Return of the Book Thread

[Endie]

Can you point out examples in anime?

All of the stuff I watch amounts to lechery and 2 week long fight scenes. Simple enough. I like it.

I started into this then remembered that this is the book thread, and I'm the last person who wants it made into the anime thread.  Plus, you're making my point for me (probably quite knowingly, I admit).

[lamaros]

To get us back on track... some Japanese novelists I recommend.

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa - The good Penguin translation and collection Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories is highly worthwhile.
Natsume Soseki - A friend has been reading him and I've had a glance, but much of his works seems worthwhile. (have not read yet, just skimmed a few works, but hoping to soon)
Yukio Mishima - Death In Midsummer is a good introduction.
Yasunari Kawabata - Nobel Prize winner. I have just started reading The Master of Go.
Kenzaburō Ōe - Also a Nobel Prize winner, who I have not read as yet.

Ryu Murakami - In The Miso Soup is a fun read, and even talks about America (joy!). Piercing is the most recent translated work I believe.
Banana Yoshimoto - I've only read Hardboiled & Hardluck
Haruki Murakami - Who is everywhere in translation. I don't have much desire to read him and have not, but my brother likes him and so seemingly do many others.

(Kazuo Ishiguro, who writes in english and doesn't really count, is a favourite of mine too)

And of course there are a whole lot of others that I'm not that knowledgable about. But making silly generalisations about Japanese literature based of some cursory introduction to Japan via whatever anime makes its way to the rest of the world is a really dumb thing to do.

EDIT: A very short and worthwhile read regarding western attitudes to Japan is Peter Carey's (Australian author who lives in the US) Wrong About Japan.

[Engels]

Endie, I was responding to Teleku's original statement, as a means of backing your assesment.

[Endie]

Endie, I was responding to Teleku's original statement, as a means of backing your assesment.

Oops.  That would explain it.

[Johny Cee]

I've been in a slough recently,  not reading as much as I would like to.

Been reading Warhammer 40K novels, including rereading a bunch of Dan Abnett's stuff.

To offset this,  I've been catching up on my Jeff Vandermeer.  Just read and loved Shriek,  and I'm delving back into City of Saints and Madmen.

Reread the Lovecraft Dreamlands stuff.  Fuck me, "The Silver Key" is fantastic.

Reading a collection of Machen's two big novellas:  "The Great God Pan" (very good, and a large influence on Lovecraft) and "The Hill of Dreams".

Still haven't seen a copy of Graceling in my local bookstores,  which is too bad.

[stray]

I thought you said you weren't reading that much. 


Damn, you should see me. I'm the one on a slough.

[Johny Cee]

I thought you said you weren't reading that much. 


Damn, you should see me. I'm the one on a slough.

I'm an insomniac speed reader, so that is a very poor showing.

[FatuousTwat]

I just finished Soldier Son trilogy. I had to push hard to get through book 1. The books got successively better but I was relieved more than anything else when I finished it. I found the protagonist a whiny fuck who constantly made bad decisions. I know that was the point but it annoyed me.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. A relief to finish. Still, the ending was pretty good.

I guess that is about it... Damn, I haven't been reading much I guess.

[Sky]

I'm an insomniac speed reader, so that is a very poor showing.

My fiancee is the same. I read at a pretty decent pace, but she reads so goddamned fast that she gets annoyed with me when she's trying to show me a web page or something, keeps scrolling too quickly...

[lamaros]

Ryu Murakami's Coin Locker Babies was pretty meh in the end. I don't really recommend it.

I'm so happy to be finished studies for the year. I'm reading Snow by Pamuk now without any guilt at all!

[Grimwell]

I was given a few gift certificates to the greatest bookstore on earth for Boss's Day so I picked up a few old recommendations from friends I trust.

First book was Sundiver by David Brin. This is the first book in the Uplift series. I have to admit that the idea of the book is good, and I like his writing, but the execution was a little weak. I was about ten miles ahead of most of the plot twists, and prefer surprises. I'm hoping that it's just "first book jitters" and that the second one will be a bit better. If it's not I will probably leave it at that.

The second book I picked up is Lord Foul's Bane (Thomas Covenant) by Stephen Donaldson. I'm almost half way through it and feeling lackluster as well. Covenant himself is annoying and everything that happens seems to be random to the point of me wondering if Donaldson would hit some acid and decide on the next plot point. Covenant's logic also annoys me. The writing isn't so bad, so I'm wondering if it's another case of first book blues and the author trying to litter so many important nuggets into the book that the flow of the story suffers for it.

