|
I also just finished Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. 5 stars. Pure brilliance. Full of hilarious, profound and touching moments. Also the first Discworld book I've read that managed to freak me out a little (the very Cronenberg-ensue horror of the predatory mall).
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2012 00:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 16:23 |
|
|
Just finished all of Sanderson's books in the Mistborn world (Trilogy + Alloy of Law). Great books and quite engaging. Felt like the ending of Alloy of Law was kind of a cop out though. Hopefully more books that build of the character from Alloy of Law. Now starting Dresden Files, late to the game on that one.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2012 01:00
|
|
|
Hestia by C. J. Cherryh, on the recommendation of the CJC thread. It was good; I actually agree with the sentiment that it's one of her weaker books, especially compared to her other first-contact/coexistence-with-aliens works, but that is very much praising with faint damns considering what the rest of CJC's work is like.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2012 01:42
|
|
|
jny posted:His Dark Materials. I am now incredibly sad. I had a horrible feeling around half way through that, inevitably, it would end in such a way. I had no idea how heart wrenching it would actually be when it happened though. Excellent all the same. This is what I always hear about this series, can't wait to read it. Something I did read that make me incredibly sad is Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, sad because after reading Fight Club I was expecting something fun and not this crap. A lot of things in this are extrapolated and so far fetched, just to seem RAW & COOL. The very core story elements don't make any sense, Fight Club has a few elements that compromise reality for story but this takes it to a whole new level. And like most people have said in this board, Chuck's books read the same. From the withdrawn narration(for Fight Club understandably) to the main character(not knowing who he truly is) and then a twist at the end. Don't read this book please, the summary looks somewhat interesting but the entire book is about something else much like Fight Club, this isn't about Choking as it is about not having sex. In Fight Club, they don't fight, they make soap. Well at least in Fight Club the characters have some depth, you can understand them and the book has themes it tries to discover in cool ways. Also read Legion by Brandon Sanderson, on the Sanderson thread lots of folks liked this and thought it was interesting. I did too, only thing is, it's drat short. Really cool premise, some folks were suggesting this would be a perfect TV show and I couldn't agree more. Also J.C isn't a hallucination dammit! My tally for November, only two short books. December is going to be better I hope, already nearly done with 2 books. e: Was reading It and the Stephen Hawking book but abandoned those for later. Ulio fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Nov 30, 2012 |
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2012 07:07
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:I also just finished Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. 5 stars. I think that's about where Pratchett achieved true greatness. In the period between that and Night Watch, really, is where I find most of the unreasonably good books. Me, I just finished Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief to see what all the fuss was about. It was pretty drat tasty so I went right on to the sequel.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2012 07:17
|
|
|
Ulio posted:
I've found that a lot of Palahniuk's stuff is either great or shite. Choke, like you said, was rubbish and I had a really hard time getting through Diary. Haunted, Rant, and Fight Club were all great. Dunno what his deal his, or maybe I'm too dull to see his brilliance in those other books?
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2012 15:02
|
|
|
Well I've only read Choke and Fight Club, didn't see anything brilliant in Choke but have heard good things about Survivor and Haunted.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2012 21:04
|
|
|
The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam. Really, really good book written from the perspective of a Chinese businessman in Saigon from WW2 to the end of the Vietnam War. It's a novel, supposedly very well researched perspective of a familiar setting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 03:54
|
|
|
Just finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut. While I enjoyed it and felt that there were some really good parts, I didn't like it as much as some of his other books (I've only read Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse Five so far) and I can't really explain exactly why... I guess the social commentary just felt way too obvious. Eliot Rosewater felt like an obvious self insert character Vonnegut used to preach about humanist philosophy. Maybe that's the point, but it still kind of seemed a bit self indulgent. Even when Vonnegut inserted himself into some of his other books (Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five and literally himself at the end of Breakfast of Champions) they felt a bit more effective. AlternatePFG fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Dec 2, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 15:37
|
|
|
In Cold Blood: http://tomatoesandespresso.com/2012/12/01/saturday-review-in-cold-blood/
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 01:16
|
|
|
Sons and Lovers (D.H. Lawrence). Like Paul and his love life, I wanted to feel something. I wanted this to cross the line into being a fantastic book. It never fully clicked with me, though, and it just kinda stood there for me. Some elements I loved, but the more I read the more I wanted to know about Arthur and Walter (was he still an abuser?) and they disappear for large chunks.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 07:36
|
|
|
