Our reads in June 2024

Another month,another pile of books. What are your reading plans for June?

I have 6 Ursula K LeGuin SF novels to read, as well as a bunch of superhero comics. Not sure where I'm going to start but I figure I should probably read at least one novel.

Dusty's TBR for June
Blake Crouch - Dark Matter✔
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere ✔
Robert A Heinlein - The Menace From Earth
Amelia B Edwards -The Phantom Coach✔
Walter de la Mare -Seaton's Aunt✔
W H Hodgson - A Voice in the Night✔

I am going to finish the 3rd book in original Foundation series, then I plan on doing an original dune series re-read, (up through Chapterhouse Dune).

In Progress
Revival

On Deck
The Incal: Dying Star
Job: A Comedy of Justice
Free Live Free
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again

Ordered/Requested
Beyond the Hallowed Sky

>4 Authjgab: I just finished a reread of FH’s original 6 Dune novels. I am curious to hear what you think of the last two: Heretics and Chapterhouse. I thought Heretics was 2nd in quality only to Dune and Chapterhouse not as good as the others but still worth reading if only to enjoy the head scratcher of the cliffhanger it ends on. I continued on to read the conclusion written by BH and KJA and like many others advised, those two concluding novels are not up to snuff. Someone in this group I think described them as fan fiction which I thought was accurate.

I have the following books lined up for June: The Light Years, Orbital, These Burning Stars, Cascade Failure, and The Iron Khan.

In breaking news, Tidal Creatures is going to be in my grubby little hands in a of couple days; that'll probably bump These Burning Star to next month.

I finished Beyond the Hallowed Sky yesterday and will be picking up Beyond the Reach of Earth tonight. The third book is in the post and should arrive by the time I finish the 2nd.

Also have the Houses Under the Sea collection going. About halfway through and enjoying it immensely. Kiernan has become a favorite author for me.

Not sure what SF I am going to read in June. I just finished reading Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart. Next I need to read Fifteen Dogs for my book club. I may read Delaney’s Triton after that. I’ve wanted to read that book for a couple of decades now but other stuff always took priority.

I'm reading Company Town, and it reminds me that world-building can be done well without needing a rambling, bloated tome.

Currently reading Dark Matter and Quicksilver. The latter is slow going. I don't dislike it, but it is rather slow.

Snap daxxh. I am about to start Dark Matter,maybe tomorrow.now I am enjoying a reread of Gaiman's Neverwhere I watched the TV series live way back in 1996,followed it up with the novel,and became a Gaiman fan. In general I dislike epic fantasy,but like quirky offbeat stuff like Neverwhere.Zelazny's Amber series,Charles de Lint,Mercedes Lackey.But I do enjoy urban fantasy,Jim Butcher,Ben Aaronovitch,Patricia Briggs,Charles Stross Laundry Files,are firm favourites,and a lot of fluff about vampires,werewolves and such. Forgettable nonsense,but great for relaxing.:0)

Despite distractions, Red Mars sits on my bedside table and I intend to pick it up soon. How soon is the question.

I've finished Revival and posted a review. I'm already a couple of short chapters into Job: A Comedy of Justice.

>1 dustydigger:, >12 dustydigger: I loved Neverwhere, the book and the movie. The graphic novel was pretty good too, IIRC. Decent non-epic fantasy.

>10 vwinsloe: Oh, I liked Company Town; it put Ashby on my always-look-for list of authors.

I know I read Dark Matter with a book group in 2018, but the TV show is not ringing bells for me. Maybe a couple more episodes will bring it back.

My reading plans thus far: I need to finish The terraformers by Annalee Newitz. It reminds me of KS Robinson's Red Mars, as a sort of ancester book; Robinson gave one of the blurbs. And, if I can swing it, Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky, for another book group.

In the queue thanks to the library: The splinter in the sky by Kemi Ashng-Giwa and A second chance for yesterday by R A Sinn.

