Well here it is December… and not one had better ask what MORE could go wrong with this year or they will be covered in milk and fed to my Siamese boys. I don’t know about you all but I’m going to keep my nose in a book for the next four years!
Speakin’ of which, Whacha all readin’?
I finally picked up Imprudence by Gail Carriger again and pushed past the part I didn’t want to read. She wrote it better than I expected but I still believe it was the wrong point of view.
I have The Brothers Cabal by Jonathon L Howard lined up and ready to go.
In the mornings when it’s dark, I’m reading LG Estrella’s “Two Necromancers” series, I’m on the second one and apparently zombies, even in mass quantity, aren’t the right weapon against metallic golems… watch your shoes and your hems folks.
Khadaji was one of the earlier members of the SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, and he started these monthly book threads. Sadly, he passed away in January 2013, and we decided to rename these monthly threads in his honor.
Almost a third of the way through The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. Very good so far, but then I like Dumas a lot. I’ve read all of his Three Musketeers books.
I’m re-reading C. J. Cherryh’s Rider at the Gate and Cloud’s Rider, after an interval of many years, and really enjoying them.
SF + Western + Horror all together. High quality writing, slow pace, and very character-driven. Slow to get into, but there’s a highly creative, very well realized world, and good characters, and it’s well worth it.
A human colony has been stranded on an earth-like world for many generations. There are no intelligent lifeforms, but plenty of animals, who are all telepathic. Humans can’t survive there on their own, because predators can project emotions and images into surrounding minds. You might feel an unaccountable terror and run away from it - right into the jaws of a predator, or think you are walking on a level road, and suddenly fall off a cliff. Madness and out-of-control emotions are always lurking close.
But a local species, the nighthorses, enjoy human minds and have developed a symbiotic relationship with individual human ‘riders’, which allows humans to survive. The nighthorses are omnivores and predators who eat meat by preference, but they are about as intelligent as earth horses, and allow their chosen humans to ride them. With their intermediation, riders have access to telepathic contact with all the minds around them. Very interesting exploration of an environment where it’s difficult to conceal thoughts, feelings and intentions from other people.
Riders protect walled towns and convoys, and are like western gunslingers but with a telepathic twist. Radio draws predators, and can’t be used except in emergencies. The level of technology is trucks and rifles, but also ox carts.
“Unnatural Acts” by Kevin J Anderson. It’s about Dan Chambeaux, a private detective whose job leads him into serving in the realm of the supernatural. Most detectives might be intimidated by that. Not Dan, though.
About two-thirds of the way through Ian Banks’ Transition. I think the publishers left the ‘M.’ off by mistake. This one reminds me a lot of Michael Moorcock’s eternal champion type stuff, but written by a much better writer. A lot of fun so far.
Remember reading that back in high school when it came out. I’d be curious to re-read it as the vocabulary of the book exceeded mine and I recall spending a lot of time with a dictionary nearby. Sad to hear that he died this year too.
I just finished Suck Less: Where There’s a Willam, There’s a Way by Willam Belli. The author is a successful drag queen who got DQed from RuPaul’s Drag Race, has a recording career, and a bit of a YouTube hit. The book is an advice book about a variety of topics that would be normally taboo to discuss. There’s the obvious things like make-up and clothing, but also dealing with acne, food, anal sex, dating, rebounding, social media, and drugs. The book is (IMHO) extremely humorous but also fearless in a wonderful way. There’s something endearing about someone not afraid to show their warts, but explain who gave 'em to him.
Just got done with I’ll Take You There by Wally Lamb, and I’m sorry, but it was poop. It reads like Mr. Lamb wanted to ramble on about movies, and the good old days, and feminism, but instead of buttonholing some poor stranger on a bus, he wrote this book. It was interesting enough to finish, so there’s that. I have really liked some of his other books, so I’ll try him again in future, but this one was mighty weak.
I just finished The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street and was underwhelmed. What should have been an interesting story (young girl survives pograms in Russia, comes to U.S., run over by horse drawn cart, starts successful ice cream business) was made uninteresting by lack of character development. On my Kindle I have Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital which is fascinating if you like the history of medicine and public health.
Going book shopping tomorrow at Anderson’s in Naperville, IL. Who knows what I will pick up.
Finished “The Fireman”, by Joe Hill. Not a bad read, but fanciful. My only quarrel with it is that writers shouldn’t write about things they’re not familiar with. In this case, the author was treating a .410 shotgun as a veritable cannon, booming and knocking people off their feet from a considerable distance. For those unfamiliar with the weapon, it’s the smallest shotgun one can buy, but even a larger bore is not going to have the impact-at-distance described in the book. Yeah, it’s a nitpick, but it’s annoying.
So onward, I think, to Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond.
Finished A Gathering of Shadows, by VE Schwab. It’s a fanasy story set in a city that’s never been the locus for a fantasy novel before: London. What a refreshing change from the typical fantasy story! (IOW, not a hugely creative work, but it passed the time just fine).
Now I’m reading The Trees. The premise, from the first chapter, is that a huge forest instantaneously erupts from the ground, destroying civilization and killing lots of folks. I’m not sure whether I’ll finish it: the premise is pretty cool, but I don’t like or deliciously hate either main character so far.
Just finished When To Rob a Bank, and it fits in well with the whole Freakonomics series. If you liked any of them you’ll probably enjoy this as well, although it does ramble a bit more.
I just started on what is promising to be an epic voyage of a book in 1Q84, it’s one of those where you really have to pay attention to the details or you’ll be lost. Since I don’t read in Japanese I’m reading the translation and I think they have done a creditable job with the structure and nuance to maintain the idea within the Japanese mindset. It definitely does not read like a traditional English novel. The twists in the story are quite compelling.
I’m about 60% of the way through No Man’s Land, the latest book in David Baldacci’s John Puller series. I can’t really say anything meaningful about it…it’s not an amazing story (yet), but if you like Baldacci and the other Puller books you’ll probably like this. It’s enjoyable enough.
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I’m about three quarters of the way through What Fresh Hell Is This, Marion Meade’s biography of Dorothy Parker. It’s quite good, and it’s helped make me more familiar with other members of the Algonquin Round Table (and led me to find Robert Benchley’s The Treasurer’s Report on YouTube).
That kind of opportunity wasn’t around in 1988 when Meade wrote the biography – pretty cool.
I don’t know about you all but I’m going to keep my nose in a book for the next four years!