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I finished Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch about ten minutes ago. What a trip. I love Dick's imagination, and admire his solid, direct prose- but this book was borderline nuts. If you're not into semi-pretentious, acid-induced diatribes on religion, faith, god, and aliens, this book might not be for you. Thankfully, all of that is right up my alley! Not quite as good as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but still a lot of fun.
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Apr 12, 2012 18:16
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blumpkinbliss posted:I finished Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch about ten minutes ago. What a trip. I love Dick's imagination, and admire his solid, direct prose- but this book was borderline nuts. If you're not into semi-pretentious, acid-induced diatribes on religion, faith, god, and aliens, this book might not be for you. Thankfully, all of that is right up my alley! Not quite as good as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but still a lot of fun. Even PKD said that was a strange book. If you haven't read Lies, Inc., then that should be your next stop for drug-soaked weirdness.
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Apr 12, 2012 18:57
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I just finished I Am Legend. The mark of a good book is even if you know the twist it can still churn your guts up on the journey. Thinking back on the will smith movie, if they focused grouped out the twist, what exactly was the relation to the book, from which most other things were changed?
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Apr 13, 2012 02:33
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Cithen posted:I reread it recently, too. It honestly didn't hold up for me very well. I read it in high school and thought it was one of the better books assigned. Going back to it though was fairly underwhelming. I now hold a disinterested contempt for most of the characters. Granted, the symbolism is interesting, but I find it really hard to get behind the 'greatest (American) novel ever' sentiments. You're not really supposed to like any of the characters. That's kind of the point. I reread Gatsby this winter and loved it. I'm not sure where I'd put it on my list of greatest American novels, but it'd be right up there. I'd probably put Huck Finn at the top of that list.
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Apr 13, 2012 04:19
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Just finished getting caught up to the latest Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) book and I'm pretty sure I'll forget everyone's name before the next book comes out unless I follow the TV series. It was a good read for a high fantasy series without getting too magical and I loved all the military politics, and even though it jumps around the perspective of a bunch of different characters, I think GRRM does a good job to give subtle reminders to what was going on with the character in the beginning of the chapter without giving a full recap. I just feel really sorry for anyone who started reading this series since the first or second book because Harry Potter started a year after Song of Ice and Fire and finished 5 years ago, hot drat. The wait between books (in years) for Harry Potter: 1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 2 The wait between books (in years) for Song of Ice and Fire: 2, 2, 5, 6, ?, ? Given that GRRM is 17 years older than J.K. Rowling and is 63, I fear for the completion of the series.
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Apr 13, 2012 22:26
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Willsun posted:
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Apr 13, 2012 22:50
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Willsun posted:Just finished getting caught up to the latest Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) book and I'm pretty sure I'll forget everyone's name before the next book comes out unless I follow the TV series. It was a good read for a high fantasy series without getting too magical and I loved all the military politics, and even though it jumps around the perspective of a bunch of different characters, I think GRRM does a good job to give subtle reminders to what was going on with the character in the beginning of the chapter without giving a full recap. I just feel really sorry for anyone who started reading this series since the first or second book because Harry Potter started a year after Song of Ice and Fire and finished 5 years ago, hot drat. I think a condition of the TV series being produced was the GRRM had to turn over his general outline/concept to HBO in case he finally keels over.
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Apr 13, 2012 23:29
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It also helps that HBO will no doubt pressure him to wrap up the books in a timely manner.
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Apr 13, 2012 23:37
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William Deverell's Snow Job and I'll See You in My Dreams. I don't normally post the fiction books that I go through here, mostly because what I read is mostly forgettable genre fiction, but Deverell's books transcend the genre (legal thriller) into something memorable. The writing is fast paced, clipped, hallucinatory, full of humor and darkness. These two books are the latest that take place in the world that Deverell set in Vancouver and populated with weird lawyers, stentorial judges, and crooked cops.
