What book are you reading, ιf' - Iff you read books

[Bestbank Tiger]

Brave New World.

 

[bene_legionary]

Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. The first book of the Martin Beck detective novels set in Sweden. Of course, the case is completely cold and Mr Beck sacrifices what little of his family life (and also the sanctity of a fellow police officer ) to catch the murderer.

Since it’s a translation the writing feels… terse. But I suppose the blurb on the back that says the story is “told without a wasted word” is nearly true.

I have The French Lieutenant’s Woman in my backpack and a couple more hours on a train to Boston now…

 

[Josu]

Ended The City and the city by China Mieville
One of the books I must enjoyed this year. Excellent Sci-fy setting, quite good black nobel-detective plot. 5/5.

Started a re-read of Brave New World by Aldoux Husley. Almost ended.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Finishing up Tai-Pan today. What a great story! Next up:

View attachment 710685

As interesting, unexpected, and wonderful as it could be as the opening chapter of a new series.

 

[Josu]

Ended Brave New World by Aldoux Husley.
Enjoyed much more 25 years ago.

Started a re read of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Still reading Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka

 

[Takhisis]

Ended Brave New World by Aldoux Husley.
Enjoyed much more 25 years ago.

We're ever closer to that!

 

[Smellincoffee]

Finishing The Bookshop of Yesterdays, a light read I picked up because my brainspace was focused on my final project for this semester. It's done so now I can read something more serious.. Bookshop is about a niece inheriting a bookstore from her estranged uncle and then being presented with a scavenger hunt

 

[Smellincoffee]

Realized it's been 20 years or so since I read Animal Farm, so I read that this weekend. Although I was aware of the historical allusions reading this in high school, I didn't realize how many there were.

 

[bene_legionary]

Instead of The French Lieutenant's Woman I read the second Martin Beck novel instead, The Man Who Went Up In Smoke. The descriptions are more lively this time (at least, Budapest was more lively than Stockholm and Malmo), and there is a couple interesting twists. Does Martin Beck have to feel so dismal all the time? Oh well, the way he lives his life, maybe what he says about how the profession of policemen being cursed is true...

 

[Josu]

Ended Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka
Some chapters are just how the author used to enjoyed hipster look like cafes, however it is an excellent book which gives perspective on how "the algorithm" is flattening culture and our decision making

Started Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

 

[Takhisis]

I've just started reading En busca del alfajor perdido: una insólita y divertida historia de la golosina más popular de la Argentina (In search of the lost alfajor - an unusual and entertaining history of Argentina's most popular sweetmeat) by Facundo Calabró.

What we call an alfajor here is basically two layers of cooked dough with a sweet filling in between and some sort of covering (Ding Dongs and Wagon Wheels would be classified as alfajores here) and apparently six million of them are eaten here every day and there's so much variation!

 

[Smellincoffee]

Ended Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka
Some chapters are just how the author used to enjoyed hipster look like cafes, however it is an excellent book which gives perspective on how "the algorithm" is flattening culture and our decision making

Started Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

Both sound very interesting, the latter for its title and the author. I have Parenti's book on the death of Caesar but haven't yet read it.

My reading this week has been decidedly unserious: I'm in cozy Christmas mode and have read three short novels about isolated old men finding connection:

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife. Fred is mistaken for an old grump and finds himself taking the grump's place in a nursing home, where he begins making friends and changing the lives of those around him, despite the nagging guilt. Then the grump's daughter shows up!

Frank and Red. Frank is an old widower living as a recluse in the wake of his wife's death, using his neighbors to fetch groceries and wishing he were dead. Then a energetic, friendly, and persistent young lad moves in next door. Both are lonely in their way and strike up a friendship that helps both meet their personal challenges.

The Story of Arthur Truluv. Arthur is a widower who is doing okay, as far as things go. He chats with his neighbors, he tends to his roses, and once a day he goes to the cemetery to have lunch with his wife at her grave. He spots a teenager, Maddy, who frequents the cemetary herself, and the two become friends just as things are about from bad to worse for Maddy.