Oh, I also read the Watchmen -- finally. I haven't read comic books in a long time but stole it from a coworker when I had the chance. I've heard so much good about it. (Yeah, I know not a book, but still). I can see why this book was a revolution for it's time (back when I was a huge Marvel junkie). It's good. I think it moved too fast and could have been twice as long to explore some of the different plot elements; and it didn't blow my mind out of the water -- but it was good. I'm looking forward to seeing how the movie handles it and fearful that the mainstream audience will tank a loyal rendition.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm too jaded for books. They seem much more predictable these days.

[Viin]

I'm starting to wonder if I'm too jaded for books. They seem much more predictable these days.

Books these days are just like sitcoms and prime-time network television. There's some really great ones out there, but you have to weed through all the crap to find them. Sounds to me like you need some better "friends you trust" when to comes to books! (Hint: read this whole thread!)

[Morat20]

I was given a few gift certificates to the greatest bookstore on earth for Boss's Day so I picked up a few old recommendations from friends I trust.

First book was Sundiver by David Brin. This is the first book in the Uplift series. I have to admit that the idea of the book is good, and I like his writing, but the execution was a little weak. I was about ten miles ahead of most of the plot twists, and prefer surprises. I'm hoping that it's just "first book jitters" and that the second one will be a bit better. If it's not I will probably leave it at that.

Sundiver was his first book, IIRC. Startide Rising is good. Everything else he does with Uplift? Kinda hit or miss. You can give everything but Startide Rising a miss, in my opinion, unless you really like the universe. The Uplift War wasn't bad, and I think I finished his Brightness Reef stuff, but can't remember.

The second book I picked up is Lord Foul's Bane (Thomas Covenant) by Stephen Donaldson. I'm almost half way through it and feeling lackluster as well. Covenant himself is annoying and everything that happens seems to be random to the point of me wondering if Donaldson would hit some acid and decide on the next plot point. Covenant's logic also annoys me. The writing isn't so bad, so I'm wondering if it's another case of first book blues and the author trying to litter so many important nuggets into the book that the flow of the story suffers for it.

Stephen Donaldson hates his characters, and you personally. Although the Gap characters were worse.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I liked his Thomas Covenant books, even though they're a bit dated (frankly, lots of people have stolen all the good bits. One of the perils of reading older books, I think. You look at them and say "Shit, this has been done a million times" and it's hard to get past that and think 'yeah, but this was the first time anyone did it. it's not a cliche when you fucking start it").

Especially once you get the hang of what he's doing -- which isn't terribly clear in the first book, because it's more stand-alone feeling. It's kind of hard to explain what I liked about it without spoiling it, but suffice it to say that Covenant doesn't have "logic". He can't decide if it's all real and matters, or if it's a delusion and doesn't. So sometimes he makes choices as if it's all real, and sometimes he doesn't, and sometimes he gets pissed at himself (and thus the Land, depending on how he's feeling) and just acts out of emotion.

He's not a likeable character -- fuck, Mhoram and Foamfollower are the only two I'd consider half-likeable in the whole damn books. I found it a lot better when I read it as both the Land being real, and the Land being a delusion at the same time. Shit makes more sense.

Then hell, maybe I just like the books because it was the first time I read a book where I wanted to strangle the protagonist. :)

[bhodi]

I was annoyed that the Uplift saga never really went anywhere. I read the first three, and while it was a fairly entertaining (if predictable) adventure story, the true meat of the universe lay in politics. The world had a lot of potential, with humans being the lowest rung on the totem pole, and alien races being friendly without being friends, sabotage, and cloak and dagger stuff.

I would have greatly preferred a focus similar to Scalzi's The Last Colony. What I got instead was much less interesting. All that potential intrigue is all left behind to follow a ship with dolphins as they crash land and then flee from fleets that are after them because they discovered some ultimate super artifact that everyone wants. Ho Hum.

[Yoru]

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.

I found the hardbound edition of this today in a bookshop selling for less than the trade paperback. Joy!

I've read about 400 pages of the 900-something in it, and I generally agree. I spent the majority of the first chapter alternately annoyed and bewildered by what seems to be a profusion of deliberately obfuscated language. While Stephenson has made up a number of terms that don't have good cognates, he's also simply injected enough jargon that directly replaces standard terms to be irritating; I'd count that so far as the book's greatest failing. In other cases it's justified, as he's connoting historical events and figures with fictitious approximations by using altered names.

Still, I spent a lot of time with the glossary for the first few chapters, and less enthusiastic readers will certainly be turned off by having to do that.

It seems to be one of his better works so far. The wheels haven't popped off and caused the thing to go meandering onto irrelevant side adventures or two hundred pages of politics purely ancillary to the main plot, yet - unlike, say, the majority of The Confusion or The System of the World. It seems more fully-formed and to have a better-paced plot than The Diamond Age, but still doesn't seem quite as crisp as Snow Crash. It's jockeying with Quicksilver for second place in my hierarchy of Stephenson books.

