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Pick and Mix 2016
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-02 4:09 AM (#12239)
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Location: UK		Here we go again with the P&M. I extended the number of books in the reading levels,though Weesam will probably still finish within 3 months! We had an excellent year in 2015,around 12 active participants reading 337 books,and reviewing 195 of them Amazing.
Lets hope for the same this year.
Anyone got any particular plans? I have cut down on heavy serious award winners etc this yearHey,the longer I can put off those massive wristbreaking tomes of the 90s the better,I am having a sort of break from them,but have lined up a host of fun 50s and 60s stuff,much more relaxing and enjoyable to me. lol.
Happy reading,people!

Edited by dustydigger 2016-01-02 4:12 AM
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pauljames
Posted 2016-01-02 7:47 AM (#12243 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: scotland		I am looking forward to trying to read more in 2016.

To start I have a few new books I got at christmas to start me off.
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daxxh
Posted 2016-01-02 1:19 PM (#12250 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: Great Lakes, USA		I am not sure what possessed me because I don't read much horror, but I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle yesterday. What a creepy little story! It's very well written, the characterization is excellent and it's creepy. Not blood and guts all over kind of creepy, but psychological creepy. I liked it.

I have a bunch of those wrist-breaking tomes on my list this year, so I probably won't join as many challenges or read the maximum on a lot of challenges. I am determined to read Under the Dome this year and finish Words of Radiance.
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Mervi2012
Posted 2016-01-04 3:02 PM (#12281 - in reply to #12239)
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I've joined this year, too, but for the 40 book level. I'm starting with Nancy Kress' Probability Sun. (I really enjoyed the first book, Probability Moon.)
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-06 2:00 PM (#12303 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		@ Daxxh - I am a bit of a wimp where horror is concerned,especially the gory modern kind,but I think this is more on the creepy,insidious style of horror. I do have it in mind to read it some time,as I did like her Haunting of Hill House,many years ago.
@Mervi - 40 should be easy for you,you whizzed through books at the end of the year. I will be interested to hear about Nancy Kress' Probability series. Someday I hope to get round to her Beggars in Spain books.
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-06 3:27 PM (#12305 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		First book of the year was John Varley's Titan.This was a fun romp, though quite cheesy at times. But I always love books about Big Dumb Objects, and lapped up this one, a huge space habitat orbiting Saturn, run by a semi-insane artificial intelligence. Fun descriptions of the habitat, the strange creatures, including centaurs and angels, mix engagingly with fastpaced adventures, and a quest to confront whoever is in charge of this place. Light fluff, but a nice read on a cold winter afternoon.
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Leyra'an
Posted 2016-01-09 9:35 AM (#12335 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: USA		Howdy, dustydigger. Finally followed you over from Shelfari. I'm in on this challenge, though with a degree of caution. 2015 was a bad year for setting goals, and while 2016 holds promise - well every year does, right up to the moment when it all goes horribly wrong...

So, starting with 10. Don't what all of them will be yet, but the list is started, and I'm well into David Brin's book Kiln People. I had no trouble getting caught up in this one!
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Mervi2012
Posted 2016-01-09 1:02 PM (#12341 - in reply to #12303)
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dustydigger - 2016-01-06 2:00 PM
@Mervi - 40 should be easy for you,you whizzed through books at the end of the year. I will be interested to hear about Nancy Kress' Probability series. Someday I hope to get round to her Beggars in Spain books.


Thanks for the vote of confidence.
I enjoyed Probability Sun, too, but not quite as much as Probability Moon. In "Moon" Kress explores an alien society and their mindset; they have shared reality which is enforced by biology. Shared reality doesn't allow them to do violence or even lie. In "Sun", the aliens are almost a back drop. I will continue to Probability Space.
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-09 3:47 PM (#12345 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		@ Leyra'an(aka Thomas) welcome toWWEnd,and Pick and Mix. I see I have read 5 of your picks,and Have Kil'n People and the Lies of Locke Lamora on the TBR.
I always enjoy David Brin. Hope to get round to the second Uplift trilogy,starting with Brightness Reef towards the end of the year if all goes well.So many books,so little time.
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-09 4:19 PM (#12346 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		I found Ursula LeGuin's The Word for World is Forest a heavy handed, very earnest depiction of humans exploiting a planet, logging precious wood for Earth, using the indigenous people, small, green and furry, as slaves. The main human villain is almost cartoonish in his complete and utter brutality, the Hainish charcters are so high-minded and ethical, and the native people, though primitive technologically are at one with their world, rather in the mold of noble savages, with somewhat telepathic powers. One could look upon the society as still in Eden and sadly when they finally retaliate against their human oppressors its a case of lost innocence, a leaving of Eden, as they prove themselves as cruel, vicious and relentless as the humans. Not sure what to make of this, it was all a bit too black and white for me, and rather downbeat. A bit too overdidactic, but of course very much of its time in its concerns for the environment and the way man's greed can destroy what is beautiful or trampling on those who stand in their way. Not one of LeGuin's best, a bit too "worthy", with no shading. Oh well, at least it was SHORT!
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy started out a bit stodgy,as usual,slow moving.Breq is as highminded as ever,and earnestly pits herself against Lord Mianaai,while sorting out her young officers,another ancillary,the AIs of a ship and a station,and lots of downtrodden stationers at intervals.It was well past halfway before Breq even made a little guerilla attack on the Radch enemy. Its all OK,perfectly reasonable read,but Breq does go on a bit,all that angst and internal muttering,while offhandedly sorting everybody's problem in passing!
Anyway,all in all Mercy is adequately rounding off the trilogy,but,unlike the myriad of fans, I guess I feel the whole series has been overhyped.I liked Ancillary Sword best,it got out of Radch space,and we got a straightfprward story,and the characters seemed more vibrant somehow. Oh well,just not really absorbing or exciting enough for me.
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spectru
Posted 2016-01-09 7:34 PM (#12348 - in reply to #12346)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		@dustydigger.

