So What Have you Read Lately? And other favorite books!

[Loim]

Still working my way through Malazan Book of the Fallen. I'm up to Midnight Tides. Great books, but man they are dense. You have to really pay attention. I'm at the point in the series where things are starting to come together and things from previous books are making sense. 

 

I'm also reading my way through The Expanse series. I'm working on some of the short stories that take place chronologically before book 3, then I'll move to book 3. Really good series. 

[Loim]

I finished up Drive and The Churn, so I'll start on Abaddon's Gate tomorrow. If you like Sci-Fi at all and haven't read The Expanse series I really do recommend it. 

 

I see that Butcher finished Peace Talks, so hopefully we'll see that in print soon. I'm also still eagerly awaiting The Navigator's Children so that I can go back and read all of the Osten Ard books. I will no longer start a series that is in progress thanks to Rothfuss and Martin. I'm glad that Tad Williams is pretty fast at finishing them up. 

[Doug Sundseth]

7 minutes ago, Loim said:

I see that Butcher finished Peace Talks, so hopefully we'll see that in print soon.

 

http://www.jim-butcher.com/posts/2019/peace-talks-coming-soon

 

It's ... possible ... that there might be a bit of misinformation in that article. 

[Sirithiliel]

new Star Wars book, last of the new Thrawn Trilogy, Thrawn: Treason

 

was much better than book #2 in the series, i quite enjoyed it

[Pingo]

Just finished This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

 

Wow, this was sweet. It’s a story in epistolary form between two rival super-solder time-travellers from competing futures in a vast time war, one from a sort of techno-singularity and one from an ecological nature-based hive mind, who start out as enemies and slowly fall in love and redeem each other.

 

I’ve seen it described as like When Harry Met Sally, but with Alien and Predator.

 

Oh, and they’re both girls. 

 

It’s deeply moving and beautifully written.

[Loim]

@Pingo I love time travel, and that sounds interesting. I've added it to my list on Goodreads. Thanks. 

[Crowley]

3 hours ago, Sirithiliel said:

new Star Wars book, last of the new Thrawn Trilogy, Thrawn: Treason

 

was much better than book #2 in the series, i quite enjoyed it

There's A new Thrawn trilogy!?! 

[Sirithiliel]

2 minutes ago, Crowley said:

There's A new Thrawn trilogy!?! 

 

yes, the original author Timothy Zahn  has made a new thrawn trilogy for the 'new canon'. I actually like them better than the old Thrawn books, it goes even more into his character and it takes place before the original trilogy, but it's still the same great Thrawn

 

Thrawn

Thrawn: Alliances

Thrawn: Treason

[Corsair]

I am reading a really fascinating book right now called "Gun Notches". It is written by Al Cohn and Joe Chisholm. It is the true story of the life of Texas Ranger Thomas Rynning's life as he told it to the authors. He was one of Roosevelt's Rough Riders, a Texas Ranger and a whole lot more. Written in 1931, I was lucky to find a reprint of it. A very interesting look at the final days of the "Wild West', prohibition and a whole lot more.

[Loim]

@Corsair added to my Goodreads. 

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm... Please, Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain is back up on the Kindle. Makes me happy.

 

The Auld Grump - hopefully that means that the rest of the series will be following along.

[Cyradis]

Just finished NPCs by Drew Hayes. It is thoroughly ridiculous and adorable. Very good one for nerds to read for simple relaxation and giggles.

 

Premise: The players are broccoli-faces, and the GM makes the game "more realistic". The players die stupidly. The NPCs of the game however, pick their bodies for loot, and find their mission scroll which puts them on the quest instead - sortof. So the NPCs try to become replacement adventurers, while realizing that most adventurers are broccoli-faces.

 

[strawhat]

On 7/25/2019 at 7:48 AM, Doug Sundseth said:

http://www.jim-butcher.com/posts/2019/peace-talks-coming-soon

 

It's ... possible ... that there might be a bit of misinformation in that article. 

 

There is new news posted as of the 22nd of July.  Which is good, as I've read The Codex Alera and The Aeronaut's Windlass since late last year.  There will also be a short story featuring Goodman Grey coming in October.

[Marvin]

 

Robin MacArthur's Half Wild. Loosely connected collection of stories about people, mostly women, in rural/semi-rural Vermont. Stories wander a bit, don't always feel like they make much of a narrative arc, but are well-written and pleasurable reading.

 

 

Jennifer Wortman's This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love. Nice collection of stories, running flash to full-length, centered around characters struggling, often seeming a bit out of place in their own lives, as they navigate issues such as mental illness, substance abuse, and loss.

 

 

Tim Gautreaux's Welding With Children. I spent a month or more getting through this book. I'd read a story and stop, read a couple days or a week later and lay it down again. The stories hit a lot of great notes especially around Southernness, it strikes around certain sensibilities of the old and new Souths and really got me going at times, but often the prose feels flat and/or sloppy, and too often they'd steer off towards that aww-shucksy, Andy-Griffeth kind of territory that makes me cringe deep down inside. So kinda split on this one, I guess. I'll probably read some more of his stuff and see how it strikes me.

[Werkrobotwerk]

The Hydrogen Sonata by Iian M Banks. It's the last book in the culture series. Similar to other books in the series, the story is split between a human (loosely defined) and the minds (a group of powerful artificial intelligences that rather overtly run the culture, who are mostly housed in star ships). The premise is that a neighboring civilization with which the culture has a long history, is preparing to ascend out of the universe to another plane of existence. Things get complicated, and the culture cant resist meddling. 

 

Over all good. Not my favorite of the series, but a good end.