The Books of Summer (in the North, at least) - August 2014 reading

It falls to me to kick off August. I've re-started my Iain Banks memorial Culture re-read with Look to Windward.

Not really reading any SF at the moment but I wanted to mark my space (so to speak.)

I'm reading Rendezvous with Rama. It's nice to get away from the scorched earth of the Earthseed books and back out to space.

Reading The Martian. So far, so good.

Spotted a curio at the local bookmarket today: the original Ballantine paperpack of Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth's Presidential Year, a mainstream novel.

Based on everyone's favorable comments on the book, I have also just begun to read The Martian by Andy Weir.

I've finally dived into The Shining Girls, which has been sat waiting for my attention for far too long.

I'm reading Charles Stross HaltinG StatE . I'm trying out several near future scifi books. It's good but you really need to know about massive online role playing games to really appreciate it.

Just starting Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie which I got as an Early Reviewer book a week or so ago. You know, since it's been out for ten months. I'm assuming that they're trying to gin up more sales for the paperback in addition to all the award nominations news is the reason for putting the book on the ER list.

I read three book by David Weber in the last month or so, Like a Mighty Army, Torch of Freedom, and Cauldron of Ghosts. Mighty Army was what I've grown to expect from that series. If you skim it, it's decent, if you slow down, you realize just how bad the book is.

Torch and Cauldron were better which I credit to having to discuss with Eric Flint how to co-write the story. The last third (200 pages) of each book was actually pretty good. Regardless, I quit buying Weber's books along about 2000 and none of these three made me change my mind.

Also, I see where Weber is starting a fourth story line in the Honorverse because apparently writing three story lines in an average to badly fashion isn't enough.

Finished Jonathan Lethem's non-SF The Fortress of Solitude earlier this week. I'm still not sure what genre it is (magic-realist superhero fiction, maybe?). Anyway, my review is here:

http://www.librarything.com/work/5984/reviews/97376037

Just started: a non-fiction book (Kirby: King of Comics).

I'm reading Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity 1 which, since it involves a modern American civil war, might be considered science fiction.

Picked up The 1973 Annual World's Best SF edited by Donald. A. Wollheim at a second-hand bookshop a few weeks ago and just started reading it at the weekend. It's reminding me just how good Tiptree, Pohl, and Poul Anderson are - really enjoying it.

>14 SChant: Reading old "Best of" anthologies is always an interesting exercise to see how ideas and writing styles have stood the test of time.

I just finished Authority by Jeff Vandermeer and loved it. I find I'm experiencing it in a similar way to how I felt about the Ian Tregillis trilogy (Milkweed Triptych) starting with Bitter Seeds. Throughout the series, I'd come close to giving up because I felt like I was too dumb to comprehend what was going on. But I stuck with it because the ideas and the writing were both so compelling. Just when I'd feel frustrated, I'd get rewarded with an insight and the story would advance, and then I'd be dazzled all over again. Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy is captivating me in the same way.

Finished An Alien Light which had a lot more meat to it than I expected, starting Chasm City despite a pretty flimsy memory of what happened in Revelation Space.

I'm really enjoying China Mountain Zhang.

>18 karspeak: I loved China Mountain Zhang

I just finished Rendezvous with Rama I was a bit disappointed. I loved Childhood's End but I didn't find Rama nearly as interesting.

#17 Chasm City can be read pretty much stand alone, in fact I read it before Revelation Space.

> 20 good to hear. Thanks.

>19 fikustree: Excellent. It is so well written...

Reading Protector by Larry Niven...

I've opened Tigerman by Nick Harkaway ... so there's no chance of me putting it down.

Just finished Brain Plague by Joan Slonczewski. Not nearly as powerful as A Door into Ocean, and for me some of the ideas were stretched (microbe-sized intelligent beings? Well, she's a microbiologist so I'm probably off base) and the plot was implausible at times (in a "why-do-you-keep-going-into-those-dark-rooms-when-you-know-there's-a-monster-around" way). Still, the characters were good and there was her usual skillful exploration of ethical issues.
In short, I'd recommend it, but if the person hadn't read Door, I'd recommend that first.

