Atlas Alone, Newman. This one took me by surprise. Following an apocalypse, the passengers on a generation ship are somewhat surprised to find a murderous plot in their midst. Not least the murderer, who is aghast to find she’s killed someone. I’ll be looking out for other books by the same writer, because this is effortlessly competent and properly, thoroughly crafted. Hums along, never drags.
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I had the same exact response to This is How You Lose the Time War. It’s poetic sci-fi where the authors make their own rules. You’re not astonished by the inventiveness of the two characters since they’re like gods…they can do anything. So there’s a certain lack of conflict when either one can smugly write, “You were watching for A, but I did B and C, and you never saw that coming! Ha!” Rinse and repeat. I liked it, I simply would have appreciated more rules and constraints.
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Rules are so important when it comes to power. Even if the source of power is a bunch of sci-fi or fantasy gobbledygook, knowing how it works and/or is constrained is fairly important.
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Dead Astronauts, Vanderrrrmeerrrr. Another surreal trip of a book from the man who brought us the giant flying bear. How do you review something like this? Either you’re on board with prose that paints the interior of your brain or you’re not. It’s not difficult to enjoy it but occasionally difficult to stay involved with such unmoored imagination.
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Red Famine, Applebaum. The weaponisation of famine, as the USSR decides to allow it to continue, as long as it only affects certain ‘troublesome’ populations, of course. Inefficiences and mistakes piled up, covered up, and forgotten about, and millions of people starved to death, in a mixture of stupidity and malice.
“Food is a weapon.”
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Some free reads for these indoor days:
Hugo winner Redshirts by John Scalzi:
Lots of free issues from 2000AD, with Judge Dredd and the like:
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Recursion, Crouch. Thought I’d start my seculsion with a little light reading instead of the stack of weighty tomes. It’s like reading a book version of a mid-tier Hollywood movie. Is it all like this?
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I didn’t feel as though it got any better than that. It’s not his best.
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I’ll concur with @biffpow. I enjoyed the book somewhat, but I’m not a critical reader at all, and I definitely didn’t think it improved as it went.
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False Value, the latest Rivers of London book from Ben Aaronovitch. Also in audiobook. Starts out as if it’s going in a different direction to its predecessors and then doesn’t, which is a bit disappointing given the way Lies Sleeping ended. I enjoyed it for what it is, nevertheless.
Lothingaria and Danubia, Simon Winder, companion volumes to Germania, chatty and personal histories of the tangled, tragicomic and more than occasionally ghastly history of Central Europe. Surprising and enjoyable.
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Carrier Wave, Brockway. Radio telescope picks up a transmission from a Lovecraftian entity, and it propagates madness through sound. Cue the apocalypse. Pretty entertaining so far.
Awesome! I was, until recently, between books and indecisive as to what to read next. I’m am unfortunately 100 pages into a young adult book that is a little too jeuvenile for me (but that my kids will love), and I finish every book that I start. I am absolutely going to read Carrier Wave mext, though. It sounds fun!
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Hilary Mantel, bitches.
In anticipation of the third Wolf Hall book, I listened to the first two (again) on audio. This is back before Captain Trips, when I had a 2,000-mile driving excursion to get through.
That set me up for The Mirror & The Light, which has not disappointed so far. Mantel can be challenging — one minute, you’re in a contemporary scene in England, the next you’re going through 10 pages in Italy from 15 years before —but she’s got such command of what she’s doing.
Plus, the English have all the best history.
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While randomly clicking through various “Customers who bought this item also bought…” links on Amazon I stumbled across Six Frigates by Ian Toll and bought it on a whim. Fascinating bit of early American history that was very well written and told an excellent story about the early years of the young republic. Highly recommend if you have even a passing interest in ships of sail, American & British history of the time and the politics of the new United States.
Plus the plucky Canucks even got to play a part, so there’s that.
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The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States.
A short read written as a commission’s report in the aftermath of a US / North Korea nuclear war. Very much a commentary on Trump’s ineptitude, failings, and dissemination of misinformation. While the author’s bias is obvious (spoiler: I share it wholeheartedly), it echoes the current COVID-19 situation to a scary degree.
Recommended for those that dislike Trump, enjoy treatises on nuclear war, and / or just think we’ll all die horribly one day.
Cheers. More scotch, please.
ETA: available on Amazon kindle and iBooks as well.
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Always.
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I’m not having much luck with books lately.
Carrier Wave was good, but went on just that little too long, and included aspects that I felt were badly out of place. It was well written though.
From there I ended up with Dead of Night by Maberry, a zombie novel, and the first in a series, which is enthusiastically but clumsily written. I can forgive a lot in a book that is obviously a bit of a passion project, and I can get behind it all the more when I’m a big fan of the genre anyway.
Another step down was The Cold by Hawkins, which is just King’s The Fog, but with snow, and lacking any kind of writing skill, tension, structure, or character development. Fucking dire.
Trying out Douglas Haig by Sheffield, which should be interesting as his reputation and that of WWI are practically one and the same. Also got some more volumes of 20th Century Boys on the way.
Zone One, Whitehead. I’ve thought about this one a lot. A literary fiction take on the zombie apocalypse, or mostly the post-apocalypse, and the drudgery of mopping up pockets of undead and reclaiming urban spaces and resources. While the quality of the prose is good, Whitehead has absolutely no problems going off on a tangent repeatedly, following the character’s thoughts and recollections and very rarely sticking with what is actually happening for longer than a paragraph or two, and it becomes more distracting than involving. That said, it’s well-imagined and the glimpses you get of the apocalypse are incredible; it’s so well-written I can’t help but want a more straightforward tale to sink my teeth into.
By Force Alone, Tidhar. An Arthurian tale, but an unusual mix of quite well-rooted history, and fantasy, complete with Britons living in the vestiges of the Roman state, ogres and giants in the hills, and witchcraft and wizardry about. Tidhar writes some unusual books, and he has an idiosyncratic style, but he’s also a good writer able to craft compelling characters. Even with such an old story he weaves some new threads. Exactly what I needed.
I finished Carrier Wave. It was enjoyable but the narrative structure left me not caring much about the characters. It reminded me in some ways of Justin Cronin’s Passage series, which I think I liked more, though the “big bads” in Carrier Wave are certainly more interesting.
I’m starting Declare, finally.
Then I may re-read Dune in anticipation of this winter’s movie.
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