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

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Finished "Sheepfarmer's Daughter", by Elizabeth Moon. The first book in the Baen omnibus "The Deed of Paksenarrion", one of my all-time favourite fantasy books. This must be the 4th or 5th time I've read this book, and I love it every time. Superb fantasy. Can't recommend it highly enough.

I agree.

I've read F in Exams: The Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers by Richard Benson, which was very humorous, but also very short.

Also short and I'm nearly done with is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Finished "Sheepfarmer's Daughter", by Elizabeth Moon. The first book in the Baen omnibus "The Deed of Paksenarrion", one of my all-time favourite fantasy books. This must be the 4th or 5th time I've read this book, and I love it every time. Superb fantasy. Can't recommend it highly enough.

You know, it's time for a re-read, you're right. I think this time, I'll mostly listen to it. I find I hear new things I don't get when I read. (And the reverse is also true.)

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Then Moon over Soho book 2 of the Peter Grant/Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch which was excellent. If you haven't started the Peter Grant/Rivers of London series and like police procedurals, mysteries, or urban fantasy I highly recommend it. The first book is nominated for October's book club as well if you need some incentive to try it.

I'll add to that recommendation to suggest that if you enjoy audio books at all, this is a series to listen to even before you read it. The narration for the series is done by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and it absolutely brings the book and the characters alive. Holdbrook-Smith tempers the actual accents enough that this non-Brit could still understand what was being said, but enough gets through to give you a real feel for the people and the place. Highly recommended.

[MickeyC]

Just flew through The Temporary Agent by Daniel Judson and it was not dull!

Also just read Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin. First of these I've read and delighted I have the rest of the series in front of me.

[Dngrsone]

I'm thinking I might read a little bit about Jason Bourne... if I find any time in the next week or so.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Just started reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time. Even though he's probably best known for his ten-part "Shadows of the Apt" fantasy series, I've chosen to reward him for writing this great-big honking stand-alone generational scifi tale of uplift and exploration instead.

Winner of the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award, by the way.

Huge in scope (and scale). Ambitious, thought-provoking and fairly compelling. I love a "Big Idea" as much as the next SF fan, but the fact of the matter is: a night's sleep after finishing the book finds me hard-pressed to remember the names of the characters. I bought into their plight (and their aspirations), but not into them. Characters can't take a back seat to ideas (no matter how grand) in books I'm going to rave about.

I enjoyed it, but I wanted a lot more from this book.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

...Characters can't take a back seat to ideas (no matter how grand) in books I'm going to rave about....

Normally I would agree with that assessment, but my all-time favorite science fiction movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey (yes, I've also read the book, as well as the short story "The Sentinel" By Arthur C, Clarke on which both were base), and that movie had personalities well in the background. The first half hour didn't even have speaking; only pre-humans running around on a pre-historic Earth doing mostly pre-human things. No character in that film was what I consider fully developed, and the focus shifted from one character to another as the story developed, yet because of the grand scope of Clarke's idea, the film was a masterpiece. It was about the idea, not the people. The people came and went only to develop the idea.

[DiapDealer]

That's fair, Tom. I'm just not a fan of characters taking back seat to Idea. That cold "clinical" atmosphere is exactly what kept me from loving 2001 (book or movie). But I understand there are exceptions and that his story didn't lend itself well to sustained characterizations.

Children of Time had no such extenuating circumstances. The same main characters were present throughout. The people were clearly meant to be relevent to this story. I just found them thin and unmemorable. *shrug*

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Normally I would agree with that assessment, but my all-time favorite science fiction movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey (yes, I've also read the book, as well as the short story "The Sentinel" By Arthur C, Clarke on which both were base), and that movie had personalities well in the background. The first half hour didn't even have speaking; only pre-humans running around on a pre-historic Earth doing mostly pre-human things. No character in that film was what I consider fully developed, and the focus shifted from one character to another as the story developed, yet because of the grand scope of Clarke's idea, the film was a masterpiece. It was about the idea, not the people. The people came and went only to develop the idea.

Speaking of 2001 (also one of my favs), do you know what HAL stood for?

[orlok]

Originally Posted by MickeyC

Speaking of 2001 (also one of my favs), do you know what HAL stood for?

My understanding is that it doesn't stand for anything. It's just the letter before each of those in "IBM".

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Which is clearly derivative - obviously. But quite fun.

So much so that I'm going straight on to the next one - Chaos and Amber.

And on to the third: Rule in Amber

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by MickeyC

Speaking of 2001 (also one of my favs), do you know what HAL stood for?

Originally Posted by orlok

My understanding is that it doesn't stand for anything. It's just the letter before each of those in "IBM".

If you take "HAL" and bump each letter up one character, you do indeed get "IMB". I remember an article in a 1968(?) issue of Playboy in which it was mentioned how the story was so carefully planned that even the computer's name had hidden significance. Alas, Clarke has explained since that it was just a serendipitous fluke that it worked out like that. Kind of similar to what Douglas Adams said about the whole 6 x 9 equaling 42 in a base 13 system thing. Just a fluke, unplanned by either author.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

My next-ups are ... I'm not quite sure about these but I have the first 3 books in the Ripple series, two I got on the cheap ($0.99 each) and the other for free. They're YA, which is not really my thing, but I've had them over 4 years now so I'll give them a chance: Rippler, Chameleon, and Unfurl.

I enjoyed these more than I thought I would; the characters were mostly likeable and the plots were OK. There are 7 books in the Ripple series but the first 3 form a complete story arch, and I don't intend to continue from there.

Next up are The Doctor's Perfect Match by Irene Hannon, Monday the Rabbi Took Off (another Rabbi Small entry!) and Palace of Justice by Susanne Alleyn.

[DiapDealer]

Starting Any Other Name - Tenth in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series.

[GibbinR]

It might interest other UK SF readers to know that a couple of classic SF novels have recently become available at amazon.co.uk:
- The Ringworld Engineers, by Larry Niven
- Night Lamp, by Jack Vance
Also for those whose reading goes back to the '50s I have recently discovered a couple of Pohl and Kornbluth novels 'Wolfbane' and 'Gladiator-At-Law' in the same place, although they may not be very newly added.