Return of the Book Thread

[Ironwood]

Just finished Cobweb by Stephenson.

It was quite good.

[jakonovski]

I just finished Joe Abercrombie's Blade Itself. I didn't think I liked the genre anymore, but this one flowed like good wine. I think I may rate it above ASOIAF, depending on how things develop in the next books. Must have more.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I just finished Joe Abercrombie's Blade Itself. I didn't think I liked the genre anymore, but this one flowed like good wine. I think I may rate it above ASOIAF, depending on how things develop in the next books. Must have more.

What's it about/What genre is it?

I'm currently reading the Clockwork Century books by Cheri Priest - Boneshaker, Clementine, Dreadnaught (about half-way through), and Ganymede (next up).  I rather like the books.  She's done a good job with the steampunk aspects of it all without going overboard.  The explanations she gives for things make sense in a believable way and her heroines aren't simply looking for love.  In fact, no romance at all, which I do like.  The stories are vaguely interconnected in that she uses or mentions characters from one book in other books, but they aren't really sequels of each other. 

I finished the Bridge Chronicle book before I started reading these.  Me want more.  Write faster, dammit, Haemish! 

[jakonovski]

It's a gritty fantasy novel. It's the author's first book and it kinda shows a little, but the characterization is really awesome and despite it being the first part of a trilogy, there were already some intensely satisfying little payoffs.

[Chimpy]

Hey, Haemish, do you make more cash off Amazon or Smashwords sales? (I just got a Kindle Touch)

[Ard]

I just finished Joe Abercrombie's Blade Itself. I didn't think I liked the genre anymore, but this one flowed like good wine. I think I may rate it above ASOIAF, depending on how things develop in the next books. Must have more.

Now do yourself a favor and forget there are two more books.  The series gets progressively worse until it drives right off a cliff at the end of the third book.  It makes me sad because the first book was actually good.

[Ingmar]

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say it goes off a cliff, but it certainly goes in kind of an odd direction. I don't regret reading the later ones but the first is probably the best.

[dd0029]

Just finished up a good one by John Meaney called Bone Song. It's tough to categorize, but I might go with a gothic, noir urban fantasy. Its one part Blade Runner, one part magical realism and one part noir detective all stirred up. We have guns, planes, cops, ghosts, wolf things and undead peoples. Its not set in a typical urban fantasy earth. Its really atmospheric. I did get a bit tired of the repetitive replacement for exclamations like god dammit. But that's only a minor quible.

[HaemishM]

Hey, Haemish, do you make more cash off Amazon or Smashwords sales? (I just got a Kindle Touch)

Technically, I make more off of Smashwords per book (though it's pennies worth of difference) but I sell so few on Smashwords that it takes forever to make any cash off of them. 98% of my sales are off the Kindle store on Amazon and I make enough they pay me every month, so Amazon is where I'll see the cash faster.

Glad you like them, Rhyssa. I'm slowly writing my way through book 4, and I did just put out a short story collection in the universe called Tales from the Bridge Chronicles - eBook only.

[bhodi]

Next up is the Disappearing Spoon, recommended a few pages back.

Not exactly a book, but I stumbled on this similarly-styled amazing series of articles by an organic chemist, Things I Won't Work With. Don't miss the entry on Dioxygen Difluoride or Chlorine Trifluoride.

[ghost]

I'm going to regret this, I know, but my latest purchased audiobooks are book 1 and 2 of the Wheel of Time series.   

Let's see if I can make it all the way through.   

[Chimpy]

First few books are all pretty solid. The Amish Lesbian Bondage and other various wheel-spinning techniques don't kick in until book 7 or so.

[MahrinSkel]

Next up is the Disappearing Spoon, recommended a few pages back.

Not exactly a book, but I stumbled on this similarly-styled amazing series of articles by an organic chemist, Things I Won't Work With. Don't miss the entry on Dioxygen Difluoride or Chlorine Trifluoride.

Wow.  It's hard to make chemistry funny, but this guy has a gift:

Nitro groups are just the kind of bad company I mean, since they both bring their own oxygens to the party and pull electrons around in delightfully destabilizing ways. So nitrotetrazole is already not something I'd feel good about handling (its metal salts are primary explosives), but today's paper goes a step further and makes an N-oxide out of a nitrogen on a nitrotetrazole ring. This both adds more oxygen and tends to make the crystal packing tighter, which raises the all-important kapow/gram ratio. (There is, of course, little reason to do this unless you feel that life is empty without sudden loud noises). The paper mentions that "Introducing N-oxides onto the tetrazole ring may . . . push the limits of well-explored tetrazole chemistry into a new, unexplored, dimension.", but (of more immediate importance) it may also push pieces of your lab equipment into unexplored parts of the far wall.

