Writes a good book does Crichton [writes or wrote?]
In other news.
I am listening to Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I am 70% through and it's such good alien world SF that I just had to post..
[reading] What have you read recently? (continued)
- Thread starter Guvnor
- Start date
In other news.
I am listening to Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I am 70% through and it's such good alien world SF that I just had to post..
Chrichton died about 15 years ago, but like Tolkien it hasn’t stopped him publishing new books recently.
ltd
Rune Priest
Or John Le Carre. Seems to be something that happens when an author becomes a "brand"?
Whilst I was away a week or so ago I read Ancient Images by Ramsey Campbell. Gosh, now I have to admit to not having read him before. I know. I know. Well, I am sold. Slow, creepy, unceasingly worrying, building to a very satisfying and nasty end. However.. not overly gory.. more the threat until the end when it delivers.
8/10 and I want to read everything he's written.
8/10 and I want to read everything he's written.
Sablemage
Demi-God
Just finished Salvation by Peter F Hamilton, which I mostly enjoyed; very clearly the first of a series but then one expects that from Hamilton.
There's a find-the-aliens-among-us plotline (that is set up in the first chapter, so not much of a spoiler), a lot of flashbacks told by main characters which delve into the detail of how the setting's ubiquitous teleportation technology is used and works, and a parallel flashforward storyline which I think I will have to read the other books in the series to understand properly.
Well worth the 99p I paid for it.
There's a find-the-aliens-among-us plotline (that is set up in the first chapter, so not much of a spoiler), a lot of flashbacks told by main characters which delve into the detail of how the setting's ubiquitous teleportation technology is used and works, and a parallel flashforward storyline which I think I will have to read the other books in the series to understand properly.
Well worth the 99p I paid for it.
ltd
Rune Priest
I'd argue that isn't one of his best, although it's by no means bad. I very much like his early period novels like The Doll Who Ate His Mother, The Parasite, Incarnate, and The Nameless (one of the few books I've read that genuinely scared me) but found a lot of his post 1990s stuff unreadable. He seemed to have been consumed by his own stylistic tics, and became incapable of writing believable dialogue. That said his short stories are always worth a look and are arguably where his strengths as a writer really lie.
ltd
Rune Priest
I think a fair few of his books are on Kindle now.
I've a soft spot for his collection of Lovecraftian short stories "Cold Print." They run from youthful pastiche to rather more mature efforts where you find him developing his own voice. My Mum's family hail from Gloucestershire so I also find it entertaining to see how he crams his own version of Lovecraft's Miskatonic into the Vale of Berkeley.
Maddz
Demi-God
Various bits and pieces; mostly re-reads.
Suzette Haden Elgin
The Native Tongue Trilogy: Native Tongue, The Judas Rose, and Earthsong
Oddly, I'd never read them back when they were first published back in the 1980s. Very much feminist SF set in a dystopian USA where the 19th Amendment had been repealed and women were considered to have the same status as a child nowadays. The first book, Native Tongue, tells of the women of the Linguist family lines who secretly developed a language for women. The second book, The Judas Rose, tells how the Linguist women got their language out into the world. The third book, Earthsong, tells of how the women saved mankind after the alien trading stopped cold by developing audiosynthesis, again in secret, and taught it across the world and the space colonies.
Dr Elgin was a linguist and actually developed a women's language, Láadan (used in the books), although the experiment wasn't a great success in the real world.
The trilogy of hers I had read when they came out was The Ozark Trilogy: Twelve Fair Kingdoms, The Grand Jubilee, and And Then There'll Be Fireworks, and the sequel (part of the Coyote Jones series, Yonder Comes the Other End of Time.
This trilogy is set on an alien planet with it's own sentient races and was settled by refugees from the Ozarks fleeing the collapse of the USA and what they perceived as the loss of morality. Settling on their new home, they made treaties with 2 of the indigenes (there are at least 1 more race), and set up 12 polities called kingdoms scattered across 3 continents. Loosing much of their technology, they adopted a lifestyle similar to that of the Amish, but developed psionic or magic powers: granny magic (i.e. folk magic) practiced only by females, high falutin' magic practiced only by males, and high magic practiced by magicians of rank (basically the top level of magicians). A wild card is the 'heroine' of the trilogy: Responsible of Brightwater, who practices all magics (albeit secretly) and is the unacknowledged planetary leader.
Here the focus is on Ozark traditions and folk ways, and the linguistics of the Ozarks as transplanted to an alien planet and following at least 1000 years of cultural isolation.
