Challenged Reading 2015 Editon

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thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

My aim is 70. As usual I'll try to come out of my wheelhouse a little more, but probably not succeed.

1: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - in progress.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 00:51

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 00:15

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Rand Ecliptic posted:

Anathem by Neal Stephenson.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2015 19:11

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Psssh Anathem I did in a week.

Albeit, a week in which I was visiting my future mother in law and had literally nothing to do but read and watch TV.

That book made my shoulders hurt so much. It's well worth the time though.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 01:51

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

1: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

gently caress me it doesn't usually take me more than a few days to get through a book, let alone nearly a month. To get this out of the way, right at the start... I feel like this book desperately needed a date with a good editor. It was self-indulgently, effusively long with a lot of meandering random and unnecessary sidetracks - the Van Eck phreaking scene in the hotel in particular just... felt completely pointless. Well,, the scene was needed to explain the concept to the uninitiated reader, but the following chapter during which a side character's computer was read felt entirely tacked on.

With that out of the way, I did enjoy it. I'm not sure I really understood it, but I did enjoy it. I vaguely understand the concepts of cryptography, but the practice and the actual maths are beyond me. I felt like this put it at least into reach for me. And the story was interesting, albeit a little too meandering and again, long. I'm not a fan of the split modern-and-historical thing, either - it takes some of the tension out of Goto Dengo's scenes in particular to have Goto corp so obviously namedropped early on. That might be on purpose though, I don't know. And similarly, I have a bit of an issue with Qwlghm or however you spell it. It's a silly, silly concept that feels like it's trying to be funny and failing.

Overall, it was a book I would have enjoyed more if it had eaten fewer of my lunch breaks with interminable random sidetracks. Stephenson writes well when he gets going but as with many of his other books, I feel that this would have been improved if he had left more out. And I'm very glad I was reading an ebook, as I suspect it's of a size with Anathem, which gave me RSI holding it up.

2: will be Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland, probably. One of my Christmas presents.

I should note that I'm also keeping up with Pact by Wildbow, which will probably finish this year and which I will count as a book when it does.

thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Jan 25, 2015

# ¿ Jan 24, 2015 18:42

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Irrationality was really, really interesting. A touch dry, to the point where I really appreciated the touch of humour in the 'moral' section at the end of each chapter, but a really valuable lesson in why and more importantly how it's best to stop and think before making decisions, and why and how some of the stupidest decisions get made the most often usually due to entrenched traditional means of arriving at them.

If everyone read this book and followed its advice, the world might be a much better please.

Next is I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That by Ben Goldacre. Again, a Christmas present.

I really should get back into updating Goodreads properly.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2015 18:26

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I think you'll find it's a little bit more complicated than that wasn't really a book as such; it was a collection of occasional essays and journal articles, but mostly collected columns from the Grauniad, by Goldacre on his usual topics of bad science and bad science reporting. It was eloquently, elegantly ranted (written might be being kind) and easy to pick up and put down, and very, very entertaining. But above all, I think it was important. It points out just how prevalent and how poorly conducted bad science and bad science journalism can be; it's a whole industry built around fundamental flaws in understanding, comprehension and education, not to mention occasionally in honesty and plain human decency. It really brought home to me why I'm so aggressively cynical about science reporting in the news, because most of it is, at best, inaccurate and at worst, blatant loving lies. I don't know what's to be done about it, but seeing this all together in one place makes me wonder what I can do to help.

Next is probably my last Crimble pressie, Testing Treatments, second edition.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2015 23:23

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Testing Treatments was, put quite simply, a textbook, and one that every doctor, every patient, every researcher and every trial participant in the English-speaking world should be reading. It goes into a lot of detail about how trials can go right and how they can go wrong, and how NOT doing them can go right and can go wrong. Evidence-based medicine has been a revolution since the 1950s, but it has a long way yet to go, and I really look forward to the day when we can genuinely find every possible treatment has been trialled in an unbiased and reported fashion, and we can really KNOW what treatments are best - and if we don't, if a treatment is new, or untested for a given outcome, the baseline assumption of a patient will be that they will be randomly and blindly assigned one of the possible treatments, and the results recorded.

