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What are you reading? (November 2013)

H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
How are you guys reading Raising Steam already :x
 
O

omgkitty

Member
PwZbCHeeaj417qplam1hI90Co1_400.jpg


Only two Murakami novels to go. Can't figure out if I'm excited or terribly sad by this fact.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Amazon says March 2014, dammit Amazon get your shit together.
 
B

BuckRobotron

Member
Nothing fancy. I picked up again on the The Dresden Files after the pricing for the Kindle variants was brought back to appropriately lower levels. Currently reading the seventh book, Dead Beat.

Also on whim finally decided to get to the Jurassic Park novel, prodded by that one day $1.99 Kindle sale a few weeks ago. An entertaining read, shifts quickly yet smoothly between different groups/characters around the world, until now they are starting to come together. And never too late to be entertained by how different things are between book and movie.
 
J

Jintor

Member
Anybody know about some cool fantasy books set in an asian-inspired universe? Little sick of all this middle ages stuff.
 
D

duckroll

Member
m0BfT2q.jpg
Click to expand...

Just finished this. What a crazy ride. It started off like a strange Shadowrun style scifi noir story, but got really really weird. In terms of narrative construction I'll say it reminds me a lot of Wolfe's work on Fifth Head of Cerberus (the entire 3 story collection, not just the short story), and how it warps preconceptions on existing genres and character archetypes, using it to tell a very unusual and alien sort of story which is pretty fun to piece together after it's over.

Definitely recommended for those looking for something different, but like most of Wolfe's work, the prose itself isn't particularly engaging, and it feels like slow burn until you start to realize what he's doing with narrative. Paying attention to details will also clue the reader in on things which are going on in not so obvious ways.

This was so much more fun to read than Soldier of Sidon, so I guess he really phoned that one in. :p
 
T

Tragicomedy

Member
Maklershed said:
Finished book 4 of The Black Company. It gets better and better with every installment. Now on to book 5 ...

(Please please please please dont judge these books by their crazy covers. The books are so good.)
Click to expand...

Great freaking series so far. I think you're exactly where I'm at.
 
M

Mackenzie 92

Member
Jintor said:
Anybody know about some cool fantasy books set in an asian-inspired universe? Little sick of all this middle ages stuff.
Click to expand...

Good shit. Kinda reminded me of Jade Empire if you're familiar with it.

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay


Maklershed said:
Finished book 4 of The Black Company. It gets better and better with every installment. Now on to book 5 ...


Dreams of Steel by Glen Cook

(Please please please please dont judge these books by their crazy covers. The books are so good.)
Click to expand...



I think you may have passed me up. Can't remember exactly where I left off. Need to get back into them.
 
A

arkon

Member
Haly said:
UK Kindle customers only :(((

Well I can wait, going by the reviews it seems to suffer from the same problems as Snuff.
Click to expand...

Can you setup a dummy address to get round those restrictions?

Then you just need to change which account you manage your kindle to the appropriate location.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
Finished The Princess Bride, that was great fun! Glad I read that for sure. Now to decide what to read next, definitely in the mood for some historical fiction or some medieval fantasy, so I'm heavily leaning towards finally reading the Long Ships.
 
M

Mackenzie 92

Member
arkon said:
Can you setup a dummy address to get round those restrictions?

Then you just need to change which account you manage your kindle to the appropriate location.
Click to expand...

Yeah I've done it before. Pretty easy.

ShaneB said:
Finished The Princess Bride, that was great fun! Glad I read that for sure. Now to decide what to read next, definitely in the mood for some historical fiction or some medieval fantasy, so I'm heavily leaning towards finally reading the Long Ships.
Click to expand...


Do it.
 
OfWhiteSkinOnRedLeather

OfWhiteSkinOnRedLeather

Member
Jintor said:
Anybody know about some cool fantasy books set in an asian-inspired universe? Little sick of all this middle ages stuff.
Click to expand...

Go with aidan's suggestion. I recently finished The Long Price Quartet and it was pretty good. Got me back into reading after a very long hiatus that I found difficult to break.
 
F

fakefaker

Member
Finished off Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol and can't say I was terribly impressed. It had some beautiful moments, but sometimes it was so dreadfully dull.

Now going to read something hopefully a little more faster paced. Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue: From the Pages of Black Mask by Frederick Nebel.

15897707.jpg
 
F

Fusebox

Banned
Just finished Point of Impact, Bob Lee Swagger book one, the book that the movie Shooter was based on. Awesome book, loved it as much as the movie so I've just jumped into book two:

531675.jpg
 
J

Jintor

Member
thanks for the advice all. Gonna poke around on kindle and if that doesn't work out maybe just drop a big bookdepository order again.
 
S

survivor

Banned
Finished reading Good Omens and also Animal Farm since that one was a pretty short read. Also started reading The Master and Margarita. It's pretty weird so far, but I'm liking it.
dQdsCzE.jpg
 
F

fredrancour

Member
Maklershed said:
Finished book 4 of The Black Company. It gets better and better with every installment. Now on to book 5 ...


Dreams of Steel by Glen Cook

(Please please please please dont judge these books by their crazy covers. The books are so good.)
Click to expand...

These covers are hilarious to me. I haven't read that series of his works yet but after reading all of the black company books, I feel like I know a fair bit about his writing style, and the dissonance between his storytelling and whatever the hell that is supposed to be is just too much.
 