> 25 She had intelligent microbes in The Highest Frontier too and I did not find it convincing (nor did I like the tone of this essential YA novel). They have found bacteria that can transmit electricity between cells but any network would be so prone to disruption that it's difficult to imagine a persistent sentient state.

I'm reading Buried Deep: A Retrieval Artist Novel #4 in the wonderful Retrieval Artist Series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I have read the first three books in the series and I have become a fan. Looking forward to diving into this one.

Just finished The Martian last night. What a terrific book! Snarky, geeky, nerdy, and MacGuyver in Space. ;)

>28 majkia: The Martian is one of my favorite reads this year. A story that has stayed with me unlike some you forget about the next week or so.

Started a re-read (after decades) of HG Wells' Time Machine. It is much shorter than I remembered. Perhaps the various films have enhanced the story in my mind. I am very much enjoying the original although the manner of speaking (from 1895) throws me off a little. I want to read Baxter's The Time Ships soon after.

Reading Manifold: Space by Stephen Baxter...

>10 pjfarm: I love your comments about David Weber's books, they made me laugh. I haven't read any of his stuff for a long time, but I still have a lot of his Honorverse books which I enjoyed even though I skipped over the political stuff.

Just finished: Kirby: King of Comics. (Should have a review posted soon.)

Just started: Cthulhu's Reign. (Post-apocalyptic Cthulhu Mythos fiction? Yes, please.)

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>29 RBeffa:

I picked up a copy of The Time Ships recently, so have been thinking of doing a Time Machine/Time Ships read as well

I do my good-literary-netizen duty with a review of Notes from the Internet Apocalypse in my thread...post #185.

My best read of the year so far is Greg Egan’s Orthogonal trilogy (The clockwork rocket, The eternal flame and The arrows of time). The name of the trilogy comes from its setting in a universe that is not ours, but is never the less consistent in the way its physics works. There is intelligent life which is very different in nature from humanity but has the same drive to understand its environment.

>34 AlanPoulter:

Very hard SF though - I have never seen so many diagrams in a novel.

>32 artturnerjr: I really enjoyed Wells' The Time Machine even if it felt too short compared to my age old memory. It was a good re-read. Started on Steven Baxter's The Time Ships last night, just a bit of it, and it is pretty darn good. The prologue revisits the last pages of Wells' original novel, but from the perspective of the Time Traveler rather than the Writer (presumed to be H G himself). We flow right into the events at the end of the Time Machine where the Time Traveler seemingly has disappeared into time. I'm impressed. Time Ships came out 100 years after Wells' 1895 novel and Baxter made a strong effort (at the beginning anyway) to be very true to the style and sensibilities of the original work. Time Ships must be three times the length of the original though so I suspect I am in for a good ride. Already at the beginning Baxter veers off with surprises such as the many worlds theory and the introduction of a mysterious watcher.

I have another book or two I should finish up before diving headlong into this, but it is hard to resist. I'm curious to see how Weena, the Eloi girl/woman is handled with respect to the Traveler. In the original Wells danced around any physical relationship although I strongly suspected one. She kissed on him and slept with him but he presented her more as a pet cat.

>35andyl

I thought the diagrams helped a lot in understanding the Very Hard SF...just text would have made it too opaque.

>37 AlanPoulter: Greg Egan's work has been described as "not just hard SF, but bloody difficult SF!"

Having finished Richard Peters' Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity, I'm on to the sequel. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in depictions of modern warfare. Nothing technological or scientifically speculative in the book, but I'm considering it political science fiction.

I'm about to finish Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships and I'm distinctly underwhelmed. It started off well enough as a direct sequel to The Time Machine but it rather quickly (and repeatedly) got bogged down in multiple ways. For one thing it must be four times the length of The Time Machine. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it was. Various sequences just go on forever. There is good stuff in there but also lots of extended scenes that offer little value. Baxter gets quite repetitive in the book.

I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like Baxter much as a writer.

ETA: I posted a short review of the book. I wavered between 3 and 3 1/2 stars. Settled on three. Afterwards I read RandyStafford's review. He and others do a much better job of focusing on the strengths of the novel and appreciated it more than I did.

