What are you reading? Declaratory December 2018 edition

New month, new thread, and the last one for 2018.

Still reading GRRM's Fire & Blood. Really enjoying it, even if it no Winds of Winter. And at this point, maybe that's a good thing. Freed from the multiple POVs and plot threads, this book flows and moves with much more vitality than the last two SoIaF books.

I'm reading Circe by Madeline Miller. Si fat I do not see where all the hype comes from. It is good, but not that good.

I've just finished "Father Christmas's Fake Beard", the last-ever Terry Pratchett.

Now reading "Temple of the Peacock Spirit" for Pathfinder, and about to start "Song of Stone" by Iain Banks.

I never did get around to "Anna Karenina" last month. I doubt I will this month, either.

I'm reading another book I picked up at a library book sale and thought I'd give a try. It's the first novel by Catherine Asaro, Primary Inversion. It's a space opera about two warring space empires thousands of years from now, but surprisingly both empires are human offshoots from Earth. (So far there's been no sentient aliens in the story and despite there being different creatures on the various planets throughout the two empires they're likely also descended from Earth stock.) The main character is a member of an elite fighting force of empaths called the Jagernauts, and she's the sister to the Emperor. It's got some interesting twists on telepathy and the technology of the ships is very different (the author has a physics background) and I'm enjoying it. I also picked up another book in the series at the same time which I'll likely read next, but unfortunately it turns out its the third book in the series - somehow I missed out on the second. (That's a definite hazard with library book sale purchases.)

Johnathan

I finished the 2nd and 3rd Destiny Aurora books while travelling last week. They were ok. Editing wasn't great.

Started Brandon Sanderson's The Reckoners: Steelheart, because we've played the board game a few times.

The Lord of the Rings. Never gets old.
[MENTION=5762]Ral[/MENTION]if: Curious about Fire and Blood, since I need to get it. Does it have a ghostwriter? What's the page count? And has GRRM said anything about WoW, officially?

Indeed, it does not. Considering a re-read of the Unfinished Tales volume, as it’s been a long time since I’ve touched that one.

As for Fire and Blood, it’s about 730 pages, on Kindle. I don’t believe it has a secondary author, unlike the prior history book, but of course, they could be uncredited. As far as I’ve seen from GRRM, it’s nothing but more of the same on Winds of Winter, albeit with a more self-flagellating tone.

I’m only a third of the way through it, but so far I’m enjoying it quite a bit. I’m not sure it needed to be a 700+ page book (in a supposedly two book series), but at least it’s keeping my interest.

DMMike said:

The Lord of the Rings. Never gets old.

[MENTION=5762]Ral[/MENTION]if: Curious about Fire and Blood, since I need to get it. Does it have a ghostwriter? What's the page count? And has GRRM said anything about WoW, officially?

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Fleet of Worlds (2007) by Larry Niven, it's ok, light reading.

I'm going to start reading the Gone series by Michael Grant again, it's one of two books (the other being Carrie that I've said I would never read again due to how malicious the characters are.

I'm between books. Normally that would mean I'd finished books, but in this particular case it means I've got several books going and am not sure if I want to pick any of them back up or read something else.

So before I traveled at the beginning of November I was 3/4 of the way through Sarah J. Maas' Crown of Midnight, 2nd book after Throne of Glass. But it wasn't moving very fast and I had no allowed checked luggage so I left the big trade paperback at home, and just never picked it back up. I've actually purchased #3 and #4 and they are sitting downstairs, so I should. But the character progress this book isn't motivating me.

I needed a electronic book at one point while waiting and started Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, I'm a big fan of NS, but the characters aren't catching me. This is still the most likely book for me to go back to, it's "solid".

I started reading the Area X Southern Reach trilogy, thinking it was SF. It's not. Which was a pleasant change of pace, but the first book of it was written so well it left me feeling unsettled, and there were NO ANSWERS, which was jarring considering I had assumed it was SF - very against genre. Because that's not the genre. Anyway, I started reading the second one and whiel reading it I get this vague sense of unease that the author is intentionally and successfully instilling, but I've been a little under the weather and that's not what I want right now, to be unsteady in my mind as well.

So I grabbed Walter Jon William's Dread Empire's Fall: The Praxis. A long time fan of WJW, I expected this would banish that unsteadiness. I'm not far into it but it feels ... old. Dated? I dunno, it's not grabbing me at all. I came in with high expectations, and by not hitting that high bar from the get go it's disappointed me.

I've got Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee at the top of my (finally dwindling) TBR pile which I'm looking forward to, but right now with half my reading list being new-to-me authors who are disappointing I want to read something solid first and get out of this swamp of discontent so I don't go in hoping it will save me and then be turned off if it doesn't immediately. (Which I think is my real problem with the WJW book - I expected it to be a panacea to my reading woes, and when it wasn't I didn't give it time to develop into itself.)

No more buying books before the holidays. So I need to get my groove back. Getting over this mild cold(flu?) would probably help, I'm not as clear-headed as I want to be.

Part of me is toying with the idea of just tossing all of them into the hold bin and go reread something I've enjoyed multiple times before.

Advice?