Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[jersysman]

I have just started reading Revan (Star Wars: The Old Republic)

[Moe The Cat]

Finishing up Doctor Sleep (15% remaining) and just starting Ryu Murakami's Audition.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

1632 is certainly great fun. Most of the sequels are good too. And then there's the 51-volumes-and-counting of approved fan-fic in "The Grantville Gazette". (I have read them all…(!) )

Wow. That's getting on for a full year's reading for me. I am still formulating my challenge for 2014.... No! I can't commit to such a narrow focus. Can I?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by orlok

Wow. That's getting on for a full year's reading for me. I am still formulating my challenge for 2014.... No! I can't commit to such a narrow focus. Can I?

I spent a large chunk of my reading time one year reading all the Sherlock Homes stories/books.

BOb

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by orlok

Wow. That's getting on for a full year's reading for me. I am still formulating my challenge for 2014.... No! I can't commit to such a narrow focus. Can I?

I certainly couldn't. I can't usually read two books in the same genre back-to-back.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

That's a good one, enjoy! Actually, I just finished the First Law trilogy finally last night, and might make another Donna Tartt book my first (entire book) read of the year: The Little Friend.

Originally Posted by orlok

A great book.

Mine is 1632 by Eric Flint, which is going great guns so far, but at 600 plus pages will take me a few days to complete.

Thank you Latinandgreek and Orlok. In the beginning I was confused because I liked the story and not totally liked it at the same time. But now that I'm around 20% into it, it has already started to get more fast paced and I'm getting used to the style.
It's amazing how it's so out of time that it's hard to tell when the action takes place. In the 70's? The 90's? Nowadays?

Latinandgreek, I hope you'll like The Little Friend as much as you seem to have liked The Secret History.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by orlok

Wow. That's getting on for a full year's reading for me. I am still formulating my challenge for 2014.... No! I can't commit to such a narrow focus. Can I?

I wouldn't recommend it. Read them while you're enjoying them, and when you feel like reading something else, read something else. I may have read them all, but that's over a (good grief!) 12 year period. Judging by my email records, I bought 1632 in early 2002, a couple of years after it was first published.

[Yapyap]

I decided to pick up a paperback copy of Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, which has been languishing on my shelf since 2004 or so - I'd devoured the first three Thursday Next books and then made it exactly 20 pages into Something Rotten before I put it down; I made another attempt some years later but didn't get any further.

Now I'm ~200 pages in and enjoying it quite a bit, so perhaps I just needed a break from the series. A rather long break...

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I wouldn't recommend it. Read them while you're enjoying them, and when you feel like reading something else, read something else. I may have read them all, but that's over a (good grief!) 12 year period. Judging by my email records, I bought 1632 in early 2002, a couple of years after it was first published.

I agree. I really enjoyed 1632, and read a couple more in quick succession, but then hit one that I didn't like, and went off them for a bit. But I keep coming back, though I now know to avoid that particular author and subplot. She's just not a good writer for me. But the series is still one of my favourites.

[mewmartigan]

I just finished the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb and really liked it. I had never read her stuff before but will definitely continue.

Right now I am reading Crown of Slaves, the first offshoot from David Weber's Honor Harrington series. It looks like the next Harrington book will be the third one in this series so I am finally giving it a go.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

F&SF, Jan/Feb 2014 edited by Gordon van Gelder

As usual, some I really liked, some I didn't like. Overall, average.

Next up, my last purchase of 2013: Analog SF, Mar 2014 edited by Tevor Quachri

[Apache]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I agree. I really enjoyed 1632, and read a couple more in quick succession, but then hit one that I didn't like, and went off them for a bit. But I keep coming back, though I now know to avoid that particular author and subplot. She's just not a good writer for me. But the series is still one of my favourites.

This happened to me also.
Apache

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

my last purchase of 2013: Analog SF, Mar 2014 edited by Tevor Quachri

Again, some I liked, and some I didn't like so much. An average issue.

One story was good, but had a serious problem that still irritates me. It's a bit spoilery, so the spoilery bit is in spoilers

Life Flight by Brad R. Torgersen is about the first interstellar colonisation ship. Hibernation has been developed, so the colonists can sleep, unaging, for most of the 80 year journey. Some stay awake for a dozen years in turn, returning to hibernation after their shift. The journey starts with two adults and four children awake, (the children will grow to young adults during their awake period), and all the others in hibernation.

Spoiler:

It turns out that 1 in 10,000 people cannot tolerate the hibernation process. With six people starting the journey awake, than means they have a greater than 1 in 2000 chance that at least one of the six won't be able to go into hibernation. This is a ridiculously high chance to take, so I can't accept the premise that not all the colonists were put into a test hibernation before being selected for the trip. This rather spoiled the story for me.

Now reading my newest purchase, (it was just £0.99 at Amazon UK today), highly recommend by Time Magazine and some members of MobileRead.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

[DrNefario]

I am currently reading my longest-standing TBR: A Taste for Death by PD James. I received this book as a prize in 1986. To be more specific, I was given a book token, and used it for this and a Thesaurus*, which were then presented to me at a ceremony. I was already an SF&F reader by then, but felt I needed to pick something presentable, and I was enjoying the TV adaptations of the Adam Dalgliesh books at the time.

I believe I did attempt to read it at the time, but was put off by it being a bit slow and overy descriptive. I still find it little bit overwrought for my taste, but it's perfectly readable. I'm not quite two thirds of the way through, and I can't help thinking I'd be done by now if it was an Agatha Christie, but for all that I am quite enjoying it.

I though this was probably the biggest barrier to completing my ABC Murders challenge this year, so I decided to get it out of the way as soon as possible.


*I never really used the thesaurus much, either, but my parents got a lot of use from it for crosswords until it eventually fell apart some years ago.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I am currently reading my longest-standing TBR: […] 1986

You beat me by a long way. The oldest in my TBR pile is only from November 2003.