I’ve put together a collage of some books from last months What are you Reading? post. It’s mostly random, but the more discussion something gets the more it stands out to me. Going forward I’m going to make a new post every month to talk about what people are reading.
Here is last months post. What are you Reading? (July 2023)
At any rate, what are you currently reading or plan to read in August?
Project Hail Mary. Paid more than I liked for a single book but quickly found it is one of my favourite books of all time!
Andy Weir’s second best book after “The Martian” in my opinion. But not by far, it was a great read and I enjoyed every page of it. Rocky for intergalactic president!
I liked the bigger scope of PHM, but Weir is Weir and great. It’s like going to an amazing homemade ice-cream stand. You might like vanilla caramel, and your friend might like the strawberry chocolate, but you’re both just happy the place is open.
I made a kind of “if you like PHM you might like these other books” rec chart thing when I first read PHM; if you’ve finished reading it you might enjoy some of these (although it does mention a few key elements of the book so if you’re going in completely blind and aren’t far in yet then don’t look at this yet).
Easily the best book I’ve read in the last 5 years
I randomly chose this to listen to on audible a couple months back; I loved it! So fun, so thought provoking, such a good book.
Mine too! Between that, The Martian and Artemis, I’m pretty much guaranteed to buy anything else that Andy Weir publishes.
Frank Herbert’s Dune
Very good decision, congratulations! In my opinion the best space epic ever written. I recommend reading all six Dune books by Frank Herbert, they are different from each other but all are great writing. I also recommend to ignore all “Dune” books by Brian Herbert. They are so bad I will forever regret every cent I spent on them.
Children of Time - It’s fantastic. Easily digestable space fair about giant intelligent spiders in their war with ants. Humans are involved but I care little for them. Not going to lie, I’m mainly there for the chapters narrated by the spiders and they are expectional.
Something about this book just blew me away. I couldn’t get into the sequels but maybe I’ll try again.
Other books by AT are even weirder but somewhat less intense.
Loved the children of time! I don’t think I quite have arachnaphobia, but some of the spider chapters really creeped me out! (In a good way!)
I love spiders. One of my fondest spider memories is sitting at the park drinking a diet coke. There was a little jumping spider on the table and he (she?) was sharing the condensation on the bottle. Every time I set it down it would run over & lick the bottle. Cutest spider ever. Loved Children of Time so much.
Halfway throught it, really enjoying it.
I loved this book. I wanted to marry it. I didn’t fall in love with any particular species, but loved all their places in the story. The humans were pretty cool too, so call me a human lover, see if I care 😄
It’s a great book. The sequels are also excellent. You’re in for a treat :D
I’m about half way through The Fall of Hyperion. It’s great
Just finished Hyperion so I guess that will be soon for me. Might read something else in between first though
Just finished Leviathan Wakes today. Can’t wait for my Amazon delivery of Caliban’s War.
Gave these a go after getting a bit bored of the series and wow, I wish I read them before spoiling the story beats for myself by watching it
Still, once you get past where amazon are leaving the series it gets even better - screw Cas Anvar
Finished the last book and immidately read Memories Legion, which I heartily recommend too, fills in some interesting gaps and interactions that were only lightly touched on throughout the series
I loved the series, but i think the books make the main characters much more relatable while the series makes the secondary characters really shine. I’ve been reading all the books, but have thrown other things in between like LoTR, The Foundation, and Hornblower which has made me excited to start the next Expanse book.
Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers.
Such amazing, lovely sci-fi that touches on so many topics.
Last one is based in a really nice intergalactic truck stop. Or like an airport hotel maybe.
And I didn’t realise it until my second read-through, but it’s basically all about cross-species accessibility/accomodations.
Really beautiful stuff.
I really liked how positive they all were without being relentlessly upbeat, and that they’re mostly just small character stories in their universe instead of grand space opera stuff. It’s just people working through their problems and they happen to be in space and sometimes have to worry about that.
It’s also a neat way to do a ‘shared universe’(?). Other than the second, none of the books are direct sequels. It’s someone who’s related to / knows a character from another book but there’s not a grand overarching plot or anything. Reminds me a bit of some pieces of the old Star Wars Expanded universe where sometimes an author just wanted to tell a bottle story that wasn’t concerned with Jedi/Sith politics. …or I guess Tokyo Drift… :P
The most wholesome SciFi in existence. It feels like a warm, humanitarian hug from a bunch of aliens. Great series!
