Our reads in December

Another month,another pile of books. tell us about your plans and reads.
Are you already preparing lists for next year,or do you just go with the flow?

Dusty's TBR for December
SF/F reads
Jack London - The Scarlet Plague✔
Ted Chiang - Hell is the Absence of God ✔
Brian Aldiss - Hothouse ✔
Lester Del Rey - The Mysterious Planet
Kenneth Robeson - Man of Bronze✔
Nathan Lowell - Double Share✔
Nathan Lowell - Captain's Share ✔
Nathan Lowell - Owner's Share ✔
Ray Bradbury - There Will Come Soft Rains ✔

from other genres
Hope Mirlees - Lud-in-the-Mist✔
Joan Hiat Harlow - Thunder from the Sea ✔
J D Kirk - A Litter of Bones✔
J D Kirk - Thicker Than Water ✔
Anonymous - Epic of Gilgamesh✔

I just finished reading The Butlerian Jihad. It was ok. Not at the same level as Frank Herbert’s Dune but I still ended up being interested in the outcome. Next up for me is The Sirens Of Titan. I have only ever read the one by Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five which I greatly enjoyed many many years ago so I am looking forward to this one which has been on my TBR list for a long time.

Reading the last Chanur novel - Chanur’s Legacy and as there is no much chance of finishing it tonight, that would be my first December book. :)

Currently reading What Abigail Did that Summer. Other books on deck include Tower of Fools, Nucleation, Map's Edge and Diplomacy of Wolves.

>2 dustydigger: I happened to read The Scarlet Plague in spring of 2019 and the fact that it spread because the infected didn't show symptoms for 5 days was a little too close to COVID for comfort.

>6 ChrisRiesbeck: Right. I had a similar issue with Clay’s Ark a little bit. I think all kind of pandemic books will be a bit of a problem for awhile. :)

Just finished Jack London's Scarlet Plague and it holds up surprisingly well (published 1912).I'm sure George R Stewart was inspired by this book when writing his iconic Earth Abides.London was remorseless and even brutal in his book,and it must have made uncomfortable reading during the horrific Spanish Flu epidemic a handful of years later. Good stuff!
Also finished the delightfully pulpy and preposterous Doc Savage: the Man of Bronze.Doc is as near superman as any human can be,and whenever a problem arises we find he can overcome it. 1000ft high sheer cliff face.No problem,he can utilise even the tiniest cracks in his climb. Someone tries to gas him? No problem,he can hold his breath for double the time of the finest pearl diver.Needs a cure for a dreadful disease.? In a mere one day he discovers a cure because he is one of the greatest scientists,virologists and doctors in the world. Enemy in a plane wanting to attack? He is a better pilot than the Red Baron,and soon destroys the attacker. And so on,and on. Absolutely hilarious. I have book 2 on hand and when I need cheering up a bit,the Doc is the perfect medicine.

I'm about to start Fledgling to wrap up my read of the Library of America Octavia Butler volume.

>9 Stevil2001: I’ll be very interested to see what you make of this one. It is a weird novel for more than one reason (I liked it a lot).

>9 Stevil2001: >10 AnnieMod: I read Fledgling this year, (in the same LoA edition ;). I too liked it a lot. The story went places I didn't expect.

Recently finished Newton's Wake. (7/10) Good but fairly dense. I struggled with some of the Irish patois sprinkled throughout the dialog. Some big ideas and very much a Macleod novel in that it's difficult to identify good guys from bad guys. That is actually a selling point for me.

Currently reading The Three-Body Problem. Still in the early chapters so I don't have much of a feel for it yet.

Also about to start on Sarah Pinsker's Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea collection. I've heard good things about this and I enjoyed her novel, A Song For a New Day, which I read earlier this year.

Still reading Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Definitely a YA book but I'm having such fun reading it. Suits my mood.

As for the coming year there are books I'm planning on reading...see my "2022-TBR" tag...not to mention that my SFF book group has fired up again, so they'll get a vote!

>7 AnnieMod: Our household had to quit playing the game Pandemic for similar reasons when COVID hit. Great game but the scenarios are little close to home.

>7 AnnieMod:,>14 Neil_Luvs_Books:
Yes -- not a good time to watch the film "12 Monkeys" either.

I've wrapped up my read of Cosmogramma and posted my review, and started in on Neveryóna.

I'm working on the new Becky Chambers book, The galaxy and the ground within. As with her other books, it's in the same universe but in a different setting. This time it's three different spaceships taking a break at a small wayside between intergalactic jumps. Four types of sentient beings, and none of them are human! So far, so good.

