June reading list

[cahn]

As I expected when I started this June reading thing, my reading has outstripped my capacity to write about it, not least because all my spare time right now is going to getting this irksome opera PPT done. (I don't read in spare time, I read while multitasking other things.) I am still planning to get to most of these books, but in the meantime here's a list, in rough order of how fascinated I was with it (not completely correlated with how much I liked it), with a couple of words about each one:

*: am definitely planning to write something at least a little more about this, may not be in June proper
~: read for Hugos
+: read as a direct result of reading An Informal History of the Hugos

*~1. An Informal History of the Hugos (Walton) - VOTE FOR WALTON
*~2. Ursula K. Le Guin - Conversations on Writing(Le Guin, Naimon) - Even slight Le Guin is good Le Guin
*~3. The Poppy War (Kuang) - Let's seriously give this person a Campbell already, this is brilliant and ambitious and historically rooted, also very grimdark ALL the content warnings (also! only 2.99 on kindle)
*+4. Xenocide (Card), partial reread ("Gloriously Bright" sections) - I'm so confused as to whether Card knows what he's doing here with the competing religious subtexts, I think he must but...
*+5. Doomsday Book (Willis), partial reread (last third) - I love the last third of this, and I don't agree with a specific thing Walton says in her writeup, in this essay I will
+6. The Last Defender of Camelot (Zelazny, anthology, reread) - this was fine, nice to reread, not much more to say
~7. Belles (DNF) - first person present tense, need I say more, though better than Children of Blood and Bone

Comments

[schneefink]

"The Poppy War" is on my reading list. Which content warnings would you add? Does it have an overall pessimistic/hopeless atmosphere?, that's not the kind of thing I want to read at the moment.

[forestofglory]

Jo Walton's book reviews do that to me too! She's really good at making you want to read things!

[ambyr]

I did finish The Belles, but the First Person Present Tense struggle is real.

[snickfic]

I think Last Defender of Camelot might be my favorite Zelazny anthology. It's got some real favorites in there, like Auto da Fe and Comes Now the Power. Hmm, I feel a reread coming on...

[iberiandoctor]

I remember enjoying Xenocide (greatly, even; largely Lusitania, but I did also enjoy Path and the Gloriously Bright sections), though I clearly don't remember the competing religious subtexts quite enough! What did you enjoy/were you confused about Card's authorial motivations?