Finished Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore. It was a fine book, enjoyed reading it, at least the latter half.
Started The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson. Third and final book the of Mistborn series, well the first era anyway. This is quite a dreary book, but it concludes everything so that’s good.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
Just a note, next weekly thread falls on 31st Dec, so we are going to skip that, see you in week after that, in 2025!
There’s a Midyear Bingo check-in post, do take a look. Even if you haven’t started this year’s Book Bingo, you can still join, as there are still 6 months remaining!
For details, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and it’s Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.
Currently reading two books at the same time, which is very rare for me.
The first is Somewhere Beyond the Sea, the sequel to House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. While I really enjoyed the first book, the second one is too schmaltzy. Every little thing that happens is so meaningful, and everyone is so sweet and kind and caring and thoughtful. Every character is LGBTQ+. There is no real conflict, just external drama. Other books by the author have had all of these things at realistic levels, and the stories were good and characters well developed. This book doesn’t turns everything up to 11 without a good story or believable characters.
The second book is me experimenting with an e-reader. I’ve always hated reading on a screen of any kind, but I’ve finally given in to accepting that e-books are just better for the environment. I hate that I have to pay the same amount for some 1s and 0s as for a physical book and hate that I don’t get that warm feel of holding a sold book and turning pages. But it doesn’t require chopping down a tree for paper, shipping of a heavy book around the country to a book store, me driving out to the bookstore to buy it, then me finding a place to store it in my small house. I got the Nook GlowLight 4 Plus, since I refuse to give any money to Amazon (been boycotting them since 1999). It’s pretty nice, and I’m getting used to reading on it. I’m currently reading Moon Over Soho, the second book in the Rivers of London fantasy series by Ben Aaronovitch. It’s light, fun reading.
I need to hurry up and finish those books so I can start on Wind and Truth by Sanderson.
Just started reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I was a little sceptical going in based on the blurb (which is very sci-fi-by-numbers), but it’s won me over very quickly; very inventive and very sharply written.
Huge fan of the we are legion, we are bob series right now.
It’s about a guy at a sci-fi convention who signs up for one of those “we freeze you before you die” programs/scams and wakes up as an AI with no rights a few hundred years in the future.
It really starts going off the rails when he gets sent off to space and given orders to
Build a space station
Copy yourself several times
Send those copies off to build more space stations.
A growing civilization of yourself and endless space. What can possibly go wrong?
I’m trying desperately to finish Words of Radiance before tomorrow. I’ll get an earful on Christmas otherwise.
Started Mistborn earlier this month. Not much of a fastasy reader, but since the last volumes of Gentleman Bastard and The King Killer Chronicle won’t ever be released, I tried something else.
I finished The Mercy of Gods. Pretty good new series by The Expanse guys, that will get a TV series in the near future.
Currently listening to Three on my commute. Narrated by the guy who did the Frontlines books.
I know I said I’m not much of a fastasy reader, and then I churned out a bunch of fantasy stuff that I read, forgive me. It’s probably the holiday spirits.
Hehe, as a fan of fantasy, you are forgiven.
Three looks interesting, how are you liking it? Also, how are you liking Mistborn? It was my foray into Sanderson’s work and really like it, specially the first book.
Many thanks! Mistborn is better than I thought, Allomancy is an interesting take on magic. I think Sanderson might not be making a big enough issue of Vin’s poor/noble dichotomy. shrug
Three is fun, with just the right amount of violence. And a sort of zombie analog. Give it a go. 😎
As a side note, I spent several months with the Unhewn Throne series and enjoyed it very much. (Maybe I do read a fair amount of fantasy 😜)
I’m reading Hero of Ages too. Put the Kindle down to take an internet break, and here I am. I wouldn’t call any of the book cheerful but there are moments. Dreary is a good overall description. I am enjoying them.
Dreary is a good word to describe The Hero of Ages. I still love it, but the hopeless feeling is wearing.
I finished Age of Assassins by RJ Barker and I loved it! It does have a bit of a debut author feel, but was well-plotted, with fascinating characters and world building. Some twists were predictable, but some I did not see coming at all. I can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy.
