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What are you reading? (April 2014)

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N

nakedsushi

Member
Plasticine said:
Thanks. I already grabbed The Shining a few days ago. Went ahead and grabbed 1963 as well. Kind of wish the price dropped lower on his older titles. I don't really feel like spending $5 - $8 for Kindle versions of 'Salem's Lot, Carrie or Night Shift. But that's a pricing problem for backlist titles in general. Big publishers just ask way too much.
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Does you library lend ebooks?
 
F

Fusebox

Banned
Jag said:
Bunch of King Kindle stuff on sale at Amazon, but the real bargain is the enhanced edition of 11/22/63 with audio/video for $2.99.
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Nice one! I bought it for iBooks when it first fame out but iBooks is pretty much dead to me now so I'm gonna rebuy it.

It's still the only King book I don't actually own the physical book of but the rest of the collection is boxed and stored away anyway. Kindle > bookshelves for my house.

Edit : geez you were right about it being the standout bargain, most of his other books haven't dropped much at all.
 
P

Plasticine

Member
nakedsushi said:
Does you library lend ebooks?
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They do, but I wouldn't want to get the titles in question from the library. I've already read them. I'd be purchasing them to permanently have them on my Kindle. I'd do that a lot more if the large publishers changed their pricing practices.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
Finished 'The Martian', my review is as follows..
Really wanted to like this a lot more. I'll always love survival stories, and the only part of the book that really ever works is when it purely focuses on Mark trying to survive. But even that never really works because it just gets too bogged down in technical discussions, units of measurement (a ridiculous moment of him creating his own), and because it feels much more science fact than science fiction, it ends up reading like a textbook at times. When it does try to be a fun read, the humour just never works and feels completely goofy in contrast to how serious this situation should be, which makes the tone of this feel all over the place. With all that negativity, I did reach a point where I wanted to know what happened, it just could've happened in a much better way.
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Now to decide what's next.
 
H

hythloday

Member
I'm still plugging away at The Shadow Rising (Wheel of Time Book 4).

It's definitely starting to feel like the books have a formula of being slow, then they get great, then the book ends. For the first half or so I was plodding along, now I'm getting to some crazy shit about 70% in.
Oh my god they stilled the Amyrlin Seat, those BITCHES.

I will probably read something else as a palate cleanser before starting #5. This is a super long series.
 
S

striferser

Huge Nickleback Fan
Fusebox said:
AYNIK is a great fun book, I'm looking forward to the movie. What's the Viz edition?

Edit: googled it myself, the Viz is just the comic of the book??
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Yeah, it is a great book, i enjoy it and finish it in two sitting.

for you question:
It's the light novel one with all the inside illustration cut by, i meant to write published by Viz Media. Sorry for the confusion

RottenTanuki said:
His other book Slum Online is pretty good too.
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Thank you for the recommendation will definitely put this on my buy list
 
S

ShaneB

Member
postcyberpunk said:
I was on the fence about this so thanks for the review.
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If it's something you're interested in, I think it's still worth checking out, because some people certainly did seem to like it a lot, but it never clicked with me fully as I described.

Picked up the kindle daily "A Land More Kind Than Home". Looks like something I should like.
 
P

postcyberpunk

Banned
ShaneB said:
If it's something you're interested in, I think it's still worth checking out, because some people certainly did seem to like it a lot, but it never clicked with me fully as I described.
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Okay, not for ten (Kindle) then, but eventually.

Oh, I also started The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, by Ronay, Jr.

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Really good, though highly academic, book of sf theory.
 
T

Teptom

Member
Just started reading this:

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I wish I could have sent Asimov a letter. Considering he replied to about ninety percent of the letters he got, I most likely would have gotten a reply. Even if it was only a couple sentences long, it would be one of my most cherished possessions.
 
L

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Finished reading The Quiet American by Graham Greene it was wonderful. I'm amazed how fucking good his dialogue appears to be in his written work, considering how high-quality the dialogue of The Third Man was.
 
F

Fusebox

Banned
striferser said:
Yeah, it is a great book, i enjoy it and finish it in two sitting.

for you question:
It's the light novel one with all the inside illustration cut by, i meant to write published by Viz Media. Sorry for the confusion



Thank you for the recommendation will definitely put this on my buy list
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So it's the full book with all the text but pictures scattered throughout to accompany or something? If so that sounds terrific. Can I see a sample anywhere?
 
M

Maklershed

Member
Not sure what I wanna read next. I'm thinking ...