N

nakedsushi

Member
Thanks for the suggestions on this. Just finished it and it was GREAT.


All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

What a ride! Loved how fast and action-packed this was. I usually hate mech stories, but this was fine. Here's what I don't really understand though (spoilers about the plot and twist):

Did Rita already do the loop thing in a past instance and is now out of her loop? That's how she learned how to break out of the loop, right? But how many different loops was she in since then?

The book is in Keiji's first initiation of the loop. So does the Rita in there have all the experience she had from her loops? That's why she never knows Keiji but is still badass?

While the looper is looping, what happens to everyone else? They're just forever in the loop but ignorant of it? Or do they move on somehow?

At the end, didn't both of them have to die in order to break the loop, since they're both antennas?

I'm excited to see where they go with the movie and I love Emily Blunt, but Tom Cruise? Blech. They could at least use someone Japanese.
 
A

AngmarsKing701

Member
fredrancour said:
These covers are hilarious to me. I haven't read that series of his works yet but after reading all of the black company books, I feel like I know a fair bit about his writing style, and the dissonance between his storytelling and whatever the hell that is supposed to be is just too much.
Click to expand...

It's like someone told the artist "there's a witch lady who wears black leather and can teleport warhounds inside a castle" and that's the picture we got.
 
T

Tragicomedy

Member
AngmarsKing701 said:
It's like someone told the artist "there's a witch lady who wears black leather and can teleport warhounds inside a castle" and that's the picture we got.
Click to expand...

Those covers are amazingly bad. Perhaps purposefully so.

But the series is so good it doesn't matter. Glad I have them on my Kindle instead of toting that monstrosity out into the world. I'd have a hard time convincing someone to try them after seeing that.

Also, I might read All You Need Is Kill. It looks like nothing I'd ever be interested in, but sometimes branching out is a good thing.
 
M

Mumei

Member
duckroll said:
Just finished this. What a crazy ride. It started off like a strange Shadowrun style scifi noir story, but got really really weird. In terms of narrative construction I'll say it reminds me a lot of Wolfe's work on Fifth Head of Cerberus (the entire 3 story collection, not just the short story), and how it warps preconceptions on existing genres and character archetypes, using it to tell a very unusual and alien sort of story which is pretty fun to piece together after it's over.

Definitely recommended for those looking for something different, but like most of Wolfe's work, the prose itself isn't particularly engaging, and it feels like slow burn until you start to realize what he's doing with narrative. Paying attention to details will also clue the reader in on things which are going on in not so obvious ways.

This was so much more fun to read than Soldier of Sidon, so I guess he really phoned that one in. :p
Click to expand...

You think so? I've read The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Latro in the Mist, Peace, and The Book of the New Sun and I've always found his prose quite engaging.
 
N

Necrovex

Member
Decided to tackle a Nobel-Winning book. I am reading Kenzaburo Oe's 'Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids.'

Nip_the_buds.jpg
Click to expand...

I didn't like the book at first. I am halfway through it now, and my enjoyment for it is growing by the page.

I decided to read through Oe because of my personal statement for JET touched upon three famous Japanese writers. I couldn't put down Oe's name without reading at least one novel.

I might return to Murakami afterwards. I really want to read Norwegian Woods, but alas, no libraries in my county has it. :-(
 
M

Mumei

Member
Necrovex said:
Decided to tackle a Nobel-Winning book. I am reading Kenzaburo Oe's 'Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids.'



I didn't like the book at first. I am halfway through it now, and my enjoyment for it is growing by the page.

I decided to read through Oe because of my personal statement for JET touched upon three famous Japanese writers. I couldn't put down Oe's name without reading at least one novel. (
Click to expand...

Oh!

You should read A Personal Matter, and then Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!; they're both semi-autobiographical looks at the effects of his mentally handicapped son's effect on his life, as well as the influence of William Blake on his work (in the latter book; the former is more particularly about the birth of his son). They're very powerful and often disturbing. I liked them much more than Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids myself.
 
N

Necrovex

Member
Mumei said:
Oh!

You should read A Personal Matter, and then Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!; they're both semi-autobiographical looks at the effects of his mentally handicapped son's effect on his life, as well as the influence of William Blake on his work (in the latter book; the former is more particularly about the birth of his son). They're very powerful and often disturbing. I liked them much more than Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids myself.
Click to expand...

I read the introduction to Nip the Buds before beginning my official reading of it (I know, I know. I'm not supposed to read the intro before reading said book). The writer placed a lot of information about Oe, and his son, Hikari (I will always think of the Utada song). I may read both of these once I catch up on my Murakami.

Though I just realized the next book I plan to read is Ender's Game.

FnordChan said:
You should check and see if your library can secure a copy via Interlibrary Loan.

FnordChan
Click to expand...

Oh my lord. I may never need to buy a book again. :-O
 
M

MrOogieBoogie

BioShock Infinite is like playing some homeless guy's vivid imagination
survivor said:
Finished reading Good Omens and also Animal Farm since that one was a pretty short read. Also started reading The Master and Margarita. It's pretty weird so far, but I'm liking it.
dQdsCzE.jpg
Click to expand...

If we're judging books by their covers, then this must be a great read.

dat cover
 
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