Return of the Book Thread

[Abagadro]

For those who enjoyed Startship Troopers and the like, may want to check out Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  Just came out in paperback so this may be old news to some, but it's a quick fun read in the same genre as ST and some Deitz's books.  Not nearly as deep as ST but still I liked it.

Amazon keeps recommending that to me.  Thanks for the heads up.

[Johny Cee]

Read Guy Gavarial Kay's latest Ysabel.  Great writing,  only a moderately interesting story.

Reread Brust's Dzur,  which is much better the second time around.  If anything,  Brust puts too much of the deeper character interactions in the subtext so that you have to really work to get to the meat of the story. 

About halfway through Scar Night,  which is mediocre.  Another author who's aping alot of what Mieville does, while completely missing why Mieville is so well thought of.

Some good releases coming up.  Couple weeks for new Cook,  and March sees the rerelease of Cook's Passage to Arms.  Erikson's latest in May.  A new Scott Lynch book in June.

Oh...  and Harry Potter preorder season has started.

I know there are a few folks that read Bujold (reread Shards of Honor the other day...) and blundered across some interesting info on her latest The Sharing Knife:

I kind of caught the idea from a cursory read of the jacket that it was more angled towards romance then her usual...  Had that confirmed the other day.  It's almost a straight-up romance novel in fantasy dressing.  I really enjoy most of her books,  great subtle commentary in some of them,  but I'm going to give the romance novel a pass.

[Flood]

Ehh just different writing styles.  Less gritty, more sci-fi-y.  I'd say not as good as Armor - but just a shade under, but that's just my personal opinion based on the whole "feel" of a book after you've read them.  It's still a must read though if you're looking for ST genre books.

[Rasix]

Finished Jhereg, the first Taltos book.  Didn't think much of it. Don't know what it is, but it failed to grab me at all. Vlad just seems so generic.  Reading it was like rooting for paper to beat rock.  I just didn't care.

Maybe I'll try it the other 2 books in the omnibus sometime.  Afterall, it took me 300-400 pages to get hooked on Martin.

Back to Erikson.

[Johny Cee]

The plot isn't really important at all in Vlad books.  It's actually about the subtle character interactions,  and Vlad's character development.  If Brust has a problem,  he takes too much after Wolfe and Zelazny in understatement.

New Glen Cook is available now, bout half way through it.

I think it's great, but....  lots of detail, without any hand holding.  New levels of amorality,  especially considering how thinly veiled the religious/ethnic sects are (Deves = Jews, Chaldeans = Christians, Brothen Church = Roman Catholocism, Pramans = Muslims),  not to mention the setting is the Mediterrean. 

[Lt.Dan]

I just started Ultimate X-Men Vol 2 which is (another) re-write of X-Men history meets my pulp reading and childhood flashback needs.

I'm also reading "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth.  This is a truly fantastic book and I'm loving every page.  I'm only up to page 100 or so, but it's really hard to put it down.

On the shelf I've got the Mallorean books by Eddings (more pulp), an Alistair Reynolds (Ice something), Punk: The whole story (which is chock-a-block full of UK and US punk history and awesome photos), and lastly 1001 Movies to See Before You Die (to use as a shopping list for DVDs :))

[Sky]

I didn't get into Vlad after 3 books. It was decent, but very vanilla and a lot of things seemed very unrealistic. Character motivations especially, I never really believed anyone was acting realistically, it felt very contrived.

[murdoc]

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. About 1/3 of the way through this book and am absolutely loving it.  I'll be trying to get my hands on everything Gaiman after this book, including the Sandman stuff.

[Samwise]

American Gods was good, but I liked the sequel (Anansi Boys) better.  And "Neverwhere" is just flat out awesomeSPLENDID.  (Better than the original miniseries was IMO.)

And yes, Sandman is superb, as is the Books of Magic (Gaiman wrote the original graphic novel, not the comic series that came after it.)

[Xilren's Twin]

Just finished reading Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber and enjoyed it.  The premise is smashup of several idea, but basically, humanity used to be a star faring race that got wiped out by an aggressive alien species save for one last ditch colony effort.  Basically, to ensure that colony's survival, they decided to got low tech to prevent the sorts of emissions that the aliens had been detecting, so, they established the colony with a memory implanted colonists and found a preindustrial society based around a church that forbade technological advance as the work or the devil.  Some of the original leaders disagreed with the overall plan to keep humanity permanently in the dark ages, so some 400+ years after its' founding, an android carrying the imprinted mind of a space naval officer become active with the goal to breaking the Church's control of the world.  basically, she has to play the role of Satan, introducing the evils of technological progress., and she adopts the name Merlin...
Story focuses a lot of wet navy action and political scheming; I enjoyed it.

[Johny Cee]

Some interesting news I got surprised by today:

It appears Roc/Penguin are reissuing the older "Garrett, PI" books by Glen Cook.  The first,  Sweet Silver Blues, should be in bookstores now.

