Return of the Book Thread

[HRose]

Has anyone else read the novellas he wrote in the same universe about the 2 necromancers? I've only read one of them and it was pretty damn good.

Me. Or at least I'm halfway through the second, The Steel Remains captured my attention now and I'm going to finish that first (70 pages from the end).

I think this book of Richard Morgan is worth recommending here, really hard to put down, even if it isn't all that revolutionary.

[Murgos]

90% absolute dreck that was hard to wade through, 10% pure golden awesomeness that was every scene involving Half-cocked Jack.  So awesome that it made wading through the shit worthwhile.

Exact opposite.  10% derivative adventure crap with half-cocked jack and 90% awesome historical commentary on the people, politics and social conventions of the time brilliantly written and detailed.

You do know that all those people really existed and really did the things he wrote about except for Shaftoe, Root, Eliza and Waterhouse, right?

[Rishathra]

Of course I do.  And on an intellectual level, I found it interesting and enlightening.  But as far as reading enjoyment went, it was a slog.

Edit: To be clear, by the time I finished it, I really enjoyed it, and for all the reasons you mentioned.  Getting through it was simply difficult at times.

[Salamok]

Anathem is out now.

Gogogogo.

Just bought this at costco for $16.29!  I am looking forward to seeing if this guy has figured out how to write an ending yet.

[lamaros]

Just read McCarthy's The Road.  That guy can sure write well, but I'm not sure I saw the point.

Had to reply to this. :)

I think 'The Road' was just some half-assed wish to be Beckett, with God this time! Except he's just not anywhere near as good a writer as Beckett.

I thought it was pretty ordinary really (reasonably forgettable if it wasn't for the fact I wrote an essay on it), and it pretty much killed off any desire to read any of his other stuff. I had heard that his first book (or one of his first) was actually really good too...

Been reading some Australian stuff recently which I don't think would be avaliable o/s so no point recommending.

[Johny Cee]

Just read McCarthy's The Road.  That guy can sure write well, but I'm not sure I saw the point.

Had to reply to this. :)

I think 'The Road' was just some half-assed wish to be Beckett, with God this time! Except he's just not anywhere near as good a writer as Beckett.

I thought it was pretty ordinary really (reasonably forgettable if it wasn't for the fact I wrote an essay on it), and it pretty much killed off any desire to read any of his other stuff. I had heard that his first book (or one of his first) was actually really good too...

If you're going to read any McCarthy,  read Blood Meridian.  Huge amounts of critical praise for that one.

No Country for Old Men is alright,  but I remember the wave of positive mediocre reviews when it was released.  The Road I haven't read yet. 

[NowhereMan]

Had some free time recently so read Black Mass by John Gray and Smoke and Mirrors by Gaiman.

Black Mass was interesting, Gray identifies NeoConservatism as the descendent of Christian Apocalyptic and Utopian thinking, tracing its progress from Christianity itself and several different movements into secular Enlightenment movements. This follows on to elements of Nazism and more strongly in Communism with junk science serving the role of ideological justification that religion used to. Amusingly he identifies Neoconservatism and Fukuyama type capitalists as the natural successors to Communism in seeing a form of government that is destined to become the single form for all people everywhere. I'm not sure how much I agree with it, certainly very pop-political philosophy (not to imply its bad or wrong but it doesn't seem academically rigorous) but there's a lot of interesting stuff in it. I get the feeling there's quite a few people on this board that would enjoy it.

Smoke and Mirrors is some classic Gaiman, collection of short stories that are a mix of weird, wonderful and hilarious. It's a great one to dip in and out of, only thing I'd say is that some of the stories are deliberately stylistic and weird, probably not to everyone's taste. Also I'd recommend getting to know a bit of Lovecraft before really settling into this just because some of the best stories are either inspired by or gently mocking him, at the very least read the Shadow over Innsmouth before this.

[Mosesandstick]

Some stuff I've been reading that (from what I've seen) is pretty different from what's discussed in the thread.

Children of Men by P.D. James - Decent read, though I'm not really a fan of James' style. I enjoyed reading it just to see how the movie differed.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike - I guess a lot of Americans have read this. I find Updike's style weird, he seems to meander and write random stuff for sentences at a time, I found it a bit difficult to grasp but it seems to reflect the state of the protagonists. I actually enjoyed the book and am continuing to hurry through the rest of the Rabbit series.

Married to another man by Ghada Karmi - I hate to bring politics in to another thread, but I think this book is worth reading simply because of how rare it is to read/hear anything from Palestinians at all. Her other book, I think its called searching for Fatima is probably a more suitable read since its more about her childhood and less vitriol aimed at Israel.

[HaemishM]

Finished Crime and Punishment - 500 pages and a very strange ending. I'm definitely more of a Tolstoy man.

