Books Read 2020

Everything else!

Moderators: Bakhtosh, EvilHomer3k

Post Reply
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

Rumpy wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:35 pm I miss the days when most books were standalone. I feel these days everything feels the need to be a part of a series.
this is mostly the case with genre fiction. also these authors feel compelled to do it as a trilogy, which usually leads to bad pacing (a first book with too much setup and exposition, a second book that is just killing time/treading water and a third book that is overstuffed and rushed to the end)
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12674
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Rumpy »

Well, in certain cases the first book is completely standalone and then receives a sequel, and then another. And then there's trying to read a series like Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series which is like 20 books long. I loved what I'd read from those, but had to give up when neither the library or the bookstore carried many of them, and that was before the advent of the e-reader.
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
User avatar
Archinerd
Posts: 6837
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:18 am
Location: Shikaakwa

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Archinerd »

hitbyambulance wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:23 pm (the other one, the Ancillary something by Ann Leckie, i got to page 60-ish and decided i had no interest in getting to the end of this one, let alone three more books)
I read those and generally liked them, but the first was the best. If that didn't hook you then you saved yourself some time.
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

Rumpy wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:44 pm Well, in certain cases the first book is completely standalone and then receives a sequel, and then another.
with those, my mindset is there are no sequels and i can leave it.
User avatar
Archinerd
Posts: 6837
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:18 am
Location: Shikaakwa

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Archinerd »

Dust by Elizabeth Bear.
I enoyed the first third of the book, but then felt like the story kind of just railroaded (almost literally in the final chapters) to a more or less obvious conclussion. Sometimes a simple plot can be elevated in how well it's told though, and this just didnt' do it for me. I think part of the problem is how the book handles it's secondary characters, they get introduced but never really develop as anything beyond a cardboard cut out. And in some cases, they just drop out of the story and never reappear. Come to think of it, it's not just the characters that suffer from this problem, the world building is a bit like this too. I think the author is intentionally trying to be ambiguous on some of the details, but there don't seem to be enough clues to piece together to get any real idea of why things are the way they are. As a result, the main conflict and power struggle just seems contrived.

By the time I realized I didn't like the book though, I was nearly done so I just powered through.

Now I'm going to cleanse my palatte and re-read Dune.
User avatar
stessier
Posts: 29818
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:30 pm
Location: SC

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by stessier »

disarm wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:04 pm
stessier wrote:I'm almost done Book 3 of the Expanse series. I think I started the first one around April and I'm really enjoying them. Would highly recommend.
Just wait...next book is an interesting deviation from the norm, then the story really takes off in amazing directions for the rest. It's one hell of a ride.
I'm thinking you were off by a book on your "the next book is an interesting deviation".

Book 4 was Cibola Burn - the story of Illus. I've just started Book 5 - Nemesis Games - and 11% into the book,
Spoiler:
Holden's whole crew has left for other personal missions while the Roci is under repairs.
This seems like it will be different.
I require a reminder as to why raining arcane destruction is not an appropriate response to all of life's indignities. - Vaarsuvius
Global Steam Wishmaslist Tracking
Running____2014: 1300.55 miles____2015: 2036.13 miles____2016: 1012.75 miles____2017: 1105.82 miles____2018: 1318.91 miles__2019: 2000.00 miles
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

the local library summer book reading bingo ends in seven days, and i'm going for 'blackout' for the first time this year - one gets entered in the extra prize drawing if one can complete that.

https://www.spl.org/programs-and-servic ... book-bingo

finished one book last night and i still have five more to go - i'm at least halfway through all of them (and one is a graphic novel) so it's doable, but a very tight deadline as of now. won't be going for blackout next year, as it's just too much reading to cram into three months - just a few 'bingos' will suffice, as usual.
Jaddison
Posts: 1191
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 4:24 pm

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Jaddison »

For those who have watched Picard, I just finished listening to https://smile.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Pica ... 248&sr=8-2 Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope.