But it's all about trust between patients, doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry, and that's really, really hard to build. I wish I knew more about how to do it.

It's a good book. It's also free online if you're interested (you should be interested) http://www.testingtreatments.org/tt-main-text/the-book/

Not sure what's next. Something short and light, probably, I'm so hilariously behind.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2015 11:10

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

London Falling was an excellent entry in my continuing search for that fantasy detective novel I've been hankering for for years. It wasn't that novel. But it was an excellent book nonetheless. Nostalgic bits of London copper fiction from various sources blended nicely with an interesting magic system with hints of much bigger goings on around it and a fun set of characters. Think Rivers of London, but darker, and closer to the bone. Very well worth reading, very enjoyable, enough so that it disrupted my schedule to fit its sequel in next.

It made me realise though, what bothers me about most urban fantasy stuff - it's the idea of the masquerade, or the underworld, or what have you - the other side of the city unknown to most people. I just... struggle with the idea that something like that could be around since time immemorial, and remain a secret. The idea that in a world where magic exists, has demonstrablle physical reality, can make peoples blood explode... people would generally just dismiss it as fairy stories.

What I've been hankering for is a detective story set in a world where magic is commonplace, everyone knows about it, everyone uses it to a greater or lesser extent... and within that, there's a police procedural or noir detective novel going on. I almost got it with Alloy of Law, and I'm really looking forward to the next in that series.

Next is the Shattered Streets again by Cornell.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2015 23:56

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Starting to motor a bit now. The Shattered Streets was, again, excellent. I'm really liking Cornell's take on urban fantasy (urban being, apparently, the operative word, here...) and I was very taken with the cameo appearance from Neil Gaiman. I liked the idea of him as a mentor-type figure, and more so as a sadly trapped traitor and the reveal at the end was a little chilling. All told, I can see something BIG building in this series and I can't wait for the rest. I'm reminded of how much I used to like reading crime dramas, and I'm really enjoying this.

Next, I feel honour-bound by Gaiman's cameo to read Neverwhere.

anilEhilated posted:

I'll take a gander at some point.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2015 23:47

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I really, really liked Neverwhere - it struck just the right balance of whimsy and seriousness for me, and I really liked the characters, and Richard's growth and change as a person throughout the book. I had a great time with it. Not a lot more to say for it than that to be honest. I must look out the TV show.

Next is Symbiont by Mira Grant. An interesting start so far.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 19:50

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Let me preface this comment: I really like Mira Grant's work. She's developed a mode of doing zombie fiction with at least some actual hard science in it (not much, but some) that I really enjoy. She has a tendency of producing well-written, strong, female characters, tight plotting, and interesting twists and turns.

I just wish she didn't have this tendency of leaving a giant cliffhanger at the end of the second book of her trilogies. It happened with Newsflesh as well - the first book had a proper ending. An ending that set up the next book, admittedly, but the story finished, before the next story started. Same with Parasite; the story finished, the overall plot arc continued. But with Symbiont, as with Deadline, she left a giant loving cliffhanger. I wish she would stop doing that, it really, really bugs me; I want a novel, not a partwork I have to wait a year plus to finish.

Gah.

Next is... something. Probably.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 10:48

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I needed to remember to stick Pact into my list, so why not now? I was a bit conflicted about this story - Wildbow remains an impressively consistent contributor to the now apparently once again burgeoning genre of serial fiction, but Pact was a much weaker entry than Worm - the characters and the world never quite felt as fleshed out, and Wildbow kept leaning on vaguely-described but presumably easier-to-write fight scenes when real life was busy or stressful, rather than taking breaks. I can respect his dedication, but at the same time, I hope he learns from it, and manages to use some less-busy times to build a proper buffer. Nothing is more essential in serialised media than consistency, and nothing makes consistency easier than not having to worry about getting tomorrow's update done today, because you wrote it three weeks ago.

