Perfect Isolation 2.0beta

So here's the thing.

I distinctly remember how much I hated reading in both primary & secondary school. At least when I was told what to read. I guess objectively speaking I still read books in amount above average, but there was some sneaking sense of resentment connected to it. When I found something that fascinated me, I couldn't for the life of me put it down until I was finished. However, as soon as somebody shoved one of those boring obligatory canon books down my throat, it really made me sick even to look at written word.
It changed a lot during my uni days and some sense of excitement about reading was obviously connected to learning a new language so it was less about real quality and more about "OMG I understand Norwegian!!".

But I truly came back to reading only two years ago after I finished the university and there was nobody telling me what I have to read this month. Sure, I have to still read a lot of crappy literature for my work, but I say it doesn't count. The discovery that there are SO MANY great books out there just waiting for me to read them was truly overwhelming, even if that sounds hella cheesy. Since that discovery I found it quite impossible to even get out of the house or ride a bus without a book in my hand. It's almost kind of a sickness, really.

So that was tl;dr, but here is the real point. Soooo many books get published these days and it's almost impossible to sift through all of the book reviews before you pick something. I usually get some hints from friends or find books purely by accident and sure, I've managed to find lots of interesting literature this way. What interests me most at the moment is contemporary literature in English but so far I have not found a good source for book recommendations anywhere on the internet which seemed any useful to me. I guess my question is, where do you, fellow bookworms, look for new book ideas? I'd be really interested to know.

If any of you feel like it, please do share your ideas or impressions about what you've been reading lately. I for one would be very happy to read about it.

The weekend is upon us so I'll use it as an opportunity to get away from the porn I'm currently translating. I think I'm taking "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer with me for the weekend and I've absolutely no idea what I'm in for but that's the beauty of it, non? :]

-m.

I haven't read much fiction recently. The last book I read was ahead of an event I was going to that the author was speaking at, and I read it & then posted a 2,500 word review online before the event, so the author would read and retweet it, lol.

I also re-read Loving Sabotage by Amelie Nothomb recently after finding it for 50p at a library booksale.

In terms of contemporary English fiction, I strongly recommend Beasts of no nation, by Uzodinma Iweala, published 2005. Also anything by Ben Okri (start with his classic, Famished Road).

Thanks Tim, I'll definitely look into it. :)

-m.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. This is a monster of a book... almost a thousand pages. Set in Bombay it is one man's journey through the light and dark of that city. Only a couple of chapters in... but wow!

College was a funny beastie for me...  I had already made a habit of writing essays on music and literature in my free time (not very GOOD ones, but the intent was there), so the idea of a THESIS revolving around BOOKS OF MY CHOOSING was just amazing to me.  Sadly, said thesis was a project I was unable to finish due to my actual coursework; my honours programme offered an additional honor to be conferred at graduation for those who completed a thesis in their field.  As it was, I graduated Cum Laude with General Honours, but had I been able to wrangle the thesis in with the education department's requirements, I'd also have been credited with English Honours.

Graduating hasn't stopped me from working on that thesis xD

I'm currently reading *fetches book* Natasha Randall's translation of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We.  In the foreword, Bruce Sterling sets it up as the progenitor of the dystopian science fiction novel.  Rather high stakes when you consider that most educators who choose to take on the genre do so through 1984 and Brave New World.  I'm nearly through with it, and I can see, sadly, how drastically derivative these other works I've so loved really are.  What's interesting about We is how deeply embedded in the world of the One State the narrator is.  He continually comes back to the world he knows, insists on carrying on as he always has.  The book is also written directly TO the reader; we are assumed to be undiscovered colonies of the One State on Venus or other sundry local planets.  It's definitely going to take me a second read to get to the root of some of the metaphor; right now I'm reading for the simple enjoyment. 

I think that's part of what makes institutional reading so miserable; there just isn't time enough in the school year to allow even a fairly fast reader to get through a text multiple times before attempting to dissect it and assign meaning to its parts.  There's not that chance to read just for enjoyment before you have to look at the deeper, less immediately apparent layer of meaning.

Quote from: Mer on May 13, 2011, 06:50:01 AMSince that discovery I found it quite impossible to even get out of the house or ride a bus without a book in my hand. It's almost kind of a sickness, really.

Welcome to my life.  ;D  But for me it's Kindle in hand now.

Right now I'm re-reading Edith Wharton's The Reef which I haven't read for some time, this is one reason I love having omnibus editions of an author's work on my Kindle, it makes it more likely to go back and enjoy past works.

I remember first reading We in high school when I was first getting into dystopian literature; and I believe Sterling is correct in regards to the modern expression of the genre.  There were likely dystopian works prior to this, of course.

I'm reading Jim Rossignol's This Gaming Life. Interesting, if a little too focused on the wrong aspects of justifying the importance of (video)games, in my opinion (ie: practical applications instead of artistic possibilities). Still, very enjoyable and easy read.

Got Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, which should be good, but I haven't had a chance to start reading it. It feels like I should give this book particular attention and I just can't right now. Besides, it's too big to take on the bus. : P

I've gotta get a kindle. My roommate has one, and my sister's bf gave her one for xmas so I've had time to fiddle around on one, and I really like it.

@ spade- I've got Murakami's 1Q84 on my list too. Love his stuff.

aaaaandd i just bought a kindle. Expected delivery- May 19th.

Ya they are super nice. I love mine... Which kind did you get? Like the one with adds or and free or 3g? I think the worst thing is buying books you already have again.

Nah, I don't need the one with 3g network, I just got the basic one with WiFi

I refuse to pay for something again unless I'm getting some serious upgrade (like a 5.1 remastered mix for an album for something that's hasn't been printed since the late 80s, for example).  I don't think I could ever justify paying money a second time for a book I already owned, just to get it on my ebook reader.  Thank jeebus for torrents. :P

As well, the Kindle is often annoying for people not in the US, but its all the publishers/rightsholders fault.  There are a number of books available for sale for the Kindle in the states that aren't in Canada, because someone is just sitting on the publishing rights and not doing anything with them.  This pissed me off enough when looking for some of Isaac Asimov's work to actually e-mail the last publisher of his work (Random House) and give them a piece of my mind.  Surprisingly enough, they e-mailed me back in about an hour and told me flat out that the Canadian publishing rights had reverted back to the Asimov estate, and they weren't doing anything with them.  Random House actually said they wanted to publish in Canada, but couldn't.  After thanking the Random House rep for the thorough explanation, my next stop was a torrent.  Given how fucking easy it is to sell eBooks these days, there's no excuse unless the original version is still the author's typewritten manuscript and hasn't been digitized yet.  If I can't buy it legally, I will get it for free, whether copyright law says I should or not.

This is also an excellent argument for the reduction of copyright terms.  I don't think Asimov's work is going to be making anyone any great windfalls any time soon.  Just throw it into Project Gutenberg and get it over with.

Once again, it's really lovely to hear from all of you :)

re: Kindle - while I totally appreciate the concept and see how useful and handy it is, I'm also one of those people who get an orgasm from smelling a brand new book so I simply couldn't say no to that. I just love the texture of book pages and the way a book feels in my hand, it just adds to the whole experience (even though yes, I do understand this is technically considered environmentally unfriendly, but oh well, can't help it).

edit: BTW, I find myself constantly underlining sentences and marking pages with post-it notes, so I don't see how this would be actually possible with an e-book...

-m.

I'm definitely a person who enjoys the feel/smell of a new book- my bookshelf is jammed. I'll continue to buy hard copies of certain books, but I'm taking a lot of vacations this summer and don't want to bog my suitcase down with all of my books :)

I haven't read any Murakami for years. I read as much as I could get hold of in one go, then read Kafka on the Shore (which I thought was a bit over-rated) a few years later, then nothing since. Is it worth getting hold of recent stuff?

I will probably get  a Kindle when solar chargers are at the point where you can charge and operate a laptop or kindle device at the same time.

Quote from: kristin on May 15, 2011, 01:02:35 PM
@ spade- I've got Murakami's 1Q84 on my list too. Love his stuff.

Ooh that sounds really interesting, it's not out on kindle until Oct so got a sample of the wind up bird chronicle to try

Quote from: Mer on May 15, 2011, 02:28:26 PM
edit: BTW, I find myself constantly underlining sentences and marking pages with post-it notes, so I don't see how this would be actually possible with an e-book...

Amazon calls those "annotations" and "bookmarks", respectively.  Some other eBook readers don't have those features, but the Kindle does.  Actually works pretty well, all things considered.

Quote from: tim on May 15, 2011, 04:04:11 PM
I will probably get  a Kindle when solar chargers are at the point where you can charge and operate a laptop or kindle device at the same time.

Thinkgeek says hi. (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/b1a6/)  And waves. (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/c5a7/)  And blows you kisses. (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/beb8/)  And lifts up its skirt suggestively. (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/d0bc/)  And twirls nipple pasties. (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/e193/)

Any of those could charge any USB-based device, like a Kindle, MP3 player, or cell phone.  Only the last one could actually charge a laptop.

