Wednesday Reading
I haven't done this for a while. I'm waiting for water to boil for tea before I hunker back into the bunker, so why not a quick scan of recent reading.
Finished, Sue Burke's Semiosis, sf that (sort of) begins 50 years in the future. That is, fifty years on, as global warming messes earth up, people are sent in cold sleep to another planet. They arrive 150 years later . . . to another planet than the one they aimed at, which they have already named Pax, as they intend to live in harmony with each other and the world.
And what a world! Simply terrific worldbuilding here. I am not usually one for heavy-on-the-science SF, but Burke caught me with this world. The story is divided into segments as successive generations deal with one another and the world. Engrossing but (a relief to me, anyway) no bleak crapsack.
Smoke Eaters, by Sean Grigsby, is kinda fantasy and kinda sf, featuring firefighters vs. dragons. Firefighters vs. dragons! My spouse was a volunteer firefighter for over twenty years (in a town with only three paid guys, so the volunteers went on all the calls), so I remembered the lingo and the attitudes, and Grigsby's book brought it all back.
Chief Brannigan is a week away from retirement in a formerly USA that has been wrenched out of the trajectory of history by the sudden eruption of dragons. These are not the pretty dragons with soulful eyes that turn into people, or bond as soulmate-slaveys, these are fast, mean, smart critters whose favorite meal is toasted human. Brannigan is an irascible, foul-mouthed but loyal and crazy dude, with attitude problems in all directions. The book is paced at breakneck speed, and it shows more than a little influence from Scalzi. If all those are selling points for you, well, here's basically a movie in book form.
Jo Walton's collection
Starlings delighted me as a reader as well as a writer. After each piece she talks frankly about the writing process, sometimes the publishing process. There's a play that had me cracking up, sublime poetry, short works that she claims aren't short stories. Different lengths, different styles; what she said was true short fiction wasn't my pick, but I enjoyed them all, shining as most of them do with that characteristic Walton yearning toward the best in the human spirit.
Book three in Ada Palmer's terra Ignota series, The Will to Battle I had a lot to say about over at Goodreads
A slew of non fic, too, but the tea is ready, so back to work.
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/975731.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Finished, Sue Burke's Semiosis, sf that (sort of) begins 50 years in the future. That is, fifty years on, as global warming messes earth up, people are sent in cold sleep to another planet. They arrive 150 years later . . . to another planet than the one they aimed at, which they have already named Pax, as they intend to live in harmony with each other and the world.
And what a world! Simply terrific worldbuilding here. I am not usually one for heavy-on-the-science SF, but Burke caught me with this world. The story is divided into segments as successive generations deal with one another and the world. Engrossing but (a relief to me, anyway) no bleak crapsack.
Smoke Eaters, by Sean Grigsby, is kinda fantasy and kinda sf, featuring firefighters vs. dragons. Firefighters vs. dragons! My spouse was a volunteer firefighter for over twenty years (in a town with only three paid guys, so the volunteers went on all the calls), so I remembered the lingo and the attitudes, and Grigsby's book brought it all back.
Chief Brannigan is a week away from retirement in a formerly USA that has been wrenched out of the trajectory of history by the sudden eruption of dragons. These are not the pretty dragons with soulful eyes that turn into people, or bond as soulmate-slaveys, these are fast, mean, smart critters whose favorite meal is toasted human. Brannigan is an irascible, foul-mouthed but loyal and crazy dude, with attitude problems in all directions. The book is paced at breakneck speed, and it shows more than a little influence from Scalzi. If all those are selling points for you, well, here's basically a movie in book form.
Jo Walton's collection
Starlings delighted me as a reader as well as a writer. After each piece she talks frankly about the writing process, sometimes the publishing process. There's a play that had me cracking up, sublime poetry, short works that she claims aren't short stories. Different lengths, different styles; what she said was true short fiction wasn't my pick, but I enjoyed them all, shining as most of them do with that characteristic Walton yearning toward the best in the human spirit.
Book three in Ada Palmer's terra Ignota series, The Will to Battle I had a lot to say about over at Goodreads
A slew of non fic, too, but the tea is ready, so back to work.
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/975731.html. Please comment there using OpenID.