I can't believe I'm just now getting around to writing a review of Earth Abides. Still my favorite post-apocalypse story.

>41 richardderus: I haven't read that one. I'll have to remedy that.

I'm caught up on new books and books checked out from the library so I'm rereading a few by Heinlein, starting with Job: A Comedy of Justice.

August is re-read month for me, and I am re-reading The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer which I first read in the 1980s. I had forgotten almost everything about this book except that I had really enjoyed it, but luckily someone posted a successful request for it on Name that book, or a similar board elsewhere. All I would have been able to write in a Name That Book post would have been "it was science fiction and the there was a woman, and she had a cat. Not an ordinary cat, maybe magical or kind of Shrodingery".

The copy I read way back when was called "Amanda and the Eleven Million Mile High Dancer" and had a much more interesting cover as well as a better title. At the moment Amanda is roller-skating around NASA while preparing for the first manned trip to Mars, and the magical cat (whose name is Schrodinger) hasn't turned up yet.

I bought a copy of Lavie Tidhar's Osama at Loncon, and managed to finish it by the time I got home.

>42 karspeak: It's 65 years old, and to my amazement, with a very, very few mental edits I was still convinced by the story. I tried adding in the explanation of his cell service not reaching into the wilderness, and so forth...found it holds up to the additions!

I hope you'll enjoy it when you read it.

>46 richardderus: Excellent, I'm looking forward to it.

Started reading an old anthology New Tales of Space and Time, Raymond Healy's followup to the classic Adventures in Space and Time . The old pb comes with this classic advert
.

Started The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013 edited by Rich Horton a few days ago - thrilled to see that two-thirds of the contributors are women, not the usual proportion in SFF anthologies; then the library produced a copy of The Republic of Thieves that I had requested. Both of those are too bulky to carry on the bus to work so I also started a re-read of The Revolution of Saint Jone by Lorna Mitchell which I picked up second-hand a few weeks ago, and despite slightly clunky language and a few chunks of exposition it's holding up pretty well for it's age.

Reading Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman. YA, by author of the Unwind series.

"What do you do the morning after you find out you're an extraterrestrial? I had some Wheaties, then went off to school."

Just started Descent, and only 20 pages in I'm wondering why we don't talk about Ken MacLeod more.

>51 iansales:

Not sure. Descent is a fine book. Ken MacLeod is one of those writers I always read in hardcover as soon as I have my hands on the book - so I read Descent back in March and loved it. Looking at the book it has 22 owners - maybe because it is only out in hardcover and (fairly expensive) ebook at the moment.

I pick up Ken's books as soon as they're published, although I don't read them straightaway (but that's true of pretty much every new book I buy...). I thought Intrusion was excellent, and it did get quite a bit of discussion. Perhaps it's the online circles I move in, but at present a lot of people are talking more about YA than they are middle-aged white males like Ken.

>51 iansales: >52 andyl:

Or maybe it is because the US editions are lagging years behind the UK ones and the conversation gets disjointed... I get the UK ones usually days after publication... need to get around to Descent.

Reread Theodore Sturgeon's short story "Microcosmic God" for our discussion of same over at The Weird Tradition:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/179230

Up next: Another skiffy classic (Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life") for next week's discussion in the same group. As always, our pals over here at SF Fans are more than welcome to come join in. :)

>48 RBeffa:

Love it!

>55 artturnerjr: My copy of Science Fiction Hall of Fame has both "Microscopic God" and "It's A Good Life" in it. Haven't read them since sometime in the 70's. It is one of the great anthologies. It also includes "The Quest For Saint Aquin" by Anthony Boucher which I just read (re-read) in my New Tales of Space and Time pb anthology. Good stuff!

I've read and reviewed the post-apocalyptic nightmare of aging in a childless world, Greybeard by Brian W. Aldiss, over in my thread...post #126.

>55 artturnerjr: Two of my all-time favorite stories! What else has the group read lately?

Took advantage of a day off with (post-Worldcon?) lurgy to finish 'Look to windward'.

