★★★ Exhalation: Stories / Ted Chiang
Probably one of the best short stories in the genre. For sure – the best masterpiece / stories written ratio in the genre. I love this guy for his imagination, simplicity (in terms of a form) and deep philosophical questions hidden behind well-written fiction.

★☆☆ Rzeka podziemna / Tomasz Jastrun

List of all books read in 2020.

Grossly wrong.

The ship in the story can be used as a generation ship, but after only a trip seven years, that fact has hardly any bearing on the story, unlike Heinlein's Universe and the stories that copied it, in which the whole plot revolves around later generations having forgotten their origin.

Shadows Linger - Glen Cook

Second book of the "The Black Company" and second book of the "Books of the North" cycle of these series.

Really well written and not always about the Black Comapny and its members. It also draws a really interesting and detailed portrait of a run-down port town in the far north, with poverty and all the human reactions that can come from it. I really like the fact that there is no real "good guy" or "bad guy" (apart from the Dominator, maybe, but it remains a simple threat in the book, not a real, acting character).

Glen Cook really mixes well the epic moments with the despicable ones, showing that no one is beyond redemption... or damnation.

A must read, I think.

So far in 2020: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2020/post9

I must say I am struggling a bit with the third book in the original Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. The book started off well, then lost momentum for me. To be fair, I have had rather a lot on my plate lately, but where the story is going right now, doesn't really grab me ... the excitement just isn't there, and neither is the usual Asimov intellectual aspect. I won't say it has become a grind, but it isn't grabbing enough of my interest to stay focused for long (or awake) when reading ... so it has become a slow nibble read for me ... and I am already looking forward to reading something more gripping. I'm about two thirds in. I'll stick with it, because I can see the end in sight, but it doesn't bode well for the later books, even though I've heard they are better written. I suspect I will put them off for a good while.

It took me longer than I wanted, but I finished the Fantastic Hope anthology.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52651670-fantastic-hope

As with any anthology, there were some great stories, and some stinkers. Some from authors I know and enjoy, some from authors new to me, and some from authors known but not previously experienced.

I added a couple others to my "check them out sometime" list. There was one story in the collection that was so bad I could not finish it (surprisingly, by one of the famous authors in it).

I can say I've now read my first bit of the "Anita Blake" series... I can see why it's controversial among people after even just that short.

Next up: I diversified my fiction collection and bought a bunch of highly-rated scifi/fantasy books by non-white authors. The first one will be:
How Long 'til Black Future Month by N K Jimisin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40855636-how-long-til-black-future-month

Is it the one with two novellas, both taking place after the story about The Mule?
If so you are probably enjoying them less since Asimov enjoyed writing them less, being "forced" to write them.

It was the SECOND FOUNDATION, third and final book in the trilogy, which from memory was made up of two parts (or was it three), the first of which I quite enjoyed.

That probably explains my reaction.

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Anyway, as they say, speak of something, and it changes ... and that's exactly what happened.

I had a big read through until the end tonight ... in basically one sitting ... and as is usually the case, books get better and more exciting towards the end, and 'Second Foundation' was no exception. In the end I really enjoyed it, first part and last section especially ... if my enjoyment got waylaid a bit in the middle ... not helped to be sure by other distractions, as I mentioned. A good finale to the trilogy.

Nice. That cascade of answers, right?

A classic trilogy.

Good for you! =)

I started a new series when I went to bed last night (wee hours this morning really).

It is by an author I still see as relatively new to me, even though I have finished 13 of his novels now. The first novel, The Protocol by J. Robert Kennedy, was the fastest book I had read in a long time ... it was that gripping ... an over the top thriller with a high body count.

Anyway, up until now, I have stuck to reading 13 novels in that Professor James Acton series (somewhat Indiana Jones meets Da Vinci Code plus some).

For some time, I have been thinking I really should try one of his other series etc. In fact he has done two spin-off series, the first book of which was set around the time of Book 6 in the Professor Acton series. However he's done some others too, so I spent some time getting dates of when written or at least released.

I discovered he did a murder mystery series early on, that went for a total of 3 books, the first of which he released on Amazon at the same time (September 4th 2011) as the first two novels in the Professor Acton series. So I have now started that ... and got quite a few chapters in, before deciding I really should go to sleep. I've not resumed today yet, because it was my mum's 85th birthday and I have been busy ... and I obviously slept in for the first bit.

He is a damn good economical writer ... no wasted words and keeps the pace up. He seems to have come out of nowhere with the release of those three books.