Actually I listened to it and it was a very good listen. Gives all the background of what happened during the Romulan rescue effort and how it all fell apart. Still have a hard time thinking that logistically even Star Fleet could have pulled off the evacuation of all the worlds they needed to evacuate. The sheer scale of the number of people and then to put them someplace else and have infrastructure in place to support seems impossible even for Picard.
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

Book Bingo 2020 finished...

Image

not going for full blackout next year, that was a bit too much reading.
User avatar
El Guapo
Posts: 41247
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by El Guapo »

Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric, by Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann

Another book in my corporate misconduct series this year. This just came out a month or two ago. It's by a couple of WSJ reporters who have been focused on GE, and it's about GE's decline over the past decade or two. It's a pretty interesting story, about how Jack Welch built up this mythology around GE as this legendary American company built on ubermensch managers who knew better than everyone else and could just run things better. When a lot of the reality was that there was a non-trivial amount built around questionable accounting and using GE Capital's access to cheap money to smooth out earnings as needed to hit targets. Then the transition to Immelt, who had his own issues (and top-down management structure), but who (in part because of the financial crisis) decided to wean GE off of GE Capital, which presented its own issues. With then a lot coming to a head over the past few years.

Pretty interesting stuff for anyone who's interested in corporate culture and corporate misconduct.
Black Lives Matter.
User avatar
El Guapo
Posts: 41247
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by El Guapo »

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein.

This is about how, despite the widespread myth that segregation evolved mostly naturally (with the federal government declining to intervene until fairly recently), the reality is that segregation in the U.S. became so extreme specifically because it was actively encouraged and set up that way by federal, state, and local governments. It's pretty exhaustive and pretty important. The writing of the book honestly isn't great - it reads more like a legal brief than a history book, and it's a bit of a slog at times, but it's an important corrective to the notion that the current state of our cities is naturally occurring.
Black Lives Matter.
EvaaWill89
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2020 4:23 am
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by EvaaWill89 »

1) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2) Gargantua and Pantagruel. F. Rabelais
3) Fantastic night. Stefan Zweig
Yes, I read a few books this year, because I had too little free time to read :cry:
User avatar
Jaymann
Posts: 19324
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 7:13 pm
Location: California

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Jaymann »

EvaaWill89 wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 4:39 am 1) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2) Gargantua and Pantagruel. F. Rabelais
3) Fantastic night. Stefan Zweig
Yes, I read a few books this year, because I had too little free time to read :cry:
Have you read The Royal Game by Zweig? IMO the best chess novel ever written.
Jaymann
]==(:::::::::::::>
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Scuzz
Posts: 10901
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:31 pm
Location: The Arm Pit of California

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Scuzz »

Krakatoa by Simon Winchester

Winchester gives you a history of Krakatoa and the region. Both geologic and social. He explains what makes volcanoes tick and why that reqion of the Pacific has so many of them. The explosion/eruption of Krakatoa was the loudest and largest explosion on earth, and at least of something that originated here. I don't recall Winchester addressing things like large meteor impacts.

Winchester also discusses how the eruption effected the rest of the globe, lowering temperatures for several years. How sound waves from the explosion circled the globe at least 7 measurable times and how the recent advances in technology made the news of the event more global.

An interesting book on an interesting subject. And with the California wildfires effecting my part of the world makes me realize how terrible having the sky darken for weeks must have truly been.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82094
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Isgrimnur »

It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Scuzz
Posts: 10901
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:31 pm
Location: The Arm Pit of California

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Scuzz »

Second Wind by Dick Francis

I have read several Dick Francis novels. To date all were murder mysteries solved by someone who just happened to get involved. Well, this book is like that except that it is less murder mystery and more espionage story. It is a quick read, I read it in 3 days which is quick for me, and has an interesting main character. It does have a few of those logic missing moments that almost every book in this genre has, and as in most Francis books there is a tie in with horse racing, although not much of one.