Re: Murakami

I haven't read anything from him in a while; I'll say something about 1Q84 when I actually read it.

As for the Kindle, I think it looks interesting. The problem I have with that is similar to what happens with CDs (ie: it's not an actual problem but more of a personal preference generated by nostalgia inducing habit): I like the smell of books*. I love how old books smell, I love how new books smell and I like having each separated as an entity of their own. I like it when I pick up a box of books and it just has that smell of old paper. I think, however, that unlike CDs and MP3s, the experience of reading an actual book is different enough from reading on a Kindle-like device that one could want to have both.

*It's not just that, though: it's the feel of different types of paper, turning the pages and such things associated with the physicality of books.

Quote from: Goose on May 15, 2011, 09:53:28 PM
Amazon calls those "annotations" and "bookmarks", respectively.  Some other eBook readers don't have those features, but the Kindle does.  Actually works pretty well, all things considered.
And twirls nipple pasties. (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/e193/)
the last one could actually charge a laptop.

Wow.

I need.

Ok, now I'm wondering - could that thing power up a projector? And could it power up a projector and a laptop simultaneously, so I could give powerpoint presentations and show films in rural parts of Sudan with no access to fuel generators never mind electricity networks? Is this being too greedy?

No, it definitely couldn't power a projector.  The lightbulbs in those puppies require waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more juice than your average solar panel could provide, especially at a brightness required to project a visible image in a situation where you'd actually get juice out of a SOLAR panel.  Ever tried to operate a projector outdoors in the daytime?

Quote from: Mer on May 13, 2011, 06:50:01 AM
so far I have not found a good source for book recommendations anywhere on the internet which seemed any useful to me. I guess my question is, where do you, fellow bookworms, look for new book ideas? I'd be really interested to know.

Isn't there like a pandora.com for books somewhere in the internet world? Or does Kindle have a kind of program like that maybe? I would imagine so. I don't know.

I have yet to graduate from childrens books. I just can't stay drawn in with books any reading level past young adult I guess. Jurassic Park is the only book I can think of that I read that wasn't a childrens story. Right now I am reading the Time Quintet by Madeline L'Engle. I just finished A wrinkle In Time and have just started A Wind In The Door. 

--EDIT--
Actually, I forgot I have read quite a few "grown-up" books but they were all about pregnancy and child birth. So as long as I am able to feed my obsession I guess I can read books that aren't for children.

Quote from: Goose on May 16, 2011, 09:35:32 AM
No, it definitely couldn't power a projector.  The lightbulbs in those puppies require waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more juice than your average solar panel could provide, especially at a brightness required to project a visible image in a situation where you'd actually get juice out of a SOLAR panel.  Ever tried to operate a projector outdoors in the daytime?

Oh well. Thanks for the link, it's still awesome & could make eg taking resources for teaching without an electricity supply considerably easier.

about halfway through the third book in Fred Saberhagen's Swords trilogy.  I'm somewhat surprised this doesn't get more credit within the fantasy genre.  Although it's not as good as Empire of the East (another book that should get more credit within the genre), it has everything that fantasy geeks usually love.

Except elves, I guess.  That's his problem.  Not enough elves.  Also, I'm hopeful but not confident that First Book of Lost Swords, Second Book of Lost Swords etc. will be released on the Kindle.  I never read all of those.

Now that I'm finishing up Saberhagen's Swords, I'm going to re-read Berserker.  One of my favorite sci-books of all time (actually, a collection of short stories that appeared in various sci-fi magazines from 1963 to 1967).

To us, the Carmpan watchers, the withdrawn seers and touchers of minds, it appeared that you had carried the crushing weight of war through all your history knowing that it would at last be needed, that this hour would strike when nothing less awful would serve...  The skills of peace and tolerance were useless, for our enemy was not alive.

What is thought, that mechanism seems to bring it forth?

Has any one read Game of Thrones? (The first book that is.) I really like the show, and since most always the book is better then the show (then again I hate comparing the two things since they are very different...) I wanted to check it out. SO anyone like/dislike it?



I'm still plowing through the DT books.

I'm also reading Oryx and Crake I like it. But at the same time, I feel like I'm missing something big about just what is going on... I'm fallowing it pretty well, its not that hard to do. But there is some elements that leave me wondering just what is happening...

Studying for my greek exam tomorrow. I just started reading some random Borges to break up the monotony. I suck at studying. (Especially since now I'm posting here to avoid reading... in print.)

Quote from: luna on May 15, 2011, 08:31:17 PM
Ooh that sounds really interesting, it's not out on kindle until Oct so got a sample of the wind up bird chronicle to try

This is really good. Will definitely check out more of his stuff.

Quote from: Freak on May 19, 2011, 10:00:21 PM
Has any one read Game of Thrones? (The first book that is.) I really like the show, and since most always the book is better then the show (then again I hate comparing the two things since they are very different...) I wanted to check it out. SO anyone like/dislike it?

Get the sample for your Kindle, but I think you would like it.  I read the sample and enjoyed it, so at some point I'll get the whole thing.

I'll get the sample tonight. Thanks for pointing that out.

Finished We on my free period this morning and moved on to try to give Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale the reading it deserves.  I read it in college for this AMAZING dystopia class, but between the speed of the class and the fact that it wasn't my only class that semester, I had to plow through the book unreasonably fast and I don't feel like it got a fair read.  I remember enough to be horrified and intrigued, which are both pretty good signs, in my estimation, but not really enough to even tell you what the climax of the novel was.

That one has a special place in my heart because I read it the year it was published for a lit class, my advisor (who taught the class) had already written a book about contemporary feminist literature including coverage of Atwood's work and so she was just as excited to read and discuss it as we were!

I'm reading Game of Thrones. It's pretty impressive how much of the show is just like the book. (So far I don't really see any thing different, other then what some people look like, but that would be a bit much to ask for.) So far I like it, however, its just like the show. Just like. (Err I know the show is just like it, but I saw the show first...)

I find AGOT hilarious, in a way, just because of my reactions to it: the first time I tried reading it (I only got about halfway through) I thought Ned was the best, and then the second time I thought he was the densest guy in the whole book - man those Starks are stubborn as all get out!

I've just finished reading Legionaire and The Tunnels of Cu Chi.  They're both extremelly interesting accounts from the Vietnam war, the former written by an ex SS officer who avoided being captured and tried for war crimes by skipping out and joining the Foreign Legion and then going to Vietnam and fighting in a lot of covert operations.  The latter is based on the accounts of both the VC and also the Tunnel Rat members from the 25th Tropic 'Lightening' Infantry Divison and also the 1st Engineer Batallion Tunnel Rats. 

I got a used first edition of Arkham House's Shadows Over Innsmouth, which is a compilation of Lovecraft-inspired stories featuring the Deep Ones.  It's hit-or-miss, which is to be expected from a Lovecraft-inspired comp. I was happy to see one of the better stories is exactly the kind of pulp detective/cosmic horror mash-up that I'd convinced myself must exist *somewhere.* The last story, which I haven't gotten to yet, is by Neil Gaiman, which always is a good thing.

At the same time I got a cheap copy of Mason & Dixon, which despite being my favorite Pynchon novel is one of the only ones I didn't own.  The younger clerk seemed surprised I was attempting to read it while the older one sighed, "I don't go to parties anymore so I won't have to talk about Gravity's Rainbow."

Current summer (re-) reading is Foucault's Pendulum, under the woefully misguided assumption that if Dan Brown's awful conspiracy-theory books are good beach reads, then an eggheaded postmodern take on the same must be that much better.

Just starting Embassytown, and I love all the criticism it's received for being difficult to read.  Damn straight, use your brain or GTFO.  I'm not nearly as smart as China but I love how he challenges me.  Yeah I'll say it: I hate lazy readers, readers who want to just have things shoved into their brain, spoon-fed, and want to pretend they are the characters rather than attempting to visualize and internalize a completely different perspective from their own.

I just started reading Starbound by Joe Haldeman.  I finished Marsbound, so that was the next logical choice as it's the sequel.

Currently reading my friend's "porn memoir (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=girlvert+porn+memoir)" (safe for work). It's surprisingly good.

Quote from: rynne on June 01, 2011, 04:38:21 PM
Current summer (re-) reading is Foucault's Pendulum, under the woefully misguided assumption that if Dan Brown's awful conspiracy-theory books are good beach reads, then an eggheaded postmodern take on the same must be that much better.

I just knocked out the Robert Langdon trilogy. Brown's writing seems to be taken way too seriously, which probably has to do with how popular his books are. His writing in this series is perfect for people who don't know more than Dan Brown, which is great if you have a MILD interest in his ideas, because he gives some good reference points to begin research if you care to go any further. Other than that, they are just lengthy fun reads.

