What are we reading September 2023?

Another month,another tottering pile of books on the TBR. Share your plans for September with us.

Dusty's TBR for September
SF/F
Charles Sheffield - Summertide ✔
Kenneth Robeson - Brand of the Werewolf ✔
Philip Wylie - After Worlds Collide
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Lost on Venus ✔
H G Wells - The Croquet Player
Darc y Coates - The Twisted Dead ✔

from other genres
Rex Stout - Fer-de-Lance ✔
Mark Billingham - Death Message 7#10004
Euripides - The Bacchae ✔

I'm still reading The Margarets and enjoying it very much. It's a complicated book with several plot threads and many characters and planets, but at half way in, it's starting to come together. This is my first time reading Sheri Tepper, but it will not be the last.

Will shortly be cracking open Ion Curtain, and I have in hand The Archive Undying, Eyes of the Void and The Corporation Wars: Dissidence. The fifth option is at the discretion of the Library Hold Fairy. As of September 6, it appears that option will be He Who Drowned the World.

I plan to work on the Imager Portfolio and maybe the follow-up to Mythology 101. Reading Don't Panic now, I am considering a reread of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books. I still haven't finished the Heinlein juveniles I was trying to read.

In progress:
McSweeny's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales
A Dweller on Two Planets
The Dragon Path

On deck:
Blood
Starship Titanic
Free Live Free
Prince of Scorpio
Childhood's End (re-read)

Ordered/Requested, but not yet in hand:
Use of Weapons
As the Green Star Rises

Non-f/sf:
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

My reading has seriously slowed with the start of the teaching year. I’m still working through the fantasy novel The Order War.

Having waded through Cibola Burn on holiday, next up is Ken Macleod's Corporation Wars: Emergence. That will bring me fully up to date with Ken's output until the final part of Lightspeed arrives.

September Reading Plan:

Tehanu - Ursula K. Le Guin
Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds
The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov
Norstrilia - Cordwainer Smith
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer
The Last Kind Words Saloon - Larry McMurtry
Shards of Earth - Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor
The Evangelical Imagination - Karen Swallow Prior
Love your Enemies by Arthur C. Brooks

Only about 2/3 sci-fi planned this month.

Almost done with Sword & Citadel, but pausing a bit to take in some short fiction Hugo finalists.

Currently reading a print version of Shardik, (trade paperback, small print, long book - might take a while).

Also about to begin e-reading Theory of Bastards.

After that? Probably Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan duology.

>11 ScoLgo: When one of my book groups read Theory of Bastards, the person with the most relevant expertise really liked the science. Whether you like the book as a whole is, of course, more subjective.

>12 karenb: Thanks! Other than the blurb, I know nothing about it. It was a Book Gorilla deal a while back and looked interesting so I snagged it using Prime shipping credits.

Have a couple of Danish books lined up this month as part of a SFFKit challenge.
We’ll see how far I get.
de ansatte by olga ravn and Fremtidsspejl by Svend Åge Madsen

We've been streaming For All Mankind on Apple+ which is an alt history tale, beginning with Russia being the US to the Moon. The Cold War and the Space Race are on. And both countries have eyes not only on the Moon but on Mars as well.

I'm really enjoying the changes in things that happen. Different presidents, different wars, cultural changes, including Women on the Moon and the ERA passed in the 70s.

Finished Endling #1: The Last and started The Anomaly.

I started Red Planet by Robert Heinlein again today. Well yesterday, really.

I do love Big Dumb Objects. And there are a plethora of strange ancient artifacts and buidings created by the mysterious Builders in Charles Sheffield's Heritage series. I'm 100 pages into #1 Summertidein the few minutes I have been snatching from preparing for and entertaining a guest. He's now returned to USA,but I am totally shattered and read only a couple of pages before dozing off! lol

Finally catching up on the latest Vlad book, Tsalmoth. So far though, it does appear to not be moving the series forward, as at least the first couple chapters are Vlad reliving a memory from way back in the past.

Knocked off Ion Curtain, which I was really enjoying until the author wrote themselves into a corner and basically used a stick of dynamite to blast their way out of said corner. Probably too much plot in one medium-length book. I remain interested in where Ms. Ow takes her story.

Next up: The Archive Undying.

