Finished The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson. The climax and resolutions was really good, even on my 2nd re-read. Finally done with the first era! Wanted to jump right into next book to find out what happens to that one character, but next book is hundreds of years in the future.
Started Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton. Got the series for the kid, he is already halfway through the book and wanted to talk to me about it, so reading it myself.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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I loved the ending of Hero of Ages. There’s a novella to read partway through the second age that does some beautiful stuff around it. The second age is a very different style, but it is a lot of fun. You never regret that extra shake…
I just finished the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. The first book is from the sixties and the final short from 2018, so it is a fascinating trip through the maturation of Fantasy. The first three books are firmly young-adult, while the last three stick with the characters as adults. The whole series ends with a very short story the author wrote to be published after her death. It’s a wonderful look at the mind of an old person at the end of their story.
Recent publications include afterwords written in 2012 which give a lot of context and interesting insights into how she wrote stories.
Yeah, second era feels interesting. And I did look at the novella, but it was published after the second book, so will read it in that order.
I’m currently reading The Thirteen-Gun Salute by Patrick O’Brian. It had been 10 years since I had read the book before it. It’s taking me some time to get into his language and writing style again :)
I have the first novel in the series, but I think it expects to know about ship / seafaring terminologies, cause I couldn’t understand half of it. It was about a decade or so ago though.
There is a companion book that lists most of the terminology called “Sea of Words”. If you really want to get invested, it’s worth a shot :)
Thanks for the info, I’ll take a look.
Just finished “the running man” and found out that I didn’t finish “why we are polarized” by Ezra Klein, so I’m finishing that one now
Currently listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl.
About 4 hours into the 12 hour book and it is good.After only reading sci-fi for quite some time I started a Brandon Sanderson journey. Or more like a Cosmere journey. I started with Warbreaker, then Mistborn Era 1, then Stormlight Archives up to Rhythm Of War, then Mistborn Era 2 to bridge the gap to the Stormlight “Wind And Truth” release, which I’m still on currently, because I’m very slow lol.
Slow and steady wins the race!
Reading Michael Parenti’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome. Some very dubious scholarship, even though I sympathize with the main thrust of it.
Just finished Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. Nice sci-fi, well wrote, page turner, for sure not the best in its genre but it’s quite a nice novel to spend a bit of time.
Next read will be The housemaid, by Freida McFadden and, if I enjoy, I’ll read the two others of the serie.
What would you say is the best in its genre? I’m asking because I very much enjoyed the science, technical details and explainations in Project Hail Mary and The Martian. I’ve found not many Sci-Fi books with similar details in this regard so I would love suggestions :)
I agree with you on all points about the science in Hail Mary. However, what bothered me more was the strict, predictable alternation between past and present. This rigid structure detracted from my overall enjoyment of the novel, making the narrative feel somewhat monotonous and, at times, overly predictable.
On the other hand, The Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Cixin Liu was a real favorite for me.
It’s been a while since I read it but I know what you mean and I think I felt similarly.
I don’t know that trilogy yet. Thank you for the recommendation :)
Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury, interesting. Do share how you like The housemaid.
I just finished The Housemaid and found it to be a gripping page-turner, very quick to read, and thoroughly enjoyable. However, I was a bit disappointed by the ending, which didn’t quite match the level of the rest of the book. It seemed like the author struggled to find a satisfying conclusion. As is often the case with such an engrossing read, the ending can feel a bit underwhelming. Perhaps an ‘open’ ending would have been a better choice.
Ah, thanks fornthe update.
I’ve been working through the Binti novellas by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s my first exposure to Afro-Futurism and I’m enjoying them so far.
Don’t think I have heard of Afro-futurism before, would love to hear your review of the novellas.
Just finished the second book Shift and started the third, Dust, from Silo series. The first two were really good, long enough to dive deep into it and on that sweet level of being easy to read yet enough detail to keep it interesting.
My SO reads me stories in the evening and now we are going through LOTR, although I must say it’s getting a bit cumbersome, being quite slow-paced book and all, so we’ll probably give up and switch to something else soon.
We are reading buddies. I am at the same spot right now. I started because of the Show. And got for Christmas Shift and Dust. If you watch the show too, I would love to hear your opinion.
Nice to hear! Well I’ve quite liked the show so far (also started reading because of it), I think they’ve managed to make the series both similar and different enough from the book for both to be enjoyed as individual interpretations of the same story. I love that they haven’t rushed with the show either, the whole setting/environment is so interesting (and well made) that it’s worth spending time with. I love that in the books as well, the rhythm works well to me at least and I enjoy dwelling in the silo itself and its details. It’s nice that the people in the series are more diverse than in the books, and characters have more depth (although Juliette, but the character feels more unilateral in the book as well than many of the others). Some sidetracks, like that Salvador Quinn thing, feel a bit strange/forced, but we’ll see how that turns out! How do you like the show then?
I have similar feelings. I like that Walker is a woman, this was a realistic change and something I think makes the relationship between Walker and Juliet get to a deeper level. I like the color, the atmosphere. Juliet’s Character in the books shines in interactions with different people. But because she is so introverted and work focused, we only get it in Silo 17 and in book 3. I liked the first season better though.
Tap for spoiler
The cuts are too fast. We switch between scenes too often. In season 2 I think having Lukas be shadow after he was send to the mines is unbelievable. I really enjoy to hate and love Sims. But is way of speaking, dialect is so off from the others, which makes it hard to believe since it is hinted and makes sense in the books that the Silos develop their own dialects. But English is not my first language so that could only be me. Will I watch season 3? Yes!
Have to agree on that, now that you mentioned! Sims kinda feels like he’s from another world, his dialect is too distinctive from the others. It would’ve been nice to see/hear more silo-specific language being used, dialects and idioms, the books only mention it a few times as well!
I just watched the latest episode and can’t wait to see how the next season turns out! IMDB says there should be a 4th season coming as well but it would be the last one.
There’s a lot of fanfic based on the Silo world and I hear some of it very good. Somebody had linked this list of popular Silo fanfic on Reddit, The Karma series as well as Silo 42 and Silo 49 were recommended!
The Running Man
I saw it mentioned on here the other day and with the movie set to release later in the year I thought I’d give it a go.
I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s fast paced and not long so will probably finish it today (I started yesterday).
I read a fair amount of Enid Blyton as a kid, and remember enjoying the Five series. Does it hold up well?
Still haven’t been getting much reading done; I’m not even a third of the way through Between Two Fires yet! It has been enjoyable so far, though, with a lot of clever medieval flavor that reminds me of Arthurian legends, or monsters doodled in the corners of old manuscripts. I suspect there’s probably some Canterbury Tales influence as well, but it’s been a long time since I had to read them.
I wasn’t able to read much, just first 40 pages or so, and it seems to be holding up pretty well.
Son finished first 3 books back to back, so he seems to be enjoying them as well. Though he did say he was able to guess what would happen in the book.
I recently started I Want A Better Catastrophe by Andrew Boyd. It’s good, but it’s rough and I can only read so much at a time which caused me to look for a humorous non-fiction title as a mental palate cleanser. For that I landed on The Utterly Uninteresting & Unadventurous Tales of Fred, The Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes; which, in contrast, has been a lot of fun.
I finished the first trilogy of the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist. This was a series I had read as an early teenager so not my first time through it.
It was largely a disappointing read… it felt very “surface level” for a fantasy book and I never felt very invested. It is hard to read when you compare to Sanderson or Rothfuss worlds and characters.
Next up, I’m going to check out Foundation and will read in chronological order rather than publication order.
