The Sword and Laser discussion

Since my last, slightly grumpy, update I've started two reads that are more or less guaranteed to improve my mood.

The Lights Go Out in Lychford by Paul Cornell is the 4th novella in a series about a modern day trio of witches living in a small English town and defending the mostly unknowing public from a series of supernatural threats.

Also in an urban fantasy vein, Lies Sleeping is the 7th main novel in the Rivers of London series.

On past experience, expecting good things from both!

I’m currently reading 4 books at once, which means it feels like I’m making no progress at all but in like a week I’ll have this cascade of finished books and it’ll appear as if I read a book every five minutes like a robot.

Bystanders
A Memory Called Empire
Rosewater
This Alien Shore

I'm interested in what you think, Like, of the This Alien Shore and A Memory called Empire (the two of those I've read).

Decided on a reread of Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League books. Thought I might barrel through them but after the first one will probably take it slow.

I read whatever I could find of these as a teen. It's a "future history" written out of order, so they have been collected in different ways at different times. A while back a full seven book collection with all of them got put together.

The league is a confederation of trading companies assembled when Earth discovered hyperdrive. They interact with hundreds of alien civilizations, some still in the stone age. Winged aliens are prominent in this book, and my decades-old recollection is that continues in the series.

The first one is The Van Rijn Method which collects a short novel plus several novelettes. It started out bizarrely with a pre-hyperdrive story about exploring a moon of Saturn, where the astronauts use a fantasy roleplaying storyline to keep their sanity. It was so strange that I skimmed most of it. That one seems to have no connection to the rest of the League stories.

Then we're on to Van Rijn and his associates in trading situations interacting with alien cultures. The science is generally good, with plausible aliens on realistic worlds. There's some good stuff in here. In one a human has to find a way to move a heavy piece of equipment without using the wheel, as the locals consider the circle sacred. Interesting concept. The MC has a revelation while he is being attacked, an amusing take on how solutions pop out of the unconscious at odd times.

The traders are generally on the side of freedom, liberty and peace, although they sometimes can't reveal that to local governments who may have other agendas. It's the spirit of the Prime Directive without the noninterference part.

Where I zoned out was the routine use of stereotypes that fall flat today. Van Rijn himself seems like a decadent buffoon, until you realize it's an act used to disarm opponents. He mangles English regularly in a way that didn't bother me as a teen, but seems just silly now.

And then there's the treatment of women. I get that SF was overwhelmingly male and don't necessarily ding authors for that, so long as the story is otherwise good. These just stuck out. In one story the "most attractive woman on the ship" plays peacemaker and placater to two aggro men, because they're both hot for her. PaaaaatronIZING! In two stories Van Rijn hits on female subordinates and it's A-OK in the story. One is his secretary and Van Rijn berates another subordinate for being interested in her. These things took me right out of the story. I think back to Barsoom, where Dejah Thoris at least had agency and could defend herself, or earlier Heinlein where the women were idealized but had some depth. The only woman in this book whose characterization went beyond stereotype was an aristocrat who seemed to exist mainly to illustrat Van Rijn's buffoonery as leadership in disguise.

I'll read more, but don't think I could take seven books in a row. There are good pieces in this, but oof, the stereotypes along the way.

My cup then runneth under as I waited out the Hold list at LA Public Library. Decided to read an old Verne story. It's The Purchase of the North Pole, which follows several members of the Baltimore Gun Club. That club was previously in the Earth to the Moon stories, as the organizer and builder of the cannon that shot the capsule around the moon.

The previous stories had some hilarious social commentary about Americans loving guns so much that the Baltimore Gun Club could raise money for the moonshot just for the asking, and Ivy League astronomers dropped everything to help them. Plus the introduction of a vivacious Frenchmen whose charisma carried them over the top. The group was engaged in a project to better humanity, and at worst found themselves limited by their own abilities.

This one revisits those characters in a bizarre fashion. They intend to force the Earth off its inclination so that its spin is straight up and down to the plane of the ecliptic. The first part of the story shows some modest benefit to doing that, but as it progresses the horrific elements become more clear. Millions would die in the process and the entire Earth would face upheaval. Yet somehow the sympathetic characters of the previous stories keep going despite all of the effects becoming known to them.

