Our reads in March 2022

Another month,another pile of books.Share your plans here.

SF/Fantasy reads
Philip Wylie - The Disappearance
N K Jemisin - Kingdom of Gods ✔
C J Cherryh - Brothers of Earth
Martha Wells - Network Effect ✔
E E Doc Smith - Second Stage Lensmen
Dennis E Taylor - For We are Many ✔
Dennis E Taylor - All these Worlds ✔
Tamora Pierce - Sandry's Book ✔

classic short stories
Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber ✔
Ted Chiang - Story of Your Life
Fritz Leiber - Ill met in Lankhmar ✔
Murray Leinster - Sidewise in Time ✔

from other genres
Lucy M Boston - The Chimneys of Green Knowe ✔

Right now, this month's line up is Axiom's End, The Dark Archive, Alternate Routes, and Engines of Oblivion.

I am in the middle of The Fall of Koli which took a weird (but interesting) direction - I should have expected Arthur's mythos to show up considering just how English the whole thing is but it still took me a bit by surprise :)

>3 Shrike58: I recently picked up Stolen Skies, the third Vickery & Castine novel. I'll be interested to read your thoughts on the first one. Tim Powers is on my 'Buy As Soon As Published' list - although I have missed a few of his shorter works along the way. His Subterranean Press releases can get a bit pricey and I lost out on a couple when I hesitated...

>2 dustydigger:

I admire Philip Wylie's non-fiction and while aware he first-and-foremost is known as a novelist, I've not read his fiction myself. Looking forward to your reactions.

Just marking my spot for the time being.

As an old pensioner with a large family I rarely have money to buy books,so I am always on the look out for free online stuff. So I was delighted to come across this excellent resource. check out - https://www.freesfonline.net/Authors.html
my short story TBR just increased a hundredfold :0)

On the weekend I started reading The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge. I am really enjoying it so far.

Just started Jennifer Marie Brissett's second novel, Destroyer of light. I liked her first novel (Elysium), so I'm looking forward to this one.

>6 elenchus: I read Wylie's Gladiator a couple years ago and found it surprisingly touching.

>11 Stevil2001:

Hey, wasn't familiar with that title but enjoyed your review (and a couple others here on LT). Everything old is new again, etc. Your observation about how to go about writing "good science fiction" is astute, seems obvious in retrospect but not sure I've seen it articulated quite that way.

>2 dustydigger: The only Wylie I've read was Generation of Vipers back in the 1970s, probably on the recommendation of Damon Knight; very "edge lord" and ostentatiously cynical. Perfect for adolescent jerks of all ages with more smarts than sense (yeah, I resembled that remark).

>13 Shrike58:

That's the first title I'd read, as well, followed by An Essay on Morals which is aligned but less emphasis on the snark. I didn't take it as ostentatious, though I see how the description applies. For me it reads more contrarian and critical of hypocrisy.

The Knight angle is interesting, I know the name but unsure I've read anything apart from a short story or two. Certainly wasn't aware of any connection to Wylie.

>12 elenchus: Thanks! That there was a doubling effect in good sf was nascent in my own head for a long time until I read China Miéville's introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of The First Men in the Moon, who I think puts it very well there. I talked about in my review of First Men in the Moon here: https://www.librarything.com/work/1770164/reviews/111642886 I was certainly thinking of Miéville's concept when I wrote that review of Gladiator.

Completed the Inheritance trilogy with Kingdom of GodsI prefer this trilogy to the Broken Earth series. The world building is superlative,the gods are fascinating,(rather like the greek pantheon,but more complex) and the plot complicated so you need to be alert.lol.
Now on to Network Effect. That will bring my Hugos up to date,and only A Song for a New Day to be acquired to complete all Nebulas.

>16 dustydigger:
Those are both worth looking forward to in their own right! (I haven't read the Pinsker, but I really enjoyed the related story in Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea.)

Being a great fan of Ken Russell's adorably bonkers 1988 film The lair of the white worm, I decided to read Bram Stoker's 1911 novel of the same name, which, it turns out, was barely used for the film. And for good reason: it's bad, shockingly so. I'm not even talking about the in-your-face, extreme-even-for-the-1910s abhorrence of and loathing for black people. It's more like a low-effort, incoherent first draft with an out-of-left-field big climax than a properly constructed novel.

On the same theme, I've started The fire worm by Ian Watson (also from 1988). At about a quarter in, it's bonkers, too, combining the AIDS crisis, teenage rape, past lives regression therapy and a horror author with multiple personalities into a mix that could go either way: an unsettling horror book, or an ineffective mishmash. We'll see.

