Return of the Book Thread

[WayAbvPar]

Really looking forward to it.

I'm in this weird state where I am really looking forward to the first 90% of it while dreading the last hundred pages.

Heh that goes without saying!

[Khaldun]

I'm reading the Hunger Games Trilogy on a recommendation from a friend. Interesting concept that gets pretty nuts.

I enjoyed the first book. If I had a daughter I'd probably rather she read that than Twilight. I'm going to read the other two in due course.

Isn't Hunger Games the series loosely based on/similar to Battle Royale?

I enjoyed Battle Royale, but I understand Hunger Games has a couple of extra components added to the mix.

Similar premise, very different feeling. Among other things, Hunger Games is a brutally sharp commentary on contemporary American ideas about meritocracy and social mobility. On some subsurface level it's like Marxism and the Tea Party had a baby and it decided it liked Mad Max 3.

[Khaldun]

Just started Ready Player One. I think a lot of people here would groove on it big time.

[stu]

After years of keeping Consider Phlebas on the backburner in favor of unsure bets, I finally finished my first Culture novel at the doctor's office yesterday. Awesome book and I loved reading the parts with the Idirans. I wanted to know more about their expansion victories. The King Hippo chapter was one of the nastier things I've read. That section was tougher to read than the worst parts of American Psycho, at least. I could smell the bowls of slop as they were brought up to Horza's nose...

Speaking of whom, I liked the fact that we never really find out who created the Changers and that Horza is, for the most part, a selfish and misguided douche.

[WayAbvPar]

Started Reamde Monday night. So far, so good. I love the way Stephenson writes. I am sure he will fuck the last act up something fierce, but I am enjoying the ride so far. and I wanna play T'Rain!

[lamaros]

Just started Ready Player One. I think a lot of people here would groove on it big time.

Just bought it. Hope it gets here soon!

[Rasix]

Finally finished Towers of Midnight.  It was really good, even if it at times it was a bit clumsy.  He was a bit too blunt with some of the characterizations, although I could suppose that's just his interpretation of Jordan.  The ending blitz of scenes was a bit erratic as well, I don't remember most of the series pulling that sort of transition.  Still, easily as good as the first four books and has me looking forward to the last one.

Now's it's time to get caught up with Dresden.

[Quinton]

Anyone tackling REAMDE at the moment?

Just finished it.  Fun ride.  More of an "Action Movie" feel than some of his other stuff, a bit lighter on the info-dumping (or perhaps just in much more bite-sized chunks interspersed with the story), a more present-day setting, and it stays pretty fast-paced throughout.  Ends far more completely/decisively than much of his previous stuff.  Lots of very enjoyable, snappy dialogue.  Sadly much of the more highly amusing/quotable bits are pretty spoilerish.

[Quinton]

Really looking forward to it.

I'm in this weird state where I am really looking forward to the first 90% of it while dreading the last hundred pages.

Heh that goes without saying!

I was okay with the ending of Anathem.  Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon all were frustrating in the way that he built up these fascinating worlds, then left you sorta standing in the ashes of them.  Still need to go back and give The Baroque Cycle another try (bogged down in the start of book 2 last time and ended up setting it aside).

I was pretty content with the ending of REAMDE.  Will be interested to see what everyone else thinks.

[Arthur_Parker]

Finished the Farseer trilogy & Tawny Man trilogy, remembered the first book from years ago finally tracked down the others, best read I've had in ages.

[K9]

Speaking of Young Adult books, has anyone read the Alchemyst series by Michael Scott? I have heard a couple of good thigns about them, but not from anyone whose reading habits I know well enough to have great confidence.

[Khaldun]

I think they're ok, decent, not fantastic.

Speaking of YA, re-reading the Bartimeus trilogy with my daugher. Stroud does very strong characterization and world-building, all his books avoid neat good guy-bad situations. His new Heroes of the Valley is a good example of that--the protagonist has a lot of flaws, the villains aren't all that different from their enemies, and so on.

