The Sword and Laser discussion

So...question time! I have literally nothing on the TBR. There's a collection of St. Mary's shorts that I'll buy and read some time. There's also a stack of Brin easily available from the library. Suggestions? Think I would like Brin's Uplift books better now as an older, more mellow reader? (And if that's a yes, is there an easy out after the first trilogy or would I need to read all six.) I've read The Practice Effect and The Postman and enjoyed them both. Or should I just get the St. Mary's anthology and wait on the February book selection?

February book selection should be released officially in approx 14 hours (or less)

If you search in the right place you may find out earlier 😉

It should be a quick read. 112 pages.

Tassie Dave wrote: "February book selection should be released officially in approx 14 hours (or less)

If you search in the right place you may find out earlier 😉

It should be a quick read. 112 pages."

I’ve already gone and bought the book I thought it was going to be... but my kindle edition says it’s 124 pages! Have I bought the wrong book?!?

(Not that it matters I was planning to read it anyway, February book or not)

John (Taloni) wrote: "So...question time! I have literally nothing on the TBR.."

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE

John (Taloni) wrote: "Suggestions?"

Sure:

Project Hail Mary - Weir back in full Martian mode
The Apocalypse Door - a modern Templar Knight teams up with a badass action nun to save the world
Into the Storm - WWII destroyer and Japanese battleship travel to a parallel Earth where dinosaurs didn’t go extinct
Retribution Falls - secondary world steampunk with an airship crew of ne’er-do-wells adventuring; this one is solid and the sequel, The Black Lung Captain, is better

Ruth wrote: "I’ve already gone and bought the book I thought it was going to be... but my kindle edition says it’s 124 pages! Have I bought the wrong book?!?"

I was going off the Goodreads page for the book and the page count there.

Kindle length will vary depending on the Font and Font size you choose. Mine is 119 pages.

Tassie Dave wrote: "Ruth wrote: "I’ve already gone and bought the book I thought it was going to be... but my kindle edition says it’s 124 pages! Have I bought the wrong book?!?"

I was going off the Goodreads page fo..."

Ah ok, I probably have bought the right book then! All will be confirmed soon...

After stampeding through Murderbot #3-#6 in about a week, I decided to take a (possibly ill-considered) revisit to my childhood, beginning with Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In addition to the Light from Uncommon Stars I'm also reading a collection of short stories by Charlie Jane Anders which I am loving! It's a nice mix of both fantasy and sci fi.

I'm also super slowly getting through the long audiobook of The City We Became. I'm curious if anyone else has read/listened to this? The audiobook performance is amazing! I've never heard anything like it. There are a ton of accents and character voices (but not in a hokey way) and also a lot of foley and some music.

Aubrey wrote: "I'm also super slowly getting through the long audiobook of The City We Became. I'm curious if anyone else has read/listened to this? The audiobook performance is amazing! I've never heard anything like it. There are a ton of accents and character voices (but not in a hokey way) and also a lot of foley and some music."

I read it a year ago (almost exactly) but I did it in dead tree edition, like a caveman.

If you like that style of audiobook, I recommend Graphic Audio, who bill themselves as “Movies For Your Mind”. Full cast recording with music and sound effects, somewhere between an audiobook and a radio play.

https://www.graphicaudio.net/

Trike wrote: "Aubrey wrote: "I'm also super slowly getting through the long audiobook of The City We Became. I'm curious if anyone else has read/listened to this? The audiobook performance is amazing! I've never..."

I'll have to check that out thanks!
I'm curious if the story feels different in audio vs paper format since the audio version is so performative. Did you enjoy the book?

Ruth wrote: "Ah ok, I probably have bought the right book then! All will be confirmed soon..."

Rob is a bit late announcing it. It is past the 24 hour embargo, so it is safe to say we are reading

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Aubrey wrote: "I'm curious if the story feels different in audio vs paper format since the audio version is so performative. Did you enjoy the book?"

I thought it was too similar to other stories but Jemisin is such a good writer that I didn’t mind. 3 stars.

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

Huh I also apparently missed that Pandora's Star is only half the story. Unfortunately, with the way work is right now, this probably moves it to the backburner until after I can get some satellites out of my hair.

Though I'm glad to find it out now. I remember the first time that I read Hyperion, I was furious when it ended without any resolution. Beautiful story but I didn't know at the time that there was another book to finish half the story (and 2 more on top of that to finish everything). I did eventually read all of those so I figure

I'll eventually get to Pandora's Star but maybe not in March. We'll see how this upcoming month goes with some 24/7 work testing.

