What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? August 19
Last week I finished When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi, and I am currently working on the fourth book in the Chequey Series by Daniel O’Malley, Royal Gambit.
The Chequey Series started with The Rook, and I’ve been reading every book as it comes out. I enjoy the whole series, but it can be controversial because not everybody agrees with its structure, as each book doesn’t directly follow the characters of the one before, but instead tells another story with different characters who interact in the same world. They slightly overlap at some point.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately??
With regards to Bingo, I’m provisionally planning to use When the Moon Hits Your Eye for the square New Release and Royal Gambit for the square Political, but they may drop off or be changed as time goes on.
For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and its Recommendation Post. Links are also present in our community sidebar.
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Welcome Crawlers!
This is the correct answer. Currently relistening to the audiobook series; book 4 atm. Enjoy your adventure. This is the one series that I would want to experience fresh again if possible.
Kill, kill, kill!
The case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft.
"Between the World and Me" Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015
Such a great book. Really upset he no longer writes for the Atlantic. Their long form journalism has taken such a huge hit since he left. I had really hoped he and Michelle Alexander would inspire a new civil rights movement. Here we are.
I'm reading The Overstory by Richard Powers. I find it a slow read. A very good read too. I would recommend it specifically to those who are restless.
Doctor Thorne, by the infamous Trollope! It's exceedingly funny, I can highly recommend it. Like 19th century Terry Pratchett...
Reading Peter Straub/Stephen King "Black House". Bit of a slow start but is it ever good!
Wow this is an unreal listen…
It is about the madness that is the special forces particularly the ones stationed at Fort Bragg.
The first chapter is about how two Special Forces guys took their families to Disney World. They spend the trip snorting coke, dropping Molly and shoving speedballs (coke and Herion) up their asses.
When they got back, the wives went shopping and left thier children with the fathers.
One of them fathers (SF guys) got uber paranoid and became convinced there were listening and tracking devices in the car, so he began to dissemble the car in the driveway. The two starting fighting and things escalated and one shot the other 7 times.
The shooting was ruled self defense and by ruled I mean swept under the rug.
The story gets more intense and delves into the GWOT and the madness that caused globally and the role that the Delta Force and SF played in that.
It lays out the insanity of afghanistan, Iraq, the Arab spring and all the fucked up shit that we caused.
It lays out the culture and world of the SF world..
It is an intense read/listen.
I've now read half of The Wheel of Time, so I'm reading a few "comfort books" before continuing with it. Right now I'm reading Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson.
Didn't read as much this week. Still working on Thirteenth by C.M. Rosens.
Finished Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories by qntm (technology-centered scifi short stories) | bingo: indie HM, short HM, cool cover)
No aliens or space opera in this, just a lot of speculative stories focused on computers or other technology. Some are structured as wiki entries, chat logs, or social media threads.
I liked this more than the other short story collection I read recently. I think it helped that it was very concept-focused, not character-, world-, or plot-focused.
I'm wrapping up with the Silo seeies by Hugh Howey. I finished Dust and have one short story left in Silo Stories.
I've enjoyed the series more than I expected to based on reviews I read. It wasn't perfect but the ending of the main novels left me mostly satisfied. There was one sequence that I think should have been left out and one thread I wish we had gotten a more in depth look at (staying vague to avoid spoilers).
Coming back after reading the last short story to say that it was awful and put a bad taste in my mouth overall. If you're reading this series, do yourself a favor and ignore In the Woods. It didn't make sense from a story/logic perspective AND was deeply unsatisfying.
Wow, I wonder if I happened to miss that last one. I really liked the series and didn't remember reading something past the third book. Thanks for the tip!
It's a collection of 3 short stories called Silo Stories. It came with the box set of the books I got. The first two are fine, but honestly, I don't you're missing anything by skipping them altogether.
Currently reading/listening to Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind. I’ve tried diving into earlier fantasy authors like Moorcock and Le Guin, but their writing styles never quite clicked with me. This one, though, I’m really enjoying so far.
I'm rereading The Baroque Cycle by Neil Stevenson. I don't know what madness came over me to cause me to finally finish that marathon and then start it over right away. I've never done that before.
Contemporary Theological Approaches to Sexuality, ed. Lisa Isherwood and Dirk von Der Horst.
normally I like to read only one book at a time but trying to branch out, so I'm reading two. A physical book and an ebook. I still struggle with audiobooks, so I'm avoiding that. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy I just finished like 10 minutes ago and I loved it. A story of love, loss, family and a warming planet. All wrapped up in a mystery set on a remote island where the next ship isn't expected for several weeks. what's not to love?
and
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I'm only a few chapters into this book, trying to read it at a group's pace and I'm pretty sure I'm going to just blow through the whole book soon. Especially now that I've finished my other book. but I'll pick up a new one later today, which may help
When reading multiple books at once, it helps if you are reading different genres, even better if one is fiction and other is non-fiction.
How are you liking Dark Matter? I picked it up for some reason that I don't recall, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
it's pretty good so far. it's mostly fast paced with a few slower, introspective chapters. There are a few fun ideas in the book so far (according to my app I'm 66% of the way through the book) and I'd like to see them explored a little more, but it's been an easy read for me.
I'll also say that I'd likely be done with the book if I wasn't deliberately slowing myself for the sake of the reading group. I am at a point now that I might just end up finishing it because I won't be able to put it down.
Interesting. Thanks!
just finished it today and I gave it 3.75/5. Mostly because I felt like the ending was just okay. If I explained my gripes with the end, it'd get deep into spoilers but if you enjoy reading for the ride and not the destination, it's pretty good. If you need a book to stick the landing, maybe pass.
There Was Nothing You Could Do, a book about the making and cultural context of Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A.
Kangaroo Chronicles
I'd like to know in 6 months how you liked that last book :)
RemindMe! 6 months
Just finished The Decline Of Morality In Republican Rome, short but incisive piece on the hypocrisy of Cato the Younger.
How did you like the When the Moon Hits Your Eye?
Finished The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson. The last half went by pretty quickly.
Anyone who hasn't read it yet, I would recommend reading it after reading couple of Stormlight Archive books. You can still read it without that, but some of the thing probably won't be clear.
Bingo Squares: 5E Jerk with a Heart of Gold maybe. Not sure if it qualifies.
It was a struggle for me. I really generally like his stuff quite a lot. The cast of characters is quite big and you get chapters from each of their perspectives. So it reads like a series of short stories.
I have issues with short story anthologies because I didn’t build up any momentum. I enjoy them, it’s just more of a slog for me to get through.
Makes sense. Thanks for your input!
Just finished Horns by Joe Hill.
Blindsight by Peter Watts. Its interesting and irritating at the same time. I think by the end of the 2nd page I was wondering if Peter Watts is autistic, not a bad thing because i relate to the characters but its jarring compared to how most people write characters and its a bit cringe sometimes. I'm also not enjoying how he describes things he will describe something by referencing several things that all would never occur in real life and so its hard to imagine them all together and then try to figure out wtf hes actually trying to get you to picture. The long descriptions really break the flow.
Other than that the story is cool im only 25% of the way in but so far so good.
I just finished The Years of Rice and Salt, which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I was going to. Now I'm onto Parable of the Sower, which is a trip to read for the first time in 2025.
The beginning is just a bit prescient there…