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What are you reading these days?
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
Getting through the Stormlight Archive. Currently maybe halfway through book 2. I ran into these immediately after finishing all seven of the Mistborn books.
I haven't read anything in probably over a decade and I am apparently back into it!!
How did you enjoy the Mistborn books outside of the original trilogy? I’m a third into the first one now, (really enjoying it) and I’d also like to move to the Stormlight Archive, but I’m not sure if I should read the other Mistborn books before moving to Stormlight.
I decided not to dig into all of the competing opinions on reading order. I was enjoying the world of Mistborn and wanted to keep reading about it, so I did!
There's definitely some moments where it shows you parts of the larger universe, but I don't know that any introduction to the concepts and characters is inherently worse than others.
That said, so far, there's been very little in the Stormlight books that I can recognize from Mistborn. And the things I do feel like I have some awareness of were explained pretty directly in Mistborn so I don't feel the least bit lost.
General consensus is Mistborn Era 1 (the original trilogy) should be read before Stormlight. There's a lot of discussion on reading order (see the subreddit wiki) but Mistborn Era 1 is consistently among the first set to be read.
Here's a recent video by author himself giving his recommended reading order!
Personally, I've done:
I really enjoyed picking out small details from Mistborn Era 1 in The Stormlight Archive, but they're very much still background "blink and you'll miss it" level stuff, so the exact reading order doesn't seem super strict.
I just finished the Stormlight Archives and am about to go back and start reading Mistborn. I gotta say I didn't really feel like I was missing out on anything but I'm about to find out.
I originally read them on that order too, it's definitely a case of easter eggs rather than missed plot.
Much appreciated! I’ll see how I feel after The Hero of Ages, but I’ll likely follow Sanderson’s suggestions. He definitely strikes me as someone who would take the time to lay out his own reading order, aha.
It's really tough to determine a reading order. I had a few years ago read through his main series from the first 3 mistborn books then the next 2 in the wax/wayne trilogy, then into what was available in stormlight archives. I knew that things were supposed to be connected at the time, but I really struggled to make the connections between novels. I chalk some of it up to being a bit older and not remembering all the tiny details the same way as I used to.
Though last year I decided to do a full catch up and read through everything he has out currently. It was still hard for me to track all the references but he absolutely starts to ramp up cross over things in his later published books, so you have to be a bit more cautious for later published stuff. Really I wish he had been writing when I was younger as the way he weaves it all together is great and I wish I had a more agile mind to enjoy all the dots being connected!
Check out this page here that has a few reading orders. I'd recommend myself the modified publishing order as publish order is always imho the king revealing knowledge as author intended, the modified order just helps keep the books grouped up so you aren't jumping series at all.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cosmere/wiki/order
I am just about to finish my first complete Cosmere read and it has reawakened a decade old lust for reading. Started with Way of Kings and here I am about 13 books/novellas later, an absolute treat of epic fantasy.
Glad to hear it! I recently read all cosmere stuff and its just great start to finish in all its forms. The recent kickstarter books are amazing finishers too (currently)
Ayy you're just in time for Stormlight 5! I'm doing a reread of Stormlight to prep for 5 in December. Just got finished the second book and novella myself. Warbreaker and Elantris are also good books to get into after Stormlight. They connect a little bit, but the stories are good as you'd imagine
I'm just about to start 'A Peculiar Peril' by Jeff Vandermeer.
I found his book Annihilation to be utterly engrossing at every turn. Having been introduced to his work through the titular movie adaption, I took special enjoyment in his descriptions of the alien creatures and strange animal-plant hybrids.
If it's not too much to ask, will you reply to this comment after reading it? I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Hey, I'll do my best.
Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea, by Kira Salak
Kira Salak was in her 20s when she quit teaching primary school and went traveling alone to weirdly impossible places. Rather her than me! But she's an interesting writer and her hair-raising travels make good reading.
Im listening to The dark tower by Stephen King. It's the seventh book and "final" book in a series also called the Dark tower.
Its the first books by Stephen King I've read and I'm very positively surprised.
Its also the first time that I'm listening to a pod cast analyzing the books as I go trough them (pod called "Kingslingers").
The series are quite long in it self, adding the pod cast the listening time almost doubles but it's absolutely worth it.
The books takes some very unexpected turns and both the character and world building are amazing
I'm hoping to follow the beam another time in the future. It's a very interesting story with many twists and turns. Brace yourself for the back half of book 7!
Fantastic series. I need to re-read them all.
Working my way through the Aeon 14 books, of which there are many, in universe chronological order, because I couldn't think of a better way. Currently on book 3 of the Sol Dissolution "The Hyperion War".
