What Are You Reading?

[Jay 2K Winger]

That is a most excellent book. I loved. I heard it is going to made into a movie.

I generally do like Stephenson's work, and have since I first encountered Snow Crash. I like that he does the research.

The main problem I have with him is, he makes sure you know he has done the research. I learned way more than I needed to about Sumerian mythology in Snow Crash, although some of the stuff about cryptology and the invention of the computer was fascinating in Cryptonomicon.

The Baroque Cycle was another case of equal parts fascinating and dull with the ludicrous amounts of detail he included.

[Dreamstalker]

The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley. Just finished Brave New World, which makes a helluva lot more sense to me now than it did 20-odd years ago.

[greek_jester]

Just finished Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles...

Have you checked out the short stories in the series? I know Amazon has them on Kindle, but I don't know about other platforms.

[Ghel]

I've read Bloodline. The same author wrote a YA (supposedly) book titled simply "Leia" and it was about Leia's early years, when her parents were still alive and Alderaan was still in one piece ...

I've read that one, too. I liked how it told about Leia's formative teen years wanting to make a difference in the galaxy.

[Pixelated]

I've read that one, too. I liked how it told about Leia's formative teen years wanting to make a difference in the galaxy.

I liked the author having Leia's mother tell her "Sometimes it does a girl good to fall for a bit of a scoundrel ..."

[Ghel]

I liked the author having Leia's mother tell her "Sometimes it does a girl good to fall for a bit of a scoundrel ..."

Yes! I was trying to remember that line earlier.

[TawnyMyst]

Have you checked out the short stories in the series? I know Amazon has them on Kindle, but I don't know about other platforms.

I have, and am now eagerly waiting for the spinoff series! I confess I'm a bit of a speed reader so it only took about a month to get thru them all, now the wait is on for more while I go re-read an old familiar favourite.

[AnaKhouri]

Finished Devil in the White City (3 stars), not enough murdering.


Picked up The Family Plot. I have seen Cherie Priest at cons a d follow her on Twitter but never read her work. I live s good haunted house story and this seems to fit the bill.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I am accompanying Mrs. IA to her hair dresser appointment tomorrow. I have to pick out a book to read while waiting. I think I shall read Soon I Will be Invincible by Austin Grossman. Looks like it will be an excellent comedic read.

[greek_jester]

Now that my broken reading glasses are fixed, I can read physical books again!

I'm currently just about to start Barbara Hambly's "Immortal Blood". The blurb:

There's a savage killer on the streets. The Prey is not mortal flesh. Someone is killing the vampires of London; someone is hunting them down and murdering them as they sleep in their daytime coffins; someone craves the destruction of every last drop of immortal blood.

James Asher finds himself faced with a bizarre and macabre case when he is employed to trap the killer and save the vampires.

He knows he has no choice, for night is the kingdom of the vampires, and when darkeness falls there is nowhere he, or his young wife Lydia, can hide from them...

You might like Kevin J. Anderson's "Dan Shamble, Zombie PI" series. In a world where "unnaturals", such as zombies, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, etc., are an accepted fact of life and there's no masquerade in play to hide them, the title character does things like solve his own murder, and can be rather amusing in the process.

I've just bought this! Just out of interest, did you ever pick up the Magic Libres series?

[Ironclad Alibi]

Now that my broken reading glasses are fixed, I can read physical books again!

I'm currently just about to start Barbara Hambly's "Immortal Blood". The blurb:

There's a savage killer on the streets. The Prey is not mortal flesh. Someone is killing the vampires of London; someone is hunting them down and murdering them as they sleep in their daytime coffins; someone craves the destruction of every last drop of immortal blood.

James Asher finds himself faced with a bizarre and macabre case when he is employed to trap the killer and save the vampires.

He knows he has no choice, for night is the kingdom of the vampires, and when darkeness falls there is nowhere he, or his young wife Lydia, can hide from them...

That sounds like the plot of Those Who Hunt The Night, which has a sequel Traveling with the Dead.

Looking at Barbara Hambly's web page I found this:

Short Stories

Immortal Blood

From Gaslight and Ghosts, edited by Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher. Published in 1988 by World Fantasy Con/Robinson Pub. Contains an excerpt from

Those Who Hunt the Night

.

Did they perchance rerelease the novel and retitle it?

I think it is one of the best vampire books I have read.

[greek_jester]

That sounds like the plot of Those Who Hunt The Night, which has a sequel Traveling with the Dead.

*snip*

Did they perchance rerelease the novel and retitle it?

Yes, they did:

Fantastic Fiction: Barbara Hambly

I wasn't aware that there were sequels, so thank you! I'm also delighted to see that they're still being written, and from reading the blurbs, that his wife steps forward into a more active role than she has had so far (which, admittedly, is so far laying unconscious in her room).

[Pixelated]

I've started When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi (the author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell which I mentioned a while ago). This story is about a family living in Kabul, whose lives are shattered when the Taliban take over. The husband is arrested and word later comes back to the wife and children that he has been killed by them (the news is brought by a trustworthy source).

The father had started the process for the family to flee the country and the mother (the narrator) decides to carry it through. I'm a little past the halfway point; the teenage son has been arrested in Greece and deported back to Turkey (their first port of call after leaving Afghanistan). His mother and siblings have gotten on a train, hoping to ultimately reach England, where they have family. The son was, of course, supposed to go with them; now the question is whether they will ever be reunited.

I had also pulled out a small box of books from one of my storage units and found among the treasures therein more Star Wars books. So I'm re-reading The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers. Also in the box was my boxed Narnia set.

[Ghel]

I have a box of paperbacks that I recently unpacked. Some of them are from my dad, some given me by others, and some that I bought and never read. I used to buy stacks of used books and read them when I got around to it. That got interrupted by Star Wars books that my boyfriend gave me, but I'm not complaining. They were good. Especially Bloodline, which I've nearly finished. Once I'm done with it, I'm going to go back to that stack of old paperbacks.

Because most of these are old books that I have little or no attachment to, if I find I'm not a fan (or figure I'll never read them again), I've been giving them to Goodwill after I read them. Hopefully somebody will find them who's more of a fan.

[AnaKhouri]

Finished The Family Plot (disappointing ending IMO) and now I 'borrowed' my husband's copy of The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell.