RanaldClouston, ranaldclouston@fediscience.org

First time reading Emma by #JaneAusten , and although it took me a long time to get into (very slow moving, more dialogue than I think I've ever seen in a novel before, and knowing most of the plot twists from Clueless probably didn't help) it was well worth reading. A book like this certainly doesn't need a review from me, in any case! I was amused that the edition I read faithfully preserved Austen's original typos, including writing reticule as 'ridicule'. @bookstodon #bookstodon

Page 1 features the most #GregEgan quote ever: "The number of parallel worlds is uncountably infinite - infinite like the real numbers, not merely like the integers". This 1995 collection is significantly earlier work than the other Egan collection I own (Oceanic), and I must admit I prefer the ultra far future Amalgam universe approach of his more recent stories, but this is still a very solid collection. @bookstodon #Bookstodon #SciFi

I recently read and absolutely loved a collection of stories about the iconic French gentleman burglar Arsène Lupin. This slightly later (1909) collection was flabbier and less to my taste, but #MauriceLeBlanc was certainly ahead of his time with his Dan Brown style pseudohistorical mystery, and I did enjoy Lupin's exasperation at his 'villain' monologue repeatedly being interrupted by police breaking his doors down. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Reread this #ChinaMiéville ; a pure fun adventure in a postapocalyptic world of twisting rails across ground infested by giant creatures, and the molers, pirates, and explorers who travel around it in trains. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Finished another of my growing collection of gigantic #GardnerDozois anthologies of best short sci fi from a year - this one, 2014. These collections are always so good, and diverse in themes and moods. #NancyKress ends this one on a particularly high note with her terrific novella 'Yesterday's Kin'. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

In between buying this and picking it up to read, I read a really boring biography about neurologist / author #OliverSacks and that put me off reading about his life for a few years! But this is actually quite a wonderful, weird little book, narrating the golden age of chemistry through the eyes of an obsessive little boy rediscovering it in his home lab. Touches on themes of trauma (WW2, boarding school abuse) in a subtle but affecting way. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

I've enjoyed a lot of #AdrianTchaivoksky over the last two years - TheStorygraph tells me that he is my most read author over this period - but mostly read his shorter fiction and standalone novels. Turns out, he does epic scope even better. Spanning thousands of years, we switch between a cast of humans in deep space coming in and out of cold storage, and the artificially accelerated evolution towards intelligence of Earth's arachnids and insects on a terraformed exo planet. Genuinely exceptional. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

This is the most fun I've had with a book in some time! The heists of master thief Arsène Lupin, published in 1907, are fresh, funny, and ingenious, from the main plots to the little details - like the break-in to a baron's home where nothing is taken, but a card is left, reading "Will return when the furniture is genuine". Read by me on the recommendation of my 10yo daughter! #MauriceLeblanc #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Finished reading #EMForster 's 1908 romance. There were parts I really liked but some of the characters feel much more alive than others - with George very much in the latter category - and while Lucy's 'muddle' is quite nicely drawn I would have liked to see her do a bit more than follow other people's instructions all story long. A classic in its way but not really for me. I haven't seen the adaptation that the cover advertises but it does have a remarkably good cast! #Bookstodon @bookstodon

I'm not much of a fan of Black Mirror style high concept sci fi (the near future is here, and guess what? It sucks!) but this #SamantaSchweblin novel about moving soft toys controlled by internet strangers looked for the longest time like it would avoid the cliches of the genre, and make space for something more conflicted and ambiguous. Until (if you can forgive very vague spoilers) the resolving chapters happened and it turns out that, yes, the near future does indeed suck after all, in exactly the ways you would expect. Very different from the incredible surreal short story collection I'd read from Schweblin previously. Translated by #MeganMcDowell . #Bookstodon @bookstodon

This was my absolute favourite book for part of my childhood. Does it hold up? Not really, sadly, as today I see clunky prose and dialogue, a ridiculously arrogant protagonist in an all-male cast, and repetitive action. Oddly I've read other #AEvanVogt in recent years and enjoyed them more - I appreciate his surreal side these days, which isn't featured so strongly here. This book is apparently important to the history of #SciFi , as the 1939 short story Black Destroyer which was expanded into this novel is considered by some the start of the genre's Golden Age, so that adds interest, as does the nostalgic factor of trying to remember exactly how this story plunged so deeply into my brain when I first encountered it. For all its flaws, there is *something* mind expanding and exciting here in its story of human explorers meeting increasingly powerful and threatening alien races. I can't go back to who I was when I loved this book, but it was still fascinating to revisit. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

#FinishedReading a 1950s vampire novella which, thanks to George A. Romero, ended up setting the blueprint for dozens of zombie movies. The main character, alone amongst the shambling hordes for almost the whole story, is sometimes pretty unpleasant company, but his dark sides, and even his outbursts of bigotry, pay off as we hit the ending of this thematically deep little masterpiece. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #RichardMatheson

#FinishedReading a history of measurement, from notched wolf bones to nilometers, and colonial land surveys to IQ tests. An interesting piece of critical popular history / science by journalist #JamesVincent . I'm mostly not one of the chronic self measurers that are discussed in this book, but I am informed by The Storygraph that I've read 11,634 pages so far this year, across 33 books. Any fellow book counters here? #Bookstodon @bookstodon

#FinishedReading this story of a medium teaming up with a ghost to solve their murder on WW1's western front. I suspect this is perfect comfort reading for somebody, but it didn't do it for me; for all that there are spies, ghosts, and assassins, and lots of characters moving back and forth, it struck me as quite predictable and morally simplistic. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

#FinishedReading my latest in a growing pile of completed books by the ridiculously prolific but somehow still reliably good #AdrianTchaivovsky . This is one of the most impressive books about an imagined alien biology I've read, and the central battle of revolutionaries vs totalitarianism is rousing and exciting. I did find the narrator a little annoying, although their quips do provide for some good satire about science, politics, and their intersection. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

#FinishedReading the short stories of #AnnLeckie . The book is split into planetary #SciFi from her Imperial Radch universe, #fantasy fables in the world of Raven Tower, and miscellaneous stories. The connections to her novels are weak enough that you could read them without worrying about spoilers or missing context. If you want a hilarious, albeit not exactly representative, sample, 'The Sad History of the Tearless Onion' is only a page long and available on her website: annleckie.com/onion.html. The quality level is maybe not quite as superlative as her incredible novels but I'd still read anything Ann Leckie writes. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

#FinishedReading this surrealist psychological novel, in which a delusional amnesiac is hospitalized, with a narrative flicking back and forth between his elaborate fantasies and the attempts of doctors to treat / pacify him. This strange novel swings widely in tone and sometimes has very strong 'person describing their dream to you' energy. At its best, as in the 'briefing' of the title, it is a weirdly compelling blend of environmental panic, mysticism, extreme scepticism about science, and many more things that #DorisLessing throws into the mix. I didn't love it and it is not exactly a book that tries to be loved - at times deliberately repetitive, alienating, or deflating - but it was definitely interesting. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Picked up from the library on a @bookstodon #Bookstodon recommendation (h/t @dbsalk ), an adventure story of a badass demon-fighting medieval Islamic pirate who happens to also be a middle age mum with a bad knee. I never quite bought the characters as belonging to the time period - their voices seemed very modern - but definitely ticks the box as a rollicking good fun piece of wish fulfilment. #ShannonChakraborty #FinishedReading