Book Recommendations?

Late to the party, I'm sure, but "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" is a rollicking, colorful alternate history book that is well worth reading for SF fans. I grew up in a heavily Jewish area that is occasionally mentioned in the book and it's both scandalous and exhilarating for me.

Although the author is Jewish, some people might be sensitive to the language used throughout.

Robear wrote:

Late to the party, I'm sure, but "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" is a rollicking, colorful alternate history book that is well worth reading for SF fans. I grew up in a heavily Jewish area that is occasionally mentioned in the book and it's both scandalous and exhilarating for me.

Although the author is Jewish, some people might be sensitive to the language used throughout.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, also by Chabon, is perhaps even more excellent, though not as sci-fi.

Definitely have that on the list too.

Both of those are excellent, I also enjoyed Summerland a great deal, despite not knowing (nor caring) about baseball.

Brian McClellan recently had Scott Lynch (Lies of Locke Lamora etc) on his podcast.

https://youtu.be/UDLc3WVKAyk

Spoiler:

tl;dr on Gentlemen Bastards series is that a complete draft of book 4 has been done for years but Lynch has some crippling mental health issues preventing it from moving forward.

Just started 1Q84 and Murakami is back at it. Within the first three chapters there is an underage lesbian sex scene and an adult lusting for a teenage girl. Am I about to read about how a grown man takes a girl's virginity on her 18th birthday or a man patting himself on the back for not sleeping with the teenage girl trying to seduce him? Either one is possible. I heard he got better about this in his later books.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Just started 1Q84 and Murakami is back at it. Within the first three chapters there is an underage lesbian sex scene and an adult lusting for a teenage girl. Am I about to read about how a grown man takes a girl's virginity on her 18th birthday or a man patting himself on the back for not sleeping with the teenage girl trying to seduce him? Either one is possible. I heard he got better about this in his later books.

I haven't read any of his fiction, but I can definitely say that What I Talk About When I Talk About Running had none of that. Thankfully.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Just started 1Q84 and Murakami is back at it. Within the first three chapters there is an underage lesbian sex scene and an adult lusting for a teenage girl. Am I about to read about how a grown man takes a girl's virginity on her 18th birthday or a man patting himself on the back for not sleeping with the teenage girl trying to seduce him? Either one is possible. I heard he got better about this in his later books.

I've been hearing bits and pieces of Murakami's obsessions in the erotic arena. Do you think he is seriously trying to titillate or mocking the traditional Japanese male proclivities?

Spoilered because NSFW but it's not terribly graphic

Spoiler:
She had a slender build, in proportion to which her full breasts could not help but attract attention. They were beautifully shaped as well. Tengo had to caution himself not to look down there, but he couldn't help it. His eyes moved to her chest as if toward the center of a great whirlpool.
Each held out a finger and touched the other's clitoris. Both girls had experienced masturbation--a lot. But now they saw how different it was to be touched by someone else.

All the girls are again underage. I don't know why that had to be stated. The second one is just the character recalling her first female interaction. There is no reason that couldn't have occurred in college instead of high school. It would have made no difference.

But to answer your question, I dunno. All I know is it makes me feel weird.

Natus wrote:

Do you think he is seriously trying to titillate or mocking the traditional Japanese male proclivities?

Whenever I find myself asking this question, I remind myself of the old saying: nobody's ever masturbated ironically.

Loving Murderbot as I do, I've been going back and reading all of Martha Wells's other books. They're all pretty good, but I'd like to really recommend her Books of the Raksura, starting with The Cloud Roads.

The POV character is Moon, who is a guy that can shift into a winged, clawed bird thing. He moves from village to village of "normals" (there are no vanilla humans in this setting, everybody has odd colouring or tusks or something), keeping hidden because he looks a bit like a different predatory species and he gets driven out if they ever see his winged form. He's never seen anyone else like him since his family were killed as a child. Naturally the story involves him finding out more about all that stuff. The world is full of odd precursor tech and massive constructions that nobody really understands (not ours, btw, it's not a "skyscrapers covered in trees" thing)

When I first read it I thought it was solid, but standard fantasy, but something about it and the characters kept bringing me back to it. It has something of the Murderbot, "somewhat misanthropic character that desperately wants emotional intimancy but doesn't really realise that or know how to get it", about it, as well as Wells's fundamentally humane and hopeful outlook.

