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Dumb Sex-Parrot posted:It was published in November last year and says it has a lot of the latest research. It's also very wordy and I haven't gotten too far, but the pictures are nice. Here's a review: https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-c...s-evans-3930845 This was a birthday present to myself back in March, I think it’s next up on my list after Antony and Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy. |
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Jun 12, 2023 07:04
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Dumb Sex-Parrot posted:I saw someone on Twitter talking about a book featuring The Picts, which were a people inhabiting Scotland back in the first millenium. Anyway I "gave" it to myself for Christmas and finally got around to reading it. Book Review posted:On the first Roman invasion of Scotland, the contemporary historian Tacitus in his biography of his father-in-law Agricola called the people of what is now the North of Scotland “Caledonians” giving their chef the great anti-imperialist line “You make a desert and call it peace”. I think they either meant chief or dessert 
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Jun 12, 2023 15:35
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I don't think I've ever had a dessert made from peas. |
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Jun 12, 2023 16:41
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Bilirubin posted:I really liked this one! have you read City of Saints and Madmen? (or the Ambergris anthology?) If not, this is very much in the same vein and you'd like it
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Jun 12, 2023 17:19
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Finger Prince posted:I don't think I've ever had a dessert made from peas.  You aren't living the best version of your life if you are not feasting on some Pea Cake once in a while! |
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Jun 12, 2023 17:20
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Or maybe you are. Might not be for everyone's taste. Speaking of books, I've never read anything by Dostoevsky and someone recommended me "The Idiot". I'm going to assume that person meant no particular subcontext with that one, but either way, this is huge at 600+ pages! Worth it for someone's first Dostoevsky story? Or maybe something else?
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Jun 12, 2023 17:23
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Saoshyant posted:
Oh I'd probably try it if I ever saw it, but then again I'm not a huge dessert person so someone would probably have to give me some. |
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Jun 12, 2023 20:32
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Some Books I've read or audiobooked in the last few months: X Wing: The Bacta War Life, the universe and everything Sea of Tranquility Darth Bane: rule of two Stephen King's IT - dude who narrates the audiobook does an amazing job and easily one of my favorite narrators. Stranger in a Strange Land To Kill a Mocking Bird (narrated by Sissy Spacek) this one was one of my favorites hands down. She did such a good job reading the story. Currently listening to A Scanner Darkly, narrated by Paul Giamatti. It's kinda odd but enjoyable so far. At the same time it's kind of hard to keep into it but I also am drawn into it. I think it's one that I'll have to go back to again. I also think the narration is partly to blame, for me at least. And my ability to be sidetracked by any and everything around me doesn't help.
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Jun 13, 2023 04:34
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I think I woulda read To Kill a Mockingbird like thirty years earlier if it didn't have such a poo poo title. Like they shoulda named it "Awesome Story Good Book Yeah" or something. |
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Jun 13, 2023 05:37
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I finally finished the John Darnielle book from last year and I think it's his best prose thing easy. Really moving and harrowing and the twist at the end could have been deeply stupid but really hit me pretty hard in a way I was satisfied with.
