Finish 52 Books 2023

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 25323

Grim... wrote:

Hello! Do you have an eBook reader? Would you like a free book? I wrote it, so it's rubbish, but I'd love some notes on how to make it better (and where all the spelling mistakes are).

Bobby described it as "space Jack Reacher hangs out with a sex robot", which is pretty accurate.

Hit me up and I'll send you a copy.

OMG Grim… I missed this post completely. Blinking well done. That’s incredible. How long have you been writing it for? Absolutely brilliant! Are you going to submit it for publication?

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 25323

Sex robot or sexy robot?

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jul 18, 2023 17:01

Mimi wrote:

OMG Grim… I missed this post completely. Blinking well done. That’s incredible. How long have you been writing it for? Absolutely brilliant! Are you going to submit it for publication?

Quite a while: viewtopic.php?p=943404#p943404

Mimi wrote:

Sex robot or sexy robot?

Yes.

Squirt · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6446

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was a sex robot, it was a sexy robot..."

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49212

That thread is _great_

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jul 18, 2023 17:35

It really is. I'd forgotten I used to call that girl Tinkerbell

I wonder how she's getting on now. TO THE CORPOSTALK!

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jul 18, 2023 17:36

She works for a real estate company, and has brown hair now. I think she might be Facebook friends with me. TO THE PERSONALLIFEOSTALK!

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jul 18, 2023 17:37

She's deleted her account.

What a rollercoaster! This was far better than anything I've written in that stupid book.

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Jul 18, 2023 19:24

MaliA wrote:

Ok, Boomer.

This was underappreciated

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jul 18, 2023 22:03

I did,.indeed,.miss that.

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38280

Grim... wrote:

She works for a real estate company, and has brown hair now. I think she might be Facebook friends with me. TO THE PERSONALLIFEOSTALK!

Amazed she didn't go into porn. You were so convincing

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed Jul 19, 2023 13:27

Grim... wrote:

I did,.indeed,.miss that.

What the fuck did I type that on, my kindle?!

Squirt · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6446

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

1.) Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway - Jonathan Parshall & Anthony Tully
2.) Father Brown - G.K.Chesterton
3.) The Kean Land - Jack Schaefer
4.) To the Devil - a Daughter! - Dennis Wheatley.
5.) Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers.
6.) Tombs of Atuan - Ursula K. Le Guin.
7.) South by Java Head - Alistair MacLean.
8.) Sharpe's Triumph - Bernard Cornwell.
9.) Sharpe's Fortress - Bernard Cornwell.
10.) Sharpe's Trafalgar - Bernard Cornwell.
11). HMS Ulysses - Alistair MacLean.
12.) The Satsuma Complex - Bob Mortimer.
13.) Gateway to Hell - Dennis Wheatley.

14.) Sharpe's Prey - Bernard Cornwell.
Sean Bean heads off to sunny Copenhagen, to shoot some baddies, woo some ladies and generally kick ass. All the Sharpe books are essentially the same, but I'm enjoying reading them and I doubt I'll get tired anytime soon!

Next up, Grim's book! Although currently I'm only reading it on my laptop so another physical book might sneak in as well.

Curiosity · **Posted:** Wed Jul 26, 2023 12:51

Curiosity wrote:

I read a book!

"Titanium Noir" by Nick Harkaway

This is quite different to his other books, but no less good. It's a noir detective story set in the near future, written in first person as the detective, and it's great. Very accessible, very fun, very recommended.

I read a second book!

"The Ferryman" by Justin Cronin

Mister Cronin is the author of the fantastic 'The Passage' trilogy, which took some standard apocalyptic tropes and made incredible books out of them.

The Ferryman takes some other standard science fiction tropes and makes a very good book out of them. Occasionally it does so in a slightly predictable way, but equally it's normally for a pretty decent reason.

In short, it's about a nice island where everyone has lovely extended lives, and everything is hunky dory. Apart from it really isn't, as our protagonist is about to find out... I don't want to to say too much about it as half of the fun is finding out what's going on, should anyone wish to read it.

