What books are you reading now?

[erik]

Recently read Apocalypse Codex, and just now finished Fuller Memorandum.

Still enjoying the ole Laundry series as one of two ongoing series that I'm still following (other being Dresden Files). It was a pleasant surprise when I learned that two Laundry books had been published without my awareness.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Yeah, it's one of my favorite series as well. Stross does a lot of excellent stories. I just read a fascinating piece of short fiction set after Saturn's Children.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... t-rot.html

[fectin]

Reread The Way of Kings, because the second book is coming out soon.
Sanderson is one prolific dude.

[Maj]

I'm reading a fiction book! It's The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith JK Rowling. I'm really enjoying it.

[PoliteNewb]

Just finished Gene Wolfe's anthology "Endangered Species". Like all of Wolfe's writing, much of it is profoundly weird. Some stories seemed to read like they were chunks of a larger work (and 3-4 short stories seemed to be connected to each other, but were still presented as separate works?).

But there is some real gold there. Stories like "Kevin Malone", "The HORARs of War", and "The Other Dead Man" are well-written and subtly creepy. I like the way a lot of his work is ambiguous, as to what actually happened.

And then you just have his crazy-ass stories, like "Peritonitis".

[Bihlbo]

I recently read John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" series, specifically: Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe's Tale. The first book was good enough to keep with the series. If you like stories of really sexy septuagenarians having orgies, cool believable future tech, lots of violent action, awesome aliens flippantly slaughtered because they have loot we want, and the damn government being as crappy as you expect them to be, then give it a shot. The books read pretty fast and the series probably won't challenge you much, but I was looking for bus reading material and it's perfect for that. I haven't yet read the 5th book, The Human Division.

An interesting break from the series is Zoe's Tale. It is the exact same story as told in The Last Colony, but told from the perspective of a teenage girl. Whereas the other three books are full of naughty language, themes, and scenes that a parent might not want a teenager to read, Zoe's Tale is a young adult novel and probably would very much appeal to a girl. Though the plot is essentially the same as The Last Colony, Zoe being in that book but barely mentioned means that most of the things that are told about in Zoe's Tale are new and different. As a result, it offered a totally new experience and I found it to be a quite enjoyable book. The only book in the series with any angst or tear-jerking moments, and maybe the only one to treat aliens like people.

I came to Scalzi because I was trying to find other authors like Heinlein, specifically authors who think like him. Unfortunately most of the recommendations I can find are for authors who wrote books like Starship Troopers, which is not at all what I care about. However, Scalzi's OMW series does have some similarities to ST and it was good, so I'm not pissed about the connection, but I'm still looking.

Anyway, this came about because I'd read Stranger in a Strange Land. I'm probably the only one reading this who didn't read it in high school, but I'll weigh in anyway. Considering the slow pace of the book it was surprisingly exciting. Basically the opposite story of Superman, if Supes up and went back to Krypton to show them our inferior ways. What nagged me throughout was I couldn't tell is if Heinlein's point of speculation was "What if humans have innate psychic abilities that no one uses until being trained by a human who grew up on Mars?" or if it was "What if a human grew up on Mars and trained other humans to use the innate psychic abilities that we most assuredly have?" The first speculation makes it a great book, the second makes me question the sanity of everything Heinlein wrote. As an aside, this was by far the most anti-Christ book I've ever read, and needlessly so. If Heinlein were to visit many of the Christian churches today, here in America, he could go on at great length spouting his vitriol about mystics and power-hungry clergy and the horrors of religion and even sex, and get applause. The leap to his assumptions about God is not only illogical, but also shows Heinlein's ignorance of the subject on which he devotes so much of the book.

And the most recent book I read was "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories", a collection of short stories by Gene Wolfe. Some of these were downright wonderful. I'd heard much about The Fifth Head of Cerberus, so my reading of it may have suffered some from too-high hopes, but it wasn't my favorite story by Wolfe. A while back I finished the Soldier series ("Soldier of" the Mist/Arete/Sidon) and they were simply amazing. His novels as told by a series of journal entries by the protagonist are best read as though the people and their journals actually existed and Gene were merely the translator. He tries to employ that idea, but most people will take that as a part of the fiction instead of the most important buy-in you could make in the whole book.

[PoliteNewb]

And the most recent book I read was "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories", a collection of short stories by Gene Wolfe. Some of these were downright wonderful. I'd heard much about The Fifth Head of Cerberus, so my reading of it may have suffered some from too-high hopes, but it wasn't my favorite story by Wolfe. A while back I finished the Soldier series ("Soldier of" the Mist/Arete/Sidon) and they were simply amazing.

Thanks for the tip, I will have to try and locate that Wolfe anthology; I haven't heard of "The Fifth Head of Cerberus".