Apparently he has consistently been the highest selling Amazon author .... and still no page on Wikipedia.

I belong to his email club and get notified of new releases and bonuses. He is a prolific writer, with his dad helping out with research. But just recently he has raised things another notch, by learning the great benefits of dictation ... so that means he has started producing even more novels ... even going back and resuming series, after asking fans first.

I don't think he will ever win any literary awards from what I have seen of his writing so far. That's not to say he is a bad writer ... far from it. If literary awards were given out based totally on great use of words, he would probably win, as he sure knows how to write to the point and never bore you, while keeping pace and energy high, giving you a thrilling ride. He tackles tough subjects at times and has certainly been involved in the odd controversy. He often likes to mix historical chapters with current time ones ... showing both cause and effect for his fictional narratives ... whether it be Religion, China, Archaeology, Terrorists, Secret Societies, American Military (etc), Hitler, Myths, Legends or some grand conspiracy.

His first Professor Acton novel, The Protocol, is still free, which you can grab on its own, or with four others, also free ... which includes the one I have just started reading - Depraved Difference (Detective Shakespeare #1).

My reading list for 2020

I've barely read anything in the last month or two (still reading Les Misérables, Ana Kareninia, poems by Amado Nervo, the complete short stories of R. L. Stevenson and To Kill a Mockingbird, but it's been a while since last time I opened any of those books).

A few days ago I read a little book by Alejandra Pizarnik, which is one of my favorite poets. The book is called The Bloody Countess, it's really short, you can read it in one sitting. The edition I read had some awesome illustrations by Santiago Caruso, I'm not sure it this edition has been released in English, but I totally recommend it if it can be found... if not, the text is still the important part, so a copy without illustrations would be good too.

The book is about Erzsébet Báthory, who allegedly tortured and murdered 650 young girls and bathed in their blood. If she was innocent or not, it may never be known, but the book assumes she's guilty and describes the tales in a dark poetic way. Pizarnik's prose is as enjoyable as her verse works, a really great work by a writer who deserves to be more well known.

Just finished Roadside Picnic, I would recommend this. Tight story well rounded pacing and overall a solid 9 out of 10

Finally finished off IDW's Miss Fury collections, this one covering 1944-1949 (the remaining years of the strip aren't considered Tarpe Mills's work, and so aren't collected). I'm somewhat confused as to why IDW made this the first collection. I suppose Mills was working at her artistic peak, but as far as storytelling goes I preferred the work in the earlier years.

It picks up toward the end of the war as Mills quickly tries to get Miss Fury out of Brazil and back to New York. She seems uncertain about some plotlines and clearly changes course abruptly at least a couple of times; e.g., a subplot about the obstacles of her adopting her ex-fiance's young son in Brazil is raised, but the very next week she and the boy are back in America with no problems and it never comes up again. With everything back in N.Y., she starts a lengthy story about European art smugglers. It has its points of interest but I started losing interest before long. Eventually it's resolved and the strip suddenly gets back on track, first with a relatively short storyline the brings back the light sci-fi elements (a pair of scientists who have invented a serum that halts aging), and then things get really good when Mills finally brings back Baroness von Kampf and General Bruno in their post-war lives. Unfortunately, just as things are getting fun again with them, the book ends mid-story. Apparently the strip was losing popularity and some newspapers had dropped it because it was just damn too sexy (the Wikipedia entry that claims that Miss Fury scandalously wore a bikini in one strip is mistaken - it was actually her Brazilian friend Era who wore a skimpy costume as part of a club performance).

Out of curiosity, I checked out some of the Miss Fury comics that have been released by Dynamite over the last few years. They failed to meet even my very low expectations as the creators of the new comics turned Miss Fury into a bog standard bad girl superhero. Mills's heroic and clever heroine turned into a violent (get it? She's called Miss Fury because she's so ANGRY ALL THE TIME!!!), amoral Catwoman ripoff, chucking men around like dolls with her superpowers, with none of the original supporting cast present. Presumably Mills is still spinning in her grave over it.

it seems it's been quite a while since I've posted here. Here's what I read since my last post:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Transcendent: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction (anthology, various authors)
Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain by António R. Damásio
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson
Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire by James Romm
The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams
The Watcher by Charles Maclean
Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen
Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse by Otsuichi
The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Currently I'm reading Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry by Randolph M. Nesse.

I recently finished Sorry not Sorry by Naya Rivera, the Glee star who recently passed away. It was a pretty good memoir. But given the way things ended for her, quite sad also.