Thought it’d be fun to share what everyone has been reading. I’ll try to include titles and authors to make finding more information on them easier as well as a brief synopsis and my thoughts.
I had a lot of travel this week and speed through “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Great read with very interesting ideas and payoff that had me hooked. Covers human uplifting of other species, their development, and interactions afterwards.
I’ve also been working on “Strontium Dog” from 2000 A.D. comics (hey, it’s sci-fi and it’s printed) and made it through most of Vol. 3. In short, the main character Johnny Alpha is a mutant who’s only available employment is as a bounty hunter. Very fun read in general, although part of the main beats in this volume are sad.
Started a new novel and continued working on my audiobook but I’ll save my thoughts on that for next week / when I finish them.
I haven’t actually read anything outside of the Xeelee sequence. And even then I’m not 100% through Xeelee yet. I like to bounce around between authors frequently :)
I have particularly fond memories of the first four or five Xeelee books. In particular Raft (#1), Flux (#3), and Ring (#4). Timelike Infinity (book #2) sets the stage well for the universe at large and Flux (#3) almost seems like a regression until you start getting towards the end. But it really gets underway in Ring (#4) and you start to go “ooooh, this is why it’s called the Xeelee sequence”. At a minimum, I’d read those four in order to get a good handle on the series. Then, if you’re like me, read something else for a while and return. :)
Thank you so much! Excited to get into the series, and most likely will be following your advice about books 1-4.