All very cozy and heartwarmy.

 

[bene_legionary]

The Man On the Balcony and The Laughing Policeman, two more Martin Beck novels. The latter novel was quite convoluted but very well done, having wrapped up two mysteries and featuring an intense dive into the life of one of the characters who appeared in the first novel. Also, it taught me that apparently societies continue to be stuck with the same problems from 60 years ago: loneliness, promiscuity, drug epidemics, distrust of police, brutality… we just now have them in different forms (most often online…) I find this cross-cut view of the Swedish society in the cold war to be very interesting. Something about mysteries and thrillers and noir and Scandinavian winters and Superintendent Martin Beck being unable to laugh.

The writing seems to also have improved; the translators now seem to have had the liberty to crack a few jokes and make use of more descriptions, to my joy.

Somewhere, somehow, all of the Martin Beck books I’ve read mentions nymphomania, whether in the form of a character or in reference to an earlier novel. Three of them have had people with it as characters central to the plots. Odd.

 

[Synobun]

It's been a long time since I've posted here. I don't remember when I last did. I'll just post a list of what I read this year and my ratings, though I don't think I have the motivation to tack on mini reviews. I'll add my Goodreads reviews to the books that had one in spoilers.

January

Wrath by John Gwynne. 5/5.
The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne. 1/5.
Rebirth of the Sigil by Peri Akman. 1/5.

Spoiler :

This is an unfortunate 1-star review. I once described the second book in this series as "one of the best I've ever read," which I still hold to, so writing this is disappointing.

I'm not really sure what to say. There is a major regression in this book across all aspects: editing, pacing, structure, prose, all of it. There are several errors on *every* page, and the majority of the book is simply dialogue. The dialogue is structured like shower arguments instead of coherent designs driving the plot forward. What little exposition there is, meanwhile, is delivered to the reader like an action report: This is being thought, this is being felt. Adverbs fill the gaps to indicate how things are being done, instead of these actions actually being shown.

Normally I would just DNF and walk away, but this is the final installment of the series, and I know exactly what the author is capable of. The first book had some simplicity and weaknesses in editing but was overall a strong narrative. Book two was fantastic. Book three was less so. And then book four was worse. The author can craft an amazing narrative, with a good balance between exposition and dialogue, and with great pacing. I've seen it. I've loved it. Why couldn't this be the same?

I don't know how to end this review. It's not a "reader beware." It's... just an acknowledgement of what went wrong. To someone considering starting this series, I can confidently recommend the first two books. I'll still read everything this author releases.

February

Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot. 4/5.
The Faithless Hawk by Margaret Owen. 5/5.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. 5/5.
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. 4/5.

March

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. 3/5.

Spoiler :

While the book did eventually grow on me, it is overall a somewhat unsatisfying read. The dialogue between the dad and child is consistently empty of substance, and the finishing arc of the story leads nowhere. Sure, the narrative displays human depravity and hopelessness in a palpable way. But to what end? No end, apparently. This could have been much more, and thus, much better.

Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson. 5/5.

April

Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson. 4/5.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. 5/5.

May

The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson. 3/5.
The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan. 5/5.
System Collapse by Martha Wells. 1/5.

Spoiler :

I believe the magic of Murderbot may be beginning to escape me. This was a *rough* book to get through, and I very nearly DNF'd it before it finally picked up around the midway mark. Looking up more about this book and it looks like Martha Wells struggled with this iteration, and it shows, unfortunately.

The exposition during the first half of the book was... nonideal. Parentheses are the name of the game for Murderbot, but they were used to extreme excess here. Some sections were split half between normal exposition and parenthetical asides, with many of them having extra bonus parentheses within. (Really, a lot of paragraphs were structured like this. (And like this.) It was quite trying. And unnecessary. (Did I mention it was unnecessary?) Anyway.)