--Dave

[ghost]

First few books are all pretty solid. The Amish Lesbian Bondage and other various wheel-spinning techniques don't kick in until book 7 or so.

I've read up to book 5 before.  I just want to see if I can finish the whole damned series. 

[Sky]

Finished Zahn's Outbound Flight, a prequel to his Thrawn trilogy. Pretty decent though the inclusion of Aniken is thankfully token. Going to try a couple mediocre looking books at that point in the timeline. My basic plan right now is to read through the rest of Zahn's SW stuff, but starting the Thrawn dualogy was a bit spotty because he references what happened in the interim.

Fiancee has some money to spend and SW books circ like mad, so we'll probably be buying some more. She won't boycott Kemp despite my petition. And looking through the stacks, even Salvatore crapped one out, heh.

We're in a weird place where our budget is slashed to the bone but we're getting in so many memorials we have to struggle to spend it (the budget line). Looking over our sci-fi/fantasy is basically like looking over this thread :) We even have Haemmy!

[Ironwood]

Outbound flight was waaaaaay too much like Teenage Girl with Crush on Thrawn writing for me.

[Thrawn]

Outbound flight was waaaaaay too much like Teenage Girl with Crush on Thrawn writing for me.

Is it sad that this makes me more interested in reading it?

[Murgos]

Outbound flight was waaaaaay too much like Teenage Girl with Crush on Thrawn writing for me.

Is it sad that this makes me more interested in reading it?

Normally, I would say yes.  However, your avatar...

[Ironwood]

Outbound flight was waaaaaay too much like Teenage Girl with Crush on Thrawn writing for me.

Is it sad that this makes me more interested in reading it?

Seriously, it wasn't that good and I'm a huge Thrawn trilogy fan.  It wanked up a lot of stuff for no reason and the woman who fell for the manly and domineering charms of Thrawn was about five seconds away from slipping into a corset simply so he could tear it off her.  It was Mills and Boon bad at points.

[Thrawn]

the woman who fell for the manly and domineering charms of Thrawn

inclusion of Aniken

Ok, I think you guys convinced me to not worry about it for now. 

[Sky]

He's making more out of the few scenes where she swoons over him than is justified imo. If anything, it's more 'here goes Jorus again, with no Jedi realizing he's gone over to the dark side' (not really a spoiler, there is no redeeming quality to Jorus in Zahn's writing).

I didn't say it was well-written. It's an enjoyable pulp action novel. I don't put much thought into them beyond that. Tangentially, that's why I find the worst of the EU authors (Kemp) so bad. I mean, I can read through Kevin Anderson without retching and Kemp makes me nauseous.

Maybe not enough rape and torture for the Scot (seriously, Donaldson? Pfft).

[dd0029]

Just finished a pretty good one. The Enemy by Charlie Higson is a YA zombie(?), survival horror. This is set in London and, being for the YA market, every adult has contracted something that turns them into something resembling the traditional zombie. There's a lot to like here. While young, the characters do seem to deal with their problems and situations in a reasonably lifelike manner. There's some smattering of the standard YA emo nonsense, but its well contained and springs from reasonable causes. Thankfully, there isn't a lurve triangle of time wasting. These kids are always moving, something is always happening, named kids are always dying. I will say that if violence towards animals is more than you can handle, particularly dogs, steer clear. Otherwise, this was a pretty good opening to what looks like a series.

[Margalis]

Can someone explain to me why YA books have caught on with the general populace?

Not trying to be patronizing, I haven't read any YA books since something from Stephen King's pen name in like 7th grade and I just have no idea what is going on. It seems to me that adults reading YA stuff is a fairly recent thing. Is it something about the subject matter or writing style or what?

[jth]

I can't speak for the general populace, but I occasionally pick up YA novels from familiar authors or based on reviews.

Also, books can be labeled as YA for various different reasons. On one end are cases where the author realises his plot and/or writing wouldn't be taken seriously by adult audience so they label them as YA and hope for the best. On the other end, there are excellent books like this, labeled as YA based on the setting and overall plot, but where "young adults" may not be able to fully grasp all of the darker and deeper themes.

And then there are classics like Astrid Lindgren: Brothers Lionheart which was written for ages 9 and up to help children deal with the concepts of death and loss, but that book really doesn't have any "upper limit" on age and should be read by everyone at least once.

