Return of the Book Thread

[bhodi]

My wife and I use downloaded library audiobooks a lot.  You don't even need to go to the library to check them out, the whole process happens online.

I would do this more if it didn't require special apps.

[murdoc]

Catching up on my books a bit before I dive into the second Abercrombie book. Ready Player One was on par with the sort of writing and storytelling of a book written for young adults, about the same level as The Hunger Games, but that age group wouldn't get the millions of references to the 80s. The story itself was pretty weak, but all the MMO, old school gaming and pop culture references kept me reading. Also read Hounded which was a Dresden ripoff about a 2,000 year old Druid living in Arizona. Light, easy read but nothing I would recommend.

Looking forward to Before They Are Hanged

[dd0029]

Also read Hounded which was a Dresden ripoff about a 2,000 year old Druid living in Arizona. Light, easy read but nothing I would recommend.

Looking forward to Before They Are Hanged

I read the next two. The second was slightly better. The third was mostly off a cliff, though it did have a Jesus appearance as a wonderfully dirty hippy.

[NowhereMan]

With DoW II and Space Marine I've gone on a bit of a 40K kick recently (seriously considering draggin up some old models and getting back into painting even). In the spirit of this I've just ordered a boatload of 40K novels and also started on the Horus heresy series. The first one Horus Rising was a decent pulpy Sci-Fi read, though the general opinions I've heard say that everything by Abnett is good fun to read and most of the other books are dross (this goes for pretty much any 40K novel with a few exceptions). The Ciaphas Cain novels are meant to be a fun Flashman rip-off set in 40K with lots of little lore details scattered about it, opinions somewhat divided over whether they're fun books or just inferior Flashman stuff

 I'm expecting to be fairly computer free for a couple of weeks over Christmas so I'm also trying to save up a stack of omnibuses, etc. to tide myself over for that period so I think The Eisenhorn and Ravenor Omnibuses are gonna get saved. I'll also probably get a copy of Bakker's White Luck Warrior and Abercrombie's Heroes. So generally Sci-Fi/Fantasy (I also really enjoyed Rule 34 that Morat mentioned) any other good books in this vein? Also aside from the Bakker and Abercrombie pretty much none of these are available in Kindle format, which is what has put me off getting an e-reader since there never seem to be enough books I want available to justify the purchase. Thing is I hate throwing books away and I'm almost definitely not going to be going back over the pulpy stuff, has anyone got some good series or author lists that are available in e-book format to get me to finally go through with reading 21st century style?

[Abagadro]

McNeil's stuff in the Heresy series is pretty decent.  Things are definitely hit/miss overall though.

[JWIV]

McNeil's stuff in the Heresy series is pretty decent.  Things are definitely hit/miss overall though.

That said, I've also been for the most part really enjoying the Hammer and Bolter mags off their site - http://www.blacklibrary.com/ebooks

[Johny Cee]

Also read Hounded which was a Dresden ripoff about a 2,000 year old Druid living in Arizona. Light, easy read but nothing I would recommend.

Looking forward to Before They Are Hanged

I read the next two. The second was slightly better. The third was mostly off a cliff, though it did have a Jesus appearance as a wonderfully dirty hippy.

As an action orientated UF, check out Harry Connolly's Child of Fire.  The Good Guys are ruthless assholes, the Bad Guys are dabbling with Lovecraftian horrors (sometimes with noble goals in mind), and the protagonist is stuck in the middle as a henchman for one of the ass-kicking Good Guys.

Great entertainment read.  Immediately picked up the other two books in the series which are at the same level as the first.

With DoW II and Space Marine I've gone on a bit of a 40K kick recently (seriously considering draggin up some old models and getting back into painting even). In the spirit of this I've just ordered a boatload of 40K novels and also started on the Horus heresy series. The first one Horus Rising was a decent pulpy Sci-Fi read, though the general opinions I've heard say that everything by Abnett is good fun to read and most of the other books are dross (this goes for pretty much any 40K novel with a few exceptions). The Ciaphas Cain novels are meant to be a fun Flashman rip-off set in 40K with lots of little lore details scattered about it, opinions somewhat divided over whether they're fun books or just inferior Flashman stuff

The fun with Ciaphus Cain is all the unreliable narrator stuff, and the metacommentary by the editor in the footnotes who is also unreliable (and is supposedly putting the books together for distribution to the Inquisition).  Cain is also pretty ambiguous as a character... he likes to rattle off how everything he does is self-serving, but another viable interpretation is he really is that altruistic but he makes excuses for his behavior.

