So, What Are You Reading?

Currently reading The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez.

On the day of her birth, Constance Verity was blessed by her fairy godmother with a life of adventure and danger. Fast-forward ~30 years and she's gotten pretty damn sick of it. She's spent her life stopping alien invasion fleets, killing evil alternate universe doppelgangers of herself, having an on-again-off-again relationship with the world's greatest ninja/thief, and rescuing her best friend from singing pirates three times a week, twice on Fridays. It gets old fast.

So what's an eminently reasonable person like Connie to do? Why, kill her fairy godmother, of course.

Edited by Eagal on Dec 7th 2023 at 2:00:07 AM

I think you mean Eminently here.

Finished reading: Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, by Jonathan Culler

Started reading: Behavioral Economics: A Very Short Introduction, by Michelle Baddeley, and The Origins of the Second World War, by A.J.P. Taylor.

Finished Clive Barker's Imajica last week. Yeah, that was weird, but the pretty good kind of weird, and with the length of this novel, the situation and the characters changed very, VERY drastically over the course of the story. Although I still can't wrap my mind around Gentle and Pie'Oh'Pah's sex scene, as I just can't picture how it looks like due to the latter's nature...

I'm currently at 1/3rd of Peter V Brett's The Warded Man (or The Painted Man, apparently).

Stuff I've read since I last posted, sorted from least to most favorite: Scattered Suns by Kevin J. Anderson, Naamah's Blessing by Jacqueline Carey, Of Fire and Night by Kevin J. Anderson, Metal Swarm by Kevin J. Anderson, Murder in Retrospect by Agatha Christie, How The Light Gets In by Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny, The Ashes of Worlds by Kevin J. Anderson, The Long Way Home by Louise Penny, The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman.

Currently rereading: The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby.

Finished Peter V Brett's The Warded Man last Friday. I was pleasantly surprised by this, as I needed a bit of convincing for buying it in a garage sale, and it's not bad at all. Now the main problem, as I expected when I bought it, is that it's the first tome of a saga, so now I'd have to hunt down the other ones...

In turn I've started Liu Cixin's The Three Bodied Problem, which I got for Christmas. I've seen a few enthuastic reviews about it, I hope it will be worth it !

Edited by purplefishman on Jan 7th 2024 at 1:42:31 PM

Finished The Three Bodied Problem. I... Might have put a bit too many expectations on it. The amount of scientific talk in it really got me confused at times. But I was especially disappointed about the shift to the Trisolarans' POV near the end of the book, as it gave way too much insight about the way they think, and made it wayyyy too humanlike to my taste (the cosmic horror fan in me likes his aliens to have incomprehensible motives, I guess). It was also filled with infodump and As You Know moments that felt a bit too on the nose. Oh well, I'll see how it goes in the other two books.

Started Xavier Mauméjean's Car je suis Légion (For I am Legion), a thriller that takes place in ancient Babylone, told through the perspective of an Accuser, a magistrate who's basically a Bronze Age Judge.

Currently reading: Death by Shelly Kagan, a professor of philsophy at Yale University, a book that explores the nature and implications of death in philosophical terms.

Finished Car je suis Légion. I really digged it. The ancient Mesopotamian setting is an unusual setting that's quite fascinating to explore. The plot was gripping, the characters were pretty nicely rounded, and the large importance of babylonian mysticism added something pretty unique. Warmly recommended if you can read french (I didn't find any traces of it having been translated in english).

Started Dean Koontz' Strangers. I actually started to read it many years ago, and never got far because... Quite frankly, I don't know why, probably got sidetracked by something else. Let's see how it goes this time.

Just finished Children of Time (2015) and Children of Ruin. Pretty hardcore but uplifting Xenofiction.

They feel like a direct refutation of The Three-Body Problem. Instead of "understanding other species is impossible, therefore everyone will always try to destroy everyone else," it's very much "we can make it work even though understanding is genuinely difficult, and diversity only improves out lives."

It also includes a surly AI who runs off the calculations of an ant colony.

Just finished volume 10 of Reign of the Seven Spellblades earlier this week. Best volume yet, complete rollercoaster from start to finish.

