Return of the Book Thread

[pants]

Peter F. Hamilton's latest book, The Evolutionary Void has just been released.  Haven't had a chance to read it, but the previous 2 books in this series and his previous series in the same universe, The Commonwealth Series, are pretty good space opera, so I'm looking forward to this.

[Strazos]

I bought hardcover old-ish editions of The Iliad and Odyssey. They look nice sitting on my shelf.

I should read more. 

[FatuousTwat]

So, you guys herd of The Black Company? I think it's p. sweet.

[Sky]

No need to be fatuous, twat.

[Abagadro]

Peter F. Hamilton's latest book, The Evolutionary Void has just been released.  Haven't had a chance to read it, but the previous 2 books in this series and his previous series in the same universe, The Commonwealth Series, are pretty good space opera, so I'm looking forward to this.

I just finished this. It was okay but shows his continual inability to write a really compelling ending. It sort of meanders around a bit for the sole purpose of putting a bunch of people in one place which didn't really do it for me. Too few of his action sequences which I think are really where he takes his great world building into a cool place. He needs to ditch these characters at this point as he has used them up. I thought the callbacks tacked into the very end of EV were really kinda pointless as you have to have a VERY good memory of a completely different series (3000 pages ago) to really even give a damn.

[Sky]

I had planned on reading the Void trilogy when he finished it, but being in the middle of the Malazan series has completely spoiled me for other authors right now.

Fiancee got stuck in the amazingly lucky place of having four month's worth of book budget with two months to spend it. Well, kind of lucky. There's no way she can procedurally achieve that, since all the orders need processing, but never mind that. She could use some suggestions for essential fiction, the best stuff you guys can think of. Preferably something in hardcover with links to BN or Amazon.

I've already submitted the entire Malazan series in hardcover, the Cook Black Company series in paperback omnibus, and Moorcock's Elric series in omnibus. Don't want to be too sci-fi/fantasy heavy but covering the essentials if they're not in the system is what we're shooting for. (We already have Martin, Jordan, Feist, Modesitt, etc on standing order)

[Morat20]

Peter F. Hamilton's latest book, The Evolutionary Void has just been released.  Haven't had a chance to read it, but the previous 2 books in this series and his previous series in the same universe, The Commonwealth Series, are pretty good space opera, so I'm looking forward to this.

I just finished this. It was okay but shows his continual inability to write a really compelling ending. It sort of meanders around a bit for the sole purpose of putting a bunch of people in one place which didn't really do it for me. Too few of his action sequences which I think are really where he takes his great world building into a cool place. He needs to ditch these characters at this point as he has used them up. I thought the callbacks tacked into the very end of EV were really kinda pointless as you have to have a VERY good memory of a completely different series (3000 pages ago) to really even give a damn.

Stephenson is like that too. Man cannot write a good ending to save his life.

[HaemishM]

Fiancee got stuck in the amazingly lucky place of having four month's worth of book budget with two months to spend it. Well, kind of lucky. There's no way she can procedurally achieve that, since all the orders need processing, but never mind that. She could use some suggestions for essential fiction, the best stuff you guys can think of. Preferably something in hardcover with links to BN or Amazon.

She could always order my books.    /duck

[Sky]

She could always order my books.    /duck

Suggestion submitted. Indie cyberpunk to make us seem all cutting edge :P Probably have to get them through amazon, though. I'll push for them and try to put up a cyberpunk or indie display when they comes in to get it out in front of people.

[tgr]

I've just begun reading the temporal void book (well, I'm halfway in), and I'm beginning to wonder who the fuck this peter f. hamilton guy is, and where the old night dawn's trilogy PFH is, because at least the night dawn's trilogy was so compelling to read I couldn't put it down, right up until the last 200 pages of the 3rd book, at which point I got  the impression he went "oh fuck fuck fuck, I have to wrap this up", only to do a piss-poor job of it.

[Samwise]

Fiancee got stuck in the amazingly lucky place of having four month's worth of book budget with two months to spend it. Well, kind of lucky. There's no way she can procedurally achieve that, since all the orders need processing, but never mind that. She could use some suggestions for essential fiction, the best stuff you guys can think of. Preferably something in hardcover with links to BN or Amazon.

Lizard Music is one of the first (and best) novels I ever read, and a long-overdue hardcover reprinting is coming out in January, if she's allowed to preorder now and get the books later.

John Scalzi is good contemporary sci-fi.

If you've got her covered on sci-fi/fantasy, I suggest some Nero Wolfe to help round out the mystery section.  All the recent editions are paperback, sadly.

