Return of the Book Thread

[Viin]

As I prepared for my trip to Vegas last week, I suddenly realized I didn't have a book to read while traveling. So, I took a gamble and picked up some random SciFi book listed on the Kindle store:

Wool Omnibus

All I can say is: these books are awesome!

The first book is a short story, and then he expands on that story with the followup books. Basically, these guys live in this underground silo because the air is toxic above ground. Who knows how many generations. They have a camera that lets them see outside, but when some of them start to think the image is fabricated, they get to see the outside first hand...

[RhyssaFireheart]

And it's got a Nook version as well.  Reading the reviews, it sounds like an excellent choice.  I think I'll pick it up when I get home tonight (damn no public wifi at work. :( )

[Sky]

Submitted it for collection development, sounds good.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Submitted it for collection development, sounds good.

Sky, do public libraries usually carry something that is self-published or would that even matter?  Just curious since I would have assumed that only "real" books from regular publishing houses would be in the library.  Not that a self-published book isn't real, just that it still probably has a stigma of not being as professional as publishing house books.

Which reminds me - where is our next Bridge Chronicle book, Mr. Self-Published?

[Sky]

 

[HaemishM]

Ok, that is Le Awesome, Sky. 

And I'm working on the next book. I keep saying summer, but it's looking more like early fall.

[RhyssaFireheart]

 

Fall, huh?     /makes note in the calendar.

[Quinton]

Wool Omnibus

All I can say is: these books are awesome!

The first book is a short story, and then he expands on that story with the followup books. Basically, these guys live in this underground silo because the air is toxic above ground. Who knows how many generations. They have a camera that lets them see outside, but when some of them start to think the image is fabricated, they get to see the outside first hand...

Wow.  These were great.  The post-apocalyptic vault-dwellers thing has been done before (think Fallout), but this was really well executed, a gripping read, and have a number of twists that I didn't expect, defying some of the staples of this genre.

Editorial quality was fantastic for a self-published work.  The only editorial error I noticed was an instance of "silicone chips" where context clearly called for "silicon chips".

[Chimpy]

Picked up reamde from the library last week. Am finally able to get into it post surgery and am really enjoying it.

[murdoc]

I enjoyed the first three quarters of 'Reamde' and then just wanted it to be over with.

[ghost]

Wool Omnibus

All I can say is: these books are awesome!

The first book is a short story, and then he expands on that story with the followup books. Basically, these guys live in this underground silo because the air is toxic above ground. Who knows how many generations. They have a camera that lets them see outside, but when some of them start to think the image is fabricated, they get to see the outside first hand...

Wow.  These were great.  The post-apocalyptic vault-dwellers thing has been done before (think Fallout), but this was really well executed, a gripping read, and have a number of twists that I didn't expect, defying some of the staples of this genre.

Editorial quality was fantastic for a self-published work.  The only editorial error I noticed was an instance of "silicone chips" where context clearly called for "silicon chips".

Maybe it was a post breast implant apocalypse.

[Salamok]

I enjoyed the first three quarters of 'Reamde'any Neal Stephenson book and then just wanted it to be over with.

FTFY, apparently Neal Stephenson feels the same way and this is why after pounding his head against the wall for 100 pages he just writes "the end" and moves on to the next book.

[Sky]

Which Stephenson book is only 100 pages? 

Kinda vacillating about what to read next, I cracked open Toll the Hounds to finish out the Erickson stuff. Really love his writing style, though it's stretching my memory to remember all the characters and situations going on, and he's jumping from scene to scene every page or two.

[Chimpy]

Which Stephenson book is only 100 pages? 

Anathem is....on microfiche.

[HaemishM]

Which Stephenson book is only 100 pages? 

Anathem is....on microfiche.

Goddamn that book is dense. I'm about 80% done with it and loving it, but holy fuck I want to scream "GET ON WITH IT!" sometimes. He's done more world building in one book than I've done in 4 (with about the same number of pages that is).

[naum]

Which Stephenson book is only 100 pages? 

In the Beginning… Was the Command Line

The only Stephenson title I could ever finish.

I tried, gave a few of them (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon) at least ~100 pages, and they just did not grab me at all…

[ghost]

You ever try Quicksilver?  It's pretty damned good. 

