What are you reading?

[MacArthurBug]

Hannibal, Monster (It's got a yeti!), The Greenman, and a cookbook on Bento lunches since apparently my daughter wants us to learn how to make them.

[Zorag]

Been reading a PKD short story collection.  And poker books.

[stePH]

A "Flaming Carrot" anthology borrowed from a friend at work.  Apparently the third collection, titled Flaming Carrot's Greatest Hits.

[CryptoMe]

Finished Ringworld over the holidays. I must say, I was not impressed. I had forgotten how much of a chauvinist Larry Niven was. But that aside, the characters and the story were unspectacular. Left me feeling unmoved.

Now I am working through the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. Very fluffy space opera stuff, but I am enjoying it. It's just fun.

[stePH]

Finished Ringworld over the holidays. I must say, I was not impressed. I had forgotten how much of a chauvinist Larry Niven was. But that aside, the characters and the story were unspectacular. Left me feeling unmoved.

Well, it is a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama: protagonists explore alien artifact, learn nothing, and go home.  But I liked Ringworld much better (hated did not like Rama at all).

[Listener]

"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson. So far I'm about 100 pages in (out of a bit more than 300, I believe) and the MC still hasn't met the girl or really started trying to solve the mystery. However, it's enlightening to read stories written by authors of nationalities that I don't normally read (Larsson is Swedish) because the telling of the tale is very different.

It's not SF or Fantasy.

[CryptoMe]

Finished Ringworld over the holidays. I must say, I was not impressed. I had forgotten how much of a chauvinist Larry Niven was. But that aside, the characters and the story were unspectacular. Left me feeling unmoved.

Well, it is a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama: protagonists explore alien artifact, learn nothing, and go home.  But I liked Ringworld much better (hated did not like Rama at all).

Perfectly summarized, stePH!!
I've never read Rendezvous with Rama. Now I know not to bother. Thanks

[stePH]

About to crack the cover on C.J. Cherryh's Hestia, which has sat unread on my shelf for years, and which friends at Shejidan say bears more than a passing resemblance to the story told in James Cameron's Avatar.

[Listener]

"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson. So far I'm about 100 pages in (out of a bit more than 300, I believe) and the MC still hasn't met the girl or really started trying to solve the mystery. However, it's enlightening to read stories written by authors of nationalities that I don't normally read (Larsson is Swedish) because the telling of the tale is very different.

It's not SF or Fantasy.

Can I just say I picked this up last night for my nightly chapter-or-two and ended up reading for two hours? The middle really starts to get interesting, if you can handle one or two chunks o' exposition.

[stePH]

Finished Hestia this morning (only the most superficial of plot similarities to Avatar.)

And this afternoon my copy of Returning My Sister's Face arrived!  I read "Daughter of Botu" about a half hour ago.

[Alasdair5000]

Just over halfway through Generation A by Douglas Coupland.  It's set in a gentle apocalypse where the bees have died out and the resulting damage to the environment has caused a slow collapse in the economy and society.

Then five people, in five different locations, are stung.

It's really interesting, told with the same combination of humor and clinical distance that Coupland always brings to his work.  No idea whether or not the ending's going to work but so far, it's a lot of fun.

[Zorag]

I'm looking for some good Post Apocalyptic/Zombie fiction.  More along the lines of J.R. Derego's Pleasant Hollow than gorefests.

[Listener]

Melissa Scott, "Burning Bright". Interesting so far, though I fail to see how the whole political angle is going to be brought together and the whole cat-beings-as-stand-ins-for-Oriental-races is a little annoying. Still, the book is from the... 90s, right? When that happened a lot?

I get the feeling that a lot of 90s SF authors workshopped each other's books. I'm seeing names in this that I've seen in other forms in other SF novels -- Ransome, Mizza Lyffin (Mizady Lyftingil), Vere/Verre, etc.

[Bdoomed]

Started reading Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium.
So good.
I technically have to finish the book in 2 hours for my Internet Literature class, but seeing as how I recently picked up the class and even MORE recently got the syllabus and even MORE recently questioned the professor, I will not be finishing it in 2 hours.  However I'm a little under halfway through (not a long book) and it is SOOOOO GOOOD!!!  I can't wait for today's discussion.

[gelee]

Ah. School daze.
I have just given up on slogging through the audio book of Sanderson's Mistborn. About twelve hours into a twenty-four hour listen. Really, it's just not written very well. Shallow characters, thinly built settng, and clunky wooden dialogue. Disapointing, given the wonderful premise. 
Sigh. I was just in the mood for a more traditional sort of fantasy. So much for December's Audible download.

[Sandikal]

Ah. School daze.
I have just given up on slogging through the audio book of Sanderson's Mistborn. About twelve hours into a twenty-four hour listen. Really, it's just not written very well. Shallow characters, thinly built settng, and clunky wooden dialogue. Disapointing, given the wonderful premise. 
Sigh. I was just in the mood for a more traditional sort of fantasy. So much for December's Audible download.

I thought Mistborn was a wonderful series.  I wonder if the problem you have with it is that you were listening rather than reading.  I just listened to "Warbreaker" and I could tell that it would have been completely different if I had read it myself rather than having it read to me. 

[Talia]

Ah. School daze.
I have just given up on slogging through the audio book of Sanderson's Mistborn. About twelve hours into a twenty-four hour listen. Really, it's just not written very well. Shallow characters, thinly built settng, and clunky wooden dialogue. Disapointing, given the wonderful premise. 
Sigh. I was just in the mood for a more traditional sort of fantasy. So much for December's Audible download.

Er, yeah. I couldn't disagree more. Now, I haven't tried LISTENING to it, but I read the entire trilogy in a single weekend, and found them both excellently penned and absolutely enthralling.

