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Put me down for 25 books this year. Maybe I can hit that mark. So far we've got: 1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill Cheesy fun, read a lot like early Stephen King. I would've liked to see more of the "inscapes" concept fleshed out, because it is very reminiscent of the Dark Tower/Insomnia shared universe. Reading MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood now.
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Feb 17, 2014 14:25
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1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood I had mixed feelings about this book. In the end I'm left wondering why Atwood expanded the Oryx and Crake story to a trilogy. The last two books expand upon the first by telling both the past of Oryx and Crake and the aftermath. Problem is, none of the characters - or their stories - are as compelling as those in the first book. And here, in MaddAddam, Zeb and Adam's story is similar in many ways to that of Glenn (Crake) and Jimmy. MaddAddam doesn't move the ball much. You get the story of the Gardeners and how Zeb's brother builds a resistance movement that, after Crake's plague in unleashed, becomes the remnants of mankind. But you already had a pretty good idea of how this went down from the first two books. So there's an absence of tension here. Atwood tries to build it by tasking the survivors to deal with two loose Painballers, but that's pretty minor. 3/5 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto So yeah, I went down the True Detective rabbit hole and wound up finding this in my library. Galveston tries to make a simple and cliche-ridden plot more interesting by setting it in an "American noir" setting of the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast. But ultimately the atmosphere is much more interesting than the story here. It's hard not to spoiler the book by getting into a description, but suffice it to say that the plot feels too threadbare and you end the book with a shrug. That said? This short novel would probably make a great TV show. I can see how Pizzolatto made that transition. 2/5 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. Fwugh. Searing stuff from the Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Assassin's Gate. This is basically a primer on how the country has turned into such a horrendous clusterfuck post WW2. Packer tells this story through the eyes of several people - a black, female factory work in Youngstown, Ohio; a businessman who plunges his life into biodiesel; a lobbyist who pegs his star to Joe Biden; and the story of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Packer breaks the narrative up with short vignette bios on famous people like Oprah, Colin Powell and Jay-Z. Riveting, exceptionally well-written stuff...but depressing as all holy gently caress. 5/5 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart It's been mentioned earlier in this thread that the successor to the much-beloved Bridge of Birds is considered a let-down by many, and I'm definitely in that camp. This was just not that great of a book, period. The plot folded in on itself so many times that it was hard to sustain interest in the end, especially after Grief of Dawn is dispatched so casually! 2/5
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Apr 7, 2014 00:26
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Guy A. Person posted:
Were you stroking your beard and smoking a French cigarette as you wrote this? Just curious.
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Apr 10, 2014 23:28
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1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart This won't count because I didn't finish it, though I read near to the end: The Bat by Jo Nesbo. In my stubborn insistence to begin at the beginning with everyone who's written long series of novels, I picked up the first of Nesbo's Harry Hole crime/detective novels. I would not recommend this. The Bat is an amateurish effort, with a "mystery" plot that doesn't really make much sense and requires too much suspension of disbelief. The Australian setting is quite interesting, even when it's obvious that Nesbo chose that so he could go off on tangents about Aboriginal belief and history (I quite enjoyed those tangents). I got to the point where the killer was revealed and...I didn't care to go any further, I was just bored. Not a good sign. Recommended only for hardcore Nesbo completists. 6. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. Fantastic and chilling book. Remember those bodies that were found on Gilgo Beach, Long Island a few years back, and the media hysteria that surrounded the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert, a Craigslist hooker who was ultimately also found dead in the same area? This book is about those murders, and is an extension of a great piece that Kolker originally did for The New Yorker about Gilbert's last days. Since these murders are unsolved, the book is more about the lives of the first four girls found dead on Oak Beach Island, as well as Gilbert's story. It's depressing, intense stuff. Kolker serves as a guide to crumbling American cities and suburbs and the lives of people struggling to make ends meet. In these settings we find the girls who eventually become prostitutes and - many of them - drug addicts. Kolker's examination of how Craigslist and Backpage changed prostitution is great stuff. The only weak points are toward the end, when the book casts about a bit as some of the victims' families turn into media whores and bicker with each other. Recommended. Plus I have a friend with ties to the FBI who tells me this entire case is far from done, and there may be interesting twists coming. 4 out of 5 stars.
