Kevin's Watch

Avatar wrote:Speaker For the Dead.

Xenocide

Not a coincidence I am thinking?

Hahaha, not a coincidence. I read Ender in Exile before Speaker...you musta missed that one.

But it has nothing to do with the movie, if that's what you were wondering. I have no intention of watching it. I picked Exile randomly because I've only read it once before, but once I did, I had to carry on the story.

--A

The Caves of Steel - Complete
The Naked Sun - Complete
The Robots of Dawn - Started, about halfway through
Robots and Empire

Should be able to get back on the Ender series soon. However now that Im reading Asimov again, Im now thinking I might take a trip down memory lane and read the Foundation series.

Finished Xenocide, and Children of the Mind.

Reading The Princess Bride.

--A

Good choice, Av! The book is so different from the movie.

Currently reading an indie sci-fi novel called VOHKTAH! by A.C. Flory, one of my compatriots at Indies Unlimited. She has some issues with comma placement, but the story is interesting -- no humans so far, only alien beings who call themselves Vohks. Still trying to suss out all the rules of their hierarchical society. It's not going to be one of my favorites, I don't think, but it's not bad.

Back to Pern finally, so, I am listening to DragonSinger

The four books I have on hold are in, so have begun Get Off the Unicorn, which contains The Smallest Dragonboy.
...I had no idea that's the one McCaffrey on the bookshelf here.

I strongly suspect that after you have read the first two short stories in that collection, you will remember that we had quite a discussion four years ago that keyed on the final lines of "A Meeting of Minds."

I just finished Robert Charles Wilson's new novel Burning Paradise. It's an examination of what sentience is and whether or not a little slavery is worth the price that may be extracted from a species if great benefit is wrought from that slavery.

aliantha wrote:Good choice, Av! The book is so different from the movie.

Oh, I've read it before, long before I ever saw the movie. This is the 25th anniversary edition, with extra long prefaces and afterwords, and the first chapter of "Buttercup's Baby" the sequel that Stephen King will be abridging.

Anyway, I finished it.

Gemmel's Quest For Lost Heroes now.

--A

Savor Dam wrote:I strongly suspect that after you have read the first two short stories in that collection, you will remember that we had quite a discussion four years ago that keyed on the final lines of "A Meeting of Minds."

Oh, I remember you read it. And, like with Pern, it didn't grab you.

...but I don't recall you owning it. I thought it was a library book, or some such.

Darkmoon by David Gemmel.

--A

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K Dick.

--A

IOne Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

--A

Avatar wrote:IOne Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

--A

That's magic realism, not fantasy/science fiction

Whatever it is, I just can't seem to get into it.

--A

Oh? I thought it was pretty good.

I'm reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Pretty likely to win some awards this year.

I'm Murrin wrote:I'm reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Pretty likely to win some awards this year.

I read it recently and enjoyed it. I can see why it might win awards.

I've been on a bit of a binge recently propelled by Xmas book vouchers :

• Mother of Storms by John Barnes - I like Barnes and this is a fairly good end-of-civilisation weather catastrophe with a bit of cybertech thrown in for good measure.
  Camouflage by Joe Haldeman - an oddish and slightly unsatisfying first contact short novel
  Halting State by Charles Stross - very techie and coding orientated cyber mystery. Somehow both over-and-under-cooked.
  Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig - Read it as the last book in our very own Watch book club (thanks again to Murrin for organising it!). This is more of a horror than anything else. Pacy and enjoyable (if a bit too graphic for my tastebuds.)
  The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi - Started this a while back (again for the bookclub) and ground to a halt on a very large cyber reef, but picked it back up recently and it's going along much better now.

u.

ussusimiel wrote:Camouflage by Joe Haldeman - an oddish and slightly unsatisfying first contact short novel

Agreed. It was fun enough, but not really much there. I was looking for something else by him, and got that instead because it looked good. I'm very surprised it won the Nebula.

ussusimiel wrote:The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi - Started this a while back (again for the bookclub) and ground to a halt on a very large cyber reef, but picked it back up recently and it's going along much better now.

Not sure I'll manage to pick it up again. I hope it's just too brilliant for me, but it might simply be too weird.

I'm Murrin wrote:Oh? I thought it was pretty good.

The style just doesn't work for me.

--A