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kznlol posted:Just finished Winter's Heart by Richard Jordan, only ~12 years late. If you actually enjoyed WH, you should be fine with the Sanderson books because poo poo actually happens.
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Feb 12, 2013 20:59
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I just finished Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strand and goddamn, it should be required reading for anyone in their twenties (and before, or after, but I think it'll resonate the most with people in that phase of their lives). Basically it's a selection of advice columns from an online site she used to write for, although the twist on that format is that Strand usually weaves in experiences from her own life (many of them painful, wonderful, or some combination of the two). It's very well-written and full of sage advice; definitely something I'll be going back and re-reading, recommending to friends, etc. Really, I highly recommend this book to pretty much anyone. I just finished this today after picking it up thanks to a Brain Pickings recommendation. God drat that woman can write. A book of advice columns is not exactly my cup of tea but she just completely knocks you on your rear end with her own life stories that she uses to illustrate points. I can't think of anyone who shouldn't read this. Easily the best book I've read in the last few months. I'm going to buy a few copies for friends/family.
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Feb 12, 2013 21:41
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Just finished The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book both in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. I thought they were pretty fun to read and enjoy the literature based references and the humour. I'm also glad the second book didn't rush everything to be resolved by the end.
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Feb 12, 2013 22:34
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TheFarSide posted:Ready Player One by Ernest Cline I just finished this a few hours ago and I feel sorta the same but I didn't hate it. It's a harmless distraction of a book and while I was a young kid in the '80s, I felt like I was reading somebody's checklist of 80s references instead of a competent story. Every other character (with the exception of the Japanese Yellow Peril twins) proved to be more relatable than the main character. Also, the RX-78 Gundam is nowhere near as big as the Leopardon, Kiryu Mechagodzilla or Minerva X.  Onwards to finishing Infinite Jest finally.
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Feb 13, 2013 00:59
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kznlol posted:Just finished Winter's Heart by Richard Jordan, only ~12 years late. Robert Jordan. Are you sure you read Winter's Heart? Sanderson does a fine job until the last book, imo. gently caress aMoL.
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Feb 13, 2013 02:00
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SpaceMost posted:I've only finished the third chapter, but please tell me that isn't the real reason he hasn't taken a mate even though he's been old enough for a few years. Ayla: So Jondolar, why aren't you married yet? Jondolar:  Have you seen this ridiculous thing I'm packing?
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Feb 13, 2013 07:05
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foxatee posted:Robert Jordan. I am terrible at names.
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Feb 13, 2013 07:17
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Un Lun Dun by China Miéville, reread, 4 stars. An enjoyable book with some fun ideas and good characters, but where I think it fails is in its world-building. This is the second time I've read the book but I still can't imagine UnLondon as a cohesive place; rather, just a collection of wacky imagery that doesn't connect together into an actual setting. It may be the least effective world-building of any of Miéville's books. Bas-Lag is of course the most rich and complete world he's created, but it's spread over three books of 600 or more pages each, after all. Even so, Embassytown, The City & the City, and Railsea are all shorter standalone books that still managed to contain a fully realised invented world. UnLondon is the only creation of Miéville's to date that doesn't feel like it could be a real place, just a literary repository for puns and silly things. Miéville may have intended it that way, but it just means I can't get into this book as easily as almost any of his others. And being lost in a rich, unique world is one of the reasons I read Miéville. Still, thoroughly enjoyable, and it gets better towards the end.
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Feb 13, 2013 09:06
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The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde. Really still seeming to be high quality series so far, I like this book especially as it deals with the bookworld primarily. I do wonder for every literary reference I get in the Thursday Next series how many is it that I miss.
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Feb 13, 2013 18:03
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Clayton Bigsby posted:Wrapped up Timescape by Gregory Benford last night, #14 in my Goodreads 2013 challenge. Yup, that's about it. There are so many of those SF writers who just can't write. I just finished Death in the City of Light by David King. True crime with an incredible hook: Early 1944, Paris. Residents of a suburban street complain of the acrid smoke continually flowing from the chimney of a house. No one answers the door and eventually firefighters break in. They find a stove alight, stuffed with body parts, a pit containing an uncountable number of decaying bodies, bones so numerous the police resort to weighing them to guess how many bodies they represent. The police are initially reluctant to investigate, before sending a delicate query to the Gestapo. The reply reads FIND THE MADMAN WHO DID THIS ... There's conflicting loyalties, the complications introduced by liberation, a variety of colourful characters, false identities, shady underworld figures, collaborators, the resistance, a trial ... a truly incredible story. Goes on for a bit long but very interesting.
