Tag: reading

fantasy · General · reading

Reading: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Sonia LalLeave a comment

I have got Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse.

I have barely gotten started but this is a book that grabs hold and doesn’t let go.

The publisher page for this book has this poem:

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun

This quote – prophecy? – explains the title. I am getting used to it. The excerpt is on the publisher site, too.

The first line is fantastic. It is one of the best of the first lines I have read in a long, long time. Well, no, it is a few lines down because there is another quote to begin Chapter 1.

Today he would become a god. His mother had told him so.

The first chapter is kind of gruesome. Actually, very gruesome. But it sets a stage and makes you want to read and read and read until you are done. Which I have not been able to do until now!

I am already about a quarter done and am enjoying myself immensely. I believe all major characters/settings have been introduced!

It does seem to be inspired by various pre-Columbian American cultures, which is interesting. I love the world so far, the magic, the different kind of magics and people that are here.

There is singing magic and the boy whose mother told he would become a god – yeah, he has some interesting magic too. There are priests and deadly politics.

There are also odd pronouns – I don’t quite have the hang of them yet. Still getting used to that part and it jars me every time I read it because I don’t really understand what the different pronouns mean. I need more explanation for this part. But it will come in time, I am sure.

General · reading

Out of my Reading Rut

Sonia LalLeave a comment

Reading Rut: when you feel like most of the books you are reading are very similar. Not the same, no, just similar.

That is where I was with my reading. I feel like this happened because I started taking more suggestions from Amazon. Amazon will pretty much only suggest similar items to what you’ve already bought/searched; that is both the strength and weakness of its algorithms. Sometimes similar is what you want, but sometimes it gets boring.

My visiting other blogs fell down a hole. I started visiting twitter again, which helped, but book suggestions didn’t happen like it used to. I have considered getting into Bookstagram or booktok, but haven’t done it. I may at some point.

Anyway – on twitter – I discovered a YouTube video KJ Charles had posted of what was on her TBR pile. It was a long video, about 40 minutes. (It seems like a long video to me.) She (I had never before heard her talk or seen her face. Quite nice) made this video with Ashland Public Library MA – thank you libraries!

I have also discovered my own library has an YouTube account, but they, sadly, do not do TBR videos with authors. Ashland Public Library has a whole playlist of TBR videos with authors: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF7TVD3UhPxovOUopStAn4XAcNOMF2HyJ

I had only watched a few minutes before I discovered two new interesting books. Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse and a whole new series of historical mystery fiction set in India by Abir Mukherjee. They both sounded good. Not that I have either yet – have only found excerpts and previews so far.

But I probably wouldn’t have discovered them if it weren’t for this video. Well, possibly I might have discovered Black Sun. I think I have heard it, but Black Sun is a common title. There is Black Sun’s Daughter and some others, so I think it is possible I heard of it and confused it with some other book. But I dunno if I would have heard of Abir Mukherjee otherwise.

So I am out of my reading slump!

I am anticipating watching the other TBR videos and getting more recommendations. It seems they have done this Gail Carriger, Meg Cabot, Jayne Ann Krentz – all authors I like! There are authors as well that I have never read, but perhaps I should take that as a suggestion, hmm?

But, yes, this TBR video has gotten me out of this reading rut!

reading

Thoughts on an unknown book by a favorite writer

Sonia Lal1 Comment

That feeling you get when you discover one of your most favorite writers will have a new series out, probably sometime next year.

There is no info, no cover art, no blurb, no short description! There certainly isn’t any excerpt. There is nothing at all!

And yet you know, know, that it will be absolutely fantastic.

fantasy · reading

Breaking of a mouse’s heart

Sonia LalLeave a comment

I’ve started reading The Light Fantastic and this is my second Terry Pratchett book.

There was the faintest of pure sounds, high and sharp, like the breaking of a mouse’s heart.

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

This quote is utterly fantastic. I cannot quite picture what this sound is like – the death cries of a mouse? But it’s sticking in my head.

And I’m only in the beginning of this book. And the beginning of Terry Pratchett novels.

reading

C is for Characters

Sonia Lal4 Comments

Characters! Sometimes you read a book more for the characters than the plot. Lots of times, in fact. If the characters suck, oftentimes I stop reading.

If some characters come out in a new book, I would read it and I don’t really need to know anything else. Do you have favorite characters like that?

Five of my favorite characters:

  1. Eve Dallas from the In Death series by JD Robb
  2. Daemon from Black Jewels series by Anne Bishop
  3. Miles Vorkosigan from Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
  4. Mercy Thompson from Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs
  5. Meg Corbyn from The Others by Anne Bishop

 

reading

B is for Books

Sonia Lal5 Comments

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photo: David Flores

B is for Books

So . . . books. Libraries are closed, bookstores are closed. But! Books can still be ordered online and downloaded from your favorite platform. Ebooks from libraries are a thing.

Including the Internet Archive. It seems the Internet Archive has more recent books. I have known of the Internet Archive existence for quite some time, but I thought it had only old books, books that are so old they are in the public domain.

