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What are you reading? (March 2015)

E

El Topo

Member
Southern Reach Trilogy.
I've only finished the first book (Annihilation), but I must say I'm really impressed. I'm not a big fan of horror novels, although I do like some of Lovecraft's stories, but the first book is incredible.
My expectations are so high now that the other books can only disappoint me. Nonetheless, the first book is highly recommended.

Edit:
We have a GAF thread about the ending? Argh, I must resist.

Edit 2:
That reminds me, recently read "A darker shade of magic". I liked some things, but overall not impressed.
 
P

Polishin8r

Member
Finished

The Gunslinger

43615.jpg

My first King book and its one hell of a ride :) 5/5

Currently reading

The Drawing of the Three
51T5h5z0KDL.jpg

so far so good
 
E

Error

Jealous of the Glory that is Johnny Depp
I'm reading Way of Kings (Stormlight Archives vol 1)

And I'm very tempted to buy the hardcover edition. The kindle version has these drawings that I'm sure will look lot better on the physical version of the book.

oh, and I'm enjoying it a lot so far.
 
P

pa22word

Member
Error said:
I'm reading Way of Kings (Stormlight Archives vol 1)

And I'm very tempted to buy the hardcover edition. The kindle version have these drawings that I'm sure will look lot better on the physical version of the book.

oh, and I'm enjoying it a lot so far.
Click to expand...

I've been reading Way of Kings for nearly a year now. Not even joking, sadly...but I'm going to finish it one day.

Also I wish people would start posting the names of the books they're reading in the title of their post in text format to enable easier readability for people with bandwidth issues and such on mobile. It makes it a pain in the ass to read this thread when you're blocking images due to the former and miss out on a lot of cool recs because of it.
 
O.DOGG

O.DOGG

Member
Finished Small God and enjoyed it very much.

22522808.jpg

Started reading Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances - Neil Gaiman's latest short story collection.
 
P

Polishin8r

Member
Mr.Swag said:
I have the first four books of the Dark Tower and idk why, but I'm kinda scared to read em. I want to save them for something but idk what. Your five star review kind of wants to make me read Gunslinger

Btw, 11/22/63 is amazing and so is The Stamd.
Click to expand...

Do not be afraid so step through the door to awesomeness, come I am waiting on the other side ;)..sometimes saving a book is like waiting for a fine wine and there is that perfect time to open it up might as well be now.

Looking forward to reading his other books also, the way he writes its so essay to pick up his books and get into it.
 
M

Meteorain

Member
Finished the Fall of Hyperion yesterday. Man, what a read. I liked that fact that everything to tied up and resolved instead of leaving random open-ended shit.

I am happy that Sol Weintraub got the happy ending. I was thinking to myself, "DON'T DO IT DAN! DON'T FUCK HIM UP LIKE THIS!". That would have been too cruel.

Currently reading:

3977.jpg


I feel bad for
Lenar Hoyt. All that shit in the first two books, and he's getting fucked up again by the Papacy.
 
D

Donos

Member
SniperHunter said:
how is the story in this? better than mass effect?
Click to expand...

Do you mean ME from the books? Or the games? Haven't read any ME books but played all the games. Well so far it's lot of world/character building and not much action/fights but the universe is really interesting and the story has some mysterious things which make me curious.
No elevator sex with aliens so far ;)

Universe is not "two dozen alien races who look like humans with other skin color" and and rather humans conquered space and met only few misterious alien races/beings (1/3 into the first book).
 
J

jtb

Banned
Very disappointed by The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

At first I thought maybe I just had my expectations too high, but I actually read When We Were Orphans (for the first time) right afterwards, which I guess is generally considered to be one of his weaker books—and I actually loved it. But the Buried Giant just didn't do anything for me.
 
X

X-Frame

Member
Jag said:
Enjoy! I wish I could read it again for the first time. Also, there are followup books, but the first book can, and should, stand alone.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Yeah, I see them, and I think a 4th is coming this summer, so I figured it was a good time to catch up.

huxley00 said:
I got about halfway through it. I think it would make a pretty cool film, just not my type of book. I do have some friends that liked it a lot though, hopefully you like it as well!
Click to expand...

I'm about 15% and I agree this would make an awesome film, or maybe even a TV series. And thanks!

Locke Lamora said:
I'm excited for you!

1381606412731.gif
Click to expand...

Hahaha, nice name.
 
