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Thranguy posted:There is literally no other living author besides Matt Ruff who could be trusted with this premise. Yeah, I'm a big fan of Ruff and I've been a bit hesitant about picking that one up. Might be worth trying out.
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Jul 10, 2017 15:24
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Captain Hotbutt posted:The Mirage - Matt Ruff I read The Last Policeman because of Book Barn recommendations and it was an enjoyable read, especially the world falling apart. Agreed on Redshirts being trash, along with Old Man's War. Although useful in learning that if a work of fiction is praised by Scalzi (usually paired with Rothfuss and Wheaton) it can be safely ignored.
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Jul 10, 2017 15:42
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I liked The Mirage and pretty much everything else Matt Ruff has written. His books usually feel quite different from one another but are always at least good (The Mirage, Bad Monkeys, Sewer Gas and Electric), sometimes very good (Fool on the Hill, Lovecraft Country), and occasionally very, very good (Set This House in Order). I also liked The Last Policeman trilogy though so maybe I have terrible taste 
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Jul 10, 2017 17:39
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I read the last policeman on...I guess it was probably your recommendation. Only the first one. Not terrible, but had some serious pacing issues which were related to the setup for a sequel.
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Jul 11, 2017 08:17
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I just read Rosemary's Baby and was impressed how faithful the movie is to the book, there is really only one minor scene that isn't in the movie. The book, like the movie, does a wonderful job of accentuating loneliness and paranoia. One idea that the book touches on, that I think the movie does not, is the idea that it is a woman's duty to be a mother and that her entire identity should serve nothing else. I feel like this is a statement on the women's liberation movement happening in the 60's when this book came out, this idea that it is scary to not want to be a mother like the generations before you.
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Jul 11, 2017 15:46
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After you finish whatever book you're reading you should let someone from the all-new SHAMEFUL: The Greatest Books You've Never Read thread pick one for you. Don't buy a new book, read that poo poo you've got laying around that you said you would.
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Jul 12, 2017 17:48
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Just finished The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan. Very bleak, beautiful novel. It's billed as a western sort of, but it's really a story about people more than anything. Really just one man's ability to cope with life's struggles. Excellent read.
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Jul 13, 2017 08:08
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Just finished Edwin Mullhouse by Steven Millhauser. Somehow I've managed to read my way through all of his bibliography (over the course of like...seven years or something) without getting around to Edwin Mullhouse. I think it's a pretty good book to cap off the whole experience. It has a lot of themes that he later goes back to in some of his short stories, and it ended up being very moving and nostalgic to me. It's a great book on American childhood, a great tribute to Stratford, Connecticut, and I think there's some stuff to unpack in there about doppelgangers/mirror images as well.
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Jul 13, 2017 12:34
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The Player of Games by Iian M. Banks. I picked this up after scanning the Book Barn recommendations while standing in the sci-fi section at Powells. The goons steered me in the right direction, this was an excellent read. This was the first book I have read of Banks and his Culture series. The story is set in a far future near-utopian society with sentient AI, and easy terraforming. The near-immortal citizens can do whatever they like, so the protagonist becomes an expert at various board games but grows weary from a lack of challenges. A part of his society is "Contact", which is tasked with finding new civilizations. They find an empire where society revolves around a complicated game, so our hero is sent there to try to win. This book was fantastic. The different forms of governmental organization were interesting, the characters were allowed to make mistakes, and the ending was strong. I'm looking forward to reading more Banks. The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports by Jeff Passan. This is about how pitchers arms work in baseball, with a focus on Tommy John surgery and injury prevention. As a baseball fan it was an informative read. I learned a lot about how the demand for pitches near 100mph cause injuries, and how a few extra mphs can mean the difference between making millions and not making a minor league team. This book came out in early 2016, and my favorite part was detailing how the Chicago Cubs were taking a big risk on signing pitcher Jon Lester for $155 million, as the author couldn't have guessed how well that would turn out. Overall a great, well researched book for baseball fans.
