SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I finished:


The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Ugh, just decided to DNF something at 50% read

you can't say that and not say what, Chris!

I finished suffering through


Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: a very generous 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Head On by His Grand Snarkiness John Scalzi

Tianna wrote: "Oh I LOVED The Ocean at the End of the Lane! It's one of the first Neil Gaiman books I've read, and it was such a beautifully told story. Gaiman is a gifted storyteller. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!"

Gaiman has been a pretty safe bet for me so far. I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into it.

Wasn't sure if I should, but it's Hollow Kingdom. After 150 pages I couldn't bear the thought of going through another 147. I don't want to say too much as this is an upcoming read, I'll just chalk it up to it not being my cup of tea (for now -- can elaborate in the final thoughts thread).

oo, this should be interesting then, another club mate is loving it! sorry it wasn't for you though

Soo wrote: "Jordan, can you go more into why you enjoyed The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires? I loved the intro, immediately went to recommend it to a friend because of the writi..."

I loved the combo of funny and squicky that he managed to evoke. There were some things in there that had me squirming (which rarely happens for me, but man, the scene with the cockroach!) but there was enough humor in there to lighten the whole thing up and not leave me feeling like it was too dark and overwhelming. I also just really liked the solidarity that the women in the book had. Like, they definitely had their issues with each other, but they were also there for one another no matter what. They were such a good group. And kind of related to that, I loved that although this is a vampire book, the real struggle for so much of the book was against society and how certain people are set-up to win and others are fighting against everything. The vampire can only really continue doing what he's doing because society lets him.

But I get you on being disappointed in book locations. I recently read a book set in my city that barely used the city at all. I think there were two namedrops of hometown places in the whole book and that was it. I was so let down by that.

The author grew up in the area so I'm not sure why the place was not described better in the story. I really enjoyed the intro! It has that mix of humor and establishing the setting/characters that made the story appealing. Also agree that the author did a nice job of making a few squirmy parts.

Bahni Turpin was great in this book! I loved her narration.

What I didn't care for: (view spoiler)[
- Vampire/Villain - He was established really well and I liked how he created the money swindles to weasel his way into the area.
- Victims/Kills were not well done. The first few were fine because we don't get any details. Once details were added, the story lost a lot of plausibility.
- The time leap of several years to make the story circular and set the place like the past was not done well.
- Patricia's sudden attempt at suicide, the heavy handed way her husband threw his weight around, the plot to get the vampire, etc. Basically, the story lost all suspension after the suicide attempt.

I also felt like all the work done to make the secondary characters well rounded was tossed into the trashcan. After the suicide attempt, all the characters became one dimensional sticks that were meant to push the story to the conclusion.

Once the suspension was broken, it was hard to enjoy the story with the same energy that I felt at the beginning. (hide spoiler)]

I do think the author has a way of putting in modern humor & twists that made the story feel like it's from present era. I'll try other work by him but later. Once I feel less bitter about my disappointment with this one. LOL

Finished Gardens of the moon. Definitely 5 stars book.
Now I have started Deadhouse Gates and The Time Machine in parallel.

I started 3 books pretty much at the same time. The Three Body Problem is audio so that’s no problem for simultaneous reading. The other 2 were Lavinia by LeGuin and 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson. While I enjoyed the first chapter of 2312, Lavinia has won my attention for now. It is one of the last novels of hers that I haven’t read before and it is just so comforting. The beautiful prose, the interesting concept and ancient Italy. What’s not to love. I expect I’ll be able to finish Lavinia in short order and move onto 2312.

I’m also reading the 2020 Rhysling Anthology of the best SF, Fantasy and Horror poetry of 2019. It’s great so far.

What am I reading anyway !?

27 Apr 2020 05.00 EDT

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Some writers have always claimed they can hear their characters speaking, with Enid Blyton suggesting she could “watch and hear everything” and Alice Walker describing how her characters would “come for a visit ... and talk”. But a new study has shown this uncanny experience is very widespread, with almost two-thirds of authors reporting that they hear their characters’ voices while they work.

