Author Topic: What are you reading?  (Read 845697 times)

Listener

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Reply #275 on: January 15, 2008, 01:35:15 PM
Finished Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons".  Very vivid, depressing for the last third or so, and I didn't think the ending really wrapped anything up well.

Finished "Forged in Fire" by Michael Martin and Andy Mangels.  It's a Star Trek novel, which may not be your cup of tea, but it was up to the AM/MM standard -- which is to say, very good -- even though I kept wondering when we'd switch from 2290 to 2295 and finally deal with the bad guy.  The ending was a little too open to suit my taste, but the bulk of the book was very good -- incorporated a LOT of characters we know from TOS, the films, TNG, and DS9, and finally explained how Sulu took command of Excelsior between ST3 and ST6.  Also dealt further with the transition of Klingons from ridged-to-smooth, then smooth-to-ridged -- a little too much science, IMO, but I can handle it.  A good entry into the ST universe.

I think, since I'm watching "Stardust" right now (well, not RIGHT NOW, but when I'm exercising in the mornings), I'm going to go through the basement and find the novel so I can read it again.  I remember not really liking it the first time around, but maybe I'll like it better the second try.

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Reply #276 on: January 15, 2008, 02:08:38 PM
I think, since I'm watching "Stardust" right now (well, not RIGHT NOW, but when I'm exercising in the mornings), I'm going to go through the basement and find the novel so I can read it again.  I remember not really liking it the first time around, but maybe I'll like it better the second try.

Do try to find the comic-book-sized version that's credited to "Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess".  I lucked into a copy at a used book store a couple of years ago and have since tossed my mass market copy.

Reading: between books at the moment.  Just finished C.J. Cherryh's Faery in Shadow which was a chore that I got through by telling myself that every page turned brought me one closer to the end.  I love Cherryh's science fiction -- Cyteen is my favorite book by any author -- and I liked the story "Brothers" which Faery builds on, but this one just didn't do it for me.

On deck: The Great Adventure of the Dirty Pair by Haruka Takachiho, which I've been wanting to read ever since I first heard it's been translated by Dark Horse.  I'm a fan of the anime and of Adam Warren's graphic novels.

Also currently ripping a library copy of Horizon Storms "The Saga of Seven Suns" book 3, by Kevin J. Anderson, to listen to on my iPod.  Not sure if I really like this one or not but the story is interesting enough to listen to during my downtime at work.

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Reply #277 on: January 15, 2008, 03:16:02 PM
... am just starting Hal Duncan's Vellum.

I just finished Vellum last week.  I'd be interested in hearing your analysis of it when you are done.  I think it's a book that lends itself to discussion.

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Listener

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Reply #278 on: January 15, 2008, 03:37:05 PM
... am just starting Hal Duncan's Vellum.

I just finished Vellum last week.  I'd be interested in hearing your analysis of it when you are done.  I think it's a book that lends itself to discussion.

I started a thread on this book after I read it a few months ago, in case you're interested:
http://forum.escapeartists.info/index.php?topic=861.0


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Anarkey

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Reply #279 on: January 15, 2008, 04:54:53 PM
I started a thread on this book after I read it a few months ago, in case you're interested:
http://forum.escapeartists.info/index.php?topic=861.0

Thanks, Listener, I'll check it.  And maybe Czhorat will join us when he's done.

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Reply #280 on: January 15, 2008, 05:30:24 PM
I haven't got involved in this thread... The time has come.

The thing about me as a reader, is a plough through books and forget them almost instantly...  I don't really know what I have read recently, but here's some little bits that stuck in my mind:

I read The People Trap (and other stories) by Robert Sheckley.  It was terrific...  A new angle on SF I hadn't met before.

I recently finished The Best Of Cyril Kornbluth... Which was just brilliant (particularly The Black Bag and The Marching Morons, which is so obviously the source for the movie Idiocracy) but nothing out of the ordinary.

I am struggling with Hard Revolution by George Pelikanos... It's very good noire, but I just cant hook myself into it.

Next time something SF wows me, I will put it on this list.



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Reply #281 on: January 15, 2008, 06:45:15 PM
Next time something SF wows me, I will put it on this list.

Simon, this list isn't limited to SF.  In fact I think non-SF reading needs to be included.  SF is such a broad category and I think seeing what kind of non-SF reading you do helps show what angles you approach SF from.

 Ex:
I would be far more interested in reading the SF choosen by someone who reads noir mysteries than someone who reads Harlequin romances.  But that's just me.