My reread of Charles Sheffield's Summertide was enormous fun,so I have decided to reread the whole series.I LOVE Big Dumb Objects and ancient alien races. I hadnt realized that Sheffield was married to Nancy Kress. I keep meaning to read some of her stuff. Maybe 2024.......
Once more enjoying the somewhat preposterous Doc Savage tale Brand of the Werewolf. It would make a good drinking game to have to take a swig everytime the Doc reveals a new talent - about every 3rd page I think!Good stuff.
Oh,and I delight in the fact that all the cars have running boards,and isnt it thrilling that big strong tough guys with guns are clinging to the car on said running boards. Cool

Read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. A beautiful meditation on loss, love and belonging wrapped up in an apocalyptic setting. Reminds me a bit of some of Ray Bradburys short stories.

Have started both Kij Johnson's new story collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending, and my last Lodestar finalist, Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods.

Finished The Anomaly, beginning Endling #2: The First.

Just finished Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith. Didn't do much for me. Moving on to Tehanu - haven't read any of the Earthsea books beyond the original trilogy, so I'm looking forward to it.

I read Leigh Brackett's sf novella Black Amazon of Mars, only because the cover of the issue of Planet stories it first appeared in was this group's primary picture for so long.

It wasn't very good, but it had its moments. Quality pulp, perhaps?

>26 Petroglyph: "Black Amazon of Mars"
Discussed at length here.

Read The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez, which was okay. Not spectacular in any way. I didn't really care about any of the characters, the writing was a bit muddled, and the coherence of the plot and the worldbuilding was only so-so.

>12 karenb: I ended up really liking Theory of Bastards. I got a Speed of Dark vibe from the first half of the book but then it went elsewhere. Saying more would be a spoiler. My only real quibble is with the ending. I would have liked it to go a little further instead of just stopping abruptly in mid-scene. I get that Schulman is leaving it up to the reader to imagine what happens next but I felt it a bit abrupt and incomplete.

DNF'ed Outland by Dennis E Taylor I found the main characters unlikeable and unbelievable. I really enjoyed his "Bobiverse" series and was hoping for more of the same; I was disappointed.

Started Women As Demons by Tanith Lee, a new (2nd-hand) addition to my Womens Press collection from then'80s and '90s.

In print, I am nearing the halfway point of Shardik. Will start into an e-book of Revelation Space today. This will be my 2nd Reynolds title after having read and really enjoyed the stand-alone Century Rain a few years ago.

>27 paradoxosalpha:
Thanks! I enjoyed that!

Finished Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin. I had heard this was a step down from the original trilogy, but can't say I agree. It's vintage Le Guin - the lyrical prose, richly imagined characters & storyline. Highly recommended.

>34 ChrisG1: I read Tehanu when it first came out a couple of decades ago and felt the same as the others you note that it was good but not as good as the original trilogy. But I was younger then and likely not appreciating the subtiles of Le Guin’s prose. I felt the same way about the two that followed, The Other Wind and Tales of Earthsea. All three deserve a reread to see if I have a different appreciation a couple of decades later.

>22 amberwitch: Yes, I read Station Eleven this summer and really enjoyed for the same reasons you list. I look forward to reading another of her’s.

>22 amberwitch: >36 Neil_Luvs_Books: Mandel's books are all essentially stand-alones. That said, in publication order, The Lola Quartet, Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, and Sea of Tranquility are all loosely connected. Actually, the connections become more pronounced in SoT and are not very noticeable up to that point. All are worth reading, IMHO.

>>34 ChrisG1: & >35 Neil_Luvs_Books: There are a few of us, myself included, that liked Tehanu more than the original trilogy. It definitely seemed less YA.

>37 ScoLgo: Someone gave me an article that contained an interview with St. John Mandel's simulation hypothesis approach to her books. Was it you? It really added to my enjoyment of the novels. I'm sure it's still alive on the internet somewhere.

>38 vwinsloe: I agree re:Tehanu - my favourite of the whole Earthsea series, more adult and darker.

I just finished The Accidental War and am hurrying on to start Fleet Elements. Accidental war started out slow but the build up to the war was well worth it.

>39 SChant: As an adult, I appreciated the last three more than the first three. Calm, thoughtful, wonderfully well written.