I'm also in the process of reading the Coyote Jones series: The Communipaths, Furthest, At the Seventh Level, Star-Anchored, Star-Angered, and Yonder Comes the Other End of Time. Some of these I had in paperback, but they weren't as easily found as Elgin's other books. These are more straight-forward SF; Coyote Jones is an agent of Terra and is sent on various missons.
Also on the Kobo are a couple of re-reads: the first 2 Felix the Fox Mysteries by Assaph Mehr: Murder in Absentia, and In Numina. These are being re-read before I make a start on the recently published In Victrix. I think I'd reviewed them back on the old tavern but had not posted the reviews elsewhere so they are lost. I've finished Murder in Absentia, and am slogging through In Numina.
These are fantasy mysteries set on a world loosely based on late Republican Ancient Rome. Magic works and is codified as one of the collegia (there's law, military, commerce and one other). The magic is fairly low-key; it takes many mages working in concert to create powerful effects like 'building' a pharos with an everlasting beacon. Murder in Absentia is (to my mind) the better paced of the two; In Numina has far too much in the way of courtroom scenes with speeches from Cicero.
Suzette Haden Elgin
The Native Tongue Trilogy: Native Tongue, The Judas Rose, and Earthsong
Oddly, I'd never read them back when they were first published back in the 1980s. Very much feminist SF set in a dystopian USA where the 19th Amendment had been repealed and women were considered to have the same status as a child nowadays. The first book, Native Tongue, tells of the women of the Linguist family lines who secretly developed a language for women. The second book, The Judas Rose, tells how the Linguist women got their language out into the world. The third book, Earthsong, tells of how the women saved mankind after the alien trading stopped cold by developing audiosynthesis, again in secret, and taught it across the world and the space colonies.
Dr Elgin was a linguist and actually developed a women's language, Láadan (used in the books), although the experiment wasn't a great success in the real world.
The trilogy of hers I had read when they came out was The Ozark Trilogy: Twelve Fair Kingdoms, The Grand Jubilee, and And Then There'll Be Fireworks, and the sequel (part of the Coyote Jones series, Yonder Comes the Other End of Time.
This trilogy is set on an alien planet with it's own sentient races and was settled by refugees from the Ozarks fleeing the collapse of the USA and what they perceived as the loss of morality. Settling on their new home, they made treaties with 2 of the indigenes (there are at least 1 more race), and set up 12 polities called kingdoms scattered across 3 continents. Loosing much of their technology, they adopted a lifestyle similar to that of the Amish, but developed psionic or magic powers: granny magic (i.e. folk magic) practiced only by females, high falutin' magic practiced only by males, and high magic practiced by magicians of rank (basically the top level of magicians). A wild card is the 'heroine' of the trilogy: Responsible of Brightwater, who practices all magics (albeit secretly) and is the unacknowledged planetary leader.
Here the focus is on Ozark traditions and folk ways, and the linguistics of the Ozarks as transplanted to an alien planet and following at least 1000 years of cultural isolation.
I'm also in the process of reading the Coyote Jones series: The Communipaths, Furthest, At the Seventh Level, Star-Anchored, Star-Angered, and Yonder Comes the Other End of Time. Some of these I had in paperback, but they weren't as easily found as Elgin's other books. These are more straight-forward SF; Coyote Jones is an agent of Terra and is sent on various missons.
Also on the Kobo are a couple of re-reads: the first 2 Felix the Fox Mysteries by Assaph Mehr: Murder in Absentia, and In Numina. These are being re-read before I make a start on the recently published In Victrix. I think I'd reviewed them back on the old tavern but had not posted the reviews elsewhere so they are lost. I've finished Murder in Absentia, and am slogging through In Numina.
These are fantasy mysteries set on a world loosely based on late Republican Ancient Rome. Magic works and is codified as one of the collegia (there's law, military, commerce and one other). The magic is fairly low-key; it takes many mages working in concert to create powerful effects like 'building' a pharos with an everlasting beacon. Murder in Absentia is (to my mind) the better paced of the two; In Numina has far too much in the way of courtroom scenes with speeches from Cicero.
steveh
Rune Priest
The Mercy of Gods by James S A Corey (borrowed from Leeds library)
Enjoyable, but not as engaging as The Expanse. The story starts on a human world (although there's no mention of Earth anywhere - maybe that's coming up), which is abruptly conquered by really alien aliens. The humans are taken captive and must work together to survive and figure out what's going on and why the aliens are as strange as they are.