Kern · **Posted:** Wed Aug 09, 2023 8:42

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

1. The Confidence Men by Margalit Fox
2. Maus by Art Spiegelman
3. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
4. Ask a Historian by Greg Jenner
5. My Name's Not Friday by Jon Walter
6. All That Remains by Sue Black
7. Aftermath by Harald Jähner (tr. S Whiteside)
8. God: an Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou
9.A Million Years in a Day by Greg Jenner
10.How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt
11. Everybody Wins: Four Decades of the Greatest Board Games Ever Made by James Wallis
12.The Theory of Everything Else by Dan Schreiber
13.A Bit of a Stretch by Chris Atkins
14. Jingo by Terry Pratchett
15. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
16. Eversion by Alistair Reynolds
17. The Irish Difference: a tumultuous history of Ireland's breakup with Britain by Fergal Tobin
18. Fake Heroes by Otto English
19. Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
20. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend

21. The Department of Truth: volume 1 - The End of the World by James Tynion IV; art by Martin Simmonds

A writer specialising in conspiracy theory culture is recruited to an X-Files-like double secret government organisation tasked with keeping them from entering our reality. The artwork really adds to the sense of mystery and bewilderment. Will probably pick up the later volumes in time.

Massive spoiler:

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

Who could run such a department other than Mr Conspiracy himself, everyone's favourite lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald?!
Brilliant twist

22.One..Two..Three..Four - The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown

First read this back in 2020 and it's just as enjoyable the second time round. In fact, John becomes an even bigger dick.

JBR · **Joined:** 2nd Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 3136

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

1. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
2. Educating Peter - Tom Cox.
3. Carnival of Snackery - David Sedaris.
4. The Children of Dynmouth - William Trevor.
5. The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail - Dan White.
6. No Less the Devil - Stuart MacBridge.
7. The Foot Soldiers - Gerald Seymour.
8. The Sellout - Paul Beatty.
9. Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie.
10. The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi.
11. Magnificent Women and Flying Machines - Sally Smith.
12. Lion - Conn Iggulden.
13. I Hate the Internet - Jarett Kobek.
14. Mr Pye - Mervyn Peake.
15. Sidesplitter - Phil Wang.
16. This is True - Miriam Margolyes.
17. La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust 1 - Philip Pullman.
18. Gotta Get Theroux This - Louis Theroux.
19. Exciting Times - Naoise Dolan.
20. Tenth of December - George Saunders.
21. The First and Last Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future - Olaf Stapledon.
22. Handsome Brute - Sean O'Connor.
23. Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky.
24. How to Make the World Add Up - Tim Harford.
25. The Old Man - Thomas Perry.
26. Rutherford and Fry's Guide to Absolutely Everything - Rutherford and Fry.
27. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu.
28. Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell.
29. The Old Drift - Namwali Serpell.
30. Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
31. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carre.
32. Station 11 - Emily St John Mandel.
33. Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes.

Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart. Beautifully written story about growing up poor with an alcoholic mother in Glasgow. Grim subject, well told.

The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik. I've raved about the first two in this trilogy before, and this is just as good. Novik's brilliant - I haven't read the Temeraire series yet but that's a highlight. This one follows a sorceress as she goes through school and out the other side, trying not to fulfil a prophecy and become the destroyer of worlds. She's also realistically grumpy, which is a great trick to pull off. I suppose the themes are universal - love, family is best, good vs evil (the complicated both-in-all version), but they're done so well that you can just as easily just get wrapped up in the story as care about them. Brilliant.

Squirt · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6446

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

1.) Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway - Jonathan Parshall & Anthony Tully
2.) Father Brown - G.K.Chesterton
3.) The Kean Land - Jack Schaefer
4.) To the Devil - a Daughter! - Dennis Wheatley.
5.) Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers.
6.) Tombs of Atuan - Ursula K. Le Guin.
7.) South by Java Head - Alistair MacLean.
8.) Sharpe's Triumph - Bernard Cornwell.
9.) Sharpe's Fortress - Bernard Cornwell.
10.) Sharpe's Trafalgar - Bernard Cornwell.
11). HMS Ulysses - Alistair MacLean.
12.) The Satsuma Complex - Bob Mortimer.
13.) Gateway to Hell - Dennis Wheatley.
14.) Sharpe's Prey - Bernard Cornwell.