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Reply #282 on: January 15, 2008, 07:41:21 PM
I read alot. like, 3 novels a week at least. Today I'm reading Postsingular by rudy rucker and the second dresden files book. yesterday I finished The Lies of Locke Lamora, and for a first novel, that book was unbelievably good. I would hate to be Scott Lynch because he set his bar way high right out of the gate :P



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Reply #283 on: January 15, 2008, 09:35:47 PM
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the best book ever... well... for me its about tied with Hitchhiker's Guide...
anyways... its AMAZING and EVERYONE should read it :P
it spoke to me.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


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Reply #284 on: January 15, 2008, 09:58:33 PM
Listening to an audiobook of Lethem's You Don't Love Me Yet, just finished Gavin Grant and Kelly Link's best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet collection and am just starting Hal Duncan's Vellum. I'm finding the Lethem as compelling as he always is despite the awkwardness of running into a big sex scene while I was listening at work. It's odd hearing that kind of thing in your ear while you're around other people doing their jobs and you're trying to focus on doing yours.

Usually, I love Lethem, but that one left me cold.  Still, he might write the best dialogue I've ever read. 


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Reply #285 on: January 16, 2008, 03:41:37 AM
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the best book ever... well... for me its about tied with Hitchhiker's Guide...
anyways... its AMAZING and EVERYONE should read it :P
it spoke to me.
Wow. That book gave me such a headache. When he started talking math, I started glazing over. I read it 8 years ago and didn't understand it, but liked it anyway.

Have you read Slaughterhouse 5? You might like it.

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Reply #286 on: January 16, 2008, 06:44:51 AM
im curently reading tricks of the podcasting masters mur laferty. talon reverent mikle stakpole and grillin for life bobby flay.

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Reply #287 on: January 17, 2008, 02:22:56 PM
Speaking of noir, there's a pretty interesting series of noir anthologies set in various cities and/or boroughs of NYC.. I just finished reading one of them, 'Bronx Noir' ( a search on amazon turns up other titles in the series), and it was pretty darn good. Really captured a lot of the feel of the city/region it was based in.

I recently finished Richard K. Morgan's 'Thirteen,' which was really excellent (although to warn, contains both graphic sex and violence.. more of the latter than the former). Imaginative and more than a bit creepy. I would also HIGHLY highly recommend his Takahashi Kovacs trilogy, which starts with 'Altered Carbon.' Fast paced, imaginative and terribly fun. I pulled an all nighter to finish the sequel, 'Broken Angels,' and I think the Borders card I got for xmas is going towards the purchase of the third.



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Reply #288 on: January 17, 2008, 05:05:04 PM
I finally finished The Tin Drum. And I have to say, not much of a payoff at the end. You spend the whole book waiting for the punch line, and then it's just... It was characteristic, but not really illuminating. I don't know. Obviously some people liked it because it won a Nobel Prize. And it wasn't bad, it was just... Maybe I'm not German or Polish enough to "get it." What are the judging criteria for these big literary prizes, anyway? (Internet, I choose you!)

Now I'm catching up on four months of Popular Science. I'll most likely read The Ethical Slut next.

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Listener

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Reply #289 on: January 17, 2008, 10:09:11 PM
Rereading "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman.  No particular reason why.

I am finding that Gaiman's writing is extremely tight; there are very few wasted words.  After spending so much time NOT reading him, it amazes me to compare AG with some of the Star Trek books I read recently and see how much better AG is.

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Reply #290 on: January 17, 2008, 10:40:29 PM
If you haven't read Gaiman's "Anansi Boys", I'd recommend it strongly.  Neil said he wanted to point out to some folks that he could write humor, even without Terry Pratchett.  He succeeds marvelously.



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Reply #291 on: January 18, 2008, 01:26:14 AM
If you haven't read Gaiman's "Anansi Boys", I'd recommend it strongly.  Neil said he wanted to point out to some folks that he could write humor, even without Terry Pratchett.  He succeeds marvelously.

He does... and it's a story that has some depth, too.  It certainly had some staying power in my head.  It inspired me to take a stab at a story along those lines a few months after I read it: The Tiger in the Airport (not my best, but I'm still laboring to get away from semi-autobiographical snapshots).


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Reply #292 on: January 19, 2008, 05:34:49 PM
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the best book ever... well... for me its about tied with Hitchhiker's Guide...
anyways... its AMAZING and EVERYONE should read it :P
it spoke to me.
Wow. That book gave me such a headache. When he started talking math, I started glazing over. I read it 8 years ago and didn't understand it, but liked it anyway.

Have you read Slaughterhouse 5? You might like it.
oh yea ive read it, great book too!

there is one chapter where Pirsig is talking about hierarchies and dividing them up, and that gets extremely confusing, but once you get past that part (its not that important to the book as a whole) it gets (i think) easier to swallow.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Tango Alpha Delta

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Reply #293 on: January 20, 2008, 05:37:10 PM
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the best book ever... well... for me its about tied with Hitchhiker's Guide...
anyways... its AMAZING and EVERYONE should read it :P
it spoke to me.
Wow. That book gave me such a headache. When he started talking math, I started glazing over. I read it 8 years ago and didn't understand it, but liked it anyway.

