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Sounds perfect.

The Reaping by Jess Lourey the second book in the "Steinbeck and Reed" series.

Once again got strong early season X-Files vibes from this crime novel, though it was unique enough to keep me guessing. This time, the case was from the perspective of Steinbeck, a very strict forensic scientist who is having a hard time coming to grips with Reed (first novels main perspective character) and her weird psychic dreams/abilities. He's got some skeletons in his closet though, and they are revealed throughout the novel.

It was a fun read, with some interesting locales, like an insular town that harbors strange religious beliefs, a "retirement home" for serial killers and a little bit of insight into Finnish Mythology that was neat. Also learned about Myostatin-Related Muscle Hypertrophy, which is a wild and rare genetic mutation that plays into the serial killer's abilities.

There's a pretty wild revelation at the end that'll probably have me back for the 3rd novel in the series, and I think there is a prequel novella out there too, about how Reed and Steinbeck met, which I may check out.

Sounds like a fun read.


I read some stories by Joan Aiken to my family, about half of the collection The People in the Castle. She wrote slightly surreal fantasy stories that feel timeless. Some of them are charming, some have a Roald Dahl edge to them, and some are inscrutably weird, and all are Very British. Worth checking out if you like that kind of fantasy.

Finished Count Zero a week or so ago, I have to say, I enjoyed it quite a bit, maybe even a little more than Neuromancer. The three plot threads were quite engaging, and the book never once felt boring or lacking. Seeing the plot threads converge was a real MCU 'It's the guy from the thing!' moment. Very interesting twists and turns, and a great plot. Gibson's choice to incorporate three different characters with three different stories, and simultaneously three different aspects of his setting instead of one continuous story like in Neuromancer really paid off, in my opinion.

On to Mona Lisa Overdrive, the four plot threads are interesting so far, but up to where I've read, some are a little more engaging than others, but said others are by no means bad.

The braiding of seemingly unrelated plot threads into the story with the big crescendo at the end is what I like about Gibson’s style.

I have a new favorite sub-genre of book-- books referenced in-world in other books. Some stand-outs include:

The Red Room Mystery, by A.A. Milne (of Winnie the Pooh fame). Raymond Chandler name-drops this book in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" as an example of murder mysteries done wrong. It was pretty twee, but not as bad as Chandler asserts.

The Mask of Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler. James Bond read this while flying to Istanbul in From Russia With Love. A great introduction to Ambler's spy novels.

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce, referenced in Sarah Pinborough's We Live Here Now, a book recommended by Dakka's own nels1031.

Len Deighton's Harry Palmer trilogy, referenced by Charles Stross in the Afterword for [/i]The Atrocity Archives. I had actually bought this series many year ago, but never got around to reading it. I love how Deighton de-glamorizes espionage, while keeping the tension high.

And most recently, [i]Spycatcher by Peter Wright, referenced in-world in The Rhesus Chart. I'm just about finished with this one. It should be really, really boring, as the story is dominated by our author digging through old documents looking for Soviet infiltrators in post-war England, but I'm finding it fascinating. It's not as literary as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which it superficially resembles, but it moves at a fair clip, and I can't seem to put it down.

I remember Spycatcher got a number of knickers in a twist at the time.

Though may have just been tabloid hysteria and a slow news week.

Managed a tidy haul of books from one of the local Op-shops today. Got the Ahirman and Malekith Omnibuses, as well as a couple of the Heresy novels. Two David Gemmel, and a few other random fantasy novels.

I remember reading the first Ahirman book some years ago and really enjoying it, so I'm quite keen to get round to that. And despite having never read any of Gemmel's books, my mum quite enjoys his work, and we have a fairly similar taste in authors, so I'm hoping they'll be worth a read.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

Read it years ago and I felt it was time once again to return Krynn. Not exactly Tolkien but it's still good fun all the same.

 Flinty wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I just finished Project: Hail Mary.

