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Last week I read Stephen King's new book Mr. Mercedes and Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge. Mr. Mercedes started off strong but pretty quickly squandered a lot of that potential. The story involves a retired detective squaring off with a killer who drove a Mercedes through a crowd and managed to escape the scene. What made it good to start was that King had interesting hooks for the characters: the detective was struggling with depression after his retirement, while the killer seems like a Bachmann protagonist gone bad. Once the novel starts rolling along, the detective is magically full of his old energy again, while for the killer King employs tropes that make him into a more cookie-cutter villain. He then throws in a Harvard-bound black kid that inexplicably switches between standard English and minstrel show Ebonics (wtf?) and a neurotic middle-age woman who gets magically better around computers. It's not completely awful, but it's definitely not worth the price of admission new. Brinkley's The Great Deluge is an amazing look at the clusterfuck that was New Orleans after Katrina. It paints an unflattering portrait of almost everyone in power at the time. It's a sickening look at failures at every level of government, and a glimpse into some of the politicking that was going on behind the scenes. It's got everything to make your blood boil, from a mayor and city government who refused to take hurricane planning seriously until the last second, a corrupt police force that joined in the looting and used their badges to make themselves lords of the shitheap instead of asserting order, a committee charged with maintaining the levees spending infrastructure money for personal investments, an inept FEMA response, and a Presidency that was more focused on using the disaster to disperse an opposition majority. There are some bright spots in the book, but if you can come out of it without a misanthropic outlook I'd be surprised.
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Jun 16, 2014 20:56
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The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. Ehh... I've read a few fantasy novels in a row now, and I have come to the conclusion that very little of it interests me anymore. This one in particular was pretty juvenile. I'm not Captain Maturity or anything, but my 38-year-old self just can't get into this kind of stuff anymore. I still enjoy a lot of Science Fiction, but I'm going to have to be more selective about Fantasy. I have book two on hold at the library, but I think I'm gonna let it pass.
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Jun 16, 2014 22:10
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Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell. I was sort of prepared to dislike it because vampires are so passe these days but the first, titular story quickly turned me around and I was hooked after the next two. A very charming collection of short stories. Hell House by Richard Matheson. I think this was recommended to me here after I said I really enjoyed Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. While I can see why it would be brought up based on their similarities, Matheson's work just pales in comparison with THOHH, which remains one of the most terrifying reads I've ever experienced. Hell House has arguably more overtly grotesque and shocking elements but it just doesn't hold a candle to the masterful sense of terror that Jackson is able to subtly weave throughout THOHH. I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read Jackson's superior novel first, but as it stands Hell House just felt kind of banal to me.
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Jun 17, 2014 03:27
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tonytheshoes posted:The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. Ehh...
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Jun 17, 2014 04:42
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moot the hopple posted:
I love Hell House and I love Hill House equally and I'm obsessed with the architectural horror genre but I love each of them for completely opposite reasons - Hell House is bombastic and insane and has the most ridiculous ending known to man that somehow works, whereas Hill House is quiet and creepy and filled with tension. If you like creepy haunted house books and have a passing interest in Southern Gothic you might want to try Michael McDowell's The Elementals which I'm ecstatic to say finally got released on kindle. bowmore posted:The consensus is that Brent Weeks tends to write towards the lower age groups, his stuff may as well be YA. Brent Weeks writes like he has acute ADHD and has completely run out of ritalin. I think his stuff is less YA and more "I should write adaptation novels for video games". Just Finished Red Moon by Benjamin Percy. It's pretty good as far as werewolf books go - not the best, but very exciting at least for the first 2/3rds of the book. I think the last third fizzled under the weight of its own ambition.
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Jun 17, 2014 06:44
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bowmore posted:The consensus is that Brent Weeks tends to write towards the lower age groups, his stuff may as well be YA. bananahammock Poutling posted:Brent Weeks writes like he has acute ADHD and has completely run out of ritalin. I think his stuff is less YA and more "I should write adaptation novels for video games". I actually agree with both of these... I would have loved this when I was 15, but now my tastes are so much more sophisticated--now if you excuse me, I'm going to go finish reading The Brain Eaters. Just kidding, I already read it... I suck.
