Oh, I more or less just finished Blue Mars, but had to take my time getting through it all. But I’ve enjoyed it! Now I just started reading The Ministry for the Future :)
Some parts of the mars series are definitely a slog, I feel like that’s almost inevitable with books that change to the perspective of different characters a lot. Some characters just aren’t as interesting as others or they suck as a person and I don’t really care about what they think. But so far in this series I’ve liked the ideas that have developed and I think the setting is really interesting.
Yeah, agreed. Blue Mars unfortunately had a little more of that the I remember from the other two. But the overall world building is impressive and interesting, and I don’t regret reading any of it.
It is fitting that it has received a Hugo award, as Les Miserable by Victor Hugo definitely fits into the same category - he could waffle on about very uninteresting things for pages on end before returning to the interesting parts of the story.
Lol I haven’t read any of Victor Hugo so I wouldn’t know, but it’s at least been good practice for speeding up my reading by looking at what’s actually important. Kim Stanley Robinson does a phenomenal job of recounting geography (areography) and routes that I unfortunately have no point of reference for, but they honestly matter very little beyond “this is in the north, this is in the middle, this is in the south”.
What a bizarre coincidence; that’s exactly what I came on to post!
Finished Red Mars a few weeks ago, started Green Mars a couple of days ago. I’d never read any Kim Stanley Robinson before, and I’m enjoying it so far.
Any other recommendations from your award-winners reading list?
I’m currently reading Fool’s Fate, the third in the Tawny Man trilogy, which itself is the 3rd trilogy in the Realm of the Elderlings sequence by Robin Hobb. I’ve loved every book so far and this is no exception although
spoilerI’m still grieving Nighteyes
Poor Fitz has had a shit life so far. I’m hoping he gets some sort of happiness before the end of this one.
I’m on the 3rd Liveship Traders book by her right now. So 6 books deep into Elderlings with no plans on stopping. Robin Hobb is a complete genius at character writing.
Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!. This is my first Pratchett book and I’m kicking myself for not picking these up sooner, like decades sooner. Like my life would have been different sooner :)
I’m in a phase where I am testing out audio books for the first time, where I will read the physical book in the evening, the audio book when I travel by car and read the ebook-version when traveling to avoid lugging the physical books around. So far I like switching around a bit.
I bought all his Discworld books a while ago on humble bundle but have been too busy to start reading any of them yet. What made you decide to start with that one?
They come in groups, in a way, but they also refer back any which way, anyway. I recommend just the order they were written, it’s worked well so far. (about half way through, I think)
Guards! Guards! is a great one to start with. It follows Samuel Vimes, captain of the Night Watch (police force) of the city-state of Ankh-Morpork (loosely based on London) as he deals with a dragon the size of a house showing up in his city and demanding gold. It was summoned by a small group of people with dreams of becoming the shadow government, using a book stolen from the library of Ankh-Morpork’s finest (and only) wizarding university. The spell allows them to summon a dragon, directly control all of its actions, and dismiss it at will. Their plan is a cinch: summon the dragon, have it eat a few people, terrorize the city a bit, then find some young upstart with something resembling royal blood and who knows how to flourish a sword and have have him volunteer to fight it. Put on a good show, dismiss the dragon at just the right moment to make it look like he killed it, and watch as the city celebrates and crowns him king. Then all that’s left is to puppeteer him from the shadows to rule the city. Unfortunately for the Elucidated Brethren, as they call themselves, the only party less thrilled about this than Ankh-Morpork’s existing shadow government is the dragon itself, who doesn’t take kindly to being summoned and even less kindly to being controlled. It doesn’t take it long to slip their shackles.
It’s now up to Sam Vimes and his ragtag crew of “watchmen” who run the other way when they see trouble to solve the case and find a way to get the dragon back where it came from before the whole city goes up in smoke.
Going Postal is also good. It follows conman’s-conman Moist von Lipvig as he wakes up in a very comfortable chair the morning after he was hanged, still rubbing his neck, sitting face-to-face with Lord Vetinari, Ankh-Morpork’s despotic ruler. Vetinari explains that he sees potential in Moist, so he paid the hangman not to kill him all the way, and is now offering him a better use for his talents: that of being Postmaster of the city’s derelict Post Office. Should he refuse he is more than welcome to reenact what a crowd full of people will swear they saw happen to him. After mulling it over, he takes the job, and arrives at the Post Office to find the place full top to bottom with undelivered letters. He can hardly walk through the hallways. Its only two occupants are Junior Postman Groat, who could be Moist’s grandpa, and Stanley, who, while the word “autistic” doesn’t appear anywhere in the book, absolutely is. He knows everything there is to know about pins (“Last year the combined workshops (or “pinneries”) of Ankh-Morpork turned out twenty-seven million, eight hundred and eighty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight pins,’ said Stanley, staring into a pin-filled private universe. ‘That includes wax-headed, steels, brassers, silver-headed (and full silver), extra large, machine- and hand-made, reflexed and novelty, but not lapel pins which should not be grouped with the true pins at all since they are technically known as “sports” or “blazons”, sir”) and when he gets upset he has what the book calls “one of his Little Moments” (which are never actually described). As a person on the spectrum myself, I have to hand it to Pratchett – the portrayal is exaggerated a bit, but all things considered not inaccurate (especially compared to some… ahem other portrayals of autism in the media that we’ve seen lately that I could mention. I will never forgive Sia for making the movie Music.) Sadly Stanley is very much a minor character. Anyway.
After the advent of the Clacks system (semaphore towers that claim to “send messages at the speed of light” – think telegraphs, but in a universe without electricity), the post office didn’t see much use, so it downsized. Mail just sort of piled up since there weren’t enough people to deliver it and throwing it away was illegal. Sleeping in amongst the mail, Moist swears he can hear the letters whispering their contents to him. He has visions of the post office in its heyday. This place is old, and it wants to return to its former glory.
They’re both very good books and Pratchett absolutely deserves his reputation as a British humorist who, as one newspaper put it, “wants us to feel and think as well as laugh.” Both these books have a lot to say on the subject of government and they say it in the best way possible. Can’t recommend enough.
What s great introduction to the series! This was the first one i picked up as a kid, and I’ve read it (and the rest of the books) several times since! You’re in for a treat!
Hat an exciting question the day I start reading a book for the first time in YEARS after finishing off my schooling and life finally calming down a bit.
Started reading Animal Farm today. Never read it before and kind of jealous of the people who would have had it assigned in university and had discussions after each chapter. I think this book was made to be discuss3”Ed.
Also, oh boy oh boy. I remember reading 1984 which sticks with me to this day a decade later, I can already sense this book is going to have a similar impact. Orwell just has a way.
Animal Farm is one of my favourites. I’m really into Politics, and AF presents it in a fairly straightforward, yet utterly captivating way. It’s also pretty short so I can get through it in like two or three sessions.
I read 1984 like 15 years ago, during a time when…well frankly I was an idiot teenager who knew nothing of the world. I should go back to that at some point.
Peter Watts’ Blindsight for the second time. It’s pretty dense. I’m catching more this time around. It’s a fantastic read with some of the most alien aliens ever put to page. It was a meme how often it used to get recommended back on r/printsf which I miss a lot since its replacement here is essentially dead.
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