Finished Project Orion, a story possibly more fantastic than a lot of sf because there was the distinct possibility that there could have ben a mission to the moons of Saturn by 1970. Now made a start on The Rise of Endymion.

>16 paradoxosalpha:. I was a little more generous than you were in your review of Cosmogramma but I only gave it half a star more. We agree that the stories with the weird or horror elements were the strongest in this mostly forgettable collection.

I finished off All Systems Red in a couple of bites, and ordered the next novella immediately. The Tin Man was my favorite Oz character, and I think that Murderbot refers back to that character.

I finished Council of Shadows by S.M. Stirling, moving on to J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality and Religion

Reading Max Barry's Jennifer Government - so far seems to be a rather clunky satire on Big Business.

>19 vwinsloe:

Likewise I completed the first Murderbot and -- despite having three other books going -- started the second Artificial Condition almost immediately, finishing it last night. This novella went in unexpected directions, plotwise, and introduced yet other delightful characters.

I have begun making notes of the various ways Wells translates human anxiety to AI persons. Perhaps my favourite so far: an AI "metaphorically clutched its function" at the suggestion of doing an innately offensive action.

>18 RobertDay: The Hyperion Cantos are among my favourite reads. Just behind the Ilium and Olympos duet. I hope you enjoy Rise of Endymion as much as I did.

Finished Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. For a YA read, it was enjoyable. Added the second book to my rotation - Aurora Burning.

>18 RobertDay: A Orion-type spaceship is featured in Footfall but you probably knew that already?

>25 bnielsen: >18 RobertDay: And also Anathem

>25 bnielsen: >26 justifiedsinner: True, there is one of those in both! I was really impressed by that when I first read Footfall.

Spent an indulgent weekend in our cozy warm house reading Nathan Lowell's engaging Double Share,another pleasant Hornblower in space sort of book,while it blew a gale - literally,we had 100 miles an hour gusts this week,and torrential rain, 250,000 homes were without power for days,50000 are still without power after 9 days. So I just hunkered down and enjoyed this light untaxing fun read.
This week I intend to finish Hothouseand start on Hope Merrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist.

Finished Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Still enjoying the books. Started the final book - Aurora's End.

>25 bnielsen: >26 justifiedsinner: >27 Karlstar: I had forgotten about Footfall ("Nuke 'em till they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark" - I think that got quoted in an episode of Babylon 5!). There is also one in John Varley's Red Thunder, which is on the TBR pile, or at least in its foothills.

I read the play - R.U.R. believed to be the 1st use of the word "robot".

Finished Hothouse bizarre and preposterous. I found suspension of disbelief almost impossible.and I'm glad to be done with it! lol
Next up,Lud-in-the-Mist and Grey Lensman

>32 dustydigger:

Lud-in-the-Mist was a pleasant surprise for me when I read it a few years ago. Somehow this one never hit my radar despite reading heavily in genre fiction growing up, especially Fantasy / Science Fiction. One of the better Faery stories I've read, and worthy of a revisit eventually.

Finished Aurora's End by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Overall, I really enjoyed the trilogy. Fit my mood perfectly. Next into the rotation is Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey.

>32 dustydigger: >33 elenchus: I wouldn't rate it highly as Little, Big but it's a definite classic.

>35 justifiedsinner: Well, that's a tough standard for any book to meet! But it says something good about Lud-in-the-Mist that one would even make that comparison. I'll have to move it higher on my to-read list.

Just finished Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I enjoyed it but thought that it was maybe 100 pages or so longer than it needed to be. The evolution of the seeded planet was well done. I haven't picked up the second book, Children of Ruin yet.

Finished Fledgling by Butler. Not sure what I thought. I feel like of the Butler novels I've read (Kindred and the Xenogenesis books), it was the least interesting. I liked the worldbuilding of Ina culture and biology, but the actual story told was a little dull.

Finished Map's Edge this evening. Pretty good secondary-world fantasy with some tendencies towards the epic. I was not familiar with this author at all and just sort of tripped over this book at the library; probably the first in a quartet (which seems to be Hair's preferred format).

I started I'm waiting for you and enjoyed the first story but bounced off the second one. The first and fourth, and second and third stories, are linked, so I may skip and just read the fourth one.

Is LibraryThing broken, or are all the SF & Fantasy Fans just sidelined by holiday activities? Nothing since Friday....

>41 rshart3: Some of us are getting ready for Worldcon. That said, I'll be starting Diplomacy of Wolves today.