There's a modestly interesting bit in an early depiction of a mass driver, but that's not enough to save the story. This was written 25 years after the first stories so I get the impression Verne needed the money and went back to well trodden territory. Along the way he lost the charm of the previous works.

Finished with the long awaited The Broken Heavens. Not sure whether I liked the resolution yet but I do recommend this fascinating epic fantasy by Kameron Hurley full with well-rounded gender fluid characters and kickass magic system.

Starting The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday 38% and I LOL-ed many times already. Interesting take on buddy/duo story where one was a megalomaniac djinn who just wake up after a 4,000 snooze and the other was a grizzled Gurkha in a world where AIs control cities based on karma points.

Update: Finished with that book and I really enjoyed it.

Now reading The City in the Middle of the Night by the awesome Charlie Jane Anders.

John (Taloni) wrote: "My cup then runneth under as I waited out the Hold list at LA Public Library. Decided to read an old Verne story. It's The Purchase of the North Pole, which follows several members o..."

There was a time when I wanted to finish all his Voyages Extraordinaire stuff....Other than the more famous ones, which one is your fave?

I’m listening to Escaping Exodus and it tells you something about the previous books, if I say that a story about people travelling through space inside ginormous beasts is a lot less bonkers that I expected from Drayden… ;-)

^^ I'm partial to Off On A Comet. It's got fun if silly adventure, including the French perspective you'd expect from Verne. Includes a tour of the outer solar system, plus some best-available science of the day about how cold space gets.

There's also an thoroughly stereotypical anti-Semitic bit in the middle of this book. It helps to illustrate French attitudes of the day. I found it educational as part of SF history. Gave me a little insight into how Vichy France came into existence in WWII.

I also enjoyed The Mysterious Island, but that one really much more for the later-book tie-in to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The first part is a jumble, although the "hot air balloon" part was intriguing. I keep hoping for a Steampunk future with dirigibles.

I am kind of exhausted after "In the Company of Others", so I am currently looking for an easy fast paced read. I think I may go for Spinning Silver as I really liked Uprooted

I just finished the audio version of The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I gave it four stars. Well written and I liked it enough not to want to put it down, but I feel like something indefinable was missing for me.

Earlier this month I listened to the 3rd Honor Harrington book and Crooked Kingdom. In print I made more slow progress on The Witchwood Crown and gobbled up Ninth House.

Also since I saw the touring stage production of Cats for the first time I checked out Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. It's mostly cute and whimsical, but it's a product of it's times and includes unflattering cultural/racist depictions.

I'm about to start Gideon the Ninth, yet another library book preempting my progress on the Tad Williams novel....

I finished:


Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Mort by Terry Pratchett
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And I started reading:


The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden


Apex by Ramez Naam

I started Planetfall by Emma Newman. I had a friend recommend a later book in that series, and even though she claimed I didn't need to start at the beginning, here I am.

Finished Novice Dragoneer and really liked it. I don't think it really breaks any new ground where fantasy coming-of-age stories are concerned, but everything it does is done well. I finished and was so enthused about dragons I started the only other book I have from the library that has dragons in it: The Priory of the Orange Tree. That one's 800 pages, though, so it'll be a while before I can report on it.

The Kencyrath march onward -- finished Bound in Blood and immediately started Honor's Paradox (while sitting in a local pub, drinking beer and eating a very tasty curry).

Had a serious lull in my TBR. Caught up on my top dozen authors, still waiting on the latest Bobiverse to come out, and three books tagged in LAPL that steadfastly refuse to come available. Have read enough old-school SFF to last me for a bit and really looking for a recent book.

So I dug into the "maybe" pile and came out with The Sumage Solution. This is one of Gail Carriger's self published works. Not sure how that came about, but one of the benefits of self publishing is that the author gets the majority of the revenue, unlike traditional publication where the author gets a small percentage. So a well known author like Gail Carriger can take in more on a smaller sales base, which means more narrowly focused books can be profitable. Authors getting paid, yay!

Sumage Solution is set in the present day and contains information about "The Saturation" which apparently ended the Victorian era Parasolverse and ushered in the modern period. It's also an explicit gay romance.