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Jun 13, 2023 05:59
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Checked to see the current state of what's displayed somewhere from inside this really sketchy book on neurolinguistic programming that I picked up in a field back in like 2009 when there were a bunch of books lying out for free and people giving out material (it's called Nonexistence by Kenji Siratori, I was a freshman in college there was newbie day lol). When I read it, the text was a lot more visibly abstract as a programming language. I read it as that because because at least the syntax was with mostly a few english words and SOME_CODE=STUFF(LIKE.THIS)_ SyStEm.REPEAT{} brrrrrrrrrrr . So I read it for a while real fast starting from the beginning up to the point where I was terrified in hallucinatory revelry of being able to read the book about a little less than a third in a way that confirmed I definitely picked the most sketchy piece of free book, debatably some cool MK Ultra type poo poo, definitely see the cool factor in dangerously leaving experimental print literature somewhere an unsuspecting jack of the day might just pick it up and actually flip through the pages in earnest desire to learn the ways of being programmed a language of some sort by its back or somewhere mentioned descriptor of being some sort of neurolinguistic programming and experimental in nature. SO anyways, I looked up the book on amazon, my friend says he has the paper back (I had deemed it necessary to no longer be in possession of the most powerful question of what in the gently caress anyone would drive anyone to the madness it must take to actually be able to come up with some poo poo like that ??? maybe it was the glitch art on the cover), and anyways, I looked it up in the preview text and it's most definitely not in the same syntax coding as it was when I first read it and it has since been progressively processed into more english but debatably more or less human readable way depending on if the SYNTAX_WITH_SYMBOLS()=r.EASIER(BEEPBOOP) or if the xyntax-wrods read easy words syntax words READ english human blahblahblah , is what's human readable versus machine readable. Personally, I obviously read the programming as a human but most definitely I didn't translate down to word because in its understanding it was far to hallucinatory in revelation to actually be dumb words like that. Any language processing system put into use of itself by a glitch art cover that scans its own inside or something, would most unsuspectingly translate as book containing computer vision first by being read and understood and prompted strong hallucination in me I guess thus removing the vision from in its bindings as color immediately shutting the book, directing color towards the cover and the true darkness of its evil to the black text inside that I suppose is now just increasingly dumb and neutral but has entirely been on a computer somewhere by it being print of coding language.. blah blah Scary poo poo, not bad, worth looking into if you're down to gently caress and kill computers for being dumb and stupid |
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Jun 13, 2023 06:10
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How Wonderful! posted:I finally finished the John Darnielle book from last year and I think it's his best prose thing easy. Really moving and harrowing and the twist at the end could have been deeply stupid but really hit me pretty hard in a way I was satisfied with. Devil House is very divisive - personally, I loved that it kind of flipped the True Crime aspect on its head and was really more about the writer than the story he's trying to write. Some people wanted different things out of it and when they didn't get it, went on GoodReads and just trashed the book. sad.
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Jun 14, 2023 15:55
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"This snowcrash thing - is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" "What's the difference?" 
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Jun 14, 2023 21:54
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How Wonderful! posted:I finally finished the John Darnielle book from last year and I think it's his best prose thing easy. Really moving and harrowing and the twist at the end could have been deeply stupid but really hit me pretty hard in a way I was satisfied with. Oh poo poo, I didn't realize John Darnielle wrote books. Got into The Mountain Goats a couple months ago from John Green; will definitely check them out. "What I wouldn't give to return to those halcyon days." |
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Jun 14, 2023 22:05
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Quadramind posted:"This snowcrash thing - is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" unironically the best line in the book |
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Jun 14, 2023 23:03
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barclayed posted:Oh poo poo, I didn't realize John Darnielle wrote books. Got into The Mountain Goats a couple months ago from John Green; will definitely check them out. oh buddy you're in for a rabbit hole. next thing you know you'll have a murderboard tracking the alpha couple's wave of personal destruction across the United States and be debating if jenny is the bike or a metaphor for satan or both
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Jun 15, 2023 03:48
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i finished a neuromancer rearead. pretty good book you know, it's fair to say universal harvester was really good
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Jul 7, 2023 22:36
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AdvilSmith posted:Currently listening to A Scanner Darkly, narrated by Paul Giamatti. It's kinda odd but enjoyable so far. At the same time it's kind of hard to keep into it but I also am drawn into it. I think it's one that I'll have to go back to again. I also think the narration is partly to blame, for me at least. And my ability to be sidetracked by any and everything around me doesn't help. ah paul giamatti. his woman voices aren't that good iirc. he does a good job sometimes tho i heart that book tho. its the best book for spacing out to |
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Jul 7, 2023 22:40
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baka fwocka fwame posted:i finished a neuromancer rearead. pretty good book you know, it's fair to say one of my favorite college professors recommended this to me and I have never pursued it. I always hear good things tho. I'm like a quarter of the way into Mort, my third incursion into the Discworld. it is sick, which I just expect now from Pratchett lol
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Jul 7, 2023 23:04
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Slowly working through House of Leaves, and trying to cram some learning in my lunch breaks with "The Age of Extremes", a dry rear end history book. I want to either continue the Three Body series next, the 4th Expanse book, or jump into a new disturbing horror book.