>15 karenb: Looks like Madeline Ashby has a new book entitled Glass Houses coming out toward the end of the summer. It looks quite a bit different from her prior books, but I'll be there for it, too.

>16 vwinsloe: I'm all over the map with Ms. Ashby, but that's being added to the provisional TBR list.

Also, about seven years too late, I finally knocked off The Iron Khan. I liked it, but it feels like a last-ditch effort to jam everything relating to the "Inspector Chen" series into one book, in the wake of Ms. Williams being on the outside looking in, with the near business collapse of Night Shade Books. One wonders what the end game really was for that series; a set of two trilogies, or keep grinding them out so long as the market was interested? There is apparently a coda to the series called "Morningstar," and I'd appreciate being clued into what that was about, spoilers and all, if anyone has read it.

>17 Shrike58: I didn't really get on with Vn myself, and didn't continue with that series.

Over the weekend I read Some Desperate Glory because it's a Hugo nominee. It's an interesting work, taking a lot of old SF tropes and doing some fresh things with them. I liked it fairly well, but also had to force myself to push through in a couple of places when it was doing things I don't enjoy (like time travel -- I hate time travel). The main character is a teenager who was raised in a cult, and and gradually realizes how awful it was. I don't know that I would have finished it if I weren't voting on the Hugos this year, but I'm glad I did. It won't be at the top of my ballot, but it won't be at the bottom, either.

>20 gailo: I had comparable feelings, and I'm also glad that I gave Tesh the time of day.

Having fun with my reread of Neverwhere but not so fond of Dark Matter,primarily because I so do not like first person present narration style.I am constantly pulled out of the tale because of it and of course I would assume the whole point of the style is to drag you in as much as possible? Breakneck nonstop action is wearing too,and it just feels like a rather clumsy novelization project. Its an OK read,and maybe I will get used to the style,we'll see.
But its a fact of life I cant really take to modern genre fiction.Looking at SF/F award winners the last 15 years or so,I dont see a lot of future classics.I sigh,shake my head gloomily and retreat to the past! :0)

>22 dustydigger: that is really funny to heat (about the future classics bit)
I feel completely opposite - most older sf works feel very dated and juvenile. Some fantasy as well, but I’ve mostly noticed it with sf recently.
That is not to say that the new stuff will become classics, I admit, but they are still a lot better than most of the og classics to my mind.

I know the old stuff had little or no characterization,and were written under the exigencies of working for magazines etc,and of course modern women foam at the mouth at the portrayal of women,but old SF was all about ideas,and those were all new back then,exciting and thought provoking.And...SHORT!!!......Ah,those were the days,SHORT novels,only 200 pages,but crammed with ideas....
Yes,I am an old dinosaur (76 and counting) :0)

>24 dustydigger: I agree about the virtues of brevity - just finished Shards of earth and the bloat is real. I may find it in me to read the rest of the Final Architecture, but it is not a given.

>25 amberwitch: Fortunately, I bought my copy of Shards of Earth on Kindle so I'll be a lot less tempted to complete buying the series as I might be if I'd gotten Shards in treeware. It's good, but at some point length becomes self-indulgent.

Shards of Earth started on out on the wrong foot for me (and my old reading group), and really didn't get on the right foot until the back-half of Eyes of the Void; sometime this year I anticipate reading Lords of Uncreation.

Finished Cosmic Puppets / Sargasso of Space -- Puppets felt more like Stephen King than Dick but not in a bad way. Detour to my next Grafton mystery, O is for Outlaw.

So, finished Orbital; it was a perfectly acceptable piece of general fiction but not really what I was looking for. My suspicion was that would be the case. Imagine the author reading astronaut Michael Collin's amused thoughts on the futility of asking engineers and soldiers to wax poetic on the experience of space, and saying "hold my beer."