My wife was in the hospital for a surgery, and started it in the waiting room, and then after also reading it in the recovery room, I literally read 250 pages of it THAT DAY.

Really great book.

YESSSSSSSsssssssSSSsss!

Hoping the film isn't a total assassination job like World war Z ended up being.

Reading this now myself. I'll be very curious to see how the movie turns out but even if its good, I think much like the Martian it won't be able to capture the ingenuity and layered problem solving that makes the book so compelling.

The Martian had the benefit of Matt Damon, who has a reasonable amount of range. I am a little concerned that Ryan Gosling can only do one face.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I remember Spycatcher got a number of knickers in a twist at the time.

Though may have just been tabloid hysteria and a slow news week.

That's not surprising, given that Wright throws out full names and direct accusations of spying.

 Nevelon wrote:
The braiding of seemingly unrelated plot threads into the story with the big crescendo at the end is what I like about Gibson’s style.

Agreed. I avoided spoilers, and finally seeing characters appear in different threads brings a big gak-eating grin to my face, especially in Count Zero

Just starting Project Hail Mary with my son. Hitting all the right marks so far

I thought I'd try reading the first Dragon Riders of Pern book.

Earlier I had tried reading one of the later entries but I couldn't get into it.

The writing is good, but the style is old-school (and to be fair they are older books) and I find that it took me a little bit to get into the writers "voice". Once you get into it its great!

Everything down to Dragonsdawn is highly enjoyable, sits pretty much all nice tight simple storylines with some great world building. After that i found that it starts getting a bit up itself and overly complex.

Finished the newest Jim Butcher book over the weekend. "Twelve Months"

I was actually quite surprised how much I enjoyed it. It moves away from this normal formula (similar to Changes) that sometimes happens when he isn't "investigating".

Overall it's a shift back to his prior tones with Harry addressing some of the building issues and the issues he created with the god awful Peacetalks and slightly less bad Battlegrounds.

It's a good move to bring the series back in line and set things up for the end run. And he even acknowledges he's slipped a bit in his authors note at the beginning of the book. Overall if you liked Dresden but were a bit down with the time frame of the writing and the last two (really one book split in two a month apart) entries I'd say give this a shot.

Just finished Tomb World by Jonathan D Beer.

A 40K novel that’s 75% Necron POV, wherein a disgraced Praetorian leads a Necron invasion of an Imperial mustering world that also has the misfortune of housing a long buried Tomb World. Its not a run of the mill invasion, as the force sent to conquer isn’t sufficient to the task, being numerically inferior to a planet thats mostly filled with Astra Militarum, coming and going.

What follows is a systematic campaign of sabotage, assassination, terrorism and subterfuge, until things reach a head where the Necron legions buried beneath the surface of the planet begin to awaken. Then its full scale war against a planet thats mostly half beaten before they even know they are in a war.

Some cool visuals described, and some fun characters on both sides of the conflict. Since this involved no 40K “household name” characters, there was no plot armor and no one was safe, which I always appreciate.

Fun, light read.

Currently on Hannah Green And Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith. Love his style, gritty but with a reasonable amount of dry humour. This one feels a bit more whimsical, maybe more YA than adult - but there are some really quite dark bits. It's good fun. 11 year old Hannah Green discovers the word 'mundane' and feels it utterly sums up her life. Then her parents break up. Then she discovers her grandad is friends with the Devil. And it turns out the Devil needs help.

Lots of interesting recommendations recently.

I finished Spycatcher. It had rather a downer ending, with our author retiring without ever catching his mole, and bitter about his pension. Not entirely unlike a LeCarre novel, really.

I'm currently reading Agent Zo. It's quite engaging so far.

Last night I had a sudden urge to read a graphic novel, so I read Proxima Centauri by Farel Dalrymple. It’s a side-quel to The Wrenchies, which I loved. Proxima Centauri doesn’t land as well as The Wrenchies did, but as a bonkers psychedelic Sci Fi Fantasy, I enjoyed it. Like The Wrenchies, it’s not a structured story, and I expect it is very love-it-or-hate-it.

