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Dorothy is here tonight with a set of reviews for another 3 book categories. Welcome Dorothy!
Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy
by Dorothy A. Winsor
Welcome to the third Medium Cool post reviewing a book from each category in Goodread’s Best Book of the Year Contest. This post’s categories are Science Fiction, Horror, and YA Fantasy. We have books by John Scalzi, Stephen King, and Isabel Ibanez.
Science Fiction
Amazon.com: Starter Villain eBook : Scalzi, John: Kindle Store
The most common reason a reader chooses a book is a good experience with a previous book by the same author. I’ve enjoyed various John Scalzi books before, so I chose Starter Villain. Also, I’m biased in Scalzi’s favor. He’s generous to his fellow authors, including me. For instance, he’s let me make author guest posts on his blog, most recently for Glass Girl.
Starter Villain is about Charlie, whose life is at a low point when an uncle he barely knew leaves him a company. The company turns out to be an evil enterprise that needs a villain at its head. Its headquarters is even set on a volcanic island. As that description suggests, the book plays with tropes.
The book includes science-enhanced sentient cats and dolphins. Other than that, it’s not the kind of science fiction that explores the possibilities created by science. The questions the book asks aren’t really about science. Instead, it asks about the way extremely rich people have the power to exploit and harm everybody else. Scalzi would probably be at home on Balloon Juice. (Actually, judging by his social media posts, so would Stephen King, whose book I discuss below.)
I also got a personal surprise from this book. It starts and ends in Barrington, Illinois, which is where I live. Scalzi has Charlie walking streets I recognize. He also has Charlie wanting to buy McDougal’s Pub, a thinly veiled version of McGonigal’s, which has been in Barrington for fourteen years. My writer group once held its Christmas party there. Sadly, I recently saw a newspaper story that McGonigal’s is closing.
Horror
Holly – Kindle edition by King, Stephen. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Stephen King’s Holly is about the investigation of a series of murders. The reader knows from the start that, unlikely as it seems, the murders are carried out by a pair of elderly, retired professors. (Why, yes. I, too, am an elderly, retired professor. Why do you ask?) Holly only gradually realizes that the killings are connected, and the reader only gradually realizes why the professors commit them.
That “why” is very creepy. I assume it’s the reason this book lands in the Horror category rather than Mystery and Thriller. Also, the unlikely nature of the murderers makes things weirder. In an author’s note, King says he saw a newspaper story with a headline something like, “Everyone thought they were a sweet old couple until the bodies began turning up in the backyard.” He thought, “Killer old folks. That’s my story.” So, there you go: Seize inspiration when and where you find it.
The book is set in 2021, with the Delta wave of COVID raging. At the book’s start, Holly’s mother has just died of the disease. Mom was a COVID denier who refused to be vaccinated or wear a mask. Holly thinks of her mother’s death as unnecessary and political. Almost everyone Holly interviews asks if she’s vaccinated so they can remove their masks or tells her that COVID is a hoax. It was a real reminder of what it was like to live through those days. It also helps make death omnipresent in the book.
The book has characters of all ages, but one repeated question is how various people react to aging. And once again, we have the nearness of death made present in the book. There’s an elderly poet, an uncle with Alzheimer’s, an old guy who’s had a stroke but is still sharp. There’s also the murderers. All these people contemplating old age made me think, “Hm. How are you doing Stephen King? You good?”
It’s not unusual for writers to include issues they’ve been thinking about in their lives, the politics of COVID, for instance. King is 76. It wouldn’t be surprising if he’s been mulling over issues having to do with aging. I’d say some of the characters are luckier in how they age, but some amount of loss and pain are inevitable, and some characters work through them in healthier ways.
YA Fantasy
In this category, I chose What the River Knows by Isabel Ibanez because I was intrigued by its Egyptian setting. Set in the late 1800s, this is the story of Inez, the daughter of two Egyptologists who have disappeared and are presumed dead.
I admired Inez’s determination and resourcefulness. She bravely throws herself into unfamiliar surroundings and actions. As someone who worries when I don’t know exactly what highway exit to take, I doff my hat to her. Unfortunately, late in the book her naivete also leads to her act in a way that made me roll my eyes. Come on, girl! You’re smarter than that.
