Return of the Book Thread

[WayAbvPar]

Hey, maybe Bubba was a caring and patient lover!

[Ironwood]

Possibly, but the guy looked large.

[Morat20]

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.

That was pretty much why I read it. Plus, wasn't it second person the whole way through? :)

I just read his hand-waving speculation about 2032 London, based on Moore's Law and some (related)  law that has the same general structure as Moore's but involves power costs per operation, and basically summed it up with:

By 2032 we should be able to basically pave London (IE: at least one system within 5 or 10 feet of ANYWHERE) in public with solar-powered (off ambient light, including the street lights at night) chips with the capabilities of a modern cutting edge desktop, a solid set of sensors (camera, audio, GPS, and packet sniffing I'd imagine), and solid bandwith.

Installed at a cost of about half of what London spends yearly cleaning gum off the sidewalks. (Grand total for the god-awful massive survellience suite: About 20 pounds per person).

Which he then points out means privacy as we know it is dead, you're on the grid if you're in public. And then speculates a bit on how that'd interact with people, smart cars, and the like. (And his hardware and power requirements were back-of-napkin, but conservatively done). Like "you ignore your car as it weaves in and out of people, other cars, bikes, and random shit in a chaotic looking mess that is nonetheless ridiculously efficient while London proper basically can track everything you said and did from the moment you woke up. And stored it.

Undoubtably absolutely NOTHING like London of 2032, but interesting to speculate about.

[Cyrrex]

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...

Thanks for this...I ordered the Omnibus version for my Kindle app.  A bit less than halfway through...and it is fucking riveting.  Been a while since I've had that "OMG what happens next ?!" feeling with a book.

[bhodi]

I'm actually reading Stross as well, the Laundy files. Really, I just want the next Dresden book but this will tide me over. Unfortunately, I heard the last book in the series was great and so after this I'll be stuck with TWO series that I'm waiting on the next book for. Well, three, since I want the end of the Kingkiller trilogy as well. Okay, four, because.. you know what, nevermind, there's really no end to this.

[dd0029]

I'm not sure why, but I'd had a need to re-read the Mistwraith series by Janny Wurts after seeing a new book at work. Why I'm on book 7 is beyond me, I think I just want to know how it ends at this point. This series is some emo teen's wet dream, what with all of the preciously tender tortured souls. Holy adjectives batman. Every single sentence has at least one, often two, three to five dollar adjectives. Christ is there a lot of crying in this series. You could fill minor seas with the number of tears shed in each book. There's also wildly varying understandings of distances. My favorite was the 80 league (240 mile) trade caravan trip, explicitly stated as an easy trip, that took three months. That one sounded so off I had to use the really cool Orbis thing from Standford to check Roman travel times.

The side stories are actually interesting up until they get caught in the main thread. There are some good, plausibly motivated villains. The good guys, while clearly good, aren't shining paragons. The side stories have complex motivations and thorny issues with different possible solutions. Until they get caught up in the  main story.

[Sky]

I'm halfway through Toll the Hounds and just loving it. Glad I took a break from the series last year, it gets to be a bit much trying to read it straight through (my first time reading the series). Really taking it slow and chewing on the great imagery and philosophical asides. It's a nice balance to someone like Modesitt who is all about quick relatively shallow formulaic action (and I like the formula for the most part).

[lamaros]

Anyone recommend a good pulpy fantasy or sf novel?

Reading Embassytown at the moment and it's interesting, but I want something a bit more exciting and less self-important to balance it. But still not shite...

[Chimpy]

Princess of Mars is about as pulp sci-fi as you can get, it is public domain, and it is not really shite-y.

[naum]

Princess of Mars is about as pulp sci-fi as you can get, it is public domain, and it is not really shite-y.

Princess of Mars, surprisingly, was a fairly good read. And made it easy for me to understand why movie was so incomprehensible and/or unappealing to the normative American moviegoer.  Also, the inclusion of elements from future novels in the series (or not as I have only read the initial novel).

Just completed Existence by David Brin -- for the most part, a tremendous read, with the huge caveat that in the jump to the book's final part, Brin advances far ahead, and characters in the midst of climax resolution are discarded. Also, just as annoying, it seems that the entire novel is just a device for Brin to plug witty neologisms in a wry attempt to establish his "predictive market" genius.

[Murgos]

Princess of Mars is about as pulp sci-fi as you can get, it is public domain, and it is not really shite-y.

Really though, if you want good pulp just go to Gutenberg and and read all of E.R. Burroughs.

[Shannow]

Anything John Scalzi should do.

[Hammond]

Princess of Mars is about as pulp sci-fi as you can get, it is public domain, and it is not really shite-y.

Really though, if you want good pulp just go to Gutenberg and and read all of E.R. Burroughs.

I second the E.R. Burroughs suggestion.  I grew up on the Barsoom(princess of mars, etc.) and the Tarzan series of books. Overall they are not very deep but definitely entertaining.

[ghost]

I've been growing my library since I was 15.  I love hard cover books.  I would like opinions from the peanut gallery on a topic-  Dust jackets. 

What say ye?  Save them or trash them?

[dd0029]

Save 'em, the cover art's part of the fun. Plus taking them off just looks pretentious.

[naum]

I've been growing my library since I was 15.  I love hard cover books.  I would like opinions from the peanut gallery on a topic-  Dust jackets. 

What say ye?  Save them or trash them?

