What Are You Reading?

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Oh, now I'm excited! I think I remember the fantasy in a sci-fi setting, thanks for reminding me.
I'm really into reading older fantasy (that's not New Wave, hmph), but after the horror that was Tanith Lee's fantasy work I put it off. I've the idea that Cherryh's fantasy fiction is way better than her sci-fi, I got into Foreigner from her fantasy short stories.

What's exciting about CL Moore is that she had similar monsters as Lovecraft before that was a thing. Both published in Weird Tales so maybe it was a thing at their time.

Have you read Cherryh's Rimrunner books? They're rather excellent SF, I thought. I read the first of her Faded Sun trilogy, though, and really only just made it to the end - it drips angst and introspection, but does not balance it with much action. Re, older Fantasy: I know you've read some Jack Vance, but have you read his Lyonesse books? The first, especially, is rather wonderful. There's all the Conan tales, of course, but they can get a bit repetitive all at once. What about Clark Ashton Smith?

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Now reading Transfigurations, by Michael Bishop. (My first owned Victor Gollancz yellow jacket!)

[Major Rawne]

Knocked out the last of Soul Wars last night. On the whole there was a lot to like about it, especially as my first real foray into Age of Sigmar beyond a smattering of short stories. That being said I did feel that after an initially strong start it did seem to lose direction from which it never seemed to quite recover. I especially liked that the gods were real characters in a way there never really were in the old world.

Next up is Toxicity by Andy Remic. The start is as mad cap as I expect from one of Remic's books, so hopefully it continues in such a fashion. Once this is done I have Lords of Silence or Jain Zar glaring at me (amongst many others) to be read.


Edit: Scratch that, I lied. Soul Wars is my second foray into Age of Sigmar. How could I forget the wonderful Nagash: The Undying King also by Josh.

[Lord of the Night]

Knocked out the last of Soul Wars last night. On the whole there was a lot to like about it, especially as my first real foray into Age of Sigmar beyond a smattering of short stories. That being said I did feel that after an initially strong start it did seem to lose direction from which it never seemed to quite recover. I especially liked that the gods were real characters in a way there never really were in the old world.

What did you think of the twist regarding the Lord-Arcanum Balthas?

Spoiler: I was shocked that he was Gelt and equally surprised that I never saw that coming given that his name was Balthas Arum, he felt a connection with the Old World, wondered if he'd met Sigmar before and called his mount Quicksilver.

LotN

[Xisor]

Finished up "Call of Archaon" - a genuinely decent anthology. Some really lovely bits of prose in there too, from all the authors - I'd forgotten how powerful even little turns of phrase can be.

I'm edging my way towards Neferata: Mortarch of Blood as I have the fancy edition, but first: "The Magos" by Dan Abnett. I read the shorts earlier this year, all grand. But more than that - started the novel recently, but only now cleared time to dedicate to it.

Bloody hell. The kick-off to it is so good. Drusher as an imagination-run-wild old coot of an anxious hermit is just wonderful. Even if the rest of the novel doesn't keep that focus, the little asides are so enjoyable.

Sheer joy, so far, even if also conjuring up all sorts of other feelings of excitement and wistfulness and grief.

So nice to be back in an on-going Inquisitor story. (Very soon I'll get to John French's Incarnation too!)

And Abnett too. Even since Pariah, it feels like his writing has levelled up again.

Still early in the novel, but such. FUN.

[Rob P]

Recently finished Mort. It's ok, but I never enjoy Terry Pratchett at much as I feel I ought to.

I'm currently reading a Louis Theroux book.

[Shaggy]

Just finished "The Lords Of Silence" by Chris Wraight... absolutely excellent, thoroughly recommend it. It shines a very interesting light on the psychology of the Death Guard after 10,000 years (in realtime, anyway) of The Long War. Very impressed - Chris Wraight is getting better with every book, I think.

Now just started to re-read "Fabius Bile : Primogenitor" by Josh Reynolds, ready for diving into the sequel. A book that I never expected to like all that much because I never really thought much of the title character - I was wrong. It's a very interesting examination of the character... and Reynolds' foreword is definitely food for thought as to his motivations. Again - recommended.

[Duke_Leto]

So I decided to go back and give Resurrection another go. First time around I gave up during the first third of the book. For some reason it just didn't click with me. Cannot put my finger on why but I just didn't like it. I read it back-to-back with Chris Wraight's Carrion Throne which was awesome so perhaps that was why?

Anyhow, having seen the positive reviews of Incarnation I was determined I give John French's inquisition series another go (as on paper that was a delicious combo). So glad I did...

