So what are you reading this year 2021?

[KahlessNestor]

Finished reading Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson.

Still reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow.

Still reading Night of the Hunter by R. A. Salvatore.

Finished reading Turn Coat by Jim Butcher.

Still reading Emma by Jane Austen.

Still reading Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire.

Still reading The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray.

Still reading Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire.

Still reading The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor.

Still reading Tasha's Cauldron of Everything by Wizards of the Coast.

Finished reading The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan.

Still reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.

Still reading Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson.

Still reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Still reading The Immortal Game: A History of Chess by David Shenk.

Started reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Finished Moorcock's Fortress of the Pearl. Good stuff, though not surprisingly it felt different from the prior Elric tales. Still good, and far preferable that he backfilled it in with the rest of the saga rather than resurrecting him after the series ended.

Now I'm reading Jack Williamson's The Reign of Wizardry. Had been looking for this one for a while and finally picked a copy up.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Lieber. Absolute.
Moorcock. Overrated.
Sanderson. Bulls*it.
Jemisin. Hollow manifesto of inclusion themes, sycophantic. Hugo Prize payed it's tribute to the zeitgeist.
Asimov. Wonderful and poetic even if sometimes clumsy and didactic

 

[Blue]

Finished Heinlein's The Pursuit of the Pankera. To give a little history, he wrote this, tossed the latter 2/3 of it, and rewrote it as The Number of the Beast. Drafts and manuscrips still existed, and they just recently published it.

Well, it does come across as genuine Heinlein, which puts it ahead of Variable Star. But that doesn't make it good Heinlein, and we see why he left this on the floor. It plays around with the concept of alternate universes are fiction, solidifies that concept pretty well, and then goes on long homages to some authors I believe he enjoyed from the care he spent on them. He also broke one of the unspoken taboos and had characters discuss contemporaneous authors and even has a few lines discussing himself - though mostly to show he wasn't on the "shared favorite" list of where they were appearing so he didn't have one set of alternate-universe traveling characters visiting other settings of his. (Something which the published TNotB did end up doing.)

If I was more of a Barsoom and Lensman fan it may have held more for me, but in 2021 that context wasn't in the common idea pool. I did have some basics of both, but some may not even have that.

And there's a lot of pages spent just interacting with characters from other author's works, and then a lot of time skipping for other parts where they just tell you "oh, this happened in the past 15 years". Plus characters either didn't seem to grow, or manifested growth in unexpected directions without preamble or foreshadowing in a deux ex machina sort of way.

All of that said, you can definitely see the bones of The Number of the Beast in here, and that wa a bit of an odd duck of Heinlein's, in line with the tail end of his work.

I'm torn if I'm ever going to reread this, and since every other bit of Heinlein I have I've reread - but had decades more to do so - I'm unsure if that's meaningful. I think The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is the only one I've reread in the past five years.

I'm sure I will reread the intro by David Weber. It's fantastic about the Heinlein writing Heinlein and the unapologetic strengths and weaknesses of that and how it influenced SF.

I'm glad I read it. And like the chance to read the original (and possibly superior) ending of Podkayne of Mars, I'm glad to be able to see his original intent. But in this case I feel like the right call was made and this is more valuable for it's historical/completionist point than as a story, where it is both a lesser one of Heinlein's works and an homage to works that the modern reader is likely not familiar enough with to gain the full enjoyment from.

 

[Zaukrie]

IMO, Kvothe spends way too much time on the University and Denna stories in book 2. I'm about 80% thru it, and glad he's somewhere else, though now, well, more training........He's the second most famous warrior / magician, and we are 60% thru his story (assuming a trilogy was the plan....) and most of what he's alleged to do still isn't touched on......

 

[Nellisir]

Apparently it's been a while since I did this. I've read...
The 1st & 3rd books of the 2nd Mistborn trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson, 4/5;
Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson, 4/5;
The Sorcerer's Ship, by Hannes Bok, 3/5;
The Quest of Kadji, by Lin Carter, 3/5;
The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang, 4/5;
Rook & Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley, 4/5;
The Raven Tower, by Ann Leckie, 4/5;
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir, 4/5;
Fugitive Telemetry, by Martha Wells, 4/5;
Use of Weapons, by Ian Banks, 4/5;
The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch, 5/5

I think there were more, but I don't keep them very organized so that's what I could find. Lies was an accidental reread, but it was far, FAR better than I remembered and I'm currently waiting for the sequels to arrive. Gideon the Ninth was...fun, I guess. Good. Interesting world-building. I'll definitely grab Harrow the Ninth soon. Rook & Stiletto were also a lot of fun. Fugitive Telemetry was a good Murderbot entry that occurs before the novel and fills in some of the transition there.

Also misc other stuff, comics, etc.

 

[Zaukrie]

the Lies of Lock Lamora is a great book. truly.

 

[Nellisir]

the Lies of Lock Lamora is a great book. truly.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if I'd read it or not, but I had the distinct impression that I was kinda "meh" on it if I had. One page in, I KNEW I'd read it, but I was completely wrong about the "meh" part. I went ahead and got the next two from Amazon, a little splurge of mine. (As usual, I might have Red Skies somewhere, but to heck with it.)

 

[Zaukrie]

Yeah, I wasn't sure if I'd read it or not, but I had the distinct impression that I was kinda "meh" on it if I had. One page in, I KNEW I'd read it, but I was completely wrong about the "meh" part. I went ahead and got the next two from Amazon, a little splurge of mine. (As usual, I might have Red Skies somewhere, but to heck with it.)

I accidentally sold mine when we moved (thought I'd kept them....). Re-bought the first so far.....

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I accidentally sold mine when we moved (thought I'd kept them....). Re-bought the first so far.....

LoLL was the poster child of why I give every book exactly 100 pages before I abandon it. I was seriously on page 96 or so and was like - "yup, I'm done, I don't like the characters and the setting isn't doing it for me. But I'll give it the 4 more pages..." And then by page 100 I was like "ohhh, these characters are bastards, but they are gentleman bastards." And I finished the book and enjoyed it. Haven't gotten around to picking up the rest yet...