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

[Yapyap]

I'm still making my way through Red Mars. I can't remember when it actually took me this long to get through one book, when sitting down to read daily (as opposed to just taking a few days off from reading completely).

Considering I'm now three quarters in, and it's just vaguely interesting enough that I don't want to quit now, I have a feeling I'll have a few more days with it before I can finally commence reading at a more normal (for me) pace.

[MickeyC]

Just finished The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku and it was a fascinating read. Typically of Kaku, he makes complex science very understandable.

Next up, Never Go Back by Lee Child

[orlok]

Originally Posted by samhy

Now, I'm going to read Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor.

Sounds really interesting, and as I'm a sucker for time travel stories, I might look this one up. Looking forward to your report when you finish.

EDIT: OOohh. It's only 49 pence on Amazon at the moment (£12.50 saving!), so I'm buying it right now. 1-Click. Done.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by orlok

EDIT: OOohh. It's only 49 pence on Amazon at the moment (£12.50 saving!), so I'm buying it right now. 1-Click. Done.

I'll wait for a freebie, or really good reports back. £0.49 is almost one fortieth of my remaining discretionary book budget for the year!

[Strether]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Note, the last 100 pages is a list of characters and a glossary - mostly a character list. If this series gets much longer, you'll need a database to keep the characters organized.

Which makes a mockery of the Kindle x-ray feature, since that just sends you to the list of characters. By the time you've spent time scrolling down the list, you've forgotten what the character's name was. I wished many times for a feature that would allow you to press on the character's name and that would tell you who he was and even more important, what side he was on. Very often, especially when you begin a new chapter, you have to read a page or more before you know whether you're with the good guys or the baddies.

Jim

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by orlok

Sounds really interesting, and as I'm a sucker for time travel stories, I might look this one up. Looking forward to your report when you finish.

EDIT: OOohh. It's only 49 pence on Amazon at the moment (£12.50 saving!), so I'm buying it right now. 1-Click. Done.

That does sound like fun. Bought!

[Strether]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I'm still making my way through Red Mars. I can't remember when it actually took me this long to get through one book, when sitting down to read daily (as opposed to just taking a few days off from reading completely).

Considering I'm now three quarters in, and it's just vaguely interesting enough that I don't want to quit now, I have a feeling I'll have a few more days with it before I can finally commence reading at a more normal (for me) pace.

I had a similar problem with the book, though I stubbornly continued through the next two sequels. The epitome of hard sci-fi where the ideas are all important and five minutes after you've finished the book you can't remember the name of any character in it.

Jim

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Strether

I had a similar problem with the book, though I stubbornly continued through the next two sequels. The epitome of hard sci-fi where the ideas are all important and five minutes after you've finished the book you can't remember the name of any character in it.

But I wasn't convinced by the hard sf aspect of it either. I think it's probably time I take Blue Mars and The Martians off my TBR pile. I can't think of anything that would make be load up Blue Mars to read.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

But I wasn't convinced by the hard sf aspect of it either. I think it's probably time I take Blue Mars and The Martians off my TBR pile. I can't think of anything that would make be load up Blue Mars to read.

I enjoyed "Blue Mars" more than the previous two, but it's not a series I'm likely to read again.

[Tarana]

Just finished Dead Beat by Jim Butcher yesterday. It was a very good book with Butters, an ME introduced in the last book, who becomes a major character in this book. He provides a good deal of humor.

Next up is Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh, a book club selection (English Mysteries @ Goodreads). I'll be listening to Prime Cuts by Diane Mott Davidson while bringing a relative to medical appointments this week. There are often interruptions and I lose the thread of more complicated stories.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I enjoyed "Blue Mars" more than the previous two, but it's not a series I'm likely to read again.

I think that clinches it!

[DrNefario]

I enjoyed all three of the Mars books. Lots of interesting ideas, but it is kind of a future history, which means individual stories get lost a bit.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Strether

I had a similar problem with the book, though I stubbornly continued through the next two sequels. The epitome of hard sci-fi where the ideas are all important and five minutes after you've finished the book you can't remember the name of any character in it.

Jim

Originally Posted by pdurrant

But I wasn't convinced by the hard sf aspect of it either. I think it's probably time I take Blue Mars and The Martians off my TBR pile. I can't think of anything that would make be load up Blue Mars to read.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I enjoyed "Blue Mars" more than the previous two, but it's not a series I'm likely to read again.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think that clinches it!

Well, I really did try to read Red Mars, back when I bought it in hardback, actually, because I thought I liked Kim Stanley Robinson. Which means I paid a bunch for it. And you know, I don't think I ever managed to finish it. And I am sure that I didn't like it because I never bought the follow-on volumes. And clearly others felt the same.

[Yapyap]

It's somehow very reassuring to know I'm not the only one who just can't really get along with Red Mars!

I'm not much of a hard scifi reader - not averse to it, just not my go-to genre - but with this, I think it's the actual writing / style that doesn't really gel with me that well. Something about the way the sentences are constructed.

Also, yeah, flat characters are flat. I like the actual Mars descriptions, and the concept of telling the decades-spanning story of the first settlers through multiple POVs is, in itself, not bad, but when I actually manage to get into only a few of those characters' stories, and am either bored by the others or disliking the character whose POV it is, that's not helping (and neither is, for me, the difficulty to really grasp the passing of time - you get the occasional mention that years have passed, and obviously see things change, but the characters themselves seem rather stagnant).

[samhy]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Oh, do report back on that one. It looks interesting. A total of 146 people gave it 4.6 out of 5 stars on Amazon. The only thing that looked iffy on the main page was the reviewer who said, "I would have given this 4 stars if not for the spelling and grammar problems, but they do not detract or distract too much for the story to be enjoyable," but even that reviewer noted that "...it is very worth reading. Lots of humor, adventure, interesting characters, and written in a breezy, quirky way that makes it easy to like."

Originally Posted by orlok

Sounds really interesting, and as I'm a sucker for time travel stories, I might look this one up. Looking forward to your report when you finish.

EDIT: OOohh. It's only 49 pence on Amazon at the moment (£12.50 saving!), so I'm buying it right now. 1-Click. Done.

Originally Posted by HarryT

That does sound like fun. Bought!

I'm about 30% into it and so far this is very funny, the witty sort of funny. Last night I woke up around 1:30 and couldn't go back to sleep because I was coughing too much when laying down. I picked up the Aura HD to read another chapter, even though I had an early meeting. After that I was ready to sleep.
Right now, I'm looking forward to shutting down the computer and go (going???) read that book. This book is a catchy one, I tell you