What are you reading in 2023?

[Zaukrie]

I've started the second inheritance trilogy book. I'm unsure how I feel so far.... Not sure I should read them this close together

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Just starting Nona the Ninth. It's nearly as difficult to understand as Harrow was. While I like the Locked Tomb series and think Tamsyn Muir is a very talented author, it is a bit frustrating having to relearn how to read them with every new book. I really hope Alecto will be a bit easier to read/understand.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

For the next book, yeah, I might do a re-read first. Because as amazing as those books are, each one of after the first throws you right into the deep end first thing.

Just starting Nona the Ninth. It's nearly as difficult to understand as Harrow was. While I like the Locked Tomb series and think Tamsyn Muir is a very talented author, it is a bit frustrating having to relearn how to read them with every new book. I really hope Alecto will be a bit easier to read/understand.

 

[Blue]

In my scattered reread of Discworld, I have just restarted the Witches subseries with Equal Rites. After having last read Tiffany Aching, the last few Watch books, and the Moist von Lipwig, it really is a jump back - chronologically written so much earlier both the tone of Sir Terry's writing and the maturity of the Discworld setting itself were a jump backward.

But not the humor. Had me laughing every other page with his particular brand of funny. Looking forward to the next one.

Currently reading The Dirty Streets of Heaven, a heaven & hell urban fantasy by Tad Williams. I'm about 70 pages into it, and it's not clicking. Basically by this point I need to care about either the protagonist or the plot. But Bobby Dollar hasn't made me like him yet, and there has been too little in the mystery to give me a bone to worry. I'm still continuing, the setting is curious enough to ensure that. It just hasn't hooked me yet.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

For the next book, yeah, I might do a re-read first. Because as amazing as those books are, each one of after the first throws you right into the deep end first thing.

I don't necessarily mind being "thrown in the deep end" at the start of a book. Like I said in last year's "what are you reading" thread, I really enjoyed The Way of Kings, and it does exactly that. But I like how in the Stormlight Archive, by the end of the first book you learn the rules of the setting and every sequel builds on your understanding on it.

But with the Locked Tomb, Tamsyn Muir doesn't let you get your bearings. You're thrown in the deep end with every book. It's like if every book in the Stormlight Archive was as hard to understand as The Way of Kings. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's not really a decision I'm fond of at the moment. It certainly doesn't make her series easy to read or understand.

I'll see how it goes. My opinion of Harrow changed about 2/3rds of the way through it, so hopefully that will happen with Nona, too.

 

[Blue]

My wife and I have started the Dresden Files as bedtime reading. We finished The Expanse with 2022.
I have also started reading Terrorism and the Ethics of War by Stephen Nathanson.

The Expanse. I hope you liked it, I found it really good.

My wife and I really like the Dresden Files as well. The first few books are still finding the beat though - Storm Front is both a very important book, but also perhaps the "least Harry" of them. And it contains some things that end up not quite true later in the series.

 

[Blue]

I don't necessarily mind being "thrown in the deep end" at the start of a book. Like I said in last year's "what are you reading" thread, I really enjoyed The Way of Kings, and it does exactly that. But I like how in the Stormlight Archive, by the end of the first book you learn the rules of the setting and every sequel builds on your understanding on it.

But with the Locked Tomb, Tamsyn Muir doesn't let you get your bearings. You're thrown in the deep end with every book. It's like if every book in the Stormlight Archive was as hard to understand as The Way of Kings. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's not really a decision I'm fond of at the moment. It certainly doesn't make her series easy to read or understand.

I'll see how it goes. My opinion of Harrow changed about 2/3rds of the way through it, so hopefully that will happen with Nona, too.

Book before last was Gideon the Ninth, really loved it by the end. What's stopped me from reading Harrow is brain lock - Gideon the Ninth was available on Kindle Unlimited. The others aren't. And I'm going to be dropping Kindle Unlimited soon. My brain has this thing where if I purchase a series, it's either all physical or all ebook. So I'm going back and forth between buying the books, including the one I just read, on either physical or ebook and not being able to make a decision.

Neurotypical people don't have problems like this.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Book before last was Gideon the Ninth, really loved it by the end. What's stopped me from reading Harrow is brain lock - Gideon the Ninth was available on Kindle Unlimited. The others aren't. And I'm going to be dropping Kindle Unlimited soon. My brain has this thing where if I purchase a series, it's either all physical or all ebook. So I'm going back and forth between buying the books, including the one I just read, on either physical or ebook and not being able to make a decision.

Neurotypical people don't have problems like this.