Researchers at Durham University teamed up with the Guardian and the Edinburgh international book festival to survey 181 authors appearing at the 2014 and 2018 festivals. 

I'm using the Scribd 30 day free trial as I'm spending a fair amount of time strolling around. A few of the groups bookshelf that I've yet to read are available there so I'm going to binge on them and knock off as much of my reading challenge as I can.

I just finished Catseye by Andre Norton. *yawn*

Regarding Ducks and Universes will keep me company on the walk to the supermarket today.

I also signed up for the Scribd 30 day trial but I’ve just strolled, as Ryan puts it, so far. Anna, you didn’t say hey also have sheet music!!! I find that really useful. And that it has both books and audiobooks is brilliant!

Diane wrote: "Anna, you didn’t say hey also have sheet music!"

I didn't know! :D

I've recently finished:

What Happens in Paradise, book 2 of a trilogy. Not bad, light chick lit. I won this book through Goodreads so had to find book 1 to start the series. I had never read this author before and found her to be an easy read.

The Confession Club the final book in a trilogy. Another light book in a sweet series.

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra I love the Indian culture so thought I would give this a try. Pretty much a cozy mystery with awesome food references. And the story wasn't bad either.

Rosewater FINALLY a book from the reading list. I was reading it digitally so it just takes me longer to read. Once I got into the story though I found that I really enjoyed the concept of it all. Is the rest of the series as good?

Currently reading/listening:

Uprooted I got this back from the library and have both the digital audiobook and the digital book since the audiobook is due back sooner and is on a waiting list. There are times I'm really enjoying this story (narrator aside) and then other times I'm like "didn't you just complain about this same situation in previous chapters?"

Blameless relisten but that's ok. One of the best series IMHO.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet just started this the other night and, if it were a physical copy, I would have it done so fast! I'm really enjoying it so far.

Karen wrote: "Rosewater FINALLY a book from the reading list. I was reading it digitally so it just takes me longer to read. Once I got into the story though I found that I really enjoyed the concept of it all. Is the rest of the series as good? ..."

Depends on whom you ask :D. Several folks like the following books better, I liked the first one best (but loved the other two as well). So the next are definitely as good.

Karen, I wasn't sure how I would feel about the books before I read them. I felt that way with each book but ended up enjoying all three. My fav was #3.

I don't really recall who suggested I read Planetside Planetside
after reading that I had read another of the into the black series. I might not recall who it was but I do owe them a debt. Superficially the books don't have that much in common, but it was an excellent read.

A military space sci-fi that is more police procedural than anything else. A few quibbles but nothing that intruded on the thorough enjoyment of the book. It isn't fast-paced but it doesn't dawdle. It works forward with enough twists on the theme to keep you involved and interested in how things are going to turn out. Will most assuredly give the second book a good looking over.

Glad you liked it, DJ. Planetside #1-2 were fun. You should check out Aftershocks. Kloos is known for the Frontlines series but I enjoyed the Palladium Wars more.

I'm a few chapters into The City & the City. in the past China Miéville has been hit or miss for me, but so far this is interesting.

Soo wrote: "Glad you liked it, DJ. Planetside #1-2 were fun. You should check out Aftershocks. Kloos is known for the Frontlines series but I enjoyed the Palladium Wars more."

Thanks, I will do that when I get my finances settled a little bit. Had some unexpected expenditures. Nothing bad, just carpet cleaning and things like that.

I just read The Fire Opal Mechanism by Fran Wilde without reading the first book in the series, The Jewel and Her Lapidary, and I loved it. The librarian protagonist was wonderful.

Just finished Zoo City by Lauren Beukes which I wasn't expecting to enjoy but did. Immensely.

Unfortunately, I just discovered that 34 of the audiobooks that I bookmarked on scribd have been removed until after my free trial has ended. Gah! Why must the villain always be thwarted?!

ScribD is terrible. It's basically 3 books per month. I say it's better to buy books rather than pay for that membership.

I read all of Themis Files and I loved the first two books. The last one was okay but not as great as the first two. The short stories are free to read & I had fun reading those too. They don't add a whole lot to the experience but everyone should read the last short after #3.