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Jun 17, 2014 14:27
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Police - Jo Nesbo I have read all of his other books apart from Cockroaches, they seem to suck me in although they are generally just crime books. Just like Jo's other books Police has a twist and as always the characters go through hell and back before solving the case with a happy ending at the end of the book. Jo has a way of getting the reader to care for the characters involved especially the main character. Having finished this one within a week I think it has to be one of his best by far, recommended read - 8/10
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Jun 17, 2014 21:24
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Poutling posted:Brent Weeks writes like he has acute ADHD and has completely run out of ritalin. I think his stuff is less YA and more "I should write adaptation novels for video games". I just finished the first Way of Shadows book, and this is entirely accurate. I kept expecting to hear about how he completed his mission and levelled up, gaining +4 dexterity and +2 strength. I read it on a plane, and by the time I was through customs, I'd completely forgotten the names of all the characters. Except Doll Girl, because it was silly enough to stand out. BrosephofArimathea fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 02:54
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I finished reading Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur Clarke. I thought it was a decent read. It reminded me of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or the movie Prometheus. It was definitely more description-oriented than action packed. The conflict was very minor, and finishing the book left a bit of longing for closure. I figure that is what Clarke wanted to leave much of it to the reader's imagination.
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Jun 18, 2014 17:34
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By the recommendations of this thread, read The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Hell of a book, evoked Philip K. Dick in all the est ways. What are some of Dick's better books? Ubik was the best thing I read last year.
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Jun 18, 2014 18:49
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ProfessorProf posted:By the recommendations of this thread, read The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Hell of a book, evoked Philip K. Dick in all the est ways. My favorites are A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Eye in the Sky, Clans of the Alphane Moon, Ubik, and Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. If you want to get weird, try Palmer Eldritch or Lies, Inc, and if you want to get philosophical, hit up VALIS. funkybottoms fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 19:16
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BrosephofArimathea posted:I just finished the first Way of Shadows book, and this is entirely accurate. I kept expecting to hear about how he completed his mission and levelled up, gaining +4 dexterity and +2 strength. I think you guys are selling Weeks short on his second series (Black Prism et al). The writing might be juvenile, at times, but he has improved from the Night Angel series (which was woeful at times at pretty distinctly YA). I think the Prism is a fantastically written character and his plotting is excellent. Plenty of twists and turns so far in the first two books.
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Jun 19, 2014 00:24
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funkybottoms posted:My favorites are A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Eye in the Sky, Clans of the Alphane Moon, Ubik, and Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. I haven't read nearly enough PKD, but I'll second A Scanner Darkly, it's one of my favorite books period.
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Jun 19, 2014 00:43
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SmokinDan posted:I think you guys are selling Weeks short on his second series (Black Prism et al). The writing might be juvenile, at times, but he has improved from the Night Angel series (which was woeful at times at pretty distinctly YA). I think the Prism is a fantastically written character and his plotting is excellent. Plenty of twists and turns so far in the first two books. It's not his plotting that bothers me, it's the terrible writing. I actually thought the plot of The Way of Shadows was fairly interesting, but the writing... BLECH. He jumps from scene to scene and does lots of telling, not showing. It makes me not give a poo poo about most of his characters. He talks about how 2 of these supposedly fairly major characters are in love, then like 50 pages later, one of them is a giant whore that's apparently hosed everyone in the castle, and I have no idea how or why that's happened except that another character mentions it in passing. Then we meet another character who randomly shows up and introduces himself, and then 100 pages later he is like the wise and much beloved advisor of the Prince. He's adapted 'MTV music video' style of novel writing. I've only read the first book in the Night Angel series, so maybe he's improved, but from my experience, my assessment of having acute ADHD still stands. Then again, he's a NYT bestselling author so I highly doubt he's sweating my horrible opinion of his writing style!