Gail is regularly the epitome of class and grace online, and in my interactions with her at conventions, in person as well. She has described living in San Francisco during the AIDS epidemic and interacting with men who were beautiful, creative, and had tragic ends. The "San Andreas Shifters" of which this book is a part is a paean to them. She published the book as "G.L. Carriger," one indication that it's not her usual Steampunk romance, and then the description makes it abundantly clear.

I read her F/F romance with Madame LeFoux and that one didn't get much further than "fade to black." Plus, that one had visits from major Parasol Protectorate characters so was in the usual vein of a side book. Sumage Solution is very different. There is at most oblique references to previous Parasol Protectorate characters. The two MCs are vulnerable despite having superhuman abilities. Power is relative and one MC feels he should be more than he is. His insecurity is both understandable and self fulfilling as he is much more than he appears, or wants to be.

I give credit above to the warning, because this book is very explicit. Perhaps a quarter to a third of the text is the characters having sex. Yep, I skimmed a lot, but you can't just skip it because those sections advance the character growth as well.

By the end the Saturation is well and truly covered. We learn a lot about what became of the Supernatural set after that event, although more remains to be uncovered.

This is the story Gail wanted to tell. That it is a departure from her usual work is abundantly laid out beforehand. I'm glad I read it. It's not a huge win for me like her Parasol Protectorate books, but covers more realistic and grim territory. I will likely read the followup book, after a few more regular SFF books to give it some space.

So I finished A Gathering Of Shadows by VE Schwab and wow did this book take a sharp nosedive. The first book was really propulsive and fun whereas this book felt like it spun its wheels for the middle 80%. The end left me interested in where things are going so I really hope the next book actually has some plot.

Brad wrote: "So I finished A Gathering Of Shadows by VE Schwab and wow did this book take a sharp nosedive. The first book was really propulsive and fun whereas this book felt like it spun its wheels for the mi..."

The whole series was diminishing returns for me.

Book 1 Great, Book 2 Good, Book 3 Meh

Reading Truthwitch by Susan Dennard. One of the categories in my libraries reading challenge this year is a work by an author new to you, so when this one came up as a free Tor.com book, I decided it would work.

Just read Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke and am currently reading The City and the Stars. I'm not planning to stop my reading all Arthur C Clarke project any time soon.
According to my extensive Google sheet TBR and reading list Childhood's End was the 5th Sword and Laser pick
My S&L total is currently 101 main picks (out of 128) and 8 alternates (out of 10)
I'm sure others can beat that

TRP wrote: "My S&L total is currently 101 main picks (out of 128) and 8 alternates (out of 10)
I'm sure others can beat that."

I've been at 100% since we read "Eye of the World"

It's easy to catch up if you start early (S&L Pick 10) ;-)

Tassie Dave wrote: "TRP wrote: "My S&L total is currently 101 main picks (out of 128) and 8 alternates (out of 10)
I'm sure others can beat that."

I've been at 100% since we read "Eye of the World"

It's easy to catc..."

In my defence (not that I need to defend myself of course) some of the picks are not (or have not been) easily available on eBook or Audiobook format here in the UK.
Not mentioning any names but I'm mostly missing "Sword" books

TRP wrote: "In my defence (not that I need to defend myself of course) some of the picks are not (or have not been) easily available on eBook or Audiobook format here in the UK.
Not mentioning any names but I'm mostly missing "Sword" books"

I have the same problem in Oz. Some books are just not available in any digital format.

Luckily I can usually get in on Amazon or iBooks by changing to a foreign store (usually US or UK) and buying it there.

Finished with The City in the Middle of the Night. I liked it enough - great worldbuilding - but one of MCs is so damn frustrating.

Starting The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Can't wait to know why all the hype!

Tassie Dave wrote: "Luckily I can usually get in on Amazon or iBooks by changing to a foreign store (usually US or UK) and buying it there."

Will it recognize on your device once you change back? I have been (im)patiently waiting for an ebook copy of "Wizard of the Pigeons." My paperback copy from decades back is in much too small a print to read now, even if the spine would hold up. It seems to be available in the UK but not US.

Finished The Secret Chapter way too quickly. What a fun book. The Invisible Library concept still holds up after six books.