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Feb 13, 2013 23:30
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Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde. Still an enjoyable series of books, one of the character twists was pretty obvious. Also I really want some toast now.
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Feb 14, 2013 02:38
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Just finished the first book in The Kingkiller Chronicles aka The Name of the Wind. I loved it and am already 500 pages into the second one. I'm looking forward to reading Tor.com's Rothfuss reread, as they're typically pretty entertaining articles: http://www.tor.com/features/series/patrick-rothfuss-reread
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Feb 14, 2013 03:42
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The Daylight War by Peter V Brett Although it's the typical fantasy story of "chosen hero saves the world from evil monsters," I still find myself enjoying it a lot. The plot hasn't progressed by much, but it's great seeing the secondary characters fleshed out more. The Fallen Blade & The Outcast Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood I wanted to like this one. It sounded very promising-- 15th century Venice, political scheming, and an assassin's guild-- just my sort of thing. I was left feeling disappointed. The dumb love interest and terrible female characters ruined it for me, I think. And then there was the author's strange fixation on human excrement. Basically every chapter had some character pissing or making GBS threads his pants. It was jarring, to the point of being almost comical. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay I really wanted to read a fantasy set in an historical asian period for once. The writing was excellent but the story itself was a bit lukewarm. I heard his other books were better, so maybe I'll try them next.
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Feb 14, 2013 05:46
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nate fisher posted:I just finished No Easy Day by Mark Owen. Overall I am somewhere in the middle with it. I enjoyed this first part of the book that dealt with his training to become a SEAL (as a former Marine I am a sucker for things like this), and the last part that deals with the raid on OBL's compound. While I think some of the greatest fiction has come from wars and the military, in relation to non-fiction not so much (of course Jarhead and Generation Kill are really good non-fiction books). American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle R.I.P. About a US Navy Seal sniper and his struggle to maintain his family while serving four tours in Iraq and racking up a body count unparalleled by any other soldier in US military history. It wasn't marred by overt right wing politics like other Seal books I've read. It was a little light on the technical aspects but still told a very interesting story of his life between shooting down insurgents.
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Feb 14, 2013 20:37
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Just finished American Gods . I thought it was a really well written book. I appreciate the mix of obscure and not so obscure deities that come into play during the course of the story, and I thought Shadow was an excellent character. Definitely recommended.
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Feb 15, 2013 02:45
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Just finished Jonathan Eig's biography of Lou Gehrig, Luckiest Man. It was a good, well-researched and depressing read. It does a lot to explain how good Gehrig was (he hit for power and got on base a lot) and how troubled he was (insecure and something of a mama's boy, with a strong attachment to his mom) and how both were related. Later, when it gets to him suffering from ALS it's a heartbreaking read: right up until near the end, he was optimistic he'd recover, even as his body basically died around him. I'd recommend it.
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Feb 15, 2013 18:03
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Read The State and Revolution by Lenin. Basically Lenin's rant on how social democrats of the early 1900s ignored fundamentals of Engels and Marxs teachings. Goes on great depth on how a revolution starts, how it takes over the state basically the whole process. A lot of the book is a product of its time and political propaganda against the controlling party of The Soviet Union. Who Lenin believed were not true communists/marxist because not everything was nationalized. Anyway it's an alright book but there is some repetition just so Lenin can ram his point in the reader. Also just finished The Enemy Of God by Bernard Cornwell, it is the second in his Warlord Chronicles trilogy. Great book but like the first one it's sort of predictable and more so in the case of this one. The beginning of the book was the strongest part, when the protagonist goes to fight the baddest warlord Diwrnach, although the fight never happens there is lots of tense moments there. The rest is standard Arthurian legend fare. If you know a bit about Arthurian legends you are going to see a lot of things coming. Although this series is mostly realistic so it has none of the fighting the dead part of Arthur tales. If someone were to make Arthur movies again, these books would be great for it. The writing feels quite cinematic. Despite some predictable outcomes, still want to read the last one some day. Ulio fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Feb 16, 2013 |
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Feb 16, 2013 07:04
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Just finished Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. I liked it a lot, especially the two side plots. Even though the main themes of immigration, religion and identity are pretty clear, I'm struggling to see whether Rushdie is making a coherent point about Gibreel's and Chamcha's changes troughout the book. They're both dicks in their own way, and making them angelic and demonic seems to play more into a judgement about their cultural identity than their morals. I'm sure my limited knowledge of Islam and Indian culture makes it a bit harder to read, though. I can see why some muslims were a bit pissed off about the book. Rushdie doesn't pull his punches.
