2018 books: Pet Noir, The Man-Kzin Wars
Apr. 3rd, 2018 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserPet Noir by Pati Nagle
Traditional or self-published: Self-published? (From the "publisher's" website: "Evennight Books is a small publisher specializing in fiction by New Mexico writers. Formed in 2010 to bring P. G. Nagle’s backlist back into print...")
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
A collection of mystery-ish stories told from the POV of Leon, a cat geneteched to have opposable thumbs, human-level intelligence, and the ability to speak. In a somewhat logic-stretching move, a "small town" space station's security department bought one of these very very expensive cats to help them solve a case. Each of the other five stories in the book involve Leon and his human cop/partner solving other cases.
The first story (Leon as a kitten, just arriving on the space station, everything new to him) was the best by far. I would have rated the book higher, if it were only that story.
One of the reasons this book sat in my To Read pile so long was the title. To be honest, I had picked up this book expecting it to be so bad that it might be amusing. It wasn't bad at all -- it was exactly what it billed itself to be. I'm not a mystery book reader though, and the whole 'noir' genre doesn't work for me, so through my own fault, the book wasn't a good match for me. As the stories went along, Leon's voice changed, and it was more and more sounding like noir, so eventually I bailed. I stopped reading at the 63% point, in the middle of the third story.
The Man-Kzin Wars by Larry Niven
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
What a confusing book. The ebook version I have has the cover of Book 4 of this series, yet the stories inside belonged to Book 1. Anyway! There were three stories in this book. The first, by Niven, was so amusingly dated. Published in 1966, though written long before that, astronauts on a spaceship smoked. The story's whole view of the future was so... cute? That humans would be so detached from violence that they couldn't even make themselves use words like 'war' anymore, they physically got sick and had to go into therapy if they did. I finished the whole story, but it did nothing at all for me.
The second story, by Poul Anderson, completely didn't work for me. Too hard science fiction-y, too dry, I skipped much of it. The third story, by Dean Ing, was more interesting (a human was captured by the cat-like Kzin and left as a prisoner on an empty planet), but still didn't hold my attention well enough to continue. Gave up on the book at the 74% mark.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 63% + 74%
Previous abandoned book total: 571%
New total: 708%
Currently reading: Shards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold. Edit: Hrm. Even though this is book #1, it's recommended as the second book to read? Oh well, it's the one I have, so sticking with it.
Traditional or self-published: Self-published? (From the "publisher's" website: "Evennight Books is a small publisher specializing in fiction by New Mexico writers. Formed in 2010 to bring P. G. Nagle’s backlist back into print...")
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
A collection of mystery-ish stories told from the POV of Leon, a cat geneteched to have opposable thumbs, human-level intelligence, and the ability to speak. In a somewhat logic-stretching move, a "small town" space station's security department bought one of these very very expensive cats to help them solve a case. Each of the other five stories in the book involve Leon and his human cop/partner solving other cases.
The first story (Leon as a kitten, just arriving on the space station, everything new to him) was the best by far. I would have rated the book higher, if it were only that story.
One of the reasons this book sat in my To Read pile so long was the title. To be honest, I had picked up this book expecting it to be so bad that it might be amusing. It wasn't bad at all -- it was exactly what it billed itself to be. I'm not a mystery book reader though, and the whole 'noir' genre doesn't work for me, so through my own fault, the book wasn't a good match for me. As the stories went along, Leon's voice changed, and it was more and more sounding like noir, so eventually I bailed. I stopped reading at the 63% point, in the middle of the third story.
The Man-Kzin Wars by Larry Niven
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
What a confusing book. The ebook version I have has the cover of Book 4 of this series, yet the stories inside belonged to Book 1. Anyway! There were three stories in this book. The first, by Niven, was so amusingly dated. Published in 1966, though written long before that, astronauts on a spaceship smoked. The story's whole view of the future was so... cute? That humans would be so detached from violence that they couldn't even make themselves use words like 'war' anymore, they physically got sick and had to go into therapy if they did. I finished the whole story, but it did nothing at all for me.
The second story, by Poul Anderson, completely didn't work for me. Too hard science fiction-y, too dry, I skipped much of it. The third story, by Dean Ing, was more interesting (a human was captured by the cat-like Kzin and left as a prisoner on an empty planet), but still didn't hold my attention well enough to continue. Gave up on the book at the 74% mark.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 63% + 74%
Previous abandoned book total: 571%
New total: 708%
Currently reading: Shards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold. Edit: Hrm. Even though this is book #1, it's recommended as the second book to read? Oh well, it's the one I have, so sticking with it.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 05:01 pm (UTC)I assume the first one listed is Falling Free?
