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Ulio posted:Nice to see people enjoying this series. Didn't really have much fanfare here for that series. Did you like the sequels? I think the first one was by far the best. The 2nd one is interesting but a slog and the third was kinda of a mixed bag also. I did very much actually. I didn't just want to copypaste my goodreads short review but I found each book very different stylistically but still strong, if not the power punch of the first. I think if anything I preferred the third to the second, which served more as set up for the final installment. Just wish somebody had thought to try talking on the cellphone.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:04
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Use of Weapons is my go to recommended starting point for the Culture. It might not be as straight forward as the first two (or anything), but I think the writing and the concepts are so amazing that it will make you more tolerant towards anything else Banks wrote.
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Feb 23, 2018 22:52
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Bilirubin posted:Just finished the Area X trilogy by Vandermeer. Was good stuff! And just in time for the movie I really liked the first one and third. I read all three during a resort vacation and I actually had nightmares, which never happens for me. If that does it for you, I’d recommend Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff and The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle.
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Feb 24, 2018 02:37
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tuyop posted:I really liked the first one and third. I read all three during a resort vacation and I actually had nightmares, which never happens for me. Awesome thanks for the recommendations!
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Feb 24, 2018 05:57
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Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari An outstanding book that consistently made me reevaluate the way I thought about history and humanity. He makes a strong case for how empires, market forces, and science all worked together to form the modern world. If anyone is aware of a good rebuttal or criticism to the book that is worth reading, do let me know. North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud I read this one because of the acclaim it got in this thread, actually. A collection of short stories that uses supernatural elements to explore the horrors of human nature. As with any short story collection it can be hit or miss but even the poorer stories are so well written that you'll remain enthralled.
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Feb 25, 2018 07:12
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Creation by Gore Vidal This was a fascinating historical fiction work which covered a vast breadth of history I've had yet to read about in detail. The main character isn't all that strong and doesn't possess many poignant characteristics, but this is intentional, to allow the main character to fade into the background of the dense history at play. I found it to be an interesting foray into Persian/Indian/Chinese history, however skewed some of the narrative may have been from its interpretation of history. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison I voraciously read this over the span of week based upon how captivating I found the narrative immediately upon picking the book up. Its nuanced depiction of how the nameless narrator experiences 1950s America as a black man is unlike anything I've read, although I'm new to black literature in general. The descriptions of the settings were in numerous instances entirely unique to me, with the author's attention to the minutiae of life uncannily similar to the arbitrary intricacies I see, which was spooky to me. This is the best book I've read in a while.
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Feb 26, 2018 00:34
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cult member at airport posted:North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud welcome, brother
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Mar 1, 2018 04:07
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Streams of Gold Rivers of Blood by Anthony Kaldellis To summarize, narrative history of the Byzantine Empire from the mid 900's till the First Crusade. Breaks down the reigns of the Emperors of this period, including the notable Basil II "The Bulgar Slayer" who was the longest reigning Roman Emperor. He gives evidence of how this period of Imperial Power and sudden collapse in the 1070's wasn't due too the traditional narrative of powerful land owners taking control of the state, instead it was simply the decline of the Macedonian Dynasty, stripped away Imperial Legitimacy as Emperors tried to insulate themselves with way to many bribes and questionably competent loyalists as new powers like the Seljuks, Normans and Pechenegs encroached. Also that the First Crusade was really a Byzantine Military Operation until the Siege of Antioch and everything went off the rails for the Empire. Overall a pretty interesting book that sort of set the stage for a lot of the important events of the Middle Ages. Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson Been I assume reviewed/recommended to death on this site, was engaging kept me reading. Had an excellent set of "I wonder who is doing what" all the way up until the end with some big reveals/drama in the climax and even more so in the epilogue. The sequel I think is aptly titled, because by the end of the book despite her supposed intentions... yeah I kinda came away thinking on that you stare too much into the abyss you become it with Baru ending up a Monster. Also as an accountant it was amusing to see the number cruncher be the lead character even if it was all quite abstracted.
