Reading, Watching, Playing

[a_cubed]

Note: I'm not ignoring people who comment on my posts or reply to my comments on theirs. DW seems to have stopped emailing me when people reply to me. Ah, found the DW setting to turn email notifications back on. For some reason they'd switched to DW inbox only. I'll now see when people reply to me.

Reading

I tried reading A River Called Time by Courttia Newland and gave up about a quarter of the way through. I think this is a first novel. It was just way too much confusing stuff. It's a future London, except it's not this world, it's a vaguely parallel one. It's a semi-post-apocalyptic urbanscape. There's an artificial city in the middle of what used to be London isolated from everyone else and the protagonist gets in only to find it's just as much a screwed up society inside as out and he's still at the bottom. But he's special and has Egyptian religious magic powers, which are somehow quantum-related... I just gave up.
So, that's two books I've given up on recently and a third I almost gave up on. After that I wanted something light that I knew I'd enjoy so re-read Walter Jon Williams' Drake Maijstral books. I love these, more than his signature cyberpunk stuff which I quite like but there's almost nothing else like these Divertimenti. Any recommendations for similar SF Comedy of Manners gratefully received. I blasted through the three of these then went on to Stephen Blackmoore's Dead Things Not bad as far as dark urban fantasy goes. Quite a lot of Sandman Slim influences, I think, though perhaps that's just the L.A. setting. There's a series of these and I might read some more, but I realised there's a bunch of ongoing series that I'd missed the latest (and in at least one case final) installment of last year, so I've started a re-read of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, which has a backfill novella and a new novel I haven't read. There's also the final Alex Verus novel by Jacka Benedict. I may or may not re-read the previous 11 in the series, though as it's the final one I might do. Two trilogies I need to read the final book (and maybe re-read the rest of the trilogy) too: Naomi Novik's The Golden Enclaves, final part of the Scholomance Trilogy. I was surprised when coth mentioned there would be a third book since the first two finished the story to some extent, though I can see there was room for the wider world to be taken on in a finale. Lastly, there's Robert Jackson Bennett's Locklands, finale of the Founders Trilogy. I highly recommend all these series for a look, providing you like the kind of book they are. The RJB one's closest similar books are, I think, Max Gladstone's main series of God-related books (even more so his previous Divine Cities trilogy).

Watching

Finished re-watching The Mandalorian, including Book of Boba Fett episode 5 on, in preparation for the next season in March. Continuing a watch of DOTA: Dragon's Blood. That's OK, but not as good as Dragon Age: Absolution. Binged the first three episodes of Season 2 of Legend of Vox Machina. DA:A and LoVM are great if you played D&D as a teenager, or even still do. Watched Lightyear from Pixar. Either chock-full of tongue-in-cheek SF references, or horribly derivative SF, take your pick. I enjoyed it but I suspect it's not for everyone. Some continuations I've been looking forward to (Carnival Row Season 2, Shadow and Bone Season 2) coming up and some new stuff that looks interesting (Lockwood and Co.).

Playing

Still playing through Alan Wake Remastered trying to find all the collectibles. Having completed on Easy and then on Normal I'm going through on Easy again to find most of the collectibles and to get better at the combat in preparation for going through on Nightmare Mode which has some extra collectibles only available on that difficulty level. Playing Unravel 2 with $DAUGHTER for a gentle coop platformer. A couple of side levels with insane difficulty, but nothing in the main story like the PID impossible second boss battle. On the final "world" in Ring Fit Adventure which I'm back to playing most days to improve fitness and help me lose weight after indulgences over Christmas/New Year.

Comments

[vivdunstan]

Re SF comedy of manners have you read the Dancers At The End of Time series by Michael Moorcock? I think it’s a trilogy but you could try the first book to see how you get on.

[clothsprogs]

"There's also the final Alex Verus novel by Jacka Benedict. I may or may not re-read the previous 11 in the series, though as it's the final one I might do. "

Thoroughly enjoyed these books and embarked on the final book without realizing it was the final one, so was bitterly disappointed to find the series had come to an end...