Aeon 14 universe is split into ages, where each age is told in a series of stories, often trilogies.
E.g. "Sol Dissolution" is a trilogy set in their "Age Of Terra". There are other books in Age Of Terra, another trilogy and a standalone.
I thought I'd be burned out on them by now, but surprisingly not. Still hooked.
The hangman's tale: Memoirs of a public executioner by Dernley, Syd
It's kinda my area of interest to study executioners and know their life story. Also the psychology, criminology, and culture around them throughout the eras.
I just started Rose/House by Arkady Martine. Given I thought her previous books, A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace were some of the best new sci-fi I've read for quite a few years, I'm excited to get into this one. It's not part of the Teixcalaan series but that's not a problem (although I definitely would like to read more in that universe!)
Previous to that I was reading Stephen Baxter's latest, Creation Node, which is predictably Baxterian in it's epic scope and very hard science. It's a bit softer than some of his other books but I enjoyed it a lot. I'm not sure it would be the first of his I'd recommend to a new reader but that said, my wife was poking around on my reader and wants to borrow it after reading the first chapter.
Prior to that I was reading Nettle and Bone by TJ Kingfisher, which I would definitely recommend. I don't read a lot of fantasy but I really enjoyed this self-rescuing princess kind of tale. It wasn't silly like their other book, A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (also very good as well as silly), but it was sweet and touching and tense and well paced.
Not really what I'm reading so much as what I'm reading on, but I got a new ereader after my ancient Kobo was barely holding charge for a couple of days. So now I have a fancy colour ereader. Apart from the sleep cover image being in colour I have not noticed. It's too small to read comics on so I probably won't bother doing that, and the books I read usually don't have pictures.
I found a stand alone copy of "In Watermelon Sugar" by Richard Brautigan. It's just as weird and delightful as I remember it.
I couldnt wait for season 2 of Silo. So I started reading Wool. Surprised that the season finale thing gets revealed like in page 2 :)
I had that same experience! I decided to wait for season 2 before reading. Apparently season 1 does not cover all of Wool.
I’ve read a lot of Asimov, but I had never read any of his Robot books until now. Recently finished I, Robot and absolutely loved it. Now I’m on Caves of Steel and it’s kind of feeling like a chore to read. The world building is good, but I don’t love any of the characters. I also feel sometimes that Asimov’s strength is short stories and his writing style sometimes falls apart for me when it’s longer form. Not sure if I’m gonna finish but I’m about 40% through.
Does your previous Asimov experience includes the Foundation series, and if so how far through that series did you get?
Yep! I read the first three and loved them. I enjoyed the first one best (again maybe because it was a little more short story formatted). But I really enjoyed The Mule as a character. I heard the quality drops off after the third and I felt I had gotten enough out of that series at that point.
Foundation books 4 and 5 definitely have a different feel, but part of that is because they pick up some dangling threads from the Robot series and the Galactic Empire series. So if you end up liking the rest of the Robot books, you might like the next two Foundation books as well. (Personally I'd stop after 5, I didn't feel like the prequels added much to the Foundation universe).
I'd agree that short stories are his strength!
Update: I finished Caves of Steel and I’m glad I did! Not my favorite Asimov book, but I enjoyed it more in the second half
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy a beautifully written story about a world after animal populations have collapsed.
This is how we lose the time war for Tildes book club.
I got inspired this week to try reading again after watching Answer In Progress's recent video about reading. I started Raven One, a book about an F18 squadron written by Kevin Miller, a former F18 pilot. I have flown the F18 for a few hundred hours in DCS, so I'm pretty interested in the source material. I'm only 30 or 40 pages in so far but I do like how well it paints the environments you're in, like I'm getting a very good mental picture of what the specific carrier is like that the story starts on. What I didn't like is the introductions to the first two women in the novel was very obviously written by a man, but that won't deter me from reading it and hoping that their introductions highlighted character flaws that will be developed later. There's just a weird paragraph that says one of the women would yell at former boyfriends for checking out other women and so now she has dismissed all men and then she's checking out her roommate either out of jealousy or because she is attracted to her? IDK, it just seemed out of place in the introduction but maybe it will be built upon in a good way.
Just got finished with Five Decembers by James Kestrel. It's a fantastic pulpy noir detective thriller that spans the entirety of the US's involvement of WW2 taking place in Honolulu, Hong Kong and Japan. I loved it, fantastic characters, great prose, amazing settings and a really fun, engaging story. I think it'd translate into film or a short 3-4 episode miniseries very well.
