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

[rainerm]

Reading Biased (shortened title, 2019) by Jennifer Eberhardt. It is very interesting as it brings together otherwise disparate and even mutually exclusive methods--interviews, "scientific" literature on bias and exclusion, and "site" observations. Reviews suggest that the book hasn't contributed new knowledge, but to say that is to miss the point the book makes about the "contemporary state of things."

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: My other January Prime Read Freebie: The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz.

Which I liked a lot. From the description on Amazon I was afraid it would be a gorefest. Not so. As for "breathtaking new kind of thriller"? Looks like a rather fun fantasy novel to me. 4/5, as it gets a little too cutesy sometimes.

Next up: Death Beside the Seaside by T. E. Kinsey. The sixth in his Lady Hardcastle series. Usual fun so far.

[Uncle Robin]

As I'm only reading San Marino la storia in miniatura at around 8-10 pages per day, I read Sam Neill's Did I ever Tell You this? yesterday. Quite entertaining at times, and I'm sure compiling it provided a welcome distraction from what seemed like a death sentence at the time. Now nearly finished The Cyclist book 2 o the DS Cross series by Tim Sullivan. I'm enjoying it more than the slightly stolid starter

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Death Beside the Seaside by T. E. Kinsey. The sixth in his Lady Hardcastle series. Usual fun so far.

And it was fun, although the main plot was rather obvious.

Next up Galaxy's Edge Issue 8, edited by Mike Resnick.

[Dr. Drib]

Finished Elsby's book. [Post #31713]

Next up: The great Meg Pokrass, "Alligators at Night."

A Novella-in-Flash.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next, from library, System Collapse by Martha Wells.

I forgot what occurred in the previous book, so it took me a while to catch up. This was basically a novella to finish the storyline. Fun stuff. Rated C+ [4 stars].

Next, from library also, A Murder of Mages by Marshall Ryan Marasca. Second in the Maradaine Sequence.

[Solitaire1]

My Happy Marriage by Akumi Agitogi and Rito Kohsaka

The story is set at around the time of the turn of the 20th Century in Japan. After her mother dies and her father remarries, Miyo is considered worthless and is treated as less than a servant by her stepmother and stepsister while her father does nothing to protect her from their abuse.

Part of the reason that she is considered worthless is that she doesn't have a special ability like others in her family do. She has been beaten down by so much abuse that she has given up hope that anything will get better, and that all she has to look forward to is being miserable for the rest of her life.

When she's old enough she's sent off to be the bride of the heir of a noble house. The house's reputation is so bad (the back of the book says that it is "cold and cruel") that all of the previous fiancees could only stand it for three days before leaving.

[Uncle Robin]

When I first visited San Marino in 2003, the older couple I stayed with (who spoke no English) and their family all spoke Romagnol among themselves, and some of their nephews taught me a few words - I was struck by how often it seemed more French than Italian. When I went back in 2018, one of their nephews told me that almost no one there speaks "dialetto" any more, and several of the generation I got to know who did have since died.

So I'm really hoping that my friends there will be able to help by translating into Italian the list I'm compiliing in KOReader of all the snippets of romagnol in San Marino la storia in miniatura. BUT, in the meantime, hooray for the Interweb Tubes! The Romagnol stumps me, Google Translate AND DeepL, but incredibly, there's a small romagnol/italian glossay online. Not much, but I'm still amazed it exists at all
https://www.expina.it/dizionario.asp

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up Galaxy's Edge Issue 8, edited by Mike Resnick.

Which had some good original stories in it.

Next up: The Venetian Game by Philip Gywnne Jones

[tweety]

Slowly working my way through the 5th Perry Rhodan Cycle, The Masters of the Island.
38 to go of 99 :-)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: The Venetian Game by Philip Gywnne Jones

Which was good. I can't say if the Venice detail was accurate, but it read OK. The second in the series is my book club's February read, so I'll get to that before the end of February. (No, I don't know why the second in the series was chosen either.)

Then I read Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith. A prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It would have been a better joke if it were a little more Jane Austen and a little less Steve Hockensmith. But good fun nonetheless.

Next up: Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire. The second in her Incryptid series.

[Uncle Robin]

A third through reading The Bangalore Detectives Club book 1, by Harini Nagendra and really enjoying it. I hadn't realised was set in the 1920s, when my great-grandmother was living there, so learning more of the place is fun. As are the references to Lady Molly, I might have to dust off my Orzcy and check her out

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire. The second in her Incryptid series.

Which was good fun. On to the third: Half-off Ragnarok

[fantasyfan]

I finally finished M John Harrison’s A Storm of Wings. I have mixed feelings about it.

I found the prose to be brilliantly virtuosic in its refinement of emotional and descriptive suggestion. The problem for me is that the plot—a quest— simply disappears under the prose. The characters are quite unlikeable and some seem actually mad. They don’t even seem to be convinced that the world they are in is real.

However there are many who feel that the novel is a masterpiece.

I looked into “The Encyclopedia of Fantasy” edited by John Clute and John Grant and found some interesting points concerning this novel.

The main article for Harrison described “A Storm of Wings” as “a kind of visual pun on the first book [“The Pastel City”] repeating the basic story but this time in CROSSHATCH [caps in original] terms . . .” This sent me to the “Crosshatch” article.

Crosshatching refers to the idea that a book can create a secondary world (or worlds) that occupy the same space. The editors cite the “ Borderland” sequence by Terri Windling. They then turn to “A Storm of Wings”. It is worth quoting a section of the article.

“ . . . The entire landscape is a crosshatch, quandaries of perception are rife, and anything at all may be a “trompe l’Oeil. In other words, when borderland conventions are absent, there is an inherent and threatening instability to regions of crosshatch; a sense of imminent metamorphosis. Crosshatches invite journeys: quests lead through them.”

If indeed the book is a crosshatch of its predecessor, then indeed things make more sense. I intend now to read “The Pastel City”. I suspect I will enjoy it (and possibly enjoy “A Storm of Wings” more as well.).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Which was good fun. On to the third: Half-off Ragnarok

Which was also good fun, changing protagonist, location and (most) characters.

Then I read Master of the Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy. Better than I remembered it. Recommended.

Next up: Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. A random pick from my TBR pile.