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Jun 19, 2014 01:03
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I have been rocketing through books lately, though it helps that the last few I've picked up have been quite short: The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton is a wonderful, hilarious romp following the schemes of a secretive cabal of anarchists. It was written a hundred years ago (1908 I think) and so there's a lot about "a gentleman's word" and such, but it only adds to the feelings of frustration and ludicrous antics as the characters try in vain to ground themselves in reality. Absolutely recommend picking it up. Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman is a heartwarming adventure for young readers (like, 6-9) about a father's epic quest to get home after buying some milk. Complete with gorgeous illustrations by Chris Riddell that enhance every character and setting, as well as not one but TWO stable time loops, it's a great romp that won't take you more than twenty minutes to waltz through. Immediately afterwards I started In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami and the whiplash was intense. My first time reading this particular Murakami, and he has a very strong voice. The story is told from the point of view of a 20-year-old Japanese who works as a guide for sex tourists in Tokyo. When he meets his latest client, an uncanny and creepy American named Frank, he can sense something intensely wrong about him. The dread builds and builds over the first third of the book, and when it spills over it's electrifying, but even more gripping for me was the aftermath: Kenji ends up as Frank's "friend", doesn't rat him out to the police, and ends up with some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, trapped with this warped and broken serial killer listening to stories about his childhood. And then...Frank just leaves. And that's it. It was fascinating. Definitely will be checking out more of this guy's stuff, even though my reading list is in the high 50s right now...
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Jun 19, 2014 01:10
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OK I realise most of these are of a theme, as it were, but I swear I'm a normal person Hannibal: oh god this is a bad book. Don't Read This Book The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer (Brian Masters): Much better than I expected from the title. Masters takes a position of understanding, even sympathy, with his subjects, and aims to tell a personal story rather than a catalogue of gruesome details. His method of analysis, which throws in literary/mythological allusions and various psychoanalytic symbolisms, almost certainly isn't in keeping with modern criminal psychology but definitely makes for a good read. From this book and from a couple of other interviews/documentaries it's pretty hard not to feel sorry for the guy. In his own words: quote:This is the grand finale of a life poorly spent and the end result is just overwhelmingly depressing... it's just a sick, pathetic, wretched, miserable life story, that's all it is. How it can help anyone, I've no idea. Killing for Company (Brian Masters): same author, but about Dennis Nilsen this time. Didn't enjoy this one as much, but mostly that's down to Nilsen being such a pretentious prick that it's hard to summon up the same pathos. His own dubious attempts to analyse himself are fairly tedious. Here's the highlight: quote:Nilsen told how he had cut up a body in the bath into small pieces of flesh... and flushed them down the toilet. When he asked what to do with his cigarette butts in the cell, where there was no ashtray, and was advised by a junior constable to put them in the lavatory, he said that last time he did that he was arrested.  Germinal (Émile Zola): I read this a while ago but never posted about it. Amazon calls it "a brutal depiction of the poverty and wretchedness of a mining community in northern France"; it starts off slow but by the end, mines are being collapsed and penises are being ripped off (really). This book owns. Mines are terrifying. Read this book. (ymmv, I might be biased because I loving love mines and communism)
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Jun 19, 2014 10:13
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Just finished The Count of Monte Cristo. Back when Paris was capital of the world, and the Far East was hidden behind a veil... I don't know if I've ever read a book like this where you actually feel like you grow old with someone. The story rarely lets up, and the way it all comes together neatly at the end is very satisfying. While a bit predictable at times, it is still a good read. It certainly speaks to the heart of ambitious people, but it was a kids book after all 
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Jun 20, 2014 04:19
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Itachia posted:Police - Jo Nesbo I googled this, and I'm sorry, but "An Inspector Harry Hole novel"? How did he decide on that name with a straight face?
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Jun 20, 2014 07:22
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Harry Hole is a completely different sound in Swedish.