[Abagadro]

I've decided that it helps to be an academic to really appreciate a large portion of what is going on in Anathem. All the dithering and arguments are somewhat inside baseball to certain elements in academia.

[Johny Cee]

I've decided that it helps to be an academic to really appreciate a large portion of what is going on in Anathem. All the dithering and arguments are somewhat inside baseball to certain elements in academia.

The tangental philosophy arguments were not uncommon at the undergraduate level.

The problem is that Stephensen weights the arguments so heavily in the narrative,  when they could be better summarized and presented in respect to the actual plot.  It caused problems for the pacing of the book.

[Abagadro]

It goes beyond just the substance of the philosophical arguments which are basically Aristotilian vs. Platonic with Greene's poly-universe overlayed.  I'm not referring to that.

It's more how they are presented and argued within the structure of the world he has created.  Anyone that has been at a conference where an empiricist, constructivist and interpretivist have gone at it will see what I am talking about.

[Engels]

I've not read the book, but I saw a similar phenomena in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which was basically a huge excuse to bitch about one professor at University of Chicago.

[Ironwood]

I found it a lot better when I read it as both the Land being real, and the Land being a delusion at the same time. Shit makes more sense.

Covenants problem is that he was taught very early that you can't act as if it's a delusion if you can't leave.  That shit has consequences.  So he's utterly torn in that he has to act as if it's real, but A LEPER CAN'T DO THAT.  The land totally destroys what his reality has become.  The first 3 books may as well be 'The Unbelievable Torture and Mindfuck of Thomas Covenant'.  The next 3 explain that.

[Yoru]

I've decided that it helps to be an academic to really appreciate a large portion of what is going on in Anathem. All the dithering and arguments are somewhat inside baseball to certain elements in academia.

Yeah, I can't help but have the feeling that Stephenson really wanted to write something in the form of a set of Socratic Dialogues and then tacked on a sci-fi plot to tie it together. Unfortunately, he does this by deliberately putting a thin veil of obfuscation over his philosophical arguments, which is just similar enough to see through while also being maddening to slog through while you're getting a grip on the invented terminology.

Also, I normally hate posting something from xkcd but...

[JWIV]

Yeah, I can't help but have the feeling that Stephenson really wanted to write something in the form of a set of Socratic Dialogues and then tacked on a sci-fi plot to tie it together. Unfortunately, he does this by deliberately putting a thin veil of obfuscation over his philosophical arguments, which is just similar enough to see through while also being maddening to slog through while you're getting a grip on the invented terminology.

Also, I normally hate posting something from xkcd but...

I think he's said as much in interviews.  He mostly wanted to discuss philosophy and math and threw in Space Pirates to make it more accessible to publishers.   

As to the chart, I'd say it's 100% accurate 90% of the time.      I liked the book well enough to say that I think it succeeds (with invented words and all).  Now, would it be a better book sans the words, or does the created vocabulary aid in terms of immersion, narrative, and setting?  I easily could put forward an argument for either side, and I'm not even sure where I fall onto love - hate scale. 

[Morat20]

Covenants problem is that he was taught very early that you can't act as if it's a delusion if you can't leave.  That shit has consequences.  So he's utterly torn in that he has to act as if it's real, but A LEPER CAN'T DO THAT.  The land totally destroys what his reality has become.  The first 3 books may as well be 'The Unbelievable Torture and Mindfuck of Thomas Covenant'.  The next 3 explain that.

Amusingly, his synopsis of the first three books (I think the forward to whatever his Last Chronicles is) actually succinctly covers it -- basically, Thomas can't deal with the whole "I can't leave, it has consequences, I can't handle that because I'll fucking die when I leave" by making a bunch of little bargains. He basically compromises his own ethics to find a balance.

Kinda like "Doing a little wrong so I can make the Big Right easy enough that I can handle without killing myself". Except everything after that is spoiled by his compromise. Since the Land -- delusion or not -- is sort of a "Good/Bad" binary world, little evils fester even if they're in the service of Good. So each time he comes back, he's faced with the long-term consequences of his ethical compromise.

Now his Gap serious -- jesus. Just don't bother liking any character in there. George Martin just kills people off -- fucking Donaldson makes you hate them. If Jesus shows up in a Donaldson novel, you'd be cheering for Satan at the end because Satan would turn out to be more ethical and loving than the Virgin Mary.

[Phildo]

Has Stephenson ever admitted to being a Gene Wolf fan?  Try reading The Book of the New Sun some time and see how the language there strikes you.  (I absolutely loved the books once I figured out what he was saying, btw)

[bhodi]

Now his Gap serious -- jesus. Just don't bother liking any character in there. George Martin just kills people off -- fucking Donaldson makes you hate them. If Jesus shows up in a Donaldson novel, you'd be cheering for Satan at the end because Satan would turn out to be more ethical and loving than the Virgin Mary.

