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While on vacation recently, I read Mars Life by Ben Bova, mostly at my folks place and on the plane. While I enjoyed it immensely, I had this sense that I enjoyed it on a politically prurient level, as opposed to a good science fiction novel. In the book, religious fundamentalists use the free market to dominate politics ranging from music to education. Musicians to run songs through "editors" or face mass-boycotting; school boards are filled with parents who don't want children exposed to secularist science, to the point where Darwin isn't taught and even the exploration of Mars is downplayed (in the book, intelligent life was found to once existed on Mars as constructed dwellings in a cliff face proved) with relativists saying, "That doesn't prove life existed on Mars, it's just a theory." The protagonists are all scientists who at a minimum accept both God and evolution and are steadfastly trying to maintain the exploration of Mars in the face of all resistance. To the author's credit (or not), the resistance stems massive flooding resulting from climate change. The societal changes revolve around a natural disaster which, so akin to the Flood sent by God (non-Halo Flood), that people have flocked to the New Morality movement by the millions. So the resistance isn't just religious in nature, it's pragmatic. The flooding has resulted in massive numbers of refugees fleeing the ruined cities toward the middle North America and the necessary construction of new cities along with developing sources of food in a wrecked economy make the scientific exploration of Mars a luxury.
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Dec 6, 2009 00:38
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Just finished 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Synopsis: Quaint little town in Maine gets an unwelcomed visit from the Undead and allllll hell breaks loose. Having read Tolkien's works beforehand, I felt his style in the book. The style being the level of detail which was MUCH! It was hard to get through the telling about the day-to-day life of Jerusalem's Lot in fine detail. However, once you read about the town's plight, it hits more of home since King helped make you feel like you lived and grew up in 'salem's Lot. This was good. The more emotional moments definitely had an impact. So you can say the slow start at first pays off. But he still went into too much detail about characters who didn't appear much at all and just seemed like "filler" material. Still, I was pleased with the book. And now I return to The Dark Tower.
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Dec 6, 2009 08:45
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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* by Chuck Klosterman. It's a collection of essays by this Klosterman fellow on a variety of pop-cultural topics (The Sims, The Real World, Country Music, Star Wars, etc....). Most of the essays were pretty entertaining with a few insightful nuggets. It's not the sort of thing I usually read so it was interesting in that regard. *A Low Culture Manifesto (Now With A New Middle)
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Dec 6, 2009 11:42
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JediGandalf posted:Just finished 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Synopsis: Quaint little town in Maine gets an unwelcomed visit from the Undead and allllll hell breaks loose. having read most of king's stuff and nearly everything to do with the dark tower, one of the things i like about salems lot is that it doesn't seem like he had the dark tower or midworld or roland or any of his other little projects in mind at the time. Salem's Lot stands well enough on its own without having to reference or make a point of being part of some larger narrative. maybe (probably) stephen king didn't realize this book would become part of the dark tower saga until he needed plot points in book 5 though. i mean, as long as you're referencing pop culture why not include your own contributions right?
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Dec 6, 2009 12:35
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I really loved Sallen's Lot. The letter that the "bad guy" leaves behind is just too awesome I`ve read it a long time ago, so I can't remember many details. To contribute: I just finished The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. Looking forward for the next one.
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Dec 7, 2009 04:36
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Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende - I've seen Allende mentioned here and there in TBB so I figured I'd grab one of her books when I happened to see the library had a number of books by her, while looking for something else. Geez...I really wanted to like this book - the prose is good, the historical detail is good and the characters are interesting, but the way the story was told really dragged the whole book down. Seemed like 90% of it consisted of "telling" and not "showing", not to mention a lot of plotlines never really got resolved by the end. I feel like I read half of a book - this could easily have been fleshed out to a few more hundred pages and really tied it all together a lot better than the version I read. If Allende's written better stuff than this, I'd like to read it. Also just finished the Earthsea trilogy by Le Guin. Been meaning to read this for years and finally got around to it. Really liked it, though I would've liked a little more backstory and a bit more of a sense of a connection between the the three books In particular, the transition from Ged being just a wizard in The Tombs of Atuan to being Archmage in The Farthest Shore was a bit jarring since we didn't see how he got there.
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Dec 7, 2009 05:23
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Encryptic posted:Also just finished the Earthsea trilogy by Le Guin. Been meaning to read this for years and finally got around to it. Really liked it, though I would've liked a little more backstory and a bit more of a sense of a connection between the the three books In particular, the transition from Ged being just a wizard in The Tombs of Atuan to being Archmage in The Farthest Shore was a bit jarring since we didn't see how he got there. Why stop there? There's still Tehanu and The Other Wind plus some short stories left to Earthsea. They may still leave you wanting on the book to book connection, but Tenar and Ged are still around and about.