That being said, onto the story - it was an interesting urban fantasy world, with well-built characters - but the aforementioned lack of worldbuilding made life difficult in getting to know how things worked - and the ending whilst satisfying (and whilst it had a MUCH more optimistic-feeling, and much better-told, conclusion than Worm) didn't really feel finished. Overall, it felt like we were following some poorly-described side characters in someone else's story, which given the meta-references from Worm to the Maggie Holt books... maybe we were. I would have liked to spend more time in the world, and more time with the characters when they weren't running from something or fighting something. His next entry, Twig, seems to be OK so far, so we'll see how that goes.

I'm also reading The Three Musketeers, because I've seen it adapted SO many times now, from dogs to spaghetti-firing inventors to steampunk airships to the BBC's latest (and quite fun) swashbuckling adventure, but never actually read the original. And it's free. I'm enjoying it. As usual with older literature, I can't help but feel like we've advanced a lot in our understanding of how to make a story interesting, though. The writing feels very stilted and occasionally difficult to read, and there's a lot more bland description than I'm used to. And yeah, social mores are very different; I can't help but feel that if the BBC had been truer to the original, no-one would have liked the servant-beating, smug, arrogant arseholes on display here. But the book is nonetheless fun.

Next will be, obviously, something, possibly everything, from Terry Pratchett. A man is not dead whilst his name is still spoken, or in this case, whilst his words are still read.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2015 12:32

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I couldn't find my copy of Night Watch D:

Instead, I picked up the ebook of The Three Musketeers for free. Whilst it had its moments, I was overall struck by the fact that it was in equal parts stilted, boring, and really, really not modern in its values. I liked bits of it, but mostly it just didn't feel well written. Can't say I'm going to bother picking up the other two. I mostly read it because I've seen so many adaptations but never experienced the original and... well, it was definitely better than some of the adaptations, and I will admit to being surprised by how accurate some of them are, and how inaccurate certain parts of others are. Overall, I'm glad I read it, if only to get out of my comfort zone a little.

Now, right back into the comfort zone with Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. A book about which I have heard very good things and which I've only recently managed to get hold of an e-copy of (thanks Humble Bundle). So far, very good. I particularly liked the Fainting Maid side-story, and the writing style overall is interesting and different from what I usually go for. Well worth recommending already.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2015 21:16

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I really, really enjoyed Bridge of Birds. It hit just the right mix of whimsy and seriousness, humour and sadness, ancient myth and modern fantasy. It was written in an enjoyable style, with interesting side characters and some truly beautiful moments, particularly when it came to the death scenes of some meaningful side characters. If there are any criticisms, perhaps the story felt a little contrived in parts (for, as it turned out, perfectly legitimate reasons), and the viewpoint character barely feels fleshed out. But that's not necessarily a bad thing for the viewpoint character in an unfamiliar world.

The plot was fun, the twists were clever, and overall I was really impressed. I'm already moving on to Story of the Stone, and finding myself disappointed that Hughart only wrote three books...

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 19:43

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Picking up the pace a bit now. Story of the Stone was pretty good, I really had a great time with it albeit I again really didn't understand it very well. Looking forward to the next one.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2015 22:21

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Weirdly, this series turned out to be a pretty drat good entry in my long hunt for that fantasy detective novel. It's not modern urban fantasy, but nonetheless, it's basically the casebook of Sherlock Li and Number Ten Watson. It's pretty great. I liked Eight Skilled Gentlemen, albeit the twist of Envy's identity was pretty obvious early on, and I loved it when yet another love interest for Ox showed up. I'm sorely disappointed as previously noted with the fact that this series is only three books long, it has so much potential for more, and there are many hints about interesting cases of which we're not aware. Shame, really.

