What book did you just read and how was it?

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mdf

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#3223807 28-Apr-2024 20:11

I'm currently enjoying the Perfect Run series by Maxime J Durand (Void Herald). Halfway through book 2.really good. Very good premise and the author makes incredible use of it.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57065516

blackjack17

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#3272820 17-Aug-2024 11:25

Red Rising trilogy

What a wild ride this series was. Starts off seeming like a standard YA book but set on Mars, then goes crazy sci-fi, then r18 hunger games, then epic sci-fi again with massive in your face political/racial commentary.

That being said enjoyable book and would recommend.

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TLD

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#3297056 13-Oct-2024 22:03

Looking back through the last few pages of this thread, and the slight negativity regards the Jack Reacher stories as written by Lee's brother Andrew, and I am reminded that it is October, and the next book is due out soon. In Too Deep is released on the 22nd of October. I think Andrew is taking the series in a rather racy direction as the new book starts with Reacher handcuffed to a bed. Obviously a waste of time as he could easily bite through the chain, but perhaps he wants to be handcuffed.

I feel like I have read/listened to a lot of very average books recently, the exceptions being the latest Stephen Leather (Spider Shepherd) and Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp 23 'Capture or Kill'. There's a reference to one of the characters reading a Grey Man book which I thought was amusing. I am currently working through Scott Blade's (that can't possibly be his real name) Jack Widow books, and really enjoying them. I also discovered several Mick Herron short stories and Novellas that were new to me, and they were solid gold. He is probably my favourite author, and I love the TV series.

Otherwise, I am looking through the list of my recent reads and it is making me depressed. So many authors are trying to cash in on the endless series of edgy character stories, and most of them are shite.

Trevor Dennis
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Coon

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#3297074 14-Oct-2024 01:46

Tress of the emerald sea, the beginning reminded me of babel series from josiah bancroft

i liked it more than the sunlit man

the preview releases of wind and truth have been hit and miss for me. but still anything is better than no wind of winter

networkn

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#3349237 2-Mar-2025 17:25

Lee Child - In Too Deep

The least enjoyable book from the 28th. Yawn.

This isn't Jack. This is some numbed down, dumbed down character.

Just so disappointing.

3/10

lachlanw

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#3349246 2-Mar-2025 19:06

blackjack17:

Red Rising trilogy

What a wild ride this series was. Starts off seeming like a standard YA book but set on Mars, then goes crazy sci-fi, then r18 hunger games, then epic sci-fi again with massive in your face political/racial commentary.

That being said enjoyable book and would recommend.

So so good, hardest thing is getting people past the first half of the first book. Can't recommend highly enough. Only issue for me has been finding a series to follow it up with.

Stu

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#3349250 2-Mar-2025 19:22

Almost finished book 12 of the Craig Alanson "Expeditionary Force" series. According to Kindle I've read every day for the last 186 days. Pretty sure that's just this series. Not as consistent prior to that, but still been 49 weeks in a row.

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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mdf

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#3349253 2-Mar-2025 19:35

lachlanw:

<snip> Only issue for me has been finding a series to follow it up with.

The sequel trilogy?

vexxxboy

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#3349259 2-Mar-2025 20:08

Just finished the Max Woolfe series by Tony Parsons, very good. Quite violent but really well written and plotted.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/123035-max-wolfe

Common sense is not as common as you think.

TLD

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#3349297 2-Mar-2025 23:20

Totally agree about the last Jack Reacher book 'In Too Deep'. It's a real stinker. Not the worst book I've read recently because I finished it.

The Scott Blade Jack Widow books are a blatant rip off of the Jack Reacher character, but they are way more readable than the recent Reacher books.

Speaking of finishing a book, I gave up half way through Kimberly Chambers Mitchells & O'Haras book number two, having already listened to her first two Butlers books. This is east end gangster vs Irish Travellers, and full of the most vile characters you'd ever hope not to meet. The plot twists were entirely predictable, and I just wished they'd acted out the Genesis track Battle of Epping Forest, and killed each other.

Nick Pirog: 3AM series — give them a miss

Cixin Liu: 3 Body Problem — I made a real effort to like this book because of all the hype, but it was a relief to get to the end. An end that just seemed to stop with no real conclusion. I have 23 of his audiobooks but I can't bring myself to try another one.

Currently listening to David Baldacci: To Die For. Always a safe read, and very welcome after the shite I have endured recently.

