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

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

Robin 3000 #1 and its successor, #2 next week, will comprise my graphic novel for the month.

That's one of the stories included in the 500+ page Elseworlds: Batman, Volume 1 collection, which I'm about halfway finished with. I wasn't super-impressed with that one, either.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Pretender by C. J. Cherryh.

Conveniently, the court intrigue at the end of that book, I was primed to enjoy reading The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I'll go on to finish the trilogy with Goliath by Scott Westerfield while waiting for my library holds to come in.

Satisfying ending to the Leviathan trilogy. Not as much excitement as I would have liked but Westerfeld tells a nice story. This one had some pleasant wit that added to my enjoyment. Rated B [4 stars].

Next, by necessity, is a library book, The Sorcerer of the North by John Flanagan. I'm really having fun with this series.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

Next I am planning to take Under the Dragon's Tail by Maureen Jennings.

Finished Under the Dragon's Tail , not an encouraging read.

Next up, Shadow Tag by Raymond Khoury and Steve Berry.

[Ravensknight]

I am now 25% through Don Quixote.
Thoroughly enjoying my slow read and doing these weekly updates:
Don Quixote Chapters 24-29

[ATDrake]

Finished Over the Wine-Dark Sea, The Gryphon's Skull, The Sacred Land, and Owls to Athens by Harry Turtledove, #1-4 in his Menedemos & Sostratos quartet of historical adventure novels originally published under his non-sfnal penname H. N. Turteltaub, starring two cousins who are sea-faring traders from Rhodes, which were a recent Phoenix Pick Press offer.

These are low-key sorts of trading/travel adventures set in the Ancient Greek-adjacent world, rather than more swashbuckling action stuff; although there are encounters with pirates and dangerous historical figures in the wake of the power-struggles arising after the death of Alexander the Great, as well as escaping from outraged husbands in selected ports. But the feel of them is almost domestically cozy, with most of the excitement coming from visiting new areas and trying to make trades and get bargains on desirable resaleable goods (sometimes successful, sometimes not).

It's actually a lot more compelling than that sounds, with the characters and their world very nicely fleshed out in such a way that their personalities often drive the encounters, and are in turn affected by them, with growth and change over the course of each novel and continuing throughout the series. And there's a good deal of variation in the travel plots, with each novel taking a different route (#3 goes east to visit Phoenicia and Palestine) with different objectives (#2 sees Sostratos the scholar wanting to bring a curious fossil to the Academy at Athens), with local customs and culture put on display, showcasing the surprisingly varied islands and cities of the ancient Mediterranean, who though mainly Greek/Greek-influenced, were hardly monolithic in nature.

I really liked these, and though I thought that due to certain character developments in #4, these were meant to end there as the leads moved on with their lives (one of them was based on a RL historical figure), but it turns out that wasn't a concluding storyline, and there was some setup which could easily lead into a 5th adventure, which would have been nice to see.

Medium-high recommend if you like cozy travelogue sorts of historical adventure novels. Turtledove does his usual high-quality job with interweaving period-accurate historical detail in with the story, which features many engaging personalities who feel like they could have lived in the time period (instead of being modern transplants quantum leaped into the setting), convincingly conveying the excitement they experience when they come across things like probably-Chinese silk (much nicer than the local stuff from the island of Kos) and the titular “gryphon's” skull and manage to finally dispose of some olive oil a pushy brother-in-law has stuck them with, as well as the various ways in which they personally fit in or clash with their surrounding cultural milieu, and provides notes on which real-life historical figures and events actually show up.

I think I could have used a little more in the way of contextual notes about the historical setting (it took me a while to figure out just what opsos and sitos were referring to when it came to the meals: for anyone else wondering, the latter is the starchy nourishing filler base and the former is the meaty/fishy treat), but that's something that could easily be remedied by reading up on Ancient Hellenic daily life on my own time.

[Rev. Bob]

Somehow it feels appropriate to read The Apocalypse Triptych between now and January 20th. It's three anthologies - The End Is Nigh, The End Is Now, and The End Has Come - edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, dealing with the end of the world: right before, during, and after.

Most (but not all) of the contributions are also triptychs, one part appearing in each volume. This leaves me with a minor quandary in how to read them. Should I read each book separately, maintaining the theme, or read them in parallel to follow each mini-saga? I'm leaning toward the latter option, which leaves me mildly irked that the authors are presented in differing sequence with each book.

