What did you just read?

Intrinsic said:

Nona the Ninth - I still really don’t know what to make of this series, but in a good way. It is just so bizzare. There’s been so much time between my readings of Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth that little details are lost. Once again it took about 46% of the book for things to really click in place but when they did it was off to the races.

Tamsyn Muir can do the quirky meme stuff drapped over with Fantasy SciFi pretty well. Writing from the perspective of Nona, a 6-month old teenager, was pretty charming and cute at times. But she really writes the serious parts and the world building parts very well. The flashback/dream sequence parts with John were awesome.

I’d love to pick up the SubPress special editions of these and lock in rights to Alecto the Ninth. As well as pick up some of her other work and see how it compares. Floralinda and the Forty-Flight tower maybe.

Then I’ll definitely start my Malazan re-read, and finish more Black Library… and catch up on Sanderson. Oh and Laundry File book 7

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Little necro (pun intended), back after posting this I did get the Locked Tomb SubPress versions (along with Floralinda), but it was before Nona was published. The person who sold me the series ghosted me when Nona came out last year and it has taken months of trying to get in contact with them and the help of others in the SubPress community, but I finally received my book. Tried to be patient during the whole ordeal and am glad it is finally resolved. Not sure if I’ll get the rights to the next book transferred to me or not, just because of how difficult this process was. Just happy to get what I have.

After watching Spaceman I picked up the novel it was based on, Spaceman of Bohemia. The movie only covers 50% of the book. After the point at which the movie ends, where Jakub is rescued, the whole thing shifts to a more personal story of Jakub and his return home and how his experience in space has impacted him.

I won't say the book is bad, it isn't. I will say that it goes on and on and on by the end. Kalfar, the author, is obviously very much in love with his Country and does a good job of explaining some of the political turmoil, struggles, communism vs. capitalism, and the beauty of the whole region. But, it is all told from the perspective of Jakub who is, honestly, just a mopy depressed character. The Space stuff with Chopra and Hanusz was interesting from a science fiction perspective. It all comes off very similar to Solaris.

Some of the main differences from the film include an almost exclusive focus on his relationship with his wife, Lenka, and how he has treated her. This is certainly a part of the book, but not nearly to the same extent it is shown in the movie. And on film they have added a lot of actions of Jakub that make him come of as an extreme asshole. in the book he's just more career focused and impacted by the politics of his upbringing. I can understand why they did it in the movie, but it wasn't exactly a fair representation of his character.

Much of the first 50% is close to the movie from a space perspective, just with more detail. That big divergence in the middle is when he is rescued. In the movie it is by South Koreans who are also trying to investigate Chopra and racing the Czechs to get there. In the book he is rescued by a secret Russian space program that sent astronauts without the rest of the world's knowledge. Since this is a "secret" space program Jakub is told that he won't be able to ever go back to his family because then everyone would know of the Russian secrets. He'll be held political prisoner for the rest of his life. Some of the relationships between Jakub and the Russians are interesting, I won't go in to details but eventually he escapes them when their re-entry shuttle crashes in a field.

And then the book spends 40% of it focusing on the major plot point that was not included in the movie, adn taht is the whole backstory of his father being an interrogator for the Party, and how his Dad tortured a man that eventually comes back to Jakub's family and ruins his life and his grandparents. The "Shoe Man" as Jakub calls him, because his dad tortured him with electro shock shoes. Jakub's parents were killed in a gondola lift accident, likely politically assassinated b/c of the communist party relationships.

Its hard to go in to any more because I'm kind of tired just thinking of the whole thing. As a love letter or whatever to Czechoslovakia I guess I get it. And parts really were gorgeous and meaningful, impactful. It just drug way too far for me. Conversely, the other thing I could compare it to, rather than Solaris, would be something like Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Dreams series. His stuff is so Spanish Civil War and amazing period stories that are interesting, and really make you fall in love with the setting.

If you liked Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia and want something similar, I'm halfway through the third book of what I assume is a trilogy called Nocturnus, first book link here: Enemy Below (Nocturnus Book 1)

It is very similar in that there is a decent amount of focus on gun porn and military jargon and stuff like the discomfort of trying to sit with a plate carrier on, having everything in specific spots on your gear so muscle memory takes over during combat, etc. He even sort of jokingly refers to the fact that it is taken almost directly from MHI by the main character telling people that ask who they are that they are, "Monster Hunters Incorporated."

So far I'm calling them a solid 4 out of 5 stars, and most importantly I don't hate any of the main characters, which honestly is a huge deal for me lately. I have never read this author before, but according to Goodreads he has a fuckload of other books, many of which seem to be post-apocalyptic or alien invasion or similar. I'm going to guess that most of those have a decent focus on the gun/gear stuff too, but again, I haven't read them. If this book ends well though I will probably give some of his other books a try.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, this is probably self-published, as the final book I'm reading has way too fucking many wrong words in the wrong place issues. The first two books didn't have as many (that I noticed) but they were still there. This last one though, I swear I saw like five in one chapter. So if that triggers you, maybe reconsider.

