I thought The Long Earth was ok, but could have been much better. The voyage they went on ended up being quite boring, imo.
But I’m currently reading Stephen Baxter’s latest novel, Iron Winter, and enjoying it a lot. It’s the 3rd in his Northland series, an alternate history where the North Sea isn’t flooded by rising sea-levels but remains inhabitable. Because they built a massive great wall to keep the water back!
The first is Stone Spring, set in neolithic times as they first see the rising waters, the 2nd is Bronze Summer, set in the Bronze Age, and now Iron Winter set in 1315 at the start of a little ice age and climate change is afecting the whole world, especially the vast Gormenghast-like city-wall holding back the sea.
Vol 1 was quite slow but good, vol 2 moved faster but I didn’t enjoy it so much, and vol 3 is very good so far.
I haven’t read much of his sf because I often find his style a bit dry but his more recent books seem better - the pair Flood and Ark, the quartet that begins with Emperor… Avoid Moonseed. it’s awful.
Finished the first four books of Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein series. Not great literature or anything, but entertaining; an interesting new addition to the Frankenstein mythology. Certainly way better than the last Koontz book I read, many years ago. Someone’s checked out the fifth book, though, so I’ll have to wait for it.
I read the first one and was totally excited about the series, but I didn’t feel it lived up to its potential. The others were less good and I don’t even remember too much about the last one.
I like Koontz - or did - but am finding his books haven’t been great lately. (Although I am still enjoying the Odd series.)
Hm - I rather enjoyed it - but I’m a fan of travelogues. I did find myself wondering if Lobsang’s naming his airship Mark Twain was an homage to Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld ?
Recommendations noted - the local library has Stone Spring, so may give that a whirl.
Am about 10% into Dan Simmons’ The Terror; Based on historical events, a mid 1800’s Arctic expedition goes horribly (and perhaps supernaturally) wrong. I’m just to the part where the ships are trapped in the ice and the “something” is not only plucking men off the deck, but also trying to break into the ship. It’s somewhat slow going, but if you like exploration stories that deal in the nitty-gritty of survival, this has been entertaining so far. It probably helps that I’ve read a couple of contemporary naval-based series recently* , so am familiar with the social structure, as well as some of the terminology.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik and L.A. Meyer’s Bloody Jack series
Finished The Apocalypse Codex. Really good addition to the Laundry series. I just downloaded The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. Looking forward to a good survival story.
Has anyone read Blueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot? I read the summary on amazon and bought it on a whim. Well see.
Well, the Very Nice Person wrote a Very Nice Book. It’s not exactly my thing either, since it ended up feeling more like a romance novel than a fantasy, but it’s appealing.
Just finished Peter Hennessy’s magisterial The Prime Minister, about top British elected leaders since 1945, and how the job has evolved in that time, esp. with the advent of nuclear weapons and the 24/7 news cycle. Hennessy gives Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher top marks as the most capable, influential and powerful PMs since World War II, although of course towards completely different ends. Next I’m reading Hennessy’s Muddling Through, a collection of essays on contemporary British politics. He has a very lively, interesting style.
Not long ago I finished The Last Man on Earth Club. Quite a good read with an interesting premise: interstellar travel is almost impossible but inter-universe travel is. There is an organization a bit like the UN that makes contact with the “Earth” in each one. The novel focuses on six people, each the last survivor of whatever apocalypse has hit their world, and the psychologist working them through their trauma treatment.
Reread Eric Flint’s 1632 and 1633, and am now reading 1634: The Baltic War, with 1634: The Bavarian Crisis waiting its turn.
Also just finished The Grange at High Force, and am reading The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler (the 1965 and 1977 winners, respectively, of the Carnegie Medal in Literature).
And I’m still working on The Viking Art of War, as well…
It really was a good ride. I was totally swept up in this dystopian tale, despite some incidents that strained credulity. However, I agree with someone over at Goodreads who said it ought to have been named Silo!
Next up, The Glass Demon, a mystery about a historical stained glass panel, said to be haunted. One nitpick so far…I had to read an annoying number of pages before I could figure out what the relationship was between the narrator and the other person she was talking to. I read it twice to see if I was missing the clues, but they just weren’t there. It’s assumed you already know that Tuesday is the protagonist’s stepmother.
