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

[orlok]

Originally Posted by chookie2

Only one more Repairman Jack to go now, am going to miss him.all in have read eight books this week..greedy huh?

I am just reading (listening to) the very final book, Nightworld, which brings together the threads of the Repairman Jack and Adversary Cycle series in to one (reworked) story. Don't know what I'm going to do with myself when this is finished, as I have been through 17 of the RJ books since January this year and currently live partially in his world .

I suppose the only crumb to hang on to is the last of his prequel "early years" stories of a young Jack, Fear City, has just been released and will be next (and last) on my list.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next is a library book Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. So far it's not working for me but I'll give it a little more time.

Originally Posted by Fbone

Read some more but still no attraction. Put on hold and returned to library.

Now for something I bought (95 cents). Wilt by the recent departed Tom Sharpe.

I managed to get through Full Dark House and thought it was okay, but am not tempted to move on to the next in the series. As a big fan of Fowler's other books, especially Soho Black and Spanky, I just found the Bryant & May characters and story a bit boring.

Good luck with Wilt. I have read the first three in the series and really like the dark humour (though I thought the first was the best of the three so far, which the second two didn't quite match up to). Still have two more Wilts to go .

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Just finished "Sleeping Murder" by Agatha Christie, originally published posthumously in 1976. Like the final Poirot novel, "Curtain", Christie wrote the final Miss Marple novel in the 1940s, and put it away in a bank vault to be published after her death.

Newly-wed Gwenda Reed travels to England and buys a house which strongly appeals to her. She starts remembering all sorts of things about the house, and eventually discovers that it was the house in which she lived with her father and step-mother as a very young child. One day, while attending the theatre, she has a terrifying vision of a woman being strangled in the hallway of the house, while she watches from above. Is this a real memory, or just a nightmare? She turns to Miss Marple for help...

An absolutely excellent book. Thoroughly recommended.

WARNING! WARNING! Danger Will Robinson! The following spoiler contains major spoilers and should not be read by anyone who has not read both Sleeping Murder AND Curtain!!!

Spoiler:

Did you expect her to die, or worse, to prove to be the killer as Peroit himself did in Curtain?

(Answer in spoiler.)

[WT Sharpe]

As I was writing that last post, Swipe kept trying to turn "spoilers" into "spoilera".

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Another recent (August 2014) purchase, Genus Homo by L. Sprague de Camp.

Which takes some people from 1939 and deposits them in a far future. Interesting, but not brilliant.

Next: Hmm.... I think Invasion by by Mercedes Lackey et al. Book One of the Secret World Chronicles. Bought in July 2014. I hope I like it, as I already have books two and three from previous bundles bought in 2013!

[ccowie]

Haven't posted here in a while, but I've read some good books. I'll only mention those that were really good.

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neil was brilliant! Hard to read at times, but couldn't put it down.

Heather O'Neil's second novel is The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and was nominated for the Giller prize. I finished it the day before the Alaward - it was even better than her first.

Also read All my Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. Good book, but not quite up to her past books, most notably A Complicated Kindness.

Also read The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis. Very good book

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I'm taking a quick break from re-reading the full Foreigner series (I'm on #13, Intruder) to read The Many Deaths of Joe Buckley, a delightful little collection of all the many ways that Baen authors over the years have killed off Joe Buckley.

As the Baen site says: All proceeds from this collection will support two charities near and dear to our hearts, both founded, supported, and run by Baen readers: Operation Baen Bulk, which sends books, ereaders, and other supplies to our men and women in uniform, and ReadAssist, which allows disabled readers free access to Baen ebooks.

So far, I'm quite enjoying it, as various authors over the years have tried to come up with new and ever more horrible ways to kill off poor Joe Buckley. If you've ever read a Baen book or two, by all means give it a try. It's only $2.99, and for a very good cause.

Finished with Joe Buckley, and finished the entire Foreigner series of C.J. Cherryh. Which will have to hold me until spring when the next one comes out. I really enjoy this series, and the last of the current Arc, Peacemaker, was quite satisfying, closing off several loose ends and providing a sense of completion. There are obvious places she can go from here, but this wasn't a cliff-hanger.

Next up? Not sure.

[HarryT]

Just finished "The Spheres of Heaven" by Charles Sheffield, which I originally bought from Baen in 2001.

