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bowmore posted:I was on the verge of tears during the last quarter of the book. You did read the entire 7 book series I assume? I read them in one 2 week binge. Every one of those books touched my heart and the final ending will stay with me forever. Fever Crumb, A Web Of Air, Scrivener's Moon, Mortal Engines, Predators Gold, Infernal Devices, A Darkling Plain. For those who fear the YA designation, I am 70 years old and this series is very, very mature. Don't miss out.
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Jan 19, 2014 22:36
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I've just started Fever Crumb, still have A Web Of Air and Scrivener's Moon to go. The Hungry Cities Quartet was basically perfect in my eyes.
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Jan 19, 2014 22:59
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Blind Rasputin posted:I am so bothered. After finishing the Goldfinch, I read Tarrt's book The Secret History. It is just as well written, but the story was just bland in comparison to The Goldfinch. I felt like it never completely took off and was forever hampered by the fact that the characters are just basically stuck up super rich alcoholic college kids. Just finished that book recently too and absolutely loved it. I've since been reading the Secret History as well but it isn't really holding my attention so I'm reading other books on the side. I want to recommend The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, but don't know if you'd like it as on the whole it's very different to the Goldfinch, except it is also beautifully written. It's emotionally powerful but in a detached way, partially due to necessity as some of it's also really brutal. Some of it involves a POW camp in WW2. I read it a month before the Goldfinch and thought it was very good. You might too if nothing else comes along. Since the Goldfinch, I've finished reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union (liked it a lot, really good writer makes it an interesting yarn but I got sidetracked along the way). In a day or 2 I read Alas Babylon (pretty interesting look at some resourceful types surviving WW3 in a small town in the 60s), Flowers for Algernon (Short and powerful, finally found a copy and read it again for the first time in years, since having to read it in school) and I'm someway through the Secret History. I love the descriptive writing but at this point don't care for the characters or for finding out why they do the thing that happens on the first page.
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Jan 20, 2014 13:48
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I'm trying to get into The Goldfinch but I'm a bit of an emotional robot so it's not really grabbing me. I'm up to the bit where he's just returned to school and Tom Cable is snubbing him. I've got other books that interest me more so I think I'll return to Goldfinch later. I recently read White Fang by Jack London - it's been 25yrs since I last read it and, by Christ, the memories came flooding back! It was one of the first "proper" books I read.
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Jan 20, 2014 14:27
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WastedJoker posted:I'm trying to get into The Goldfinch but I'm a bit of an emotional robot so it's not really grabbing me. I'm up to the bit where he's just returned to school and Tom Cable is snubbing him. My first 'proper' book was Watership Down hah. Animal stories, huh. Re the Goldfinch, once you've finished your other books I'd recommend getting to where he meets Hobie and then Boris, and if you're still not into it then at least you gave it a crack.
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Jan 20, 2014 14:37
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bowmore posted:I've just started Fever Crumb, still have A Web Of Air and Scrivener's Moon to go. I believe Fever Crumb is set a thousand years before The Predator Cities and fills in a lot of information about the start of the mobile city concept and the stalkers, Shrike in particular. Shrike is the only character that appears in both groupings. And I could be way off on my thousand years estimate, but a long time for sure.
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Jan 20, 2014 22:24
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I just finished Ringworld by Larry Niven. I have been on a huge SciFi binge and this one did not disappoint. It had many really cool ideas and when considering the book was written in the 70's makes it even more impressive. I felt the pacing varied a little to much like a roller coaster for my taste, but easy enough handle. Lastly the ending was a bit of a let down and abrupt considering the build up, but then I guess it is part of a series so it might get expanded on. Not sure if I should read more into Ringworld books or move on.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:47
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If you enjoy "Hey, let's have freaky alien sex for pretty much no reason", go for it. If it kinda weirds you out, you might wanna quit while you are ahead.
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Jan 21, 2014 12:06
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Just finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Unreal, surreal, incredible. I find it hard to enjoy other books for a while after reading his stuff because nothing else matches up. I'm sure I'll have to read it again at some point to "get it" better just because this book is on the ragged edge of my comprehension. As an aside, if you're a McCarthy fan, read Yelping with Cormac Didn't finish Doomed by Chuck Palahniuk. I hated this book abjectly, despite liking Palahniuk for the most part. It was almost irredeemably bad.