Surely not a must buy or read, but if you see it in a used book store, as I did, probably worth the $1.00
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Hipolito
Posts: 2187
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:00 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Hipolito »

Image

The Cipher by Kathe Koja (ebook, LibraryThing Early Review): This acclaimed 1991 horror novel is now being digitally republished. It's about an impoverished, nihilistic boyfriend and girlfriend and their obsession with a black, slimy, pulsating hole in the floor that leads ... somewhere? Their lives and mental states, already shabby to begin with, deteriorate while they experiment with the "Funhole" and attract a group of pretentious artists and sycophants.

I enjoyed the bleak prose, fierce characters, and sparing but razor-edged dialogue. The book is great at using the Funhole as an analogy of nihilism, but it does so too much. I would have preferred a shorter, more concise story with about half the navel-gazing. (Yes, I know that "navel-gazing" is the whole point of a book about people obsessed with a hole. Just shut up.) And I felt cheated by the ending, though I guess it was a good example of nihilism too, whee.

Rating: 5 out of 8 cans of cheap beer.
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

https://time.com/collection/100-best-fantasy-books/

...how is it that, in this particular list, 42 of the '100 greatest fantasy novels ever' came out in just the past decade (and 27 of those in the past five years)? methinks there is a recency bias going on here. like, i just finished Erin Morgenstern's _The Night Circus_ and it had some serious structural problems, including the usual 'magic can do anything except what the plot requires that it can't do'.


EDIT: ah...
According to Time, the original nomination shortlist had 250 books on it and this was whittled down by Time’s editors based on key factors: originality, ambition, artistry, critical and popular reception, and “influence on the fantasy genre and literature more broadly.” Which is fine, but it does seem to remove the point of the panel in the first place, if Time’s editors chose to then edit the list by criteria that seem nebulous at best and self-contradictory at worst.

The resulting list certainly is not terrible, but it is strange and doesn’t seem to fulfil the remit indicated by the title. It has a very heavy recency bias: two of the books were published this year (one in August, about eight weeks ago), a further twenty-four since 2015 and fifty-one in total since the turn of the century. This recency bias – which by its nature omits vast swathes of acknowledged classics of decades or centuries of standing in preference to the newest, shiniest flavour-of-the-month – makes one wonder why the panel didn’t put together a list of “The 100 Greatest Works of Fantasy of the 21st Century (so far).” The list would immediately become vastly more credible, and indeed, would be enhanced with the addition of forty-nine more books from this century.
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/1 ... ntasy.html
User avatar
Jaymann
Posts: 19324
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 7:13 pm
Location: California

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Jaymann »

And now for something completely different...

Image

Taking a break from my usual sci-fi/fantasy diet, I checked this out. Stone tells the tale of his transformation from a grunt in Vietnam to winning the Oscar for Platoon. He also delves heavily into the making of Salvador. I'm a big fan of James Woods, so I sought it out. Also with Jim Belushi, it is entertaining, but as Stone admits, not "great."

A lot of the focus is on the brutal Hollywood scene, with nail-biting pressure from producers and the money guys. There is some content on Midnight Express and Scarface but if you're looking for later stuff like JFK, look elsewhere.

6/8 Tentacles.
Jaymann
]==(:::::::::::::>
Black Lives Matter
Jeff V
Posts: 36414
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Nowhere you want to be.

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Jeff V »

Beast Heart by Kyle Richardson (K) :binky: :binky: :binky: :binky:

The problem with a telegraphed trilogy is nothing is resolved, so any review will be as incomplete as the story. I do wish that as a setup book, there was more thought given to establishing the premise. A girl has a cloud of steam for a hand (how is that even possible?), a boy has monster morphing inside of him. Too much is just thrown out there as if it was logical to the characters. Well, a lot is not logical to the reader, so some narration should compensate.