My problem with Kindle is that I'm beginning to look for texts that haven't been digitized, and probably wont be for various reasons. Can someone give me some good reasons besides convenience of travel why they like their e-books? I'm just not convinced beyond anything other than moving books will probably become a pain in my ass soon.

Quote from: tim on May 16, 2011, 08:58:12 AM
Wow.

I need.

I am seriously looking into getting this for my birthday. However, I'm wondering how it would cope with the rainy season. Obviously I'm sure it wouldn't be able to cope with heavy rain, so would it still be able to charge if it was kept in some kind of transparent waterproof object while charging?

I realise I should probably ask the manufacturers this kind of thing. But, I don't trust them to be honest instead of taking any opportunity to flog their tat to me.

Reading Girl with The Dragon Tattoo for obvious reasons.

Just got a kindle, so i downloaded a collection of short stories to christen it. Zombies: The Recent Dead. I'm loving it so far.

Quote from: doomsayer on June 12, 2011, 11:49:49 AM
Reading Girl with The Dragon Tattoo for obvious reasons.

That's next on my list

I want to read Rob Lowe's memoir next.

Finished The Shadow Rising, fourth book of The Wheel Of Time, finally.  Took a bloody month-and-a-half.  Stupid longwinded 1000-page motherfucker.  The first 10 chapters dragged like holy hell, but the last ten chapters easily made up for it.

My next two reads are Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, followed by The Hobbit, which I actually haven't read since I was about 11.  Figured with the movie coming out I should refresh my memory, so I can be suitably perturbed when Legolas shows up for no apparent reason.  I'm two chapters in to Hawking's book, and I'm actually surprised that I haven't learned anything, yet.  I'm sure its going to get wormhole-tastic soon though.

The Hobbit is a good, quick read.  I come back to it every few years to read again.  Much less genealogy rambling than LotR.  8-p

(http://tdwgeeks.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/759e69f2-e4d7-4873-816a-b0701c53508f.jpg)

Can any of the kindle people here explain the linking fb to kindle thing? I linked it but how do I use it? I figured it would share when I bought or finished something but it didn't...i keep the wireless turned off unless I'm downloading something, maybe that's the problem?

Yep, that's the problem.  It won't share when you've bought a book, but it will post when you've finished a book, and I think there's an option to share annotations too or something like that.  But, it won't even prompt you to share anything if there's no active Internet connection.  I usually just turn on my Wifi as I get down to the last couple pages of a book so it'll share when I've finished it.  And you have to actually get all the way to the end too, flipping past whatever indexes or miscellaneous garbage is slapped into the last few pages.

Ah I did flip all the way to the end but I didn't have the wireless on...

ok so i turned the wireless on when and flipped to the very last page and it still didn't work...i fail at technology :(

anyway i finished murakami's hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world, it was really good

Yeah, I can't figure out how to get mine to work either.

I'm about 2/3 of the way though Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.  About time, being as I've been getting down to that author for quite some time and this is the one that one him a Hugo award and everyone shits their pants about.  It started a little slow, but has picked up considerably.

Reading ABOUT the book I found out a lot of things that I didn't know about Haldeman, like that he was a Vietnam veteran and went to the Iowa Writer's Workshop (TFW was his MFA thesis and is considered an allegory for Vietnam, according to Wikipedia).

The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson

Quote from: luna on July 22, 2011, 09:10:00 PM
ok so i turned the wireless on when and flipped to the very last page and it still didn't work...i fail at technology :(

anyway i finished murakami's hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world, it was really good

Is that his newest one? I love all of his stuff.

No I think it's old...the newest one isn't available for kindle until later this year, really looking forward to it!

I picked up A Game of Thrones yesterday.  I figured I should have been reading the Song of Ice and Fire series a long time ago, but seeing the HBO version kicked me in the ass to finally start it.  I already find it so much more engaging in writing style than other fantasy series I attempted to start.

Quote from: r00 on July 27, 2011, 09:47:09 AM
I picked up A Game of Thrones yesterday.  I figured I should have been reading the Song of Ice and Fire series a long time ago, but seeing the HBO version kicked me in the ass to finally start it.  I already find it so much more engaging in writing style than other fantasy series I attempted to start.

I started reading it after I watched the tv show. And at the very start I was super into it, I started to care less about it as time when on... However, I started reading it again, and once I got past where I stopped watching the tv show, I find that I'm liking it a lot more... I think they did a great job with the show fallowing the book (at lest to where I stopped watching) and I think that killed any real interest I had in it... Now, I'm digging it again... And I went from just trying to finish the book to be done with it, to wanting to buy book 2.

I'm currently rereading The Crying of Lot 49.  Still trying to decide whether I want to follow it up with Inherent Vice or Voice of the Fire. Anyone have any suggestions?

ooh new stephen king in november!
http://www.amazon.com/11-22-63-ebook/dp/B004Q7CIFI/ref=pd_ys_qtk_general_recs_1?pf_rd_p=1286318242&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_t=1501&pf_rd_i=home&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0FX3TCYH5XJZRQ6QHQDF

rynne: I vote for the former, as I'm very fond of it.

Finished The Fires of Heaven, fifth book of The Wheel of Time series yesterday.  I swear I will eventually get through it all.  I'm sure the last volume will be released before I get up to that point.  In the last couple books, the first 20-ish chapters are really slow going, especially because Robert Jordan decides to spend a lot of time explaining things from the last books, in a detail level that can only be explained by the fact that he thinks his readers didn't read any of the previous books.  I can understand some of it, but it goes a little too far in some cases, and it really brings things down when you're trying to go through the whole series.  Thankfully, when things pick up, they really do and the books can be a little hard to put down (the climactic battles last eight chapters of this book contained a whole shitload of awesome), but I've talked to a number of people who stopped reading at the beginning of either books 4 or 5 because they lost interest, and the reviews I've seen of the next few volumes have similar complaints.

I was going to start interspersing these with Isaac Asimov's original Foundation trilogy, but after reading the author's foreword at the start of the copy of Foundation that I've got, I looked into the series a little more.  Asimov himself wrote that the books are best read in chronological order, and he wrote that after writing one prequel and two sequels in the '80s (one further prequel came out after that).  So, looks like I'm doing a septology instead of a trilogy, starting with Prelude to Foundation.

I'm on A Clash of Kings I downloaded it a couple hours ago, and I'm just a bit in... Its just over a thousand pages... But I'm digging it.

Doubt I'll get through with all of them, but I'm re-reading R.A. Salvatore's "Dark Elf" novels starting "chronologically" with Homeland in preparation for the new one slated for release in early October.  I thought Salvatore was kind of bullshitting his way through the last few books, but I felt Gauntlgrym was a welcome return to form, and it really drew me back into the series. 

In between I'm reading Saberhagen's "Lost Books of Swords," series, although I'm reaching the point that I hear they get kind of retarded (currently reading The Fifth Book of Lost Swords: Coinspinner's Story).  I understand why he didn't include Dragonslicer's Story, as that sword is so specialized, and obviously you can't write Townsaver's Story or Doomgiver's Story, as those swords were destroyed in The Third Book of Swords, but how in the hell do you think you can get away with not writing Soulcutter's Story?!

Quote from: chimera on August 21, 2011, 08:55:42 PM
rynne: I vote for the former, as I'm very fond of it.

And... voting is closed with one ballot cast. We have a winner!    :)

Finished Isaac Asimov's "Prelude To Foundation" yesterday. Really nicely done story with a couple nice twists at the end which I was totally not expecting. Asimov wrote two each of prequels and sequels well after the original trilogy was published, but I'm going through this series in order of the story, not by date published. I've never done a series in any medium like that before (did the prequels before the first story), so this could get interesting.

Got some new books to read once I'm done Inherent Vice:

Richard Dawkins – The Blind Watchmaker
William Hope Hodgson – Adrift on The Haunted Seas: The Best Short Stories of William Hope Hodgson
Christopher Priest – Inverted World

I was simultaneously amused and disappointed to see that the William Hope Hodgson book had quotes of praise from HP Lovecraft on the covers, but didn't contain the story Lovecraft singled out to praise, The House on the Borderland.

I understand that the publisher couldn't well put a novella in a "best short stories" compilation, but it still feels like a bit of bait & switch.

a co-worker recommended the outlander series by diana gabaldon, i think her description was something along the lines of omg i can't put these freaking books down!...currently halfway through my free preview of the first one

Quote from: luna on September 06, 2011, 05:00:10 PM
a co-worker recommended the outlander series by diana gabaldon, i think her description was something along the lines of omg i can't put these freaking books down!...currently halfway through my free preview of the first one

I can't stand romance novels, but I have the entire Outlander series as well as the Lord John series and I love them. I've reread them so many times I've had to get new copies of the first 4 books.  :D

Quote from: sin on August 23, 2011, 07:36:08 AM
  I thought Salvatore was kind of bullshitting his way through the last few books

Boy do I agree with that. The Transitions trilogy was complete crap, especially the last one.

