Welcome to Litsy!

Next up. This hotel chair isn't a bad reading spot. (I tagged along with hubby to a conference.)

1/? There's a risk with sci fi that the character development, even the plot will suffer in competition with the author's need to explore important ideas or inventive concepts.
Case in point: Seivarden's change of mind after the bridge accident felt a little too convenient for where the author wanted to take the story next, and I just wasn't as invested from that point on.

🚩🚩🚩

New favourite compound adjective found. 🌺🔅

My latest book mail. Thanks to Pango and Ebay.

10th Book of the year. This is actually a re-read.

Still confusing, listening to it for the first time. She just dumps you into an alien culture and you have to figure it out on your own. Will go on to book two soonish!

#Bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

January #Bookspin #Doublespin @TheAromaofBooks

June was an easy pick thanks to @Lizpixie. Ancillary Justice, and the other two books in the trilogy, was an amazing book, rich in well developed characters and excellent world building.
#12BooksOf2022 @Andrew65

#UnpopularOpinion

Not for me. Too much Bla, too little action. It reminded me of Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, of Wells's Murderbot and maybe Star Trek's Seven-of-Nine - but the story lacked Le Guin's world building skills and wasn't the least bit as funny as Wells's Murderbot.

DNF at 37%

#WinterReadathon
@Andrew65 @GHABI4ROSES @DieAReader

Just finished this for the second time, so I guess I like it 😂.

The narrative is not the most straight forward, bouncing between the narrator's timelines, and the narrator's differing perspectives (same narrator, more than one point of view). Interesting world building and raises neat questions about what is self. Looking forward to rereading the later books in the series.

📚 Tagged. One of the best books I've read this year.
✒ Poul Anderson
📽 Aliens
🎶 AC/DC
🎙 Ashes To Ashes - David Bowie

#manicmonday #LetterA @CBee

In terms of space opera and science fiction this, the beginning of the trilogy, has it. The world building at first was a bit confusing, but as the setting fell into focus, I was duly impressed by its vastness, complexity, and like any good epic, it‘s necessity to the story. In the class of The Expanse and the Culture novels by the late Ian M Banks, this is modern Sci-Fi at its best.

83/150 At first I wasn't sure about this book, I found the gender placement confusing, but once I got used to everyone, whether male or female, being addressed as she/her, I could delve to this amazing story. The character development and world building are first rate, I even felt a little sympathy for the villain. 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thank you again @Lizpixie for gifting this to me.
9th book for #BigJuneReadathon @Clwojick

1. Various locations within the Radchaai Empire.
2. Comedy, Comedy, Comedy, Drama by Bob Odenkirk.
3. The Splendid City by Karen Heuler (July 12th) sounds like a real hoot.
Thank you @jdiehr and @The_Penniless_Author for the tag.
#wonderouswednesday @Eggs
I'll tag @audraelizabeth @Buechersuechtling @ReadingIsMyHobby @Onceuponatime @TheBookDream @Daisey @Bookishlie @Sharpeipup @Cuilin @ReadingFeedsTheSoul @Lucy_Anywhere @Onepageatatime88

The body lay naked and facedown, deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

Allow me (Rocky) to present my two #roll100 choices for April. Have I read the March picks yet? Have I heck! But I fully intend to catch up and my Bookspin list will reflect this.

I've already read Neurotribes which was the third roll. WOOHOO!!!!!! Ahead of the game!

Does anyone else spend a long time hunting for the chosen books? 😄

And finished: #BookSpinBingo, just in time! Four minutes until midnight/March when I finished.

I love Ancillary Justice so much. I love how I grew to love Seivarden. (I gesticulated and rambled somewhat about it and my wife just went “ah, loyalty, I see“, like I'm totally predictable or something.)

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description or reason for wanting to read the book. Some are old and some will be new. Don't judge me - I have a lot of books.
Day 365

This is my last book of the day post. It's been a full year and, even though I have more books, it's a good stopping place. Its appropriate that I end with the generous gift from @Lizpixie

#tbrmountain #bookbuyingdiet

The shortest summary for this one is that a ship's ai, which previously inhabited many bodies, reflects on how they came to be only a single body. I loved quite a lot about this book. I especially liked how the ai's use only of feminine pronouns to describe all genders completely removed the importance of gender roles to the reader. I can see that being distressing for people who are regularly misgendered, though. #SciFi

I got in an audiobook and trash collection walk today. I picked up 66 pieces of trash (which I logged in Litterati) in a parking area of our local reservoir/recreation space. #AudioWalk #AudioBook #TrashCleanup

Thank you so much @Lizpixie for your wonderful gift. It arrived in today's mail. I haven't read this, but I have heard/seen many wonderful reviews.

Henry, Bluey, and I needed some sun. It's 80° here today, but breezy. Hoping to finally finish this one. I've been slogging through it all month.

I am really struggling with this one. Over 2 weeks and I'm only 250 pages in (of 384). I am enjoying the parts set in the present (?), but I just not following what's going on in the past sections. 😕

I'm not feeling all the love this one seems to get.

The way this story wrestles with empire, imperialism, colonialism, colonizers and the colonized is fascinating and pretty engrossing. I will be picking up the next one in the series soon.

Around 40% in and I thought I would DNF. Once the two timelines were united, the story really took a turn to the positive for me. I have put the next book in the series on my TBR.