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Apr 14, 2012 01:16
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DrGonzo90 posted:You're not really supposed to like any of the characters. That's kind of the point. I don't know, I reread it a couple of weeks ago and empathised with Gatsby. I found Nick to be an insufferable dick, though, which is strange, because I'd previously always considered him to be a nobody that was just there to connect everyone else.
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Apr 14, 2012 10:49
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Evfedu posted:Read loads over my Easter and I'm throwing another shout out to Beat The Reaper. A story of an ex-hitman sprinkled with frighteningly in-depth medical terminology and holocaust info. Loved it from end to end, although the sex scenes got a bit much. Cool, this is next up on my Audible. (currently slogging through the third book of the Hunger Games and dear god do I wish I'd quit after the first one)
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Apr 14, 2012 14:10
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The Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I am reading through the trilogy and just finished the first book. I really enjoyed the concept of the book and the premise that it is based on. Basically, there's a branch of science that can predict mob behavior and it is applied to a galactic empire. These pyschohistorians then try and mitigate the chaotic period of time after the galactic fall. It really has me thinking about the possibility of "Pyschohistory" and it's uses. Has anyone ever attempted this? Why couldn't you predict mob behavior with large amounts of experimental data and trend behaviors? Just seems like a lot of applied probabilities.
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Apr 14, 2012 16:01
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I can't really say more about The Foundation without ruining any more of it, but the application of Psychohistory is expanded upon the further into time it goes. I have to re-read that series, and maybe look at some of the sequels/side-stories. Sidenote, but Apple apparently doesn't think Psychohistory is a misspelt word. Although I was sad to look it up in it's Dictionary application, and not see the definition I was hoping for.
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Apr 14, 2012 16:34
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ProfessorFrink! posted:The Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I am reading through the trilogy and just finished the first book. I really enjoyed the concept of the book and the premise that it is based on. Basically, there's a branch of science that can predict mob behavior and it is applied to a galactic empire. These pyschohistorians then try and mitigate the chaotic period of time after the galactic fall. It really has me thinking about the possibility of "Pyschohistory" and it's uses. Has anyone ever attempted this? Why couldn't you predict mob behavior with large amounts of experimental data and trend behaviors? Just seems like a lot of applied probabilities. Yeah like the guy above said I cant say much without spoiling but all 6 are pro-read things imo, maybe we can critique once you are done! Loads of good concepts, can get a bit dry and repetitive sometimes but great story overall if you like your space/nerd stuff.
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Apr 14, 2012 16:52
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Just finished Don't Put Me In, Coach by former basketball walk-on Mark Titus, of Ohio State. I've been reading his blog, which the book is somewhat based on, since his junior year. He started at OSU as a student manager and parlayed that into being one of the most winning members of the school's basketball team because of being a walk on. A nice, hilarious, look at four year of college basketball from someone who was good enough to play 30 some minutes in four years.
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Apr 14, 2012 19:45
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Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson. Man, that book was weird, even by Malazan standards. Also ootooloo.
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Apr 14, 2012 23:12
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Just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez. Beautiful book, makes it feel like you're reading an intimate family history rather than a piece of fiction. Don Quixote up next.
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Apr 15, 2012 03:20
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Just finished rereading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's one of those books where the style nicely complements the story being told. Aside from a few moments here and there, it almost seems as if this 2004 book was written in the 19th century. The prose really reminds me of Austen, Dickens, or George Eliot; however, the plot is far more twisty and turny and the stakes a great deal higher. Clarke has said she's writing a sequel, eventually, but I have heard nothing about that for years. Still, it took her 10 years to write this, and it was a decade well-spent. If i have to wait about 5 more years for another Susanna Clarke doorstopper, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.
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Apr 15, 2012 05:27
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ProfessorFrink! posted:The Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Thanks for this, I was looking for something to read, and I haven't read Asimov in ages. Might work my way through the I, Robot and Foundation series again. If I remember correctly, there are ties between the 2 series, so if you like one, it's well worth reading both. I just finished The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno after it was recommended in a TBB thread here. Someone in the thread compared it to the Venture Bros, so I was expecting a wacky comedy. I found it kind of sad and depressing, but still containing some fun.