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran. I haven't really read many (any?) mysteries before but this one takes place in post-Katrina New Orleans and it kept me guessing the whole time. More importantly, the book has a David Lynch-esque atmosphere and a large amount of world building. Dream sequences, vaguely mystical things, that kind of stuff. Plus a through-line of this legendary (fictional) book about detective work called Detection that gets referenced and quoted in parallel with the events of the mystery and relationships of some of the characters. A lot of backstory referred to obliquely and it sets a great groundwork for the world to continue as a series. The only part I'm disappointed in is that the next book in the series doesn't come out until June, because I can't wait to get more of this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 23:34
|
|
|
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. The blurb on the dustjacket made me think it would be like Snow Crash for teenagers, but I was quite pleasantly proven wrong. It's the kind of story where you can tell the author really enjoyed writing it. Great fun, likable characters, plenty of nerdy shout-outs; had a big smile on my face the whole way through. Cold Days finally showed up in the mail, so that's probably next on the list.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 05:12
|
|
|
Homemaster posted:Ender's Game any good? Is Card a decent writer? Pretty interesting book. Card is a decent writer. gohmak fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Dec 4, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 06:28
|
|
|
I just finished my first hard SF book, Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. It was a bit daunting at first but once I got accustomed to the tech I started to enjoy it more. Now I think I want more of the same.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 15:22
|
|
|
A Great and Terrible Beauty yay YA fiction. I feel so smart when I can finish a book in 2 days (ignoring that is written for young adults.) If I had a young daughter I would totally get her the series (I'm reading the rest of them  ). It is well written, has strong female characters that have concerns other than romance, and actually handles the burgeoning sexuality of young peopel (homosexual or heterosexual) very well. I'm not a big magic fan, but it was very fascinating in this book.50 Shades of Grey. I really have nothing to say that hasn't already been said. The use of italics in this book is hilarious. "Oh Crap." "Holy poo poo." "Crap."
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 20:17
|
|
|
dokmo posted:Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie. An ambitious 900 page brick, which won the Pulitzer for biographies. It's much more than a bio, also an attempt to describe Peter's whole cultural matrix, both within Russia and throughout Europe. I really like the structure of the book, which is roughly chronological, but mostly episodic. There are a million short chapters, each one a mostly self-contained period or subject. I listened to this on Audible a few months back and while I agree with most of your post, two of my main takeaways were how flawed Peter was and also how hard his reign was on the general populace of Russia. Definitely agree with the recommendation, its an amazing book.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 07:06
|
|
|
Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 21:47
|
|
|
The Snowman by Jo Nesbo. I really, really liked this, a dark thriller set in gloomy Norway. Lots of tension, lots of conflict, had me on the edge of my seat. BUT. Are Scandinavians particularly...misogynistic? This is the first thing I've read by Jo Nesbo, but I'm thinking of the Stieg Larsson trilogy and some other thriller by a Scandinavian author that I can't recall just now. Also, I identified the killer pretty early on and feel that the detective should have done the same or else had a good reason why not...it was right there in front of his face although, disclaimer, I'm a mystery writer myself so maybe I'm more attuned, but let's face it, people who read these kinds of books read a LOT of them and you don't have to be a pro to see something this obvious. Maybe it was the translation. Jenny Pox by J.L. Bryan Sometimes you get a free book on amazon or somewhere and it's actually good! This was particularly surprising because Jenny Pox is not really my genre, it at first looked like YA (but actually isn't), and it's paranormal/magical stuff, which I usually find a turnoff. Plus the free books I've downloaded have usually been abysmal. In this one, Jenny has an affliction: anyone who touches her gets a pox, and if they touch her long enough, they'll die. Needless to say she is shunned at school. Then she finds one person who is immune to her pox, and also he heals her dog. But he is romantically involved with Jenny's prime tormentor and she has to summon her powers, which she's never thought of as powers, and fight for him. This one caught my interest right away, and had flashes of brilliance. I might actually pay for the sequel. Rabid, a Novel by T.K. Kenyon And this one turned out to be a Kindle freebie that proved the rule that usually, if it's free and on Kindle, it's not so good. This was billed as a medical crime thriller. The medical stuff was the best part, the crime took forever and I had to flog myself through this book as the characters were, well, obviously just characters in there to advance the plot, and the plot wasn't that gripping. Very disappointed. Not only would I not pay for the sequel (or anything else by this writer), I wouldn't even get another free one. Waste of my time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2012 06:04
|
|
|
Rhymes With Clue posted:
Mmmh, if anything I'd say that what you might be seeing is a trend of Scandinavian writers making their bad guys extra-misogynistic because that is obviously a bad thing to be so makes their bad guys worse. (Nesbø is pretty drat good, glad he's getting some international exposure.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2012 10:21
|
|
|
I just finished This Book is Full of Spiders (Seriously dude, don't touch it) by cracked.coms David Wong. Not as good as John Dies at the End, but still a great, funny book.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2012 15:34
|
|
|
I just finished reading Archangel by Sharon Shinn. The romance is fairly believable and the universe of the book is pretty interesting. I'm now reading Jovah's Angel, which is the next book in the series (I think; I may be reading out of order).
