I found 2312 somewhat meandering. It was a lot more character focused rather than plot focused. Not necessarily bad, but if you’re after more Expanse-esque action, be forewarned.
I’ve been giving Steven Erikson’s “Malazan Book of the Fallen” series a re-read. Its the kind of series where the world is revealed through plot rather than directly explaining things to you. So I’m actually getting a lot out of the second pass because I understand what the hell is going on.
As fantasy worlds go, it’s fairly unique setting with non-standard races and a pretty neat magic/religion system. It also has a great moral grayness as in every conflict in the book, characters on both sides are followed and their motivations explored. If you liked the Chronicles of the Black Company, you’ll like Malazan.
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Damn. Blindsight had so many juicy premises and concepts rolling at once. I loved it.
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Currently, the latest Novel of The Craft Sequence, The Ruin of Angels. Bloody good stuff - who doesn’t love a world where wizards and witches are supernatural lawyers with knives of lightning, email is a literal nightmare, cop uniforms are faceless quicksilver hiveminds that users get addicted to like a drug, Airlines are dragons, and your boss is a deadly, deathless litch who personally handles HR issues with caring and compassion.
Malazan is one of those books where the forum would absolutely loose its shit over till that one scene. But yeah its amazing. Has ruined most other fantasy books for me as it sets such a high measuring stick.
Have you read he Forge of Darkness? That is some heavy stuff. The truest form of a tradgedy.
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RPG reading lately.
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Romance Trilogy by Emily Care Boss. These are interesting, but I don’t think think I’d ever run them. Breaking the Ice plays out three first dates between a new couple; sounds cute. Shooting the Moon plays out a competition between two Suitors for the attention of the Beloved; I’ve played this and had a good time. Under My Skin is an Nordic-style freeform larp about messiness when romantic interests shift among a group of friends.
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Monsterhears 2 by Avery Alder. We’re playing this soon. The messy lives of teenage monsters as metaphor for queerness—but also as literal monsters.
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Torchbearer by Thor Olavsrud & Luke Crane. Different group, but we’re playing this soon, too. This is a reread in anticipation of using the rules to the fullest to not die in a dungeon.
Amp, I am now wondering what you consider to be “That One Scene.”?
Also, I have not read Forge of Darkness. Thank you for the recommendation.
In Dust of Dreams. I mean the whole series has some rough bits but that is the part that everyone acknowledges as the hardest.
Forge of Darkness is good but you need to be in a good place if your going to read it.
Just finished John Green’s new book Turtles All The Way Down. Wow.
I finished The Golem and the Jinni last night by Helene Wecker. This was an excellent book that definitely reminded me tonally of the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Also, I was surprised to find out that this was Wecker’s first novel, and I’m definitely going to be on the lookout for future books of hers.
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Kavalier and Clay is my #1 book, so I’ll check this out.
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I have never ranked all the books I’ve read, but K&C is definitely in my top 10 easily, if not top 5. I should really reread it. Hopefully you’ll also enjoy the Golem and the Jinni.
Having grown up with a pretty strong Jewish education, I know so very little about Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah. I found those aspects to be particularly interesting and might seek out more stories involving them. Up until this book, I always thought that most of the other major religions had much more fantastical and mystical elements and never really looked into Jewish mysticism.
It’s also a super-New-York book, so you’ll probably get a lot out of the setting too, as well as the Jewish stuff.
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That’s why I said that tonally it reminded me of the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Both books share the New York City + Jews background.
Started the book club’s The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson. The introduction is long but I learned more about ancient Greek culture than a lifetime of required history classes.
About to start rereading Watchmen for CBG19’s Watchmen Club.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-48CHIbKRVU
Daddy two book clubs. 
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I have now read Dust of Dreams. Geez. Hetan.
I’ve ploughed through a few Sci Fi/Fantasy Series lately so here’s a roundup.
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie:
Space opera set in an empire where ships are crewed by distributed AIs who are forcibly imprinted over the existing personalities of multiple humans. One such AI has had her ship and crew destroyed except for a single body and must come to terms with her new constrained existence.
Cool shit:
- Instead of the usual “AI gains emotions and learns to be human plot” it is more “AI had emotions all along but is inexperienced in identifying and articulating them.” There are many scenes where the protagonist is obviously having a strong emotional reaction to something but is describing it in a dispassionate way. Very well done.
- The dominant empire of the setting has no concept of gender and the default pronoun throughout the book is “she”. On the face of it, it sounds gimmiky, but it’s done with style and helped break me out unconsciously defaulting to male for characters unless told otherwise.
Three Body Problem - Liu Cixin
A young astrophysicist has watched her professor father be publicly executed in The Cultural Revolution. A political outcast, she is then unexpectedly recruited for a secret SETI-esque program to search for extra-terrestrial life. Jump to present day and promising scientists across the world are inexplicably committing suicide.
Cool shit:
-The book was written by a Chinese author. As someone used to reading Western fiction, there are moments where the characters react to situations or hold values different to what I am accustomed to, which is refreshing.
-It explores themes of how humanity acts when faced with massive existential threats that are seemingly distant in time. There is a fairly strong allegory for climate change, but it is elegantly done.
-It uses the fact that there is no FTL in the setting for drama. I am always a fan of that.
I’m still not at the end of the series yet, so stay tuned I suppose.
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Three Body Problem is one of the most-full-of-cool-shit books that I’ve read which at the same time is so badly written/translated that I found the overall experience garbage. I wish it was re-edited/retranslated to let the good stuff really shine.
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Yep its pretty hard. Erikson does a really good interview on why he wrote it as he did. It’s not the torture porn it looks. Now go and read The Crippled God. They where meant to be one book but it was too long. After that then you have all the other fun bits.
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