I just read a really cute novel: The Call, by Yannick Murphy. It’s about a veterinarian in rural New England with an overly active imagination, which he uses to help deal with a struggling practice and a series of family crises. The book has a quirky format: it’s structured like a series of log entries, which begin with descriptions of his animal visits but quickly stretch to cover his entire life. I enjoyed it.
I read a novel written in the 80’s called Elleander Morning, by Jerry Yulsman. It’s a book about a time-travel plot to kill Hitler, which sounds clichéd, but I’ve never actually read a story with that plot before. The book is a little strange, but I liked it pretty well.
I also picked up Knots and Crosses, the first Inspector Rebus novel by Ian Rankin. It’s a contemporary crime/mystery series set in Edinburgh. I was lukewarm on this one - I liked it just barely well enough to try the next one, to see if they get better.
One of my favorites! The mechanism of time travel is never really explained, but I thought it was a great book. I got my copy from the Science Fiction Book Club back when it was first published.
Grrrr - my library e-copy of The Terror expires today and I’ve still got 40% left to read! I’d gladly pay an overdue fine if I could just keep it a few days longer - guess that’s a drawback of e-lending. At least the Kindle/Kindle app will remember where I was when I check it out again.
Speaking of library e-books - the Diane Rhem Show did a segment on this topic - I listened to about the first 20 minutes & quite enjoyed it - will have to finish it online.
Am finally getting around to Mark Kurlansky’s The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation - I usually don’t do nonfiction audiobooks, but Kurlansky’s style lends itself to listening better than most & George Guidall is quite engaging - and (as best I can tell) doing quite well with the Basque/Euskera words. Spanish was my college major, so some of the history rings a bell, but it’s fascinating to hear it from “the other side”. Am only about 20% in, but I hope it continues to be as absorbing.
I read this one after hearing about it in a thread here a few years back. If I remember right, the thread was something like “Recommend a book nobody else has probably read.” Found some good ones there.
I agree, it’s weird that there haven’t been more time travel books focusing on a Hitler assassination. He’s the guy that everybody would kill if they had a time machine, so why not more books about it?
Just finished Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, liked it a lot. I think Flynn might be a bit twisted, in a good way.
I was reading the Lady Colin Campbell bio of the Queen Mother. It was amusingly awful. Her basic premise is that a) the QM was a lazy, fat, social climbing slob and b) the world would have been off had Wallis and the Nazi loving Edward the 8th been allowed to stay on the throne during WWII.
So we’re treated to pages and pages and pages of ridiculous gossip. The QM was not the countesses’s of Strathmere’s daughter. She was the product of the cook and her father the Earl. She really didn’t love the Duke of York. She was actually in love with the Prince of Wales who rightfully spurned her piggy figure for that of the slender Wallis. Wallis wasn’t really a social climbing, Nazi loving, sexually disordered, lazy, racist, anti-Semitic, unfaithful, clotheshorse who was only interested in getting her grubby hands on anything she could.
Nah. Wallis was really a lovely, chic, Nazi spurning, kind, picked on victim who really should have inherited her uncle’s millions and only hated the QM because Elizabeth was a phoney.
The author also dabbles in nonsense like her assertion that vaccines were responsible for the flu epidemic of 1918 and Elizabeth had Huntington’s disease in her family and lied about it.
I kept picturing the author’s former in-law, a duchess by marriage, telling her the most outrageous lies and then running off to tell her friends about the latest lie she’d fed to her gullible daughter in law.
I’m pretty sure I ordered my copy after you mentioned it in a thread here. It just took me a while to get around to actually reading it. I’m going to have to start making notes somewhere about where I hear about books. I’ll look at a book on my to-read shelf (or a movie in my Netflix queue) and draw a complete blank as to why I have it.
I just finished January First, written by the father of a little girl with schizophrenia. You might have seen them on Oprah or Discovery Health. It was not great writing, but still an interesting story.
Now I just started Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn because I really liked** Gone Girl**.
I finished “Good Omens” last night. I really liked it up until the end. IMHO, I felt as if it kinda ran out of steam. Plus, I hated the character Adam. Hated him so very, very much. I thought he was annoying as hell (HA!).