I'm expecting to be fairly computer free for a couple of weeks over Christmas so I'm also trying to save up a stack of omnibuses, etc. to tide myself over for that period so I think The Eisenhorn and Ravenor Omnibuses are gonna get saved. I'll also probably get a copy of Bakker's White Luck Warrior and Abercrombie's Heroes. So generally Sci-Fi/Fantasy (I also really enjoyed Rule 34 that Morat mentioned) any other good books in this vein? Also aside from the Bakker and Abercrombie pretty much none of these are available in Kindle format, which is what has put me off getting an e-reader since there never seem to be enough books I want available to justify the purchase. Thing is I hate throwing books away and I'm almost definitely not going to be going back over the pulpy stuff, has anyone got some good series or author lists that are available in e-book format to get me to finally go through with reading 21st century style?

Some of the older stuff is easy to pick up in e-book/Kindle format, and is either dirt cheap or free.  Most Leiber (The Big Time, which is a great book) is available, the John Carter of Mars stuff, and older authors that have fallen out of favor (nearly picked up one of the 10 book compilations of some of Andre Norton's stuff).

The availability is weird...  for instance, there appears to be no Roger Zelazny in Kindle format.  

[Mazakiel]

As an action orientated UF, check out Harry Connolly's Child of Fire.  The Good Guys are ruthless assholes, the Bad Guys are dabbling with Lovecraftian horrors (sometimes with noble goals in mind), and the protagonist is stuck in the middle as a henchman for one of the ass-kicking Good Guys.

Great entertainment read.  Immediately picked up the other two books in the series which are at the same level as the first.

The Nook version of the first in the series is only $0.99 at the moment, for anyone leaning towards giving it a shot. 

The fun with Ciaphus Cain is all the unreliable narrator stuff, and the metacommentary by the editor in the footnotes who is also unreliable (and is supposedly putting the books together for distribution to the Inquisition).  Cain is also pretty ambiguous as a character... he likes to rattle off how everything he does is self-serving, but another viable interpretation is he really is that altruistic but he makes excuses for his behavior.

Those aspects of the Cain books make them my favorite out of the 40k stuff I've read.  They're entertaining and good for a laugh, but there's enough there to make Cain a much more complex character than he first appears, or claims to be.  I also like getting to see things from the Guard's perspective. 

[murdoc]

As an action orientated UF, check out Harry Connolly's Child of Fire.  The Good Guys are ruthless assholes, the Bad Guys are dabbling with Lovecraftian horrors (sometimes with noble goals in mind), and the protagonist is stuck in the middle as a henchman for one of the ass-kicking Good Guys.

Great entertainment read.  Immediately picked up the other two books in the series which are at the same level as the first.

The Nook version of the first in the series is only $0.99 at the moment, for anyone leaning towards giving it a shot. 

The Kindle version is $0.99 as well.

[dd0029]

Just picked up and read a copy of Grey by Jon Armstrong. At the moment, it's freely available from the publisher, Night Shade Books. I don't know what the hell I just read. It's a surreal hypercapitalist dystopian retelling of Romeo and Juliette. One of the main side threads of the story is a hyperfocus on fashion, textiles, and fashion advertising. I think the least incomprehensible thing about the book was the competitive shirt ironing. Apparently, he was on the list for a best new author Hugo in 2008 for this thing.

[HaemishM]

I finished Gibson's Zero History. Seriously, what the fuck did I just read? Pages and descriptions about the fucking clothes someone is wearing, but not even the tiniest bit of exposition about what happens in the end, or why it's important or why I should give a shit. The characters are mostly transparent. The Bigend character that I've now seen in three books I still have no idea what to make of him. Gibson's normally stilted writing style is practically overpowering in this one, as characters speak like their dialog has been chopped up with a food processor. I'm not even sure there was one complete sentence in the whole thing. He spends like 250 pages sending the characters after the designer of a pair of goddamn jeans, then the last 150 pages planning to foil a kidnapping attempt that happens in like 3 pages off-stage. I just don't understand WTF this book was supposed to be about or why anyone would like it. Spook Country was better.