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 01:08
|
|
Deep Winter posted:I just finished This Book is Full of Spiders (Seriously dude, don't touch it) by cracked.coms David Wong. Not as good as John Dies at the End, but still a great, funny book. I really want to see a discussion thread on this book. I was very disappointed with it, as was most people I know. I'd love to see a defense of it because it is just such a different novel to the first. It's barely a sequel.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 01:41
|
|
|
Just finished Tolkien's The Return of the King. Man, what a great book. The entire section at the end after they destroy the ring just doesn't get justice in the movie. The movie also misses the fundamental point of why Frodo leaves Middle-Earth: He isn't just restless and dissatisfied after his adventure, he was wounded too deeply by the Ring - it broke him in the end, and he never really recovered. Also, Merry and Pippin are huge badasses in the book.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 03:25
|
|
|
Ulio posted:Well I've only read Choke and Fight Club, didn't see anything brilliant in Choke but have heard good things about Survivor and Haunted. I thought Damned and Pygmy (both in audiobook format) were pretty good. Just finished Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise, thanks to D&D.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 10:19
|
|
|
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro This book made me feel miserable and hopeless but I loved it. It's just so sad knowing the characters have no chance of having a normal life and it's easily noticeable in the way they socialized with each other. They almost seem 'robotic' in a way. Mother Night by Vonnegut This is my first exposure to Vonnegut and I finished it in one sitting. There were so many little surprises throughout the book and the chapters were short enough keep me excited.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 17:12
|
|
|
ProfessorProf posted:
That sounds frigging amazing. I'd be in for that. And speaking of Christie, here's the wrap up of my reviews of the short stories in her Partners in Crime: The Unbreakable Alibi Tommy and Tuppence think they’ve been handed an easy one when a dull young man comes and asks for their help. The girl he wants to marry has promised to marry him, but only if he can solve a striking puzzle. It seems that she has two rock solid alibis for one night; it seems that she was in two places at once. One of them, of course, is false. Can Tommy and Tuppence figure out which one? Is it possible this one won’t be as easy as they’ve expected? It’s a great set up and Christie gets a lot of mileage out of the assertion that no woman would make such a bet unless she fully intended to hook the young man involved one way or the other. It would be better, Tuppence states, for her to marry him after he’s solved this puzzle than if she has to figure out an easier way to get him to marry her. Gender politics aside, the story has energy and the seemingly unbreakable alibis get tighter and tighter until you wonder what magic Christie is going to pull out to enable this one to have a solution. The problem is that when she does pull out the solution, it’s unbelievably lame and stupid. One has hopes for the story, being an Agatha Christie story after all, but this one? Hackwork, pure and simple. What a shame. DID I SOLVE IT? I think I can legitimately claim a win on this one. Our detectives have chased hither and yon and have been unable to find a chink in either story. Then suddenly Tommy makes a remark about going to a play, a play that features twins. Tuppence bellows that she has an idea. And this reader, at least, slapped himself in the forehead and prayed to the God of literature that Agatha Christie wasn’t going to fall back on the ol’ ‘twins’ ploy. Alas, that is exactly what she falls back on. What a let-down. What a tired cliché, even in 1929. To give her the benefit of the doubt, we’ll say she was spoofing mysteries with twin solutions; that doesn’t make it any less disappointing for her to use the solution. The Clergyman’s Daughter/The Red House A poor clergyman’s daughter is facing a conundrum, involving someone playing poltergeist around her inherited country home. Luckily, there’s a buyer very interested or is he a little too interested? It doesn’t take Tommy and Tuppence long to connect the dots; the buyer is behind the mischief and there’s a hidden treasure of some kind in that red house where the young lady lives. For a clue, there’s a cryptic poem and a scripture verse: “Seek and ye shall find.” When has Tuppence been able to resist an invitation like that? But with Christmas nearing, will this mystery allow all concerned to have a happy holiday? This one’s quite a bit different too. It’s pretty clear from the very beginning that the buyer is after the house because of something hidden there and that, obviously, he’s the one behind the supposed haunting of the house. Christie doesn’t have any surprises up her sleeve in that area, but instead turns the story into a kind of treasure hunt, revolving around a riddle that promises to reveal the location of a hidden treasure trove. The story attempts an emotional ending and doesn’t entirely pull it off; we haven’t known the clergyman’s daughter long enough to have a real emotional connection to her, but the attempt to broaden the story into sentiment is appreciated. DID I SOLVE IT? No, I didn’t. The riddle is a classic bit of gibberish and