The_biscuits_532
Eternally Confused Feline
Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn. It's pretty short. Gotta read it for my seminar tomorrow. Which I might have to miss cos I gotta wait for a (ID needed) delivery, but I should at least do the prep
What are you reading?
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Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
It's a relatively short novel, so I'd recommend reading it for experience though I have conflicting feelings about the novel. The class we had in college about it was interesting.
Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
I read Meat and Salt and Sparks by Rich Larson recently. The main character, Cu, is an enhanced chimpanzee detective who is tasked with solving a bizarre murder than unfolds in unforeseen ways. If you like this short story, I'd recommend his other works, some of which is freely available. His also has a short story collection out called The Tomorrow Factory, which I'll read eventually.
Hound-of-chulainn
Well-Known Member
I just finished this book called Nanodaemons the other day. It's about an augmented human that was framed for murder and is unknowingly helped out by a group of AI managing all of his prosthetics. It was a pretty fun read.
nemenemoneme
New Member
I'm reading a butt load of history books at the moment, mostly for research to use in my writing but also for enjoyment.
King Arthur: Man or Myth by Tony Sullivan, The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici by Catherine Fletcher
King Arthur: Man or Myth by Tony Sullivan, The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici by Catherine Fletcher
Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
I'm reading The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton off and on. It's kind of surreal for when it was written.
The_biscuits_532
Eternally Confused Feline
Don Quixote. We're not doing it on my course, but we are doing early novels, so it seemed relevant.
It's long as fuck but the enormous amount of chapters keeps it easy to read. Feels like I'm progressing more when I can get through five chapters in half an hour.
And damn, those off-hand comments I'd seen on the Chris Chan documentary were right. Don Quixote really is just a 17th century lolcow.
I've only read the first thirty pages or so atm, but he's already harassed a town into giving him knighthood, and spend a night homeless because no books he's read have ever noted how knights need to bring money with them.
It's long as fuck but the enormous amount of chapters keeps it easy to read. Feels like I'm progressing more when I can get through five chapters in half an hour.
And damn, those off-hand comments I'd seen on the Chris Chan documentary were right. Don Quixote really is just a 17th century lolcow.
I've only read the first thirty pages or so atm, but he's already harassed a town into giving him knighthood, and spend a night homeless because no books he's read have ever noted how knights need to bring money with them.
Nexus Cabler
\ ( :v ) /
The Necronomicon, a collection of Lovecraft's works.
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Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
I finished few since last month, so I'm tagging you @MechaMegs I owe you reading material for the Kindle.
Water: A History by K.J. Kabza is short story about a elderly woman on an arid planet colonized by humanity who forms an unlikely friendship with younger woman, but has misgivings about her current life. The story is freely available on tor.com or you can buy it in the Kindle Store for $1.99. Or you can get in the Kindle Store free in the Some Of The Best From TOR.COM anthology for 2019 along other short fiction from there for that year.
There is The Visit from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which has the slight SFnal twist of being set in a world dominated by women instead men. This short story was one of the literary works that made me think this year, particularly things women have to contend with in society that we normally don't think about as a society, like drug dosages and treatment are often determined by their effect on just male test subjects or how coming back from night outing can be a very different experience for a woman. The story and its audiobook are $0.99 on Amazon.
I'd also recommend Americana from the same author, which is about her experience coming to the United States and deals with a host of relevant issues.
Honorable mentions are Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter, which is about a biological robot defending a gas mining station around Jupiter initially, and The Rush's Edge by Ginger Smith, which tells the story of a genetically-enhanced super-soldier who is trying to make a life himself with a crew who is his found family while dealing with the fallout of making major discovery that could upend the galactic order.
I'm currently reading House of Styx by Derek Kunsken, which is about a family attempting to salvage a discovery on Venus that could lift them out of poverty.
Water: A History by K.J. Kabza is short story about a elderly woman on an arid planet colonized by humanity who forms an unlikely friendship with younger woman, but has misgivings about her current life. The story is freely available on tor.com or you can buy it in the Kindle Store for $1.99. Or you can get in the Kindle Store free in the Some Of The Best From TOR.COM anthology for 2019 along other short fiction from there for that year.
There is The Visit from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which has the slight SFnal twist of being set in a world dominated by women instead men. This short story was one of the literary works that made me think this year, particularly things women have to contend with in society that we normally don't think about as a society, like drug dosages and treatment are often determined by their effect on just male test subjects or how coming back from night outing can be a very different experience for a woman. The story and its audiobook are $0.99 on Amazon.
I'd also recommend Americana from the same author, which is about her experience coming to the United States and deals with a host of relevant issues.