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Mar 1, 2018 07:19
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Pocket Billiards posted:
Picked this one up after seeing it mentioned here. Great story and enjoyable read. Amazing what those people dealt with
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Mar 4, 2018 06:06
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Animal Farm. It was good, but the ending, while completing the allegory, was a big anti-climax. I wanted another emotional hit as big as Boxer dying. Pigs playing poker and becoming indistinguishable from humans is a cool scene, but I wanted another horrific act from Napoleon to sell the transformation.
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Mar 4, 2018 14:49
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BananaNutkins posted:Animal Farm. Napoleon tweets MAFGA?
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Mar 4, 2018 16:16
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BananaNutkins posted:Animal Farm. The CIA didn't like the ending either. Animated film version they helped fund ends with the farm animals overthrowing the pigs.
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Mar 4, 2018 16:26
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The last two books I finished were The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers and Thunderball by Ian Fleming. I am currently reading The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout (one of the ones that was made into an episode of the Nero Wolfe tv show about 16 years ago, but one which I haven't read).
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Mar 4, 2018 17:40
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Last night I finished Ron Chernow's Grant. It's really one of the best biographies I've read in a while, and has put me solidly in the camp of Grant being an under-appreciated figure in US history. I would have finished it sooner, but to be honest, the contrast between the biography's central figure and today's leadership made for such a hard and painful contrast that I had to take a break.
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Mar 6, 2018 16:27
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Wheat Loaf posted:I am currently reading The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout (one of the ones that was made into an episode of the Nero Wolfe tv show about 16 years ago, but one which I haven't read). One of my favorite Nero Wolfes.
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Mar 6, 2018 17:35
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Bridge of Birds based off Book Barn recommendations. A delightful fantasy, I enjoyed it a lot. The main characters were fun, the plot had nice twists, and the ending was great.
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Mar 8, 2018 03:43
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The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larson. It's been years since I read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo but I think I enjoyed this one more. Any scene with Lisbeth Salander was the highlight for me, making up for Larson's teeth clenching focus on the minutiae of Swedish criminal investigations.
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Mar 10, 2018 01:47
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BananaNutkins posted:Animal Farm. You know a book is good when authorian governments ban it.
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Mar 12, 2018 17:51
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Ulio posted:You know a book is good when authorian governments ban it. Authorian governments happen when there's a dictatorship of authors
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Mar 12, 2018 23:28
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Laws of Survival by Kristine Smith, book three of her Jani Killian series. This book is simultaneously the weakest of the series and one of the strongest - the plotting is tighter, the plate-spinning of intrigue is easier to follow, and the character development is subtle but wonderful - but at the same time I got really fed up with Jani at times, and the stakes weren't as... high? I mean, they were, but in a more subtle way that didn't feel as impactful. High-points: the more in-depth look at the idomeni, Pierce's everything, Dolly, the way Smith writes all of these characters and keeps them distinct. Low-points: Steve and Ange felt like they were tacked on, a random cameo from book one - little more than plot devices. Lucien. (And how frustrated I get with Jani and how she is not kind.) How dumb the main villain was/how foolish the protags were for not realizing who it was. But then I'm the reader and I saw it a mile away, so... ah well. Anyways, book four arrives soon and I cannot wait to continue this series - it's honestly one of the best I've read this year, up there with my love for Cherryh's work.
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Mar 13, 2018 00:02
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Lightbringer by Brent Weeks, books 1 through 4. Books 1 and 2 were the standouts overall, with book 1 in particular managing to both introduce and really go into the intricate and dirty relationships between the characters. I'm still not at the point yet where I've read enough genre fiction to feel qualified to move on to the proper classics, so the main standout in this series for me was the realistically messy relationships between people in power and the ones they lord over. It's also nice to see a main character who is genuinely fat and kind of vile in the beginning. The end of Book 2 has a strange problem where all of a sudden you're off a rollercoaster of plot and now you're just kind of trundling along the tracks till you hit the end. Where things used to unfold in unexpected ways (or very unfortunate expected ones), everything just starts happening along a very logical train of events until the book's over. Book 3 managed to avoid this for the most part, had a really great conclusion, but in Book 4 that problem came back in full force. I don't even remember much of what happened in it because all of the little things that made me love these characters started to disappear bit by bit as they developed. I like stories where young people grow up into strong but twisted versions of what they believed they'd become as children. In this case, the kid just kinda grows up the exact way he'd like to grow up, and aside from a few moments, becomes exactly who he wanted to be. I'll still read Book 5, but from what I hear Weeks has a real hard time finishing stories strongly. I hope he breaks the streak this time.