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Feb 17, 2013 00:23
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Ulio posted:A lot of the book is a product of its time and political propaganda against the controlling party of The Soviet Union. The Soviet Union didn't exist when Lenin wrote the book. He was arguing against Kerensky's Provisional Government, which had been in control of Russia since Nicholas II's abdication.
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Feb 17, 2013 03:04
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Just smashed through J.M.G Le Clézio's The Flood. This book is weird, strange, and kind of mind-blowing. Sadly, so few English readers have read it, so resources on it are hard to find, despite the author receiving the Nobel Prize recently. I would describe it as a book that takes Camus' The Stranger and takes it even further. While the first forty pages are written as a purely sensory experience, and thus a little disorienting, the book is wonderfully translated. Some of the passages are so eloquent and moving that I'm surprised that English wasn't the author's original tongue. The novel deals with death and sensory understanding, and how a fascination of oblivion can hasten your demise. A taste of the prose: quote:For the years, the years would continue to unfold in their serried ranks, no more distinguishable from one another than buffaloes at a watering-hole, and the years would become centuries, and the centuries would follow one another in turn, like great striations of marble. In the remote future, far beyond this place, this moment, time would still be thrusting out its branches, a growing tree. Languages would decline, arts gutter into oblivion. Ideas would glide smoothly on, small boats borne by the stream, never reaching any destination. There would be no end, just as there had been no beginning: simply night falling over the world’s achievements, veiling them on its own axis, swiftly at the periphery, almost stationary towards the centre. And eternity would be there, not hidden, but omnipresent; not an external pall, but permeating the inner heart of things, at the centre of time’s central point. (p. 264)
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Feb 17, 2013 03:59
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^Prose looks really wonderful, going to check it out.cloudchamber posted:The Soviet Union didn't exist when Lenin wrote the book. He was arguing against Kerensky's Provisional Government, which had been in control of Russia since Nicholas II's abdication. Yes my bad, I meant what Lenin ideally thought Russia as.
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Feb 17, 2013 07:41
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The Book Barn Special Investigation Bureau and I just finished Murder is Easy, by Agatha Christie. A fun read, made all the more fun by the group investigation aspect of the thread. We even managed to mostly pinpoint the correct culprit, although some of that was guesswork - I'm not sure this was completely "fair" as a murder mystery. Next up is The Ponson Case, by Freeman Wills Crofts. More people should totally join us for this one.
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Feb 18, 2013 00:17
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Just finished Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein after having bought the book no less than three hours ago. I couldn't put the book down because of the first-hand accounts of both the dark side of the rising sun but also the depths to which the subjects are plumbed and revealed. I found a great review on Goodreads that puts my own feelings about the writing succinctly and eloquently: Barry Graham posted:Adelstein isn't much of a writer. His prose is clumsy and frequently cliched, and he has sentences so awkward you can tell he's now more used to writing and speaking in Japanese than in his native English. But none of that matters. He's such a brilliant storyteller that it's easy to see how he was able to become a successful reporter for a Japanese newspaper before he was fluent in Japanese.
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Feb 18, 2013 09:41
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Finished Knife of Dreams, and holy gently caress this series has slowed to a crawl. On to the Sanderson, which seems pretty good so far.
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Feb 18, 2013 18:29
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Dorepoll posted:Just smashed through J.M.G Le Clézio's The Flood. This book is weird, strange, and kind of mind-blowing. Sadly, so few English readers have read it, so resources on it are hard to find, despite the author receiving the Nobel Prize recently. I would describe it as a book that takes Camus' The Stranger and takes it even further. While the first forty pages are written as a purely sensory experience, and thus a little disorienting, the book is wonderfully translated. Some of the passages are so eloquent and moving that I'm surprised that English wasn't the author's original tongue. The novel deals with death and sensory understanding, and how a fascination of oblivion can hasten your demise. Couldn't find an e-book of The Flood, but I picked up Desert and I'm enjoying it immensely.
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Feb 18, 2013 21:02
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hope and vaseline posted:Couldn't find an e-book of The Flood, but I picked up Desert and I'm enjoying it immensely. That's awesome. Please let me know your final thoughts on it, I'm trying to find more of his early, experimental work.
