what are you reading?

[zip accident]

I just read The Long Cosmos, then reread The Long War, which I didn't remember.

My memory is going somewhat, but I think in the end they weren't very memorable, the former which is the end of the series didn't seem to me to end well, and the latter, well, I was hurrying through, and it didn't work that way for me.

[Deckard]

Each year, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer honors a new writer in the science fiction and fantasy field: an author who has professionally published a short story or novel in the past two years. Last year, Too Like The Lightning author Ada Palmer took home the award.

Last year, author Jake Kerr compiled The Event Horizon 2017 anthology, a massive two-volume, 400,000 word ebook which collected stories from 75 authors. This year’s anthology contains 59 stories, and like last year’s edition, it’s free for the taking in ePub, MOBI, or PDF formats, while you can pick up a print edition for $15 on Amazon. Both editions will only be available through July 15th, 2018.

Go here to collect as just got mine

https://amzn.to/2BD9MUM

[merman]

The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers, volume 3

https://amzn.to/2MHS32U

Lots more exclusive content, images and stories that aren't documented anywhere else. Great work by former Retro Gamer writer John Szczepaniak.

[noodles]

Videogames - In the Beginning by Ralph H. Baer

https://amzn.to/2MK8jk1

Fascinating details about the early days of the first videogame console (1967!)

[Deckard]

David Mitchell's latest (not the THE David Mitchell) who wrote Cloud Atlas - about a time travelling murderous "house" and its occupants - Its rather good but its always the same with horror tropes, they're like buses they all come at once as see The Shining Girls which I also rather enjoyed and on a lighter note - Vintage Game Consoles - An Inside Look at Apple, Atari, Commodore, Nintendo, and the Greatest Gaming Platforms of All Time - Bill Loguidice from 2014 which charts 1971-2001 rather well I feel

[zip accident]

I'm rereading "Cities in flight", this reading it seems to me to be a very odd mixture.

https://amzn.to/2N8jNe6

It's one physical volume containing four fairly short books. The first lampoons the McCarthy witch hunts and the Hoover era FBI, theres a villain in it called MacHinery who is the hereditary boss of the FBI. The second is the story of a young man learning the life of a city. The third is where the science fiction really takes off, though it could easily be seen as a collection of only slightly related short stories (same characters and setting, different stories, but with a bit of plot following through, which is no bad thing, "The Ship Who sang", is similar, and truly great). I have yet to restart the fourth.

[NorthWay]

I finished "Commodre: The Amiga Years" (the first half at least - I guess).
It made me want to shout and cry and hit something or strangle someone with my own hands. You couldn't write a fictionary work like this, the publisher would turn it down for being too improbable, too illogical and too unlikely to be probable. It reads like a bad version of a Greek tragedy, makes you lose faith in humanity.

Truly recommended - can't wait for the second half.

[Mat]

Just finished "Black Man" by Richard Morgan, he of Altered Carbon fame. And I was reading the acknowledgements when I came across this gem:

While these books all fed into the concept of the Secession and the gender themes arising in Black Man, the Confederated Republic itself (aka Jesusland) was inspired by the now famous Jesusland map meme, created (according to Wikipedia) by one G. Webb on the message board yakyak.org. Way to go, G!

https://amzn.to/2w03pFZ

[zip accident]

Finished Cities in Flight.

Afterword wrote: Forgetfulness, alas, did indeed play a role. The volumes were written roughly in the order iii, i, iv, ii over a period of 15 years (during which I was also writing other books),

Which is odd, because the first definitely feels McCarthy era, while the second seems only a little more relaxed. Though there definitely is a discontinuity in the names and dates between the second and third.

[Mat]

I'm now reading Mute by Gordon Houghton, of this here parish, and so far it's as intriguing and compelling as the other novels I've read of his, Max and Another World.
Alongside Chris Beckett, he's now one of my favourite UK sci-fi authors.

Top work fella!

[merman]

I finished "Commodre: The Amiga Years" (the first half at least - I guess).
It made me want to shout and cry and hit something or strangle someone with my own hands. You couldn't write a fictionary work like this, the publisher would turn it down for being too improbable, too illogical and too unlikely to be probable. It reads like a bad version of a Greek tragedy, makes you lose faith in humanity.

Truly recommended - can't wait for the second half.

Kickstarter for The Final Years is live today:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14 ... =user_menu

[NorthWay]

Kickstarter for The Final Years is live today:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14 ... =user_menu

And I got in the wall plot perk! I really want a giant poster of the Agnus chip on my wall. (As I would love for Denise and Paula too ofc.)

[korruptor]

Mmm, I was tempted by that. Just reading the Amiga Years now and it's seriously making me miss my Amiga

[Deckard]

Just started the new book about the making of 2001 from Michael Benson and I am finding it brilliant in its forensic details - he took over 10,000 polaroids on set so he could make sure every shot looked good in 2d and Carl Sagan was a self-obsessed asshole being the only scientist in the entire venture who asked for a percentage for a voice over....and who Clarke loved but Kubrick hated.

https://amzn.to/2BB6yRB

[WiteWulf]

I started reading Dempow Torishima's Sisyphean recently after Jeff Vandermeer recommended it.

http://www.haikasoru.com/sisyphean/

I really didn't get on with. It makes Vandermeer's stuff look straightforward and transparent. Had to give up less than a quarter of the way through as it wasn't making any sense at all.

So, instead, moved on to Lindsay Smith and Max Gladstone's serialised The Witch Who Came In From The Cold. I've read all of Max's brilliant Craft Cycle books so kinda knew what to expect. It's urban fantasy, magic in our world, stuff but set in 70s East Europe. If you've read Tim Powers' Declare and liked it you'll enjoy this. It's Cold War spies and magic, really good stuff.

https://www.serialbox.com/serials/coldwitch