Over the past few weeks, I have managed to cram in a fair amount of reading. A number of the books I read, based on recommendations from various sorts, I’m not about to mention. Some of them I decided not even to finish. Of books currently available, I enjoyed Louise Marley’s collection of stories [Absalom’s Mother] and The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt, although that is one of his earlier works. I also read the advance reading copies of two other books. The first of those was Only the Stones Survive, by Morgan Llywelyn, which is a story about the last chieftain of the Tuatha de Daanan, the ancient Irish people, during the period of the invasion of Ireland by the Gaels. It won’t be published until next January, however. The other book I liked was Allen Steele’s Arkwright, a science fiction novel that spans the time from the first World Science Fiction Convention to the first human interstellar colony. It’s scheduled for publication next March.

I still haven’t read that much F&SF recently, but from the books I have read, there are a few that struck me as worthy of mention, beginning with The Three-Body Problem, a Chinese novel by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu, an intriguing novel that appears to be the first volume in a series, and one that begins with the horrors of the years of the Red Guards, and then moves forward from there with chapters alternating between scientific developments and episodes in an elaborate computer game that turns out to be far more [but is NOT your typical immersive virtual reality]. While I have a problem, a significant one, with one proposed technological aspect of future technology, it’s still a very intriguing book. I also greatly enjoyed, just for fun, Carousel Seas, the second book in Sharon Lee’s Carousel Tides series, as well as Tad Williams’s first Bobby Dollar book — The Dirty Streets of Heaven. On a more philosophical nature, I also found thought-provoking E.O. Wilson’s The Meaning of Human Existence.

Because of a great deal of personal chaos in my life — such as remodeling our kitchen and dining room — and the substantial additional effort it took to research, calculate, write and deliver Solar Express, I haven’t done as much personal reading as I usually do. One of the books that did stand out, not so much for its content as its presentation, was actually a non-fiction book entitledThe Island of Knowledge, by Marcelo Gleiser. The book’s subtitle (“The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning”) is as good a summary as any. I also enjoyed, as much as a guilty pleasure as anything, the latest Alex Benedict novel, Coming Home, as well as an older book, The Crown Jewels, by Walter John Williams. I also read a quite a few fantasies by new authors, with none of which did I find worth mentioning.

Since the last time I posted, I’ve actually read a few books that I’ve enjoyed, along with more than a few that I didn’t or thought were vastly overhyped, and one that I enjoyed but, upon reflection, felt… well, you’ll see. For just fun, I liked Alex Bledsoe’s The Sword-Edged Blonde, although the title is really a stretch, and Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which, although delightfully written, is mostly just fun, with a hint of Peter Pan growing up thrown in.  Another fantasy PI novel was Ari Marmell’s Hot Lead, Cold Iron, which mixes faerie with 1930s Chicago underworld.  Another book that I liked, but had reservations of a different sort about was Charles Stross’s Neptune’s Brood, since I thought his take on future interstellar economics was, shall I say, either a bit-far-fetched or an incredibly sarcastic and sardonic not-so-veiled commentary on our current economic structure, with the resolution turning on a long-hidden, but unveiled just-in-time technological deus ex machina  totally at odds with the entire technology Stross so carefully constructed.  I liked it, but….  As for the other books I’ve read recently, let’s just say that while I feel I need to know what others are writing, there are some writers I may not be revisiting, at least not soon.