I started reading Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon. 40-odd pages in and I already like it better than the last 3 Gibson books.

[Mazakiel]

As an action orientated UF, check out Harry Connolly's Child of Fire.  The Good Guys are ruthless assholes, the Bad Guys are dabbling with Lovecraftian horrors (sometimes with noble goals in mind), and the protagonist is stuck in the middle as a henchman for one of the ass-kicking Good Guys.

Great entertainment read.  Immediately picked up the other two books in the series which are at the same level as the first.

The Nook version of the first in the series is only $0.99 at the moment, for anyone leaning towards giving it a shot. 

The Kindle version is $0.99 as well.

After having read it, it's one of the best dollars I've spent lately.  Pretty fun read throughout, and I went ahead and picked up the next two as well. 

[Chimpy]

Been reading stuff I had never read before that is either by authors I had never read (Abercrombie) and had been recommended by people I know, or by people I had read something of (Stephenson) but not all.

Read the first two Joe Abercrombie books. Liked them but I guess I just don't really get the OMG THIS IS AWESOME feeling towards the whole 'noir fantasy' milieu as some people do.

After those (since I had to put a hold req for the last Abercrombie) I picked up Anathem. I really enjoyed it once I muddled through the first hundred pages of weird language constructions. Though, as people have said, Stephenson needs to work on his endings. Am about finished with The Diamond Age now and have Cryptonomicon waiting to dive into afterwards.

[Engels]

I finished Gibson's Zero History. Seriously, what the fuck did I just read? Pages and descriptions about the fucking clothes someone is wearing, but not even the tiniest bit of exposition about what happens in the end, or why it's important or why I should give a shit. The characters are mostly transparent. The Bigend character that I've now seen in three books I still have no idea what to make of him. Gibson's normally stilted writing style is practically overpowering in this one, as characters speak like their dialog has been chopped up with a food processor. I'm not even sure there was one complete sentence in the whole thing. He spends like 250 pages sending the characters after the designer of a pair of goddamn jeans, then the last 150 pages planning to foil a kidnapping attempt that happens in like 3 pages off-stage. I just don't understand WTF this book was supposed to be about or why anyone would like it. Spook Country was better.

I'm hoping that Gibson's just going through a phase, but ya, I preferred Spook Country a lot more, and Pattern Recognition even more. I am not sure I'm overjoyed that he's switched future trend predictions from tech to trousers.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, I didn't like Pattern Recognition at all, but it was at least better than Zero History.

[murdoc]

After having read it, it's one of the best dollars I've spent lately.  Pretty fun read throughout, and I went ahead and picked up the next two as well. 

Just finished it myself, I'll definitely be picking up the next two.

[Sky]

Forgot to mention I finished Knight Errant, an Old Republic era EU novel by John Jackson Miller.

Probably because it's utterly forgettable. Took me a long damned time to slog through, I started it right after the last novel I mentioned in this thread. Unfocused and schizophrenic, you can see the author's comic book roots showing. I guess maybe he was shooting for three acts, but they were disjointed and meandering without any real closure to any of them. The character growth was so minute as to be almost imperceptible, and that only in the bumbling excuse for a lead heroine.

She spents the entire first third of the novel putting in token appearances as a background player, mostly. This section featured mostly the actually interesting "imperial agent character". If you just read the agent's scene up through his encounter with the jedi and call it quits, you could save some time. The second third of the novel sees the Jedi getting into more action, but it focuses on the mercenary officer character, who may have the worst attempt at character growth in the book. The attempts to evoke a military brotherhood fall flat, the jokes aren't good, the middle section falls apart. At this point, his gimmicky super-villain sith are getting old. The final third of the book tries to pull things together, but again falls short.

It's a novel by a comic book writer. Read the comic book and skip the novel.

