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

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Talon of the Silver Hawk by Raymond E. Feist. I got this way back in October 2008 from Fictionwise for a ridiculously large sum for me - £4.30! Well, it is £6.99 now at Amazon, so I don't feel too ridiculous about it.

The 19th in his Riftwar Cycle, and the first of the trilogy "Conclave of Shadows".

Which was an enjoyable, quick read. Epic sword and sorcery fantasy with a bit of coming of age thrown in.

Next up: Three to get Deadly by Janet Evanovich. A freebie I picked up at Fictionwise back in February 2010.

[DiapDealer]

I recently finished up Becky Chambers' Psalm of the Wild Built. A quite short, but thoroughly enjoyable, hopeful, and thought provoking book. I look forward to more adventures featuring Sibling Dex and Mosscap.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Three to get Deadly by Janet Evanovich. A freebie I picked up at Fictionwise back in February 2010.

Which is a wildly implausible bounty hunter tale with a smidge of romance chucked in, but quite fun.

Next up: The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton. First part of a trilogy, but at 950+ pages, pretty much trilogy length all on its own!

[haertig]

Could I ask, where do y'all get your ideas for what to read? I get many of my ideas right here, from this very thread. But y'all come up with stuff that I've never heard of - never heard of the book, the series, or the author.

Mind you, I really appreciate your suggestions. But who suggests them TO YOU?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by haertig

Could I ask, where do y'all get your ideas for what to read? I get many of my ideas right here, from this very thread. But y'all come up with stuff that I've never heard of - never heard of the book, the series, or the author.

Mind you, I really appreciate your suggestions. But who suggests them TO YOU?

I really don't know. But currently all my books come from my TBR bought over the past 13 years. (I've actually read all the ebooks I've bought before 2008!)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by haertig

But who suggests them TO YOU?

Everyone, everywhere. Whether they intend to or not. I seek out (online and in real life) places where books are being discussed and the people who discuss them. I browse online book stores for authors I've never read before whose books sound interesting.

I also pause TV shows/Movies when I see books in peoples' hands or laying on coffee tables and read those (if I can make out the titles).

If I start a movie and see the words "based on the book X by Y", I often jot down the title/author and turn it off.

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by haertig

Mind you, I really appreciate your suggestions. But who suggests them TO YOU?

Librarians, writers and teachers are over-represented in my social circles, but really I get more of my suggestions right here, including in the "What are you listening to?" thread and different Reading Recommendations threads. I'll get some from r/books and other subs on Reddit, some from authors on Twitter, and occasionally from sales or algorithm suggestions on Audible or Amazon. My whole recent litRPG binge came about entirely from rummaging through Kindle Unlimited, after a few of them turned up in recs from my previous binge of "Connecticut Yankee" style books. I used to get a lot of recs from io9.com, too. I wandered off from them about the same time their founding editors did, but I still follow some of their past contributors and several authors I first encountered there on Twitter.

[haertig]

I do have a friend who is a voracious reader. He must knock out two or more books a day. He gives me lots of suggestions, mostly in the older SciFi and Fantasy genres. He has also flat out given me many books on technical stuff (celestial navigation, ham radio, etc.) My favorite genre would be Action/Adventure. Something that takes me away from normal life. I don't care if it's an alternate world, a jungle adventure, a time travel, a lost underground civilization found, or whatever. I really like James Rollin's stuff. I did have some luck getting suggestions from a simple Google search, "Authors like James Rollins". That turned up a few authors that I did pursue.

I rarely ever re-read a book, but I am currently starting to re-read Subterranean by - who would have guessed? - James Rollins. I'm in a reading slump and hoping that this will rekindle my interest.

A big thanks to everyone who contributes to this thread and similar ones. I benefit greatly from your suggestions, as I'm sure many other people do.

[SeaBookGuy]

I'm working on the second book in the Inspector Ravenscroft series by Kerry Tombs: The Worcester Whisperers. The first six books being available in a 99 cents omnibus edition, not a bad way to pass time.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next, another freebie, The Ember War by Richard Fox.

I liked how the enemy isn't revealed. Drones kill everyone. Lots of action. A little suspenseful. There is some America boasting. The author claims to have done 2 tours in Iraq. Quick entertaining read, some competence as a military sci-fi with just enough catch to make me want to continue on in the series. Decent effort for self-published. Rated D+ [2 stars].

Next TBD

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by haertig

Could I ask, where do y'all get your ideas for what to read? I get many of my ideas right here, from this very thread. But y'all come up with stuff that I've never heard of - never heard of the book, the series, or the author.

Mind you, I really appreciate your suggestions. But who suggests them TO YOU?

I go scrounging. I get a couple of sale mailings and check genre top sellers and top sellers free at Amazon, plus I'm in various book groups across social media. If a book description sounds interesting, I try a sample. If it grips me, I buy the book and read on.

I like finding the obscure gems. Big 5 cater too much to the lowest common denominator.

[gmw]

I tried Connor's Gambit by Z Gottlieb, but it was a did-not-finish. I should have read the preview before picking this up.


The Quantum Magician by Derek Künsken. The universe was interesting and the characters rich and diverse, but it moves fairly slowly while the main protagonist gathers together his crew to pull off an impossible con involving worm-holes and battleships and religious mania and more. I thought the new human subspecies that had been created were intriguing ideas that the author used to good effect both for the story and the themes he built up through it. It was the exploration these themes and extreme character types that took over large parts of the story - which was part of the interest, but not always so compelling. All up I did enjoy this, and there was enough humour in here to help break it up a bit, so rounding up to 4/5.

[Uncle Robin]

FINALLY finished my first last Dickens, American Notes. I was hugely amused by his insistence in the preface that "It has not a grain of any political ingredient in its whole composition". In modern English usage, his book had several truckloads of political grain in it.

Now back to my 2 non-English books for the StoryGraph Multilingual Dreams challenge, and just starting Arkady Martine's A Desolation Called Peace, the followup to A Memory Called Empire. I loved the first one, and the opening pages of this one have been promisingly appealing.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton. First part of a trilogy, but at 950+ pages, pretty much trilogy length all on its own!

Yes, a very long book. And it starts off quite slowly, introducing lots of characters and new things, which you know must eventually start converging. And converge they do, once the story gets going.

There is one honking great coincidence in this story which I hope gets explained as not a coincidence, but I suspect will not, and will remain just a coincidence to the end. In which case, it would be a strongr story without it.

But it's rolling along merrily. A tiny bit of a conclusion at the end of this book, but we're definitely still in the middle of the action.

4/5 from me. I'm not going to move on to the second volume just yet, I think I need a week or two's break.

Next up: Another random pick, Jazz Funeral, the third in Julie Smith's Skip Langdon series, set in New Orleans. A freebie I picked up in February this year.

[Uncle Robin]

Nearly halfway through A Desolation Called Peace and it is every bit as good as A Memory Called Empire. Once again, lots of really interesting and challenging things to say about language, identity and communication. And of course, the coolth of having the central protagonist being described as a "consultant linguist". Sort of Embassytown - The Space Opera