Trike wrote: "John (Taloni) wrote: "So...question time! I have literally nothing on the TBR.."
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE"

:)
It's by design tho. I won't add a book to the TBR pile unless I have a good shot of reading it in the next month or two. Others stay in the "maybe" or "someday" category. Informal, no actual list.

I've read Hail Mary. Will give the others a look.

Decided on rereading Sundiver. A few pages in, two things came back to me. First, I'm a bit squeamish on the concept of heading into the sun as the idea of instant burnup grates on me. Just a pet peeve.

Second, the idea of sentient suns goes back at least to Olaf Stapledon. That's the earliest SF I've encountered it in altho I wouldn't be surprised if someone else did it a century earlier. The idea was old then. Still being done; Niven and Benford had sentient plasmas in their Bowl of Heaven books.

On my musings above, does anyone remember which Uplift trilogy had the spiders? And were the human / humanoid alien running around in the first or second trilogy? Not sure how far I will get.

Tassie Dave wrote: "Ruth wrote: "Ah ok, I probably have bought the right book then! All will be confirmed soon..."

Rob is a bit late announcing it. It is past the 24 hour embargo, so it is safe to say we are reading
..."

It's been a day..I was napping after work

Rob wrote: "It's been a day..I was napping after work"

Your pay will be docked to reflect that.

Finished The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole in audiobook, which is a romcom with a surprising amount of science fiction thrown in. There was lots of humour around the AI character trying to learn how to be human. He reminded me of Data from STNG.

I’m now reading a romcom with a science fact basis and a lot of shade thrown on STEM graduate programs: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood.

And I’m continuing with my audiobook Holmes-fest with The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

In dead tree edition I’m enjoying the time travel adventure story Paris Adrift by E.J. Swift.

Ruth wrote: "I’m now reading a romcom with a science fact basis and a lot of shade thrown on STEM graduate programs: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood."

That actually looks pretty good. I'm not regularly a romance reader but a good one can get through my usual, well, Laser focus.

And I’m continuing with my audiobook Holmes-fest with The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

I think I downloaded the stories individually from Gutenberg Press and emailed them to my Kindle. Free, but a hassle. I recognize the story but not the collection it is in.

Currently reading Into the Dark. It's YA but I'm enjoying it.

Started The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. The first chapter features a whole bunch of people dying in a heatwave. I’m hoping it might get slightly less grim...?

I finished all 3 of John Scalzi's Interdependency books https://www.goodreads.com/series/2022... which was a lovely space romp that I kept wanting to read more of. Those baddies were really bad and had me cussing and grumping practically every chapter.

Then I read Artemis which I enjoyed more than I was expecting as the set up was average but the finish was silly but fun.

I am finishing off January with the Feb pick The Empress of Salt and Fortune and maybe then its sequel as it is only a 100 or so pages long

My new dead tree read is Black Water Sister by one of my favourite writers, Zen Cho.

I’ve been blitzing through my TBR this month - I’ve read 17 books and my TBR shelf was starting to look a bit empty! Then today I made a trip to the local Waterstones (the UK’s biggest bookshop chain) and now I’ve restocked :)

Ruth wrote: "My new dead tree read is Black Water Sister by one of my favourite writers, Zen Cho.

I’ve been blitzing through my TBR this month - I’ve read 17 books and my TBR s..."

Wow, 17!

So do you have that rarest of all creatures, a baby that sleeps?

Went off genre for Cherie Priest's new book Grave Reservations, then spent a few hours of today's New England blizzard reading Mira Grant's novella Square³. I think this is the first of Seanan McGuire's work under Mira Grant that I've read and I enjoyed it.

Before all this I was trying to read The Once and Future Witches and while I like it well enough and intend to finish, it wasn't fitting my mood.

Sheila Jean wrote: "spent a few hours of today's New England blizzard"

I am very disappointed in this “blizzard”. 5 inches of snow? C’mon. Gimme that 2-3 feet I was promised!

I finished a book!!!

I finished My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry for my local in person book club and it is the first win print book I have finished since surgery and chemo. Starting to recover.

Still working my way through the audio of Pandora's Star (about 32 hours in and the s*&t is finally hitting the fan).

Now onto The Airways which I got for Xmas.

I am really annoyed I only looked her up now as I missed a terrific reading win the local Botanic gardens. The Day of the Triffids Anniversary Event which would have been so cool (especially if the Titan Arum flowered).

https://www.botanicgardens.sa.gov.au/...

