Hello everyone!
Have been pretty busy with life, so haven’t been reading much, other than some random web novels when I have some time.
Just got back to my usual reading from today, hope will be able to stick to it now. I was reading Streams of Silver by R. A. Salvatore. Book 2 of the series.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and its Recommendation Post. Links are also present in our community sidebar.
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Just finished Semiosis and Fred the Vampire Accountant. They were ok, I guess. I’m not really one for serial short stories. Semiosis had an interesting concept about intelligent plant life. Fred, was popcorn. Light, no thinking. Lots of stuff that happened conveniently because the plot needed it. Hard to find good series’. The Wandering Inn is still my fav ongoing series.
I’ve started No One Will Come Back for Us by Premee Mohamed, a collection of cosmic horror stories. I do love me some cosmic/eldritch horror, and The Butcher of the Forest was one of my favorite reads from last year, so I’m hoping I’ll enjoy this, too.
Despite not really being a short story person, I tentatively picked out 2 or 3 collections for bingo this year. My plan is to read them in pieces, between other things. We’ll see how it goes!
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Finished Golden Terrace, Vol. 1 by Cang Wu Bin Bai. I found this okay: the translation was pretty dry, the pacing was a bit rough, and I never got invested in the romance. I am interested in how all the political intrigue plays out, but I doubt I’ll get around to reading the second volume (nothing gets wrapped up at the end of Vol. 1). This is probably a good pick if you like romance-focused historical C-dramas (it’s got the vibes), but I don’t think I’d recommend it otherwise.
Bingo squares: different continent (HM), minority author, LGBTQIA+ (HM), political, jerk (HM)
Any recommendations for good cosmic horror?
There’s a lot of classic/popular stuff I haven’t read (yet), but:
- Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer - Quite different from the movie in a lot of ways; reads a little like a fever dream, which I kind of love. If you read and like this, be aware that the rest of the series (at least, to the middle of book 3, where I paused) is quite different: going from book 1 to book 2, particularly, is like whiplash (new MC; dry, bureaucratic setting/plot; almost no horror except for like 10 pages near the end).
- There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm - I read/reviewed this last year for bingo; the self-published edition I read (available currently) is SCP-related. However, it’s been picked up by Ballantine, which is publishing a revised, non-SCP-related version in November that might be worth waiting for, idk.
- The Willows by Algernon Blackwood - Classic, available on Project Gutenberg. If you see recommendations for The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher (which I wasn’t a fan of, but that’s me), this is the novella it was inspired by.
- The Immaculate Void by Brian Hodge - Very good, but has kind of a grimy feel that wasn’t really my jam.
- Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan - Caveat with this one is the prose takes effort to get through. Good, but the writing put me off trying to tackle the sequels for a while.
- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle - Retelling of Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”, but from a Black perspective. More impactful if you read the original first (I didn’t, but I probably should).
Cross-genre/other influences
- If you don’t mind graphic novels, some of Hellboy and a lot of its sister series, B.P.R.D., deals with cosmic/Lovecraftian stuff, mixed in with classic horror, folklore, myth, and pulp. It’s fantastic.
- Iron Truth by S.A. Tholin - Space opera with military and cosmic horror aspects. The sequels are also enjoyable, although I like each new book slightly less (there’s also less horror in them).
- Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard - Urban fantasy crossed with sort of standard Lovecraftian stuff, rather than a super original take (although that’s kind of the point). Enjoyed it, but haven’t read the sequel.
- The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch - Mostly sci-fi/mystery, with cosmic undercurrents. Good for the most part, but sets a false expectation at the beginning that it’s going to be super horror-y, when it’s more of a time travel thriller. (Don’t expect the time travel to be super logical, btw.)
Thanks for the recommendations!
I just finished Battle Ground by Jim Butcher - the latest of the Dresden Files. It was my first read of it, and wow was it a doozy. I really enjoyed it, but it’s probably going to take me a few days to really digest it all.