Good to know, I'm totally not a romance novel person at all...i was told to at least read until she goes back in time before I decide if i like it or not

Quote from: sin on August 23, 2011, 07:36:08 AM
Doubt I'll get through with all of them, but I'm re-reading R.A. Salvatore's "Dark Elf" novels starting "chronologically" with Homeland in preparation for the new one slated for release in early October.  I thought Salvatore was kind of bullshitting his way through the last few books, but I felt Gauntlgrym was a welcome return to form, and it really drew me back into the series. 

In between I'm reading Saberhagen's "Lost Books of Swords," series, although I'm reaching the point that I hear they get kind of retarded (currently reading The Fifth Book of Lost Swords: Coinspinner's Story).  I understand why he didn't include Dragonslicer's Story, as that sword is so specialized, and obviously you can't write Townsaver's Story or Doomgiver's Story, as those swords were destroyed in The Third Book of Swords, but how in the hell do you think you can get away with not writing Soulcutter's Story?!

Okay, finally finished The Last Book Of Lost Swords: Shieldbreaker's Story.

Good fucking lord.  I have no idea why people rag on this novel.  I loved it.  Great ending to an 11 book series.  Soulcutter got kind of bullshitted out of the series, but it's still a badass series of fantasy novels.

MOTHERFUCKING SONG OF ICE AND FIRE WHAT

On a Feast of Crows...this shit is good.

Mrs. rynne loves murder novels and she also loves cats. So I wasn't surprised when we moved in together that she was reading The Cat Who... series of books, about a retired journalist who solves murders with the help of his two cats.

What I have been consistently surprised is how many *other* cat-focused murder mystery series exist. I think she's found six or seven different authors who've realized how lucrative the cat/murder-mystery Venn Diagram intersection is. (I just got her an book at my office's book sale about a talking cat that solves murders. Seriously.)

Best of all, I found that there's now the Cat in the Stacks Mystery series about a retired librarian who solves murders with her cat. The author obviously made the shrewd assessment that the the cat/murder-mystery intersection is nearly identical to the cat/murder-mystery/bibliophile intersection.

I just finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I was pleasantly surprised- I thought the hype would kill it for me. It didn't. I'm anxious to see the new film coming out.

i wanted to read it but it isn't available for the kindle in canada right now :(

Um, yeah it is, its just ridiculously expensive (http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Dragon-Tattoo-ebook/dp/B003Z0D4SM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318737606&sr=1-1).

Seriously, $13.13 for a fucking eBook?  The paperback is $7.99!!  I'd just torrent that shit if that's how the publisher is going to play ball.

Goose if you would enlighten me as to how I can load a non amazon book onto my kindle I will <3 you forever

I got mine for free-I use the city library, still. It says on their website that they now lend to kindles, I gotta set that up!

If you can, download an eBook format that's not PDF.  Those usually convert better.  ePub format is preferred.

Download and install Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/), its like Winamp/iTunes for eBooks.  Load your book into that, use the conversion function to convert it to a MOBI format (the default settings usually work really well if its not a PDF), and then copy that MOBI file to the "documents" folder on your Kindle.  Done.

Or, if you prefer, you can plug your Kindle in while Calibre is running, and it should auto-detect it, and you use it to load the converted book onto the Kindle for you.

This is all assuming there's no DRM on the file.  If there is, that's a whole other ball of wax.  I've had to whack the DRM off some ePubs for my parent's Kobos, and I crack all my Kindle books purely as a habit (there's no fucking way Amazon is going to steal back any books I've paid good money for, or tell me I can't lend my books out to friends).

Quote from: boofu on October 15, 2011, 08:48:11 AM
MOTHERFUCKING SONG OF ICE AND FIRE WHAT

On a Feast of Crows...this shit is good.

I'm wrapping up A Game of Thrones right now.  Good to hear it continues to satisfy.  I will probably take a break before starting the next one though.  The fourth and final book of the Inheritance Cycle (the Eragon books) series comes out soon as well as the 3rd book in the Mazerunner series.  I want to read those next as I feel the need for some lighter fantasy reading for a bit.

thanks goose  :wub:

the first one i tried happened to be a pdf because it's all i could find and it worked just fine.

I'm super anal about formatting and shit, and usually I find that PDFs end up not converting with nice chapter marks for quick browsing, or a proper table of contents, and so on.  I've figured out a method to ensure it works right, but its complicated to try and explain to someone who isn't a code monkey. :P

I'm glad its worked out for you, enjoy!

Well I haven't actually read any of it yet...i just gauged my success on the fact that it's on my kindle and I was able to flip through the first few pages ;)

I'm two chapters into China Miéville's Kraken. It's the first of his books that I've read, and I think I'm in love already. By the end of chapter one, a tank with a preserved giant squid has been stolen from the London Natural History Museum, leading to this brilliant paragraph:

Quote"It can't have, it can't have," a biophysicist called Josie said, and yes, no, it couldn't have, not disappeared, so many metres of abyss meat could not have gone. There were no suspicious cranes. There were no giant tank- nor squid-shaped holes cartoon-style in the wall. It could not have gone, but there it was, not.

:wub:

sounds interesting.  I need to check out his stuff.

Now that I'm further in, Kraken gets even better. It's like some awesome mash-up of Neil Gaiman, H.P. Lovecraft and Mike Mignola.

Er, as opposed to an awesome mash-up of Neil Gaiman, H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Conan Doyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Emerald). Or an awesome mash-up of Batman, H.P. Lovecraft, and Mike Mignola (http://dailypop.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/batman-the-doom-that-came-to-gotham/).

Haven't I been telling you guys?  China is brilliant!  N, you must read Embassyville next, and then you can work backwards through his other stuff.  My favorite contemporary writer now, along with Caitlin R. Kiernan.

I definitely need to check out something by China now.  Sounds great!

That reminds me of how awesome Neil Gaiman's cameo in "The Guild" web series (http://www.watchtheguild.com/the-guild-season-5-episode-07-downturn/) was. (his bit starts at 3:47 in that video).  "Ya know, your stuff is okay if you like universally aclaimed awesome graphic novels and such."   :lol:

That season also has cameos from Stan Lee, Brent Spiner, Kevin Sorbino, and a host of other comicon type stars.

Finished Lord of Chaos: Book VI of The Wheel of Time.

Waaaaaay better than books 4 or 5.  My previous complaints about the previous volumes taking 20 chapters to get their shit together and move on are gone with this one.  The plot takes off right from the get-go (or rather, once you get through the bloody 30,000 word "prologue"), and rips along pretty nicely through all 1,000 pages.  Things are obviously a little complicated at this point, and the number of plotlines is slowly expanding, but its all surprisingly manageable, and still extremely interesting.

I don't think these books are particularly film-able but there's one scene at the final battle in this book that would make for some serious cinematic gold.  The series revolves around people who can "channel" (essentially "use the force"), and the fact that for the last thousand years any man who could channel has ended up going insane due to damage done to "the force".  This book ends with...
[spoiler]...the first battle in a thousand years where men used their channeling abilities en masse in battle.  40,000 soldiers rush 200 channeling men, and the men just sit there, and on their commanders order "use the force" to make the attacking force explode, row by row.  Every soldier essentially becomes a bomb, body parts and gore everywhere, and anyone not hit directly by a channeling man ends up getting killed by a the sword in their neighbors arm as it flys off their torso and stabs them in the face.  Absolute unmitigated chaos, and the way "the force" should've really worked in the massive Jedi battles in the Star Wars prequels.[/spoiler]

Seeing that scene on film would be a beautiful, disgustingly awesome thing.

Quote from: chimera on October 24, 2011, 09:53:51 AM
Haven't I been telling you guys?  China is brilliant!  N, you must read Embassyville next, and then you can work backwards through his other stuff.  My favorite contemporary writer now, along with Caitlin R. Kiernan.

You have! I've been interested for a while. I just wanted to start with the squid-cult one, and for whatever reason it was difficult to find.

Finished A Dance with Dragons, and that leaves me caught up with A Song of Ice and Fire books...wow. I haven't read something great and epic like this since Dark Tower, LOTR, Dune...it's great. It's a very depressing world, hard to tell who the good guy is and not everyone makes it out alive.

The 6th book needs to get here. This fat greasy fucker better not die before he finishes the books.

I've never read the new dark tower books, so I'm going to start reading there...and I owe it to read the series all the way through again. I just finished The Gunslinger, and starting on book number 2 tonight...

Finished Isaac Asimov's Forward the Foundation last night, so I'm done the prequels of the Foundation series.  The last half of the book seemed a little slapped together to sum up the final few decades of Hari Seldon's life, and it really felt like this was something thrown together to string the last book and the original series together as quickly as possible.  If Asimov hadn't died before this book was originally published, some editing might've been done, but it is what it is.  I can move on to the original series now.

In the end, it was really, really hard not to see some startling parallels between the decline of the Galactic empire that led to Seldon's creation of the Foundations and the way the United States has headed in the last decade or so.  The speech given by the judge at Seldon's trial could've easily been given by just about anyone at the Occupy protests. 

