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What SF/F Book Are you Reading? .. Redux

Klaus

Klaus

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The last version of this über-useful thread seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs, so here's a new one.

Just finished Babel-17 by Samuel Delany, which I thought I'd read in the misty depths of time but apparently not as none of it was familiar. It was a very interesting read and challenging in places, not hard to see why it won the Nebula and not the Hugo. :lol:

Now beginning Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I like it so far, though it does have a little "look-how-cool-an-author-I-am" element at times.
flamingjester4fj.gif
 
The Maze Runner by James Dashner. I have been attempting to finish it since November. It's not bad. I really enjoy it while I'm reading it. It's just that when I'm not reading it, I tend to forget that it's there.
 
I am waiting for the mid-September release of David Weber's "How Firm a Foundation," the fifth novel in his Safehold series of books.

Gatekeeper
 
Finishing Steven Erikson's "Gardens Of The Moon". Good stuff, once you understand who's who and what's going on.

Wiki says that the series has 10 books and that it's finished. How's the rest of them compared to "Gardens Of The Moon"?
 
Finished Snow Crash, which was a lot of fun, and now diving into the deep end with Philip K. Dick's Valis trilogy. :eek: Got through Valis and into The Divine Invasion.
 
I'm into the second quarter of Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton, with Judas Unchained up next. Hopefully Vinge's The Children of the Sky is out by then.
 
Greg Bear's ANvil of Stars...thinking about a re-read of Neuromancer before reading the sequel to Anvil...

RAMA
 
Klaus said:
The last version of this über-useful thread seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs, so here's a new one.
Click to expand...

Oh I missed this thread.

The Valis 'trilogy' is one hell of a read. I think the first book is the best of them, but really Philip K. Dick's later, frustatedly gnostic novels are usually my favourites.

Had an active enough summer, sci-fi book reading wise. John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar was fantastic, even if it was a little weird to read a book set last year (at a time that was a distant future date) whose predictions went from the once-topical fears of population explosion to the cannier quips about increasingly personalized corporate advertising. There's a trenchant anger about global income inequality that, well, is unfortunately just as apt.

The Windup Girl was also really good. One could almost taste the heat here. Vivid bit of eco-sci-fi, with rising sea levels and the collapse of fossil fuels and the rise of biotechnology somehow resulting in a world where dirigibles are back in fashion. I got it entirely on a whim and didn't regret that at all.

Also spent the summer trawling through various books of Ursula Le Guin's Hainish "series" (it's rather loosely connected to the point two completely different planets which are each themselves a major focus happen to have the same name, Werel, out of the author not recalling she'd used it before) - with some of the short stories, at that. Of the books I read this year The Dispossesed was by far the best, but since it was a year or so ago when I read Left Hand of Darkness that's probably not being terribly fair.

Oh, and Frederik Pohl's Jem. It's hard to make aliens that seem convincingly alien, convincingly biological, and, frankly, interesting. I think Pohl did rather nicely with the three thoroughly weird inhabitants of the title planet, although the race of sapient balloonists who are attracted to light are by far the most fun.
 
Shurik said:
Finishing Steven Erikson's "Gardens Of The Moon". Good stuff, once you understand who's who and what's going on.

Wiki says that the series has 10 books and that it's finished. How's the rest of them compared to "Gardens Of The Moon"?
Click to expand...

I've read the first 5 books, with 6-9 on my bookshelf and just waiting for mass market paperback release of the 10th.

Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice are really great, House of Chains is a major departure from the inter-related stories of the first three, but stars a couple real badass main characters. Midnight Tides was the clear low point for me of the first 5. Seems like it was mostly to set up plot for later books.

This is a great series if you like world building and huge, sweeping plotlines. I love it, but the length of the books means I always have to take a long break between installments. Erikson is a good writer.

I just read Without Warning by John Birmingham. Loved it, so tense and cataclysmic.
 
On a side note, it'll be easier for me to read what I want now -- for the first time in over 8 years, all of my 1000+ sf/f paperbacks and hardcovers are alphabetized. :D
 
Got "Tides of Light" in hardback in the mail today...its one of 2 books in the Galactic Center series I have not read....now I have both for future reading.

RAMA
 
Orion by Ben Bova. It was the first sci-fi book I read, nearly 13 years ago. This is my first reread and I still love it. Read over half of it in one sitting today.
 
Finished the VALIS trilogy, which was indubitably mind-warping... I think Transmigration of Timothy Archer might have been my favorite, not sure. It's not a casual read, that's for sure... my money's on the idea that if God exists, it's insane as that's the only one that seems to fit the evidence lol. All in all an interesting read for a militant agnostic.

Now on to The Past Master by R.A. Lafferty. :D
 
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