Books! I have read some.

[marydell]

I've mentioned my concentration problems, right? That's been much better in the past 4 months or so, which means I have actually finished some books.  Thank god for Audible.com (although when I'm highly agitated I have a hard time listening to books, in addition to not reading 'em); having gotten in the swing of listening regularly, I am no longer spending two hours a day merely grumbling at traffic and ruminating.

So, here's one of those book post thingies.  This is stuff read since....oh, let's say December 2009.

Eleanor Aronson, A Woman of the Iron People  (Kindle).   Anthropologists studying people on another planet, muchly told from the POV of the other-planet people.  Really interesting, fully-developed alien people and culture coupled with much-less-interesting human people and culture.  The aliens and their story are fresh and intriguing--complex social structures, layers of myth, morals and taboos that are intrinsic to their way of being.   The human story is hampered by stereotypes and dated political issues, but it only occasionally gets in the way of the main story, and the human characters are likeable despite those caveats. Definitely recommend this to anyone who likes sociological SF.

Robert Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.  (Audible)   Classic story of a revolution on the Moon.  Really, really good, even with the ridiculous sexism and plattersful of exposition. The characters are all interesting, smart, and brave; the story is terrific and full of tension, and the ending is satisfying and poignant.  Also has a guy with a robotic arm--win!  The reader does a great job with different voices and makes some of the odd speech seem natural.  Friday put me off of Heinlein, 30 years ago, so this is only the second book of his I've read and I'm glad I did.  Thanks, ashnistrike & Nameseeker, for the rec.

Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise (Audible).  God, I loved this.  This is the first book in a long time that I've finished and immediately wanted to start over.  It's about a space elevator and what it takes to get it built, which sounds dry and probably is, but I found it totally fascinating and compelling.  This is the first Clarke I've read (another bad early experience--2001, the movie, always bored me to tears) and I'm excited that I have his whole life's work ahead of me to enjoy.  I'm planning on reading Rendezvous with Rama next.

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (Audible, also Paperback).  Orwell's memoir of his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War.  Alternates between chapters describing his own experiences and chapters explaining the political situation at the time.  Very interesting and witty.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice (Audible) and The Vor Game (Audible, also e-book currently avail. at Fictionwise).  These are great, as everyone except me already knows.  I did have to work out my own personal cosmological explanation for the frickin coincidences, because there are some really whomping coincidences, but I salute Bujold for not offering any explanation within the text. That makes them less distracting than they would be if there was an attempt to make them seem plausible.   Anyway, the plots are fun and twisty, the characterizations are exquisite, and the prose is brisk and elegant at the same time. 

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Heinlein got harder and harder for me to read as I got older (principal exception being Stranger in A Strange Land). Moon I read in high school, and I'm not sure I want to go back to it. Friday confirmed to me that Heinlein could not write women.

I'd recommend Clarke's short stories, not for reading through but for dipping into; with the proviso that some of them have not worn as well as they might have.

If you liked Homage to Catalonia you might also like -- do I sound like an Amazon.com automated recommemation? -- Shooting an Elephant, at least the title story.

On Bujold, I'm torn. I love her SF, but, with the exception of The Spirit Ring (with its biracial protagonist), find her fantasy heavy going. In person she's charming. She came over and spoke to me while I was guarding one session room door at D*C last September (I couldn't leave my post).

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Maybe I need to re-read the Spirit Ring again, because alas, it didn't do much for me the first time I read it.

Of her fantasy, I liked Paladin of Souls and The Sharing Knife quartet, but haven't been enamoured of the world of the Five Gods the way I am with the Miles books. I am, however, not one of the folks who is visibly disappointed when she doesn't write Miles, although I'm pleased to see Cryoburn coming out. (Memory is the book that got me through one of the worst months of my life.)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I just picked up an Orwell collection that has Shooting an Elephant in it. Right now I'm reading a thing about his absolutely dreadful school days but I'll check that out next. And you are much better than the Amazon.com automated thingy! It tends to recommend books I've already bought from Amazon, which seems like bad programming, or it recommends obviously awful things. Based on my having bought lovely hardcover illustrated editions of various Oz books, it rec'd a non-illustrated, generic-POD-printy $20 paperback of Baum's Twinkle and Chubbins and Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland. I am not making that title up.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Moon is one of the Heinleins that I reread regularly and still love. The dialect has serious Rorshach Effect, though--I always spend the rest of the week trying to talk in Loonie.

