Reading Wednesday

[firecat]

Actually "reading since the last time I posted to DreamWidth," which works out to "reading May, June, and 1/3 of July."

Ebooks

• Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories
  • Recommended, it gives you a good sense of the themes she tends to work with.
• Jo Clayton, Diadem From the Stars (The Diadem Saga #1) 
  • Published in the 70s, first in a nine-book series; I have an omnibus of the first three books. I gave up on it about 1/3–1/2 of the way through. There was too much cruelty. Also it bugged me that the author kept on making up words that her culture was supposed to be using, but then never using them again. 
• William Gibson, The Peripheral
  • Set in two future timelines, 70 years apart. As is typical for Gibson, the worldbuilding is clever and the character development is somewhat minimal. 
• Barbara Hambly, James Asher series #1–4 (Those Who Hunt the Night; Traveling With The Dead; Blood Maidens; The Magistrates of Hell)
  • I read Those Who Hunt the Night a long time ago and as a fan of the fictional genre "history, with vampires," I was excited to discover that she has continued the series (the second book in the series was published in 95, and books 3–8 in the 2010s). The follow-ons aren't as good as the first book (#4 bothered me more than the others, because it was full of Chinese and Japanese stereotypes), but so far they are satisfying to me anyway.  
• Homer, translated by Emily Wilson, The Odyssey
  • This is a new, very plain-language translation. Wilson prefaces it with a long essay and makes a good argument for why that's appropriate. I enjoyed reading it out loud to myself. It's pretty interesting comparing the values of the various characters with modern values.
• Nalo Hopkinson, Midnight Robber
  • Science fiction / fantasy / expanded folktale. Nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree. It's written in dialect. I'm glad I read it, but I suffered from not knowing a lot of the cultural references.
• Ann Leckie, The Raven Tower
  • Leckie previously wrote the Imperial Radch science fiction / space opera series. This is a fantasy story, narrated by a god, who also does a lot of musing about the nature of existence and language. Ann Leckie has a writing style that is delightful to read out loud.
• Fonda Lee, Jade City (Green Bone Saga #1)
  • Won the World Fantasy Award. If The Godfather were set in an AU China or Japan and the made people had superpowers...Full of action, but character-driven and psychological, with interesting worldbuilding. The second book in the series is out later this month.
• Sol Yurik, The Warriors
  • I'm a fan of the 1979 film The Warriors, and this is the book it was loosely based on; this book in turn is loosely based on a work called the Anabasis by Xenophon, composed in 370 BC. This was published in 1965 by a Jewish social worker who was the son of communist Jewish immigrants. I gave up on it because it didn't age well, but I'm glad that I learned about the author and tried to read it.

Audiobooks

• Seth Grahame-Smith, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Vampire Hunter #1)
  • As a fan of the fictional genre "history, with vampires," I ended up not liking this book, partly because I didn't care for the narrator, and mostly because up until the point where I gave up, there was too much history and not enough vampires. 
• Chester Himes, A Rage In Harlem (Harlem Cycle #1)
  • I bought this because it was narrated by Samuel Jackson, and I highly recommend it if you're a fan of his, because he seems like he is having SO MUCH FUN. However, it was published in 1957 and it's full of racist stereotypes and sexism, so I felt a bit dirty enjoying it. Chester Himes was a black American writer who got his start in writing while serving a prison term. Wikipedia claims he is regarded as the literary equal of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. I would agree. This is the first of a series of nine books featuring two black NYPD detectives. (They don't play a primary role in this story.) The books are: 
    • For Love of Imabelle, a.k.a. A Rage in Harlem
    • The Crazy Kill
    • The Real Cool Killers
    • All Shot Up
    • The Big Gold Dream
    • The Heat's On
    • Cotton Comes to Harlem
    • Blind Man With A Pistol
  • Audible has them all, narrated by Dion Graham.
• John le Carré, A Legacy of Spies (Smiley #9)
  • Narrated by Tom Hollander. It's a follow-on to The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. That book is set in the late 50s, but this is set in the present. Apparently le Carré was trying to make an anti-Brexit argument with it. I had trouble following it as an audiobook because it keeps switching time periods without any audible cue. 
• Jennifer Paxton/Great Courses, The Story of Medieval England: From King Arthur to the Tudor Conquest
  • 18 hours of lectures on the history of England during the period roughly from 500 to 1500 AD. Not a lot of time to cover such a long period, but helpful if you aren't very familiar with it. Paxton is an excellent lecturer: easy to understand and very organized. 
• Laini Taylor, Muse of Nightmares 
  • Sequel to Strange the Dreamer. Narrated by Steve West, who does a really stellar job. 

Comments

[hitchhiker]

i'm looking forward to the next jade city book! and i really should read more of hopkinson.

[firecat]

Ditto x2!