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Jul 13, 2017 22:08
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Sonora, by Hannah Lillith Assad beautifully lyric prose. assad imbues the first third or so, set in the Arizona desert during the narrator's teenage years, with a perfectly bleak, haunting atmosphere. around the second act though the principals move to Brooklyn and the novel loses its charm and becomes a kind of uninteresting story dissolution and drug use set against a backdrop of rapidly-gentrifying NYC. still very good, though
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Jul 14, 2017 01:06
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Revenger by Alistair Reynolds A YA novel that reads like a mixture of Treasure Island and Firefly. I don't read a lot of YA, so I was a little surprised by a few things in here, but that's down to me not reading YA novels for over forty years. Things have changed since Judy Blume. I enjoyed the book quite a bit--Reynolds has created quite a playground for himself, with piles of mysteries yet to uncover.
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Jul 14, 2017 19:19
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The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon My first Pynchon book. It's a good plot, and reads almost like a David Lynch film in prose. My problem with it is that only a few of the characters are memorable, and towards the end I was losing track of who everyone was when the pace really picks up and Oedipa starts visiting them left and right trying to make sense of everything. And the play scene really, really drags. I did like the humor scattered throughout. I laughed for a very long time at "Hitler Hilarius".
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Jul 14, 2017 20:33
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i read a brian's winter, it was a good but didn't out do the original
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Jul 15, 2017 03:49
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Jonathan Cabal, Necromancer, by Jonathan Howard. About a man who makes a wager with the devil to get his soul (sold in a Faustian bargain) back, by gathering 100 replacement souls within a year, at the carnival of discord. Sounds like a fun premise. Oh, and the main character is a gigantic rear end in a top hat and a desperately unengaging character. Oh, and he doesn't actually need the people involved to knowingly sell their souls, just to sign the contract under any pretense whatsoever. Oh, and not a single line of this "comic horror" is actually funny. Garbage. ... 2 of the Gardes-Marines trilogy, by Nina Sorotkina. The Gardes-Marines movies were basically an 80's Russian version of the Musketeers, and pretty fun cloak and dagger (horse and rapier?) adventures. Found the original novels decades later... and they're very adamant about not being historical-adventure fiction. The only duel is between two minor antagonists, and the entire rescue sequence that forms the climax of the first film takes place offscreen and is only briefly summarized. Fair enough - I'm not opposed to boring historical fiction. What do you have for me? Gossip. Lots and lots of dull historical gossip about the private lives of long-dead courtiers, with practically zero political or historical intrigue. Dumpster. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jul 15, 2017 08:50
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So far this summer Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo Translations of four of Galileo's more important treatises are provided after extensive background information on the political (theocratic) climate and threats around him. Galileo spends some time on the technical details of his discoveries of the moons of Jupiter, sunspots, and why in general he favored a Copernican/Kepler celestial model, but that's not really the goods of this book. The first letter, addressed to Cosimo II de Medici, the ruler of Florence, is a master class on brownnosing. The artfulness with which Galileo strokes and fellatiates Cosimo as a prospective patron is just  The real joy in this one is how bloody sarcastic Galileo can be in his arguments in favor of his take on truth and sense information. If you, er, have had recent frustration with how your drunk uncle or grandmother handles the consumption, analysis/interpretation, and verification of information, this book may provide a brief breath of fresh air for you. The Lost Fleet Dauntless-Victorious, Invincible-Leviathan Hard, military scifi. The author asked, "How would a long retreat through space look?" The first six books introduce you to a neat conceptualization of relativistic space combat minus drones. Imagine Space Battleship Yamato meets special relativity. The second series introduces you to the challenges of maintaining tense peace and kinda drags through an obvious overarching mystery. It's a pretty quick read, decently fun. The Final Empire: Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages I'm sure someone has already touched on this. The Way of Kings Yeah, Brandon Sanderson fixed his writing a ton from Elantris to Mistborn, and goddamn he has gotten even better. Patrick Rothfuss, I'm leaving you. Words of Radiance These words...are acceptable. This was one of the most cathartic moments in literature I've experienced And then, later: these words...are acceptable.     I mean, goddamn. I hope he can keep it up for 8 more books. I'm stoked for Oathbringer later this year, and I've picked up Wheel of Time to read afterward. The Intel Trinity A history of Intel as told in the form of a triple biography of three of its key leaders. I did not realize just how much I take for granted in electronics marketing I just take for granted comes from Intel. Ever wonder why poo poo is sold as a "solution" these days as opposed to just a product? Read this book. I'm now starting on "The Benevolent Experiment," a study on the mandatory boarding schools native Canadian children were sent to and a different way of defining genocide 