>14 elenchus: I'm thinking of Knight's In Search of Wonder, a collection of essays, as where I took the tip from.

Just finished Rogue Protocol today. It was ok, not great, I still don't see what all the fuss is about.

>20 Karlstar: I read the first one, can't remember the name, and was underwhelmed.

>21 SChant: I've read 3 or 4 now, they basically are all the same. A little fun, a little action, a little snark by the cyborg/robot, but just too much left unsaid.

I read the first novella and didnt like it much,missed out the next few and am about 300/350 pages into Network Effect,because it won the Hugo,the Nebula and the Locus.Its OK,a pleasant enough read,but nothing more than that really certainly not worth getting all those awards....

Started Hammered by Elizabeth Bear.

Finished with Axiom's End, which inspired a rousing "meh." I was looking for some fun, didn't find it, and moved on. Particularly since I know that the next three novels I have lined up are better.

Finished Network Effect,pleasant but not earthshattering enough to win all those awards.
Now reading Angela Carter The Bloody Chamber and a Doc Smith tale,Second Stage Lensman

Started Ken Macleod's Beyond the Hallowed Sky. As is often the case with him I love the fascinating hard-SF concepts but the characters are flat and unconvinging.

I've started my second Library of America Philip K. Dick collection; first up is Martian Time-Slip. Interesting worldbuilding so far; hasn't got very weird yet.

>28 Stevil2001: The weird part is the boy who sees everything decaying, including people.

>28 Stevil2001: >29 rshart3: One of my favorite books by Dick. There's one trick he pulls that I thought was brilliant. The closing paragraphs stuck with me for decades.

>29 rshart3: Yes, I'm about sixty pages from the end and it's gotten quite strange! Gubble gubble. Love how Dick can slowly slip from "pretty ordinary sf novel, with good psychology" into "oh my god what is happening to the world."

Reading the new Becky Chambers novella, A psalm for the wild-built. Tea monk and robot, new series.

>32 karenb: That one is not bad... but felt a bit too overwritten to me - would have worked a lot better as a novelette or a much shorter novella. Curious to see what you think about it.

Finished The Lives of Christopher Chant and started Lord Darcy Investigates.

Finished Martian Time-Slip, started The Warrior's Apprentice.

I finished The Overstory and posted my review, which suggests that it fits with 21st-century sf better than "literary" fiction.

I just finished The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge. It won the Hugo and Locus awards when first published in 1980. What a great book! It has been sitting on my shelf since 1990 - I don't know why it took me so long to get to. Well worth reading. I am looking forward to reading The Summer Queen, but first I want to get back to The Expanse and read Caliban's War next. Or maybe I will finally start Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. I have been wanting to read The Fifth Season for a while now; it keeps showing up on lists of books I might enjoy. Well, I finally picked it up last week and every time I walk past that bookshelf the title burns into my eyes. So... Caliban's War or The Fifth Season, which will it be? We'll see to which shelf my hand is drawn when I next walk by my bookcase. 😊

>37 Neil_Luvs_Books: I actually liked The Summer Queen a bit more than The Snow Queen. Both were great though. World's End is also good. It's a side story featuring BZ Ghundalinu. It's listed as book 2 in the series and, while it's not necessary to read before diving into The Summer Queen, I'm glad I read them in series order. Haven't gotten around to Tangled Up In Blue yet but I keep meaning to...

In my opinion, you can't really go wrong with either The Fifth Season or Caliban's War. The Broken Earth trilogy was a highlight read for me in 2020 and The Expanse is just a solid series, at least through the sixth book, (planning to read the rest of that series soon).

>38 ScoLgo: good to know! My hand picked up Caliban’s War so that is that. 😀 And I’m glad to hear you read World’s End and enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll pick that up before reading The Summer Queen. I certainly enjoyed the character BZ in The Snow Queen.

I am about halfway through The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox, a very odd story.

>26 dustydigger: Love the Lensman books!

I started The Wanderer, the old Hugo winner by Fritz Lieber and had to quit reading 2/3 of the way through, it was absolutely terrible. I actually threw it away, which I almost never do.

>40 davisfamily: I'd love to know what you think of it. i really liked Vintner's Luck but reviews of this one made it seem a bit muddled. It's supposed to be my SF&F book group's April read but I'm ambivalent.