Tuppence tumbled to it way before I did. COULD I HAVE SOLVED IT? Like all riddles, this one seems obvious, once you know the answer. It is, I would say, remotely solvable. The Ambassador’s Boots An American ambassador has a strange case for Tommy and Tuppence when someone steals his suitcase full of boots and then returns it untouched hours later. Tommy finds himself on the wrong end of a gun when he puts an advertisement in the newspaper to try to find a clue, but Albert, the receptionist of Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives, manages to save the day by trying out a cowboy trick: lassoing the gunman! All seems perfectly clear, once the gunman is put out of the way, but it seems the ambassador’s boots still have some walking to do when another twist reveals the truth. This one has a nice puzzling set up. While it might make sense for someone to steal an ambassador’s papers, why on earth would anyone steal a suitcase of boots and then simply return it untouched two hours later? There’s an amusing red herring dragged across the trail and it’s amusing to see Albert, the office boy, finally doing something other than ushering clients back and forth. Ultimately, the puzzle is given away a bit too easily, however, and the solution is a bit too mundane. DID I SOLVE IT? I did. When the butler of the ambassador is questioned about the bag that the ambassador picked up instead of his own upon disembarking the boat, he remarked that there was nothing out of the ordinary inside it, but a large tin of bath salts is prominently included in his inventory, at which point I blurted, “Cocaine smugglers!” This was rather embarrassing as I was reading while eating in a local restaurant, but that’s neither here nor there. The bottom line is that, yes, it was cocaine smugglers; they weren’t after anything in the ambassador’s bag, but were rather wanting their own bag to be carried through customs by the ambassador who would, of course, be subject to less stringent security measures. In our more paranoid age, this solution is fairly obvious. In a world in which we are constantly bombarded with messages not to carry packages for others onto airplanes, the mind leaps rather easily to the twist in this story. Perhaps in 1929, this wasn’t so obvious to Christie’s readers. Decades of terrorism and smuggling have made this one an easy one to figure out, however, so in 2012 the story feels very simple. The Man Who Was No. 16 The final story in the book finds Tommy and Tuppence finally wrapping up the Russian spy ring that has plagued them all through this short story cycle. Mr. Carter alerts them that the spymaster known only as No. 16 is coming to London to investigate why so many Russian spies have been caught of late. Tommy and Tuppence believe they’ve been able to pull the wool over his eyes, but when No. 16 vanishes into thin air from a closely watched hotel room, it appears that the spymaster has more tricks up his sleeve than at first thought. And worst of all, Tuppence has vanished along with him! Tommy turns to one of Agatha Christie’s own creations to help him solve this dangerous little puzzle as he tries to use his little grey cells, as Monsieur Poirot does. But even if Tommy can deduce the secret behind No. 16’s disappearance, it seems that Tuppence will have a twist of her own waiting for the master detective that not even Poirot could have seen coming. This one is kind of interesting as a wrap to the frame story of the novel and as an explicit conclusion to this story cycle. As the story concludes, Tommy and Tuppence resolve to retire to take up either bee-keeping, a la Sherlock Holmes, or vegetable gardening, a la Hercule Poirot, thus bringing Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives to a close with the Russian spy ring neatly tied up. The story has a nice espionage feel and No. 16’s magical disappearance is well done and baffling. Christie has two twists in this story, one public and one private, as it were and both are good ones. DID I SOLVE IT? Can’t say that I did. Christie has a great false solution here that I fell for totally. I expected more of an espionage story than a mystery on this one anyway, much like The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger and Blindman’s Buff, so when the “solution” seemed to be revealed with a few pages still to go, I assumed that the rest of the story would be a chase sequence with Tommy hot on the heels of No. 16. In fact, the “solution” isn’t the real one and Tommy still has to use his grey cells a little more. It’s the final twist, which isn’t really part of the mystery that is the real winner though; the reveal that Tuppence is pregnant is the perfect ending for the book and definitely puts a period on the detective agency phase. COULD I HAVE SOLVED IT? It’s a stretch. I think a person in 1929 might have had a better shot than someone in the modern era, due to some changes to furnishings. But just last story the reverse was true and the story was easier for the modern reader to solve than the period one, so I suppose all this evens out. Agatha Christie
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 19:59
|
|
|
Finished The Best American Short Stories 2012. For the first time since I stated reading the series, I only skipped one story, mainly because of the fact that I wasn't interested in it. That's a good thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2012 15:42
|
|
|