Revelation Space
Heir to the Empire (Star Wars Thawn Trilogy 1)
Dust
Sand

Any input? Would also take suggestions for space exploration fiction or detective noir (preferably set in the 30s-50s in LA)
 
F

Fusebox

Banned
Maklershed said:
Not sure what I wanna read next. I'm thinking ...

Revelation Space
Heir to the Empire (Star Wars Thawn Trilogy 1)
Dust
Sand

Any input? Would also take suggestions for space exploration fiction or detective noir (preferably set in the 30s-50s in LA)
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If you've already read Wool and Shift it's gotta be Dust for sure! See that series out, it's epic.
 
F

fakefaker

Member
Had a good session last night and wrapped up Eutopia by David Nickle. Enjoyed it for the horror and social commentary. I'm waiting for some books I ordered, so gonna catch up with The Big Book of Adventure Stories by Otto Penzler.

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J

jred2k

Member
ShaneB said:
If it's something you're interested in, I think it's still worth checking out, because some people certainly did seem to like it a lot, but it never clicked with me fully as I described.

Picked up the kindle daily "A Land More Kind Than Home". Looks like something I should like.
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I picked this up as well and just started reading it tonight. The next thing I knew I was half way through it. The author, Wiley Cash, is just so good at conveying emotion. Its nice to go into a book completely blind and just have it really blow you away like this has for me.

He just released another book in January of this year named "This Dark Road to Mercy". I will be looking forward to checking that out once I have finished ALMKTH.
 
B

BlueDogAnchorite

Member
I am finally starting to read The Sandman Omnibus Vol 1. I just got past the first story. This is my first time reading it also. I'm loving it.
What I like about this story is that it's very well written so far. I liked how it showed how Dream being imprisoned affected alot of people. Dream punishing Burgess when he escaped his prison was very chilling, but the guy deserved it.
 
Jag

Jag

Member
The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey has been ordered by SyFy. Cautiously optomistic they won't screw it up. Leviathan Wakes is the first book and has been well received. Good space opera type series.
 
E

Easystride

Member
I recently finished Patrick Ness' More Than This. I wasn't crazy about it. The first half was very promising, but the second half of the book kind of dragged. Still, there was enough there to motivate me to finish the book.

I picked up The Shining on the Kindle for $1.99 and started that yesterday. Looking forward to it! I've seen the movie, but have never read the book.

Mackenzie 92 said:
Hollow World by Michael J. Sullivan
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I am really curious to read some impressions on that book. I read through all 6 books in the Riyria Chronicles series, and thought they were a fun, lighthearted read.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
jred2k said:
I picked this up as well and just started reading it tonight. The next thing I knew I was half way through it. The author, Wiley Cash, is just so good at conveying emotion. Its nice to go into a book completely blind and just have it really blow you away like this has for me.

He just released another book in January of this year named "This Dark Road to Mercy". I will be looking forward to checking that out once I have finished ALMKTH.
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That's great to hear!! I'll jump into it next I think in that case. Those hidden gems are what I strive for as well. Thanks for the insight.

Jag said:
The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey has been ordered by SyFy. Cautiously optomistic they won't screw it up. Leviathan Wakes is the first book and has been well received. Good space opera type series.
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YES!! It seems like it's been a while since I first posted news about it heading to TV, great to know progress has been made. I think this is thread worthy so I'll get on that.

edit: thread here http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=801174
 
CharminUltra

CharminUltra

Member
Good-bye, Mr. Chips. I love fantasy and science fiction and I've read a ton of it, so I'm trying to diversify a little.

I'm only four chapters in, but it's pretty good thus far.
 
X

X-Frame

Member
Jag said:
The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey has been ordered by SyFy. Cautiously optomistic they won't screw it up. Leviathan Wakes is the first book and has been well received. Good space opera type series.
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Pretty cool!

That series is what I plan to start once I finish with ASOIAF. I've definitely heard good things, and the 4th book is coming out in only 2 months, so that should coincide perfectly with me ending the 3rd book. And according to that article, that it is referred to "GoT in space" is new to me, so reading both those series back to back should be interesting!

I am cautiously optimistic too. For those who read the books, would a budget similar to BSG be enough to do the series justice? IMDB shows an estimated $10,000,000 for BSG's Season 1, not sure how accurate that is. The article says it's going to be Syfy's more ambitious project to date though, so I would assume the highest budgeted too.
 
N

Nuke Soda

Member
Put The Well of Ascension down for a little while, it was kind of boring. Now I am reading The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano.
 