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Dec 7, 2009 06:11
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i Just Finished "Tropic of Capricorn" by Henry Miller. Im Now Reading Moby Dick. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 7, 2009 07:34
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I spent most of Sunday finishing "The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs" by Irvine Welsh. One hell of an ending, god 
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Dec 7, 2009 17:19
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 I see this mentioned a lot as a classic so I picked it up at the library this week. I've finished about half of it and done some cursory investigation on the internet that refers to its masterful satire and redefining of language and such, so I'm a bit confused because so far it seems to be pics of dicks. Cock shots, throb rods, huge hard-ons with an eye for me. page after phallused page, I j/o'd roughly roughly thrice pr chapter. Highly Recommended. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 8, 2009 19:11
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Just finished Bram Stoker's Dracula. I read this mostly just because I was curious to read the book that basically popularized vampires and spawned countless vampire movies. It was definitely interesting to see how the original characters are portrayed (Dracula has a moustache?!), and some of the "rules," so to speak, of vampirism--the most interesting being that they don't burst to flames when the sun hits their skin à la Blade, and that you actually had to behead them. I also thought it was pretty well-written--it felt like every chapter was necessary. The only thing I found strange was that toward the end, it seemed like the eloquence of the writing from Van Helsing's perspective declined sharply. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, given the circumstances of the last few chapters, but it did strike me as odd. Also, the general Christian overtones were a little distracting at times, especially toward the end. Overall, it's a great read, and I recommend it to anyone who's even a little interested in vampires. 
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Dec 9, 2009 07:46
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A Farewell To Arms - I enjoyed For Whom The Bell Tolls quite a bit, but "Farewell" definitely was a step down from that in my opinion. Great depiction of World War I-era Italy and some fantastic bits like the passage that was quoted on the jacket of the copy I read, but Catherine just irritated the poo poo out of me. At least the book got a lot better towards the middle when Henry gets sent back to the front after being released from the hospital, and we don't see Catherine for a while. It's a shame because I wanted to like the book a lot more than I did.Ratatozsk posted:Why stop there? There's still Tehanu and The Other Wind plus some short stories left to Earthsea. They may still leave you wanting on the book to book connection, but Tenar and Ged are still around and about. I'll have to get around to reading those eventually. As it stands though, the story is pretty well wrapped-up, so I can't complain about that.
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Dec 10, 2009 05:11
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Finished Dan Simmons' The Terror today. While it kind of dragged in the middle once I got to the endgame section once they establish Rescue Camp I had trouble putting it down. The very end does get a little wonky though as the minimal fantasy elements come to the foreground and completely take over the narrative. All in all I think it ended better than Drood which just kind of fell apart near the end.
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Dec 10, 2009 07:38
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Finished DMT: The Spirit Molecule in the early hours of this morning. Very interesting read - pushes the boundaries of what we really know about reality. Time to find a few more books on the subject.
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Dec 11, 2009 03:06
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* by Chuck Klosterman. It's a collection of essays by this Klosterman fellow on a variety of pop-cultural topics (The Sims, The Real World, Country Music, Star Wars, etc....). Most of the essays were pretty entertaining with a few insightful nuggets. It's not the sort of thing I usually read so it was interesting in that regard. Just finished this a few days ago. I've instantly fallen in love with Klosterman's style. And just minutes ago, I finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's the quickest I've ever made it through a novel, and completely embodies a book that you can't put down. Captures the themes of isolation and survival beautifully.
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Dec 12, 2009 08:38
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Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury - My brother's a huge Bradbury fan and recommended it since I'd never read anything by Bradbury (been meaning to for years). Absolutely loved it - the poetic language, the little vignettes woven into one big tapestry and the perfect capturing of childhood summers. I plan on reading his other stuff like Fahrenheit 451, but I couldn't have asked for a better intro to Bradbury. My Word Is My Bond by Roger Moore - I've been a James Bond fan since I was a kid and I always liked Roger Moore as Bond (after Sean Connery) so I grabbed this from the library when I happened to see it on the shelf. It's an enjoyable look at Moore's life and career - he clearly had a lot of fun doing what he did and he comes off as a pretty classy guy.
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Dec 13, 2009 04:52
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I just finished Anthem by Ayn Rand. I would have no hesitation to recommend it to anyone. It gives a great look into why freedom rocks so hard.