This one involves a visit to a world in about the 1980s timeframe. Along with the descriptions of big hair and other 80s-cana we get a real life roadblock: The MCs getting stalled while they feed quarters into a payphone. Now that's a dose of reality for those of us now well accustomed to smartphones.

This being part of the ongoing Fae vs Dragon power struggle, we get treated to some hilarious trope puncturing. There's a battle straight out of a Hong Kong Chopsocky movie, mashed in with some Gangster film stereotypes.

From there it's a trip to a more modern world, but one in which a shadowy worldwide organization routinely runs searches against supernatural entities such as werewolves and vampires. A sly reference to Gail Carriger's world perhaps?

There's the usual multiple betrayals and those that only seem to be betrayals. You're not quite sure who is friend or foe throughout.

As I started reading I thought that the "Steal a Book, Save the World" bit was wearing a little thin. I wanted to know more about how and why that would matter. Wouldn't you know, just as the story concludes we get an inkling into that.

There's some overall arc items that are moving a bit slowly for my taste.(view spoiler)[ The ongoing soap opera with Irene's parents. Just what is going on with the Dragons, and where the heck did they come from anyway?
And we seem to have dropped the villain from the early books despite some tantalizing loose threads. (hide spoiler)]

Not sure how long the premise will hold out, but it seems to be going strong. Cross fingers for at least another three books.

I also want to mention the adorable Ursula LeGuin book Catwings. It's an illustrated book about four kittens who were, well, born with wings. They aren't quite cat nor quite bird so they need to find their place in the world. Took me about 20 minutes to read. I got it from LA Public Library Overdrive and it may be available at yours. Easy to read on a computer screen.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Will it recognize on your device once you change back? I have been (im)patiently waiting for an ebook copy of "Wizard of the Pigeons." My paperback copy from decades back is in much too small a print to read now, even if the spine would hold up. It seems to be available in the UK but not US."

Yes, I have many books on my iPad (Kindle app) from various international Kindle stores.

Log in to your Amazon account.
-> Manage your content and devices
-> Preferences
-> Country/Region settings
Change to US store (or whatever store has the ebook)
Buy book and download.
Change back to your country's store.

It is, technically, against Amazon's Terms of Service. But they only have that ToS there to placate the publishers. Both Amazon and the Author are quite happy to take your money :-)

John (Taloni) wrote: "Finished The Secret Chapter way too quickly. What a fun book. The Invisible Library concept still holds up after six books.

This one involves a visit to a world in about the 1980s ..."

I’ve really fallen behind in this series, having only read the first two. She’s really cranking them out — that’s 6 books in 4 years. (First one came out in December 2015.)

Rick wrote: "Luna: New Moon right now, off the book 'pile' (it's digital). This month's Czerneda next."

I thought Luna: New Moon was excellent! The sequel was pretty good, too. My library still does not have the third installment, even though it was released almost a year ago :( I suppose I'll have to buck up and buy a copy at some point here.

Colin wrote: "So, I finally finished The Secret Commonwealth and it was quite a slog. Apparently I started it back in October! My advice to Dark Materials fans who think they might read this is n..."

I very much enjoyed the original trilogy (books 2 and 3 are some of my favorite books ever!), but didn't much like the first Book of Dust. I don't know that I'll bother to keep reading this series at all, unless I hear great things about the next installment.

I am currently reading Middlegame. I dialed this year's reading goal way back since I'm in the process of getting another bachelor's degree. I lowered my Goodreads challenge goal slightly last year in light of this, and failed to meet it for the first time in years, so I cut it back more significantly this year.

Dara wrote: "Still struggling to read much but I started Fire & Blood."

I started this book back in June, but never really got into it and so set it aside while I read the books that kept pouring in from library holds I had placed. I plan on finishing it eventually, though.

Ruth wrote: "I’m enjoying The Witcher series on Netflix so I thought I’d give the books a try - starting with The Last Wish audiobook as read to me by Peter Kenny. His voice for Geralt sounds co..."

I really enjoyed the court intrigue in The Goblin Emperor!

I read The Last Wish for this book club. Collections of short stories usually just don't do as much for me as novels, but I wound up liking this okay, in spite of the pulpy feel that also doesn't usually work for me.

Jessica wrote: "I am currently reading Middlegame. I dialed this year's reading goal way back since I'm in the process of getting another bachelor's degree."

