Reading material

[mellicious]

The last Expanse book* came out last week, and I had pre-ordered it so I already have it, but I haven't started it yet. I decided I need to read the two books before it first.

(*so the authors say, apparently they have a contract to do some new series after this!)

For those of you who don't read these, this new book is the ninth book in the series, and they fall loosely into three trilogies. (Or, I don't know, book 4 always feels sort of like a semi-standalone to me, but 1-3 definitely more or less go together and so do 5 and 6.) I re-read the earlier ones this year already (1-6, that is) but I decided to stop there and wait until closer to time for the new one. I got through #7 a few days ago - that one's called Persepolis Rising - and I'm still in the early part of book 8 - Tiamat's Wrath. I don't really know why I feel like I must read the new one the minute it comes out, anyway, but I keep feeling like I'm "late" - it's silly, really. Besides, I actually had pre-orders for two books that came out that same day, it turned out, and I did read the other one practically on the spot, because it was a romance novel and I knew it'd go fast. (Mary Balogh, Someone Perfect, if you want to know!)

At work the other day, I read a chapter or two of a book I found on Kindle Unlimited - something called The Dublin Trilogy and the first book was The Man With One of Those Faces (I may be capitalizing that all wrong, sorry). I think that's a hilarious title, and the book is pretty funny. We'll see if I manage to finish it. Actually I have a rule - which I was obviously breaking - that I'm only allowed to re-read things I've already read at work, and not read anything new, on the theory that I'm less likely to get heavily involved with something I've read before. My work involves a lot of interruptions, but we're allowed to do other stuff when it's slow. I've been re-reading Shelby Foote - The Civil War: a narrative, which is three big volumes. That seemed to be something I was less likely to get too involved with - I know how it ends, after all. I have actually gotten through the first volume and on to the second one, although actually the second one might be more dangerous at that because I'm to the point in 1863 where the big stuff is coming up - The WildernessChancellorsville** and Vicksburg and Gettysburg.

I've also been reading more hard sci-fi, which is the Foreigner series by Cherryh. I have read a bunch of those before, but it had been at least a couple of years. I'm probably only reading 1-6. This one also falls into loose trilogies, as far as I've read, but I got bored with it after the third or fourth trilogy where it quit being hard sci-fi at all, really, and became stuff about atevi politics. I think I looked on Amazon and there's something like 17 books now, and I think I just can't, unless somebody who's read them wants to make a case that they get better again at some point!

(I really bounce around between multiple genres - I like hard sci-fi and I like fairy tales and I like at least some romance - particularly Regency romances, if they're well-written. I went on a big kick of reading mysteries earlier this year and I've even read some contemporary romance, which I normally rarely do. I've read some police procedurals lately as well.)


**I just caught myself on this mistake several days late. The Wilderness and Chancellorsville were two Civil War battles that happened about a year apart, in Virginia in 1863 and 1864. I should have thought to check, really - they were fought on basically the same ground, or at least overlapping ground. The one in 1863 is called Chancellorsville (which is a town) and the one in 1864 is called The Wilderness, which was literally a wild area near Chancellorsville. (The South won the battle both times, but Hooker was in charge in 1863, and the army retreated afterwards. By 1864 Grant was in charge, and he did not retreat afterwards, but kept his troops moving forward.)

Comments

[wheresmyplan]

I know what you mean about that feeling that you're somehow "behind" if you don't read certain books as soon as they come out. I've got one of those sitting on my shelf since late November, in fact.

I think I've read the first 3 books of The Expanse, and I enjoyed them. I guess now that the series is complete it would be a good time to get back on that.

[yarrowkat]

i'm doing the same thing with the Expanse right now - rereading from the beginning now that the 9th one is in my hands. with uncanny timing, season 6 and final of the tv series is out now, too, so terra & i are watching that from the beginning, too. it's surreal, given how different the plots are, but interesting to look at how they adapted it (like rolling Sam, Drummer, Pa, and Bull into Drummer's character on-screen).

i'm *also* re-reading the entire Outlander series from the beginning, because the 9th book is out in that series, too. there'll be one more after this. it's been a minute since i re-read these, and i am finding that Claire in the books is far more likeable and sympathetic than Claire in the series, ha.

[mellicious]

I read Outlander (by which I mean the first book) a couple of years ago, but never went further. I liked it and I meant to, but I haven't so far. I watched a bit of the TV series, too - maybe the whole first season, because I remember thinking about whether to try the second season and deciding I'd rather read the book first. Which of course I still haven't done.

I've been meaning to watch more of the Expanse TV series, as well. I think I played out somewhere in season 4. Actually I think that one was because I was trying to get my husband to watch S4 with me, and we watched one episode and he acted interested but we never remembered to go on.

[yarrowkat]

book two of Outlander is rather terrible - the writing is fine, but the content is problematic AF. there's a ton of homophobia on the part of the primary viewpoint character, though to be fair, not other characters (and Gabaldon took a lot of heat for it, and corrects it completely in future volumes, including the spinoff series about the gay Lord John), but i'm sensitive to it, and Claire is totally wound around the axle of a pregnancy thing through the whole book, which i personally find anti-interesting. (i expect other people mostly have more patience with that but i just can't with it.) so i always skip book two when i'm re-reading them; the entire rest of the series is great. long, but worth it.

[mellicious]

Actually I think I either read a sample of the book or I watched part of the first episode, or both, and I kinda got that I-don't-really-like-this vibe. But I'm glad to hear it gets better. Maybe I will soldier through book 2 on that basis later!