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

[HaemishM]

I just finished up China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and had a hankering for some classic literature. So I grabbed a copy of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.

His prose is tortuously overwritten like he's getting paid by the letter. And even for the time period it was written, he seems an incredibly misogynistic dude - not quite Stephen "The R is for Rape" Donaldson bad, but still pretty uncomfortably bad in that sense. And yet, I'm enjoying it.

[ReadingManiac]

Reading Jack Dawkins by Charlton Daines. It's about the further adventures of the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist. Picked it up on sale yesterday and it's really good!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HaemishM

I just finished up China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and had a hankering for some classic literature. So I grabbed a copy of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.

His prose is tortuously overwritten like he's getting paid by the letter. And even for the time period it was written, he seems an incredibly misogynistic dude - not quite Stephen "The R is for Rape" Donaldson bad, but still pretty uncomfortably bad in that sense. And yet, I'm enjoying it.

I have to disagree. I've read most of Donaldson's books and I have enjoyed them.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have to disagree. I've read most of Donaldson's books and I have enjoyed them.

That in no way rebuts the charge of his misogyny.

As for my own reading, Some Kind of Hero and the rest of "The Expanse" (at least, the unread two novellas and two novels in my collection) are about to get pushed aside for three for-review Ent-corpse books that came in yesterday:

Star's End, Cassandra Rose Clarke
Wicked Wonders, Ellen Klages
The Asylum of Dr. Caligari (ARC), James Morrow

I shall have to locate a bookmark. Haven't done that in a while...

[Dngrsone]

I have to agree: While I enjoy Donaldson's books, I can think of only one series where a main male character didn't commit an act of rape, and in that one it was attempted.

Almost done with Becoming Queen Victoria: The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte and the Unexpected Rise of Britain's Greatest Monarch by Kate Williams.

Next, I will finish off the Nameless Dwarf collection, then likely the second Hesitant Hero book followed by another Foreigner novel.

[CRussel]

I just finished reading the first Sid Halley book from Dick Francis, Odds Against. I'd read this back in the 60's, at which point I pretty much devoured everything Dick Francis wrote from then until his son started doing all the writing, but I'm reminded again of how really good these books are, and how much I really, really find the gratuitous level of violence annoying and off-putting.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now back to Shadow Magic by Patricia C. Wrede.

An OK first novel. An interesting authors note showing how the first chapter was updated. But clearly not her best work. But fun, and good enough to want to read the rest, especially after I enjoyed the Cecelia and Kate novels so much.

Next up: Analog SF, May/June 2017.

[JSWolf]

I'm reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I'm 51% into the book and it's quite good. I really like the characters.

When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.

But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptillian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful - exactly what Rosemary wants.

Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They'll earn enough money to live comfortably for years... if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.

But Rosemary isn't the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.

[ATDrake]

Finished Death Spiral by Leena Lehtolainen, 5th in her Maria Kallio series, which is one of my favourites from the AmazonCrossing exclusive translation imprint. A nice continuation, with an interesting look at the figure skating profession (either semi-important in Finland, or the author or character is a major fan), and various continuing developments in Maria's personal life, which have in no way reined in her somewhat unhelpful but admittedly dramatic tendency to go confront potentially dangerous suspects without proper backup. You'd think that after 4 books at an Amelia Peabody-esque rate of “every year, another dead body” she would learn, but eh… maybe she has lingering head injuries from the previous ones.

Recommended as another solid installment if you've been reading the series (#1-6 are currently just $1.99 or the equivalent in GBP as part of the Kindle Monthly Deals which expire today), which is an interestingly retro (the series started in the 1990s and this one is currently mid-90s and references the Olympic skating champions of the time) look at Finnish police work, which is pretty low-key and rather insular (Maria has either personally encountered or knows someone who knows all the suspects in this, which gives it a small-town cozy feel while maintaining an international cosmopolitan flavour).

[ATDrake]

Finished The 7th Woman by French author Frédérique Molay, 1st in her Paris Homicide series starring Nico Sirsky, an unusually young Chief of Police who investigates exactly that, which was a special offer for just 99 cents in select countries last month. (Incidentally, it's currently on sale this month for $1.99, apparently in a greater selection of countries this time around. And my copy came with a free download link for another one of publisher Le French Book's 1st-in-series mystery titles, which was a nice bonus, even if it was for one I'd already bought during a Kobo sale. )

This won the Prix du Quai des Orfèvres, a reasonably prestigious award for an unpublished mystery/thriller manuscript which then gets published, in its original language. So I was actually a little let down to find out that, as one might guess from the title, it's one of those police procedurals chasing down the obligatory crazed sadistic psychosexual serial killer with an agenda and a tendency to taunt and threaten the investigators, and a fairly standard-seeming one at that (with maybe some extra goriness in the forensic descriptions, which admittedly, the author did seem to do her research upon).

