What are you reading? - October 2017

Just back from a trip overseas (and from my layover at Heathrow Airport I waved in the general direction of Morrus, assuming he was in the direction I was waving).

Got a good amount of reading done on and around the trans-Atlantic flight.

Read Charles Stross' "The Annihilation Score", the N-1th (depending on how you count) book in the Laundry Files. A big surprise and change of pace, the POV character was Mo, Bob's wife. Helps me understand her, though that particular book hit a personal marital hot button that had me annoyed at her for much the later half of the book. The premise of the book, while making sense in context and treated well, was a bit sillier than others in the series and also had a sudden backstory that really should have been obvious in earlier books. (The last scene of the previous book was the second scene of this book - no time passed). Also the demystifying of the Senior Auditor into a regular, if powerful, person lessened the impact of that character from the other books. For all that I enjoyed the book - Charlie Stross' style of writing agrees with me.

Next up was the very first Wild Cards book, which I've never read any of. Not what I was expecting, but in a good way. Really focused on the people, not the powers. This was the extended "let's take advantage that GoT was written by the editor" edition that had several additional short stories int he same beginning time period but written in 2010 instead of in the 80s.

Next was Robert J. Sawyer's "Red Planet Blues", at an author suggestion from here. Second SF / hardboiled detective noir genre-mashup I've read recently and a really entertaining one at that. (The other was "Gun with Occasional Music".) In some ways it was two related novellas in one, with a highly overlapping cast. This was the first RJS I read and I'm ready to grab some more.

On deck is "You" by Austin Grossman and the second Wild Cards book, "Aces High".

I'm currently reading "The Core" - The Demon cycle part 5 by Peter V Brett. Been waiting for this for a while... Currently I'm about a third of the way through and finding it really hard to put down! I've really enjoyed this series even if all the characters are now getting a bit on the uber side.

Next up is "Successors Promise" by Trudi Canavan.

Blue said:

Next was Robert J. Sawyer's "Red Planet Blues", at an author suggestion from here.

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To give credit, it was "Read" [MENTION=508]Richards[/MENTION] who suggested RJS and I'm looking forward to reading more of his work.

Been curious about the Wild Cards series as well, since it's clearly a love of George R.R. Martin's.

As for Brett's Demon Cycle, I've only read the first in the series. It was interesting to hear that the genesis of the books was originally a proposal for D&D great setting contest of 3e.

I'm still reading the second Wheel of Time book. I'm a fast reader, but not that fast!

Ralif Redhammer said:

I'm still reading the second Wheel of Time book. I'm a fast reader, but not that fast!

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Don't worry, they get longer.

Ralif Redhammer said:

Been curious about the Wild Cards series as well, since it's clearly a love of George R.R. Martin's.

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The first book was not at all what I was expecting, but that ended up in a good way. i was expecting a shared supers world akin to Thieves' World in a similar timeframe. This was not that. It took place over years, there was a lot about the social aspects and how those changed over time, it focused probably more on the Jokers (those warped badly by the Wild Card virus) than the Aces (more standard supers). It looks like further books continue to advance time as well so we can see societal changes, and there was really a lot of focus on that.

The editing in terms of maintaining a consistent world and character ruse was definitely well done. One of the writers was a bit more purple prose than I like, but that wasn't a big deal.

Some of the characters I found it harder to empathize with. Dangers of a shared anthology, but since there was (well done) a lot of character reuse, they came up frequently.

I have the second book to read, let's see how it goes from there.

Part way through "You" by Austin Grossman, and it feels a bit like a Neil Stephenson story - meandering with lots of backstory flashbacks, but pulling the reader into all of these minute details. But I like that sort of thing, that ridiculously fleshed out build-up because it's told in an entertaining manner. (The seven page side note about choosing a dentist for a root canal in Cryptonomicon is a great example - nothing to do with the plot, but tell you about the main character and gives you a frame of reference for how they see someone else. And dang amusing.)

But we're still discovering the plot and I'm 1/3 of the way through. There's more going on then obvious, or at least I hope there is. Revelations are slow to come out.

One thing is that it references a lot of real world, including books by other authors and not just "classics". Came out five years before Ready Player One which made that into a primary theme, here it feels more like the pop-culture references in Gilmore Girls, except for people into fantasy, tabletop gaming, computer gaming, or F/SF reading. Name checks Dragon magazine, the Fionovar Tapestry books, etc.

Second Wheel of Time book down and done. I'm taking a brief break with Mark Lawrence's Emperor of Thorns, the conclusion of the Broken Empire. Looking forward to seeing how it ends, though I doubt it'll be cheerful.

Ralif Redhammer said:

Second Wheel of Time book down and done. I'm taking a brief break with Mark Lawrence's Emperor of Thorns, the conclusion of the Broken Empire. Looking forward to seeing how it ends, though I doubt it'll be cheerful.

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Broken Empire is one of the few trilogies I've read where each book was better than the one previous.

Started reading Runaway Jury on Thursday due to having watched a trial in which I knew both sides.

I finished up YOU - I'm still not sure it had a plot. Or rather, it was a travelogue of a person's life, with a B plot about excising a cursed sword from a new game. But the sword plot in some ways felt more just something to hang the journey on. Enjoyable and I'll re-read it in a few years, but unusually put together in a way I don't think may would carry off well, and even here where I liked it, it was somewhat of a detractor.

I'm stuck in a rut. I'm reading the second Wild Car book, and I'm just not into it but don't want to abandon it. I've got a new-to-me GGK (River of Stars) waiting but I haven't been in the mood to dive in and give it the attention it should get so I've been holding off. Think that I'm fighting off a cold, maybe that's part of it.

So a topical question for the masses: what's the first fantasy story you ever read? (Or optionally, what's the story that got you into fantasy?) I was into SF, and in 4th (?) grade a friend lent me "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. LeGuin. I devoured it and that started my lifelong love of fantasy fiction. And there are still echos of that book in the homebrew settings I run when DMing.