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May 11, 2014 14:24
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Siminu posted:
Cool - hope to pick this up from my library today.
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May 11, 2014 15:23
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1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart 6. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. 7. Annihilation, by Jef VanderMeer Can't recommend Annihilation enough to those looking for something different. At only 200 pages, it's a very quick read, but brilliantly done. It's difficult to describe the book without giving too much away, but the gist is it's about a team of four women who are sent to explore a mysterious zone called Area X. Nothing is as it seems, no one is who they are supposed to be, and the ending is mind-warping. I'm on to the sequel now, Authority, which is very different in tone but still very good. This book pulls back the lens more on Area X and reads more like a detective novel. Almost done with it so I'll weigh in on it later. I really like VanderMeer's writing. Any recommendations of what I should read from him when I'm done with Authority?
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May 18, 2014 12:30
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1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart 6. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. 7. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer 8. Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer Authority is too disjointed. It suffers from VanderMeer's refusal to cast any clear light on Area X. Instead this book plays out like Annihilation indoors; the main character, nicknamed Control, meanders about at the HQ of the Southern Reach in a strange attempt to understand what's happening there. New truths are teased out eventually, but there's much less tension driving the plot, especially when it dawns on you that Control is as clueless about Area X as the reader and only gains limited understanding by the book's end. VanderMeer has said that he envisioned the Southern Reach trilogy to be one that begins with a very tight focus, and then the lens expands outward with each book. This happens in Authority but not enough. The stakes are now very high for Acceptance, the finale out later this year, because the reader will feel cheated if at least a few things are not explained. 3/5 Tried the first 75 pages of Gene Wolfe's Home Fires - loving awful. Can't believe this is the same guy who wrote the Book of the New Sun series. Moving on to Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven next.
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May 24, 2014 15:11
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Ghetto Wizard posted:
I felt this way too - hell, I felt like the book was some kind of poorly-written YA Neuromancer. I know Stephenson is supposed to be an amazing writer, but I read half of that and the first 15 pages of Cryptonomicon and gave up on him entirely.
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Jun 1, 2014 00:48
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I think all the long passages of landscape descriptions would lull me to sleep.
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Jun 1, 2014 12:31
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Xik posted:I'm reading Player of Games by Banks at the moment and I'm quite tempted to completely ignore my to-read list and just keep reading Culture novels. I thought that too last year until I got to Excession.
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Jun 2, 2014 11:46
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Xik posted:Can you explain? Is it completely different to the other novels in the series? If it's going to ruin Culture for me maybe I'll skip that one Nah, give it a read. If you don't like it, keep going in the series. I just found it boring. 
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Jun 4, 2014 00:16
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1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart 6. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. 7. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer 8. Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer 9. Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer. Under the Banner of Heaven is a drat good read if you're interested in the totally batshit history of the Mormon religion. Krakauer uses a murder of a mother and her infant daughter by two Mormon "fundamentalist" brothers to tell the whole story of the religion's genesis and the reasons behind the western migration of the Latter Day Saints. There's so much there that I didn't know...much of it pretty horrifying, especially the history of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which the Mormons under Brigham Young teamed up with Paiutes they had deceived and slaughtered a huge migration train with a large head of cattle and hundreds of horses. Where the book suffers is when Krakauer takes us on little detours of crazyville to tell the stories of abuse, pedophilia and brainwashing happening in isolated communities that practice polygamous offshoots of mainstream Mormonism. In these chapters it becomes extremely hard to tell who's who after a while because the geneologies of these extended, multi-wife families are mind-boggling. I put this book up there close to Going Clear as an essential work on America's homegrown, utterly hosed-up religions. I'm on to R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before, and wondering what the holy hell I'm reading.