Honorable mentions are Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter, which is about a biological robot defending a gas mining station around Jupiter initially, and The Rush's Edge by Ginger Smith, which tells the story of a genetically-enhanced super-soldier who is trying to make a life himself with a crew who is his found family while dealing with the fallout of making major discovery that could upend the galactic order.
I'm currently reading House of Styx by Derek Kunsken, which is about a family attempting to salvage a discovery on Venus that could lift them out of poverty.
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Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
@MechaMegs I read some other short stories and novellas if you're interested.
The Murderbot Diaries are pretty entertaining and pull off the hard task of being funny in print form, which Douglas Adams and Mark Twain manage to do too. The series of novellas and the novel follow the journey of Murderbot, an android with biological components who is currently serving a security personnel for a survey team on an alien planet when another survey team on the planet goes missing. In order to survive, Murderbot and the scientist it is guarding are forcing to discover the circumstances behind the disappearance.
The writing is humorous, but also humane and thoughtful much of the time. The characters feel natural, even the ones of aren't entirely human.
The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model by Charlie Jane Anders is another humorous short story on TOR.com that is available in the Kindle Store for $1.99. The story deals with a pair of aliens who ... use the Fermi Paradox as their business model to profit off the destruction that regularly befalls other alien species they seeded across the galaxy. However, one their investment turn out to be a familiar planet that surprises them.
This story is freely available here: https://www.tor.com/2010/08/11/the-fermi-paradox-is-our-business-model/
I'd also recommend All The Birds In The Sky by same author too.
While I'm talking about TOR.com short stories, there is also Waiting On A Bright Moon by Neon Yang. In it, Xin, a woman with magical abilities that allow her to communicate across space with the homeworld of the oppressive Imperial Authority, is drawn into a conspiracy when a corpse floats out of a wormhole portal linking the station she works on with the Imperial homeworld. The story is short, but so satisfying and evocative.
Like all TOR.com stories, it is freely available here: https://www.tor.com/2017/07/12/waiting-on-a-bright-moon/
You can also buy it in the Kindle Store for $1.99.
You should also read Yang's Tensorate series, which is more fantasy in nature.
I'll more post recommendations later, but I've got to go.
The Murderbot Diaries are pretty entertaining and pull off the hard task of being funny in print form, which Douglas Adams and Mark Twain manage to do too. The series of novellas and the novel follow the journey of Murderbot, an android with biological components who is currently serving a security personnel for a survey team on an alien planet when another survey team on the planet goes missing. In order to survive, Murderbot and the scientist it is guarding are forcing to discover the circumstances behind the disappearance.
The writing is humorous, but also humane and thoughtful much of the time. The characters feel natural, even the ones of aren't entirely human.
The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model by Charlie Jane Anders is another humorous short story on TOR.com that is available in the Kindle Store for $1.99. The story deals with a pair of aliens who ... use the Fermi Paradox as their business model to profit off the destruction that regularly befalls other alien species they seeded across the galaxy. However, one their investment turn out to be a familiar planet that surprises them.
This story is freely available here: https://www.tor.com/2010/08/11/the-fermi-paradox-is-our-business-model/
I'd also recommend All The Birds In The Sky by same author too.
While I'm talking about TOR.com short stories, there is also Waiting On A Bright Moon by Neon Yang. In it, Xin, a woman with magical abilities that allow her to communicate across space with the homeworld of the oppressive Imperial Authority, is drawn into a conspiracy when a corpse floats out of a wormhole portal linking the station she works on with the Imperial homeworld. The story is short, but so satisfying and evocative.
Like all TOR.com stories, it is freely available here: https://www.tor.com/2017/07/12/waiting-on-a-bright-moon/
You can also buy it in the Kindle Store for $1.99.
You should also read Yang's Tensorate series, which is more fantasy in nature.
I'll more post recommendations later, but I've got to go.
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Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
I haven't read it, but how do you like it so far?
Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
I recently finished reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which was satisfying to read beginning to end. Technically, you could stretch as a being furry-adjacent since the story concerns the human survivors of Earth attempting to colonize a terraformed planet now inhabited by sentient uplifted spiders and other insects. It's one of those stories where all the character's perspectives are deeply explored and they come across as sympathetic but imperfect to varying degrees.
I also realized this is the second novel I've read about sentient ants since the pandemic's started, lol.
While I'm writing this, I finished How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobachar last year, which is another Rich Larson short story. It's cyberpunk/biopunk heist story with a protagonist who hella shady but sympathetic somewhat. It's available for free on Tor's website ... or in ebook form with other short stories in Some of the Best from Tor.com 2020.
I'm currently reading The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells.
I also realized this is the second novel I've read about sentient ants since the pandemic's started, lol.