Anyway, it might tickly someone's fancy.

Fans of the Murderbot books will almost certainly enjoy this novelette by a fellow GWJer!

Happy Dave wrote:

I had another short story published by Clarkesworld Magazine! Technically a ‘novelette’ actually, as it’s over 7.5k words. You can read it here if you fancy. It’s about a self-aware combat robot, so I suspect a few Goodjers may enjoy it.

There’ll be an audio version later in the month too!

Clarkesworld is not a bad magazine, either, and is available as a subscription for a few dollars a month on Kindle and other e-formats.

Robear wrote:

Clarkesworld is not a bad magazine, either, and is available as a subscription for a few dollars a month on Kindle and other e-formats. :-)

Takes me back to reading my Dad's Analog magazines in the 90s.

After watching the series on Apple TV+, I borrowed a copy of Slow Horses, by Mick Herron.

It’s a spy thriller, but with the main characters an unlikely set of heroes: they’re the rejects of MI-5, sent off to twiddle their thumbs in the metaphorical wilderness due to their screw-ups.

At any rate, it’s quite good. If you like the show, the book is worth a read, not the least reason being that it’s the first of eight in the series. If you’ve not seen the show: the show is great, but read the book first, as we’re not degenerates around here!

firesloth wrote:

After watching the series on Apple TV+, I borrowed a copy of Slow Horses, by Mick Herron.

It’s a spy thriller, but with the main characters an unlikely set of heroes: they’re the rejects of MI-5, sent off to twiddle their thumbs in the metaphorical wilderness due to their screw-ups.

At any rate, it’s quite good. If you like the show, the book is worth a read, not the least reason being that it’s the first of eight in the series. If you’ve not seen the show: the show is great, but read the book first, as we’re not degenerates around here!

I was underwhelmed by the first episode of the series but will look into the books.

Natus wrote:
firesloth wrote:

After watching the series on Apple TV+, I borrowed a copy of Slow Horses, by Mick Herron.

It’s a spy thriller, but with the main characters an unlikely set of heroes: they’re the rejects of MI-5, sent off to twiddle their thumbs in the metaphorical wilderness due to their screw-ups.

At any rate, it’s quite good. If you like the show, the book is worth a read, not the least reason being that it’s the first of eight in the series. If you’ve not seen the show: the show is great, but read the book first, as we’re not degenerates around here!

I was underwhelmed by the first episode of the series but will look into the books.

Thought the series was a slow burn. There are probably at least 3 episodes of just flirting with the ultimate plot line. But I found the payoff worth it. Prob better in book form, to be honest. Feels more fast paced.

I'm maybe a third of the way through The Three-Body Problem and I'm really enjoying it. Tight, tense psychological horror / conspiracy thriller mixed with some really well-thought-out hard sci-fi. The translated prose (it's originally in Chinese) is very breezy and readable. There's some of it I have trouble connecting with because of cultural barriers, and the character names tend to run together to my English-speaking brain, but it's been well worth the effort for me to push through that.

I forget if it was in this thread or one of the Dune threads when we talked about how a lot of the classic English-language hard sci-fi authors like Asimov and Heinlein can be better idea men than storytellers and their stuff can come across pretty cold and analytical, which is something that Frank Herbert shares although I wouldn't consider Dune to be "hard" sci-fi. Anyway, that's not a problem that I think Liu Cixin has.

Liu Cixin is a great writer, and his translator is also a novelist in his own right (Ken Liu). Both are well worth reading.

hbi2k wrote:

I'm maybe a third of the way through The Three-Body Problem and I'm really enjoying it. Tight, tense psychological horror / conspiracy thriller mixed with some really well-thought-out hard sci-fi. The translated prose (it's originally in Chinese) is very breezy and readable. There's some of it I have trouble connecting with because of cultural barriers, and the character names tend to run together to my English-speaking brain, but it's been well worth the effort for me to push through that.