But the rest of the trilogy may have to wait a while because I started The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. My friend has been hounding me to read Stormlight for months so I finally gave in. I’m only about 100 pages in so far, but I can already tell this world is massive and well thought out. I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes!
When I was a teenager, in the long-long-ago, I started reading the local translations of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. I would sit at the kitchen table, drinking big cups of water and reading while everyone else had gone to bed already. Sometimes our cat would wander in to kitchen and I’d pet him. It is a fond memory. I think I eventually got almost half way through the series when I dropped it for what ever reason, I forget.
I recently bought the first three books and I’m reading through The Eye of the World, the first book in the series, in English. It felt like the right time to see if I’d still like the books. They are heavy tomes, so I can’t guarantee I’ll read all of it, but I’ll give it a go.
Still reading Chalice by Robin McKinley. Probably won’t have a proper opinion about this one til I finish it.
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Finished The Spite House by Johnny Compton as my last book for bingo. This was one of those stories where I thought it was (mostly) fine at the time, but later realized I had a bunch of quibbles with it. Firmly in the ‘alright’ category for me.
Bingo squares: Family Drama, Debut Work, Minority Author, (alt) A Change in Perspective
Finished Bingo? But it has only been 6 months!
That’s all I’ve been reading, though! Now I get to read stuff that didn’t fit or qualify.
Finished off Theft of Swords, which was a nice easyread when I got going. Normal fantasy stuff, magic on the rare but not non-existent side, which is a good level imo. Starting on book two of the Ex- series Ex-Patriots, not groundbreaking but good enough I’ll finish and continue on with it.
Ah, The Riyria Revelations, they are pretty highly regarded, at least I have seen them getting recommended a lot.
I have the Ex series on my wishlist for quite a while. How are you liking the overall series?
Riyria Revelations and all of the books in that world are honestly great. I’ve read all of them except the Chronicles prequels. Fully complete series with a cohesive world that spans thousands of years.
Also, the story of how the author and his wife got to where they are is heartwarming. The afterwords by his wife are good reads, as well.
Ex-Patriots is book 2 of 5. It’s not a mindblowing series, but the read is easy enough, and I got them all used so it’s a good bit cheaper. If I bought them full priced I’d probably be a bit upset at present (though, again, 3 books still to read, my opinion may change based on those.).
I’ve been reading Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory. I’m normally into more escapist sci-fi/fantasy but the premise was too good to pass up on.
Almost through Kinsey Millhone. Getting to the end of R is for Ricochet (There’s no Z as Grafton died before finishing it and didn’t want anyone else writing in her name).
Ended up at the library and borrowed Tower of Fools by Andrzej Sapkowski (the author of the books the Witcher is pulled from) and The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (an author my brother has suggested in the past) after some wandering. We’ll see if I end up diving into those or spend more time re-reading Sanderson (either secret projects or Stormlight) with free time from the holidays. I made it a little into Tower of Fools and am not sure if it’s going to catch my interest. After an info-dump prologue, there’s a really oddly written sex scene, and it just didn’t work for me. I’m not anti-sex in books. I frequently suggest Karen Rose and I think all of those have explicit sex scenes (it’s probably more “most”, but whatever). But IDK. Might see if the McMaster Bujold one catches my interest better, or just read the physical secret projects now that I finally got them.
Getting back into Kafka by reading Amerika. It’s a funny book. Highly recommend.
Currently reading Death Mask (just started), fifth book in the Dresden files. Started the series some time ago after I had read the Landry files, and this was recommended. Also, I was ready to stop reading during the third book, but went on anyway. Fourth book was ok, so here I am.
Any specific issues with Dresden Files? Or just couldn’t get into it?
Charles Stross’ Laundry Files? They have been recommended to me and are on my wishlist. How were those?
I liked the first book in the Dresden files a lot, but by the third book found them very formulaic. During the third book it occurred to me that with this pacing, Dresden would probably start the fifth book dead, get gradually worse from there, but in the end prevail.
Charles Stross’ Laundry files I liked a lot, the mix of real world spie agencies with ancient horrors really makes a nice stage with some great humor. I didn’t read the “new management” books though, I started reading “dead lies dreaming” but put it aside after a few pages. I might return to it later, I’m not sure but something put me off about it the first time.