S

sparky2112

Member
Jag said:
I've heard good things about it. Does it somewhat mirror what took place in the early comic book era of the 30s and 40s?
Click to expand...

It won the Pulitzer. Read it. It's great.

Then again, The Goldfinch won it too. It's not great. So what do I know?
 
P

Piecake

Member
Hey Mumei, from the book/movie challenge thread, I see that you have read A Massacre in Memphis

What did you think? Is it worth reading?
 
M

Mr.Swag

Banned
Saw the trailer for 'Paper Towns' and it made me want to read the book so I got it for my kindle, only $3.99, I'm done with part 1 and I like it.

Its young adult as fuck but I like it. Especially since I was thinking of living in Orlando one day.

First time I read John Green.
 
H

HyperCubed4

Member
Making an attempt to start reading again. Almost done The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Liking it so far. Pretty absurd at times.
 
L

lochen

Neo Member
I recently started Discworld, but didn't have the motivation to continue. Reading all your posts makes me want to continue.
 
A

arglebargle

Member
sparky2112 said:
Why are all science goons in this thread not reading this?!? I'm dolling this out to myself very, very slowly. It's brilliant.
Click to expand...

I should have done this but couldn't resist and read the whole thing in a couple of days.

71azko7m6%2BL._SL1500_.jpg


Just finished creativity inc.by Ed catmull,founder of Pixar. Pretty good but I had mixed feelings. I read it because a few people I have a lot of respect for recommended it. it has some good lessons and I enjoyed learning about Pixar but many of the organizational behavior lessons didn't seem generalizable.

41lJWvuUV2L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


In any event I haven'T read much fiction lately and I enjoyed 1q84 so I downloaded colorless tsukuru to the kindle but have barely started it.
 
H

huxley00

Member
Althane said:
They did make it a film, it's called Ocean's 11.

(I kid, I kid)

Wasn't there some rumor of a show or something coming from the Lies?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was very much a heist film in book form. Good for what it is, I just don't really get much enjoyment out of those type of reads. Then again, I'm reading The Great Train Robbery by Crichton right now and like it quite a bit, so who knows!
 
A

AngmarsKing701

Member
arglebargle said:
I
Just finished creativity inc.by Ed catmull,founder of Pixar. Pretty good but I had mixed feelings. I read it because a few people I have a lot of respect for recommended it. it has some good lessons and I enjoyed learning about Pixar but many of the organizational behavior lessons didn't seem generalizable.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. I added it to my Kindle list. I usually refrain from reading stuff that is work-related (I'm a manager in the tech industry) but the lure of Pixar makes this one something I'd read for both work and pleasure.


By the way, I think I've figured out why Words of Radiance is taking me so long. One, it's not compelling me to read it. I'm 700+ pages in and quite frankly it feels like filler.

Possible spoilers ahead:
The whole duel strategy is boring to me. They are in this war of attrition for the Shattered Plains and they're going to squabble in these duels? Seems pointless to me. Then we see Kaladin wrestle over some moral. Should I tell Dalinar about Amaram? Should I turn Moash's assassins in? Should I practice my powers? Blah blah blah. The man wrestles with more shit in his head than anyone I know. And then Shallan with her drawing and her spy mode.

I feel like I can see through the story to Sanderson actually typing and thinking "now how do I drag this out to ten books of 1k pages each?" Because Kaladin being arrested seems like the perfect thing to get him in a cell while Moash's assassins strike. And Thude taking the parshmen who don't want to change seems like just another distraction to keep things from actually happening.

Anyway, I like Sanderson's writing. I always have. But I can't help but feel he's stretching this thing for the sake of stretching it vs. telling us the story. The story is in there somewhere but there's a whole of stuff that doesn't really need to be here. /rant
 
R

Razmos

Member
Hadn't read anything for a while, and I was hyped about Jurassic World so I read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (again), and then the Lost World (again).

After that I had a taste for reading again, so I read Revival by Stephen King (my favourite author) which I got for Christmas but hadn't gotten around to. That was a great book.

Then I remembered that I had The Shining on Kindle, which I also hadn't gotten around to, so I read that. That was also a brilliant book (and the film seems like total crap in comparison, wow, no wonder King himself disagreed with it)

Straight after I bought the sequel, Doctor Sleep, which I'll be starting to read within a week or so.
 
