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

[Apache]

It is a wonderful book and series. Except for Virginia DeMarce's books.
Apache

[Fbone]

I finished Warship by Joshua Dalzelle the first in the Black Fleet Trilogy. I didn't enjoy this one. The science was unbelievable and inconsistent. Too many coincidences and all setbacks easily overcome. And finally, the expected d.e.m at the conclusion was silly. The ebook suffered from severe formatting issues (sentences would end and continue further down the page and letters cutoff by right margins) and numerous typos.
Poor self-publishing effort. Unedited and not proofed. Rated D [1 star].

Next is another self-published book, Invasion by Platt and Truant.

Added: To be fair, I am not fond of sci-fi where it takes 9 hours to orbit a planet and months at FTL speed to reach your destination. Yet, communications take days and missiles find all their targets despite the time and sensor lag waiting for light to catch up.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Apache

It is a wonderful book and series. Except for Virginia DeMarce's books.
Apache

Agreed. About both the series and especially DeMarce. Her books really put me off the series and I lost the thread of it. Had I realized earlier, I would have skipped them.

[Strether]

I've finished Visitor, the latest book in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series and I found it absorbing all the way through. Hard to comment on the particulars without getting into spoiler territory, but those who've read the previous books have a real treat in store for them. I read it twice just for the sheer pleasure of reading such a wonderful book.

Jim

[CRussel]

Agreed. This series just keeps on giving.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by issybird

Thank you for all the suggestions, especially when I was disrespectful of a beloved genre.
[...]
As for the other titles, I shall look into them all. I do have a few off-the-cuff reactions. I remember the Dune series being popular in my adolescence and it didn't appeal to me then. Tolkien was someone I abandoned for all time during those years, too;

Yeesh, I don't blame you. Stay away from the SF 'classics'. Ignore those who recommend Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov allatonce in their first breath. Read some SF written in the past 30-40 years. For alternative starting points, having read your other post, I recommend Bujold's Vorkosigan books, starting with Shards of Honour/Barrayar. Try The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell; Station Eleven; Ann Leckie's series; The Dervish House; any Paolo Bacigalupi book; Clade; James S A Corey; John Scalzi (in fact, I'll go out on a limb and say try Fuzzy Nation); Tidhar's Osama; All The Birds in the Sky. If you want to try a classic, maybe try Kindred, or posssibly Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man".

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by Strether

I've finished Visitor, the latest book in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series and I found it absorbing all the way through. Hard to comment on the particulars without getting into spoiler territory, but those who've read the previous books have a real treat in store for them. I read it twice just for the sheer pleasure of reading such a wonderful book.

Jim

I am so behind on this series, despite Cherryh being one of my favorite authors... I just can't read them all one after another anymore, I get burned out. I am promising myself to reread, and then catch up; just reading a little something different in between, like I have been with new series lately.

Speaking of new series, I finished In Cold Blood by Mark Dawson. It was okay, but not exciting enough to me to warrant continuing on... undecided on the next title, though I am currently looking at the cover of another biography (good Lord, another painfully long title...): A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley by Neal Thompson.

[MickeyC]

Just finished Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs based on a reco from HARRYT back in Feb and it was an excellent read. She's a good writer with a very pleasant sense of humor and there were changes towards the end I never saw coming.

Thanks Harry

[KyBunnies]

Originally Posted by KyBunnies

I am DNF Gables Trilogy by Dianne Venetta. I have tried to start this series 3 or 4 different times and I cannot even get past chapter 1.

I finished The Romanov Stone By Robert C. Yeager. This was a good book. I like it. It had some very far-fetched parts that I found hard to believe. Not a 5-star WOW read for me. At most it was a 3.5-star book.

I have started The Safety Expert By Doug Richardson. I am still in chapter 1 and so far it is different. A little weird/strange.

I finished The Safety Expert By Doug Richardson and Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans By Joanne DeMaio.

I would give The Safety Expert a solid 4-stars. After I got past the second chapter it turned out to be a very good book. I do wonder why the author made such long chapters instead of breaking it down into smaller chapters. For a book with over 350 pages to only have 10 chapters seems off. Just my opinion.

For Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans I give 3 stars. I was not a drawn into the book like the other book by this author. It was a good read but I just did not feel connected to any of the characters.

I have started Evil Town by John David Bethel. So far I am enjoying this book. The advantage to me is the author works in the Capital.

I also plan to start The Advocate's Daughter by Anthony Franze. I need to have this review written one day next week. I received this ARC in exchange for a review.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

Didn't quite finish Un Lun Dun during the flight. I kept dozing off. Finished the last 70 pages this morning. Loved it. And all the "Un" references. And, I've decided to read The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley. I started it last year during Overdrive's "Big Read", but didn't finish it. I'm at the 1/2 way mark and should finish it in a day or two.

Quickly read through The Door in the Hedge and finished it on Sunday as well. And then started reading Victory, the third book in Nick Webb's Legacy Fleet trilogy. By Tuesday, I had completed Victory and started reading The Enemy, #8 in Lee Child's Jack Reacher mysteries -- which I'm still reading. And *then* I received e-mails from two of the libraries where I have accounts. So I've downloaded Winter, the final volume in Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles and War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by meeera

Yeesh, I don't blame you. Stay away from the SF 'classics'. Ignore those who recommend Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov allatonce in their first breath.

That's blasphemous! But understandable. Writing styles have changed, and if you are used to the recent styles, these could be hard to take. Plus, some of the technology mentioned has definitely dated and that sometimes jars me out of the story.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by davidfor

That's blasphemous! But understandable. Writing styles have changed, and if you are used to the recent styles, these could be hard to take. Plus, some of the technology mentioned has definitely dated and that sometimes jars me out of the story.

I am talking to this particular person and using their explanation of what they like and don't like. My kid likes Asimov a bit, and that's fine, though it's not a favourite for him. But in general, I will admit that this is a big pet peeve of mine - science fiction lovers continuing to recommend their gateway drug (the fifties writers that they read age 12 in the seventies) as though they're a good current-day gateway drug for adult litfic readers. I grew up on Asimov and McCaffrey, but I don't recommend them first-up these days to non-SF people looking for SF recs. Context matters.

I am similarly eye-rolly at people who recommend the YA books they read forty years ago as though they're a great way to engage reluctant adolescent readers of 2016. It just doesn't work.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by meeera

I am similarly eye-rolly at people who recommend the YA books they read forty years ago as though they're a great way to engage reluctant adolescent readers of 2016. It just doesn't work.

Especially when there's much better fare available nowadays.

I decided to read Exigency by Michael Siemsen. It's been sitting in my TBR for a while and I am glad I finally got around to reading it. It looks like this author is mostly a mystery writer, but I am liking this one scifi book he has written.

It's funny, I am a scifi person (some may have noted that), and yet I've read hardly any scifi in the past year... I don't know if I am burned out on the genre or expanding my horizons, or what. I guess lately I have just been looking for different, though there are plenty of books in my reread list, and I have been vacuuming-in the free and bargain books to stack in my TBR; trying to restrict myself to selections that I will actually read in hte somewhat near future.

Maybe I need to start going to the addicts thread.

[LovesMacs]

I'm concentrating mostly on two books, Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts, and In the First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The Napoleon biography is quite good, detailed but not dry (to me, anyway).

The other book, so far, is disappointing me. The book starts off with a Soviet national trying to make contact with Western officials about nuclear secrets. Now I'm getting bogged down with descriptions of a bunch of prisoners who work in a secret acoustical lab who chat and chat and chat.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Nice. A little cooler (58° F), but still nice. I should go for a walk today.

I think you missed your thread there...

Currently reading Engaging the Enemy, by Elizabeth Moon, number 3 in the Vatta's War series. I read this series some 20+ years ago, but it's the perfect fit right now when I needed something easy to move between eBook and audio book, and use when I'm swimming, driving or working around the yard. No direct attention required, but enough going on to keep interest. And I like Ms. Moon's writing, so a comfortable read.