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Finished Martin Meredith's The State of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence this morning. It's very depressing and, at times, horrifying.
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Sep 11, 2014 11:06
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The Broken Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin This isn't a direct continuation of the first book, it's a different story with mostly different characters set in the same world. This one follows a blind artist and her interactions with the minor deities that are allowed into the mortal realm following the events of the first book. I found it to be quite an enjoyable read and recommend the series.
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Sep 11, 2014 21:15
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Today I finished The Blade Itself (The First Law, Book One) by Joe Abercrombie. It was book one of a trilogy of medieval fantasy books. I simply was not impressed. This book had nothing to distinguish itself, and/or justify its existence, from the Game of Thrones series. I think some would argue that the humor accomplishes this, but I didn't find any of the "humor" funny or clever, rather all I can say about it is that it "wasn't as serious" in tone. The novel had very little standalone value, it was moreso just setting up things for the next two books, and there's less than a 10% chance I'll read on to book 2.
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Sep 13, 2014 21:55
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The Dragon's Path (first book in The Dagger and the Coin by Daniel Abraham. I first got interested in this book when I read an interview with the author in which he stated that one of his influences was Dorothy Dunnett, one of my favorite authors. The Dragon's Path is not as complex or dense as Mrs. Dunnett's books tend to be, but I did find it an enjoyable read and will keep following the series. Since it's a fantasy-novel that features a lot of political maneuvering and various point-of-view characters, comparisons to the work of George R.R. Martin is inevitable, so if you enjoy A Song of Ice and Fire, I recommend giving this one a shot. Out of the characters, I found Geder Palliako to be the most interesting. When he's first introduced, he's a fat nerd who likes to read books and gets bullied by his peers, so naturally it's quite easy to feel sorry for the poor goon. However, later in the novel Geder does something that took me by surprise and forced me to look at the character in a whole new light. It will be interesting to see what he (and the other characters like Cithrin and Marcus) get up to in the next book.
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Sep 13, 2014 23:43
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Zeavo posted:Today I finished The Blade Itself (The First Law, Book One) by Joe Abercrombie. Yes, cut your losses, it doesn't get better.
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Sep 14, 2014 12:36
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God Knows by Joseph Heller. I'm having a hard time reconciling the rest of Heller's works with the high bar of Catch-22 which is probably my favorite novel. I was kind of prepared for Closing Time being a huge disappointment because a direct sequel that could surpass Catch-22 is a really hard mark to aim for. With God Knows, I had the same issue of wishing it could be just as perfect as Heller's first book. While at times funny, I found it just a chore to read overall.
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Sep 14, 2014 22:13
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Just finished 'The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - Claire North' which is one of the Autumns Richard and Judy book club books and to be honest I was massively disappointed. Rating 3/10. I keep having a very bad time with books at the moment where I am not enjoying them at all so going to try 'Goldfinch - Donna Tartt'. I really hope this lives up to the reviews that I have heard.
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Sep 15, 2014 11:41
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The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year, by Sue Townsend. I hadn't read any Sue Townsend since I powered through the first couple of Adrian Mole books when I was in my early teens. It's the story of a 50-year-old mother of twins who, after sending her children off to university, finds that she is unable to leave her bed. As the story progresses, her isolation ripples through her family, her friends, and her entire community. I didn't know what to expect with this, but what I got was a lovely, heartfelt story about motherhood, family, nostalgia, and every different facet of love. You could file this under "chick lit", I guess? I'm probably not the "target demographic", being a queer 20-something man, but I really empathised with almost every character at one time or another. Not only that, but it was full of genuine laughs that took me by surprise.
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Sep 15, 2014 18:43
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The Poisonood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I never read any feminist literature but I hope it would read like this. The story is told through the perspectives of the women of a missionary's family while they are in the Congo in the 20th century. There are bits that speak about Imperialism and how it affects developing nations, its OK without being too preachy.
