What are you reading in 2022?

[Eyes of Nine]

Speaking of Particia McKillip - got Tower at Stony Wood and Ombria in Shadow for my birthday. Not sure when I'll get around to reading them; but they are very pretty books. Also got Kij Johnson's Fudoki.

Looks like otherwise, I haven't posted any "what I read lately" updates since Jan 17 or so.

• I finished vols 1-3 of Kill Six Billion Demons, and it's whacky, sprawling and great. Recommended. Creator had a kid recently though, so expecting his output to decrease, sadly.
• Salvation of a Saint and A Midsummer's Equation by Keigo Higashino. I like the Japanese setting and how he unspools the mysteries. Often the killer is well known at the beginning; but even then how it was done and how that's uncovered is interesting in and of itself.
• Keeping in the Japanese setting, I read the 2nd volume in the Rei Shimura mystery series, Zen Attitude. Protagonist was slightly less annoying this time around. These are only ok; and if I hadn't already bought the first 4, I'd probably set them down.
• Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. Wow - a SF novel with philosophy and future science/transhumanism all mixed together. I have the 2nd book waiting for me to read - maybe sometime next week...
• Call us What We Carry, a poetry collection by Amanda Gorman. You may remember Amanda Gorman from the poem she read at Biden's inauguration. This collection is a powerful set of poems reflecting on the first half of the pandemic. It's a bit jarring as one of the poems is all about the hope and freedom the vaccine will bring us. I think here in the states we know how that turned out...

Currently reading

• Nick Offerman's Where the Deer and the Antelope Play, and the voice is very much what I would expect Nick Offerman's literary voice to be - wry, sardonic, but underneath caring and aware. Liking so far.
• The Arbornaut by Meg Lowman. Memoir about one of the first people to go up into our tree canopy above us.
• The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman. A friend gave this to me because they know I like to watch birds at my feeder. Ok so far, hoping for some huge "WOWs" so I can share cool facts on how smart birds are.
• Taking a crack at The 1619 Project again. It's great writing; but also tough subject matter. I'm taking it slow on purpose.
• Going to read up on The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth by some random dude named E Gary Gygax. I think I'm going to run it as a sequel to my Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign...

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Abraham Merritt's The Metal Monster is done, and I'm not sure if it was awful or awesome. Some of the descriptions absolutely pushed the limits of what I could picture in my head. For something that was written so long ago, it's entirely psychedelic, the way it depicts the titular creatures, their dwellings, their society. It's so alien and fantastical, but at the same time it's easy to feel like you're drowning untethered by the descriptions.

I suspect it very much was an influence on the creation of Modrons and Nirvana/Mechanus.

Now I'm reading R.E. Howard Cormac Mac Art. Had this book for ages and always passed it over for other REH characters until now.

 

[trappedslider]

Reading Moonfall by Jack McDevitt unrelated to the recent movie

Spoiler

It's the 21st century, and all is right with the world. Or so it seems.

Vice President Charlie Haskell, who will travel anywhere for a photo op, is about to cut the ribbon for the just-completed American Moonbase. The first Mars voyage is about to leave high orbit, with a woman at the helm. Below, the world is marveling at a rare solar eclipse.

But all that is right is about to go disastrously wrong when an amateur astronomer discovers a new comet. Named for its discover, Tomiko is a "sun-grazer,"an interstellar wanderer with a hundred times the mass and ten times the speed of other comets. And it is headed straight for our moon.

In less than five days, if scientists' predictions are right, Tomiko will crash into the moon, shattering it into a cloud of superheated gas, dust, and huge chunks of rock that will rain down on the earth, causing chaos and killer storms, possibly tidal waves inundating entire cities...or worse: a single apocalyptic worldwide "extinction event."

In the meantime, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated by a hastily assembled fleet of shuttle rockets. There isn't room, or time enough, for everyone. And the vice president, who rashly promised to be last off ("I will lock the door and turn off the lights"), is trying to figure out how to get away without eating his words.

and the start date for it is April 8th 2024

 

[Aeson]

I'm reading Relax and Enjoy Your Food by Craig Good. He makes the case that you shouldn't worry so much about what you eat. Focus on a variety of foods. For some of you more voracious readers it'll probably take you no time at all to read this one.

 

[carrot]

Just finished The Complete Witcher - an anthology of all the books. While entertaining, it was also a bit of a slog to get through. I probably should just have made do with the Netflix series, and not bothered reading the books…

 

[Richards]

I'm now starting Charles Sheffield's Dark As Day, a sequel to both Cold As Ice and The Ganymede Club (both of which I've read before, but it's been decades). It's a science fiction novel featuring an obese member of the Puzzle Network, Rustum Battachariya, or "Megachirops" as he's known by. He sticks out the most in my memory of the other two novels; I'll see if I can pick it all back up with this third one.

Johnathan

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm reading a book by one of my favorite baseball (and political) writers....Craig Calcaterra

rethinking-fandom-how-to-beat-the-sports-industrial-complex-at-its-own-game

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished R.E. Howard's (with David Drake) Cormac Mac Art. The first story is pretty much all-Drake, and it shows. The tone and style just doesn't fit - it feels more like a Roy Thomas Conan comics tale than anything else. But oddly, when he's finishing a tale started by Howard, it flows better. And the pure REH stories are much stronger, though it's easy to see why Cormac doesn't have the same resonance as his other more famous heroes.

Now I'm reading Zen Cho's The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water.

 

[Cadence]

Re-reading Glen Cook's (1988) Sci-Fi "The Dragon Never Sleeps".

Next morning edit: Finished that. My next books for reading Appendix N came in, and I'm reading the Burroughs collection "John Carter of Mars, Vol. One".

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished Cho's The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water. Quite elegant, but with a sense of humor in spots to balance it out.

I read The Jewel of Bas by Leigh Brackett. Short and sharp, it's quick, evocative, and cinematic.

Now I'm re-reading Jack Vance's Cugel's Saga.