Now I'm moving on to the second Southern Reach book, Authority. I really enjoyed Annihilation earlier in the year so I'm excited to read this (although I've had a couple people tell me to lower my expectations and that Annihilation is the high point of the trilogy so I'm going in with adjusted expectations so that I don't over hype myself).
I'm currently reading Red Rising by Pierce Brown (audio) and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (print). I did not know that Red Rising was also an academy-type book before getting started (oops...), as I started it at my partner's recommendation without really asking anything about it. I knew that it was science fiction, and that the main character's name was Darrow, and that there was some kind of heist (but I think I might be confusing that with what I know of Six of Crows... which I haven't read yet). I'm about 30% into it and feeling relatively engaged. Because of my initial confusion about where the book was going, I expected it to be somewhat more like HG Wells's The Time Machine, but uh... it's not.
No judgment for Iron Flame yet. I'm at 40% and stuff is just kind of... progressing. It's fine and basically doing as expected. I'm not bored, though!
I recently finished Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli (The Crimson Moth outside of North America). I absolutely loved it and am considering buying it to hang onto for the long term. The relationships between the characters felt very authentic for young adults essentially shoved into the aftermath of a revolution. The premise was pretty darn interesting and touched on some aspects of witch mythology that I know exist but haven't seen portrayed in fiction until now (but I'm also not widely read when it comes to witch-based fiction, so maybe it's out there).
Up next is Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (for the hype) (which I'm not confident about, given how my reading of ACOTAR went) and Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon. I'm really hoping I'll get some of my work hours back to listen to audio books during the day, as the last several weeks have been wild, and I miss it!
I'm interested in how you like Red Rising, I feel like I'm an outlier for overall disliking the series and often hating it.
Iron Flame is, for me, cotton candy, and I appreciate it for being what it is and nothing else
I just finished Red Rising, and it looks like I'm joining you in the outlier camp thus far! I was absolutely not compelled by the Hunger Games survival summer camp thing they had going. While I appreciated the emotional scenarios the main character encountered, the whole "school" experience, such as it was, was just not my cup of tea. The last 10% certainly wrapped things up, but I don't think it redeemed it. I'm going to give the next one a shot, since the premise will be changing, but it'll be on pretty thin ice.
If you want my full list o' complaints about the book, I have a previous comment here where I went through my thoughts in detail.
I have since finished Morning Star and while I started Iron Gold, I finally gave up. I think Morning Star addressed some of my concerns - but like to a point where I suspected him of having a co-author. And Iron Gold had a rape threat in the first couple chapters again and all miserable characters being shitty assholes, so I was just done.
Today I learned what fridging is. Thank you. Been trying to articulate my general disgust with that for a LONG time!
I have a lot of complaints about the characters and editing (I guess) generally, but I'm still gathering steam. There was just so much that rubbed me the wrong way that it's going to be difficult to extract the individual issues until I ruminate on it for a bit.
I recommended it previously, but the unspoiled podcast has been covering the Red rising series and while the host, Natasha, definitely likes it more than I did, I think there's a lot of benefit to discussing it a few chapters at a time. Plus the discord community is great!
I think I endured like 5 chapters before dropping it. The prose, dialogue and pacing was just awful. Felt like a shounen manga in book-form (Although I guess that's really what it's trying to be).
Which book?
Oh, sorry. The first Red Rising. Forgot Iron Flame was that other series and not a volume.
Gotcha. I never remember what shounen means so I could probably have figured it out from context clues if I googled it.
I get why it hit big at the time, but I find it miserable.
Finished "This is how you lose the time war" (still not sure if I liked it) and "Rendezvous with Rama" in the last couple weeks. Now a little ways into "Snow crash".
Snowcrash. Took me a bit to get into it but im now enjoying it.
My company is launching a new greenfield product, which includes a new UI, and even though it's a bit old, it still applies - I've been reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. It's essentially a book about how physical or software interface evolves over time to be user friendly. Hard recommend, even if you're not in the software field.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things
About to start reading The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada. It's been on my list since last year. Sadly, I got pretty heavily spoiled on how the murders happened by a Vocaloid song of all things, but I still want to read it anyway. I'm a sucker for Japanese culture and creepy legends, and the murders in it are a cold case from the 1930s being investigated in 1979. Not many mystery novels involve those sorts of cold cases, they're usually recent murders, so that already makes the novel pretty neat and fresh to me. The trick is also one of the most innovative ones I've heard in a murder mystery, while also surprisingly simple, so I'm curious how the characters will figure it out.
Helpfully, there's a list of characters at the front of the book for reference, which I don't think I've seen in a book before. However, it's also mildly insane because it's organized in alphabetical order, by first name. My brain hurts from looking at it.
Anyway, time to read!