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Mar 15, 2018 02:20
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I just finished The Hangmans Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch. I thought it was pretty good. Nothing amazing but the characters and the mystery kept me reading and I powered through it in a few days. I'd gladly read more like it. e: apparently it's the first of a series. Well, I know what I'm reading next. yeah I eat ass fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 14:11
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Forests of the Night by S Andrew Swann. Not a bad read, not a great read, but fun: it's about a private detective getting drawn into a conspiracy thriller in a cyberpunk world, and the private dick also happens to be a tiger. There's a bunch of gunfights, convoluted political links, and a little light romance. Not sure if I'd rec it, but hell - I enjoyed it as a fast break from this other series I'm reading.
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Mar 16, 2018 20:08
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I just finished Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe. My thoughts are repeated from the chat thread:quote:I really enjoy that whole idea of shared universes like that; I like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Anno Dracula a lot. But the Wold Newton one is by far my least favourite of the three. I have a sort of nerdy appreciation for how the guys who have written on it have put a huge amount of work into these pseudo-academic articles explaining how Hannibal Smith from The A-Team is actually a distant relative of Sherlock Holmes, but at the same time, it ends up feeling even more contrived than a lot of that stuff usually is. Maybe it just ties everything together too neatly. I think I will read an actual story next. My options are another Nero Wolfe, another James Bond, or Knots and Crosses by Iain Rankin.
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Mar 18, 2018 01:27
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Just finished A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers and reread The Magicians by Lev Grossman. One is full of characters who are ideal friends, and the other's cast could not be less ideal. With Long Way, I first read the sequel, which I liked because of the focus on interpersonal relationships, especially the amount of support the characters offered each other. This book has the same quality to it, but in an episodic structure with an ensemble cast instead of two alternating stories. I think I prefer A Closed and Common Orbit overall, as that had a greater capacity for emotional catharsis and sustaining tension, but I like the focus on interspecies cohabitation and non-human perspectives (especially Sissix's) that Long Way focuses on more. I'll keep an eye out for the next one. The Magicians is a story about somebody I could relate to a lot when I first read it, but I forgot how petty and self-centered Quentin and all of his friends are. The amount of bad decisions Quentin makes vastly outweighs the good, and it's hard for me to see how he learned anything from his ordeal. It also has some action scenes near the end that I might revisit later, because I always wanted to learn how to write action scenes and they convey a very specific feeling of panic and joylessness that I've yet to see anywhere else. I found it compelling over all, but if other readers get impatient with Quentin I can't blame them.
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Mar 21, 2018 04:25
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The Magicians is rarely recommended in the suggest me a book threads, which is a little baffling, because it is one of the best written modern fantasy series. People say they want something different and fresh, but then they get upset that the characters are not your typical farmboy chosen one characters. The first book is about the fruitlessness of escapism.
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Mar 21, 2018 21:30
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BananaNutkins posted:The Magicians is rarely recommended in the suggest me a book threads, which is a little baffling, because it is one of the best written modern fantasy series. People say they want something different and fresh, but then they get upset that the characters are not your typical farmboy chosen one characters. The first book is about the fruitlessness of escapism. I think most people avoid recommending it because the series dives right into Furrydom and Rape fantasies and poo poo. And also the author is a tool.
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Mar 21, 2018 22:27
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also it sucks, and it's bad
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Mar 22, 2018 01:41
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I just (earlier this morning) finished Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin, the first Inspector Rebus novel. It was fine; decent enough noir detective stuff. At the same time, it was very obviously (as Rankin admits in the introduction) the author's first novel and he was in (again, as he admits in the introduction) "yes, I own a thesaurus" mode. 
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Mar 22, 2018 10:28
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cult member at airport posted:Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge was a chore to finish. I picked it up because I like the augmented reality concept and I do appreciate some of the concepts the book came up with for tech that would exist in a world where AR was ubiquitous. Unfortunately there isn't a single likable character and the writing leaves a lot to be desired. I'm sort of baffled at the acclaim and awards this book got. Like a lot of SF, it hasn't aged well and (I dare say) wasn't very good in the first place. Looking back at old award winners, you'll mostly find very pedestrian works. And the SF fan community is a big force in promoting works, which means that all sorts of things get profile because the creator is a fan or fan favourite. I'll still credit Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep" as an entertaining and clever work.
