Shejidan / What have you been reading lately?

**Posted by Surtac** 5/04/2021 9:52 pm

Inspired (not sure that's the right word) to resurrect an old thread from past board iterations after realising that a lot of my reading over the last year or so has been very much comfort re-reading of old favourites and sub-genres, with very little new serious SF in the mix so far. To be honest, I'm not seeing a lot of serious SF in the market righ now, but there seems to be a lot more escapist fantasy ou there.

Even SWMBO, I've noticed, has retreated into some of her old favourite cosy mystery series.

So I'm wondering how many others hereabouts are finding themselves in similar straits - reading old implausible space opera derring-do or Cold War spy mysteries to try to keep the brain engaged as I am doing?

Or maybe it's just me.

**Posted by Pence** 5/05/2021 3:21 pm

I too have been doing a lot of comfort rereads. Victoria Goddard is the one new author that I have been really enthused about -as I have posted here.
I find my concentration is wonky. I have also done a lot of re-listens to favorite audio books and am now reaching saturation with those.
I suspect the general lack of environmental stimulus combined with the general angst of the past year have put blinders on my brain.

**Posted by joekc6nlx** 5/05/2021 3:41 pm

Not science fiction. "The Hidden History of Coined Words" by Ralph Keyes. A study of the origins of various words in English, as well as a look at the people who claimed to have coined those words. I had started Dostoyevski's "The Idiot", and got halfway through it, then made the mistake of looking up something about it on Wikipedia. It gave away the whole ending, so I just put the book down and started the Keyes book, instead.

Last edited by joekc6nlx (5/05/2021 3:42 pm)

**Posted by Smartcat** 5/06/2021 6:12 am

I have been rereading a lot of old friends this year. CJ, of course, William Gibson, Connie Willis, and many more, not all S.F.
It's sort of like comfort food, sans calories.

**Posted by Surtac** 5/06/2021 4:37 pm

I guess it's not just me then. Comfort food for the brain, eh?

**Posted by 82Eridani** 5/08/2021 9:36 pm

Rereading CJC here too. Finished Foreigner series last year, read Chanur and Cyteen earlier this year, now on the Alliance-Union books.

**Posted by Surtac** 5/09/2021 6:50 pm

By coincidence, with no BB list to hang a reading plan on this year, I too am planning a re-read of AU this year, in internal chronology order. There's some internal history I want to investigate further.

Just have to finish the new Liz Williams, the sequel to Comet Weather, first.

.

**Posted by Aja Jin** 5/11/2021 6:36 am

Surtac wrote:
By coincidence, with no BB list to hang a reading plan on this year, I too am planning a re-read of AU this year, in internal chronology order. There's some internal history I want to investigate further.

Just have to finish the new Liz Williams, the sequel to Comet Weather, first.

.

anxious to hear your opinion on the Williams

**Posted by Surtac** 5/11/2021 6:38 pm

I haven't finished it yet, but so far Blackthorn Winter is very much of a kind with Comet Weather - strong echoes of Graham Joyce and Keith Roberts writings in the way it deals with spirits of place and the hauntology of mundane modern day British fantasy ,

I should have more thoughts when I've finished it.

**Posted by Kokipy** 5/15/2021 8:01 am

I just finished A Desolation Called Peace, the sequel to A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine, which was one of the babblers last year iirc. I didn’t like it quite as much as Memory, but it was well done, well paced, several interesting premises.
other than that, after (for comfort) rereading the Vorkosigan Saga, and all of Dorothy Sayers, and rereading Murderbot also (I really love those! and it is too soon to reread yet again the Victoria Goddard oeuvre) I am now listening to Kelly Greenward’s Phryne Fisher mysteries on my daily walks and while I knit. They are quite fun. Set in the 1920’s in Melbourne with a dashing female vamp as the PI. There is a tv series that we are all religiously watching every Tuesday night but it is fun to cover some of the same ground on Audible.