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Jan 21, 2014 17:20
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The Tao of Pooh It was cute, but pretty vapid and I had zero issues with putting it aside for a few days to deal with a busy week. You would be better of reading the original Pooh books and looking into Taoism on your own to get anything meaningful out of your time. Because Hoff is crazy and just wanted to ramble at strangers.
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Jan 21, 2014 18:53
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robotsinmyhead posted:Didn't finish Doomed by Chuck Palahniuk. I hated this book abjectly, despite liking Palahniuk for the most part. It was almost irredeemably bad. Out of curiousity, what did you think of Damned? I'm not really a big Palahniuk fan at all, but I thought that was the most-okay thing of his I've read.
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Jan 21, 2014 21:36
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Blind Rasputin posted:I am so bothered. After finishing the Goldfinch, I read Tarrt's book The Secret History. It is just as well written, but the story was just bland in comparison to The Goldfinch. I felt like it never completely took off and was forever hampered by the fact that the characters are just basically stuck up super rich alcoholic college kids. Interesting, I loved The Secret History (partially perhaps because I read it in college in my early twenties when I was originally trying to decide if I wanted to pursue a useless double major in english literature and classical studies), but found The Little Friend to be very disappointing. I'm happy to read all the great reviews of The Goldfinch! I've been scared to pick it up because of how disappointing The Little Friend was to me. Just finished The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan. It's a book about a Titanic -esque ship sinking around the start of the events leading up to the world war, and is narrated by a woman who is trapped in an over-full lifeboat in the middle of the ocean waiting to be rescued. Pretty fascinating for people interested in unreliable narrators or readers who like to see bad behavior resulting from dire situations.
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Jan 22, 2014 05:12
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Nikaer Drekin posted:Out of curiousity, what did you think of Damned? I'm not really a big Palahniuk fan at all, but I thought that was the most-okay thing of his I've read. I didn't read it / didn't know it was a thing until I picked up Doomed, so maybe something was missing from equation. My problem with the book wasn't the storyline (which I thought was novel enough to be entertaining) but the pacing and the insistence of it trying to be funny or grotesque or avant-garde or whatever. I read Pygmy a while back, and while it was similar in its ridiculousness, I enjoyed it enough. For reference, I've also read Fight Club and Rant so I'm not unfamiliar with this other work.
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Jan 22, 2014 15:38
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Just finished Darkness at Noon, such a good read. It's nice and short so I read it in two sittings and at the end I cried like a big baby, I was obviously expecting him to be killed but much like him I was taken by surprise.
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Jan 22, 2014 15:40
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I just finished two books recently, Mockingjay by Susanne Collins and Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind. Mockingjay was a fantastic ending to the Hunger Games series, although it didn't present as much suspense for me as the first two in the series. Although the love triangle between Peeta, Gale, and Katniss resolved nicely at the end, the half page dedicated to its resolution was hardly enough for the nearly 900 pages of tension that led to it. Regardless, this book and series left me thinking long after it was over. Faith of the Fallen is the 6th installment in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Also a good read, I think i've come to realize that long book series like these are more like a fantasy soap opera than an epic arc seen in the classics. Each book illustrates a fantastical journey where Richard, the main hero and protagonist of the story, is rendered helpless in some form or the other and unable to use his powers. Despite the blandness of this cycle, Goodkind does a nice job weaving life into each of his characters through a unique and interesting story in each novel.
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Jan 22, 2014 23:29
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Just finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and I can say it's one of my favorite novels that I've read so far. I'm quite sad that the sequel isn't worth reading, I've been going through the last couple days in limbo trying to find a book that would entertain me as much as C22.
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Jan 23, 2014 01:22
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MacMillan posted:Just finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and I can say it's one of my favorite novels that I've read so far. I'm quite sad that the sequel isn't worth reading, I've been going through the last couple days in limbo trying to find a book that would entertain me as much as C22. I'm not sure how much my tastes line up with yours, but I love Catch-22 and A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick is another one of my favorites. It's not quite as funny, but it's fascinating at the same time and the ending is an emotional gut-punch similar to Snowden's death. You can also tell from the introduction it was a really personal story for Dick to write.
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Jan 23, 2014 05:12
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DreadNite posted:I just finished two books recently, Mockingjay by Susanne Collins and Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind. While I really like the background story of Sword of Thruth... Richards (the protagonist) monologs about liberty'n'stuff quite repetitively at times. Although I can definitely confirm the Wizards first rule: Nothing is every easy. I use it on a daily basis for years now, I think. Just finished Ready Player One. Made me smile. Very old school (people who can somehow relate with the movies like Wreck-It Ralph or Scott Pilgrim vs. the World due to age should consider this book).
