What Did You Just Finish?

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > What Did You Just Finish?

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished Distraction by Bruce Sterling. Interesting world populated by cardboard cutouts of people. Dialogue was not terribly well done IMO. Will purge the memory of this with some Atwood methinks.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 01:40

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 07:03

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Shugojin posted:

Yeah he did a lot of geographic rather than chronological splitting and it ends up kinda weird.

I recently finished The Last Dark so I have now read all of the Thomas Covenant series. I feel it was a correct ending if not necessarily a satisfying one if that makes sense.

Kinda wanna read it all in one go now but I borrowed the Second Chronicles from the library way back when so there's three I don't own. Also the First Chronicles are really hard to get into a nice reading flow, Donaldson's writing style changed a lot since then.

God those are still being written? I really enjoyed the first trilogy but the second really left me feeling empty afterwards. Of course this was way back in high school, and I read the second chronicles as they were published, so undoubtedly the cocky kid I was back then missed a lot. I should reread them but my tastes have changed a lot in what I like to read over the years so it would probably make everything a terrible disappointment /eeyoresay

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 22:10

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

TheFallenEvincar posted:

Just finished speeding through Ubik and A Scanner Darkly. Geez. I feel like I'm tripping balls. Gonna finish this history of Prussia I was nearly done with (Iron Kingdom) with the hope it straightens me out. Some stiff Brandenburg to get over this burnout psychosis.
Also finished The Man in the High Castle but horrifying Nazi victory feels like a fond straightlaced harmless fading memory after Ubik and Scanner.

Ubik might be my favourite Dick novel. Don't remember Scanner but it, or Flow my Tears, is next on my pile of "to reads" after I finish the Atwood trilogy

# ¿ Mar 31, 2014 18:04

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

RC and Moon Pie posted:

The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver): Beautiful language/wording and eloquent descriptions of people of the former Belgian Congo. I learned some things about politics that had never crossed my mind, though I have read and loved King Leopold's Ghost. Every character not named Orleanna Price? One dimensional as hell.

The descriptions of Kilanga and the interludes of Orleanna are the highlights. The voice she gives Orleanna is soul stirring on her questioning of her marriage, religion and experiences in the Congo. But those nearly totally disappear in the back third. Leah is given some dimension but she is so pure in everything she does. And poor Rachel is reduced to a cartoon.

I know this was pages ago but have not checked back here in a bit. I found the characters more fleshed out than you but that might have been because I was convinced the author had found my grandmother's memoirs. Still a better portrayal of the locals than many non Africans have managed

# ¿ May 24, 2014 02:54

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. Was great to read about the events of Oryx and Crake from different perspectives, and to flesh out some of the minor characters from the first. I am also really glad she resolved the outstanding cliffhanger from the first book; pages were growing few and I was starting to fear it wouldn't happen until the third. Its a really interesting, and chillingly believable, world she created. Can't wait to read the third.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 05:48

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Amphibian Evolution by Rainer Schoch. Its a detailed examination of the latest on amphibians from the fossil record, and ties in really well with specific details we have from the rather unique life history seen in the living amphibians. Take away message: frogs, salamanders, and caecilians are not stand ins for the early tetrapod condition, but are the result of hundreds of millions of years of independent evolution. Really neat stuff in it about what we can learn about growth and development from the fossil record too.

This text could also serve as the course text for a vertebrate paleontology course, if you dare have one of those but fail to mention dinosaurs (and can survive the bitter tears of your student evaluations).

# ¿ Oct 6, 2014 21:23

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood, thus completing the trilogy. Wow. Really enjoyed this one. So Oryx and Crake was from the perspective of one, Snowman-the-Jimmy, and Year of the Flood was from the perspective of two, Ren and Toby. MaddAddam was from the perspective of three: Toby, Zeb (through dialogue with Toby, usually), and Blackbeard, a young Craker. Atwood captures the different voices beautifully, and has really fleshed out a world of depth. However, two quibbles. In the course of tying everything together, with all of the same corps (HealthWyzer, etc.) and smaller pleebland businesses (Scales and Tails), I thought the world was diminished, since we kept going back to the same half dozen businesses. Whatever, its the nature of a contained series of events. The second, the denouement, was both sad and...small. And banal after all of the events that preceded, but that is life, and that is the note she gives it; life carries on.