There was also little to no development in this book. Murderbot has issues, as usual, but the actual new problem is something that is avoided in the narrative until the end. This is structured as "the point," but the narrative we get during that avoidance isn't worth much. The stakes are pretty boilerplate, there is little interaction with other characters, and this really felt more like a bottle episode in a show that is using recycled clips to pad the episode count. (Kind of a funny comparison to make given the big gotcha twist in this story, but hey.) For a series that prides itself on maximizing development in as few words as possible, that's difficult to stomach.

In general, I do not think this is a Murderbot story that needs to be read. It can be skipped and you will miss almost nothing. It's disappointing to write that, especially because I loved the last two books, but there it is.

June

The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan. 5/5.
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. 5/5.

Spoiler :

Crushing. The very image of a perfect memoir. Personality, trauma, messiness, in all their glory and lack thereof.

July

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer. 1/5.
In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan. 3/5.

Spoiler :

This book has a really rough beginning and the author "borrows" names from Sanderson's Stormlight Archives series. Given that Brian McClellan is a direct student of Sanderson's and has him review/advertise his books, it's a little too on the nose for my tastes.

The character arcs of two of the main characters are almost identical in how they're written, which became more obvious because their respective chapters would follow each other, saying the exact same things in the exact same ways.

The worldbuilding, also, is poorly breadcrumbed and the concept of scale is questionable. I'm sure I'll read the sequel when it comes out, as it did finish strong-ish (despite the cliffhanger and lack of a real ending), but this pales in comparison to the two Powder Mage series, both of which I loved. It's a little odd to me as this book is described as the masterpiece that builds off the lessons of the author's previous works, but I would believe you if you instead told me this was his first-ever novel.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. 2/5.

Spoiler :

It is certainly well written, but it was unenjoyable to read. The biggest reason for this is that 60-70% of the book relies heavily on triggering your mind's eye. I do not visualize as I read, so only about 30% of the book was "relevant" for me. Steinbeck oscillates between overarching reports on what has happened over the course of weeks and months and then stretching out the minutiae of a moment over several pages. If you have a strong imagination that paints a picture as you read, I'm sure it's quite evocative and interesting. For me, there is only so much I can derive from 500+ words that describe a hill.

If I did have to criticize the novel for something outside myself, it'd be the dialogue. It was not very believable, and many conversations consisted of the characters simply parroting the other, often verbatim. The plot was also quite cyclic, repeating the same points again and again, and ultimately the moral was a little bittersweet and empty.

August

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. 5/5.
Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson. 3/5.
Sixth of the Dusk by Brandon Sanderson. 4/5.
The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson. 4.5.

Spoiler :

This is my first of Sanderson's secret projects, so I'm not sure how much of a hindrance that was for me enjoying this, since this is actually the last book. If you look at my rating, of course I enjoyed it, but it did take a long while to click. Really, it took until I finally found out who Nomad is. Once I knew that, it became better for me. That could be damning, if you feel every book needs to be able to stand alone on its own merit.

Overall though, it was an altogether fun read. The writing style was quite different from how Sanderson usually writes and I can't say I'm the biggest fan of it, but it wasn't bad and didn't agitate me. I appreciate that this was a digestible ~800 pages on my phone instead of the Stormlight special of 3000+.

September

The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty. 5/5.

Spoiler :

Chakraborty's writing style is lovely and quite descriptive in a way that's engaging, which for me is a difficult bar to reach due to aphantasia. This sequel to the first novel of the Daevabad series has been a long time coming, always just barely squeaking out of reach because of how my library holds become available. The stars finally aligned, and I have finally read it.

I will say the novel is a little frustrating to read, but mostly because Nahri and Ali take forever to make decisions, so the majority of the book is spent watching them gradually become more and more disillusioned with the false ideals of tradition, hierarchy, and family. However, it's still interesting, despite the frustration.