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Jul 8, 2023 03:04
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I started reading Blood Music by Greg Bear last night and I didn’t realize that I’d gotten halfway through it until my girlfriend mentioned how she had to get up early this morning and could I kindly put away my kindle. It’s pretty good so far, I think I’ll finish it up tonight and recommend it to her since she’s the scientist and I think it’d be right up her alley. |
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Jul 8, 2023 03:30
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Snuff Melange posted:Slowly working through House of Leaves, and trying to cram some learning in my lunch breaks with "The Age of Extremes", a dry rear end history book. I want to either continue the Three Body series next, the 4th Expanse book, or jump into a new disturbing horror book. I liked Expanse and Three Body Problem. when will you have time for em though with two things already going? |
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Jul 8, 2023 03:43
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baka fwocka fwame posted:ah paul giamatti. his woman voices aren't that good iirc. he does a good job sometimes tho Yeah, woman voices weren't that good. I'd like to find a different audiobook of it next time. Maybe I'll just go buy the book? His narration made it difficult to stay engaged at times. All his characters were too similar and the recording quality is poor. That said, it was a pretty neat book Is the movie adaptation good?
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Jul 8, 2023 04:06
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AdvilSmith posted:Yeah, woman voices weren't that good. I'd like to find a different audiobook of it next time. Maybe I'll just go buy the book? His narration made it difficult to stay engaged at times. All his characters were too similar and the recording quality is poor. the movie is p good but only cuz its a v faithful representation of the book. i would see if youve read the book honestly, good to read the book but everyone in the movie is pretty good at portraying their character
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Jul 8, 2023 11:45
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Spent the last month mostly reading the Kara Gillian series by Diana Rowland. It starts off as what I'd consider fairly boilerplate urban fantasy/police procedural/romance, with the first few books being murder mysteries starring a homicide detective who summons demons as a hobby (and has a hot demon boyfriend). Then halfway through a bunch of foreshadowing pops off all at once and it swerves into high-stakes fate-of-the-world stuff with book five set entirely in the demon world¹ and later books involving things like a magical AI and a full-scale demonic invasion of Earth. In particular it did two things that are very much tuned to my tastes: - Kara's threshold for reading people in on Weird Magic Bullshit is very low. Every book features one or more of her friends getting brought into the "in the know" group who know what's really going on. This is a series that takes the whole box of "the main character contorts her life and cripples her relationships to keep her magical powers secret" tropes and dumpsters them, something I really loving appreciate. - By the second-last book the masquerade has broken down on a global scale and everyone knows that magic exists and is trying to cope with it. The degree to which this transforms human society isn't explored as much as it might be, even in the epilogue, but I do like that it happens. The early books also have a lot of characterization and plot beats that are highly reminiscent of the Lucifer TV series, to the point that I wonder if someone in the writers' room for Lucifer is a fan of these books and took some inspiration from them. With those done, I am experiencing some massive tonal and chronological whiplash as I move on to Little Women; some friends of mine at work are (re)reading it this month and formed an impromptu one-shot book club about it, which I have joined. I'm enjoying it so far! My wife was shocked to find out that I hadn't read it before and is now vibrating with the suppressed urge to talk about parts of the book I haven't gotten to yet. —— ¹ these aren't, like, christianity-flavour from-hell demons, it's more like interdimensional travel that everyone calls "demon summoning" out of habit |
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Jul 8, 2023 22:21
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ToxicFrog posted:Spent the last month mostly reading the Kara Gillian series by Diana Rowland. It starts off as what I'd consider fairly boilerplate urban fantasy/police procedural/romance, with the first few books being murder mysteries starring a homicide detective who summons demons as a hobby (and has a hot demon boyfriend). Then halfway through a bunch of foreshadowing pops off all at once and it swerves into high-stakes fate-of-the-world stuff with book five set entirely in the demon world¹ and later books involving things like a magical AI and a full-scale demonic invasion of Earth. Isn't the Lucifer series more recent than the Kara Gillian one? Everywhere, everyone is red and green |
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Jul 8, 2023 22:25
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xcheopis posted:Isn't the Lucifer series more recent than the Kara Gillian one? Yes, hence why I was wondering if the TV show took some inspiration from these books and not vice versa. |
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Jul 8, 2023 23:28
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ToxicFrog posted:Yes, hence why I was wondering if the TV show took some inspiration from these books and not vice versa.  Lol, sorry I didn't even have my stupid reading glasses on! Yes, it's the fault of the glasses. Yes. Everywhere, everyone is red and green |
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Jul 8, 2023 23:57
