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Finally finished Dune for the first time and it wasn't as good as the fans have lead me to believe, so i won't be continuing the series read Perdido Street Station and then found it it's a series and said no to that working my way through the works of Haruki Murakami (as opposted to Ryu Murakami, who is a different kind of vibe). "Killing Commendatore" is the one i'm on now and it's a slim 700+ pages of an artist either slowly going mad or really having multiple encounters of supernatural stuff and just kinda going "well, i'm still sad about my wife leaving me" about it and hanging out with his rich friend. picked up a book I had long forgot until a random spark of something reminded me. I had this book when i was a pre-teen and it was WAY more gorey violence, hardcore drug use and sex stuff than I was ready for at the time. I read it three times one summer. But the thing is I could not remember the name some 20+ years later. With the help of some other book buff friends via a group chat they pointed me to it and it's The Lost Traveller by Steve Wilson. It's a post-apocalyptic biker novel from the 70s and the main character's name is Long Range. There's some weird Navajo stuff in it too, from what little i remember. and someone recommended this series The Watchers that starts with The Bar at the End of the World. Which is a post-apocalyptic Mad Max type scenario, you know, real good stuff. that's kind of a weird coincidence those two. wonder what's on my mind?
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Oct 4, 2020 13:16
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xcheopis posted:Love MR James! is there a MRS James?
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Oct 11, 2020 08:50
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picked up This Is How You Lose The Time War and Zoey Punches The Future in The Dick, both very good so far.
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Nov 12, 2020 11:39
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beer pal posted:the master and margarita is a lot of fun. whatever satire is in there goes over my head but thats fine. also started listening to auidio book version of the jakarta method Master and Margarita is solid gold. Easily Bulgakov's best. The whole sequence with the olive oil in the early bit of the book is still so eerie |
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Nov 21, 2020 11:02
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My plan for this holiday season: "Seven Blades in black" "Zoey Punches The future in the Dick" "This is How You Lose The Time War" |
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Dec 24, 2020 07:22
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Dr. Yinz Ljubljana posted:My plan for this holiday season: Most of the way through This is How You Lose The Time War and it's really intriguing - two agents from warring factions of time travellers wind up falling for each other in the old Enemies to Lovers trope but without having much actual contact. Their communication is through letters created out of the random detritus of the time period they're in. One of the more original books I've read about time travel |
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Jan 3, 2021 12:57
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This is How You Lose the Time War was short but really good. So far Zoey Punches The Future in the Dick is, as all the other books Jason Wong wrote, pretty good |
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Jan 8, 2021 10:00
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Picked up The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by the Nightvale team and it's much better than their last two books, though Alice Isn't Dead did a better job wrapping up that story than the podcast did. Kinda curious now that I found out there's a Within The Wires book coming soon |
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Jan 15, 2021 15:48
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magic cactus posted:Count zero is the weakest of the three, but some of the world building pays off in Mona Lisa Overdrive which has the coolest "holy poo poo" moment that connects back to Neuromancer, making all three of the books equally necessary. Zero History is weak, but still a Gibson book so I'll allow it |
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Mar 11, 2021 02:27
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Finished "Axiom's End" by Lindsay Ellis. A neat take on the alien invasion concept, told strictly through the POV of our young Latinx woman tagged by one of the aliens as a translator. It's got a lot of neat bits about context and nuance and language but it's also just a good little sci-fi action yarn. Nice debut novel. Started "Providence" by Max Berry and I guess I thought it was Max Brooks when I picked it up so no oral history in this but a bit of flexible prose that swings between second and third person narrative. Oh and it's about aliens taking over a space station (I think?) |
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May 17, 2021 21:48
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Chewed through Max Barry's latest Providence and it was a wild ride. Very much begging for a film adaptation with every page. It's a bit of Enders Game, a bit of Aliens, and some of the claustrophobic vibe from Sunshine or Moon. A solid scifi thriller that just kept me glued to it. |
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May 26, 2021 23:31
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The Loop, about a cephalopod brain virus thing that infects a small town and turns the residents into thrill seeking murdery rage monsters Providence, about the crew of a space warship being bored by the AI doing all the war so they go a little nuts but then also end up doing some real fighting And still plugging away on Underworld, Don Delilo's weirdo paranoid novel about ... America, is the short way to put it. It's 1000 pages give or take and it jumps time and place and character pretty often so it's a bit dense for me. Been reading it off and on for the better part of three years |
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Jun 26, 2021 10:03
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Finger Prince posted:Oh yeah, another good time-travelesque novel is The Peripheral by William Gibson. It has a sequel too, but... Ehhh... Not as good. I had the opposite reaction, thought Peripheral didn't give you enough about The Jackpot while Agency at least explored that more interesting idea more thoroughly |
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Jul 4, 2021 10:01
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A Highly Unlikely Event, this bizarre little book about a dystopian future where the world is ruled by fast food places. Then there's time travel, the Vonych manuscript and a bunch of other silliness. It's not what I expected going in but I'm hooked. |
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Aug 21, 2021 20:17
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Finally finished Delilo's Underworld and I was underwhelmed. Such a long book for this to be the ending? A series of narratives all about Life in America. Yeesh. Started Consensual Hex by Amanda Harlowe and it's a bit cringe with the modern references that really date the book but a nice modern update on The Craft Goes to College story |
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Sep 28, 2021 14:15
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Dr. Yinz Ljubljana posted:Consensual Hex by Amanda Harlowe and it's a bit cringe with the modern references that really date the book but a nice modern update on The Craft Goes to College story the ending kinda felt thrown together on deadline, but a good ride started a new witchy book "Everybody Knows Your Mother Is A Witch" by Rivka Galchen and this one is a bit weirder and funnier, more of if Douglas Adams did a spec script for Blackadder about an old witch
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Oct 8, 2021 06:45
