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

[Dngrsone]

Finished Precursor by C. J. Cherryh, and am now trying to fix the dozen little errors in my digital copy: this is an older copy of the ebook and apparently some corruption has occurred...

Then I may go with a biography of Raold Dahl, I have a backlog of bios and memoirs to go through.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

Naturally I would like to take up next The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing, by the same author, to continue my present reading mood.

Nice one indeed. These books tempted me to buy another two books of the series, by Tarquin Hall, although written earlier by him, The Case of the Missing Servant and Case of the Love Commandos, which I am going to read next.

[Rev. Bob]

Been doing some more indie reading. This time it was books two and three of Critical Failures, by Robert Bevan. The first book is about an obnoxious "beer and pretzels" roleplaying group that gets sent into their game world - as their characters - after they make too much fun of their new GM. These two expand on their efforts to get home, and other people he's stranded there in the past pop up.

The novels and short stories are irreverent and heavier on the gross humor than I'd prefer, but it's good and funny overall - particularly if you know your D&D. (C'mon, this game is Caverns and Creatures, by Larry Lilacs. It only gets more blatant.) The shorts are collected in "d6" anthologies (d6, 2d6, 3d6, etc.), and they amount to "adventures these characters might've had around a third of the way into book two." In other words, totally not necessary for understanding the plot of the novels, but the location set up in the beginning of CF2 serves as home base for the short fiction.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Finished Precursor by C. J. Cherryh, and am now trying to fix the dozen little errors in my digital copy: this is an older copy of the ebook and apparently some corruption has occurred...

I've grown to love ebooks with only a dozen or so errors...

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next is a library book, The Last Policeman by Ben H Winters. The description caught my interest.

I figured out the antagonist immediately upon its appearance. Not sure if this means I'm getting better at this or Mr Winter's plot was very obvious. In any case, this was a so-so book. The end-of-the-world antics were mildly interesting although this could have been further developed. Rated D+ [2 stars].

The author determined/researched that an asteroid 6.5 kms in diameter would be large enough to destroy the Earth. True or not, I don't know.

Next is another library book (they're coming in hard & fast), Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan. The first in his Ruins of Gorlan series.

[covingtoncat73]

Skellig and Slaughterhouse 5.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

I've grown to love ebooks with only a dozen or so errors...

LOL... I have gotten to the point where I can usually ignore 'em; but when it's a book I know I will reread, I do try to edit the copy on my computer to save my future self a modicum of grief.

... though some days, I can't summon the energy to do so.

... and then there are the times where the file is so corrupted, it's worth the eight to ten buck to just buy a new version of it...

Meanwhile, still slogging through the unauthorized biography of Roald Dahl... it's a bit tedious, like someone's Master's thesis, but then just as I am ready to put it down for good, the writer perks up and writes decently for a spell.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now I'm reading Silence by Mercedes Lackey. More in her Serrated Edge universe of Elves and troubled teens.

It was OK, but not brilliant.

Then I read The Road to Hell by David Weber. The long-delayed third in his Hell's Gate series. It was a bit hard keeping track of everyone, especially at the start, when it's been so long since I read the first two.

It was OK. There was a tiny bit of additional world-building advance, but far too much (IMO) was on minutiae of deployments, etc. I'll still probably buy the next one.

And now I'm reading The Year's Best Military & Adventure SF 2015 edited by David Afsharirad.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Meanwhile, reading an old one that I apparently missed when it came out. The Death of Sleep, the first of the Planet Pirates series from Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye. It's OK, but not exciting me.

Hmmm. Apparently not the first. IAC, no better than so-so. I'll probably read the next one (which is really the first one), because the co-author is a much better writer. (Elizabeth Moon)

Meanwhile, started reading a book from the latest Baen Bundle -- Women of Futures Past, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. This is a collection of shorter works from some of the giants of the past and present. The very first one is The Indelible Kind, by Zenna Henderson. An author I didn't know, and a real winner of a story. Next up was a McCaffrey Pern story I had never read. This bodes really well and I'm quite delighted by getting this book in the monthly bundle, when it really wasn't why I was buying it.

[Pulpmeister]

The Mest of Myles
by "Myles na gCopaleen"

This is a bit different. Flann O'Brien is the pen name of Irish Civil Servant, and author, Brian O'Nolan (1911-1966). He wrote several novels in the Modernist manner: At Swim Two-Birds (1939), The Hard Life (1962), The Dalkey Archive (1964), and The Third Policeman (written around 1939-40, published poshumously).

He is best known for his long-running column in the Dublin newspaper The Irish Times called "Criuskeen Lawn", presented as though by an imaginary writer called Myles na gCopaleen (Myles of the Ponies) who, along with Sir Myles (the da) , the Plain Peope of Ireland, 'the brother', and others, form part of the column's characters. It's a freewheeling affair, with Myles at one point referring to his days at Clongowes College in the 1890s, at another point going on about his days as a "steam man" on the Irish railways, playing word games with the reader, telling shaggy dog jokes, giving a breathless sports report on an imaginary sport to a baffled Plain People of Ireland, retailing snatches of dialogue overheard, for instance:

A pretty golden little baggage was talking to her lover.
‘D’you know, Godfrey, only last night I learnt many interesting things about my family. D’you know that my great-grandfather was killed at Waterloo?’
‘Rayully, sweetness, which platform?’
The golden head was tossed in disdain.
‘How ridiculous you are, Godfrey. As if it mattered which platform.’