I found The Word for World is Forest to be one of Le Guin's better efforts. I'm convinced it was the inspiration for the movie Avatar.
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-11 5:17 AM (#12369 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		In Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIHM widowed mouse Mrs. Frisby has to move herself and her four children from their winter home in a cinder block in the farmer's field to their summer home by the woodland stream. But her son is stricken with pneumonia and is both too weak to make the move and would find the cold dampness of their summer house very dangerous so early in the year. But in five days the farmer is making plans to plow the field and their home will be destroyed.

At her wits end, Mrs. Frisby seeks help from some unusual rats, rats which had escaped from intelligence-enhancing experiements in a lab at NIMH,( the National Institutes of Mental Health).Now with increased size,strength and high intelligence (they can read,which has been of important value in setting up their community) they have developed a conscience about stealing from the farmer,and are planning to move to a secluded area where they can establish a self-sustaining lifestyle,with the deliberate aim of setting up a new rat civilisation,without having to depend on humans,and avoiding recapture by the scientists.

On discovering that Mrs. Frisby's husband had important ties with the rats,even helping with their escape and survival, they agree to help her save her family.Mrs Frisby will have to risk all to save her son,especially by drugging the fearsome cat,Dragon,and there will be excitement, danger and tragedy before it all ends up happy ever after.

I really enjoyed this book,which won the Newbery Medal.It started off so rural,very much in the vein of Beatrix Potter,and then suddenly threw the reader into the adventures of lab rats escaping from the lab,and then the intense dangers and risks as both rats and Mrs Frisby have a hair raising time escaping the humans,and saving her home. Vividly written,full of thrills and spills,there are plenty of delightful things to hold the attention of adults.I loved it,and would recommend it to children and adults alike.

The author actually knew someone who worked on experiments with rats at the NIMH in the 50s and 60s Even today NIMH are doing breakthrough work. Research published in the March 2013 issue of Cell Stem Cell details the injection of human glial cells into the brains of newborn mice. Upon maturation, the mice were faster learners. O'Brien was on the ball 40 years before. Cool!
I am now reading T J Bass The Godwhale and Cordwainer Smith's Norstrilia for the 1970s Defining Books challenge

Edited by dustydigger 2016-01-11 5:20 AM
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-14 10:07 PM (#12400 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		Have only read a dozen pages in all over the last few days,because we are all in a furore over on Shelfari. Amazon has ''merged'' Shelfari and Goodreads,i.e. totally destroyed Shelfari. We have been given a princely two months to salvage what we can from years of discussions and recommendations,plus find a new home for our groups. Boy,the ears of the amazon bosses must be burning.I am busy setting up groups etc over on Leafmarks and reading is taking a back seat for the moment.
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Sushicat
Posted 2016-01-18 6:19 AM (#12419 - in reply to #12239)
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Finally figured this one out

Of this year's reads so far I loved Childhood's End the most. Imagine a world where everybody could have whatever they wanted. Quite some effect this would have.

The other I really liked is Metatropolis - a collection of short stories set in a not too distant future where resources are scarce but humans have not changed their ways. Originally an audiobook exclusive, this has also been published in writing.

The Legend of Drizzt (Homeland, Exile, Sojourn) is really a bit much meeting bad beasties and battling them.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - also a collection of short stories - includes a few good ones, but nothing that really blew me away.

The Three Body Problem was very good as well. The setting in China with the cultural revolution angle was really interesting. Looking forward to reading the sequel.