I have to agree that his Latro books are incredible, probably his best work that I've read (much more accessible than the New Sun books, and Latro is a much more sympathetic protagonist than Severian).

[Bihlbo]

I have to agree that his Latro books are incredible, probably his best work that I've read (much more accessible than the New Sun books, and Latro is a much more sympathetic protagonist than Severian).

Yes, though I rather liked that Severian was a bit of a tool and certainly didn't deserve his place in history. While I sympathized with and looked up to Latro, I identified more with Severian. I don't think I realized how much so until I understood more about his relationship with Dorcas (not the situation they found themselves in, but in his treatment of her and how little she deserved such a fate).

An interesting aside: I can tell people about events in BotNS and the strangeness distances us from it enough that things seem merely creepy. Some events in the Soldier books, particularly the events that happen to the boy and girl who travel with him, are utterly disturbing because they could happen anywhere at any time.

Edit to add:

I haven't heard of "The Fifth Head of Cerberus".

Wolfe's first short story, and the thing that launched his career. It is to Wolfe what Ender's Game was to OSC. Also, notable from the story's wikipedia article:

Literary significance and criticism
Gardner Dozois has said that the original story was the best novella of the 1970s.

Awards and nominations
Story: nominated for the 1972 Nebula Award for best novella
Story: nominated for the 1973 Hugo Award for best novella
Story: nominated (3rd) for the 1973 Locus Award for best novella
Story: nominated for the 1999 Locus All-Time Poll for best novella

[sabs]

I'm currently reading Hemlock Grove and it's really quite good.

[PoliteNewb]

Yes, though I rather liked that Severian was a bit of a tool and certainly didn't deserve his place in history. While I sympathized with and looked up to Latro, I identified more with Severian.

Unlikeable protagonists are a risky move on the author's part. I feel Wolfe pulled it off pretty well.

Latro is a great example of a tragic hero who isn't emo, because he doesn't (isn't really able to, most of the time) dwell upon the tragedy of his condition. He mostly lives in the moment, and enjoys life as best he can. This highlights those few moments when he does reference his problem, often unselfconsciously. For instance, my favorite quote from Soldier of Sidon:

"We sank lower, into the earth, down to the shadow lands, where I drank from Death's river to forget a life I cannot remember."

An interesting aside: I can tell people about events in BotNS and the strangeness distances us from it enough that things seem merely creepy. Some events in the Soldier books, particularly the events that happen to the boy and girl who travel with him, are utterly disturbing because they could happen anywhere at any time.

Oh, absolutely. And the way in which Latro is unable to really reference those events and their long-term repercussions makes it all the more disturbing.

Wolfe is really good at the unreliable narrator, and Latro kind of epitomizes that...a narrator who isn't reliable even to himself.

[Shatner]

I recently read John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" series, specifically: Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe's Tale. The first book was good enough to keep with the series. If you like stories of really sexy septuagenarians having orgies, cool believable future tech, lots of violent action, awesome aliens flippantly slaughtered because they have loot we want, and the damn government being as crappy as you expect them to be, then give it a shot. The books read pretty fast and the series probably won't challenge you much, but I was looking for bus reading material and it's perfect for that. I haven't yet read the 5th book, The Human Division.

An interesting break from the series is Zoe's Tale. It is the exact same story as told in The Last Colony, but told from the perspective of a teenage girl. Whereas the other three books are full of naughty language, themes, and scenes that a parent might not want a teenager to read, Zoe's Tale is a young adult novel and probably would very much appeal to a girl. Though the plot is essentially the same as The Last Colony, Zoe being in that book but barely mentioned means that most of the things that are told about in Zoe's Tale are new and different. As a result, it offered a totally new experience and I found it to be a quite enjoyable book. The only book in the series with any angst or tear-jerking moments, and maybe the only one to treat aliens like people.

The Old Man's War books are truly excellent and hit a beautful balance of hard and soft Sci-Fi, action, comedy, and drama. Scalzi is an excellent writer, with good sense of timing, comedic or otherwise, and good economy of story telling. Scalzi's Red Shirts is also an really fun read and is for Star Trek what Shaun of the Dead was for Romero zombie movies. I have read the Human Division and it does everything right. With The Last Colony/Zoe's Tale, big stuff happened with far-reaching consequences. The Human Division carries all that forward very well, especially since it has to do so with an almost entirely new cast of characters (and bless Scalzi for being willing to kill off and/or retire characters when the time comes).