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Jul 16, 2017 06:32
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I shotgunned the following three books in about five days: Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer This ties with A Closed and Common Orbit for my favorite pick on the Hugo ballot. Like Ninefox Gambit, it drops you right into the deep end, but unlike Ninefox Gambit, the culture of the setting is actually worth parsing out as you read. It presents a really interesting new world where all religion is required to be private, kind of like therapist-patient confidentiality, and national government has been replaced with ideological conclaves as a result of transportation that can take you anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes. That sounds like an awesome world to live in by my estimation, so of course it's too good to be true. The narrator is also very well done. I can imagine all of the tangents justifying the way he tells the story to what he imagines his reader to be might get annoying, but that's just setting up the fact that his worldview turns out to be very far removed from what the rest of the setting considers normal or even acceptable. The worst I can say about this book is that it's not a complete story; most of the threads are left hanging for Seven Surrenders to pick up. The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin It was nice to come back to this miserable earthquake world, but it doesn't feel as fresh as the first time, especially when I have to compare it to Too Like the Lightning. The new lore is decent, but what's even better is seeing the daughter's perspective and Essun's unwitting failures as a parent. Death's End by Cixin Liu Boy was this a trip, and also kind of a pain. It reminded me of several other books, most notably Seveneves. Instead of feeling like it was two books stitched together, though, this one feels like the cliffs notes to four of them due to its increasingly accelerated time scale. I'm also still not fond of how long Liu lingers on the disaster porn aspect of the narrative, especially since there are two such scenes this time around! However, I can kind of appreciate this book's willingness to confront you with humanity's insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and forcing the audience to redefine their expectations for a hopeful, optimistic future. I leave unsure about whether or not I'd prefer more books in this series so that these events could unfold at a pace that feels less like an event horizon, or whether or not I'd prefer the book to have a tone different from that of The Dark Forest. I'd also like to give a shout-out to the amazing story within a story that functions as a great fairy tale on its own merits and is also a clever riddle for the characters to decipher. On the down side, those characters are mostly just vehicles for the readers to experience this timeline on, and suggestions for how to feel about it. This book was a pretty decent ending for what the trilogy turned out to be, but I doubt I'll be going back to Liu's well anytime soon if I can help it. And seriously, gently caress the Trisolarans.
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Jul 16, 2017 18:35
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Potato Salad posted:The Way of Kings Isn't the Stormlight Archive only going to be a trilogy? I was under the impression that Oathbringer was the last one... Also, I'm 100% with you, those first two books are probably my favourite fantasy books. Mindblowingly good.
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Jul 16, 2017 23:31
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Ayem posted:Isn't the Stormlight Archive only going to be a trilogy? I was under the impression that Oathbringer was the last one... It's supposed to run ten books.
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Jul 17, 2017 00:40
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Welp, after many periods where there was no time to read, I've finally finished The Witcher: The Lady of the Lake, which marks the end of the Witcher series. (at least, until another semi-standalone is translated sometime in the next year or so) I thought it was very good; probably not my favourite in the series overall, but it was a great entry. I was spoiled about the ending due to the games, although I enjoyed it all the same. That fight at Castle Stygga (especially the death of Milva and Cahir), as well as the riots/pogrom at the end were pretty sad, though.  At least things got better for those who remained, during the games.
