I've been reading The Culture series by Iain M Banks. I gave up on the first book a while back, which I've heard is quite common, but I plan to go back and finish it.
I've just read The Player Of Games and Excession and both are exceptional.
I finished Consider Phlebas on my commute - I still don't rank it quite as highly as the others but it came to life more at the end. My favourite bit was when Horza was trapped on the cannibal cult island. Completely irrelevant to the plot but some excellent wtf storytelling!
I finished Ignition! and am about to start The Player of Games from the Culture series. I really enjoyed Consider Phlebas, but I’ve been trying to switch off between fiction and nonfiction.
I only noticed this comment now, I've been reading the Culture series too - I enjoyed the world building in Consider Phlebas a lot but after a while I just wanted it to finish. So I skipped on and read a few others in the series then came back to finish it.
Since your Kindle doesn’t have a backlight (and especially the warm light), any difference really depends on the other lighting you are using. A dim, warm house lamp is probably better for sleep hygiene than the phone even with it changing its color temperature. If you have no problem falling asleep with either one then I don’t think it matters much.
It’s kinda spooky-adjacent, but I really want to reread The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter before the month is up. I really love her interpretations of old fairy tales, plus the title story is a riff on Bluebeard and it’s just chef’s kiss.
Shelley Jackson is also so so good. Her other big one, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, is really well paced and full of surprises. It’s also really weirdly sweet!
I never really read horror. I did enjoy A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay when I read it. If you want very quick reads, the Level 26 trilogy, while far from being amazing, is a nice distraction.
The last few years I’ve been reading a bunch of Lovecraft’s earlier influences. Some of that has been very good. (Chambers, Blackwood, Machen, etc.) But the absolute standout has been Dunsany. If you like HPL’s “Dream Quest” material, check out Dunsany’s “Time and The Gods” and “Wonder Tales”.
I learned a few years back that the Hugo Award that you see on the cover of some books is actually a very different kind of award than most.
Works are nominated and voted on by people like you and me. In fact, right now you can go become a voting member of the Hugo Awards and have a say on who wins each category this year. I’ve really enjoyed reading the nominated works and casting my vote for the past several years.
It’s a great way to discover novels and shorter form stories that you may not have otherwise known about.
Special shout out to Catherynne M. Valente for writing something I love almost every year!
I’ve been consistently using the Hugo Award to discover new books and I’ve never been disappointed! (Obviously, I select the books that appeal to me the most, but it’s a really good track record )
I’ve been looking for some kind of alternative to io9 over the years and this looks perfect! Not as exhaustive as their list but theirs is also monthly vs. this one appears to be twice a month (September is here)
Since I already skimmed through the io9 one, a few of these were already on my radar to check out this month. Androne, The Circumference of the World, and City of Bones all were interesting to me off this list.
I’m also excited to see Gundog is getting a proper release. I loved listening to the podcast version last year. It felt just like a chapter a week of an exciting mecha audiobook.
The YA series Uglies will always be one of my favorites. I remember reading it as a tween and not knowing quite how to describe it; a friend called it a dystopian novel, which is true, but… it didn’t feel quite “right”, or at least, like the complete truth. The setting is utopian, bordering on solarpunk; no more worrying about climate change or overconsumption - we’ve fixed the climate, everything we own is infinitely recyclable in minutes, nature is healing! - the only thing we need to worry about is looking good at the party. But, it turns out, living in a society where the most important thing in the world is being beautiful - even if everyone is beautiful - is maybe… not great? Almost by design?
It was written to be a critique of plastic surgery, but I think there’s so much to dig into even as an adult in 2023. It probably lit a nice rebellious fire in teenage me, questioning authority and the seemingly unquestionable rules of the world. The relationships between the characters are still fascinating to me, and I’m still mesmerized by the beautiful, terrible world they live in. Even though the writing style is very simple to be easily digestible to early readers, the ideas the book explores are as complicated as you let them be. Surveillance, nature vs. nurture, institutionalized self-hatred, autonomy, sustainability, forced metamorphosis… there’s a lot to unpack.
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