Im halfway through The color of magic by Terry Pratchett, I’ve read a few other discworld books but I thought it was time to start the first book an try to read them all in the “right” order.
It’s probably the weakest of the Discworld books (at least from what I read of them). You can tell that he’s still developing the world and it’s much more just a fantasy spoof as opposed to the social satire masquerading as fantasy spoof that those books then more and more turn into.
Listening to Making Money, read it a few years ago. Pretty good though I’m not a huge fan of the voice actor doing the reading. it’s tolerable though. Pratchett is what got me into sci-fi and fantasy, he’ll always be one of my favorites and always holds up when I go back to something of his.
We are Bob is a great series, doesn’t got something that fine in a time.
The Bobiverse books were great. Can’t wait for more. I’ve been reading Expeditionary Force which is where the Skippy’s come from. Also Rythm of War by Brandon Sanderson.
Fuck, Rhythm of War is awesome. I might have to go back and read the whole Stormlight series with my kids.
I’m 6 books into expanse series, and I’ve kind of lost steam with it. Might need a break. Read bobiverse in full just before it. First children of time book was good but didn’t know if I wanted to read book 2.
Also loved project hail Mary and the dark Forest/three body trilogy.
Any other suggestions?
I have Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy on my shelf waiting for me to finish The Expanse series. Maybe that?
Also, book 7 of The Expanse becomes a lot easier because you stop having the TV show to compare to. And let me tell you, you think you know what Duarte is doing on Laconia, but my friend you don’t. The prologue of book 7 has one of those “I’m sorry, WHAT” moments that really launches you into the next story arc
Yes yes yes red mars is amazing. At first I was like oh great another 600 page scifi novel, but Holy shit is that some classic hard scifi that draws you in. The literal world building and charecter development is fantastic.
I’ve been debating starting the Expanse book series. I was a huge fan of the show but never read the books. Watched the whole series twice now. Is it recommended to star at book 1 or would it be advised to start at like book 7 so it follows the series?
I really think the books up to #4 Cibola Burn are worth the read. The TV series is kind of like a final edit of the books, and it’s really fascinating to see the changes the authors chose to make. But you get a lot more detail about the situations and the larger impact in the books.
That said, I reeeeally struggled with books 5 & 6 for only one reason: I hate Marco Inaros SO. MUCH. Which honestly just demonstrates how good these authors are. It was really hard for me to walk though the Inaros plot after having seen it through to completion in the show.
But now on book 7, I’m flying though the book again because I need to know where all of this is going and how our beloved characters are gonna get themselves out of this one
I very much share this experience with the series. Book 5 and 6 were the low point. I was more interested in the world building and everything related to it, and less so in the human conflicts. Final three books were great again, and eight probably my favourite in the whole series.
The show stays pretty true to the books, but there’s enough differences that I’d recommend starting with book 1.
Biggest change I can think of is Drummer. The show’s Drummer is like 3 or 4 characters from the books rolled into one. Book Drummer had a smaller roll.
Currently reading 11-22-63. Pretty bloody grim and depressing in places, but good enough to hold my attention.
Finished Locked In by John Scalzi not long prior. Great thought experiment considering it was written long before covid too.
Read 11-22-63 recently while on a king kick. Love his ideas and was disappointed in the Hulu show, so I went to the source. Illustrates how difficult it would be as a present day man in the sixties. Modern, tolerant ideals clash with the racism, bigotry, ignorance of that era. With some time travel stuff every now and then to remind you this isn’t just a book about the sixties. Still a believable fantasy and compelling read . “The past is obdurate”
I’m on book 13 of wheel of time and am planning to do a re-read of the extinction cycle again after I finished wheel of time, I just love those books
I recently read “A Memory Called Empire” by Arkady Martine. It’s the first book I’ve read by her and her writing style got me good. Her background as an historian shines through in the Empire she crafted. She won a hugo or nebula for the book but I can’t be bothered to look it up at the moment.
What an excellent book. I love political intrigue and this book does that so well. Her second book in the series “A Desolation Called Peace” is very nearly as good.
Children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I really enjoyed this one. Super cool read.
I’m reading Way of Kings right now, as well as back through the Harry Potter Series (just finished POA). Way of Kings is amazing.
The Bobiverse books are so damn good, read them last year