This first book (of The Captives series) feels more like part of a series than I remember The Expanse books being, which I felt were more like individual episodes attached to a longer story. This is definitely only part of the story.
Anyway, I enjoyed the world-building, and there's a nice emotional twist at the end for a couple of the characters - but intriguingly, that won't pay off until the next book.
Looking forward to the next one.
Enjoyable, but not as engaging as The Expanse. The story starts on a human world (although there's no mention of Earth anywhere - maybe that's coming up), which is abruptly conquered by really alien aliens. The humans are taken captive and must work together to survive and figure out what's going on and why the aliens are as strange as they are.
This first book (of The Captives series) feels more like part of a series than I remember The Expanse books being, which I felt were more like individual episodes attached to a longer story. This is definitely only part of the story.
Anyway, I enjoyed the world-building, and there's a nice emotional twist at the end for a couple of the characters - but intriguingly, that won't pay off until the next book.
Looking forward to the next one.
Maddz
Demi-God
Another couple of re-reads: the Hiero Desteen duology by Sterling E Lanier (who was famous for getting Dune published).
Hiero' Journey
It must have been at least 30 years since I last read this. I chiefly remember it being one of the inspirations for the Gamma World RPG; indeed some of the monsters from that RPG appear to have had the serial numbers filed off.
Over 5,000 years ago the old world was destroyed in nuclear and biological war. The North American survivors, some hideously mutated, started anew (Europe is known from legends; there has been no contact since the war). The continent is divided between two opposed groups: the Unclean Brotherhood who wish to return the world to pre-war technology, and the Church Universal in what used to be Canada. Per Hiero Desteen is sent by his abbot on a secret mission to the south to find a computer to aid in the Church's struggle against their enemies.
It's a bit preachy in places, and the world building is a bit on the black and white side. However, it's a reasonable read and an unusual story for the time with it's Canadian First Nations descended hero and lack of racism. Some of the science and biology is a bit shaky; I really don't believe a moth-balled base would survive intact for over 5,000 years; I would have expected the plastic sheeting to have long disintegrated. I also thought Hiero came across as a bit Mary-Sueish.
OK, recommended for the RPG influences.
The Unforsaken Hiero
The sequel to Hiero's Journey. I thought it very much weaker than the first book. It also ends on something of a cliff hanger; it looks like it was intended as a trilogy, but the third book was either never written or never published. Too much is left unresolved, and Hiero is setting out on his way back to the south.
As it happens, Lanier's goddaughter, Lucy Andrews Cummin, has written an authorised sequel, Hiero's Answer, supposedly due to be (finally) published this coming week. Lanier had a car accident in the 1980s which left him unable to write; he was in a coma for a week and never entirely recovered. He left an outline and some notes, and Cummin expanded it. Whether fans of the books will approve remains to seen. Whether it will actually be released is also in doubt; I'm not seeing pre-orders on the usual sites: https://www.sfgateway.com/titles/sterling-e-lanier/hieros-answer/9781399620604/
The influence on Gamma World is marked; the series is listed as suggested reading in the 3rd edition rules, but not the 1st or 2nd editions (no suggested reading list in either). By all accounts, it features in other TSR reading lists.
Hiero' Journey
It must have been at least 30 years since I last read this. I chiefly remember it being one of the inspirations for the Gamma World RPG; indeed some of the monsters from that RPG appear to have had the serial numbers filed off.
Over 5,000 years ago the old world was destroyed in nuclear and biological war. The North American survivors, some hideously mutated, started anew (Europe is known from legends; there has been no contact since the war). The continent is divided between two opposed groups: the Unclean Brotherhood who wish to return the world to pre-war technology, and the Church Universal in what used to be Canada. Per Hiero Desteen is sent by his abbot on a secret mission to the south to find a computer to aid in the Church's struggle against their enemies.
It's a bit preachy in places, and the world building is a bit on the black and white side. However, it's a reasonable read and an unusual story for the time with it's Canadian First Nations descended hero and lack of racism. Some of the science and biology is a bit shaky; I really don't believe a moth-balled base would survive intact for over 5,000 years; I would have expected the plastic sheeting to have long disintegrated. I also thought Hiero came across as a bit Mary-Sueish.
OK, recommended for the RPG influences.
The Unforsaken Hiero
The sequel to Hiero's Journey. I thought it very much weaker than the first book. It also ends on something of a cliff hanger; it looks like it was intended as a trilogy, but the third book was either never written or never published. Too much is left unresolved, and Hiero is setting out on his way back to the south.