For me, some of the most interesting material was the indictment of the English men ruling Egypt at the time. They believed Egyptians were not capable of excavating their own history. They allowed the export of historic artifacts, claiming European museums could care for them better. Not incidentally, they made money off the sales. And some of the artifacts wound up in places such as lawn ornaments on estates. Egypt has not seen those items since.
I’m an impatient reader, and for my taste, this book sometimes feels overwritten. Here’s an example of a moment when I felt that: “My uncle’s shoulders stiffened. He gave a minute shake of his head and then half turned in his chair. He lifted his chin and met my gaze.” I think those three details would be better cut to two. Other readers may not feel the same way.
Finally, (pet peeve here) there’s a point where Inez rips the hem off her dress to bandage a wound. I challenge you to rip the hem off an intact piece of clothing with your bare hands.
What About You?
Do any of these three resonate with you? I liked Starter Villain the best of this batch. I probably won’t read another horror novel or the sequel to What the River Knows. What have you read lately?
NotMax
Stephen King may be the single most overrated author of the past century. Tried reading several products of his output and each time abandoned the exercise in what might be described as the incremental onset of literary nausea.
WaterGirl
Hey Dorothy, I am computer-less tonight. But I want to say welcome and thanks for doing this.
Alison Rose
I had been somewhat interested in What the River Knows, but I read/saw a few reviews that had some issues with the representation of colonialism and indigenous people in the book, and that put me off, along with the fact that as I get older, I have less and less patience for a lot of the typical tropes in YA. I agree with you about the “these four sentences could have been one” thing. As a former editor, it drives me nuts when I see shit that an editor clearly should’ve fixed.
I have negative one million interest in anything horror, and I’m not a big sci-fi person either. But since you asked! As I mentioned in the thread downstairs, I just finished Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson, which was really good and incredibly detailed. Some of the people/trials were ones I’d heard of but definitely didn’t know as much about them as she includes. Super informative and really engaging.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: I don’t usually read horror, so I haven’t read much King. I liked his book about the Kennedy assassination. And I liked Misery. There’s a lot of interesting stuff about writing in there. Until this project, those were the only two I’d read.
In the last decade or so, King’s status seems to have transformed from a writer of a low-regarded genre to that of a dean of American writers. He’s not seen as literary. Just as someone who’s been around as a working writer for decades now.
NotMax
Rats. Fix,
@WaterGirl
The horror, the horror….
;)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: My pleasure.
@Alison Rose: The witchcraft trials are terrifying. People lost their minds. Wasn’t it disturbing to read about? That’s a different brand of horror!
karen marie
Ugh. I love John Scalzi but Starter Villain is terrible. I couldn’t get past the fourth chapter. It’s simply not believable and spends waaaay too much time on the ridiculous and unbelievable setup. As I said, I love John Scalzi but it’s because he sometimes comes up with inventive ideas. I really liked his Dispatcher series. Overall though, his execution leaves a lot to be desired. The constant “he said” after a character speaks is jarring and quickly becomes an annoyance. I just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Redemption’s Blade and, just prior to that, Brandon Sanderson’s Elantra. Both of those authors manage to find other ways of conveying who said what.
I am still enjoying the memory of Robert Asprin’s Phule series and look forward to listening to other books by him but I’ve got a bit of a backlog before I can.
Another series I recommend is Shawn Inmon’s Middle Falls Time Travel series. Each book is a different character reliving their life from a specific point (varying from character to character) until they get it right or figure out how to get off the wheel.
Oh, yes – and Christopher Shevlin’s trilogy about Jonathan Fairfax. Wonderful stuff!
All of the above I’ve listened to through Audible because my untreated ADHD prevents me reading print books. Maybe one day.
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
Ha! No. No. No.
King at his best finds the paralysing horror in everyday people being absolutely terrible in ways we all recognise, then adds in a crawling supernatural terror that seeps up through the cracks and makes “What if they turn around in bed and they’ve got nothing human where their face should be” a possibility.