And the Bujolds are wonderful, and take a really amazing turn for the serious a few books in. She doesn't try to do the same thing over and over. Plus, you get to see Miles grow up, the way you do between 20 and 30, which I'm not sure I've seen handled in so much depth anywhere else.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

There are a number of places in the two that I read where she turns away from the usual cliches, often in favor of having things work out the way they really do in real life. That's extremely refreshing and makes the characters much more interesting, to boot. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series...I'm trying to decide if I should get the omnibuses or if I should stick with the audiobooks, or some combination--I have 2 friends who I know would really like the books, so I need to have at least the first one in paper so I can lend it to people. And the omnibuses (omnibi?) have the novellas and other oddities. Hmmm.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Moon is the very best Heinlein novel, so it's downhill from here-- but he has a lot of very good ones, especially in the Fifties.

Clarke is my personal favorite. Rama is okay, and it's very popular with other readers. But I'd recommend some of his (dated!) nuts-and-bolts space stuff, such as A Fall of Moondust, and the dreamlike far-future landscapes of The City and the Stars.

Actually, no, first treat yourself to Tales from the White Hart. In a London pub in the 1950s, a storyteller spins tall tales from the age of science. You'll love them.

The Bujolds you mention are solid, and they built her reputation. But she gets much better. As everyone is telling you, and you no doubt already know.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Tales from the White Hart is Clarke at his best. It's what Serge would have written, if Serge were an SF writer.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Our Serge? Is it pun-filled?

[klgaffney.livejournal.com]

homage is incredibly interesting, sharply observant and witty. i also found it poignant and mildly heartbreaking--even though i KNEW how it all ended, i still found myself alternately going *facepalm!* and "aw, bless," and really, really wishing that it'd worked. i can totally see how the same man that wrote this also ended up writing animal farm, y'know?

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Yes! And it was so interesting to see the seeds of the Ministry of Truth and other 1984 concepts in his chapters about the press and the spinning of the story in different countries.

It is heartbreaking, and I kept going "but that's so *unfair!*" as things wound down. But he's so good at writing all of that with clear eyes.

[seawasp]

If you liked Moon is a Harsh Mistress, you should read Double Star and his juveniles, and "The Past Through Tomorrow".

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I forgot, I did read Podkayne of Mars, a million years ago and liked it although I think I wouldn't like it as much now. I also read parts of The Past Through Tomorrow--my Dad bought it for me as an antidote to Friday, which he didn't approve of. It didn't grab me at the time but I should have another go at it.

[raqs.livejournal.com]

I've just recently read Fountains of Paradise and I loved it too. Clarke is always unexpectedly awesome. I feel sure he would not get published today.

Heinlein can also be fantastic - I grew up on him so I pretend the really sexist horrible stuff just doesn't exist. Stranger in a Strange Land IS really good. I also loved his juveniles, especially The Star Beast, for some odd reason. Time Enough for Love was really REALLY good, and Number of the Beast is one of my favorite books. I'm always deeply suspicious of people who don't like Number of the Beast, since it is essentially Mary Sue fanfic, knows it, and revels in it. People who don't like it either don't like fandoms or have little sense of humor, I find. (Though it has its own structural problems.)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I am a terrible grouch about meta-humor in fiction--I don't even like How Much for Just The Planet, although I loved it when I was young and had a lighter sense of humor. So I think I wouldn't like Number of the Beast but I've been thinking about giving Time Enough for Love a go.

[raqs.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well, Number of the Beast isn't funny - not that I remember, certainly not like How Much for Just the Planet. It's just, you know, "wouldn't YOU go to Oz if you could? *I* would!" type of thing.

I adored Time Enough for Love so if you hate it do please post your review behind a cut. :-)

[unhappytriad.livejournal.com]

Moon is the only Heinlein I really like (of the half-dozen or so I've read), though I admit The Puppet Masters kept me glued to it till it was over.

Bujold's Miles books I love, though I haven't read all of them yet.

My sanity was quite possibly saved during my away-from-home nursing home assignment last summer by Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin books (Master and Commander and its 19 finished sequels). Patrick Tully is an AMAZING reader, and the early-19th-c. nautical setting is alien enough to feel like incredibly detailed SF.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I have been rationing O'Brian's books out over the past few years, because if I read them all in a row, I won't have any new ones to look forward to and that will be sad. I'm up to The Nutmeg of Consolation.

Tully is completely awesome.

[unhappytriad.livejournal.com]

I read more than half of them in dead-tree format, but I'm going to make a special effort to find the audiobook of The Ionian Mission just to hear Tully read the rhinoceros part.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine that The Vor Game was ever any kind of e-book from Tor, since it is and always has been a Baen book.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Whoops! Huh, it's not in the free Baen library either, and Amazon doesn't carry it...I wonder where the heck I got a Kindle version? Maybe Amazon used to sell it. It's in the Fictionwise store now but I haven't shopped there before.

Anyway, I corrected the post.