I finished Swan Song last night. It is more on the horror end of the spectrum, but technically post-apocalyptic. The best way I would describe it would be "The Stand written in an alternate universe." Instead of a plague it's nuclear war, etc. Some of the characters are similar to The Stand as well, and the overarching plot of both is "good people and bad people marching across a ruined United States". Swan Song is much darker in tone, however, and the first 3/4s of the book aren't as good as The Stand. However, I believe that Swan Song has a better ending.

>24 dustydigger: Sorry to read about yours & Mr. Dusty's health issues. I hope things improve for you both soon. Regarding shorter novels packed with ideas... have you tried Ken Macleod? One reason I enjoy Macleod's writing is that he crams a lot of ideas into books that are not door-stoppers.

>30 drmamm: McCammon is hit & miss for me. I loved my re-read of Boy's Life last summer and recall liking Swan Song when I read it way back when. On the other hand, I DNF'd The Wolf's Hour just last month and had to force myself to finish Stinger a couple of years ago. I should probably crack open Swan Song one of these days to see how it holds up.

I finished Fifteen Dogs, a Giller Prize winner. Not SF but certainly a type of fantasy. I really enjoyed it. Now starting to read Triton. This is a book whose cover intrigued me as a young adult back in the 80s but I never got around to it after reading Dhalgren in the summer between high school and university. Dhalgren was sufficient Delaney for me at the time. A couple of years ago I read The Einstein Intersection and thought it was ok but didn’t think it was great. Then last year I read Nova and enjoyed it. So, now on to Triton that has been on my TBR list for about 40 years!

I've read and reviewed The Incal: Dying Star, and I'm past the midpoint on Job: A Comedy of Justice. It's not likely I'll finish my list for this month, but we'll see.

I finished The surviving sky and was ultimately disappointed by it. The premise of a future where humans have to live on plant-forms that float above the surface of planets ravaged by violent storms is interesting, but the "science" (might as well be magic) of how these habitats are created and maintained gets very bogged down in philosophy. The author's note suggests that it's based on Hindu philosophy, which I have no knowledge of; what it means for the book is that you have characters entering and progressing between several mental states or planes of reality - the Deepness, the Moment, the Resonance, the Etherium - each of which is meant to be distinct but I got bogged down and started skimming those sections. I guess I prefer exterior action to that on a mental plane. I also got a bit tired of the angsty on again-off again nature of the main characters' marriage. There were some excellent scenes in the novel but unfortunately not enough of them to outweigh its flaws for me. Readers who are interested in philosophy and/or Hinduism will probably enjoy this a lot more than I did.

Finished Dark Matter
Oh dear, I was really underwhelmed with this. I dislike first person present narration,its supposed to add immediacy and excitement,but it irritates me,pulls me out of the story repeatedly.Its all very heavyhanded,Crouch feels he has to repeatedly hammer home his points.Short paragraphs make me check the author to make sure it wasnt co-authored by James Patterson Good ideas at the start,quite intriguing,but it all becomes a bit silly and incredible towards the end. Cop out frustrating ending too made for an irritating read all in all..
Having a lot more fun and enjoyment from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere/ Funny and gruesome and very imaginative.
Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar are hilarious and terrifying,often at the same time! lol.

I'm dipping in and out of the anthology Adventures in Space (a mix of English originals and translations from Chinese) in order to read some Hugo finalists; once I read them, I'll circle back and read the rest of the stories.

Finished O is for Outlaw and started The Infinite Man.

Now started Chris Priest's Expect me tomorrow.

Just finished Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, an Okay time travel book but one jarring note was a description of the Earth rising over the Moon.

Wrapped up Cascade Failure, which is an okay adventure novel aspiring to rise above the cliches of contemporary space adventure stories; I liked it just enough that I'll be giving the follow-on book a chance.

Next up, a novel that I really want to read: Tidal Creatures.

I just read another Best Graphic Story Hugo finalist, the Beowulf riff Bea Wolf. Now slipping in some more poems from the Ursula K. Le Guin Collected Poems before going on to T. Kingfisher's Thornhedge.

I've finished Job: A Comedy of Justice, posted a review, and read the first chapter of Free Live Free.