I'm moving on to give KJ Parker a last chance with Academic Exercises. I've had issues with Parker's work in the past - I like the writing, I like the plots, it's clever and well-executed... but the protagonists are too frequently just insufferable genius vile arseholes, destroying the world for the pettiest of reasons which... I don't really like in escapist fantasy. It may be an accurate insight into the human condition or whatever, but I don't specially want to read about it. Academic Exercises has already shown glimmers of both the things I like and the things I don't about Parker's work, but fortunately so far, more of the former than the latter.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 23:09

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Academic Exercises met my expectations pretty much exactly for Parker's work. Strong characterisation, decent plotting, interesting worldbuilding, main characters I wanted to loving punch. Fortunately for his work as short fiction, it's generally timed so you only want to loving punch them RIIIIGHT at the end rather than halfway through the first book of a series - I actually really quite enjoyed it which is a first for me with Parker. ANd I have to say the twists are done JUUUST right in these - I was usually getting them the page before they were revealed, which is precisely what my listening to Writing Excuses has led me to believe authors are aiming for; the reader putting 2 and 2 together early enough that they're happy it wasn't spoon-fed, but late enough that they don't think it was really obvious. The essays on real-world history of weapons and seines and stuff were also pretty interesting, if a little smug in places. I enjoyed it well enough but it's not gone far enough to tempt me back into Parker's work.

Brayan's Gold is a Brett short story to ease me back into his world for my next book which will be The Skull Throne. It was very short, pretty good, and worked well where Brett shines (Arlen kicks the poo poo out of demons) and not so well where he doesn't (any time a woman is on screen or discussed) - I really hope that The Skull Throne doesn't continue the trend of really loving weird gender dynamics, but I'm not expecting much. If it's not much good, I'll probably stop reading the series there, but the preview I read the other week seemed OK.

# ¿ May 6, 2015 18:45

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

The Skull Throne was Brett at his best, I think. Whilst Rojer's non-stop whining in the first third bugged me, and the way his women are written hasn't stopped bugging me... The magic is definitely getting more interesting, and the action sequences were fantastic, with a Sanderson-style massive rush to the finish. I can't help but get irritated at the characters who constantly bitch at each other and have massive wars whilst there is literally a bigger enemy to fight that they all loving know about, but I get the feeling that's kind of the point of the book. Now if only he could write strong female characters and not have them constantly worry about their men.

Perfect State was a great little Sanderson novella. I can't help but feel that BranSan is by FAR at his best when writing short fiction. Much as I like his epics, and they give him room to really develop stuff... his skill as a writer shines through a lot more when his space is sharply limited. His best works for my money have been novellas - The Emperor's Soul and Firstborn. Perfect State isn't up there with his best, but he gets a lot of character development and world building out of a relatively tiny amount of space, not to mention raising some interesting philosophical questions about the world he's built. Heartily recommended.

I'm on a Sanderson novella kick right now as my birthday's coming up and I've asked for some books, so I don't want to pick up anything I'm wanting to read soon, in case someone's got it for me already...

# ¿ May 13, 2015 19:52

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I know, I know, they're all novellas, but I'm getting a lot less reading done now that I'm able to take shorter lunch breaks and come home earlier instead, I need to chatch up, so sue me!

Sixth of the Dusk was pretty interesting, I like finding out about Cosmere worlds, and the hints about space travellers are definitely interesting, but the actual story didn't enthral me that much.
Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell on the other hand I actually found really pretty interesting, both from a character and plotting point of view, and the magic seemed interesting. I liked it a lot.
Mitosis was neat, but very short. Sanderson dad humour, decent plot, interesting if slightly overdone epic, but mostly, I like the community that the Reckoners are building. Overall, a fun few days of short fiction.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 18:26

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I'm pleased that I found a couple of new Pratchett books to read, after his death in March. I'm heading home next weekend and picking up some of my Pratchett books is pretty high on my list of things to do, especially Night Watch, and The Truth which I've not read for a while and A Slip of the Keyboard really made me want to.