That said, it did show some solid relationships between the investigating team (and made it clear that, hotshot young chief though he was, Sirsky was only one part of an integrated team that needed to work together to track and catch the killer), and legwork gathering evidence and piecing together clues and connections, alongside the obligatory red herrings, and some meditation on what makes such people the way they are, and the costs and risks of police work. (Although it did seem a little over-sentimental when it came to the assorted personal relationship dramas, and the gloating inner monologue of the culprit which so many authors feel the need to include is both boring and annoying as always. )

Overall, a fairly decent read if you don't mind crazed sadistic psychosexual serial killer hunts, and a reasonable beginning to the series, of which the 2nd book, which I'm currently on, is actually much more promising and has a more interesting plot of an apparent obvious suicide who left behind a hidden message claiming they were actually murdered, which may be a medical school prank (or not).

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I just finished reading the first Sid Halley book from Dick Francis, Odds Against. I'd read this back in the 60's, at which point I pretty much devoured everything Dick Francis wrote from then until his son started doing all the writing, but I'm reminded again of how really good these books are, and how much I really, really find the gratuitous level of violence annoying and off-putting.

Next up, To Fire Called, the latest from Nathan Lowell. This is #2 in Seeker's Tales follow-on series from his original Solar Clipper series. I've been looking forward to this a lot, so it goes to the front of the list. And tomorrow is the official release of The Gathering Edge, so I need to "read fast".

[ATDrake]

Finished Crossing the Line by Frédérique Molay, 2nd in her Paris Homicide series starring Nico Sirsky, Unusually Young Chief of Police And His Team. This was considerably more entertaining and engaging than the 1st book, which was a pretty standard serial killer thriller. This one still had thriller elements, but of a different sort, and they played out better with a more original actual investigative mystery plot which then led to another plot (as these things do), as the police tried to figure out if a contradictory case really was a murder, and if so, how could they prove and pin it on the potential responsible parties.

Plus, it had a pleasant increase in the likeable elements that were kind of buried under all the serial killer stuff in the 1st book: namely, a strong sense of place which amounted to an historical walking tour of Paris scenery and culture, and integrated teamwork with everyone playing their part in contributing to the case-solving (and a whole bunch of forensic investigative trivia into how bodies donated for science are processed in France, if you happen to be interested). The obligatory personal relationships drama was also less annoying in this one, too.

Recommended as an enjoyable international police procedural mystery which makes good use of the setting and surrounding culture, with an interesting case behind it (even if the thriller portions seemed a little over the top, as these things do). I'm just disappointed that the English translation title didn't keep the pun of the original Dent pour dent (A tooth for a tooth) and is kind of generically bland.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

As for my own reading, Some Kind of Hero and the rest of "The Expanse" (at least, the unread two novellas and two novels in my collection) are about to get pushed aside for three for-review Ent-corpse books that came in yesterday:

Star's End, Cassandra Rose Clarke
Wicked Wonders, Ellen Klages
The Asylum of Dr. Caligari (ARC), James Morrow

Well, so much for that plan. My power went out Saturday night, and since I live in a cave, that put the kibosh on any dead-tree reading. (Casualties of the outage: one old TV, my cable modem, and possibly the cable splitter. At least they replaced the last two at no charge!) So, on to Some Kind of Hero I went. It was quite like the prior book, and explained a minor mystery left hanging in it. The level of grammatical errors is about the same, maybe a bit lower, but I noticed only two continuity/reality errors this time around. Both of those were very minor, too: two terms got dehyphenated, which I think is an improvement.

I started the Ellen Klages collection while the cable guy - who was neither Larry nor Jim Carrey - was here, and the first story reminds me a bit of Ray Bradbury. That's a good sign, even if not my usual fare.

[astrangerhere]

Started the audiobook of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles for my commute and daily walk.

Started Mur Lafferty's new novel Six Wakes on my Kobo.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Started Mur Lafferty's new novel Six Wakes on my Kobo.

I have that queued up on my tablet... should I move it up the stack?