I read The Croning this weekend.

I was really wanting a good old horror mystery. While I don't consider this book particularly amazing the premise itself was good. But it was written very strangely with all the time jumps. While simultaneously the main character, Don, is an elderly man when the current events of the book take place. But the author didn't really capture that because he still acted like an aloof hippy from the 50s despite being like 90. Either the author was not really aware what 50 years of time meant or just hand waved it away.

It also captures very poorly what being in these different decades mean. Dudes from the 1950s using the vernacular of the 2000's if off putting but you can suspend your disbelief on such things I guess. Story suffers from adding in disjointed tales meant to give more character to the story in various ways but it ends up just confusing the narrative as the tie ins aren't very good.

Essentially the book is about Don, a regular dude working as a geologist who ended up marrying a career academic woman. This woman is an anthropologist who has a lot of reknown in the academic circles researching uncontacted tribes and such around the world. One of her career long pet projects has been researching a fringe theory about the "Lost Tribe." This has put her in contact with many various circles of other fringe theory types ranging from total pariah tinfoil hat loonies, reclusive academics that haven't set foot in society in decades, and far out occultists. As these things go there is more to this Lost Tribe than it would seem. Poor old Don has just been along for the ride and mostly oblivious to what it all actually means.

I'm not sure where else to put this, so here it goes.

I just got a random Amazon email that book 22 of the Pendergast series is releasing this month. I *maybe* read the first 5 when they were originally released, way back in the day of physical books, and loved them. For whatever reason I never read any more, and now there are fucking 22 of them??

I would love to have a 22 book series to jump into, but if Pendergast is a tranny now or something I don't want to end up disappointed. Or if they just got boring or repetitive or whatever. Does anyone have any experience with the more recent ones?

Ukerric said:

There are 2 novellas too (which don't count in the 22)...

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How many have you read?

Ritley said:

Eh, I’m looking for something to read. I’ll give the first one a shot at least since it is on KU

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The first several, though hazy in time now, were amazing. They even made a movie about the first one, Relic. I'm concerned that they might turn to shit after that many books, like so many other series that go on that long tend to do.

Read Dead Sea by Tim Curran. While interesting in a Lovecraftian way the characters win the award for being complete retards.

Also extremely inconsistent as Curran very clearly spent zero time learning anything about maritime... well anything. Pissed me off when the ship clearly had functional radar enough to avoid Cthulhu but then that same working radar fails to notice a mundane boat stuck in there with them and they hit it like an iceberg.

Then, after seeing tons of wildass creatures that defy explanation they... decide to go fishing for food. Yuh. Great idea.

Void said:

The first several, though hazy in time now, were amazing. They even made a movie about the first one, Relic. I'm concerned that they might turn to shit after that many books, like so many other series that go on that long tend to do.

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I listened to about half of this on my road trip today and really enjoyed it so far. It was strange b/c I swear the narrator changed about 3 hours in and Pendergast's accent was different as well as a couple other characters. Kept remembering little things about the movie even though it has been 25 years. Will have to watch it again after finishing the book on the drive back.

That spoiler for the book version of The Ritual is

Anyone ever read the old Videssos series (Misplaced Legion, etc.)? Or Doomfarers/Starfollowers of Coramonde? Essentially "military unit gets displaced to a fantasy world and fucks shit up with modern (well, or Roman) weapons, tries to return home, learns to integrate with the natives, etc.

I just read the first two of a series like that, and I enjoyed it a lot, 4/5 stars. Next book comes out soon. Got a bit too into "main guy is Marvel Jesus" maybe by the end of the second one, but it is still really enjoyable. The combat unit is from 1989, so they still call each other retards, reference 80s movies and shows, etc. which is nice. And while the entire unit is male, obviously, and from reading more about the authors it is clear they are very far from being woke, they did a good job of having a bunch of native female "Amazons" integrate into the unit and hold their own without being girl bosses who are better at everything. They are basically just another soldier, which is how it should be.

It isn't gonna blow you away maybe, but if you like that sort of thing you could do worse. This is the first one:

One of the authors has another series with 20+ books about a future sci-fi military unit called Legionnaires that is pretty much yet another version of these stories, just without the displaced thing. I read somewhere that they sort of wanted it to be sort of like a story about the Stormtroopers from the Empire, except they are actually good at their jobs, and just like Stormtroopers would if they had a brain they start to do the whole, "Are we the baddies?" thing later in the books (supposedly). I read the first one, and it was decent. Both series have a ton of military jargon/slang, and tons of "Hooah!" so if that bothers you, avoid.

I really need to reread Videssos and Coramonde too, I remember loving those. I think Coramonde actually went into Hell and fought the devil or some shit, if memory serves me right.