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Apr 15, 2012 08:09
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I just finished Asimov's The Gods Themselves last night. I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped. The book was divided into 3 parts. Basically there's this new energy source found that involves moving matter from our universe to another pararel universe (para-vers). The first third is on Earth, and dealing with the discovery. The second third is in the para-vers, with these interesting aliens that are three genders, and the last third deals with a colony on the moon. The middle part was interesting, but as much as I liked it, it could be removed from the book entirely with barely any effect on the book. I would say that it could have been it's own story, but it is tied into the plot of the other two sections. However, at the end of the para-men's struggles, they say "there is much to do", yet nothing from this universe is ever brought up ever again. For "much to do" it sure doesn't have anything to do with the book anymore. By far for me, the most interesting characters are abandoned. Their lack of consequence on the plot makes them filler for the book. The only way that they interact with our world is to send some very basic messages through with the energy, but one of the main characters already has the doubts that they try to communicate. So it's either redundant, or only reinforces what he knows. While the book has some well thought out ideas, and goes into great details on them (the first part especially if you're interested in chemistry), the overall book doesn't benefit from it's most interesting world. I see in the copyright that parts of this book were originally published in a magazine, so I wonder if the middle part was written later as a side-story to the overall plot of the book.
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Apr 15, 2012 15:32
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Mystery-Bouffe (Мистерия-буфф) by Vladimir Mayakovsky. It's a horrible little play that's entirely propaganda, but it's still entertaining and a way that all Mayakovsky's stuff is interesting. It's about a flood covering the earth, and the Unclean (proletarians) and Clean (bourgeoisie) both get onto an ark. They go on a journey through hell and heaven, trying to find a utopia of their own. I read it in the original and the translation from Guy Daniels, who did a terrific job in translation, so I can definitely recommend that. Kreutzer Sonata by Lev Tolstoy It's a novella that opens up on a train, on which a man talks about the evils of women, marriage, and sex. He knows so because he's killed his wife for her adultery. The rest of the story is about 70 pages of misogynistic, self-hating, sex-denying (though he still raped his wife and his peasants) Tolstoy ranting. Still incredibly well-written and interesting. War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy FINALLY finish this thing. I tried a couple of years ago and got halfway through before giving up from fatigue. I'm glad I finished it this time, as it does live up to the hype. I've read most of Tolstoy's stuff, but in a really strange order, so it's amazing to see the elements from his 50+ years of writing all in this massive book. You can see Anna Karenina in Helene Kuragina, Levin in Pierre, Anatole Kuragin in young Nekhlyudov (of both Childhood, Boyhood, Youth and later in Resurrection), a bit of Kitty in Natasha, and so on.
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Apr 15, 2012 18:35
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Among Others by Jo Walton Taken by curiosity, after having read much praise on it. I really don't know what to say on it, apart it's mesmerizing, and a really nice story on magic, childhood, books and imaginary. It's puzzling and emotionally charged (some passage brought me to tears). A book I'll be reading one more time at least - I add my praise with to the others. And I hope the Hugo nomination will end in a prize.
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Apr 15, 2012 19:56
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Well of Ascension by Brandson Sanderson Oh man, that book was great. Mistborn owns.
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Apr 15, 2012 20:55
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This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War by James P. McPherson. I remember that my dad watched Glory and Gettysburg back to back practically every weekend when I was growing up, and I developed a fairly deep hated of Civil War history as a result. This amazing collection of essays utterly changed that viewpoint. It was engrossing, wonderfully-researched, and offered refreshing insights on everything from Harriet Tubman to Lincoln's use of wartime executive powers as a precedent for modern uses (and abuses). Highly, highly recommended.
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Apr 16, 2012 04:54
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Just finished 1984 . I really loved this book. This is one of my top ten favorites, just a masterpiece. No agenda needed, just reading it for fiction. It really hits you with a left hook, and then it is a roller coaster ride blindfolded.