I don't like Dara at all. He's far too self-congratulatory over his burden for my tastes. Somehow he never seems to realize that he isn't a slave anymore and can make his own decisions, and he hides behind that obligation to justify being an awful person with the personality of a homunculus. This is technically The Point, but it mostly just makes him annoying. He experienced no growth in this book, with only the occasional monologue about how guilty he feels (and then doing nothing about it).

In general, the novel struggles with showing that the ideals of Nahri and Ali are possible. They almost exclusively interact with terrible people who "prove" their ideals are naive, and it's really only abstract outside knowledge that informs the reader that this is incorrect. More interactions with people sympathetic to the concept of a better world would go a long way toward redeeming Daevabad and djinn society in this universe.

Psycho Shifters by Jasmine Mas. 1/5.

Spoiler :

Overall, a really disappointing read. I'm not against the concept of Omegaverse, though this is my first novel from it. I'm not squeamish or against "unconventional" activities.

My complaints ultimately boil down to writing. The structure of the narrative is sorely lacking, with no resolution to any plot threads. The book simply ends on a cliffhanger, except usually over the course of such a book there's at least some kind of development that feels complete. No such thing here. You read about Sadie being out of shape and pouty and a bunch of men claiming her as property and then it's over.

Additionally, every detail offered in exposition is repeated several times, as though the author doesn't trust that you understood it the first time. You are told that the shifter realm is very cold at least half a dozen times. Sadie will have an emotion or a thought and it will be repeated three times in that chapter and quite likely again later on.

The emotional perspective and depth of the characters are quite dull and surface level. Most of Sadie's reactions read like the power fantasies of a seven-year-old, while the actual erotica reads like what one might imagine during a particularly frustrating evening after a long day at bible study. It's meant to be garish and flashy and intense but instead just kind of comes across droll. The way the men are described is boring, as are the women. Everyone just feels uninteresting and unattractive. Nobody has any virtues to speak of, everyone is cruel and rude, and the sex is a facsimile of liberation and kink. I consider myself a fairly vanilla person (although extremely sex and LGBTQ+ positive), yet even I was unimpressed by what passed for tantalizing eroticism here.

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. 1/5.

Spoiler :

REALLY interesting premise unfortunately let down by bad characters and execution. The MC is a modern Josef Mengele and it takes the entirety of the novel for her to get somewhat, sort of close to the realization that clones are people, though she reverses course on that at the end and just settles into being as awful as ever. Not a single likable thing about her, and her general penchant for dehumanizing others and being cruel is neither interesting nor endearing.

Quick read, generally good writing except for the overwrought existential metaphors for mundane things. The bones (heh) of the story though are just off. This could have been a really intriguing sci-fi thriller/horror.

October

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett. 4/5.

Spoiler :

I find myself gradually getting a little tired of every writer trying to stake a claim on some form of unique "hook" for their universe, ensuring they secure some kind of thing that is Original and Theirs. The beginning of this novel felt like it would be the most tortured example of this.

But I admit it grew on me, and the premise became interesting. There are so many holes, but you're able to suspend your disbelief to enjoy it. The characters kind of follow an external narrative arc more than an internal one. It works fine, though.

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. 5/5.

Spoiler :

I don't tend to enjoy slice-of-life-esque fiction, but Becky Chambers was and continues to be an exception to this. Her work is always such a joy to read. This one was a look at the mundane lives of a handful of characters, somehow combining into a really insightful perspective on death and purpose.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. 5/5.
Binti by Nnedi Okarafor. 3/5.

Spoiler :

The rating isn't truly representative of my opinion. What's there is quite good, and Okorafor does wonderfully at evoking imagery and emotion. However, I do think this story was deserving of novel-length treatment. The departure from home, the main character's developing relationships with her future classmates, and her interactions with the Meduse could have all been expanded on. Especially the meduse and their relations with other species. There is a mention of meduse being considered boogeymen, that pilots need to be extra vigilant in certain areas of space because the meduse will kill everyone indiscriminately, but then the meduse are welcomed at the university and one is even immediately enrolled. It does not hold up, and in a story that heavily highlights racism and classism, it seems strange to gloss over this.

