playground for overprivileged humans. The takeaways are that real magicians would be entitled, spoiled rich twentysomethings, and that investment banking is a far more worthy occupation. Can't decide if Grossman is poking a stick in the eye of heroic fantasy fans, or just trying to deconstruct the genre and failing miserably at making it fun.

Ha, I tried that book and couldn't stand the MC so I dropped it after a few chapters.

Michele wrote: "couldn't stand the MC."

Main Character? That would be Quentin, and yeah, his "growth" from boring high school student to the Great Gatsby isn't much fun, either.

Glad someone else didn't care for The Magicians. I heard a good deal about the trilogy, and wanted to know why. Failed. (I notice Goodreads gives it a 3.4*, which is low by Goodreads norms.

Was that his name? He irritated me, and I can't remember why - was he whiny? I seem to recall just wanting to smack him.

I liked The Magicians & gave it 4 stars, but have no desire to read more in the trilogy. My review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I suspected I'd hate the Magicians, because it seemed like it would be a dark, critical satire making fun of fantasy & fantasy readers, but I actually liked it. Appreciated the humor & it still had enough of a storyline to keep me going, I guess. Also, however critical Grossman is of heroic & portal fantasy conventions, it's also clear he was/is a huge Narnia fan, so the meanness didn't necessarily read as mean-spirited to me.

Rereading The "Destroyermen" Series by Taylor Anderson. Finished "Into The Storm", starting the next book I have "Maelstrom". I also have copies of: "Distant Thunders", "Rising Tides", and "Firestorm". Haven't had a chance to read "Crusade" yet.