Put everything aside so as to complete the 2nd and 3rd books of the Bobiverse,For We are Many and All these Worlds . Diminishingreturns of course,but For We Are Many was good fun. Its gratifying to have read so much SF so as to get all the references to so many books of the past. Agreeable fluff really.Also read a children's classic,The Chimneys of Green Knowe but lots of family visitors since Mr Dusty returned . Back to lots of cooking and keeping him company while he watches wall to wall depressing news bulletins :0( Reading is a bit sidelined for now.
I had just begun Philip Wylie's 1951 tale The Disappearance ,where one afternoon inexplicably the world splits into two separate worlds,one where all the men are shocked that all the women have disappeared into thin air,while the women find themselves in a world without men..Only read a few pages then had to leave it. I did have to smile at a paragraph a few pages in :-
''He had also entertained a round dozen of the vague but nevertheless numbing worries that were the lot of intelligent persons in the period - worries that concerned the Russians,the diminution of American liberties,hydrogen bombs,the distressful effect of civilization upon the so called resources of nature,the growing gap between what education was supposed to accomplish and what it consisted of,the national debt and its intimate aspect of high taxes,the problem of the excessive cost of medical care,and the like.''
Oh dear,deja vu all over again
Plus ca change......

I just returned Ella Minnow Pea to the public library, and I came home with Gnomon and House of Suns. Those should keep me for a bit.

>44 dustydigger: Your touchstone for The Disappearance, LOL.

Never fails,if I dont check its a wrong title. :0)

>44 dustydigger: "Diminishing returns" sums up Taylor well, though I intend to finish the series.

>41 Karlstar: so sad to hear this about The Wanderer! (The one by Fritz Leiber Jr not Sharon Creech which is what that link links to) It was on my TBR list. Guess it goes to the bottom of that pile…

So, I am reading Caliban's War and am about 60 pages in and am enjoying it as much as I did Leviathan Wakes. I just read a passage that illustrates why this series is so good and I need to share it with you. Apologies to those who have already read this. This passage has our intrepid heroes waiting to dock their spaceship, the Somnambulist on Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, where there had been a “special military operation” and the crew is supposed to be delivering refugee rations and supplies.

***************

"Ganymede tower, this is Somnambulist repeating our request for a pad assignment," Naomi said. "We've been cleared by the UN partols, and you've had us holding in low orbit for three hours now."

Naomi flicked off her mic and added, "Asshole."

The voice that replied was different from the one they'd been requesting landing clearance for the last few hours. This one was older and less annoyed.

"Sorry, Somnambulist, but we'll get you into the pattern as soon as possible. But we've had launches nonstop for the last ten hours, and we still have a dozen ships to get off of the ground before we start letting people land."

Holden turned on his mic and said, "We talking to the supervisor now?"

"Yep. Senior supervisor Sam Snelling if you're making notes for a complaint. That's Snelling with two Ls."

"No, no," Holden replied. "Not a complaint. We've been watching the outgoing ships flying by. Are these refugee ships? With the tonnage we've seen lifting off, it looks like half the moon is leaving."

"Nope. We do have a few charters and commercial liners taking people off, but most of the ships leaving right now are food freighters."

"Food freighters?"

"We ship almost a hundred thousand kilos of food a day, and the fighting trapped a lot of those shipments on the surface. Now that the blockade is letting people through, they're on their way out to make their deliveries."

"Wait," Holden said. "I'm waiting to land with relief food supplies for people starving on Ganymede, and you're launching a hundred thousand kilos off the moon?"

"Closer to half a million, what with the backup," Sam said. "But we don't own this food. Most of the food production on Ganymede is owned by corporations that aren't headquartered here. Lot of money tied up in these shipments. Every day it sat on the ground here, people were losing a fortune."

"I..." Holden started, then after a pause said, "Somnambulist out."

Holden turned his chair around to face Naomi. Her expression was closed in a way that meant she was as angry as he was.

Amos, lounging near the engineering console and eating an apple he'd stolen from their relief supplies, said "This surprises you why, Captain?"

An hour later, they got permission to land.

*******************

Good writing with social commentary about the state of our world today...

Knocked off Alternate Routes yesterday evening; not bad, not great. To those of you who have read most of Powers' backlist, has he ever really written a convincing female POV character? Because this novel really needed it; maybe the follow-up books (which I'll probably read), will deal with that issue.

Okay, I'm a third of the way through Gnomon, and it's pretty awesome.

>49 Neil_Luvs_Books:
Exactly the situation that caused the famines in Ireland.

