What did you just read?

I didn't get into this yet but I am about to delve into https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Coming-Age-Horror-Novel-ebook/dp/B01MF9JDOX.

The author is an acquaintance of mine, this is his first effort, and the book is free on Kindle today and tomorrow (31 OCT-1 NOV).

Slaughterhouse Five. A fun romp involving aliens, time travel, and a large penis.

On last Dresden book, fun series

Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan (a Sanderson protege) - his second series in his Powder Mage universe. Heavily recommend it, but I'd read the first trilogy first - it's got a very unique Magic system just like Sanderson settings.

Amazon.com: Sins of Empire (Gods of Blood and Powder) eBook: Brian McClellan: Books

Son of the Black Sword (Saga of the Forgotten Warrior) by Larry Correia - who has also written a series about modern day monster slayers. Originally published in October of 2015, I have listened to this book on audio book three times now.

It is set in a medieval fantasy world not inspired by European history, but by Indian history. There are castes, jungles and outlandish names.

Human society is confined to a single continent on a world called Lok. Sea travel is impossible, because the oceans are filled with "demons" as large as whales. Sometimes, they hunt on land and the main character - a protector - has the responsibility of hunting them à la a dragon-slayer.

Working on the blinding knife by brent weeks. Just finished the black prism; first book in the series. It's a decent story, kind of shallow character development so far, but i am enjoying the magic system.

Rod-138 said:

On last Dresden book, fun series

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You poor bastard...you will now be stuck waiting on the next book like the rest of us.

Almost done with Song of Susanah, at the part where Stephen King is jerking himself off and not enjoying it at all...

All Systems Red - Martha Wells
- Story from the point of view of the self-named 'Murderbot', an AI security unit that has secretly managed to hack control of it's control systems and gain independence. It spends most of it's time watching TV and hoping the humans will leave it alone, a plan which runs into difficulty when it's human clients are targeted for murder.
This one was a fun and entertaining read, but very short.

The Library at Mount Char - Scott Hawkins
- The ancient and godlike sorcerer who is undisputed ruler of the current reality has gone missing, and the world ending horrors that he has whipped into line are getting restless. His twelve apprentices have each only been taught one aspect of his power ( war, healing, death, languages, etc ) and there's an unexplained deadly barrier preventing access to his library.
This was probably the best book I've read this year - it's very dark, and pretty much everyone in it is both a horrible person and batshit crazy. Despite this, I found it enthralling with a fascinating story.

Kings of the Wyld - Nicholas Eames
- An old, washed up mercenary tries to get his old band together to rescue his daughter from a monster invasion. It's an interesting mix of D&D and rock bands in world building - the mercenary ( read adventurer ) bands are pretty much treated like rockstars.
I enjoyed this one and will probably read sequels, although I am not sure if the setting will remain fresh.

All Our Wrong Todays - Elan Mastai
- Good for nothing son of the man who invented time travel semi-accidentally destroys the foundation of his timeline and ends up in what is effectively our timeline.
The main character is a gigantic dickhead, but this was entertaining to read.

Wings of Justice - Michael Scott-Earle
- What's effectively a rookie cop in a fantasy setting gets in enough trouble in her first few days that even Martin Riggs would say 'woah, slow down there'.
This was a lot of fun, will definitely read sequels.

We are Legion (We are Bob) - Dennis E Taylor
- Software developer who had himself cryogenically frozen, wakes up as a disembodied AI being trained to run a self-replicating deep space probe. The logical inconsistencies inherent in this are mostly caused by the people building the AI and probe being a group of religious fundamentalists who are rules-lawyering a prohibition on sentient AI. He is entertained to find that they are a lot worse at programming than he is.
I really liked this one. It was kind of hopeful and constructive, and also pretty funny. Will read sequels.

A Girl in Time - John Birmingham
- Female software developer and SJW ( no, seriously ;p ), runs across an 1800s US marshal with a time traveling device, and ends up getting effectively kidnapped by him.
This one was pretty much a self parody, I'm not sure if it was entirely serious, or actually a clever troll. Some highlights were realizing they were in a horrifying alternate reality by seeing that Trump was elected president. It was pretty funny, but I'm not sure it was supposed to be ;p

City of Stairs, City of Blades, City of Miracles - Robert Jackson Bennett
- The setting in this one is pretty unique and interesting - basically the gods were real and granted miracles for thousands of years in what's basically Europe. Then the oppressed Saypuri (basically Indian), slaves had a hero rise up and kill the gods, at which point most of their miraculous works vanished or fell apart, leaving Europe in post-apocalyptic chaos, and having the ex-slaves effectively take over. The first one is about a covert intelligence agent and her bodyguard investigating the murder of a prominent historian in what used to be one of the continent's great cities.
I liked this trilogy of books a lot and it finishes with a satisfying and logical end.

