What have you been reading?

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Was going through my collection of assorted science fiction novels acquired over the past few years and then discovered these 2 make up the first 2/3 of the "Empress of Outer Space" series by A. Bertram Chandler (of John Grimes fame) so I've decided to read these now.
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One of the flipsides is an unrelated Chandler book called The Alternate Martians.
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Despite my preference not to pay more than $1 or $2, I found the 3rd book (Nebula Alert) for a decent price on eBay so with any luck that will arrive by the time I finish Space Mercenaries. If not, I will read the flipsides of these 2 while I wait. Love these old Ace Doubles!
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Dumarest said:
Was going through my collection of assorted science fiction novels acquired over the past few years and then discovered these 2 make up the first 2/3 of the "Empress of Outer Space" series by A. Bertram Chandler (of John Grimes fame) so I've decided to read these now.
One of the flipsides in an unrelated Chandler book called The Alternate Martians.

Despite my preference not to pay more than $1 or $2, I found the 3rd book (Nebula Alert) for a decent price on eBay so with any luck that will arrive by the time I finish Space Mercenaries. If not, I will read the flipsides of these 2 while I wait. Love these old Ace Doubles!
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Love the covers of Empress of Outer Space and Space Mercenaries.
 
Dumarest said:
Was going through my collection of assorted science fiction novels acquired over the past few years and then discovered these 2 make up the first 2/3 of the "Empress of Outer Space" series by A. Bertram Chandler (of John Grimes fame) so I've decided to read these now.
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Interestingly, the "Empress of Outer Space" stories appear to take place in the same universe as the John Grimes stories, except sometime in the future. In the first few of chapters of Empress of Outer Space, Chandler refers to "Carlotti Beacons" which have replaced the Carlotti transceivers that required psionic radio operators, which was a mainstay of the Grimes stories. He also describes the Mannschenn Drive and its sort of psychedelic mode of faster-than-light travel in the same colorful way as he did in the Grimes stories. So I guess at some point the Federation becomes an empire with Empress Irene in charge. It's kind of a fun little Easter egg if you've read the Grimes stories, but there's no need to have read those to enjoy the Empress stories.
 
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JAMUMU said:
The Cú Chulainn cycle, which I've just read off the back of the Mabinogian. Both of these have got me re-evaluating a retroclone I've been working on.

I've just re-read Blood Meridian twice, starting again when I finished the first time.

This weekend I'm going to read Vance's Dying Earth books.
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I'll be looking for a report. :thumbsup:

Dying Earth and The Magic Goes away are two series I have long meant to get around to.
 
Anyone here read “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky? I’m currently in the middle of it and it’s really good. I was reading Stephen King’s “Faery Tale”, but had to travel and didn’t want a hardback book, so I brought “Children of Time” along.

I’m mot sure if that says anything about “Faery Tale”. I like King, and I’ve found most of his books that I’ve read to be worthwhile in some way. But every now and then one comes along that just seems so purely King that I struggle with it. I think “Faery Tale” may fall into that camp.

We’ll see.
 
Reading Musashi again as I received this nice hardcover. Definitely in my Top 10, right up there with Alexandre Dumas.
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I first encountered Musashi as this beautiful set of five paperbacks, which I picked up at an Asian discount secondhand book/video/music shop called Book Off. Can't deny I stole lots of ideas from this novel for the Bushido RPG.
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The color scheme of the paperbacks always reminds me of the first set of Tolkien books I ever owned (and wish I still had):
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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, a book that's been on my to-read list since it came out (almost 20 years ago!) Its inclusion on the Dolmenwood inspirational reading list finally bumped it to the top of the queue...
 
"What is called the spirit of the void is where there is nothing. It is not included in man's knowledge. With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the twofold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the twofold gaze perception and sight. When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void. Until you realize the true Way, whether in life or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objectively, from the viewpoint of laws of the world, we see various doctrines departing from the true Way. Know well this spirit, and with forthrightness as the foundation and the true spirit as the Way. Enact strategy broadly, correctly and openly. Then you will come to think of things in a wide sense and, taking the void as the Way, you will see the Way as void. In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness."
― Miyamoto Musashi

Favorite quote from five rings.

Right now I am reading Embers of War by Gareth Powell.
 
Recently discovered William Gay, a southern gothic writer in the tradition of Faulkner, O'Connor and McCarthy with the horror element often turned up to 11. So far this novel about the legendary Bell Witch is amazing.

