What books are you reading now?

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Fri Sep 13, 2013 6:02 am

Snowcrash is indeed awesome. It just keeps getting more out there.

One thing I'm currently reading is McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and while it has some wonderfully evocative sentences, I can't help but wish he cleaved a little more closely to standard punctuation. Sometimes his insane run-ons really do help establish the otherworldly bleakness of his old west, or shine light on wanton savagery, but they can be occasionally annoying to parse.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Sep 13, 2013 7:00 pm

I came to "Snowcrash" after reading "Cryptonomicon" & "The Diamond Age" and it really showed how Stephenson grew as an author. "Snowcrash" was great only because it didn't take itself too seriously. The parts where it did take itself seriously were boring.

I also finished Gene Wolfe's "An Evil guest" which is a blend of pulp fiction and some light dashes of Lovecraft. It was decent. I'm reading "Soldier in the mist" right now and I like it a lot.

Maybe I"ll go back and read the Severian books again at some point.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Sep 21, 2013 10:42 pm

Robert Silverberg's Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another was pretty fun. I read it in an anthology of short stories.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Sep 22, 2013 2:18 pm

A History of New Sweden

Corsair114 · Post by **Corsair114** » Sun Sep 22, 2013 10:13 pm

Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Sep 24, 2013 12:39 am

http://self.gutenberg.org/eBooks/WPLBN0 ... __Shi.aspx

I haven't read any other Water Margin translations, but this one is free to download and it's much more engaging than I expected. Obviously not an originally english story, but I've read through the first couple chapters and the humor and nuance seems to mostly work.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:05 am

Finally finished reading "The Company Man" by Robert Jackson Bennet.

I misplaced the book for a month or so and just didn't get into it. It's set in a pulpy 1920s scifi world. A dirty Tomorrow's city kind of setting. A good mix of hardboiled detective fiction, union and company dealings, and guest appearances by alien ships.

The ending was pretty interesting in that it didn't really end with a big finish. He started ramping it up in the last 100ish pages as though it would be a big finish but it was very much an ending in which the people realize that the end result is going to hopeless so why not at least try to make it better.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Oct 11, 2013 12:20 am

Worm

Bullied teenage girl in a gritty semi-realistic superhero verse gains to power to control bugs. She wants to become a superhero, accidentally becomes a supervillain instead.

Surprisingly good for a web serial, though very long. Excessively detailed but very dramatic fight scenes. Huge ensemble cast of well-realized characters. Plenty of not-grimderp moral ambiguity.

http://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 5:05 am

Thanks to being a friend and loyal customer of bookstore owners, I got an ARC of the Serpent of Venice, the next Christopher Moore book. Just finished it.

Review below.

Not as good as Fool, which this is a sequel to (and mashes together the Merchant of Venice and Othello, whereas Fool was pretty much King Lear), but Iago makes for a pragmatic and effective villain for a good while. He's smart, and whereas his co-conspirators worry about frivolous shit, like not already having the money for a dowry, he's all "Sell whatever land and houses you have, sell your treasures, call in your debtors. Put money in thy purse."

And repeats it multiple times to a lovesick young man who can't pay the dowry. Gives a short speech to the tune of, "Passion has its place, but you can't let it rule your reason. Use your reason to reach your passion. You don't have money, but you can get money. Put money in thy purse."

That said, it bounces around a lot and isn't as coherent as Fool was. I mean, Pocket spends of a lot of time just -biding- his time, and about half the book is third-person narration of other characters.

I do like how there's a chorus, who is actually in-story as a guy wearing a mask who shows up. And the characters wonder who the hell that nutter in the mask is, telling things that have already happened. At one point, they shut him out of a house.

But yeah, not as good as Fool.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:16 am

Burnt through Divergent, which was a suprisingly compelling read...a couple of thoughts about why it wasn't actually good:

1. It's probably not even possible to write a more blatently "lets cash in on the success or Hunger Games" tween dystopian knockoff series. The author seems to be honestly earnest, so I guess it's the editors/publishers who realized the marketing potential and pushed thise

2. First book of the last dozen books I read where there was not one single word I needed to look up in the entire book.

3. Math is hard. The number of trainees in the annual induction classes does not come close to jibing with the sort of society presented. Seriously, an annual set of 19 recruits, half of whom wash out into a faction where nobody lives to be old means that the entire Dauntless faction is probably about 250 people. My high school class was bigger than that.

Concise Locket · Post by **Concise Locket** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:12 pm

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. This is the first novel of his that I've read and as a sci-fi genre fan I'm surprised I hadn't picked up his work earlier.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:14 am

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EWZCTD0/

New Laundry Files novella, and it's quite good as far as I've read.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 2:17 am

I love Alastair Reynolds, although I wouldn't put Chasm City at the top of my favorite books by him. Glad to know you're enjoying it! The rest of the Revelation Space books are excellent, as is Terminal World. Pushing Ice, Century Rain, and Blue Remembered Earth are just pretty good.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 4:10 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EWZCTD0/

New Laundry Files novella, and it's quite good as far as I've read.