>42 Shrike58: Will you be attending in person? I hope it will be a good con, despite the numerous difficulties it's been through.

Myself, I am as almost usual reading nothing genre-related at the moment.

I'm reading Leviathan Falls, but it's been a hard time to snatch moments to read. Our baby had pinkeye so I had to stay home with him for two days last week.

Over the weekend I read this great short story, Nightfall on the Peak of Eternal Light by Richard A. Lovett and William Gleason. I highly recommend it. I found it in Gardner Dozois’ The Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirtieth Annual Collection (this was in 2013). I have a few of Dozois’ annual SciFi collections and occasionally take one off the shelf to read a story. Most are worth reading. Nightfall was a particularly good read this weekend.

I just started Butler’s trilogy Lilith’s Brood this morning during my first flight since January 2020. :)

Contiuing with my mission of reading great short stories. Enjoyed a reread of Bradbury's rather creepy The Veldt from the Illustrated Man collection. Talk about having children from hell! :0)

>47 dustydigger: what a great story! What a great collection! 👍

I am on the home stretch of Termination Shock, by Neal Stephenson. Still don't know what to think about it, although it is entertaining enough if you like how he writes.

I picked up All Systems Red from the local public library (where I'd put a hold on it) and read the first chapter today. I'll probably finish it quickly before going back to complete Neveryona where I'm at about the 40% mark.

>50 paradoxosalpha:

Depending on the time available, you may well finish it tonight.

>43 anglemark: Yes I will...too many of the div. chiefs know where I live!

Finished up Diplomacy of Wolves. Probably read as an advance on the sub-genre 20-odd years ago; now it's kind of meh.

>52 Shrike58: Don't forget to vote in site selection!

Still don't know what to think about it, although it is entertaining enough if you like how he writes.

>49 drmamm: i haven't read this one, but i feel like I've said exactly this with every Stephenson book I've read...

>51 elenchus:

I did finish All Systems Red last night, and posted my review this morning.

>56 paradoxosalpha:

I agree the best part of the novella is the narrating voice of SecUnit, and while the plot and world-building are not exactly novel, I've found they're also not merely serviceable -- they serve a crucial function, providing a suitable context about which SecUnit can narrate!

I'm finding the pacing of both story and world-building perfect for SecUnit's self-discovery, and consequent revelation to the reader. It doesn't feel like SecUnit is keeping secrets from me in a deliberate scheme (though of course, it knows much more than it says at any given time, especially about itself), so much as SecUnit is unwilling to share things until events provoke it and make it unavoidable. In that sense, the premise and setting serve as a form of therapist to SecUnit, making for a great genre character study.

>54 anglemark: I did; we'll see if it was fifty bucks wasted.

Finished Cryptonomicon, started Brain Plague.

I am reading Unholy Land now, and really liking it.

Wow! Ted Chiang's Hell is the Absence of God was a grim,complex,subtle and depressing read. But I still read it twice! :0) . I only read one of his stories at a time with lots of time for contemplation of the subtleties. I think I will do a reread of The Great Divorce next month,at least it is less bleak and depressing,and has a bit of hope to it! lol.
All I have left of SF to read this year is Lester Del Rey's Mysterious Planet from the Winston classics.I Just completed my 100 SF/F books challenge yesterday on WWEnd.Only scraped through because I have read a lot of short stories this year. The actual page count for this year is well down for other years,but life is not too sparkling for anyone in this covid era.Concentration for reading is quite difficult these days:0(
Anyhoo,I am getting together my TBR for next year,and as usual will publish it just before New Year

>61 dustydigger: I too just finished my WWE challenge reads for the year by finally polishing off Tales of the Dying Earth, which was by turns, both turgid and entertaining. I began this book way back in April and dipped in & out to completion. Whew!

Another excellent year-end read was Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea. A great collection of stories from Sarah Pinsker. I'm looking forward to also reading her latest novel soon.

Next up is Nick Harkaway's The Blind Giant and The Echo Maker by Richard Powers, an author I have not read before.

>60 anglemark:

I've recently read Lavie Tidhar's The Hood which was a lot of fun.

>62 ScoLgo: I love Richard Powers, but I haven't read that one. Pretty sure it'll be nothing like Nick Harkaway, though.

Just finished Far from the light of heaven by Tade Thompson. It's a locked-ship mystery in space, so it has elements of space opera without all the travel. I haven't decided all of what I think about it, but it's definitely worth reading.