Though that may just be his 70s and 80s stuff I’m thinking of.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@karen marie: Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time was also on the finalist list for this contest. But I’d already read it, and wanted to read something new, which was how I came to Starter Villain. Children of Time is very much the kind of science fiction that explores the possibilities of science. You may know it’s about people on a sleeper ship for centuries. For me, it was an interesting book, rather than an engaging one. My favorite character was a spider. Are his other books also science explorations?
Alison Rose
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I really liked the connotations the author pointed out in some of the older trials, that these were powerful men who hated women, and knew they could use things like accusations of witchcraft and devilry to harm them. And since many of those men were of religious orders that required celibacy, she also noted that they were basically the incels of their time. (Although, I guess since they chose their professions, they’d be more like volcels.)
TheOtherHank
I’ve read Starter Villain. I enjoyed it, for what it is.
I’ve read a couple Stephen King books and I like the ones where supernatural evil is absent or minimized. Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption are excellent stories without supernatural evil. The Stand could be a good post apocalyptic wasteland story, but then the supernatural evil shows up.
My latest reading is the Slow Horses books by Mick Herron which are the inspiration for the TV show.
MattF
I read Starter Villain, found it amusing and entertaining. Discovered Scalzi many years ago with Old Man’s War and have continued reading his novels ever since.
My current reading is Kelly Link’s The Book of Love. I’m right in the middle of it, and have mixed feelings, at best. Reviews have said that the ending is a big deal, so I’m reserving judgement.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Tony Jay: King has been around a long time. He seems to have reached the point where he writes what he feels like writing.
pacem appellant
@MattF: I only recently saw that Link has a novel. She is a master of short-form surrealist fiction, but in person confessed to being wary of novel-length stories. Book of Love is in the TBR pile, to be sure. I want to see her pull it off!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Alison Rose: “Volcels”–good one!
@TheOtherHank: I had to look Slow Horses up on Amazon. It sounds like it has the potential to be a good story. Maybe you can let us know.
@MattF: I’ve seen Kelly Link’s book promoted all over the place, but know nothing about it. I expect I’ll get to it eventually, probably about the time everyone else has broadcast the ending.
pacem appellant
@Dorothy A. Winsor: When/if my YA Fantasy gets published (we’re going to pitch soon), I hope to see you review it :-) PS I personally promise you that my sentence-level prose is not only beautiful, but tight as hell!
NotMax
@TheOtherHank
Tried several episodes of the TV show. Failed to press any of my buttons (of which I’ve a myriad). As always, YMMV.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@pacem appellant: Be sure to let us know when the book is published! :-)
UncleEbeneezer
@TheOtherHank: The Long Walk is another excellent King/Bachman short story.
pacem appellant
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m on step 2, which is “Get a publisher”. May it happen, ojala.
glc
Starter Villain’s up my alley, very successful, light, entertaining read. Continues more or less in the vein of The Kaiju Preservation Society, in manner and tone, though not subject. KPS was a big hit. Personally I think the latest is at least its equal.
In other things I’ve read lately and liked –
Everett’s “The Trees” is horror involving all of America’s lynched returning as quite focused zombies – very effective and well worth it for its combination of humor, rage, and historical memory.
Connie Willis, “The Road to Roswell” is a light-hearted romp involving a perfectly sensible woman and – Roswell. Highly recommended.
Garth Nix’ “The Sinister Booksellers of Bath” is light YA (but not just YA), second in the series, in which the forces of magical darkness continue to be held at bay by left-handed booksellers, with the assistance of right-handed bookseller, and others. And there’s an arc to the series.
Shelley-Parker Chan’s “He Who Drowned the World” is the second and final volume in the series that began with “She Who Became the Sun”, a rather radical retelling of the origins of the Ming dynasty, set about 1356, very grim (mostly in ways that make good sense historically). Begins with some well established legends and plays with gender. Very powerful. I would not start with the second book, the back story is important.
Nick Harkaway’s “Titanium Noir” is more or less classic science fiction – an expensive drug cures almost everything, giving an even more highly stratified society than ours, but increases body mass (“Titans”) so that after 4 iterations (if needed) one is more or less immobile. Strict noir voice throughout. Your one-stop shop for noir + SF. Nicely done. Murder mystery, of course.
