Post by tenbsmith on Nov 21, 2016 11:21:50 GMT -5
The purpose of this thread is to report on books you are reading or recently finished. This can inform other forum members decision to read those books. I looked back to page 7 and didn't find the old thread on suggested books, but that could be a good resource too.
I've just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. This is excellent hard sci-fi depicting the colonization and teraforming of Mars. The first two books are very engaging, the third looses it's way and could be skipped--but by then you may want to see how it all ends. The books have excellent character development and Robinson keeps the plot moving along without much need for guns and violence. The star of the show is the description of realistic technologies and techniques for teraforming Mars wrapped in a fun-to-read novel.
At times, Robinson spends extended passages describing the geography, geology and look of mars--I found these segments boring. Those who agree, will find it easy to scan these sections until the plot picks back up again. Wish I'd figured that out before i finished the first book.
I've just started Gene Wolfe's Shadow & Claw: The first half of the 'Book of the New Sun'. Wolfe uses a lot of uncommon words and mixes those in with words he made up for his fictional world 'Urth'. It is useful to read the appendix before starting, as that informs you about some of the words, like the names of the classes in the society he describes. Also very helpful to read this on a Kindle, where one can easily look up unfamiliar words and either get their definition, have x-ray tell you that its the name of a common character/place, or realize that it may be one of Wolfe's made up words. For example, he mentions the place 'gyol' several times early on, based upon context you know it is some sort of place, but it isn't until later that he tells you it is a river. Based on this sort of thing, the start a little slow and a bit confusing. On the other hand, the world he illustrates--the remains of a fallen civilzation--and characters he develops are very rich. Worth the effort so far.
I've just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. This is excellent hard sci-fi depicting the colonization and teraforming of Mars. The first two books are very engaging, the third looses it's way and could be skipped--but by then you may want to see how it all ends. The books have excellent character development and Robinson keeps the plot moving along without much need for guns and violence. The star of the show is the description of realistic technologies and techniques for teraforming Mars wrapped in a fun-to-read novel.
At times, Robinson spends extended passages describing the geography, geology and look of mars--I found these segments boring. Those who agree, will find it easy to scan these sections until the plot picks back up again. Wish I'd figured that out before i finished the first book.
I've just started Gene Wolfe's Shadow & Claw: The first half of the 'Book of the New Sun'. Wolfe uses a lot of uncommon words and mixes those in with words he made up for his fictional world 'Urth'. It is useful to read the appendix before starting, as that informs you about some of the words, like the names of the classes in the society he describes. Also very helpful to read this on a Kindle, where one can easily look up unfamiliar words and either get their definition, have x-ray tell you that its the name of a common character/place, or realize that it may be one of Wolfe's made up words. For example, he mentions the place 'gyol' several times early on, based upon context you know it is some sort of place, but it isn't until later that he tells you it is a river. Based on this sort of thing, the start a little slow and a bit confusing. On the other hand, the world he illustrates--the remains of a fallen civilzation--and characters he develops are very rich. Worth the effort so far.