P

Paganmoon

Member
Speaking of James SA Corey, I just finished their latest book (not in the Expanse Series), Honor Among Thieves, a Star Wars novel. Crossposting my review from Goodreads:

Being a big fan of the duo that is James SA Corey, and a big fan of Star Wars, this sounded like a match made in heaven to my ears when it was first announced a year or so ago. Unfortunately it didn't really deliver. The story itself was quite predictable, though still somewhat enjoyable, but I kept getting the feeling, reading about Han and Leia and Luke, that it came off very much like Fan-Fiction. And in a sense, I suppose that is true, Ty Franck being a huge nerd (That's not meant as an insult), it probably is Fan-fiction, just a published one.
I think the major problem was that the book's protagonist was Han, a character that is so set in stone in my mind (and probably many millions of others as well), that it makes it near impossible to get any character development through the book, the character is already fully developed as it is.
You get a few fun moments where you can go "oh, that's so typically Han", and it's great fun, but it doesn't work when you read some of Han's lines in Harrison Ford's voice and it just comes of as something Han wouldn't say.

It is very telling, that the best part of the book was the final epilog titled Silver and Scarlet, that revolves around a completely different character. In those 5 or so pages, I got something I felt was missing throughout the book, a character that the writers could give life to on their own, without any "baggage" from other sources. In those 5 pages I found the things that made me become a fan of Daniel and Ty, hell, in those 5 pages, we got more interesting development in support characters than we got for the main characters in the book. I wouldn't mind reading another Star Wars book by these two, if it revolves around this character, with at best, some cameos from the "main cast" of Star Wars.
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H

hythloday

Member

Summerset Abbey by T.J. Brown

Went for something very light after reading several fantasy novels. So far it's not bad. I like the characters and the setting, although it's quite obviously cashing in on the Downton Abbey craze (which is not a bad thing - I'm a fan of the show). Also I'm pretty sure I've figured out the "family secret" only 4 chapters in which is a bit disappointing.
 
W

WarrenMax007

Member
Just finished my first Hunter S.Thompson book - The Rum Diary.

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It was ok, but nothing more. I know this is his first book, so it's not very good taste of his style. Story wasn't really going anywhere, characters were too "life is shit". I liked the wrting itself. I'll definitely read Hell's Angels and his other works sometimes in the future.
3/5.
 
B

Branduil

Member
Just finished Dracula. Pretty mixed feelings about it as a whole. I can appreciate its historical impact, and the extended prologue where Jonathan Harker visits Dracula is extremely effective at conveying the feeling of slow, creeping horror as he realizes just who and what he is dealing with him. However, the story format and characterization haven't aged well. The quality takes a big dive after that strong prologue, and the ending is incredibly anticlimactic. It was still interesting, but judged solely as a novel on its own merits I can't exactly call it good.
 
S

Secks4Food

Member
Branduil said:
Just finished Dracula. Pretty mixed feelings about it as a whole. I can appreciate its historical impact, and the extended prologue where Jonathan Harker visits Dracula is extremely effective at conveying the feeling of slow, creeping horror as he realizes just who and what he is dealing with him. However, the story format and characterization haven't aged well. The quality takes a big dive after that strong prologue, and the ending is incredibly anticlimactic. It was still interesting, but judged solely as a novel on its own merits I can't exactly call it good.
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I loved it (except for the ending, anti-climactic indeed) but overall I liked the whole journal entry/letter/note/etc. way of telling the story. I wouldn't say quality goes down after the prologue, but the action sure does, and then it slowly builds up to that level again, a dynamic I personally enjoyed the longer I read (though admittedly it was a bummer at first, I kept thinking "how much longer are these dumb letters going to last? Get back to the castle!"). I'd say it's a very good book overall, but I could see why some may think otherwise.
 
P

Paganmoon

Member
Tragicomedy said:
My biggest thing is that supposedly it's part two or three of a series. Not sure it's worth investing time in books written by other folks for a minor payoff.
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I was in the same situation, but I tweeted Ty and asked if their book (being number 2) needed the first book to make sense, and he said they are all stand alone. Just that they in turn focus on Leia, Han and Luke, with the other characters interacting occasionally, but they are as far as I've been told, completely stand alone, but then again, the book didn't exactly blow me away, so not like you're missing much anyway.
 