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Jan 23, 2014 10:02
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Just finished Bridge of Birds. It was pretty good, I felt like I was reading a novel version of Kung-fu Hustle.
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Jan 23, 2014 23:25
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MacMillan posted:Just finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and I can say it's one of my favorite novels that I've read so far. I'm quite sad that the sequel isn't worth reading, I've been going through the last couple days in limbo trying to find a book that would entertain me as much as C22. Something Happened is as good as Catch-22, although much less funny.
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Jan 24, 2014 21:41
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I just finished Hexcommunicated by Rafael Chandler. It was a really fun read about secret government agents/soldiers cybernetically modified to be monsters. It moves quickly, has a bunch of cool ideas and I've finally found someone who loves a portmanteau more than I do (there are fearwolves, vampoules, frankenstitches, pessimystics, skelekinetics, handroids and more)
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Jan 25, 2014 19:53
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I finally finished The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch. I found it to be a slow read but it was alright. I enjoyed the end more than the middle of the story and the narrative switches were a bit jarring for me.
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Jan 25, 2014 20:30
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CNN Sports Ticker posted:I just finished Hexcommunicated by Rafael Chandler. It was a really fun read about secret government agents/soldiers cybernetically modified to be monsters. It moves quickly, has a bunch of cool ideas and I've finally found someone who loves a portmanteau more than I do (there are fearwolves, vampoules, frankenstitches, pessimystics, skelekinetics, handroids and more) I was looking at picking that up, but the cover kinda turned me off on the idea. Had a weird paranormal romance vibe to it. I'll rethink grabbing it now 
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Jan 26, 2014 07:46
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Scott Sigler's Pandemic. I read Infected and Contagious right when they came out, and despite the 5(?) year wait between the 2nd and 3rd installments, I was satisfied. The guy writes like a film adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel.
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Jan 27, 2014 00:38
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Scott Sigler's Pandemic. I read Infected and Contagious right when they came out, and despite the 5(?) year wait between the 2nd and 3rd installments, I was satisfied. The guy writes like a film adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel. poo poo, I totally failed to realize that this was finally out- it's been so long that it dropped off my radar. Thanks!
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Jan 27, 2014 00:42
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DreadNite posted:Faith of the Fallen is the 6th installment in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Also a good read, I think i've come to realize that long book series like these are more like a fantasy soap opera than an epic arc seen in the classics. Each book illustrates a fantastical journey where Richard, the main hero and protagonist of the story, is rendered helpless in some form or the other and unable to use his powers. Despite the blandness of this cycle, Goodkind does a nice job weaving life into each of his characters through a unique and interesting story in each novel. IIRC, that was the book where the series became too Ayn Randy for 14 year old me to stomache. Doesn't it feature Richard toppling communism by sculpting Michaelangelo's David or something?
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Jan 27, 2014 01:45
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The Moon Monster posted:IIRC, that was the book where the series became too Ayn Randy for 14 year old me to stomache. Doesn't it feature Richard toppling communism by sculpting Michaelangelo's David or something? I kind of enjoyed Faith of the Fallen. I don't think it had any rape demons like some of the others. It did get super heavy into its takedown of straw-man communism. It was very much Richard bootstraps his way past lazy and corrupt bureaucracy and shows people a better way. I still reread Wizards First Rule from time to time, it's a decent fantasy epic. Goodkind did get a bit crazy with pushing his ideology as the series went on though.
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Jan 27, 2014 02:34
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Poutling posted:Interesting, I loved The Secret History (partially perhaps because I read it in college in my early twenties when I was originally trying to decide if I wanted to pursue a useless double major in english literature and classical studies), but found The Little Friend to be very disappointing. I'm happy to read all the great reviews of The Goldfinch! I've been scared to pick it up because of how disappointing The Little Friend was to me. I also read The Secret History years ago, and I loved it. Of course it could be I love reading books about either white trash (the works of Daniel Woodrell or Donald Ray Pollock) or the hedonistic upper middle class/rich (Bret Easton Ellis for example). So it was right up my alley, and I found plenty of substance in it. I haven't read Little Friends, but I did finish Goldfinch last week. Honestly it is better than The Secret History. I was worried because it didn't grab me at first (I was like oh great another 700 pages), but once the Barbours appeared I was hooked (once Boris appears it was like crack). It is not perfect (some of the Amsterdam parts I could have done without), but it is a beauitful book. There are several passages I will continue to return to.