Picked up another classic I'd never read - Animal Farm. Holy fuck, why have I never read this before? About 80 pages into it and it is fucking fantastic. I think it's required reading for most kids these days, but I shudder to think how badly English teachers are mangling the lessons of this book for our future generations. I think I shall hereby refer to Osama Bin Laden as Snowball.

[Mosesandstick]

Heh, before I came to England I read both Animal Farm and 1984. Pretty depressing. Coming to the UK you realise you're living in 1984.

I still think the best thing about Animal Farm is that its readable by both the young and the old. One of the reasons why like Lord of the Flies its one of those books I still like even as I get older.

[Khaldun]

The Grey book isn't terrible but he sure is mangling some of the complexities and intricacies of the stuff he's talking about. It's a bit too much the "I have two categories, and I'm sure as shit going to stuff everything I can find into one of the two. In fact, strike that, I have one category and myself, and whatever isn't me is in the category of Things That Suck".

[Hawkbit]

Heh, before I came to England I read both Animal Farm and 1984. Pretty depressing. Coming to the UK you realise you're living in 1984.

I read 1984 when I was in jr high, around 8th grade.  I understood a lot of it at the time, but I read it about a year ago (now in my 30s) and it scared the living shit out of me.  It's funny what education and experience do to the mind. 

[NowhereMan]

Coming to the UK you realise you're living in 1984.

What are you talking about?

[Endie]

I bought a first edition of 1984, with dustcover intact, for the princely sum of ten pounds in a charity shop a couple of years ago.  They had 2 pounds on the tag, and I had to talk them up to a tenner.

[Miasma]

Children's author to carry on Hitchhikers guide.

[Murgos]

Children's author to carry on Hitchhikers guide.

That's rather unfortunate.

[FatuousTwat]

Don't read any new Hitchhikers guide books.

FIFY

[HaemishM]

Goddamnit, can't they just leave well enough alone?

[Endie]

Don't read any new Hitchhikers guide books, and frankly the last two or three were pretty poor.

FIFY

You missed a bit.

[Ironwood]

I have just finished The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan.

Don't.

It's fucking tripe.  Absolute bollocks.

As you all know, I'm a massive fan of Morgan and love his Kovacs stuff and liked Black Man (twist or 13 or whatever it got called in America to prevent an uprising).  However, this book is total, total shite of the highest order.

If you like a Moorcock rip off that makes no sense whatsoever, has no plot, no themes and nothing important to say, buy it.  If you like homosexual sex every second page, up to and including the 'pungent smell of his shit on my fingers' as some guy rams it into some other guy from behind, it's a winner for you !  If you like fucking stupidity and nonsense page after page after page, spend your money !!

Finally, if you want some guy from Glasgow showing you exactly how much swearing he can do, get this book.

Or, you know, read a politics post of mine.

It's a bad book.

That is all.


EDIT :  Nope, apparently, that is not all.  It turns out this is the first part of a trilogy.  Jesus Christ, who'd do that to themselves thrice ??

[Arrrgh]

It wasn't all that long either. I think if you just went in and deleted all the man love and swearing you'd have a novella left.

[WayAbvPar]

Tore through Generation Kill after watching the miniseries. As has been mentioned before, the miniseries was remarkably faithful to the book. Really interesting read. Have moved on to Peter Alson's Take Me To The River, a first hand account of his experience playing in the 2005 WSOP. So far, so good.

[shiznitz]

I think the airline will charge me extra to bring Anathem onto the plane with me Friday.

Not if you have a Kindle. I love mine. Love it.

note: I have no idea if Anathem is Kindle available yet.

[WayAbvPar]

Yeah, I looked at Anathem at Costco the other day, and there is no way in hell I am lugging that thing around while I read it. I can entertain myself with other books until the paperback comes out.

[shiznitz]

Just read McCarthy's The Road.  That guy can sure write well, but I'm not sure I saw the point.

Had to reply to this. :)

I think 'The Road' was just some half-assed wish to be Beckett, with God this time! Except he's just not anywhere near as good a writer as Beckett.

I thought it was pretty ordinary really (reasonably forgettable if it wasn't for the fact I wrote an essay on it), and it pretty much killed off any desire to read any of his other stuff. I had heard that his first book (or one of his first) was actually really good too...

Been reading some Australian stuff recently which I don't think would be avaliable o/s so no point recommending.

Disagree on the ordinary.  A colleague crystallized how good the writiing is when she said "for most of the book, the images were black and white - except when they found food. Those parts were in color."

[JWIV]

Just finished Richard Morgan's Market Forces.   In light of this week, am now expecting Wall Street execs to start dueling through Manhattan for the handful of jobs that will remain.

[lamaros]

Disagree on the ordinary.  A colleague crystallized how good the writiing is when she said "for most of the book, the images were black and white - except when they found food. Those parts were in color."