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Took another pause on the Elric collection I've been reading to read "The Light Fantastic".
I'm really liking discworld, the humor is well done and pretty much every character is likeable.
The cosmic horror aspect of the luggage is great too.
That all said the copy I got from the library has a terribly lazy cover:
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It looks like the publisher just grabbed a vaguely related stock photo instead of putting in any effort. Especially when compared to this:
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The copy of The Color of Magic I got also had a similarly lazy cover, showing a modern suitcase with travel stickers on it that I guess was supposed to be the luggage?
Luckily the interior contents weren't changed.
 
It is time...

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I just read The Certificate by Avram Davidson, a very short sci-fi story where Earth had been conquered decades ago by an alien race and one mans bleak and hopeless attempt to navigate the invaders' nasty bureaucracy. It was pretty depressing, but Davidson sure knew how to describe a scene.
 
Plowed through the Murderbot series a couple weeks ago at the suggestion of a friend, then finally started reading Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga (it's been on my list for years). Started with the two Cordelia books then went into the Warrior's Apprentice. Now trying to decide if I should continue with chronological or publication order.
 
thebigh said:
I just read The Certificate by Avram Davidson, a very short sci-fi story where Earth had been conquered decades ago by an alien race and one mans bleak and hopeless attempt to navigate the invaders' nasty bureaucracy. It was pretty depressing, but Davidson sure knew how to describe a scene.
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Davidson is a great short story writer, he's a cult writer but hopefully his full accomplishments as a writer are more widely recognized one day.
 
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Just finished up The Lady of the Lake, the seventh and last book of the main cycle of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series (there’s one more book but it’s a prequel, written a decade or so later and set way earlier in the timeline).

This series is apparently popular (based on the amount of shelf space dedicated to it at Barnes & Noble) but doesn’t seem to get a lot of love or discussion, perhaps because it’s too associated with the video game and TV series so people assume it’s trashy shlock, and perhaps because the first two books of stories are pretty much trashy shlock which I’m guessing makes a lot of people never bother to read any further.

But I really enjoyed it, and felt like each volume improved on the one before, and in this final volume even flirted with greatness. There are a lot of deep themes explored, a lot of very dark stuff but also a lot of genuine hope and love, and one pretty brilliant technical tour de force.

About halfway through the book there’s a 50 page long chapter devoted to describing a pivotal battle even though none of the major characters are present so it could’ve easily occurred entirely offstage. But instead, Sapkowski describes it in a kaleidoscopic manner rapidly shifting back and forth between about a dozen different viewpoints including soldiers on both sides, both high ranking and low, the staff of a field hospital behind the front line, reminiscences decades later by survivors, and historical lectures from schoolmasters on both sides which contradict both each other and the first-hand stuff we’re also seeing. It’s utterly chaotic and quite confusing, deliberately so. It’s also crushingly and unflinchingly violent and brutal and unromantic, but just when it becomes almost unbearably so there are unexpected moments of heroism and pathos and decency that have greater impact because of the context and juxtaposition. Reading it was incredibly visceral and emotional for me and by the time I got to the end of the chapter felt drained and needed a couple days to recover and reflect on it before moving on to the next chapter (which is also a corker, but much more expected and conventional since it picks back up the story of the main characters that we’ve been following through the 4 previous volumes).

That chapter is, effectively, a brilliant stand-alone novella that I feel like is worth reading even outside the context of the series (though I suppose without the context of who the sides in the battle are it wouldn’t have the same impact). The closest comparison I can think of offhand is perhaps The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. Good stuff.
 
After several months, 3 renewals from the library and 2 pauses to read discworld I've finally finished The Elric Saga Vol. 1.
It's a big collection of various Elric stories divided into 4 books:
Elric of Melniboné, my favorite in the collection, it does a real good job of introducing the character and setting. It also has a kind of fairytale tone to it that I felt was missing in the other stories.

The Fortress of the Pearl: A great premise with a cool Dream-Quest plot, but several characters felt underdeveloped and the writing felt weirdly clunky at times.

The Sailor on the Seas of Fate: Really 3 interconnected short stories put together, this was my least favorite of the collection.
Sailing to the Future was fairly boring but had an awesome gonzo ending where all the eternal champions merge to fight a sentient pool and a shape shifting building who were twin sorcerers from another dimension.
Sailing to the Present I felt was the worst in the whole collection. I felt that the story was as bland as the landscape it was set in.
Sailing to the Past was ok, a standard Conan style expedition to a lost city with a standard Elric ending.