15.) Aunt's aren't Gentlemen - P.G. Wodehouse.
Old Pelham Grenville was about 93 when he wrote this, and it shows a little bit. Not the best Jeeves & Wooster novel by a long shot, but a nice little read anyhow. The plot is entirely nonsense, but it doesn't really matter.

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Aug 21, 2023 19:48

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

1. The Confidence Men by Margalit Fox
2. Maus by Art Spiegelman
3. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
4. Ask a Historian by Greg Jenner
5. My Name's Not Friday by Jon Walter
6. All That Remains by Sue Black
7. Aftermath by Harald Jähner (tr. S Whiteside)
8. God: an Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou
9.A Million Years in a Day by Greg Jenner
10.How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt
11. Everybody Wins: Four Decades of the Greatest Board Games Ever Made by James Wallis
12.The Theory of Everything Else by Dan Schreiber
13.A Bit of a Stretch by Chris Atkins
14. Jingo by Terry Pratchett
15. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
16. Eversion by Alistair Reynolds
17. The Irish Difference: a tumultuous history of Ireland's breakup with Britain by Fergal Tobin
18. Fake Heroes by Otto English
19. Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
20. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
21. The Department of Truth: volume 1 - The End of the World by James Tynion IV; art by Martin Simmonds
22.One..Two..Three..Four - The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown

23.British Rail: the Making and Breaking of Our Trains by Christian Wolmar

BR: not as awful as we remember but not as good as it could have been.

This is an enjoyable if depressing tale of an organisation and industry that was denied the investment it needed when it most mattered and internally took too long to distance itself from the days of steam and the pre-1948 ways of working. It had just got itself in shape when the Tories decided to trash it despite not really knowing what they were doing or why.

Sone surprises here: Pacers become the unexpected saviours of the regional network, and even folk villain Dr Beeching (is he more hated than Yoko?) gets praise for some of his better ideas.

KovacsC · **Posted:** Wed Aug 23, 2023 19:17

KovacsC wrote:

1. No Plan B - Lee & Andrew Child
2. The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman
3. The Man who Died Twice - Richard Osman
4. The Bullet that missed - Richard Osman
5. First Man In - Ant Middleton.
6. The Moscow Sleeper. - Stella Rimmington.

7. Shaken - J. A. Konrath.

Working thorough the Jack Daniels Mystery. it is good to be back in this world

JBR · **Joined:** 2nd Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 3136

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

1. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
2. Educating Peter - Tom Cox.
3. Carnival of Snackery - David Sedaris.
4. The Children of Dynmouth - William Trevor.
5. The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail - Dan White.
6. No Less the Devil - Stuart MacBridge.
7. The Foot Soldiers - Gerald Seymour.
8. The Sellout - Paul Beatty.
9. Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie.
10. The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi.
11. Magnificent Women and Flying Machines - Sally Smith.
12. Lion - Conn Iggulden.
13. I Hate the Internet - Jarett Kobek.
14. Mr Pye - Mervyn Peake.
15. Sidesplitter - Phil Wang.
16. This is True - Miriam Margolyes.
17. La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust 1 - Philip Pullman.
18. Gotta Get Theroux This - Louis Theroux.
19. Exciting Times - Naoise Dolan.
20. Tenth of December - George Saunders.
21. The First and Last Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future - Olaf Stapledon.
22. Handsome Brute - Sean O'Connor.
23. Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky.
24. How to Make the World Add Up - Tim Harford.
25. The Old Man - Thomas Perry.
26. Rutherford and Fry's Guide to Absolutely Everything - Rutherford and Fry.
27. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu.
28. Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell.
29. The Old Drift - Namwali Serpell.
30. Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
31. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carre.
32. Station 11 - Emily St John Mandel.
33. Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes.
34. Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart.
35. The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik

Wild Fell - Lee Schofield. How the Lake District is and how parts of it could be, as told by a farmer. A farmer who works for the RSPB, who own large tracts of land. It's really interesting, if a little unstructured, and the tone is defensive because the nudge to write it seems to have been all the criticism from other farmers. But I was convinced - fewer (but not no) sheep allows a far wider range of plants to grow and the ecosystem benefits hugely.