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Jan 27, 2014 20:42
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The Moon Monster posted:IIRC, that was the book where the series became too Ayn Randy for 14 year old me to stomache. Doesn't it feature Richard toppling communism by sculpting Michaelangelo's David or something? Yes, Faith of the Fallen was 100% Ayn Rand BS. He carves this marble sculpture of two people in the likeness of himself and Kahlan (his wife and Mother Confessor). The looks of it alone apparently inspired a revolution. Although well written, it didn't really inspire me. 
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Jan 28, 2014 03:42
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Just finished Technomancer by BV Larson. Dumb, dumb, dumb. At least it was free...
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Jan 28, 2014 04:04
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The Red Knight by Miles Cameron - giving it a second read through and appreciated it all the more! It is a bit difficult to read because of the magic structure AND the fact he uses so many names for bits of armour and medieval stuff that aren't in every day use - thank god for the kindle dictionary! read it through again because the second book, The Fell Sword, was just released. I just love the main characters in this book - The Red Knight is really interesting with many secrets (some of which are revealed, some are only hinted at) but his supporting cast are equally fun including Bad Tom and Michael.
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Jan 28, 2014 14:12
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WastedJoker posted:The Red Knight by Miles Cameron - giving it a second read through and appreciated it all the more! It is a bit difficult to read because of the magic structure AND the fact he uses so many names for bits of armour and medieval stuff that aren't in every day use - thank god for the kindle dictionary! read it through again because the second book, The Fell Sword, was just released. I'm about 120 pages into this book and I'm having a hard time tying all the story lines together. I do like the different perspectives but I feel like I'm not grasping the whole plot.
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Jan 28, 2014 19:57
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RisqueBarber posted:I'm about 120 pages into this book and I'm having a hard time tying all the story lines together. I do like the different perspectives but I feel like I'm not grasping the whole plot. It's fine and completely normal considering how often it changes between point of views, but it's not really necessary to try to bring all the story lines together yourself. Eventually the book will show you the connection between the story lines. I just viewed many of these chapters as some kind of interlude meant to show of the really good worldbuilding, until eventually the story converged and did a goob job of bringing up everything relevant whenever needed. Also, the book does a great job for describing every character by something memorable in addition to their name, so while I kept forgetting the names of everybody I could still follow the storylines because people kept getting described as "the queen", "the archmage", "the merchant leader of the caravan", "the perfect foreign knight", "the walking tree", "the guy who punched the deamon to dead", etc every time they came up. There are a few storylines (like the smith's apprentice) which are not really that important in the first book but appear in the second book, but in general pretty much everything/everybody is involved by the end. In general all point of views that survive in this book appear in the second book as well. I would really like to know how many books there will be in the cycle. Certainly more than 3. In fact (not really a spoiler of anything specific but rather my feeling on the books) in hindsight the second book reads as the start of a huge multiple-book-spanning storyline and the first book reads as a prequel only meant to give some background info to make the many characters memorable.
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Jan 29, 2014 15:02
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Walh Hara posted:It's fine and completely normal considering how often it changes between point of views, but it's not really necessary to try to bring all the story lines together yourself. Eventually the book will show you the connection between the story lines. I just viewed many of these chapters as some kind of interlude meant to show of the really good worldbuilding, until eventually the story converged and did a goob job of bringing up everything relevant whenever needed. Also, the book does a great job for describing every character by something memorable in addition to their name, so while I kept forgetting the names of everybody I could still follow the storylines because people kept getting described as "the queen", "the archmage", "the merchant leader of the caravan", "the perfect foreign knight", "the walking tree", "the guy who punched the deamon to dead", etc every time they came up. There are 5 books contracted afaik but the world he has created feels big enough we could well see spin-offs. My only criticism is that his maps are really bad. Very hard to read the names of places, grrrr. Edit: I stitched together the two maps from the books to give a better understanding of the world  - writing is slightly easier to read when you view if full size
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Jan 30, 2014 12:46
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I've just finished The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan. It's an interesting (if massivly biased) look at how Corporations have come to dominate the social and political fabric of our lives. It's got a handful of good points but makes them over and over again, and doesn't really come to any profound conclusions about where we can go from our current state. This book probably works best as 'Babies First Anti-capitalist Tract'.