It's pulp noir, set in a fantasy city.  Very, very good. 

Why should you read it?  It's really the progeniture of all modern supernatural detective fiction that's pretty popular now.  Butcher's Dresden Files is most directly influenced by it,  but most other authors in the genre owe some debt to Cook's Garrett.

Other than that,  been reading Feist's Riftwar stuff and a heap of post-moderny scifi/fantasy.  Vandemeer's City of Saints and Madmen, Duncan's Ink, Dhalgren, etc.

Rereading some of Stackpole's Dragoncrown stuff.

[Johny Cee]

If you've been following Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series,  here's an interesting link.  Previews of the first 3 chapters of his new book, White Night:  http://www.jim-butcher.com/books/dresden/9/fullpreview.php

[Lt.Dan]

As I said above, I bought the Mallorean series by David Eddings.  I have to say that this is *the* worst writing I've ever read.  The characters are differentiated by each other purely by minor quirks or interests (fishing, knives, trading, poison, drinking, cooking, grubby, etc) and the story basically consists of a series of snap-shot encounters where one character's presence solves the problem and the rest make smart-arse quips and the plot is tied together with a series of deus ex machina.

At least the Belgariad has some childish charm and some interesting turns.  The Mallorean is just a sequence of 30 second character victories.

DO NOT BUY THESE BOOKS.

[Triforcer]

As I said above, I bought the Mallorean series by David Eddings.  I have to say that this is *the* worst writing I've ever read.  The characters are differentiated by each other purely by minor quirks or interests (fishing, knives, trading, poison, drinking, cooking, grubby, etc) and the story basically consists of a series of snap-shot encounters where one character's presence solves the problem and the rest make smart-arse quips and the plot is tied together with a series of deus ex machina.

At least the Belgariad has some childish charm and some interesting turns.  The Mallorean is just a sequence of 30 second character victories.

DO NOT BUY THESE BOOKS.

I read them all and liked them.  However, I was 15 at the time...

[murdoc]

Other than that,  been reading Feist's Riftwar stuff...

In between Gaiman novels, I grabbed the first couple of Feist books and have started reading them. They've been on my 'to read' list for a few years and I'm finally starting them. So far, fantasy light, but good to read on the train to and from work.

[WayAbvPar]

As I said above, I bought the Mallorean series by David Eddings.  I have to say that this is *the* worst writing I've ever read.  The characters are differentiated by each other purely by minor quirks or interests (fishing, knives, trading, poison, drinking, cooking, grubby, etc) and the story basically consists of a series of snap-shot encounters where one character's presence solves the problem and the rest make smart-arse quips and the plot is tied together with a series of deus ex machina.

At least the Belgariad has some childish charm and some interesting turns.  The Mallorean is just a sequence of 30 second character victories.

DO NOT BUY THESE BOOKS.

I read them all and liked them.  However, I was 15 at the time...

I was a bit older than that, but I enjoyed them anyway. The story wasn't anything earthshattering, but the characters and conversations between them were amusing.

[Arrrgh]

Other than that,  been reading Feist's Riftwar stuff...

In between Gaiman novels, I grabbed the first couple of Feist books and have started reading them. They've been on my 'to read' list for a few years and I'm finally starting them. So far, fantasy light, but good to read on the train to and from work.

Early Feist was good. Later Feist is weak. It's been so long since I read them that I don't recall the exact point they go south though.

[Lt.Dan]

Other than that,  been reading Feist's Riftwar stuff...

In between Gaiman novels, I grabbed the first couple of Feist books and have started reading them. They've been on my 'to read' list for a few years and I'm finally starting them. So far, fantasy light, but good to read on the train to and from work.

Early Feist was good. Later Feist is weak. It's been so long since I read them that I don't recall the exact point they go south though.

I've bought 4 copies of Magician in my life.  Three have been lent out never to return.  The fourth copy will never leave my sight (and is actually unread even by me).

[Paelos]

I'm reading the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Johnathon Stroud, but I can't recall if anyone mentioned it yet.

I like the books so far, mostly because I'm a big fan of any novel where magicians are real assholes that deserve a kick in the butt. Plus the jokes that the demons makes are freaking hysterical at times. I found myself actually chuckling at a book, which is rare.

[Johny Cee]

Early Feist was good. Later Feist is weak. It's been so long since I read them that I don't recall the exact point they go south though.

I liked the two Magician books,  but I'm sort of meh about Silverthorn.  It's very much "generic fantasy world" in setting,  made up by the interesting story and good characters in the Magician books.  Any ideas about which of the other books are standouts?

Have to motivate and order a few things online:  Passage to Arms, Reaper's Gale, some stuff by Grimwood,  and maybe Huston.

Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen is fairly brillant,  but not easy reading (like alot of post-modern stuff).  It's like Victorian horror,  in a steampunk world, that's very familar.  Some good Lovecraft influences.  About 3/4 of the way, since it's broken up into long stories/novellas.

Found my copy of Ian Steele's Warpaths and almost got sucked into reading it again.  It's a history, studying the Eastern American Indian tribes through the Colonial period.  The Iroquois were badasses.  Have a copy of Steele's book on the "massacre" at Fort William Henry,  which is the Indian attack on the retreating British column when they surrendered the fort.  That's the scene from Last of the Mohicans.

[Xerapis]

Personally, I have always loved Feist's Empire trilogy with Janny Wurts.  (Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire, Mistress of the Empire).  It's enjoyably magic-lite with some cool political maneuverings.

[HaemishM]

Finished Pat Buchanan's Where the Right Went Wrong and reviewed it over on my blog, and started reading Jack Chalker's Exiles at the Well of Souls. I've never read Chalker, and I know Exiles is the 2nd in a 5-part series, but I have 3 of the 5 books free and wasn't about to buy the first in case I didn't like his writing.

About 200 pages in (300-something page book) I'm struggling to finish it. Chalker is a goddamn furry before anyone knew what furries were. You know, in the good old days when people who wanted to fuck centuars as gigantic bulls hid in their closets like they should have. Maybe I'm being harsh, but when your characters start out as hermaphrodites and then switch to differing humanimals, and everyone of the characters who changes has to mention the size, shape and color of their new members, you get me quite queasy. It isn't quite Piers Anthony nausea, as there haven't been actual sex scenes along the way, but halfway through the book, one character has sex with a 13-year old girl because they are both dying of addiction withdrawal symptoms and she doesn't want to die a virgin. Yes, the guy she does it with is an intelligent adult.

I'm only finishing the book because I'm this far into it. Otherwise, an interesting premise is being strangled by the icky.

[Reg]

All of Chalker's books are exactly like that. If you insist on punishing yourself by finishing Well of Souls there's no need to even consider any of the rest of his stuff.

He had some new and interesting ideas back when the books first came out but I tried some of his later books and it's all just more of the same.

[Sky]

Early Feist was good. Later Feist is weak. It's been so long since I read them that I don't recall the exact point they go south though.

I enjoy Feist, I think the only weak stuff he did was the Krondor: Whatever stuff (assassins, betrayal, whatever the second parts were, like three of em). The Janny Wurts stuff was good, Serpentwar was good, the newer stuff with Talon is nice.

In fact, one of my favorite fiction moments of in recent years was the beginning of Exile's Return when they pick up the storyline from the end of the previous book...but from the point of view of the "villian" (who was teleported away in exile at the end of the previous book). That was a kickass plot device, and a good way of handling a character with many shades of grey. Good stuff.

Didn't realize he had done another trilogy (Flight of the Nighthawks, etc), gotta load up the old catalog and see if we have them...

Right now I'm reading The Gospel of Food. Not real informative, but an interesting read for the most part. Also a nice manual on brickwork, laying out arches and whatnot.

[Murgos]

I've read the Belgariad several times.  I guess it's because I read it the first time when I was 12 or 13 but I can easily overlook it's flaws and enjoy it.  Much like The Hobbit it's comfort food for my mind.  The Mallorean I didn't try to read until much later in life and although I don't hate it I have never felt the need to revisit it.

[Morat20]

All of Chalker's books are exactly like that. If you insist on punishing yourself by finishing Well of Souls there's no need to even consider any of the rest of his stuff.

He had some new and interesting ideas back when the books first came out but I tried some of his later books and it's all just more of the same.

I wouldn't call him a furry though. Read his work long enough and you see what really gets him going is gender-swapping. Fuck, his Flux and Anchor books were goddamn explicit about it.

I'm still a little shocked by the "Woman who was turned into total fucking sex kitten, complete with nympho sex drive and breasts so large they required body reengineering to support them and THEN had her pussy replaced with a cock of truly equine proportions. Oh, and later on, like someone totally made her tongue into another dick, and she had lots of totally kinky sex and then went on to become super powerful and shit". And that was fairly normal for his books.

I generally found enough to like around that sort of thing to read his stuff, but I'm such a fast reader that it's not like I'm wasting much time by flipping through even the worst crap. At least I can say "I know how it ends, and jesus christ can I bitch authoritatively about how much this sucks".

[Paelos]

Good lord, that sounds deranged.

[Morat20]

Good lord, that sounds deranged.

It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds in that set, at least -- that was meant to be fucked up. The whole thing was basically "Okay, in a world where willpower can alter reality -- what sort of deviant shit will people do to their enemies"? Apparently, fucked up sex shit -- which fits into my personal viewpoint of people anyways.

A lot of the total sex perversion was the result of misogynists getting ahold of a lot of power, and doing shit to women with it.

