what do you read?

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
After that, I took a huge departure from my recent preferences and read Richard Powers' The Overstory. It was a Pulitzer Prize winner a couple of years ago, but I picked it up after reading an article that said Benioff and Weiss, who destroyed GoT for me with one episode, have optioned the rights to make a series of it. I figured "Hey - I like books that they ultimately ruin for everyone! I should check this out!" I don't even really want to describe this one too much. Nor do I really know how. It's part work-of-environmental-activism, part relationship story, part philosophical treatise on what "intelligent life" really is, part whatever-you-choose-to-take-away. The one thing I can say for certain is that I thoroughly enjoyed it and I love the way it's written - almost in the tone of a fable. I don't know if it's for everyone, but I would probably recommend it to anyone to at least try. I would be very curious to know what anyone who has read it thinks, too. (Have you read this one, @Norm ??)

I have not. I am looking at the description of this wondering if I should try it or not. From your description it sounds heavy, and I am not sure I have that mental energy right now. I have, however, noted it for future reference.
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
I have not. I am looking at the description of this wondering if I should try it or not. From your description it sounds heavy, and I am not sure I have that mental energy right now. I have, however, noted it for future reference.
Yeah, I think "heavy" is a fair term. It's definitely one of those stories that has its own gravity for sure - it just kind of kept pulling my thoughts back to it even when I wasn't reading it. I get what you're saying about having the energy, too - that's been a major factor for choosing what I read for the past year, and I've been avoiding most non-fiction for that very reason. I came into this one completely ignorant of it - I'm not sure if I knew more if I'd have read it when I did.
 

Dusty the Whale

Mr.Chainsaw
Just pre-ordered a signed copy of 'If You Give a Girl a Bike'

 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
I recently picked up a Kindle Oasis. I've always preferred real books to e-readers (I had a Nook that I just never got into years ago), so I was reluctant. But there were a few limited release books I wanted to read that were either out of print or really expensive for novella length titles. So I figured I could get the Oasis for that. So far so good - I've read a couple of books now and it's been pretty solid. The Oasis is apparently the high end Kindle, but I think I needed to get that one because of one feature - you can control the backlighting. That was a big deal for me since my eyes are shit and if I'm reading in some rooms of my house, the overhead lighting isn't all that great. I definitely still prefer real books, but it's nice to have this alternative. I also like how small it is - I guess based the Nook, I was expecting it to be tablet-sized. This will be much easier to bring on vacations (if vacations are ever a thing again.)

On another note, I've noticed that a lot of the reviews for books I'm looking at on Goodreads are specifically base don the audiobook versions. Seriously, about half of them seem to be about the audio versions. Is that really that popular? I understand it's a time-saving thing, but I think that would drive me nuts given the descriptions - apparently, the narrators all seem to use accents and different intonations with different characters. That just seems like it'd be super distracting.
 

Big Dumb Animal

Hippo Nipples' #1 Fan
I recently picked up a Kindle Oasis. I've always preferred real books to e-readers (I had a Nook that I just never got into years ago), so I was reluctant. But there were a few limited release books I wanted to read that were either out of print or really expensive for novella length titles. So I figured I could get the Oasis for that. So far so good - I've read a couple of books now and it's been pretty solid. The Oasis is apparently the high end Kindle, but I think I needed to get that one because of one feature - you can control the backlighting. That was a big deal for me since my eyes are shit and if I'm reading in some rooms of my house, the overhead lighting isn't all that great. I definitely still prefer real books, but it's nice to have this alternative. I also like how small it is - I guess based the Nook, I was expecting it to be tablet-sized. This will be much easier to bring on vacations (if vacations are ever a thing again.)

On another note, I've noticed that a lot of the reviews for books I'm looking at on Goodreads are specifically base don the audiobook versions. Seriously, about half of them seem to be about the audio versions. Is that really that popular? I understand it's a time-saving thing, but I think that would drive me nuts given the descriptions - apparently, the narrators all seem to use accents and different intonations with different characters. That just seems like it'd be super distracting.
I've read, listened, to a few where there were different narrators based on the different characters. If done correctly it's extremely entertaining. My wife was playing one of her books with different voices and it sounded like a movie, but the voices were also annoying to me. Depends on who's reading it I guess.
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Some of the recent reads. I think the last time I did this, I was just starting Tchaikovsky's Doors of Eden. Another fantastic story. It's about multi-dimensionality and what happens when those dimensions start to crash into one another. I really can't say enough about his stuff - he's one of my favorite writers at this point. For the Kindle, I also picked up two of his limited-release novellas, Firewalkers and One Day All of This Will Be Yours. I really enjoyed both of them, although the latter kind of feels like it could be built out into something bigger (or at least a series, which may well be the intention.) In fact, that one is a departure for Tchaikovsky in that it's actually pretty funny. It's an insane premise that somehow works really well. It's not long at all - I think I got through it in just a couple of hours - and it flies by. The main character is an absolutely deplorable human being, but one you can't help but root for anyway. Firewalkers on the other hand is bleaker. The basic idea of it kind of reminds me of the movie "Elysium" a bit - the rich are heading to space to escape a dying world while the expendable poor exist mainly to serve them until they can depart. It's a good story and again a pretty quick read. Neither of these are as heady as his "Children of Time" series or "Doors of Eden", but that's okay because they're their own thing.