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Apr 16, 2012 05:23
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All the King's Men (Robert Penn Warren): This was not exactly what I expected going in. All I knew was Huey Long was an inspiration. The book's study of human nature and consequences is pretty good. Descriptions can be pretty good. However, he gets too wordy and there were times I felt like I was drowning in a sea of attempts to be witty/poignant on every line. To me, this even hurt some of the plot twists. Speaking of plot twists, if you're familiar with the story of Huey Long, when a certain character pops up you think you won't be surprised if he puts a hole in Willie Stark. Yep, and that one scene plays out almost exactly like it did in real life. Different lead-up, but after that? Almost exactly.
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Apr 16, 2012 19:49
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Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell--I don't remember if I posted when I finished this one, but I read it due to a recommendation from somebody here and somebody IRL, that's two, that's all I need, and I loved it. And many thanks to whoever it was. I should write this stuff down. So I have now just finished Wild Thing, and maybe there was a sophomore slump but not much of one. A lot of the stuff I loved in the first one was still there, but the plot wasn't quite as sharp. Also finished The Liar's Diary by Patry Francis and while the premise drew me in, the characters were straight-up stereotypes and I felt like I'd read it before, only done much better. Disappointing.
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Apr 17, 2012 04:35
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Confess, Fletch 2nd book in the series, introduces spin off character Flynn
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Apr 17, 2012 06:02
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Chamberk posted:Just finished rereading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's one of those books where the style nicely complements the story being told. Aside from a few moments here and there, it almost seems as if this 2004 book was written in the 19th century. The prose really reminds me of Austen, Dickens, or George Eliot; however, the plot is far more twisty and turny and the stakes a great deal higher. It's at the very top of my Backlog of Shame and has been for 5-6 years. I have tried to read it three times and never get to the 1/3 mark. Which is strange, because I love the concept, I really like the characters, get a good laugh out of the humor and adore the footnotes of history. I think maybe it's that 19th century writing that bogs me down, which is funny because I love Dickens and Elliot. Maybe it's because she occasionally gets to a point where nothing happens for pages and pages of filler? Not sure. But I will say one thing: no other book has gotten more than two tries with me. If I don't like it the second time, I'm done. I won't read it. Norrell will be coming up on my fourth time attempting to read it and maybe even a fifth time. I don't think I'll ever give up.
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Apr 17, 2012 20:33
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bengraven posted:It's at the very top of my Backlog of Shame and has been for 5-6 years. I have tried to read it three times and never get to the 1/3 mark. Which is strange, because I love the concept, I really like the characters, get a good laugh out of the humor and adore the footnotes of history. I think maybe it's that 19th century writing that bogs me down, which is funny because I love Dickens and Elliot. I think the main thing about JS&N is that it's a book best read slowly. Everything about it is just so enjoyable that I always find myself setting it down for a while just to draw out the reading experience. You might be trying to burn through it too fast. Let it sit on your backburner with a bookmark and just read it in small bites. It gets progressively better the whole way through.
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Apr 17, 2012 21:08
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think the main thing about JS&N is that it's a book best read slowly. Everything about it is just so enjoyable that I always find myself setting it down for a while just to draw out the reading experience. That's likely my issue. I've got so much to read that if what I'm reading is too slow, I immediately start thinking of what else I could be reading instead.
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Apr 17, 2012 22:52
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I've finished reading Bad Metal: Wrecked by Robert Black and Soulhunters by Colin Chadwick. I was looking for a SciFi/Cyberpunk book to read and found Bad Metal: Wrecked on Amazon and was intrigued by the blurb: after a global pandemic humankind relies on robots to rebuild - unfortunately some of those robots malfunction and attack their creators. Overall I enjoyed the book though it was rather short. Soulhunters was more of an impulse buy and I'm still undecided on whether to continue reading that series. It was alright but seemed like just another fantasy novel.
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Apr 18, 2012 08:42
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Kind of behind the times, but I just finished Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. Friends have been telling me for months to read the trilogy and when the first movie came out I decided I should read them. I couldn't put them down, I got so wrapped in in the story I just had to keep going. I ran into nights where I knew if I wouldn't have stopped reading I would have missed my alarm for class.
