What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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Working my way through the Barker & Llewelyn series by Will Thomas. Just starting Hell Bay.
The adventures of a mystery solving duo in the late 1800’s London (sound familiar?)
I’m hooked. Having read all of Watson and Holmes as a kid and seen most of the dramatizations from Basil Rathbone onward, this scratches an itch.
I finished two books this past week:
The Magician King by Lev Grossman (The Magicians book 2). I mostly enjoyed this one. I felt there was a lot of character growth in certain characters and a lot of exploration of mental health and healing. The ending soured me a bit, but I think I understand why the author went that route.
I also read Macbeth by William Shakespeare. I mostly knew the story already from pop culture, but it was nice reading the full thing. I think this is one of the more enjoyable and approachable plays of his that I’ve read.
I’m now on the last Magicians book, The Magician’s Land. So far I’m liking it quite a bit, but we’ll see how he sticks the landing.
Nearly done with reading A Parade of Horribles, Matt Dinniman! It felt like it took a little while to get ramped up, but I’m enjoying the chaos as things continue to spiral. Unsure what I’ll read after this.
For my audiobook, I’m about a third of the way through Isles of the Emberdark, Brandon Sanderson, which may be my favorite of his special novels so far. Very cool to see how things are all tying together in the broader cosmere. Well thought out strategy on how to expand a short story. Only quibble is Sanderson still doesn’t seem to write natural dialog. It never feels like a something someone would actually say.
Burn by Peter Heller. Im digging it. I read The Dog Stars years and years ago. This dude can write a page turner.
I just finished Platform Decay by Martha Wells, and am moving back to Dungeon Crawler Carl for book four The Gate of the Feral Gods By Matt Dinniman.
How did Platform Decay turn out? I enjoyed the first set of Murderbot books, but the last few seemed like they were running on fumes. Was this one any good?
I know what you mean. There is definitely a shift after the greycris arc is over. Platform Decay is pretty good though. It is a rescue mission on a corporate torus (ringworld) where things keep going wrong.
I’m listening to Pole Position a racing romance by Rebecca Carrey. It’s fine, I don’t know if it’s because I’m listening instead of reading it, but it’s dragging.
After this is done, I’ll probably listen to Ready Player One.
My library is doing summer reading, and they added a version of the challenge for adults. Their goal is to read 4 books over the summer, for bonus points one can be a non-fiction book about dinosaurs (their theme).
In the spirit of that, planning to read 4 library books. I’ve checked out Dragon’s Teeth and Thunderstones: Quest for the Meaning of Fossils (McNamara) since it was out in the display and ostensibly about dinosaurs.
So far I am not loving it, lol. It’s slow, spending a lot of time reiterating that ancient people made stuff out of rocks and sometimes those rocks were fossils and they thought those looked cool. And the author has repeated the phrase ‘they looked for all the world like _’ like 6 times. Distractly uncommon phrase to use so much. On top of that, it’s not really about dinosaurs even, most of the fossils mentioned are sea urchins. /shrug At least it’s short and has pictures to make pages go quick.
But alongside it I also checked out The Memory Police (Ogawa). In the opening pages it seems really interesting and well-written. The premise is a bit on-the-nose dystopian tho, so we’ll see how well it’s executed.
I also didn’t realize the community was doing the bingo thing, that’s kinda cool. Might try to get into that, and I can use the summer reading stuff as a jump start.
Listening to Ward by Wildbow (again). Just redid Worm, they’re both so good.
Loving Worm. It’s the perfect audiobook because it doesn’t seem like it ever ends. is Ward the sequel?
It is indeed! Which audio production did you go with?
Worm Audiobook Project. Is there another? This one is good, but some of the interludes are really low volume.
That’s the one I like too, and the same team that does the Ward audiobook. There are a few others that have popped up since but some are unfinished and dont look like they’ve been added to in a while. There are definitely some rockier parts but it was a huge job and they nailed it overall
Heck yeah! I read Worm a couple years back and I’ll second it being an excellent read. I wasn’t quite as hooked by Ward, but it has been a bit, so maybe it’s about time to try again.
I’m enjoying The Princess Bride. It’s charmingly meta
The Dungeon Anarchists Cookbook.
Third book in DCC, I believe.
Atomic Habits by James Clear It’s got some helpful advice but it reads like a Ted Talk. It’s like (axiom)(anecdote)(academic research)(broad over simplification or sweeping generalization)(summary conclusion).
There’s good advice and I’m sure if you follow it you may get results, but I wish it were more academically rigorous.
- Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers
- An Anarchist FAQ
Finished Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (5/5), now reading My Husband’s Wife by Carla Kovach.
Slaughter writes some great books. I’m surprised no one has turned her book series about the rural medical examiner into TV show. But if they did, it would probably turn out as bizarre an adaptation as Will Trent.
I just devoured (pun intended) A Certain Hunger in about two days.
I’ve now borrowed The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
Just finished reading The Many by Sylvain Neuvel (Wrote Sleeping Giants series). It’s going to get compared to Pluribus, but I found it different enough to enjoy. Interesting premise.
Now starting There are Rivers in the Sky, after a 5 star review from a friend. Completely out of my wheelhouse, it being neither Sci-fi or Horror, but I’m enjoying it so far and will see how it goes.