I also read Cixin Liu's short story collection To Hold Up the Sky. I didn't rate this one as high, not because it isn't a good read. I just have a really high expectation for his stuff, and some of these stories are from when he was just starting out and you can almost se him developing his writing style if you read them chronologically. That said, there are two stories in the collection that really stood out for me - "The Time Migration" and "The Thinker". For anyone who's ever read Liu's better known stuff, I'd bet I could hand you these stories without telling you who wrote them and you'd guess it right away based solely on the magnitude of the ideas within them alone. I absolutely loved both of these stories. There are a few others, too - "The Village Teacher" is kind of like Liu's love letter to the importance of education and still manages to fit in his big picture approach to the universe. And "Cloud of Poems" is really very weird and enjoyable. A few of them were a bit slow, but like I said those tended to be earlier works.

I read Robert Jackson Bennett's debut Mr. Shivers as well. Another really good story, but I wouldn't put it in the same class as his Divine Cities trilogy or American Elsewhere. Bennett seems to write in the intersection between Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror, one of very few who do I think. This book leans more toward the horror end, kind of like The Troupe, and Bennett is really good at building an atmosphere. This one is set in hobo communities during the Great Depression, and has an atmosphere reminiscent of that old HBO show "Carnivale", which, personally, is exactly the tone I'd want a story set in that time period to hit.

Finally, I departed from my sci-fi kick for a book I got last Xmas - The Last Season by Eric Blehm. It's the true story of Randy Morgenson, a backcountry ranger in the Sierras who disappeared. It's a compelling story about a guy who will probably polarize readers into "love him" or "hate him" camps. I definitely know how I feel about him after reading this, but I won't share that here because it'd be a dis-service to the work Blehm put in on this. I think that's the most outstanding part of this book: how Blehm managed to tell a very emotional story without making any judgments himself. He lets the people who actually knew Morgenson tell the story where it matters most and by doing so he leaves room for the reader to come to their own conclusion. In this way, I think he is better at this kind of reporting than Jon Krakauer, who dealt with a similar subject in "Into the Wild". My issue with Krakauer has always been that he puts himself in every story he writes. Sometimes that unavoidable (of course, he was actually in the story for "Into Thin Air") but at other times I think it makes him lean pretty hard into painting a very directional story. It's impossible to read "Into the Wild" without feeling that he is trying to direct you to a conclusion about Alex. And for some people that probably made it a better story. But Blehm goes the other way, and personally, I prefer that approach: he doesn't judge Morgenson at any point. The only judgments you get in the book are directly from people who knew him and they're printed more or less as verbatims. It feels more like a news report than a story in that way, but I prefer that because I found that at different times I thought differently about Morgenson and only in the end did I realize that I leaned one way very specifically, and that was the result of an evolution based on balanced accounts.

So that's it for now. I realize these are long posts - and sorry about that - but I'm kind of digging the chance to share some of these books. Over the past decade my interests were kind of "cycling" and ... well, that's about it. I've always read a lot, but since last year when (1) the world went shithouse and (2) my back decided to remind me that near-50 YOs shouldn't spend every free moment riding a singlespeed in chunky east coast rocks, I've been spending more of my downtime reading than ever before. And I'm totally cool with that.
 

Big Dumb Animal

Hippo Nipples' #1 Fan
I just finished the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons; 4 books that really blew me away. I miss Sci-fi from the 80s and 90s that was just pure, raw, and original science fiction. It had its moments were it lagged but overall I thought it was exceptional.
Now I just started the Heechee saga by Frederick Pohl. So far so good.
 
Last edited:

JimN

Captain Wildcat
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I just finished the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons; 4 books that really blew me away.

I was going through a box of books in the garage a few months ago, and my copy of Hyperion came back inside with me. I haven't re-read it yet though.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I just finished the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons; 4 books that really blew me away. I miss Sci-fi from the 80s and 90s that was just pure, raw, and original science fiction. It had its moments were it lagged but overall I thought it was exceptional.
Now I just started the Heechee saga by feuding Frederick Pohl. So far so good.

I have the 4 Hyperion books on my shelf with the Three Body Problem trilogy and the Asimov classics. I love those 4 books. Note that Ilium & Olympos are also there but definitely do not hold water in that league.
 

Big Dumb Animal

Hippo Nipples' #1 Fan
I have the 4 Hyperion books on my shelf with the Three Body Problem trilogy and the Asimov classics. I love those 4 books. Note that Ilium & Olympos are also there but definitely do not hold water in that league.
Any other recommendations along those lines, please send. I just started this new 4 book series but I can always put suggestions in the library.
 