Been reading some Warhammer 40k books. Boltgun got me a but more into it and I never checked out the lore, just finished the Eisenhorn Omnibus and loved it. Not sure why I didn't check it out sooner.
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. So far very enjoyable.
I'm about to wrap up The Green Mile by King. I love everything about it. After this will be David Grann's The Wager followed by some Richard Price.
I gave up on Caro's The Power Broker. I like it enough, but I just needed a break. I'm still listening to those episodes of the 99% Invisible podcast, however. I'll probably go back eventually.
I have gotten so far behind talking about what I've been reading that I am overwhelmed at trying to write an update so I might reply to this comment with more later
Finished:
The Future by Naomi Alderman
Really enjoyed it, I think more than The Power. I didn't see all the plot points coming, because she did an excellent job of using the timeline to keep me from piecing things together earlier. But I was definitely not expecting "billionaires have bunkers for the end of the world" to turn into an optimistic outlook on the future.
Ethan of Athos and Cetaganda, Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
I'm still vibing with this series. Young me would have loved Miles. The queerphobia in Ethan was genuinely upsetting as there's literal gay bashing, and it just doesn't make sense with the world building of even the two earlier books by order written. Ethan is also deeply misogynistic based on growing up on a world founded by and only by misogynist men, but it's odd to me that that didn't land as heavy as being called a queer in a sneering tone. Perhaps it's because he gets over it so quickly or because it's almost comical in its "women are strange monsters" level. I can't tell. Brother in Arms is next.
Descender Compendium, by Lemire
A graphic novel collection of the story of Tim-21, a sentient robot child and the fall of the galaxy. I just started the Ascender compendium.
This was enjoyable if tragic. I just really enjoyed the art! The story was also good but the art is gorgeous.
Just started or in progress
Never Whistle at Night, an Indigenous dark fiction anthology
This has been highly recommended and I'm not much for thriller/horror but I love getting new lenses on stories and I'm enjoying this so far!
The Best of Connie Willis (short story and novella collection)
I've never read her before despite her Hugo wins, so I decided to try out the stories first. Some of these I love, some don't quite land. There's a way she has her characters speak, a sort of story time repetition, that lands oddly in audio but I think my favorites so far are A Letter from the Claries, H.L. Mankin Road and Death on the Nile
La Guerre des Sept Lunes Book 1 by Olivier
This is my "can I read enough French to start reading younger books in the language" attempt. The answer is maybe. I'm only on the first page, have had to look up a few things and muddle through a few more, but even having the French dictionary on the Kindle app is helping a lot. Would love other suggestions of ebooks I can get in French of relatively easy to read (middle grade is fine!) stories. Harry Potter is the only one I don't want to spend money on, but free or cheap is a bonus.
Hearts that Cut by Kika Hatzopoulu
Sequel to Threads that Bind, a fantasy where siblings descended from the gods have magic powers based on the deities involved. Fates always come in threes and the youngest can cut the threads of others. But things are happening. It's got a dose of mob romance as she's connected to an enforced in the street gang. But it's mostly about trying to right the wrongs of the world.
I just finished Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and I liked it so much that I started Fleishman Is in Trouble right after and I'm almost done with it. So far I liked Long Island Compromise more, but we'll see once I've finished Fleishman Is in Trouble.
One of my favorite things about both of her books so far is that no one is perfect. All of the characters have their flaws, and often the characters themselves aren't aware of them.
I finished Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn yesterday.
The mystery was great and really carried it a lot, so when it was revealed, it felt like the book kind of fell apart. The prose wasn't that good so the last several chapters was a slight chore to get through to the point that it felt like the last 50-100 pages felt like an epilogue. Still a decent and recommendable read worth the time because there just aren't that many truly good fantasy books out there that feature lesbian romances. The build of the romance was super well done too, like it was perfectly paced!
The setting was something I hadn't read before, too, in the genre: 1860-70's Germany was a cool backdrop for the story. Something else it did really well was the mental struggles of the characters. It was very clear that the author knows a thing or two about it since she wrote it with so much emotion. It was really beautiful and moved me a lot.
Started too many books and now struggling a bit to finish any of them.
Fiction:
1Q84 村上春樹 - Currently reading book 2/3. I read the first book way back in English; now read it again in Japanese. It feels a bit slow but starting to pick up. I think I just have some Murakami fatigue from reading a lot of his similar books.
Hyperion - Halfway through.
Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions - Ursula K. Le Guin: Finished book 2.
Non-fiction:
Antifragile - Nassim Taleb
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages - Guy Deutscher
Overall I'm really finding it hard to balance my reading in Japanese and English. I tend to get excited about one thing easily, but then drop it fast if I switch to something else.