[Maark Abbott]

More thoughts on Greg Licanius:

Minority Report. Morrowind. Minorrowind with Dragon Age.

It's certainly fun enough at 250 pages in. Writing isn't exactly top tier but there's enough going on to keep my attention and it's still not actively annoyed me yet. Good signs!

[Mentalist]

started slowly chipping away at "Blue Remembered Earth" again.

Started really slow, and I'm not really sold on the solar-system-wide scavenger hunt, but as we're getting more wacky with the world-building, I'm getting more into it, slowly.

[polishgenius]

 amphibian, on 20 April 2021 - 12:25 AM, said:

Kate Griffin/North is a better writer than Butcher or Dresden. I loved the Matthew Swift books, yet she's having massive success elsewhere and is understandably chasing a living that way.

She's definitely a better writer of prose (by some distance). I will say they (assuming you meant Aaronovitch when you said Dresden) are better series planners and that also gives them some edge in long-term character arcs, though book-by-book she's their equal. Also you do have to have some patience for dense city-building, because she writes about London like Mieville writes about New Crobuzon.


The other urban fantasy that should get a crack from people is Generation V by ML Brennan. Sadly it didn't get enough sales to fulfill the whole plan and Brennan had to wrap it up early in book 4 (there is an ending, it's just obviously rushed in sooner than she intended). Still worth the ride though, the first three books are superb fun.

NK Jemisin's The Cities We Became is also worth a look at the first book, though it's not quite as good as her best stuff imo. But it could yet step up.







Anyway in other news I started a really cool SF debut, The Outside by Ada Hoffman. It's like an evil Culture (there are godlike AI to look after humanity except they do actually set themselves up as gods, make humanity worship them, and, it seems, eat souls) invaded by HP Lovecraft. Very engaging so far. Epic and weird and nasty in the right places but also a likeable main character and a hopeful struggle.

[Mentalist]

Finished "Blue Remembered Earth". Interesting hook, and some cool world-building ideas, buuuuut..... the scavenger hunt story was pretty weak, imho. Probably the weakest Reynolds I've read so far.

Gonna dip into a non-fiction book for a change of pace, I think. Either War of the Roses, or Post-Soviet Russia, something history-ish.

[amphibian]

 Mentalist, on 24 April 2021 - 02:32 AM, said:

Finished "Blue Remembered Earth". Interesting hook, and some cool world-building ideas, buuuuut..... the scavenger hunt story was pretty weak, imho. Probably the weakest Reynolds I've read so far.

Gonna dip into a non-fiction book for a change of pace, I think. Either War of the Roses, or Post-Soviet Russia, something history-ish.

Did you read the whole series? The second and the third pick up, but the first is definitely a book where less happens than the Reynolds books of before.

[Mentalist]

 amphibian, on 24 April 2021 - 03:45 AM, said:

 Mentalist, on 24 April 2021 - 02:32 AM, said:

Finished "Blue Remembered Earth". Interesting hook, and some cool world-building ideas, buuuuut..... the scavenger hunt story was pretty weak, imho. Probably the weakest Reynolds I've read so far.

Gonna dip into a non-fiction book for a change of pace, I think. Either War of the Roses, or Post-Soviet Russia, something history-ish.

Did you read the whole series? The second and the third pick up, but the first is definitely a book where less happens than the Reynolds books of before.

No, this is just Book 1. I can imagine he's going places with this set-up, depending how long the timeskip's gonna be.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 24 April 2021 - 08:30 AM

[Aptorian]

I haven't been in much of a reading mood the past months do instead I decided to sign up for Marvel Unlimited.

Currently six issues into The Immortal Hulk.

Damn this is some good Hulk. This is probably the most interesting stuff I've read about the Hulk since Peter David and Todd MacFarlane's Grey Hulk stories, which are a somewhat similar to this. I definitely prefer when Banner is on the run in America and Hulk comes out to fuck up bad people.

I love what they're doing here by opening up a whole new mythology around death and a green door that is linked to all the gamma irradiated characters in Marvel. Coupled with the horror elements this is becoming pretty creepy and sinister.

