joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
Boneshaker is great. I had a few minor issues with how it wrapped up but other than that it was a fun ride.Ceebs said:Currently reading this one. Not that far yet but seems like it may have some promise.
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What are you reading? (January 2010)
- Thread starter thomaser
- Start date
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
I'm currently reading a rather mundane paint-by-numbers fantasy novel. Then again, how many truly aren't? This one has potential because the setting matches the current weather conditions in RL:
But damn I love this cover.
But damn I love this cover.
icarus-daedelus said:
The depressing and amazing thing is that you haven't even picked one of the top (or bottom) ten most preposterous and boneheaded things about the books.
I'm reading 'Red Seas Under Red Skies' by Scott Lynch. It's superb. Whereas Goodkind boasts that nobody edits his work, it's plain that Lynch's writing has been expertly pushed around.
I'm also into Edmund Gosse's memoir of religious disenchantment, 'Father and Son'.
I'm about to start a new book and have to decide between
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
A Game of Thrones by G.R.R. Martin
I was leaning towards Everything is Illuminated because it's so short and I really enjoyed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I can't seem to find my copy anymore
What do you guys say?
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
A Game of Thrones by G.R.R. Martin
I was leaning towards Everything is Illuminated because it's so short and I really enjoyed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I can't seem to find my copy anymore
What do you guys say?
theignoramus
Member
Read the first chapter, then watched over 5 hours of Howard Zinn's lectures and downloaded You Can't Stay Neutral on a Moving Train. I'd always known that something was rotten in denmark, with regards to the version of history I'd learnt through the standard education system, but Zinn knocks me on my ass.
lordfroakie
Member
Dune
Burger
Member
GDJustin said:
Stick with it. I actually gave up where you are ages ago, and was convinced to pick it back up and start again recently. I nailed the 2nd book over christmas, and I'm eager to get started on the next.
Fleet of Foot said:
I loved the Nights Dawn Trilogy, but preferred the Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained books more. I wasn't totally satisfied with the way it wrapped, but it was pretty awesome from start to finish, great hard sci-fi.
Tim the Wiz
Banned
Still reading China Mieville's Iron Council. At this point, I'm liking it, but I don't see it eclipsing his previous New Crozubon novel, The Scar, which was a bona fide masterpiece.
Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, McDonald's Brasyl, DeLillo's White Noise and Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist should be next. But I'll probably get side-tracked with something or other, like the Songs of the Dying Earth collection, edited by Martin, which I've been looking at lately, along with Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls. And there's plenty more in the backlog.
It got some criticism, but I really enjoyed it, too. Most hilarious moment:
Needless to say, Lynch has quite the wit.
More than you would think. Seriously, I thought I would dip into SF/F a few years ago and read all the good stuff. Only now do I realize that it's a life-long project.
Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, McDonald's Brasyl, DeLillo's White Noise and Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist should be next. But I'll probably get side-tracked with something or other, like the Songs of the Dying Earth collection, edited by Martin, which I've been looking at lately, along with Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls. And there's plenty more in the backlog.
Salazar said:
It got some criticism, but I really enjoyed it, too. Most hilarious moment:
When Locke and Jean are commanding their first - decidedly invisible - pirate crew.
PantherLotus said:
More than you would think. Seriously, I thought I would dip into SF/F a few years ago and read all the good stuff. Only now do I realize that it's a life-long project.
Yasser said:
just finished this, absolutely fantastic and i'm upset i can't find any of the author's other work in english
YES !
Oh, dear me. It is a terrific book. Fang is such an endearingly pathetic creature. Kyril Bonfiglioli's Mortdecai books might work as a stop-gap. Well, more than that - they are wonderful in their own right. The anti-hero, Charlie Mortdecai, is comical and insipid in a sort of similar (more of a rake, though) way.
movie_club
Junior Member
about half way done, and while some is interesting im rather bored
ElectricBlue187
Member
It's not altered carbon but it's good so far.
about 50 pages into "apathy and other small victories" and i'm not impressed. if i was 15 i'd have loved it and found it hilarious but now i'm reading this and thinking "wtf i could've written this. when i was 15"
. i also loved the setting, the way society is depicted in the book was fascinating and how social interactions all seemed to be dual layered. i can definately see myself reading this every year or so
i'll be sure to check that out as well. you sum up fang pretty much perfectly, right up to the endSalazar said:
jakershaker
Member
Got this one for Christmas:
One of the best books I've read and a very great summary of current theories of mind and language without passing to much judgement over those who came before.
One of the best books I've read and a very great summary of current theories of mind and language without passing to much judgement over those who came before.
choodi
Banned
PantherLotus said:I'm currently reading a rather mundane paint-by-numbers fantasy novel. Then again, how many truly aren't? This one has potential because the setting matches the current weather conditions in RL:
But damn I love this cover.
It is a rather by-the-numbers book (and series), but it is still entertaining in its own way I found.
I quite liked the world that he has created. The author is a geography lecturer and cartographer from New Zealand and his maps are absolutely fantastic (the maps in fantasy novels always catch my attention).