Next up in my tour of the EU is Red Harvest, and as ridiculous as it is thus far (I'm already half done, it's a quick read especially after the aimless and plodding Knight Errant) - it's a decent read.

[Ironwood]

Most of the EU stuff is shit though.

Especially since almost all the stuff I read as a youth got utterly fucking raped by Lucas when he released the prequels.

 

[Sky]

I don't get too hung up on that stuff. If it's a fun read, I can overlook the lore things. Red Harvest is pretty silly and dark, Sith-based survival story with zombies. I think they even talked about midichlorians at one point. Still, it's fun and quick and actiony. My only gripe thus far is a direct lift from "Taken". (this scene 3:50, spoiler if you haven't seen the movie) It was so jarring I saw Liam Neeson suddenly take over the character.

[ghost]

What?  The Yhuuzan Vong are awesome.   

[LK]

Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril is my current read. What's interesting about this book is that it was published this year, where most of the psychology / philosophy / behavioral stuff I've been reading has been at least 5 to 10 years old. It ties in a lot of recent events into its theories and revelations to provide a better perspective of events.

tldr; people suck, and any evidence to the contrary I will ignore.

[Sky]

I take it back, Red Harvest quickly becomes a repetition of zombie gore scenes to the point of boredom. Starts out pretty well! Haven't finished it, but I started skimming halfway through, so unless he pulls a miracle, it rates a solid 'meh'.

[Khaldun]

About to start the new Vernor Vinge novel. Have high hopes.

Just finished Rule 34. I usually like but never love Stross, this continues that trend.

[lamaros]

Finished Charlie Stross' Glasshouse. Bit confusing with all his inventions for a while, but pretty solid overall.

[WayAbvPar]

Finished Reamde. I enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like a full Stephenson book. Almost felt like it was ghost written in some spots. He never did go off on a purely theoretical/information tangent about some esoteric subject like he normally does, so I didn't learn much. I can see it being optioned as a movie pretty easily though...really reads like a thriller. And I still really wanna play T'Rain!

[Paelos]

Started the Dark Tower series since I've never read it. Currently, I'm on the Drawing of the Three. It's obvious at points that King was on LSD, but the book is good.

[ghost]

Started the Dark Tower series since I've never read it. Currently, I'm on the Drawing of the Three. It's obvious at points that King was on LSD, but the book is good.

And why is that obvious?  How do you know what it's like to be on LSD?   

[Evildrider]

Started the Dark Tower series since I've never read it. Currently, I'm on the Drawing of the Three. It's obvious at points that King was on LSD, but the book is good.

And why is that obvious?  How do you know what it's like to be on LSD?  

I definitely know what it's like to be on LSD, but I couldn't get through the first two books of Dark Tower.  I think I just don't like Stephen King.


On another note has anyone else read the Emberverse books by S.M. Stirling?

[Polysorbate80]

I found the first Emberverse book tolerable trash albeit with a lot of eye-rolling moments, second one I found myself skipping through whole sections (primarily the wiccan stuff), and instead of reading the third book I just asked the wife to give me a synopsis, shook my head in disgust after she did, and decided to entirely skip the rest of the series.

[Evildrider]

I've read like 3 of them and I liked it.  But I heard the newer ones really went out there.  His writing style can be tiresome though.

The original trilogy I've been thinking about picking up though.  The ones where Nantucket is thrown into the past.

[Paelos]

Started the Dark Tower series since I've never read it. Currently, I'm on the Drawing of the Three. It's obvious at points that King was on LSD, but the book is good.

And why is that obvious?  How do you know what it's like to be on LSD?   

Because he said he was on LSD at the time, and it shows in his random-ass dreamlike writing at times.

[Sky]

What's wrong with LSD?

[Polysorbate80]

The ones where Nantucket is thrown into the past.

I like that series better.  It wasn't any better written, but it was more entertaining.  Then again, I've always like "Connecticut Yankee"-type fiction.

[Paelos]

What's wrong with LSD?

I wouldn't know.

[Evildrider]

What's wrong with LSD?

I wouldn't know.

The occasional flashback.  That's about it.