Finished Termination Shock. It was pretty good, although I like Stephenson's unusual writing style (an alternate book title would be "Exposition Shock."). It was definitely uneven in parts, but, surprisingly, the ending wrapped things up - at least by Stephenson's standards of endings (there were still several loose ends, but the central plot thread was tied up).

Finished Seven of Infinities this evening and I liked it quite a lot. That I didn't absolutely love it is a commentary on how the climax plays out, which I'm not sure was sufficiently foreshadowed, though it was very cool.

I'm ripping through Laura Lam's Goldilocks. I can see why it's had mixed reviews - there's a bit of "suspension of disbelief" to swallow, but I'm enjoying it immensely.

I've just started The doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I just finished Day Zero by Robert Cargill. :)

I completed The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. An interesting read but annoying in that there are no likeable characters. Unlikeable in the sense that none of them have redeeming characteristics. There is certainly no hero in this story. And I suspect that is Vonnegut’s point. I wonder if writing Sirens of Titan was Vonnegut’s way of dealing with PTSD after experiencing the firebombing of Dresden in WWII? Does anyone know? I very much preferred Slaughterhouse Five but can understand why Sirens of Titan receives such praise. It is an insightful book on the human condition and its seeming senselessness. But is existentialism ever uplifting? Any philosophers out there who want to chime in?

Finished Lilith's Brood - the omnibus of the 3 Xenogenesis novels by Octavia Butler. That one took some weird turns here and there but quite enjoyable overall. It proved again that Butler may have similar topics and ideas occasionally but none of her books/series really match each other - she goes into new direction every time she creates a new world. And unlike the Patternist novels where there could have been a lot more of them, these 3 feel complete (even if there is a place for more stories, it does feel complete). I still like the Patternist series more though.

Which means I have only 2 stories left to read and I am done with 2021's "read all the fiction by Butler" goal (which just happened somehow...)

Finished The Rise of Endymion today; well worth the effort of wading through the expository lumps for some important views of Life and Death. Shame about some of the padding (a four page description of the view from the top of a mountain did have me wondering if Simmons was getting paid by the word). And whilst the central character spent about a third of the novel worrying about something that I could see coming a mile off, I wonder if Simmons did that deliberately to divert attention away from some other characters' fates...

Next up on the TBR pile is Mappa Mundi, though Santa's Little Amazons delivered a package today that I suspect may contain something that will nudge that off the top of the pile for a while...

>72 RobertDay: I really enjoyed the Hyperion Cantos. I’ve read all four books twice now and am certain I will read them again in the near future. I am not sure why I gravitate to it so strongly but I really enjoy that story.

Finished Lester Del Rey The Mysterious Planet from the Winston classics series.. Have spent the last week or so just relaxing with Hornblower in Space stypeeries,requiring no brain effort,(since I am laid low with a major chest infection,feeling rotten) but quite enjoyable light fare.
Another Xmas spoilt by covid and my ill health,as my family just popped in and out for about 5 minutes to exchange gifts.Usually I have the whole family,kids ,grandkids and great grandkids causing mayhem all Xmas day On the book front though I did quite well,receiving £65 worth of Amazon vouchers,and have already spent over £30 on books :0)i. I have almost completed my usual basic 50 book TBR for 2022,but will spend the rest of the month just following my Hornblower clones
I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season,and got some good books. I was very happy to receive The Sparrow, Jemisin's Kingdom of Gods,and The Magic a selection of Roger Zelazny's mindblowing early pyrotechnic work,chosen by Chip Delany. Cool! :0)

>74 dustydigger: I hope you feel better soon, Dusty! Glad that you have enough new reading material until then.

>74 dustydigger: I was quite pleasantly surprised by The Sparrow, though there are glaring plot holes.

I finished Leviathan Falls, and now I am reading the anthology Burning Brightly, which I got from EarlyReviewers.

Finished Iron Widow, still reading Piranesi. I ought to finish Ivory’s Story as well, but I’m finding it a bit of a slog.

>76 RobertDay:. "Pleasantly surprised" would not be the words that I would use to describe my first reading of The Sparrow many years ago. More like "traumatized." ;)

>78 Maddz: Any views on Iron Widow? It's the January read for my SF&F book group.

>80 SChant: It’s…interesting - as in ‘may you live in interesting times’.

I rather enjoyed it; it starts out reading like a YA mecha/anime romp but veers into some rather intense sociological territory. I’d say it’s probably not to everyone’s taste.

Finished Piranesi, now continuing the Eugen Bacon. Noticed I have another part-finished LTER offering on the Kobo.