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Jun 11, 2014 11:32
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Roydrowsy posted:
How was the ending? My mother still reads him religiously and said the book was okay, but that he "once again" cocks up the finish.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:28
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1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart 6. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. 7. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer 8. Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer 9. Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer. R. Scott Bakker is a huge letdown for me considering how well-regarded his novels are in many circles. The Darkness That Comes Before is pretentious, overwrought crap. After a promising prologue, the book plops you in the middle of a vast ocean of fantasy names, places, religions, factions and gods with little to no explanation of what anything is. The characters wander about spouting inner reflections about these fantastically-named places and people while the reader is left to scramble to the appendix to try and figure out what's going on. Bakker clearly wanted to create a world rich in ancient history that borrowed more from the ancient Middle East than the typical Western European tropes of fantasy, and for that he is to be commended. But his method smacks of laziness and weak craft. Successful worldbuilding takes more than just reeling off dozens of random fantasy placenames. Beyond that, the dialogue is terrible and unconvincing, leaving the plot - such as it is - ponderous and drowned by all the gibberish. I got 100 pages in, to the declaration of the "holy war," and gave up. 1 out of 5 whatevers. I'm on to City of Saints and Madmen now by Jeff VanderMeer, praying it doesn't suck. Argali fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 12:37
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Groke posted:
It's not just that - The Scarlet Letter is a terrible book. We have to trudge through it at some point in school because of its importance as early American literature. I found most of that utterly painful - American Puritan poetry in particular make me want to stab my eyes out. And to this day James Fennimore Cooper ranks high up there as one of the worst writers I've read.
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Jul 5, 2014 13:06
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Hocus Pocus posted:
Pattern Recognition is a different style from Gibson, where he moves away from the cyberpunk thing into more post-modern lit really. It's still good - though my wife didn't like it - but you'll be disappointed if you go in expecting the same tone or feel as Neuromancer. You'd be better off checking out Idoru or Virtual Light, both great books.
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Jul 5, 2014 13:23
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Started a new job in July which entirely eliminated my commute. That cut down on the number of books I've been able to read, since my 2+ hours on the train was when I did the majority of my reading. I also felt like I wandered into a bunch of stinkers this year which slowed down my progress. 1. NOS4A2, by Joe Hill 2. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood 3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto 4. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer. 5. The Story of the Stone, by Barry Hughart 6. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker. 7. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer 8. Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer 9. Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer. 10. A Stranger In Olondria, Sofia Samatar. 11. A Memory of Water, Emmi Itaranta 12. The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, Motley Crue and Neil Strauss 13. Acceptance, by Jeff VanderMeer. 14. Sweet Tooth Vol. 1 - Out of the Woods, by Jeff Lemire I can't recommend A Stranger In Olondria enough. After I read it I remarked to my wife that Samatar reads like a female Gene Wolfe at the height of his game, and lo and behold, she beat out Wolfe this year to win the World Fantasy Award. It's a beautiful and moving book about a clash of cultures and a love/ghost story. 5/5 A Memory of Water was crap. I'd really like to see a better writer place something in Itaranta's setting - a Chinese-dominated near-future where the world has been wrecked by global warming and water contamination. The book doesn't even have a real ending, just lamely peters out. 1/5 The Dirt was an entertaining read, but it's hard to take a lot of it seriously. If half the poo poo in the book was true than the band would have died of a collective black jungle rot STD by now. It's also written before Vince Neil embarks on his bizarro reality TV career. 4/5 All in all VanderMeer's The Southern Reach Trilogy was drat good. I'll probably go back and reread the whole thing, because the last book puts everything in such a different perspective. Highly recommended. 5/5 Sweet Tooth is interesting, if not a tad skeletal in terms of plot in the beginning. Some kind of plague has wiped out mankind. The only things that have survived are human-animal hybrids. Cool premise, but the first volume is very Walking Dead-esque. I'll need to check out further volumes before passing judgement.
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Dec 7, 2014 15:20
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