I kept thinking X-Files, Men in Black & Power Rangers. Hahaha!

The Circle of Ceridwen was a disappointment. Loads of cool historical details are threaded into the story. The actual plot is paper thin, there's no real character development and stuff just happens. It was like reading pretty poetry with zero depth.

Midnight Tides #5 was a nice surprise. It's the least obtuse of the five. A clear story from the get go, lots of humor and added layers to the overall world. I am heartened by the fact that each book seems to be better than the one before. I hope I am not jinxing myself! LoL

Halfway done with Malazan & I may wrap up the series before the year is out. Cool! I am rather excited about reaching the end. =)

I didn't have any limitations on the free Scribd month? It's not an actual trial, it's the free month without credit card. I linked it in the book sales thread. Maybe the normal trial has limitations, did you sign up for that Ryan?

edit: Here's the blog post with the link, today (April 30th) is the last day to sign up! If you meant to sign up for this, but accidentally signed up for a regular trial (had to fill in credit card details), then try this one with a different email address?

https://blog.scribd.com/home/2020/3/1...

I just checked and I read/listened to ten things during my 30 days, didn't notice any limitations. Does it depend on which books you're reading? I think I only listened to one new audiobook, the rest were all older works.

edit2: Looks like the promotion has now ended, it said "expires April 30" which I thought meant it was still valid today. So if you didn't get this, it's too late now!

ScribD probably has an algorithm on how many books/etc that it will let a user use. It probably calculates how long it takes to read the book, etc. I listened to 3 audiobooks and the app deleted the other audiobooks I had downloaded to try. Depending on the book, I can easily listen to 2-4 books a day. It only took 4 days for ScribD to limit my access & state that I can have access to the audiobooks I had marked in a month.

I don't need options for ebooks/charts. I was only interested in the audiobook access. For the price of membership, it's not worth it for me. I would rather buy the audiobooks & keep them than pay for a limited library + severely limited use. It's too bad. I would like to support a non-Amazon company for audiobooks but there aren't that many options out there yet.

Soo wrote: "ScribD is terrible. It's basically 3 books per month. I say it's better to buy books rather than pay for that membership."

That's what I've heard. I've never tried it before, since I have access to a truly unlimited subscription service. I enjoyed a month of different free books though, so totally worth the 0 currency I paid :)

=D

I was able to listen to 2 LitRPG books that were in my TBR and Blindsight was great! I'm happy that I got a couple of audiobooks out of it for free.

I'm forever going to wonder why you only got to listen to three books and I got nine audios and an ebook!

I wasn't going to say anything because it doesn't really matter to me, but since it's being weird in other ways. I opened the link I posted above in two different browsers. When I click through to the join page, one browser says the normal price is 9.99€/month and the other 8.99€/month. My location hasn't changed, just the browser. So I guess if someone is planning on paying them, maybe check the price with different browsers? :D

(I got the 8.99 on Chrome, 9.99 on Firefox and Safari)

Anna wrote: "I didn't have any limitations on the free Scribd month? It's not an actual trial, it's the free month without credit card. I linked it in the book sales thread. Maybe the normal trial has limitatio..."

I didn't go through that link. Its expired now. :(

I have access to older books still and some fairly new ones from smaller publishers it seems. Although S. M. Sterlings work is no longer available to me for free. Should've started with the lengthier stories. Double :(

Yeah I just noticed that myself about 5 minutes ago, I thought it was still valid today :/

Anna, I did listen to 3 audiobooks in 2 days. lol

How long did it take you to listen to your audios & read the ebook?

There's a handful of "free" books but none of the audiobooks I wanted to listen to were available. Plus, most of the other books were things I've already read or they had terrible reviews. lol

It varied, but I listened to some at 2x and I did listen to more than one some days. It feels like I had so many free books to read last month that I didn't know where to turn, so there was a week when I didn't open Scribd at all.

It's going to be an amazing week! A Murderbot novella series reread, new Murderbot novel, and then Catfishing on CatNet! After that I'll finally get to read The Vela, I scored a free copy last night. I'm so excited I might have to run around in circles!