There are no likeable or sympathetic characters, although the boy tries to be.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

i've been kinda recommending Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland (with the accompanying novella Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist) as it went somewhere i totally didn't expect for a novel written in 1798. and a plot twist that was pulled off cleverly and didn't feel cheap. the suspense was getting too stressful - to the point where i dreaded to return to it - but the payoff was well executed. the writing is very good. i think my main complaint is that i never got a good sense of the main character writing these epistolary entries. what was unexpected is that the whole allegory part is about the fallibility of human reasoning and as a consequence, democracy... so somehow relevant two hundred and twenty-two years later.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82094
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Isgrimnur »

This Is How You Lose the Time War

Two agents on opposite sides of the Time War start a correspondence through the battlefields and machinations of their respective overseers. But then, the letters reveal more than just the thought of the enemy, and their relationship will change things forever.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

i'll just list (most of) everything i've read this year so far

William Gibson - The Peripheral
Brian Jacques - Redwall
Stephen King - The Colorado Kid
Hiromi Kawakami - Parade
Oscar Wilde - The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Sandra Cisneros - The House on Mango Street
Anonymous - The Song of Roland
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men / Cannery Row
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Notes from Underground
Raymond Carver - Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories
Raymond Carver - A New Path to the Waterfall: Last Poems
Sharon Draper - Out of my Mind
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet
Lawrence Ferlinghetti - A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems
Kim Gordon - Girl in a Band
Ocean Vuong - Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Haruki Murakami - Blind Willow Sleeping Woman [accidental re-read]
Ambrose Bierce - Ghost and Horror Stories
Peter S. Beagle - Lila the Werewolf
James Joyce - Ulysses
Elizabeth George Speare - The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Rudyard Kipling - Just-So Stories
Elias Lönnrot, Anonymous - The Kalevala
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - The Sorrows of Young Werther
Emmuska Orczy - The Scarlet Pimpernel
Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone - This Is How You Lose the Time War
Samuel R. “Chip” Delaney - Tales of Nevèrÿon
Akiko Yosano - Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami
Anonymous - I Ching, The Book of Changes [Blofeld translation]
Dodie Smith - The 101 Dalmatians
Osamu Dazai - The Setting Sun
U.R. Anantha Murthy - Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man
Betty Smith - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Kathleen Collins - Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?
Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus
Mark Leyner - Gone With the Mind
Thomas Thwaites - The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Appliance from Scratch
Mark Kurlansky - Salt: A World History
Ali Almossawi - An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments
Christopher Kul-Want and Andrzej Klimowski - Introducing Kant
Alan Watts - Nothingness
Kodwo Eshun - More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction
Laurence Gane and Kitty Chan - Introducing Nietzsche
Charles Brockden Brown - Wieland / Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist

Currently:
Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception / Heaven & Hell
John Anthony West, Jan Gerhard Toonder - The Case for Astrology
Beverly Cleary - Emily's Runaway Imagination [another accidental re-read. Ms. Cleary is still alive at the age of 104]
and currently skimming Vitruvius _The Ten Books on Architecture_, but it won't be a proper cover-to-cover 'reading'

by the time this year is out, i'll have averaged about a book a week. too much reading. need to actually make things now...
User avatar
El Guapo
Posts: 41247
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by El Guapo »

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The Illustrated Edition.

Another indie fantasy book that no one here has probably heard of. I'd never read a Harry Potter book, and this version is pretty, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Pretty entertaining. I'd seen the movie, so not any big shocks here, but still pretty well done.
Black Lives Matter.
User avatar
NickAragua
Posts: 6100
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by NickAragua »

El Guapo wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:15 pm Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The Illustrated Edition.