Been re-reading Cradle Series because of the Kickstarter for the animation. Well, more specifically the trailer got me to get started on that.

currently reading Chainsaw man volume 1 and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Oh yeah and Emperor of Thorns

Recently found this fun graphic novel in my local library titled Yummy: A History of Desserts. It's a colorful in-depth look at the origins of several different sweet dishes, and I really enjoy the artstyle and research!

Just finished re-reading Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus, and am pondering whether I have the will to create a works page for it.

Still plowing through The Slavonic Languages—have finally reached Slovak, which is roughly the book's midway point.

Finished Dean Koontz's Strangers last friday. It was starting pretty great, with those people suffering from various phobias/disorders that apparently go back to something that was erased from their memories... And then the ending makes it cliché. It's aliens. Well, it's the american government which brainwashed them, but of course it has to do with aliens. And the final stretch gets so naively optimistic about why aliens would try to contact other civilizations, it becomes nauseating. It's like Koontz read Rendezvous with Rama, but decided to throw away all the mystery that was making it a very good sci-fi book. Also not a big fan of the emphasis on religious sentiment at the end of the book, but that's just my atheist point of view violently objecting to anything of the sort, so I won't use that as an argument for not reading it.

Started reading Karen Harper's Down to the bone. Something about a mystery in an amish community ? I'm not expecting much, but hey, I got that book for free, I won't be too picky.

Edited by purplefishman on Feb 4th 2024 at 10:31:15 AM

I just finished reading The Hobbit. While there were parts where I felt it dragged on, it had a lot of memorable moments throughout the adventure. A charming part of it is how often Tolkien breaks the 4th wall; it's written as if he was narrating the story to his children. Something that disappointed me was how much of an Anti-Climax Boss Smaug was, especially since he was hyped in-and-out-of-universe often. But all-in-all, I enjoyed reading my first fantasy novel.

Listening to That Hideous Strength. This far, it is a very disappointing follow up to Perelandra. I'm more than a quarter in, and it's mostly just a bunch of dull University politics.

Finished Karen Harper's Down to the bone this morning.

...

Dear Lord, that was bad. I know I'm not in the intended demographic, but the mystery was rather meh, the main character has all the attributes of a rebellious-but-not-too-much-you-wouldn't-want-her-to-actually-challenge-the-patriarchy-would-you Mary Sue, the romance part was extremely sappy with a sickeningly sweet "love at first sight" approach... But the worst part were the dialogues. I can understand having amish people talk a bit flowery, but when the author start putting words in other people (especially regular teenagers)'s mouth, you have to wonder if she had actually heard any real person talk in her life. There are two scenes where survivalists catcall the main character, and they're absolutely surreal.

And yet I had to finish it. It was... Fascinating. In a "how can this get more ridiculous and cliché ?" way.

Started Peter Straub's Ghost Story. I've seen it in a few "best contemporary horror novels" lists, I hope I'll like it.

Reading Perfect Run. It's a timeloop story about a guy who can make a save point. He uses this power to fix everything in a single city, even if it takes centuries of repeating until he gets it right, until he finishes his last "Perfect Run" and moves on.

Finished reading: Death by Shelly Kagan.

Started reading: Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, by Kevin Passmore

Recently read "The Comic Book Lesson" by Mark Crilley.

Finished Peter Straub's Ghost Story. Let me tell you, it being sometimes cited as one of the finest examples of modern horror novels is absolutely understandable. It's very difficult for me to feel dread while reading, but the way Straub wrote it made it quite chilling in its more tense moments. And it doesn't rely on gore or shock. Just some carefully planted atmosphere that makes the progression of the terror that slowly but surely takes over the book's main location unescapable. Very, very recommended, and one of my best reads of those last months.

It's winter vacation time now. Once I'll get back to work, I'll start Jesse Kellerman's The Genius.

I recently reread Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it before, especially if you're a fan of Gaiman's works.

Just finished reading A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher! Always a big fan of the voice in her writing. This is the first of her outright horror novels that I've read (on account of being a big ol' weenie) and while the imagery is Haunting (pun unintended) her approach to it kept me in the Enjoyably Spooked zone and not the Nope Can't Read Any More Of This zone. That's saying a lot, given that this book tackles the scariest possible concept: "what if your racist grandma refused to stay dead"