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I'm reading Shogun right now, because it was my father-in-law's favorite book. It's 1210 pages, and the first 600 were a slog. But once I got past that halfway point, it kinda just clicked for me and now I'm really into it. Still 300 pages to go, but I really like it now.
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Jan 30, 2024 16:39
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Spinz posted:All of Clavells works are like history porn/trash and I enjoyed them in my 20s and 30s as well as James Michener who wrote similar sagas. Secondhand paperbacks are the greatest things in the world. I don't think I'll read any more of Clavell, but only because they're such a time investment.
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Jan 30, 2024 23:09
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Sex Farm posted:Started reading Books of Blood vol 1-3 and it's pretty good so far, I like horror fiction. Is Hellbound Heart in that collection? A Strange Aeon posted:The company FASA (known for Shadowrun and Battletech) inexplicably made a number of boardgames based on Clavell novels, among them Shogun and Whirlwind, "the family game of adventure in Iran during the final days of the Shah." That's amazing. Apparently there are a couple text-adventure games based on it, too.
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Jan 31, 2024 18:51
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Captain Hygiene posted:Jurassic Park's been on my mind since it got mentioned upthread, and I finally jumped in to give it re-read for the first time in probably 15 years. Man it holds up so far, I'm standing by my thought that it's my favorite premise for its general thriller genre, and it seems like it's paying that off so far. It's so extremely good. Think I'll also give it a reread next. gently caress it, Congo, too.
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Feb 1, 2024 05:20
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Yeah, I can see that. I read No County and The Road, and that really put me off. Is the Blood Meridian audiobook good, then?
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Feb 2, 2024 20:00
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I've only listened to one audiobook in my life-Raptor Red- but I really like radio dramas.
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Feb 3, 2024 00:03
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Libby would probably be killer if you lived in NYC or something. I have access to the Carnegie library in Pittsburgh, so it has a pretty good selection. Not everything I've ever searched for, but enough.
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Feb 5, 2024 15:15
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Captain Hygiene posted:Well, I'm finishing up Jurassic Park today, and it mostly held up very well. It put me in the mood to re-read Lost World, which I have essentially no recollection of. I'm really curious how it will fare in comparison, I remember reading that Crichton was at least somewhat pushed into it by the first Jurassic Park movie being such a megahit, rather than being something he did out of his own interest. For what it's worth, I don't like the second movie, but I have a general idea of it not having much to do with the book. I guess I could just pull up Wikipedia and find out, but y'know, I ended up reading something else between Shogun and Jurassic Park, so the grandkids just got to the island. The Lost World is, in a lot of ways, a retread of the first book, and doesn't share much in common with the movie. It's good, though, if you liked the first book. Some really neat sequences in it.
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Feb 6, 2024 23:28
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Captain Hygiene posted:Well, I'm finishing up Jurassic Park today, and it mostly held up very well. It put me in the mood to re-read Lost World, which I have essentially no recollection of. I'm really curious how it will fare in comparison, I remember reading that Crichton was at least somewhat pushed into it by the first Jurassic Park movie being such a megahit, rather than being something he did out of his own interest. For what it's worth, I don't like the second movie, but I have a general idea of it not having much to do with the book. I guess I could just pull up Wikipedia and find out, but y'know, Oh, man, I forgot how cool the sequence about halfway through, before everything goes terribly where they realize that the computer has only been looking for fewer than expected animals and not more than expected. Really cool stuff. If you end up enjoying The Lost World, I'd also recommend Sphere, which I think might just edge out JP as my favorite Michael Crichton book.
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Feb 7, 2024 22:52
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Captain Hygiene posted:I'm in Congo now, and eh... feels like it's veering too far into backwards representation of Africa for me. It's also the oldest of these Crichton books, more so than I thought, which probably helped lead to that. Yeah, fellow Crichton bro. There are some passages that gave me pause, as well. Add some of that to his disappointing climate change skepticism(although, it seems from his fiction to be more of a belief that the rock we live on will be fine, any cataclysms we cause will simply wipe us and most of the other life on the planet out, but it's inevitable and new forms will arise and the cycle will continue) , and he seems like he was an rear end in a top hat. Or maybe just a really cynical misanthrope. I finished Eaters of the Dead a couple of days ago, and now I really regret not sticking with it when I was a kid, because I think I would have gone bananas for it.
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Mar 1, 2024 16:49
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", and you're like, oh yeah, this is from 30-40+ years ago 
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Spinz posted:Reading Shogun again because of the hulu series and I'm having to do it online for free on my phone [I'm poor,] and man do I hate reading a book online. It's literally less pleasurable. https://www.thriftbooks.com/ is kinda the poo poo. Also, Fujiko > Mariko all day. Although, Mariko is pretty rad, too. Just has bad taste in dudes(Buttthorne). That said, it's also pretty great when he goes back to visit his homies and he's just hella grossed out and thinks they're so dirty that he chucks all his clothes and walks home naked.
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Mar 3, 2024 18:33
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Try out the John Douglas books next. Dude who created the FBI criminal profiling system.
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Mar 25, 2024 13:13
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I'm reading this book called Nimitz Class by Patrick Robinson, who is apparently the ghost writer of Lone Survivor. I've had it in my library since I was a teenager, so I know I must have read it, but I don't remember a thing about it. I'm halfway through it, and it SUUUUUUCKS. A lot of, and I mean a LOT, of ARE TROOPS worship, a lot of THOSE DUMB LIBERAL MEDIA FUCKFACES and Manly Men Midwestern Cowboy Rancher Republican poo poo. Like, you know this dude knows exactly what Bush dick tastes like. Plus all the western civilization is the right one and the middle east is a lawless toilet. It's just dumb. I read a few Tom Clancy books when I was a kid, now I'm reluctant to revisit them, even though I've been wanting to reread Red October for a while. I make bad life choices.
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Mar 29, 2024 16:01
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madmatt112 posted:Is Bush dick what you get when two or more bros go a-campin’ in the woods for a few nights? And one of the dicks 'accidentally' shoots someone.
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Mar 29, 2024 16:31
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If you're in to hard scifi, I recommend my very favorite science fiction authors, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds.
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Apr 4, 2024 14:34
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The Long Earth series is more Baxter than Pratchett, I've found.
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Apr 4, 2024 16:18
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Tree Bucket posted:I agree there's not much in the way of plot, but I'd disagree on the characterisation. That's almost the point of the series. Like the opening chapter of Red is from Maya's pov, with a strong focus on interpersonal dynamics, then you get Nadia's pov chapter which includes a page-long list of tools and swiftly dismisses all Maya's angst and politicking as teenage melodrama. Everyone's on the same planet but inhabit very different worlds. I think Reynolds' Revelation Space books would qualify as hard sci fi.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:00
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One thing I prefer in the book vs the movie is that Grant loves kids, because they're so enthusiastic about dinosaurs. I think it makes a lot of sense.
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Apr 9, 2024 17:43
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Not quite South America- Dominican Republic, but check out Junot Diaz.
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Apr 11, 2024 18:50
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