Books

Just started the audiobook for Dungeon Crawler Carl a few days ago. Love the narration. Genre is LitRPG, which I understand to mean you're reading about someone playing a game, as I understand it. So it's not literature, but it is fun.

I feel like the pitch meeting or whatever inspired him to write this book went like this:

Teacher/Instructor: Write what you know

Matt Dinniman: I don't know shit. All I'm good at is, I've beaten NetHack over 37 times!

Teacher/Instructor: Well write about that then...

...and he did.

I'm not sure if there's a closer game than NetHack (or Hack or Rogue) that the game part of DCC would be about. Obviously the end-of-the-world stuff is tacked on, and the achievements and loot boxes make it modern, but the core gameplay seems to be taken from NetHack. And if you've ever played that damned game, you know how hard it is and how rare wins actually are. But we're not here to talk about games, so I won't get into what it is.

I'm on the latest Murderbot book Platform Decay. I love the series.

I’m between Murderbot (Martha Wells) books at the moment.

I’m listening to Theo of Golden through Libby. It’s not changing my world but it pretty wholesome.

I recent finished Dungeon Crawler Carl and I’m looking forward to starting the second in the series.

The Waste Lands book 3 of The Dark Tower by Stephen King

Audiobook The Witcher: Blood and Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski

Finished the fourth book in the 'Children of Time' series.

'Children of Strife' by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Book covers three different eras of human space exploration. Tchaikovsky writes like a cross between Terry Pratchett and Arthur C. Clarke. Whimsy and humor slamming into hard science at the speed of light.

Classic = "The Silver Metal Lover" by Tanith Lee. In the future, robots are absolutely perfect. Too perfect. Way, way too perfect.

Just re-read V for Vendetta. Depressingly familiar. Need to rewatch the movie.

Now rereading Blood Child by Octavia Butler. I normally hate short stories, but Butler is an exception.

I just finished Automatic Noodle, Annalee Newitz, which was pretty okay. The themes about trans and marginalized groups rights were well done with the robot analog. Unfortunately I thought the dialogue was cringey at times and I never resonated with any of the characters. I enjoyed the setting and world building, but the length and rushed pace of the piece compounded my negative feelings.

Currently reading A Parade of Horribles, Matt Dinniman, which I'm enjoying but feel like the zaniness is maybe getting out of hand? Well see, only a quarter in.

Just over 6 hours into Children of Dune. I read through the series when I was 10 years younger, but always skipped this one. At the time I just didn't have this book though I had the rest. I like it so far; lots of the same overall concepts coming over from Messiah. I had an idea of what took place in this book, but I'm really enjoying the subtlety here even more than the previous 2 books.

finished Ask for Andrea and The Alchemist's Secret, and started Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. Seems like this is another banger book. Will probably give it a 4.5 or 5 out of 5. Up next: piranesi by susanna clarke.

I just started reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. I've only read the first chapter.

I'm also reading the Collected Ficions by Jorge Luis Borges. I've only read a few but I'm enjoying them.

I just read "Brightly Shining" by Ingvild H. Rishøi. I suppose its more suited to read in wintertime, but it's such a good book.

Alcoholism is a theme, just fyi.

I discovered it via Dua Lipa's Book Club, which imo is worth checking out.

Service 95 Book Club

I’m working my way through “The Children of the Jedi” by Barbara Hambly, one of the less enjoyable books actually so far, I think it’s just the author. They’ve introduced some characters and ideas as stuff you should already know. Seems like they wanted to flesh those stories out later?

After I’m reading another collection in the same theme as the last, it’s still Asimovs “wonderful worlds of science fiction”, but instead of empires this one is Spaceships.

bouncing back and forth between a family read of Treasure Island and Debt: The First 5000 Years.

I am coming towards the end of the fifth book in the Lee Harden series of books. It is a decent continuation of the story and I don't regret delving into it but that damn dog had me choked up again in this fucking book! XD

Stories of your Life by Ted Chiang

I am listening to the audio book and it is very good. The story is really good and the narrator is excellent.

I am currently doing a book club with my 10 year old daughter. The last time I posted in one of these I was on the first book of Percy Jackson.

We are now on book 2 of the series (Sea of Monsters).

It's been so much fun. I am really having a blast.

Just finished The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan. Currently reading Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft and just started My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney.

I am still working my way through same book/audiobook as last week

The Butchers Masquerade and Queens of the Crusades. Hope to finish both soon and then straight into the next book in each series. The eye of the bedlam bride and queens of the age of chivalry. Looking forwads to both

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds. Seems a witty, post-everything far-future space opera with visually-distinct alienoid characters, through there’s still plenty of page space left for it to tank. We’ll see.

The Suicide Murders by Howard Engel, the first book of his Benny Cooperman series. It's almost a parody of the private detective genre which may or may not have been the author's intent. The cover art isn't much, but I've concluded it's an African tribal sculpture, normally posing as office artwork, but also sturdy enough to bash in the skull of a crooked psychiatrist on page 60, so I've scored it in the weapon on the cover category hard mode.

A Parade of Horribles - dungeon crawler carl. Also Ground State - expeditionary force.

I've been waiting for Faith of Beasts to come onto LibroFM since it released, but it isn't available to buy there till July 13th. I might just... acquire... it through other means, same as any other audible exclusive.

The books I'm reading are what I'd expect from them so far. Reccomend Dungeon Crawler Carl, much less so Expeditionary Force.

Just finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

There was only one cringey moment I can remember:

Idk it just seems a bit shoved in there.

Otherwise I liked it a lot :)

I finished the first six of The Expanse recently. Had a buddy suggest that the next three can kind of stand alone from the first six, and with the direction book six and the series went, I decided to put the rest on hold.

I had previously read the first three books in The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie, and I was craving his style a bit, so I'm on to Best Served Cold, and it's exactly how I expected it to be. So it's not new and exciting, but the style is very much the same as the first three, the story is interesting, and while it feels a bit like a rehashing, I'm cool with it.

Still working through Catalyst Engine by Megan E. O’Keefe. I love that each book has a weird twist that I didn’t see coming.

Heard from a friend who read Project Hail Mary on my recommendation. They aren’t a scifi reader but really enjoyed it and plan to watch the movie.

I'm a little way into The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell. Not sure how I feel about it yet.

Finished Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris (dark academia mystery thriller): someone seeks revenge on a British boys' school; chapters alternate between the antagonist and the school's retirement-aged Latin teacher. I liked it enough to put the sequel on my TBR, but I stand by my previous comment that it could stand to be juuuuust a bit shorter.

I'm going through all the John Gilstrap novels

Recently finished listening to Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. Currently working through The Hitchhiker's Guide series.

Reading (very occasionally) The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson (a book of short stories related to his Mars series).

I am about halfway through Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence by Judith Herman.

Half way through Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky. (Audiobook on Spotify)