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Jul 17, 2017 04:40
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Sci-Fi Explosion: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi - Good, but... I dunno. I'm used to his stuff being more punchy. This had a lot of political subterfuge and stuff in it. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - Loved it. A great take on a 'Firefly'-like scenario, but with a lighter touch. Great character-building. We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis Taylor - Probably the best world-building/techy sci-fi book I've ever read, in the top 3 books I've ever read. Fast paced, lots of crunchy-but-approachable tech. Bought the sequel before I was done reading it. Big Planet by Jack Vance - Old School sci-fi written very old school. Not sure how I feel about it, but it was definitely far-flung from just about anything else I've ever read, probably due to it being 50+ years old. on deck are For We are Many and Infinite. All I wanna do is read nerdy space sci-fi.
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Jul 17, 2017 23:32
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Hillybilly Elegy by JD Vance. Weird book. The first half was decent - the story of a pretty messed up childhood with some great characters and some interesting insights into a culture. After the star of the story, Mamaw, dies it devolves into being the boring memoir of a deeply self-satisfied dickhead, punctuated by forays into dull libertarianism. You have to be pretty egocentric to write an memoir at 31 years old, but this guy is so unbearably smug I had to start skimming by the end or I was going to throw the book at the wall. At one point he comes about an inch from actually casting himself as Marine Todd in a college class. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Genuinely different and deeply moving. Best book I've read this year by far.
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Jul 19, 2017 22:07
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peanut- posted:Hillybilly Elegy by JD Vance. Weird book. The first half was decent - the story of a pretty messed up childhood with some great characters and some interesting insights into a culture. You made it farther than I did before skimming. I started hating the dude when he authoritatively stated that 'people just don't want to work anymore' based on one summer working in a tile warehouse where the company had trouble filling one position.
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Jul 20, 2017 02:08
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JnnyThndrs posted:You made it farther than I did before skimming. I started hating the dude when he authoritatively stated that 'people just don't want to work anymore' based on one summer working in a tile warehouse where the company had trouble filling one position. That's in the book's introduction, less than 10 pages in.
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Jul 20, 2017 13:02
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Franchescanado posted:That's in the book's introduction, less than 10 pages in. Ex-loving-zactly. Somebody who usually has good literary taste kept recommending it to me, so rather than donating it to Goodwill like I usually do with bad books, I kept reading, waiting for the good part. My fault, I suppose.
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Jul 20, 2017 13:19
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It's true that people don't want to work anymore, but that's also been true for all of human history.
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Jul 20, 2017 13:50
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JnnyThndrs posted:Ex-loving-zactly. I'm currently reading it for my book club. The girl that chose it usually has good tastes and loves reading Pulitzer's and never gets her books chosen. It's okay.
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Jul 20, 2017 13:50
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Finished For We Are Many (Bobiverse book 2) by Dennis Taylor in like 2 days. Definitely liked the first book better, but it was a very good continuation of the story.
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Jul 20, 2017 16:06
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Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. What a drat fine book! Once I finished the immersion course in learning how to read the sea jargon and writing style, the pages just flew by - I loved the interplay of the characters, the life at sea, the drama of the battles - Then I hit the last few chapters and went from reading quickly to reading a page an hour. I'd been spoiled on how the ending goes, so it was torturous to watch doom and gloom happen one step at a time when at that point I was deeply in love with the characters and wanted them to sail to the top of the admiralty instantly. Alas. Now, the plan was to order the whole set of books off of ebay, and while the plan is the same, I'm still going to rush out to the library as soon as it opens in an hour and twelve or so minutes and get Post Captain out ASAP.
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Jul 21, 2017 12:48
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Marsbound by Joe Haldeman. It really ramped up toward the end, and I'm going straight into Starbound to get more.
