Some are green or purple.
1 Like
For me, Vinge’s best book is A Deepness in the Sky. Very tightly focused narrative, a climax sustained through the last third of the book, wonderful aliens—and some nice ironic touches, as when the leader of the Emergents discovers that one of the Qeng Ho ships is named The Invisible Hand and wonders how its owners came up with a name that so perfectly describes covert operations . . .
One thing that Vinge didn’t have, and Gibson did, was the use of noir tropes. Cyberpunk as we know it is essentially science fiction’s version of noir (though Zelazny and Delaney were exploring that ground earlier on, as in Delaney’s “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-precious Stones”). Vinge wasn’t interested in decayed urban landscapes and omnipresent corruption, which are the elements that account for Bladerunner being considered ancestral to cyberpunk.
(And yes, Marooned in Realtime is a detective story—but I don’t think it’s a noir detective story.)
4 Likes
Since my love of both history and board games has recently collided in Pax Pamir. I’ve gone and reserved a (virtual) copy of Return of a King by William Dalrymple at my local library. Has anyone else read it?
3 Likes
I haven’t had the pleasure, but I would recommend The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk as a great book to read to delve more into the geopolitics and history of that time period.
1 Like
I have had this on my list for a while now for the exact same reason but have not read it yet. I am currently reading The Silk Road after Cole Wehrle mentioned it in his Oath designer diaries. I just read the bit on the Great Game but wished it would have gone into more detail. So please let me know if you enjoyed Return of a King, might need to read it after all.
2 Likes
On the pretence of getting a mention of Neil Gamain into this thread and acknowledging the very good points made by @RogerBW and @COMaestro I discovered that Neil had written the following line in Neverwhere:
“The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel.”
That book was published in 1996 and Neil replied to a question about it in 2004.
Sometimes I feel really quite old…
6 Likes
I just decided to take a look at a work of fiction being published on line by Leigh Kimmel, Shepardsport Pirate Radio. It’s a near-future story set in an alternate timeline where the space program was more successful and there are settlements on the Moon and Mars; a number of the characters are cloned, some of them from astronauts, and have ended up on the Moon because there’s prejudice against them in the United States.
Reading it is a little tricky, because it’s being published as blog posts; I was initially reading it latest first, which was confusing! Eventually I figured out that I needed to scroll down to where I could select a month, scroll down again to where I could select the earliest group of posts for that month, and then scroll down again to find the earliest single post in that group, read it, scroll up to the start of the next post, and so on. A little tiring for my mouse hand!
But I’ve enjoyed what’s come out so far; it has interesting worldbuilding, good characters, and a thematic emphasis on the moral expectations of a frontier society, but without the “wild West” overtones Americans are likely to think of in that context. I’m planning to keep following it.
1 Like
Just received these Crécy Air titles from the UK. They will be occupying all of my reading time for the foreseeable future:
1 Like
Ooh, interesting, it looks as these may be extending the Midland Publishing series (British, Luftwaffe, Japanese, Soviet, Secret Projects).
1 Like
Thanks for making me want to get those now too. I have very little bookcase space left. 
I have The X-Planes of course, but I thought the Midland series had gone off into nonsense (“Flying Saucer Aircraft”).
1 Like
When it comes to the Luftwaffe, this is my favorite. I’m on my second copy (my original was “borrowed” and never returned).
1 Like
My friend here in Lawrence has lent me the last three volumes of S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse series, and I’ve read the first few chapters of Prince of Outcasts.
Yes to the Murderbot series!
The best things I read last year were the giant fantasy hardback Priory of the Orange Tree, and the absolutely brilliant Gideon the Ninth (Lesbian Space Necromancers solve an Agatha Christie haunted house mystery with added giant skeleton monsters and two-handed swords).
Right now I’m reading Daisy Jones and the Six for a book club (it’s in the basement of Waterstones which has a cocktail bar in it, and they make cocktails based on the book. We’re doing it via Zoom now, but are keeping booze involved). The next one I want them to do is The Girls At the Kingfisher Club which is a LOVELY happy-making book about 12 daughters who go out dancing in the 1920s.
1 Like
Currently reading Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America.
On Deck: Gabor Mate’s Scattered Minds, Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility, and because I need some level of escapism I’ll probably get around to finishing the first Game of Thrones sometime before January.
1 Like
Just started a fancy illustrated edition of the willows by Algernon Blackwood.
TBH I’m mainly reading it for the illustrations, Paul Pope is one of my favourite comic book artists.
1 Like
My Contemporary Science Fiction course had me read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
I hated it. I hated it with ever fiber of my being. It’s beautiful, the writing is incredible, and I hated it so very much.
No spoilers, but man I hope I never have to read another sci-fi like that. Gods, how do people do it? It’s just… crushing. Like going on a nice vacation from a job that takes everything from you to arrive at a rock quarry where you’re verbally abused for 7 days without food, water, or sleep.
Next is a short story by Mary Robinette Kowal (I forget which) and then Ready Player One, which I’m not looking forward to.
1 Like
Love that book. Until reading this post I would never have hesitated to recommend it, so “hate” is a surprising reaction.
3 Likes
Yeah, that’s understandable. It’s a beautifully written book: it’s just beautifully written for somebody who isn’t as sad as I am all the time. Or who wants to be as sad as I am all the time, I suppose.
I mean, between Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro and The Uplift War by Brin, I don’t think I could argue that Brin writes anywhere near as well, but I enjoyed Brin and will read it again at some point. Plus if Brin releases something else there’s a half-decent chance I will pick it up. Ishiguro is now on my “Great Writers I Won’t Ever Read Again” list.
But that doesn’t make it a bad book. But I hated it.
2 Likes
Still, is it not good to have read it, to have experienced it, and to know that it is not our reality? You went through the wringer, now you are on the other side, and can appreciate the fact that you needn’t be as sad as you were when reading it?
2 Likes