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Our reads June 2021
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dustydigger
Posted 2021-06-01 3:30 AM (#23146)
Subject: Our reads June 2021



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Location: UK		 Dusty's TBR for June 2021

Timothy Zahn - Heir to the Empire
Ted Chiang - Tower of Babylon
Poul Anderson - Brain Wave
Charles G Finney - Circus of Dr Lao
Joanna Russ - Picnic on Paradise
Nicola Griffith - Ammonite
Murray Leinster -Med Ship
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daxxh
Posted 2021-06-01 12:47 PM (#23147 - in reply to #23146)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		I have started The Ministry for the Future and find it slow going. I don't normally have a problem with technical articles and this reads like one. Guess I am not in the mood to read someting that is too much like work reading. I have also started Blood Meridian. It is typical McCarthy -beautiful but brutal prose.

On the TBR pile for this month:
After Atlas - Emma Newman
Freedom - Daniel Suarez
A Friend of the Earth - TC Boyle
Orleans - Sheri Smith
A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine
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daxxh
Posted 2021-06-01 12:48 PM (#23148 - in reply to #23146)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		My posts seem to happen in duplicate.

Edited by daxxh 2021-06-01 12:50 PM
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dustydigger
Posted 2021-06-03 8:57 AM (#23160 - in reply to #23148)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: UK		I finished Joanna Russ's debut novel Nebula nominee Picnic on Paradise.Interesting ,but I often found the literary prose didnt meld very well with an adventure story! Feisty heroine though,not at all common way back in 1968 SF.
Now reading Nicola Griffiths Ammonite and Heir to the Empire.,Timothy Zahn's revitaling of the Star Wars franchise. .
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spoltz
Posted 2021-06-04 8:46 AM (#23162 - in reply to #23160)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		I started June reading The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle for book club. It's a well loved military, first contact, space opera. I'm not enjoying it at all. Even for 1974, it seems very short sighted in many ways. I've got about 300 pages to go by Tuesday. Ugh.

I'm going to read Harrow the Ninth and The Relentless Moon to finish out the Hugo nominees. The Nebulas are being awarded tomorrow. I'm rooting for Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse.

Dusty, I loved Ammonite. Hope you enjoy it too!
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dustydigger
Posted 2021-06-04 5:09 PM (#23163 - in reply to #23162)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: UK		I am about halfway through Ammonite,Steve,fascinatingly strange world,
just completed the utterly amazing Circus of Dr Lao. Left me speechless really,so here is the blurb
''Abalone, Arizona, is a sleepy southwestern town whose chief concerns are boredom and surviving the Great Depression. That is, until the circus of Dr. Lao arrives and immensely and irrevocably changes the lives of everyone drawn to its tents. Expecting a sideshow spectacle, the citizens of Abalone instead confront and learn profound lessons from the mythical made real - a chimera, a Medusa, a talking sphinx, a sea serpent, witches, the Hound of the Hedges, a werewolf, a mermaid, an ancient god, and the elusive, ever-changing Dr. Lao. The circus unfolds, spinning magical, dark strands that ensnare the town's populace: the sea serpent's tale shatters love's illusions; the fortune-teller's shocking pronouncements toll the tedium and secret dread of every person's life; sensual undercurrents pour forth for men and women alike; and the dead walk again. Dazzling and macabre, literary and philosophical, The Circus of Dr. Lao has been acclaimed as a masterpiece of speculative fiction and influenced such writers as Ray Bradbury.''
Haunting,satiric,horrific,beautiful and ugly by turn,and sailing quite close to the wind in sex matters for 1935,I think if it was published today it would become a cult classic,despite the racism and sexism so natural and normal for the times.I rarely read a page without finding some fabulous quote.I immediately bought it on kindle for a ridiculous ?1.99.
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dustydigger
Posted 2021-06-09 5:30 AM (#23173 - in reply to #23163)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: UK		Ah,the nostalgia...... Its 9 years ago this month that I opened up the first thread '' What are we reading June 2012?''Looking back, I still cant get away with Neal Stephenson. Anathem,and Cryptonomicon are still sitting on my shelf unread! lol.Still keep meaning to read Master and Commander too.So many books so little time
I have managed over time to do all the Hugos and Nebulas,and 49/50 of the Locus award,thanks to WWEnd wonderful lists luring me on to always read more!.
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daxxh
Posted 2021-06-10 7:36 PM (#23174 - in reply to #23173)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		Finished Blood Meridian. I have no idea why that book is on this site. Regardless, it was excellent. I am reading A Desolation Called Peace and The Ministry For the Future. Both are slower reads for me. Not sure what I will be reading after those. Probably something lighter.
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dustydigger
Posted 2021-06-13 4:33 PM (#23177 - in reply to #23174)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: UK		well,finished off several reads all at once.
C M Kornbluth - Not this August . Quite brutal alternate history where China and Russia invaded USA,winning WWII. Written a decade before Man in the High Castleand much more harsh and brutal..
Nicola Griffith - Ammonite. I was a little disappointed with this book.The protagonist just didnt ring really true for me as a major messianic type figure.I didnt find her speech to unite the world convincing at all. Enjoyed the anthropology parts,and descriptions of nature and landscape,but I found the premise of a virus as a source of parthegenesis a little ludicrous.All in all a bit patchy IMO.Almost an heretical view to many people,butuch preferred Slow River,even if it was set in a sewage works! lol
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spoltz
Posted 2021-06-15 11:11 AM (#23185 - in reply to #23177)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		This has been a really slow-reading month for me. My expectations were high for The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle, but I didn't like it at all. It took me a week to get through that.