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Jan 30, 2014 14:31
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WastedJoker posted:My only criticism is that his maps are really bad. Very hard to read the names of places, grrrr. Before I saw the maps, I thought it was set on some alternative europe because of the presence of christianity. More specifically, I thought Albia was where in real life Alba is situated (i.e. Italy), Morea was where in real life Morea is situated (i.e. Greece), Galle was where real life Gaul is situated (because in my native language Gaul is written as Gallie and the Galle inhabitants in the book have french names), Thrake was where real life Thrace is situated, etc. There's also a place called Iberian in the book, people called Etruscians and an equivalent of the Mediterranean sea. I wonder wether these parallels were done on purpose but either way, I find them extremely confusing. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 15:37
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Walh Hara posted:Before I saw the maps, I thought it was set on some alternative europe because of the presence of christianity. More specifically, I thought Albia was where in real life Alba is situated (i.e. Italy), Morea was where in real life Morea is situated (i.e. Greece), Galle was where real life Gaul is situated (because in my native language Gaul is written as Gallie and the Galle inhabitants in the book have french names), Thrake was where real life Thrace is situated, etc. There's also a place called Iberian in the book, people called Etruscians and an equivalent of the Mediterranean sea. I wonder wether these parallels were done on purpose but either way, I find them extremely confusing. Yeah, it was a little weird. I have been somewhat annoying by the second book already - the first book was very good at using ye olde worlde type language and such but already in the second book there's been mention of "boobies" and "Anytime, baby" which are a little out of place.
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Jan 30, 2014 19:07
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Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A.'s Most Notorious Gang by Colton Simpson and Ann Pearlman. This is the life story of Colton "Lil Cee Loc" Simpson, and his time in the Crips. The first quarter of the book starts out with him as a young kid being abandoned in a Blood neighborhood wearing all blue clothes with his little brother. The writing is pretty bad here, and you can tell it's probably Colton doing the writing entirely himself with little to no editor tidying it up at all. I was almost ready to put the book down after the first 50 pages because it talks about him doing jewelry heists at age 12-14 and getting $200k, buying 5 cars, and shooting people left and right. It's a bit over the top for me to handle for someone this young. Then he begins what will be a life in juvenile detention and jail terms. This is where the book suddenly changes, the writing becomes more detailed, more interesting, and really grabs your attention. This is the meat of the book until the end. You learn what is happening within the prison system, how notes are passed, how people watch each other, know when something is up, the brutality by the Mexicans, the white supremacists, the security guards, and the rival black gangs. The hyperbole presented in the beginning fades quite a bit, you see how Crips educate each other over black leaders and history, how some years all the black people work together to keep themselves safe, only to have a disagreement over something stupid start a full on war for another year. He spends time in the same block as Monster Kody and crosses paths. He also grew up with Ice-T, and eventually he opens some doors and gives him opportunities when he gets out. He spends almost 16 years in prison, almost all of it defending himself and his closest allies. His current situation is pretty depressing, and the last few recently added chapters go over it. This book was used as evidence against him by the state of California and they want to lock him up 25 to life as a third strike offender. It's not as good as Monster, The Corner, or Gang Leader for a Day. But it is still worthwhile to read, if not for the in depth view of the prison system in California and how the gangs within operate. The fact that Colton wrote a lot of this is probably why it isn't as good as the others, but also why it is worthwhile. You take what you can get on these subjects.
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Jan 31, 2014 16:11
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Just finished The Golem and the Jinni by Helen Wecker I got it on a Kindle special, and it was quite enjoyable. The description of the book really isn't adequate. I saw one review that said it was more historical fiction, and I agree with that--it does a great job of capturing the feel of New York in the late 19th century. The story proceeds at a leisurely pace, reminding me of The Alienist or Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, although it doesn't ever drag to the point that I became impatient. The only real issue I had is that the insertion of flashbacks, while in and of themselves well-written, was a little choppy. The book is good enough that this is very forgivable, and I look forward to seeing more from this author.
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Jan 31, 2014 17:09
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I loved The Golem and the Jinni! I found it a lot more introspective than I thought it would be, with questions as to the basic nature of humanity seen through outsiders that don't quite belong.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:01
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