There were columns entirely in Irish, or in Latin, and sometimes in English, but written using Irish orthography, eg:

Éadhbard Hill fbhait acsplainéisin cean iú gibh for thabhaing des seidisius dochúmaints in iúr poisiéisiun?

(Which I finally realised said: Edward Hill what explanation can you give for having these seditious documents in your possession?)

The column ran ffrom around 1939-40 until the author died in 1966, and some years later The Best of Myles appeared, the first of a series of collections of pieces from the columns.

My copy is a Paladin paperback from 1990, but it has recently (March 2016) become available as an ebook from HarperCollins. It is quite a big book, illustrated with drawings which look like woodcuts, perpetrated by the author, and the mass of material is marshalled into some sort of order, a difficult feat given its intentionally chaotic nature.

Recommended for those who enjoy someone making the English language sit up, jump through hoops, and disappear up its own fundamental orifice.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now I'm reading The Year's Best Military & Adventure SF 2015 edited by David Afsharirad.

Which was OK. Some excellent, some not so much to my taste.

Checking my read books on my Kindle, I notice I forgot to log one: A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor.

The third of her "Chronicles of St Mary's" time-travel books. But they're just not good enough. I'm abandoning the series, and discarding the other two that I have and the prequel.


Next up: Alliance of Equals by Miller & Lee.

The next installment in their Liaden series. I'm just 1/3 into it, and it's excellent as expected. They somehow seem to have avoided having long books where nothing much happens, a fate that befalls many long-running series.

[MickeyC]

Just finished another VERY cozy mystery, The Dark Vineyard , by Martin Walker. And, in it, there is a very funny scene when the townspeople get together for their annual ceremony of stomping the grapes when they ripen.

They put them all in a large vat and the men takes turns stomping on them while the women comment, very candidly, on the hairy legs they are looking at. A great laugh

WARNING: Do not read this book if you are hungry as there is a scene where Chief Bruno is cooking dinner for several of his friends and it is mouth watering. If this had been a pBook, I'd have probably chewed up the pages.

[Luffy]

I've started reading The Deeds of Paksenarrion, by Elizabeth Moon.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Checking my read books on my Kindle, I notice I forgot to log one: A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor.

The third of her "Chronicles of St Mary's" time-travel books. But they're just not good enough. I'm abandoning the series, and discarding the other two that I have and the prequel.

Yeah, that's the same place I abandoned the series. With two or three bought that will remain unread. So promising, initially, but so not good enough to waste my time on as the series continued. Sigh.

Next up: Alliance of Equals by Miller & Lee.

The next installment in their Liaden series. I'm just 1/3 into it, and it's excellent as expected. They somehow seem to have avoided having long books where nothing much happens, a fate that befalls many long-running series.

Agreed. This remains one of my favourite series. I just know that when I pick up a Lee&Miller book I will not be disappointed.

Originally Posted by MickeyC

Just finished another VERY cozy mystery, The Dark Vineyard , by Martin Walker. And, in it, there is a very funny scene when the townspeople get together for their annual ceremony of stomping the grapes when they ripen.

They put them all in a large vat and the men takes turns stomping on them while the women comment, very candidly, on the hairy legs they are looking at. A great laugh

WARNING: Do not read this book if you are hungry as there is a scene where Chief Bruno is cooking dinner for several of his friends and it is mouth watering. If this had been a pBook, I'd have probably chewed up the pages.

Agreed. An excellent series, and one of the better books in that series. Though none of them have been duds yet.

Originally Posted by Luffy

I've started reading The Deeds of Paksenarrion, by Elizabeth Moon.

You've got a good read in front of you. She takes the Paks world further than she probably should have in (much) later books, but those first Paksenarrion books are a pleasure. I'm almost ready for a re-read.

Originally Posted by CRussel

Meanwhile, started reading a book from the latest Baen Bundle -- Women of Futures Past, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. This is a collection of shorter works from some of the giants of the past and present. The very first one is The Indelible Kind, by Zenna Henderson. An author I didn't know, and a real winner of a story. Next up was a McCaffrey Pern story I had never read. This bodes really well and I'm quite delighted by getting this book in the monthly bundle, when it really wasn't why I was buying it.

Still going strong. So far, this is the surprise winner of the Best of the Monthly Bundle award.

[DiapDealer]

Finished up The Woman Who Died a Lot--seventh in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. I love these silly-a$$ books, and I don't care who knows it. I have to be in the right mood for them, but they're perfect for when I start taking myself (and/or my reading) too seriously.