Spring Book Club/Reading whatever!

@sammydog01

I’m three or four years out of touch on that I need to go catch up

@sammydog01 Hmm, my library card expired last month, I should take care of that so I can download and finally start reading this series (my uncle recommended it to me, like, a decade ago).

@mossygreen @sammydog01

If you do it, be sure to read the “interstitial” short stories and novellas that are in the same universe, and open up some side thread in the series.

Those are usually published in Urban Fantasy current story collections, along w works by other good writers.

Those shorter works are very very good, and often a little comic. So find one of those “read Dresden Files is order webpages that includes these, in order to suss these stories out.

Butcher is a damned fine writer.

@f00l @mossygreen I bought the new ones on Kindle and haven’t read them yet. I should do that.

The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch is similar and also very good.

@mossygreen @sammydog01

You will like the novellas I suspect.

@cbilyak Aw.

@mossygreen it rates a 3.5 on Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13499586-napoleon-s-hemorrhoids

@speediedelivery

Wheel of Time was too long and lost control of itself, then Sanderson came in to fix it, needing a million more pages. But Sanderson did a good job.

The worst part always was trying to remember what happened in the prev book when the next book finally arrived.

Not all the way to a masterpiece, but I had a lot of fun w it.

And the ending came too fast!

Overall, I would have put up w and happily read a dozen more books.

@f00l I’ve only read her mysteries, which I love very much.

@f00l I read a ton of her regencies when I was younger. That was a while ago. I’ve always assumed they wouldn’t hold up if I re-read them now but perhaps I should check.

@Pamela

The ones written when she was a child and then re-worked later, or the ones written in her early adulthood, resembled simple melodramas.

But she grew in sophistication and skill, in dealing with all sorts of issues.

In *A Civil Contract, she handles the subject of arranged marriage and it’s psychological subtleties (having been contracted for social or financial advantage), (in an era where these marriages were were common), with skill and grace; and her characterizations within the story are superbly individualized. And yet the whole book stays “light”, as is typical of regencies.

In Arabella, the comic portions of dialogue between the more convention sister, and her brother and his friends who speak almost entirely in regency gaming hall slang, combined with the inevitable misunderstanding, is a delight. As well is the slang of the rough street people these social elite occasionally encounter when someone has made a mess of things.

@sweetjoey Sounds good- I put a hold on it at the library.

@macromeh I have that somewhere and I’m sure I read it, but remember nothing about it. I should dig it out!

@ironcheftoni

I love her books.

Not done the latest.
Don’t think I’ve read any of the Midnight, TX ones or the Cemetery Girl series.

I like or love them all, but of what I’ve read, the Aurora Teagarden series is my fav so far.

@f00l @ironcheftoni The Sookie books are funny and light, I have five more to go.

@blaineg Oooh, that looks good. And my library has it! Another reason to take care of my expired card.

@blaineg Interesting. I’ve read through the entire Bible a handful of times in various translations. I know there is a lot that I’m missing reading it in English rather than the original languages. I’d be interested to know how you like it and what insights you get from it.

@blaineg Did Jefferson invent cut & paste?

@blaineg huh, page two is the Map of the Holy Land. I was just going over this map with my faith formation students yesterday. So neat to see it here

Mr. Banks’ sort of… take, on agency and will, and causality… something in there also lands right.

@InnocuousFarmer Asimov wrote tons of short stories. I remember enjoying them a lot. More than most of his novels. He had one version of the future that showed up in some stories (I’m not sure about novels) in which humans consulted a world wide computer called Multivac. If you consider the time when Asimov was writing you can figure out how he came up with that name. From the perspective of today, or even of the 1980’s, it’s hilarious. Every futurist has some blind spots.

@Pamela Since I’m aiming for the robot + empire + foundation serieses (1 down, 14 to go), it might be a while before I get around to short stories intersecting Multivac… don’t know why he didn’t squeeze a Duovac in there, eh? (or did he?)

… Pebble in the Sky went quicker than I thought, though maybe that’s partially because it’s only 220 pages or so. Old-timey references, tropes, and sci-fi-isms aside, it was more of a page turner, and more relevant, than I expected.

@InnocuousFarmer My reason for suggesting the stories is because I don’t remember particularly liking the Foundation series when I read it. At least not compared to his other work. But that was a long time ago and I was pretty young so there may have been aspects that went over my head.

I think the vac in Multivac refers to vacuum tubes.

@Pamela I got what you were saying, because Multivac is more than Univac (even though Univac I had more than one vacuum tube, heheh). I was thinking of the trolls in Discworld counting, “One, two, many.”

@show_the_maw Sounds interesting, going on my to-read list!

@mossygreen https://www.amazon.com/Wise-Friend-Fiction-Without-Frontiers-ebook/dp/B086689HYL

@mossygreen Sounds good! I might start it tonight.

@sammydog01 Yay! Ramsey Campbell is great! I hope, it’s been ages since I read his stuff and then only the short stories!

@mossygreen It’s back up to $6.99. But who knows what the future holds? (It was that price on my amazon wish list for a few months, where I was keeping an eye on it.)

@mossygreen Wow this book is good, I’ll let you know is when I finish it.

@mossygreen I decided to look up what was the best Ramsey Campbell book and found an entry in horror lit on Reddit.

The question was “what do you think of Ramsey Campbell” and the top answer was “he’s a tiresome old codger”. Posted by Ramsey Campbell.

I like this guy.

@mossygreen Speaking of Lovecraft, Campbell must be a fan. This book got kind of weird. But I like weird so that’s ok.

@sammydog01 He is! His earliest stuff (like, teenage stuff) was all Lovecraft pastiche! His first editor was August Derleth, who suggested he read M.R. James to learn how to tone stuff down!

@moonhat Ah, and the first book is currently free on kindle, the better to lure you in… Definitely worth a look-see. Thanks!

@mossygreen let me know what you think!!

@mossygreen Sure, why not? Audible narration is a two dollar add on.

@mossygreen @sammydog01

The are some well known writers (or their rights-holders or estates) who seem to have cut deals with Amazon re their entire catalog:

Kindle versions for these writers are usually fairly low priced at all times, w frequently-promo’'d extra discounted titles of theirs included in big Kindle sales.

A few such writers, in my guess:
Ed McBain
Arthur C Clarke
Kurt Vonnegut
Philip K Dick
Patricia Wentworth
Ngaio Marsh
Ian Fleming
Dorothy Sayers

Possibly Ursula Le Guin?

There are many others.

I see their titles on either promo’d or silent price drops all the time.

It’s become a bit of a game for me to spot or guess who seem to be on the list of “name writers” whose lawyers/agents might have cut this sort of deal w Amazon.

Thx for mention of cheap McBain title.