Ugh, I have a similar issue. I was waiting on buying Nona the Ninth until a paperback version was released because I have paperback copies of the first two books and I want all of the books of the same series to match. But I got the hardcover version of Nona for Christmas, so now I have the first two books as paperback and the second as the hardcover version. This will bother me every time I look at my bookshelf.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Ugh, I have a similar issue. I was waiting on buying Nona the Ninth until a paperback version was released because I have paperback copies of the first two books and I want all of the books of the same series to match. But I got the hardcover version of Nona for Christmas, so now I have the first two books as paperback and the second as the hardcover version. This will bother me every time I look at my bookshelf.

For me, it's been the Jack Reacher novels - because I'm poor I only buy books from used stores or the local Goodwill, which has made trying to get the whole series in the same paperback format really hard.

 

[Mercurius]

I just finished Arthur C Clarke's City and the Stars, one of his earlier novels from the 1950s. Very cool and evocative imagery, with his usual big cosmological/historical speculations. Takes place a billion years in the future.

 

[niklinna]

Currently reading El Manual de Tango. It's improving both my Spanish and my tango!

Interested in reading One D**ned Thing After Another and The New Life.

 

[Mallus]

I’m reading Hiron Ennes’s Leech. It’s a… gothic post-apocalyptic medical murder mystery? Kind of. Astonishingly assured for a first novel. First thing I’ve read that compares favorably to VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy.

 

[Blue]

I’m reading Hiron Ennes’s Leech. It’s a… gothic post-apocalyptic medical murder mystery? Kind of. Astonishingly assured for a first novel. First thing I’ve read that compares favorably to VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy.

I got a book and a half into Southern Reach and ended up walking away. It did a great job on giving me the heebie jeebies, but didnt' give me enough that I cared about so in the end it was just a continuously disturbing read -- just not for me these days. Don't take that as a condemation of the series, just that it's not the right match for me during these times.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Just took a break from the RPG book and the non-fiction book i'm reading to consume a graphic novel. It's called the Ward Welcome to the Madhouse, and it was fun. The art is my style of art - very straightforward, clean line. It's about a hospital that tends to the supernatural. So it's part St. Elsewhere/Grey's Anatomy/House; and part what... I guess sort of True Blood? But it really doesn't focus on the supernatural parts - yes, the giant having a baby is huge; but otherwise it's an emergency C-section - the doctor just has to build a scaffold to get up to the mother's abdomen.
There's a side plot that sort of bursts into the emergency room stuff about a group of "cryptid hunters" who unleash some sort of ritual that impacts non-supernatural people. It sort of felt tacked on or rushed - maybe due to the 22 page limit of the single issues.

I'd say, if you like hospital dramas or supernatural urban fantasy, then this book may tickle your fancy. I like both of those - but I'd like this series to take a bit more time to develop some of these storylines. Hopefully they get it.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62916593-the-ward

 

[gban007]

Reading 2 series at the moment - rereading the main series from the Aeon 14 books by M D Cooper, and going back through the Horus Heresy to catch up to where I got to years ago, and then have the fun of reading after Legacies of Betrayal for the first time. Will take a while, only up to Nemesis and started reading them again October.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I would say that not only does Tamsyn Muir not let you get your bearings, but actively disrupts your orientation in each book. I think it's genius, but it doesn't always make for the easiest of reads.

But with the Locked Tomb, Tamsyn Muir doesn't let you get your bearings. You're thrown in the deep end with every book. It's like if every book in the Stormlight Archive was as hard to understand as The Way of Kings. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's not really a decision I'm fond of at the moment. It certainly doesn't make her series easy to read or understand.

I'll see how it goes. My opinion of Harrow changed about 2/3rds of the way through it, so hopefully that will happen with Nona, too.

I finished reading Aldiss' Non-Stop. Really influential, that book. I'd also say that when it starts out, it feels a whole lot like an adventuring party venturing into an early dungeon crawl.

Now I'm reading Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos.

 

[trappedslider]

Galaxias by Stephen Baxter

Spoiler

By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has managed to overcome a series of catastrophic events and maintain some sense of stability. Space exploration has begun again. Science has led the way.

But then one day, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze.

Earth begins to fall out of its orbit.

The end is nigh.

Someone has sent us a sign.

Like other books by Baxter, very hard on the science, or at least as hard as possible, but still enjoyable.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I would say that not only does Tamsyn Muir not let you get your bearings, but actively disrupts your orientation in each book. I think it's genius, but it doesn't always make for the easiest of reads.

I agree. I think it's genius. The way that every book is practically a different genre is great, too. It makes the setting feel diverse, and she's clearly a very talented and versatile author. But as someone with ADHD, it's really difficult to read and enjoy.

 

[Nellisir]

Finished Abercrombie's The Wisdom of Crowds. Dude needs to write faster so I can buy more books.

 

[Lidgar]

Elric Vol 1, 2, and 3. So good.