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Jul 21, 2017 22:20
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Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. So this is the earliest novel in his Culture series - I say earliest and not 'first' as general consensus is to start with another of his books such as The Player of Games, as the series is comprised of self-contained stories within a consistent universe. I did take this advice and came to this book second and honestly I don't think it would have been an issue to start here. Consider Phlebas does a little more setting out of general concepts within the universe than does TPoG and was equally enjoyable a read, if maybe a little more violent and less cerebral. I've been exposed to some criticism about this novel as being a bit of a meandering work that just follows the protagonist through a series of his adventures. It does read a bit like it was being written as ideas came to mind - but actually this is a re-written novel that he had initially shelved. This helps to explain why some sections of the story feel disjointed (I'm not sure the inclusion of the chapters devoted to Fal 'Ngeestra added anything to the experience). I'm sure there is a term for this in fiction writing but it often feels like Banks had general ideas for interesting situations that weren't specifically relevant to the protagonist and just bent the plot to include some of them - I enjoyed the Fwi-Song stuff but it seemed a stretch. I'm finding this series to be a fantastic, if sometimes shallow or scope-limited, examination of hedonism. The post-utopic Culture society continues to be a joy to learn about and thus far the more interesting plot points seem to revolve around their interaction with other groups which either have anathemic philosophy or are vastly underdeveloped in comparison. Already moving into the next book in the series: Use of Weapons which I hear has some interesting non-chronological storytelling elements.
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Jul 22, 2017 16:39
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Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula Le Guin If you liked The Dispossessed or Left Hand of Darkness, you will love this book. Many of the same themes (of social structure, justice, governance, and revolution) are played out in this set of four interwoven novellas. Good stuff.
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Jul 24, 2017 02:45
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Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online - Andrew Groen I play a lot of Eve so was drawn to it. Good read if you're into the game and gives a pretty unbiased view of that era of the game. Obviously, avoid if you don't play but if you do, I'd highly recommend it.
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Jul 24, 2017 11:24
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more like Andrew Groan
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Jul 24, 2017 18:28
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grimmmy posted:Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online - Andrew Groen Does that mean there's a chapter on the scourge of Goonswarm?
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Jul 25, 2017 01:16
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Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I'm sure this book will loving infuriate you if you know stuff about physics, but given that I vaguely understand Schrodinger's Cat, this book hit the sweet spot for just enough detail to hook me solidly. Pretty fast, great read. I feel sorry for Amanda the most, I think. Imagine forging your way in an alternate universe on your own!
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Jul 26, 2017 15:58
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Just finished Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, this morning. Its an interesting read but somewhat muddled especially in its sketched alternatives. I'm not well read in philosophy and Fisher frequently refers to others (mostly Žižek and Deleuze) but I managed to get by on little or no familiarity with who he cited. I did get the feeling that Mark or rather the people he was quoting were using obscure terms they made up themselves to describe phenomena that could easily be explained through common language like Lacans the "Big Other" which is either an opaque term for target of deception or a form a magic spell that can be cancelled, I'm not really sure which. The sections on bureaucracy and education suffered the least from this and are describe modern (well modern Britain anyway) society and its stresses and developments very clearly. It also has a section on mental health and the role of modern capitalism on behavioural expectations that I think most ex pupils will find creepily familiar.
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Jul 28, 2017 13:47
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grimmmy posted:Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online - Andrew Groen I actually enjoy reading EVE stories but I'd never want to play it.
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Jul 28, 2017 15:05
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Infinite by Jeremy Robinson - From what I gather, Sci-Fi isn't this guy's milieu, but it was pretty good. Lots of existential dread and BIG issues. Got a little pulpy at times
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Jul 31, 2017 16:18
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Finished Dune for the fifth or sixth time. Still perhaps my favorite book ever, though I never noticed until now that the pacing loses a step after the first third or so. Also that makes me 7/7 on my "finish a book every month" New Year's resolution  Jaunary- Shogun (James Clavell) February- Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut) March- Candide (Voltaire) April- The Summons (John Grisham) May- Tuesday with Morrie (Mitch Albom) June- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas Kuhn) (also a re-read from college) July- Dune (Frank Herbert)
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Jul 31, 2017 23:54
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Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman A bunch of reasonable ideas that never went anywhere or were dropped for something else entirely moments later. I wasn't a fan.
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Aug 2, 2017 19:46
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