As it happens, Lanier's goddaughter, Lucy Andrews Cummin, has written an authorised sequel, Hiero's Answer, supposedly due to be (finally) published this coming week. Lanier had a car accident in the 1980s which left him unable to write; he was in a coma for a week and never entirely recovered. He left an outline and some notes, and Cummin expanded it. Whether fans of the books will approve remains to seen. Whether it will actually be released is also in doubt; I'm not seeing pre-orders on the usual sites: https://www.sfgateway.com/titles/sterling-e-lanier/hieros-answer/9781399620604/
The influence on Gamma World is marked; the series is listed as suggested reading in the 3rd edition rules, but not the 1st or 2nd editions (no suggested reading list in either). By all accounts, it features in other TSR reading lists.
Sablemage
Demi-God
I read the free teaser, and given how the arrival of humans on their planet is described, I wondered if it was a world of the Expanse that had been cut off... I'll say no more about that theory because spoilers.
steveh
Rune Priest
Yes, I guess that's possible. I hadn't thought of that.
First Age
D&D h@ck3r and Hopepunk
The First Kingdom: Britain in the age of Arthur by Max Adams
Somewhere between the departure of the Roman legions in the early fifth century and the arrival of Augustine's Christian mission at the end of the sixth, the kingdoms of Early Medieval Britain were formed. But by whom? And out of what?
The First Kingdom is a skilfully wrought investigation of this mysterious epoch, synthesizing archaeological research carried out over the last forty years to tease out reality from the myth. Max Adams presents an image of post-Roman Britain whose resolution is high enough to show the emergence of distinct political structures in the sixth century - polities that survive long enough to be embedded in the medieval landscape, recorded in the lines of river, road and watershed, and memorialized in place names.
Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings by Thomas Williams
As Tolkien knew, Britain in the ‘Dark Ages’ was a mosaic of little kingdoms. Many of them fell by the wayside. Some vanished without a trace. Others have stories that can be told.
ELMET. HWICCE. LINDSEY. DUMNONIA. ESSEX. RHEGED. POWYS. SUSSEX. FORTRIU.
In Lost Realms, Thomas Williams, bestselling author of Viking Britain, uncovers the forgotten origins and untimely demise of nine kingdoms that hover in the twilight between history and fable, whose stories hum with saints and gods and miracles, with giants and battles and the ruin of cities. Why did some realms – like Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and Gwynedd – prosper while these nine fell?
Both highly recommended!
Somewhere between the departure of the Roman legions in the early fifth century and the arrival of Augustine's Christian mission at the end of the sixth, the kingdoms of Early Medieval Britain were formed. But by whom? And out of what?
The First Kingdom is a skilfully wrought investigation of this mysterious epoch, synthesizing archaeological research carried out over the last forty years to tease out reality from the myth. Max Adams presents an image of post-Roman Britain whose resolution is high enough to show the emergence of distinct political structures in the sixth century - polities that survive long enough to be embedded in the medieval landscape, recorded in the lines of river, road and watershed, and memorialized in place names.
Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings by Thomas Williams
As Tolkien knew, Britain in the ‘Dark Ages’ was a mosaic of little kingdoms. Many of them fell by the wayside. Some vanished without a trace. Others have stories that can be told.
ELMET. HWICCE. LINDSEY. DUMNONIA. ESSEX. RHEGED. POWYS. SUSSEX. FORTRIU.
In Lost Realms, Thomas Williams, bestselling author of Viking Britain, uncovers the forgotten origins and untimely demise of nine kingdoms that hover in the twilight between history and fable, whose stories hum with saints and gods and miracles, with giants and battles and the ruin of cities. Why did some realms – like Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and Gwynedd – prosper while these nine fell?
Both highly recommended!
Sablemage
Demi-God
Oh man, I loved those as a kid!
They are pretty damned good. I also loved them in Look and Learn.
Very male dominated but not that racist and fun mix of ancients and SF.
Altair-the-Vexed
Rune Priest
Just re-read Vonnegut's Cats Cradle, aloud, to my other half.
(We always do books that way.)
It was quite an influential book to me as a teen. Really cemented my cynical amusement and apocalyptic sense of humour.
(We always do books that way.)
It was quite an influential book to me as a teen. Really cemented my cynical amusement and apocalyptic sense of humour.
Gosh that's so romantic