Trash 'em.

[Chimpy]

Keep.

[Ingmar]

Trash the ugly ones, keep the rest!

[Sky]

The librarian fiancee says: save. For the art and it adds resale value.

Also, it protects the book from your grimy mitts. My favorite books I have processed with plastic at the library, you might ask if they can do it for some of your best.

[naum]

The librarian fiancee says: save. For the art and it adds resale value.

Also, it protects the book from your grimy mitts. My favorite books I have processed with plastic at the library, you might ask if they can do it for some of your best.

Wash your hands before you touch your books.

Covers just get in the way of reading -- I never realized it until I took the plunge and started discarding -- it was liberating. Also, the blurbs on the jacket are usually not even written by the author and the I really can do without the "movie reviewer" plugs on the back cover. I mean, I am already reading the damn thing, so I do not need the sales pitch. The other advantage is more privacy from onlookers in public spaces.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I keep the dust jackets on the few hardbacks I own, but remove them while I'm actually reading the book.  They get in the way otherwise.

[lamaros]

Keep but take off when reading.

[dd0029]

Decided to cleanse the palate from the terrible Janny Wurts with some high quality self published Kindle fair. Imagine my surprise when I actually lucked out with my choice. It's a series, Dead End, by this odd person, PS Power. There are currently three books in the series with what appears to be a planned final fourth. The first is A Very Good Man. A surprisingly good zombie survival character story. Whomever the author is walks a very fine line along the edge of cheeseball with a fairly strong geek fantasy protagonist, but manages to keep it going. He doesn't really veer into full on Marysue. The whole Jake never gets any gets a bit wearing, but something is really charming about the whole story. There's more than a little of early Walking Dead here with the constant threat from zombie attacks and just surviving paired with bits and pieces of Zombieland.The second, A Very Good Neighbor is not quite as good, starting to wander off into the larger story that comes out in book three, A Very Good Thing, but it still has the charm of the first. That third book, however, it kind of goes off the deep end and the author starts telling a different story that's not as interesting. So, I just kind of think that the second book ends, "and Jake wandered of with his group of survivors, Macgyvering into the wilderness, but he still doesn't get any."

[Rendakor]

I keep the dust jackets on the few hardbacks I own, but remove them while I'm actually reading the book.  They get in the way otherwise.

This.

[ghost]

For the art and it adds resale value.

This doesn't happen.  I have every book that I've ever bought (except the LOTR edition that the dog peed on). 

I have most of the dust jackets for my collection, although I've lost a couple lately while reading to the kid.  I was pondering getting rid of a bunch of them.  I find the Terry Brooks- Shannara ones to be particularly offensive.  I really like all the new Dune novels' covers, so I suppose I'll leave those alone.

[Chimpy]

You talk about Shannara being shit and then in the same sentence say you own the new Dune books? 

[ghost]

They're not well written, but I like the story so it's fine.  I used to like the earlier Shannara books, but have come to dislike the original trilogy.  The next four books I still like.  The nice thing about the Dune books is that they found an ending, something Brooks hasn't seemed to grasp just yet.

[Khaldun]

Finally finished the Vinge. I see now why it was hard going--it's possibly the worst book he's written. Long, not much happens, it's just an elaborate set-up for the sequel. Could be half the length.

Read Martinez, Emperor Mollusk vs. the Sinister Brain. Weightless, somewhat fun, gets old fast.

Being reading Wilce's Flora series. Great YA series, though I'd almost hesitate to class it as YA given the more mature things that it's sneaking in under cover of a light-hearted tone and focus on a teenage protagonist. Great world-building.

[Sky]

Unfortunately, I read Shannara /after/ reading Elric. Fantasy just wasn't the same after Elric. Then you-know-what came along and made it even more difficult to get into light fantasy.

[HaemishM]

I tried reading Shannara in my late teen years. All I could think was "this is a terrible D&D rendition of a bad Tolkien ripoff."

[ghost]

The original Shannara book is a blatant LOTR ripoff.  Brooks was completely transparent in his plagiarism.  But he branched out with the story with the future books in a way that makes it okay, I suppose.  They aren't well written, either.  Even Robert Jordan is better. 

[Khaldun]

Eddings is another horrible LOTR ripoffer. I read The Belgariad when I was living in Africa because it was in the used bookstore and I was desperate for new reading material. Just terrible.

[ghost]

That's what the wife said after she read it.  But really, how can avoid being somewhat of a ripoff if you've got elves and dwarves and talking trees and such?  I suppose you could claim D and D as an intermediary influence.

[Ingmar]

Eddings really is bad. His characters all have pretty much literally one character trait, and they never grew ever. Even as a 12 year old I could tell that shit was weak. Hell, freaking Dragonlance has deeper characters.

Mind you, Sky, Moorcock's characters are also terribly, terribly shallow, but at least his world building, etc., is unique.

[lamaros]

I finished Embassytown. I was a bit underwhelmed in the end. It felt a bit indulgent, the premise seemed deeply flawed, and the ending was about half the book late and too drawn out. I'm not a fan of books when the obvious takes half its pages to occur. For me the book wasn't as smart as it thought it was, and apart from being clever there wasn't an incredible amount of stuff going on.

That said there were moments when it was really enjoyable and provocative and it was a worthwhile read.

I ordered the three Alex Bledsoe Eddie LaCrosse books I hadn't got yet for a change of pace.