I'm reading the Temeraire Series at the moment and it's interesting. The core premise is "The Napoleonic War but with Dragons". That sounds stupid, but it's actually carried forward with both the sincerity and intelligence alternative/speculative history like that would require. The story plays that out where early 19th century Europe is duking it out against Napoleon with a combined arms force of infantry, artillery, cavalry, navy and a Flintstones-tech air force (that is, a high tech concept handled by having some sentient animal alleviate the need for the tech instead).

However, there are all sorts of issues that I kept thinking of while I was reading the first book. You have a second sentient species on the planet... how does society deal with that? Isn't compelling another sentient species into servitude and selective breeding pretty scary and eugenics-y? If people with animal husbandry can field an air force of 20 ton monsters, wouldn't that drastically alter the flow of history?

And amazingly, the author addresses these issues over the subsequent books! The friend who loaned me the first book told me that the author, Naomi Novik, was really well known in the fanfic and slashfic community before she went on to write the Temeriere series... that did not make me enthusiastic. And while the relationship between the titular dragon and his rider is chalk full of HoYay, the world building in this series is top-notch and the story is pretty good. I'd certainly recommend it for folks who like alternate history or enjoy seeing a single fantastic idea taken all the way to its logical conclusion.

[Doom]

Just finished Gene Wolfe's anthology "Endangered Species". Like all of Wolfe's writing, much of it is profoundly weird. Some stories seemed to read like they were chunks of a larger work (and 3-4 short stories seemed to be connected to each other, but were still presented as separate works?).

But there is some real gold there. Stories like "Kevin Malone", "The HORARs of War", and "The Other Dead Man" are well-written and subtly creepy. I like the way a lot of his work is ambiguous, as to what actually happened.

And then you just have his crazy-ass stories, like "Peritonitis".

Gene Wolfe is awesome...they'll be studying that guy's works centuries from now.

I just finished Dances with Dragons. Watching the HBO series definitely flavors reading the book. As much as it's a drag when Martin snuffs another character, I find myself wishing he would snuff another half dozen or so, so that the story could move along. This is turning into another Jordan debacle, though still better right now.

[Cynic]

I actually disagree with the whole Jordan comparison. It's long but the story has stayed fresh for me. Jordan ruined that experience after two books.

[PoliteNewb]

I actually disagree with the whole Jordan comparison. It's long but the story has stayed fresh for me. Jordan ruined that experience after two books.

I think he was specifically referring to the whole "getting buried under the weight of all the characters" bit...which if we're honest, Martin is in the early stages of. That said, I don't expect him to go Full Retard Jordan.

I actually enjoyed Jordan right up through book 6-7.

[Morat]

The writing is certainly higher quality than Jordan ever was, but the metastatis of POV characters and the ever lengthening plot threads that don't go anywhere is really starting to give Wheel of Time a run for its money. You really could have set most of Dance on fire and lost nothing.

Put it this way, it was going to be a trilogy, but after book one, there were still three books left to go. Now, four books later, there are two books left to go. At that rate of progress, the series will finish with book thirteen. Assuming the time between books doesn't lengthen (unlike past experience), that's, what, 2060 or so?

Even if Martin's prediction about the series length is accurate for once (and he's been hedging about maybe needing an eighth), and he keeps up the pace even with all the side projects he keeps starting, it'll be done in 2025. If anything continues to go wrong, well...

[sabs]

I still don't get why people like Wheel of Time and Song of Fire and Ice.
They're both just not that enjoyable to read.

[PoliteNewb]

I still don't get why people like Wheel of Time and Song of Fire and Ice.
They're both just not that enjoyable to read.

Y'know, this is kind of a far-out concept, but I believe I have read research that indicates that different people enjoy different things. Crazy, right?

For my own part...I enjoyed the settings of both Jordan and Martin's worlds; both are very detail oriented, albeit sometimes to excess (Martin tends to drone on about food, while Jordan did about clothes); Wheel of Time had a moderately interesting magic system; many of the characters are colorful and enjoyable to read about (for both series)...Martin in particular has a King-esque knack for writing minor characters that feel deeper than they are.

Jordan rapidly lost tension due to heavy character shields and revolving-door villain deaths, but Martin for a while was actually able to build some tension due to his propensity for killing whoever whenever he felt like it. That, along with the biased POVs and ambiguous morality of heroes and villains alike makes me enjoy his work. I do think he's getting weaker as he goes along, but I have hopes he can turn it around.

That's my best attempt; often, attempting to explain why you like something to someone who doesn't is a waste of time, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

[Bihlbo]

I still don't get why people like Wheel of Time and Song of Fire and Ice.
They're both just not that enjoyable to read.

[Reasons]... often, attempting to explain why you like something to someone who doesn't is a waste of time, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

Sabs, you should waste your time too. I'd like to know what you prefer to these two. Generally giving an alternative to something you think is no fun helps people understand where you're coming from and helps avoid you getting a good talking to.