Baen description:

Spacer Chan Dalton is torn between two masters. The pacifist aliens who hold Earth under Quarantine want him to find out why their starships have been disappearing in the Geyser Swirl, the Bermuda Triangle of the galaxy. Earth's military, which has secretly discovered a way to break the quarantine, assumes that someone out there is making ships vanish, including Earth's, and wants Dalton to find the culprits and hopefully stop themwith extreme prejudice, if necessary.

The trouble is, the aliens hold the taking of intelligent life, even in self defense, to be the greatest of sins. It was Earth's violent ways (in defense of the damned pacifist aliens!) that led to the quarantine in the first place-and if Dalton is forced to fight, it will unveil, and so destroy, Earth's final chance to reach for the stars again.

So when Dalton does indeed discover the hostile invaders responsible for the lost starships, he is faced with an impossible decision: Fight and lose access to space forever; or allow a rapacious enemy to run riot over all that he holds dear....

I really enjoyed this. Highly recommended.

[Strether]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished with Joe Buckley, and finished the entire Foreigner series of C.J. Cherryh. Which will have to hold me until spring when the next one comes out. I really enjoy this series, and the last of the current Arc, Peacemaker, was quite satisfying, closing off several loose ends and providing a sense of completion. There are obvious places she can go from here, but this wasn't a cliff-hanger.

Next up? Not sure.

How do you think this series is going to end? I'm assuming there will be an end at some point. Hard to discuss without spoiling it for others, but circular?

Jim

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Strether

How do you think this series is going to end? I'm assuming there will be an end at some point. Hard to discuss without spoiling it for others, but circular?

Jim

I have no idea, except that as long as readers continue to buy the books, I suspect that Ms. Cherryh will be quite happy to write them. She hasn't indicated that she is tired of Bren, or the Ateva, and she has several lines to follow.

Spoiler:

I'd guess we have the Kyo to address next, but I have no real inside knowledge.

If we want to have a more detailed discussion, however, we should probably move it to a separate thread to avoid spoiling for others.

[PurpleStar]

Finished up Grave Peril by Jim Butcher. It was fun and exciting, that's for sure! I look forward to reading more Dresden Files.

Next up, I am reading Trial by Fire by Charles E. Gannon. Might take a while, as it's a rather longish book.

[Strether]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I have no idea, except that as long as readers continue to buy the books, I suspect that Ms. Cherryh will be quite happy to write them. She hasn't indicated that she is tired of Bren, or the Ateva, and she has several lines to follow.

Spoiler:

I'd guess we have the Kyo to address next, but I have no real inside knowledge.

If we want to have a more detailed discussion, however, we should probably move it to a separate thread to avoid spoiling for others.

I don't know if I have enough interesting thoughts about the series to warrant starting another discussion, however:

Spoiler:

I did wonder if Earth will come into play again. Maybe those aliens the Kyo is having problems with are humans, 200 years or so more advanced? Or alternatively, that the Kyo is able to help locating Earth, or a successful human development that would perhaps resolve the problem of what to do with Craddock's humans.

Jim

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Strether

I don't know if I have enough interesting thoughts about the series to warrant starting another discussion, however:

Spoiler:

I did wonder if Earth will come into play again. Maybe those aliens the Kyo is having problems with are humans, 200 years or so more advanced? Or alternatively, that the Kyo is able to help locating Earth, or a successful human development that would perhaps resolve the problem of what to do with Craddock's humans.

Jim

Well, you do point out one definite line we'll see.

Spoiler:

What trouble will Craddock's cronies cause. Also, I think we'll see problems related to the new daughter. But I honestly hadn't thought about Earth getting back into it. That's an interesting thought.

In any case, I'm sure it will be worth the read. Though if her story arcs work as in the past, we'll have cliff hangers for the first two books in this arc.

[sian]

robert rankin

currently re reading

the brentford triangle

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by orlok

I managed to get through Full Dark House and thought it was okay, but am not tempted to move on to the next in the series. As a big fan of Fowler's other books, especially Soho Black and Spanky, I just found the Bryant & May characters and story a bit boring.

Good luck with Wilt. I have read the first three in the series and really like the dark humour (though I thought the first was the best of the three so far, which the second two didn't quite match up to). Still have two more Wilts to go .

So far Wilt is holding my interest. The author's writing style is enjoyable.