I also managed to figure out how to buy a book from Chapters' Kobo store, rip the DRM off that shit, and get it onto my Kindle.  Saved about $3 on A Crown of Swords: Book VII of The Wheel of Time that way.  Seriously MacMillan, what do you think you're doing forcing Amazon to charge more for the eBook than the paperback version.  Are you nuts?!

Just read Ender's Gamer by Orson Scott Card. Super fantastic. Trying to fly through Ender's Shadow because I put Speaker for the Dead on hold at the library before I realized that I didn't have to read the books in any particular order. And since Ender's Shadow is a parallel to Ender's Game I went ahead and checked that out. Is anyone else familiar with these stories? I haven't decided which books I want to come next.

The Ender's series is on my to-read list as well, and it took me a while to make sense of what exactly I was planning out to read.  The diagram on the Ender's series Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game_%28series%29) doesn't help alleviate the intimidation. :P

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Ender%27s_Game_Chronology-2.PNG/600px-Ender%27s_Game_Chronology-2.PNG)

In the end, I figured just reading through things by publication date would be a good a plan as any, but I've been told by people who have gone through it that reading the main saga without delving into the Shadow side is a very bad idea.

My understanding is that Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Shadow are the only must-read books (I'll vouch for the first two). Apparently Xenocide and Children of the Mind have serious issues with lack of focus. My friend tells me Ender's Shadow gives an awesome alternate telling of Ender's Game but the Shadow series likewise goes off the rails pretty quickly.

rynne: I know I suggested Michael Cisco to you, I thought you might find this article/interview interesting:
http://www.omnivoracious.com/2011/05/writing-on-the-edge-authors-michael-cisco-and-brendan-connell-on-weird-fiction.html

Ah, thanks! That's an interesting article, especially since I feel like I'm not in touch with many current authors who write in styles I like (hence my interest in Weird Tales).  I think I forgot to write Cisco's name down before.  As it turns out now is the prefect time for recommendations, because Mrs. rynne has been asking me what I want for Christmas and I haven't been able to come up with much so far. *adds Cisco and Connell to list*

finished the girl with the dragon tattoo
it was excellent,  can't wait to see the movie now

next up the girl who played with fire

also happy that the new kindle update gives the option to share on fb once you finish a book since it never worked the old way for me :)

I've been reading A Clash Of Kings and while I have been slowly (I read it in spurts, a hundred pages and then a while later another hundred.) I have liked everything about it so far. BUT (its a spoiler but not a huge thing, I won't say who, just what. It won't ruin anything till after you read it. And then it won't be ruined cuz you read it...)

[spoiler] I really liked the lack of magic and what not it was just dude a kills dude b and what not. And that any sort of magic is way off in some other land. Not next door. BUT the fact that magic/spells whatever kill two people, it kinda erks me. And it happens so out of the blue.  Its not a HUGE deal, but for something that hasn't had any magic or crazy stuff (YA other then dragons, and The Others) it's odd to me that he would suddenly add magic into it. I don't hate it, and will keep reading, but what the hell?  [/spoiler]

Finished it today, and bought book three. I'm digging the books. Good stuff. However, I want him to be done with the last one, I don't want to have to wait for the last two to come out... I also like that while they are long books (book 2 and this one) are both over 1000 pages, but they don't drag and get boring. Or if it is boring, only like 10 pages till the next person takes over...

[spoiler]You have to understand that magic in the books is really, really limited but its there. Blood magic is one of them, which the two instances of people being killed are a part of. In later books Mellisandre becomes more of a focus, and you find out...things. [/spoiler]

Ya, it just seamed odd to me to have magic just kinda show up. GRANTED there is other stuff [spoiler]Dany sleeping in the fire and not burning up... As long as it stays to a minimum, as that is something I really like about the books. I also want The Others to be a lot more of a focus as they are hella bad ass. The start of book three when the dudes are gona kill people and leave, and the horn blows three times for The Others, and the dude pisses him self. I like that they are monsters, but you don't really know much about them...  [/spoiler] 


I am hooked on these books. And he better finish them off fast. I don't want to have to wait for the next books. Kinda like how SK did with the Dark Tower books at the end. He did them all in a short amount of time. Or at lest there wasn't waits of 5 years...

Quote from: luna on November 07, 2011, 09:13:43 PM
finished the girl with the dragon tattoo
it was excellent,  can't wait to see the movie now

next up the girl who played with fire

Ok I finished the entire trilogy and it was fantastic! Also feeling sad to leave all those great characters behind

Next is murakami's 1Q84

Finished A Crown of Swords: Book VII of The Wheel of Time last night.  Despite the fact that the book covers are relatively short span of time (about 12 days in this book compared to 3-6 months for the previous volumes), sweet jeebus did this book drag.  The thing is, a lot of things happened that are going to shape future events, I'm certain, but there'd be one slightly interesting plot point hidden amongst multiple chapters of drawn out, useless, and relatively idle conversation.  It just wasn't as fun as the major game changing stuff that went on in book 6.

And, from what I've heard, books 8 and 9 aren't that much better, but 10 apparently gets things seriously moving again.

Next up, Isaac Asimov's Foundation.  Looks short, might only take me 10 days to plow through it at the pace I go.  There's rumours someone's trying to make a movie out of this.  Something tells me that by the time I'm done this book, I'm going to hope those rumours are very, very false.

Finished Isaac Asimov's Foundation at lunch.  Don't think I've ever read a book that fast before, only took a week (admittedly, its also only 250 pages in print).  I'll admit it was good, but it didn't quite live up to what the prequel books were hinting at, in my mind.  Of course, the prequels came almost 40 years after this was published, and there's two more in the original trilogy, so this itself is probably just a stepping stone for bigger things to come.  Still, its a really interesting take on the shaping of a sub-society while its parent Empire crumbles around it.

Of course, reading old science-fiction can sometimes be hilarious, given what was known of scientific achievements at the time and how things could progress.  The thought of coal-powered interstellar travel made me seriously laugh.

And anyone who thinks they can make a legible feature film out of this book is seriously deluded.  Any attempts at such an endeavor are doomed to a failure of I, Robot-esque proportions.

With older sci-fi (i.e. stuff from 30 years ago or older), I tend to focus more on the writing than the technical elements or whatever, although in the case of those works which are prescient (like Vernon Vinge's True Names or Sterling and Gibson's stuff, for example) I still enjoy those details.  But I read the Foundation trilogy in the 70s (I think, maybe early 80s) so it wasn't as jarring, I imagine.  But recently I read Alfred Bester's The Stars, My Destination and it still holds up for being over 40 years old.

Oh, I'm totally with you.  The actual technical elements are just plot-devices (or at least, they should be) that could easily be replaced with a similar device that doesn't sound silly given advances in science and still make the story work.  The story, the characters, and the issues being dealt with, that stuff is where the real magic in good science fiction is.  I still have a good chuckle at every control interface on the original Star Trek series too.  Really, in a couple hundred years we're still on blinky-light hard switches to control the most advanced means of propulsion humanity has devised?  Ha!  And, I'm sure, in a couple decades, the touch-screens on the rest of the Star Treks will seem equally hokey.  Its all a matter of it being an artifact of its time.  Still fun to laugh at it though. :P

Quote from: chimera on December 20, 2011, 03:34:01 PM
although in the case of those works which are prescient (like Vernon Vinge's True Names or Sterling and Gibson's stuff, for example)

That's a good point.  Vernor Vinge's older stuff really holds up even today because it is built more around concepts then specific advances in technology. 

I was just having a conversation with someone about this; about how, since in the late '80s and early '90s the internet was this weird thing that only some scientists understood, sci-fi authors from that era kind of had a license to do whatever they wanted with it, which resulted in a lot of stories that sound absolutely ridiculous now.

I'm gonna say that really, a good storyteller/author wouldn't/shouldn't write for an audience that obsesses over the accuracy of minutiae in a story, but that's really just an opinion. 

Books I got for Christmas. Chim's post earlier in this thread was obviously influential.

Douglas Brinkley – The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
Michael Cisco – The Narrator
Brendan Connell – The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children
Mark Samuels – The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales
Laurence Sterne – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Oooh that reminds me: you should get the New Cthulu: The Recent Weird anthology because there's a good selection of "New Weird" authors in there including Wilem Pugmire who is, in my estimation, one of HPL's spiritual/stylistic heirs.

And I am a Bad fangirl, no cookie! because I had no idea TBM had followed Adam into the comics biz this past year with Orchid.  Don't really know what it's about save that it's political, of course.

Just about to finish re-reading the gunslinger. The foreshadowing is ridiculous.

I'm reading the new king book, so far really good!

Quote from: doomsayer on January 05, 2012, 02:26:19 PM
Just about to finish re-reading the gunslinger. The foreshadowing is ridiculous.