Then I read Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill and I absolutely loved it. It was a riff on Lovecraft (which I know is a trend these days), but it had incredible characterization and was great on the weird. I read that in just a few days.

Now I'm trudging through Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, sequel to Gideon the Ninth. It's nearly unintelligible. So I went review reading and found that many people found the first 2/3 very difficult and it all comes together in the last third. So I'm hoping for the best, but I'll probably not finish it before Friday.

I'll be on vacation next week so my reading will be intermittent. I'm going to Moab, Utah for some intense desert hiking. I haven't been there in about 12 years, so I'm really looking forward to it.
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daxxh
Posted 2021-06-17 9:17 PM (#23201 - in reply to #23185)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		Took a break from A Desolation Called Peace and The Ministry For the Future (both good, but just very slow reads for me) and read After Atlas and The Vanishing Seas. Both were very good.

@spoltz - I love Moab and am disappointed that my plans to drive through there were disrupted by snow earlier this year. Enjoy hiking in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
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dustydigger
Posted 2021-06-18 10:23 AM (#23202 - in reply to #23201)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: UK		Fun little 1954 Poul Anderson ''what if?'' novel.Brain Waves.Long before life on earth began the earth moved into a zone of space which dampened down energy Now earth moves out of that influence and at once intelligence rises greatly. Even formerly slow people now have an IQ of 150,and animals too are enhanced.A highlight of the book when an enhanced rifle weilding chimp comes riding in on an elephant to aid a human! But the rest of society is on a much much higher plane,with new science and technology everywhere ,but mankind becomes extremely self absorbed cold and hard,and all the old ways of arranging society,and even caring about any form of society, fall by the wayside,. Some people cant adjust to the new ways,and there are thorny ethical problems too. Exciting story,wild ideas,philosophical musings - all within a mere 170 pages! Your typical standard 1950s science fiction then! I love going back to early SF,so fun and rewarding reading.
Wonder if Vernor Vinge read this when young and got some ideas about Zones of Thought,some conceptual similarities there.
Now on with a reread of The Kraken Wakes.and Eric Frank Russell's Sentinels from Space,light fluff;,while deciding on my next award winning books to read in July.Dont you just love the wide scope of WWEnd lists?
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spoltz
Posted 2021-06-30 7:51 AM (#23221 - in reply to #23202)
Subject: Re: Our reads June 2021



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		@daxxh - Moab was great as usual. It rained and cooled off a bit, making for nice hiking. Then got back to 116 degree heat in Oregon :-P Also, Arches was really crowded. They were turning people away in the mornings because the parking lots were full. We ended up hiking in the midafternoon when it was the hottest because that's when people left the park.

I finished Harrow the Ninth right before leaving on vacation. It was terrible. I know it has a lot of lovers, being nominated for a Hugo and all, but I'm just not one of them.

Read a self-published fantasy that's not in our db, Misfit Mage, an urban fantasy with a gay MC. It was very entertaining but the prose was amateurish. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the extremely detailed magical system as the MC learned how to use his talents. There's even a magical kitten in it for cat lovers :-D The author Michael Taggart posted a comment on my review on my blog, saying how he was glad I liked the book. That was a nice surprise.

Next I read Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. It was a beautifully written novella about a Wild Man in the Woods and the young new property owner who falls in love with him. The relationship isn't explored until the sequel which I'm reading now, Drowned Country, a little longer novella. It's also really good. I'll be finishing it tonight, then we're onto July.
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