I’m just a few chapters into Samit Basu’s “Jinn-Bot of Shantiport” which is a very jaunty evil surveillance state resistance caper with an attractive voice, so far. After that it will be Stross’ “Season of Skulls” and if you follow Stross you have a fair idea of what that will most probably be (or so I conjecture). Anyway I expect to enjoy it.
Everett and Parker-Chan stand out for substance and style. The others I’d call exceptionally well-done and digestible entertainment with good pacing. And Premee Mohamed’s striking short story collection “No One Will Come Back For Us” is effective horror of the sort I can deal with and respond to, working with emotions more than gore. The stories share some world building elements, off and on. She explains where they came from at the end.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@UncleEbeneezer: I’ve steered away from King so much that I didn’t know he used the Bachman pen name. Did he use it for a particular kind of book?
stinger
I’ve only read two or three things by King. The Long Walk was good. I may never even try to read his more famous stuff — Carrie, The Shining, etc. — as horror isn’t an interesting genre to me. I do value his memoir On Writing.
I recently watched the Italian series Inspector Ricciardi (recommended by someone here) and then ordered the first of the books the TV series is based on, I Will Have Vengeance, by Maurizio de Giovanni. It’s set in 1930s Fascist-ruled Naples. In the middle of that now. When I ordered it, Amazon said I might also like Bruno, Chief of Police, by Martin Walker, so I ordered it and I did! Set in contemporary rural France, it’s almost a cozy mystery. I’ll be getting other books in both series.
And I heartily recommend Glass Girl, as well as The Wysman and The Wind Reader!
UncleEbeneezer
Early-King (Carrie, The Shining, IT, The Stand, The Gunslinger, The Bachman Books, The Talisman etc.) is pretty great and covers much more than just Horror. And The Dark Tower series (which encompasses several of his books) is some good, time/world-jumping, Spagetti-Western/Post-apocalyptic fantasy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@glc: I once went to a two-workshop for which Connie Willis was one of the two teachers. There were 17 students, Connie, and Walter Jon Williams in a ski lodge above Taos. I liked her a lot. She told this story about how her publisher rejected The Doomsday Book at first because it was so grim. Her husband was in grad school and was sure he’d flubbed a test. The two of them held hands across the table and cried.
I started The Jinn-Bot but it wasn’t holding my attention, so I set it aside to come back to at another time because I could see that it was good.
Alison Rose
Since I need very little (meaning: no) encouragement to talk about books, I’ve read 25 so far this year and have given 3 of them 5 stars on Goodreads:
pacem appellant
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My close friend is a Taos grad. (I’m Clarion myself)
UncleEbeneezer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes. They were dark, but less-Horror than Carrie, Shining etc. Four short novels. Most famously, The Running Man.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@stinger: LOL. Thanks for the recommendation.
I’ve read some of the Bruno books. What is there about books set in Italy that makes them so much fun? I can’t think of the name of the policeman in Venice. That series is good too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Alison Rose: You’re a hard grader!
Someone else recommended The Witch’s Heart to me too. I think it’s on my kindle, but I haven’t read it.
Kristine
I’m a fan of Maureen Johnson’s Stevie Bell books (the Truly Devious series). She’s pretty much my sole YA author. Decent mysteries + I enjoy the characters.
I just finished Cold Mountain, the latest Nora Kelly/Corrie Swanson mystery by Preston & Child. It was okay. But again, I like the characters.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@pacem appellant: I went to the very first Taos Toolbox. It was the first workshop I’d ever been to. It was intense.
Barbara
I just finished a non-genre work of fiction called My Friends by Hisham Matar. Quietly compelling, about a man trapped by the political upheaval in modern Libya.
