Yeah, I was surprised I liked it that much based off of what I was hearing. ROFL

Everyone was telling me to “tough it out” with GotM.

It's a tough read, I think, in that it bounced so much and is "hard" fantasy, similar to "hard" scifi.

Stephenson's best, imho, was Cryptonomicon with Reamde coming in a close second (didn't think I'd like that one at all). Seveneves was good to very good, but not his best.

I agree with Cryptonomicon. The Diamond Age was one of my favorites too, although it's been a long time since I read it.

I too enjoyed GotM. There are many other series that had tougher books to get through. (I'm looking at you Robert Jordan. :cuss:)

I’m used to the bouncing around. The ending did feel just a little anticlimactic but it’s a ten-part series. Some of the magic/warrens and gods stuff was hard to follow but I found some spoiler free guides that helped along with the appendix.

I'm halfway through Memories of Ice (book 3) and I finally have the Gods and the warrens down pat. I think. I'm pretty sure 'Hood's balls!' is one of them.

Sweet. Next you get to learn about Holds.

Pretty decent discussion group on FB for MBOTF.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2224881237/

Oh, and Steven Erikson is a MUST follow on FB.

Anyone read The Underground Railway, 2017 Arthur C. Clarke award winner as Sci-Fi Book of the Year?

*sigh* Not science fiction at all.

Noticed when it won it sounded like historical fiction.

People will attach “sci fi” to just about anything these days.

Maybe but the A.C. Clarke Award committee isn't just "people", or it didn't used to be. They carry one of the most prestigious names in sci-fi and their short list has been a reliable source of good-to-great sci-fi reading for a very long time.
It saddens me to see they've allowed their good name and standards to be lowered in a ham-handed attempt at social justice engineering.

I haven't read it, but if what I've read about it is true, that being it mixes historical fact with fantastical imagery, similar to something like Gulliver's Travels, then I don't see an issue with awarding it a genre award.

As far as whether it's pure "scifi" goes, fantasy and science fiction have been intertwined for decades now, and the trip to horror isn't very far beyond them. Science fiction, taken by itself, can basically borrow from/fall into any genre, from history to thriller to noir to western to fantasy to post-apocalyptic to far-future, etc.

Really, what difference does it make. It sounds like an amazing book.