>51 paradoxosalpha: Gnomon is excellent. I refrained from commenting when you first mentioned it as it is not for everyone. Now that you have indicated your liking for it I know I can speak openly.

>51 paradoxosalpha: Have you read other Harkaway or is Gnomon your first?

>53 pgmcc:, >54 ScoLgo:

Gnomon is my first Harkaway read. So far, in addition to the legitimate comparisons to David Mitchell and Philip K. Dick I had encountered on the dustjacket, it has reminded me of The Dervish House and The House of Rumour and If on a winter's night a traveler, which is a hell of an accomplishment.

>55 paradoxosalpha: Wow! I will need to add Harkaway to my list.

I have finished The Warrior's Apprentice and started Dr. Bloodmoney by Dick.

>55 paradoxosalpha:
I loved The Dervish House and I have If on a winter's night a traveler but have not read it yet. You have also inflicted a book bullet wound on me with The House of Rumour a book and author I have not come across. Your including it in the same post as David Mitchell, Philip K. Dick and Nick Harkaway means I have to read it.

Thank you!

>55 paradoxosalpha: Gnomon was my first Harkaway as well. I liked it but felt out of my depth due to the sheer abundance of ideas and narrative threads contained therein. I finished feeling rather exhausted, yet determined to try Harkaway again. A year or so later, I read Angelmaker and now own all four of his fiction novels. I also bought his pair of Aidan Truhen, (Diana Hunter, heh!), titles and enjoyed those too. His 'Harkaway' books are all stand-alone so there is no reason not to jump in anywhere but, if I had it to do over, I would read in published order starting with The Gone-Away World.

I loved The Dervish House, (loved everything I have read by McDonald, really), and the Calvino. Looks like The House of Rumour just landed on my TBR. Thank you for that.

Great to see the love for Nick Harkaway here. His work is so fascinating.

>42 SChant: Well, The Absolute Book was only OK. Very average, to some parts boring. The Two Graves chapter is about 40 pages long, it is about 2 people rolling a tire, and trying to survive. (Seriously) The language and structure of the story is excellent, but the editor must have been on vacation. The main problem I had with the book is the story is 600+ pages of meh. (I am also a slow, word by word reader, just for context.)

>61 davisfamily: Thx for that update. Think I'll give it a miss for now. ;)

Finished Hammered by Elizabeth Bear. Liked it. Next up is The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi.

>63 seitherin: Will be interested to see what you think of The Kaiju Preservation Society.

Far far behind with my TBR this month,too distracted with health and family matters to read serious stuff,as I am only getting brief 10 minute stretches of reading time,so I am reading SF lite books which dont need much brain power.lol.I am going to wait for a new month and hopefully a new mindset.
For now I think I'll only read short stories or fluff :0)

Read Angela Carter's famous short story,The Bloody Chamber. I am a real fan of fairy tales and was interested to see Carter stuck quite close to Perraults version of Bluebeard. Carter shocked the literary world with her collection of tales based on fairy tales. Many were shocked by her often brutal and sexual takes on the stories,but those interested in folk and fairy tales will not be so shocked. The old tales were very brutal,cruel and callous,all she did was highlight the nasty or decadent tropes with a feminist twist,making the females less passive and helpless.
I understood her decadent slant on the tale,and the first part of the story was excellent,but then the transition to the horror part was faintly risible and incredible to me,and the end with the heroine(?) being rescued by her mother galloping in on a horse and shooting the Bluebeard character was a little odd!Maybe it was meant to be,who knows with literary fiction.:0)
So I'm a philistine,sue me!(yeah I am not very enthused over Joanna Russ,James Tiptree jnr,and the like either. If I want to see an author really portray feminism in SF I look no further than Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series. Subtle,camouflaged by adventure,humour and romance,but definitely there without beating us over the head with feminism)
The only other Carter book I attempted was Nights at the Circus,and I gave up after 50 pages,I hated the characters,plot and style so much. Extremely rare to DNF a book,possibly only 1 or 2 a year. So I am definitely not an Angela Carter fan! lol.

>66 dustydigger: Each to their own, as they say! While I very much enjoy the Vorkiverse I do love the power, and sometimes incandescent rage of Russ, Tiptree, Suzy Mckee Charnas' Holdfast Chronicles and other more vocal feminist SF writers of the '70s and '80s. Sometimes I like a bit of anger to energise me.

As for Carter, I get why she highlights brutality and sexuality in her writing, but I'm just not very into fairy-tale tropes, however much of a feminist viewpoint they display, so have never got very far with her work.

