What are you reading in 2024?

[Wofano Wotanto]

I have read a bunch, also other stuff by Tubb.

Nothing wrong with that. He did write Dumarest (on top of a kajillion other books) after all. Have to respect anyone with that much influence on Traveller.

 

[dragoner]

Nothing wrong with that. He did write Dumarest (on top of a kajillion other books) after all. Have to respect anyone with that much influence on Traveller.

I found a ton of his books in a book store's basement, really cheap, I had read most of Dumarest in the past, though it was a golden find. Ironic too in that one player in the Traveller game I was running their character was Zhenya:

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Heck, it’s nearly baffling to me, and I’m 58.

I was going to say the same. 10 year old me never really understood the shows episodes that I watched. I just could tell that people were acting really stressed out - esp Martin Landau

 

[Autumnal]

If wiki's to be believed that one got revised in 2002 (something he did with a number of his novels - revisions for more modern audiences). Did you get that one or the 1977 version? Wonder what the differences were.

From what I can tell, the revision clearly marks the three stories within as parts 1, 2, and 3. What I’ve got doesn’t do that, so I’m guessing it’s the original.

Oh dear God in heaven, the social dynamics. So many manly men, so many women yearning to submit to them, so many lectures about how feminine equality is a luxury they don’t have time for in the fierce struggle for survival. I feel myself getting hairier and more slope-browed as I go.

 

[Autumnal]

Funny thought: 7 years after this book came out, Neuromancer was published.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

These books share several things. The mysteries being confronted are really neat, very mysterious and very interesting as understood. The narrators are engaging guys, and remain so even when he portions of mystery around them are peeled back. They both establish their milieus really efficiently, with well-chosen details that feel like places in which plausible humans do plausible things. They bring what sf fandom calls (with a smile) “sensawunda” in bulk lots. I’m very happy to have read both.

If you haven't read it, Adam Oyebanji's 2022 novel Braking Day evoked a similar feeling for me. The mysteries there unfold around a slow but steady unpacking of the culture that's evolved on the lead characters' STL generation ship, its past history and its possible future fate, but they're still mysteries and it's interesting to try to unpack them before the full reveals. It's a remarkably alien setting despite being a human ship, and when the bigger reveals start coming they feel like something you could have predicted rather than coming from out-of-nowhere.

It's the author's first scifi novel, and hopefully not his last. Other than the ending feeling a little bit rushed and the author underestimating how much info we can already gather about planets from light years away I have zero complaints. Wouldn't mind seeing a sequel that explores what happens when the expedition finally reaches their destination and the ship culture has to adapt to the journey being over - if it really turns out to be.

Then again, I have a weakness for generation ship stories that stems from my childhood. Too much exposure to Metamorphosis Alpha has led to a minor mutation, no doubt.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Funny thought: 7 years after this book came out, Neuromancer was published.

And here we are 40 years later and Elon Musk is only now getting around to shoving chips into folks' brains.

 

[Cadence]

I'm in the second of Dorothy Sayers "Lord Peter Wimsey" detective books. They are fine, but I think I did too many detective stories recently so...

For a complete change of pace I'm reading Toni Cade Bambara's short story collection "Gorilla, My Love". I read her story "The Lesson" senior year of high school and it always stuck in my brain some, so figured I would finally follow it up. So far so good. In large part it is in the African American vernacular of the mid-to-late 20th century and about life experiences I didn't see growing on my side of the river in an unofficially segregated mid-sized midwestern city.

That reader senior year of high school also had Repent Harlequin and Omelas, so maybe I will do Ellison and Le Guin short stories next.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I'm in the second of Dorothy Sayers "Lord Peter Wimsey" detective books.

I think I got through the last of those I hadn't previously read over last summer. They're fine, and kind of an interesting (if slightly distorted) window into the time period they're set in, but I definitely preferred the short stories to the novels. The latter overstayed their welcome for me a bit. Probably did not help that I got them in a whole box of mysteries that included a fair few Rex Stout books and a nearly complete run of Ngaio Marsh, and Sayers does not compare very well to either of them IMO.

 

[Autumnal]

If you haven't read it, Adam Oyebanji's 2022 novel Braking Day evoked a similar feeling for me.

Ooh. I have not. Thank you!

It's a remarkably alien setting despite being a human ship, and when the bigger reveals start coming they feel like something you could have predicted rather than coming from out-of-nowhere.

These are things I love.

Then again, I have a weakness for generation ship stories that stems from my childhood. Too much exposure to Metamorphosis Alpha has led to a minor mutation, no doubt.

I’m starting a new Starforged campaign specifically to have a character encounter the Warden, or something of that ilk.

For a complete change of pace I'm reading Toni Cade Bambara's short story collection "Gorilla, My Love".

Sounds great!

That reader senior year of high school also had Repent Harlequin and Omelas, so maybe I will do Ellison and Le Guin short stories next.

I found that Ellison stories age erratically. Some are great. Some are mired in attitudes that some of his colleagues had already dumped at the time. And even the best of them carry a lot angry young man attitude. From the vantage of being nearly 60, I see a lot of awareness that he just didn’t have, and didn’t incorporate it as he aged. Pace yourself with them; shotgunning them too hard is like gorging on too much candy. But amid the cruft there still are jewels.

Le Guin, now, she aged well and folded her experiences into her stories so well. She was prepared to grow up and keep learning.