[K9]

Ok, cheers. I may pick them up when my stack of 'to-read' books thins a little.

[dd0029]

Speaking of Young Adult books, has anyone read the Alchemyst series by Michael Scott? I have heard a couple of good thigns about them, but not from anyone whose reading habits I know well enough to have great confidence.

I have them and have read through the first two. The first was ok - lots of time was spent setting up the world. The second was better. There was more room for story and the required the teen drama nonsense was thankfully not does that girl/guy like whomever and was germane to the larger plot.

[Ingmar]

Been reading the Joe Abercrombie First Law books, thanks to whoever mentioned them, they're pretty entertaining. (Except the sex scenes, which are possibly even more  than GRRM ones.)

[Sheepherder]

That's... impressive.

[lamaros]

Been reading the Joe Abercrombie First Law books, thanks to whoever mentioned them, they're pretty entertaining. (Except the sex scenes, which are possibly even more  than GRRM ones.)

When I was a teenager I read David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series. After his incestuous, tentacle, snuff, s&m, etc sex scenes I think my brain is able to handle anything...

[Khaldun]

I kind of liked that series...for the first four books or so. Then it really just ground on and on and on and on. (A familiar problem). I gave up, I have no idea how far in it was before I did.

[Murgos]

...which are possibly even more  than GRRM ones.

I just got to Ramsay Bolton's wedding.  He needs to tack a step back before he turns the whole series into a farce.

[HaemishM]

I realized that both Zero History and Pattern Recognition were connected to Spook Country, so instead of reading Zero History, I choose Pattern Recognition by William Gibson first. Just finished it and am about 50 pages into Zero. He has gotten extremely obsessed with brands and fashion these days. Spook Country got interesting about 50 pages in. Neither Pattern or Zero were that interesting until much later in the book. IainC was dead on when he talked about Pattern - I read 200 pages before I realized Gibson was describing lots of nothings in high definition. His writing has gotten more abstract and choppy as he's gone on. Hubertus Bigend, the bridging character among all three novels, really isn't that interesting yet. He could be, but he hasn't really been the focus of any of it, so he comes off as kind of this convenient plot device with legs. Pattern is only for diehard Gibson fans.

[Ingmar]

...which are possibly even more  than GRRM ones.

I just got to Ramsay Bolton's wedding.  He needs to tack a step back before he turns the whole series into a farce.

Well, no, I shouldn't imply they're like that kind of thing. Really I just mean they're more... bad. There's one that is literally just like a page and a half of "Urgh" "Unh" "ohhhh" etc.

[lamaros]

Just started Ready Player One. I think a lot of people here would groove on it big time.

Just bought it. Hope it gets here soon!

Just finished it. Pretty good. Not amazing, but a fun read.

Edit: To be completely correct, it is not really a good book. It is very poorly written in many ways, some of them really annoying. It is never really believable in any way, which is especially annoying with all the deux ex machina... But I enjoyed it in spite of that. If you have low expectations you will enjoy.

It is a shame, because in the hands of a better writer it could have been a really good SF story.

No re-readability, so library if you can.

[NowhereMan]

...which are possibly even more  than GRRM ones.

I just got to Ramsay Bolton's wedding.  He needs to tack a step back before he turns the whole series into a farce.

Well, no, I shouldn't imply they're like that kind of thing. Really I just mean they're more... bad. There's one that is literally just like a page and a half of "Urgh" "Unh" "ohhhh" etc.

Really when I got to those I just skipped to the end. I felt from Abercombie's books overall that he'd have benefitted from easing up a bit on the 'Everyone's a bastard and the world is horrible' approach. I liked the subversion of tropes in the First Law books but

[K9]

[Khaldun]

I realized that both Zero History and Pattern Recognition were connected to Spook Country, so instead of reading Zero History, I choose Pattern Recognition by William Gibson first. Just finished it and am about 50 pages into Zero. He has gotten extremely obsessed with brands and fashion these days. Spook Country got interesting about 50 pages in. Neither Pattern or Zero were that interesting until much later in the book. IainC was dead on when he talked about Pattern - I read 200 pages before I realized Gibson was describing lots of nothings in high definition. His writing has gotten more abstract and choppy as he's gone on. Hubertus Bigend, the bridging character among all three novels, really isn't that interesting yet. He could be, but he hasn't really been the focus of any of it, so he comes off as kind of this convenient plot device with legs. Pattern is only for diehard Gibson fans.