In the context of a novella, explaining or justifying this is impossible due to word count limitations, and so I feel a novel would have been better. Ultimately a great problem for the story to have, but it still prevents me from giving it more stars.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. 1/5.

Spoiler :

Ultimately, nothing happens in this retelling/different perspective. I am not a fan of mythology in general, though I'm open to creative retellings that step away from the mythologization of it all and turn it into a more contemporary story.

The beginning of this talks about how Penelope's experience isn't really covered by any of the stories, and how it seeks to remedy that with a bit of a modern twist. I would not say it does that very well. Penelope does nothing throughout this story and only has things done to her, which is a common theme across myths and especially Greek mythology, and this isn't a deviation from that theme at all. Nothing new is added, nothing different is presupposed. We get a glance at the minutiae of her life, and that is all. Even in the realm of minutiae, it's not very interesting.

None of the adjectives used in the book's description can be found in the story told: it is neither dazzling nor playful, wise nor compassionate, haunting nor disturbing. It is standard-fare Greek mythology mixed with what amounts to a handful of diary entries that offer little more than basic details about one's day. In this attempt to give agency to Penelope, we are met with only exposition talking about how little agency she has.

I don't quite see the appeal of this work.

November

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. 2/5.

Spoiler :

Is this a bad book? No.

Is this an unnecessary book? Yes.

Snow did not need an origin story, and nothing in this was particularly enlightening or otherwise interesting. To some extent, this felt like the worst of one's need to have a poetic explanation for everything. By the end of the novel, I was rolling my eyes at every subsequent reveal that demonstrated that Katniss was effectively designed in a lab to torture and agitate Snow. Did we really need Snow to go to the same lake Katniss did, to eat katniss plants, to kiss the songwriter of "The Hanging Tree," to ardently despise mockingjays? Unnecessary.

This could have been an interesting look at how the Hunger Games came to be such a convoluted affair, but this was inevitably a side show to the "true" story of how Snow became so terrible. You will be shocked to learn it's affluence and entitlement. Snow also decided to kill his girlfriend because it was raining a little hard. Not riveting.

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. 3/5.

Spoiler :

This is a five-star story wrapped in a three-star package. The characters are great, the lore is standard Sanderson fare. The story has the type of beats and twists you expect from the author.

However, here is why my rating is so low:

1. Hoid/Wit should not be a POV character. His role up until now has been an intermittent trickster who bestows indirect wisdom and metaphor to the main character. He cannot carry a story on his back, should not carry a story on his back, and has never been expected to carry a story on his back. This should remain the case. The constant meta references and nonsensical asides take away from the story.

2. Sanderson is starting to flirt more and more with breaking the fourth wall, in a way that compromises the cosmere. There are increasingly more frequent references to the real world, first starting as wink-wink-nudge-nudge easter eggs and now starting to edge dangerously close to merging the cosmere with our world. That is fine as an abstract concept that the reader is aware of in the back of their mind, less fine when utilized narratively in the actual stories.

3. Sanderson mentioned that he wanted an opportunity to flesh out Hoid and figure out what character he is meant to be, and it seems like he has decided Hoid is to be a less-violent, slightly more emotionally nuanced Deadpool. This is not a compliment. If Sanderson ever sells a movie deal, Ryan Reynolds will be cast as Hoid. It will be terrible.

Brandon says in the postscript that he really wanted to write a story without someone hovering over his shoulder, something he can share with only his wife. This was that story. I encourage that, and the bones of this story are as reliable as we've come to expect from him. There are just some things about it that definitely reduced my enjoyment and also give me pause for the future.

