Return of the Book Thread

[Morat20]

I have to agree that the depiction of the villains in Game of Thrones was a little hamfisted and overdone. Just in case you didn't dislike these characters enough now we'll depict them fucking each other - gross!

He might as well have named them Cruella Deville and Snidely Wiplash.

Yeah, but one of them got better. Martin likes to make dog-kicking villians and then give them some face-time with the reader and make you empathize and understand them -- or at least move them from puppy-killers to magnificent bastards.

[Rasix]

Guess I should spoiler that.  Not that anyone would expect otherwise..

[Sheepherder]

Martin likes to make dog-kicking villians and then give them some face-time with the reader and make you empathize and understand them

Nobody like The Mountain, and as far as I'm aware he doesn't actually kick the Hound.  Though I did like the "I'm going to crush your head, just like your sister after I raped her," part.

[Quinton]

Certainly some of the ASoIaF villains are just outright bastards, but others are certainly more complex than that.  Though often still not very nice people, they are not exactly cardboard cut-outs.  Many of the "good" characters are pretty broken or flawed as well.  I think even across the first book, things start out looking pretty black and white and by the end you start realizing that this is a world muddy with shades of gray.  It's been a while since I reread the series though, so maybe that becomes more clear later on?

[GenVec]

Someone mentioned this a couple dozen pages ago, but I just read 'The Magicians' by Lev Grossman and found it to be a refreshing and fantastically dark reinterpretation of the Harry Potter/Narnian fantasy yarn. You'd think the 'young wizard's academy' has been done to death by this point, but it was written in such a way that reminded me all too well of my own college experiences, especially the yawning maw of nihilistic self destruction that so many fall into. The transformation of the characters from preppy high school kids to hardened battle-wizards with drug problems is quite gripping. A must-read.

On the other end of the scale is The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell, which is a surprisingly in-depth retelling of the Second World War through the eyes of an officer in the SS. As the war drags on and the atrocities the main character is forced to participate in mount, it devolves into a sort of gothic fantasy where the narrator is increasingly out of his mind. I wouldn't recommend this for the faint of heart - the level of violence and sheer insanity is only equaled (in my experience) by Bret Eston Ellis's American Psycho, and could easily even surpass it due to the fact that many of the events described actually happened. Despite the bizarre deviations of the protagonist it's quite easily the best WW2 fiction I've ever read, especially in its description of German behind-the-lines policy on the eastern front. If you've ever wondered if you could sympathize with an incestuous, matricidal Nazi, here's your chance to find out.

Anywho, check 'em out.    

[Pennilenko]

I need some modern recommendations of spy/espionage style intrigue. I enjoyed early Ludlum, and early Lustbader stuff before he picked up the Bourne series after Ludlum died, back when he wrote a lot of martial arts, asian intrigue sort of stuff. I am looking for more stuff in the style of those writers.

[ghost]

Just made it through Children of Dune and now onto God Emperor.  Every time I read these it makes me want to stab Kevin J. Anderson in the nuts.

[Morat20]

I need some modern recommendations of spy/espionage style intrigue. I enjoyed early Ludlum, and early Lustbader stuff before he picked up the Bourne series after Ludlum died, back when he wrote a lot of martial arts, asian intrigue sort of stuff. I am looking for more stuff in the style of those writers.

Well, if you enjoy humor and awesome in your spy intrigues --- Stross' The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. The latter is done as a Bond homage, and I believe the former is in Ludlum's style, but I'm not 100% on that.

Of course, the main character is an IT guy who got drafted into the ranks of the occult spy world because it turns out advanced mathematics tends to raise demons....

[Johny Cee]

I need some modern recommendations of spy/espionage style intrigue. I enjoyed early Ludlum, and early Lustbader stuff before he picked up the Bourne series after Ludlum died, back when he wrote a lot of martial arts, asian intrigue sort of stuff. I am looking for more stuff in the style of those writers.

Same question, with quite a few responses, from a scifi/fantasy fiction forum:  http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21028

[Pennilenko]

Thanks guys, appreciate the response.

[Sky]

Just made it through Children of Dune and now onto God Emperor.  Every time I read these it makes me want to stab Kevin J. Anderson in the nuts.

On the second novel of Kevin Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns series.

I like his stuff, but it's not him pushing out IP novels for someone else.

