20 Comments on “New Books and ARCs, 5/5/17”

1. As tempting as all the new titles seem, the next few months, most of my reading is going to the Hugo Finalists that I didn’t find during the year. Up now, Le Guin’s “Words are my Matter”.

2. H’h. First time I’ve ever seen that — you’ve got a different galley of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. From the one I’ve had here for a awhile which stacks their names instead of putting them on one line. Also mine has a red and black type on a yellow background instead of the more striking black background that yours has. Interesting.

3. Drayden’s Prey of Gods and D.O.D.O. are on the TBR list.

4. Hmm… Stephenson co-authoring? Haven’t seen him do that since Cobweb (or was it Interface). In both those cases, they were tighter-plotted books than most of his solo work. I’m hoping a co-author stands next to him with a rolled up newspaper and goes, “No, Neal. Plot. Character.”

5. Galland also worked with Stephenson on Mongoliad (along with a slew of other authors). I only read the first book, which was a bit uneven, but I chalked that up to the more extreme experimentation they were doing with collaboration. I agree this looks interesting though…

6. Joel Finkle: it’s got both a plot and likeable characters. Been a long time since I’ve said that about a novel by him. It is still a Stephenson novel in that it’s nearly seven hundred pages long!

7. You’d think Rachel Dunne (or her publishers) could come up with an alternative title, seeing that Michael Swanwick’s Bones of the Earth is still in print. Yes, I know you can’t copyright a title, but still… .

8. A number of author’s there I haven’t run across before, so I shall try them all. Do you actually read all these books, John, or just sample them and read the ones that engage you?

9. Must read The Rise and Fall of DODO, especially since I actually know Nicole Galland and should read the rest of her books too. (Joelfinkle, I doubt she had to thwack her co-author to get things done…)

10. Stephenson is the only author I recognise in this stack. The one book I’ve read of his put me off – as Cat Eldridge says: – seven hundred pages!
    With so many unheard of authors in these ARC stacks I wonder how many have got / developing the Brain Eater?

11. Headspace is an indie Roleplaying Game using the Apocalypse World Engine to do cyberpunk, in a world where people can link minds together to share skills. Interesting premise, I have a copy in my TBR stack.

12. What happens to the books: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/03/08/because-people-ask-book-acquisition-details/

13. Hmmm, there’s ‘Dark Sky’ and ‘From Darkest Skies’. And it’s cloudy outside. Ominous…

14. Stephenson definitely. I happen to like megabooks. Can anyone put a first name to the author of the Arcadia Project, because if that name is Kage I’m definitely in.

15. My hard copy of the Dispatcher just arrived from Subterranean. Not interested in your pile of ARCs!

16. Can’t say I’ve read any of these.
    Is “Liz Bourke” Melania Trump’s pseudonym ?
    That would be a biography then ?

17. It’s Mishell Baker. Kage passed on in seven years ago. The only unfinished works she left behind were two chapbooks that her sister Kathleen finished.

18. I finished my ARC of D.O.D.O. this morning and I really liked it. I’m a big Stephenson fan and I don’t consider all the meandering he normally does to be a negative. In this case though the plot grabbed me more than they normally do and I was reading along to see how it was going to turn out more than I usually do.

19. I’m one of those readers who love the big fat books. Get your money’s worth, have something you can use as a weapon if needed, keep me busy for a while.

    Years ago I read an article about an expensive speed reading course, probably in Jr high. Reading lines instead of words, starting with narrow columns, like Newsweek or newspapers, then going on to wider and wider columns. I don’t read a page-wide column, but I do read chunks instead of individual words.

    I read pretty fast, which is both good and bad. The more complex the material, the slower I go, of course. So technical stuff is slower going than pulp fiction. Some authors slow me down. Neal takes a while. I’m into Cory’s new book now, third day in and loving it.

    I will confess that some of David Weber’s tomes are a little more detail than anyone needs about the story he’s telling, especially his story about the world founded by escapees from alien monsters, culturally deformed by a mad scientist dictator, implementing a religion with the Spanish Inquisition built in.

    But good reading, all of it. Looking forward to the D.O.D.O. for sure. Sleeping with Monsters is an intriguing title. If money and storage space were irrelevant, I’d just order all of them…

20. Cat: Thank you for the info even though the news of Kage Baker’s death saddens me. Really liked her stuff.