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Outsystem by M. D. Cooper - the first book in The Intrepid Saga, which itself is part of a much larger work of fiction called Aeon 14 that has multiple authors writing in it. It's very much a postcyberpunk military scifi/space opera with all that that entails, including nano-technology being a part of every-day life, 'nets aplenty, sentient AIs (who exist as shades of gray instead of all being evil), space battles, big odds, and various scrapes and bruises for most people involved. It's set in the 42nd century, but so far it appears that there's no actual faster-than-light traveling, so to shortcut that the author mentions date and location every single chapter, although it does annoy me a little bit when the date and location is mentioned when going from one chapter to another and only a few days have passed in the books chronology and the location hasn't changed. Overall I like the start of this series quite a bit, and will continue reading it. I'm especially interested to see how it works out with other authors contributing to the series.
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Jan 5, 2019 14:04
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I've just finished the first three (audio)books in the Provincetown Tales series by Radclyffe, and I don't think I've ever been as swallowed up in reading a series. It's a series of intertwined slice of life stories, predictably enough, set in Province town, and involves the ups and downs of the lives and loves of women. It somehow also manages to include some incredibly erotic scenes without coming off as even the slightest bit porny.
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Aug 3, 2020 14:14
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Taeke posted:We're in the middle of a heatwave and yesterday I didn't have the energy to do much except read Both books are incredibly endearing and on top of it, they show how Em managed to better herself since her first book called Critical Hit which I finished on Friday.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:46
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sebmojo posted:the fifth ends brilliantly, you can just feel how sick he is of writing sequels and he makes it absolutely 1000% clear that there won't be any more. Entropic posted:I highly recommend tracking down the radio play versions, they are classic. They're well worth buying.
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Oct 27, 2020 14:44
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joedevola posted:The number of people and complexity of their society spread beyond what bicameral hierarchies were capable of. That combined with increased contact and trade with people who spoke different languages and had different gods. What I never understood from reading it was why the collapse of pre-Columbian-times South American civilizations is somehow explained by a sudden lack of bicameral minds. Saying that it happened because of it doesn't constitute proof, nor does the apparent lack of evidence to the contrary in the form of other explanations serve as proof. Something capable of spreading like a virus and changing brain structure which is then completely inheritable and has spread to the entire world within such a very short time just doesn't seem even remotely feasible.
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Nov 3, 2020 16:45
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Since July 30th, I finished just north of 200 lesfic romance books. Some of the ones that stand out are: The Perfect Match series by Fiona Riley, which tells the stories of women who all, in one way or another, end up together as a result of exclusive dating agency. The Pink Bean series by Harper Bliss, which tells the story of many different couples and how their lives interweave, all set in a suburb of Sydney, Australia. The Pink Bean also intersects with the French Kissing series by the same author. Provincetown Tales series by Radclyffe, which is a small-town slife-of-life series with some medical procedural and law enforcement drama, set in P-Town, Massachusetts and will soon stretch over 8 books telling the story of the couple from the first book along with some of their friends and family. Night Voice by C.F. Frizzell, which managed to both remind me of the days when I used to work radio at night while also being a really sweet romance story, also set in P-Town, Massachusetts.
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Nov 6, 2020 20:49
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I just finished Jericho by Ann McMan, which is a slice of life lesfic romance with a burn so glacially slow, but at the same time as inevitable as as a roll of thunder after a flash of lightning. Also, the audiobook is over 21 hours long - and the narrator is not a slow reader. Plus, it contains several references to Dune.
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Nov 29, 2020 13:09
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Vincent posted:Finished reading Dune by Frank Herbert. 
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Jan 13, 2021 02:56
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It's the most fun when you get probated for using a spoiler tag too much. 
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Feb 22, 2021 22:37
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God-Emperor of Dune is the best book, according to the Dune thread consensus.
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Mar 5, 2021 23:00
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I just finished Alone by E. J. Noyes. It's a deeply introspective book written from the first-person point-of-view, where a character has at the start of the book already spent three years in voluntary isolation. It has some pretty powerful use of psychological defense mechanisms, and feels extremely real despite being nominally fiction (at least I don't think it's autobiographical or based on real events, as there's no mention of that). It also happens to have a relationship between two women, so there are some sex scenes, but they're well-written and gives more insight into the main characters state of mind than you might think. I really liked this book after reading it, it's definitely one of the best books I've ever read.
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Apr 8, 2021 12:12
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Also, there's a thread for Dune.