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Jun 20, 2014 10:33
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I saw a Harry Hole poster on the tube and was staring at it in disbelief until my train came, trying to work out whether it was a parody of something. I mean, I guess it works for marketing purposes, I definitely won't be forgetting that name any time soon
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Jun 20, 2014 10:55
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WastedJoker posted:Harry Hole is a completely different sound in Swedish. http://youtu.be/DsvbuoTosEs?t=2m34s
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Jun 20, 2014 13:45
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Wolpertinger posted:I googled this, and I'm sorry, but "An Inspector Harry Hole novel"? How did he decide on that name with a straight face? After reading around 10 of his books with the main character Harry Hole, I did not actually notice how funny this was until just now! This cracked me up!
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Jun 20, 2014 22:10
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Just finished book 1 of the Kenzie and Gennaro series, A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane. Thought it was pretty drat good. Prose and dialogue are well done, the two leads are interesting and sympathetic and their relationship* (as it is) is enjoyable, and while the book is ultimately about race relations in a place that was apparently even shitter twenty years ago and there are a few Author Filibusters that don't work, that whole part of the book still passes the "White Authors Not loving Up Writing About Black People" test overall, simply by pure volume. It makes me sad that this book is 20 years old, and these days the James Patterson Production Line is still churning new stuff out. * It also helps that, unlike NYPD RED, the male point of view character who's madly in love with his gorgeous female partner also takes the time to show that he's good friends with her for who she is as a person, and not simply because of her looks. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 13:05
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I've finished reading John Shirley's Aliens: Steel Egg, published by Dark Horse. It's a surprisingly good read. The book is set before the events in Prometheus, although it's apparent the author didn't have full access to the Prometheus script when he was penning it. Bought it for a cheap trashy sci-fi fix, but it turned out to be a pretty smart book.
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Jun 23, 2014 00:55
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A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin I just finished re-reading this and it was longer than I remembered. I would like to re-read the bits that got used for the current season but I'm not sure I can stand the slog. Arya remains my favorite character followed by Jon. And, I am flat amazed at how young everyone is in the book. Ned Stark is only thirty years old! Anyways, read it; it's good.
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Jun 26, 2014 02:15
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Devil in the White City by Erik Larson I'm torn about this book. It's more like two small books told side by side rather than a single, intertwined tale. I really enjoyed the story of the White City, if it did seem to drag a bit. The story of Holmes, which I think for many including me was the major factor of picking up the book, seemed empty compared to the detail of the Fair's tight details. The last quarter of the book was almost purely about the investigation that led to Holmes' conviction and it was fairly interesting. It was hard to get through, but I'm glad I finished it (thanks to some encouragement from the Books You Never Finished thread), I just won't go running out to make all my friends read it.
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Jun 26, 2014 03:37
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War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy One of the best books I've ever read but is a very challenging read at times No onto Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London
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Jun 26, 2014 12:38
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The Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. It's about the people who drive giant robots with their minds, the giant robots require them to be jacked together in an empathic way for some reason that's brushed off. Haldeman seems to just nerd out about the tech in his books a bit much for me. It was cool in Forever War because there was some cool time dilation involved, but it seemed a bit more gratuitous in this one. Other parts were cool, perspective shifts in an interesting, seamless way, quotation marks are dropped and it's not really confusing. So that was all a success. It just seems like the characters are kind of secondary to the world the author wants to create. What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah yeah, Malcolm Gladwell. This is a collection of a bunch of his NYT articles. Most are quite good. I honestly like Gladwell because he takes ancient discoveries in the social sciences that haven't taken hold with the public and makes them more accessible.
