Finished The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson. The climax and resolutions was really good, even on my 2nd re-read. Finally done with the first era! Wanted to jump right into next book to find out what happens to that one character, but next book is hundreds of years in the future.
Started Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton. Got the series for the kid, he is already halfway through the book and wanted to talk to me about it, so reading it myself.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
There’s a Midyear Bingo check-in post, do take a look. Even if you haven’t started this year’s Book Bingo, you can still join, as there are still 6 months remaining!
For details, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and it’s Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.
Currently listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl.
About 4 hours into the 12 hour book and it is good.Welcome to the Donut Holes/Princess Posse.
The Running Man
I saw it mentioned on here the other day and with the movie set to release later in the year I thought I’d give it a go.
I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s fast paced and not long so will probably finish it today (I started yesterday).
Just finished “the running man” and found out that I didn’t finish “why we are polarized” by Ezra Klein, so I’m finishing that one now
I’ve just started Earthlings by Sayaka Murata yesterday after getting my ass kicked by Roadside Picnic. Loving it so far! By far one of the strangest stories I’ve read. Really interested to see how it goes
Not current, but “The Devil’s Playground” by Craig Russell is a lot of fun. Combines 1920’s Hollywood sex scandals with voo-doo and a serial killer. Also a haunted movie that kills anyone who watches it.
I’ve been working through the Binti novellas by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s my first exposure to Afro-Futurism and I’m enjoying them so far.
Don’t think I have heard of Afro-futurism before, would love to hear your review of the novellas.
I loved the ending of Hero of Ages. There’s a novella to read partway through the second age that does some beautiful stuff around it. The second age is a very different style, but it is a lot of fun. You never regret that extra shake…
I just finished the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. The first book is from the sixties and the final short from 2018, so it is a fascinating trip through the maturation of Fantasy. The first three books are firmly young-adult, while the last three stick with the characters as adults. The whole series ends with a very short story the author wrote to be published after her death. It’s a wonderful look at the mind of an old person at the end of their story.
Recent publications include afterwords written in 2012 which give a lot of context and interesting insights into how she wrote stories.
Yeah, second era feels interesting. And I did look at the novella, but it was published after the second book, so will read it in that order.
Thank you so much for the reminder/suggestion that the first annual Lemmy book bingo is happening! I’ve checked out the link posts and drawn up my bingo card/list to finish by May 1st.
The r/Fantasy subreddit is the only thing I was missing–glad to see this and excited to start participating!
As one of those behind the bingo, that’s amazing to hear. Missing r/Fantasy’s bingo myself was a huge motivation to start it.
I read a fair amount of Enid Blyton as a kid, and remember enjoying the Five series. Does it hold up well?
Still haven’t been getting much reading done; I’m not even a third of the way through Between Two Fires yet! It has been enjoyable so far, though, with a lot of clever medieval flavor that reminds me of Arthurian legends, or monsters doodled in the corners of old manuscripts. I suspect there’s probably some Canterbury Tales influence as well, but it’s been a long time since I had to read them.
I wasn’t able to read much, just first 40 pages or so, and it seems to be holding up pretty well.
Son finished first 3 books back to back, so he seems to be enjoying them as well. Though he did say he was able to guess what would happen in the book.
Happy New year Dresden!
Since the last thread I replied to I have finished the BuyMort book I was on and listened to another couple Deathlands (of course)
I also listen to NPC by Jeremy Robinson which is the next book in the Infinite series for me and was another great book that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Now I am a few hours into The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart. It has been a little slow starting but it is just starting to pick up pace and will hopefully be a good read!
Happy New Year!
Synopsis of The Dice Man sounds interesting, wonder where he takes the story. Do share the review.
It was are recommendation by my gf and I thought it sounded interesting and not something I’d usually come across with what I usually listen to so I’ll let you know my thoughts in the next thread :)
Just finished the second book Shift and started the third, Dust, from Silo series. The first two were really good, long enough to dive deep into it and on that sweet level of being easy to read yet enough detail to keep it interesting.
My SO reads me stories in the evening and now we are going through LOTR, although I must say it’s getting a bit cumbersome, being quite slow-paced book and all, so we’ll probably give up and switch to something else soon.
We are reading buddies. I am at the same spot right now. I started because of the Show. And got for Christmas Shift and Dust. If you watch the show too, I would love to hear your opinion.
Nice to hear! Well I’ve quite liked the show so far (also started reading because of it), I think they’ve managed to make the series both similar and different enough from the book for both to be enjoyed as individual interpretations of the same story. I love that they haven’t rushed with the show either, the whole setting/environment is so interesting (and well made) that it’s worth spending time with. I love that in the books as well, the rhythm works well to me at least and I enjoy dwelling in the silo itself and its details. It’s nice that the people in the series are more diverse than in the books, and characters have more depth (although Juliette, but the character feels more unilateral in the book as well than many of the others). Some sidetracks, like that Salvador Quinn thing, feel a bit strange/forced, but we’ll see how that turns out! How do you like the show then?
I have similar feelings. I like that Walker is a woman, this was a realistic change and something I think makes the relationship between Walker and Juliet get to a deeper level. I like the color, the atmosphere. Juliet’s Character in the books shines in interactions with different people. But because she is so introverted and work focused, we only get it in Silo 17 and in book 3. I liked the first season better though.
Tap for spoiler
The cuts are too fast. We switch between scenes too often. In season 2 I think having Lukas be shadow after he was send to the mines is unbelievable. I really enjoy to hate and love Sims. But is way of speaking, dialect is so off from the others, which makes it hard to believe since it is hinted and makes sense in the books that the Silos develop their own dialects. But English is not my first language so that could only be me. Will I watch season 3? Yes!
Have to agree on that, now that you mentioned! Sims kinda feels like he’s from another world, his dialect is too distinctive from the others. It would’ve been nice to see/hear more silo-specific language being used, dialects and idioms, the books only mention it a few times as well!
I just watched the latest episode and can’t wait to see how the next season turns out! IMDB says there should be a 4th season coming as well but it would be the last one.
There’s a lot of fanfic based on the Silo world and I hear some of it very good. Somebody had linked this list of popular Silo fanfic on Reddit, The Karma series as well as Silo 42 and Silo 49 were recommended!
I recently started I Want A Better Catastrophe by Andrew Boyd. It’s good, but it’s rough and I can only read so much at a time which caused me to look for a humorous non-fiction title as a mental palate cleanser. For that I landed on The Utterly Uninteresting & Unadventurous Tales of Fred, The Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes; which, in contrast, has been a lot of fun.
I finished the first trilogy of the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist. This was a series I had read as an early teenager so not my first time through it.
It was largely a disappointing read… it felt very “surface level” for a fantasy book and I never felt very invested. It is hard to read when you compare to Sanderson or Rothfuss worlds and characters.
Next up, I’m going to check out Foundation and will read in chronological order rather than publication order.
I started The Hands Of The Emperor by Victoria Goddard last week (so good!), and tore through all 900 pages of it in a few days. Found out there’s a sequel - At The Feet Of The Sun - and poured that one into my brain as well (even better than the first!). Now I’m reading my way through the novellas that are in between those two behemoths.
I finished The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It’s a historical fiction taking place in occupied France during World War II. It was a very well plotted story, but the writing felt so distant and some scenes felt very unrealistic. It felt like a story I should have liked more that I did.
Now I’ve started Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight book 2). Far too early to have opinions, but I’m excited for this one.