I'm gonna agree with Sandikal that maybe the audio was the problem; try again with the text version.

[gelee]

Ah. School daze.
I have just given up on slogging through the audio book of Sanderson's Mistborn. About twelve hours into a twenty-four hour listen. Really, it's just not written very well. Shallow characters, thinly built settng, and clunky wooden dialogue. Disapointing, given the wonderful premise. 
Sigh. I was just in the mood for a more traditional sort of fantasy. So much for December's Audible download.

Er, yeah. I couldn't disagree more. Now, I haven't tried LISTENING to it, but I read the entire trilogy in a single weekend, and found them both excellently penned and absolutely enthralling.

I'm gonna agree with Sandikal that maybe the audio was the problem; try again with the text version.

Yeah, I suppose it could be the format.  Still, a lot of the characters seem to be straight out of central casting.  The magic system is one of the most intriguing I've seen, but the Final Empire has to be the most poorly managed organization I've seen since Starwars.  Sanderson also makes use of terms that kind of jolt me, like "suburbs" or "suits". 
Maybe I'll give it another shot in print, but the audio book is definately not doing it for me.

[DKT]

Sanderson also makes use of terms that kind of jolt me, like "suburbs" or "suits". 
Maybe I'll give it another shot in print, but the audio book is definately not doing it for me.

I haven't read this (although Sandikal has encouraged me to do so in this thread) but I can totally see that pulling you out of the story. It would be pretty jarring for me, too, maybe like Keannu Reeves saying Most Excellent in a period piece or Shakespearean play.

Still curious to check it out myself (in print)!

[Talia]

Ah. School daze.
I have just given up on slogging through the audio book of Sanderson's Mistborn. About twelve hours into a twenty-four hour listen. Really, it's just not written very well. Shallow characters, thinly built settng, and clunky wooden dialogue. Disapointing, given the wonderful premise. 
Sigh. I was just in the mood for a more traditional sort of fantasy. So much for December's Audible download.

Er, yeah. I couldn't disagree more. Now, I haven't tried LISTENING to it, but I read the entire trilogy in a single weekend, and found them both excellently penned and absolutely enthralling.

I'm gonna agree with Sandikal that maybe the audio was the problem; try again with the text version.

Yeah, I suppose it could be the format.  Still, a lot of the characters seem to be straight out of central casting.  The magic system is one of the most intriguing I've seen, but the Final Empire has to be the most poorly managed organization I've seen since Starwars.  Sanderson also makes use of terms that kind of jolt me, like "suburbs" or "suits". 
Maybe I'll give it another shot in print, but the audio book is definately not doing it for me.

Its worth another shot. There's a lot to love. Sanderson does some fun stuff with moral ambiguity, has some genuinely creepy as HELL bad guys, a totally fascinating and really original magic system and an interesting and seemingly ill-fated world. But yes, the characters may be a little bit stock... I think I fell in love with his world building more than anything.

[Sandikal]

Sanderson also makes use of terms that kind of jolt me, like "suburbs" or "suits". 
Maybe I'll give it another shot in print, but the audio book is definately not doing it for me.

I haven't read this (although Sandikal has encouraged me to do so in this thread) but I can totally see that pulling you out of the story. It would be pretty jarring for me, too, maybe like Keannu Reeves saying Most Excellent in a period piece or Shakespearean play.

Still curious to check it out myself (in print)!

I have to say that the most annoying thing about the audiobook of "Warbreaker" was that the narrator voiced the character Lightsong EXACTLY LIKE Keanu Reeves in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure".   It took a lot of work to get around that.

My second audio book, "The Bone Doll's Twin" was so well done, I immediately downloaded the next book in the trilogy.  Great story and I can't wait to hear what happens next.

[gelee]

Its worth another shot. There's a lot to love. Sanderson does some fun stuff with moral ambiguity, has some genuinely creepy as HELL bad guys, a totally fascinating and really original magic system and an interesting and seemingly ill-fated world. But yes, the characters may be a little bit stock... I think I fell in love with his world building more than anything.

The Inquisitors are very creepy.  The Empire itself is sort of a head scratcher.  The Skah sure have a lot of freedom to just be wandering around in the streets.  The nobles are evil with a small "e".  Petty and cruel, but lazy and stupid.  The Lord Emperor seems pretty hands off, and, so far, hasn't done anything particularly evil, or even very oppresive.  How did this bunch manage to keep an entire caste under their heel for a thousand years?
But I'm kvetching.  To be fair, I'll keep going.  I've heard this one ends well, so there may be a big payoff to come.

[Talia]

Sanderson also makes use of terms that kind of jolt me, like "suburbs" or "suits". 
Maybe I'll give it another shot in print, but the audio book is definately not doing it for me.

I haven't read this (although Sandikal has encouraged me to do so in this thread) but I can totally see that pulling you out of the story. It would be pretty jarring for me, too, maybe like Keannu Reeves saying Most Excellent in a period piece or Shakespearean play.

Still curious to check it out myself (in print)!

I have to say that the most annoying thing about the audiobook of "Warbreaker" was that the narrator voiced the character Lightsong EXACTLY LIKE Keanu Reeves in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure".   It took a lot of work to get around that.

My second audio book, "The Bone Doll's Twin" was so well done, I immediately downloaded the next book in the trilogy.  Great story and I can't wait to hear what happens next.

Ooh, Lynn Flewelling! Yes, fun series. Try her "luck in the shadows" series too (they start off wobbly but quickly get BETTER.. its a pretty clear chart of her continuing to improve as a writer!).

[Sandikal]

Talia, I will be checking out more of Lynn Flewelling's work.  I'm very impressed.  Sadly, I don't think I've ever run across her books in the book stores.

[Talia]

Bigger chain stores carry them.. Borders etc. Smaller stores possibly not as she's not one of the better known names.