Finished The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.
It was a nice book. Kind of YA, but fun to read. Pretty much a typical story of good vs bad, where good characters are super good and bad characters are super bad, with very few gray in between. Worth a read if you want a standalone fantasy novel that’s quick to read.
Read The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. My first Scalzi novel and I loved it. A very light and easy to read sci-fi, with Kaiju in them. Going to get other Scalzi novels, may start with Old Man’s War.
Finally got my order my Dresden Files comics / graphic novels. So read the first omnibus, which has the original Welcome to the Jungle and graphic adaptation of first two Dresden Files novels, Storm Front and Fool Mon.
Second omnibus has all original graphic novels novels though, but will get to them later.
Just started Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I have read it before, but it has been quite a while, so re-reading it before starting on the sequel series.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
Covers One Less (Hard Mode), Older than You, Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie, and It takes two Bingo squares
–
There’s a Midyear Bingo check-in post, do take a look. Even if you haven’t started this year’s Book Bingo, you can still join, as there are still 6 months remaining!
For details, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and it’s Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.___
Now I’m reading “The inner level: how more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everyone’s well-being”. I’m loving it so far.
I’m a little way into The Cassini Division by Ken McCleod. I think Mr McCleod might be a socialist, because at the moment the characters are literally touring the last capitalist town and laughing at the locals’ funny little ways.
I just finished Terry Pratchett’s “Feet of Clay” and it was great.
I’m on the 4th book in the James S. A. Corey series The Expanse: Cibola Burn
Decent series. It always has me wanting to read another chapter before bed.
I’m on my first read through of the Witcher. I’ve stalled on the tower of swallows though.
It’s almost cyberpunkesque in how much the world hates it’s inhabitants. Which was interesting when it followed cyberpunk themes of “forget thriving, the goal is to survive this world”.
But, the players are in bigger arenas now, so the world is just a shit place to be. I find myself struggling to care about the politics, or follow who’s who. The early books geralt is so apathetic it didn’t matter which kingdom or who’s the prevailing lord. So I ,like geralt, just didn’t care. Now I’m supposed to, good development for geralt. I just don’t want to suddenly learn the names of 40 kingdoms, their kings, recent history etc…
The prevailing magic seems to be the vow, you’re fucked in a fucked world if you break one. Cool concept, I like it, but it does get watered down because the world wants to grind you down anyway. Breaking a vow is just another excuse for the universe to hurt you. I’ll probably push through this and decide if I want to keep going.
That’s an interesting way to look at it.
I don’t recall there were too many names you had to remember for the story, but I read Witcher quite a while back, and didn’t read all the novels, so could be forgetting it.
I liked Geralt though, and the games, so going to go back to read them all.
The early books the gang is quite small easy to follow and I enjoyed them enough to continue.
But later the cast balloons quite heavily. I did play the games and thought that would be enough, but I’m god awful names at the best of times. So scene with sorceress #15 and Lord #16 in kingdom #4 is usually me thinking “who’s any of that again?”
Partly, it’s because I’m reading by audio in situations where I can’t easily pause and consider. Partly, because the author just spent 3 books telling me these are Eldrich forces for geralt to avoid as best as possible, so why would I try understand them. Partly, because the stories are less interesting to me now as previously mentioned.
Ah okay.
I actually have the same issue with names. I have started Silmarillion multiple times but always get stuck on all the names and who is who. Plan to start it again but make a genealogy chart as I go along to remember all the names.
1964 Hugo Winner - Way Station
A man born in 1840, back in the Wisconsin boonies, is chosen to run an intragalactic stopover station for aliens moving about the Orion Arm. Earth is a new expansion, but we’re not invited to the alien fraternity. Yet. Oh, the guy only ages when he leaves his house (aliens converted it to receive travelers) so some are taking notice that the guy is 120+ years old and looks 30.
Has a more modern feel to it than most golden age sci-fi. Little slow up front, but it’s a short book.