[ghost]

Seven Suns was a decent story, I guess. 

[Murgos]

Seven Suns was a decent story, I guess. 

Neg.

[ghost]

You can't seriously tell me you didn't think the Klikiss were kick ass......

[Rishathra]

I like Kevin J. Anderson's plots... I think.  However, his writing style is just shit, shit, shit.  I got about halfway through the first Seven Suns book before I had to put it down, and I'm the kind of person that has to finish reading anything I start.  It's just that bad.

[Sky]

I like the characters, the plots, the action, the settings...but yeah, his style isn't the best. I think he shouldn't have thanked the woman who transcribed all his tapes, now I just see him wandering around the house babbling on. Spoken word translates oddly to text, but he features storytellers prominently in the books, and rails against 'colleagues' who don't like oration, so I'd guess it's his fetish.

[brellium]

I have too many damn books to read,

Just finished Taleb's Fooled by Randomness and Lowenstein's When Genius Failed,

Working on Akerlof and Shiller's Animal Spirits and Tarrasch's The Game of Chess.

[Rendakor]

I enjoyed that Hobb series, but I thought it was quite different from the Farseer/Tawny Man series.  I particularly enjoyed the first book.  The second book was something else.  There were parts to like, but as a whole I thought it was fairly weak.  The final book was better, but not as good as the first and it had perhaps the worst last couple of paragraphs in terms of character destruction I have ever seen.

I'm about 250 pages into book 2 and I agree; much worse than the first one (or anything from the Farseer/Tawny series). Good to know that the third one picks up.

Also picked up Richard K. Morgan's The Steel Remains; I'm interested to see how he handles fantasy.

[Johny Cee]

Also picked up Richard K. Morgan's The Steel Remains; I'm interested to see how he handles fantasy.

Meh.  Lots and lots of angry male-on-male sex used solely for shock value, not much plot, and a typical Morgan ultra-competant/ultra-violent protagonist.  This, Black Man, and Market Forces actually soured me on his Kovacs novels.

The fact that Morgan was producing lots and lots of sneering, superior interviews about how most fantasy was terrible and he was going to explode the genre with his gritty gray noir sensibilities didn't help.  Someone must have pointed out that gritty noir has been the major fantasy subtype for a decade, with the precursors dating back to the '70s. 

He's basically backed away from that position and doesn't sound like a total twat now.

[Rendakor]

Fair enough; I actually liked Market Forces more than his Kovacs novels, and didn't find Thirteen (aka Black Man) too terrible.

[Johny Cee]

Fair enough; I actually liked Market Forces more than his Kovacs novels, and didn't find Thirteen (aka Black Man) too terrible.

The heavy-handed political allegory inherent in setting up all of your villains as almost direct correlations for modern political movements, and then making them cardboard villains, was eye rolling.  More condemning is that he has been recycling the plot and characters from Altered Carbon over and over and over.

China Mieville writes spec fiction with a heavy Marxist influence which is a joy to read, especially because he gives you interesting plots and stories.

[schild]

Reading the book by the cracked.com editor, John Dies at the End, by David Wong.

Fucking amazing.

Also, getting turned into a movie by the Bubba Ho-Tep director.

[Cyrrex]

Okay, I know it's iTunes and everything, but can someone give me one even remotely sane explanation as to why Audiobooks on iTunes cost 20 dollars and up?  I also saw several that cost 36 bucks, and another that cost 54.  These are things that you can go out and grab on paperback for like 7 dollars, by the way.

Is it just iTunes that is like this, or are all these new e-books that are crazy expensive?  Because I gotta say it, these things should never cost more than their real work ink-on-paper counterparts.  They should, in fact, cost less.  I would actually be enraged if I could be bothered to care enough.

[naum]

Okay, I know it's iTunes and everything, but can someone give me one even remotely sane explanation as to why Audiobooks on iTunes cost 20 dollars and up?  I also saw several that cost 36 bucks, and another that cost 54.  These are things that you can go out and grab on paperback for like 7 dollars, by the way.

Is it just iTunes that is like this, or are all these new e-books that are crazy expensive?  Because I gotta say it, these things should never cost more than their real work ink-on-paper counterparts.  They should, in fact, cost less.  I would actually be enraged if I could be bothered to care enough.