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Dec 13, 2009 10:14
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JediGandalf posted:Just finished 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Synopsis: Quaint little town in Maine gets an unwelcomed visit from the Undead and allllll hell breaks loose. Salem's Lot is probably my favorite book by Stephen King. All the details and character asides are a necessary part of what King was trying to accomplish - that is, trying to create a horror story where the quiet village is as frightening as the monster that comes to plague it. The town is harboring it's fair share of evil before the vampires ever arrive, and in a way their attack is inevitable and under way long before they show up in the undead flesh. In the last few weeks I've finished Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut and V. by Thomas Pynchon. Loved them both. Breakfast of Champions didn't have quite the same sort of emotional impact on me as Slaughterhouse Five, but it was still fantastic and arguably more fun to read. Vonnegut actually dropping himself into the narrative as a character was interesting, and when he finally interacts with his main protagonist the whole novel snaps together. V. was incredible. Complex, obviously, but also funny - laugh out hilarious at many points - sad, and, in a way, uplifting. The breaks in the modern day narrative to follow "V"'s past were sometimes puzzling in their details, but overall the narrative was straight-forward enough that V. comes off as more of a novel than the swirling post-modern labyrinth you usually associate with Pynchon. Also, Pynchon weaves the low-brow with the high-brow better than anyone around. The passages with Profane hunting alligators through the New York sewers were some of my favorite.
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Dec 14, 2009 19:54
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I just finished Ringworld by Larry Niven. Audible is giving it away, and who am I to argue with a free book? I highly enjoyed what I heard and am thinking about picking up more by him.
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Dec 15, 2009 00:50
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Niven is one of the best sci-fi authors as far as I'm concerned. His best books were written with Pournelle like The Mote in God's Eye for example. It is a classic and I'm certain you would like it if you liked Ringworld. I actually happen to be in the middle of the sequel to that book right now, The Gripping Hand. Thus far it's pretty good but I'll reserve my judgement until the end.
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Dec 15, 2009 03:56
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Niven is almost always a great read, especially if you like weird aliens, and consistent and creatively-applied supertech.
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Dec 15, 2009 04:50
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Just a warning for Ringworld though, don't bother with any of the sequels. They're not very good. Engineers introduces the creators of the Ringworld but it also brings in some stupid concepts that didn't need to exist. The other "Known Space" stories of which Ringworld is a part are pretty good though.
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Dec 15, 2009 06:12
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It'll have to wait till next month for more Niven. I opted instead for The Final Empire: Mistborn Book 1 by Brandon Sanderson as my next book, and it's loving fantastic thus far. The narrator is Michael Kramer is probably the best one I've ever heard too. Though this isn't the thread for what I'm starting, I'll give a more detailed review once I'm done in 23 hours worth listening 
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Dec 15, 2009 11:41
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Niven! I just finished 'A World Out of Time' which I picked up in a second hand book shop a while ago, really enjoyable tale along the lines of The Time Machine, with the antagonist being flung into the far distant future. Well worth tracking down and contains one of the best openings to a sci-fi book I've read. Thanks to looking it up for this thread I just found out it's part of a series as well. It also contains that other Niven trade mark, namely at least one sex scene, preferably with an alien.
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Dec 15, 2009 18:17
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At first, without reading carefully, I thought you meant World of Ptavvs since you said "antagonist," but that's an alien from the (much further) distant past emerging from a stasis field in the near future. And then your comment about a sex scene threw me for a loop.  But yes, I think that's Niven's one primary failing, and he shares it with a lot of other sci-fi writers (and this is what muscles was referring to in the Ringworld sequels probably): he's a dirty old man.
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Dec 16, 2009 02:55
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Protagonist would make more sense, getting my 'agonists mixed up. I'll make this a more useful post, I have also recently finished two non fiction books. Home Run tells the story of allied evaders and helpers behind the lines in Nazi europe. It uses interviews and diaries to piece together many tales of individual escapes and the structures build up to help people get back home. I was left with a massive respect for the efforts of the resistance workers, many of whom were young women, being captured for them meant torture and death. Jack Tar The life and times of the common sailor in Nelsons navy. I've read a lot of fiction set in this period and a lot of non-fiction, and it pretty much all concentrates on the officers. This book attempts to give you an idea of what life was like for your average tar. Well worth a read if that period of history is of interest to you. Jekub fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Dec 16, 2009 |
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Dec 16, 2009 18:35
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I finished Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Marquez again. I don't really know why I felt like I should go back to it, but I did and enjoyed it much more on a second reading. I read it for the first time probably two and half years ago, so I didn't remember too many details. There is quite a bit of excellent prose despite being a translated work. I still feel that the ending doesn't make as much sense as it could. It doesn't bear any real connection to Lolita in a second reading either, but I'm definitely going to look into more of GGM's stuff. Cholera next, I already own it. Recommended.