I'm guessing you're reading the revised version? I've only ever read the original, I picked it up at a used book store ages ago. I'll probably pick up the revised next time I'm ready to take the journey again

Quote from: luna on January 05, 2012, 04:23:59 PM
I'm reading the new king book, so far really good!

HMM I may have to get it. Let me know what you think when you're done. I started Under the dome and never finished it. (I'm over half way into it.) It's what I read when my computer shits the bed... And so far my pc has been doing great. So I haven't read anything of it for awhile...

You never finished under the dome!?

You need to finish that then get the new one, I'm 30% through and definitely recommend it

Ya, I know I need to. I think I'm around page 700ish.  I should be able to do it in an afternoon.

Quote from: luna on January 05, 2012, 04:27:25 PM
I'm guessing you're reading the revised version? I've only ever read the original, I picked it up at a used book store ages ago. I'll probably pick up the revised next time I'm ready to take the journey again

Yeah, tis the revised edition. Im excited to be back on this series again.

Murakami's 1Q84 will be arriving on my doorstep tomorrow. Yay!

I finished Samuel's The Man Who Collected Machen and Connell's The Life of Polycrates and am partway through Cisco's The Narrator. 

Of the three, Machen was the only one that was really what I was expecting from a "Weird" author.  It reads like an homage---but not a pastiche---of Lovecraft and Ligotti and a bit of Borges, with multiple stories dealing with corrupting influences of language, texts and communication. Polycrates, on the other hand, strikes me not as Weird but pure Decadence; being largely concerned with sumptuous character studies of people in tremendous and often self-inflicted physical, sexual and moral decline. The Narrator, so far, is the odd one out. It seems like a dream of a fantasy novel, where the hero and titular Narrator's experiences of war-horror and wonderment are sometimes obscured by hazy unreality (whether due to the Narrator or the author is uncertain).

Finished The Path of Daggers, Book 8 of The Wheel of Time last night. Despite the bad reviews, I really liked it, but I think that's because my attitude towards these books has changed. The first few books were fairly huge, epic stories, kinda like movies. Then things slowly transitioned so that the timeframe of these books is significantly condensed, and now they're more like smaller episodes of a larger story. Viewed in that light, TPoD was really satsifying. Just about every plotline moved forward a bit, there's some new twists, and there's a billion ways things could go. Definitely gotta keep reading.

Quote from: rynne on January 16, 2012, 06:44:21 AMOf the three, Machen was the only one that was really what I was expecting from a "Weird" author.  It reads like an homage---but not a pastiche---of Lovecraft and Ligotti and a bit of Borges, with multiple stories dealing with corrupting influences of language, texts and communication.

D'oh!  I can't believe I didn't mention Samuels to you!  I read The White Hands years ago, probably too long a while for me to remember.  But yes, his writing reminds me a lot of Machen, so it's funny that he would write a story thus titled.  If you enjoyed that collection then you should definitely get The White Hands.

I just reread Doug Coupland's Life After God. Still a life-changer.

For anyone who hasn't read it yet, Justin Cronin's The Passage is The Stand for the 21st Century, with less religious overtones.  But really well-written.

I may have to check that out.  The Stand is one of the best books I have ever read and IMO the King book that will be considered a classic 100 years from now.

Quote from: r00 on January 28, 2012, 01:20:05 AM
I may have to check that out.  The Stand is one of the best books I have ever read and IMO the King book that will be considered a classic 100 years from now.

Ya this. Even with as much of a Dark Tower fanboi as I am, The Stand is his masterpiece. (and as soon as I read Girl with dragon tattoo I will pick this book up.)

I also think that the book started my love for the post apocalyptic/end times stuff.

Quote from: chimera on January 28, 2012, 12:46:46 AM
For anyone who hasn't read it yet, Justin Cronin's The Passage is The Stand for the 21st Century, with less religious overtones.  But really well-written.

Anytime you strongly recommend anything, I'm all over it. I'm still forever in debt to you for introducing me to Donna Tartt. Speaking of which, I hear that she is actually coming out with a new book this year!

Quote from: chimera on January 28, 2012, 12:46:46 AM
For anyone who hasn't read it yet, Justin Cronin's The Passage is The Stand for the 21st Century, with less religious overtones.  But really well-written.

ooh this is definitely next on my list

Quote from: kristin on January 28, 2012, 07:30:02 AM
Anytime you strongly recommend anything, I'm all over it. I'm still forever in debt to you for introducing me to Donna Tartt. Speaking of which, I hear that she is actually coming out with a new book this year!

Seriously?  YAY!
Here's another one for you: Sara Gran.  She's lit-fic but she puts a bit of genre spin on it.  Have enjoyed all her novels but Dope is the one which really hooked me, it's so pitch-perfect it's like it time-traveled from 1950 or thereabouts.

And OMG how could I forget Lev Grossman!  For all of you who have been longing for a Harry Potter replacement, but something decidely more grown-up, his books The Magicians and The Magician King are just the ticket.  Apparently there's one more to come.  rynne, on the other hand, needs to read Codex.

Thanks for the suggestion!  I will look into these.

Quote from: chimera on January 28, 2012, 12:46:46 AM
For anyone who hasn't read it yet, Justin Cronin's The Passage is The Stand for the 21st Century, with less religious overtones.  But really well-written.

I bought it, and while I'm not that far into it, (about 20%) it's reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllly good. I haven't plowed through a book like this in a long time.

I'm about 25% ...definitely really good!

Ok Passage is on my list.  I am glad to hear such awesome reviews.

Right now I am reading A Clash of Kings and enjoying it so far.  I am just sitting around wondering who's going to die next because a lot of them are really asking for it.  lol

Quote from: Aaron on February 13, 2012, 02:40:23 AM
I bought it, and while I'm not that far into it, (about 20%) it's reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllly good. I haven't plowed through a book like this in a long time.

I downloaded it to my kindle, but haven't started it. 1Q84 is taking up all  of my reading time right now.

Now I'm at 41%. I think I like it better then The Stand. 

I don't remember the last time I read so much my eyes hurt as well.



Kinda a spoiler but not really anything ground breaking. (if you want to go in knowing nothing don't read, but I'm not ruining anything either.)
[spoiler] I LOVE that it's monsters/vampires as the evil in the book, instead of the super flue like in TS. Also I love that the time line is on a lot larger scale. The start of the book is around 10ish years from now, and then it jumps to 100 years... I really have no clue what is going to happen which is nice. With TS it was always going to come down to good vs evil.  I also can't wait to see how Amy ties in to it all.   [/spoiler]

Really glad "Tales of The Continuing Time" (those that have been released) have been re-released as e-books, after being out of print for forever.  Hadn't realized the new one had been released (after a 17 year hiatus).  Daniel Moran hasn't lost a step, in spite of the long layover, even if he lost his other eye, and, I understand, is completely blind now.

Just finished the book. I really liked it. I'm also kinda sad that I'm starting another book series that isn't finishes (Game of Thrones I'm looking at you.) All in all the book is really good. It didn't drag a long which is nice.

I read the Hunger Games the other day over the course of a few hours. The actual writing was horrific, but the story was pretty good. One of the few books I think might translate BETTER on the big screen.

I enjoyed that whole series.  Cant wait for the movie!

edit:

Quote from: kristin on February 22, 2012, 10:57:53 AM
The actual writing was horrific, but the story was pretty good. One of the few books I think might translate BETTER on the big screen.

That's exactly how I felt about the Mazerunner series.  The writing was so amateur, but the story was decent from a movie standpoint.

Has anyone read Atlas Shrugged? One of my coworkers commented it was his favorite book.

Listen to Ron Paul talk for about 10 minutes, its about the same as reading Atlas Shrugged. :P

Kiddo, if you're going to read an Ayn Rand book, may I suggest The Fountainhead.  If you're okay with that then I guess you could take on the doorstopper called Atlas Shrugged.  Is that guy a Rush fan too?  :lol:

Or let me put it another way: Ayn Rand is for teenagers who don't know any better.  ;)

Thanks Chim. (And Goose  :P)

So then what do adults read that know better? Cuz I need a new book.

Read The Magicians (see above) and if you like it then you can read the sequel.

i'd definitely recommend some murakami if you haven't already aaron

No clue how I missed it, but I don't think he is a fan of Rush. He is a metal head. Thanks for books.


Luna any books that are better then others/better to start with?

I really liked all his stuff they I've read, I gave hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world to B and he liked it, also 1Q84 was really good

Anyone have any feelings about Ben Marcus? I don't know him but I read a review of The Flame Alphabet that sounds like it'd be right up my alley.

Did you see where I mentioned you needed to read Lev Grossman's Codex?

What I thought of when I read the synopsis: isn't this basically the same riff as Pontypool?  That's not to say it wouldn't be interesting, of course.

Quote from: luna on February 25, 2012, 03:07:12 PMalso 1Q84 was really good

And everyone who enjoyed it may also like Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 39 which I can't help but wonder if Murakami was riffing on a bit.