Hey, has anyone read any of the Scott Maiani Ben Hope books? There are a good few of them, and they are well written and mostly enjoyable, but I am convinced that the author is off his rocker. The lead character is an ex-soldier who had studied to become a priest, but there was not enough blood and guts in that line, so he took to helping people like The Equalizer with a dog collar. Every baddy in the books is an atheist, and he several times uses arguments like Hitler was an atheist, therefore all atheists are the work of the devil. I put up with it till book: 15 in which a famous scientist says that man-made climate change is a conspiracy created by big businesses that have a vested interest in continuing the lie. I gave up on the book, and all its sequels, before the author claimed that climate change was mostly caused by atheists.

Trevor Dennis
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Bee

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#3373869 17-May-2025 10:28

Just adding myself to this thread. When I was younger I used to read a lot, mainly fantasy and sci fi, then technology and especially social media took over the spare time...

But it's come to a point for me where FB feeds me ads instead of my friends posts and 'doom scrolling' is feeling like a terrible addiction, so it's time to replace that with reading - a healthier addiction and easier on the data too 🙂

let's see how long it lasts.

Doing your best is much more important than being the best.

Stu

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#3373870 17-May-2025 10:30

Stu:

Almost finished book 12 of the Craig Alanson "Expeditionary Force" series. According to Kindle I've read every day for the last 186 days. Pretty sure that's just this series. Not as consistent prior to that, but still been 49 weeks in a row.

Currently on book 16

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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Tinkerisk

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#3374167 17-May-2025 16:14

Ikigai - Ken Mogy. A non-ideological, philosophical view that suits me very well and enriches me.

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TLD

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#3374314 18-May-2025 13:21

I'm having to think what I have listened to since last posting to this thread. I have been less likely to carry on with a book that I am not enjoying than I used to be, and have abandoned several books before the end.

I have just finished binging through Mark Dawson's Isabella Rose books, and was bereft to come to the current end of the series, which currently stands at six books. They have it all: She is moral, powerful in a believable way without having daft superpowers like a Marvel character. Her character develops throughout the series with some excellent plot twists that I didn't see coming. Characters who we know from the Johnathon Quinn and Group 15 books feature, and those plot twists I mentioned slot into the storylines so well, you have to think they were planned from other books and series from way way back, which is ether super clever, or shows incredible forethought and patience.

The DCI Walker books by JJ Richards were a good read. It's classic detective with the inevitable clichés — he quit because he stretches what the police procedure manual says is OK, and his risk averse, utterly woke, bosses didn't like it. However, he is such a bloody genius, an ex-colleague persuades him to help out. The master stroke is that he discovers a socially awkward young lady doing admin at the station who really is a genius, and she becomes his cute and lovable sidekick. Not as exciting as Isabella Rose, but well worth a read.

Stella Rimington, the once boss of the UK's MI5, now writes amazing books. They are as clever and beautifully written as the John le Carré spy thrillers. Every one of her books is a 10/10.

Just so you know, I am leaving out a ton of books I don't even want to write about, but I have to mention Neal Asher. Possibly my all-time favourite books are Iain M Banks Culture series. When I started reading Neal Asher's The Engineer Reconditioned, I thought for a few moments that I might have found something similar. The universe was complex and I initially thought it sophisticated, but I was very soon disabused of that opinion finding the writing came across as like some of the very early Sci-Fi books being old fashioned and nothing like Iain Banks — with or without the M. I could maybe have stuck it out a bit longer, but I was too disappointed that this was nothing like the Culture books, and gave up on it.

I mentioned Tom Wood's Victor the Assassin series in a Geekzone book thread before, and enjoyed those again.

Nathan Burrow's Preacher books (three that I know of) were pretty good. I was not pleased that the lead character is a God Botherer, but he made up for it with lots of mindless violence. I'll read those again one day.

Nick Jones' Joeseph Bridgeman time travel books starting with 'And Then She Vanished'. Different enough to be interesting, and worth a read. Maybe a 7/10

David Paul Colins — 'An Improbable Spy' was pretty good. A bit grim, but going to Iran to spy is never going to end well.

That takes me back to March, and misses out the books I finished, but wouldn't want to risk recommending.

Trevor Dennis
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Handle9

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#3376280 24-May-2025 07:02

Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen.

It is what it says on the tin, it's the story of the 1940s and 50s communist hysteria and associated witchhunts in America.

Really accessible and a very easy read of what is a fairly shitty period in American history. It's well worth a read.

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