December: What are you reading?

[Bold or Stupid]

Just curious - which Foundation titles are you referring to?

For me, the series is just the first three by Asimov. All the others (by Asimov and other authors) were written so many years later, with such different style, they've never really felt like "Foundation" books.

Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation(about to start), then onto Foundations Edge and Foundation and Earth. I never got on with the others.

 

[Starman]

Finished Shadows Linger and now reading The White Rose by Glen Cook. I'm really enjoying this series and can't believe it took me this long to get to it.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

Articles on astronomy and the discovery of exoplanets far away like a twin Earth.

 

[Crothian]

I'm slowly going through Footfall; a good science fiction book about aliens invading earth.

 

[Umbran]

I'm slowly going through Footfall; a good science fiction book about aliens invading earth.

Niven and Pournelle were consulted (briefly) about the original V television series. At the time, the network "didn't have aliens, they had costumes". Niven and Pournelle were asked for ideas about the aliens, who they were, what they'd want, why they'd be coming to Earth, and so on.

Niven came up with some good ideas, but they were not used.

I am told Footfall came out of that - Niven and Pournelle doing their best to make a really plausible alien invasion story. And Niven and Pournelle's best is very, very good

 

[Asmor]

Finished up Alice in Wonderland a few days ago.

Currently reading Cold Magic, by Kate Elliott. Publisher's Weekly recommended it to fans of His Dark Materials, so I kind of had to give it a try after reading that.

Starts off slow, but it's picking up. Has promise.

Also has two rather annoying tics.

The first is that the main character is named Catherine, and goes by Cat. This leads to lots of short sentences of the form, "Cats always ______" (e.g. Cats always land on their feet), whenever she details one of her virtues.

The second is that the setting is victorian-era in an alternate history, and presumably to try and help the reader get his bearings, the book will constantly write something in the pattern of "... [invented name], what the Romans called [familiar name], ..."

 

[Mallus]

I just got the Songs of the Dying Earth anthology and I'm starting with the Dan Simmon's story.

His recent politics may make want to retch --wait, make that they do make me want to retch-- but he's still a fine writer of fiction (with the exception of Olympos).

 

[coyote6]

Butcher's Captain's Fury.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings.

It's a good fantasy novel with a range of points of view and concepts, and certainly a worthy beginning to an epic series. There are far more mysteries in it than can fit in the book so it will be a shame to wait for the next books in the series.

I do wish I hadn't read the Mistborn trilogy before reading it, though, as there are some repeated/common elements between the two series, even if the specific details have been changed. Things like push/pull magic, the torturing of a main character that brings out his superior capabilities combined with his unrationale hatred of nobility, the quiet all-knowing exposition character ... they felt original the first time but not so much the second time.

The world and its history are pretty fascinating, though.

 

[Shade]

Thanks to The Walking Dead reigniting my love of zombies, I'm finally getting around to World War Z, by Max Brooks.