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Sep 16, 2014 15:41
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Just finished Perdido Street Station. Interesting world, but the ending was extremely disappointing. Mieville spends the entire book building up the noble Birdman then makes him a rapist, has him tear out his feathers and go walk the Earth. Then weak rear end Deus ex machina revolutionary with the claw arm shows up to save the day when they are murdering some poor invalid instead of one of them making the sacrifice and be the bait themselves. I don't get why this is so well regarded.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:46
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CowboyKid posted:Just finished Perdido Street Station. I felt pretty much the same way. I love the world, I love Miéville's writing style, but the ending left me pretty cold. However, I've heard that his second Bas-Lag novel, The Scar, is ten times better. So I'm going to be checking that one out soon myself.
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Sep 16, 2014 21:20
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halfway through Murakami's Norwegian Wood. Hate it. it's so sterile and gray. Yer main man seems like a booze obsessed walking sigh and his two girls... blugh. I'll finish it & do hope it improves but in not impressed. It's a shame, I'd looked forward to getting into Murakami's work but it follows the style of this one then I'm out.
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Sep 16, 2014 22:45
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The Kingdom of Gods (The Inheritance Trilogy) by N. K. Jemisin This is a great conclusion to a series. It really wraps up the entire series nicely. This story focuses on Sieh and his evolution as a deity. I like the fact that the author was able to expand the world's lore while still resolving the open bits of plot left over from the first two books.
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Sep 17, 2014 01:52
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Just read Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges, I knew him by reputation but I didn't expect him to be anywhere near as good as he was. One of the best books I think I've ever read.
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Sep 17, 2014 15:45
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ICHIBAHN posted:halfway through Murakami's Norwegian Wood. Hate it. it's so sterile and gray. Yer main man seems like a booze obsessed walking sigh and his two girls... blugh. I'll finish it & do hope it improves but in not impressed. It's a shame, I'd looked forward to getting into Murakami's work but it follows the style of this one then I'm out. I'm totally repeating myself from the recommendation thread but aside from the really detached, simple prose, Norwegian Wood is nothing like the rest of Murakami's work. He said he only really wrote it to prove that he could break into the mainstream and not just be a cult writer. Try to read some of the other stuff he published in the '80s (Hard Boiled Wonderland, Dance Dance Dance). (Speaking as someone who also didn't think much of Norwegian Wood.)
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Sep 17, 2014 21:38
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That's good to know, thanks.
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Sep 17, 2014 21:48
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I finished reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, overall more enjoyable than other classics that I've read. However, I thought the main character was extremely annoying and I wanted to shake her at certain points. Also watched the movie version and I love Laurence Olivier.
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Sep 17, 2014 23:55
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Bloodlight: The Apocalypse of Robert Goldner This book SSSSUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKEEEEEEDDDDDD. Got it off netgalley, and while the synopsis looked kinda cool, holy poo poo this book was bad. quote:Deep down, Robert Goldner knows he’s a mistake. His mother told him so when he was just five years old. But he never found the courage to ask just what she meant before she was murdered under mysterious circumstances on his eleventh birthday. Sounds vaguely interesting, except that it's not. He's a black kid, and has horribly racist high school classmates, spends time hating the various people at school, has weird body horror poo poo happen to him, literally nothing happens for about 80% of the book to explain WHY this poo poo is happening, and then when it does get explained it's just a literal explanation given in dialogue. No characterization whatsoever, just whiny black kid having weird poo poo happen, oh that's why it happens, book stops. Waste of loving time.
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Sep 18, 2014 11:58
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Gertrude Perkins posted:I felt pretty much the same way. I love the world, I love Miéville's writing style, but the ending left me pretty cold. However, I've heard that his second Bas-Lag novel, The Scar, is ten times better. So I'm going to be checking that one out soon myself. Hahahaha oh man I can't wait until you get to the end of THAT book. I think you'll find China has a knack for endings, they just aren't all peaches.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:43
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Fall of Hyperion... mothergently caress, that penultimate chapter where Gladstone destroys the farcaster network  Amazing book. Yes yes, I know not to touch Endymion with a 10-foot pole.
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Sep 19, 2014 06:25
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City of Stairs - Robert Jackson Bennett Brandon Sanderson's publisher recommended this book, and I am so glad he did. This is an outstanding novel. The setting is unique and enthralling, based in a city and society two generations past the assassination of its deities and overthrow of a government by its slaves. It starts as a murder mystery, then peppers in spycraft and subterfuge, all the while setting up a few badass confrontations with gods, demigods, and cults. The characters are intelligent enough that it never feels like anything is intentionally overlooked, and the protagonist's revelations were often in line with my own. The only major complaint I have about the book is that it answers all of its questions. The mysteries it poses are all neatly wrapped in the end, so I feel like there's not much world-building left to do if Bennett wishes to revisit this setting. Oh, and it's written in the present tense, which is weird as hell.