A Slip of the Keyboard was really interesting. There was a lot of real history there, information, backstory on why Pratchett's works are like they are, and a staggering amount of autobiographical parallels with my own early life reading sf/f books, not least Pratchett's. He's really made me want to try some G K Chesterton as well. There's also a lot to think about with regards to policy on assisted dying, because a lot of this book is about that, and I feel like it's something that really needs to be talked about more.

And there was some real humour, as well - and those moments are what got me pretty choked up at times, they were when the realisation really hit me that there's not going to be any new Pratchett humour to make me laugh and think that way at the same time.

The thing this book really made me regret is that Pratchett never wrote an autobiography. I would dearly like to read that book.

I'm now reading A Blink of the Screenl they seemed to go together. Pratchett, it turns out, was obnoxiously good at writing even as a thirteen year old.

E: and good lord am I behind, what was I thinking with 70 books?!

thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 12:10 on May 24, 2015

# ¿ May 24, 2015 12:00

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Where A Slip of the Keyboard was an ode to the autobiography Pterry will never write, A Blink of the Screen is a testament to all the wonderful ideas he had that never made it to the published page - and some that did, in various forms. The highlight for me was Camelot which I would dearly love to have seen made into a full-length novel. The rest varied from really fun, to interesting takes on other areas of his fiction and the Disc. Very pleased to have read it.

Next, When to Rob a Bank by Levitt & Dubner. A birthday present. And I have my kobo loaded with scads of trashy sf/f from storybundle and humble bundle, so there's that to keep me going. I want also to read Firefight but I want a hard copy of that, and to read Of Noble Family by Mary Robinetter Kowal but gently caress an ebook that costs �16.91 holy poo poo.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 21:16

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

When to Rob a Bank is another collected-blog-entries book, like Goldacre's from earlier this year. It's nonetheless decent, but I found the most powerful entries to be the few from other authors, particularly Levitt's father talking about his daughter's death to some sort of vicious cancer. It was a harrowing read, and very powerfully written. I also had some fairly major issues when they wrote about the NHS, to the point of writing down what I was thinking so it would stop bugging me. I'd be happy to post it somewhere if anyone cares. Mostly it was just as interesting as the previous books, but again, felt a little short.

Not sure what's next, depends what takes my fancy from the stacks of guff in my kobo. I was reading Jacaranda by Cherie Priest for a bit and I think I'll finish that off, then something, not sure what.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2015 22:56

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I really enjoyed Jacaranda. It was well-written, I liked the characterisation, I thought it was a well-told ghost story. I didn't quite feel like it was really necessary for it to be set in the Clockwork Century though - with the sole exception of the zombie nun there was absolutely nothing in the novel that wouldn't have worked as just a horror story set in civil-war-era Texas. Meh, well.

I have another collected-blogs book next; this time by David Mitchell.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2015 23:47

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Ah, fair enough, I've not read enough of Clockwork Century to know it has werewolves yet, so I just assumed based on the first two books what she was. Looking back, I should probably have guessed.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 00:34

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse is another collected-columns/blogs book like Goldacre's and Levitt & Dubner's. Unfortunately for Mitchell, I have to say that whilst I love his comedy - there's something about an angry posh man that's just inherently funny - it just doesn't translate as well to the written word. So whilst things like David Mitchell's Soapbox are brilliant and hilarious, this mostly just came across as whiny and dull. It had its moments, certainly, but... well, the time it took me to read it tell you that I wasn't enjoying it a lot.

Next up is Gone Girl. In a rare move for me I am reading the book after watching the film. I have two more from the same author cued up afterwards if I get on with it. If not, eh, the whole set was a fiver when the Book People came into work.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 19:53

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I really enjoyed Gone Girl, and I was really impressed by how accurate the film's portrayal of the book (both in terms of absolute plot and in terms of tone) was. I had a great time with it, but it's tough to write about without MASSIVE SPOILERS so I'm not going to put down a lot more.