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May 17, 2021 21:18
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I just finished When You Least Expect It, by Haley Cass. I have a soft spot for cute and fluffy romance novels, and this book absolutely fills my need for books like that - it's a fantastic journey through what is probably a bit of a trope of the lesbian who falls for the straight woman, with all the pining that one would expect, but without all of the angst. The only real issue I have with the book is that I wish it was longer. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 22:20 on May 31, 2021 |
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May 31, 2021 21:49
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I just finished The Interdependency series by John Scalzi. It's very clearly inspired by Dune, which is both a good thing and also the only real issue with the book, in that like Dune, the villains are cartoonishly evil to the point that the only thing that seems to motivate them is that the end justifies the means. Still, it's a well-spun yarn with quite a few good twists thrown in, a wide cast of likable characters not all of whom are goody-two-shoes, and contains liberal use of the word gently caress which I always appreciate.
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Jun 16, 2021 16:42
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I just finished The Pursuit Of The Pankera, which is a novel posthumously published by the Heinlein estate, based on a set of manuscripts that's apparently only recently been put together into a whole book. According to the editor, the only thing that was done was assembling a full story from the manuscripts. It's a delightful twist on The Number Of The Beast, and reminds me more of a Heinlein juvenile with some of the same (and yet very different) plot points of the earlier book.
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Jun 25, 2021 11:06
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A few days ago I finished The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which is a delightfully slice-of-life character driven space opera with a little bit of romance. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but just forgot to post about it. The second book in the series, A Closed And Common Orbit, is also good although it's only very tenuously related to the first book in that they share universe and a character.
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Jun 30, 2021 22:07
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I just finished Love's Falling Star by B. D. Grayson, which is their debut novel - although the blurb at the end of the audiobook mentions that they used to write fanfiction. It's a really sweet story about two women falling in love, and the struggles of coming out as a country music star. Obviously, that's not new territory, but I think that despite the fact that it's a story set in modern times, it's a pretty honest look at how difficult it can be (though I guess I would've liked the book to acknowledge that even country music singers have been coming out since the very early 90s, and still had a very successful career afterwards). I also absolutely adore the ending, which had me crying. The only real feedback I would offer, if asked, is that the book doesn't really do a good job of showing how much time passes. Oh, and the other bit of feedback I'd have is that the book is too short. I definitely look forward to see what the author does next, because judging from this first professionally published book, they've definitely got talent for writing believable stories.
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Nov 8, 2021 11:49
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I just finished The Galaxy And The Ground Within by Becky Chambers, which is the fourth and final in the series by the author that I've previously mentioned. It's a delightful science-fiction slice of life about some people coming together as a result of unforeseen consequences and how they deal with that. The setting reminds me a bit of The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven, in the best way possible. It does a pretty good job of being part of the genre that's sometimes known as humanist science fiction where there's not a whole lot of technobabble, it's more about people who're dealing with things in a science fiction setting than about the science in science fiction itself, if that makes sense.
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Nov 20, 2021 22:28
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Burke posted:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet The author also begun a new series that's got book #2 coming out this year, and I look forward to reading the series once it's done - it's so nice with fresh perspectives from new people in the science fiction genre, especially from a woman who knows the LGBT spectrum.
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Jan 12, 2022 16:24
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Blissfully Blindsided by Robin Alexander. This book became an instant favorite of mine very quickly, because while it's a very slice-of-life romance, it's one of Robin Alexanders books where she demonstrates how absolutely fantastic she is at using side characters to build a story that really comes to life.
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Jan 14, 2022 22:49
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tuyop posted:There’s this snarky precocious style that I can’t stand. Like, Connie Willis (in Doomsday Book), Martha Wells (A long trip to an angry red planet), John Scalzi (everything), and sometimes Andy Weir, for instance, all have this real tongue in cheek tone that rubs me completely the wrong way. A Deadly Education has that tone as well. It’s definitely a matter of taste because people rave about all of those authors. The audiobooks that I've listened to for Becky Chambers's (who wrote The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - I'm not sure why you're confusing her with Martha Wells) books and those of John Scalzi don't seem to me to be filled with snark, although John Scalzi does have one character (John Perry in Old Man's War) who can be somewhat snarky, but I'm not sure that counts as it's just one character out of many.
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Jan 15, 2022 17:44
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tuyop posted:/\ /\ yeah the premises are so good! It’s a shame. Liking books is okay and good. 