Yeah. I didn't hate them or anything, but felt very meh afterwards. I think he's written himself into a weird, not very satisfying intellectual/cultural space, and the characters are mostly not saving him.

[Chimpy]

Just finished Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. It took more time to get into but it really caught me after he stopped jumping around so much and actually focused a bit on a given character.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Heh, I found that last night and was going to post it here today.  Curses, you stupid job!

[bhodi]

Yeah, it's been really making the rounds today. All that chart says to me is that NPR REALLY likes Neil Gaiman (Really, BOTH books in urban fantasy go to him? No Jim Butcher?)

And also I probably read too much considering there are checkmarks next to most of those books.

[lamaros]

I wrote a little review of Ready Player One, if anyone was thinking about picking it up.

[Thrawn]

Looking for a recommendation, could use a new AUDIO book series to start at work.  I'm mostly a fantasy/sci-fi fan, I enjoyed Song of Fire & Ice and really liked The Dresden Files and The Wheel of Time to give a better idea.

Any good suggestions?

[RhyssaFireheart]

Looking for a recommendation, could use a new AUDIO book series to start at work.  I'm mostly a fantasy/sci-fi fan, I enjoyed Song of Fire & Ice and really liked The Dresden Files and The Wheel of Time to give a better idea.

Any good suggestions?

Black Company? 

/hides from Ironwood

Ah, have you checked out Sanderson's Mistborne series?  I've been meaning to pick it up myself since there's been a lot of good said about the series and he did a good job on the WoT books.  Not sure about audio format though, sorry.

[Ironwood]

I've read it now, it doesn't work anymore.

It was...ok.

[bhodi]

If you're sensitive to voice (I am not, especially) look through the back catalogs of good readers and pick from that list. You're basically looking for Scott Brick, George Guidall, Mark Vietor, people like that.

For the record, I enjoyed mistborn in audiobook form. It was well done. I pretty much discovered his name when he was tapped to write the final wheel of time novels so I looked up the mistborn series.

Black company was also good (though it was narrated by 3 different people and I didn't like the woman all that much). Some books are just better in audio form. Any series that is slightly confusing or rambling is better in audiobook, where narrators put voices and accents to the different characters. I think the dune series was better in audiobook.

Mistborn is probably a good choice.

[Rasix]

Looking for a recommendation, could use a new AUDIO book series to start at work.  I'm mostly a fantasy/sci-fi fan, I enjoyed Song of Fire & Ice and really liked The Dresden Files and The Wheel of Time to give a better idea.

Any good suggestions?

You have similar tastes to my own.  Series sitting on my bookshelf that you might like:

Malazan Books of the Fallen, Black Company, Dark Tower, Mistborn

edit: Malazan and Mistborn I haven't finished for various reasons.  Both are solid.  Malazan books might put you to sleep though if they're available in audio books.

[RhyssaFireheart]

This is probably a good place to ask this - how exactly do audio books work?  I mean, I get that someone (presumably a good speaker) is basically just reading the text for you, but do they do voices or try to distinguish different speakers somehow?  Does the narrator/speaker say "Chapter One, 'chapter title', It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." and just go into the text?

I've thought about audio books before because sometimes it does get boring listening to the radio during my commute (1-1.5 hours depending on traffic - WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING ON MY ROADS LATELY!!!) and a change might be nice.  Just haven't listened to one before.

And Ironwood, I must have missed that you'd read the BC books, but I couldn't resist seeing as they hadn't been mentioned on this page yet.