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Feb 19, 2013 13:10
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House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds - 5 stars! Rambling incoherent thoughts: This book presented a brighter and less claustrophobic universe than that of the Revelation Space series. The story was a wonderful mystery, and although some questions stayed unanswered, it was still satisfying thanks to a brilliant, moving final chapter that turned everything on its head and reminded me very strongly of Ellie's conversations with the aliens in Contact. And there was a very happy ending on a character level, which is a plus. There were tons of great ideas in the book, which is what I've come to expect from Reynolds. Some of my favourites included: the time-scale-altering syncromesh and stasis machines; the horrifying interrogation technique of sectioning; civilisation turnover and the Universal Actuary; the stardams constructed of left-over ringworlds; the myriad different forms that humanity has speciated into in its 6 million years of starfaring. The book had a few flaws. The subplot about Palatial was interesting, but served almost no purpose in regards to the main storyline. I wanted to know more about the shattering process itself, but that was relegated to the final few pages of Abagail's chapters. And, we leave Neume so abruptly. I wanted more closure with the remaining Gentians, Grilse's fate, the fate of the traitor, Galingale, what happened to that suicidal elephant dude, etc. Overall: Great. Probably not as good as the Revelation Space books when taken as a whole; but better than several of the books within that series. To be exact, I think the individual books Revelation Space and Redemption Ark are better than House of Suns, which is in turn better than Chasm City and Absolution Gap.
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Feb 19, 2013 13:17
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I just finished Felix Gilman's The Rise of Ransom City, which is a sequel of a sorts to The Half-Made World (which I read in December). The world that Gilman has created with these two books, with its Engines and Guns and Red Republic, is a really entertaining and intriguing place, and the coy way that he goes about introducing you to the world with little exposition about how it works is actually pretty effective. That said, this is one fantasy book that would be improved with a map as a frontispiece. I'd also like a companion atlas or something to learn more about the geography and history of the place. Or another sequel.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:35
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I just finished The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock.from back of book posted:In the backwoods of Ohio, Willard Russell’s wife is succumbing to cancer, no matter how much he drinks, prays, or sacrifices animals at his "prayer log." Meanwhile, his son Arvin is growing up, from a kid bullied at school into a man who knows when to take action. Around them swirl a nefarious cast of characters—a demented team of serial killers, a spider-eating preacher, and a corrupt local sheriff—all braided into a riveting narrative of the grittiest American grain. I can't remember how I stumbled upon this book online, but thank God I did (I think it was on some best of list). White trash Gothic noir at it's finest that fans of Jim Thompson and Daniel Woodrell will love. Pollock worked for 32 years in a paper plant before getting his MFA at OSU, and he changed the way I look at southern rural Ohio. I just ordered his book of short stories.
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Feb 19, 2013 19:03
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nate fisher posted:I just finished The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock. DYING to read this--it's been on my list for a while now. I just finished The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, and it was the first book in the fantasy genre in years that kept my interest. Found it to be pretty hilarious at times, and damned satisfying, especially for the first book of a trilogy. Reading the rest of the series next, but since I had to wait for them to arrive from amazon.com, I'm currently reading Monster by A. Lee Martinez, but it, well, sucks. At least it's short...
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Feb 19, 2013 19:30
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I've been a huge fan of the films for years but I only just got around to reading Dashell Hammet's The Thin Man now. It's interesting how two very similar texts can differ so much, with the film being a more light hearted version of the books darker counterpart. There's some unsavoury implications that come up in the book, and Nick Charles isn't the charming rogue he seems to be in the film. There's a few references to someone far more shady (Which puts his lush lifestyle in a different light) here, which I probably shouldn't have been surprised by given who wrote it. Now on to Infected which I picked up after seeing the banner ads here.
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Feb 24, 2013 19:38
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Just finished The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. It wasn't a bad read and it picked up considerably from the first third, but I didn't think it's as great as some of the hype it got either. It's essentially Casablanca as written by Kafka, if that makes sense. The DPRK setting is probably what draws most people to the book and while there's a few interesting ideas there (including a weird subplot about two duelling branches of the secret police) but I felt it was there to cover a story which wasn't really all that strong. If you're interested in the DPRK, I suppose it's worth checking out, but there's books I'd recommend over it.
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Feb 25, 2013 18:06
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I wanted something light and easy to read, so I picked up an old copy of Pet Sematary I got when someone was just giving away a whole bunch of old books... It had no business being as good as it was. Philosophical and psychological musings were prevalent throughout the book, and it really gripped you with some well-fleshed out characters. It wasn't at all what I expected-- it's a prime example of "don't judge a book by its cover", because re-animated animals haven't a great deal to do with the actual story and themes. Great atmosphere, too. I used to only read King's non-fiction and short stories, but I think I might delve into his longer works now, because they offer (as longer books are wont to do) a much richer experience. No lie, it was a 560 page book and I finished the drat thing in less than two days-- that's how gripping it was.