I suppose I could customize my own omnibus volume and resequence everything...

[Dngrsone]

Finished The Goblin Emperor, which is a very good book and great read, though it does feature one little peeve: why wait until the end of the book to give a pronunciation and naming-conventions guide? I mean, it's too late by then, the reader has already puzzled half of it out or just plain given up on trying. I suppose it might be helpful on the second go-round, if one were planning to do that any time soon, but for me-- there are too many books waiting to be read...

At any rate, it was a good book and will go on the favorites list.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Finished The Goblin Emperor, which is a very good book and great read, though it does feature one little peeve: why wait until the end of the book to give a pronunciation and naming-conventions guide?

It's pretty standard, almost universal, for supplementary material to be placed at the end of the book. Appendex, index, endnotes, glossaries...

[drjd]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

It's pretty standard, almost universal, for supplementary material to be placed at the end of the book. Appendex, index, endnotes, glossaries...

I remember a book I read a few months back about archaeology having a main body text of around 250 pages and indexes, end notes, etc. worth more than 400 pages.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: F&SF for Jan/Feb 2017, edited by C C Finlay.

Another good issue. I think I'm enjoying this much more since CC Finlay became the editor.

"Homecoming", a novella by Rachel Pollack featuring Jack Shade, set in our universe with hidden magic was very good.

There were four novelets:
"Vinegar and Cinnamon" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman was a wonderful siblings story.
"One Way" is an interesting invention based SF story, but the idea deserves a larger setting. "Dunnage for the Soul" by Robert Reed involves an idea that I'm sure I've come across before - perhaps he's used it elsewhere.
"There Used to Be Olive Trees" by Rich Larson seems to be packing too much backstory into a novelet.

Five short stories:
"The Regression Test" by Wole Talabi was an interesting exploration of future AI developments.
"A Gathering on Gravity's Shore" by Gregor Hartmann about Franden's adventures on Zephyr will work better as part of a larger work.
"On the Problem of Replacement Children" by Debbie Urbanski was heart breaking.
"Alexandria" had inserts of quotes from the future of the story, which didn't quite work for me.

The poems and non-fiction I mostly skipped, although the Science article about brainless robots was good

Next up: The Long Cosmos by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. The last in the series, mostly completed back in 2013.

[Dngrsone]

Okay, I am halfway through The Circle by Dave Eggers, and I hate it.

That is, the writing is good enough, but I went into the book blind, so not really sure if there is a conspiracy in here somewhere that is just taking forever to unfold or if the author is just intent on scaring me with the plausibility of this happening or what.

So far, the best part is a secondary character comparing the social media of the story (an amalgam of facebook, twitter, imgr, et nauseum) to corn-based snack foods: empty of calories, satisfying in the execution but you hate yourself for succumbing to the urge afterward.

The company in the book, a composite of all those big tech companies we know and (we seriously need a word that means both love and hate) that spoils the extroverts powering it. The gradual brainwashing of the main character (an introvert like myself) is just so painful to watch particularly when paired with the plethora of 'transparency'-driven great ideas being implemented that are nightmare-fuel to a Libertarian-type person such as myself.

I just don't know how much more I can take, waiting for the (I hope) inevitable explosion...

[CRussel]

So, abandon it. You aren't compelled to finish books you aren't enjoying. I know, that is hard sometimes. But it's a lesson ebooks have taught me. Finally!

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by CRussel

So, abandon it. You aren't compelled to finish books you aren't enjoying. I know, that is hard sometimes. But it's a lesson ebooks have taught me. Finally!

But... I'm halfway there! :angst:

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

So, abandon it. You aren't compelled to finish books you aren't enjoying. I know, that is hard sometimes. But it's a lesson ebooks have taught me. Finally!

I was about to post that while I've become pretty good at this, I want to become better still, when I decided to back up the assertion with stats. And, ouch!

Last year, nearly a third of my reads were one or two stars and that's entirely unacceptable. Some of them I can justify, as in: a book club read; I was learning something; it tanked at the very end; it was a dud in an overall entertaining series; it was borderline three stars; it was mindless distraction during recuperation. However, the total is sobering.

I'm glad this made me look. I need to do much better. As I said above, I've already bagged one book; here's to more abandonment!

ETA: I went back to look, and I can see why I finished more than half the duds. That still leaves a lot of books for which there is no excuse.