If so, don't worry about that. It happens to be set in the same universe and is earliest in chronological order, but takes place hundreds of years earlier, with totally distinct characters in a different part of space, and is a standalone. (I haven't actually read it, but from what I know about it.) 'Shards' is definitely the first book of the series proper.
I hope you enjoy it! (This is one of the series nearest and dearest to my heart, so I really hope it's a hit for you!)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 05:57 pm (UTC)And thanks! I'm only a few pages in, but I love her writing so much. Book covers are so small on my Kindle, half the time I can't read the title/author, so this was just a wonderful surprise. "I have something from Lois McMaster Bujold waiting to read? Eeeee!" And it was so far down in my pile, too. Page 30 of 45-ish books!
no subject
Date: 2018-04-03 06:50 pm (UTC)Here's what you actually want, if you plan to read the series :)
- Shards of Honor
- Barrayar (if you can't find it as a standalone, it is also the second part of Cordelia's Honor omnibus)
- EITHER the Young Miles omnibus OR the novels that go into it, i.e. Warrior's Apprentice and The Vor Game (the omnibus also contains the short story in Dreamweaver's Dilemma, but there are other ways to get it)
- EITHER Cetaganda OR the Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem omnibus (which also contains a Miles short story -- but there's another way to get it -- and a standalone set in the universe but not featuring the Vorkosigan protagonists)
- IF you haven't been reading the omnibuses with the short stories, THEN Borders of Infinity (which collects the three Miles short stories with a very skippable framing story). If you HAVE been reading the omnibuses, you don't need this at all, but then make sure to get the next one as an omnibus, too, because that's where the best of the three short stories is omnibused.
- EITHER Miles Errant omnibus OR the two novels in it, Brothers in Arms and Mirror Dance
- Memory (no omnibus options for this one)
- EITHER the omnibus Miles in Love or the two novels it contains Komarr and A Civil Campaign. I recommend the omnibus in this case, as it also has a short story which is not collected anywhere else (though you can probably find it online at this point, same as everything else :P)
- Diplomatic Immunity (you can also find it in the Miles, Mutants, and Microbes omnibus, along with Falling Free, but like I said, that's not really connected to anything else)
- the next two books are CryoBurn and Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. CVA is first in in-universe chronology, CryoBurn was published first. I think you could read them in either order, but personally would recommend CryoBurn then CVA, for spoilery reasons
- Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
And haha, yeah, it's much harder to keep track of things on Kindle, I agree, or to spot things while browsing the to-read "stack" :)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 01:17 am (UTC)Glad you're enjoying her writing, Thistle; I enjoy the heck out of her.
(If you do want an interesting standalone SF novel with earnest, fun characters sometime, Falling Free really is worth it. The Spirit Ring is a standalone fantasy that... isn't, as much.)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 01:54 am (UTC)(I do plan to read Falling Free at some point -- I've sort of been keeping it back so there's a bit of Vorkosiverse that I haven't yet read for me to look forward to. But the Quaddies have not been very interesting to me in the main series, so it hasn't been very hard to resist reading it...)
Oh, Thistle, one thing I meant to add on the list and forgot: If you read the omnibuses, they will put the short stories in chronological order for you, in-between the novels. The Broders of Infinity omnibus/anthology will not. So from that perspective, I kind of prefer the omnibuses, if you have both options available to you and otherwise equivalent.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 04:57 am (UTC)(Falling Free is basically so unconnected as to be a totally different world, since it's like 200 years before Miles-era.)
Oh, and, since I'm here: If you want to take a break fro Vorkosiverse books, Thistle, but are enjoying Bujold, she has two different fantasy series you can read. The Wide Green World/The Sharing Knife is a series of four books set in an interesting world-with-magic in, inspired in part by her childhood in uh, Tennessee? Somewhere south of the Great Lakes, anyway. It's got a great cadence of speech. Same set of characters in all 4 books. It is, however, fantasy and also romance, genre-wise, so take that into account. (It infuriated me for various reasons, but one thing I give it, in spades, is that it has great sense of place.)
The other series is a set of books about the world of Chalion, and the theology/Gods/magic system/etc are interesting. The first two books are loosely connected, with some of the same characters; then there's a third one that's in a different era. (And some novellas about another character entirely that I haven't read yet.)
I love and adore the first two books in Chalion; the third one is pretty good too, though I don't throw it at anyone that asks.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-05 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 03:46 pm (UTC)On one hand, the covers being hard to see on the Kindle sometimes leads to wonderful surprises (like this time!), but on the other (larger) hand, I lose track of books and series much easier...