I’ve been meaning to read John Ringo and James Aidee’s Beyond the Ranges for a bit now, but only finally got around to it because I’m sick with a cold. It’s clearly the first book in a series about planetary colonization, with a healthy dose of mysterious precursors and the need for developing a functioning economy in the process. Started slow, but picked up. Check it out.
#commissionearned
This was not a great week for reading. However, Steve Stirling’s upcoming novel LORDS OF CREATION finally has a cover! …That’s just gonna have to do.
Oh, and read the first two in the series, too. They’re excellent.
#commissionearned
I’ve been saving Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October for the last week of the month this time. And it is, indeed, time. The weather’s even cooperating…
#commissionearned
I know, I know – but I can justify this one, honest! The paperback for Ghosts on an Alien Wind is headed for the online Barnes & Noble store (it is not heading for actual stories, more’s the pity). I just need for the website to finish publishing it. It’s an experiment! If I get sales there, I will reconsider my current KU-exclusive status for my digital books.
If I don’t? Ach, well, I tried.
#commissionearned
My brain is goop. It was a long, and ultimately disappointing day, and I need sleep. Tell me what I should be reading tomorrow!
I haven’t read Paul Leone’s The Dweller in Drury Lane yet, sorry. This is my reminder to read the book, because I am extremely tired right now and I need to get some sleep. I don’t want to forget to read it for a couple of months.
#commissionearned
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere today, I still don’t know why the world of Snow Crash hadn’t been taken over by people with locally-sustainable military technology and a taste for conquest. It’s still a great book, though – and subversive in a way that’s different from the usual, trite shibboleths. (The sort-of sequel The Diamond Age is even more so.) Neal Stephenson’s a great writer.
I’m reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Seventh Veil of Salome right now. It has the regrettable lack of any kind of supernatural elements thus far, but I guess that sometimes an author just wants to try an experiment. And, to be fair: there’s nothing inherently wrong with quote-unquote ‘mainstream literature.’ It just doesn’t usually attract the very best writers, that’s all.
…Oh, yes, I’m salty today. Dust inhalation after doing shelf construction this afternoon, coupled with an over-long nap. I’ll be fine.
#commissionearned
I’ve been wracking my brain on this one. It hasn’t been a big reading week for me, at least when it comes to new books. First week of school, and all that. And looking at upcoming books on Amazon reminds me that all the stuff I’m waiting for, I’ve already done.
So… you tell me. And everybody else, too.
#commissionearned
Picked because I am begging mainstream writers, once again: please stop assuming that you can write alternate history novels simply because you can write regular ones. The genre has conventions. These conventions exist for a reason. You actually have to justify your change points. Len Deighton’s SS-GB is one of the few times where a mainstream author managed to make it all work, and ‘Nazis win WWII’ is easy mode. Don’t think you can just call it in.
(No, I’m not going to tell you what book set me off. It’s actually not a bad book, as long as you can turn off your knowledge of recent history. I don’t want to shame it, or the author.)
#commissionearned
