I enjoyed them a lot, but I like authors who invent new and strange crimes. The one in Revelation Space consists of creating records of a settlement that never actually existed, and then “destroying” it with your starship’s weapons. This was a bluff to get the planetary government to co-operate without actually committing mass murder.
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Interesting, that felt like a cop out to me and not especially true to human nature, although the beings involved are not quite human any more. For me it didn’t ring true and made me lose confidence in the book; they’ve not been shy of murder before, so why the subterfuge now when it would be easier just to do what they said they would? I agree, though, it’s an interesting idea. It didn’t work for me but maybe I’m just a cynical old sod.
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Finished Chasm City last night. My “to read” pile is now:
- Feersum Endjinn (attempt #2)
- Against a Dark Background
- The Saints of Salvation
- The Lost Metal
I remember the Brandon Sanderson stuff being pretty easy-going so I might start there.
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Gearing up for a Malazan re-read here this year as well.
Last year I read all of the Jackelian World Series by Stephen Hunt. It’s a fun all-in Kitchen Sink series largely with steampunk dressing. The last book goes well off into craziness and felt very much like the best realized Rifts (Palladium) fiction possible.
In particular I like how Commodore Black appears throughout the series because I imagine him looking exactly like Captain Haddock.
I also just re-read The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers because Warhammer Fantasy always makes me think about that siege of Vienna era and the Whartson Hall sessions have me once again mentally in that milieu. I’ve read a fair bit of Tim Powers but I always enjoy this one most. It’s an era there’s not enough fiction on and its Arthurian bits have that enjoyable frisson of the late 1970s about them that kind of bridges between Excalibur (1981) and Robin of Sherwood (1984) visualizations of legendary history.
And as an overlooked modern esoteric mystery I can recommend John Fasman’s The Geographer’s Library. Fasman is a journalist who was regularly on Economist podcasts throughout the core pandemic period and I was surprised to find he had written a couple of novels. This one was a good brisk read and for folks who have played modern era GURPS Illuminati or Warehouse 23 adjacent campaigns it may provide some nostalgia for those or ideas for other ways they could have gone.
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This took me a loooong time to finally get through!
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It was known informally at the time as Stewpid Tyetull.
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I didn’t get too far in before I fell into a bit of a “no reading” slump. (I don’t think this book was to blame.)
Decided to start from scratch rather than rely on remembering what I read 6 months ago.
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Well I’ve now finished Ravioli Spice and ultimately I like it even less than my last post. I suppose my feeling, which I’ve started to come to recently with some gritty hard SF, is that just because everything is grounded in very hard real science, it doesn’t mean the story isn’t basically fantasy wish fulfilment, and the ending here… no spoilers but geez.
I frankly found A Game of Thrones more realistic, at least as far as human nature goes.
I still love SF over fantasy and I’ll keep going (I do like Peter F Hamilton, who feels similar but more fun) but I don’t think I’ll try any more by Alastair Reynolds).
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I can heartily recommend that. It mostly just got funnier and funnier as more and more things accumulated. His “Classic Scrapes” book is also hysterical.
I’m back on the Victoria Wood bio (currently reading about “As Seen On TV”, and thinking I might just take time out to watch the DVD :).
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“Disappointed with The Moth Keeper. Not enough moths.”
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A surprisingly good comic series about bowling, Nazis, being Jewish in the USA and bowling. Also I could not help but hear Judd Hirsch as the father.
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I bought the recent Discworld humble bundle so have decided this will be a year of re-reading (for about 80%) or reading the entire series in publication order. Just finished book 1. We’ll see if I actually make it all the way through before the end of the year.
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I just finished The Midnight Library which was a delightful and very nice read. Fast and heart warming.
Has anyone read Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books? I was wondering if they were worth giving a try as one of the granddaddy’s of Fantasy writing.
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Many years ago. They’re all right, but I can’t see myself being enthused to revisit them.
I’ve got this collection and I’d recommend it for familiarization with the foundation text and for light entertainment. I’ve not ever found the urge to go further into the series.
I find Leiber’s prose brisk and two of his stories in a row is less effort than two of Smith, Lovecraft, or Howard in a row but three of his stories in a row is beyond satiation.
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