[Mentalist]

Finished "A Crate of Vodka: An insider view on the 20 years that shaped Modern Russia" in 2 sittings last night. The book consists of 20 documented drinking sessions between a former member of Yeltzin's "Young Reformers" cabinet who was in charge of privatization, and an anti-Communist reporter, as they recount, memoir-style their lives from 1982 (the year Brezhnev died) to 2001 (The 9/11 year), year by year (one bottle per year... get it?)

Being "Drunk talk: the Book" means it's (naturally) full on non-PC diatribes and musings about the Russian soul, the fate of Imperial thinking, and a whole bunch of other things. Moorcock did the same with his Colonel Pyat books, and it's VERY on point for how Russians/ex-Soviets have a general tendency to ramble about stuff (especially when drunk. ESPECIALLY when they're well-educated).
I'm not sure how informative I'd consider the book. Since it was written in 2004, with the last afterword being from 2009, it all feels so quaintly out-dated by now, given how hardcore Russia's latest authoritarian face heel turn has been. At the same time, I think that for Westerners who might endeavor to read it, there'll be a lot of revelations about Russians think. What you have is a German Russian economics student, and a Ukrainian-born journalist- both very firmly anti-Soviet, what you'd consider "liberal"- and yet both freely say things that a Western "leftie" would decry as "fascist". It's a good exercise on just how different Eastern Europe really is from the West. So I'd definitely recommend the book.


My friend dropped off a copy of "The Art of Peace" for me, which is a translated text of the most important sayings of Morihei Ueshiba, the master who invented aikido. I read about 40% of it, but it's really not resonating with me (despite being beautifully written), and it spurs bouts of depressing self-reflection and additional existential dread; so not really feeling anymore of that.

My at-home TRP is growing rather short (not counting the e-books on my phone); so next up I will attempt a historical novel by an Estonian author Jaan Kross, "The Ropewalker" about a chronicler during the Livonian War. Should be interesting.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 26 April 2021 - 01:19 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Halfway into Greg Louganis now and I am quite comfortable to say this is MorrowTrigger. Islington is not in the least bit afraid to be basically saying "I like these games".

Not that it's a bad thing, mind you. The pace is still a bit wacky but I have done almost half a book in two weeks which is a lot for me.

[Aptorian]

21 issues into Immortal Hulk.

This is ridiculously good. They're pulling so many old names out of the old hulk war chest and giving them a new spin. There has to be a lot of stuff I'm missing but the stuff I do recall and can connect is just great.

Just the fact that the new Devil Hulk persona does not give a fuck about "Hulk doesn't kill people" is great. And it's so gory and creepy in places. Hulk as a horror series is really appealing.

[Salt-Man Z]

Last night I finished Premee Mohamad's A Broken Darkness, sequel to her Beneath the Rising. The craziness from the first book is cranked up well past 11, though I think the relationship between the two main characters (quite changed since the first) is still the book's strongest quality. Mohamed definitely doesn't shy away from shaking up her characters' world, and the ending to this one was both totally abrupt and also a bit confusing. It almost works as a series ending (leaving sooo much unexplained) but thinking about now, it's obviously just a cliffhanger for the presumed third book. I'm definitely on board.

Before that, I read through the entirety of IDW's first 13-year Transformers comics continuity for the first time, much (at least half) of which I'd never read before, including a bunch of the earlier stuff, as well as the big Unicron literally-universe-ending finale. I also read all the Hasbro-verse spinoffs that I owned (almost of all of which were crossover material, anyway--I did not read any of the early IDW G.I. Joe stuff, retroactively part of the Hasbroverse, that I also own a bunch of.) About 450+ issues altogether. Really great stuff. As much as I'm enjoying the current TF reboot under Brian Ruckley, I really miss the James Roberts/John Barber duo that shepherded the second half of the first run.

[Abyss]

 Abyss, on 21 April 2021 - 03:14 AM, said:

...

Next up... oh yes, it is time... THE ACK-ACK MACAQUE trilogy.

With one hour to go, let me tell you, this monkey delivers!


...but Graphic Audio has sent me the second part of Golgotha 4, so i suspect i'll be listenizing that next.