In order to lift myself from that disappointment I went straight into the latest Invisible Library book by Genevieve Cogman... Only to find that was also the last in the series. Sometimes you just can't win.

Teddy

[a_cubed]

I enjoyed the Invisible Library too.

Cogman has said she might well do more books in that universe (well, multiverse) but not necessarily featuring Irene. I definitely think there's more to be explored there. She only sort-of finished the mystery of the Dragons' origins. We can only wait and hope.

There's a non-Verus novella called Gardens, or similar, et in that world. I haven't read it, but I'm wondering if it's a toe in the water for another series set in the same world. I knew the next book was going to be the last and actually think 12 books is good if writing a series with an ongoing plot (Dresden Files is still going at nearly 20 with a few more to come, and Brust's Taltos series will be 19 in the end if he lives long enough to write the planned ones [he's a little slow, though not GRRM slow]).

Aaronovitch's Rivers of London/Peter Grant series looks to be continuing, although slowing down the main novels, partly I think due to his involvement in the comics, which are well worth reading if you haven't and like the main novels/

[a_cubed]

I have in fact read almost all of Moorcock's Eternal Champion books. I have the Millennium collected editions upstairs in the library, plus a few more from White Wolf imprint in the US that did some that the Millennium ones didn't include.

They're all short but there're six DatEoT books, plus the crossover Elric at the End of Time. I have the collected "Dancers at the End of Time" plus "Legends of the End of Time".

[clothsprogs]

I'll look out for Gardens, and hope for more books in the Invisible Library multiverse then.

I've been following he Dresden Files books ever since the first one was drawn to my attention by Alison and Mike Richards, back when the books were fairly thin litlte paperbacks, and I'm glad they're still going, (though I've somewhat lost track of where I got to in the series and which of the latest few to read next).

I've not read any Brust, but Tom has a shelf of them and says I should give them a try as they might be my sort of thing. I've had a couple of the crphic novels in my in-tray at work since beofre lockdown (loaned by an ex colleague just before his wife also left for a job elsewhere and we haven't managed to arrange a meet up to return mutual loans) whihc I've just never been in the mood to read. I have to be in the right frame of mind for comics (probably why I'm trailing so far with Girl Genius, much as I love it. I find the books (and the audio editions) much easier to digest, though a lot of the visual humour doesn't translate across.

Love the Rivers of London books. They're a good read, and an even better listen in the Audio editions.

Teddy

[vivdunstan]

Excellent! Do you know there was a new Elric novel released in December just gone? Citadel of Forgotten Myths.

[a_cubed]

Brust is an interesting writer. There are two main Dragaera series, plus a standalone related novel. The series starting with The Phoenix Guards is a sort-of pastiche of Dumas, particularly the Musketeers novels. The writing if very stylised in this series but it's just for that series. The writing in the Taltos series is much more "standard" although even there he plays with structure quite a bit - one of the novels is based around a multi-course meal and a couple of them are told in other odd structures, though the main writing is fairly straight. Most of them are told first person by Vlad but one of them is told from the viewpoint of a different character who is introduced in that book.

Dresden has a new novella this year to follow up on the double novel he published a couple of years ago (Peace Talks and BattleGround; I'm pretty sure that was originally supposed to be one novel that he realised needed double length, hence it took ages to come out and then both came out in the same year).

[a_cubed]

I'm fairly sure there have been at least two previous new Elric novels I haven't read. It's actually been years since I read any Moorcock. Probably in the early to mid-2000s as I was getting the collected editions.

[vivdunstan]

I read Dancers and a few others in the 1990s and have reread some since, and the Bastable ones I think. I’ve still to try Elric. It’s on my TBR. I spotted the new one by total chance a couple of weeks ago. Oh and I really like the Dorian Hawkmoon ones. Reread recently too.

[a_cubed]

Which ones I like best depends on my mood, I think. Hawkmoon is definitely one of them, alongside Erekose. Erekose is a little more complex, whereas Hawkmoon is just unabashed fun, definitely written when he was needing to pay the bills, but showing that unlike some other writers who churned sub-standard stuff out to pay the bills even though they were capable of better, that Moorcock is almost without equal in being able to churn out stuff which is still amazing.