Author Topic: What are you reading?  (Read 845460 times)

izzardfan

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Reply #975 on: June 01, 2009, 11:14:39 PM
Bought Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things . . .: That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, ... So Maybe You Could Help Us Out recently due to a recommendation on Neil Gaiman's blog, expressly for an otherwise out-of-print story in it called Grimble, by Clement Freud.  It's a good story so far, and I'd love to see it done on PC, though since I haven't finished it yet, that opinion might not last.  It would be amazing to have Neil Gaiman read it, but that's highly unlikely.  Wilson Fowlie as a reader would also fit this nicely.

I was going to try to re-read "Angels and Demons" before seeing the movie, but I don't think I'll have time to read the print version.  When I purchased the DVD of The Davinci Code, it came with a CD of the mp3 files of the audio version of A&D, and I loaded it on my iPod, but (1) the narrator reads... so... slowly... that... I... can... hardly... stand... it, and (2) his voice is incredibly irritating and flat, so I gave up.

And it's been so long since I was reading Sue Grafton's "N is for Noose" (I was almost halfway through it) that I'll have to start over from the beginning...  again.  Maybe I'll try to find it on Booksfree.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2009, 07:39:08 AM by Russell Nash »



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Reply #976 on: June 02, 2009, 12:16:55 PM
Jules Verne, "Five Weeks in a Balloon"

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Reply #977 on: June 04, 2009, 11:54:38 PM
Just finished the Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb.  Pretty good fantasy stuff, reads a bit like George RR Martin light - it follows one family switching POV between the members, and gradually increasing the cast as the trilogy goes on.  All sorts of bad things happen, but not to the extreme extent that Martin's series does.  There is very limited magic, almost all tied into the strange Wizardwood they make living ships out of (as well as some minor charms), and the mystery of the dragons - which have all vanished long ago.  No wizards shooting fireballs here, and no elves. 

Mostly I enjoyed it because it's nautically based and that's a fun genre, especially when crossed with fantasy.  And the story is very gripping, it defiantly kept me captive all the way to the end.



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Reply #978 on: June 07, 2009, 10:10:18 PM
I've put down Friedman's Greenwich Killing Time and Jesse Ventura's Do I Stand Alone?, temporarily, for a timely re-read of Cornelius Ryan's D-Day chronicle The Longest Day which I began yesterday, on the anniversary of the event in question.

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Reply #979 on: June 08, 2009, 01:45:32 PM
I'm about three-quarters of the way through John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar.  It's trying to do an awful lot and isn't 100% successful at everything, but I'm stunned and gobsmacked at the sheer scope of the book and how much it manages to pull off well.  And even though it hasn't been prophetic (fortunately), it's aged remarkably well since 1968.

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Reply #980 on: June 10, 2009, 03:17:34 PM
I didn't want to drag the entire Jules Verne omnibus on the plane to Florida, so I paused in "Five Weeks in a Balloon" to read "The Feather Men" by Sir Ranulph Fiennes. It's apparently a true story. Kind of scary in a way. (Spy novel.)

I find that the heroes of Verne and Wells, to some extent, are irrepressible in their environments -- there is danger, but nothing truly bad ever really happens. Perhaps that's because all the recent Verne and Wells I've read was first done as serial fiction. I have read other works by them, but that was almost 20 years ago.

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Sandikal

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Reply #981 on: June 11, 2009, 12:12:01 AM
I'm juggling three books right now.  I'm reading "Diamond Star" by Catherine Asaro, "The Steel Remains" by Richard K. Morgan, and "The Accidental Time Machine" by Joe Haldeman.



Russell Nash

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Reply #982 on: June 11, 2009, 08:48:15 AM
I haven't been spending much time reading recently.  I'm just getting to bed too late to read before I go to sleep.

Since my last post, I've read In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. by Jean Shepard.  It's a collection of shorts that was pillaged to make the movie A Christmas Story.  If you liked the movie, read the book.

I'm in the middle of David Eddings' Belgarath The Sorcerer.  It's a funny prequel to the Belgariad series.



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Reply #983 on: July 11, 2009, 01:05:11 AM
Is anybody reading anything at all?????

I'm working on 4 books right now:

"Eve of Darkness" by S.J. Day
"Curse of the Mistwraith" by Janny Wurtz
"Dying Inside" by Robert Silverberg
"Cordelia's Honor" by Lois McMaster Bujold



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Reply #984 on: July 11, 2009, 03:57:17 AM
About to finish up Brandon Sanderson's 'Mistborn.'

Inspired purely by everyone's commentary when it was announced he'd be completing WOT.

Now I get it. he clearly has an apt voice for epic fantasy. this book is sooo addictive.




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Reply #985 on: July 11, 2009, 03:41:39 PM
"Mistborn" is an excellent book.  I've read the first two in the series and have the final one in my nightstand drawer.  I really like that he's done a real trilogy, not a gazillon-volume neverending series. 