Quote from: chimera on February 29, 2012, 05:07:20 PM
I can't help but wonder if Murakami was riffing on a bit.

Oh, no doubt.

Someday I will work up the courage to attempt another pynchon book :lol:

Having read a bit of Ben Marcus (parts of The Flame Alphabet and Notable American Women) I have come to the conclusion that his ideas are really interesting, it's just his tone which bores me to tears.  The Age of Wire and String, on the other hand, is some great po-mo construction.  I think he does better in shorter forms.

Also I read Damned and while I know Chuck read a bunch of Judy Blume books to try and achieve the correct tone, his 13 year old girl still basically sounds just like him, and not a girl at all (much less a teenager, no matter how ironic and precocious).  So again: great idea, bad execution.

Now happily reading CRK's The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (which was released Tuesday), trying not to rush it, but I'm already halfway through.

chim i love it when you recommend books :)

Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days.

I had to read this book for class, and I really REALLY loved the first short story. its really cool how he interweaves a lot of refferences to walt whitmen's leaves of grass, as well as the character names and items of significance through the three stories.


I'm strongly considering getting a kindle for all the books i have to read for class. I still want to collect books, but i feel like it will save me either gas money or shipping (at least) to finally buck up and get one.

Do it.  eBook versions are usually a little cheaper than their paper-based versions, and they're usually way easier on the eyes once you find the font style and size that's comfortable to you.

Paper is dead to me now.  eBook or GTFO.

Quote from: Goose on March 21, 2012, 08:43:04 AM
Paper is dead to me now.  eBook or GTFO.

YES

I <3 paper books. I have a kindle, and I do use it- but my main mode of reading is still paper. OLD SKOOL

I love my kindle. And while I don't read all the time, I do prefer it over paper books.

some books i feel still wouldn't translate well to an ebook, such as House of Leaves or anything on the more experimental side. I love    books to death, but a kindle will make my academic life so much easier.

you kids with your e-berries and fancy light-books.

As I am old and my eyes are shite, Kindle makes it so much easier for me to read.  Over the years I had started to read less every day but now I'm back to reading just about as much I had before.  I still love books as physical objects, though.

Quote from: doom on March 21, 2012, 08:13:49 PM
some books i feel still wouldn't translate well to an ebook, such as House of Leaves or anything on the more experimental side. I love    books to death, but a kindle will make my academic life so much easier.

I'll be interested in seeing the work that expands on ebooks in the same kind of way House of Leaves expanded on print.  Not something obvious things like an automated choose-your-own-adventure novel or a Burroughs-style text randomizer (though I certainly suspect nonlinear narrative devices would come into play), but rather something that screws around with the advantages and limitations of the form to engage the reader in manner that's inherently unique to the medium

it would be a lot harder, because of the way you can tweak the font, font size, spacing, and angle of the page. i could see someone filtering some sort of image interaction or a minimal soundscape to the more expensive versions, like the kindle fire though. definitely something that needs to be experimented with.

Yeah I think there is some great hypertext experience which could be created for the ereader as a specific medium (and we've seen similar things online from time-to-time) but I do wonder who's going to go down that road.

thank god he's okay
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/chuck-palahniuk-survives-car-accident_b49052

I need more Neil Gaiman in my life.

I've got the Sony eReader and I love it. The best thing is its light and slim and so portable.

The first one I got was a dud though and wouldn't stay charged but it was surprisingly easy to get it swapped over.

as much shit as Sony gets for big-brother type stuff, I have never been able to deny that they make quality products.  From my experience, every piece of Sony electronics or gadgetry that i have owned has well surpassed its lifespan.

i agree. we have so much sony stuff right now it's kinda ridiculous.

really looking forward to this! http://www.stephenking.com/promo/wind_through_the_keyhole/announcement/

Finished Asimov's original Foundation trilogy.  I really liked how Second Foundation finished off.  The last third of that book was some pretty tense stuff, but from a completely un-personal level.  Its wierd to try to put into words what that book was doing to my brain.  How a society can be so thoroughly guided from the deepest recesses is a scary thing, but when its done to prevent thousands of years of war, its hauntingly powerful stuff.

Well there's a reason why he was such a giant in the field, after all.

In other SK news my child finshed The Eye of the Dragon and he actually liked it, which is a near-miracle.  Thanks Steve, I knew you would come through for me.

How can anyone not like that book? How old is your son now anyway?

Fourteen; he's not much of a reader, sadly, so I'm always surprised when he actually enjoys a book.

Quote from: chimera on January 28, 2012, 12:46:46 AM
For anyone who hasn't read it yet, Justin Cronin's The Passage is The Stand for the 21st Century, with less religious overtones.  But really well-written.

I'm about 40% done- thanks for the recommendation. It's really good.

apparently this is a trilogy, the second one is supposed to be coming out near the end of the year!

Yeah I'm looking forward to what comes next!

For SK fans, the story he wrote with his son Joe - "Throttle" - is now available for download on Kindle (before you had to buy in one of a couple anthologies).  It's inspired by the Richard Matheson novella/Steven Spielberg movie Duel.

ooh i will have to check this out

just started dance, dance dance - murakami

he has definitely become one of my fav authors over the last year :)

NEW DARK TOWER BOOK OUT TODAY!

I bought House of Leaves for my girl a couple of months ago, and we're slowly going through it as we trade it between each other.  I haven't made it very far in, but holy damn I love it.

About halfway through The Dark Tower books too.  So far The Waste Lands has been my favourite.

And Stanislaw Lem's Solaris was pretty great too.

I also dig through Lovecraft during my day-to-day travels.  Anyone ever read Guillermo del Toro's screenplay for At The Mountains of Madness?  It was pretty alright.

Quote from: luna on April 21, 2012, 02:12:18 PM
ooh i will have to check this out

just started dance, dance dance - murakami

he has definitely become one of my fav authors over the last year :)

Murakami = <3

Been reading quite a bit the last few weeks. I just got through the S. T. Joshi-edited Black Wings of Cthulhu anthology of modern Lovecraft-influenced writers. I'm currently working though William Hope Hodgson's House on the Borderland. For being written at the very beginning of the twentieth century, House is amazingly modern in its blending and scope of psychological and cosmic horror, starting with an attack by inexplicable monstrosities (that are never entirely established as being physical and/or real) and ending on an extended contemplation of the eons-long death and dissolution of the solar system.

Next up is Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter, then I'll need to decide if Raymond and Chandler would make better summer reading than Gravity's Rainbow.


And that's not even considering that the VanderMeers' ridiculously comprehensive The Weird (http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2011/08/30/table-of-contents-the-weird-edited-by-ann-and-jeff-vandermeer/) anthology is coming to America next month. The table of contents is an embarassment of riches: Blackwood, Lovecraft, Kafka, Borges, Bloch, King, Gibson, Ellison, Barker, Gaiman, Chabon, Kiernan, Mieville, Ligotti, etc., etc., etc.

"The Hospice!"  OMG one of the most bizarre and terrifying stories I've ever read.  Although I'm a bit more partial to "Ravissante."
Thanks for the heads-up on this anthology, rynne.
PS: I vote for a summer of noir, with a little Ellroy mixed in there.

PPS: I finally found a YA novel I really approve of: At The House of the Magician by Mary Hooper.  It's about a young girl who goes to work for Dr. John Dee.  Yes, that John Dee.

The house on the borderland is free on my kindle so it's now on my list of things to read :)

Prob said this before but Dance Dance Dance is my favourite HM.

I just finished it, definitely one of his best!

just started reading The Wind Through The Keyhole, I love returning to mid world..really need to read the entire series again soon ^-^

RIP Kindle. Dropped it in the bathtub last weekend. Kept in in rice for a few days- things looked promising, I was able to scroll around a bit- but it has since frozen on the welcome screen. :(

That sucks :( I have a huge fear of doing the same thing...

Books 9 (Winter's Heart) and 10 (Crossroads of Twilight) of The Wheel of Time series dragged like nobody's business.  So little actually happens in the majority of both books that I have a hard time justifying their existence at this point.  The climax of Winter's Heart was awesome, and is going to have some big ramifications in the very near future, as will the last few pages of Crossroads of Twilight.  The rest of it just got mired in shuffling characters around and random braid-tugging.

I'm reading these in publication order, so the prequel, New Spring was next on the list after that drudgery.  With writing this prequel, Jordan finally got away from the tediousness he'd written himself into, and was able to really focus on a simple story outside of everything WoT was mired in at the time. It was a breath of fresh air, and you could tell Jordan thought so too while reading it. Hopefully this carries forward into the next book in the actual series.

Also finished off Foundation's Edge, the first of the sequels that Asimov wrote for that series.  It went in a completely different direction than I was expecting in its final chapters, so I'm really going to enjoy finishing this series off.

R.I.P.  Ray Bradbury  8(

Quote from: rynne on April 28, 2012, 06:06:00 AM
I just got through the S. T. Joshi-edited Black Wings of Cthulhu anthology of modern Lovecraft-influenced writers.