#20Series20Days. Day Fourteen

I still have the third book to read in this trilogy, featuring Breq, an AI that once controlled a warship and thousands of human hybrid ancillaries, but who now is only one body and the sole survivor of Justice Torren. She‘s on a mission. Is it revenge? Or is she an unwitting pawn in a larger plot to bring down the Empire?

#20Series20Days Day 13

This award winning series is on my #Top20Series list by virtue of the story, world building (I‘m including the Imperial Radch trilogy & Provenance together), characters, AI (sentient spaceships!), writing...okay, for ALL the reasons really. It took me a while to wrap my head around the first book but once I did I was all in & then the series kept getting better! Excellent science fiction. 🚀 💫 🚀

@Andrew65

Once I let the story develop a bit it became more and more addicting. Exciting ending, unexpected events. Delightful.

I was looking for a SciFi series different from the ones I‘ve been reading lately and “Ancillary Justice” fit the bill. While it took some time the grow on me, it ultimately did and I enjoyed reading it. I‘ll be checking out the follow up, “Ancillary Sword”, soon.

I am in an anxious mood, not suitable for reading new stories, so I am listening to the adventures of my old friend Brek. This is the kind of involved, complicated book that you can read again and again; and it helps to know the story ends well👽

Very glad I grabbed some sunny reading time in the hammock yesterday. Fireside reading this evening. #springsnow

Starting a new book in a hammock at my parents house in the mountains. What does your Saturday afternoon look like?

So April is my first month participating in #BookSpin so not sure what the rules are about end of month posting.

I read my #doublespin and #triplespin books and enjoyed them. However, I just could not get into the tagged book. I started reading and got 20 pages in but I felt like I was playing catch-up the whole time. I had no idea what was going on. I don‘t want to completely bail because I liked Provenance (set in same world) 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Here are my #BookSpin books for April

Tagged is #BookSpin
Mortal Heart is #DoubleSpin
Kill the Farm Boy is the #TripleSpin

Let‘s see if I read them all!

If you want some sci fi that grapples with colonialism this is for you. We follow Breq - in the past as a soldier in a colonising army, one of thousands of human bodies powered by a spaceship AI mind - and in the present where she is alone, her AI mind the last piece fractured from the ship and bodies she used to inhabit. There is a mystery here to be solved as well as a complex galaxy of planets with different cultures and politics ⬇️

#weeklyforecast

This is what I‘m targeting this week 😂 (background is an artwork of arrows and targets) Need to finish Ancillary Justice which is SOOOO GOOD, and Home Remedies. Then two shortish ones - the new Seanan Mcguire and a short story collection from a “forgotten” NZ author Greville Texidor. Saw it in an indie bookshop and it called to me. Then Giant Days is comfort reading and (not pictured) some audio Harry Potter 👍

I bought this book 3.5 years ago. I tried reading it multiple times. I tried again after reading Becky Chamber's book where a ship is also transferred to a human body, and it was easier for me to read. The first 80% of the book was still really slow reading. But I really liked the last 20%!

I never really figured out what was going on. No physical description and everyone gets female pronouns irrespective of gender. The lead acts on unknown impulse for unknown reasons — until she doesn‘t anymore. Seivarden changes personality halfway through for unexplained reason. I could never figure out anyone‘s motivation — hero, villain, bit players. No one will disobey the Lord! Everyone is disobeying the Lord! If I do this they must ... Why?

2019 Summary.
It was a good year for reading. Only one clunker. 60 good and really good books. 2019 was a good vintage. Diverse. Mostly women authors. Lots of good romances, mysteries and historical.

Just finished it last night and I can't wait to start the next book in the series (after some Blake Crouch and James S.A. Corey detours). It took a bit to understand and get used to the “multiple personalities“ of the heroine and the gender approach but there are so many original ideas that I loved it in the end. I recommend it a lot but make sure you give it some time to understand how the narratives (and main character “facets“) tie together.

It's not really a secret that I love space operas and I love books that examine and grapple with the concept of empire and civilization so honestly I'm shocked it took me this long to read Ancillary Justice. It took me a second to get accustomed to the diffused nature of the narrator but I dig it so much. Definitely going to pick up the next novel.

I‘m in the middle of 13 Narratives at the moment.

if everyone were to consider all the possible consequences of all one‘s possible choices, no one would move a millimeter, or even dare to breathe for fear of the ultimate results.

Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It‘s just easier to handle those with emotions.

This book came very highly recommended, but I‘m finding it practically incomprehensible. Am I just not smart enough?

“Justice of Ente Seven Issa did many things One Esk did not ...”

“She was probably Male, to judge from the angular mazelike patterns quilting her shirt...”

Are these words? Do they form sentences? What?

Mini haul... Only one of them for me 😁😁

"Mommy, take a picture of me with your new book cart!" ❤

Having a rough night. Need a little escapism and Hollow Kingdom (while very well written) was a little too apocalyptic for me after just finishing Severance by Ling Ma. If the world is ending, I'd rather it be in space.

You know it's good because I want to stay up and finish rereading it, even though this is at least the fourth time I've read it, and even though I need to be up in the morning to get to the Leeds anti-prorogation protest in time...

Not sure how many hours or even books I've read, but I've certainly had some quality reading time, so yay! Last day of the #SummersEndReadathon ! :)

@Clwojick

Another reread for pure joy. Not sure why I didn't get into this waaay back the first time I read it; I'm always hopelessly sucked right in now.

#SummersEndReadathon @Clwojick