Return of the Book Thread

[Ironwood]

Similarly, I have just finished Surface Detail.  While most of the underlying is nicked wholesale from Morgan, it's a true return to form and an awesome novel.

That said, there are a lot of authors around these days who need to learn to cut down the amount of characters and realise that the creation for the sake isn't the best idea.

[FatuousTwat]

John Steakley died yesterday. :(

Apparently he was working on a sequel to Armor.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Just finished reading Towers of Midnight.  Excellent and things are finally moving along, but now it almost seems too fast after all this time of dawdling.  Still, I really liked the book and am sure I'll have to read it a few more times to make sure I catch everything in there.  Or wait until the real fanatics update the wikis with all the little details.

[Engels]

John Steakley died yesterday. :(

Apparently he was working on a sequel to Armor.

well shit. Armor and Vampire$ are two of the best sci-fi I've ever read.

[JWIV]

Just finished reading Towers of Midnight.  Excellent and things are finally moving along, but now it almost seems too fast after all this time of dawdling.  Still, I really liked the book and am sure I'll have to read it a few more times to make sure I catch everything in there.  Or wait until the real fanatics update the wikis with all the little details.

I finished it up over the weekend myself.  The first half of the book was too frenetic with each chapter bouncing away to a different set of characters.   It was a bit dizzying.   I definitely enjoyed it - things are moving along and I'm not sure if it's Sanderson's writing or that he gets to write  characters, but I'm liking Perrin and Rand both a lot more than in the past.

[FatuousTwat]

Just finished reading Towers of Midnight.  Excellent and things are finally moving along, but now it almost seems too fast after all this time of dawdling.  Still, I really liked the book and am sure I'll have to read it a few more times to make sure I catch everything in there.  Or wait until the real fanatics update the wikis with all the little details.

I finished it up over the weekend myself.  The first half of the book was too frenetic with each chapter bouncing away to a different set of characters.   It was a bit dizzying.   I definitely enjoyed it - things are moving along and I'm not sure if it's Sanderson's writing or that he gets to write  characters, but I'm liking Perrin and Rand both a lot more than in the past.

I really enjoyed it as well, but  Still, it's better than any of the rest have been since about book 5? 6? I can't remember anymore, it's been years since I've read those early ones.

[Chimpy]

Thread almost fell off the first page!

So, I am most of the way through Reaper's Gale.

Overall I like the Malazan books, but some are definitely better than others. I think it has to do mainly with which characters/storylines he puts in. And the jumping around between loosely or totally unrelated story lines sometimes makes the books become a chore to read.

Also, I found out exactly who the culprit was who kept me from being able to check out the first couple books. It was a friend of mine who confessed to having them and not turning them in on time!

[WayAbvPar]

I am slowing working my way through Midnight Tides. While it is reasonably entertaining, I am sick to fucking death and back of each book introducing YET ANOTHER fucking subplot that will eventually get tied into the story at some later point. If the payoff for all this bullshit isn't monumental I am coming after everyone who insisted I read Erikson.

[Chimpy]

At least midnight tides has the banter between Tehol and Bugg. If it wasn't for that I probably would have given up as House of Chains was so much of a painful read for me.

And yes, things do seem to start to come together a little bit more in The Bonehunters and Reaper's Gale. At least from the direction of not being an entirely new storyline

[Paelos]

I am slowing working my way through Midnight Tides. While it is reasonably entertaining, I am sick to fucking death and back of each book introducing YET ANOTHER fucking subplot that will eventually get tied into the story at some later point. If the payoff for all this bullshit isn't monumental I am coming after everyone who insisted I read Erikson.

Give up now. I did and I'm a happier person for not having to slog through Erikson's shit anymore. He was a good writer in the beginning who has totally gone off the rails into his own archeological shit and theory the civilization is horribly doomed to dust and ruin. The first 80% of his last three books were total shit.

[ghost]

So I'm finally through Brightness Reef and into Infinity's Shore.  Now I remember why I finished the trilogy.  I wish he didn't have to make the first book so shitty.

[Sky]

I am coming after everyone who insisted I read Erikson.

You could try Glen Cook. The Black Company is excellent, I hear.

[HaemishM]

I finally finished War and Peace. Fantastic book but it definitely wore on. It's like he got near the end and decided he wanted to be an essayist on the theory of predestination in history instead of a novelist. The ending of the fiction was abrupt and then he goes on for chapters about the study of history. Worth reading but man it was a slog.

I'm reading Charles Stross's Accelerando now. A little too hipster style over substance for my tastes, but some interesting ideas.