Got Lovecraft?  That's essential, and continually being reprinted.

[Ard]

Yeah, I stopped reading Hamilton after the end of the Night's Dawn books, same as I stopped reading Stephenson after Cryptonomicon.  They were both good rides completely ruined by the endings, for me.  It made me sad.

Still working on some of Glen Cooks older books.  Finished up the second Starfishers book, and that one was really well done, but significantly different from the first.  The reprint of the third book is due out at the beginning of next month, so I think I'll have to pick that up.  Working through Tower of Fear right now, which is an okay fantasy politics novel, but hardly one of his greatest works.

[Rendakor]

I've just begun reading the temporal void book (well, I'm halfway in), and I'm beginning to wonder who the fuck this peter f. hamilton guy is, and where the old night dawn's trilogy PFH is, because at least the night dawn's trilogy was so compelling to read I couldn't put it down, right up until the last 200 pages of the 3rd book, at which point I got  the impression he went "oh fuck fuck fuck, I have to wrap this up", only to do a piss-poor job of it.

Glad I'm not the only one. I liked Night's Dawn a lot (and didn't even particularly hate the ending), but the first Void book bored me to tears and I dropped it without even finishing it.

[Sky]

Got Lovecraft?  That's essential, and continually being reprinted.

Previous fic librarian was a major Lovecraft fan. We don't have a lot, but what we do have is generally the authoritative versions.

I was fucking LIVID, like pissed off for the rest of the day, when I saw that our first edition Dunwich Horror was discarded and sold on Amazon through our discard storefront. Now I'm upset again, it's the first Lovecraft I read as a kid, that actual copy.

Hah. While grabbing a link for that paragraph, saw another Amazon marketplace store had a copy in good condition, library discard, for under $10 shipped. Fuck it, going to soothe the savage beast. Not 100%, as it's not the copy I read when I was a kid, but eh.

[ghost]

Does anyone have any recommendations for sci fi/fantasy books written in the past 5 years?  I'm in a rut-  falling back on previously read books and series. 

[Viin]

Does anyone have any recommendations for sci fi/fantasy books written in the past 5 years?  I'm in a rut-  falling back on previously read books and series. 

Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, Book 1)

[Rasix]

Does anyone have any recommendations for sci fi/fantasy books written in the past 5 years?  I'm in a rut-  falling back on previously read books and series. 

Mistborn series isn't that bad.  I don't exactly love it, but it's entertaining. 

Anansi Boys  by Gaiman was pretty good and within that time frame.  Reading the The Passage by Justin Cronin right now and it's excellent, although I'm sure most people are tired of vampires (these aren't sparkly or even clothed).

Most stuff I've been reading has it's roots older than 5 years.  Either a new book in a series or just something that's new to me, but old.

[Samwise]

Does anyone have any recommendations for sci fi/fantasy books written in the past 5 years?  I'm in a rut-  falling back on previously read books and series. 

John Scalzi, in particular Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades.

[FatuousTwat]

Sky, does the library have the entire Dresden Files?

[Sheepherder]

Fiancee got stuck in the amazingly lucky place of having four month's worth of book budget with two months to spend it. Well, kind of lucky. There's no way she can procedurally achieve that, since all the orders need processing, but never mind that. She could use some suggestions for essential fiction, the best stuff you guys can think of. Preferably something in hardcover with links to BN or Amazon.

Does it have to be fiction?

[Chimpy]

Anything written by Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly would be considered "contemporary fiction" in my book.

[Xilren's Twin]

Does anyone have any recommendations for sci fi/fantasy books written in the past 5 years?  I'm in a rut-  falling back on previously read books and series. 

Have you read any Michelle Sagara/West?  She has written two series relatively recently that i enjoy: the Sun Sword series is the older one (and written under Michelle West).  Her latest series is the Chronicles of Elantra which is up to book 6 - interesting mix of police procedural with some modern style in an original fantasy world.

[Sky]

Does it have to be fiction?

Yep. Not mystery, either. That's popular enough to be its own category with another librarian overseeing it (not JUST mystery, just that my fiancee's duties don't cover mystery). Oh, the debate over whether something is mystery or fiction. Good times. If you're a librarian, I guess.

We already have most of that stuff, Chimpy. People love it.

[ghost]

Anything written by Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly would be considered "contemporary fiction" in my book.

I got my father-in-law the Sarah Palin book as a Christmas gag gift.  He has it shelved right next to Ted Kennedy's biography which he also got for Christmas.  I'm surprised there hasn't been an explosion or fire from the heat generated by the close proximity of the two tomes.  Oddly enough, he's yet to read either book.  