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Jun 26, 2014 13:26
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Just finished the Third Law trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings). I know they've been talked about endlessly on this thread, I'm just here to reinforce some notions. I can't recommend them enough if you want gritty, but not necessarily depressing fantasy which is for once character-driven and has great prose. You don't even have to like fantasy as a genre to enjoy it, so well rounded and memorable are the characters. Can't wait to sink my teeth into the follow-up novels, Best Served Cold and The Heroes. Joe also has a new series coming out real soon, if it's not already out, called Half A King. Definitely check him out if you haven't yet. Also, in case you plan to listen to the audible version of the First Law trilogy, I can't recommend it enough. The narrator, Steven Pacey, is hands down the best I've ever listened to, and it's uncanny how he brings the characters to life - you can literally recognize each and every one of them from his impersonation alone. Best Audible credits spent ever. Also finished Infernal Devices by KW Jeter, which is the novel that gave birth to the term "steampunk". A thoroughly enjoyable read told in 1st person, replete with self-deprecating dark humor, fishmen, apparatuses, doomsday devices, you name it. Started listening to the sequel, Fiendish Schemes in audiobook form but was put off by the fact that a) it's narrated by a woman, even though the story's told by a man, also in 1st person, and 2) she reads everything, regardless of the author's intention, in a violent whisper that's sometimes hard to understand (maybe because I'm not a native English speaker, but somehow I don't think so). As much as I love China Mieville, I did not enjoy Kraken. Maybe because I'd placed my expectations elsewhere. Maybe urban, current-time fantasy isn't for me. Anyway, trademark gothic convoluted juicy prose aside, it's a mess of a plot boasting some great secondary characters, your typical annoying bumbling protagonist, and lots of stuff that I guess was supposed to be funny and tongue in cheek but fell flat for me. It has nothing on the New Crobuzon novels - China truly shines when he's world building. It felt way too Neil Gaiman / Terry Pratchet-ish for me to enjoy; I think he needs to stick to his gritty, octopi-shaped guns.
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Jun 27, 2014 08:42
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Mr Underhill posted:Just finished the Third Law trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings). I know they've been talked about endlessly on this thread, I'm just here to reinforce some notions. I can't recommend them enough if you want gritty, but not necessarily depressing fantasy which is for once character-driven and has great prose. You don't even have to like fantasy as a genre to enjoy it, so well rounded and memorable are the characters. I'm sorry, but I can't let you get away with "great prose." The story is fine, if familiar, and there are some great characters (Glokta and the Northmen), but the writing is not good and what the gently caress happened between books two and three? How the hell did they get back?
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Jun 27, 2014 12:45
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Finally finished Les Miserables after reading it on and off for a year and all I can say is, man, Marius is a loving dick.
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Jun 27, 2014 13:53
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How to teach quantum physics to your dog by Chad Orzel. - Quick read with humorous approach of explaining basic Quantum Physics.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:03
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Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault. I had skimmed this for a course during my BA but totally didn't get it. Now, a few years and many other books later, it makes perfect sense. It's pretty much the opposite of Malcolm Gladwell but if you have a background in Sociology and don't mind staring at pages to puzzle out meaning a few dozen times, there's really nothing else like Foucault*. I'd say this is the quantum physics of the social sciences, complete with the necessary barrier to entry. * I shouldn't really say that, I think reading Sartre is similar, and Fanon has his moments. There's definitely a sort of French ivory tower genre. That doesn't explain loving Spivak, though. tuyop fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 15:48
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Last Days by Adam Nevil - it's long but worth it. The spiralling sense of creeping dread permeates the book. I rarely get chills from a book but the moments when they're in the empty buildings made me fidget in my chair!
