Just finished reading the Murderbot Diaries (technically I read Book 1 a few months ago, and then motored through the remaining three over the last month).
Gosh they’re good. Light, snappy, funny, but also very clever. And it really sticks the landing.
I really wish there were more. I hope there will be.
I recently just finished the bundle of 4 that stops at exit strategy. Loved them, the premise is so well executed. Need to try and pick up the other 3.
My wife gifted me The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder , a non-fiction book set in 1740 about shipwreck, mutiny and the survivors coming back to England in two different parties and everybody telling their own variant of the story.
It had a slow start but as soon as the shipwreck happened it got really enticing and fascinating. Great read, can recommend it 
@Boydesian It’s maybe something for you?
I’ve got that lined up
I stupidly read it without realising it was based on real events until getting to the end.
Read the whole thing thinking this is a bit far fetched. Kinda ruined it for myself. Reading the blurb from now on.
It is a really good one, about being human and what we are able to do. Like @GeeBizzle said, it sounds sometimes like a fabricated script and I had to remind myself that this is a real story with a lot of research and sources behind it. The details may be wrong or rather disputed but the big story beats all happened like that. But that makes it so fascinating of course.
I’ve not read The Wager, but I’ve read the same author’s “The Lost City of Z” which was absolutely stellar, and an easy recommendation. (I found the subsequent film adaptation to be a disappointment by comparison.)
Yeah i read Killers of the Flower Moon by the same author so know its non-fiction. Even just the blurb sounds bonkers tho
I can imagine how that takes away from the book because your mindset is a very different one 
It seems I have to read more of this author a lot of good suggestions here.
Erik Larson is a good shout if you like these kinds of narrative histories.
Did anyone go all in on the Kodansha humble bundle with shangri-la frontier and vinland saga? And might be willing to share?
I went at a lower level, hedging because I didn’t know much about it. Regretting and wanting to fill a few of these series out.
After the Hal Duncan book I read Rick Partlow’s new Drop Trooper prequel series featuring mysterious predecessors, their creations, the Tahini, and the ensuing war against the humans for blasphemy.
It’s easy reading, almost comfort reading, but slick story telling makes it all go down smooth and easyn like.
I’ve recently finished Iron Widow (Xiran Jay Zhao), and found it great fun. It reminded me a lot of classic mecha anime (as made in Japan, not as usually exported to the West): sure, giant robot fights, but also forbidden love and bullying and changing the world. Not entirely sure why this blatant appropriation of Chinese historical figures worked for me when Rivera’s The Tiger’s Daughter’s appropriation of Japanese history didn’t, though I think some of it must be the sheer joyous energy that carries the thing through any rough spots.
(Is there a vendor-neutral site for linking to a book, like songwhip for music?) Author’s site:
Lyorn, the latest of Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels. Ten pages in, it’s comedy, set in a theatre, and announces itself with an excellent parody of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General.”
Brust is getting near the end of the series he’s been writing for over forty years. He’s clearly feeling like some fun.
Just finished Structures: Why Things Don’t Fall Down, which I started trying to read several years ago but found the ebook was horribly broken - chapters were connected together in a totally random order, you couldn’t even navigate it using the contents page for some reason. The current version works and it was a fairly accessible intro to the subject for someone like me. You can tell it was originally written in the 70s by someone in his 50s, though - there’s some very dated offhand remarks about women. Not offensive to the best of my recollection, just odd to modern sensibilities.
Otherwise I’ve read a stack of inoffensive light novels while I was under the weather, but am looking guiltily at my actual bookcase and thinking I should settle down with something. These days I have a multi-stage commute which is not very conducive to reading, and the staffroom at work is chatter central.
Learn to walk and read!!
I finished the fifth book of He Who Fights Monsters by Shirtaloon/Travis Deverell.
It is a fun LitRPG series, a fast and easy read, a lot of action and I like the RPG style of the main characters “leveling up”. The main character’s humor is a bit hit and miss sometimes but all in all it’s more hit.
If you want something easy and fast, something like a popcorn movie, then I can recommend this.
Luda by Grant Morrison. Chapter 1000 and I’m not even halfway through the book, will chapter 1001 start making sense? It’s full of references to occultism, Glasgow and queer culture that are probably flying over the heads of most.
(The chapters are numbered in binary, so it’s not that bad)
Not quite a year after I began my reread of the Malazan Book of the Fallen I finally finished Book 10: The Crippled God. I admit that Book 9 was a slog. It took me months alone to finish Dust of Dreams only to need less than 2 weeks to read The Crippled God (I didn‘t quite track when I started it but I read the last 600 pages in the last 4 days). Almost every Malazan book finale was sad and tragic but this last one… really made me cry a lot. So much death, so much sacrifice, and yet …
There are a few things I could criticize about it. The ignominious end of Mappo, the short and insufficient scene Karsa gets for his own finale. I must have lost track of Ganoes Paran a few books back. I had no idea where he was until he appeared in this one. The Errant not getting what he deserved (or did I miss that?)
But then there are such heartbreaking scenes that only work because so much was written to build up to that final speech Tavore gives the Bonehunters. The scenes on the hill as the marines defend. Tavore almost killing her brother the same way she killed her sister… the arrival of the Badalle and the other children with the Bonehunters. Brys‘ release of the names of the gods. The death of every single Fokrul Assail was a most dramatic story in itself. And of course I loved the return of some old favorites. Seeing Quick Ben and Kalam together again is just so great. I could read a whole book about their exploits.
I am not sure to which part of the book the story of the Shake belongs. I feel like this was somehow separate and had little connection to the rest?
So there are those small moments that didn‘t do quite what I wanted. But in the face of all that converged in this book and all that worked those are easily overlooked and I finished a book of almost 1000 pages really fast.
I got further this time before losing track. It was only Dust of Dreams really that left me cold and confused. And maybe some parts of Toll the Hounds. My first read I almost quit when the Tiste Erdur were introduced. Because there was a whole book only about stupid Lether and its economy, about Tehol, his blanket and some backwoods shadow people and their crazy emperor… and it did not make sense at all to me on first read. But by now the majority of books made sense. I guess if I reread this again in 5 or 10 years I might grok the rest as well.