[Ingmar]

Yeah all that history/destiny stuff is what they cut out in the abridged version you usually read in school.

[FatuousTwat]

A little too hipster style over substance for my tastes

I've had the same problem. It even kind of filters into his non sci-fi stuff.

Bought a ton of books today, unfortunately, they aren't for me.

Oh wait, I bought one for me, John Keegan's The American Civil War

[bhodi]

I went through the first 2.5 books of the Riverworld series by Philip José Farmer. It started out pretty strong and interesting in the first book and then devolved into wayyyy too much self-introspection from fictional accounts of real life characters with hardly any plot. Maybe some people who cared about these folks would have been fascinated, but I personally was so annoyed that nothing of significance was happening that I didn't really care about any of the main characters or with them coming to grips with the afterlife (of sorts) they were stuck in. More the half the book was flashbacks and self examination and in the end I just had to put it down. I never finished the third book.

I get that it was progressive for the 1970s, and that his "ideas" about sex, drugs, and religion were semi-groundbreaking when it was published, but it simply doesn't weather the test of time. That, and I started to get annoyed at the continual betrayal and backstabbing even when it didn't seem plausible. Good friends who work closely together for years and years suddenly up and reveal they were working for the enemy all along! And this happens not once, not twice, but three or four times over the course of the books! Even though the first book won a hugo in 1971, and indeed that was a decent book, I simply cannot recommend any of the ones that follow. Better to just read the plot on wikipedia and roll your eyes as I did.

[Vision]

I've been meaning to read the Bible cover to cover for the longest time, and was thinking of getting the Oxford Annotated version, since I'm not looking to be spiritually moved or have some life shattering religious experience due to some pre-supposing annotations about turning my life around.

Any suggestions? Has anyone here ever actually attempted to do this?

[RhyssaFireheart]

I read the Bible cover-to-cover years ago when I was in high school.  It was "The Way" version though, which I think I still have actually.  It was interesting in a "now I can say I've done this" way, but then again, I'd been studying the Bible as part of religion classes in school anyways (Catholic schooling). 

I've never really paid attention to the different versions that are out there though and what significant changes are present between them. 

[Vision]

Apparently the academic world considers revisions to the NAS version the most accurate in terms of translation.

[Salamok]

I've been meaning to read the Bible cover to cover for the longest time, and was thinking of getting the Oxford Annotated version, since I'm not looking to be spiritually moved or have some life shattering religious experience due to some pre-supposing annotations about turning my life around.

Any suggestions? Has anyone here ever actually attempted to do this?

Someone needs to summarize all those begats into a 1 page chart, apparently the graphical family tree had not been invented yet. 

[Samwise]

If you want to ease into it, I recommend starting with the R Crumb Illustrated Book of Genesis.  (Not a gag; it's actually the entire book of Genesis done fairly seriously in comic form.)  That's a pretty good way to get you through all the begats.

I'd be interested in hearing about your progress.  I did try the cover to cover thing once, in grade school, and I think I made it most of the way through Leviticus before giving up.  Skipping around is a better strategy IMO since similar stuff tends to be grouped together, which makes the dry parts REALLY dry when you're going straight through them.

[Ironwood]

Nice tits, Sam.

For those of you joining us in 2015 - Samwise had an avatar of tits here.

Also, have you read Black Company ?  Sure, it's old now, but in 2010 it was all the rage...

[Mosesandstick]

My parents bought me some black company books for Christmas. I'll read them and tell you all whether they're any good.

[Morat20]

Any suggestions? Has anyone here ever actually attempted to do this?

1) Skip the begats. If there's anything important in there, it gets mentioned later.
2) Leviticus is freakin' hilarious in places.
3) The New Testament is fairly interesting, although I'd go ahead and throw in the Aporhyca (I'm pretty sure I totally spelled that wrong) to see what didn't make the cut. I found, as an atheist, the different view of Jesus by the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to be very interesting, and I remember wondering how much of that was related to Church politics 400 years later or so.

[Vision]

I ordered the oxford 4th edition off amazon and it should get here in a day or two so ill let ya know how I'm progressing. I just finished Ulysses last night so I must be a glutton for punishment. Which is worth the effort if anyone is contemplating reading it.

[JWIV]

I did the King James back in High School as part of early morning seminary (the joys of being raised as a Mormon).  Ignoring the religious aspect - it is a fairly pivotal work in terms of its influence on western literature and culture so is definitely worth the read.