The cover is what got me too, but not the one you have here, this is the cover we got in Australia:
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Feep said:Came highly recommended, but through the first hundred pages or so, I'm only mildly interested. This book is SO British.
http://blogs.feministsf.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/strangeandnorell.jpg
The first part of the book is definitely pretty boring, but keep trucking, as it gets much, much better further on. Definitely worth reading IMO
edgefusion
Member
Jarlaxle said:
Unfortunately I have two of the sequels (christmas gifts). :lol
Oooh, my mythology teacher recommended this book. She warned not to read it at night time lol.thomaser said:Read two books in the last week of 09: Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" and Arto Paasilinna's "The Year of the Hare". Both very enjoyable.
The Historian is a surprisingly good, modern Dracula-tale. It's not without flaws, the plot being driven forward by a string of extremely unlikely happy coincidences the worst of them, but if you can overlook that, it's a worthy follow-up to Bram Stoker's Dracula. The historic detail is very impressive, and Dracula himself is terrifying.
Hari Seldon
Member
I just finished the Soldier Son trilogy by Robin Hobb and hated it. Before I wrote Hobb off forever, I tried Assassin's Apprentice. Significantly better, and I finished it in 1 weekend.
fanboi said:
You're kidding, right?
I'm currently reading, "Winning the Losers Game". It's an investment book. Haven't finished it but I get the overall message "if you aren't rich don't bother and if you insist invest in index funds". Very readable.
Perhaps some of you can help me, I want to read something modern and perhaps existential. I don't want to read about killers, or dragons, or any fantasy. Something like "The Paperchase" movie. Something about modern life and business, etc.
I sat down and knocked out Under the Dome this weekend. As I mentioned earlier, the main bad guy is pretty over the top, but I didn't let that stop me from plowing through 500 pages or so in two days. It's one helluva page turner, and if King isn't exactly going for total realism he certainly does do an excellent job of taking the premise (a semi-permeable, impenetrable dome surrounds a small town), deciding how best to put the town through the wringer, setting up the dominoes, and then knocking everything down. It's definitely recommended for the King fan and for anyone intrigued by the premise.
I'm going back to pick up a book I left off reading several months ago, F. Paul Wilson's Crisscross. The reason I put it on hold had nothing to do with the novel itself, which is a solid entry in the Repairman Jack series, and I'm glad to be getting back to it. This time around our boy Jack is going up against the Other influenced equivalent of Scientology, which makes for a damn fine hook. I'm 2/3 of the way through and hope to have it wrapped up in short order.
I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to be reading next, but after watching the second installment of Red Riding last night I broke down and ordered a copy of David Peace's 1974. Hurrah for incredibly bleak British crime fiction!
FnordChan
I'm going back to pick up a book I left off reading several months ago, F. Paul Wilson's Crisscross. The reason I put it on hold had nothing to do with the novel itself, which is a solid entry in the Repairman Jack series, and I'm glad to be getting back to it. This time around our boy Jack is going up against the Other influenced equivalent of Scientology, which makes for a damn fine hook. I'm 2/3 of the way through and hope to have it wrapped up in short order.
I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to be reading next, but after watching the second installment of Red Riding last night I broke down and ordered a copy of David Peace's 1974. Hurrah for incredibly bleak British crime fiction!
FnordChan
Skittleguy
Ring a Bell for me
Finally finished Blankets (so great).
Moving onto:
Get all my pleasure reading out of the way before school starts.
Moving onto:
Get all my pleasure reading out of the way before school starts.
Schmattakopf
Member
Everyone's read this by now, probably ... or at least attempted to do so. Very grey.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
I finished this last month but I highly recommend it:
I am starting this next based on a friends recommendation:
I am starting this next based on a friends recommendation:
otake said:
Having been published 15 years ago I suppose it's not really modern, but how about Micoserfs by Douglas Coupland?
FnordChan
bengraven
Member
Cyan said:Read a few books on vacation, all sci-fi/fantasy.
Peter Brett's The Warded Man.
Standard good vs evil fantasy (humans vs demons), but an interesting setting. In a post-apocalyptic future, demons arise from the earth every night and kill any humans they find. The only defense is to hide behind wards, magical symbols painted onto houses and city walls. It's a war of attrition and the humans are slowly dieing out, as a single mistake in your wards means near-certain death. Naturally, our hero decides he's sick of hiding, and sets out in search of a way to fight back.
It's a debut novel, and it kind of shows, but it's not bad. A well-realized setting, and the characters are fun. I'm not sure I agree with the way he structured it, but it works. First in a trilogy, with the second out in April.
I felt the same way you did; the world is fairly bland, but the concept behind the story is amazing. The demons rising up every night gave the night time this horribly tense feeling and was the best start to a world I've seen in modern fantasy lit.
Unfortunately I just wasn't feeling a lot of the story. That said, I'll be picking up the sequel in April and am anticipating it.
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
FnordChan said:
I'm about halfway through Stephen King's Under The Dome and thoroughly enjoying it. Okay, so the main bad guy is pretty over the top, but I'm happy to roll with that. If nothing else, my belief that I should never live in a small town in Maine has been nicely reinforced so far.
FnordChan
I thought this was really great, by the way.
Musashi Wins!
FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
_Isaac said:I'm about to start a new book and have to decide between
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
I was leaning towards Everything is Illuminated because it's so short and I really enjoyed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I can't seem to find my copy anymore
What do you guys say?
The Corrections is marvelous and it will feel like you read another of the big books of the last 10 years. Martin shouldn't even be on your list, you're way beyond him. And not because he's a genre author.