Finished The Passage by Justin Cronin. First book in The Passage trilogy. Overall, liked the book. The start was slow, giving me Stephen King vibes, but it picked up the pace as it went along. It was too long though, and can't get myself to start next one right away.
Read couple of son's books to change pace. The Ghoul in the School by Marcus Rashford and Alex Falase-Koya, the second book in The Breakfast Club Adventures. And Unexpected Super Spy by Zanib Mian, second book in Planet Omar series.
Also read, and just finished 5 mins before this post, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson, book 3 of his secret projects, and part of Cosmere, but a standalone book, which can be read without any knowledge of his other work. I loved this book. Like most of his "secret projects" books, couldn't put it down once I picked it up.
Currently Reading... nothing. Just finished the previous book and haven't decided what to start next... leaning towards next Dresden Files novel though... let's see.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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I just finished Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. It was very good
Have you read the other Culture books, or is this your first one? I just found out now that there's !theculture@lemm.ee that could use some posts if you have anything you want to share about it. If you haven't read it yet (or if anybody else is curious for a quick taste of the series), here's the author writing a few notes on it:
http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
I thought this was also a good read, though it does have a few spoilers across the first few books:
https://www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/2017/11/12/why-the-culture-wins-an-appreciation-of-iain-m-banks/
Nope, this was my first one. I read a lot of SF/hard SF but it took me a while to get on to this series even though it is pretty famous. It was really well written in my opinion which is not always common in the genre. I have now started the second book.
As an aside, I will always take an opportunity to recommend my favorite SF author, Alastair Reynolds. His stuff is 🤌
Nice! It's been a while since I've read any of his stuff. I should be done with my current book soon, what are a few of your favorites from him?
A fun standalone one is Hous of Suns, not part of any of his larger collections. In the Revelation Space series, Chasm City is a good one which can also be done by itself, or The Prefect (formerly Aurora Rising, not sure what the details of the name situation are) which is the first of a trilogy set within the Rev Space series and is tangentially related to Chasm City.
I read Consider Phlebas long time ago, and didn't like it enough to continue the series. It has been long enough that maybe I should give the series another try.
IMO it's the weakest of the series. The next two books, The Player of Games or Use of Weapons are much better, at least to me. Use of Weapons is great, but has a somewhat challenging narrative structure of two intermixed timelines, so if that's not your thing The Player of Games would probably be a good one to try.
Thanks for the recommendation. Will re-read the first book (it has been so long I don't really remember anything from it) and then read the next one to see if the series if for me or not.