February 2010 SF reading

Just started The Masks of Time by Silverberg. This is an oldie from 1968, reissued in 2002 by Gollancz under their Collectors Editions strand. It seems it was originally titled Vornan 19, which is the name of the character that appears out of nowhere on Christmas Day 1998,claiming to be from a thousand years in the future.

I'm reading "The Island of Dr. Moreau" by H.G.Wells.

As I've almost finished Line of Polity, I'll be moving onto Brass Man. These books are frustratingly difficult to find in the US. I have Gridlinked and Brass Man, but unless I luck at the bookstore all the rest are going to be library books. Which is bad because they don't have a copy of the last one, Line War. Time to head to abebooks...

brightcopy, have you tried Book Depository? That's where I got some of Asher's less available works, and they have free shipping worldwide.

4> Excellent! The free shipping really clinches the deal. Thanks so much for the pointer. Dang, they only have the paperback. Maybe I'll get it and donate it to the library when I get the hardback so they'll have the full set. I'm really digging Neal Asher.

Brightcopy, have you visited Neal Asher's blog?

Just started Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon.

Just finished Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. A touch of sci fi, but my first inclination is to classify it as 'really f*cking weird'. But not in a bad way :) A very quick read and a pretty good book.

Brightcopy, some of Asher's later works haven't been published in the US. He is published by TOR - but it is often TOR UK. I have had to import the last couple from the Book Depository (didn't check for used).

I will be reading a S.M. Stirling book later this month for a RL book group.

Didn't Night Shade publish some of his novels in the US?

Yes, but they are side stories to the main series.

6> Poked around at his blog a little, but not a lot. I'm sometimes afraid of finding out too much about authors (*cough*Orson Scott Card*cough*). Is there anything there specific you wanted to point out?

9>Yeah, I have the TOR US editions of Gridlinked and Brass Man. Was even able to get Brass Man new (trade paperback only) from Amazon. But the others are pretty damn scarce.

Gave up on Bright of the Sky. If I wanted to read Cherryh, I'd read Cherryh. Started The Turing Test, a collection of stories by Chris Beckett.

Been watching more movies and television than reading, but I've been re-reading the Akira graphic novel series. A rather impressive work -an exciting story with some intelligent themes and ideas, and excellent black and white illustrations, too.

I'm reading The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin.

So far this month I have read Virtual Light by William Gibson, the first book in the Bridge Trilogy, and have started the sequel, Idoru.
I really enjoyed VL, and can't belive that it had been on my shelf for over 5 years before I got round to reading it. It did seem to come to a dead stop at the end. I really prefer books to round the story off a bit better.

I'm reading 'Janissaries' by Jerry Pournelle.

Message 15: calm
"I'm reading The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin."

One of my favourite books which is weird in that it is quite dry and didactic at times. The cultural and psychological struggles of the protagonist Shevek just really fascinate me.

I just finished Precious Dragon, the third in the Inspector Chen series by Liz Williams.

Well I'm bored with Masks of Time. Its like Silverberg has this great idea, a man appearing from the future, but chooses to do nothing with him! Is like a poor man's Stranger in a Strange Land!

I've just started Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson.

Re-reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

**Anyone know why the Philip K. Dick touchstone doesnt' work?**

22> It's just one of the touchstone bugs. LT is aware of them but just taking a frustrating amount of time to fix them.

Just finished Stapledon's Last and First Men today, also still reading A.E. van Vogt's Slan. I usually prefer newer novels, it's odd how I'm reading two old (1940's) books at the same time.

Next I'm finally starting on Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. And I'm continuing to read a short story at a time from the anthologies Perpetuity Blues and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection.

I'm page ~150 of House of Suns, by Alastair Reynolds. I like it, but I'm not sure how much I like it. Reynolds has done some mind-bending world-building, and I get bogged down simply trying to visualize what he is trying to show me. (This is my first Alastair Reynolds book.)

#24

There is a SF Group Read site on LT here: (http://www.librarything.com/groups/groupreadsscifi) where we have, in fact, read and discussed "Last and First Men". If you wish, feel free to contribute your thoughts in the related thread because quite a few people have read the book.

Speaking of the "SF Group Read" group, is anyone interested in reviving the group? We didn't get many responses for the last book (twenty-four and counting), but perhaps a few months break from the group read might have made people slightly more eager for another book?

Sorry about the above posts - my internet connection seems to be playing up.

