What books are you currently reading?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Concurrently with the 'proper' books I've been reading, I've also been reading the GazF series, i.e. fan produced series detailing nations on Brun in the vein of the classic Known World Gazetteer series.
Good stuff.

[ericthecleric]

Finished reading the Millenium series (including up to book 7).

Book 6 was very well plotted (as was book 7), neither of which I'd read before.

Karen Smirnoff, the writer of book 7 (8 is on the way) is a much better writer than Lagerkrantz, who wrote books 4-6. She includes humour, for a start. She has seemed to forgot (pun intended) that Lisbeth has a photographic memory, and also changed some of the details of the original trilogy. Even so, minor gripes. Definitely worth reading if you liked the others.

In case anyone wonders, I thought that Lagerkrantz made Mikael too unlike he is in the original trilogy; too grim. Skip the film version of book 4; it's the only film I've ever walked out of the cinema, it was that bad an adaptation.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

"Blue Mars" was a bit of a slog. It's been too many years since I read Red Mars and Green Mars so I had forgotten most of the characters, and just reading synopses, though it helped, wasn't enough to put me squarely back into things. I might have liked BM better if I had read the first two recently.
Without going back and rereading everything back to back to get a more complete and fair impression, an effort that does not seem worth it to me now, I recommend reading the first book (possibly the second) and just ignoring the third.

On to le Guin's The Word for World is Forest. Very obviously her Vietnam War protest book. I came across a guy who didn't like le Guin because she was 'so damn preachy'. That opinion never really made sense to me until I started reading this book. Our first POV character is almost a caricature of a baddie. The only thing saving it is the knowledge that there actually are people as bad as he, or nearly so. In short, the style of this book is more akin to Sheri Tepper than le Guin.
Not that that's a bad thing, just more in your face than I'm used to from le Guin.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Short and bitter-sweet. Quite good.

On to Edge of Infinity: the Scarred Planes, a manual of the planes for the Scarred Lands setting.

[Thomas Seitz]

I have that book... :)

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

And because I prefer reading dead tree rather than screens where most of my RPG reading is done, I'm reading Hel's Eight by Stark Holborn, sequel to "Ten Low", alongside EoI. The world is sort of a mix between Firefly and Mad Max, or possibly Blood Meridian (based on what I've heard of that book).

[Limeylongears]

Currently reading 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth', by Jules Verne, and J.R.R. Tolkien's translations of 'Gawain and the Green Knight', 'The Pearl', and 'Orfeo'

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

"Hel's Eight" was decent. I might just pick up the third book in the series.

On to Charlie Stross' A conventional boy, a Laundry story but independent of the main storyline or the New Management. This one is sort of like 40-year-old virgin meets the Laundry, starring Derek the DM, a supporting character from one of the previous books. It's short for a Stross book, 200 pages in hardcover, with a ton of D&D references. Some possible continuity errors from previous installments, since he now runs 1e AD&D rather than 0D&D (though given timeline this change makes sense).
It is also seriously meta with him running what is basically the Laundry Files RPG using D&D, with metaknowledge about future. I assume this will be explained in a sensible rather than being a cheap joke. So far I'm enjoying it quite a bit, as expected.

[Aaron Bitman]

On December 8, 2022, in this thread, Aaron Bitman wrote:

In 2016, I was finishing up my second reading of the Conquerors trilogy by Timothy Zahn when I wrote about it in this thread. Here's a link to that post.

Later that year I began my third reading of the trilogy and wrote about it again. Here's a link to THAT post.

Once again - as in my second reading of the trilogy - I put it down - this time for YEARS - before picking it up again. I plan to finish it this weekend. I still have some gripes with that series. So many details seem to make no sense, and I believe that Zahn obfuscated those details with unnecessarily complicated-sounding babble. Well, maybe I'm wrong. I would love to get some kind of Conquerors source book in which Zahn could clarify those details; if he did, maybe I would revise my opinion and admit that the issue was with my comprehension, not with Zahn's writing. But I doubt it.