[Furiously]

I downloaded a ton of Philip K Dick short stories from project Gutenberg. This led to some Harry Harrison and then the John Carter of mars series. I'm amazed how much stuff they have from science fiction magazines that didn't renew when they went out of business. I'm surprised we are not seeing movies from some of them.

[naum]

I've been meaning to read the Bible cover to cover for the longest time, and was thinking of getting the Oxford Annotated version, since I'm not looking to be spiritually moved or have some life shattering religious experience due to some pre-supposing annotations about turning my life around.

Any suggestions? Has anyone here ever actually attempted to do this?

Have done this several times, though recent re-reading is more or less confined to chapters and passages. I also take part in a weekly bible study where we read together through the epistles (Paul's letters, all the chapters in the NT not the gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts) or Revelation).

Though just completed a semester in New Testament Greek and while I thought I was ready to read through the NT in the original Greek, there's still parts that I'm not quite comfortable enough with (even with the Logos Bible tools).

As far as versions go, the NASB is the closest "literal" translation to the original greek. The ESV sort of follows along, but jumps off and deviates in selected passages, not sure why, though some surmise it's theological conservatism carving out doctrine to their suiting. NIV is also a conservative translation. For "paraphrase" versions, NLT is decent. And for NT (Eugene Peterson mastery of Greek is excellent), "The Message" is a good read in contemporary English, at least for New Testament, as his command of Hebrew is not as solid. And while I don't know much Hebrew, the little I studied makes me question whether any scholar can be authoritative on the text, given the nature of missing vowels and incomplete textual cross-referencing.

If you really want an overview of the Bible, I highly recommend James Kugel's "How to Read the Bible", which is egregiously titled, but a remarkable work written for both layman and scholar, mostly Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) orientated as the author is an orthodox Jewish scholar, but lays out the archaeological evidence, modern bible scholarship (including "liberal" and non-Christian|Jewish scholars) and the take of "ancient" scholars, which will surprise many that think the contemporary fundamentalist and conservative Bible proponents tout the same as the pre-modern thinkers.

For evolution of Christianity, I will promote Keith Ward's "Re-thinking Christianity" and "What the Bible Really Teaches".  Or you can listen to several series of lectures he gave at Gresham College.

[bhodi]

Nice tits, Sam.

For those of you joining us in 2015 - Samwise had an avatar of tits here.

Two turtle doves!

[Ironwood]

Yah, I know.

[Sheepherder]

3) The New Testament is fairly interesting, although I'd go ahead and throw in the Aporhyca (I'm pretty sure I totally spelled that wrong) to see what didn't make the cut. I found, as an atheist, the different view of Jesus by the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to be very interesting, and I remember wondering how much of that was related to Church politics 400 years later or so.

Apocrypha.  I didn't even need to spellcheck it.  Thank you, Morrowind, for teaching me a new word! (or two)

Most of the shit that Dan Brown said about the origins of the Catholic Church is correct.  It was an organization constructed completely out of political expediency, and as the medieval period dragged on it only got worse.  The path to power for younger sons of noble birth who were unwilling to enter service to an older brother became joining a religious order.   In the process they would gain a position of considerable rank and connections over one's home fief, which gave the Church either a rival sibling in a position of power, or close association with the local nobility.  In both cases loyalty to Church was likely to come first, as they held the power to promote.  Thus the path to power, in the Catholic Church was to be a backstabbing asshat with no respect for god or blood, and consequently the people in power reflected this.

I'd probably make a controversial history teacher, no?

[ghost]

This made me laugh.  A lot.  Talk about a back-ordered item .

[Ingmar]

If you're just reading the Bible as literature for entertainment rather than as an academic or religious exercise, read the King James. The translation is really spotty in terms of accuracy, but the language is ten times more beautiful than any other English translation.

[Sheepherder]

Sometimes it's dressed up to the point of being indecipherable.  Usually the parts that seem a little sketchy to be divinely inspired, like the part where God summons two bears which maul forty-two children because they were taunting a Jew.

Also, "came into her" is a phrase you'll see repeated in the Bible several times.  Meaning should be obvious.

[Surlyboi]

Similarly, I have just finished Surface Detail.  While most of the underlying is nicked wholesale from Morgan, it's a true return to form and an awesome novel.

That said, there are a lot of authors around these days who need to learn to cut down the amount of characters and realise that the creation for the sake isn't the best idea.

This. Half of the characters in Surface Detail just sort of evaporated into the ether. Still, helluva story, derivative or not.

Never finished accelerando, Haemish summed it up pretty well, it was a little too self-aware for itself. Especially in the wake of the Eschaton books. (I'm still waiting for a return to that particular universe, by the way.)