1 - Bolla - Pajtim Statovci - 20/01/24 - ★★★★☆
2 - Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void - Tim Lebbon - 28/01/24 - ★★★★☆
3 - Northern Wrath - Thilde Kold Holdt - 30/01/24 - ★★★☆☆
4 - The New Life - Tom Crewe - 06/02/24 - ★★★★☆

I desperately need to finish some books I have on the go so I'm going to list them and check them off as I go. All but one of these I have started and on average am halfway through. Im the Muzzy of books it seems. A couple like Meditations aren't really completable as much as ongoing, Marcus Aurelius, the FIFA of books.

In the process of reading...

LOTR: The Two Towers - Tolkein
Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari
Tim Spector - Food for Life
The Gateless Gate - Classic book of Zen Koans
The Diary of a CEO - Stephen Bartlett
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Brain Maker - David Perlmutter
Star Wars Aftermath - Chuck Wendig
The Quantum Universe: Everything that can happen does happen - Brian Cox
On the Origin of Time - Thomas Hertog

In the process of listening to...

Darth Plageus - James Luceno



Read/Heard...

1. Thrawn - Timothy Zahn
2. Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
3. Thrawn Alliances
4. Thrawn Treason
5. The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck
6. What the Buddha Taught
7. Alan Partridge Nomad

Doubt I will read many books, but still.  In.

Son of a bitch.

1. The Poppy War (RF Kuang)
What a great read. An epic fantasy set in a land reminiscent of medieval China but with many of the sorry traits of 19th and 20th century Chinese history, this is the story of a war-orphaned girl who gets to go to the equivalent of kung-fu Hogwarts and then becomes a literal force of nature in the conflict to come. Really great to read a grim fantasy novel today been written from a different cultural perspective than you'd normally get in the genre. I'll be reading more of her work that's for sure.

2. The Terraformers (Annalee Newitz)
It's 60,000 years in the future and corporations own the rights to create and terraform new planets. The Environmental Rescue Team (ERT) are an organisation created in the very distant past to ensure that whatever happened to Earth doesn't happen again and that all of the new planets are kept in balance. SASK-E is the latest planet to be made ready for rich settlers paying top dollar to be decanted into original homosapien DNA bodies. Everyone is a vegan due to the fact that most animals are now sentient and are considered to be people as a result of the Great Bargain that was instituted at the end of the Farm Revolution in Earth's ancient past. Add to this context a story that draws on issues of colonisation, slavery, immortality, sexuality, what it means to be a person and there's a lot going on. Whilst I really enjoyed it, it doesn't go into enough depth on any of its themes or the universe it takes place in and as a result is a little hollow. But it's got ideas to spare and I'll be keeping an eye on the authors future works.

LivDiv wrote:

I desperately need to finish some books I have on the go so I'm going to list them and check them off as I go. All but one of these I have started and on average am halfway through. Im the Muzzy of books it seems. A couple like Meditations aren't really completable as much as ongoing, Marcus Aurelius, the FIFA of books.

In the process of reading...

LOTR: The Two Towers - Tolkein
Thrawn - Timothy Zahn
Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari
Tim Spector - Food for Life
The Gateless Gate - Classic book of Zen Koans
The Diary of a CEO - Stephen Bartlett
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Brain Maker - David Perlmutter
Star Wars Aftermath - Chuck Wendig

In the process of listening to...

Darth Plageus - James Luceno



Read/Heard...

Add "How to think like a Roman Emperor" to your list. It's a good read.

GooberTheHat wrote:

I'm going to tackle the Neuromancer series and Hyperion first, and am going to aim for a realistic one book per month. If I can do more than that then it's a bonus.

HAH!  Those two are on my list for 2024!

Those books are on my bedside table. I have a burgeoning bedside table. Might photo for the lols.

Interested to hear your thoughts on the Rubin book.
I was eyeballing it but a friend said it was just alright.

LivDiv wrote:

Interested to hear your thoughts on the Rubin book. I was eyeballing it but a friend said it was just alright.

I've found it an interesting read. Outwardly it would appeal to those creative types - writers, muscians etc. but as he states at the start of the book - anyone who creates anything is creative.

It isn't a book to read cover to cover. Certainly sequential reading is fair enough but it's something to dip into and take in small doses. The author makes no grand claims - he hopes one or two ideas in it will stick. It's easy to read and thought provoking.

It comes across as a mind dump that has been lightly edited into a loose structure.

I'm enjoying gaming and movies (particularly on commute) atm, so we'll need to see if reading can usurp either this year. Early mornings means tiredness which means easier options are tempting, but we'll see. I basically need to retire...

So I started this last year but then completely forgot about it and never updated.  I'll try and do better this year as someone appears to have made this a competition.