I was already planning a re-read of the original three Earthsea books to continue into the later ones for sometime this year, and the conversation here is certainly encouraging me.

I've started reading Frontier by Grace Curtis. It's SF/Western, set on a future earth that has been ravaged by climate change. Quite Becky Chambers in tone. I'm enjoying it so far.

>38 vwinsloe:

Being a teenager when I read Tehanu, it being less YA is likely part of why I liked it less than the first three.

(I’ve never read the last two, they weren’t published when I read the then-tetralogy.)

>44 AndreasJ: I haven't read the other two either, so I can't comment on them.

Wrapped up The Archive Undying and I'm here to tell you that it probably wasn't worth the effort I put into it. If you give it a try ruthlessly follow the fifty-page rule and save yourself a lot of trouble.

Next in the que: He Who Drowned the World.

Finished what I presume is a YA horror book a bit in the Graveyard Queen tradition,The Twisted Dead by Darcy Coates.Some of the set pieces did seem suitably tense and gripping,but the cheesy dialogue among the young characters was irritating and a bit silly,so I wont pursue the series.
Now reading The Bacchae by Euripides and am starting Kat Richardson Downpour. Not in the mood for SF at the moment for some reason

>47 dustydigger:

I'm pivoting off sf for a moment too. I'm reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and eyeing The Invention of Morel, which I picked up last weekend.

>48 paradoxosalpha:

I’d class The Invention of Morel as sf.

A random selection from my TBR pile - Direct Descent by Frank Herbert. Completely unrelated to Dune.

Finished Mickey 7 for this week's book group. Talks about different attempts at colonizing planets, as the protagonist reads a lot of history. Pretty sure the physics is accurate, too.

>49 AndreasJ:
I just read the front matter, and introducer Suzanne Jill Levine does too.

Finished The Girl With All the Gifts (started strong but ended up meh) and Nona the Ninth (the whole series is so weird and ridiculous and fun). Now I'm working my way through Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time. It's engrossing, original, and keeps taking turns I did not expect. The author's voice and writing style is rather straightforward and lacking lyricism, but for what the book lacks in poetry it makes up for in spades in storytelling and (literal) world-building.

>22 amberwitch: Station Eleven is such a beautiful book! If you liked it, I can't recommend Sea of Tranquility enough! While the subject matter is very different (time travel and futurism), the writing is that same lyrical, atmospheric style, and Mandel even has some meta references to Station Eleven in it.

>54 librarianMN:, >37 ScoLgo: Thanks for the recommendations. I guess I just added a few more books to my TBR pile:-) Fortunate, as I've been disappointed with most of my other recent reads.

>42 paradoxosalpha: I did that exact thing around 4 or 5 years ago. It's a good approach. I gained a more mature perspective on the original trilogy that I lacked when younger. I believe that also helped me to better appreciate the later Earthsea works because Ged's and Tenar's experiences up to that point were more fresh in memory.

>53 librarianMN: I read Children of Time recently and your description of the writing style is spot on. I found myself sympathizing more with the aliens than with the humans!

>54 librarianMN: Have you read The Glass Hotel? The connection between that book and Sea of Tranquility is much more overt.

>55 amberwitch: If you have the opportunity, I'd go with The Glass Hotel before Sea of Tranquility due to the connection I just mentioned. It's not really a deal-breaker though as I have heard of people reading them in the opposite order and it worked out ok for them.

>56 ScoLgo: I found myself sympathizing more with the aliens than with the humans!

I'd argue that this is part of the point of the book. :)

Finished Frontier which was a good read. It's set on a future Earth that has been ravaged by climate change, among the fragment of the population who chose not to leave to settle new worlds. Those who remain see those who left as sinners, betraying their Mother Earth. A stranger arrives in town, searching for her lost love, and encounters different individuals, briefly becoming part of their stories as she travels. It's Becky Chambers-esque but a bit more brutal in places.

Fed up. I intended to read Kat Richardson's Downpour on Open Library. Sadly all of her books have been removed ,they are only available as ''previews''.
Open Library lost the case brought against them for breach of copyright by a group of big publishing companies,and many books are being removed. From one very quick look I see I have lost the chance to read Octavia R Butler's Dawn,all the Jack McDevitts, all of P K Dick,just for a start. I will need to overhaul my TBR drastically. So glad that I have the Luminist Archive resource for old SF.
Not sure what will happen on Internet Archive. I read quite a bit of stuff from Weird Tales and Astounding Science Fiction magazines on there. Still looks intact for now. But more modern stuff? Who knows.
Just as well that I was intending to deep dive into them next year.