Alison Rose
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A number of my 4-star reads were really good! I’m just choosy about what gets 5 :)
Percysowner
For fantasy, Naomi Novik, her Scholomance series(A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate and the Golden Enclaves) is really engaging. It’s funny at time, has a great protagonist and an interesting story. Partly picture going to Hogwarts, where the entire thing is trying to kill the students, they lose 25% of their students AND it’s the safest alternative for the kids. I’m also partial to her Spinning Silver, a sort of retelling of Rumplestiltzkin. Can be seen as YA, but every adult that I have recommended it to has loved it as well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kristine: To me as a reader, characters are most important. The plot is just an excuse to let them show what they’re made of.
karen marie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I don’t know – it’s the first of his that I’ve read. Audible has a bunch that are free listens that are in my queue.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Barbara: I see the author is a Pulitzer Prize winner. That’s promising.
Glidwrith
I’ve recently enjoyed books by T. Kingfisher, The Twisted Ones, The Seventh Bride, What Moves The Dead. Basically retelling of fairy tales, but definitely on the Brothers Grimm side of the isle. The writing is at the same level as Scalzi and enjoyable for a few hours of escape.
glc
@Dorothy A. Winsor: For Jinn-Bot, the voice grabbed me on page 1 or 2. But I’ve actually only read two chapters (it feels like more, quite a bit has happened).
I’m mainly reading Ian McDonald’s big fat “Hopeland” which is very impressive but fairly heavy. So I’ve been using Jinn-Bot as a “palate cleanser.” McDonald is clearly having a lot of fun with language, but he makes you pay close attention.
RSA
Thanks for your capsule reviews, Dorothy! I’ve read a dozen or more novels by Scalzi, ditto King. I no longer read as much in their genres, though, so I’ve missed their last few/several efforts. I’ll think about picking them up again.
The most recent novel I finished reading was The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams. (ETA: A historical fiction set during the women’s suffrage movement in the UK, near Oxford University, through WW I.) I found it excellent, even if on the borderline of being underwritten, but in the end it left me wanting more, which is a great thing, right?
Glidwrith
@Percysowner: Just finished the series, loved the final plot twist!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Percysowner: I have to confess I couldn’t get into the Scholomance books or Spinning Silver. I don’t know why. I just bounced off them. Those books and I must not be a good match.
pacem appellant
@Glidwrith: I recently enjoyed What Moves the Dead, but TBH I was more interested in the inventive linguistics than the sentient fungus.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Glidwrith: I’ve read several Kingfisher books and enjoyed them.
@RSA: I just looked up The Dictionary of Lost Words. It sounds right up my alley.
Princess
I keep meaning to read Scalzi and never do. Maybe this is the one I should start with.
RSA
I hope you enjoy it! I checked it out of my local library for a book club, but it arrived too late for the meeting. Oh, well. I thought I might as well give it a shot, even if it wasn’t in my usual lane, and I was happily surprised. One of my favorite reads of the past few years.
trnc
Points for a good old college try, I guess. I think King is a great writer, but I had more or less your reaction to James Patterson. Turns out, the arts can be somewhat subjective.
rikyrah
Thank you, Dorothy🤗🤗
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay: Pet Sematary scared the s–t out of me.
Tony Jay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah. I suppose when you’ve sold so many books that you can build not so much a fort as a Maginot Line just out of limited print first editions, your publisher’s input dwindles down to a distracted “Uh Huh, sounds great” every eighteen months or so.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Princess: I also like Old Man’s War and (if you’re a Star Trek fan) Redshirts.
Timill
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Commissario Brunetti – Donna Leon. I’ve read the first 8 or so, and bounced off the next couple for some reason. I may get back to them.
The only King I’ve read is ‘Faithful’, which I understand to be atypical…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Timill: Leon! That’s it. Thanks.
CaseyL
Can we talk about non-fiction books? Because lately I seem to be on a non-fiction kick.
“Four Lost Cities” (Annalee Newitz) – looks at the rise and fall of four ancient cities. Only one, Pompeii, which everyone has heard of, suffered a sudden and catastrophic end. The others went through what Newitz says are normal cycles of habitation-abandonment-rehabitation for centuries, even millenia, before vanishing more or less entirely. She has some interesting things to say about the origins and cycles of urbanization.
“Eager” – all about beavers in North America. I’ve just started this one, so can’t say much about it yet. I know it’s going to cover the great slaughter of the 19th Century and am wincing already. But beaver are, I think, making a nice comeback, so I’m hoping for something of a happy ending.