B

Branduil

Member
Secks4Food said:
I loved it (except for the ending, anti-climactic indeed) but overall I liked the whole journal entry/letter/note/etc. way of telling the story. I wouldn't say quality goes down after the prologue, but the action sure does, and then it slowly builds up to that level again, a dynamic I personally enjoyed the longer I read (though admittedly it was a bummer at first, I kept thinking "how much longer are these dumb letters going to last? Get back to the castle!"). I'd say it's a very good book overall, but I could see why some may think otherwise.
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It just felt like the story went on a bit too long when you consider how little actually happened.

And I know this isn't fair, but I was a bit annoyed by the characters' lack of genre-savvy or common sense at times. I mean,
just leaving Mina alone at night, in a room right next to Dracula's home, really? Especially after what happened to Lucy?
 
K

Krowley

Member
Branduil said:
Just finished Dracula. Pretty mixed feelings about it as a whole. I can appreciate its historical impact, and the extended prologue where Jonathan Harker visits Dracula is extremely effective at conveying the feeling of slow, creeping horror as he realizes just who and what he is dealing with him. However, the story format and characterization haven't aged well. The quality takes a big dive after that strong prologue, and the ending is incredibly anticlimactic. It was still interesting, but judged solely as a novel on its own merits I can't exactly call it good.
Click to expand...

I like the whole book, but I agree the prologue is definitely the high point. So damn creepy.

I think it would almost work better by itself as a short story because the tone of the rest of the book is very different and it feels so self contained.
 
F

FUBAR McDangles

Member
Finished reading Salem's Lot. I have now read a handful of his books and several short stories and while Stephen King constantly makes all of these fantastic universes I am absolutely flustered by the fact that he never seems to give concrete endings. A lot of his books end, at least from what I've experienced, somewhat open-ended and with lots of questions unanswered. Maybe I'm complaining about not being hit over the head with a baseball bat of blunt closure or something, but I have found it quite annoying.

"Tons of vampires still reside in Salems Lot and continue to kill people? Better burn the town down and hope they all die or some other people get 'em while we leave for no reason!"

JFK book 11/23/62 or whatever:
"Oh, I absolutely love this woman so much I altered universes to try and save her, and finally found her in the current timeline only to do a 'single dance'?" STEPHEN KING TELL US IF THEY END UP TOGETHER COME ON
I damn near started tearing up at the end because I didn't know if it was a happy ending or not.

I was frustrated at something in The Stand as well but I can't remember it all. Whatever.

Anyway, started reading this. Really enjoying it so far:
th
 
S

survivor

Banned
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Finished reading The Briefcase which is also known as Strange Weather in Tokyo in the UK edition and has the superior cover so I chose to use that one. It's a slow moving novel that deals with the relationship of two people and shows the progression over the course of one year while they get to know each other closely. In a way I felt there are similarities to Kokoro considering the age gap of the two characters and one of them being called Sensei constantly. Of course that's where the similarity ends since I felt the two stories dealt with different themes and this one had romantic subplot between the two characters. While I did enjoy it, I felt there was some emotional discontent between the character's feelings and what I got out of the story. But I liked the everyday mundane events that they went through and the amount of details paid to the food they were eating.

I also finished reading The Lowland. It started out very slowly and had no effect on me while it dealt with the political instability of India in the 60s and 70s and the separation of the two brothers, but after certain events the story really hit me hard. The themes of isolation, the unhappiness of a marriage life, and family values really resonated well with me especially in the last 50 pages when the original main characters have well grown into their last years of life. I really liked this a lot and now I want to check out other stuff written by Lahiri.

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Started reading In The Woods yesterday, about 50 pages into. I believe the only reason I had this in my backlog was after seeing it recommended to fans of True Detective. I have no knowledge of the writer or what to expect out of the story, but so far it seems like your standard detective novel, but it is engaging especially since the main murder case appears to be related to an incident happened to the leading detective when he was a kid.
 
L

lightus

Member
Finished up Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie last night. It started off pretty rough. I actually stopped a few chapters in to see if there was a prequel I had missed. I felt as if the author accidentally left out the prologue or something. The learning curve was extremely high and the prose was frustrating. I've read a lot of sci-fi so I could follow what was going on well enough, I just felt it was a poor way to start the book.

About halfway in everything finally came together and the actual plot picked up. From there on out I really enjoyed it. The world she created is fun and I love what she did with the AI's. It's a shame she didn't start the book off better.

Overall I give it a 3 out of 5. I look forward to the next one.


Now, on to Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Gonna try to get through all the Cosmere books before the next Stormlight Archive.
 
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