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dustydigger
Posted 2018-04-17 1:33 PM (#16984 - in reply to #16977)
Subject: Re: Pick & Mix challenge 2018		Quote Reply



Elite Veteran

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Location: UK		Sorry I've been away so long. I have read very little SF lately,had lots of ill health and family issues.
Woo-hoo! FINALLY completed Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars early March,thus wrapping up his mammoth 2300 page saga about terraforming Mars from a dry arid desert to a livable habitat complete with sea!. I really found it hard going,KSRs style is so super-detailed,ponderous and SLOW. That does work to give a solidity and super realism to the planet Mars,which becomes a true presence in the books. That is certainly an impressive achievement and I give him full credit. But on the side of plot,pace and characters I found the books a big irritating disappointment. I have one more KSR award winning book to read this year,2312 (a mere 500 pages,thats barely getting going with this man!) and then I will leave Mr Robinson on the library shelves in peace!
That makes 56/66 Hugos read and 45/53 Nebulas.
I read David weber's light but enjoyable young adult Fire Season,and Treecat Wars,about how Honor Harrington's ancestor first met and interacted with the treecats.Kept mixing the treecats up in my head with H Beam Piper's fuzzies,same sort of feel to the books.
Seanan McGuire's A Local Habitation was only so-so.I am somewhat disappointed in this series,even if it is about the Fae. wont make much effort finding more of the books.
Also not to happy with Catherynne M Valente's The Girl Who Soared above Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two. In the first two books of the series the rich ornate and elaborate style was fascinating and enriched the story. This outing the style overwhelmed the story,seemed to me to be saying look at me arent I a clever writer. Wont bother with the other 3 or 4 books in the series.
Ben Aaronovitch's The Furthest Station was good fun as usual,though we saw little of the river deities this time,It was very short,more like a novella put out to prevent us being irritated at a long gap between books.
Andre Norton's Night of Masks was a typically enjoyable read,competently written,aimed at the youth market,but she was never afraid to put in harsh issues. This one was about an orphan hideously scarred in a spaceship crash and his desperation to do anything to earn surgery to heal his face.
Edgar Rice Burroughs Chessmen of Mars was surprisingly gruesome at times,but good fun. Next in the series is Mastermind of Mars - if I can find it.
And last but certainly not least I enjoyed a reread of Larry Niven's Ringworld,just as much fun now as several decades ago. Still probably the most famous,and one of the most awesome, Big Dumb Objects ever devised. An artifact, a created enviroment a mere 3 million times the area of the earth? Awesome indeed!
And thats it,not much to show for over 2 months.
I am about 150 pages into N K Jemison's The Fifth Season. Interesting world building but certainly not full of joy and laughter!. Also ready to start Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio but I am behind in my planned reading to complete 17 Hugo and Nebula winners this year.Real life poking its ugly nose into my plans.Grrr!

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