Tony Jay
@zhena gogolia:
Salem’s Lot did it for me. So creepily terrifying that even a 1970’s badly butchered adaptation couldn’t help but soil the pants of a generation.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@CaseyL: I read very little non-fiction, but the cities book sounds interesting.
Bill Arnold
@Alison Rose:
Checked google scholar: a lot of published scholarship, too: Marion Gibson writings sorted most recent first.
(Doesn’t include that book.)
trnc
I liked The Seventh Bride a lot, and I’m reading Nettle and Bone now. I assume it’s YA, given the lack of cursing, but it’s really creative and entertaining, and sometimes pretty creepy.
Alison Rose
@Bill Arnold: She’s definitely got a focus :)
ArchTeryx
Ah, John Scalzi. A name I know pretty well.
One thing I am a study of is the Sad Puppies debacle at the 2013-2015 WorldCons, where a right wing slate of authors and proto-TFG supporters tried to game the awards to exclude any left-wing, minority or female voices and make sure only right-wing authors got Hugos. Scalzi was right in the middle of the “Debarkle,” but not actually one of the early MAGAts, which called themselves various things (The Sad Puppies, the Rabid Puppies, the Evil League of Evil, etc.) He was a paleoconservative that felt the new strain of MAGA in American conservatism was uncouth and far too brash.
It’s not 100% literature related, but if you want a full accounting of exactly what happened, and how it connected to the rising strain of malignant fascism that elected TFG. it can be found for free here as a linked PDF: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/09/12/thoughts-on-the-debarkle/
Delk
I read Salems Lot when it came out. Freshman year of HS. I remember being very scared when I read it.
trnc
@Tony Jay:
I always thought it was a shame that was made into a tv movie, which placed a lot of limitations on what could be done vs a theater release.
Steve Holmes
I’ve read both Holly and Starter Villian, and really liked them both. Starter Villian is just all around fun, and will make you question your cat’s motives.
I love the Holly character from the Mr Mercedes series, and this book is a good chance to return to her, the story is good and the reader is always one step ahead of the investigation, sort of like a Columbo mystery. The COVID aspect took me out of the story a bit, mostly because the anti-vax characters pissed me off, I guess it’s just too soon
Dorothy A. Winsor
@ArchTeryx: Thanks for the link.
Bostondreams
I am re-reading, again, Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series. It’s so good, and makes interesting use of genre conventions and point of view. Book Two for example is written in second person for at least half the book, and all three books have varying degrees of unreliable pov characters (Gideon doesn’t give a shit, Harrow is insane, and Nona is essentially a child). The tagline ‘lesbian necromancers in space’ doesn’t do it justice. It’s also incredibly Catholic…
oh, and the memes. So many memes.
Bill Arnold
@glc:
A romance novel. (That is not a spoiler.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steve Holmes: Yeah, you can’t take Starter Villain too seriously. He’s playing around.
I was interested in the portrayal of the COVID era. It was such a trauma. I don’t think we’ve processed it completely yet.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Bostondreams: I love an unreliable narrator.
glc
@Princess:
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Princess: What Dorothy said. Those two books more or less define Scalzi’s main modes. Straight SF or humor.
Snappy dialog in either case, but used in different ways.
Or … perhaps the more recent “The Collapsing Empire” instead of “Old Man’s War” … Scalzi started out deliberately riffing off Heinlein while the later works mix in a good deal more humor and I suppose a more strongly defined voice (as I recall it).
Chris
Probably the most McCulture answer it’s possible to give, but the bulk of my science fiction book consumption comes from the merchandising attached to the big movie franchises. I’ve been a Star Wars expanded universe fan since I was eleven, was deeply sad when it was decanonized even though it had been going badly for some time.
Still. I enjoy at least some of the classics. Read multiple H. G. Wells and Jules Verne books as a kid, actually before I discovered the stuff on the big screen.
Chris
@NotMax:
I’ve only read Firestarter and Carrie and enjoyed them both. Then again they didn’t inspire me to go on and read more and more and more of them, so there you go.
stinger
@Timill:
There’s also the Inspector Montalbano series, by Andrea Camilleri, set in Sicily. I expect I’ll be giving those a shot soon!