E: Aaaaand I polished of Sharp Objects in under 48 hours. It was quite short, but really very good. I was pretty pissed with the blurb writer though, who more or less gave away the big whodunnit twist on the back goddamn cover. And I have to say, even without that, the ending was a touch predictable, and some of the things about it were really kind of obvious (most notably, the Muchausen Syndrome By Proxy murder committed by someone called Adora!) - but even so, I really found it difficult to put down. It was engagingly written, I could really identify with the main character, and it was a fascinating, disturbing examination of a deeply damaged individual's discovery of WHY she was that way, and how her history had affected her. So, I guess I wasn't bothered by the spoilers and obvious plots because it wasn't really a whodunnit at all, it was a character study framed by murders.

Moving on to Dark Places by the same author. Turns out that Book People impulse buy was well worth it.

I am now onto Sharp Objects by the same author which is pretty good so far.

thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jul 7, 2015

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 18:51

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Dark Places concludes my Gillian Flynn-athon. I actually thought it was probably the weakest of the series; the characterisation didn't feel as strong to me as that in Sharp Objects, and the mystery wasn't as interesting as either SO or GG's. Plus, I found the cow-mutilating Satan-worshippers stretched my suspension of disbelief a little too much. And the ending felt like a bit of a shaggy dog story, with comparatively little foreshadowing compared to either of the other two. Sharp Objects was probably my favourite.

But then, I read a LOT of it late last night in bed, so it's entirely plausible I may have missed some bits.

Moving on to... some of whatever crap is on my kobo from old humble bundles and storybundles, or possibly Monster Hunter International which was free. I dunno, I need to pick up some decent books for the trip up to London tomorrow.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 23:24

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I had a long bus journey yesterday :v:

Hard Times in Dragon City was enjoyable, especially considering its provenance as a novel written in a month. Enjoyable enough that I'll see if I can get hold of the rest. It also happened to be an interesting antry in the hunt for magical police procedurals, which was a nice surprise. I found it a little hard to grok the characters though, and the whole thing could stand to be decompressed a bit; it leans pretty hard on D&D to supply the basic tropes on which it relies.

Monster Hunter International... I knew what I was getting in for going into it - hardcore hard-right love guns gently caress government rhetoric - so I could correct for that as I was reading it. It didn't help that much, because even with that Our Designated Hero is pretty much Our Designated Hero right from the start and can do no wrong; he's literally a prophesied character by ancient magics or something. But even with all its flaws, which are many, it was what I was after for the trip - easy-to-read schlocky urban fantasy. It had almost no pretense at originality, but Correia does write combat well, and I can live with the rest. I'm drat sure glad it was free, though.

I moved on to A Stranger to Command by Sherwood Smith which has so far proved interesting and well-written. I'll definitely try to follow up on the main series.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2015 16:35

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

A Stranger to Command was excellent, I'd highly recommend it. A nice coming of age/fish out of water/high school drama type plot set in an interesting, subtly built world (though how much of the apparently subtle worldbuilding is down to it being a sequel and quite a late book in the writer's history I'm not sure) with believable characters and an entertaining style. I'm definitely going to pick up some more by this author.

Next is a Charles Stross book I picked up in the library, Neptune's Children I think it's called.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2015 19:13

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Neptune�s Brood is a fascinating exploration of financial systems and scams in a slower-than-light interstellar society. But don�t let that incredibly dry explanation fool you, it�s actually a pretty solid read. I enjoyed the world building and the technology a lot, the characters were interesting and believable, and Stross has clearly put a lot of thought into the mechanics of his financial instruments in interstellar space. But� it does feel like he�s Shown His Work a little too much. It almost reads more like a scholarly article on the possibilities of how money might work in a universe like the one he proposes, with, as an afterthought, the outcome of a long term con game tacked onto it to give him some characters to situate in that world. It�s been a fun, interesting read, but I can�t help but wonder what it might have been like without the diatribes I didn�t fully understand on slow money. Solid, but not exceptional. And I called the universal Jubilee happening by the end of the book pretty much as soon as it was mentioned, it was a bit too obvious as a Chekhov�s Gun.