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Dec 16, 2009 20:40
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Well, now that school's over I'm finally getting to read for fun and started with The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Wasn't sure what to expect going into it as I had it described to me as a kind of the antithesis of Starship Troopers, if only for being anti-war. Thought the method of space travel and the culture shock for returning soldiers was interesting because they travel at relativistic speeds their subjective time spent travelling between planets is only a few months but decades or even centuries may have passed on Earth and was likely based on Haldeman's own experiences after returning from Vietnam. I would suggest this book to any fan of sci-fi, but also if you just want a good war novel.
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Dec 17, 2009 00:37
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I just finished the Genghis trilogy by Conn Iggulden...very impressed. The fact that Mr. Iggulden went and lived with the Mongols to research for his books made it that much better. I knew about Genghis Kahn from school and such, but I learned quite a bit more after reading these books and now I'd really like to do more studying about that time period. A real page turner, one of those books that I just couldn't put down.
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Dec 17, 2009 06:20
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The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt. A group of space archaeologist attempt to decipher the mysterious of vanishing extra-planetary civilizations. It's pretty similar to Rendezvous with Rama, but the characters have personalities, and there's more action (deadly crabs!). Anyone know if the other books in the series are any good?
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Dec 18, 2009 11:25
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Diseased Liver posted:Well, now that school's over I'm finally getting to read for fun and started with The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Wasn't sure what to expect going into it as I had it described to me as a kind of the antithesis of Starship Troopers, if only for being anti-war. I just finished A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, and I was floored by the experience. It was one of those rare reading occasions where I reach the end of the book and have to pace the room furiously for a few minutes to get rid of the pent-up energy. It was in the "science fiction" section, but that doesn't describe it well. It is better described as a mixture of The Divine Comedy, Pilgrim's Progress, and Gulliver's Travels as written by Lord Dunsany. I didn't know anything about the plot—always the best way to be introduced to a book or movie—and had no idea what what going on until it came together in the plot. This was one of the best books that I've read in a long time, but I'm also disappointed in that I have no idea where to find similarly ambitious books as this. I also just finished Paul Krugman's The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008. How the current crisis came about has been confusing to me, and Prof. Krugman explains clearly what economists know about how the business cycle happens. Instead of just focusing on the current recession, he explains other recent panics and collapses: Mexico, Argentina, Thailand, Indonesia, and, most importantly, Japan. The most eye-opening section was on "shadow banking," how financiers come up with instruments that act just like bank deposits but with no regulation or oversight by the government. A historical example was the "trust," the cause of the Panic of 1907. Other such instruments have been developed since the 1980s such as the auction-rate security. It was their lack of regulation which caused the equivalent of a bank run in 2008. This was a very good book, with my only complaint being that it could have been longer. Prof. Krugman minimized the theory to make it accessible, but I would have liked for him to go into more detail on the economic models.
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Dec 18, 2009 12:04
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I finished up a few in the past two weeks: On Stranger Tides - Tim Powers I first heard about this novel years ago while I was reading up on the LucasArts game "Secret of Monkey Island". I never got around to reading it until now, and I regret waiting that long. Basically, it's an action/adventure pirate swashbuckling epic with magic, undead, famous historical characters, and a clever and engaging plot. The characters are so full of life, from undead pirates to voodoo sorcerers, everything about this book was wonderful. I loved it so much that I bought The Anubis Gates as soon as I finished. I heard good things about that one, too. Can't wait to start on it. Harry Potter series (up to Half Blood Prince) - J.K. Rowling I never read a Harry Potter book before and I never saw any of the films, apart from some of Prisoner of Azkaban a few years ago on cable. A friend of mine persauded me to finally just give the series a try, and I figured what the hell. I think my reasoning (which I admit was silly) was that it was popular tripe, a kid's book, and beneath me. But I'm glad I listened to her, because I really really enjoyed the books. I know some of my friends were critical of Rowling's style, calling it "pedestrian", but I thought they were fairly well written for children's books and I really like how the style of the prose, the length of the books, and the subject matter expanded as the series went on. I'm sure other people have different opinions, and I honestly do feel some regret for being so stubborn that I didn't give the books their chance when it was relevant, but at least I can say that I finally read them (and enjoyed them too) The Master - Colm Toibin I picked this book up for $3.00, it was recommended by the same friend as above and I was interested in reading something different. The plot is basically the life of Henry James and the chapters are spread out over different years and dates. The prose was interesting, albeit a bit dry and tedious in some cases, but I found it to be very engaging, just hard to sift through at times. Toibin also introduces some clever themes in the novel - isolation, artists' suffering for their work, adaptating, and how they engage their audience. Overall, I'd say it was an interesting novel, a bit slow at times, but not something I regret reading.