Best fiction I have read in many years.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 07:15

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Last week I started and finished Guards! Guards! in a couple of days. Liked it much better than Mort, my previous, first, Discworld book. Now I'm sucked in for the entire series.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 06:55

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished Men at Arms. Was another fun romp, although at times I lost track of who was doing what in the latter half of the book (not reading it consistently may have contributed to this).

# ¿ Apr 5, 2015 01:56

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished Feet of Clay. It was a decent "detective" story but nothing earth shattering. Going to take a Pratchett break for a bit and go back to Pynchon

# ¿ May 11, 2015 02:43

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished Roadtrip Rwanda, by Will Ferguson. Ferguson is a humorist who has written a series of travel books, and in this one he joins fellow Calgarian and lucky to be alive Tutsi Rwandan Jean-Claude on a trip to J-C's former country to deliver soccer gear to needy kids and travel to see how the country is getting along nearly 20 years after the genocide. I have a personal interest in central Africa--my family were forced to leave Belgian Congo during the building Congo Crisis, and a friend of mine was an MP with the UN stationed in Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide (Neither he nor my family talk about their time in Africa as a result)--so as soon as I heard an interview on the CBC with Will and J-C I went and bought the book.

Who would have guessed a book telling the story of a genocide (in part) could be so damned funny? Seriously, its a surprisingly positive, optimistic book. Rwanda has made a remarkable recovery, more following the Asian model of management than Western (think Singapore here). It also offers a cautionary note that has already come to pass since the book went to press--a nation wide referendum recently passed to change the constitution to allow President Kagame a third term. Does this represent a slide towards dictatorship (it is already an admittedly authoritarian government, again think Singapore) or really express the will of the people (who by all reports from the book appear happy and secure)?

They travel across the country, visiting people, monkeys, gorillas, banana salesmen, tea plantations, family, a prison, and churches, in which unspeakable horror was visited upon maybe a million people. And yet, yes, funny. For example, while driving in the west along Lake Kivu they stop their Land Rover to pick up a few students who were walking back to their refugee camp from school. This is a Congolese camp, that is more like a town at this point, and these young women had high hopes for their future (including a desire to become a chemical engineer of some sort). They pose for a picture, then ask for a copy. Will thinks about what all will be involved in getting one printed, getting their address, mailing it to them at their refugee camp that doesn't even have electricity in the middle of no where western Rwanda from back in Canada, when one of them interrupts his day dream to say "no, email would be easier, don't you think?" A wonderful, provocative read. (And instructional: Rwanda's main beer comes with formaldehyde in it)

Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jan 24, 2016

# ¿ Jan 24, 2016 07:25

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Dead Goon posted:

Gal�pagos, by Kurt Vonnegut

Loved it! Got through it in about a day, couldn't put it down really.

Its one of my favourites

# ¿ Feb 6, 2016 06:19

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Jingo by Terry Pratchett. Pretty entertaining read all around, but sometimes I felt a bit of whiplash with respect to plot points. Things just didn't seem well enough connected for me at times so that it felt like turns fell at my feet with a thud, and no amount of back reading would provide me with the hints that this was where things might be heading (unlike most of the previous books of his I read). Maybe its my fault, since I didn't read it from cover to cover, and the time between sittings with it was so long that I forgot? IDK though, these books aren't that difficult. Just felt like there was a bit of a lack of polish to the final production and editing.

Anyway, this reads really negatively but I overall enjoyed it!

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 06:52

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

I just finished Gravity's Rainbow. It was the most difficult read I have every done, although when in it it goes easily enough. The prose easily conjures up imagery and it flows from thought to thought. The difficulty for me comes in stepping back and trying to figure out just what the hell just happened, so I could only handle limited numbers of pages at a time. I kind of want to get out kabbalistic texts and break down the final segment, but another part of me doesn't want to work that hard at something done for entertainment.

This book will be with me for a very long time I suspect.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2016 22:57

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

King Leopold's Ghost. What a kick in the gut

Easiest reading history book I have ever enjoyed.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 19:50

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science By David Hull. It presents a series of revolutions in systematic biology (related to the naming of things) from Evolutionary Taxonomy to Numerical/phenetic taxonomy to Cladistics (the so called "Cladistics Wars") from the 60s to the late 80s, and from here discusses how social circles impacts success in science (in terms of citations given). He then presents a model of the operation of science as a selection process, similar to natural selection, in conceptual systems. I'm a practicing systematist and was trained in one of the hot spots for the cladistics wars so it was fun to see what my professors had been up to during those days. The philosophy of science makes sense from broad brush strokes but I am not entirely convinced of the argument on a finer level of detail. But, what do I know, I'm the subject of study, not the intended audience