Big Dumb Animal

Hippo Nipples' #1 Fan
I'd put this in the list of things to read soon.

Rendezvous with Rama is also good - older but holds up.
OK thanks. Rendezvous with rama I read years ago from my older brother. I do remember that being good, might have to revisit, thank you.
 

thegock

Well-Known Member
Finally, I departed from my sci-fi kick for a book I got last Xmas - The Last Season by Eric Blehm. It's the true story of Randy Morgenson, a backcountry ranger in the Sierras who disappeared. It's a compelling story about a guy who will probably polarize readers into "love him" or "hate him" camps. I definitely know how I feel about him after reading this, but I won't share that here because it'd be a dis-service to the work Blehm put in on this. I think that's the most outstanding part of this book: how Blehm managed to tell a very emotional story without making any judgments himself. He lets the people who actually knew Morgenson tell the story where it matters most and by doing so he leaves room for the reader to come to their own conclusion. In this way, I think he is better at this kind of reporting than Jon Krakauer, who dealt with a similar subject in "Into the Wild". My issue with Krakauer has always been that he puts himself in every story he writes. Sometimes that unavoidable (of course, he was actually in the story for "Into Thin Air") but at other times I think it makes him lean pretty hard into painting a very directional story. It's impossible to read "Into the Wild" without feeling that he is trying to direct you to a conclusion about Alex. And for some people that probably made it a better story. But Blehm goes the other way, and personally, I prefer that approach: he doesn't judge Morgenson at any point. The only judgments you get in the book are directly from people who knew him and they're printed more or less as verbatims. It feels more like a news report than a story in that way, but I prefer that because I found that at different times I thought differently about Morgenson and only in the end did I realize that I leaned one way very specifically, and that was the result of an evolution based on balanced accounts.

Blehm's "The Last Season" is excellent. Perhaps better by Blehm is "Fearless." My Dad, to whom I had given them, also read both. I recommended "Fearless" to a friend of mine, who is a retired Navy Seal and he told me that his picture is in the book. Embarrassing.

since last year when (1) the world went shithouse and (2) my back decided to remind me that near-50 YOs shouldn't spend every free moment riding a singlespeed in chunky east coast rocks, I've been spending more of my downtime reading than ever before. And I'm totally cool with that.

Noticed that I have read more books in the last year, than any of the previous 20.
 

rick81721

Lothar
Blehm's "The Last Season" is excellent. Perhaps better by Blehm is "Fearless." My Dad, to whom I had given them, also read both. I recommended "Fearless" to a friend of mine, who is a retired Navy Seal and he told me that his picture is in the book. Embarrassing.



Noticed that I have read more books in the last year, than any of the previous 20.

Read this yet?

51lYcvdhzBL.jpg
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Short stories, which I generally do not gravitate towards. But it's really good.
@Norm - I finished reading this last night. Really good stuff - not what I was expecting at all. I'd actually read one of these before without realizing it was Chiang ("The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling") - I think it was part of a workshop thing I did a few years back on the reliability of observation for work. At any rate, he's a very unique sci-fi writer - he doesn't get into the guts of the technology or scientific discovery so much as he assumes it's there and then kind of digs into the philosophical implications - kind of "Black Mirror-esque". He seems to be very interested in the idea of how choice & circumstance guide where we end up in life - I think nearly every story involved that theme to some degree or another. I'm trying to think which I'd say were my favorites, but oddly enough the only thing I can think of is which one I didn't especially like (the one I had previously read is kind of plodding.) "Omphalos" made me really uncomfortable, and not because of the revelation the characters come to based on the "study" - the mix of religion and science just always makes me queasy. But it's a great story. They pretty much all were. Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely be looking at more of his stuff.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
@Norm - I finished reading this last night. Really good stuff - not what I was expecting at all. I'd actually read one of these before without realizing it was Chiang ("The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling") - I think it was part of a workshop thing I did a few years back on the reliability of observation for work. At any rate, he's a very unique sci-fi writer - he doesn't get into the guts of the technology or scientific discovery so much as he assumes it's there and then kind of digs into the philosophical implications - kind of "Black Mirror-esque". He seems to be very interested in the idea of how choice & circumstance guide where we end up in life - I think nearly every story involved that theme to some degree or another. I'm trying to think which I'd say were my favorites, but oddly enough the only thing I can think of is which one I didn't especially like (the one I had previously read is kind of plodding.) "Omphalos" made me really uncomfortable, and not because of the revelation the characters come to based on the "study" - the mix of religion and science just always makes me queasy. But it's a great story. They pretty much all were. Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely be looking at more of his stuff.

Awesome!

I should look for more of his stuff. I also want to look more into Ken Liu, the guy who translated 2 of 3 of the Three Body Problem books. My understanding is that he's also solid but I have not read his stuff.

I made the mistake of re-reading all the Asimov Robot/Empire/Foundation books this year. Robots were ok. Empire is horrible. Seriously trash. I am hoping Foundation is not as bad.
 
Top Bottom