Books

After only reading sci-fi for quite some time I started a Brandon Sanderson journey. Or more like a Cosmere journey. I started with Warbreaker, then Mistborn Era 1, then Stormlight Archives up to Rhythm Of War, then Mistborn Era 2 to bridge the gap to the Stormlight "Wind And Truth" release, which I'm still on currently, because I'm very slow lol.

I'm currently reading The Thirteen-Gun Salute by Patrick O'Brian. It had been 10 years since I had read the book before it. It's taking me some time to get into his language and writing style again :)

Just finished Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. Nice sci-fi, well wrote, page turner, for sure not the best in its genre but it's quite a nice novel to spend a bit of time.

Next read will be The housemaid, by Freida McFadden and, if I enjoy, I'll read the two others of the serie.

Reading Michael Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome. Some very dubious scholarship, even though I sympathize with the main thrust of it.

I finished the first trilogy of the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist. This was a series I had read as an early teenager so not my first time through it.

It was largely a disappointing read.. it felt very “surface level” for a fantasy book and I never felt very invested. It is hard to read when you compare to Sanderson or Rothfuss worlds and characters.

Next up, I’m going to check out Foundation and will read in chronological order rather than publication order.

I’ve been working through the Binti novellas by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s my first exposure to Afro-Futurism and I’m enjoying them so far.

Currently listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl.
About 4 hours into the 12 hour book and it is good.

Thank you so much for the reminder/suggestion that the first annual Lemmy book bingo is happening! I've checked out the link posts and drawn up my bingo card/list to finish by May 1st.

The r/Fantasy subreddit is the only thing I was missing--glad to see this and excited to start participating!

I've just started Earthlings by Sayaka Murata yesterday after getting my ass kicked by Roadside Picnic. Loving it so far! By far one of the strangest stories I've read. Really interested to see how it goes

Just finished "the running man" and found out that I didn't finish "why we are polarized" by Ezra Klein, so I'm finishing that one now

Not current, but "The Devil's Playground" by Craig Russell is a lot of fun. Combines 1920's Hollywood sex scandals with voo-doo and a serial killer. Also a haunted movie that kills anyone who watches it.

The Running Man

I saw it mentioned on here the other day and with the movie set to release later in the year I thought I'd give it a go.

I'm really enjoying it so far. It's fast paced and not long so will probably finish it today (I started yesterday).

I recently started I Want A Better Catastrophe by Andrew Boyd. It's good, but it's rough and I can only read so much at a time which caused me to look for a humorous non-fiction title as a mental palate cleanser. For that I landed on The Utterly Uninteresting & Unadventurous Tales of Fred, The Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes; which, in contrast, has been a lot of fun.

Happy New year Dresden!

Since the last thread I replied to I have finished the BuyMort book I was on and listened to another couple Deathlands (of course)

I also listen to NPC by Jeremy Robinson which is the next book in the Infinite series for me and was another great book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Now I am a few hours into The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart. It has been a little slow starting but it is just starting to pick up pace and will hopefully be a good read!

Just finished the second book Shift and started the third, Dust, from Silo series. The first two were really good, long enough to dive deep into it and on that sweet level of being easy to read yet enough detail to keep it interesting.

My SO reads me stories in the evening and now we are going through LOTR, although I must say it's getting a bit cumbersome, being quite slow-paced book and all, so we'll probably give up and switch to something else soon.

I read a fair amount of Enid Blyton as a kid, and remember enjoying the Five series. Does it hold up well?

Still haven't been getting much reading done; I'm not even a third of the way through Between Two Fires yet! It has been enjoyable so far, though, with a lot of clever medieval flavor that reminds me of Arthurian legends, or monsters doodled in the corners of old manuscripts. I suspect there's probably some Canterbury Tales influence as well, but it's been a long time since I had to read them.

I finished The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It's a historical fiction taking place in occupied France during World War II. It was a very well plotted story, but the writing felt so distant and some scenes felt very unrealistic. It felt like a story I should have liked more that I did.

Now I've started Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight book 2). Far too early to have opinions, but I'm excited for this one.

I loved the ending of Hero of Ages. There's a novella to read partway through the second age that does some beautiful stuff around it. The second age is a very different style, but it is a lot of fun. You never regret that extra shake...

I just finished the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. The first book is from the sixties and the final short from 2018, so it is a fascinating trip through the maturation of Fantasy. The first three books are firmly young-adult, while the last three stick with the characters as adults. The whole series ends with a very short story the author wrote to be published after her death. It's a wonderful look at the mind of an old person at the end of their story.

Recent publications include afterwords written in 2012 which give a lot of context and interesting insights into how she wrote stories.

I started The Hands Of The Emperor by Victoria Goddard last week (so good!), and tore through all 900 pages of it in a few days. Found out there’s a sequel - At The Feet Of The Sun - and poured that one into my brain as well (even better than the first!). Now I’m reading my way through the novellas that are in between those two behemoths.