Another indie fantasy book that no one here has probably heard of. I'd never read a Harry Potter book, and this version is pretty, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Pretty entertaining. I'd seen the movie, so not any big shocks here, but still pretty well done.
I read the first four to Roz, and we're now on the fifth one, except she's now decided she doesn't want me to read to her any more and can read on her own. :cry:

It does occur to me, though, that they don't seem to have actual school subjects at Hogwarts. Like, math, writing, history etc. I mean, I get it, you can just magic up whatever you want, so you probably don't need any of that abstract theory stuff, but still.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12674
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Rumpy »

Well, it is a wizarding school afterall :P
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
User avatar
Scuzz
Posts: 10901
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:31 pm
Location: The Arm Pit of California

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Scuzz »

NickAragua wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:49 pm
El Guapo wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:15 pm Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The Illustrated Edition.

Another indie fantasy book that no one here has probably heard of. I'd never read a Harry Potter book, and this version is pretty, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Pretty entertaining. I'd seen the movie, so not any big shocks here, but still pretty well done.
I read the first four to Roz, and we're now on the fifth one, except she's now decided she doesn't want me to read to her any more and can read on her own. :cry:
That is what happened with me and my oldest daughter. I ended up reading the last few books to myself because she was reading them to herself. Of course that was when the books were actually new and still coming out.
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
El Guapo
Posts: 41247
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by El Guapo »

Rumpy wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 1:04 pm Well, it is a wizarding school afterall :P
But like...don't wizards also need basic academic skills as well? How does the Ministry of Magic set a budget? Budgetus Balancus?
Black Lives Matter.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82094
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Isgrimnur »

Goblins
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12674
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Rumpy »

That's right. They have goblins :D
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
User avatar
El Guapo
Posts: 41247
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by El Guapo »

Rumpy wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 3:41 pm That's right. They have goblins :D
aka fantasy Jews.
Black Lives Matter.
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12674
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Rumpy »

I'm not touching that one.
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
User avatar
El Guapo
Posts: 41247
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by El Guapo »

Rumpy wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 6:39 pm I'm not touching that one.
FWIW I was thinking in part about this, although I did raise an eyebrow a bit when reading Sorcerer's Stone about a separate race of people being the bankers.
Black Lives Matter.
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12674
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Rumpy »

Well, I would think that anything in a fantasy world is game, no? I mean, it's an author's creation of a wizarding world where theoretically it would operate differently. And no, I don't really see the parallel.
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by hitbyambulance »

i was dismayed to find that what i thought was the prequel 'novella' to Wieland was actually an unfinished novel (and i didn't find out until the TO BE CONTINUED on the final page)
User avatar
freelunch
Posts: 1413
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:49 am
Location: Cairns, Australia
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by freelunch »

I mostly read romance so as a rule I don't post reviews here, but I figure there's gotta be a couple of people who might be interested, and this one is something special so...
Where anticipation and fantasy can take you...

What to say about this book...?

Hard to believe this is the author's first full-length novel. It tells of Lisa and Davis, a happily married couple who invite a third person into their relationship as fulfilment of a shared fantasy.

Sounds like a porn plot, right? Patrick Khayler does an amazing job bringing his protagonists to life. The love between Davis and Lisa "leaps off the page", especially in light of Becky's less fortunate romantic history. And the eroticism is out of this world. I've read my share of erotic romance, but never as well done as this.

So ignore the slightly cheesy cover, this isn't one of *those* books. Or it is, but it is so much more. Do yourself a huge favour and check it out. You'll be glad you did. Very, very highly recommended!

Six out of five stars
This is Patrick Khayler's first full-length novel and he knocked it out of the park.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/336 ... he-present
Books I finished in: 2022 | 2021 | 2020

Scrobbling at last.fm
User avatar
Hipolito
Posts: 2187
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:00 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Hipolito »

Image

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente (audiobook): This is a comedic sci-fi book inspired by Douglas Adams's The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Its protagonist is "a leggy psychelic ambidextrous omnisexual gendersplat glitterpunch financially punch-drunk ethnically ambitious glamrock messiah by the name of Danesh Jalo." He and his former bandmate are forced to represent the human race in an intergalactic singing competition. And if they place last, humanity will be exterminated for not being sentient enough.

