This one’s about books I’ve read over the last year. Joy has a challenge running at the moment, with the aim being to read 52 books, 26 with titles covering the whole of the alphabet and 26 with authors covering the alphabet. For more, take a peek at my long neglected Sleepypete Stories blog (link in the blogroll). I’m sneakily using that one so that the A To Z post can remain at the top without being lost in my various random ramblings.
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2…. Robert A Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. This books is much better than the film, although the animated series comes close. This is a book that deals far more with ethics and government with the alien shooty bits actually being rather limited. 3…. David Weber’s At All Costs. Much better than the previous book, War Of Honor, because it has a lot more action in between the tedious politics bits. But, the series is definitely suffering from the escalation that most sci-fi space opera series tend to burn out on. 4…. Avatar series by various D&D authors. This series has the gods of Toril getting thrown out of the heavens due to not doing their duties properly. So their boss sets out to teach them a lesson. Cue a series of stories crossing most of the Forgotten Realms D&D setting, with gods dying, cities being destroyed, mortals being corrupted, a little bit of love and madness and rather spectacular re-ordering of the pantheon there. 5…. Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. This is the introduction to The Culture, a hugely mixed society of the future which is run by machines. These machines very definitely have personalities of their own, which leads to names like Resistance is Character Forming, No More Mr Nice Guy and Now Look What You Made Me Do. This one is the first Culture book and is nigh-on essential reading for any sci-fi fan. 6…. Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. Gotta admit, I was a little disappointed with this one. It had a reasonable setting to work with but suffered from being too drawn out and too rushed. The beginning takes ages to get through, the end rushes through very quickly. 7…. XWing series by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allstom. These are in the Star Wars universe, taking up the story about 2-3 years after Return of the Jedi. They’re well worth a peek, not so much for the Star Wars but for the interplay between the characters. 8…. Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks. Another Culture book, tough to describe. So I’m not going to 🙂 Besides, spoilers would happen very easily with this one ! 9…. Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein. This one is about his Lazarus Long character, aka the oldest living human. He’s about 2500 years old when this one is set and is a kind of biography of the character. I’ve read a lot more Heinlein than when I first read this quite some time ago, I’m hoping to get more out of it this time. 10… Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series. I’m two books in with these and I’ll get started on the third after Time enough For Love. The premise here takes you back to World War Two. Things are going as we know. Apart from aliens from space choosing that time to invade ! Bit long winded these, which is why I haven’t bombed through the series just yet. 11… Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I’ve read all 5 of these. The first three are very, very good, with all of the famed Douglas Adams wit shining through. The fifth isn’t that great though. 12… All those documents from work that I can’t tell anyone about 🙂 13… Larry Niven’s Ringworld series. Not read any of these for a while but anything by Niven is worth checking out. |
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