Author Topic: What are you reading? (Read 630964 times)

stePH · **Reply #2625 on:** March 29, 2016, 11:28:38 PM

I'm your age, Mr. DeRego, and I loved Ready Player One.

I'm probably a much less critical reader than you are, and while I admit the whole story's a huge nerd jerkoff fantasy, I'm basically a huge nerd jerkoff so it's actually quite well-suited to me.

Tango Alpha Delta · **Reply #2626 on:** March 31, 2016, 12:20:54 PM

Quote from: jrderego on March 26, 2016, 04:20:08 PM

I don't know. I'm old now. 46. Died twice so far, once last year. My perspective is all skewed. Get off my lawn you kids!

LOL

I hope you're not making a habit of dying - I remember the first time, and that was bad enough!

And since you make such an elegant case for looking forward, I won't plug my novelized memoir (available now on Amazon, coming later this week to Kindle...) unless you really want me to.

But the next book will be science fiction. (Unless I finish the family history first...)

jrderego · **Reply #2627 on:** April 01, 2016, 12:54:39 AM

Quote from: Tango Alpha Delta on March 31, 2016, 12:20:54 PM

Quote from: jrderego on March 26, 2016, 04:20:08 PM

I don't know. I'm old now. 46. Died twice so far, once last year. My perspective is all skewed. Get off my lawn you kids!

LOL

I hope you're not making a habit of dying - I remember the first time, and that was bad enough!

And since you make such an elegant case for looking forward, I won't plug my novelized memoir (available now on Amazon, coming later this week to Kindle...) unless you really want me to.

But the next book will be science fiction. (Unless I finish the family history first...)

Believe me it was less fun the second time! Exercise Induced Arrhythmia leading to cardiac arrest - Short version: I went into cardiac arrest at the gym while lifting weights.

So, damned if I do, damned if I don't...

Good luck with your memoir! I don't have a life interesting enough to fill a note card. Write what you want! Be awesome with it. Family histories can be fun, I thought We Are the Mulvaneys (Joyce Carol Oates) was pretty good, albeit as upbeat as a funeral, but it was still very readable. I don't have much other experience with that type of storytelling that isn't woven into some sort of science fiction story.

Tango Alpha Delta · **Reply #2628 on:** April 01, 2016, 01:32:49 AM

I think my morbid sense of humor makes the family history more fun for me than it probably was for the cousins I end up writing about.

That, and I love names. My current favorite is probably a lady who was briefly named Willadean Thunder (until she divorced Mr. Thunder). I also have a Thor Day in my tree (son of Glyde... and no, they were not in the petroleum business), and a Leo Homer Callin.

Most of them sound like they'd be at home in a Union Dues story than a genealogy.

jrderego · **Reply #2629 on:** April 01, 2016, 01:41:03 AM

Quote from: Tango Alpha Delta on April 01, 2016, 01:32:49 AM

Most of them sound like they'd be at home in a Union Dues story than a genealogy.

They sure do! LOL!

jrderego · **Reply #2630 on:** May 08, 2016, 06:34:08 AM

Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut

Fenrix · **Reply #2631 on:** May 08, 2016, 01:13:09 PM

Halfway through the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. So far We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a better book, but Hill House is more fun.

stePH · **Reply #2632 on:** May 11, 2016, 11:25:59 PM

Finished a re-read of The Man in the High Castle (P K Dick) yesterday, and started a short story collection by Walter Mosley called Futureland; supposedly the nine stories are all set in the same world, and interconnected. I'm only two stories in but I'm interested to see where it goes; the two so far appear to have no points of connection with each other.

wintermute · **Reply #2633 on:** May 20, 2016, 03:14:59 PM

Just finished Thorn by Inisar Khanani. A really good pseudo-fairytale, which resolves itself in a way I wasn't expecting.

jrderego · **Reply #2634 on:** May 21, 2016, 04:05:06 AM

Quote from: stePH on May 11, 2016, 11:25:59 PM

Finished a re-read of The Man in the High Castle (P K Dick) yesterday, and started a short story collection by Walter Mosley called Futureland; supposedly the nine stories are all set in the same world, and interconnected. I'm only two stories in but I'm interested to see where it goes; the two so far appear to have no points of connection with each other.

I haven't gone back to Man in the High Castle yet. How do you see it with subsequent reads? I enjoyed it last summer. I may read it again this summer but I am worried it will be less enthralling as a second go and me understanding the subtext and all, already. I tried and failed to watch the Amazon Prime series.

stePH · **Reply #2635 on:** May 24, 2016, 06:20:59 PM

TMitHC was still good; it's just... well, it's Dick. What more can I say?
It's more a piece of worldbuilding than it is storytelling, and the ending is typical Dickian WTF, so I have a higher opinion of the series than I do of the book.