[Morat20]

You ever try Quicksilver?  It's pretty damned good. 

Took me two tries to get through Quicksilver. Was worth it, though. :)

[Ironwood]

Fallen Angels by the Motie chaps is utterly shite.

[ghost]

You ever try Quicksilver?  It's pretty damned good. 

Took me two tries to get through Quicksilver. Was worth it, though. :)

It's not a light read, but there is some really funny shit in the trilogy.

[Reg]

Fallen Angels by the Motie chaps is utterly shite.

That's the one where they let their retarded Libertarian stuff hang out isn't it?

[Khaldun]

Trying to decide if John Fultz, Seven Princes, was a sort of standard-fantasy fun or utter tripe. It read pretty smoothly, at any rate.

[Ironwood]

Fallen Angels by the Motie chaps is utterly shite.

That's the one where they let their retarded Libertarian stuff hang out isn't it?

Yes.  And they crowdsource the characterisation to actual assholes they met in real life.

It's a stinker and you will feel bad after reading it that you ever read it.

[Reg]

After reading that I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that Niven and Pournelle have severe doubts about Global Warming.

[Ironwood]

The science in the book may as well have been written in crayon.  The funniest bit was the essay at the end where they explained that all the stuff in the book was real science because a bloke down the pub said so.

Fuck me.

[Rendakor]

I'm about halfway through REAMDE and losing interest since
Does it get better?

[Chimpy]

It gets better until it goes into Stephensonendingmode.

[Ingmar]

Enjoyed the first book in Parker's Engineer trilogy pretty well, although there's still an awful lot of going into too much detail on blacksmithing and stuff, much like book 2 of the Scavenger trilogy.

[Viin]

It is a pretty good trilogy, but I think I need to read it again to catch some of the stuff I didn't understand the first time I read it. Book 3 explains why some of the actions were taken in Books 1 and 2, which I didn't read close enough together to really grasp it all. But I still enjoyed them.

[shiznitz]

I am reading Halting State by Charles Stross.  It is about a bank robbery in an MMO affecting the real world.  It has heavy Scottish slang which I find great even if I don't grasp it all the time.

[Salamok]

Which Stephenson book is only 100 pages? 

no, no, no the first 600 pages where he is setting the hook aren't part of the head banging experience, pages 600-900 is when the self realization hits that he has fucked himself into a corner, then he spends pages 900+ banging his head into a wall, finally when his head hurts so bad he can no longer see he has his editor write 'the end' and publish it.

[HaemishM]

Speaking of Stephenson, I finally finished Anathem. That was a fantastic book, marred by the fact that Stephenson COULDN'T STOP WRITING ABOUT MATHS. It's an amazingly intelligent book, but he way overwrote most of it. I don't know if he just has a fascination with the higher math or what, but what could have been a 300-page thriller about an alien invasion turns into a 900-page treatise on the nature of consciousness and interdimensional cross-breeding of ideas. I'm sure the editor took one pass through for grammar and then had a mental breakdown on trying to decipher how to trim it down to a readable length.

On the plus side, it actually had a fairly satisfying ending, IMO, unlike The Diamond Age.

[Quinton]

Yeah, Anathem ended reasonably well.  I thought REAMDE did too.  He still goes a bit overboard on the info-dumps but he does seem to be (slowly) figuring out how to end a story.

[Ingmar]

Hey you might like KJ Parker, Quinton, the books totally overstate how awesome engineers are. 

[Ironwood]

Speaking of Stephenson, I finally finished Anathem. That was a fantastic book, marred by the fact that Stephenson COULDN'T STOP WRITING ABOUT MATHS. It's an amazingly intelligent book, but he way overwrote most of it. I don't know if he just has a fascination with the higher math or what, but what could have been a 300-page thriller about an alien invasion turns into a 900-page treatise on the nature of consciousness and interdimensional cross-breeding of ideas. I'm sure the editor took one pass through for grammar and then had a mental breakdown on trying to decipher how to trim it down to a readable length.

On the plus side, it actually had a fairly satisfying ending, IMO, unlike The Diamond Age.

I couldn't finish it.  It was like being sodomised by Bubba Smith every single page.