Next is The Emperor's Blades by Brian Stavely.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 18:52

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I enjoyed The Emperor's Blades a lot, though it's pretty self-evident that it's a trilogy book. And feels a bit obvious in places that it's a debut, too - some of the plots are just a little too predictable. So, the brutal and angry cadets trying to gently caress with the heir to the empire's brother during training yup, turn out to be part of a giant conspiracy to kill the emperor without much explanation as to how they got to be where they were. And it had a few too many made up words with apostrophes in them. But I liked the characters a lot, I'm interested by the world and its history and mythos, and the plot is interesting enough to get me coming back. Overall, I'll definitely pick up the next one whenever it comes out.

thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jul 27, 2015

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 20:48

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Glamour of the God-Touched was certainly a 50-page prologue to a mediocre fantasy epic. Meh all round. Not picking up the rest.

Hairy London: what the poo poo did I just read? This book was utterly bizarre. I liked quite a lot about it - the names were really evocative of the period, which I loved, and the action really popped along... but overall it just felt a little too rushed and a little too surreal for my taste. The story didn't ever really have time to develop because it just ploughed right on to the next weird historical in-joke or hair joke or whatever. It was fun but didn't impress me enough to pick up anything else by the author.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2015 18:23

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Facade was pretty interesting. It was a murder mystery crossed with a ghost story and it really rolled along well. I enjoyed the writing and the setting, but I think it being part of a literary fantasy story bundle kind of spoiled it a bit; I spent the whole book expecting it to be a ghost story. And in the end I rushed the last chapter a bit because I wanted to finish it in my break, so I'm not sure I 100% understood all the implications of what went on. But it was definitely a good read, and there's more from this author in another bundle I picked up (mildly addicted to storybundle right now) so I'll see what else she has to throw at me.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2015 22:15

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Recovering Apollo 8 was short piece, novella-length, with a really genuinely interesting alt-history/speculative fiction setting. Part of me really likes the idea, for some reason, that it would be failure, and the attempt to recover from it, that would drive humanity to success. It really rings true for me. This was a well-written piece, and highly enjoyable, I've been pretty impressed so far with both works of this author's which I've read, and will certainly carry on doing so.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 10:30

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I've been on holiday, so a bit of a bumper update:

The Diving Bundle I really enjoyed. It's relatively rare that scifi deals with far-future universes in which things have genuinely been forgotten, and this is an excellent take on that general concept. I really like the idea of wreck diving and the various technologies and stories that grew out of it, and I've been consistently impressed with Rusch's writing skills. I'll certainly look up more of her work.

Playing for Keeps was a pretty fun super-people book. I enjoyed most of the low-powered-supers' powers, but the plot was a little dull, and I wasn't 100% sold on the writing for some of it. Certainly competent, and I did enjoy it, though.

Strong Arm Tactics was great fun, well-written schlocky mil-sf with some genuinely funny moments and a reasonably amusing and well-written plot. I enjoyed it, I'd read this author and this series again.

Supervillainous I didn't really get on with that well. I like the idea of an embedded reporter covering a supervillain, and Hammerspace was moderately imaginative as a villain, but overall it was a bit dull and plodding, and the author's prejudices re. guns showed through a bit too strongly for my taste in a couple of places.