Interestingly I misremembered the nature of the book-within-a-book The Grasshopper Lies Heavy which purports to be a novel about a world wherein the Allies won the war. I remembered it being an account of history as it happened in our world, but no - it's another level of alt-history wherein FDR did not continue as President in 1940; a different president not from our history succeeded him; furthermore when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor the loss was minimal as most-or-all of the ships were out on maneuvers. And there was a lot about the post-war reconstruction wherein the USA raised the standard of living for poor people in China - I bookmarked all the pages that described passages of the book, but before I could return to the text and take notes, the library loan expired and the book deleted itself from my devices.

stePH · **Reply #2636 on:** May 24, 2016, 06:23:31 PM

Also I finished the Moseley book (Futureland) and enjoyed the way the stories all tied together, though where they went to was very dark and grim.
I still recommend it; it was an interesting and compelling read. Also apparently Mosley is known for writing mysteries or crime fiction; this was only his second SF work (the first called Blue Light and now I will have to seek it out.)

jrderego · **Reply #2637 on:** May 25, 2016, 01:12:23 AM

Quote from: stePH on May 24, 2016, 06:20:59 PM

TMitHC was still good; it's just... well, it's Dick. What more can I say?
It's more a piece of worldbuilding than it is storytelling, and the ending is typical Dickian WTF, so I have a higher opinion of the series than I do of the book.

Interestingly I misremembered the nature of the book-within-a-book The Grasshopper Lies Heavy which purports to be a novel about a world wherein the Allies won the war. I remembered it being an account of history as it happened in our world, but no - it's another level of alt-history wherein FDR did not continue as President in 1940; a different president not from our history succeeded him; furthermore when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor the loss was minimal as most-or-all of the ships were out on maneuvers. And there was a lot about the post-war reconstruction wherein the USA raised the standard of living for poor people in China - I bookmarked all the pages that described passages of the book, but before I could return to the text and take notes, the library loan expired and the book deleted itself from my devices.

I liked the WTF ending, that (SPOILERS...)

purported that the i-ching was either God or a cross-dimensional force that held at least two parallel universes together, and effectively authored the book, suggesting that in the parallel world where the Axis didn't win their version of The Grasshopper Lies Sleeping was about the world where the Axis won. With the universe operating like a weird infinity symbol.

I had a hard time with the show because it was much less plausible for someone to create newsreel footage than it was to write. I didn't manage to stay involved with it to the end because that was too much of a suspension of disbelief even for me. Cary Tagawa was awesome though.

Still prefer Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and a whole mess of his shorts to TMiTHC, but it's still one of the better thought provoking reads ever. Did you ever read much Vonnegut? I would recommend Mother Night as a companion piece to TMiTHC
.

jrderego · **Reply #2638 on:** June 07, 2016, 02:19:14 AM

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. Unbelievably good.

Not-a-Robot · **Reply #2639 on:** June 07, 2016, 07:39:44 AM

Quote from: jrderego on June 07, 2016, 02:19:14 AM

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. Unbelievably good.

That's his first novel right? I have read 4 novels (Mr. Rosewater, Cat's Cradle, Slaugherhous and Breakfast) and 2 books of short stories, but never Player Piano. I'll have to check it out.

I just finished 11/22/63. It was okay. King can be long-winded. My personal opinion is that it would have been much better if it were 400 pages thinner. Also, I'm getting tired of time travelers killing people. If you can time travel there are better ways... But no book is without flaws and as King books go, I'd put it in the better half.

lowky · **Reply #2640 on:** June 07, 2016, 09:41:41 PM

Joe Hill's The Fireman

wintermute · **Reply #2641 on:** June 09, 2016, 07:28:24 PM

I've finally gotten around to Tina Connolly's Ironskin. Very good so far, well worth the money.

jrderego · **Reply #2642 on:** June 11, 2016, 03:26:25 AM

Quote from: Not-a-Robot on June 07, 2016, 07:39:44 AM

Quote from: jrderego on June 07, 2016, 02:19:14 AM
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. Unbelievably good.

That's his first novel right? I have read 4 novels (Mr. Rosewater, Cat's Cradle, Slaugherhous and Breakfast) and 2 books of short stories, but never Player Piano. I'll have to check it out.

I just finished 11/22/63. It was okay. King can be long-winded. My personal opinion is that it would have been much better if it were 400 pages thinner. Also, I'm getting tired of time travelers killing people. If you can time travel there are better ways... But no book is without flaws and as King books go, I'd put it in the better half.

I don't think its his first. I think he already had a name when Player Piano came out. That one was released in 63. So maybe he wrote it first but it was published later. At any rate it's was fantastic. I liked it almost as much as Mother Night and more than Slaughterhouse 5. Rosewater is such a strangely non science fiction book that I have a hard time recalling the main plot though I read it 15 or so years ago. I guess I should pick it up again sometime.

lowky · **Reply #2643 on:** June 11, 2016, 03:15:35 PM

Just started book two in the Passage Trilogy. Just finished The Fireman. Highly recommend the Fireman if you like a smidge of Science in your horror/Apocalyptic fiction.

jrderego · **Reply #2644 on:** June 27, 2016, 04:24:35 AM

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

lowky · **Reply #2645 on:** July 01, 2016, 11:49:48 PM

Just finished reading the second book in Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy. Currently reading the first Pern book.

wintermute · **Reply #2646 on:** July 02, 2016, 12:34:17 AM

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. I'm not far in yet, but it's pretty good so far.

Not-a-Robot · **Reply #2647 on:** July 09, 2016, 06:32:53 AM

On Writing by Stephen King. I don't know about the writing advice, but prosewise, it's probably one of King's best books.

Also, he keeps it short

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lowky · **Reply #2648 on:** July 22, 2016, 09:29:20 PM

Just finished the third book in Megg, Jensens's Dragonlands series

jrderego · **Reply #2649 on:** August 06, 2016, 01:00:05 AM

Robert Jordan - The Eye of the World