The first 100 pages or so of Resurrection were still hard going but after that, once you get to the scenes in the Navigators Enclave...wow what a book. The last two thirds of the book were fantastic. I loved it. Still don't know why. Certainly not that the plot seemed to pick up (and I don't mean action scenes as they actually aren't my thing) but the story and writing style just seemed to flow better.

Great book and now I have started Incarnation... Brilliant so far, loving it!

[Squiggle]

Just finished "The Lords Of Silence" by Chris Wraight... absolutely excellent, thoroughly recommend it. It shines a very interesting light on the psychology of the Death Guard after 10,000 years (in realtime, anyway) of The Long War. Very impressed - Chris Wraight is getting better with every book, I think.

Now just started to re-read "Fabius Bile : Primogenitor" by Josh Reynolds, ready for diving into the sequel. A book that I never expected to like all that much because I never really thought much of the title character - I was wrong. It's a very interesting examination of the character... and Reynolds' foreword is definitely food for thought as to his motivations. Again - recommended.

Yeah I thought Lords of Silence did a great job at capturing the character of the Death Guard.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer. Thirty plus pages in, and I can feel a slow smile spreading across my face.

[Therion]

Just finished:
Catechism of Hate by Gav Thorpe - I liked it a lot. The incorporation of all the Imperial sayings into the text, Marines being extremely powerful but nowhere near invincible, etc.

Swinging The Sledgehammer: The Combat Effectiveness Of German Heavy Tank Battalions In World War II by Christopher W. Wilbeck, Maj, Ar - A very interesting read.

Henry and June: From A Journal of Love: the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931–1932) - Reading it on and off.

Tank War - Ludwig Ritter von Eimannsberger - Bought it again some time ago. Now I was reading some of it. He had that idea that an infantry battalion should have at least 6 47mm AT guns, which could be reinforced with additional AT Guns from its regiment and then with independent infantry gun battalions.
Like, an infantry regiment deployed in depth on a 2km frontage would have 18 AT guns - 36 or even 54 when reinforced with guns from AT gun regiment.

Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - I kinda like the dialogues and character feels but increasingly feeling like this about how he writes combat:

I shouldn't have bought the book as I already experienced the problem once in Soul Hunter. Bought it on impulse. Also, Polish translation doesn't have the map :/ .

EDIT: Enough. Needed to stop reading it *cringes* .

[Rob P]

Interesting, Therion. One thing I recall liking about Helsreach, was that it bucked the trend of the Space Marine Battles series by not being bolter porn. Personally I like ADB's style of writing battle scenes, they tend to be personal and character driven than sweeping, tactical and technical. Going off your other reads, I take it that is what you felt was missing?

I'm currently reading Why People Believe in Spirits, God and Magic by Jack Hunter. I'm loving this sort of stuff at the moment. It's an experiential anthropological look at the paranormal.

I've also grabbed a trove of 40k books to burn an amazon card I received last Christmas. I grabbed the Andy Chamber's Dark Eldar trilogy, Annandale's Mephiston novella, Hinks' first Mephiston Novel and Straken. All had good reviews on amazon and all of interest. I've also got Gav Thorpe's Asurman to read - i've put it off for a long time as he's the generic phoenix lord (or so I've imagined) but the start of an old review/interview on the Forge the Narrative podcast made it sound awesome.

So not sure what to read next.

[Therion]

Interesting, Therion. One thing I recall liking about Helsreach, was that it bucked the trend of the Space Marine Battles series by not being bolter porn. Personally I like ADB's style of writing battle scenes, they tend to be personal and character driven than sweeping, tactical and technical. Going off your other reads, I take it that is what you felt was missing?

He does that thing with invincible super marines in big battles, makes enemies completely insignificant just because. Like writes about massacring orks, not even mentioning what weapons they use, how Marines overcome the tactical problem of killing these guys:

and not getting all killed.
Just repulsive, primitive power fantasy like American superzer0 comics.

Vorzavius waded among foes, slaughtering them all, because they were inferior and he was superior space marine. After killing hundreds single handedly, thousands with his squad he came to conclusion they may have a casualty if they'll have to kill ten thousands more.
-No! - he said, raging against the thought.
After a long deliberation, they decided to evacuate.
The company's battlebarge landed next to him, despite that it should be impossible a testament to the extraordinary skill of the captain. There were no doors on ground level so he grabbed a steel rope and held to it as the massive warship lifted off into space.

[Major Rawne]

I've also grabbed a trove of 40k books to burn an amazon card I received last Christmas. I grabbed the Andy Chamber's Dark Eldar trilogy, Annandale's Mephiston novella, Hinks' first Mephiston Novel and Straken. All had good reviews on amazon and all of interest. I've also got Gav Thorpe's Asurman to read - i've put it off for a long time as he's the generic phoenix lord (or so I've imagined) but the start of an old review/interview on the Forge the Narrative podcast made it sound awesome.

