What are you reading in 2023?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm halfway through Lonesome Dove. It's slow moving, but juicy and rich with character. I'm really savoring it.

My favorite novel of all time with incredibly archetypal heroes. One could easily port the whole novel over to any genre and it would still work, as the straight-laced hero and his trickster buddy are archetypes as old as Babylon.

Note that the sequels drop off in quality pretty fast. I recommend the first one only, unless you absolutely must have more of Gus and Call's world.

 

[Vexed Vizier]

My favorite novel of all time with incredibly archetypal heroes. One could easily port the whole novel over to any genre and it would still work, as the straight laced hero and his trickster buddy are archetypes as old as Babylon.

Note that the sequels drop off in quality pretty fast. I recommend the first one only, unless you absolutely must have more of Gus and Call's world.

Oh, wow! I'm so sorry to hear the others drop off that hard. I figured they wouldn't be as strong, given that Lonesome Dove won the Pulitzer, but I didn't think I should avoid them.

Any other books in this line you suggest? Westerns, in particular?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, wow! I'm so sorry to hear the others drop off that hard. I figured they wouldn't be as strong, given that Lonesome Dove won the Pulitzer, but I didn't think I should avoid them.

Any other books in this line you suggest? Westerns, in particular?

It's been decades since I've read it, but the first one that comes to mind is Little Big Man, which is sort of a Zelig/Forrest Gump of Westerns.

 

[dragoner]

Finished Starfarers by Poul Anderson, it felt similar to Tau Zero. Now beginning Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling, I found a hardback at a used bookstore.

 

[WayneLigon]

Back to reading SF! I started off with Mickey 7 and it's sequel Antimatter Blues - it's been highly touted and there is a movie or show adaptation coming soon. I hope they get it right because this show absolutely will live and die with the 'voice' of Mickey. His personality carries the entire thing.

Simple premise with a twist. They have brain-taping tech, so one person they always hire for a new colony is The Expendable, the dude who goes first into the unknown, tries the local edibles first, breathes the atmo first, etc. Then he dies horribly and they ressurect him from the colony recycling slurry. Mickey is The Expendable for his interstellar colony. He had nothing going on back home and also owed a ton of money to some rather unsavory people. People who demonstrated their displeasure at his debt so effectively that Mickey volunteering for a position that is usually held by the most vicious criminals the planet can produce was a good idea.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Finished Starfarers by Poul Anderson, it felt similar to Tau Zero. Now beginning Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling, I found a hardback at a used bookstore.

Great book, I read the mass market back in 1990 or something.

Spoiler

I can never forget the normalization of cockroaches on board a spaceship to basically eat human skin flakes

 

[dragoner]

Great book, I read the mass market back in 1990 or something.

Spoiler

I can never forget the normalization of cockroaches on board a spaceship to basically eat human skin flakes

Haha that is strange.
I bought it while looking for a copy of snow crash, I have read some of Sterling's stuff, though not this.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Haha that is strange.
I bought it while looking for a copy of snow crash, I have read some of Sterling's stuff, though not this.

Yeah I read this after I read the Difference Engine by Gibson and Sterling. I had read most of Gibson's work at that point, so I thought I'd try Sterling. I enjoyed, but I didn't go and read the rest of his stuff. Note, my spoiler has nothing to do with the plot, just one of those sidebar worldbuilding bits that I really enjoyed...

 

[dragoner]

Yeah I read this after I read the Difference Engine by Gibson and Sterling. I had read most of Gibson's work at that point, so I thought I'd try Sterling. I enjoyed, but I didn't go and read the rest of his stuff. Note, my spoiler has nothing to do with the plot, just one of those sidebar worldbuilding bits that I really enjoyed...

Living in the Bay Area at the time, it was funny reading Gibson talking about people living on the bridge I was driving everyday. I read some of the Schismatrix adjacent stories in Sterling's Crystal Express, where then someone told me they heavily based their Traveller universe on it, so I decided to grab it.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Living in the Bay Area at the time, it was funny reading Gibson talking about people living on the bridge I was driving everyday. I read some of the Schismatrix adjacent stories in Sterling's Crystal Express, where then someone told me they heavily based their Traveller universe on it, so I decided to grab it.

Would make a great basis for a Traveller universe, as would Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 universe