#FinishedReading this awesomely odd collection of short stories by Argentinian author #SamantaSchweblin , translated by #MeganMcDowell . The stories are very short and unfold in dreamlike fashion and often deadpan humour, with deep undercurrents of unease, violence, and symbolism. #Bookstodon@bookstodon
#FinishedReading this truly original story of 19th century magicians and the strange legacies they leave for their 20th century descendants. Their twisted deceptions lead to some pretty remarkable sentences: "I apologise if I think I was deceiving me, and meant no harm". #ChristopherPriest#Bookstodon@bookstodon
The shadow of New Crobuzon hangs very heavily over this story of socialist agitation in a magical steampunk city. I found this readable but not compelling. Some nice scraps of worldbuilding - why aren't there more minotaurs in fantasy? - but the characters didn't pop for me. #FinishedReading#Fantasy#Bookstodon#RjurikDavidson@bookstodon
#FinishedReading Nobel winner #GeorgeSmoot 's story of the search for structure in the cosmic background radiation, with co-author #KeayDavidson . A quite accessible story of the challenges of conducting experiments in increasingly ludicrous and expensive places: high altitude balloons, U-2 spy planes, the South Pole and, of course, outer space, in an attempt to get a clear view of the echo of creation. #Bookstodon#PopScience@bookstodon
I've #finishedReading a few of these #GardnerDozois best-of anthologies, and they've all been ridiculously good value. This one collects #SciFi short stories from 2001, with my favourites being 'On K2 with Kanakaredes' by #DanSimmons , 'The Chief Designer' by #AndyDuncan and, best of all, 'May Be Some Time' by #BrendaWClough , a time travel story that tells which 'some time' Captain Oates headed into the Antarctic blizzard for. #Bookstodon@bookstodon
@bookstodon#FinishedReading this engaging #popScience look at the (mostly microscopic) life that shares our houses. There are gross parts of course, but this is largely a celebration of the value of living amidst invisible biodiversity, which makes me feel better about my well loved but very far from sterile home! #RobDunn#Bookstodon@bookstodon
What a delight it is to discover an author you really enjoy, and they've got a massive catalogue of other books! This little #fantasy novella by #AdrianTchaivoksky tells a charming and fairly simple adventure story with such spark and wit. #Bookstodon#FinishedReading@bookstodon
#FinishedReading In the early 80s #LawrenceWeschler interviewed neurologist / author #OliverSacks for a New Yorker piece. It was never written, due in part to Sacks prevaricating about whether to out himself, and they became lifelong friends instead. Just before his 2015 death Sacks encouraged Weschler to write the story up after all. Which is a sweet story, but the book itself is mostly just a meander through transcripts of old interviews, and I can't recommend it #Bookstodon@bookstodon
#FinishedReading part 2 of NZ author #HGParry 's Shadow Histories duology, a #fantasy retelling of the late 18th / eatly 19th century: Pitt the Younger is a vampire, Napoleon summons a kraken, and Toussaint Louverture is a weather mage. It could be kitschy, but Parry has sich affection for her characters and command of her historical setting that it is joyful and sometimes moving read. Highly recommended. #Bookstodon@bookstodon
#FinishedReading . #TomKing came to #comics from a career in the CIA - not exactly the typical background - and all his work I've read seems haunted by the pointlessness of the violence in Afghanistan, rather than the redemptive / satisfying violence more typical of the superhero genre. This is the weakest work of his I've read, with the Ancient Greek allusions really not landing, but the formal play with the timeline is very nice. #DavidMarquez#Batman#Bookstodon@bookstodon
#FinishedReading this rather large novel of interlocking stories, set in 15th century Constantinople, 20th-21st century Idaho, and aboard a spaceship fleeing a ruined Earth, bound together by the characters' fascination with a half-preseved Ancient Greek comedy. I didn't love the whole book - the character of Seymour never rang true to me - but it does wrap together beautifully in the end. #Bookstodon@bookstodon#AnthonyDoerr
I read and enjoyed #ChrisFlynn 's novel Mammoth, which is narrated by a wisecracking Mastodon skeleton. This short story collection is more of the same, with each story having animal or object narrators. Given that most of them also adopt the same quip-heavy voice, the effect is quite repetitive. The only story I liked was Shot Down in Flames, which mixes up the narration much more. The final story is also a bit different, but I found it unreadable. #Bookstodon@bookstodon#FinishedReading
#FinishedReading my favourite #AnnLeckie yet! Just so beautifully handled in its themes, its characters, and its wild and weird alien biology and culture, and with a streak of dark humour and even (sort of) romance to go with it. #Bookstodon@bookstodon#SciFi
#FinishedReading this slim volume of early 50s #SciFi by #AEVanVogt . The goofy title and stories of visiting inhabitable Mars and Venus makes this look like super old fashioned stuff, but that, like much else in this book, is an illusion. This is pure Cold War paranoia, with disorienting temporal and character shifts, mind control drugs, sinister conspiracies etc, and in general this feels like a bridge to the high points of Philip K Dick. #Bookstodon@bookstodon
#FinishedReading This book was pretty much the funniest thing ever when I first read it as an adolescent, and it's been fun to see my 11 year old son discover it. Re-reading it now is a rather different experience as the surprise of the jokes has mostly gone, but even that is testament to how effective #DouglasAdams was at inserting his gags into my long term memory. A comfort read for sure #Bookstodon@bookstodon
#FinishedReading#MichaelKing 's biography of Te Puea Herangi, indefatigable organiser of the Māori King movement in the first half of the 20th century. Her forceful charisma, flaws and all, pops off the page in the hands of NZ's most iconic historian. The scale of change in her lifetime for Waikato Māori and NZ is fascinating, as are the insights into other prominent figures like Apirana Ngata and Gordon Coates. #Bookstodon@bookstodon#NZHistory
#FinishedReading this collection of stories 1998 - 2009 by Australian #SciFi author @gregeganSF . Along with Crystal Nights, which I've read before in a different anthology, my favourite stories were three set in his vast utopian Amalgam universe. Egan combines an extremely high level of interest and knowledge of mathematics and physics with an ability to find beauty, drama, and emotion in worlds that have moved beyond war, scarcity, and aging. #Bookstodon@bookstodon
#FinishedReading my first foray into 18th century literature, although I doubt much of the rest of it reads like this, with its twisted structure, absurd digressions, and typographical jokes. Some of it is incredibly quotable, fresh, and fun; other parts border on incomprehensible as the centuries render the jokes obscure. #Bookstodon@bookstodon#TristramShandy#LaurenceSterne
#FinishedReading the followup to #AnnLeckie 's Imperial Radch trilogy. Although it is set in a different milieu, very much recommended to read the Ancillary books first because the conclusion of that series is a plot point here. Leckie is one of the best in #SciFi for inventing alternative cultures and seeing how they can clash or cooperate; here the high concepts are wrapped in a fun and twisty, somewhat noirish, tale of murder and politics #Bookstodon@bookstodon