Hey, I was the guy who recommended Kaiju Preservation Society to you a few months ago! I’m glad you liked it. I personally liked Starter Villain over Old Man’s War but you do you
I’m currently reading Artifact Space by Miles Cameron. I’m 70% in and I like that every time it has a chance to go grim and edgelord the characters all go “ew, why would we do that? We’re civilized.” It does feel poorly edited, with a few misspellings, some odd continuity, and it’s a little hard to follow between certain paragraphs. Overall it’s a good space opera type with a character who learns to let down walls instead of having to put them up
Just finished: We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen. Man, this book sucked. The main character is unlikable, the story is nonsensical, and it quite clearly is just cobbling together ideas from better Sci-fi series. They had to spend a few pages towards the end of the book explaining the plot to the main character which is always a sign you didn’t tell a good story. Final takeaway being lost and confused is not the same thing as being scared of the unknown
Oh, cool. Thanks for the recommendation! I am going to get his standalone books too, Starter Villain and Red Shirts specifically, but also want to checkout his biggest series.
Artifact Space sounds interesting. Would wait for your 100% finished update.
Would love to get more recommendations 😀
I’m wrapping up Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. Making my way through all of his books currently, it’s been a real treat! I haven’t been this excited to read books since I was a kid. Nice to see other fans around!
Yeah, there are lots of Sanderson fans here. Which of his books have you read yet and which ones are remaining?
I’ve read the Mistborn trilogy and the first three of the Stormlight archive. Just finished Oathbringer this morning and I cannot wait to get the next one!! I love the maps and art in the books as well. Which have you read?
Scalzi’s Kaiju Presevation Society is great, his Starter Villain is definitely in the same vein of light and easy and fun.
I made it most of the way through Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. It holds up pretty well for being almost 100 years old.
I still plan to read Dungeon Crawler Carl next.
I am excited for you, I was hooked on DCC and left feeling so lost when I finished. The audiobooks are worth a listen, it’s more of an auditory cinematic than just an audiobook. I got very used to that being the norm that I’m now struggling with regular narration, same actor doing all voices, no sound effects etc.
I thankfully found the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson shortly after from another post on Lemmy. Not quite as cinematic but loving R.C. Bray’s performance and the series as a whole.
Finished 6th Dungeon Crawler Carl (haven’t started 7th yet) then started Expeditionary Force. Currently on book 16, with 17 having dropped recently, then I’ll cycle back for DCC 7 Faction Wars. Then I’ll be lost again haha.
Yeah, I took a look at his whole bibliography then went with KPS to check out how he writes, will probably be getting most of his books.
Lud-In-The-Mist looks interesting. Is it linked with any of her previous book?
Redshirts was where I started with Scalzi, one day I’ll get to Old Man’s War.
Lud is a one-off. I added it for bingo because a bunch of authors have listed it as a super formative book. I like her style, but it is a bit more dense than I expected going into it initially.
Pet Sematary and it’s so creepy.
bobiverse series by dennis e taylor. fantastic.
How do you like it? I started the first book a couple weeks ago but just couldn’t finish. Sci fi isn’t really my thing, although i did like John Scalzi’s books.
I finished Educated by Tara Westover. I really liked this book. It gave me a glimpse into an upbringing that is about as different from mine as I can imagine. If you want to get an idea of what it’s like to grow up in a distrusts-anything-government, survivalist family, I highly recommend.
Now I’ve started Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I’m still early on but I love how this book started. It instantly gripped me and I can’t wait to see how it goes.
JUST finished Project Haily Mary. It’s so good 5/5. Curious to hear your thoughts when you’re done.
Thanks for the info, going to check out Educated.
Loved Project Hail Mary. Enjoy!
I have been doing a run on Malazan book of the Fallen series. Currently going through “Dust of Dreams”. It’s really dark and sad right now. Seriously thinking about taking a break from it. Maybe a Pratchett book?
Oooof, I feel that. I started Malazan back at the end of June, currently 2/3rds through Book 7, “Reaper’s Gale”.
It’s far less dark that books 2 and 3, but it’s still sooooo… I don’t know, not as many payoffs as previous books. Feeling some Malazan fatigue with 3 books to go
Mistborn is the book that got me into reading! It’s one of my favourite books of all time due to how it changed me haha.
As for my little update. I put Morning Star on pause as I feel a bit burned out with the Red Rising series. I’m at the point where nothing really surprises me anymore and I feel that I’m not as invested as I was with the other Red Rising books.
Instead I’ve jumped back over to doing a Way of Kings re-read. The first time I listened to the audiobook so I’m eager to read it this timearound.
Is it better than the Stormlight Archive? I’m currently off and on trying to slog my way through The Way of Kings, but I’ve made it nearly a quarter of the way through and can’t bring myself to care all that much about the characters or story.
It’s to the point where I’ve put the book on hold twice to read other books that I found more interesting. I wish I liked it more, because everyone says it’s one of the greatest fantasy series ever written, but it’s just not pushing my buttons the right way, I guess.
I assume you mean Stormlight vs Mistborn? If I was recommending between those two, I would go definitely go Mistborn first. Not because I think it’s better, but Stormlight is a little difficult to get going with and plans to span 10 books. Given that not a lot happens in the first part due to the world building happening across multiple characters individually, it takes a while for it to feel like it’s moving somewhere. Mistborn on the other hand paces itself a lot quicker and the foreshadowing throughout is executed wonderfully.
Thanks, I think I’ll give that a look then. Mind you, I fully intend on continuing the slog through Stormlight, just because everyone assures me it’s worth it, but I listen to these books as audiobooks since I don’t get a lot of time that I’m sitting and can read from an actual book, so if an author uses a whole first volume as world building, that’s about forty hours I have to get through before things start picking up.
Sorry, the first book isn’t all world building, it just starts off slower because of that. Several characters are introduced in their own parts of the world and various places in society which makes it feels a bit disjointed. It starts coming together eventually then you’ll know if it’s worth carrying on or not.
The switching of PoVs can be a bit frustrating, especially when you’re starting to attach yourself to one character and then you’re thrown into the shoes of another. The audiobook perhaps makes that worse with the switching of narrator between the male and female leads. It certainly threw me off at the start but I grew to appreciate it.
Finished Mistborn and most of the Arcanum stories that aren’t tied to Elantris. Have that borrowed to read soon-ish, but am reading Warbreaker right now and will probably read the Stephanie Plum book (Now or Never) that released today next.
I couldn’t get into some of John Scalzi I tried, but I really liked the interdependency series. It’s not a masterpiece but it’s a fun ride.
Warbreaker is nice. Very interesting magic, though all of Sanderson books have that, specially the Cosmere books.
I would say the same thing about The Kaiju Preservation Society, not a masterpiece but a very fun ride.
The story is building up towards me being tempted to buy the fancy leatherbound version. The secret archives are kind of in between, and the Stormlight Archives are the ones I’d really want, but I seriously can’t justify $250 apiece for those.
That purple is sexy though.
Haha, yeah. To be frank, I am not a fan of the outer cover of these leatherbound versions, I prefer the full-picture cover pages of paper books, but other than that, illustrations, the pages, the writing, the overall quality, they are all so good in these versions!
Too expensive though. Maybe one day.
I’m a big fan of quality leatherbound stuff, though I can’t actually afford any of it. I do really enjoy the art on the regular Stormlight books especially, but I just like leather. Warbreaker would also be a good case for a leatherbound version because I don’t particularly like that cover.
It’s all pretty silly when the reality is that there’s not a very good reason to have any physical books because I read them all as audiobooks, but since I started I can’t seem to help myself. It’s a good thing I have no shelf space or I’d really be in trouble.
