Bimonthly Book Foo! + some other stuff

[newnumber6]

TV's been pretty slow lately, however, there have been a few things of interest:

Wayward Pines: Surprisingly watchable, and surprisingly SF. I mean, a bit silly at times, but I enjoyed it and I appreciated them not dangling out the mystery, they actually solved it about halfway in and the rest was dealing with other issues. THAT is how you do it

Comments

[occamsnailfile]

I always like reading your reviews, at least for the books I have read or don't plan to read. I finished Three-Body Problem not long ago and I may have liked it better than you--though I've never learned Chinese, I've had enough general experience with East Asian culture that a lot of the elements rang true for me, plus I'm very interested in SF set outside the US and in modern Chinese history. So I liked it. The technology revealed at the end was intriguing though my vague understanding is that the theories they were referring to have been disproven, aside from the specifics of the work which are just plain SFnal.

River of Gods is a book I really loved, and I would like to read more like it--again, SF set outside the US, and the only other SF book set in India I can even think of is Girl in the Road. I'm sure there must be others but they don't seem to be readily available in the US, in English.

I also like the Goblin Emperor more than you, in some ways as a breath of fresh air after so many Song of Ice and Fire-imitators

[newnumber6]

I haven't read it yet but Empire of Bones by Liz Williams also takes place mostly in India from what I understand, it's on my 'eventually' list. I've actually seen it a few times in the used bookstore but I tend to be very methodical in my browsing and by the time I get to the W's I've usually got a fair number of books already. :) Other than that I can think of only a few books that have parts that take place in Indian but not a specific focus. There's also a faint tugging at the back of my head that thinks it remembers something fairly recent in that vein but won't provide a name or any more details and so may be completely mistaken and thinking of another country.

Yeah, I was probably kinder to Terms of Enlistment than it probably deserved (particularly obvious after reading Linda Nagata's The Red, a milSF novel which I enjoyed so much more), although I should note that some of the recommendations were specifically that it really starts to get good in the second book (where IIRC he's got a role where he's more directly

[occamsnailfile]

I can grant your point on the aliens--it just felt really shallow to me. The fraternization is something that happens in SF mils sometimes I will also agree, it just bugged me in this one for being a wish-fulfilling entirely sexual relationship

[newnumber6]

Fair enough, although I do feel the need to point out that it actually WASN'T this book that was promoted as being one of the best of the year and nominated for an award, it WAS the sequel that he was nominated for (and withdrew). I just had to read this first because I can't start in the middle like this, but that's why I give it a little more benefit of the doubt when people tell me the sequel's worth the nom... they might still be wrong, but I've experienced that with other series.

Unless of course I'm reading you wrong and what you mean is you separately heard the "best of the year" buzz for the first one as well, and were commenting on that, which is quite possible... I personally wasn't even really aware of it when it was still new as I tend to ignore most milSF until after it's already gotten a fair bit of buzz.