E

Error

Jealous of the Glory that is Johnny Depp
Absolutely loving The Way of Kings. Not gonna lie, this is my first fantasy epic since LOTR, I usually avoid getting in epic fantasy series because they are very long and you have to wait years to reach the conclusion of the story. I like my story self-contained if possible, and trilogies at the most, but I read good things about this and Brandon Sanderson is a writing machine, so maybe I won't have to wait 30 years for this series to be over. So I gave it a shot, and oh boy, the world of Roshar is awesome, I'm literally transported in this world whenever I start reading. It's not just medieval european setting with fantastic creatures and a magic system, the world of Roshar feels very alien and unique.

I like how the characters are very black and white, it's ok to have some grey characters, but there's nothing wrong with characters in a fantasy epic that behave like well you know, heroes.

On part 2 currently. Highly recommended.
 
V

Ventilaator

Banned
25% into A Confederacy of Dunces

I have no idea how this works or where I'm getting this, but to me it feels like the main character is based on someone the author seriously despised but still had to deal with every day, and this book happened as a way for the author to let off steam instead of just punching the guy. So it's been pretty difficult to get into this book, because whenever Ignatius says or does anything I just have this image in my head of the author showing a friend an unfinished manuscript of this book and the friend just goes "Dude, this is way too obvious. Steve is going to kill you if this gets published."
 
R

Rug Monkey

Member
Been trying to read Stoner, and I just can't do it. I'm about 1/3rd through and keep reading other books just because Stoner is becoming a chore. I can see how well written it is, that lovely lucid prose was carrying me along mainly and I was reading it for that alone because I don't like Stoner and I don't like his wife, and beautiful prose about someone I just don't care about isn't giving me the impetus I need.

While reading Stoner I've read

Becky Chambers - A long way to a small angry planet which I enjoyed for its world building and crew dynamics much like Corey's expanse novels. Looking forward to more.

Lee Child - Personal ... his latest Jack Reacher novel very much of the oeuvre but with an interesting little twist

Paul Auster - The Invention of Solitude ... a factual reflection on the life and death of Auster's father. I loved this. It has prose as good as Stoner (for me) and was engaging and mystifying and compelling. Fantastic book.
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
It's driving me nuts, but someone posted in SOME thread about a handbook for space pioneers - similar to the Zombie Survival Handbook it's a very serious, yet tongue in cheek "what if" scenario. It reads like a more technical RPG sourcebook. Someone posted about it just in the last week or so, but I don't think they called it by name, just posted a pic of it.

Well, the reason I say this is because I FOUND IT in a thrift store. My local favorite store has a small section where the older ladies put the sci-fi books and just after this person posted it, it appeared on the shelf between a Yu-gi-Oh 2008 sticker book and a copy of Raymond Feist's Riftwar saga.

So I had to buy it.

2758314.jpg


besada said:
I read most of them online when they were first released, unless there's a ton of new content.
Click to expand...

Amazon says:

The book features new and never-before-answered questions, along with updated and expanded versions of the most popular answers from the xkcd website
Click to expand...
 
V

VanWinkle

Member
Let me pose a question to you all. Who do you more favor: the poet or the storyteller?

To expand, do you value the poetic author who has mastered the use of language and prose, but whose worlds and characters ultimately fail to captivate? Or do you more highly value the straightforward author, whose writing style seems only to say "I'm just here to guide you through and stay out of the way," but whose worlds and characters capture our imaginations?

I have been reading The Name of the Wind bu Patrick Rothfuss. It's excellently written, and a lot of thought has been put into each sentence, but I'm having trouble keeping with it. I am not very interested in the world or the characters in them, and it made me think about Brandon Sanderson, who seems like a straightforward writer but with incredible worlds and characters I care about.
 
F

Fusebox

Banned
Joyland by Stephen King.

Expected a quick pulp crime novel, got one of the best carnival crime stories ever written.
 
N

nakedsushi

Member
VanWinkle said:
Let me pose a question to you all. Who do you more favor: the poet or the storyteller?
Click to expand...

Storyteller all the way. I've read too many books that were well written or stylistically interesting, but with either no or an uninteresting story and/or characters. Reading those books always makes me feel mad or tricked in the end because of the lack of substance.
 
M

Mr.Swag

Banned
Storyteller, because at the end of the day all I'm doing is translating the words into images, and sometimes the "poet" takes a whole page to describe what the "storyteller" does in a single sentence.

I just cant stand heavy description of scenery. The action is what happens, not where.
 
C

charlemagne

Member
arglebargle said:
Just finished creativity inc.by Ed catmull,founder of Pixar. Pretty good but I had mixed feelings. I read it because a few people I have a lot of respect for recommended it. it has some good lessons and I enjoyed learning about Pixar but many of the organizational behavior lessons didn't seem generalizable.
Click to expand...

