I'm currently re-reading Fifty Degrees Below, by Kim Stanley Robinson, because it's the November book of the month for the hardsf yahoogroup.   This is the second book in a tightly coupled trilogy that starts with Forty Signs of Rain.  The group read that last month, and I am enjoying them as much as I did on my first read about five years ago when they were new.  I expect to re-read Sixty Days and Counting next month, even if the hardsf group does not select it for December.

My next book on deck is The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, by Dubravka Ugre?i?.  It arrived at my house from Australia this week, because I am the next reader in a bookcrossing bookray.  It's literary fiction, not sf.

-Tom Hl.

I'm trying to finish the challenge - working on The Truth of Valor and Chasm City. 

Got the new Iain Banks (Surface Detail) and Jack McDevitt (Echo) books in the mail and they keep calling my name.

Just finished The Earth Abides and One Second After.  I am reading through all the post apocalyptic books I collected last and this year. 

The Earth Abides was OK.   I liked the questions that the author raised about how we organize ourselves after the fall of civilization.  In this book the Flu or some virus knocked out  90% or the humans and all the large apes.   For some reason birds and swine seemed to make it.  The people left spent the next 20+ years living out of the warehouses and stores of stuff left behind,   cans of food, bottles of water, clothes, tools, whatever.  There were so few people and lots of stuff left in San Francisco, imagine the bounty.  Interesting.  I liked the characters.  No religion and very little social organizing.  Great ending to the book.  Very thought provoking about rules and laws and just how little is necessary for society to continue to function. 

One Second After was the Republican statement of what will happen when the EMP bombs are aimed at the USA by North Korea and the Middle East countries.  As if they could ever get it together to organize themselves.  In this tome, the only people that can save us from ourselves are retired military and the local law enforcement.  For some reason, no one who was of "liberal" bend had anything to offer the new people in charge except an old VW bus to use as a hearse.   It was a good reminder about community organizing efforts around disaster relief.  This book offers the usual glorification of war.

 I am reading through all the post apocalyptic books I collected last and this year. 

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Do you have Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in your collection?  It's a really good alien invasion story.

No, actually, I don't, but I will look it up.  I admit that Alien Invasion is one genre I hadn't considered.  I have been so wrapped up in pandemic books lately because they are the only ones anyone I know wants to talk about....thanks for the rec.

Finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.  Pretty impressed by the book.  Up until page 120 or so I thought the book was only okay, but after that I really enjoyed it.  I have his American Gods and The Graveyard Book on my reading list.

Currently reading The Handmaid's Tale.  Excellent book.

Also re-reading The Maximum Ride series by James Patterson, one of my favorite series of all-time.  It's my reading for the evening, just before I go to bed.  The chapters are short, so that works very well for bedtime reading.

I'm thinking alternate history reading is interesting to me, any recommendations? Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick seem interesting, I've been meaning to get to reading Philip K Dick anyhow.

Jo Walton's Small Change trilogy is fabulous, particularly if you also enjoy Golden Age British mysteries/thrillers. They are: Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half a Crown. (They should be read in order, though, or you'll spoil the events of the previous book.)

Thanks Phoenix, I added it to my reminder list.  :)

Just finished reading, couldn't wait any longer.  This is part of McDevitt's antiquity series.  I enjoyed the book, but I'd be circumspect to who I'd recommend it.  It's a different flavor of tea for sure.  The reveal took more than three-fourths of the book, I guess I kinda get in the mind of McDevitt and know what he's thinking.  A question and answer session near the end (no spoilers from me!) was a way the author could share his views on our place in the universe.  Well, I don't know if it's really his view, but it does flow along with his other books.  A nice armchair mystery, not a whole lot of violence, some deaths (like yahh -  a whole planetful), some sad individual deaths and the reader gets to touch base with Chase and Alex.  Four stars from me.