What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

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Wondering where all the good sci-fi went

Martha said:
I would have figured you for a sci fi fan. :)
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I am - it's just kind of a back-burner things now because for some reason, all the books at the $1 used paperbacks at the half priced bookstore are NOT sci-fi. Since we are pretty much limited to the stuff we can haul back to China in checked luggage, I'm taking a sabbatical. I'm too cheap to buy a Kindle.
However, I have gotten a little disillusioned with the whole sci-fi genre now - seems to be pretty much either fantasy or space wars galore. I don't care for either of those topics.
I really like the hard science fiction - based on some fairly solid extrapolation of current science. I don't want to read about (what seems to me to be) either a nightmare or maybe a drug induced fantasy.
 
I really like the hard science fiction - based on some fairly solid extrapolation of current science. I don't want to read about (what seems to me to be) either a nightmare or maybe a drug induced fantasy.
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That's pretty much the reason I gave up on science fiction. Too much work to find the stuff I like.
 
Not me, I like most of it. Have you ever heard the old game about reading a fortune cookie - put the words "in bed" after each fortune? I consider sc-fi to be like that, sort of. It's just another genre of story - "in space" or "in Middle Earth", or whatever. But many of them are detective stories, suspense, westerns, etc. The recent spate of vampire/were-creature stories are just bodice rippers with a tinge of bestiality mixed in. Most of those I can do without.
 
Just finished Soverign by C.J. Sansoun. Part of a historical fiction series taking place in Henry VIII's England. In this novel our hero, the lawyer Shardlake and his assistent, are tasked with escorting a prisoner from York to London for interrogation (torture) in the Tower of London. They meet Henry's "Progress" in York and a mystery surrounds the death of a workman and the dissapperance of some controversial long lost papers.

If you are interested, I'd recommend starting with the first novel in this series Dissolution.
 
I just finished Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts and really enjoyed it. It made me feel like I wanted to be there, in much the same way I felt when I watched the movie Empire Falls. While working I had so little time for reading that I rarely read fiction - it's one of the things I'm enjoying more of now.

I enjoyed this book so much that I'm planning to go to the library this week and check out another one by the same author, The Honk and Holler Opening Soon.
 
The Pirate and the Puritan by Mary Clayton.
A good swashbuckler novel with excellent description of the customs/beliefs of the period and historical backdrop, and of course an impossible love story. :flowers: Very well written, and reminiscent of Taylor Caldwell's writing style.
 
I am currently reading The Year Of The Dragon by Robert Daley and Stone Cold by Baldacci. The first one very good, the latter, mediocre.
 
Bummer on the Baldcacci book. I have it in my stack to read from the annual library sale.

Read the Headmasters Wife, in the Gregor Demarkian series by Jane Haddam. One of her better books. In the mystery is a good look at burnout and the problem of making everything in life political. Others found it talking and boring and bleak so it may be a matter of taste.
 
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Martha: don´t let me discourage you from reading it. The thing is that the only Baldacci novel I´ve liked is Absolute Power. But if you are a Baldacci fan you´ll like it.
 
I just finished reading Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. I enjoyed it, but not enough that I plan to read Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters.
 
SciFiFan53 said:
I really like the hard science fiction - based on some fairly solid extrapolation of current science. I don't want to read about (what seems to me to be) either a nightmare or maybe a drug induced fantasy.
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T-Al, this is for you, too.

Neal Stephenson may rekindle your love affair. Not all of his stuff is science fiction, not all of it is fantasy, some of it is sort of history, but all of it (so far for us) is good. And he's prolific, always fun in a good writer.

I'd start with Snow Crash, move on to the Baroque Cycle and then to Anathem.

Speaking of... just finished re-reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Freakin' scary, freakin' good. Still. Might go dig up more of his stuff.

Oh, and really enjoyed "God's Middle Finger: Into the lawless heart of the Sierra Madre" by Richard Grant. Really transfixing travel writing.
 
Speaking of... just finished re-reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Freakin' scary, freakin' good. Still. Might go dig up more of his stuff.
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I read it a few months ago and then got the DVD from the library the day that I took the book back. Movie differed from the book. I enjoyed making the comparison/contrast.
 
I recently read Titan about John D. Rockefeller. I long but very good read. I hope to finish the Biography of Benjamin Franklin next week. It is also very good and informative. The next one to read is 1776, then Triumph and Tragedy about Churchill and after that is biography on Alexander Hamilton. I have read so many fiction books and finance books I thought I would read a few books to improve my knowledge of history.