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Jan 16, 2022 04:14
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I just finished Ardulum: First Don by J.S. Fields. The premise immediately captured my attention, because it's sort of like Firefly in some of the way it handles the characters, but still manages to have its own feel. The world building is not the best I've ever read, but it does a decent job - and I like that the focus isn't on some generic human in space, which admittedly is only a slight twist, but it carries it off well. There's a few things that I think are a little unexplored, or could've been a bigger focus, but it's possible that they'll be brought up later on in the series (I haven't finished the whole thing yet). I also happened to look up the author on Twitter, and the first thing I saw them post was about a dildo being used as a murder weapon in the newest novel that they're working on - so that's something to look forward to. Dobbs_Head posted:Just finished “A long way to a small, angry planet” Maybe consider checking out the above instead? BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 9, 2022 16:49
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I just finished Point B (A Teleportation Love Story) by Drew Magary. It's very much a young adult story, with all the trappings that that entails up to and including the baddies being part of a bigger group of baddies, which in turn are a part of the biggest group of baddies who somehow control the entire earth despite being cartoonishly evil and incompetent at the same time. It's not a bad book, but it's also not very good. One of the few really good parts about the book are the characters and their interactions, but there's so much focus on the action that it feels like it's a movie that's been turned into a script and then embellished with some details to fill it out into a novel.
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Apr 23, 2022 21:38
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I just finished Scaredy Cat by Robin Alexander. It's very much a Robin Alexander book in that her humour is on full display, and I thoroughly like the way the story has two people who don't instantly fall for each other, and instead gradually develop a friendship that suddenly blossoms into something more. Best of all, however, is how the main characters support each other in ways I can't easily remember having encountered in other novels. I'm not overly fond of how the paranormal plays a role in the lead-up to the finale, but it's entirely a personal-preference thing and I don't really think it detracts from the book - it just leaves something to be desired, meaning the book could've been slightly better, if only by a hairs width. Robin Alexander is on my absolute-favorites list for romantic comedies, because I don't think there's a single book I've read of hers that wasn't in the top-50 romances I've read, so if you're looking for a place to get into romance, you can't really go wrong with one of her books. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 00:36
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The last book got me hooked on romance again, so I continued with another of Robin Alexanders - this time Rusty Logic. I'm not sure I can put into words how much I like this book. The characters don't immediately fall in love, but as with the prior book they develop a friendship that then blossoms, there's a lot of good and open communication between the characters, the lead-up to the finale is a tense page-turner but mostly because of the pacing of the story and not because of the somewhat-stereotypical bring-everything-to-ahead-for-the-conclusion-of-the-book, and the conclusion itself feels like the perfect knot on the red thread of the entire book. Basically, it's the perfect romantic comedy - and I know that's incredibly high praise for anyone to give, but I think it's warranted.
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Jul 26, 2022 00:03
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Noumenon by Marina J. Lostetter: A series of vignettes telling the stories of people involved at different stages of a multi-generational ship with a mission to explore an unusual star. The story itself mostly revolves around the political intrigue of the daily lives of the people in the convoy, and is not nearly as much science fiction as the initial concept makes it appear - but the end-result is, I think, better for not trying to stick to the hard science. It sort of reminds me of Dune, in how both books are science fiction but revolve around people and the politics, rather than diving deep into science or techno-babble - and if you know me, you know comparisons to Dune usually mean the work is rather good in my opinion. I look forward to the two next books in the series.
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Sep 23, 2022 08:42
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I finished Sprinkled In The Stars by Violet Morley. It's a very sweet low-angst romance story with two main characters that feel like real people, and a cast of side characters in the form of a couple of families that bring warmth to the book. Best of all, it's one of the romance books where communication is absolute key and helps resolve what a lazier writer would've just used to create a bunch of unnecessary drama.
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Nov 13, 2022 18:41
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I just finished Schuss by E. J. Noyes. It's sort of a follow-up on one of her other novels called Gold, and it's set a few years after - so in that sense it also functions as closure for that book. The story itself is a rather simple love story - two people who've already met have become good friends, but it turns out they're both pining for each other secretly, because they fear they'll ruin their friendship if they do anything else. It's an exceptionally sweet story, and I liked how the characters communicate with each other, because there are some other romance stories where you just want to shake the characters and yell at them to communicate with each other. This book also happens to have something that's all too rare, which is a sex scene that demonstrates how explicit consent can not just be worked into foreplay, without ruining the mood. It's also quite realistic in its portrayal of the sex, and yet manages to be so hot that I actually had to fan myself with my hand - which is a big change from most other novels, which are sexy in the sense that they show how some things could be fun to try with a partner in real-life, but don't really do anything beyond that. It's also got what I'd say is an acceptable and believable amount of drama - it's not like other books where the author just keeps piling on the drama in the name of creating angst. The only thing I'd say is a bit of a let down is that the story feels like it ends too quickly, because there's no real epilogue in the book. That's not really enough for me to not thoroughly recommend it, so if you're into romance stories that happen to involve same-sex couples, I can't emphasize how much it's worth giving a try.
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Jan 5, 2023 15:35
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