SF/F Books: Chapter Two - What Are You Reading?

[Steve Roby]

And speaking of bibliographic nightmares... it looks like that may be the one I have as The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume 3: Second Variety.

So what's so "ugh" about it? It's been a long time since I read it and most of the story titles (other than "Second Variety" and one or two others) don't ring much of a bell. PKD is generally better known for his novels than his short fiction, but he wrote some good short stories.

 

[Starbreaker]

Saga of the Seven Suns book 6 Metal Swarm

I was reading Book 3 and then I lost it, and now I've forgotten most of the story. I think I'm going to buy the whole set with the new covers and do a reread. I've got the ugly old ones. I think it's by the same guy who did the horrible Dune covers. I've always liked the UK versions better. There's just too much going on on the first few US ones.

 

[PointyHairedJedi]

And speaking of bibliographic nightmares... it looks like that may be the one I have as The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume 3: Second Variety.

So what's so "ugh" about it? It's been a long time since I read it and most of the story titles (other than "Second Variety" and one or two others) don't ring much of a bell. PKD is generally better known for his novels than his short fiction, but he wrote some good short stories.

Quite apart from the disturbing mysoginistic overtones that many of them carry, I've never managed to actually care what happens to a single one of PKD's characters yet. That's pretty fatal in any story, whatever length. Some of the ideas are interesting, this is true, but again as with everything else he's ever written that I've read the way they're presented, the actual words used, leave me with what I might figureatively describe as a sour taste in my mouth. That said, I still prefer these short stories to his novels - I can get them over with quicker, for one thing.

 

[Skywalker]

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. I'm only about forty pages into it, but the setting seems very interesting so far.

 

[S. Gomez]

Jules Verne's Journey To The Centre of The Earth, which will probably be followed by the next in Erikson's "Malazan" series, Deadhouse Gates.

 

[Caleuche]

Just finished The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, which I enjoyed as much as is possible for a book about a theocratic, misogynist society and I was surprised that I liked the ending given how little it answers. It was considerably better than Huxleys Brave New World and Salingers Catcher in the Rye which were the books before it.

Now starting Alastair Reynolds Redemption Ark, after which it will be Iain M. Banks Against a Dark Background, Diane Duanes Rihannsu Quadloidgy, Philip Pullmans The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass and three years worth of National Geographics. At this point I will finally be up to date with my reading. This should only take the rest of the year.

However if anyone has any recommendations for upbeat, positive science fiction novels, I’d be more than willing to listen as I’m really starting to tire of dark, sinster dystopias at the minute.

 

[PointyHairedJedi]

Did you ever read Stand on Zanzibar (by John Brunner) before? That's pretty colourful and it's got a great ending. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars) is great too, if you can stick with it.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I've just finished Red Dwarf: Better Than Life, and started re-reading DS9: Avatar.
I'm also about 8 chapters in to Watchmen and on the 3rd story in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One.

 

[S. Gomez]

Okay, I put down Journey To The Centre of The Earth. Even though it was just about 60 pages or so from the end, I couldn't take it anymore. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea (translated by the same person) was fantastic and gripping. For reasons I simply can't explain or understand, this was excruciatingly boring. Even though it was many, many years ago I still have a vivid impression of the 1959 film with James Mason; I knew about the differences already, so it's not that it wasn't like the "story I fell in love with". It just... wasn't interesting.

And this evening, having read the first ten pages or so, I've also put down Deadhouse Gates. I'm just not in the mood for epic fantasy right now (don't know what kind of mood I'm in, really), but I definitely plan to read the series. Gardens of The Moon was great, and I liked it. But I think the sheer size of it all is going to make it feel much more like a chore than it should be in the state of mind I'm in.

Just isn't a good time to be a book I pick up. I'm probably just antsy to get on with re-reading (and partly reading for the first time) Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I have the first five volumes coming this week, with the last five soon to follow.

 

[Mistral]

Just finished The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, which I enjoyed as much as is possible for a book about a theocratic, misogynist society and I was surprised that I liked the ending given how little it answers. It was considerably better than Huxleys Brave New World and Salingers Catcher in the Rye which were the books before it.

Now starting Alastair Reynolds Redemption Ark, after which it will be Iain M. Banks Against a Dark Background, Diane Duanes Rihannsu Quadloidgy, Philip Pullmans The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass and three years worth of National Geographics. At this point I will finally be up to date with my reading. This should only take the rest of the year.

However if anyone has any recommendations for upbeat, positive science fiction novels, I’d be more than willing to listen as I’m really starting to tire of dark, sinster dystopias at the minute.

To Ride Pegasus by (Anne McCaffrey?)

I'm currently reading Fearful Symmetry and I have to admit-it reads like fan fiction. In fact, one of the plot points is very similar to a major plot point in a fan fic I wrote-but I aint saying anything....

 

[Brian]

I just finished Shatner's autobiography, "Up Till Now", which I quite enjoyed.

Today I'm starting the ST:TNG anthology, "The Sky's the Limit".

 

[Stevil2001]

I finally finished volume 2A of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame; I found it much less stellar than volume 1. The caliber of the stories just seemed so much weaker. Now I'm catching up on tie-ins and also tackling volume 3 of The Alexandria Quartet, Mountolive.

Today I'm starting the ST:TNG anthology, "The Sky's the Limit".

Enjoy!

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I just picked up The Andriod's Dream by John Scalzi but haven't had a chance to dig into it yet. I also can't wait for The Last Colony to be out in mass-market since it's the installment of the Old Man's War saga that I haven't read. I want to do so soon because the next book Zoe's Tale is due out soon as well.

Of recent years, I haven't been reading a lot of litSF but Scalzi has brought me back into the fold.

 

[Mistral]

Middy-fair warning-The Last Colony doesn't operate on the same level, IMO. I still liked it but it seemed...less original. Still, I'm gonna get Zoe's Tale. Like Scalzi's style overall.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I've just finished reading the second book in Trudi Canavan's Age of the Five trilogy, Last of the Wilds, and I have to say that this trilogy is shaping up to be better than her The Black Magician trilogy. One of the most interesting aspects of these Age of the Five books is that Gods are real, essentially sentient magic, and their priests/priestesses rule the land. But you have to read them to understand it fully.

I've just started reading Greg Cox's The 4400: The Vesuvius Prophecy and while I am only about 80 pages into it so far, I can safely say that I can imagine this story as an episode of the series and look forward to the next books, two of which act as a "season five" as they take the characters and story beyond the series.

 

[PointyHairedJedi]

Do you know, I've had a copy of The Caves of Steel for a few years now, and never read it? Or at least I hadn't until this week. Bit of a strange omission that, given how much else of Asimov I've read.

The thing I'm on now is The Mocking Program by Alan Dean Foster. The only other work of his I've read is The Dig, the first page of which turned me off so much that I immediately put it down. This is looking much better though.

 

[MyCylon]

Completed "Neuromancer" a few weeks ago, and I'm now reading "2010 - Odyssey Two". I might continue with 2061 and 3001.

 

[S. Gomez]

Finally purchased Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I read the first seven volumes from the library last year, then decided I like it so much that I would savour reading the ending until I had bought the whole series for myself. The last five volumes have just been ordered so...

 

[zakkrusz]

Star Wars-Legacy of the Force: Inferno by Aaron Alston

Recently Finished:
Claymore Volume 12 by Morihiro Yagi

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Middy-fair warning-The Last Colony doesn't operate on the same level, IMO. I still liked it but it seemed...less original. Still, I'm gonna get Zoe's Tale. Like Scalzi's style overall.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I like Scalzi's style too.