I typically get these books at Good Will in FL each time we travel down since they are only 50cents and usually have never been opened. Its a great place to buy almost anything since people go to FL to die as they say and when they do their kids just donate a lot of their stuff to Good Will so that they do not have to be bothered with it. If you are a collector of stuff a few visits to these stores might be good for you and then maybe not!
 
I have discovered that I sleep much better if I don't read non-fiction after dinner time, and if I stay in for the evening I read some fiction before bed. I sometimes find some really good art novels from little know authors, but these are small sellers that I hesitate to recommend.

Another favorite of mine is European based spy/crime/thriller fiction. I just found Robert Wilson, an English author whose is very, very good. His first book and the one I read first is prize winning A Small Death in Lisbon. It is an extremely good novel against the background of WW2 and Nazis.

Next I began reading one of his series with the protagonist Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon, set in Seville. This series is now closed. There are four books in it, starting with the Blind Man of Seville, followed by The Silent and the Damned, The Hidden Assassins and last The Ignorance of Blood. It may be that The Ignorance of Blood is best, nevertheless I would strongly recommend that anyone who likes this type of fiction start with the first in the series, The Blind Man of Seville. Some plot elements interconnect over time in the different novels. Also Javier Falcon is a complex character whose emotional development and also his development as a crime investigator proceeds through time in an interesting way. I actually feel that I have learned things from these books that may help me in my life.

Here is a recent review. http://itsacrime.typepad.com/its_a_.../03/the-ignorance-of-blood-robert-wilson.html

Ha
 
mickeyd said:
I read it a few months ago and then got the DVD from the library the day that I took the book back. Movie differed from the book. I enjoyed making the comparison/contrast.
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Just in general - I don't like to see movies after I've read the book. Seems as if the movie never lives up to the book (maybe I have a too-vivid imagination!). However, sometimes it does seem OK the other way around - see the movie first and then go read the book.
 
Urchina said:
T-Al, this is for you, too.

Neal Stephenson may rekindle your love affair. Not all of his stuff is science fiction, not all of it is fantasy, some of it is sort of history, but all of it (so far for us) is good. And he's prolific, always fun in a good writer.

I'd start with Snow Crash, move on to the Baroque Cycle and then to Anathem.

Speaking of... just finished re-reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Freakin' scary, freakin' good. Still. Might go dig up more of his stuff.

Oh, and really enjoyed "God's Middle Finger: Into the lawless heart of the Sierra Madre" by Richard Grant. Really transfixing travel writing.
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I had a friend recommend "The Diamond Age" to me - I think by Neal Stephenson. I assume it's the same guy? Anyway, they said it was very good. Have you read that one?
 
SciFiFan53 said:
I had a friend recommend "The Diamond Age" to me - I think by Neal Stephenson. I assume it's the same guy? Anyway, they said it was very good. Have you read that one?
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Yes, it's the same guy. His web page is here with a listing of his works.

"The Diamond Age" is very good, though not my favorite. Right now my favorite of his is "Snow Crash," but I haven't read "Anathem" or the Baroque Cycle yet.

I haven't been disappointed in any of his books, but compared to The Diamond Age and Snow Crash I found "zodiac" to be a little weak. It was one of his very first novels, so I'll cut him some slack. Still, I'd recommend starting with the others and then circling back to Zodiac if you feel so inclined. That'll be awhile -- most of his books are huge, but delightfully so.
 
SciFiFan53 said:
Just in general - I don't like to see movies after I've read the book. Seems as if the movie never lives up to the book (maybe I have a too-vivid imagination!). However, sometimes it does seem OK the other way around - see the movie first and then go read the book.
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Agreed, but in the case of Fahrenheit 451, the movie is so very different from the book that it makes an interesting contrast. The movie is pretty weird and somewhat cheezy, but the scene where "Mildred" (they changed her name in the movie) is in the "story" was actually better and more detailed in the movie. Usually goes the other way.

-ERD50
 
I am reading "In Praise of Slowness" by Carl Honore. Saw this on the Huffington Post. Looks interesting.
 
I spent most of today flying across the country. Plane rides are my opportunities to catch up on reading. I started, and almost finished, "The Post-American World", by Fareed Zakaria. History, economics & foreign policy.....wheee! I found it an excellent read and quite thought provoking. Zakaria traces the rise of the US and compares it to other leading nations that have risen and fallen over the centuries, and analyzes and compares developments in China and India over the past century or two. He notes the growing desire and capability of nations on the rise to chart their own course. He believes that the US will always remain important, but that the era of US dominance in the world is waning and that China, followed by India, will have the most growth in the 21st century. I think he is correct.
 
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