Just finished, 'High Justice' by Jerry Pournelle, moving onto 'King David's Spaceship' also by Pournelle.

25: Alastair Reynolds is a writer I wish I liked. The plot synopses of his books always sound like they're just the sort of thing I'd like, and yet I have a terrible time actually finishing any of his books. The two I finished were a very slow slog, and I've given up on four others. I can't exactly put my finger on what's wrong, they're just glacially slow and I'm never enjoying them enough to be worth the slog. Which is too bad, because I want to like his writing.

>29 cosmicdolphin:

Just finished cataloguing both of those. Did a bit of reading about the CoDominium to try and get my series tagging correct, and there is some opinion that Exiles to Glory (which I don't have) might come between those two works. Of course, there are other opinions (follow the link to 'Gorbachev and "High Justice"') that neither High Justice nor Exiles to Glory fall within the CoDominium Universe.

31: There isn't much clarity about where they fit. I'd like to think they probably are CoDominium. I'll be at a few SF cons this year, If I see Pournelle, I'll ask him.

#30 The first Reynolds book I read was tough for me as well, but then I guess I "got in the groove" as all the subsequent books ended up being very good reads. Part of the problem is he tends not to explain things until later in the book, preferring to concentrate on the action and plot sequences. Ian Banks tends to do similar but has faster pacing.

Must admit I'm a big fan of Reynolds, and have all his books. Never found them especially slow - if anything, he has a tendency to speed up towards the end, and the pacing can be a little uneven.

I agree with the slow slog on Reynolds, but they are also enjoyable.

I just started The Sky People by S.M. Stirling. Its for a RL book group.

I'm starting on A Canticle for Leibowitz tonight.

I'd been vaguely aware of the book for a while, but never got around to picking it up. John Picacio's awesome cover finally changed that when I saw it this summer.

I finished Blindsight by Peter Watts and it is the first book I've read in several years (including Greg Egan's works) that has *so* much jargon that I have given up trying to understand the exact meaning of the events that are occurring, or the ideas and discussions that are covered in the writing, and instead simply ignore them and try to follow the plot to its conclusion. Many of the ideas eventually begin to take hold, though, and I found them fascinating. About four stars. Recommended for hearty, dedicated SF veterans that can handle a cast of unfortunate, bloodless characters. Whatever that means. Finally beginning to read Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott.

>28 rojse:
>Speaking of the "SF Group Read" group, is anyone interested in reviving the group? We didn't get many responses for the last book (twenty-four and counting), but perhaps a few months break from the group read might have made people slightly more eager for another book?

That's interesting, I didn't know such a group existed. I actually would be quite interested in joining up such a group in the coming months, whatever the chosen book is. How does nominations/voting work?

I'm reading "The Invisible Man" by H.G.Wells.

I'm reading The Keep by F. Paul Wilson, a horror set in Romania in 1941,from the view of the German army.

#40 I have the DVD. It's not bad.

40+41:

The Keep is an enjoyable book.

The Movie is a Stinker though. The First 20 minutes are just fine and it has that awesome Tangerine Dream Soundtrack. But Michael Mann really screwed up that movie, and he knows it, won't have anything to do with the film.

Shame it's not available on a real DVD, only bootleg though. They nearly put it out as a Vanilla DVD a few years back, F. Paul Wilson had two comedians record a commentary that he was going to issue himself in protest at the Vanilla release.

Both the Movie and the Soundtrack seem to have legal issues surrounding them, thus no real release since the Laser Disc.

Reading Sargasso of Space by Andre Norton - found it in a Goodwill and it's been a long time since I read it - this copy has a great Jeff Jones cover....

> 38

I certainly would be interested in another group read! I like them - they push me a little out of my comfort zone and get me to read things I otherwise may not.

In other news, I've recently finished Earth Abides. At times I loved it, at times I wanted to chuck it across the room. As it was a library book, I nobly refrained.

>40 sf_addict:, 41, 42

I enjoy the movie for the soundtrack and for Ian McKellen's performance, but I had absolutely no idea what was supposed to be going on until I read the book. Then I felt better because I realized that it really was impossible to understand the plot from the movie alone.

New to this group, but not to Science Fiction. Currently reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. It's a pretty intense post apocalyptic work. Also to lighten up, I'm reading "Triple Detente" by Piers Anthony.

>43 johnnyapollo:

Another book I've just catalogued in my attempt to get through the boxes that have followed me from my previous home, and have only just been opened.