The Burning Isle - Will Panzo
- Ex-assassin with tortured past ends up hiding in some jungle city and causing trouble while being angsty and tormented.
Kind of paint by the numbers stuff, I lost interest halfway through.

velk said:

The Library at Mount Char - Scott Hawkins
- The ancient and godlike sorcerer who is undisputed ruler of the current reality has gone missing, and the world ending horrors that he has whipped into line are getting restless. His twelve apprentices have each only been taught one aspect of his power ( war, healing, death, languages, etc ) and there's an unexplained deadly barrier preventing access to his library.
This was probably the best book I've read this year - it's very dark, and pretty much everyone in it is both a horrible person and batshit crazy. Despite this, I found it enthralling with a fascinating story.

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Dark and fairly weird, but this was definitely an interesting read. Seems like he left it open enough to do a sequel, which I would be down for; the magic system was left remarkably vague, considering that the main character is a magic user, and I love to get a better sense of how the magic works, and what the wider cosmology consists of.

This past week or so I read the 1st 3 books in Will Wights cradle series. Great books.
Amazon.com: Will Wight: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Prior to that, I read the King's Dark Tidings 1st two books...Again great read.
Amazon.com: Kel Kade: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Also Phill Tucker Black Gate series. Good toilet reads.
Amazon.com: Phil Tucker: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Also this week I finished Sufficiently Advanced Magic. Book one. Good read.
Amazon.com: Andrew Rowe: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Just snagged today Dawn of Wonder...So far so good about 200 pages in.
Amazon.com: Jonathan Renshaw: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

I love Kindle Unlimited. Authors I never would have given a shot, I now just grab no worries.

Just finished 'The Belgariad' series by David Eddings. Older 'epic fantasy' series that was recommended to me by people on another forum. It was not bad... but I find it more and more difficult to go back and read older series as I get used to reading more recent offerings in any genre. Series was pretty standard 'coming of age' fantasy, Chosen-One style tripe. Was good for a week of reading, but not good enough to make me look into any of the other works by the author.

Either going into The Traveler's Gate trilogy or the Predator Cities quartet next. With my usual D&D group being disrupted due to the summer season, I tend to read more fantasy stuff around now.

Finished re-reading wheel of time, since the first time was spread over longer than a decade. Definitely one of the best fantasy series of that large a scope. Still has the annoying stuff (braid pulling, women always think they are right, etc) but it wasn't nearly as bad on a second pass. Besides crossroads to twilight (and quite a bit of Winters heart) being pretty awful, definitely still worth reading. Has a more or less satisfying ending at least with regards to the main plot, but really wish more would have been done to wrap up all of the other loose ends.

Would have loved to see a few follow up books sometime in the past or future with different characters, it's a shame Jordan died and there's pretty much no desire by his widow to have someone else write future books in his world

Red Army by Ralph Peters - The Soviet Union decides to invade Western Europe in 1988/1989. The book follows a collection of company/field-grade commanders of parachutists, tanks and fighter jets as they struggle during the three day blitzkrieg into Central Germany. In a neat twist, the story is told from the perspective of the Russians and it does a decent job of supplying the reader with characters we want to see survive, get home and get back to their lives. Written as hard fiction, the book has an abrupt end that defies the conventions of fiction in order to deliver a more realistic view of what could have been. 7/10

War in 2020 by Ralph Peters - A new Japanese empire invades the Soviet Union and a regiment of US heavy cavalry (equipped with helicopter gunships the like of which have never been seen before) is sent over as an expeditionary force to help the Russians. There's also roguish South Africans, a plague, KGB interrogations, magical computers and girls who smoke too many cigarettes. 8/10

Just picked up His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. Alternate history Napoleonic era with dragons. It is good...moves fast, and is entertaining. It gets a little feely at parts, and some of the physics are a bit tortured, but all in all, I would recommend it.

Have The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin in the hopper. Someone recommended it to me, and I'm looking forward to starting it.

What do you guys recommend? Finished the Dark Tower series. Game of Thrones is never going to complete. So I'm looking for a decent new series. I like sci-fi of course so I was leaning towards The Expanse series since I like the TV show, but I have always been more of a fantasy guy so I had a thought about Sanderson since I've never read any of his stuff.