Books

I just finished Heaven’s River last night, the fourth book in Dennis S. Taylor’s Bobiverse series. Easily my favorite book in the series so far, I couldn’t put it down.

I had the first book in the series, We Are Legion, We Are Bob recommended to me a while back by a stranger in a local park when our dogs met. It sat in my “to be read” category until, when finishing my re-listen of Project Hail Mary, I noticed that the same narrator did the Bobiverse books. I’ve enjoyed them very much, and I suspect many in the Fediverse would as well. It’s the story of a software developer/physicist/engineer from the 21st century who, after his head is cryogenically frozen when he dies, becomes the replicant intelligence for a von Neumann probe in the 22nd century.

Re-reading Iain M Banks' opus.

Currently: Use Of Weapons. A violent first-person delve into a high level mercenary slowly losing his mind, Culture style.

Unfortunately I still haven't grasped the timeline of the Culture novels, but this feels like one of the earlier ones.

Bingo card:

• Driven by wartime setting(s)
• Title in the format of "X of Y"
• Award winner
• Organized gamble, game or contest (Culture POV)
• Political machinations
• Features a jerk with a heart of gold (debatable)

Just finished Nation by Terry Pratchett and it was one of the most intense books I've read this year. It's supposed to be YA so didn't expect it to be this dark but it really pulls you in. If you like Terry Pratchett definitely give it a read.

Listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman with my wife. The narrator, Jeff Hays, is excellent. Plus, I have checked out some books from my local library for the first time in a while (for physical books at least)

• Captain Kidd: A True Story Of Treasure And Betrayal by Samuel Marquis

some comic collections/graphic novels as well

• Haruki Murakami Manga Stories
• H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulu by Gou Tanabe
• Decorum by Jonathan Hickman

I started the Hainish Cycle books by Ursula Le Guin and have gotten to The Left Hand of Darkness . They are a lot of fun as they feel very nostalgic for me. I very much want to re-read some Anne McCaffrey after this. They are also very sad, as they are usually allegorical and do not reflect our society in a positive light. Nevertheless, they ring very true and are very thought provoking, and her writing is outstanding.

Edit: If anyone is a fan of Le Guin but has NOT read any of Octavia Butler, I highly recommend her works. Especially the Xenogenesis trilogy.

I've nearly finished To Kill a Mockingbird and I've really enjoyed it. I love how the main events have been shown from an 'outside perspective' i.e. news coming second hand from a biased character, or witnessed by Scout/Jem unknowingly by their Father. Perhaps the scariest thing is that these events don't seem all that far-fetched or shocking today...

I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed Old Man's War! Will you be reading the second one? I'll give it a go in the next few months hopefully (though there are some other books I want to read first to help with the bingo).

I'm a regular subscriber to the Folio Society so when they started promoing Piranesi, I was intrigued... not enough to drop $90 on THEIR edition, but enough to check out a less expensive version. 😉

https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/fiction/piranesi

It's a strange book... very metaphorical. I'm not sure what to make of it yet. The protagonist, Piranesi, exists in a series of marble hallways filled with statues and they have been there several years.

They have memory lapses and have been documenting everything in a series of notebooks. There is one other living person, whom they call "The Other" and the skeletal remains of 13 other people.

The hallways exist on three floors, a lower level, open to the sea, where Piranesi can fish in order to survive, an upper level, open to the sky, where rain water collects, and a middle level isolated from the tides below and the storms above, that is habitable.

It's not a BAD read, but definitely not for everyone. Reminds me a lot of experimental 1950s stage plays like Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter.

Doing a re-read of Feist's "Magician: Apprentice" to sort of unwind after reading "It Stops Here" which was really intense.

Finished Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp and now hopping between Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Whitehead’s Process and Reality and The Satanic Verses by Rushdie.

I really liked Redshirts by John Scalzi. Just added Old Man's War!

I'm about halfway through The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers. It's the 4th book in the (semi-non-linear) series. So far I really liked books 1 and 2, 3 was meh, and 0.5 was fine, but expected. 4 is captivating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Land_of_Invented_Languages?wprov=sfla1

I finished "In the Land of Invented Langauges" by Arika Okrent this morning.

