Recently Read Books

Read these four since my last post:

Quite satirical sci-fi. Very entertaining little read.

This numbers among the best books I've ever read. 

The first three (rather short) Hainish Cycle books in one volume. I guess you can mostly read this series in any order, but I'm going in publication. 

I enjoyed this one. An easy to read mystery. I mostly have read the so called Nordic Noirs in this genre, but this one is set in my own country, not quite my neck of the woods but relatively close as far as England goes. 

First book finished in 2023, though I'd read around half in the last couple of days of 2022. Excellent and dark thriller from Iceland. 

The 'sequel' to Perdido Street Station, which left me in awe last year. I say sequel in quotes because it's only loosely connected to that book, with a new cast of characters but the story does start as a result of that book's events. Anyway, this is overall the third China Mieville I've read and he's well on his way to being ranked among my favourite authors. He's probably there already actually. This trilogy is proving one of the most unusual fantasy settings I've read and he has a brilliantly descriptive way of writing that really brings his work to life. About 800 pages long this one; read it in a week. A real page turner. 

Fortunately I have this one in the original SF Masterworks print without this Godawful discolouration. Amazing book. Not necessarily the easiest reading but compelling and thought provoking. Should probably be recognised more often as an actual classic along with the prior book The Left Hand of Darkness. I'd call both essential reading. 

Betters the first one I think. Went through this in a few days. 

Satirical fantasy. A thoroughly entertaining little read. 

Yeah, I found it was an amazing setting with some great characters, who ended up doing nothing consequential.

Both solid. The latter has a very slight supernatural slant as well. 

Fantasy, but with a higher technology base than the usual medieval inspired setting. Great book but the ending was a bit too abrupt for me. I'm left hoping Tchaokovsky returns to this world one day, preferably with the same lead character. 

Probably the hardest going Tchaikovsky book I've read so far, which doesn't mean it's less of the brilliance I've come to expect from his books. This is often heralded as his masterpiece, and it probably is, considering I'm a massive Arachnophobe and this had me rooting for the fucking spiders...