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I might have responded to one of these threads recently with the exact same books (I don't read books all that fast), but I can't find it now, so I'll just risk being unoriginal.
What do you think of the books written by Brian? I just finished God emperor a couple of weeks ago.
Love 'em! I've read more by Brian and Kevin than by Frank at this point. And I definitely think the Brian/Kevin books all live up to Frank's.
I will say Frank is an expert at creating mystery and making the reader want to know and understand more about such-and-such culture or technology. And Brian's/Kevin's books do less creating mystery and more resolving it.
Without giving too many spoilers, with Brian's/Kevin's books, if you've read Frank's already, you're constantly going "oh wow, I didn't realize I was wondering about that all along until just now." And you get a lot more of a look into places Frank's books don't touch.
This is my 3rd week mentioning Chloe Marr, so nothing wrong with mentioning same books again. Also, it gives me the chance to ask you again what you think of The Myth of Normal? You skipped that question last time 😀
Oh dang!
I've read Gabor Mate's "In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts" previously. So this isn't the first of his books I've read.
The Myth of Normal is pretty scientific and factual so far. I'm guessing later in the book he starts turning toward how to improve things. But so far it's about what trauma is and what it does to us.
I definitely think it's worth a read so far. I probably wouldn't have thought to start this one if I hadn't run across YouTube videos of interviews with Gabor Mate talking about this book and trauma in general. But I connected a lot with those interviews and I'm glad I did.
literally reading my first book, ironically Fahrenheit 451 :)
Fabulous book to start with!
Heh. I think it's a good book to start with, to show importance / power of the books 😀
I am on the last few pages of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Thinking of starting Fathers and Sons by Turganev next. Also sometimes listening to The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (a reread).
I've had a week of leave this week, so have read quite a bit - as well as got a few hikes in and some meals out etc.
Death and Diplomacy by Dave Stone - one of the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures. I have been going through these for quite some time and am determined to finish the run, but paused for a while before this one. Overall, there were some nice character beats for the Doctor, but in both style and content this was merely OK otherwise. The plot did was was required, but there were no really big or interesting ideas to take away.
The First Signs by Genevieve von Petzinger - a study of the non-figurative signs and symbols to be found in palaeolithic cave art in Europe and Africa. There was a slight mismatch between the actual focus of the book and what I was expecting based on the description. The book covers a great deal of context around cultural development across the palaeolithic as well as the geographic spread of the symbols and quite a number of other aspects before it finally - as I had expected to pretty much from the start - actually looking at the surprisingly limited and in some cases very specific range of symbols that actually occur as cave art of this type and era. Ultimately, the book raises more questions than it could possibly answer, and explains why some interpretations of what these symbols may be are at best only partial without offering any kind of complete interpretation of them - which is fair enough. We simply don't and probably can't ever know what the intention of the artists was. I do think that there was scope for the book to look at the individual symbols in more detail though. Whilst there is only so much that can be said about dots or parallel lines, there is more that I wanted to know about Spanish tectiforms etc.
Television by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. Leaving aside a few quirk choices of vocabulary and odd turns of phrase that I imagine are due to the translator, this was an easy and compelling novel to read - at least to start with. I did find it losing direction and becoming increasingly episodic in the last third though. The driving force is the protagonist's decision to give up television after projecting his procrastination, lack of direction and other negative traits on to that activity, and seeking virtue in avoiding it - or at least in being seen to avoid it. This was written in the '90s and was - at least according to the critique at the rear of the novel -a condemnation of the creeping ubiquity of TV in modern culture. To be honest, I read it more as virtue signalling by a snobbish bourgeoisie. The protagonist is an art historian and the contrast between his appreciation of the minutia of his chosen field of visual arts and the outright dismissal of any potential value in this other field seemed blatantly hypocritical - and I remained uncertain whether this was intended by the author even at the conclusion of the book. His bovine stye of consumption of TV - channel hopping equivalent to today's doomscrolling - is one that although I understand does/did seem to be common with at least part of the viewership, but is not one to which I could relate. I certainly did not consume TV in that way myself. However, the novel did the work of literature and prompted me to examine my own reactions to the characters and situations in the novel, so in that sense at least, I enjoyed it.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I had read that not a lot happens for much of the book. Even with that in mind, however, I did find this overlong. Its message is one of acceptance of diversity and of the value of friendship - both of which I am wholeheartedly in favour of. However, I would really have liked some m ore ideas or more worldbuilding going on here to justify this length. Worldbuilding of a type is indeed to be found, but it is pretty much all in the form of very thinly disguised metaphor for millennial western life today. It is not a bad book in any way, but does not inspire me to pick up the sequel.
Thanks for the reviews!
Will you recommend The First Signs as an introductory book on paleolithic cave art?
Not absolutely an introduction, since it really doesn't look at representational cave art in any detail. The author does include recommendations for several other books that do though. Really, I would suggest at least watching Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams - a beautiful and fascinating documentary that the author also recommends- before diving into this book.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
I read that when I was waiting for a new book in a series to come out as time filler. It was basically that: filler. It was fine, but I don't remember anything at all about the book except that it was all about relationships and acceptance of diversity. I went to Wiki just now to read the synopsis and didn't recognize any of the info presented, which is how memorable the book is.
I adore the Wayfarers books. Your criticisms are absolutely fair, but despite that I love them because they are just super cozy reads. I love the cozy slice of life feeling of day to day space living.