I forget if it was in this thread or one of the Dune threads when we talked about how a lot of the classic English-language hard sci-fi authors like Asimov and Heinlein can be better idea men than storytellers and their stuff can come across pretty cold and analytical, which is something that Frank Herbert shares although I wouldn't consider Dune to be "hard" sci-fi. Anyway, that's not a problem that I think Liu Cixin has.

That whole trilogy is excellent. It has some really off-the-wall ideas that are very fun to read.

Ball Lightning is a standalone novel and also fun, if not quite as good.

Something I'm appreciating as I continue to work through it is the sense of absurdity. It's done with a light touch, there's not so much of it that it becomes a farce or makes it feel so unreal as to take away the sense of stakes.

It really enhances this sort of existential horror when not only are you at the mercy of forces you can barely comprehend operating at a mind-boggling scale, but they actively seem to be trolling you.

Just finished In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan. It's the first of a epic fantasy series and quite enjoyable. Would definitely recommend to anyone who likes McClellan's previous books or anything by Brandon Sanderson.

I finished The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman. I finished the show last year and liked it enough that I wanted to check out the books. I read the first book, and found inhabiting the main character's point of view so unpleasant that I waited a few months to continue. But once I started the second book, I finished it and the third one within a few weeks. The latter two books expand the point of view characters, and frankly everyone is older and more mature, so nowhere near as exasperating. The show and books diverge in very significant ways, but I think they compliment each other really well. I wish there were more stories in this world.

beanman101283 wrote:

I finished The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman. I finished the show last year and liked it enough that I wanted to check out the books. I read the first book, and found inhabiting the main character's point of view so unpleasant that I waited a few months to continue. But once I started the second book, I finished it and the third one within a few weeks. The latter two books expand the point of view characters, and frankly everyone is older and more mature, so nowhere near as exasperating. The show and books diverge in very significant ways, but I think they compliment each other really well. I wish there were more stories in this world.

I could have done without the whole

Spoiler:

getting raped by a trickster god gives you a magical level up

plot point.

Well, it is satire. It's lampooning the rest of the genre, in particularly brutal ways. I view it like I do "The Boys", as over-the-top storytelling.

Have you looked at "Scholomance", by Naomi Novik? Wonderful pair of books (one more coming) that also deals with a magical school.

hbi2k wrote:
beanman101283 wrote:

I finished The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman. I finished the show last year and liked it enough that I wanted to check out the books. I read the first book, and found inhabiting the main character's point of view so unpleasant that I waited a few months to continue. But once I started the second book, I finished it and the third one within a few weeks. The latter two books expand the point of view characters, and frankly everyone is older and more mature, so nowhere near as exasperating. The show and books diverge in very significant ways, but I think they compliment each other really well. I wish there were more stories in this world.

I could have done without the whole

Spoiler:

getting raped by a trickster god gives you a magical level up

plot point.

I thought the show handled that better in some ways (though a later show storyline related to that one had its own issues). They're definitely not perfect, either way.

Robear wrote:

Well, it is satire. It's lampooning the rest of the genre, in particularly brutal ways. I view it like I do "The Boys", as over-the-top storytelling.

Have you looked at "Scholomance", by Naomi Novik? Wonderful pair of books (one more coming) that also deals with a magical school.

Novik's is a bit less absurd, but I enjoyed it quite a bit more than Grossman's.

Becky Chambers Prayer for the Crown Shy is out.

I know we don't often do non-fiction or politics here, but Elie Mystal's Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guy's Guide to the Constitution is probably the second best political book I've read after On Tyranny. Sharp, funny, fast and painfully dark and irreverent, it's a really good explainer of how awful the origins of the Constitution are, and how attempts to improve it have been consistently and repeatedly overrun by conservatives and white supremacists. As good a companion for our current moment as On Tyranny was.

Mixolyde wrote:

I know we don't often do non-fiction or politics here, but Elie Mystal's Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guy's Guide to the Constitution is probably the second best political book I've read after On Tyranny. Sharp, funny, fast and painfully dark and irreverent, it's a really good explainer of how awful the origins of the Constitution are, and how attempts to improve it have been consistently and repeatedly overrun by conservatives and white supremacists. As good a companion for our current moment as On Tyranny was.

It's on my "buy very soon" list.