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Our reads December 2020
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-12-01 4:57 PM (#22672)
Subject: Our reads December 2020



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Location: UK		 Dusty's TBR for December

SF/F
Jim Butcher - Battle Ground
Paul Melko - Singularity's Ring
Cherie Priest - Boneshaker
Larry Niven - Flight of the Horse
H Beam Piper - Four Day Planet

from other genres
Tess Gerritsen - Under the Knife
Linda Howard - Now You See Her
Mary Balogh - A Christmas Promise
Cyril Hare - The Wind Blows Death
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daxxh
Posted 2020-12-01 11:56 PM (#22673 - in reply to #22672)
Subject: Re: Our reads December 2020



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		I have just picked up Killer of Enemies and Airs Above the Ground from the library for the Native American and Horse Challenges respectively. I also have Cetaganda, Memory, Diplomatic Immunity and Cryoburn for the Bujold Challenge. I have Bova's Uranus, Jones' The Only Good Indians and Roanhorse's Black Sun on the way, but I don't know if I will get them before Christmas. Library holds are a bit slow right now.

I usually have lots of time to read in December and am hoping to finish my challenges. I will probably work on the challenges I created first and then work on the rest until I run out of time. I also have nongenre Tombstone and a Longmire mystery to squeeze in. Last year I finished right before midnight Texas time, which is the time the site uses. I am probably going to need the couple extra hours of Pacific time this year.
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-12-02 6:23 PM (#22674 - in reply to #22673)
Subject: Re: Our reads December 2020



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Location: UK		daxxh,is that Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart,about the Spanish School 0f Lippizanners in Austria? I have been a Stewart fan for many decades,both her romantic suspense,and of course her Merlin trilogy. Great writer.
Seeing you list yet more Bujold books makes me itch to reread them !
Good luck on finishing your challenges. My reading has been pathetic this year,I just scraped 100 reads in total for all genres for the year last week,never read so few books in my whole life!(normally around 200)
I have started the enjoyable task of choosing books for next year. My tally of women authors is really rather pitiful,so I must make some effort at choosing some female award winners,fill some of the embarrassingly huge gaps in my knowledge. I also want to continue racking up some short stories/novellas,and then read masses of good old pulpy 1950s stuff just for fun!lol.

Do you do much planning ahead in your readingor are you more a serendipity type of reader?.
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daxxh
Posted 2020-12-03 2:47 AM (#22675 - in reply to #22674)
Subject: Re: Our reads December 2020



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		@dusty. I totally had Lipizzaners on the brain when I typed the title of the book. The book is Airs Beneath the Moon, not Airs Above the Ground! It is about winged horses. I actually have a Lipizzaner, so they are never far from my mind. I love the breed and still cannot believe I actually have a real one. I read Marguerite Henry's White Stallion of Lipizza as a child and now I have my very own. The white horse on the cover of Judith Tarr's Nine White Horses is probably her Lipizzan stallion, who is half brother to my guy.

I like to plan my challenge books and have already started. I put them in a spreadsheet and copy the page so I can compare it to what I actually read. I have read less than half of the original list this year. Part of the reason is that half my books are still in storage. But, I find new books at the library or make a trip to the bookstore, or most commonly, read someone's review of something that sounds really good and go find a copy. I am also trying to figure out what challenges I will come up with for this year. I try to make ones that will make me read books I own that I haven't read yet. (why there is an 80s challenge right now). I will do the Space Opera and Read the Sequel Challenges again. And I have ideas for three more, one of which is a King Arthur Challenge so I can read Mary Stewart's Merlin books or at least the first one. Picking the books for the challenges is as fun as actually reading them.


Edited by daxxh 2020-12-03 2:50 AM
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Centrin
Posted 2020-12-13 10:19 PM (#22692 - in reply to #22675)
Subject: Re: Our reads December 2020



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Star Wars: Ahsoka, solid start but feels like the conflict is taking a little too long to get going, not quite as invested in the chracters as I would like.
Tech Mage; The Magitech Chronicles, solid start, interesting premise, always did like blending fantasy magic in sci-fi settings ala Starship Mage
Star Ship Mage Book 9 (The Service of Mars), dreadfully slow start, not as good as I was hoping, might skim until it picks up.
Iron Prince, great start, but extremely long, great book but I stopped reading halfway through when the pace slowed down
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-12-14 3:42 PM (#22694 - in reply to #22692)
Subject: Re: Our reads December 2020



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Location: UK		Hi Centrin,I see you are new to WWEnd. Welcome,and thanks for diving straight in.
I have a somewhat illogical bias against long books.It nearly killed me plodding my way through Kim Stanley Robinson's famed Martian trilogy.literally many months of picking up and putting aside reading perhaps 10 pages at a time.to get through them. I tend to stick to older books Golden Age etc that are much shorter. One of the joys of old SF is the way a fast story can be told in a couple of hundred pages - and also have serious underlying themes and fresh ideas.Especially since the 90s no one seems to write anything under five hundred pages,.some are a thousand pages or more! EEK
Hope your reding choices brighten up soon!
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spoltz
Posted 2020-12-17 10:58 AM (#22704 - in reply to #22672)
Subject: Re: Our reads December 2020



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		Wool by Hugh Howey was a plodding bore for me. My book club really liked it though and it has high ratings on our site.
I'm reading The Peoples of Middle Earth, the final book in the series. The first half was discussion on development of the appendices of LOTR. Now I'm in the second half, which is Tolkien works that don't relate specifically to any existing document, as well as some unfinished new items he was working on at the end of his life. I'm hoping to be done with this book by Christmas. Then I have 4 books to read to complete the Women of Genre Fiction challenge, then I'll have completed all my challenges. I have the week from Christmas to New Years off from work, so I should have time finish.

Happy Holidays everyone!
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spoltz
Posted 2020-12-30 8:09 AM (#22740 - in reply to #22672)
Subject: Re: Our reads December 2020



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		I'm closing in on my WoGF challenge. I read:
Record of a Spaceborn Few - Becky Chambers. Really liked this character study of life aboard a colony ship.
Soulless - Gail Carriger. Fun fluff comedy of manners with werewolves and vampires in a sort of steampunk setting.
The Moon and the Sun - Vonda K. McIntyre. Alt history of the court of Louis XIV and the lady in waiting who befriends his sea monster. Nebula winner. I was surprised by how much I liked it after getting off to a rocky start with it.
I'm currently reading The Quantum Rose by Catherine Asaro. Just about 50 pages in, and I'm having a really rough time getting into it. It's about the governor of a province on a planet colonized by Earth thousands of years ago who must marry to save her land from impoverishment. Most of the Earth knowledge is now lore. I should finish this by tomorrow though to complete the challenge. This was also a Nebula winner and gets me a head start on my personal challenge to finish reading the 15 or so Nebula winners I have not yet read.

Happy New Year everyone. Here's hoping it's better than 2020. Stay safe!
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