The Weird of the White Wolf:
Another collection of short stories within a collection of books.
The Dreaming City: Very dramatic but good fun featuring the end of Melniboné.
While the Gods Laugh: Another Conan style adventure with an Elric style ending.
The Singing Citadel: Ditto.

Overall I dug the character and the world, but man the writing could feel really clunky and awkward at times. I'm also a bit disappointed that there wasn't much time spent in Immyr, a great weird setting that I felt could have been used more.

Next up is The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross, followed by the Diamond Age.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
After several months, 3 renewals from the library and 2 pauses to read discworld I've finally finished The Elric Saga Vol. 1.
It's a big collection of various Elric stories divided into 4 books:
Elric of Melniboné, my favorite in the collection, it does a real good job of introducing the character and setting. It also has a kind of fairytale tone to it that I felt was missing in the other stories.

The Fortress of the Pearl: A great premise with a cool Dream-Quest plot, but several characters felt underdeveloped and the writing felt weirdly clunky at times.

The Sailor on the Seas of Fate: Really 3 interconnected short stories put together, this was my least favorite of the collection.
Sailing to the Future was fairly boring but had an awesome gonzo ending where all the eternal champions merge to fight a sentient pool and a shape shifting building who were twin sorcerers from another dimension.
Sailing to the Present I felt was the worst in the whole collection. I felt that the story was as bland as the landscape it was set in.
Sailing to the Past was ok, a standard Conan style expedition to a lost city with a standard Elric ending.

The Weird of the White Wolf:
Another collection of short stories within a collection of books.
The Dreaming City: Very dramatic but good fun featuring the end of Melniboné.
While the Gods Laugh: Another Conan style adventure with an Elric style ending.
The Singing Citadel: Ditto.

Overall I dug the character and the world, but man the writing could feel really clunky and awkward at times. I'm also a bit disappointed that there wasn't much time spent in Immyr, a great weird setting that I felt could have been used more.

Next up is The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross, followed by the Diamond Age.
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I haven't read all the Elric stories but as with you my favourites are the first book and the concluding story.

Moorcock ground-out the Elric storie to help pay the bills for New Worlds so I wouldn't judge him by the rushed (although still literate) prose of his Elric stories.

His best work is elsewhere, I was most impressed so far by The Condition of Muzak, Mother London and Gloriana. Still need to dig into his highly-regarded historical series with Byzantium Endures.
 
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Giganotosaurus said:
After several months, 3 renewals from the library and 2 pauses to read discworld I've finally finished The Elric Saga Vol. 1.
It's a big collection of various Elric stories divided into 4 books:
Elric of Melniboné, my favorite in the collection, it does a real good job of introducing the character and setting. It also has a kind of fairytale tone to it that I felt was missing in the other stories.

The Fortress of the Pearl: A great premise with a cool Dream-Quest plot, but several characters felt underdeveloped and the writing felt weirdly clunky at times.

The Sailor on the Seas of Fate: Really 3 interconnected short stories put together, this was my least favorite of the collection.
Sailing to the Future was fairly boring but had an awesome gonzo ending where all the eternal champions merge to fight a sentient pool and a shape shifting building who were twin sorcerers from another dimension.
Sailing to the Present I felt was the worst in the whole collection. I felt that the story was as bland as the landscape it was set in.
Sailing to the Past was ok, a standard Conan style expedition to a lost city with a standard Elric ending.

The Weird of the White Wolf:
Another collection of short stories within a collection of books.
The Dreaming City: Very dramatic but good fun featuring the end of Melniboné.
While the Gods Laugh: Another Conan style adventure with an Elric style ending.
The Singing Citadel: Ditto.

Overall I dug the character and the world, but man the writing could feel really clunky and awkward at times. I'm also a bit disappointed that there wasn't much time spent in Immyr, a great weird setting that I felt could have been used more.

Next up is The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross, followed by the Diamond Age.
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The Elric books are great. I’m a bigger fan of Corum and Von Bek and Oswald Bastable but I’ll read anything by Moorcock. The female refuses to go into book stores with me since every time I’m asked if I need help I’ll announce gleefully I’m looking for Moorcock.
Yes, I’m stunted maturely and I think I’m much funnier than I am.
 
I have been reading The Image of the Beast by Philip Jose Farmer, which can be described as a porn horror detective story set in 70s' USA (Los Angeles, specifically).

I was wondering if a 70s (late 60s actually) book could surprise this jaded 21st century Gen Xer - especially regarding porn - well... old man Farmer is always surprising, notwithstanding the subject matter :shock: . And I think he liked writing this book :happy:.
 
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