Wow Shifty. Very nice looking set. Going to look this over when I have time to read the intros AFTER I get done with Urth. Thanks for the spoiler warning. Very cool of you to post.

I finished up Children of Ruin. It isn't bad, but it felt a little same-y compared to the first book. I think the author should have introduced some new themes or thrown a couple of unexpected curveballs at the audience.

SSSSSHHHHHHHH

Finished Roth's Great American Novel yesterday. Not specifically looking for SciFi to pick up; I'll take anything that isn't at all like GAN: not dense to the point of trolling the reader.

Finished up the Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2B.

The Machine Stops, Rogue Moon, and The Moon Moth were interesting.

Read two books by by John Scalzi. Redshirts and Old Man's War.

If you like late 2000s snarky blogger humor, you might like these books.



Next up: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson and then The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington.

I finished CoR. It wasn't a bad read though the ending was unsatisfying.
Yeah, he recycled the theme from the first one no doubt.

I'm on Urth of the New Sun now.

Let us know how you like Spin. That's trilogy no?

Yep, Spin is a trilogy. I finished the first book last night. The concept/mystery is excellent and I enjoyed the book for the most part. My only criticism is kind of an odd one: I wish it wasn't part of a trilogy. I've been burned by too many tv shows and books that start off brilliantly and then blow it. I kind of wish this book was 50 pages longer and everything was wrapped up. Maybe the sequels will be just as good as this first book, but I'm always pessimistic about these things. Towards the end of the book Humanity invents some tech that I found a little confusing and at that point the books pace gets a little faster than it should have, imo. Kind of odd considering that the author has two more books to finish everything up.

Overall verdict: Good, and well worth reading. The mystery is fascinating and the characters are fairly interesting. Just go in knowing that some of your biggest questions won't be answered by the end of the book.


The Shadow of What Was Lost: This wasn't my cup of tea. Fantasy just may not be the genre for me. This too is part of a trilogy. Lots of time spent on worldbuilding, but it seems a bit derivative or at least not very innovative. The characterization is pretty dull as well. I'm not sure but this may in fact be a YA novel which may mean that I'm judging it too harshly.


Random opinion: there are too many sci-fi & Fantasy books written as multipart series instead of standalones.

Read the second book of the Spin Trilogy "Axis." It doesn't have the fantastic scientific speculation of the first book, only features one of the main cast of the original, and only takes a baby step toward solving the mystery at the root of the overarching story. Not terribly written, but a disappointment coming off the first book. I probably won't read the last book.

Since I was complaining about multi part stories I decided to read a standalone by the author of Spin called "The Harvest." Not particularly good. There was potential for a lot of sociological , religious, and political speculation with a heavy dose of sci-fi but there wasn't much of that. The characters were unsympathetic, the "alien invasion" had zero suspense, and the villain was lame.

I also read a collection of short stories by Ted Chiang called "Exhalation and other stories." Not as good as Story of Your Life, but contains a lot of intriguing ideas.

Thaks for the Spin reviews, sounds like it goes on the "meh" shelf.

I tend to be overly picky. I'd hate to talk you out of reading something you might like.

The first book has some cool stuff going on. I just think it would have been better if he had wrapped everything up in that book, or at least had the sequel do so.



Edit: Anyone have a favorite Theodore Sturgeon short story they could recommend?

Spinward Fringe series by Randolph Lalonde is one of my favorites. I think it's up to 12 or 13 books with a few spinoffs / side stories that are worth reading. Out of the entire series I've only been slightly disappointed in a couple of the books.

Oh man that's a hard one, I'd guess everyone has a different answer. I guess Slow Sculpture is kind of a standard of his but it really is excellent.

Cool. I grabbed a huge collection of his stuff a while back and haven't cracked it open yet. I'll start with that one.

I finished Urth. Gonna' read these now, next chance I get.