This book describes alien races with zany, imaginative humor. My favorite is the Voorpret, a zombie plague that is given full rights as a sentient species because their shambling corpses actually have a gentrifying effect on nearby planets.

The singing competition has the glamorous atmosphere of American Idol and Eurovision Song Contest. (Each chapter is named after a Eurovision song.) I enjoyed reading about how the competition came to be and how previous years' competitions (before humanity's entrance) went. But in one phase of the competition, the "semi-finals," it's legal for competitors to incapacitate or even murder each other. That just seems wrong and I wasn't a fan of it.

Some parts of the book read like a rock travelogue and others feature interesting discussions on what makes a species sentient. But, like the Hitchhiker sequels, this book has a tendency to add layer upon layer of wackiness at the expense of stronger characters and themes.

The audiobook narrator sounds like Eric Idle and enunciates with great clarity. He lends much personality to the diverse characters and even sings the occasional verse. But the prose is still hard to follow because of its long chains of adjectives and analogies.

Rating: 4 out of 8 alien flamingos
User avatar
Smoove_B
Posts: 54567
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:58 am
Location: Kaer Morhen

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Smoove_B »

I don't normally comment, but if you're into serial killers, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan is a must-read. I'd never heard of this guy and what he did and how he did it is on a whole new level.
Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. The names of notorious serial killers are usually well-known; they echo in the news and in public consciousness. But most people have never heard of Israel Keyes, one of the most ambitious and terrifying serial killers in modern history. The FBI considered his behavior unprecedented. Described by a prosecutor as "a force of pure evil," Keyes was a predator who struck all over the United States. He buried "kill kits"--cash, weapons, and body-disposal tools--in remote locations across the country. Over the course of fourteen years, Keyes would fly to a city, rent a car, and drive thousands of miles in order to use his kits. He would break into a stranger's house, abduct his victims in broad daylight, and kill and dispose of them in mere hours. And then he would return home to Alaska, resuming life as a quiet, reliable construction worker devoted to his only daughter.
Would definitely recommend (if it's your thing).
Maybe next year, maybe no go
User avatar
Kasey Chang
Posts: 20750
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:20 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
Contact:

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by Kasey Chang »

I am on a non-fic binge as I'm trying to learn Agile and SCRUM, mainly for grins, and a lot of business system thinking, mental models, and such.
My game FAQs | Playing: She Will Punish Them, Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, The Outer Worlds
xenocide
Posts: 307
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 4:15 am

Re: Books Read 2020

Post by xenocide »

Some highlights after a long time no posting.

Swords of Exodus: Dead Six Books 2 and 3 by Larry Correia & Mike Kupari - This wraps up the Dead Six series. Takes place in a near future Earth. Mercs, thieves, heists, criminal organizations, secret government organizations, and being Larry Correia plenty of guns and people getting shot. No supernatural elements (I only mention this as Correia also writes sci-fi/fantasy and I've read reviews where people said they kept waiting for the supernatural element to appear). I like this series, two good main characters that interact well (they don't always get along). Generally follows a format of a chapter of POV from one of the main characters, then the other. I believe one author wrote all of the POVs of one main character and the other author wrote the 2nd.

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner - Tells the story of John Carmack and John Romero and how they built their company and wrote DOOM and QUAKE. I wasn't sure what to expect from this but it was really good. Narrated by Wil Wheaton

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - This is kind of a hard one to describe. A far future, sci-fi/fantasy mix. Necromancers, swordplay, mystery. I found this good not great. I mention it because I had seen rave reviews and read it touted in a lot of places as one of the best of the year (2019). So while good, for me it was not quite as good as the hype I had seen.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford - What's it about? See the title. I don't read a lot of non-fiction but this was a good one. Learned a lot I didn't know about the man and his empire.

Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert - Dune (the original) is my favorite novel of all time. I've read it 5 or 6 times I think (3 or 4 physical, 2 audible(see my previous audible review, my favorite narration ever as well)). Read it for the first time 15 years ago. All that said, I have a confession; I've never read any of the follow ups. I have started Messiah several times but it never grabbed me. So I'm finally making my way through the series. Messiah was a challenge, it is the weakest so far. Children was quite good. I also liked Emperor, but not as much as Children. For me none of them are as good as the original, but I will be the first to admit I am probably too biased at this point to make a truly fair comparison. I'm curious about how I will feel about the entire series once I have finished the last two (doubtful I will get into the expanded Brian Herbert novels).

Oathbringer: The Stormlight Archive Book 3 by Brandon Sanderson - Sanderson's big epic. Book 4 was just released a couple days ago. I have read most of Sanderson's stuff at this point. I had to work for this one a little. Took me a long time to read it, it didn't call to me to sit down and read so I had long stretches where I would not read. Now, the ending was great. Once I got to the last 200 pages I was reading full tilt. However, the 1000 pages leading up to the last 200 were just ok.
Spoiler:
It was one boring chapter of Dalinar, followed by a frustrating Kalidin chapter dealing with the same issues from the first two books, followed by a frustrating Shallan chapter dealing with mental health issues similar to Kaladin, over and over and over. I felt like having Shallan and Kaladin both dealing with mental health issues that could at times get frustrating to read about didn't work. Now, that type of frustration for the reader can work great in a novel, but here I think it needed to be broken up with other emotions. Kaladin has had the same arc for 3 books now so it got repetitive (even with the change of Dalinar saving Kaladin in the end rather then the other way around, it just was too far towards the back). Then I would get similarly frustrated with Shallan. Yes her characters problem is different than Kaladin's, but my reader emotion was the same. So I had frustration on top of frustration with no break because even when a Dalinar chapter came nothing happened in those chapters. I also remember really enjoying reading Adolin's chapters in the previous books but not so much in book 3.
This is easily the weakest in the series, I hope 4 is back up to 1 and 2. My personal ranking of Sanderson's books starting with my favorite: Elantris, Way of Kings, First 3 Mistborn, most of his other books, then Oathbringer, some of his others, Calamity is the worst. I'm not going to lie, I am a little down on Sanderson. I like almost all of his older books more then the newer ones. Stormlight 1>2>3. Mistborn original trilogy>second trilogy. Reckoners 1>2>>>3. Legion 1>>2 (Haven't read 3). Skyward and Starsight are pretty good, prob equal to Steelheart; although Rithmatist is my favorite YA from him. So I'm hoping he can buck the trend with Rhythm of War and get back that loving feeling.

Stiger’s Tigers: Chronicles of An Imperial Legionary Officer Book 1 by Marc Alan Edelheit - Low magic (so far) fantasy about a Roman legion style captain leading his troops. An Imperial legion along with some elves, dwarves, holy paladins, and evil gods. This was just a really fun read. Is it the "best" novel I've read this year? Maybe not. Is is one of my favorite, most fun novels I've read this year? Yes

Lastly litRPG:

Opening Moves: The Gam3 Book 1-3 by Cosimo Yap - A sci-fi litRPG. A complete trilogy that wraps up the story(rare in this genre) while leaving the possibility for more. Quite good. I read all 3 in quick succession, when I finished one I wanted to go right into the next. Always a good sign.

Reborn Apocalypse Book 1 & 2 by L.M. Kerr - A litRPG with some Wuxia elements that takes place modern day in a unique world. This is only the start of a longer series (book 3 not out yet) but it is off to a great start, I really liked these a lot. If 3 and 4 are more of the same it could be one of my new favorites.

A Thousand Li: A Xianxia Cultivation Series Book 1-4 by Tao Wong - Think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but up the fantasy elements (spirit beasts and the like). Lots of cultivation (drawing chi or some similar energy from the world into yourself if you are unfamiliar), lots of swordplay. I loved these, they are already some of my favorites of the genre. So much so that I now have a bunch of other cultivation/wuxia/xianxia novels on my wish list ready to go.
Post Reply