He's just really obsessed with gender swapping. I'd be hard pressed to think of a single book that didn't have at least some gender swapping in it -- often as punishment.

[WayAbvPar]

Read the first book in Larry McMurtry's Berrybender narratives (Sin Killer). It was very strange, but I enjoyed it, and will likely read the rest of the series. Am about a quarter of the way through Gates of Fire thanks to a recommendation in the 300 thread. So far, it is interesting and worthy of my time.

Next up- Fiasco by Thomas Ricks.

[Morat20]

Huh, I suppose I should also mention books I'm reading -- just finished Summer Knight by Jim Butcher (figured what the hell, I'd try them). Am now trapped in "re-release hell" in which I can find every Dresden book Butcher ever wrote BUT the next two in the series, because they're re-releasing them in paperback and thus no one has anymore of the old version and they haven't shipped the new one. And I'm too lazy to shop Amazon or used bookstores, since they've so far just been impulse buys.

I'm midway through Ghosts of Columbia by Modesitt. Not liking it as much as I've liked his other stuff. The concept's just not working for me.

[HaemishM]

I put Chalker on hold to read the US Soccer Federation's book on soccer. I figure since I've been watching it so much, I should try to learn about the game, and maybe in a year or two try to coach some youth soccer.

And that series of things you described, Morat?

That's a furry.

[Paelos]

I put Chalker on hold to read the US Soccer Federation's book on soccer. I figure since I've been watching it so much, I should try to learn about the game, and maybe in a year or two try to coach some youth soccer.

And that series of things you described, Morat?

That's a furry.

Good on you, as a soccer captain of my high school team, college club player, and volunteer kids coach, I can tell you it's a great game for everyone. If you have 4 people and a ball, you've got a game.

[Johny Cee]

Chalker is one of the old school of sci fi writers that treated thier fiction like literary trolling.  Use advanced tech to make possible things that go against conventional social mores,  in an effort to examine the reasonableness/rationality of present society.

Heinlein does alot of the same stuff.  Heinlein takes passes at incest, sexual orientation, use of force, transgender issues, gender roles, etc.  There's alot of subtle critiques in Heinlein of systems of government, as well.

Is the whole reason you object to something is because it's "icky"?  Does that put you in the same boat as someone who objects to homosexuality because it's icky?  If the most basic/universal societal constraints like consent and "doing no harm" are covered,  do we really have any rational basis to object?

The point is to push the readers buttons,  to get them thinking about how and why they believe something.  Not to lay out a lesson in "you should believe this!"

Most modern scifi authors are pretty much pussies in comparison.  They come into a work with an agenda, shape technology and society to prove their agenda right, and call it a lesson.  They don't want to make a reader think,  they want a reader to feel smug self-righteousness because they believe the right things.  Or they want to proseltyze their own world-views.

Market Forces, for instance.  Morgan sets up a society where obviously free-market captialism is a Bad Thing, then guides his protagonist along until he realizes this.  The action is good,  and the story is decent, but it's a constructed straw man world whose only purpose is to push an ideological agenda.

I'm going to segue here into recommending Carey's "Kushiel" books.  Good plotting, great characters,  but hard to read because the protagonist has a huge fetish for exceedingly kinky sex.  Submission/domination,  severe pain, and gross physical injury stuff.  She's compelled to these acts,  and much of the tension between her and the love interest is because he simply doesn't have the same compulsions and finds it difficult to reconcile the romantic relationship in this situation.

[HaemishM]

Is the whole reason you object to something is because it's "icky"?  Does that put you in the same boat as someone who objects to homosexuality because it's icky?  If the most basic/universal societal constraints like consent and "doing no harm" are covered,  do we really have any rational basis to object?

No, my objection to furries, as I've explained before, is all but one of them I've ever talked with about anything seems all too interested in flying his furry freak flag high, and then expressing open hostility that anyone would think furriness is a wee bit deviant. Their whole identities have been wrapped up in furriness, to the point where even the mention of furries draws all discussion to all things furry.

I don't like furries not because they are icky, but because they can't keep their furiness to themselves. I don't want to hear about it, just like I don't spread information about my sexual preferences other than being a straight man. Personal sexual preferences are best kept in the goddamn bedroom and shouldn't be anybody's business but the consenting adults involved. That's not saying "HIDE IT AWAY!!!!" but just don't flaunt it.

I never got the subtext about Heinlen that you mention. Authors like Chalker and Piers Anthony bother me not only because they seem to reveal in really fucked up subject matter, but they write with ham-fisted inelegance and a severe lack of character. Chalker's villains are one-dimensional, Anthony's characters all have the same annoying nerd voice. I've read and enjoyed William Burroughs, so fucked up subject matter isn't stopping me from reading things, it's the uninteresting and annoying handling of said subject matter.

[Sky]

I like titties.