ArchTeryx
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You’re welcome. I debated on posting it in this thread, as it tends to harsh everyone’s mellow. But when John Scalzi headlined the article, I lost my battle with temptation. And the author of the document, an Australian sci-fi author with the pseudonym Camestros Felapton, brought ALL the evidence with him, tons of links, footnotes, and a bibliography a chapter long. The intersection of politics with literature, and sci-fi fandom in general, is a hell of a lot more informative than any Cletus Safari, and written by someone outside of our hyperpolarized politics.
frosty
@Princess: No, start with Old Man’s War. Or The Collapsing Empire, the start of a series.
If you like space opera, like me. If not, try Redshirts.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Chris: I know someone who write various tie-in novels–Star Trek and Dr. Who, mostly. Una McCormack? She’s a good writer.
Bill Arnold
@Alison Rose:
Single-point focus is key, yes. :-)
Bostondreams
@Dorothy A. Winsor: you’d love The Locked Tomb series then I think! But fair warning than it can take multiple re-reads, and the author mentions stuff in book 1 that don’t pay off until book 3. Friendship bracelets and their role in murder and marriage, for example. :-)
sixthdoctor
King has a short fiction collection coming out in May “You Like It Darker” and some of my favorite works of his are his short stories/novellas. My siblings and I still quote the ending of The Jaunt to each other forty years later.
For a later-period novel I’d recommend Revival. It really got under my skin.
Kristine
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yup. I usually read plot books once. Character books, I reread, often multiple times.
CaseyL
Only one scene in one of Stephen King’s books particularly frightened me: in “It,” where the photos in an old album (or maybe it was a school yearbook?) start to move and show some old horror. I actually flung the book away, across the bed! I think it frightened me because I had a nightmare, as a child, where that happened: a photo came to demonic life.
I enjoy his books, some more than others (“1408,” for some reason, is a favorite). But they don’t scare me, I don’t know why.
Chris
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Don’t think I’ve ever read her (I read far less Star Trek, and no Doctor Who at all), but will keep an eye out.
I do think tie-in fiction writers get unfairly relegated to a sort of literary version of second-class status… despite the fact that with that job, as Scalzi once pointed out, you still have to do most of the work that any other writer would, and while somebody else has done the work of creating the setting for you, that also means that right off the bat you’re being straightjacketed by somebody else’s decisions. Not to mention the expectations of fans, many of whom are always quick to pounce and pronounce your work “not real [insert franchise name here]” if it’s ever so slightly off.
So tell her to keep up the good work!
pacem appellant
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Oh, amazing! My friend speaks highly of Taos, though she’s not OG like you ;-)
Craig
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I went on a tear through Scalzi a few years ago. I think my favorite is The Androids Dream. Very clever threads through a noir detective tale bonded to a techno thriller. Fun ride.
Craig
@Chris: RF Kuang talks a bit about this kind of work for hire writing in Yellowface, which I discovered from a review here and quite enjoyed.
Trivia Man
@Dorothy A. Winsor: His short story The Long Walk resonates with me 40 years on
(My mistake – its 384 pages. But i read it in one sitting so I remember it as “short”)
stinger
@Trivia Man: Same here — I recall it as novella length! (which is wrong)
Tehanu
I thought Starter Villain wasn’t really Scalzi’s best, just mildly entertaining — not nearly as good as the Kaiju Preservation Society. If you’ve never read any Scalzi, my own introduction to him was Agent to the Stars which is delightful and very funny; I’ve re-read it several times and never get tired of it.
As for Stephen King, I never read horror if I can avoid it, but his non-horror stories are good. One thing about any King book, you don’t stop turning the pages!
I haven’t read many new SF/F books lately that I’ve really liked. Babel was good — I’d be interested in reading more by Kuang — but I didn’t really warm to it, and I was disappointed by The House in the Cerulean Sea because the worldbuilding didn’t work for me, although it started well. Daniel Abraham OTOH is always worth reading and I’m eagerly awaiting the 3rd book following after Age of Ash and Blade of Dream. If you’ve never read any of the Long Price Quartet, get out there and read them now!
