Wednesday reading meme
Just finished/Reading now:
Green Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson: this series is beautifully written, if a tad rambling. It's interesting seeing Robinson show his equally comprehensive knowledge of biology and ecology now that Mars is being terraformed and the Martian humans are visiting Earth. Still, this guy can spend chapter after chapter on character development and scientific or philosophical prose without doing anything to move the plot forward. Then it's insane for several pages (revolution! war!), and you're back to walk-abouts, drunken parties, and philosophical dialogue.
Cibola Burn, James S.A. Corey (The Expanse) - W00t, this book was finally released yesterday. I like it so far, but leave it to the James S.A. Corey authors to take one of the turning points in human history - the ability to travel to other solar systems - and turn it into petty-politics-as-usual. There's a greater mystery promised with the (allegedly) dead alien race that created the wormhole gates, so hopefully it will rise above the bickering that usually takes front and center in this book series.
That said, the characters and world-building are good as usual, which is why these books scratch my itch to see realistic depictions of the future of space travel. The writers are nowhere near as poetic as Robinson, but except for some over-used descriptive phrases, you don't notice much.
What's next:
Another in Robinson's solar system series, TBD.
ETA: due to the recent Amazon bad behavior, I bought the two most recent books I'm reading using B&N Nook. My Android tablet lets me have Kindle, Nook, and Kobo apps, and probably others as well, which is awesome. I do read a fair bit in a regular internet browser during breaks at work, and so far, the Nook for Web does not perform as well as Kindle Cloud Reader. It logs me out every few hours, and then loses the page I was on, and sometimes does not sync the current page with my Android Nook app. None of this is a deal breaker, though.
Green Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson: this series is beautifully written, if a tad rambling. It's interesting seeing Robinson show his equally comprehensive knowledge of biology and ecology now that Mars is being terraformed and the Martian humans are visiting Earth. Still, this guy can spend chapter after chapter on character development and scientific or philosophical prose without doing anything to move the plot forward. Then it's insane for several pages (revolution! war!), and you're back to walk-abouts, drunken parties, and philosophical dialogue.
Cibola Burn, James S.A. Corey (The Expanse) - W00t, this book was finally released yesterday. I like it so far, but leave it to the James S.A. Corey authors to take one of the turning points in human history - the ability to travel to other solar systems - and turn it into petty-politics-as-usual. There's a greater mystery promised with the (allegedly) dead alien race that created the wormhole gates, so hopefully it will rise above the bickering that usually takes front and center in this book series.
That said, the characters and world-building are good as usual, which is why these books scratch my itch to see realistic depictions of the future of space travel. The writers are nowhere near as poetic as Robinson, but except for some over-used descriptive phrases, you don't notice much.
What's next:
Another in Robinson's solar system series, TBD.
ETA: due to the recent Amazon bad behavior, I bought the two most recent books I'm reading using B&N Nook. My Android tablet lets me have Kindle, Nook, and Kobo apps, and probably others as well, which is awesome. I do read a fair bit in a regular internet browser during breaks at work, and so far, the Nook for Web does not perform as well as Kindle Cloud Reader. It logs me out every few hours, and then loses the page I was on, and sometimes does not sync the current page with my Android Nook app. None of this is a deal breaker, though.