I had the same feeling when I finished it. Definitely some interesting points, but to transfer the Pixar/Disney structure to every company would be impossible. It certainly sounds like it takes a lot of conscious effort and a fair share of luck to get the right people to carry things out.
 
F

fakefaker

Member
Finished up Old Man's War by John Scalzi. It was a lot like Starship Troopers except more accessible and enjoyable to read. Gonna read Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith before the movie hits.

9849708.jpg
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
VanWinkle said:
Let me pose a question to you all. Who do you more favor: the poet or the storyteller?

To expand, do you value the poetic author who has mastered the use of language and prose, but whose worlds and characters ultimately fail to captivate? Or do you more highly value the straightforward author, whose writing style seems only to say "I'm just here to guide you through and stay out of the way," but whose worlds and characters capture our imaginations?

I have been reading The Name of the Wind bu Patrick Rothfuss. It's excellently written, and a lot of thought has been put into each sentence, but I'm having trouble keeping with it. I am not very interested in the world or the characters in them, and it made me think about Brandon Sanderson, who seems like a straightforward writer but with incredible worlds and characters I care about.
Click to expand...

Rothfuss vs. McCarthy came to mind immediately when I read this. To be honest, I'll take #2 but I also should add that I consider Rothfuss a combination.

I will take #2 every day of my life. I spent a very long time trying to only read pretentious drawn out narratives and I just don't care anymore. A more literary novel attempts to use poetic verse to try and describe an event, location, person, or feeling to you, but a more straight to the point author understands that you don't need to go through that. Tell me in straight words, I'll paint the picture myself, then we move on quicker to the meat.
 
V

Verdre

Unconfirmed Member
VanWinkle said:
Let me pose a question to you all. Who do you more favor: the poet or the storyteller?

To expand, do you value the poetic author who has mastered the use of language and prose, but whose worlds and characters ultimately fail to captivate? Or do you more highly value the straightforward author, whose writing style seems only to say "I'm just here to guide you through and stay out of the way," but whose worlds and characters capture our imaginations?

I have been reading The Name of the Wind bu Patrick Rothfuss. It's excellently written, and a lot of thought has been put into each sentence, but I'm having trouble keeping with it. I am not very interested in the world or the characters in them, and it made me think about Brandon Sanderson, who seems like a straightforward writer but with incredible worlds and characters I care about.
Click to expand...

Well, ideally it would be the poet who doesn't fail at everything except language. (Peter S. Beagle or Catherynne M. Valente, for example.)

But if it's between Rothfuss and Sanderson then I might just give up reading all together. Rothfuss writes tomes that have moments of good writing, but it's all buried in crap. Sanderon writes straight forward tomes, but I don't like his magic or "world building" info dumps at all.

So the answer... I'll take someone like Beagle every day of the week. But there aren't many of him, so I'll take the straight forward storytellers otherwise.
 
V

VanWinkle

Member
Verdre said:
Well, ideally it would be the poet who doesn't fail at everything except language. (Peter S. Beagle or Catherynne M. Valente, for example.)

But if it's between Rothfuss and Sanderson then I might just give up reading all together. Rothfuss writes tomes that have moments of good writing, but it's all buried in crap. Sanderon writes straight forward tomes, but I don't like his magic or "world building" info dumps at all.

So the answer... I'll take someone like Beagle every day of the week. But there aren't many of him, so I'll take the straight forward storytellers otherwise.
Click to expand...

Your standards may be much higher than mine, but I didn't find what I've read in The Name of the Wind to be "buried in crap." I have just been...bored by it.

As for Sanderson, I find it pretty interesting (not in a sarcastic way) that you describe him as using info dumps for his magic and world building, because when I started reading The Way of Kings, I was relieved to see how he wrote and paced his magic and world building info. That was the first book of his that I read, and I was blown away. Now, there are things that you want to ingrain into the readers' minds - like spren - that may feel like an info dump. However, they're a huge part of the universe and are introduced consistently, so that, when the bigger overarching plot points of them are revealed, it doesn't feel like it came from out of the blue. It will be instead more of a feeling of, "Ooh, so that's why they were talked about and described so often."

Still, I appreciate your point of view on the matter, and agree that storytelling will always trump prose, as long as a solid base (spelling, grammar, formatting) is established.
 