The first step to recovering from school addiction is admitting you have a problem. We’re here for you. And your giant backpack.

Since my last comment earlier this month, I finished Ilona Andrews's Magic Breaks, Magic Shifts, Magic Binds, Magic Triumphs, as well as Iron and Magic, so I'm all caught up with their Kate Daniels series. It's a fun ride, despite my small quibbles.

I read a short collection by Terry Bisson called The Left Left Behind, which was only OK. Tomb of the Fathers by Eleanor Arnason was nice, but no one I'd recommend unless you've read her Lydia Duluth short stories. I finally read Marie Brennan's sequel to Cold-Forged Flame, Lightning in the Blood (I wish we had more of those, here's hoping she continues). I also finally read the rest of the Tensorate series by JY Yang (
The Red Threads of Fortune, The Descent of Monsters, and The Ascent to Godhood) - they got better for me, but they don't resolve any of the things I was expecting.

I also just read both volumes of Chronin: Chronin, Vol. 1: The Knife at Your Back & Chronin, Vol. 2: The Sword in Your Hand by Alison Wilgus, which was a fun time travel story, though I wasn't a fan of the art style she picked for these.

Among the nonfiction I read this month (mostly via audiobook), I read The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford (pretty interesting!), Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (pretty interesting and amusing!), Book Love by Debbie Tung (pretty bland), and Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein (holy cow this was great).

Trike wrote: "Jessica wrote: "I am currently reading Middlegame. I dialed this year's reading goal way back since I'm in the process of getting another bachelor's degree."

The first step to reco..."

LOL! Well I first got a bachelor's degree in anthropology, which was interesting, but then not so easy to get a job in, so I obtained an associate's degree in nursing. After working as an RN for 12 years, I finally felt like, okay, fine, I'll go on for my bachelor's in nursing.

...still managed to fit in 56 books last year, though!

Took me longer than I would've liked to get through The Three-Body Problem. Looking for something light so next up is Hocus Pocus & The All New Sequel. Hoping I can break this reading slump I've been in.

Finished with The Ten Thousand Doors of January - sweet story but maybe a bit overhyped.

Starting Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation - I really enjoyed the previous anthology by Ken Liu so I have high expectation for this one.

Neglected to report that I finished, and really enjoyed, Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky. An excellent sequel to Children of Time, revisiting the sentient spiders and following them into space and their first contact with another alien race. It does not all go as well as they might wish.

No idea if more books are planned in this series, but I recommend both so far. I must dig further into the author's back catalogue.

^May I recommend two works by Tchaikovsky:

Walking to Aldebaran, a fusion SF/Horror piece set in the far reaches of the solar system and...well, you'll see.

Ironclads: This book has an updated technological take on medieval armor and social structure. Plausible modern day takes on mythological beings show up as well.

Tchaikovsky is more of a fantasy writer and I can't chime in on those, not enough in my wheelhouse to know. But the two above are well worth the read.

A new novella by Tchaikovsky Made Things was quite inventive and fun to read. The Expert System's Brother is also a read of his I liked a lot.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Ironclads: This book has an updated technological take on medieval armor and social structure"

I thought it was fine. What made it more enjoyable for me was the British narrator’s hilarious “American” accent.

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

Lagoon. Nnedi Okorafor,

I managed to persuade my new meatspace book club to read something off my TBR - Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal. It’s essentially Jane Austen with magic and I’m enjoying it so far.

Finished The Priory of the Orange Tree, and I liked it. A really interesting world that kept the interesting parts of Elizabethan times while taking away the strict gender roles of the time in a way that gives interesting agency to the female characters.

I've done a lot of fantasy lately, so I'm starting in on Velocity Weapon next.

Thanks for the Tchaikovsky recommendations folks. I appreciate the fact that those are shorter reads too - I'm more likely to get get round to something that's a bit quicker to get through. (But unlikely to share Trike's experience of the audiobook. Spending an Audible credit on a 4 hour book just never feels like value for money.)

I've read all of the first two Witcher books that have been adapted to the show. Something More in the second book has some elegant time jumps, but it's obvious when it happens from the text formatting. Although like The Lesser Evil, the title becomes meaningless in the show version.