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Sep 19, 2014 09:36
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Hedrigall posted:Fall of Hyperion... mothergently caress, that penultimate chapter where Gladstone destroys the farcaster network The whole last quarter of Fall is nonstop jaw-drop moments, and it's fantastic. Then Simmons felt that what the series really needed was a thousand-page-long love story between a grown man and an 11-year old girl, and we got Endymion.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:13
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ProfessorProf posted:The whole last quarter of Fall is nonstop jaw-drop moments, and it's fantastic. It really is, although I gotta say I got a bit tired of "and then Kassad ran towards the Shrike, and the Shrike opened its bladed arms" every bloody 40 pages
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Sep 19, 2014 14:47
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Hedrigall posted:It really is, although I gotta say I got a bit tired of "and then Kassad ran towards the Shrike, and the Shrike opened its bladed arms" every bloody 40 pages That ran a bit long, but I'd say that every single scene with Ummon more than makes up for it.
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Sep 19, 2014 15:01
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Moths, by Rosalind Ashe - A ghost story of sorts, it touches on jealousy, love and doubt, and ends up being really entertaining. It starts slowly, with some luxurious prose and pretty evocative character profiles, but once you've been lulled into a false sense of security, the shocks are visceral. It's the story of a woman named Nemo, who buys an old Georgian house in Oxfordshire with her husband, and Harry (our narrator), who quickly befriends the couple and falls for Nemo. After a supernatural experience, Nemo's mood swings evolve into migraines and fits of passion, and when death rears its head, things get pretty intense. I've seen it compared to Daphne DuMaurier (and Iris Murdoch was a fan, I hear), but I've never read any of hers (not even Rebecca or Jamaica Inn, which I understand is shameful) It's a short book - I finished it in a day - but it's full of riches, and I'll never look at a hat-pin the same way again. Dr. Adder, by K.W. Jeter. Arguably the first (proto?)cyberpunk novel, originally written back in 1972 but in publishing hell for twelve years. It's not hard to see why - Jeter doesn't pull any punches with sex or violence. It centres around the titular Dr. Adder, a crackpot surgeon (who custom-alters prostitutes' bodies) and sort of folk hero for the Interface, an ultra-scuzzy red light district in the near-future ruins of LA. It also features a cult televangelist, genetically-modified sex chickens, the Midwestern Liberation Front, and a cybernetic death glove. It's a great ride, dark as hell and loaded with "wow, LA is a dump" cynicism, but it never gets old. Definitely recommend this for any fans of cyberpunk or dark SF in general!
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Sep 20, 2014 00:15
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Hedrigall posted:Fall of Hyperion... mothergently caress, that penultimate chapter where Gladstone destroys the farcaster network At one time I was a big fan of Simmons, but lately his books have missed with me. I wish he would go back to straight up horror like Summer of Night.
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Sep 20, 2014 02:03
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nate fisher posted:At one time I was a big fan of Simmons, but lately his books have missed with me. I wish he would go back to straight up horror like Summer of Night. Oh? You mean you aren't interested in hearing about Obama's Muslim caliphate destroying civilization? That's pretty stark horror imo, I can see why this guy is so popular.
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Sep 20, 2014 07:50
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I really liked the Endymion duology. But then I also love Children Of The Mind, so...
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Sep 20, 2014 10:55
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Danger posted:Oh? You mean you aren't interested in hearing about Obama's Muslim caliphate destroying civilization? That's pretty stark horror imo, I can see why this guy is so popular. Yes that is pretty awful. Flashback was pure trash, and it is one of the few books I stopped reading out of disgust. I think Simmons is a fine writer when he leaves his politics out of it. I loved Summer of Night, and I enjoyed some of his other works (The Terror, Drood, and his scifi). Shame that he went off the deep end.
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Sep 21, 2014 00:03
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The Six-Gun Tarot by R. S. Belcher It's a steam-punk western with religious themes. The author is really trying hard with this one and it turns out better than I thought it would. Overall, it's a solid meh.