C

Cade

Member
I'll take McCarthy over Rothfuss but I haven't read any of Sanderson's lengthy novels yet. I'd prefer a middle ground, really; McCarthy's stark prose works well for him but I don't want everyone to do it.
 
D

Dispatch

Member
If I have to choose between a poet and a storyteller, then I'll choose the poet. I enjoy a well-told story, but I enjoy well-shaped language even more.
 
V

Verdre

Unconfirmed Member
VanWinkle said:
Your standards may be much higher than mine, but I didn't find what I've read in The Name of the Wind to be "buried in crap." I have just been...bored by it.

As for Sanderson, I find it pretty interesting (not in a sarcastic way) that you describe him as using info dumps for his magic and world building, because when I started reading The Way of Kings, I was relieved to see how he wrote and paced his magic and world building info. That was the first book of his that I read, and I was blown away. Now, there are things that you want to ingrain into the readers' minds - like spren - that may feel like an info dump. However, they're a huge part of the universe and are introduced consistently, so that, when the bigger overarching plot points of them are revealed, it doesn't feel like it came from out of the blue. It will be instead more of a feeling of, "Ooh, so that's why they were talked about and described so often."

Still, I appreciate your point of view on the matter, and agree that storytelling will always trump prose, as long as a solid base (spelling, grammar, formatting) is established.
Click to expand...

These are just my personal complaints about Sanderson and Rothfuss and not particularly well articulated, at that. Shouldn't have really interjected them here as I'm not trying to argue they're objectively horrible or anything. Over all just a fan.

What I really mean to say is that I want my authors to have good prose and good storytelling - or at least for them to not be horrible at one or the other. It shouldn't have to come down to a choice between the two, but in fantasy it often does and since I read a lot of it, when it comes down to it I'll choose a Sanderson over a Rothfuss.
 
obin_gam

obin_gam

Member
bengraven said:
It's driving me nuts, but someone posted in SOME thread about a handbook for space pioneers - similar to the Zombie Survival Handbook it's a very serious, yet tongue in cheek "what if" scenario. It reads like a more technical RPG sourcebook. Someone posted about it just in the last week or so, but I don't think they called it by name, just posted a pic of it.

Well, the reason I say this is because I FOUND IT in a thrift store. My local favorite store has a small section where the older ladies put the sci-fi books and just after this person posted it, it appeared on the shelf between a Yu-gi-Oh 2008 sticker book and a copy of Raymond Feist's Riftwar saga.

So I had to buy it.

2758314.jpg




Amazon says:
Click to expand...

If you like that one you have to check out Astrotruckers by Mikael Niemi.
FJ1Nyax.png

It's a anthology of humans and our travels out into space, written in the same "feeling" as Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy :D
 
S

ShaneB

Member
VanWinkle said:
Let me pose a question to you all. Who do you more favor: the poet or the storyteller?

To expand, do you value the poetic author who has mastered the use of language and prose, but whose worlds and characters ultimately fail to captivate? Or do you more highly value the straightforward author, whose writing style seems only to say "I'm just here to guide you through and stay out of the way," but whose worlds and characters capture our imaginations?

I have been reading The Name of the Wind bu Patrick Rothfuss. It's excellently written, and a lot of thought has been put into each sentence, but I'm having trouble keeping with it. I am not very interested in the world or the characters in them, and it made me think about Brandon Sanderson, who seems like a straightforward writer but with incredible worlds and characters I care about.
Click to expand...


Storyteller. It's all that matters to me in the end. Beautiful writing can be a joy to read, but unless I'm hooked into a story to find out what happens next, no level of writing can make me keep reading. And I admit to generally preferring more straight forward styles of writing, it's the story that has to get its grips on me.
 
M

Mumei

Member
VanWinkle said:
Let me pose a question to you all. Who do you more favor: the poet or the storyteller?

To expand, do you value the poetic author who has mastered the use of language and prose, but whose worlds and characters ultimately fail to captivate? Or do you more highly value the straightforward author, whose writing style seems only to say "I'm just here to guide you through and stay out of the way," but whose worlds and characters capture our imaginations?

I have been reading The Name of the Wind bu Patrick Rothfuss. It's excellently written, and a lot of thought has been put into each sentence, but I'm having trouble keeping with it. I am not very interested in the world or the characters in them, and it made me think about Brandon Sanderson, who seems like a straightforward writer but with incredible worlds and characters I care about.
Click to expand...

I can't think of an instance of this happening to me, honestly.
 
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