December

Bewilderment by Richard Powers. 1/5.

Spoiler :

I'm not really sure where to start with this one. I suppose I'll open with saying that the actual prose style is quite nice, and if this novel is an aberration in tone, then I'll probably check out Powers's other works.

However, when it comes to substance, this novel is disappointing and empty. I'll just throw some bullet points out there and see what sticks.

1. The MC believes autism is a hoax perpetrated by Big Pharma as an excuse to dope up as many people as possible. Vaccines are also poison. He is portrayed as correct in the narrative for believing this.

2. The MC disrespects his late wife, constantly. He loathes people she had good relationships with, is jealous of every deviance she had from him. On top of this jealousy, he actively rejected her interests himself, so she had no choice but to share in them with others. She explicitly tried to share those interests with him, but he refused.

3. The MC actively belittles his child and continuously sabotages his development and growth because of his own personal misgivings with just about everything that happens around them. When Robin is established as a child you cannot mislead, the MC doubles and triples down and dedicates his days to trying to lie to his child.

4. The astrobiology in this novel is interesting but ultimately pointless. This part of the MC's journey and identity is only expressed so the author can punt in some Trump quotes occasionally and highlight that his son is inquisitive. I do not find copy-paste MAGA slogans and behaviour to be charming; if this served some role in the narrative, fine, but it does not.

5. The book cheaply copies Flowers for Algernon. Not only does it do this, it wink-wink-nudge-nudges you about it by explicitly making the comparison. The treatment the MC's son is on is some miraculous cure for autism, until the treatment stops, and now he's losing his son to the Ultimate Hoax once again. This circles back to 1.

6. Instead of doing anything at all with any of these developments—the government crippling the country, Robin regressing after losing treatment, Robin becoming a viral sensation for his eco-positive activism, the MC losing all his work—the author merely murders the child and calls it a day there. The end.

There is no conclusion, no message to this story. It's just misinformation, child neglect, intriguing tidbits of hypothetical astrobiology, and then putting the book down and moving on. A lot of wasted potential.

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson. 4/5.

Spoiler :

I enjoyed this in spite of the main character and the surrounding lore about dimensional travel. There's lots of potential in the world Sanderson created and the supporting characters. Unfortunately, John's perspective is a total pain to put up with, and the joke-y meta from the Frugal Wizard company is more obnoxious than funny.

If this had been treated more seriously, it'd be an easy five stars for me. I'm happy Sanderson didn't try to make this part of the cosmere.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Brandon Sanderson seems to be a favorite of yours.

 

[Takhisis]

t's been a long time since I've posted here. I don't remember when I last did. I'll just post a list of what I read this year

Amazingly, I haven't read even one of those, unless watching the Hunger Games film counts.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan
The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty.

I have read and enjoyed both of those series. Unless there is something new I think I have read them all; 3 in each series?

 

[Synobun]

Brandon Sanderson seems to be a favorite of yours.

I do find myself getting disillusioned a little with the latest books. There's a bit of a Stephen King effect happening where people are no longer saying no to him when they really should, so there's a lot of cyclic retreading and weird choices regarding tone and worldbuilding. One of his latest clever ideas is to turn one of the characters into the cosmere's version of Deadpool, personality and all, and also seemingly hinting toward combining real Earth with his fantasy universe, which would be disastrous IMO.

But he's the bestseller, so.

The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan
The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty.

I have read and enjoyed both of those series. Unless there is something new I think I have read them all; 3 in each series?

Yes. There's a second trilogy made for the Powder Mage universe from McClellan, which is what I originally read first last year. I'm reading the third book from Chakraborty right now.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I will take a look at the new powder mage books!

 

[JollyRoger]

Your heroic correspondent's stepdad taught him to shoot replicas of the guns of this era and drug him to late 1970s and early 1980s buckskinner rendezvous which were watered down versions of the saturnalias described in this book. Replicate at your own risk.