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Apr 18, 2012 21:01
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Ian Mortimer's The Time-traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. The author attempts to put you there, walking through the poo poo-strewn streets, eating the lovely food, wearing the lovely clothes of the 1300s. He goes into some detail, and covers a whole lot of territory, covering everyone from feudal serfs to nobles and royalty. One thing that hit me over and over again was the hierarchal nature of their social matrix and the way that system was never questioned—our present day notions of the primacy of individualism is thrown into relief when contrasted with the fatalistic conformity of the 14th century. The other thing that stuck out was the pervasiveness of violence and cruelty: jousting tournaments and animal baiting were the most popular public entertainment spectacles of the day, I guess showing something in common with the Roman empire, but utterly alien to our day.
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Apr 19, 2012 03:10
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One piece of junk food before I start hitting some presidential nonfiction: You Might be a Zombie and Other Bad News by various contributors to Cracked.com. While the format is tedious (what you know - what "really" happened - what really, "really" happened) and the content is hit or miss, some parts are pretty hilarious (especially the chapter on narrowly-averted nuclear crises).
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Apr 19, 2012 04:22
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Taking a break from a bit of serious reading, I picked up - and just finished - John Courtney Grimwood's Pashazade. I liked his previous RedRobe, so I've had this on my shelves for a while. The overall plot is that it's a cyberpunk story set in Alexandria, in a world where Germany won WW1 and the Ottoman Empire is still going strong. Our lead character Raf is whisked from jail in the US and bought to the city where he discovers that he is the son of an Emir, and is presented with a cushy job and an arranged marriage. Then one of his allies is killed and the police look at Raf as the chief suspect. It's not a million miles away from George Alec Effinger's work, and is very readable, at least at first. But somewhere about the halfway mark I started to get irritated with the book. There's a bunch of minor issues with the book: violence graphically described to the point of absurdity (there's several exploding eyeballs), a bunch of cliches (genius compute hacker kid, etc.), characters suddenly demonstrating skills or resources only when they need them. But the biggest problem, I think, is a strange imbalance between the plot and the background. The book spends a lot of it's length on Raf's backstory, which is largely irrelevant or ill-explained. (He's got a head full of cyberware and all these elite killer skills, largely without explanation and ignoring any actual experience.) There's a bunch of peripheral characters who contribute little to the plot. And all this background seems to steal space from the main story, as character motivations are thinly drawn and seem to leap about, mysterious things happen and are forgotten about, character's leap to conclusions that seem unfounded. At several points I stopped to wonder why something was happening. Summary: started well, fell apart, irritated me.
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Apr 19, 2012 08:29
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Last week, I finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Mengestu. Both were simply a joy to read. Erudite prose, but conversational and personable.
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Apr 19, 2012 21:44
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Just finished "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan. Very good book that totally sucked me in...very much a book "that you can't put down". Its set up pretty well for a sequal which i cant wait for! I'll probably read I, Lucifer also by Glen Duncan next.
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Apr 20, 2012 15:40
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Greenman 0309 posted:Just finished "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan. Very good book that totally sucked me in...very much a book "that you can't put down". Its set up pretty well for a sequal which i cant wait for! I'll probably read I, Lucifer also by Glen Duncan next. Did you like it because of it's "literary" characteristics or in spite of them? Are you typically a "genre" reader, or was this an exception to what you normally read? Take away the "literary" veneer and the story really isn't anything special- in fact, some of it is downright goofy. I honestly hated this book and I'm genuinely curious to know why some people enjoy it.
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Apr 20, 2012 15:59
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Just finished The Forever War, it was tense, emotional and had me laughing. The best part of this book was near the end when the escaping fighter swings back around the colapsar with missiles at near light speed that disintegrate the alien mothership and another that strikes the planet causing a devastating earth quake. Couldn't help reading that as friendly artillery fire the author experienced in the field. As well as everything else, too.
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Apr 20, 2012 18:53
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