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Dec 19, 2009 18:44
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The Final Empire: Mistborn Book 1 by Brandon Sanderson, it's narrator is Michael Kramer. It follows a young girl Vin, and a crew of thieves as they try to overthrow the Lord Ruler. There are two magic systems presented, and highly detailed. It's not the 'It's magic! Accept the fact.' that is usually presented. I really liked all the charactes, which Michael Kramer really brings to life through excellent narration. Though his handling of Vin's voice is occationally a bit rough around the edges when she's crying but otherwise a fantastic job all around. I look forward to book two.
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Dec 19, 2009 18:55
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Wiley360 posted:I finished up a few in the past two weeks: Tim Powers in fantastic. Anubis Gates was my intro to his work and it is far from my favorite of his. The Fault Lines Trilogy is sheer complicated greatness. It starts with Last Call (my personal favorite of his) then goes into Expiration Date then Earthquake Weather. The Drawing of the Dark is amazing as well. Arthurian legend and the battle of the Christians and Muslim mages over a bar that brews a special beer made for the Fisher King.
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Dec 19, 2009 20:58
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Wiley360 posted:I loved it so much that I bought The Anubis Gates as soon as I finished. I heard good things about that one, too. Can't wait to start on it.
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Dec 20, 2009 03:44
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I finished God Hates Us All by Hank Moody with Jonathan Grotenstein. It's the real life form of the book from Californication that gets made into Crazy Little Thing Called Love. I actually thought it ended up being pretty good. It's a quick read, probably about 200 pages? I read it on the kindle so I don't know how many pages it had. A couple sections read like they could have been written the way the character is played on TV. It ends up feeling just like a really purple Bukowski. I'd actually recommend it to fans of the show, there's a lot of fun stuff in there.
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Dec 20, 2009 19:06
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Just finished Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates and while it was really fantastic, i have one question How the heck does Dog Faced Joe get killed!?!??! It seems like Jacky only kills Darrow....
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Dec 21, 2009 08:07
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Today I finished Your Next Door Neighbour is a Dragon by Zack Parsons (a SomethingAwful.com book!). Weird, weird, weird, meta, weird, weirdly meta, and really, really funny. Highly recommended, especially if you've ever read any of his front-page articles or you spend much time in GBS. I laughed out loud and annoyed everyone around me on about every 10th page. It's a confusing mix of highly plausible and probably non-fiction sections, a few probably-exaggerated sections, and some clear Parsonesque (Geist-Editor-esque?) wild fiction sections. I paid full price in a bricks-and-mortar book store for it (  impulse buy), so perhaps Zack got $0.01 from that.Also, Niven is great.
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Dec 22, 2009 02:56
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I finished the Stranger by Albert Camus. The first half was considerably stronger than the second half. The trial was abysmal. It was a quick read but I don't really think I'd recommend it to somebody who wasn't interested in a better version of Notes from Underground.
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Dec 22, 2009 03:07
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Drood by Dan Simmons: At nearly 800 pages, this is not a book I'd recommend to those with short attention spans or who don't have a huge fondness for Victorian literature. But if you meet both these criteria, you are in for a spectacular ride. Written in the form of a diary/confession by Charles Dickens' contemporary Wilkie Collins, the book chronicles the failing relationship between the two writers, after Dickens encounters a mysterious character called Drood while attempting to save passengers from a train accident. The rest of the novel is a mesmeric weird tale about killer cults, madness and doppelgangers. There is a tendency for Simmons to show off just how much he managed to dig up about the lives of these famous Victorians, but that's a minor caveat. This was one of the first book in ages that I actually wished would go on for longer than it did. The Death of Bunny Munroe - Nick Cave: When I started off on this book,I thought it would be the Nocturama to And The rear end Saw The Angel's Tender Prey. But 'The Death...' is a fantastic book in its own right, recounting the last days in the life of a sex crazed cosmetics salesman. This book is funny and deeply depressing all at once, a very rare combination to pull off. The Tenant - Roland Topor: A weird tale about a man who moves into a hostile uncomfortable apartment block only to have his life and personality subsumed by the pressures put on him by his neighbours and (possibly) by the malign influence of a former tenant. Apart from the horrific and surreal epilogue, the book was adapted very faithfully by Roman Polanski for his film of the same name. There's a new edition out with an introduction by Thomas Ligotti.
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Dec 22, 2009 14:28
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