While I'm writing this, I finished How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobachar last year, which is another Rich Larson short story. It's cyberpunk/biopunk heist story with a protagonist who hella shady but sympathetic somewhat. It's available for free on Tor's website ... or in ebook form with other short stories in Some of the Best from Tor.com 2020.
I'm currently reading The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells.
Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
Forgot to tag you, @MechaMegs , but you may like How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobachar.
Also, it occurred to me that I don't really know what you like to read and I could come up with better recommendations if I knew, so what are your preferences?
reptile logic
An imposter among aliens.
Just started beta reading a historical novel draft, from a writer acquaintance of mine. It has to do with the formation of the Christian Religion, and the French. What could go wrong? I'm about to find out.
Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
I'm still combing through The Uninhabitable Earth, but I recently finished and enjoyed Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Shards of Earth is a space opera that takes in a future where Earth has been destroyed and reshaped by a race of moon-sized aliens known as the Architects and it follows the crew of the salvage spaceship Vulture God as they deal with various personal struggles while trying to come to grips with the discovery of an alien artifact that could potentially save life in the galaxy from a return of the Architects.
As usual with Tchaikovsky, the various characters felt like real people with real concerns, even the nonhumans and aliens (who actually seemed at least halfway alien and not rubber-forehead style aliens). The twists also kept the plot form becoming predictable nicely.
This book, along with The Expert System's Brother and Children of Time, make me want to read more by the author.
My girlfriend also played the audiobook Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin, which is about a transhuman soldier sent from an extrasolar colony created before the apparent ecological collapse of Earth who has now been sent on a mission to Earth. Ultimately, he uncovers some revelations that challenge everything that he knows.
I'd highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick read that is entertaining and somewhat humorous, in a macabre way.
As usual with Tchaikovsky, the various characters felt like real people with real concerns, even the nonhumans and aliens (who actually seemed at least halfway alien and not rubber-forehead style aliens). The twists also kept the plot form becoming predictable nicely.
This book, along with The Expert System's Brother and Children of Time, make me want to read more by the author.
My girlfriend also played the audiobook Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin, which is about a transhuman soldier sent from an extrasolar colony created before the apparent ecological collapse of Earth who has now been sent on a mission to Earth. Ultimately, he uncovers some revelations that challenge everything that he knows.
I'd highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick read that is entertaining and somewhat humorous, in a macabre way.
ScaratheWolf
Scara is on her honeymoon; Currently Ronin
the posts above me,
Hary Potter
Hary Potter
The_Happiest_Husky
I love you all <3 We had a good run
Just finished the trilogy Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne a lil while ago
Very good books, but frankly I was disappointed in the author's work with a blind character. Lots of setup talking about enhanced senses, but then when a blind character with these enhanced senses in introduced, well, no effort is put into giving them realistic blindness that's dealt with using the senses. The character is blind and helpless 90% of the time, and when in a life or death situation suddenly is able to "see the world in black on black", which is never adequately explained.
One of the characters also has a terrible character arc where they give into their flaws. They start as a great, hopeful person, seem to start a redemption arc, then give up and end the story as a complete monster of a person. Really dissapointing
Other than these 2 issues it's a pretty great series and I recommend it (just not highly)
Very good books, but frankly I was disappointed in the author's work with a blind character. Lots of setup talking about enhanced senses, but then when a blind character with these enhanced senses in introduced, well, no effort is put into giving them realistic blindness that's dealt with using the senses. The character is blind and helpless 90% of the time, and when in a life or death situation suddenly is able to "see the world in black on black", which is never adequately explained.
One of the characters also has a terrible character arc where they give into their flaws. They start as a great, hopeful person, seem to start a redemption arc, then give up and end the story as a complete monster of a person. Really dissapointing
Other than these 2 issues it's a pretty great series and I recommend it (just not highly)
The_biscuits_532
Eternally Confused Feline
Maus
Given recent events
And the fact my local comic shop has had it in stock for ages.
Given recent events
And the fact my local comic shop has had it in stock for ages.
Chibi-Choko
Member
Bleach vol 10
Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Miles Marsalis
The Last DJ.
Yesterday afternoon at work was a little annoying at work, so I just wound up reading until my girlfriend got back from work for dinner. I managed to finish the novella Now Will Machines Devour the Stars by Benjanun Sriduangkaew in the Machine Mandate series, which was recommended to me during API month. I have feelings about the author, but so far the series has been enjoyable, though I feel this book wasn't as strong as the others so far. The series is a pretty good example QUILTBAG fiction and the way it treats gender is interesting. I've read all the books in the series so far and fans of QUILTBAG literature or post-singularity space opera might want to give the series a read.