1)  The Wisdom of Crowds - Joe Abercrombie.  The last of his most recent triology in the First Law Universe.  Grim Dark Fantasy set a few decades later as the world industrialises.  Fun and brutal.  One of my favourite authors 10/10.
2)  Skyward - Brandon Sanderson
3)  Starlight - Brandon Sanderson
4)  Cytonic - Brandon Sanderson.  Sanderson goes sci-fi.  Fun and light.  Its a bit of a tired trope with a teenage girl going to a "school" to learn (insert skill here) but he does a good job and has an interesting take on it.  A mushroom obsessed AI dealing with burgeoning sapience brings some light relief from the teenage angst. 7.5/10
5)  All Systems Red - Martha Wells.  The first of the Murderbot series.  Short and succinct.  A security bot has hacked its governor system and does its own thing.  It likes soap operas and murdering. 8/10.
6)  Artificial Condition - Martha Wells.  2nd in the series.  Murderbot tries to find out more about its origin by returning to the scene of a horrific massacre it might have been involved in.  It gets hired as a security consultant by a family of engineers.  Still fun.  8/10.
7)  Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City - K J Parker.  Tom Holt's alter ego.  Really enjoyed this story of a Colonel of engineers trying to hold a city against impossible odds.  Funny and sarcastic. 9/10
8.)  Rogue Protocol - Martha Wells.  3rd in the series.  Still fun but it didn't grab me as much as the first 2.  7/10.
9)  The Shadow of the Gods - John Gwynne.  First of an epic fantasy series based around Norse mythology.  It follows 3 characters who have their own story arcs.  I liked 2 of them and wasn't that invested in the 3rd.  I did enjoy it and will follow the series to its conclusion. 8/10.
10)  You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey - Amber Ruffin & Lacey Lamarr.  Anecdotes about racism in Omaha, Nebraska.  Both funny and omg.  I now know why trump gets so much traction.  America is a deeply racist place.  It is not appropriate to give this one a grade.
11)  Exit Strategy - Martha Wells.  The final installment of the Murderbot series.  Still fast paced and fun and a lovely conclusion to the series. 8/10
12)  The Hunger of the Gods - John Gwynne.  2nd book in the series.  It follows a couple more characters in addition to the orginial 3.  Much bloodier and pushing character bloat to its limit (lots of subsidiary characters with norse names, it was nearly overwhelming and quite a few get killed off).  Still enjoyable and I'll certainly follow the series to its conclusion. 8/10.
13)  Paper & Blood - Kevin Hearne.  His second urban fantasy series, this one based around a sigil maker.  Set in the same (modern) world as the Iron Druid Series.  A lot of fun and the sweary, kleptomaniac, alchoholic, Glaswegian hobgoblin provides light relief to fighting gods, fae, and all manner of crazy animal combination monsters. Don't give the fae a favour, they can get a bit antsy.  Watch out for Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite. 9/10.
14) The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi.  Typical Scalzi.  Full of humour about a semi-secretive organisation who travel to an alternate universe in order to prevent Kaiju from travelling to our world.  Solid 8.5/10
15)  The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch.  Sometimes I need a warm hug by re-reading favourite books.  This series is one of the best fantasy series around.  Switches between current events and flashbacks about a gang of confidence tricksters and thieves in a unique fantasy world.  Can't recommend this enough 11/10.
16)  Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch.  The 2nd in the series and my personal favourite.  Pirates.  Conning a casino.  Awesome.  11+/10.
17)  The Republic of Thieves - Scott Lynch.  The 3rd in the series.  Picks up almost immediately after the 2nd book and has Locke and Jean being blackmailed into trying to swing an election.  Flashbacks to when they were younger and had to do spend a summer as actors in a shakespearian type play. 10/10
18)  The Prehistory of the Far Side - Gary Larson.  A look back at how Gary Larson got his break in drawing cartoons, including many of his personal favourites and some that were never published.  8/10.
19)  The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss.  I would say this is one of the greatest fantasy series ever written but I can't because its not finished and it has now been 14 years since the second book was released.  The first one is magnificent, really great world building and characters.  11/10.
20)  The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss.  The 2nd in the series.  Stunning.  Still no resolution to the story.  I live in hope that he'll get round to finishing it.  11/10.
21) Redshirts - John Scalzi.  The lower decks on an Enterprise type space ship become aware that the mortality rate on away missions is far higher than it should be.  Why is this?  Should certain officers be avoided?  Fun and light.  8/10
22) Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brien.  The great re-read commences so no prizes for guessing what the next load of books is going to be.  Not to be confused with the film of the same name which cherry picks elements of different books in the series.  Here we meet Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin for the first time as they sail together in the Med.  Aubrey wishes to make enough noise to be made post-captain but is too indiscrete when it comes to wooing a married lady.  Probably not a good idea to piss off your boss by shagging his wife. 8/10.
23) Post Captain - Patrick O'Brien.  Peace with France scuppers Aubrey's chance of making captain and then he gets declared bankrupt when his prize agent goes bust.  War gets re-declared just in time for him to start to turn it around  9/10.
24)  HMS Surprise - Patrick O'Brien.  Off to India as captain of the ship he once served as a midshipman in. 9/10
25)  The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brien. Aubrey is temporarily posted as commodore of a fleet to take out French interests in the Indian Ocean. 10/10
26)  Catification - Jackson Galaxy and Kate Benjamin.  How to turn your house into an environment that helps cats.  Had to do this as the cat schism in our house is still ongoing and no sign of ever ending.  Need to flex my DIY skills.  No grade until I know if it works.

It is literally impossible to read Finnegan's Wake, so anyone making that claim would be lying.

Books like that really need splitting into volumes just for physical readability.

Kow wrote:

It is literally impossible to read Finnegan's Wake, so anyone making that claim would be lying.

Re Finnegan's Wake I suppose you could read the words but not have a clue. Is it true the last sentence runs into the first one or something mad like that?

I made a start to Ulysses last year and it started OK but then it went off piste and lost me.

I've read and enjoyed some of Ulysses. As a lot if it is imitating writers and styles of the time, and making references to Joyce's peers, it's impossible to understand without some kind of guide.

My copy of Finnegan's Wake has an introduction by the head of the literature department in some university. His opening line is "This book cannot be read". And it's true, it can't.