Kayla Rudbek
I think that my three favorite Scalzi novels are The Android’s Dream, Lock In, and Head On. Scalzi does very well with tying in place to plot in those: I can tell that he lived in DC long enough to get the vibe.
ETA: number 4 would be Agent to the Stars, and again I think that he nails the Los Angeles/Hollywood setting.
Kayla Rudbek
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Diane Duane has also done a great job with Trek tie-in novels, although I suppose they aren’t considered canon anymore (particularly the Rihanssu series)
Prescott Cactus
Reading Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE, for the 3rd or 4th time. About every two years. It’s a well thought out thriller with tech influences.
xephyr
I liked Starter Villain, but then I like everything by Scalzi. His Old Man’s War series is excellent. I thought Holly was good, but Fairy Tale was better. I’d second Adrian Tchaikovsky – anything by him. Martha Wells is great (Murderbot series) for anyone who has yet to discover her.
katdip
@Tony Jay: man, I read Salems Lot in middle school, right when it was shown on TV. I have never been so scared in my life. Couldn’t put the book down, and didn’t dare to look out the window in case teen vampires appeared ..
katdip
just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, about a gang of thieves in a quasi-medieval world. Interesting characters, good world building.
For nonfiction, I liked The Secret Life of Trees ( the nemesis of Eager?), truly amazing dive into how trees communicate, help each other, and the incredibly complex world under the forest floor.
katdip
Tony Jay
@Delk:
@trnc:
@katdip:
So many quality scares in that novel. The vampire(s) at the window. The mother in the morgue. The scenes where Mark first meets Barlow and, later, has to escape an inescapable situation with the sun edging to the horizon. King does tension very well.
The TV movie from the 70s has no business being as good as it was, but it managed. Actual scary Undead. The way certain scenes were filmed. Even the decision to swap the book descriptions of Barlow and Straker (with added Glaring Rat Smurf colouring) worked, as it gave us a defining horror image and James Mason’s terrifyingly urbane minion. Though why they didn’t just go the whole hog and make Mason Barlow I don’t know.
The early 2000s remake with Rob Lowe, however. Maggoty dogshite.
Tim in SF
I almost got Starter Villain when I saw it on Audible back in November, but then I saw Wil Wheaton was the narrator. I guess he’s OK as an actor, but I just can’t stand his book narration speaking style. I almost put down Ready Player One because of his over enunciating. Lots of people love him, so I’m probably in the minority
Holly was already in my Audible library. I’m rereading the The Bill Hodges Trilogy and The Outsider before starting that up.
(Did you know about the Holly Gibney short story in If It Bleeds? It comes after The Outsider. I just finished it a month ago. Worth a read!)
LiminalOwl
@ArchTeryx: Thank you for that info. I was following the Puppies incident pretty closely at the time and haven’t seen the article you link to, so will download and read as soon as I finish this thread.
Scalzi was a paleoconservative? I hadn’t known that; he doesn’t seem conservative these days. More on-topic: I have enjoyed his blogging more than his fiction generally, but do want to read Starter Villain. I thought Kaiju Preservation Society was great fun. Enjoyed Redshirts but not enough of a Trekker to get all of it. My beloved liked it very much.
We have watched Slow Horses very recently, having first heard of it through this blog, and liked it very much. Waiting for the next season for that and likewise Only Murders in the Building. In the mean time, we just started Severance and finding it amazing. And creepy.
Between work and other stresses, I haven’t been reading much, but enjoyed the Thursday Murder Club series and a lot of Seanan McGuire.
LiminalOwl
@Alison Rose: Thanks for the Witchcraft recommendation. I tend to focus my nonfiction reading on my field of work, but that looks like something I don’t want to miss.
Waiting for retirement, when hopefully I’ll have time to read…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Tehanu: Last week, I led a book club discussion on Kuang’s Yellowface, which is a complete departure. It’s about a writer who is with another writer when she dies and then takes a manuscript and publishes it as her own. My book club was really engrossed.
Bostondreams
@LiminalOwl: The provided links read to me as though Scalzi was more of a centrist or left-leaning Republican. He describes himself as originally as a Rockefeller Republican type I think..