I guess I'm right back to sf, having finished The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. My local public library has finally fulfilled my hold on Use of Weapons, so that will join The Invention of Morel at the top of my queue.

>59 dustydigger: I know that Project Gutenberg has some old SF magazines that were definitely out of copyright: Gutenberg's process requires it. The Internet Archive, I don't know about: stay tuned, I guess.

I've finished The Invention of Morel and posted my review. As the Green Star Rises has slipped into the queue ahead of Use of Weapons.

Finished Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. This was a reread - I previously read it when it first came out in 2005. It held up well - Wilson is an excellent storyteller. This time I'll move on to the sequels.

>62 paradoxosalpha: I hope you enjoy Use of Weaspons. I haven't heard anyone mention any of those old Lin Carter books in ages, I hope you enjoy that too!

A quick read of the novella Emergent properties by Aimee Ogden yesterday: sentient AI wakes up (restored from backups) to discover they've lost the previous ten days' worth of memory. So it's a mystery, too, trying to figure out what story they were working on. AI autonomy? Dodgy labor practices? Also, what happens when you're trying to be an independent being but your divorced parents don't quite see you that way (you're so young! etc.).

I'm now reading The genesis of Misery by Neon Yang.

>63 ChrisG1: I really enjoyed the Spin trilogy. It certainly ended up far from where it started but in another sense right back at the beginning. I still think RCW’s Darwinia is the best. That one ended up someplace completely different from the start.

>66 Neil_Luvs_Books: His writing is just so good in Spin, I suspect I'll like anything he writes & if so, I'll get to Darwinia too.

>67 ChrisG1: I also read The Chronoliths and enjoyed it though I think it is the weakest of the five by Robert Charles Wilson I have read. Eventually, I am sure I’ll get back to reading something else by him. I have also really enjoyed his writing.

(Added later) I forgot I also read Julian Comstock by RCW. That was the weakest I have read of his. I didn’t like that one very much.

Just about to start 84K after a break reading some non-fiction - The Secret State on the UK's management of nuclear warfare - not SF, but certainly essential background reading to some works of dystopian fiction.

>66 Neil_Luvs_Books: >67 ChrisG1: I read Spin back when and have the next book on my TBR pile, but by now I've completely forgotten what Spin was about, so I've been hesitating.

>70 Karlstar: That's actually why I did the Spin reread - I had forgotten 80% of it. Glad I did.

Had to give up on The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowall. A disappointing shambles by the author of the wonderful Lady Astronaut series.
Now reading short stories from the Hugo Long List volume 2 - so far very good.

I finished As the Green Star Rises and posted my review. Use of Weapons is still on deck, as I have already plunged into Funeral in Berlin (as a quasi-sequel to my read of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold earlier this month).

>73 paradoxosalpha:
Did you read The Ipcress File before reading Funeral in Berlin?

>74 pgmcc:
Yup. Horse Under Water too.

Finished The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. Turns out this was a reread - I wasn't sure if I had read it before until I got to the middle section that focused on aliens who have 3 sexes. Funny how that was the momorable part. Pretty good ideas explored, worth a read.

>76 ChrisG1: Being Asimov, I guess none of the sexes was female or if they were they didn't say anything.

I am almost done with my last Hugo novel, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. After this, only a short story, a novelette, a novella, and two "related works" to go!

>72 SChant: I'm not sure that anyone who participates in this group had a lot of love for this novel.

I just finished up He Who Drowned the World. I thought it was great, even when Parker-Chan was creeping me out.

>77 justifiedsinner: Not a bad guess - two of the three sexes were described using the male pronouns. I will say, however, that the most compelling & interesting character among the aliens was the one described with female pronouns.

Scolgo I haven't read The Glass Hotel yet but it's on my Libby hold shelf. I'm really looking forward to it, but on the other hand I'm afraid of exhausting the entire Mandel oeuvre in one year.