[naum]

Anything written by Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly would be considered "contemporary fiction" in my book.

One of Beck's recent books, Common Sense, actually includes the Tom Paine version.

/boggles the mind that he views himself as a modern-day Paine, or if he even has read any of Paine's writings at all…

[Paelos]

Pundits don't read. They just write.

[jayfyve]

Peter F. Hamilton's latest book, The Evolutionary Void has just been released.  Haven't had a chance to read it, but the previous 2 books in this series and his previous series in the same universe, The Commonwealth Series, are pretty good space opera, so I'm looking forward to this.

Just finished this. Really enjoyed it!

[Quinton]

Does anyone have any recommendations for sci fi/fantasy books written in the past 5 years?  I'm in a rut-  falling back on previously read books and series. 

Mistborn series isn't that bad.  I don't exactly love it, but it's entertaining. 

I just finished the first book and am now working on the second.  I found the first book a little clunky in places, but it was fun.  The magic system and the "what if Frodo claimed the ring for his own" fantasy world setting were an enjoyable departure from some more "stock" fantasy settings.

[bhodi]

I'm actually on the third myself. I'm quite enjoying it. Each one of the books feels quite different, and I'm liking the evolution of the characters as events change them.

[Chimpy]

So I read all 3 of Modessit's Imager Portfolio over the last few days. I actually liked them better than most of his non-Recluce series he has started as they didn't seem to start falling flat after the middle of the second book like all of his other "new" series. It actually seems to have growth and direction instead of just a rehash of exactly the same tricks with a different villain each time.

[tgr]

I found the first 2 books, those in the commonwealth saga, to be interesting enough reads, however I'm struggling to find enjoyment in reading the first in the void trilogy. I was hoping for more awesomeness like the first trilogy of his, the night dawn's trilogy. So far all I've seen is one guy gradually figuring out some of his powers while shagging everyone around him, and I'm at page 452. Some random dweeb told me on the subways last week (because I was reading it there, and apparently he was a book nerd as well) that he felt it grew better as time progressed. I'm still hoping this to be true.

As for the Mistborn series, I really did enjoy this. Not to the extent I did the night dawn's trilogy (up until the last 200 pages), but it was a pretty decent page-turner. Especially the whole "how the fuck are they going to fix this?" and "maybe he wasn't so bad after all" twists etc. And the magic system was pretty unusual. The characters weren't as 2D as I feared for a short period (I was having flashback to Terry Goodkind for a short while). All in all enjoyable.

[WayAbvPar]

Finally finished Memories of Ice (3rd Malazan book). It was a lot better than the 2nd, and has gotten my sufficiently hooked on the series. I was surprised by how much the events at the end impacted me emotionallly- didn't realize I was that invested in it. The stories are too convoluted and complex, but I find myself eager to see what happens next anyway.

[Ard]

Huh, that's interesting, I liked book 2 a lot more than most of the rest.  It's a soul crushing read though, all dark and destructive up to and including the end, but it's such a pivotal book for the rest of the series, since what happened with the end keeps coming up.  Book 3 seemed a lot less important to me, but maybe it's because I didn't like most of the main characters in that one.

Started reading The Way of Kings also, and my god does Saunderson like writing super hero stories in fantasy settings.  Every single one of his books has involved people with some sort of super powers saving humanity now, and in this case, Jedi too.  At least the writing is good so far though.

[Sky]

Finally finished Memories of Ice (3rd Malazan book). It was a lot better than the 2nd, and has gotten my sufficiently hooked on the series. I was surprised by how much the events at the end impacted me emotionallly- didn't realize I was that invested in it. The stories are too convoluted and complex, but I find myself eager to see what happens next anyway.

I'm on Midnight Tides right now and really enjoying it. I think you're up for House of Chains next? That one was by far my favorite so far.

As an aside, I hate when people list books for sale as Hardcover when it's Book Club. I really wanted the entire Malazan series in hardcover, instead I've got about 50/50. Dammit. I also got in that first edition Lovecraft I paid $5 for :)

[WayAbvPar]

I introduced my brother to the series and he is way past me now (his kids are older and he doesn't have a 360, so he has more time to read  ), and he tells me they REALLY get good now. I liked the end of the 2nd book, but the rest of it was pure drudgery to read. Hey look, Felisin is being a cunt again. Oh, wow, Mappo is worried about Icarium figuring out his past. Repeat for 70 chapters until something actually happens. Bleah. I am leery about the House of Chains only because it seems to bounce back and cover the Seven Cities continent again.