Trike wrote: "Ruth wrote: "My new dead tree read is Black Water Sister by one of my favourite writers, Zen Cho.

I’ve been blitzing through my TBR this month - I’ve read 17 books..."

So do you have that rarest of all creatures, a baby that sleeps?




Lol, nope. In fact part of the reason I’ve done so much reading this month is all the books I’ve read at 4am while nursing my little bundle of joy.

Iain wrote: "I finished a book!!!

I finished My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry for my local in person book club and it is the first win print book I have finished since surgery and chemo. Starting to recover.

I’m so happy to hear that Iain!

Trike wrote: "Sheila Jean wrote: "spent a few hours of today's New England blizzard"

I am very disappointed in this “blizzard”. 5 inches of snow? C’mon. Gimme that 2-3 feet I was promised!"

Further south near Boston we got a tad more than 0.5". I'd guess I got about 16" at home but it was very windy
and absolutely everything drifted so who knows? I'm confident it was at lease 12". Airport measured 23.5" and that's less than 8 mi away as the crow flies.

My friends in Hingham estimate they got 30 inches. That’s what I want!

Iain wrote: "I finished a book!!!"

\o/

Iain wrote: "Still working my way through the audio of Pandora's Star (about 32 hours in and the s*&t is finally hitting the fan).
"

I'm about 2 hours behind you, and I do see some more combining of things. Still a bit wondering, but it's starting.

Also glad to hear that concentration is starting to come back.

Ruth wrote: "Started The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. The first chapter features a whole bunch of people dying in a heatwave. I’m hoping it might get slightly less grim..."

Well, I would say mostly it "zooms out" the view. The terrible climate stuff doesn't stop happening, but it isn't viewed that intimately in the rest of the book. Plus, at least people begin to work towards solutions. Still, it's a pretty sobering read.

I finished The Witch's Heart and thought it was pretty good. Fills a similar niche to Circe, so if you liked that you'd probably like this one.

Last day of January and I just finished the February pick :) Now back to some Alistair Reynolds.

Finished up Sundiver which I read some three decades or so ago. I found it about as silly as I did the first time. Many setup scenes and odd choices by characters made to advance the plot.

The search for the sun beings comes off to me as the author struggling for religious meaning in a non-religious context. The sun beings may as well be angels and the villains of the story, minor devils trying to keep the characters from seeing the (in this case literal) light. With minor changes it could be a Christian fantasy.

Brin has said he specializes in portraying interesting aliens. Well, this book has plenty of aliens. As for interesting...*shrug*. Again, Olaf Stapledon has this book beat twelve ways to Sunday.

The book apparently won all sorts of awards and led to legions of frothing fans. Are there any here? I went on to the next book (Startide Rising) and could quickly tell the spider race I'd described above was in the second book. Looking at my library list, the man and humanoid alien woman I couldn't place are on the cover of the third book. I can barely mention a Culture book or a Feist novel and fans come out of the woodwork to talk about their experiences reading them. Dune, Niven, Hamilton, Asher, peeps jump in. Uplift books, apparently not.

Well anyway, I'll probably finish out the trilogy. I don't find them bad so much as not up to the hype. The books are fine as insomnia reading, and I don't have much in the "maybe" pile right now.

I did enjoy the original Uplift trilogy (well, "trilogy" is a strong word -- as I recall, it's three largely standalone books set in the same universe with very little to directly connect them -- Sundiver in particular is its own thing) back in the day. The follow-up trilogy, beginning with Brightness Reef, was more of a classic trilogy, but also didn't do as much for me -- it seemed to ... busy, maybe?

Just finished the Feb pick, so now it's on to the latest Wayward Children book by Seanan McGuire, Where the Drowned Girls Go.

Chris wrote: "Just finished the Feb pick, so now it's on to the latest Wayward Children book by Seanan McGuire, Where the Drowned Girls Go."

Yeah, I have really enjoyed that series. If anything I thought McGuire did too good a job. She portrayed the sense of loss so well in the first book that I was concerned some suggestible teens might act on it. Fortunately I have been wrong so far. A well woven web of emotional writing.

John (Taloni) wrote: "A well woven web of emotional writing."

An excellent way to describe this series. I'm glad there is only one published every year or so. They pack quite the emotional punch even if one isn't a teenager.

Prompted by the Book Cougars' first quarter readalong, I picked up another book by Darcie Little Badger, which has a similar YA feeling to Elatsoe.

A Snake Falls to Earth