I highly recommend it to anybody who is interested in languages or linguistics. She goes through the history of constructed languages more or less chronologically, mainly focusing on a few highly influential ones. It's not a stuffy book about analyzing grammar (although there is some of that). Instead, it's told from a very human perspective. Why did these languages creators do what they did? Who where they? How were they influenced by those that came before?

It's not a humor book, but I found certain parts funny - like when she tried to translate "shit" into a very obtuse language from 1668.

If you like language, it's a kind of cozy feel-good book about the human condition.

From a little free library, just finished Burn by Nevada Barr, part of her Anna Pigeon series. Normally these are all set in a national park, where the natural geology plays a major role in the mystery. This one happens near the New Orleans Jazz Historical Park, but doesn't have anything to do with the park, or jazz, or even New Orleans and could have taken place anywhere there's a black market for certain illicit services. I liked some of the more outdoorsy ones a bit better, but this was worth the read. I have to think about whether Anna Pigeon qualifies as an E5-caliber grump for bingo card.

Still on that Deathlands train. I literally just finished 128. I'm coming to the end of the currently released books now though, I have "Outlanders" a spin off series ready and I also just found out there is another spin off series called "Trader" about a regularly referenced character so I have the first 5 books of that ready to go.

"Old man's war" is a great book. And you've just reminded me that I still haven't read the seventh book in this series, so thank you!

Started listening to Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio.

I keep wavering between this is interesting and I am having fun, to fuck this is just Dune and Name of the Wind, and Gladiator? just got through a part of the book and it felt 100% like Maximus in the Colosseum.

Series seems pretty highly praised so probably stick it out through first book and see how I feel.

About to finish "a confederacy of dunces" bu John Kennedy Toole. Such a funny Book and an hilarious ride. I highly recommend !

Started Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell, although I think I'll be reading it in chunks.

__

Finished The Worm and His Kings by Hailey Piper (culty cosmic horror) | bingo: creature, minority author, short, LGBTQIA+ lead HM, steppin' up HM)

While searching for their missing partner, a homeless person stumbles onto a doomsday cult.

MC seemed well done, interesting ending. Overall, though, I think this was just "fine", and probably won't be reading the sequels.

Started George RR Martin’s “Wild Cards” after seeing someone suggest in c/television that it would make a good tv show. Hoping it gets out of post-WW2 1940s in later chapters.

I’m currently reading Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik

Omg it is so good! It’s the perfect balance of space opera and romance. I read her Starlight’s Shadow trilogy which I really enjoyed but this one is so much better. If I hadn’t had lots to do on my vacation last week, I probably would have finished this book already. It’s so good!

I have not read Old Man’s War, but Scalzi quickly became one of my favorite scifi authors after reading a few of his books. I love his humor.

Later today, I’m picking up All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu. It’s new out today and he is another one of my favorite authors. I’m excited to read it!

Just finished the Farseer trilogy. Really liked it, though I thought the end was a little too happy and clean.

Started Emberdark by Sanderson. Really enjoying it so far.

Finished "salvager" and "boots down" by Scott Moon. Some military SF pulp basically, which fits my mood at the moment. Basically OK books if you want to have something to read and not think too much. The writer seems to have started out as a co-author to J.N. Chaney, some background info on Chaney in this reddit thread. Moon seems to have copied the style of J.N. Chaney, churning out books every few months. So kind of the fast food of the literary world, produced with cheap ingredients but it will still the hunger in a pinch. It reminds of Skyler Ramirez (I read a few of his books a while ago), and I'm still not convinced these writers don't make extensive use of AI since they seem to be writing more than Stephen King on his most productive days.

I'm reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It's a Russian book written in the early 1900s, and it tells the story of Satan visiting the Soviet Union. Naturally, it was originally released in a censored form. I don't know, the book felt relevant somehow.

The Road by Cormac Maccarthy

Page 1199 of Franz Leibers Swords and Deviltry. 1/3 left.

A must read IMO for for example tolkien fans. Little bit more mature and deeper personalities. Sometimes a bit whimsical.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fallen Star by Lee Goldberg

I've been on hiatus the last couple of months as have very limited time, but still follow new releases from my favourite authors.

I'm in the last half of The Wanderers by Meg Howrey. I had gotten a few "available now" titles from my library's e-lending and had very little idea of what it was I got going into it. I've been really enjoying it. It's very atmospheric even if it's kind of slow paced.