What are you reading in 2023?

[trappedslider]

I've given up on finishing IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation, only to say it's amazing how the corporate world went from not caring how they make money to having something like a social consciousness.

Also finished A brief history of living forever it was okay, I was more interested in the future of the world (which takes place in 2030) than I was in the flash back sequences.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I'm not done with my current readings, but I bought a copy of Rogues of Merth by Robert Zoltan. A more modern take on Sword & Sorcery is exactly what I'm feeling for!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'm not so much a fan of dying earth fiction (although for whatever reason I read ALL of Viriconium ); but a Vance autobiography sounds intriguing. Is it This is Me, Jack Vance!?

That is indeed the volume I just read. His family travelled all over the place. I guess when you can write anywhere and get paid, it's easy to do.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Started The God is Not Willing after wrapping up the Ed James. I'm about 25% in now, and it's exactly what I would expect from Erikson. That's not a bad thing. The changes in the setting are interesting, and it's nice to see things we've seen before in different ways. (The encounter between Rant and the Black Jheck was great, and Stillwater's excursion into the barrow was also a lot of fun.)

Finished this today at lunch. It's a nice counterpoint to the Book of the Fallen, and a reasonable extrapolation of how the Malazan marines might change after the last book of that series, especially as it seems that there's been a move from a conscripted army to a professional army. It's definitely more topical than previous books in the series, as Erikson definitely has some things he wants to talk about, but I think they're continuations of his other concerns. There are funny moments, but I'm struck again, as I was in the first two books of the Kharkanas trilogy, with a sense of deep melancholy. I'm really curious how this is going to develop over the last two books of the trilogy.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished reading Frank Belknap Long's The Hounds of Tindalos. When I was much younger, I didn't realize that CoC's hounds of tindalos were not a Lovecraft creation. Throughout the short stories, is the concept of otherworldly layers, whether of the solar system, dimensions, or human minds, that the worst thing for us is catching a glimpse of.

Now I'm reading De Camp and Carter's Conan of the Isles.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Finished a book that I had brought on a recent trip, Football and Gangsters by Graham Johnson. I thought it would be a fun read, kind of like the Secret Footballer's books, light and breezy. Dear reader, I was wrong. Nothing's sourced and there are passages that were misleading about factual things: for instance, a section on the 1996 murder of Stephen Cole, who played for LFC's reserve side, suggests that he played for the first XI, and intimations that Gordon Ramsay played for Rangers, where he was as near as I can tell a trialist who may or may not have signed a youth contract before doing his knee in training — both small things, so by definition hard to keep track of, but maybe it matters here? And then there was a lot of self-aggrandizement coupled with casual, subtle xenophobia and racism. All in all a complete bummer of a book. As one of my graduate school officemates wrote about a new book by Terry Eagleton, zero stars, pure toilet.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Reading Death Wish and Death Sentence by Brian Garfield. Interesting reads in comparison to the first two Death Wish movies.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Conan of the Isles was far better than I expected, being entirely de Camp and Carter, and the last in the Ace/Lancer line. Here Conan is in his sixties, old but still formidable. If Arnold were to do a Conan movie now, it would make for good source material. Parts of it had a very cinematic feel.

Now I'm reading Charles R. Saunders' The Quest for Cush.

 

[ichabod]

Stopped by the book store for something else and picked up a new Martha Wells fantasy book, The Witch King. Can't wait to get to it.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished Charles R. Saunders Imaro 2. It's a great follow-up to the first book, with more characters, a bigger world, and personal growth in the main character. Unfortunately, this may be as far as I go in the series - book 3 is out of print and goes for way too much on the secondhand market.

I read Jack Vance's Rhialto the Marvelous. Fun and scintillant and weird. It had been a while since I'd read it; one thing I noticed is how much DCC Dying Earth took from this book specifically for its magic system.

Now I'm reading Margaret St. Clair's The Dancers of Noyo.