Sorry missed last week’s post, just busy with life.
The silver lining is, I don’t have to stay “still reading” for yet another week, as I finally finished Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch. Book 3 of Rivers of London series.
Yet another case involving magic in London and the Police solving it.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and its Recommendation Post. Links are also present in our community sidebar.
The Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros, I’m not ashamed to admit.
Halfway done with The Last Emperox. It’s the last book in a space opera trilogy. Mankind is spread across the galaxy in an imperial system that forces all settlements to not be fully self sufficient in order to incentive peaceful coexistence. FTL travel doesn’t exist and thus trade can only be done with space ships via a complex network of wormholes.
The whole premise is that network is collapsing, which would leave billions of people stranded with a bleak future of them slowly burning through their last supplies. It follows the actions of the emperor’s actions taken to save as many lives as possible while trying to fend off assassination attempts from ambitious short-sighted nobles trying to gain the upper hand during the empire’s collapse.
I just finished Alchemised. Amazing love story set during a civil war, but also a story about the way we see ourselves and the way we’re remembered.
Still plugging away at The Wandering Inn webserial…now on book 8.
Dungeon Crawler Carl. It’s fun so far, but I’m starting to suspect it’s going to be a bit repetitive.
I’m on book 5 right now. It’s kept my interest so far. The repetitive bits are usually comforting. It’s encouraging to know that the series does end.
Started the second Mistborn book by Sanderson. The first one was good and the second is still holding my interest. I think the plot and lore he’s created is top notch but his prose and overall writing style is rather meh. I’m about to start taking a shot of Bourbon for everytime a character rolls their eyes or signs in conversation.
I finished all the Super Powereds related stuff that’s out. The main series and one spin off that may get a sequel in the future. There’s also a potential follow up that happens 20-ish years later.
Fun books in general with a little patience needed for areas where it really could have been tightened up. But I would feel comfortable recommending it to someone. Overall probably high B or low A tier.
Now I’m on to Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. It’s had pretty good reviews and is quite cozy.
I’ve long adored Social Origins Of Dictatorship And Democracy, so I’m thinking of picking up some of Barrington Moore Jr’s other work - ideally,
Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt
and/or
Authority and Inequality under Capitalism and Socialism: USA, USSR, and China.
I’m currently reading Men at Arms (Terry Pratchett), and it’s delightful!
I’m roughly 1/3 of the way through all of the Discworld books.
Neuromancer by William Gibson. Slowly realising how many cyberpunk books cribbed his homework.
It’s crazy to me how much this book is the root of the cyberpunk tree. So much of the terminology is identical across the genre. Great book!
Finished Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, a little over a week ago, and finally dove into Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson. I’d been putting this off since I have a problem with finishing a series, or chunk of one in this case.
While I still love The Stormlight Archive, I think I’ve come to realize that Sanderson doesn’t write believable enough dialogue for me. It comes across as flat and somewhat childish. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Only just finished River of Blue Fire, Tad Williams, and will likely finish book three and four of the quartet for my active audiobook.
What are your thoughts on Project Hail Mary? My wife’s sister recommended it so my wife started it but she wasn’t vibing with it.
I really enjoyed Project Hail Mary, but I can see how it’s not for everyone. There’s a lot of math and science talk which I enjoyed, but could feel textbooky for some. It’s a fairly quick read so I’d recommend trying a few more chapters to see if it clicks, and moving on if not. Different strokes and whatnot!
Ah fair, my SIL is an engineer so I’m not surprised by that. My wife and I are both in the biology fields so we aren’t affraid of science talk. Maybe the math makes the audiobook harder to digest and a physical copy would be better to try.
Recently started the second book in the Bobiverse series. Really enjoyed the first one, but I did have to try a couple times to get into it. Once I did though, I couldn’t put it down. The audiobook is narrated by Ray Porter who also does Project Hail Mary. Great narrarator.
Unzipping Gender: Sex, Cross-Dressing and Culture, by Charlotte Suthrell.
I finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson this week. Great read! Stephenson is a very long-winded and meandering author but I love it every time.
I just got a copy of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski because I was inspired by mushroommonk (I don’t know how to tag users) here in the comments. Super excited to finally crack this one open.
I am also about to start in on Ursula Le Guin but I dont know if I should start with The Left Hand of Darkness or The Word for World is Forest.
Finished The Dead Zone, now reading project hail Mary by Andy weir. Excellent book!
Hail Mary is amazing.
I think its better than The Martian and im only 100 pages in!