I had the profound pleasure to be reading two beautiful 5-star books about books side by side.

Among Others by Jo Walton and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke were excellent and speak to the heart of book lovers. It always lifts me up when I encounter authors who are in such good command of the written language and celebrate the meaning of books.

Been on a bit of tear lately, finishing:

The Golem and the Jinni, which had some lovely aspects — the setting and much of the sentence-to-sentence writing — and some deeply frustrating aspects — inconsistent ideas about the magic in the world of the book, and clumsy characterization.

A Wild Sheep Chase, my first experience reading the work of Haruki Murakami, and it won’t be my last. I’m not sure I understand every thread of its surreal plot, but I was mesmerized throughout by his witty, dreamlike prose, and captivated by its themes of alienation and existential crisis. I devoured this book.

Six Wakes is in many ways a silly popcorn novel, a whodunit in space, but it’s elevated by some very interesting ideas about the ethics of cloning, and it’s pretty fun overall. Just thin on characterization, and full of too much vapid dialogue to rise to the level of its grander ideas.

Just read two Paolo Bacigalupi novelettes — “The Calorie Man” and “Yellow Card Man” that are set in the same world of the next book I’m about to read, his Nebula- and Hugo-winning The Windup Girl. They’ve been described as prequels of a sort, and I’m glad I’ve read them. He’s got a really bold style. I’ve owned TWG for many years, and am looking forward to finally reading it.

Gabi, are you going to read the rest of the Inkheart series? I loved the book when it came out in English, and I think I liked the sequel, too, but I read the third book years after and it felt like it had lost some of its magic. I keep wondering if I should reread them together, if it was just too much time between the last two books. Anyway, I would love to hear how you like the other two books when and if you get to them!

edit: I noticed you already answered my question in your review! :)

@Gabi I absolutely loved Among Others, it really made me want to run out and buy more books! Speaking of which I just ordered the rest of the Thessaly series.

@Anthony I'm a big fan of Haruki Murakami. Three of his books that I'd recommend:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - I think this is considered his masterpiece.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - his most SFnal work I've read
The Elephant Vanishes - short fiction collection with lots of good ones in there, the film Burning which came out a few years back to a reasonable amount of acclaim was based off the short story "Barn Burning" which is included there (and very good IMO, better than the film)

@Christopher thanks for the recs. My brother is a huge Murakami fan, and he loves Hard-Boiled Wonderland and Wind-Up Bird. I love sort stories, so I’ll also happily check out that collection. Thanks!

@Anna: I just changed the device (I lie on the couch and read at the moment and saw your question on the smartphone where I hate writing, so I got up to my pc) - and during this time I saw that you've already seen my review … - LOL, do I sound as confused as I feel?

So, yes, I will read on even though my throat will certainly be sore cause it's 1500 pages more. As long as the boys keep their interest.

@Christopher: :D I honestly already started to compile a read-all-mentioned-books in my head while reading "Among Others", but then more and more Heinlein came up and I'm not up to read so much of his work. Otherwise this really would be a fun challenge.

@Gabi, there's a GoodReads list for all the novels mentioned: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Christopher wrote: "@Gabi, there's a GoodReads list for all the novels mentioned: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1..."

Thank you very much, I have the list (was the first thing I checked as I was reading). I only need to read 75% of the mentioned book to have them all done XD ^^'

Haha Gabi, yes I noticed your review probably minutes before you posted!

I’d say, just skip all the Heinlein, if it doesn’t sit right, Gabi!! I had a quick look at that list and the first 25 or so I’ve read already. I meant to read Among Others last Yee at, I don’t know why I didn’t manage. Probably because I don’t own it. But I really wanted to. Now with so many people here gushing about Jo Walton, I feel like I’m missing out!

Beyond the Clouds, tome 1 by Nicke

The Wind-up Girl is awesome AND often misunderstood.

Elowen, The Golem and the Djinn is good enough to change a mood. when I picked it up I thought there was little chance it would take... but it's so damn good.

@Elowen: have you read Among Others (I didn't see you in the review list). This is a perfect feel good book.