I am currently reading the Kaiju Preservation Society. I need something silly and fluffy.

>52 pgmcc: I did not know that! Thanks for the history lesson. 😀

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1997/09/27/the-irish-famine-comp...

Finished Lord Darcy Investigates and The Rule of the Pagbeasts and about to start The Witchwood Cradle.

Had to pause on A psalm for the wild-built because Cyber mage is due at the library tomorrow.

This week's book group discusses A master of djinn, which I am very much looking forward to.

>71 karenb: All three are very good IMO.

>64 Karlstar: When I started the book, I'd spent the last few months mostly reading thrillers, police procedurals, murder mysteries, and such so I was kind of in a dark and dreary mind frame which kind of put me off the first chapter or so. I don't remember what point in the next couple of chapters I was reminded I was reading Scalzi and I was meant to have fun reading. I'm about to start chapter 12 and I'm having a good time. I anticipate the rest of the book to be fun.

I've finished Gnomon (at break-neck speed) and reviewed it. I'm into The Deadly Grimoire now, before I tackle House of Suns.

>73 seitherin: Sounds good, thank you.

I just finished The Warrior's Apprentice, it was a good read. Not too heavy on action, good characters, nothing objectionable about the scifi parts of the story.

I've just finished a fannish nostalgia trip, D.West's Fanzines in Theory and in Practice. Now started a re-read of The Sword of the Lictor

Added Memory's Legion by James S. A. Corey to my rotation.

Just finished The Dark Archive, and I do wonder how Cogman is going to wrap up this epic. I know, I know, I could rush right out to read the last book, but I'm gonna hold off for awhile.

Next up is Engines of Oblivion.

Really enjoyed Murray Leinster's iconic 1934 short story Sidewise in Time
The Sidewise Award for Alternate History stories is a reference to this story,possibly the earliest alternate world/timeline story printed. It spawned a whole subgenre which is very popular to this day. Isaac Asimov said it had a strong influence on his The End of Eternity
It is quite pulpy and has,for a change ,not a mad scientist (so ubiquitous to the 30s magazine stories),but instead a mad mathematician! lol.The explanations of the altertnate timelines erupting into modern day,with dinosaurs,an ice age,roman legions,confederates winning the war between the states all tossed off carelessly are a bit wordy by todays standards but at the time must have been truly astonishing,and though pulpy and a bit clunky,the story is still readable today. Good fun.
Nearly finished Ill Met in Lankhmar.Pratchett claims it wasnt a direct influence on his Ank Morpork,but a bossy overlord who interferes with social systems,a very smelly river,and a Thieves Guild all seem somehow linked with this Fafhrd and the Grey Mauser tale. Not my sort of thing really,but at least there is humour and a lightness to Leiber's fantasy stories. Conan and Elric of Melnibone are not exactly laugh a minute. I wonder if there wasnt a touch of satire at work here,something often touching Leiber's work.

I just finished Kaiju Preservation Society, light and fluffy, just what I wanted. Next up, possibly The last Cuentista... maybe...

>79 dustydigger: a touch of satire

I very much read that into the Lankhmar stories, no matter Leiber's intent, a large part of my pleasure in them and reinforcement of their wit.

I think there was some satire in Moorcock's Elric too, with a deliberate inversion of the socio-cultural values set out in Howard's Conan stories. But it was wry, sardonic humor, where Leiber's is more hearty and open.

>82 paradoxosalpha: That's interesting to read, I've never found an ounce of humor in the Elric novels, but perhaps I wasn't looking for it!

Well,that was a nice early example of ''fridging''.Both Fafhrd and the Mouser had beautiful girlfriends ,seemingly the loves of their lives. Well,Leiber killed them off! lol.Now the boys can go off and have as many adventures as they like. Priceless.....
I am adding a new thread to my reading from next month. I always enjoyed rereading old favourites,but since joining book forums like shelfari,LT,goodreads I see so many new to me books I want to read that I never seem to have the leisure to go back to revisit old friends.So I will start off with Fellowship of the Ring and a pleasant old Anne McCaffrey book. :0)

>83 Karlstar:

Knowing that Moorcock was deploying sexual symbolism in very calculated and conscious manner throughout the early Elric stories can make them pretty hilarious, in fact. I recommend his short story "The Stone Thing," where he takes this method all the way over the top.

I've just started reading The ministry for the future. So far, pretty grim.

>86 Sakerfalcon: It's a much more optimistic take on climate change than the world we live in :)
Happy Monday!