Finished Expect me tomorrow and started on Melissa Scott's The Kindly Ones.

I finished Triton by Delaney. It was good. Though, like Dhalgren I think a number of Delaney’s literary devices likely went over my head. But I did very much appreciate the depiction of Bron, the main character being an unreliable narrator of their own life. It was very believable how people can convince themselves that they are one way when people perceive them completely differently. This was very well done. As a result, I think Triton is more of a character piece rather than than the interplanetary science fiction it is billed as. The SF part simply allows Delaney to create a particular kind of utopia to contrast it with Earth society. This was very interesting.

On to the last volume of The Expanse - Memory’s Legion.

Now onto Rose/House by Arkady Martine.

After a pleasant reread of a Dick Francis racing thriller,I have been enjoying some classic vintage horror short stories like Thomas Burke The Hands of Mr Ottermole,Amelia B Edwards The Phantom Coach,but best of the lot was W H Hodgson's The Voice in the Night,about men on a becalmed fishing boat who are hailed from the darkness by a sad voice begging for food for his starving fiance ,slowly dying on a nearby island. No happy ending here . We hear the sad horrifying tale of how they were shipwrecked and encountered a horrific ship covered in a sinister fungus which insidiously will grow everywhere,and on anyone. Definitely tense,so sad and emotional. It was a very influential tale in its time. A true classic.
Now on to Walter De La Mare Seaton's Aunt

Finished The Infinite Man -- don't do acid, kids! Going even more obscure with Star Quest / Doom of the Green Planet.

>47 ChrisRiesbeck:

That's the sort of stuff where I get partway in and think, "Well, I'll finish it because it will be fun to write the review."

>48 paradoxosalpha:

And those reviews are the sort I read and think, "That was a better experience for me than reading the book."

>48 paradoxosalpha: >49 elenchus: Just taking one for the team.

>50 ChrisRiesbeck: We appreciate it!

Working on the novella The practice, the horizon, and the chain by Sofia Samatar. Life on a generation ship in a fleet.

Took a dip out of SF and read Eye of the Needle, which was good. I've finally decided to take the plunge into Stormlight Archive by Brando Sando and downloaded The Way of Kings. The final draft of the fifth book of the series was just finished, and Sanderson said that the first five books form a complete arc, so that is a nice place to begin, knowing that I have a known "finish line."

I wasnt quite sure what to make of Walter de la Mare's Seaton's Aunt,which was atmospheric,unsettling and weird without actually anything really happening. But I think in future I will keep thinking back to the strange old house,the sad schoolboy,the (possibly) wicked aunt,and what it really was all about. s
I quite enjoy oblique tenuous horror tales,so not into graphic in your face stuff!.
I am encouraged to read a few more of his stories.

Finished Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway, a genre mashup of noir detective and near future sci fi. Apparently the start of a series, with another volume coming out in November, but it's a complete story of it's own. I really enjoyed this - all of the noir attitude, snappy, sarcastic dialogue, mixed with near future biotech that gives a select few (the rich & powerful, of course) major life extension, with interesting side effects. Highly recommended.

>55 ChrisG1:

I read Titanium Noir last month, and I agree. I hadn't heard about a prospective sequel, but it's good news. Cal will, of course, be a somewhat different person in the next volume.

>54 dustydigger: Sounds like classic gothic fiction.

Thanks to Stevil2001 I'm finally reading Space Opera, and although it has been compared to Douglas Adams, I find the tone to be closer to Discworld or, in this case, Discoworld. It's fun anyway!

>58 vwinsloe:
Ah, that's one I should get to at some point. I did mightily enjoy Radiance, and I have a lot of admiration for Valente's work.

I finished reading Wolfe's Free Live Free, wrote and posted my own review, and also added a couple of published reviews to the LT work page. Now it's on to The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again.

>58 vwinsloe: I did not enjoy Space Opera so I am glad it has found an appreciative home!

