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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1031
Location: UK | Whew! Good riddance to an horrific year. Lets hope things are much better in 2021 |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1031
Location: UK | Just a short SF/F to start with this month. A few classics or award winners,and some less lofty but hopefully engaging old stuff.
SF/F reads
Robert McCammon - Boy's Life
Alan E Nourse - Star Surgeon
Andre Norton - Star Guard
Jack Vance - The Face
Cherie Priest - Boneshaker
from other genres
Lindsey Davis - The Spook who Spoke Again
Capt W E Johns - Biggles & Co
Enid Blyton - The Wishing Chair |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 556
Location: Great Lakes, USA | I am trying to read Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson, but my Kindle kept dumping it and everything else recently added. I ended up getting a new Kindle. I may or may not finish it as it is due soon. I have The Andromeda Evolution in the same boat. I have my challenges for the year planned, although some haven't shown up yet, so I am not really sure what all I will end up reading in January. I have Dark Piper by Andre Norton on the top of the stack should I be unable to finish the previously mentioned books before the library erases them from my Kindle.
Happy New Year to everyone! |
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Uber User
Posts: 613
Location: New Zealand | I've started the year with Ready Player Two by Ernest Clines. So far only made it through the prologue. Not because the book isn't interesting, it is so far, but I'm just not feeling in the reading spirit. Still too busy adding books to my challenges rather than actually reading them.
Happy New Year to you.
Edited by Weesam 2021-01-03 2:56 PM
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Uber User
Posts: 370
Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA | I'm starting the year with Ted Chiang's Exhalation: Stories. It's the first read for my sci fi book club in exile. Not sure what I'm going to read the rest of the month yet. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1031
Location: UK | Space Tug was a rather ordinary 50s juvenile about the difficulties of early space travel,but it was fairly readable.
More interesting and appealing was Alan E Nourse's Star Surgeon about a young alien who desires to be a surgeon in a galactic community where almost all doctors are humans,and Earth has become a giant hospital treating sick aliens from across the galaxy..This juvenile series predates James White's Sector General series by several years.
And I just completed Robert McCammon's Boy's Life.
Trying yet again to read Boneshaker,200 pages to go.I just cant attach to the characters,I dislike the setting and find suspension of disbelief difficult at times,since the action seems contrived.. But I am determined to finish it this month,I've been picking it up and putting it down for months
Edited by dustydigger 2021-01-06 3:21 AM
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 556
Location: Great Lakes, USA | I started the year with Rhythm of War, which I am still reading as long as it stays on the Kindle. So far, it is good. I read A Call to Duty, first of a trilogy by David Weber and Timothy Zahn. I haven't read any books in the Honorverse, so I had no idea what to expect. I liked it and will be reading the other two. I also read The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel Wilson. This is a sequel to Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain. It was good too. So far, my favorite of the month is Dark Piper by Andre Norton. The main characters were all children so perhaps this is a young adult novel. I usually find those annoying, but this one was much better than typical YA novels. I liked it and wish there was a sequel. I have just started Vanguard by Jack Campbell, as it is a library book and due soon. So far, typical military scifi, which I like. 2021, so far, has been good for decent reads. |
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Uber User
Posts: 370
Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA | Exhalation by Ted Chiang was good. It had some excellent stories, some were just good. I didn't like it as much as Stories of Your Life and Others. Then I read Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon which was excellent. It's about an autistic man whose company is forcing him to get an experimental treatment. Then came A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg. I'm finding I really like his prose, but in this book, the plot was rather thin. It was only 220 pages, but I had a tough time keeping my interest in it until the plot starting moving about 60 pages from the end. It's about a society based on destruction of the self and a man who discovers a drug that lets him fully experience another person as well as fully share himself, an illegal and blasphemous act. Now I'm reading No Enemy But Time by Michael Bishop. It's a really good time travel novel about a man who goes back 2 million years and experiences a tribe of homo habilis. The chapters alternate with his own life story. My only problem with it is the font type is REALLY small. I'd much rather have a thicker book with a larger font. I'm making good use of my reading glasses with this one haha. These last three are all Nebula winners. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 556
Location: Great Lakes, USA | Finished Vanguard by Jack Campbell. It's the first of a military scifi trilogy and I liked it enough that I plan to read the other two. Also read Uranus by Ben Bova. I recommend skipping this one. Not well written, especially the female characters. I also read Second Chance Angel by Griffin Barber and Kacey Ezell. The Angel is an AI that gets pulled out of her host and invades an ex-military guy currently working as a bouncer in a nightclub where the AI's original host worked. Together, they search for the missing original host. This book is the first of a series and I will probably read the sequel to find out the big picture mystery introduced in this book. I am still reading Rhythm of War, which is still good, but I have some library books due soon, and will need to finish them - The Only Good Indians and Elatsoe. I also have a book called Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge on the due soon TBR pile. That one should be interesting. |
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Uber User
Posts: 370
Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA | - Finished No Enemy But Time by Michael Bishop. Thought it was excellent.
- Read Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick. Didn't like it. It was sort of a surreal cyberpunk story that just ultimately felt pretentious to me.
- Next came A Song for New Day by Sarah Pinsker. I really liked it. It was published 2 years ago but is about the music industry after domestic terrorism and a pandemic shuts society down. It was pretty creepy reading it.
- Then I read Seeker by Jack McDevitt which was a sci fi mystery about Alex Benedict, a far future antiquities dealer who finds a 9000 year old cup. It was decent. I think I would have liked it if I was more of a mystery genre person. But based on my review, I have a friend who is ready to read all eight books in the "Alex Benedict" series.
- Now I'm going to finish out the month with Joe Haldeman's Camouflage. Liking it so far. All these are Nebula winners. |
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Our reads in January 2021