What are you reading in 2024?

[overgeeked]

Imagine being a studio exec and feeling that the two most popular new characters from Aliens absolutely had to be removed from the franchise going forward.

Right? Apparently Alan Dean Foster, who did the first three novelizations, quit doing novelizations for over a decade because the suits killed off Newt and Hicks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Right? Apparently Alan Dean Foster, who did the first three novelizations, quit doing novelizations for over a decade because the suits killed off Newt and Hicks.

If it was absolutely necessary to have a Ripley-only sequel, they could have added one scene at the beginning to show Ripley being removed by Weyland-Yutani or the military while still in cryosleep, put on a separate ship and that could have been the one to crash.

Heck, that would have given the third party time to implant her, instead of retroactively deciding that they didn't actually take the trouble to clear the ship after the events of Aliens, which seems implausible at best, especially given who Ripley is by the end of that film.

 

[Mannahnin]

This is most of the reason I prefer to read something like a trilogy when it's all available, and at least a large part--call it maybe a plurality--of why I'm not a big fan of ongoing series fiction.

Nothing quite as annoying as a serial that’s still ongoing. Will the author live long enough to complete it? Will they get bored before they finish it? Will the publisher go under? Translation teams change? Will it do well enough to keep being published? I’d rather wait for the thing to be finished before starting. There’s already more books published than I’ll ever have time to read. I can read other stuff while waiting for the serial to complete.

Sadly the irony of this approach is that it makes it more likely for series not to be finished. Since sales on the earlier installments are what justify the sequels.

 

[overgeeked]

Sadly the irony of this approach is that it makes it more likely for series not to be finished. Since sales on the earlier installments are what justify the sequels.

I already have enough half-finished serials on my shelves, thanks. Been burned too many times.

 

[prabe]

Sadly the irony of this approach is that it makes it more likely for series not to be finished. Since sales on the earlier installments are what justify the sequels.

I am aware of the economics. These days I'm mostly checking books out from libraries (which means learning which systems around me have what, and learning how to operate the various ILL options) but I have a couple of completed trilogies on my bookshelves.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I already have enough half-finished serials on my shelves, thanks. Been burned too many times.

Hello Kingkiller Chronicles / Song of Ice and Fire / Kinsey Millhone / etc etc

 

[Parmandur]

Hello Kingkiller Chronicles / Song of Ice and Fire / Kinsey Millhone / etc etc

Journey before destination.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished reading Vinge's Psion. Enjoyable, but I kinda feel like it's more straight sci-fi than cyberpunk.

Now I'm reading Bruce Sterling's Island in The Net.

Imagine being a studio exec and feeling that the two most popular new characters from Aliens absolutely had to be removed from the franchise going forward.

While I like Alien3 more than I did when i saw it in theaters, it still felt very much a betrayal of the struggles of Aliens to kill off Newt and Hicks. Narratively, though, think about how powerful the ending of Alien3 would've been for their presence. Would've been gut wrenching.

 

[radiothief]

Reading mostly RPG books.
my next reads are:
break RPG
Helianas guide to monster hunting.
And if theres time - The Wildsea Storm and Root

 

[Alzrius]

I just finished two short stories by Fritz Leiber, both of his iconic Fafhrd and Gray Mouser: "The Sadness of the Executioner" and "Beauty and the Beasts," both from Swords and Ice Magic.

Calling these "short stories" is fairly generous, as "The Sadness of the Executioner" is something you can easily polish off in twenty minutes and have time to spare. "Beauty and the Beasts" isn't even that long, being (depending on how you define it) either "flash fiction" or "microfiction." There's supposed to be a difference of word count between those, but I'm not interested in going back and seeing precisely which category these fall into.

As far as the stories themselves go, I liked the former more than the latter, wherein Death (or rather, the Death of the world of Nehwon, as he himself notes) has a quota of lives that need to be snuffed out, and decides to add the famous heroes to it. Contrast this with the latter, which is basically an odd magical happenstance with no real buildup and a resolution that's equally thin. I can see "Sadness" being used to introduce someone to Leiber's style of writing (though it's not the best introduction to Fafhrd and Gray Mouser themselves), but not "Beasts." I can understand writing a series of self-contained episodic vignettes, but the latter's excessive brevity seems to render the entire escapade pointless.

Still, they're written well, and are entertaining as far as quick reads go, so I can't really bring myself to condemn either tale. Leiber is a good writer by any measure, even when he constrains himself the way he does here.