Have you read Slaughterhouse 5? You might like it.

Bdoomed... have you attempted Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter?  I'm curious whether ZAMM is more or less difficult to get through.  I've had a copy of GEB for 17 years, and have never gotten all the way through it, but whenever I do pick it up, I learn something profoundly interesting.

Slaughterhouse 5 is brilliant, too, but I don't always recommend it to Vonnegut first-timers.  I'm partial to Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions.  The latter was made into a movie starring Bruce Willis not to long ago, by the way.  Can anyone tell my how horribly they mangled it, or will I have to wait until my "driving past a traffic accident" reflex takes over and I rent it?  (I gave in and rented Simon Birch because I loved Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany so much, and I nearly required stiches and a course of antibiotics to recover from the horribleness.)

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Reply #294 on: January 20, 2008, 07:03:55 PM
Quote from: Tango Alpha Delta
(I gave in and rented Simon Birch because I loved Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany so much, and I nearly required stiches and a course of antibiotics to recover from the horribleness.)
I've studiously avoided the movie because the book changed my life.

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Reply #295 on: January 20, 2008, 07:45:31 PM
Slaughterhouse 5 is brilliant, too, but I don't always recommend it to Vonnegut first-timers.  I'm partial to Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions.  The latter was made into a movie starring Bruce Willis not to long ago, by the way.  Can anyone tell my how horribly they mangled it, or will I have to wait until my "driving past a traffic accident" reflex takes over and I rent it?  (I gave in and rented Simon Birch because I loved Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany so much, and I nearly required stiches and a course of antibiotics to recover from the horribleness.)

I never saw BOC, some friends of mine who are also into Vonnegut saw it and said it was terrible.  I have meant to rent it but haven't of yet.  I'll bump it forward on the ol' NetFlix queue.  Has anyone seen the movie adaptation of "Mother Night" with Nick Nolte?  I thought that was pretty good.  The screenplay was written by Robert Weide, the guy who wrote a bunch of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes.  If I remember right, Weide was pretty close to Vonnegut and Kurt gave the movie a positive review.

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Reply #296 on: January 20, 2008, 11:07:37 PM
Quote from: DDog
(I gave in and rented Simon Birch because I loved Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany so much, and I nearly required stiches and a course of antibiotics to recover from the horribleness.)
I've studiously avoided the movie because the book changed my life.
You were wise.  Normally, I can handle seriously unfaithful adaptations if they stand on their own merits, but this... it was worse than the time we visited a KFC in England.  ("No biscuits?  Fair enough, since your clientele wouldn't know what to do with them... No 'extra crispy'?  Okay, I guess that's too fancy... No mashed potatoes?  WTF?  Then what is the pint of gravy FOR?")  The screenplay eviscerated everything I loved about the book, and sucked all of the meaning out of the few events that survived.

Has anyone seen the movie adaptation of "Mother Night" with Nick Nolte?  I thought that was pretty good.  The screenplay was written by Robert Weide, the guy who wrote a bunch of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes.  If I remember right, Weide was pretty close to Vonnegut and Kurt gave the movie a positive review.

I couldn't remember how I felt about that one, so didn't mention it.  I think it was a favorable impression, but I wasn't overwhelmed (obviously).

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Reply #297 on: January 22, 2008, 03:20:02 AM
Am I the only person on this board who reads cooking maules?

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Reply #298 on: January 22, 2008, 01:28:45 PM
I'm currently reading The World Without Us by Alan Weissman.  It's a pretty good book so far.  It's the story of what would happen if all humans suddenly disappeared.  I'm only through the first few chapters, but his description of how houses collapse over 50 years was pretty interesting.  Essentially everything will go back to nature over time.  I'm looking forward to the chapter about nuclear power plants.

I'm also re-reading On Combat by Dave Grossman.  It's about what happens to the human body and mind during combat (what Grossman calls the "Universal Human Phobia").  There is a pretty long rant about how video games are "murder simulators", with which I couldn't disagree more, but overall it's a good book.  The section on distortions during combat (auditory exclusion, tunnel vision, compressed time, etc) was fascinating.  If you want to better understand what a soldier, police officer, or anyone who has been in combat was thinking/feeling this book is a must read.

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Listener

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Reply #299 on: January 22, 2008, 02:12:16 PM
Just finished a reread of Gaiman's "American Gods".  There's a hell of a lot of peeing in that book.

Now reading the quasisequel, "Anansi Boys" (same author).  I realize that by Anansi saying something, it becomes true, at least in the minds of humans, but Gaiman saying "Fat Charlie" every time he refers to Charles Nancy gets a little annoying.  Still, an enjoyable book so far.  About halfway through.  This is my second reading.

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