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started and finished the first of Le Carre’s novels with John Smiley as the protagonist when couldn’t sleep,, suited my mood perfectly and was a fantastic read if you like spy thrillers which I guess I do now
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Jul 9, 2023 16:33
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HUSKY DILF posted:started and finished the first of Le Carre’s novels with John Smiley as the protagonist when couldn’t sleep,, suited my mood perfectly and was a fantastic read if you like spy thrillers which I guess I do now I started reading my first Forsythe and he's laughably incompetent in that even his literal Soviet communists addressing the leader of the Soviet Union in an official document come across as thinking communism is evil. Can't remember the title, maybe something like The Fourth Protocol or Protocol Four? e: Also he likes to give back story to characters whose back stories do not matter. |
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Jul 10, 2023 07:48
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I read guy gavriel cay's new book 'all the seas of the world'. The prose was lacking the magic of his earlier books somehow. It's kind of all over the place, and there's this weird storyteller character that acts as a sort of narrator in between some chapters, that comes across as a self insert and kind of pretentious? Nothing much really happens for the bulk of the book either. But I wouldn't day it was a bad book, and maybe just suffers from the author trying new things that I don't really think worked out. |
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Jul 14, 2023 17:10
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Drunk on All Your Strange New Words is a bad title for a good book : a locked room mystery with a sci-fi twist, it's about a translator working for an alien ambassador who goes about solving his murder where the only suspect is her. Great little touches like phonetic spellings of AI (ayeai), VR (veearr) and some made up future slang really make it sing. Shame about the title though. How to Sell A Haunted House is a great title for an OK book about siblings dealing with the sudden mysterious deaths of both parents and then the haunted dolls/puppets show up. A slow burn with no major events, just solid character work for almost half the book and then it slams into full on spooky time. Hendrix's other book I read last year The Final Girl Support Group has the opposite issue - tons of action and then swerves into character moments. Both have their place I guess I just liked this one more.
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Jul 17, 2023 14:23
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Chronicles of the Black Company It's an interesting tale told from the perspective of the physician and official annalist for a somewhat infamous, somewhat renowned mercenary company in a medieval, magical world where everything is mostly horrible, including them. It's not shocking or gruesome, but kind of treads the grey morality of mercenary soldiers used as pawns in greater power struggles. Anyway that's kind of a not great description but it was a decent, long read. |
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Aug 20, 2023 00:14
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Black Company is good, op. Grim without being super exploitative Reading Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. Book 4 is sitting on my shelf. They're all so drat good. |
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Aug 22, 2023 02:57
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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold |
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Aug 22, 2023 07:03
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I finished Mort a bit ago and started rereading the Phantom Tollbooth because it has been a long time and I didn't know what else to read. when I finish this (probably this week) I'm going to start The Gateway Trip by Frederik Pohl. I haven't read any of this series but a mate was saying he wants to run and Eclipse Phase game loosely based on this series and maybe I'd GM the parts that are set in the "future" but I hadn't read any of it. not sure how that all is going to work lol. |
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Aug 22, 2023 23:49
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ToxicFrog posted:Kara Gillian series by Diana Rowland. rear end-penny posted:Termination Shock [...] Stephenson Finger Prince posted:guy gavriel cay's new book 'all the seas of the world'. catching up on the books thread is great because it gives me recommendations for stuff i will likely enjoy i've been reading the Battletech novels in in-universe chronology (list here) and they vary wildly in quality, which is what you'd expect for tabletop wargame tie-in novels
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Aug 24, 2023 17:58
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biosterous posted:catching up on the books i've been reading the Battletech novels in in-universe chronology (list here) and they vary wildly in quality, which is what you'd expect for tabletop wargame tie-in novels Blood Legacy by Stackpole got me into reading Battletech stuff as a kid, A Silence In The Heavens by Delrio was the only book about giant robots I couldn’t finish. Battletech fiction is a world of contrasts |
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Aug 24, 2023 20:25
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I wasn't even aware there were Battletech novels. What's the top 2 or 3? I may check it out, always loved giant robots, but don't know squat about Battletech.
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Aug 25, 2023 16:05
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Blood Legacy and the Warrior Trilogy by Michael Stackpole were the ones I remember being pretty good. |
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Aug 25, 2023 17:56
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