Recently finished the Dark Prophecy by Rick Riordan. It was really enjoyable. RR is my second favorite author, right after Sir Terry Pratchett. I find all of RR’s books fun. Adventures filled with ancient mythology mixed with modern culture.
Before that, I read The Wind-up Bird Chronicles which, despite enjoying some other Murakami, I really was not impressed with. The narrative did not seem as seamless as some of his others and I do not think the subplots coalesced into an enjoyable story.
Devoured Stephan Hunt’s Jackel’s books while waiting for Ashes of Malmouth. They’re dumb, but oh so well written in terms of characters, world-mashing, prose and a good dose of humour. Glad to see it still held up, unlike certain older series I once liked like the View From The Mirror series, by Ian Irvine. It was unforgivably turgid, along with other myriad writing sins (characters basically) detected on trying to re-read it some years ago. An unfortunate set of problems that seems to afflict a lot of other best seller fantasy I’ve tried to read over the years /sigh
Anyhow, the ending book to N. K. Jemisin Broke Earth trilogy, Stone Sky is next on my reading list. It promises to be a suitably epic ending for a fucking excellent fantasy series and possibly give Jemisin another well deserved Hugo Award come next years awards. Really wish I had the shelf space to get the series all in hardbacks, but I’ve been out of shelf space for years
Probably try and read one of the non-fiction works sitting in my library next or reread The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross to catch the details I missed. Along with re-reading Empire Games by the same author, since it’s sequel, Dark State is out in a couple of months and I want all those plot threads in my memory to get the full value of Dark State when I read it. Along with reading Persepolis Rising (The Expanse) when ever it releases.
Working through the Horus Heresy 40k stuff right now. Hoping it keeps me entertained until the next expanse book releases or at least until Andy Weir’s new book comes out.
Polished off N. K. Jemisin’s new book The Stone Sky in two sessions.
Without a doubt it was fucking epic, at least for me. Finished the trilogy, added exposition that told how the world of the Stillness became so fucked up, tied off plot points and ended with a heart-breaking, yet hopeful ending.
Devoured K. C. Alexander’s Necrotech, which was surprisingly f*cking good. A brutal cyber-punkish, fast paced read, splatter with dirty jokes, decent worldbuilding done without exposition dumps and pretty decently written, mostly fleshed out characters.
Warhammer books, more specifically Gotrek&Felix atm. Becoming quite a warhammer fan after having played lot of wh games too. Just takes some time to order those things from amazon but i’m gonna get them all!
Killing Gravity by Corey J. White. More a novella than a novel, but it was okay. A little too light for my tastes in terms of content and world building
Austral by Paul McAuley. Another excellent tale from one of the masters of humanistic sci-fi. Set in an all too possible future where climate change hasn’t been abated enough and the world has been radically altered by rising seas and increased temperatures. Opening up the Antarctic Peninsula to colonisation and seeding of new ecosystems on previously ice covered terrain and mining of ores once locked in ice. But this story isn’t really about that, rather it’s the tale of a women who is an outcast for being genetically altered to live in this cold land and the length’s she goes to survive in a nation that considers her a second-class citizen and get the fuck out of there. And the “road” trip she takes in the process of doing so. Highly recommended, devoured in less than 6 hours.