And yet, I just keep crawling back to that series! I said it before and I'll say it again: If you're looking for a military sci-fi novel series, or one with FTL travel and a variety of intelligent, space-faring races - in other words, a Star Wars-like book series - I can't think of anything I'd recommend more highly than the Conquerors trilogy.

And now I'm nearly finished with my FOURTH reading! I plan to finish it this week. I was going to write some stuff about the trilogy in this post, before realizing that - years ago - I basically already said everything I now want to say.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

It turns out that the book "A conventional boy" contains not only the title story but also two previous Laundry short stories, Overtime and Down On the Farm, making ACB a mere 130 page, very short for Stross. I don't want to say he was phoning it in on this one because I still enjoyed it but it was definitely not his best work.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Just started on Mercedes Lackey's The Winds of Fate, first of the Mage Winds trilogy. I found the series at a flea market last fall along with a bunch more of her stuff and chose this series pretty much at random . I haven't read much (if any) of Lackey's previous works so I wasn't aware beforehand just how many books are set in the Valdemar setting and how many books had come before this particular trilogy. I briefly considered letting this lie on my shelf unread in hopes that the same flea market will still have the rest of Lackey books come summer and buy the preceding series but decided against that.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I'm glad I picked up the entire Mage Wind trilogy in one go since the first book was enjoyable and I want to finish the series. I might very pick up more Lackey books if the flea market I found them at last year still has them this year.

[Set]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Short and bitter-sweet. Quite good.

On to Edge of Infinity: the Scarred Planes, a manual of the planes for the Scarred Lands setting.

While I was not a fan of that particular book, the Scarred Lands had some great stuff. I particularly liked a bunch of the Ghelspad continent, with Hollowfaust (which is where I set the game I ran there) being a big fave (although I also liked Lokil, Shelzar, etc.).

I loved initially the idea of a whole nation of half orcs with no 'unfortunate implications' because they all had half orc mommies and daddies, but then the setting sort of added that nastiness back in with the half elven situation in Termana, so, eh.

As for my current reads, I am rereading David Brins Uplift War (last night) and Startide Rising (tonight), which are my favorite two Brin books.

I also just read C.S. Friedman's Feast of Souls a few days ago, which was good, and I'm looking forward to picking up the next two books in that trilogy (which I've ordered already). Her Coldfire trilogy was also fun, as was This Alien Shore, which I read last weekend.

A favorite line from the Coldfire trilogy.

Party in a sketchy bar

Wizard "There's blood on this menu..."
Warrior-priest "It's a rough place, wipe it off."
Wizard "No. I mean there's blood *listed* on the menu!"
Warrior-priest "Animal or human?"
Wizard "Uh, there appears to be a selection."
Another wizard (who is also a vampire) "Tastes vary."

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I have had Hollowfaust and Relics and Rituals for years and liked them but never really got into the Scarred Lands as a whole. I am in the process of remedying that. I have to admit that Edge of Infinity didn't exactly wow me with lots of cool new ideas. Frankly, it was rather humdrum, nothing I hadn't seen before in terms of planar stuff. Maybe a few ideas for locales I coud steal but nothing that made we want to adventure there.

Anyway, I read Charlie Stross' Escape from Yokailand, originally titled Escape from Puroland, yesterday. It's a short little novella, exploring what woud happen if Hello Kitty were a Lovecraftian monster.
I felt it could have done with a bit more work but on the whole it was enjoyable.

Now reading Mercedes Lackey's Winds of Fate, second book of the Mage Winds trilogy.

[Limeylongears]

Finished JRR Tolkien's translations of 'Gawain and the Green Knight', 'The Pearl', and 'Orfeo', and also read 'Seven Spheres' by Rufus Opus; now onto Jocelyn Godwin's translation of the 'Hypnoerotomachia Poliphili', a very peculiar book from the Renaissance about a dream journey, and still have 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' to finish.

[Tim Emrick]

I'm currently reading a collection of Roman dramas, three plays each by Plautus, Terence, and Seneca.

Plautus's plots will feel familiar to anyone who's seen or read Shakespeare's comedies, because he was one of the Bard's favorite authors to plunder for plots and stock characters. (For example, "The Menaechmi" is the mold for the twins separated at birth and mistaken identity gimmicks Willy loved so much.)