>58 vwinsloe:, >61 Stevil2001:
I have been hesitant because I have no personal appreciation for Eurovision, but I've read praise from readers in my situation. So, maybe anyway?

>61 Stevil2001: Quite appreciative!

>62 paradoxosalpha: If you like clever wordsmithing and a "camp" sensibility, you might like it.

>61 Stevil2001: me neither. The humor never really landed with me - too much and not enough at the same time somehow.

>54 dustydigger: Well, HPL famously said that atmosphere is the most important element in horror fiction. In his own writing, though it *seems* detailed, mostly all we really see are flashes or impressions: tentacles, suckers, multiple mouths, decay, etc. The rest is left up to the reader.
The same is true of horror films. The scariest parts are often *before* we see the monster or alien. Whatever the producers & directors come up with usually falls short, sometimes comically so.

Now that I think of it, this applies to positive good characters too. No one could really match the written depictions of an Ayesha or a Galadriel or MacDonald's Princess's great great grandmother. Sometimes they make a good try of it (Kate Blanchett & Peter Jackson) and sometimes it's just ridiculous (Ursula Andress as Ayesha???) But none of them match the original version in the novels.

>65 rshart3: I had read LOTR many times when the film came out and I avoided watching it because my first view of Ian McKellan as Gandalf put me off so much. :0)
Then when I did watch it I didnt dare reread the book for many years,(over a decade) because I didnt want to see McKellan as Gandalf.
for the most part I stick to the book rather than film versions. Gave up on film/TV as a whole a couple of decades ago.I got sick of yelling at the TV screen's most egregious changes from the books. :0)

Wrapped up Tidal Creatures, which is an upgrade from Seasonal Fears, but I'm wondering how McGuire is going to fill another 900 pages with meaningful words; that might be the real suspense with this series.

I personally enjoyed Space Opera, but if it had gone on one page longer it would have gone on too long; I'm also not sure that it needed a sequel. Apart from that, I suspect how much you liked that work depends on how much of a rock'n'roller you are at heart.

>66 dustydigger: I had a similar problem with The Expanse. I saw the tv show before I read the novels, and so when I did finally read them, I was visualising the characters as their tv incarnations, even when the novel descriptions were at variance with the actors. I did find the differences between novels and tv show interesting in considering quite how the process of adaptation from page to screen works.

Finished Star Quest / Doom of the Green Planet, started The Sherwood Game. Doom had so many awful lines ("A shudder of despair rivered from the prickling hair-roots on Diarmid's neck to the soles of his boots.") that it was surprising when a good passage occasionally showed up.

>70 ChrisRiesbeck: rivered
*snort*

Finished the Ursula K. Le Guin Collected Poems; have now picked up Ethan of Athos as my book to read bits of between Hugo finalists (of which I have just three more to read).

>70 ChrisRiesbeck:, that's very surprising to me that Dean Koontz has been around that long and once dabbled in science fiction. Perhaps he's glad most people have forgotten or don't know, lol.

Knocked off The Light Years, which while interesting, really didn't rise above being just interesting. But hey, it's first novel and the main reason I read it was a base line for looking at the author's more recent books.

Started my first read of Neuromancer and am instantly put in mind of Blade Runner, exactly what Gibson was apparently afraid of people doing. I'll keep an open mind.

>75 Cecrow: Apparently, Blade Runner came out at about the time Gibson was writing Neuromancer. "I went to see it", he once said, "and I had to walk out after twenty minutes because it was too much like the inside of my own head."

Finished reading Memory’s Legion. I really enjoyed this collection of short stories set in The Expanse universe.

So what’s next? Time to finish Gene Wolfe’s Solar Cycle. Starting On Blue’s Waters today, the first volume in the trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun.

Currently reading Stars uncharted by S K Dunstall. Nice bit of space action.

>77 Neil_Luvs_Books: I think I will need to re-read the Solar Cycle soon now that I have Lexicon Urthus and Gate of Horn, Book of Silk on the shelf; references I lacked during my previous read(s).