Finished both the LTER offerings. I managed to get into a severe reading slump last year and got horribly behind with my reading. It didn’t help trying to finish a book I should have marked as DNF the first time I stalled on it instead of trying to finish it.

Not sure what I’ll go for next; I have more LTER, there’s some new books (including some birthday presents from 2020), or I might go on cataloguing CDs when I get home.

>79 vwinsloe: I wasn't trying to imply that The Sparrow was in any way lightweight, or that my tastes run to the sadistically gruesome. Rather, I had low expectations of the novel as a piece of science fiction, only to find expectations in that department surpassed (apart from leaving the mothership uncrewed...)

Knocked off Nucleation yesterday evening; interesting from the perspective of high concept but just "interesting." I suspect that the author was going for the Andy Weir market, but, whatever else you want to say about Weir, his protagonists are engaging enough that you care about their fate, whereas Unger's main character is pretty cardboard. Reading this work after something by Aliette de Bodard probably did Unger no favors!

>84 RobertDay:. I wondered. But there is a reason that The Sparrow has a huge following.

>86 vwinsloe: so does Twilight. I am not trying to compare them in any way or form but the huge following for a book is not always an indication of quality.

I started To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. Not bad so far.

>87 AnnieMod:. Good point. Perhaps I should have specified "a huge following among sf readers whose opinions I respect."

Finished Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey. An acceptable end to the story. Added Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff to my rotation.

Finished Brain Plague and started The Shepherd's Crown.

Finished Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Loved the story. Hated the telling. The AIDAN bits were almost impossible to read on my tablet--background, font type, font color--nasty choices. Started Gemina, the next book in the series.

Well,finished my basic SF/F TBR for next year.Mostly old stuff,with a very small scattering of later stuff. This leaves time for short stories and serendipity choices,and classics and other genres.
Hope everyone has a great reading year! :0)

Brian Aldiss - Nonstop
Poul Anderson - There Will Be Time
Iain M Banks - Inversions
Iain M Banks - Look to Windward
Algis Budrys - Who?
Mikhail Bulgakov - Master and Margarita
Octavia E Butler - Dawn
Karel Capek - War with the Newts
Orson Scott Card - Xenocide
Arthur C Clarke - Rendezvous With Rama
Samuel L Delaney - Dhalgren
P K Dick - A Scanner Darkly
Daniel F Galouye - Dark Universe
Charles Harness - The Paradox Men
Frank Herbert - Santaroga Barrier
Robert E Howard - Valley of the Worm
Faith Hunter - Bloodring
N K Jemisin - Kingdom of Gods
Mary Robinette Kowal - The Calculating Stars
Ursula K Le Guin - The Telling
Fritz Leiber - Ill Met In Lankhmar
C S Lewis - The Great Divorce
Jack McDevitt - Moonfall
C L Moore - Northwest of Earth
Larry Niven - Fallen Angels
Flann O'Brien - At-Swims-Two-Birds
Fred Pohl - Drunkard's Walk
Alistair Reynolds - Revelation Space
Patrick Rothfuss - Name of the Wind
Eric Frank Russell - Three to Conquer
Robert Silverberg - Book of Skulls
Robert Silverberg - Sailing to Byzantium
William Sloan - To Walk the Night
Joan Slonczewski - Door into Ocean
E E Doc Smith - Grey Lensman
Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
Theodore Sturgeon - Venus Plus X
Adam Tchaikovsky - Children of Time
Wilson Tucker - Year of the Quiet Sun
Jack Vance - Dying Earth
Jack Vance - Book of Dreams
Vernor Vinge - Marooned in Real Time
AE Van Vogt - Slan
A Van Vogt - World of Null A
Stanley G Weinbaum - Stories from the Solar System
Ian Watson - The Jonah Kit
Philip Wylie - After Worlds Collide
Connie Willis -Passage
John Wyndham - Stowaway to Mars
John Wyndham - Trouble With Lichen
Roger Zelazny - Creatures of Light and Darkness
Roger Zelazny - Damnation Alley

I am about to start The Man in the High Castle, as part of my project to read once per year a winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel that I haven't read before.

I just read Artificial Condition (and posted my review). At this rate of borrowing and reading, I should be caught up with all six Murderbot books by the beginning of February.

Recently finished SFWA Grand Masters volume 2 featuring stories by Andre Norton, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester and Ray Bradbury, its a mixed bag of stories but mostly good ones.

Also finished this month: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and it started out good but didn't think it was that good after finishing, so I will skip the rest of the series. The main character is pretty unlikable for me.