I've just finished the Incryptid series except for about another dozen short stories. The main character of books 1, 2 & 5 definitely had the weakest books, but I'm glad I stuck with it because I really enjoyed almost everything from 6-12.
Now I'm about halfway through Alex Verus book 3. I read the first one a couple of years ago and liked it, but only got around to book 2 last week after seeing that post about the interview with the author. Good stuff.
Next week I'll probably get back to Incryptid, there's another trilogy set in the same universe but not part of the main series, I think it's about one of the side characters' origins or something. I don't remember what it's called.
I've just moved and my new local bookstore sells comics too, so I was planning to pick up Something is Killing the Children and The Nice House on the Lake by James Tynion as soon as I get a chance.
Also, halfway through Dead Beat. Still prefer the post-Changes books, still don't like Butters.
That's nice to know about Incryptid, it's on my wishlist, but I think I would read Rivers of London series first, I have already got the first two books, will start after reading some smaller series first.
I have also gotten pretty interested in Alex Verus, specially because it's an actually finished series, but unfortunately couldn't find the starting books at my local bookstore, so would have to order them. Will get to it once I have reduced my backlog a bit.
Something is Killing the Children, and The Nice on the Lake both sound great, I'll see if they have any omnibus editions coming out.
I had only read upto Death Masks before, though I don't really remember anything that happened in this book. Excited to see how the books develop.
The Nice House on the Lake has a hard cover collected release of all 12 issues coming out next month, not sure about the other one.
Check out "the podcast was on fire and it wasn't my fault," it's a guy who has read the Dresden Files a load of times and his sister who is new to the series, they go through a handful of chapters a week. I think they're in Dead Beat now so you could catch up easily enough if you wanted to. I stopped listening a few books ago but you might enjoy it more than I did.
Thanks for the heads up, will check out the omnibus and the podcast!
Babel by Kuang at the suggestion of a different thread here.
I'm liking it, which is a pleasant surprise since historical fiction settings usually aren't my bag (I still try reading it now and then for this type of eventuality).
I am seeing many people mentioning Babel, I should probably take a look, but I still have his Poppy War series, and haven't even started it.
Have just started Absalom, Absalom!.
This looks like an interesting book. Would love to hear your thoughts when you have finished it.
Just started Papillon by Henri Charrière, the 1973 translation. It's great so far, although I'm only about 50 pages in.
Papillon is pretty good, read it quite a while back. I remember there was some controversy about whether it's true story or not. Either way, it was an interesting read.
Yeah, I read about that on the internet. Honestly, it doesn't bother me. If the book is not about people I know about, my brain doesn't care how factual it is.
Just picked up Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick and it's pretty good. Some months back I read the entire Thievesworld anthology series and this scratches the same itch. The usual "we're on a quest to save the world!" style high fantasy doesn't do it for me, I like my characters a bit morally ambiguous and my worlds a bit less black and white so this one's been fun.
Just looked up Thieves' World series, it looks really interesting. Adding it to my wishlist!
It's really good. I'd read a bit of it in the 90s but never the entire series. Check out the list of contributing authors, it's a top notch collection of great writers from the 70s and 80s.
What really surprised me was how modern the series felt, it could have easily been written within the last 10y. Anyway, great series and worth a read. Pick up book 1 and you'll know within the first couple of stories if it's for you. I was hooked on the first chapter after the introduction, Sentences of Death was a great start.
Yeah, going to pickup first 2, and see if I like it enough to read the rest. Thanks for the recommendation!
I'm deep into wheel of time #10 right now. Thankfully it's more exciting than 8 or 9 so far
Congratulations on making it through books 7-9. Those books were pretty awful, but holy heck does the wrap up of the series make it worthwhile.
Yeah, IIRC, #10 is where it starts becoming interesting again. It should be a good ride to the end from here.
I'm just glad to have made it through the slog. Side note, did you read new spring after 14 or in the middle somewhere?
Just looked it up, it seems I read it after book 4. Also, it seems I got book 5 two years later, so chances are I got the prequel but couldn't get the next book so read that instead.
If it were now, I would go with the published date, which puts it after Book 10. So, that's what I would recommend.
Arc Light by Eric Harry. I'm a big fan of cold war/WW3 novels and this one fits the bill. Most books in the genre kind of dance around nukes but Arc Light doesn't hold back. The sense of dread i've gotten from this book has been awesome.
I finished Max Gladstone’s Two Serpents and it’s a solid entry in that series.
I’m finally getting around to reading Jim Butchers Cinder Spires books with the 2nd coming out shortly.
I really want to read it, but I am not starting another unfinished series! May start reading Cinder Spires when 3rd book is released.
I’m reading The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz and listening to A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine.
I’m enjoying both. This is the second book by Newitz that I’ve read and I find their writing very engaging. Desolation is the second in a space opera series that’s pretty standard space opera, but well written enough that I’m enjoying it.
Someone mentioned Arkady Martine over at fantasy community too. How did you liked the first novel in the series, A Memory Called Empire?
Newtiz's books look interesting, going to check them out.
Finishing up the last book in The Divine Cities trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett.
I have on deck:
No Plan B by Lee Child A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab The Peripheral by William Gibson Armor by John Steakley
I’ve got The Peripheral my bookshelf, I haven’t gotten to it yet but I keep eyeing it up. Library books keep jumping up in line.
I watched the show on Amazon not realizing it was a book. I’m interested to eee how close they are and get more detail of the story from the book.
Hah. Well. I didn’t realize there was a show! Now I’m gonna have to check that out too!