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Jun 28, 2014 09:27
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I have been reading a lot this past week! The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is just excellent. I kept kicking myself for not having picked it (or anything by her) up earlier. It's a wonderful book, an evisceration of fundamentalism and an exploration of modern gender politics. I now have a copy of Oryx & Crake on my bookshelf and look forward to (eventually) sinking back into her literature. A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What The Internet Teaches Us About Sexual Relationships, by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam: In hindsight this was a weird book to follow Handmaid's Tale, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Part evolutionary psychology, part statistical anaysis, part celebration of the weird recesses of human sexuality. I was slightly frustrated that Ogas and Gaddam went straight for the evo-psych when looking for the "why"s behind different kinks and fetishes, especially things like BDSM and other power-related sexual expression. Every few pages I wanted to stop them and insert some kind of sociological reasoning. Despite that, it's some excellent and wide-ranging research, and has plenty of laughs. On a whim, I picked up SUM: Tales From The Afterlives by David Eagleman. It's a collection of 40 short (2-4 page) stories, each one detailing a hypothetical "afterlife" - from a huge range of interpretations, philosophies and levels of cynicism. It never gets bogged down in any religiosity, instead offering a few dozen glimpses of the way things might be in the hereafter - if a hereafter exists (in some of the visions, it doesn't). A really happy surprise and genuinely poignant. I followed that up with Voltaire's Candide, since I figured I'd never read it and I could pick it up second-hand for mega-cheap. I can see why it was so influential - my version helpfully came with footnotes for various historical references - though the hyper-quick plot never stops for a moment, which can be a little exhausting. Plus, y'know, 18th-century social politics are kind of jarring even with the historical context in place. But I'm glad I read it! EDIT: I forgot, I also finished Tao Lin's poetry collection you are a little bit happier than i am. I love his novels and some of his short stories are great, but I really have trouble getting into his poetry. It's somewhere between dull and self-indulgent, and I know that's kind of the point, but it doesn't make for the most engaging read. Maybe if I saw a live reading I'd appreciate them more. Right now I am about a third of the way through Liminal States and this is in no way what I was expecting - I'm hooked. Gertrude Perkins fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 22:37
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I just finished Despair by Nabakov and holy poo poo what a hilarious, dark, twisted story about an egocentric rear end in a top hat. Every time I read Nabakov, I wish I read him more.
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Jun 29, 2014 00:22
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Gertrude Perkins posted:Right now I am about a third of the way through Liminal States and this is in no way what I was expecting - I'm hooked. Wait is that by like our Zack Parsons (goodreads says yes)? Tank is fight guy? And it's a genuinely good book?
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Jun 29, 2014 00:36
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Finished up Peter Stark's Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition and Survival. In short, Astor got inspired by Lewis and Clark and thought he could have his own Pacific colony and make himself a global empire based off the fur trade. Jefferson gave him moral support; he really doesn't figure in any further. Astor recruited Canadians and Americans to either sail the Tonquin to the mouth of the Columbia River, or travel overland from Missouri. Both approaches went to hell. Thorn, captain of the Tonquin, went through a bad storm around the Falklands and nearly wrecked the thing going over the Columbia Bar. The overland route lollygagged, then nearly starved and froze to death while hoping that their alternate route down the Mad (Snake) River led to the right place. They opted for a different route because they heard that the Blackfeet were mean. Once at Astoria, things got worse. Thorn had taken the Tonquin to go sailing further north. He ticked off some Native Americans and they proceeded to slaughter nearly everyone one the ship. One of the survivors then blew the ship up after the natives boarded it to scavenge. The Astorians had mostly good relations with the Chinook around them, but nearly ruined that. They were also battling British attempting to set up their own fur outposts. In the middle of all this, a letter arrived declaring the War of 1812 and the Astoria folks got scared the British were going to come sailing up and take over. In the end, they sold out anyway because everyone had had enough and wanted to go home. Stark writes well enough, but there isn't much emotion. It's interesting enough to keep the pages turning, but nothing spectacular. I think some of it is that he rarely gets into the bigger global picture, such as the status of British or Spanish exploration or how the Brits had the southern Canadian waterways mastered well enough to get the declaration of war from the east all the way to outposts in modern Washington in a month. He also barely gets into just how little mapped and known the entire area was. Western Canada was still a huge void on maps until the 1850s.
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Jun 29, 2014 03:07
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tuyop posted:Wait is that by like our Zack Parsons (goodreads says yes)? Tank is fight guy? And it's a genuinely good book? Yes, yes, and no- I had to force myself to read about a third of it and gave up. It's not terrible, but I couldn't dredge up a single gently caress about what was going on.
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Jun 29, 2014 05:00
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I also gave up about maybe 40% in. I just really couldn't care about the characters or the story.
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Jun 29, 2014 06:03
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