I entirely disagree with that. The only bits in colour are bits about "the fire/god" (which is to say anything with the boy and not the father). The fact that you could read the book as say there is a "they" in it strikes me also as missing the point. The book has no they; the obvious disconnection between the father and the child (and the mother) for much of the novel is empahsised; 'they' never find anything. The father finds all material things alone and if anything else is found it is in/by the boy. The father can only search for other things, not find, and his roadtrip is necessarily pointless because he has no real realtionship with the environment in which he exists.

i can write without grammer or expression too. that doesn't make it style or mean anything. are we evil he said. no i said no we're not evil. we're the good guys. we're the good guys i said. we're carrying the fire. we're carrying the fire i said. you promise. promise. i looked at his cold frail body and (insert fatalistic rendering of biblical reference here). are we ok. we're ok. ok. ok. ok. ok.

I'm not saying that there is no craft in the book. But the writing doesn't mean something of itself. To quote the book itself it is  the "idiom shorn of its referents and so of reality". Which is to say it is language as language first and language as meaning and relationship second, if at all, because all its references are stolen from those inherent in language (as posited by others using the language) and not crafted originaly from the way the book itself deploys that language. There is no reality, no meaning or communication there apart from what we posit ourselves. Except for the bits when McCarthy cannot help but shove some down on us, entirely ruining whatever style he might have had going. Praising the style of the novel as anything other than post-modernist seems to me to entirely miss the point of what the style is, and praising post-modernist style as communicating specific things. Ugh.

If the book wants to say something it should say it with every word, not impose it with some and then fill the rest up with meaningless shite that 'looks' like it means something.

Which is of course not to suggest the book it pointless or not a good topic for conversation, just to suggest that the book is not a good book and that other people have written about such things much better before. Which is my real complaint, that it apes after other artists rather than having an imagintaive vision of its own and as such can only ever been appreciated as footnotes at the feet of those that have gone before; that it says nothing new itself.

You could only read the conversation with the poor old guy on the road without wanting to lobotimise yourself and then go read the real thing, waiting for godot, if you've never read waiting for godot. Or read Beckett's 'Comfort' or 'Ill Seen Ill Said'. Both of which I would highly recomment if you found 'The Road' to be good. They have the benifit of being much much shorter.

/rant

[Salamok]

Okay finished Anathem and while I like that it was unlike anything he has written before and that he stepped away from some of his usual crutches, he still hasn't figured out how to wrap up a story.

Also picked up Brisingr at costco for $14.89.  More of the same but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  After Anathem my brain needed some trivial entertainment and this fit the bill perfectly.

[Viin]

About half way through The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. (He also wrote The Forever War).

Pretty fast read (maybe 3-4 nights of solid reading), but interesting none the less. Basically, some MIT lab monkey accidentally makes a time machine while building something else and travels forward through time trying to find the era that will allow him to learn how to travel backwards in time. Antics ensue. Some not too in depth discussions about relativity, string theory, etc etc, just enough to be interesting without being overbearing.

Entertaining, but not very SciFi heavy if thats what you are looking for. The interesting parts come from how he envisions the future (techno-religious dictatorship, utopian Californian society, etc).

[Johny Cee]

Okay finished Anathem and while I like that it was unlike anything he has written before and that he stepped away from some of his usual crutches, he still hasn't figured out how to wrap up a story.

It was entertaining.  Finished it last week, and was letting it sit for a while.

My impression: a wordy,  hard scifi version of Zelazny's Amber books from the POV of a minor character.


Just read Simmons Song of Kali which I actually enjoyed quite a bit.

[FatuousTwat]

When Books Could Change Your Life

http://citypaper.com/special/story.asp?id=16743

[JWIV]

Just picked up Anathem, and I'm about halfway through it.   I'm enjoying it, but I'm wondering if I might need a second read as the terminology is a bit offputting in the beginning.

[Sky]

I'm about halfway through the first engineer book, Devices and Desires by KJ Parker. Not sure where it's going, but it's a fun read. Decent twists and the characters are pretty interesting, lots of grey area. Also a satisfying amount of mechanical smithy type stuff, like Modesitt on steroids. Had to buy it because it's not in the library system! Boo, going to have to spank the fiction librarian. Who might be my fiancee.

[bhodi]

Going back to Heinlein, never read a lot of his stuff, so I'm just reading them all.

Almost done with stranger in a strange land. I can see why some people call it boring, especially in the beginning, but it picks up.

[JWIV]

Going back to Heinlein, never read a lot of his stuff, so I'm just reading them all.

Almost done with stranger in a strange land. I can see why some people call it boring, especially in the beginning, but it picks up.

Stranger is a weird weird book.  Honestly, I've always preferred Heinlein's short stories to his novels.