[Emerald]

Jordan rapidly lost tension due to heavy character shields and revolving-door villain deaths

I'd say yes on the plot shields, no on the revolving-door deaths; there are enough other faults to his writing that we don't need to complain about that one. I mean, the entire conceit of the series is that time goes in cycles and everyone reincarnates in different guises over and over again, so it really shouldn't be a surprise that killing any of the Forsaken early on wouldn't put them down permanently.

Having the resurrected villains adapt to their new bodies and capabilities, the heroes try to figure out which character was which Forsaken, etc. made for some good character development and intrigue, and the repeated villain reincarnation nicely set the stage for Rand's character development from "I'm too cautious and scared to rely on dangerous weaves, I'm too much of a Nice Guy to harm women, blah blah blah" to

balefire-ing an entire palace to remove one Forsaken, regardless of the collateral damage to innocent bystanders or the Pattern

over the course of the series.

[sabs]

I'm trying to figure out what I like in Sword and Sorcery fantasy. I liked Wheel of Time for the first 2-3 books. But then I just got tired of most of his characters. When you skip entire chapters, because you're tired of watching him write about a girl pulling on her tresses in frustration, it's time to stop reading. The Wheel of Time books would have been vastly improved if all of the female characters had died a horrible death all in the same chapter somewhere around book 4.


I love Jim Butcher, Stephen Brust, Heinlein. I used to love Feist, but really I kept reading more out of investment, than actually liking the stories after a while. I'm reading a bunch of new stuff, but nothing really /epic/. I seem to be tired of Epic Fantasy.

[MisterDee]

I've got tastes similar to sabs.

I used to be a huge fan of fantasy novels, and I've read a lot of would-be epic fantasies. Most of them fail because at it's heart, epic fantasy is about the characters and their adventures, and not about the setting. Sure, the setting's important to give a sense of scale, but the second it starts to overshadow the characters, the second the story starts feeling less epic.

I think that Jordan and Feist had the same insidious problem: at some point, they started overthinking their work, and it shows. The first three books of the WoT are all about showing us this awesome world at a breakneck pace, a bit like the first Riftwar saga. The characters have depth, but we don't waste time in long internal monologues (and in fact, the weakest parts of the early WoT are when Rand has time to brood.)

And then they go into "look at my awesome cosmology and all the deep political currents and all the inner thoughts of the heroes" and it stop feeling epic and fun. The story slows and get bogged down in minutiae, and the characters suddenly feel less likable as their minor flaws get magnified for added pathos.

We go from Mat sneaking out of Tar Valon after getting cured to Faile bitching about Berelain. We go from Arutha faking his death to go after Murmandamus to Rupert Avery trying to cheat on his wife.

Sure, the story starts to be about bigger armies, perhaps the stakes are higher... but we don't care about the characters anymore.

It's the same thing for SoIaF - it's interesting to see references to all those characters and plots and counterplots at first, as it paints an interesting picture... but then we go into details about each and everyone of them, and most of them are just petty feuds and shitty people doing shitty things, and it becomes a snorefest.

[Cynic]

So I picked up "Redshirts" by John Scalzi. Its a funny enough read. I like that it does metafiction by making fun of itself rather than being full of itself.
--

Speaking of good epic fantasy or high fantasy, I'd actually go for Guy Gavriel Kay's "The Fionavar Tapestry."

[fectin]

@Sabs: try Zelazney then.

Anyway, this came about because I'd read Stranger in a Strange Land...

Heinlein had a certain similarity to a lot of his characters, but other than that he has much more breadth than a lot of people give him credit for. Sure, Stranger makes a strong case for a specific point of view, but he apparently considered it as part of a trio with Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which make cases for radically different points of view. That's before you even look at something like Waldo or whatever his story about Coventry was called.

About the only consistent threads I see across all his books are an emphasis on competent men/women (which may just have been a comfortable literary device), a rejection of moralism purely for its own sake, and a sort of cynicism towards the wisdom of crowds. Everything else changes.

Overall, Stranger was one of my least favorites of his. I'd suggest picking up Starship Troopers or The Man Who Sold The Moon for a contrast (pick up Requiem as well if you find the second). For a rebuttal to Starship Troopers, you can read Bill, The Galactic Hero, because Harrison was incensed enough to write a whole book just to show Heinlein how wrong he was.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I checked A Red Sun Also Rises out from the library not too long ago. Really interesting setting, nice central conflict, but no likeable or memorable characters.

[Meikle641]

Finally got a copy of Snowcrash today. This book is fucking awesome. The pizza delivery portion was great, in so many ways. I suspect the book will continue to be awesome.