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The Final Girl Support Group is a solid thriller, a love letter to slasher movies. Ripping prose. Loved it. Picked up Utopia Avenue by the guy who wrote Cloud Atlas and it's a 70s rock band version of Faust, at least from what I've read so far. Very very British with the slang and all, so reader beware |
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Nov 24, 2021 18:42
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baka fwocka fwame posted:yall read this guyotat guy pretty wild It's still interesting, Mitchell nails a lot of the foibles of musicians and hits the vibe of 60s London. Jasper de Zoet is a character with ties to other Mitchell books (The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet) |
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Jan 16, 2022 04:31
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Lexicon by Max Barry is a solid thriller with some wicked rear end stuff happening in the margins Enjoyed Devil House by John Darnielle as well, a flipping of the script on True Crime books |
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Mar 26, 2022 04:37
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took forever to read Max Barry's "Lexicon" no idea why it took so long, it was relatively short. Elden Ring probably had a lot to do with it. picked up Gretchen Felker-Martin's Manhunt and woo boy is that a gross, but amazing book
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May 24, 2022 17:54
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Saoshyant posted:I finished Monstrous Regiment last week, one of the few Terry Pratchett Discworld novels I hadn't read yet. I wasn't ready for it. I expected a humorous take on an army with trolls and vampires in its numbers. And I got that too, but I also got a rather dark but full of hope novel that will stay with me for a long while. Funny enough I'm reading the Death books ("Mort" "Soul Music" "Reaper Man") and watching the weird TV adaptation of The Watch books. Pratchett is balm for a weary soul |
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Jun 26, 2022 21:49
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all this Vandermeer talk reminds me : last year I chewed through all 3 Ambergris books, I always highly recommend City of Saints and Madmen to get people hooked.
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Jul 10, 2022 16:42
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Against all better judgement I started reading Fire & Blood, the Game of Thrones prequel book. I'm not even one chapter in and I have had to take notes as to who is who between Aeon Ageon Aygeon and so on |
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Jul 14, 2022 16:08
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All You Need is Kill and the manga adaptation. Fantastic and somehow even better than the excellent Tom Cruise vehicle Edge of Tomorrow they made based on the novel |
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Aug 28, 2022 03:41
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My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. A prolific writer whose work was completely unknown to me. It's a charming slasher movie love letter but also a solid story on its own.
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Sep 11, 2022 20:32
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The Night Shift by Natalka Burian. It's yet another yarn about how good it is to be in New Yawk (the only city in da world baby, love da mets) but it's also got this weird rear end sci-fi/fantasy bent to it that is engaging. can't stand when they go into detail about how cool and weird NYC is, so it's a mixed bag for me
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Sep 27, 2022 15:14
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John Dies At The End 4 : If This Book Exists, You're In The Wrong Universe. Another banger from David Wong/Jason Pargin. It's gross and funny and really fun to read.
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Oct 30, 2022 19:52
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ToxicFrog posted:What the gently caress, I apparently missed two entire John and Dave books? The last I've I read was This Book Is Full Of Spiders. You only missed "What The Hell Did I Just Read?" - this new one came out last week rear end-penny posted:holy poo poo, that fuckin movie was based on a series of books?? at the time there was only the one book out, the movie didn't move units so no others got made - if you liked the movie, check em out |
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Oct 31, 2022 07:53
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Jeff Vandermeer had a new book out last year and I never knew. Rectifying that now. It's called Hummingbird/Salamander and I'm jazzed on it
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Jan 9, 2023 02:56
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finished The Heirarchies by Ros Anderson, good cyberpunk-ish novel about a sex robot who learns to be a person. started Attack Surface by Cory Doctrow. It's not as good, let's just say that
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Feb 20, 2023 15:38
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Saoshyant posted:Doctorow as an activist is great. As a writer, I tried some of his novels more than a decade ago and wasn't impressed. He may have improved since, though? Not really. He lectures on security best practices for pages at a time. Not great
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Feb 22, 2023 07:16
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Liarmouth, a new John Waters book. It's sleazy and weird like his movies but things get even stupider and more insane as it goes. Just a goofy little nasty book and it was fun
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Apr 2, 2023 04:25
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rear end-penny posted:I'm like halfway through Guards Guards already dang Pratchett books read pretty fast Been slowly making my way across the whole of his ouvre and yeah they go fast.
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May 28, 2023 04:45
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Last Tango in Cyberspace. not sure if this will be a good cyberpunk book or a bad one, so far the opening has been sub-Gibson so here's hoping it picks up. Also picked up A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and that's a good, if dense, comic conceit for a novel/memoir.
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Jun 7, 2023 13:16
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Veniss Underground : A newly reissued collection of Jeff Vandermeer's early stuff set in yet another bizarre Chia Mieville type setting. (The other is Ambergris)
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Jun 10, 2023 15:22
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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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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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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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Pizzatime posted:Hummingbird Salamander I liked it, it was more straightforward than his some of his older work. But to each their own, I can see wanting more Annihilation, getting Hummingbird and getting disappointed
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Sep 10, 2023 16:53
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baka fwocka fwame posted:i dont like the idea that hummingbird salamander might actually suck. is it a conclusion to the dead astronauts thing i forget now It doesn't seem to be connected in any way to the Dead Astronauts/Borne books, it's a standalone thriller but it is about genetically modified animals and a woman chasing down a conspiracy
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Sep 15, 2023 15:26
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