The Deptford Trilogy - Robertson Davies. Three books spanning time in Canada across WWI and beyond. Great storytelling. I'm not sure I can really say what it's about, but the three books follow three lives from a small village and see where they end up. Picked it up because it's apparently the favourite book of a bloke I don't know (the 'This is True' newsletter, which I've got without thinking is vital for years). But I was convinced enough to remember it, buy a copy, forget I had and buy another, so if you want one, let me know.

Havana Bay - Martin Cruz Smith. Excellent thriller starring Arkady Renko. Smith conjures an air of depression but something more from the Russian (here Cuban) settings. I remembered the start of this, so might have read it before, but could not remember the end so surely I didn't finish it, as it's a doozy. I always plan to read more of these, having discovered them late (books of the 80/90s - Gorky Park was made into a film in 1983) then forget which ones I've read. But they're excellent, and like the Robertson Davies, pretty timeless. Or perhaps, very good at describing their time without it seeming like an anachronism.

Kern · **Posted:** Fri Sep 08, 2023 18:13

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

1. The Confidence Men by Margalit Fox
2. Maus by Art Spiegelman
3. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
4. Ask a Historian by Greg Jenner
5. My Name's Not Friday by Jon Walter
6. All That Remains by Sue Black
7. Aftermath by Harald Jähner (tr. S Whiteside)
8. God: an Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou
9.A Million Years in a Day by Greg Jenner
10.How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt
11. Everybody Wins: Four Decades of the Greatest Board Games Ever Made by James Wallis
12.The Theory of Everything Else by Dan Schreiber
13.A Bit of a Stretch by Chris Atkins
14. Jingo by Terry Pratchett
15. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
16. Eversion by Alistair Reynolds
17. The Irish Difference: a tumultuous history of Ireland's breakup with Britain by Fergal Tobin
18. Fake Heroes by Otto English
19. Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
20. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
21. The Department of Truth: volume 1 - The End of the World by James Tynion IV; art by Martin Simmonds
22.One..Two..Three..Four - The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown
23.British Rail: the Making and Breaking of Our Trains by Christian Wolmar

24. The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown by Anna Keay

A very engaging look at life during the Interregnum/Commonwealth/Protectorate era, following the lives of people from across the social strata and the country.
I always find the hardest part of understanding the 17th Century is the centrality of religion to life and politics, and Keay does a good job of explaining where people sit and why it mattered without disrupting the narrative.

MaliA · **Posted:** Wed Sep 20, 2023 21:05

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

]b]Corruptible - Brian Klaas[/b] Why we get the leaders we do, and how it is all our own fault, but there are ways to make it better. It's engaging, readable, and makes one think. There's a few ideas I I have seen elsewhere, but worth the time to go through it. Pair with How To Rig An Election for maximum eye row raising.

Spare - Captain Wales Christ, this is a ride and a half. It's very poorly written, and he comes over like Holden Caulfield without the whimsy. Really picks up in the final third with ALL THE GOSSIP. I ended up feeling some sympathy for him.

A Talent for War - Jack McDevit this bloke's uncle dies, and it is Very Mysterious, but his uncle was researching something, so this bloke picks up the trail. It's a good space adventure, and nods towards how we view our own history, it being written by the winners, and the legends that grow around powerful historical figures.

It's well worth the look.

Far From The Light of Heaven - Tade Thompson On a spaceship, travelling through interstellar space, the first officer wakes up from hypersleep to find the ship 's AI wiped, and thirty passengers out of the thousand on board who were also asleep out of their pods and very much dead. Really good locked room mystery.

The Employees - Olga Ravn (translated by Martin Aitkin) this is proper good. This is weirdly proper good. Life on board a spaceship through the employee's eyes. Highly recommended. Absolutely superb.

Cwen - Alice Abinia a book about life in an island where women begin to take over and what follows. It's a lot better than it sounds, and I probably would have been better reading it a lot more carefully.

Artemis - Andy Weir a caper on the moon. Similar in style to the Martian, but isn't as good. Dialogue felt clunky and awkward at times.

Beyond the Burn Line
by Paul J. McAuley

The earth is inhabited by evolved racoons now free from being enslaved by intelligent bears. They are trying to work out what went on.

It's OK, but I didn't massively enjoy it.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Absolutely loved this. Across three timelines, there's an anomaly witnessed. It's a great read, and lovely.

