What are you reading this year 2020?

[KahlessNestor]

After all these years I've finally gotten around to reading Master & Commander (at least the 1st book of the series).
Right now I'm somewhere in Chapter 3 & it's looking to be a long slow read....

He is very detailed and historical, and the plotting is slow, but he somehow still managed to keep me interested. I've read the entire series, even the unfinished final book. I enjoyed them.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Still reading Terry Pratchett's Snuff.

Still reading William Tecumseh Sherman: In Service of My Country by James Lee McDonough.

Still reading Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

Still reading Don't Burn This Book by Dave Rubin.

 

[dragoner]

Finished Dread Companion by Norton, and The Good Soldier Schweik by Hasek, now starting Miners in the Sky by Murray Leinster: "Savage explorers of forgotten moons battle for treasure in the lawless rings of outer space."

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I avoided Stephen King for decades. All because the biggest fan of Stephen King I knew was also someone that, while reading, would idly tear off the corners of the pages and eat them. For the longest time, I just couldn't get that image out of my head to read any Stephen King.

The early (first 3?) short stories collections are amazing. I'm still waiting for an adaptation of "Mrs Todd's Shortcut", and while I haven't read "Ladyfingers" for 30 years, it regularly creeps me the heck out. I've read very few of his newer books, but all of his earlier stuff when I was younger.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

He is very detailed and historical, and the plotting is slow, but he somehow still managed to keep me interested. I've read the entire series, even the unfinished final book. I enjoyed them.

Same. I;ve been thinking of going back and re-reading.

 

[Nellisir]

I avoided Stephen King for decades. All because the biggest fan of Stephen King I knew was also someone that, while reading, would idly tear off the corners of the pages and eat them. For the longest time, I just couldn't get that image out of my head to read any Stephen King.

lady fingers they taste just like lady fingers

(Read Skeleton Crew. And the story is "Survivor Type", not "Ladyfingers. My error. And...apologies in advance if you can't ever sleep again. Apparently that story even bothers Stephen King....)

 

[Nellisir]

Just read War Dogs by Greg Bear. Pretty good. Doesn't break any new ground. Maybe 6/10?
Edit: Apparently I forgot to note I finished Artemis. I liked it a lot. 8/10

War Dogs is set (mostly) on Mars. Before War Dogs I read Artemis (set on the Moon), by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian. War Dogs has a character named Alice. I also have a book to read called Sister Alice, by Robert Reed, who wrote Marrow (about what's inside a fake world/spaceship), and I have another book, Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds about a link to another world inside a ruined Earth. And, cycling back to Artemis, the main character is an Arabic woman grifter/smuggler with shady connections who gets in trouble and has to hide from the bad guys, and the main character in Alif the Unseen is apparently an Arabic hacker who gets in trouble and has to hide from the bad guys. (This is all back-cover stuff, people, no spoilers.) Given that I pick what I read, it's not surprising there are similarities; I'm just feeling them resonate right now.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Reading Way Station by Clifford Simak. It was published in 1963, and amazingly has almost no racism or sexism in it, at least so far. I'm enjoying the story, although it has a similar

Spoiler: thing to Have Spacesuit Will Travel

wherein the protagonist becomes the sole representative of Earth and Humanity in the face of a spanning galactic civilization. In Heinlein's Have Spacesuit will Travel, I didn't find the protagonist's argument particularly convincing, personally and overall thought the plot resolution weak.

We'll see if Way Station suffers from the same. I'm hoping not.

Way Station

Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his…

www.goodreads.com

 

[dragoner]

Reading "The Stars Are Ours!" by Norton. I should read the short story collections by King again, such as Night Shift or Skeleton Crew.

 

[Richards]

I finished the urban fantasy novel I'd been reading and picked up another one by a different author but it looks like it's got another "sexy good vampire love interest" so I'll put that one on hold for awhile. So instead, I started the first of three novels (I'll bet there are more) by Deborah Blake in her "Baba Yaga" series. This one is called "Wickedly Dangerous," and in it Baba Yaga isn't just an individual, it's a title. Baba Yagas are women who deal with the weird stuff; the main character in this novel goes by Barbara "Baba" Yager, lives in an extradimensional Slipstream trailer, and has a large white mastiff who's really a shapechanged dragon in charge of the Water of Life and Death (which grants Baba Yagas their longevity; Barbara's apparently 81 years old or something despite looking like she's in her 30s). The plot involves a search for some missing children, in which she's helping to the local Sheriff in the small New York county where the kids went missing. I'm hoping it's good, because I've got Wickedly Wonderful and Wickedly Powerful lined up behind this one, in my waiting-to-be-read pile, each featuring a different Baba Yaga. (I got them for 50 cents each at a library book sale some months back - a small investment on my part.) But so far, so good; I'm several chapters in and the characters are interesting, the worldbuilding's intriguing, and I'm eager to see what happens next. What more can you ask for in a fiction novel?

Johnathan