Well, I did.
Just started reading āThe Orphanmaster.ā Colonial (1660ās) New Amsterdam and a crazy (witchy?) person killing children.
Still slogging through āMoby Dick or The Whale.ā Neither has yet to make an appearance.
After House in the Cerulean Sea, I read The Cloven Viscount (Italo Calvino), The Twisted Ones (T. Kingfisher), and Raymond Chandlerās Farewell, My Lovely (book 2 of Philip Marlowe).
Finishing A Murder of Quality (2nd George Smiley book) tonight, then Guy Gavriel Kayās Tigana.
I mean, clearly people knew that. It just sort of reinforced for me how long I have lived under a rock.
That is quite a list. Iām interested in the two by Octavia Butler. Kindred is the only book of hers Iāve read.
ā¦adding books to my listā¦
Thanks for sharing, @LususNaturae!
Ditto; I read that last year. Iāve read all of NK Jemisinās novels except these two. I canāt explain every book I pick up because some make more sense than others.
I really like NK Jemisin. I liked her latest (The City We Became) a lot. Book one of a planned trilogy though.
The Perfectionists, by Simon Winchester
Piranesi was really good. I also feel good about reading 3 whole books in the lastā¦ year.. or whatever.
Now reading Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment that Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality
Just finished The End of October by Wright.
A novel virus races around the world, the US govt is unprepared, etcā¦ It almost reads like a documentary. It was published in 2020, but Iām not sure if it was written before Covid. If it was it was amazingly prescient.
Of course, the author upped the ante by raising the lethality of the virus and including military conflict.
All in all, a decent read, but would have enjoyed it more a year ago.
Just finished āThe Orphanmasterā by Zimmerman.
Acknowledgments impress upon the reader that great pains were made to make the history as accurate as possible, while adding a fictional component.
I finished The War I Finally Won.
After someone mentioned it above, I started The Big Sleep on audiobook - Elliott Gould is doing the reading. Iāve seen the movie a bunch of times, of course. So far the movie has turned out to be amazingly close to the book. I got this one on CD, so I ripped it to my phone. In addition to the annoyance of ripping, there are two issues - each CD has one big file, making it a hassle when my player loses the place, and two of the six CDs are scratched at the end and the ripped files are missing about 2 to 5 minutes, including the ending.
Picked up Dune. Put it down after 2 chapters. I know I didnāt give it a fair chance, but itās so cheesy. I thought Iād like this genre, though Iām not into Star Wars. Can anyone recommend I give Dune another chance?
I remember the beginning grabbing me in. If that doesnāt work for you, I donāt believe the rest will work for you either.
What Sci-Fi have you enjoyed in the past (Star Wars as reading I wouldnāt include). Asimov Foundation to be is a better gauge
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Hmm I guess maybe I donāt like Sci-Fi. Iāve read The Library at Mount Char recently and liked it, though I guess thatās more āfantasyā? I liked The Lord of the Rings and Dark Tower seriesā¦but those are more adventure/fantasy?
Maybe Iāve never read a Sci-Fi book before. Does Enderās Game count? I liked that one.
Enderās Game is childrenās Sci-Fi. Good, entertaining, but definitely for young readers.
I agree with PatientZā¦try Asimovās Foundation series. Not overly long individual books, but if you get into it thereās a bunch of them, including the Robot series.
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No, donāt give Dune another chance. It has some fun ideas, but itās always cheesy.
The problem with sci-fi is that itās great when youāre 14 and unassuming, then you stop being 14, but you still want sci-fi. You realize that all the sci-fi is over-the-top. The science and technology are not realistic, or else it is realistic but peopleās use of the technology is overly romantic. The characters, politics, institutions, etc. are 1-dimensional as hell and thereās too many lasers.
Anyway, I recommend William Gibson (the Burning Chrome short stories, Neuromancer, Count Zero, Pattern Recognition, Peripheral, Mona-Lisa Overdrive, etc.)
His earlier books are more immature and dramatic, but they are still smart. His later books are less āsci-fiā and less imaginative, but more mature.
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Yeah I think I read it back in HS. Sci-Fi may not be for me. Maybe Iāll stick with my āSci-Non-Fiā genre that I love to read 
Thanks everyone for the suggestions! Iāll give your recommendations another shot before giving up on the genre completely.