ProfessorProf posted:As a side note, I've been throwing around the idea of starting a Murder Mystery Challenge Thread of some sort. Read mystery novels together, stop at the chapter before the reveal, everyone pitches their theories, then see who got it right. I don't read a lot of mysteries but this could be a fun way to get more into them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2012 00:37
|
|
|
Seconding that idea. I'm not a huge mystery novel guy but I'd definitely enjoy something like that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2012 01:06
|
|
|
Red Crown posted:Just finished Tolkien's The Return of the King. Man, what a great book. The entire section at the end after they destroy the ring just doesn't get justice in the movie. The movie also misses the fundamental point of why Frodo leaves Middle-Earth: He isn't just restless and dissatisfied after his adventure, he was wounded too deeply by the Ring - it broke him in the end, and he never really recovered. Also, Merry and Pippin are huge badasses in the book. I thought the extended version got that across. Man it's been a long time since I read the books. Couple years before the movies came out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2012 11:30
|
|
|
This is going to sound really stupid but is their a website that has most the new releases that would hit like a Barnes and Nobel every week so I can check out what has came out each week? I know the comic book people have a list like that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2012 00:19
|
|
|
Fallorn posted:This is going to sound really stupid but is their a website that has most the new releases that would hit like a Barnes and Nobel every week so I can check out what has came out each week? I know the comic book people have a list like that. Tor does this for the following genres: Paranormal Romance Urban Fantasy Science Fiction Fantasy Genre-Benders http://www.tor.com/tags/new%20releases/ Suvudu also has a list, but it's pretty useless if you don't already know what the books in question are: http://suvudu.com/2012/12/new-releases-121112.html I got nothing regarding mainstream fiction or nonfiction though, but you might try: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/books-new-hardcovers/379003716/ ulmont fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Dec 12, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2012 01:57
|
|
|
Srice posted:Seconding that idea. I'm not a huge mystery novel guy but I'd definitely enjoy something like that. Let's see how it goes!
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2012 07:28
|
|
|
Dracula. I wasn't much of a horror guy, and reading the first few chapters gave me worry that the whole book would take place in that little village and castle, but I kept to it, thinking that it can't be that bad considering how famous it is and I found I actually quite like it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2012 02:46
|
|
|
Been making my way through the Virgin line of Doctor Who books from the 90s, back when Doctor Who went all adult and cyberpunk. Just finished the tenth book in the series, Transit by Ben Aaronovitch, about an alien consciousness that develops in an galactic metro system. Kind of a challenging read, a lot of stuff is happening between scenes without much explanation, it's the kind of book you need to read twice before you totally wrap your brain around the plot. The Weirdest Moment: The Doctor jumps into the mathematical space between the metro's jump gates, which he perceives as a trippy land of colors and images. He manages to summon a midget army of Aces and Goddamn Popeye the Sailor Man to help him. It doesn't make much more sense in context. Overall, a difficult book, but not in a bad way. In the "oh, I just figured it all out" satisfaction kind of way.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2012 05:14
|
|
|
This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong. The sequel to John Dies at the End brings back the same flavor and a cohesive, overarching narrative (whereas JDatE is more of a compilation of three separate books). There's plenty of black humor, interesting twists, and more than a fair share of deus ex machinas. That being said, I overall enjoyed John Dies at the End much more. This was a better-crafted novel, but in the end I felt that the author simply tried too hard. 3.5/5
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2012 05:52
|
|
|
I just finished Zero History and am going through the last stretches of Reamde. I have always been a fan of both Stephenson and Gibson, so both have been a good treat so far.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2012 09:29
|
|
|
I just finished Cryptonomicon, which was so loving good. Granted, the book felt almost engineered to appeal to a 20 something tech interested male, what with the codes, the WWII badassedery, the modern day UNIX nerding out, the myriad of locations, International business intrigue, etc etc. Stephenson does have a bad habit of going on somewhat rambly tangents (the book doesn't clock in at almost 1000 pages for nothing) but they're usually pretty enjoyable. Highly recommended.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2012 16:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 16:23 |
|
|
Blind Voices by Tom Reamy. As "supernatural carnival" stories go, it's not in a class with Something Wicked This Way Comes (its obvious inspiration) or The Circus of Dr. Lao. But for a first novel, it's quite good, and it's a shame Reamy didn't live to write more.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2012 20:37
|
|