>57 richardderus: I've had Greybeard sitting on my TBR paperback pile all year long (since last November actually when I picked it up at a library sale.) I keep passing it up for something else.

57 & 60: Greybeard makes a good comparison read with Children of Men by P.D. James.....

>60 RBeffa: I don't know that there's any rush to read it, apart from the urgings of mortality.

>61 rshart3: I've never read that James novel, so I can't comment...not sure I want to! A grimmish world to live in, however temporarily.

I've reviewed an SFnal Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, The Man Who Bridged the Mist, in my thread...post #127. It's a beautiful thing.

I'm continuing with the Heinlein rereading with Off the Main Sequence.

Finished Descent. Not quite sure what to make of it. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop... but it never did. While I take on board its point about ubiquitous surveillance and the effect such wealth of information might have on what we believe as opposed to what we know, the wheels-within-wheels secret-state plot seemed to hinge on a handful of conversations, leaving the narrative to mostly meander.

About to start Irsud for SF Mistressworks, and while Descent was hardly sublime it's certainly going to the ridiculous...

>53 iansales:

The problem with Ken is that his work is dependable and great but not often surprising. You know more or less what to expect of him, but that doesn't lead to much discussion.

Just finished Nina Allan's Spin; oh my, she can write, can't she?

>56 RBeffa:

Oh yeah, absolutely. If you're at all interested in the early history of genre SF, it should be a cornerstone of your collection (I read both stories out of that volume, btw).

>58 lansingsexton:

Our discussion schedule for Summer 2014 is posted here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/176409

>65 MartinWisse: Most of his books have a twist at the end - although, surprisingly, Descent didn't.

>66 MartinWisse:

Yep, I was a bit surprised it didn't make the finalists (as we are supposed to call them now). I certainly had it on my nominating ballot.

My memorial Culture re-read has now progressed to Matter.

Finished Richard Peters' Shock & Awe which was as enjoyable as the first and a bit more science fictional though, as I mentioned in my review, for all I know you can now buy some of the "futuristic weapons" now.

Now reading Dan Simmons' Black Hills. It's proving to be more interesting than I expected. As I hoped, a good reading choice for one of my frequent trips to the eponymous location.

Not impressed by Kim Stanley Robinson's Shaman, rather cliched for him. Now reading the largest book ever, Robert Reed's The memory of sky.

Finished up Moon Called (B) this evening for my book group; while not bad, I've read enough urban fantasy at this point that the story in question didn't strike me as being anything special.

Just reread Ubik, after 30+ years. What is reality?!

>74 edgewood: I am alive and you are dead.

I am reading The Unit. A little more than half way through, and the hairs standing up on the back of my neck have been replaced by what seems to be a permanent lump in my throat.

This is turning out to be a fantastic read.

I have fifty pages left on The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer and it is extremely odd! The story seems to have a 70s vibe about it to me, although it was written in the mid-80s. I know I have read it before, probably in the late 1980s as my local library had it in paperback, but none of the events in the book are ringing any bells with me.

>76 vwinsloe: I never found The Unit that convincing.

>78 iansales:. Not sure what you mean by convincing. Do you mean, plausible? If so, then I agree; no, it is not. But then most fictional dystopias are an exaggeration to tease out consequences of societal trends and are highly unlikely to actually occur.

>79 vwinsloe: Fiction doesn't have to be implausible. Often it can make whatever points it wants to make by being plausible.

>80 iansales:. Maybe so, but I have no problem suspending my disbelief when the book is well written and has an emotional or intellectual impact. It doesn't spoil anything for me at all.

Finished The Cult of Alien Gods (C-) this morning, an examination of the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on the "Ancient Astronauts" phenomena. The portions dealing with Lovecraft are rather good, but at a certain point I started being put off by the author's Spenglarian bombast.

Dumped Robert Reed's the Great Ship trilogy - it is a strange departure from his uniformly excellent work to date. Am now on Kij Johmson's At the mouth of the river of the bees.

>83 AlanPoulter: Thanks for the warning. I was tempted by that one.

>83 AlanPoulter: I enjoyed the first two but haven't read the last one.

Just started Look to windward, one of the few Culture novels I haven't read before.