Recommend this!

The Terraformers - Annalee Newitz

The story of a planet made to be sold to people to live on as a holiday place, and those who take care of it through its life.

Yeah, I didn't like this
The first third was good, the second not so much, the third took a nose dive. Avoid.

Eversion by Alistair Reynolds

A vice enjoying surgeon joins a ship's crew on a private expedition to find a mysterious structure to gain fame and fortune in the absolutely brilliant mystery horror novel.

It was 99p so grab it on Kindle. I loved every page.

Children of Ruin - Adrian Tchaikovsky

Sequel to the first book Children of Time.

I didn't like it as much and it was a slog at times.
[Spoiler]
The Traitor by Seth Dickinson

This is very good, indeed. It's a saddening, horrific tale of someone trying to take down an empire. Suffers a bit from "too many names" at times, but I forgive it that.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Good lord this is great. Highly recommend this about life on earth after a pandemic.

MaliA · **Posted:** Wed Sep 20, 2023 21:09

Oh FFS

MaliA · **Posted:** Wed Sep 20, 2023 21:11

MaliA · **Posted:** Wed Sep 20, 2023 21:18

MaliA wrote:

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

]b]Corruptible - Brian Klaas[/b] Why we get the leaders we do, and how it is all our own fault, but there are ways to make it better. It's engaging, readable, and makes one think. There's a few ideas I I have seen elsewhere, but worth the time to go through it. Pair with How To Rig An Election for maximum eye row raising.

Spare - Captain Wales Christ, this is a ride and a half. It's very poorly written, and he comes over like Holden Caulfield without the whimsy. Really picks up in the final third with ALL THE GOSSIP. I ended up feeling some sympathy for him.

A Talent for War - Jack McDevit this bloke's uncle dies, and it is Very Mysterious, but his uncle was researching something, so this bloke picks up the trail. It's a good space adventure, and nods towards how we view our own history, it being written by the winners, and the legends that grow around powerful historical figures.

It's well worth the look.

Far From The Light of Heaven - Tade Thompson On a spaceship, travelling through interstellar space, the first officer wakes up from hypersleep to find the ship 's AI wiped, and thirty passengers out of the thousand on board who were also asleep out of their pods and very much dead. Really good locked room mystery.

The Employees - Olga Ravn (translated by Martin Aitkin) this is proper good. This is weirdly proper good. Life on board a spaceship through the employee's eyes. Highly recommended. Absolutely superb.

Cwen - Alice Abinia a book about life in an island where women begin to take over and what follows. It's a lot better than it sounds, and I probably would have been better reading it a lot more carefully.

Artemis - Andy Weir a caper on the moon. Similar in style to the Martian, but isn't as good. Dialogue felt clunky and awkward at times.

Beyond the Burn Line
by Paul J. McAuley

The earth is inhabited by evolved racoons now free from being enslaved by intelligent bears. They are trying to work out what went on.

It's OK, but I didn't massively enjoy it.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Absolutely loved this. Across three timelines, there's an anomaly witnessed. It's a great read, and lovely.

Recommend this!

The Terraformers - Annalee Newitz

The story of a planet made to be sold to people to live on as a holiday place, and those who take care of it through its life.

Yeah, I didn't like this
The first third was good, the second not so much, the third took a nose dive. Avoid.

Eversion by Alistair Reynolds

A vice enjoying surgeon joins a ship's crew on a private expedition to find a mysterious structure to gain fame and fortune in the absolutely brilliant mystery horror novel.

It was 99p so grab it on Kindle. I loved every page.

Children of Ruin - Adrian Tchaikovsky

Sequel to the first book Children of Time.

I didn't like it as much and it was a slog at times.
[Spoiler]
The Traitor by Seth Dickinson

This is very good, indeed. It's a saddening, horrific tale of someone trying to take down an empire. Suffers a bit from "too many names" at times, but I forgive it that.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Good lord this is great. Highly recommend this about life on earth after a pandemic.

Monster by Seth Dickinson

Baru Cormorant continues doing stuff.Suffers a bit from "too many names" at times, but I forgive it that.

Knowing it is a trilogy removes a lot of the jeopardy

Be Excellent To Each Other

Finish 52 Books 2023

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