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Mar 22, 2018 14:26
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Bricoleur posted:Whip Hand by Dick Francis I read a tonne of those back in the days. They're hardly high literature but but tell a good story with getting ridiculous. And, as you say, the protagonist is quite different. Content: I just finished The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. For those not in the loop, this is the big hitter of Chinese science fiction and with a very positive reception. Having said that, I had somewhat mixed feelings. The setting and culture is different and interesting (China in the Cultural Revolution and today) although the translation is a little stiff. The book nonetheless is very readable and more-ish. There's a lot of intriguing hooks to pull you into the story. But, the story does end mid-stream (sequels ahoy), there are lots of largely indistinguishable uptight Chinese academics as characters, a blatant deus ex machina, an absurdly powerful bit of alien technology that by all rights should end the story right there, a lengthy and goofy computer game section ... I'll probably look at the sequels but when I'm good and ready. nonathlon fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Mar 22, 2018 |
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Mar 22, 2018 14:33
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Bricoleur posted:The author himself used to be a jockey. This book is part of a series so I'll have to read the others. The novels are only loosely connected; Sid Halley shows up in 4 books and Kit Fielding in 2, but the rest are independent. All of them are "Horses Plus X" novels though. Unfortunately since they were written 1962-2010 some of the plots could now be easily defeated by email and cellphones, but I enjoyed them a lot back in the day.
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Mar 22, 2018 18:40
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outlier posted:I just finished The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. If you enjoyed TBP at all then you should definitely read the sequels. Each one expands on the "scope" of the previous by several orders of magnitude.
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Mar 24, 2018 06:31
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I disliked the second one for its treatment of female characters, but the third was very upsetting to me in the same way as Seveneves, if you read that. I’d recommend sticking through the series.
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Mar 24, 2018 19:44
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I've finished The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming and Three Witnesses and Not Quite Dead Enough, both by Rex Stout, in the past few days. They're all quite short books. I will probably go on to On Her Majesty's Secret Service next.
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Mar 24, 2018 21:37
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A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab 100 pages of kick-rear end characters and world-building followed by 200 pages of non-stop twists and action. A great book. Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dimitri Shostakovich and the Seige of Leningrad - M.T. Anderson A social and political history of Hitler trying to starve out Leningrad, and how a popular composer rallied the starving city with his 7th Symphony. An excellent book that mixes art-theory with historical examination. A complete and total recommend.
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Mar 24, 2018 23:30
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Thanks for the recommends on TBP sequels - I'll push them up the stack.
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Mar 25, 2018 12:56
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Captain Hotbutt posted:A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab I was recommended that series by a colleague and I thought it was just full of clumsy prose and Mary Sue-isms. I was embarrassed to be reading it. I haven’t actually encountered any palatable fantasy apart from ASOIAF and Uprooted by Naomi Novik, even scouring the Nebula and Locus award lists. I guess All the Birds in the Sky qualifies as fantasy? Even that was a bit cringe-inducing at points. I’ve just given up on the genre at this point but It’d be great to see some quality writing there.
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Mar 25, 2018 15:55
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tuyop posted:I was recommended that series by a colleague and I thought it was just full of clumsy prose and Mary Sue-isms. I was embarrassed to be reading it. I enjoyed the concept/world enough to get through the first book, but hated the second and stopped halfway through. My lady finished it and confirmed that I both called the ending and was right to not bother with it. She did not read the third. tuyop, have you read any Gene Wolfe or Ursula K LeGuin?
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Mar 25, 2018 16:26
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funkybottoms posted:tuyop, have you read any Gene Wolfe or Ursula K LeGuin? Oh yeah I love Ursula K. LeGuin, I just thought that was Sci Fi rather than fantasy. Gene Wolfe does sound more up my alley, I’ll add him to the queue. Also, are there any normal looking fantasy authors? Between Gene Wolfe and Patrick Rothfuss I’m just  at the whole persona.
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Mar 26, 2018 03:27
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