Currently reading Stars: the anthology edited by Janis Ian and Mike Reznick. I've mostly enjoyed it so far, and given that I'd really not paid much attention to Ian's music previously, it's also turned me on to a good musician, so I'm doubly pleased with it. Recommended.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2015 22:30

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

I really enjoyed Stars overall, though there were a couple of the stories which I just didn't get, and a couple which took me a while but really grew on me. It's a fascinating set of ways writers have been inspired, and I had a great time.

Currently reading Strike! by... someone... but it's sucking hard enough that despite the trilogy being available in that story bundle, I'll probably not bother going beyond the first book. It reads like someone who reads a lot of comics tried to write a comic but couldn't draw, so just put the script into a novel. Full of really dry description and sound effects written IN CAPS! WITH EXCLAMATION MARKS! Meh.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2015 18:54

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Strike sucked hard enough that I'm not going to be continuing the series. It just felt really amateurish, boring, paper-thin characters, dull, mechanical action, too many sound effects... It read like the author was trying to write a novel that evoked comics, but he really didn't succeed. So meh.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2015 23:28

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

Crossfire was mostly pretty enjoyable. Some nice characters, sfairly treated, some interesting aliens, but it was a little too light on its treatment of relativistic space travel and time dilation, and their impacts, I felt, and contained the single worst 'as you know' speech I've ever come across, which was incredibly out of character for the person concerned - a normally quiet and reserved Quaker - and literally started with the phrase "You already know this, I'm sure, but I'm going to tell you anyway." The information could easily have been written more carefully into the text. But I wasn't put off by it, and I found the conclusion satisfying, if a little... open.

Moving on, I think I'm going to read the biography of Alexander Graham Bell I picked up on holiday.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2015 19:21

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Radio! posted:

White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2015 22:15

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 00:15

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

thespaceinvader posted:

It's difficult to summarise Reluctant Genius for me. It was long and in-depth, well-told and well-researched. It was a little measured in pace, perhaps, but it got into the details of the life of a man who did more than many, and was astoundingly ahead of his time. He was more than just the phone guy; among other things he built one of the first planes, pioneered tetrahedral frame construction, is among the first recorded with concerns over both global warming and non-renewable fuels, invented the principle behind fibre optic technology, and made massive advances in the development of hydrofoils, all whilst remaining apparently amazingly humble and driven much more by the pursuit of knowledge than by money. And all whilst speaking many languages including numerous varieties of sign and deaf-blind manual languages. Really an astonishing man, and the book was very good too.

I'm moving on to my long-awaited Pratchett retrospective (it took me a while to pick up my books from my parents') with Night Watch.

E: finished it (I started it a few days ago so)

Night Watch was hard for me. It's the first full-length Pratchett novel I've read since his death, and IMO his best single novel across his entire writing history. It's a fine bit of writing, a fine bit of parody, satire and pastiche, and Vimes is such a human character in it, stripped of his titles and shinies, but retaining all of his nous and skill. There are a few really emotional moments that tugged my heartstrings as well. I was sad reading it, but glad to have read it.

I'm moving on to the Tiffany Aching books. Some are rereads, some are new, but it's been a long wile since I read the first ones so I want to remind myself of them first.

E: Finished Wee Free Men. It was as enjoyable as I remembered it, but also I found as with many YA novels that the protagonist felt a LOT older than she was put about as. The voice I was reading really didn't feel like the voice of an eight year old.

I continue to like the Tiffany Aching books, but this has been a hard set of rereads, especially as I've gotten further into the series and hit books I've not yet read. It hurts, knowing this is the last time I'll laugh at a Discworld novel for the first time :smith:

A Hat Full of Sky was pretty good, but I wasn't 100% set on the Hiver as a villain, and Wintersmith was a nice coming-of-summer myth story, but I can't help but feel overall that Tiffany is just a tiny bit too competent and too world-beatingly powerful. Things go badly for her, sure, but the things she's taken down are... pretty high powered.

I really love the Feegles though. Especially when they do things like nut Death.

thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Oct 16, 2015

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 23:23

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Challenged Reading 2015 Editon

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