I’m thinking my next book will be Children of Ragnarok, by Cinda Williams Chima. It’s the first in a new series from an author I’ve been reading for quite a while. I really enjoyed her previous YA fantasy series - the Heir Chronicles, the Seven Realms and the Shattered Realms - and I’m pretty excited to get into yet another one.
I read it when it came out and I’m still mad about THAT PARTICULAR PART
That doesn’t sound too good!
Yeah, me too. To make things worse, I had it spilled for me by accident. I went 5 years without spoilers, but as I was starting the book I decided to look at what was happening with next books, and someone in the comments of the thread I found was grumbling and just dropped that fact. I was quite distraught.
Just finished Eversion by Alastair Reynolds the other day and now I’m partway through Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. You can still tell it was written by a man, but it is refreshingly progressive and anti-patriarchy for being almost 40 years old.
Picked up “Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things”. Detailing the authors struggle with mental illness and taxidemy raccoons.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250077004/furiouslyhappy/
Sample:
"This is why I sneak into other people’s bathrooms in haunted hotels and once accepted a job as a political czar who reports directly to the stray cat that sleeps at city hall. I have staged live zombie apocalypse drills in crowded ballrooms and I’ve landed on aircraft carriers at sea. I once crowdfunded enough money to buy a taxidermied Pegasus. I am furiously happy. It’s not a cure for mental illness … it’s a weapon, designed to counter it. It’s a way to take back some of the joy that’s robbed from you when you’re crazy.
“Aaaaah! You’re not crazy,” my mom says again, waving a wet plate at me. “Stop saying you’re crazy. People will think you’re a lunatic.”
And it’s true. They will. I Google the word “lunatic” on my phone and read her one of the definitions.
Lunatic: (noun) Wildly or giddily foolish.
My mom pauses, stares at me, and finally sighs in resignation, recognizing way too much of me in that definition. “Huh,” she says, shrugging thoughtfully as she turns back to the sink. “So maybe ‘crazy’ isn’t so bad after all.”
I agree.
Sometimes crazy is just right."
I just finished the “Manifesto against Labour” by Krisis-Group
Just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora. Then had a quick listen to Restaurant at the End of the Universe. This morning, started Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies.
Filth by Irvine Welsh
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. There’s a weird bit of historical revisionism going on in conservative Christian spaces rn regarding everyone’s favorite probably gay badass pastor who was executed by Nazis.
Tearing up the ‘D’ column of my bingo card–I finished The City & the City by China Miéville, Mad Hatters and March Hares ed. by Ellen Datlow, and Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne.
I really liked The City & the City, but it took a good long while before I felt like I was getting a handle on how the society worked, and I’m still not convinced I fully grasped it properly by the end. But it was twisty and turny and enjoyable to read. Also, the first (maybe only) book I’ve read this year that required the Merriam-Webster website on my phone nearby (I learned “encomia”, “rood”, and “machicolation”. Also “grosstopically”, but that was just made up for the book, apparently.)
Mad Hatters and March Hares was easier for me when I read a few stories and then switched to longer works in between to break it up. Some of the stories were pretty creepy, but I enjoyed the theme of the anthology.
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea would work for either the Cozy Read square or the LGBTQIA+ square, and was very light and quick for me to get through. I had fun with the characters, and would read more by this author as a palate cleanser.
I’ll be starting Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand this evening, and I picked up 1066 and All That from the library on a recommendation from the bingo recs page, just because it sounded neat, so that should be coming up this week.
I’ve seen the adaptation of The City & The City, but while I remember liking it, the concept seemed pretty gimmicky. Does it feel more natural/realistic in the book?
…Hard for me to answer that, as I’m still wrapping my head around it, but I’m going to say yes, as while I haven’t seen the adaptation, you almost certainly get a lot more of the main character’s thoughts and point-of-view, as well as more worldbuilding. The way the city (and the city) work is clearly integral to the plot, but I didn’t feel cheated by it, in any case.
I didn’t know what to start, so I opened up The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester.
I’m not too sure what I’m in for, but the prologue on jaunting/personal teleportation is interesting.
Interesting. Never heard of it before. Seems like worth a read.