The Book of the Short Sun is so amazing.

>75 Cecrow: I think that what made Neuromancer so popular at the time was the character, Molly. She's unforgettable.

Started my next Hugo read, The Saint of Bright Doors.

Currently reading Beyond the Reach of Earth by Ken MacLeod. Good so far.

Nice little video about Worlds Without Ends on YouTube check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXMoYX___OI
It was nice when they went down the list of this year's challenges and paused on the line showing my challenge for several seconds. My Pick and Mix looked pretty nice. Pity its the last year I am doing it,I think this is the 10th year!

>84 dustydigger: Nice, about when in the video does your list show up? I think I missed it.

>84 dustydigger: Thanks for the link Dusty! Love WWE for keeping track of what I've read and what I own. Keeps me from buying books twice, since I don't always remember what I already have.

Just finished The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay. The first book in his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy. Kay was obviously inspired by Tolkien's LOTR and attempted a story of similar epic scope. I'd call it a partial success. This was Kay's first novel, written when he was 30 & it shows. It is, in many ways, a bit of a mess. But because of his talent, it's a rather glorious mess. I'll stick to generalities to avoid spoilers, but matters develop quickly & characters are thrown into unlikely (even for a fantasy) situations & adapt ridiculously fast. The prose can seem a bit overwrought. But, as a first novel, you can certainly see the seeds of the better writer he becomes. And there is plenty to like, even so. I'll certainly continue with the trilogy & expect to read more of Kay's works.

>87 ChrisG1:

Having just finished The Sword Of Shannara, first re-read since the 1980s, I’m slightly curious how Kay would compare to Brooks in their separate LotR-inspired series. I had not realised how influential Brooks evidently was in ushering in the post-Tolkien fantasy publishing phenomenon.

I never read Kay and may do yet, but am persuaded I won’t read further with Brooks.

>88 elenchus:, it's important to understand, in Kay's Fionavar he was imagining a world that was the source of all inspiration for Earth myths and legends (at least the western ones): in other words, what works like LOTR were derived from. Which in turn does of course makes his own appear derivative, but that was the idea behind it.

>87 ChrisG1: >89 Cecrow: Not too surprising as Guy Gavriel Kay worked with Christopher Tolkien for a year editing J R R Tolkien's unpublished papers. for the Silmarillion That was a while before he published Fionavar but I'm sure it influenced his early work.

>88 elenchus: Most of Kay's subsequent works took an entirely different turn. His best work is in a world that is analogous to historical periods in our own. For example, The Lions of Al-Rassan,is based on Spain, during the reconquista. Rather than Christianity, Judaism & Islam, his characters religions are based in the Sun, Moon & Stars. I would NOT recommend The Fionavar Tapestry as the first dip into Kay's work.

>91 ChrisG1:
I wasn't much intrigued by the previous discussion of Kay, but that sounds interesting. LT says it's "recommended for me based on" my reading of Park's Roumania and some books by Thomas Burnett Swann, which adds some further appetite.

I wasn't aware of Kay's support of Christopher Tolkien's work, but agree the alternative history strand of his output is more intriguing than Fionavar. This discussion prompted me to review my recon list and I was reminded both The Summer Tree and Under Heaven are included as prospects. Evidently I've been curious before now, though I didn't recall those titles specifically.

(sorry, wrong topic)

>88 elenchus: Like Kay, if you've only read Brook's first book, in this case Sword of Shanarra, you're seeing the first work of an author inspired by Tolkien who is just starting to build their own world and writing style. Give Elfstones of Shanarra a try, it is much, much better.

I thought the Fionavar Tapestry was great, but I think some of Kay's later works, like the Sarantium duology, are even better. Kay writes better prose, I think Brooks creates better characters.

>95 Karlstar: I'll confess I never gave Brooks much of a chance - I took a shot at Sword of Shanarra back when it came out and wasn't impressed. Not sure I'll ever get to him, considering my ever-expanding TBR.