An excellent read. I really appreciated how each chapter began with a statement of intent for the chapter and then a concluding summary, because philosophical arguments can wander a bit/cover a lot of ground and I have a short attention span.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2017 06:11

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished last months BotM It Can't Happen Here, appropriately enough the day after Trump's inauguration. The book was a wonderful example of old time American story telling, but it was the little details that almost exactly mirrored things today that were especially chilling. Highly recommended reading.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2017 00:11

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Sort of The Decameron in space, a series of stories that progressively reveal a mystery linked to a planet below a gathering massive galactic battle for the future of humanity. Really an excellent read, thanks to my Secret Santa!

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 06:01

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

TommyGun85 posted:

Read the sequels for a good example of how to ruin a good series.

Worse than what followed Ender's Game?

# ¿ Feb 9, 2017 04:10

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. This is a really interesting exploration of how knowledge builds in science, and how change overs in the larger conceptual models used by scientists to solve problems during "normal" (non revolutionary) periods occur. There is an interesting discussion to be had in how scientists on either side of one of these paradigm shifts have difficulty communicating about the nature of their disagreement because of their overall different processing of knowledge through their respective frameworks.

At least, that's how I understood it, being no philosopher.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 04:40

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

chernobyl kinsman posted:

read popper next

e: here's a breakdown of his thought wrt philosophy of science.

I had read Popper before. And David Hull's book on the social nature of science also nicely complements these two, extending a few themes just barely touched upon by Kuhn.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 04:50

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished To the Lighthouse. Brilliant.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2017 03:10

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Been reading a lot of heavier books of late, so decided to pad my book lord total a bit with some straight forward sci fi stories. Reread The Dispossessed for last months thread for the first time in decades, and really enjoyed it--I think I got a lot more out of it this time too.

Also just finished Dick's Flow My Tear, the Policeman Said. I think I read this before but so long ago everything other than the overarching story were forgotten. Its a pretty great direct detective-story-meets-mindfuck that Dick dished out, but one element that caught my attention here was a scene in which the main character undergoes a drug induced fugue that left me feeling anxious IRL. He really describes the experience of anxiety and psychological instability perfectly, and effortlessly. Its a center piece of VALIS but here made only a brief, but impactful, appearance. Also for whatever reason I have police states on my mind ( :smugdon:

) so I really appreciated that as well.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2017 04:33

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Mr. Squishy posted:

Tears, plural, but yeah it's remarkable.

Yeah I missed the S but it was said, and by a policeman, so

# ¿ Apr 10, 2017 04:27

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Franchescanado posted:

You should read The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee. There are 2-3 chapters on Darwin's life and adventures, and it's awesome. That book is filled with great stories, history, and science.

Or any of the collections of essays by Steven J. Gould for that matter

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 15:02

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Franchescanado posted:

I looked him up (Stephen Jay Gould), any that you would recommend first?

Ever Since Darwin is the start of his run but you can't really go badly with any. Bully for Brontosaurus is another.

Note, this recommendation does NOT include Ontogeny and Phylogeny, which is a classic early work in Evo-Devo but is very technical and demanding. Similar for his big book The Structure of Evolutionary Theory which is magnificent but is the capstone on his research career and isn't written with the general public in mind.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2017 01:53

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

That said, I think everybody who likes or is interested in evolution or paleontology should read Wonderful Life.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2017 02:01

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and other stories. The dialogue really kept these stories humming, and strongly rooted in place and time. Bookended by stories of couples hunting in Kenya, this collection is an interesting exploration of what it meant to be a man 100 years ago. Loved it!

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 05:07

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished Snow Crash. Was good.

# ¿ May 15, 2017 02:16

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

I finally finished I, Claudius although to be fair I started it late. Now I have to read the next soonest.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2017 00:44

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula Le Guin

If you liked The Dispossessed or Left Hand of Darkness, you will love this book. Many of the same themes (of social structure, justice, governance, and revolution) are played out in this set of four interwoven novellas. Good stuff.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 02:45

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

I was challenged in the Shameful! thread to read Ulysses and I decided to reread this as a warm up. I last read it many years ago perhaps late high school or early university age. Now much older, it made a greater impression on me. How the prose and thinking changes as Stephen gets older is just brilliant. At the end its at the edge but still easily understandable. Gives me some hope that this time Ulysses will not be so foreign (as Gravity's Rainbow was finally readable, and gloriously so, to me recently) this time around.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 06:10