So not sure what to read next.

I myself would heartily recommend Asurman or the Dark Eldar trilogy.

For myself i'm still on Toxicity. It's pretty much my lunch time read so not getting through it quickly. That being said it's really good, there's one character who puts me right in mind of Zaphod Beeblebrox.

I did manage to carve out a good chunk of yesterday to get caught up on a couple of comics and a few short stories. First up was finishing the last couple of stories from BL's summer of reading, The Learning and Prologue to Nikea. The former I found to be somewhat middle of the road, I struggled somewhat from lack of knowledge on AoS and particularly the Idoneth Deepkin. The latter though I thought was a great look at the role psykers could have within the Imperium and also the role that faith in the Emperor has, all wrapped up as a neat stepping stone for later events.

The final short I read was Choke Point by Mike Brooks. Really good Imperial Guard kicking Ork butt story. The most interesting thing about this was that the main character isn't described at all, so it's left entirely up to me as to how I imagine them.

Comics wise I raced through the latest volume of The Wicked + Divine, cracking once again. Then I raced through a volume of Fables which was also brilliant stuff.

[Therion]

Henry and June: From A Journal of Love: the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931–1932) - Finally finished reading it. It was very interesting, but also very sad and twisted. Anaïs Nin had some serious issues and unfortunately she ended up making some seriously evil decisions basing on twisted way of thinking. From what I understand.
From one side it was like watching a trainwreck, from another it was just distasteful, but the third side was seeing the amazing inspiring relationship between two writers - Anaïs and Henry. It was a real tragedy that they couldn't just live together but she was stuck with a wagecuck banker husband, he was stuck with a woman with which they were a horrible anti-inspiration for each other. I guess it was very interesting reading this knowing who Anaïs and Henry were on level of their inherent nature and why that stuff that happened was possibly happening on level of social alchemy.
Anyway could be treated as a sordid warning tale about cost of ignorance and degeneracy.
Like the level of neuroticism she experienced just from not knowing the human nature, not knowing social alchemy and living in environment poisoned with sexist memes was sad. And add to that childhood trauma and degenerate ideologies by some psychoanalyst and you get a complete trainwreck.

The ending was getting more and more disjointed with her getting worse and worse ideas, like every day.

I'm wondering whenever I should get her Incest: from "A Journal of Love" : The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. Like, there was already a hint of what kind of stuff it's going to be in the last month of the previous diary.
On one hand, she's a great writer and I just love her writing and find it very revitalizing, on the other hand, she was degenerate and as the title suggests, the book is about her diving head first into deeper and deeper depravity.

I have 4 of her expunged diaries. Not sure if there's a point of continuing to read them.

I'll probably re-read the first half of The Diary of Anais Nin 1931-1934 to contrast the fictionalised expunged diary with the unexpunged version.


Infantry Combat: A Study Illustrated by Specific Examples From the War 1914-1918 by Emile Allehaut. Reading it slowly. It's kinda tiresome to read for me, but it describes infantry tactics, illustrating them with specific engagements from previous war. It's pretty interesting. I like it. Lots of useful info.

Tank War - Ludwig Ritter von Eimannsberger - Continuing to look into it, particularly the chapter about defence in depth. Very useful.

Started reading A Thousand Sons by Graham McNeil. Can't help an impression that his writing has improved since Mechanicum. It looks to me like he's aiming to emulate H.P. Lovecraft and he's getting better at it. For example using bigger words, while in Mechanicum he seemed to use simpler language which sounded lame.

[Major Rawne]

Knocked out the last of the really quite brilliant Toxicity last night. It was the usual mad cap romp of crazy from Andy Remic.

Next up is Lords of Silence because everyone else is reading it and I feel left out .

[Rob P]

Enjoying Annandale's Mephiston novella.

No fancy prose. Simple but good plot and interesting delve into the lore and the character of Mephiston. It's an easy read aka my level

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Another well-regarded author who has mainly passed me by: Roger Zelazny's The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth.

[Rob P]

Currently reading Straken. It's written for quite a young audience (or it feels like it is). But i'm not not enjoying.

[Major Rawne]

Currently reading Straken. It's written for quite a young audience (or it feels like it is). But i'm not not enjoying.

How does does it seem for a younger audience? I ask out of curiosity as it's one book that's so far slipped the net for me, and in part because I always thought that BL's books were always written with that YA audience in mind so to speak.

I'm currently making reasonable progress with The Lords of Silence. Unless i'm mistaken it's written in present tense which is a little jarring, but i'm enjoying it so far even if I don't have a great clue of where the story is going. It probably didn't help that the book starts 10 minutes into the film and i've missed the big action opening.