Re: Children of Time, oh yeah I was team spiders all the way

>77 justifiedsinner: justifiedsinner this made me lol. 100% accurate take on Asimov's view on women.

>81 librarianMN: It is probably better to exhaust the St. John Mandel oeuvre in one year so that you can pick up the cross references.

I wrapped up Funeral in Berlin (and posted a review, of course). So now I can put my attention properly on Use of Weapons.

>83 vwinsloe: Agreed! Plus, I have found her books to be eminently re-readable.

>83 vwinsloe: I just got both The glass hotel and Sea of tranquility from the library, and based on the recommendations from here, started with The glass hotel.
So far so weird.

Finished Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Well, that was a weird one. There's a lot left unexplained by the author. A group of people go into a mysterious "Area X," identified only by their occuptions. The protagonist is The Biologist. The prose is vague & mysterious, as is the plot. While the book is classified as Science Fiction, there weren't particularly any science fiction elements to it - more like horror, although even that is more psychological than anything else. I found it interesting & worth reading, but won't say I loved it.

>86 amberwitch:. When you are done with them, this interview is worth reading.

https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/emily-st-john-mandel-sea-of-tranquility-new-bo...

Finished What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher yesterday. Creepy and funny!

>86 amberwitch: definitely read Station Eleven before Sea of Tranquility of you haven't already.

>90 librarianMN: I actually really liked Station Eleven, and then everyone here said I should read The glass hotel an the sea of tranquility in that order. Unfortunately, I did not find them nearly as impactful, and I found it kind of disappointing that these books somehow seemed to be ‘propped up’ by Station Eleven instead of being meaningful works on their own.

>91 amberwitch: De gustibus non est disputandum, as they say. I read Station Eleven before I read the other two books, and I was not at all impressed. I read Sea of Tranquility next and liked it, and then read The Glass Hotel which I liked even more. Shrug.

Finished Lost on Venus and a couple of Clark Ashton Smith short stories. I always learn a few new to me words when I read CAS,the man was a walking dictionary. The Death of Malygris was suitably dark and spooky,but The Door to Saturn was much lighter,showing the lighter humorous and satiric side of CAS. Too many of the weird fiction writers were portentous and gloomy,Smith could be very funny,even subversive.
Last up for the month is H G Wells The Croquet Player and some kindle unlimited fun trash,while I prepare my Spooky October reads.

Knocked off Dissidence. Short report; okay, but just okay. Picking up MacLeod when I had just finished one of the best novels of the year didn't do the man any favors.

Next up: Into the Riverlands.

I finished my Hugo reading last night with The Buffalito World Outreach Project! Now to finalize my ballots.

Finished reading (and reviewed) Use of Weapons. Turning to A Wizard of Earthsea reread next.

Rereading Ancillary justice. It's just as good the second time.

After a break from fiction, now started Nemesis Games.

Recently finished a random selection from my TBR list, Earth is Room Enough by Asimov. Some of the stories were quite good, some were just ok and others are hopelessly out of date.

Finished A prayer for the crown-shy by Becky Chambers. Not as profound as it thinks it is

I have been slowly working my way (slogging?) through Revelation Space. The story is pretty good but it's a mass-market paperback, the print is small, and it is a long book. All factors in slowing my progress. While chipping away at it, I blazed through The Jennifer Morgue, which I enjoyed a bit more than the also entertaining The Atrocity Archive, (the cover on my copy shows our hero looking a bit like an underwater 007 with the tag-line, "The name is Howard. Bob Howard. Please don't hurt me..." Haha!)

I have also begun some spooky fall reading with The Red Tree, which was nearly as good as The Drowning Girl. I am finding Keirnan's writing style to be to my liking. This weekend I will be starting into David Mitchell's first title, Ghostwritten.

>99 Karlstar:

That's on my shelves, inherited from my granddad. I almost pulled it down recently and your comment nudges me a little closer: a couple stories being "quite good" is enough to justify a re-read after 3-4 decades.

I started and finished The ghost line: the titanic of the stars earlier today (by author couple Andrew Neil Gray & J. S. Herbison. Hackers break into an abandoned luxury liner between Earth and Mars. Some easily digestible sf-horror, would probably make for an okay film.

And I'm also close to wrapping up another novella: The mimicking of known successes by Malka Older -- a cozy murder mystery set on Jupiter. Interesting worldbuilding.