Until enough units are sold I'd say it's a big money sink to get a polished, quality reading of a book. It takes a week of reading or more, depending if the edition is abridged or not, or anything more than 200 pages. And for a good audio book, talent (yes, some authors are gifted to be able to narrate their own words, but most are cursed with a insomnia inducing voice, or would take forever to enunciate into microphone clearly enough without a bajillion retakes) to procure for that amount of time is costly.

[Cyrrex]

Yeah, you're probably right.  It just seems strange to me that someone (unless vision impaired) would be willing to fork out that kind of dough.

[bhodi]

$20 yes, $50 no. Libraries are a great source of audiobooks. So is isohunt, if it comes to that.

[Ingmar]

China Mieville writes spec fiction with a heavy Marxist influence which is a joy to read, especially because he gives you interesting plots and stories.

Unfortunately he also has the worst case of thesaurus-induced verbal diarrhea this side of Gary Gygax.

[Sky]

The 1st edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide was one of my favorite books as a teenager. I really didn't like the way 2nd ed dumbed down the prose.

[GenVec]

Reading the book by the cracked.com editor, John Dies at the End, by David Wong.

Fucking amazing.

Also, getting turned into a movie by the Bubba Ho-Tep director.

I remember reading that back in 2004 when it was just some random story he had posted for free on his website.

It's a hilariously good read, I can't wait to see the film adaptation.

[Khaldun]

Halfway through Lev Grossman's The Magicians. It's excellent. Manages to be a commentary on Harry Potter, Narnia and other fantasy without being snarky or dismissive of that mode of fantasy.

[HaemishM]

Finished Idoru and started on All Tomorrow's Parties, the last part of that William Gibson Bridge Trilogy. I'm barely into Parties and loving it so far, if only because it brings Rydell back in a big way in the first 20 pages.

[Johny Cee]

China Mieville writes spec fiction with a heavy Marxist influence which is a joy to read, especially because he gives you interesting plots and stories.

Unfortunately he also has the worst case of thesaurus-induced verbal diarrhea this side of Gary Gygax.

Are you talking about Perdido?  One of the best comments I've ever heard on a book was:  "Perdido Street Station?  I loved it.  Never finished it."

I really enjoyed The Scar, Iron Council, and The City & The City.  I've tried to read Perdido twice, and both times bogged down.  

[Ard]

Finished Idoru and started on All Tomorrow's Parties, the last part of that William Gibson Bridge Trilogy. I'm barely into Parties and loving it so far, if only because it brings Rydell back in a big way in the first 20 pages.

I really like his newer books, but I really wish he'd release a book more than once every 3-4 years or so.  Pattern Recognition and Spook Country are similar to the bridge books in feel, but set even closer to the present, if you haven't read them.

[Ingmar]

China Mieville writes spec fiction with a heavy Marxist influence which is a joy to read, especially because he gives you interesting plots and stories.

Unfortunately he also has the worst case of thesaurus-induced verbal diarrhea this side of Gary Gygax.

Are you talking about Perdido?  One of the best comments I've ever heard on a book was:  "Perdido Street Station?  I loved it.  Never finished it."

I really enjoyed The Scar, Iron Council, and The City & The City.  I've tried to read Perdido twice, and both times bogged down.  

I've only read Perdido Street Station, so maybe I'll give him another chance. P.S.S. is just ridiculously overwrought, prose-wise.

[naum]

I have to agree that the depiction of the villains in Game of Thrones was a little hamfisted and overdone. Just in case you didn't dislike these characters enough now we'll depict them fucking each other - gross!

He might as well have named them Cruella Deville and Snidely Wiplash.

Yeah, but one of them got better. Martin likes to make dog-kicking villians and then give them some face-time with the reader and make you empathize and understand them -- or at least move them from puppy-killers to magnificent bastards.

Just finished with book #1 GoT.

Eh, the incest didn't phase me a bit, in fact, had already pegged it before it happened. The characters simply morphed slightly into an ever more grotesque utilitarian caricature than was already conveyed.

Even the more honorable characters come across as a bit more barbaric than the typical fantasy fare.

It started out awfully slow, so much that after first chapters, really was so meh that was going to scrap the read but glad I did not, as it kept getting better with each passing chapter, all the way to the end.

Looking forward to book #2 but I still have a hunch this one's going to drag out just like Jordan and WoT.

Tell me I'm wrong please.