Found some old 70's reprints of Issac Asimov's David Starr series at a thrift shop and gave them a try. Solid classic 50's Sci Fi action stories! A little dated but still interesting, and also suitable for YA readers as well. Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter and Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus the author added a nice preface to the books as they were reprints from older works and the knowledge of these planets is different then when they were written. Short novels and good for escaping your covid cares!

Just finished Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear. Overall, good space opera. Some good ideas and characters, and just plain fun (love the space cats -- clearly she knows & loves cats). There is, however (without being a spoiler) a large Deus ex Machina --literally large -- which appears at the middle & the end of the book, to resolve difficulties. I'm not very fond of that strategy. I guess sometimes it's the only way out... some of my favorite authors have resorted to it.

>96 kaida46: Kaida46 "...Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and it started out good but didn't think it was that good after finishing, so I will skip the rest of the series. The main character is pretty unlikable for me."

I found all the characters pretty unlikeable. The novel is ambitious and strange. But both his method of telling it, and the situation itself, intrigue me enough that I'd like to see where he goes with it. I've gotten the next two & will find out more.

>95 paradoxosalpha:

I'd similarly power through the series if they were all at hand. I've chosen to limit myself by committing to purchasing the first 4 in hardbound editions. Usually that decision is made only after reading a book and realising I will definitely read it at least once more, and wanting to share it with others. I felt an impulse to circumvent that approach and for some reason, it felt right to follow it.

>96 kaida46:
>98 rshart3:

I haven't read any of the Southern Reach novels, and have been following reader reactions (on LT and elsewhere) to better assess whether I should. Somehow it seems fitting that the protagonist isn't likeable, I'm not usually attracted to that sort of story but in the case of Southern Reach it promises to enhance the story. Incidentally, I believe that later novels don't follow with the same POV, so if the storyline still interests you, later novels may turn out more agreeable. In my case, I've pretty much decided I want to read them, but haven't decided when.

>99 elenchus:, >96 kaida46: and >98 rshart3: And according to Jeff Vandermeer, there is a 4th book in the Southern Reach series coming out soon entitled Absolution.

That is great news about a fourth Southern Reach book! For those weighing whether to continue after the first, it should be noted that the story really moves sideways, outside of Area X proper, and centers on very different characters in the second book.

I thought that the "Southern Reach" books were great...though whether a fourth book was really necessary is another question. I'll still read it though!

Finished Gemina by Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Not quite as good as the first book of the series. Started the third book, Obsidio.

Had been reading novellas in the last few days with only a few of them fitting here: Upright Women Wanted (Sarah Gailey), Defekt (Nino Cipri) and Remote Control (Nnedi Okorafor). The rest were fantasy :) All were good.

And started Inheritor - back to the Foreigner series which went on the back burner last year. There is no way I finish this one before the end of the year so that will also be my first 2022 SF book :)

Happy New Year all!

Happy New Year!

As I have not yet opened a book in 2022, just a note on where I finished 2021: about half-way through Mappa Mundi, and it is intriguing and irritating me in equal measures. I failed to be blown away by Robson's first novel, Silver Screen, which just struck me as pedestrian medium-future corporate unthriller. MM is way better in terms of themes, plot and interesting characters, but then I trip over some sloppy writing, or sloppy editing, or both. Example: early on, protagonist A meets protagonist B, who is an FBI agent under cover and giving a false name. But inside three pages, A has asked B "So (real name) is your real name, then?", when B's real name hasn't been mentioned. Later, B has to get a flight back to the USA from York in England, but everyone talks about getting to "the airport" as if it's a local airport, which York doesn't possess. Thing is, Robson is a northern Brit who should be expected to know this sort of stuff.

Oh, and given that this is a conspiracy thriller involving the organs of government, it doesn't help that B's sister is American Indian by the name of "White Horse", which I insisted on pre-reading as "White House" almost every time I came across it...

Still, I'll stick with it because the premise is interesting.

And then, when I got home early this morning from (socially-distanced) New Year revellings, I found that Santa's Little Amazons had finally delivered my outstanding Christmas present, Beyond the Hallowed Sky. Well, hurrah!

>93 dustydigger: What a great TBR list for 2022! A few books and authors are also on my list: Connie Willis, van Vogt, Vance, Tucker, and more. I look forward to reading what you think!

>106 RobertDay:
I found that Santa's Little Amazons had finally delivered my outstanding Christmas present, Beyond the Hallowed Sky. Well, hurrah!

Hurrah indeed.