Shejidan / What have you been reading lately?

**Posted by Aja Jin** 5/16/2021 6:52 am

Surtac wrote:
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.

My reaction to desolation is the same as yours. I enjoyed it, but not quite as much as the original. I was impressed with the ending. I thought with 20% left it would be a cliff-hanger, but it got at least somewhat wrapped up. Some edit/shortening of the middle and a bit more at the end would have been an improvement, but that’s a quibble. Still strongly recommended for both.

**Posted by Pence** 5/16/2021 12:19 pm

Just finished Fugitive Telemetry - good escape reading.

**Posted by starexplorer** 5/16/2021 6:49 pm

Why am I the last to know? Yes, I’ve been intending to read Octavia Butler forever, but I’ve just gotten around to it. I recently finished Wild Seed. Really well done, and it grabbed from page one. I’m halfway through Dawn, which is good but perhaps not as gripping. I am excited to have finally made this discovery!

In nonfiction, I’m reading The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, which takes the reader through every aspect of the day using short snippets of individual accounts. I expect many will not wish to remember in this granular detail, but I’m interested. And Lisa Feldman Barrett’s Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain. She is a neuroscientist with deep insight into how to think about our brains and our humanness.

**Posted by lynxlacelady** 5/25/2021 8:36 pm

I've been rereading Rebecca Ore. Her aliens are quite different from CJ's. Ore seems to focus more on biology. Although there is quite a lot of social/instinctual conflict. Accommodation seems to be the focus rather than understanding.
I've also been reading some "end permian mass extinction" stuff. If anybody is interested:
Peter Brannen THE ENDS OF THE WORLD. Written by a science journalist, he describes the 5 instances of mass extinctions in earth's past (the present being #6) Actually very well written, with lots of interviews with paleontologists around the country.
I've also got 2 on the specific permian one. working through it.

**Posted by Felicitous Sk8er** 6/05/2021 12:27 am

Halfway through THE PREMONITION by Michael Lewis, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Riveting. Star, thank you for turning me on to this terrific author.

**Posted by Kokipy** 6/18/2021 10:44 am

I have been indulging in the Lee/Miller Liaden universe. Fun. But like all fun things, I will be done with it in two more volumes.

**Posted by Aja Jin** 6/19/2021 6:12 am

Kokipy wrote:
I have been indulging in the Lee/Miller Liaden universe. Fun. But like all fun things, I will be done with it in two more volumes.

There are quite a few volumes? Can you give a comment or two?

**Posted by Kokipy** 6/20/2021 11:51 am

Aja Jin, I think there are about 23 books in the series so far. I have read them nearly in chronological order, although that is not the publication order. I got the chrono order by googling reading order Liaden Universe, and I recommend it. I can provide the link if it would be useful.
The setting, for the most part, is in a space faring galaxy populated by humans with jump technology, so the books present as science fiction. There is a lot about trade, which made me think of Pyanfar and other trading books, and also space piloting. But in addition some of the folks have “healing” powers and so on, which enable the authors to have a bit of fun pushing into the fantasy area.The authors love cats, which is nice for this cat lover.
The first few books are well self contained, and all of them tend to wrap up the immediate plot line so there are no truly obnoxious cliff hangers, but some evil doers appear about five books in and they continue to impel the overall story arc forward.
the diction is fine Some of the predicaments the characters encounter get a bit repetitive over 20 books, but I like the characters quite a lot and I will be be bereft when I am done.
so, I don’t want to oversell these but I am enjoying them. I wouldn’t say they are ground breaking or sophisticated but they are good escape fiction to read on the treadmill.

Last edited by Kokipy (6/20/2021 12:06 pm)

**Posted by Pence** 6/20/2021 12:59 pm

There are also short story collections. As Kokipy says they are good escape fiction.
And the authors are still writing so the number of books will increase.

**Posted by Jackalgirl** 6/21/2021 7:19 am

I've been reading (or trying to; the brain weasels keep getting distracted by all the shiny things in the world) historical things. I read Tetlow's The Enigma of Hastings, which was pretty intriguing -- talking about the history leading up to the Battle of Hastings that the author feels lead to the outcome, and about the Bayeux Tapestry as propaganda (magnificent work of art, but its accuracy as a source of information about what happened should be taken with a grain of salt). The book was written in 1974, so Tetlow briefly advances some pretty outdated thinking regarding homosexuality (he's talking about Edward the Confessor), but other than reading that and thinking, "well, we've come quite a way from that," I thought the book was solid.

I'm trying to get through "Complete Old English (Anglo-Saxon)", but it's a Kindle edition, and I'm thinking that at some point I'm going to need to buy the actual physical copy of it -- when it comes to language learning, I work a lot better when I have something physical I can flip through, and flip back and forth through (especially helpful for memorization).

And when I do get back to non-fiction, my tasker is to go through the full Foreigner series and work on collecting place names and locations for the maps I've been working on (minus "Divergence", which is done, though I want to try to do another version of it in a more painterly style). I think it would be a handy thing, if non-official, to have maps for the books that don't have them. Other than that, I have a huge HUGE list of things waiting to be read (Megan Starks' "House of Ash and Brimstone", Rivers Solomon's "The Deep", Brandon Dixon's "The Chronicles of Tikor", Nnedi Okorafor's "Binti" series, among some of them).

I have not yet dipped my toes into the Alliance-Union books. I want to, but at this point, I need another obsession like I need a hole in the head. ; )

Last edited by Jackalgirl (6/21/2021 8:04 am)