What are you reading in 2024?

[Wofano Wotanto]

Piers Anthony's Xanth series are so bad I retroactively regret having read them.

Gods, tell me about it. I found almost twenty forgotten Anthony books in the parents' house a while back, including way too many Xanth novels.

Sadly, none of his early scifi, some of which I'd like to give another try to see how they hold up now. I dimly recall at least some of the Cluster books not sucking, and they must have had something going for them, right? Precious few authors got two species illustrated in Wayne Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

A friend recommended Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's like if John Scalzi wrote a novel adaptation of Diablo. In other words, pretty dumb but kinda fun. Zero thought required.

A former member of our D&D group who moved away has been insisting we all read this. I have been lagging sadly

 

[prabe]

Still kinda on my rhythm, in spite of a brief interruption for a long weekend away, for our anniversary. Last three books: All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers, a distressingly uncritical take on true crime and other news and newsish coverage of murders, manages not one but two downbeat endings by being in two timestreams, at least one main who jumps to a string of bad conclusions, gracelessly nonlinear; Indian Burial Ground by Nick Medina, a story about depression on Native American reservations thinly disguised as something like creepy magic realism, practically nothing for which the supernatural is the best explanation, characters who--with the exception of children and the elderly--all feel teenaged, more about its subtext than its text, so sincere it practically bleeds; House of the Rising Sun by James Lee Burke, a novel of violence set in 1910s Texas, with a protagonist who mostly doesn't like himself, mostly for good reasons, some interesting women with interests and priorities mostly not exactly parallel to his, wrapped in occasionally juicy turns of phrase.

 

[Blue Orange]

Light reading mostly...

There was an Encyclopedia Brown meets the Cthulhu Mythos parody, Research Randy and the Mystery of Grandma's Half-Eaten Pie of Despair.

I finished Jemisin's The City We Became dualogy, had some interesting ideas around the spirit of cities. One of the more unusual takes on the Cthulhu mythos I've seen.

Joan He's Strike the Zither was an interesting YA novel (couldn't find the second half of the duology) set in fantasy not-China gender-swapped from a classic Chinese novel...

...which I then went and read (in translation of course) to settle a bet. It was surprisingly entertaining, though you have to flip back and forth to keep track of everyone. It's kinda like Game of Thrones, only it actually ends and it's based on history.

 

[Clint_L]

A former member of our D&D group who moved away has been insisting we all read this. I have been lagging sadly

Don't beat yourself up. It's not like you're missing a classic. It's popcorn entertainment.

I'm currently reading Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. A close friend has been begging me to read it for awhile and I find myself in that awkward position of not wanting to talk to her about it because she just loves it and I don't think it's that great.

It's well written. But it's pretty much a full-on romance, and that's just not my thing. At all. It also does that thing where high school students have conversations like sophisticated adults, which always kinda bugs me. And the way it's dealing with the theme of coming out feels dated to me, albeit in the context of a period piece (1980s AIDS crisis).

Yet, there is some gorgeous, almost lyrical writing, and it clearly works for a lot of folks. If you are big into romances, you'll probably love it. That's probably not a super popular genre on this forum, though.

That makes two books in a row that have disappointed after being enthusiastically recommended by good friends at work with whom I usually agree.

 

[Nellisir]

Partway through Downbelow Station. I might take a break after this to (re)read some Judge Dee (and get the next books in order), because gf & I are very much enjoying the series on netflix (no one Ma Rongs like Ma Rong Ma Rongs!) and the first time I read them I thought they were ripe for converting to D&D adventures.

Back to Cherryh...I'm repeatedly surprised at when many of these were written. Downbelow Station was 1981. There are some very slight oddities - "tape" obviously plays a role anytime Union/Cyteen is in mentioned, but that's easy to ignore or explain. And the "we have no air transport beyond the shuttles" is not confined to her - I understand Pell has crummy weather, but a basic helicopter or bush plane isn't hard to build and y'all HAVE satellites monitoring weather - heck, you've got a whole station up there, with thousand upon thousands of people! But generally, they seem to be "timeless". People don't change much I guess, and that's her forte.

 

[Ryujin]

Partway through Downbelow Station. I might take a break after this to (re)read some Judge Dee (and get the next books in order), because gf & I are very much enjoying the series on netflix (no one Ma Rongs like Ma Rong Ma Rongs!) and the first time I read them I thought they were ripe for converting to D&D adventures.

Back to Cherryh...I'm repeatedly surprised at when many of these were written. Downbelow Station was 1981. There are some very slight oddities - "tape" obviously plays a role anytime Union/Cyteen is in mentioned, but that's easy to ignore or explain. And the "we have no air transport beyond the shuttles" is not confined to her - I understand Pell has crummy weather, but a basic helicopter or bush plane isn't hard to build and y'all HAVE satellites monitoring weather - heck, you've got a whole station up there, with thousand upon thousands of people! But generally, they seem to be "timeless". People don't change much I guess, and that's her forte.

I sometimes wonder how long we'll keep referring to movies/films. dialing a phone number, and records. I think when we stop doing so it will be a real Kodak Moment(tm).

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I sometimes wonder how long we'll keep referring to movies/films. dialing a phone number, and records. I think when we stop doing so it will be a real Kodak Moment(tm).

I don't think "movie" has an expiration date as such. "Talkie" went away when the novelty wore off and all films had soundtracks, but we aren't going to stop showing "moving pictures" and what better shorthand descriptor can you think of? Vids? Maybe someday that'll have the same connotation, but I don't see it in my lifetime. At the moment it mostly evokes youtube content, or for older folks even VCR tapes.

And the "we have no air transport beyond the shuttles" is not confined to her - I understand Pell has crummy weather, but a basic helicopter or bush plane isn't hard to build and y'all HAVE satellites monitoring weather - heck, you've got a whole station up there, with thousand upon thousands of people!

I remember wondering about that even back in the 80s, but I assumed the weather planetside was so bad that knowing where the fronts were (everywhere!) didn't really help all that much. Then again, unmanned drones weren't on her radar either, despite the concept originating before WW2.

 

[Nellisir]

I don't think "movie" has an expiration date as such. "Talkie" went away when the novelty wore off and all films had soundtracks, but we aren't going to stop showing "moving pictures" and what better shorthand descriptor can you think of? Vids? Maybe someday that'll have the same connotation, but I don't see it in my lifetime. At the moment it mostly evokes youtube content, or for older folks even VCR tapes.

I remember wondering about that even back in the 80s, but I assumed the weather planetside was so bad that knowing where the fronts were (everywhere!) didn't really help all that much. Then again, unmanned drones weren't on her radar either, despite the concept originating before WW2.

I was willing to ignore it until a protagonist commented on how it was a really nice day and another storm wasn't due for a day or two, and then offhanded how "flying craft weren't suited to Pell's stormy weather so they didn't have any". It clearly rains a LOT (flooding is a major issue), but for frick's sake, there are drier seasons.

 

[Ryujin]

I was willing to ignore it until a protagonist commented on how it was a really nice day and another storm wasn't due for a day or two, and then offhanded how "flying craft weren't suited to Pell's stormy weather so they didn't have any". It clearly rains a LOT (flooding is a major issue), but for frick's sake, there are drier seasons.

It would be sort of like if Alaska didn't have any transport trucks because they couldn't drive over lakes during the Spring Thaw.