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio de Maria, a contemporary and friend of Umberto Eco. Imagine H. P. Lovecraft meets Eco, but not as spine chilling as the former nor as convoluted as the latter. Decent weird story, interesting elements, but it didn't completely connect with me. It's well translated, but the writing lacks a certain gravity. I never felt shocked with any reveal, and only a couple scenes were creepy to me. Still, fun enough for a hot summers night with smoke in the air.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 03:18

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

tetrapyloctomy posted:

I liked it. The actual identity of the creature was a bit of a let down since I was really in the mood for supernatural horror, but it needed to work out as it did to stay true to the theme. I can't blame a book for not exactly being the genre that I wanted! There are also some weird inconsistencies in his tone, like when he steps out of the narrative and addresses you directly, author to reader, but it generally wan't too jarring.

Overall, I think I would rank The Changeling < The Devil in Silver << The Ballad of Black Tom. It might be a bit unfair to compare them directly like that, as the last is a novella and naturally is going to be tighter, but The Changeling in particular just was too inconsistent in tone and did kind of a clumsy job tying everything together.

After finishing The Devil in Silver, I read Ania Ahlborn's The Devil Crept In. Meh. The protagonist of the story is a kid with mental issues -- which is sort of necessary in order to make him more unreliable to everyone he's trying to convince -- but he also has echolalia, and it gets old really quickly. Wasn't bad, wan't great. I'm not going to actively hunt down any more of her books.

Next up: Emma Files' Experimental Film and/or John Langan's The Fisherman. I don't even quite remember what led me to pick these two, but here they are among my recent purchases, so why the hell not.

I've next queued Gemma Files' We Will All Go Down Together, lent me by my friend who also lent 20 Days of Turin. I'm relatively new to horror so I'm looking forward to it!

# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 21:17

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished We Will All Go Down Together by Gemma Files. I really enjoyed this "horror" novel (really more fantasy IMO--with witches, warlocks, warrior nuns, fallen priests, and faries), as it was set in Toronto, a town I know well so I could really envision it. It's set up as a series of short stories, that slowly introduce a large cast, and the world itself, and the underlying plot. I thought it was a very interesting device that allowed for quite varied story telling.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2017 03:37

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Dr. Pangloss posted:

I too waited too long to read Devil in the White City, but it was fantastic. It's been a few years since I read it, so it might be time for another read. What did you think of it?

I think jesus Pangloss get a fukkin av my broheim

# ¿ Oct 2, 2017 05:39

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished The Fisherman by John Langan. This is a horror novel set in upstate New York and has touches of New England folklore and big swatches of Lovecraftian cosmic creep. The story is a meditation on loss, in this case the loss of wives, on middle aged men of different sorts who decide to escape via fishing. There is a nested story within the story that ties in nicely. Still not exactly sure what happens, or will happen, but it was a very entertaining read, fully appropriate for the season.

I did find the narrative style a bit overly homey, like tries to hard to sound like a "normal guy" when the author doesn't have a good grounding in this himself, but that quickly faded into the background.

Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Oct 24, 2017

# ¿ Oct 22, 2017 03:10

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished The Ice Child by Camilla Lackberg. A Swedish murder thriller or whatever, in reality an airport book literally bought in an airport. Lots and lots of characters all making excuses for remaining silent during times of high emotional stress for other characters, in classic Swedish fashion (at least in my family). Oh, and a serial killer on the loose. Also horses. And snow. And a village filled with people that have had horrible luck. Really, a cursed town in the southwest.

Was alright but wasn't the horror I was hoping for, but the closest I could get to that at the stupid Hudsons News in Pearson International.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2017 02:05

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron, a collection of cosmic horror/weird tails that really worked for me. I got over the sameness of the protagonists because there was some variation eventually, and the stories were just so creative it more than made up for it for me. Good stuff

# ¿ Dec 23, 2017 06:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 07:03

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just finished The Ballad of the Sad Caf� and Other Stories by Carson McCullers, from my Secret Santa from this year (get into the Secret Santa draw next year!). What a odd little book. First, its exceptionally well written, and a bit of a time capsule from a time and place not soo long ago but still feels like a distant dream. The stories are all straight--its not horror per se--but things are just a bit...off. Just enough to be unsettling. Really really good, thanks Santa!

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 04:58

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > What Did You Just Finish?

«‹›6 »