I've only read the first of the Terence plays so far, but it was largely more of the same. So far, the book is Interesting because I've never read any Roman plays before, but these soap opera farces aren't my usual cup of tea.

I'm looking forward much more to Seneca's plays, which just from the titles (Medea, Oedipus, Thyestes) promise something more in the Greek tragedy vein. (I'm also partial to Medea as a character because I used her to very good effect in the Greek myth solo game I ran for my wife. Her hero quickly learned to hate and fear witches--but the truly legendary ones most of all.)

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

"Winds of Fate" suffered a little from being the third book in a trilogy. Not much happened beyond downtime stuff except towards the end. Still, it was OK. On to Winds of Fury, the last book of the series. New villains, major developments.

[Adeptus7]

"Córka Łupieżcy" by Jacek Dukaj. Polish sci-fi, I think it was not translated into English.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I wish more east European SF was translated. However awesome Lem and the Strugatskys are, I'm sure there are a few more awsome ones that haven't gotten English-speaking exposure.

Currently reading Necromancer Games' 3e edition of "City-State of the Invincible Overlord", with the intention of reading more of the Wilderlands setting in the future.

[Limeylongears]

'Magus: the art of magic from Faustus to Agrippa', by Anthony Grafton, and 'The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls novel', by Greg Keyes.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Currently reading ERB's Tarzan and the Castaways, which contains the title story and two others. It's Tarzan: some of the best pulp stories you can find, sadly racist to mar the experience.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

The Tarzan stories were entertaining.

Started rereading Tanith Lee's The Birthgrave. I'm going to enjoy this one again.

[Phillip Gastone]

Finished Under the Dome by Stephen King and...King has a problem with endings it seems. A lot was coming together and then boom, so much for that. Perhaps it would have been better to have things split into multiple books so there would be more room to breathe.

[Limeylongears]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

The Tarzan stories were entertaining.

Started rereading Tanith Lee's The Birthgrave. I'm going to enjoy this one again.

If you read New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine, there was a very good mini-bio of her in their most recent issue.

[Aberzombie]

I started reading The Gods of Pegana by Lord Dunsany yesterday evening. It's interesting so far. This was one of two Lord Dunsany books I received for my birthday a few weeks back.

[Aberzombie]

Finished with The Gods of Pegana. I enjoyed it. Now I’ve moved on to another Lord Dunsany book, a collection, The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories.

[Tim Emrick]

I've
finished the Roman Drama anthology I posted about last time. Seneca's three tragedies (Medea, Oedipus, Thyestes) were by far my favorites, because of my interest in Greek myths. I was familiar with the first two because they're closely modeled after Aeschylus's plays, but Thyestes was new to me because (as the intro explains) there are no surviving Greek texts of that segment of the Mycenaean myths. Perhaps the most notable thing that three have in common is that nearly half the text is the central character raving about their own crimes, and the many wrongs done to them.

Since then, I've reread Sun Tzu's Art of War this past week. (I own the translation edited by James Clavell.) Musashi's Book of Five Rings lives next to it on my shelf, and I usually read these two books back-to-back whenever I revisit them, so I likely will this time, too.

I need to give some thought very soon to what book(s) to take with me on my family's vacation travels next month. Space is at a premium because we're going to a family wedding, then to Origins.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I really enjoy Dunsany. I hope you've read "Time and the Gods", which is the best of his works I have read.

[Aberzombie]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

I really enjoy Dunsany. I hope you've read "Time and the Gods", which is the best of his works I have read.

I don't have "Time and the Gods" yet. It's part of a list I keep of potential gifts, so the wife and kids always have some idea of things to get me for birthday/Christmas/Father's Day. I'm hoping it'll maybe be part of my gifts for the upcoming Father's Day.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

On the subject of Pegana, the 3e version of City-State of the Invincible Overlord has a number of blatant references to Dunsany's work, including a minor pantheon of the gods of Pegana (consisting of among others: Mana, Yood and Sushi (sic)), the beast of Mung, and the sword of Welleran.