One of my favorites. I do find it amusing that the one you hate MOST at the beginning is the one you hate LEAST by the end. And really, everyone is soiled, and most are bastards. God, I love that series.

[Rishathra]

There was definitely a period when I started reading Anathem that was muddled and confusing, but it didn't bother me so much because I figured it was intentional, and I am definitely the kind of person that appreciates being dumped into a world as opposed to being eased into it.  Once I figured out the rhythm of it, I enjoyed the book immensely.  I also am generally fond of what Stephenson does with words, so ymmv.

[Johny Cee]

Has Stephenson ever admitted to being a Gene Wolf fan?  Try reading The Book of the New Sun some time and see how the language there strikes you.  (I absolutely loved the books once I figured out what he was saying, btw)

I don't think there's much similarity between Wolfe and Stephenson.  Wolfe is all about presenting a seemingly simple situation or series of events, and then dropping a line that causes you to reevaluate everything that happened in the last 200 pages.  Wolfe is about subtext and stories behind stories.

Stephenson doesn't really give a shit about the stories, and he doesn't do subtext that well.  He pretty much likes to lay out everything in front of you and let you admire how clever he is.  Wolfe likes to sneak things up on you and then mind-fuck you.

That being said,  I enjoy Stephenson.  Some of his set-pieces are wonderful, and generally I find his diversions interesting.

Wolfe actually has a new book out now, An Evil Guest.  It was decent, though not one of my better liked Wolfe novels.  Although...  I did read it in two sittings,  so who the hell knows?

[Phildo]

I wasn't talking about their approach to storytelling, just that Wolfe likes to throw a wall of vocabulary at you from the start and let you play catch-up in the same way that people were describing Anathem.

[FatuousTwat]

So my favourite series (The Serge books by Tim Dorsey) might be made into a movie... With Paul Rudd to play Serge and Seth Rogen for Coleman. I might kill myself.

[Johny Cee]

There's a new Jim Butcher novella due out now,  called Backup.  It follows Thomas,  Harry's brother from the Dresden series.  I'm going to pick it up as soon as I see it, to tide me over until the next Dresden book that's due out this spring.

Working on The Company,  by K.J. Parker.  His/her (Parker is a pseudonym for an unknown established author) books interest me at first,  then I just find myself drifting off through the course of the book.

Still have a half finished Toll the Hounds sitting on my coffee table,  and a copy of Abercrombie's latest that I haven't cracked yet.


I've mentioned this before,  but I think folks would like Mike Carey's "Felix Castor" books.  I'd summarize it as supernatural noir with a John Constantine lead character who's constantly fucking up things for his friends.  First two books are out in the US, and the third you can order from the UK.

[FatuousTwat]

Sounds good. I'll order the first Felix Castor book from my library right now, and tell you when I get done reading it (could be a couple weeks, I have a bunch to read first).

[Salamok]

I've decided that it helps to be an academic to really appreciate a large portion of what is going on in Anathem. All the dithering and arguments are somewhat inside baseball to certain elements in academia.

Yeah, I can't help but have the feeling that Stephenson really wanted to write something in the form of a set of Socratic Dialogues and then tacked on a sci-fi plot to tie it together. Unfortunately, he does this by deliberately putting a thin veil of obfuscation over his philosophical arguments, which is just similar enough to see through while also being maddening to slog through while you're getting a grip on the invented terminology.

Also, I normally hate posting something from xkcd but...

The invented jargon didn't bother me so much as the paradox's that creeped in towards the end (one being the food issues/lack of other issues in the same vein).  The most important thing I took away from this book was that his works can entertain after discarding his crutch of descending into total perversion every 100 pages.  I hope he continues in this, now if he could only figure out how to write an ending I would probably rank him in my personal top 10.

[Johny Cee]

Sounds good. I'll order the first Felix Castor book from my library right now, and tell you when I get done reading it (could be a couple weeks, I have a bunch to read first).

The first is probably the weakest.  It comes off feeling the most like other contemporary urban fantasy in plot,  though the ending redeemed it quite a bit.  Basically a bit of first novel syndrome, though Carey hits his stride next book.


If you like John Constantine/Hellblazer,  you should like this.

[Abagadro]

now if he could only figure out how to write an ending I would probably rank him in my personal top 10.

He has the same problem Peter Hamilton does. His books are so complex and the story is so big that any ending feels like a letdown.

[Samwise]

I thought the Baroque Cycle ended really nicely.  It helped that he took about 300 pages to slowly tie up all the story threads.