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Reply #986 on: July 11, 2009, 04:53:08 PM
"The Castle of Otranto" by Walpole (to be followed by VATHEK and THE EPISODES OF VATHEK by Beckford, as I always felt deficient in the classic gothic novel area)

story submissions

then probably some Shirley Jackson short fiction



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Reply #987 on: July 12, 2009, 02:11:41 AM
Outside the SF genre, I just finished White Teeth by Zadie Smith.  She was 25 when it was published, and it will probably take me 25 years of writing every day before I can write as well as her.  That said, there were some bits that started to get on my nerves, such as the running gag where liberal-minded, tolerant Anglo-Saxons blurt out offensive things without quite realizing it.

Back in the SF genre, Nancy Kress's Maximum Light is sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me.  I've read a whole bunch of Kress's short stories but this is my first novel. 

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Reply #988 on: July 12, 2009, 03:33:13 AM
I just started reading Harry Turtledove's How Few Remain.

I've been going through a depression lately, so maybe this was not the right book to pick up. It's sobering to ponder alternate histories, and realize just how fragile the continuum of history can be. One random event, and everything changes. And not for the better.

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Reply #989 on: July 12, 2009, 03:43:42 AM
I devoured How Few Remain in a short time when I read it.  The only problem with it is that it made me want to read the nine or so further novels Turtledove set in the same timeline, and I'm not sure when I'll find the time.  Plus I hear rumors of a steep drop in quality after the first book.

"The meteor formed a crater, vampires crawling out of the crater." -  The Lyttle Lytton contest


Zathras

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Reply #990 on: July 12, 2009, 05:36:32 AM
I'm reading the label on a 40oz Budweiser



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Reply #991 on: July 12, 2009, 06:14:47 AM
I'm reading the label on a 40oz Budweiser
zing!

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


Talia

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Reply #992 on: July 12, 2009, 06:17:30 AM
Reading 'Causing a Scene' by the 'Improv Everywhere' people.

Brilliant. A must read for any with prankster impulses, or who just enjoys reading on friendly chaos.

I would marry any of these geniuses.



izzardfan

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Reply #993 on: July 12, 2009, 08:38:58 AM
Acquired the audio version of Storm Front (Dresden #1) and bought it at B&N too, by accident.  Returned it today and picked up Fool Moon (#2) and Grave Peril (#3), as well as donating Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett to a teen foster child through B&N.

Almost through with Storm Front audio.  Loved the reader's voice so much, and how it matched the material and reminded me so much of the (now cancelled) TV series that even though I have the print version of Fool Moon, I bought the audio of it on Audible.com.  I got a monthly subscription, and I'll probably buy one a month of the Dresden series as long as they have them.  That said, I have (as quoted above) two pristeen, brand new paperback copies of Fool Moon and Grave Peril.  I can't return them, even with the receipt  I'm willing to trade with someone who wants them and has something I want to read.  Before I list what I'm looking for, is anyone interested in either of these two books?


Mod: We have a Book Trade Thread.  It has been dormant for a long time, but maybe we should revive it.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2009, 09:42:09 AM by Russell Nash »



Zathras

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Reply #994 on: July 15, 2009, 04:52:40 AM
Finished Cherryh's Well of Shiuan.  It was not as good as the first book, Gate of Ivrel.

I had an issue with the plot early on, but it turned out to be heavy handed foreshadowing. 

I'm not sure what I'll move on to next.


PoppyDragon, did you pick up an audio copy of Stranger in a Strange Land?



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Reply #995 on: July 15, 2009, 03:48:31 PM
Finished:

Jules Verne: "From the Earth to the Moon", "Around the Moon"
Michael Chabon: "Wonder Boys"
Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald: "The Price of the Stars"

Now reading:

Jules Verne: "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" -- surprisingly boring
Doyle/Macdonald: "Starpilot's Grave"

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Reply #996 on: July 19, 2009, 03:25:14 AM
I just finished China Mieville's 'The City and the City,' the first of his I've read. Wow, excellent! I loved it.



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Reply #997 on: July 19, 2009, 05:43:12 AM
I'm reading the label on a 40oz Budweiser

Better than drinking the contents, I'm sure.

And my current book is The World According to Garp by John Irving, which I'm finding is almost -- but not quite -- entirely unlike the Robin Williams movie of the same name.  It's also much much better, and if I'd had any inkling that this was so, I'd have read it a long time ago.

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izzardfan

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Reply #998 on: July 20, 2009, 05:38:05 AM
And my current book is The World According to Garp by John Irving, which I'm finding is almost -- but not quite -- entirely unlike the Robin Williams movie of the same name.  It's also much much better, and if I'd had any inkling that this was so, I'd have read it a long time ago.

Oh, hell, yes!  It's so much better than that crap movie, and I adore Robin Williams.  I read it in the early '80s, and it's one of only a few books I am willing to read more than once.  It's quirky, but that's the magic of it.  To me, it's the non-sci-fi equivalent of Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, if that makes sense.



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Reply #999 on: July 20, 2009, 04:53:19 PM
I just finished China Mieville's 'The City and the City,' the first of his I've read. Wow, excellent! I loved it.

This is on my "next time I have a few dollars" list. Did you read the story of how he wrote it? IIRC, he had a book due with his publisher, and he delivered on time, and the VERY NEXT DAY he hands them this -- apparently wrote the two books at the same time. I love his stuff, though Iron Council wasn't one of my favorites.

"Farts are a hug you can smell." -Wil Wheaton

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