>101 ScoLgo:

If Kiernan is new to you, you might not know of her fine Tinfoil Dossier books, which lean a little in the Laundry direction (without being such a laugh riot).

>104 paradoxosalpha: Thanks, I read the Tinfoil Dossier trilogy earlier this year. I've been on a bit of a Keirnan kick lately, collecting quite a few of her titles. Found a like new hardcover of Comes a Pale Rider on eBay recently and am currently on the hunt for Alabaster. Sadly, many of her books are out of my price range.

Ah. Your earlier post also reminds me that I might go back and pick up some of the Mitchell novels I still haven't read, although the season tempts me to a reread of Slade House.

>106 paradoxosalpha: I was disappointed with Slade House. I thought he was working too hard in it to develop his horologist concept. It was not creepy enough for me. I enjoyed Bone Clocks and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet including his reverse engineering of horologists into Black Swan Green.

>107 pgmcc: I rather enjoyed Slade House. I've managed to collect all of Mitchell's novels and will be working my way through them in publication order. About half will be re-reads, (Cloud Atlas, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, The Bone Clocks, and Slade House). That is the order in which I have read Mitchell, to date. I wonder if reading order makes a difference to how things fit within his Horologists Universe? I hope to find some insight on that as I go through his catalog.

>108 ScoLgo:
Ghostwritten is one I still have to read. That and his latest. They are both languishing on my shelves, calling to me and casting abuse at me for not having read them yet. I suspect they might be feline.

>107 pgmcc:, >108 ScoLgo:

So far, I've read Bone Clocks, Slade House, and Utopia Avenue in that order (and I've seen the Cloud Atlas movie). My Other Reader has read all the Mitchell novels. She really likes sprawling sagas with character linkages a la Dance to the Music of Time, and he sort of delivers that. I do think I liked Bone Clocks the best of what I've read, but I definitely enjoyed the rest.

Still working on The saint of bright doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, which may technically be fantasy. Regular doors transform into bright doors when they aren't used for a long time; no one is sure what the bright doors do, or are. (Some researchers are working on it, beyond "something is different and the other side is now just a wall"). There's also politics and religion and colonialism and history and identity, if those things interest you.

Knocked off Into the Riverlands, another slice of charming story-telling by Ms. Vo. Wild Massive should be the next novel.

Duplicate entry...

I've finished my Hugo reading and have begun posting my ballots to my blog if anyone is interested: https://lessaccurategrandmother.blogspot.com/2023/09/hugo-awards-2023-best-novel...

Now I can finally read other things, so I'm back to Kij Johnson's new collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending.

>112 Shrike58: I skipped ahead and read the new Vo, Mammoths at the Gates. I haven't read the ones between Mammoths and Riverlands, but the ebook was available from the library, so I jumped on it. A quick read, and good.

Finally finished The Order War. I quite enjoyed it. A a quick detour into fantasy. I suspect I will read more novels in The Saga of Recluse series over the next few years.

>116 Neil_Luvs_Books: are you reading in publication order?

>117 elorin: Yes, I’m reading Recluse in publication order. Which means, yes, I have a lot of books in front of me!

>118 Neil_Luvs_Books: I'm a big Recluce fan and I look forward to seeing what you think of the novels!

Finished Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A good old fashioned space opera, complete with interesting aliens, danger, adventure, a "den of villainy" planet, mysterious mental powers & more. Well told & very entertaining. I will certainly read the next two volumes of the series & sooner, rather than later.

>119 elorin: So The Order War is the 4th in the Recluse Saga and I think that they are getting better with each one. I very much like the everyday niceness of the interactions among some character relationships. It makes the buildup to the climax that more interesting in the sense of the Recluse heroes are everyday people placed into extraordinary circumstances and they have to muddle their way through. Just like most of us do with our own everyday lives. What makes these ordinary folks heroes in this saga is that they make the tough choices required to accomplish what needs to be done. I like that sense of the real everyday in a fantasy novel.

>121 Neil_Luvs_Books: My biggest complaint about Modesitt, and it's a small one, is when characters have aha moments and he never lets the reader in on how s/he reached the conclusion. I feel lost. But I agree with everything you say about the Recluce books (and I just finished a complete reread/read through a few months ago).