I made it all the way through, and this is excellent. Stross did a pretty great job with the H.P. Lovecraft letters, I have to say.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 9:26 am

No he didn't, but it was an enjoyable novella.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:10 pm

I am reading 6 Gun Tarot, which is actually really good.
It's Mythic Wild West (as opposed to steampunk), and it's pretty freaking cool.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:26 pm

If you like that, you might check out the Mekebah Rider series ("The Mensch With No Name") - Lovecraftian weird western.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:54 am

Finally finished Outlaws of the Marsh earlier this year. It actually helps explain some of WW2. It also really sounds like it was bowdlerized after the fact: both the bit where Liu Bu is a cannibal and the bits where Song Jiang is exhorted to be loyal to the emperor sound different from the rest of the book, even in translation.

I've been reading through Brust's Taltos series recently, and I really like it. I like how each book has its own narrative device, and how those don't interfere with the rest of the book. I like how the books are out of chronological order (and I suggest reading them in publication order). I really, really like how subtly Brust works in and examines his politics (which I disagree with, but many of you do not), and how light his touch is when doing so. I like how real and how distinct all his characters are. As a disclaimer though, this:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/06/14
is literally about Brust.

I also read the first six books of the Black Company relatively recently. If you try to read as a morality test case, it gets deep. I have no idea if that's intentional. Otherwise, it's very well done grimdark: think of a world built around DnD, where the main characters are all clever and competent fighters, but there are fully optimized wizards running about.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 3:32 am

I find the Taltos novels really dip in the middle (Teckla, Phoenix and Athyra particularly), and the later ones, while still enjoyable reads, suffer from an aimlessness of purpose, except when they're in full-on flashback mode. The series works really well with the Vlad as the Outsider, narrating on the society he lives and 'works' in. When he is away from that structure, the books suffer pretty heavily (as does he, since he doesn't function well at all with a support structure, which is amusing as hell when he has to admit it to other people)

As a caveat to the end of the penny arcade thing, their ignorance is showing again. The only Dragaerans that really applies to are the house of the Dragon, and possibly only in the sense that various Marvel superheroes are related to animals (well, the lab experiment kind, not mutants). The other sixteen houses aren't related to dragons in any way at all. They're called Dragaerans because the name of the world is Dragaera.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 9:28 am

Yeah, Brust took a dive with his divorce. [/edit]And his friend getting hit by the mob.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:59 am

I don't normally poke at the lives of authors (singers and whatever), but

I did wonder about the divorce being a real life issue crossing over, because it came the fuck out of nowhere. The hit would also explain why the series went so far off the original intent as well.

erik · Post by **erik** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 3:12 am

Voss wrote:As a caveat to the end of the penny arcade thing, their ignorance is showing again. The only Dragaerans that really applies to are the house of the Dragon, and possibly only in the sense that various Marvel superheroes are related to animals (well, the lab experiment kind, not mutants). The other sixteen houses aren't related to dragons in any way at all. They're called Dragaerans because the name of the world is Dragaera.

At the risk of being foiled by undetected sarcasm... Not one thing that Gabe or Tycho says is wrong. That comic was 1000% on the mark, and that is an authentic exchange I can envision between two people who both read the books. If anything they didn't go as deeply as they could have in that dragons are everywhere...

They're called Dragaerans because the name of the world is Dragaera

The whole fucking planet!

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:09 am

erik wrote:
Voss wrote:As a caveat to the end of the penny arcade thing, their ignorance is showing again. The only Dragaerans that really applies to are the house of the Dragon, and possibly only in the sense that various Marvel superheroes are related to animals (well, the lab experiment kind, not mutants). The other sixteen houses aren't related to dragons in any way at all. They're called Dragaerans because the name of the world is Dragaera.
At the risk of being foiled by undetected sarcasm... Not one thing that Gabe or Tycho says is wrong. That comic was 1000% on the mark, and that is an authentic exchange I can envision between two people who both read the books. If anything they didn't go as deeply as they could have in that dragons are everywhere...

Uh, no. "the fact that every person in this book is some kind of Dragon" is entirely wrong. It is not even 1% on the mark. Roughly 1/16th* of the population (not including Easterners) has a bit of dragon DNA (and they actually have a discussion about cellular makeup and genetics). Lyorns (the animal) are a type of dog, Hawks are hawks, the other various fantasy animals are various fantasy animals, and their DNA is in the other Houses, not dragons. Except

Jhereg

which is also explained. All of which matters for many characters in the book in question, which includes both Cawti and Teldra, both of whom are 100% not dragon.

Human is used for both Dragareans and Easterners for a reason. Dragon-people isn't, because they aren't.

*actually, this number is a lot weirder, since the number of the House of the Phoenix is possibly (but not likely) 1, and the number of the House of the Teckla is likely a hell of a lot larger than any of the noble houses, which includes the Dragon.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:25 am

Counterpoint:

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 1:17 pm

Voss, I am going to ignoreaeran your points, because they are dumb and miss the larger point.