Just finished Acceptance, the 3rd volume of the Southern Reach trilogy. Grim & cryptic right up to the end. I like things that start out cryptic, but have a harder time with things that end up that way (not unhappy endings, but ones where I'm still thinking "what exactly happened & is happening"?) But of course the kind of situation he's describing most likely would be like that. And it's interesting how he did it, and oddly compelling.

>88 rshart3: Perhaps it's not the end though...

https://twitter.com/jeffvandermeer/status/1227284650164400129

>89 igorken: Not sure that trilogy needs a follow-up...actually, I'm pretty sure it doesn't!

I'm used to thinking of the Southern Reach as a "trilogy," but I didn't feel like Acceptance closed the narrative. I'll look forward to Absolution.

I finished Caliban’s War. Really enjoyable. Bobbie and Avasarela were great characters. Started reading Abaddon’s Gate right after. I’m enjoying it so far.

Went on vacation, had 4 ebooks from the library with me. Had two Firefly books, The Magnificent Nine and Generations. That TV series ended too soon, I'm enjoying the books continuing the story.
Next I read Questland by Carrie Vaughn. I'm a nerd so I got most of the SF/Fantasy references, but I've never been a gamer which may have hindered my enjoyment.
Last of the ebooks was Between Worlds by Martha Wells. I probably would have owned and read this book years ago if it was available on paper. Don't like it when publishers only release book as ebooks. I read them but so far I've only bought one ebook. There's several other ebooks I'd like to read but the library doesn't have them and I refuse to buy them in this format. Wish they'd offer them in print. Really enjoyed the short story collection but now I'm going to have to re-read her Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy. 😃
The library had the loan I requested of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir in hardback when I got home. I know the snark and attitude is off-putting to some people but I enjoy it. After I finished the book and released my suspension of disbelief I realized how unlikely a good bit of it was but I liked the book.
The non-book part of the vacation was really good too.😁

I am dashing through House of Suns and will probably wrap it up in the next day or two. SF on deck includes The Algebraist and The Blazing World.

>93 pjfarm: The non-book part of the vacation...

I am sorry, but I cannot quite understand this concept.

:-)

>95 pgmcc: That's when the relatives/friends you are on vacation with drag you to places where reading is either impossible or impractical. A very weird concept indeed... :)

>96 AnnieMod:
Thank you. Your explanation is informative, but terrifying.

Finished up Engines of Oblivion yesterday evening; I liked it, but not quite as much as Architects of Memory.

>96 AnnieMod: Hah! Just what happened to me last week on our trip to Norfolk. Himself was insistent on visiting various nature reserves. I accompanied him to the first place I could sit down comfortably and haul out the Kobo... (I'm embarrassing in nature reserves - I speculate out loud on the way to cook and serve what we're observing.)

I did get one day where reading wasn't too practical - I wandered round the shops in Wells and in the afternoon toured Holkham Hall (albeit with guidebook in hand). Himself was trying to get a sight of the sea eagle.

My library has produced 3 On Hold items for me today:- She Who Became The Sun; A Desolation Called Peace; and Quantum of Nightmares. Now I don't care what the weather does this weekend :)

House of Suns is finished and reviewed. I returned it to the public library and borrowed The Gone-Away World, but I've started reading Flight from Nevèrÿon.

>94 paradoxosalpha: I will be interested to hear what you think of The Algebraist.

>102 Karlstar:

Like my recent read of House of Suns, it will be a first exploration of a writer by way of a standalone novel in lieu of his better-known series.

>103 paradoxosalpha: I heartily recommend some of Bank's Culture novels over The Algebraist.

>104 Karlstar:

Hm. Well, I could do that. I have a couple in my collection. I've been snagging them opportunistically when I find them in library used book sales, thrift shops, and the like, on the assumption that I will get to them. I don't want to be put off of a good prospect by a bad outlier. But I saw that The Algebraist got some award nominations, and my "read a standalone first" method served me well for other authors like Ken MacLeod (Newton's Wake).

>105 paradoxosalpha:
Stick to the plan. I am one of the people who really enjoyed The Algebraist. I have read all Banks’s books and will be very interested in your opinion.
I loved Newton’s Wake.

>105 paradoxosalpha:
I read The Algebraist after about 5-6 of Banks's Culture novels, and I loved it. I was looking for a standalone space opera at the time, and it absolutely delivered on the kind of thing I was craving at the time. I'm certain it would have delivered even if I weren't familiar with his other work.