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Sep 21, 2014 02:30
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Danger posted:Obama's Muslim caliphate destroying civilization Wait, what?
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Sep 21, 2014 19:06
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ProfessorProf posted:Wait, what? Read this review of his book Flashback. http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-flashback-by-dan-simmons/2011/07/19/gIQA62F6lI_story.html
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Sep 21, 2014 21:58
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Hedrigall posted:Fall of Hyperion... mothergently caress, that penultimate chapter where Gladstone destroys the farcaster network Both Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion were so loving good. Among the best books I've read, especially amongst sci-fi.
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Sep 21, 2014 22:07
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ProfessorProf posted:Wait, what? A sci-fi author you treasured in your adolescence turns out to embody every thing that you loathe and condemn politically (and yet tacitly support in a pre conscious liberal ideology), all this, weather and more tonight on action 11 news. Danger fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Sep 21, 2014 |
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Sep 21, 2014 22:28
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Wild Seed by Octavia Butler This one is excellent.
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Sep 21, 2014 23:48
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Sadsack posted:The other big BIG problem is the personality of the books 'hero'. He's racist, sexist, xenophobic and, above all, anti-Semitic. There is no problem on earth that cannot be traced back to the Jews. That's accurate. MNSNTZR posted:On the flip side, I finished Les Chants de Maldoror and it was one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. Most people say that it loses its poetry about midway through, which I guess is correct since it really does become less flowery, but the imagery in the entire book is so powerful that you could perfectly picture everything Lautreamont illustrates - whether you want to or not. Ah, trés bon, je dois faire le shopping. scootsmagoo posted:Just finished Crime and Punishment, delving further into my recently-found affinity for Russian literature. Now I'm reading Unbearable Lightness of Being. Ah, nice to hear scootsmagoo. Coyuuga posted:War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy kewl... I just finihsed  . Long bitch. Fattitted russo-slavic mommy bitch.
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Sep 22, 2014 15:35
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I just finished James Ellroy's Perfidia. I became burnt out on Ellroy's staccato style (I never finished the last 2 books of his Underworld USA Trilogy) several years ago, but I devoured this 700+ page book in less than a week. The book takes places before his L.A. Quartet, and features younger versions of several characters that have shown up in his novels. The younger Dudley Smith, main villain in L.A. Confidential, is just awesome and I actually found myself liking him (he still is a bad man) this time around. Only really issue with the book is the police case they are trying to solve (murder of a Japanese family the day before Pearl Harbor is bombed) in the end really didn't matter to me. What carries the book is the characters, Ellroy's fictional history of Hollywood (I'm pretend his version of Hollywood is true, because it is nasty fun), and the chaos that is L.A. after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The book is the first of four books in his Second L.A. Quartet (takes place before 1946), and you can tell he is just sitting things in motion. I think before the end of the year I am going to finish the Underworld USA Trilogy, because I feel refresh when it comes to Ellory now.
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Sep 23, 2014 15:36
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Quandary posted:Both Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion were so loving good. Among the best books I've read, especially amongst sci-fi. hell yea, those books were awesome and memorable, so many scenes i can recal even 10 years after i read them. Like when that girl and man were attacked whilst they were naked in bed and the storyteller says something about nudeness being a burden for some but not a problem for others (forgive me if this sounds off, i read the books in dutch so im freely translating from a 10 year old memory here). These books actaully introduced me to Keats' work. Can definitely reccomend for anyone who hasnt read em yet.
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Sep 23, 2014 22:45
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Zsa Zsa Gabor posted:Finished Martin Meredith's The State of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence this morning. It's very depressing and, at times, horrifying. Holy poo poo I want to read this, but it's not available as an ebook. gently caress buying and reading a 768 page nonfiction tome ever again. Wait, it loving is but only in the UK. What the gently caress? tuyop fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 01:52
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Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler This is the second book in the Patternist series and it is every bit as good as the first. The relationship between Anyanwu and Doro is fraught with its push/pull dynamics which really keeps the story moving through some of the heavier bits. And the ending is genuinely surprising which is nice every once in a while.
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Sep 24, 2014 07:17
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