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Feb 25, 2013 20:52
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Relentlessboredomm posted:I just finished this today after picking it up thanks to a Brain Pickings recommendation. God drat that woman can write. A book of advice columns is not exactly my cup of tea but she just completely knocks you on your rear end with her own life stories that she uses to illustrate points. I can't think of anyone who shouldn't read this. Easily the best book I've read in the last few months. I'm going to buy a few copies for friends/family. These two posts made me perk up. I'm not big on advice columns. HOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLY gently caress some of the writing in here is phenomenal. Just absolutely mindblowing.
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Feb 26, 2013 05:16
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I just finished Dawn by Octavia Butler and it kind of blew my mind. It really felt like it captured the conflicting feelings of the main character so well that you feel conflicted even as the reader. I don't think I've read anything where the aliens felt so complicatedly human and inhuman. Or for that matter where I felt so engrossed in a story, but without a sense of "bad guys" or a quest or goal. Definitely highly recommend it. I've not read anything else by Butler, but I'm definitely going to, probably starting with the others in this series.
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Feb 26, 2013 06:09
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Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder, by Mike Befeler. Okay, this is book number four(?) in the Geezer Lit series, and while there's nothing wrong with the plot, and the premise--old guy has to write himself notes as he solves murder--is fine for a cozy-type mystery, I was put off by sloppy editing (or possibly sloppy research). It's so easy with the Internet to find out that if you google the thing you're calling Pike's Street Market, it actually has a different, albeit somewhat similar name. That kind of thing bugs me. (Go on, Google "pike's street market." I did; what came up was Pike Place Fish Market, and a bunch of other things that all said "Pike Place" and not "Pike's Street.") Okay, I'm kind of a purist like that. I've read a couple of the other ones, not sure I'd get another by this author because the premise, while cute, gets old. December Dread by Jess Lourey. I think the Murder-By-Month series started in May, now we're up to December. A good plucky heroine, racing against time to stop a serial killer. I think this also might be considered a cozy, or getting close to the line anyway, but a good mix of humor and tension. Held my interest, made me laugh. Okay, well, probably it was more of a smile. Books that actually make me laugh out loud are pretty rare. Have not read the others but they apparently do not have to be read in order, which is good. I might go for them. The Game by Neil Strauss. Is this gonzo journalism? A reporter infiltrates a group of pick-up artists, all of whom go by strange monikers ("Mystery" and "Tyler Durden," and the author himself is "Style") and whose goal is not so much having lots of sex with lots of women, but scoring. As in, "number-closing" (getting a girl's number). Strauss is quite the name-dropper and as Style he becomes THE pick-up artist. Gonzo journalists don't mind becoming part of the story, even a BIG part of the story. Interesting look at a weird subculture. Pretty amazing packaging, though, the publisher made this book look like a bible, complete with gold edging and a ribbon bookmark. (Usually I go to the library and grab three books that turn out to have something in common. Well, two of these are mysteries and one has a character called Mystery, but I have to admit the two actual mystery books were not random, so this probably doesn't count.)
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Feb 26, 2013 07:47
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The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi This was a fun read, mostly because the setting (post energy crunch / GMO disasterscape Thailand) is engaging. Fertile seeds are incredible treasures, elephants are living power plants, and Des Moines is basically Mordor, complete with literal black-cloaked villains. The premise doesn't totally make sense (why don't they have nuclear power, or wind power, or...), but it doesn't get in the way of the story. Plus I had a rambutan in real life the other day, and it was delicious.
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Feb 26, 2013 08:03
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To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis) This was a goon rec, and it was wonderful. A time travel novel and a mystery of sorts, it avoids many of the pitfalls that have tripped up novels with similar themes, and it's truly funny. As an extra bonus, it referenced Three Men In a Boat, which I had finally gotten around to reading a few months ago. I also thought the time travel system worked really well, positing a chaotic system without being so chaotic that the entire system was meaningless. This is one I will definitely recommend.
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Feb 26, 2013 17:18
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Gateway by Frederick Pohl, 5 stars! Kind of a mindblowing book, despite some of the tech being dated. It really digs into the psychological, almost existential, horror of space travel. I really enjoyed the interstitial psychiatrist scenes as well as all the little inserted bits and pieces (letters, classified ads, science talks, poems, etc). And this book is another classic SF work which is impressively progressive for its time, in that it portrays a society which is pretty accepting of homosexuality. This really is one of the must-read SF books about space and alien technology.
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Feb 28, 2013 00:59
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greatZebu posted:The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi I just finished Pump Six and Other Stories by the same author as The Windup Girl. Pretty good shortstories collection. Great worldbuilding but extremely depressing. I'd recommend it to people who liked The Windup Girl and/or like dystopian stories even more bleak and depressing as Margaret Atwood's books.
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Feb 28, 2013 15:18
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