Edited by Sushicat 2016-01-18 6:25 AM
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Leyra'an
Posted 2016-01-19 8:19 AM (#12427 - in reply to #12400)
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dustydigger - 2016-01-14 9:07 PM

Have only read a dozen pages in all over the last few days,because we are all in a furore over on Shelfari. Amazon has ''merged'' Shelfari and Goodreads,i.e. totally destroyed Shelfari. We have been given a princely two months to salvage what we can from years of discussions and recommendations,plus find a new home for our groups. Boy,the ears of the amazon bosses must be burning.I am busy setting up groups etc over on Leafmarks and reading is taking a back seat for the moment.


It was quite a shock when the Pink Banner of Death appeared over Shelfari. This place and Leafmarks between them softened the blow, even if it was a bit disruptive.

I bumped myself up a level for Pick & Mix 2016...

What could I have been thinking? lol
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spectru
Posted 2016-01-19 11:48 AM (#12428 - in reply to #12427)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		dustydigger and Leyra'an

I'm not familiar with Shelfari but if they're merging it with Goodreads, I invite you to join our Evolution of Science Fiction discussion group on Goodreads.

There was something of a furor when Amazon took over Goodreads, but can't see any deleterious effect.
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Leyra'an
Posted 2016-01-19 2:10 PM (#12429 - in reply to #12428)
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Location: USA		spectru - I don't actually have anything against Goodreads, I just preferred the format on Shelfari. I've not heard of that discussion group (the only one I keep track of, though I haven't participated in a long time, is Sword and Laser). I will check it out. Thanks!
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-20 7:59 AM (#12442 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		My shelf still hasnt imported to GR,and I tried to export from shelfari within hours of seeing the Banner of Death.I did receive my shelfari file,and everything was on it,perfect. But migrating my books to GR ? Chaos.Only two measly books have arrived there,without ratings or read dates ,so ,once my data fully transfers to Leafmarks and LibraryThing,I am seriously hovering on the brink of leaving GR. When I joined GR several years ago,only 1800 of my 3400books (at the time) ever arrived. I added about 400 manually,then gave up and edited exclusively on shelfari.Now they are demolishing shelfari - and what if I have the same pathetic take up of books again?I am NOT a happy camper
@Thomas,I checked out the LT science fiction group,and though there are few discussions,there are some interesting threads,such as one about authors who seem to be neglected or forgotten. I felt very smug reading about those authors,because,thanks to WWEnds lists I am already familiar with a lot of them. Jim 's excellent Defining Books of the 50s in particular has made me familiar with many of them,and I have even READ quite a few books bythem!Good old WWEnd.
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Scott Laz
Posted 2016-01-20 6:34 PM (#12446 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: Gunnison, Colorado		In regard to the book site discussion, I tried Good Reads and LibraryThing, and ended up preferring LibraryThing, so that's where I catalog books. Hopefully Amazon doesn't buy them out as well... I guess it's not surprising Amazon would combine the sites, but you'd think they'd do it in a way that didn't destroy their users' work. I can certainly understand the anger. I guess there's no guarantee with these things...

And dusty, thanks as usual for the "Pick and Mix"!
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justifiedsinner
Posted 2016-01-23 3:09 AM (#12466 - in reply to #12239)
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Library Thing is offering free lifetime membership to Shelfari users and has help pages on importing books. Amazon has a small share holding in LT which they are determined will not get any larger.
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-01-23 9:48 PM (#12468 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		Amazon want to rule the world as far as any book related site is concerned. In the UK there is only one major chain of bookshops left,Waterstones. In the second hand area they snapped up AbeBooks ,and it was sad to hear in 2011 that the Book Depository had also been gobbled up. As a result, independent booksellers were unable to compete,and are closing down at more than one a week!. You very rarely see a book shop over here nowadays .I live near a medium sized city,Sunderland.,pop.275,000.,It has one Waterstones branch,very small, selling mainly bestsellers,one W H Smith stationers branch,and NO secondhand bookshops at all! And this is a university city!
We had the most marvellous second hand bookshop near the city centre beside the university campus.Masses of textbooks,boxes of dusty old books tucked away everywhere which often turned up hidden delights(that was way I took on my username,getting grimy hands rooting out intriguing boxes of books),and having that distinctive smell of old books.Genre fans would be happily searching the packed shelves for the next crime or romance,teenagers would be poring over the display cabinets of badges and buttons,or the posters of old films.Imagine the horror when the place suddenly announced it was closing down to become a winebar! All very sad.....wonder if Alibris are nervously peering over their shoulder to see if they are being stalked!Maybe not,being owned by a billionaire,they are very similar to Amazon. lol.
Oh and one more depressing thing about Amazon. On UK sales of 4 billion,they paid a princely ELEVEN MILLION in tax.Our book buying culture is being destroyed,and we dont even make any cash from it for our beleaguered public services .

