Largely agree with your post, except for this. I thought Dead Air was great and a real return to form after The Business which I found very weak, and I loved Transition but it does seem to fit more with the āMā books.
Also I really didnāt enjoy Whit at the time, itās one Iāve never re-read, maybe I should give it a re-appraisal.
canāt watch it at work, didnāt really pay attention to it when I saw it the other night until I saw āThe Passageā at the end and I couldnāt be arsed to rewind. Iām not holding out much hope but will probably watch it anyway!
I mean Iām criticising it, but thatās 100% what a top molecular biologist would say if they were informing a room of other top molecular biologists that they were facing a global pandemic.
finished Roadside Picnic this week. can see why people are amazed that Jeff VanderMeer says heās never read it - clearly very close to Annihilation, but I think thereās enough differences to make Annihilation worthwhile. anyway, thought it was brilliant. very much looking forward to watching Stalker for the first time now.
I saw Becky Chambersā name mentioned and praised a few times on this board and it eventually stuck and I ordered ā¦Small Angry Planet online a week or two ago. I started reading it a couple of days ago and decided that I was really quite enjoying it after 20 pages or so, and then ended up ordering the next two books also. So that will be my reading for the next couple of weeks sorted!
Iāve recently finished a few other sci fi books. PKKās A Scanner Darkly (wasnāt too fussed with it), Banksā The Algebraist (really good) and Transition (started a bit slowly, ended up quite enjoying it, but then fizzling out a bit by the end). I also attempted The Difference Engine by Gibson & Sterling, but it felt like a slog so I decided to give it up, which isnāt something I do often but felt like the right decision.
Anyhow, hopefully the Wayfarers books will zoom by!
Yeah pretty dark. I think the best bit is where they check out the signal theyāre getting from the US west coast but I also found it hard to really enjoy the sexism of the time portrayed in it. That really dragged on me adding a layer of horror he never intended.
I donāt really listen to podcasts but thought Iād give it a go, although I didnāt like the main two guys unfortunately. Their guest sounded interesting but I decided to give up after twenty minutes (the Ursula speech before then was my favourite bit). I do need to find some more female authors to read, but I donāt think Iāll personally be able to discover them from podcasts!
I need to re-read that one, itās one of the few of his sci-fi I havenāt gone back to. Not sure why as I enjoyed it the first time. However I have just started the Malazan books again (already!), Gardens of the Moon is making much more sense the 2nd time around!
Have finished all three of the Wayfarers books now. I loved the first one, the second one was good, but had some slow bits, whilst the third one had too many slow/uninteresting bits. It seemed to get a bit more interesting about halfway through, but fizzled out again, so was a bit disappointing unfortunately.
Just posted above your posts - I loved the first, but the third made me uncertain if Iād want to continue if there are any othersā¦ Unless it goes back to the Wayfarer itself maybe!