[ghost]

Can someone explain to me why YA books have caught on with the general populace?

Not trying to be patronizing, I haven't read any YA books since something from Stephen King's pen name in like 7th grade and I just have no idea what is going on. It seems to me that adults reading YA stuff is a fairly recent thing. Is it something about the subject matter or writing style or what?

Look, just because you don't like paranormal romance is no reason to be an ass.   

[Ironwood]

Me, I think the whole idea of 'YA' literature is shite anyway.  It's either a good book, or it isn't.  What you're basically saying with the label is that you can market certain types of shit again and again and the weebles will fall for it.

I've always read a wide variety of crap at all ages and stages of my life.  It's odd to me that we even have that label, though I get the theory.

[Kail]

Can someone explain to me why YA books have caught on with the general populace?

Not trying to be patronizing, I haven't read any YA books since something from Stephen King's pen name in like 7th grade and I just have no idea what is going on. It seems to me that adults reading YA stuff is a fairly recent thing. Is it something about the subject matter or writing style or what?

Harry Potter, Twilight, etc. have serious money pushing them.  I think a lot of it is just that perception, that it's okay now for adults to read this stuff both because that's how it's marketed and because everyone else is doing it.

As Ironwood says, I don't know that the difference between YA and adult literature is that adults can't enjoy YA books.  To me, they're like the literary equivalent of the pre-Craig James Bond films: you have somewhat simplified characters and settings and you're moving through a plot that's designed solely to push your emotional buttons.  It's simple and it works for adults as well as it does for children.  For some people, that's all they're looking for, and it's just the thought of having to go into a store and shop in the kiddie section that turned them away before.

[ghost]

When I think of "Young Adult" novels, I think of Judy Blume. 

[RhyssaFireheart]

I always thought the determination for YA was the age(s) of the protagonist(s).  If the main character(s) are teens or a tiny bit older, then it seemed to tilt more towards YA.  Didn't matter what the theme was so much (although they do tend to be a bit lighter in topic than "adult" books), just that it was kids/teens doing the heavy lifting in the story.

I'm currently reading The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes because I realized I never have and I saw an episode of Sherlock (BBC) and was interested.

[HaemishM]

Unfortunately, as soon as I hear a book labeled Young Adult, my mind immediately shuts down. I can't take it seriously. That probably means I'm ignoring a small amount of decent work... I just don't care, though.

[Bzalthek]

Going back a little, I've been listening to much of the extended Star Wars novels.  For the most part I've enjoyed them.  A lot of them were abridged, so that may have been a large reason for that, and the X-wing series was so awful that didn't even help, but the non-YA books other than those were pretty interesting, from the Imperial Remnants, the the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen Solo, and I'm now finishing the Fate of the Jedi series.  It's kept my interest pretty damn well so far. 

Of course I didn't do any of the prequel books because that just seemed silly.

[Sky]

Save Zahn for last, Bz.

[Tmon]

I ran out of stuff to read this weekend while I was in the bay area and ended up buying a book called the Unremembered by Peter Orullian at the airport.  I bought it despite the fact that it was 900+ pages and clearly the first book in a series.  I read the first 100 or so pages on the flight back to Denver and I almost tossed it in the first trash canI saw when I got off the plane.  The story was ok, the usual group of childhood friends/aquaintences some of whom have mysterious origins and the rest are more than they seem collected by a mysterious stranger for a dangerous journey.  The usual powerful legendary magic users appear to threaten them and several near deaths are faced on their way to the far off city where the rulers of the lands have been called to council to face a world threatening evil.  So it was about what I expected, but the way it was presented just didn't work at all well, it also suffered from both stupid names and the curse of calling normal things by tin eared alternative names.  I think the combination of the supper scene where they ordered steer, root and bitter followed by the breakfast scene where they ordered fried pig and root was the final straw.  The only thing that saved it from the trash was the thought that someone would pick it up off paperback book exchange giving me a credit to use to get something worth finishing.

[Bzalthek]

Save Zahn for last, Bz.

Actually, Zahn was the trilogy I started with.

[dd0029]

So, finished up the latest David Weber Honor Harrington book, Rising Thunder. Wtf happened to the exploding spaceships? We had exactly two bits of space ships possibly trying to blow each other up. One finished with a "thrilling" "Tada! We didn't!" and the other happened completely off screen. The rest of the book was the meeting minutes of Snidley Whiplash and Dudley Do-Right topped off with a pretty, pretty princess wedding. Hell, we didn't even get very many gee-whiz spacegun infodumps. Where are my goddamned exploding spaceships?