Edited by dustydigger 2016-01-23 9:54 PM
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-02-09 9:15 AM (#12631 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		Wow,FINALLY completed my first SF book for a month,Alan Dean Foster's Icerigger
While I had no computer my online read of Alan Dean Foster's Icerigger was wiped off ,timed out,but fortunatelythere was another copy turned uo quickly and I polished off the last 50 pages at a gallop.
Some people,SF purists, tend to curl the lip a bit at ADF because he does lots of novelisations of films and pulpy stuff,but I have always found his books,no matter how slight ,are just good relaxing fun,perfect lighter reads. He has a smooth flowing style,glints of humour and engaging characters,and the pace is light speed rip roaring adventure. In Icerigger a salesman,Ethan Fortune,a huge Viking like crewman and a small geeky schoolteacher are inadvertantly swept up by kidnappers as they stumble into the abduction of a billionaire and his daughter,and are dragged away in a space shuttle,It then crashes on an icy planet,which is a balmy 0 degrees Fahrenheit at the equator in summer. There is a human outpost at the opposite side of the planet. The local city-state is about to be engulfed by a Horde of barbarians,so in return for the humans' help,with a judicuous amount of gunpowder,the use of crossbows and other minor infringements of the Prime Directive,against the brtal tribe,the locals build them a ship with duralloy sort of skis for their icerigger,and off they go across the frozen seas world,with various adventures,including an erupting volcano,religious fanatics who want to sacrifice them, a return engagement with the Horde,and attacks by vast creatures that would make a earthly whale look like a tiddler. Huge fun, a nostalgic re-read and of course I must now reread the rest of the trilogy .
I am now reading Cordwainer Smith's Norstrilia for my 1975 book in the 70s Defining Book challenge,plus Simon R Green's The Dark Side of the Road,an odd mix with an alien masquerading as a human, and a sort of cozy crime story,when the alien hero's boss is found beheaded during a country house Xmas house party,when a group of people are isolated by huge snowstorms. The murderer is among them! Good fun so far.

Edited by dustydigger 2016-02-09 9:22 AM
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ImDrB
Posted 2016-02-10 11:19 AM (#12642 - in reply to #12239)
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New to the forums here!

I was looking through the lists of honors and awards, and realized how few of these well-regarded works I've actually read. And I consider myself to be a fairly well-rounded reader.

That said, I'm taking up the challenge this year of reading through the NPR Top 100 list. I felt that it was a good place to start, because I already own several books on top of this list (but FAR fewer overall than I thought I did!). Even works I've read in recent years are going to be read again, and I'm going to try to stick to the order as closely as possible to keep myself on track.

Cheers, all!
Doc B
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dustydigger
Posted 2016-02-11 3:08 AM (#12648 - in reply to #12239)
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Location: UK		Hi there Doc B,and welcome to WWEnd. Yep,there is nothing more lowering than to look down a list and see how little you have read! lol.
A lot of purists were a bit derogatory about the NPR,that it omits too many classic books,and is a mix of SF and Fantasy,mixed singletons and series,and too populist. But it was a good snapshot of what people are actually reading.
I picked it out as a starting point for getting to know SF when I joined WWEnd back in 2012 for that reason. Also for practicality,as I found that of the books I wanted to tick off,all but 7 of them were available in my library.Compare that with what my library could provide from the Hugos - only 27 of the 63! And only 37/100 from David Pringle's list. Certainly more accessible by far.
Since then I have discovered the Open Library which has put a lot more free books within my grasp
I've read 73/100 of theNPR books but I am now left with the ones I dont fancy,mostly for two reasons - I am not a fantasy fan as a rule(over 20 of those 27 unreads are fantasy).And nearly all of them are huge wristbreaking tomes. What is it with fantasy that every book has to be a minimum of 800 pages? Oh dear.I am much happier with those fun old SF books of around 200 pages!. I suppose because most of those old authors cut their teeth on writing stories for magazines,they could produce complete succinct packing - a- punch SHORTt novels - yet were often jam packed with fantastic themes and ideas! Good stuff.
Well.I am having a year off the NPR list this year,I will only read 7 off the list. and the Perdido Street Stations,,Mists of Avalons,Doomsday Books,and those massive Neal Stephenson,.George R R Martins and Robert Jordans can stay on the shelf without breaking my wrists for another year.
Have a great time working your way through the list! Happy reading.
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Mervi2012
Posted 2016-02-11 3:51 AM (#12651 - in reply to #12239)
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Welcome Doc B!

My next read was Terry Pratchett's Raising Steam. Trains with steam engines have come to Discworld. Moist von Lipwig and the engine's inventor Dick Simnel put their heads together to come up with the railway system. Meanwhile, some dwarfs think that progress has gone too far. I enjoyed the book well enough but I don't think it's one of the best.
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