Currently reading The Places in Between by Rory Stewart. Quite an interesting read that details Stewart's walk across Afghanistan in the winder of 2002.

His easy-going way of writing really sucked me in. I was a few chapters in before I realised I'd committed to reading it. About half way through now with no signs of stopping.
The man really does not seem overly phased by much. He gets lost in the snow, chased out of villages, shot at multiple times, assaulted by neer-do-well teenagers and is at one point lumped with the most useless of traveling companions he didn't ask for. All of which he quite literally takes it in his stride, and all the while plagued with dysentery and cold feet.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Finished the newest Jim Butcher book over the weekend. "Twelve Months"

I was actually quite surprised how much I enjoyed it. It moves away from this normal formula (similar to Changes) that sometimes happens when he isn't "investigating".

Overall it's a shift back to his prior tones with Harry addressing some of the building issues and the issues he created with the god awful Peacetalks and slightly less bad Battlegrounds.

It's a good move to bring the series back in line and set things up for the end run. And he even acknowledges he's slipped a bit in his authors note at the beginning of the book. Overall if you liked Dresden but were a bit down with the time frame of the writing and the last two (really one book split in two a month apart) entries I'd say give this a shot.

Yeah, it's a good read. Glad to see Dresden back.

grahamdbailey wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
Finished the newest Jim Butcher book over the weekend. "Twelve Months"

I was actually quite surprised how much I enjoyed it. It moves away from this normal formula (similar to Changes) that sometimes happens when he isn't "investigating".

Overall it's a shift back to his prior tones with Harry addressing some of the building issues and the issues he created with the god awful Peacetalks and slightly less bad Battlegrounds.

It's a good move to bring the series back in line and set things up for the end run. And he even acknowledges he's slipped a bit in his authors note at the beginning of the book. Overall if you liked Dresden but were a bit down with the time frame of the writing and the last two (really one book split in two a month apart) entries I'd say give this a shot.

Yeah, it's a good read. Glad to see Dresden back.

Agreed with all this.

I think what gives the series longevities is that each book, the scale of the story changes, which keeps it a bit fresh.

Can't wait for the next book.

Finally finished Empires of the Steppes by Kenneth W. Harl, which I had started years ago and kept putting aside as newer books grabbed my attention. But after what feels like 2 weeks of sub freezing temperatures, I’ve had ample time and reason to sit snuggled up with a history book.

Fun history read of the earliest recorded years of Steppe people, the many empires rising/falling, and notable leaders. I had taken so long to finish it because it felt like reading a broken record. Not that I’m complaining, as it was an informative read and I learned quite about about some lesser known tribes, empires/confederations and leaders other than the typical worldshakers of Atilla/Ghengis/Tamerlane stories.

Basically the entire Steppe history, but extremely simplified : Steppe Tribe A shows up, wrecks everyone, takes everyones stuff, becomes softer because of all the new stuff, everyone adjusts to fight them more effectively or waits out their collapse. Steppe Tribe A collapses. Steppe Tribe B shows up, rinse and repeat for centuries until technology renders the many advantages of Steppe warfare moot.

It also feel written fairly scattershot as well, as it jumps all over the place at times. But overall, I liked it.

I think it’s time for me to revisit my Judge Dredd Mega Collection. Long since complete, I’ve not actually read its 90 volumes more than once each.

Perhaps this time I’ll even be able to stomach Cal-Hab Justice!

I won’t report on every issue, that would be tedious for everyone. But if I find a gem, that’s different.

At night when I'm putting my daughter to bed I've been listening to an hour or so of The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolf for months.

It's really pretty cool, a fun idea for a novel setting. But I'm something like 40 hours in and I'm starting to feel that it's meandering around a bit.

I'm gonna see it through but I skipped listening the last two nights to just lie in silence instead, which isn't a great sign...

I made it less than halfway through the first book (the Something of the Torturer?) before I put the book down and never picked it back up.