[Aptorian]

The new Murderbot book, Fugitive Telemetry, from Martha Wells just dropped. I know what I'm reading today.

Edit: Read the first twenty pages. I'm confused. This seems to be taking place before the events of the last book. I wonder if Wells is splitting the series into a novella timeline and a full length book timeline.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 27 April 2021 - 07:09 AM

[Abyss]

 Abyss, on 27 April 2021 - 03:09 AM, said:

...but Graphic Audio has sent me the second part of Golgotha 4, so i suspect i'll be listenizing that next.

 Aptorian, on 27 April 2021 - 04:58 AM, said:

The new Murderbot book, Fugitive Telemetry, from Martha Wells just dropped....

Oh hell.
SEND IN ZE CLONE

[polishgenius]

 polishgenius, on 23 April 2021 - 10:57 PM, said:

Anyway in other news I started a really cool SF debut, The Outside by Ada Hoffman. It's like an evil Culture (there are godlike AI to look after humanity except they do actually set themselves up as gods, make humanity worship them, and, it seems, eat souls) invaded by HP Lovecraft. Very engaging so far. Epic and weird and nasty in the right places but also a likeable main character and a hopeful struggle.

I finished this and it is good, but ultimately it slowed a bit because the characters are a lot more engaging and unusual than the setting, which doesn't deviate an awful lot from standard dystopia/lovecraftian physics in its aspects. I'd recommend it, but I'd recommend other weirdness-infused SF first.


I also flew through Alliette De Bodard's House of Broken Wings. The ending suffers slightly from too-many-climaxes syndrome, but other than that a very good read.

[Abyss]

 Abyss, on 27 April 2021 - 03:09 AM, said:

 Abyss, on 21 April 2021 - 03:14 AM, said:

...

Next up... oh yes, it is time... THE ACK-ACK MACAQUE trilogy.

With one hour to go, let me tell you, this monkey delivers!


...but Graphic Audio has sent me the second part of Golgotha 4, so i suspect i'll be listenizing that next.

 Abyss, on 28 April 2021 - 01:39 AM, said:

 Abyss, on 27 April 2021 - 03:09 AM, said:

...but Graphic Audio has sent me the second part of Golgotha 4, so i suspect i'll be listenizing that next.

 Aptorian, on 27 April 2021 - 04:58 AM, said:

The new Murderbot book, Fugitive Telemetry, from Martha Wells just dropped....

Oh hell.
SEND IN ZE CLONE

Just Finished ACK-ACK MACAQUE. It was great fun. The monkey may be my favorite character since The Belgariad's Silk. The books is fun, loaded w action, the rest of the cast - a cyborg ninja reporter with a ghost in her machine, and the heir to the throne of the extended British Empire - balance out Ack-Ack's sheer over the top everything nicely, the story moves along and isn't drawn out. It was 10hrs, not a huge listen, went by quickly in a good way. Also features VR gaming, airships, super-assassins, dogfights, monkeyfights, daiquiries, and not one banana joke. Worth a listen.

Have started FUGITIVE TELEMETRY - more Murderbot Yay! - but whether after that i go directly to GOLGOTHA 4 or back for Macaque 2 is anyone's guess.

[QuickTidal]

Started EXILE’S HONOR by Mercedes Lackey, a side Valdemar prequel about Alberich, and I’m quite enjoying!

[Morgoth]

I was just leafing through The House in the Cerulean Sea, my favourite read of this year. It still holds up on a slight and sporadic re-read. Confusingly, I believe it was Apt that recommended this book to me.

[QuickTidal]

 Morgoth, on 29 April 2021 - 12:20 PM, said:

I was just leafing through The House in the Cerulean Sea, my favourite read of this year. It still holds up on a slight and sporadic re-read. Confusingly, I believe it was Apt that recommended this book to me.

It's on my kindle, but I've not read it yet. I hear nothing but good things, and I've heard it's a solid comfort/feel good read.

[polishgenius]

I read Artemis by Andy Weird. It's fun, but it's let down a bit by the main character being a screaming moron for much of the runtime.

It also suffers in comparison to the Luna series by Ian McDonald, since that is a scaled-up, more spectacular version of some similar ideas.