I've just started Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, in an attempt to shrink the non-fiction tbr pile.

Currently storming through Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

#38

Nominations work by all interested people on the group listing the books they would like to read for the next group read (within reason - don't nominate your entire TBR list). After a week or two, group members then choose to second one book from the list they did not nominate. The top five books (more if there is a tie) go to a poll, the winner becoming the next book that the group reads.

Oh, and Einhorn, feel free to contribute your thoughts to the discussion of "Last and First Men".

#44
Well, that makes... er, two. Three if I count Einhorn's inquiry. I'm sure more are interested, and are too shy to mention it. Or don't get on here often enough to let everyone know.

I finished up The Vor Game by L M Bujold a couple days ago. Liked it well enough but found it not a terribly strong novel. It perhaps has too many echoes of The Warrior's Apprentice but it benefits from a cast of characters that includes some from the prior work, although mostly in limited ways. I liked getting a better handle on the emperor Gregor here. I'll certainly be reading more in the Vorkosigan saga.

#49

I'm sure a lot of us will continue with the group read. The problem I had was that a number of the books I had recently reread a few months before the group read so didn't want to spend time reading them again. I think the best way forward is to start a new thread in the SF Group Read group and see who bites.

Works for me. Admittedly, I found it hard to source a couple of the books the group picked. I never bothered joining the local library and I didn't want to pay full whack - or even over the odds - for a book I'd likely get rid of once I'd read it...

> 52 I never bothered joining the local library

That's easily solved! ;)

Just finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and I want MORE! Does anyone know if there will be a sequel? Guess I'll go check his website.

#53 I have enough books to read without resorting to libraries :-)

The nomination thread for the "SF Group Reads" is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/84535&newpost=1#lastmsg

As always, anyone who has not yet joined the group is free to do so.

Just read Paul McAuley's 2005 thriller, Mind's Eye. It was okay for what it was (and did keep me turning the pages), but I prefer his SF writing.

I'm reading The Past Through Tomorrow.

Just started Selections from Science Fiction Thinking Machines.

Reading Nova War, Gary Gibson.

Finishing Eddings Mallorean, then it's on to The Final Encyclopedia

>43 johnnyapollo: etc
I never realised there was a movie from The Keep!

Finished Look at the Birdie recently, "Unpublished Short Fiction" by Kurt Vonnegut. I think most of these stories come from a time before he published his novels-with their characteristic "twisted", usually humorous, style that became his trademark. I glean this from the Foreword by author Sidney Offit who does not state that categorically but gives background on Vonnegut's short stories for magazines which preceded his novels.

All the stories are extremely clever and seem to have a "moral" or positive lesson to make. Maybe this is the post World War II attitude of the 1950's that fit the literary market of the times - the forward mentions Vonnegut musing over whether/how to tailor his shorts to the market.

Vonnegut fans will like this I think, these are all solid publishable stories that hold their own and some show the development of Vonnegut's style and dance back & forth over the line between SF or other fiction.

>62 sf_addict:

The film version of The Keep has been thoroughly disowned by F. Paul Wilson, and for good reason; it's drek!

Just finished The engine of recall by Karl Schroeder, now ten pages into Spirit: or the Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones.

I'd be interested to hear what you think of Spirit, or the Princess of Bois Dormant. I rated it as one of the best sf novels of last year.

Over at the "Group Reads Sci-Fi" group, we are currently in the middle of the process for nominating our next book for the SF group read. People have voted for books they would like for the next group read, and now everyone in the group has the chance to vote for one of the short-listed books, with the top five books going to an online poll, the winner of which is the next book we all read and discuss.

If you have not yet joined the group, feel free to join in here:

http://www.librarything.com/groups/groupreadsscifi

There are also a variety of books which have already been discussed by our members, so feel free to join in any of the discussions of previous books, if you are interested.

Finished the disappointing Space Opera edited by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. {Review} and continuing with Bad Science.

Found Snow Crash quite bizarre. Read my review of it for more, but I liked the ingenius world and the general idea, but the execution, I thought, was poor. However, that hasn't stopped me loving Quicksilver so far...

To Moonshine Max:
I just finished that last night...for the 6-7th time!! I hope you post a review!!

Finally got around to finishing up Titans of Chaos; 'B' for the book, 'A' for the series. As much as I enjoyed the whole I'm not sure that Wright needed nine-hundred pages to tell this story. While the conceit that each of the five demigods who are the heroes of the book have to use their different powers in concert to gain results is cool, the overall concept becomes ponderous over time; sort of like a long-running RPG campaign where the characters have achieved so many levels that it takes forever to get through one turn.