It seems that is not correct. They announced a national emergency library (http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/) where they are allowing more recent books to be borrowed. The same item can be borrowed by multiple people at the same time.

I had the impression – somehow! – that the National Archive held only old books. I supposed that is because I have only ever gone looking for old books on it. Alice in Wonderland, The adventures of Tom Sawyer, a book on the birds of India someone wrote when they traveled to India during the British Raj, old dusty books like that.

I wasn’t even aware they had any other kind of books even available. I suppose I wasn’t paying attention, but I am shocked. Shocked they had recent books available at all, let alone that they decided to make some kind of national emergency library.

 

Book Review · Non-Fiction · reading

Reading Thinking Machines by Luke Dormehl

Sonia LalLeave a comment

21lqxs1I am half done with Thinking Machines: The Quest for Artificial Intelligence and Where it’s Taking us Next by Luke Dormehl.

The half I have read is pretty interesting – the history of AI. Expert systems, neural networks and so on.Very interesting.

AI is mostly neural networks now, and I don’t suppose the sort of systems I think of expert systems as AI, even though though it though started out there. (I thought of it as normal programming, I suppose.)

It talks about who some of the early researchers of AI were and the problems they ran into, the problems they solved. I knew about Turing and a few others. I don’t suppose I will remember the names now, either.

It describes how popularity of AI waxed and waned over the decades, with the resulting hit to research dollars.

But now it is somewhat in the present and that is far less interesting. I think perhaps that is because I have heard a lot of what it talks about in the news, so I know a little bit already.

This is a book meant for the lay reader. It describes some AI concepts, but only at a high level, doesn’t get into too much detail. Which is fine. More detail is not needed to understand what the book is saying.

But it is pretty interesting all the same!

fantasy · reading · science fiction

List of Favorite Fathers

Sonia Lal2 Comments

Today is Father’s Day. Which got me thinking about the fathers in the books I read.

If I had to pick three fathers from the books I have read, what would I pick?

After some thought I came up with these:

  1. Aral Vorkosigan from the Miles Vor series by Lois McMaster Bujold. He has his own book and is the father to one of most amazing characters I’ve read. Fathering Miles has to be a difficult task – he was born disabled and is wilful and is hardly ever as careful as he should be.
  2. Saetan Daemon SaDiablo. He is the father of three main characters in the Black Jewels series by Anne Bishop – one my favorite series ever.
  3. Moon from the Raksura books by Martha Wells. This is one of the most creative series I’ve ever read and well-written, too. The guy had a few kids when the last book starts and they had been trying for the last couple of books. So that was nice. I would have liked to see more interactions with the kids – but I don’t suppose babies and adventures go together very well.

 

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Book Review · General · reading

Book Review: Dragon Spawn by Eileen Wilks

Sonia LalLeave a comment

I read Dragon Spawn by Eileen Wilks a few months ago. Every since, I have been quite speechless. It is hard to describe my disappointment.

I normally really look forward to this series. Dragon Spawn was no different.

But then I read it. It started out alright – lots of action and characters that I really like. It seemed like it was moving fast.

Then it ended. Just ended. Nothing was resolved, none of the problems mentioned in the beginning, none of the conflicts ended.

It is okay if one or two or even three of the conflicts are not resolved by end. This is a long-running series and that is just the nature of the beast. You have to leave something dangling for the next book. But this book resolved nothing.

It felt more like the middle of the book rather then the end. I feel like someone chopped the book in half and decided to publish in pieces.

I have no words for how much of a disappointment this book is. I really don’t. I have spent some time trying to say and I can’t.

I will read the next book, if only to find the next book. But I can’t really recommend this one. Until the next one comes out and I find out if there is an ending.

General · reading

Is It Harder to Be Transported By a Book As You Get Older?

Sonia Lal1 Comment

The Sunday Bookends asked this question on June 9, 2016.

Both writers answer yes, but for different reasons.

Me, I also would say yes.

I think it is harder to find books you love – truly, deeply love – as you get older.

Maybe that’s because you get more cynical as you get older. Maybe it’s because there is less time to sit down and truly just let yourself get lost in a book. Maybe it’s because everything is so much newer when you’re younger and books you read later never quite measure up to the first book that made you go: whoa.

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transported by a book on wondrous adventures

I do know all my favorites and many of the authors I go back to again and again come from a particular period in my life. The same 2-3 years, in fact.

The books I usually compare my own writing against, the kinds of characters I want to create, the kind of description I want to do, all of these things come from books I read as a teenager.

It isn’t that books I read later sucked – they didn’t. I discovered new books and new titles afterward. I have raved about them here. I reread quite a few regularly; I keep a look out for when their new books come out.

But, with two or three exceptions, most of the books that influenced me, I read as a teenager. I think that first reaction of OMG, Awesome Book, So Good, So Very Very Good, happens more often when you’re younger and have read fewer books. Afterword: Oh, yes,  like that other book.

First times only happen once.

What do you think? Is It harder to be transported by a book as you get older?