#69 Moon. Odd, I had just the opposite reaction. Snow Crash was one of the first books I read when I started reading SF again and I thought it was a monumental & entertaining work- better than Johnny Mnemonic by Gibson which was all the rage then.

I eagerly picked up Quicksilver to read and even though I like shiny things I could not finish the book. I think descriptions, spanning entire pages, of the clothes people were wearing threw me off the most. Maybe I will try again some day.

I am reading The Big Time by Fritz Leiber, not as great as I had hoped, O.K truth be told, if I had bought it I would return it.

73> Well, I liked it. Look on the bright side - at least its' short!

I'm about to start Ape and Essence.

>66 iansales:

Ian, I will post a review here.

It's been a slow month because I've been watching the Olympics, so I've only read one SF book, Catalyst: A Tale of the Barque Cats by Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and I wish I hadn't bothered.

Just doing my usual selling pitch for the "Group Reads Sci-Fi" group... just in case any person who has recently joined LibraryThing is interested in participating in a science-fiction flavoured group read. Anyone who is on LT is free to join the group (group is here: http://www.librarything.com/groups/groupreadsscifi).

We've spent the last few weeks nominating books that we thought would make for an interesting group read and discussion, and we have narrowed the decision down to six candidates, which you can vote on here:

http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=201527

The shortlist is of the following books:

"A Canticle for Liebowitz", by Walter M. Miller Jr.
"Darwinia", by R.C. Wilson
"Emissaries From The Dead", by Adam-Troy Castro
"Galileo's Dream", by Kim Stanley Robinson
"Gather, Darkness", by Fritz Leiber
"Jesus Incident", by Frank Herbert

The winner of the poll is the book that we all read and discuss over the next month.

Just started Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon. Not sure what to make of it after only a couple of chapters, but I find I am concentrating more on the style of writing than the story, which is never a good sign. Two glaring errors in use of English so far.

Next up Prador Moon by Neal Asher,a new author for me!

Began The Artificial Kid by Bruce Sterling a couple of days ago. Fun.

Just finished Grimspace (C/C-); the main character is interesting and there are just enough plot twists to make up for a fairly stereotypical space opera milieu. I'm probably being too nice.

Just finished Brass Man by Neal Asher (hope you enjoy Prador Moon, sf_addict!) and belatedly ordered Polity Agent to be transferred to my local library branch. Really wish I'd done that a week ago!

I've just passed the halfway point in Excession.

>84 brightcopy:, well I have read the first chapter and yea, its good! Crab paste,lol

Being one of those dreadful people who read several books at one time, I'm reading (in SF)
Steampunk , The Difference Engine and First Men in the Moon. I've recently finished The War of the Worlds certainly the best of his early SF novels.
I'm also reading Well's The Wheels of Chance and re-reading Penelope Fitzgerald's Gate of Angels so I guess I'm on a bit of a Victorian/Edwardian kick at the moment.

I'm about half way though Vurt strange but I like it, it's a different kind of cyberpunk than anything I have read before.

>88 Majorbrew: ...and it really never slows down. In my opinion, required reading.

(edited for unnecessary use of the word 'really')

I just finished The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.

It had a bit of a slow start but by the mid-way point really got going. I'm really interested to see where he goes in the next book (I think he's aiming for a sequel, he certainly left it looking that way).

'The High Frontier' by Gerard K. O'Neill

Not quite SF, but near enough.

More like alternate history, these days...

Loved this book when it came out it '77. I still think it was the only way to go. It's a much more feasible solution than terraforming and planets are dangerous places. It was however too big an engineering leap. The Stanford Torus was a more achievable plan but even this is beyond us at the
moment.

Finished Prador Moon last night-brilliant!
Next up, a change of pace, Teranesia by Australian author Greg Egan

I finished House of Suns. As I commented earlier, it started kind of slow. However, the pace did pick up about 2/3s of the way through, and the ending was pretty good.

I'm off to fantasyland with A Clash of Kings. It's also my first ebook (I'm reading it with a Nook.) So far, the device works mostly as advertised. The low contrast screen is definitely easier on the eyes than a computer screen.

Shouldn't we be starting a March thread?

Just posted my review of Assassin's Apprentice on my blog - see here.