Someone recommended this to me recently- I just d/l it to my kindle. I love it so far, I'm about 1/2 finished. There are some fantastic stories in here.

book related lulz:

(http://www.wired.com/geekdad/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DorkTower1086x.gif)

Just realized Dumarest of the Terra by E.C. Tubb is now available for Kindle, so I'm going to be occupied for awhile working my way through this 44 novel series.  I've read maybe 12 or so in the middle, and I'm looking forward to reading them in order and all the way through for the first time.

edit:  I should note that each novel is only a little over 200 pages, so it's not AS a mammoth undertaking as one might assume, but it is still going to take me probably around a year to complete.

How pissed off am I that I didn't know Subterranean Press has been releasing limited-edition Thomas Ligotti reprints annually for the last three years?  I grabbed Noctuary, but Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe are long gone. :(

Finished Knife of Dreams: Book XI of The Wheel of Time, and the last book that Robert Jordan wrote before he passed away.  After books 9 and 10 (two absolutely dreadful books which spent 700 pages each doing practically NOTHING), this was a massive payoff.  Multiple major battles finally take place after so much dickering around, and plots actually advance and resolve.  There's still a very complicated story going on, but its so great to actually see it move somewhere.  This reminded me why I enjoyed starting this series in the first place.  From what I've heard, Brandon Sanderson continues into the final three novels with a similar pacing that I'm looking forward to.

Which brings me to something that royally pisses me off.  When I first started reading this series (almost two years ago now), there was only one book left to be published to finish it off.  Given the pacing of the previous novels, I figured the last book would be published sometime this year, meaning I figured the last book would be published before I caught up.  Well, Brandon Sanderson ended up getting bogged down with a bunch of other work, meaning he didn't get started on this last novel as soon as he would've liked.  That's fair, and I can understand that.  He actually finished the principal writing back in December (actually live-tweeted while he was writing the last couple chapters, which was kinda neat to see).  For all of his previous books, editing after that and publishing only took 4-6 months.  TOR is stretching this one out for over a fucking year.  The hardcover will be released in January 2013, and the eBook won't be out until April 2013.  Fucking bullshit.  At this pace, I'll have at least a 6-month gap between reading the last two books.  And a 4-month eBook delay?  WTF?!  What century do you think this is TOR?  So not impressed.

Next up, back into Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novels, with Specter of the Past.  I keep wanting to spell the first word of that the Canadian way, have to keep checking myself whenever I type that in.

The Twelve I just bought it for my Kindle, reading it now.

I have read that all three books are going to be made into movies. Like the rights to make them movies have been bought? Something like that. I think it would be cool to see what the monsters look like in the flicks...


70% in to it now. I'm really liking it. I also am gona hate waiting for the 3rd book to come out...

ah The Twelve is definitely on my list.

I'm currently re-reading The Dark Tower series (yes again!), I realized it had been a few years. I just love going back to mid world ^-^

Uh. FB post.

But ya, you should take a bit of a break. Trust me. book 2 is awesome. I have less then 100 pages left. It's gona suck having to wait to read book 3. I think I will pick up on the TD books after I finish it. I think I'm some where in book 3?

Just finished it. Really gona be interesting to see how book three plays out...

if I can time everything well I should be done the DT series and onto The Twelve just in time for vacation in mid november :)

Finished Timothy Zahn's Star Wars: The Hand of Thrawn duology.  Really, it was just one big book that got split into two for no apparent reason.  The ending to the first book was pretty jarring and out of nowhere, so I'm guessing that the publisher just didn't want to release an 800-page Star Wars book.  Either way, the storytelling and visual narratives were a step up from Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, which was nice.  I had no problem picturing characters or their species this time around, especially new species like the Qom Jha.

I wasn't expecting these to be as good as they were, as the plot summary seemed a little hokey.  It could be taken as that at the beginning, but things play out in a really nice fashion that keeps the galactic-peace-tightrope-walk going and not seem stale, and still keeps characters interesting.  I've really got to stop reading Wookiepedia while reading these books though, because I accidentally had Mara Jade's long-term fate spoiled for me.  Its just so bloody habit forming to want to know everything immediately.  Stupid internet has ruined me.

Also read The Gathering Storm: Book XII of The Wheel of Time, the first book in the series written after Robert Jordan's death.  Completely awesome.  It felt like I was reading the first book in the series again, as I was completely blown away on a pretty regular basis.  So much was revealed and dealt with on so many fronts, it was just such a joy to read.  I'm pretty sure I actually exclaimed "FUCK YES" out loud when Elaida met her end, which came in a way I totally did not expect but was still beautiful justice. 

Brandon Sanderson has done an amazing job of keeping things going, and I'll definitely be looking in to some of his original work now.  He's handled the characters absolutely perfectly, and even though the voice and writing style was a little different, the motivations and actions and feelings of the characters I've spent the last twelve massive novels learning about didn't change at all.  That's a serious challenge for an author taking on another's work, and Sanderson nailed it.

Up next, Towers of Midnight: Book XIII of The Wheel of Time, Zahn's other two Star Wars novels (Survivor's Quest and the Thrawn prequel Outbound Flight), and Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash.

I bought Neil Gaiman American Gods. I wanted a new book to read and I was looking at some on amazon. It was the cheapest and longest. So I got it. (Also I have been looking at it for a long time.) I'm at 120 pages in (I fucking love that the Kindle shows real page numbers now) I really like it. Reading the little blurp on amazon, I wasn't to sure, but I'm really liking it...


I also plan on reading Dune at some point. And depending on if I like it or not reading all the other books... (one review said if you can get past page 20 you have it made.)

Someone gave me American Gods years ago, but I still haven't read it.  I really should at some point.

Right now I am on Book 4 (A Feast for Crows) of A Song of Ice and Fire series.  I haven't been able to read anything else since starting it. 

I've heard nothing but praise and the sound of ladies underpants being thrown whenever Neil Gaiman's name comes up, but I read the sample to American Gods from Amazon and it bored the crap out of me.  But, that's just me.

Huh, ya, it isn't for everyone. But I'm really liking it. It's very different from what I normally read so maybe that is why I like it so much?

Yeah, my tastes definitely shouldn't be taken as a benchmark for anything.  I also can't stand Stephen King's writing either.  Tried repeatedly, couldn't close the book fast enough each time.

Goose I just don't know about you anymore :lol:

Started reading The Twelve (Aaron!) :)

About time Luna!

Goose have you tired the Dark Tower stuff? It isn't like his normal horror stuff... Granted I'm a huge fanboi so take it with a grain of salt...

Started reading Cloud Atlas this past weekend. Finding it hard to get into it, but I think it's because I'm only reading it during my lunch breaks at work.

drone

I'm currently re-reading Mason & Dixon, which I still contend is the most enjoyable of Pynchon's longer works (at some point when I'm feeling ambitious I'll tackle Gravity's Rainbow again).

I also got a couple of weird fiction books for Christmas: Micheal Cisco's Celebrant and Reza Negarestani's Cyclonopedia. I was a big fan of Cisco's The Narrator (war fiction as fantastic nightmare), but I'm even more looking forward to Cyclonopedia based on the excerpt featured in  The Weird anthology. From what I can tell, it's an unbelieveable amalgam of Middle-East petrol philosophy, demonology, and academic study. Imagine Abdul Al Hazred as a 21st-century think tank intellectual crossed with the guy who developed the Time Cube: incredible and outlandish theorizing about the secret connections between oil, evil, and the empty desert, couched in language that's equally indicative of singular genius and utter insanity.

I'm reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell on the recommendation of my kindle. Really enjoying it :)

Cyclonopedia is a total mind-fuck.


Take House of Leaves' nested narrative structure, except instead of Johnny Truant finding Zampano's notes on The Navidson Record, it's a Suicide Girl finding Reza Negrastani's (the actual author) notes on the works of the disappeared Iranian archeologist Hamid Parsani. Parsani's increasingly deranged publications postulate a sentient Middle East using malevolent petroleum to foster economic, religious, and political unrest in order to bring about the ultimate global desert. Evidence is given by a bewilderingly heterogeneous amalgam of theory from modern philosophy, demonic mathematics, extraterrestrial economics, disease systematics, etc., etc., citing sources as diverse as pre-Islamic sacred texts, discredited fringe geological models, and deep criticisms of John Carpenter's The Thing.


Every few pages I have to stop and wonder if the author is actually insane.

Finished Towers of Midnight: Book XIII of The Wheel of Time, the second-last book in the series.  The final novel, A Memory of Light, has finally been released in hardcover form, but I'm going to have to wait until April for the eBook.  Still pissed off about that.

I also finally read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.  I've never read any of his work before, but I'm a huge fan now.  It took me a while to get used to his writing style after reading Star Wars and WoT novels, just because its so dense and refined.  Every word is extremely important to what is happening right at that very instant in the plot, that I ended up slowing my reading speed way down just to be sure I was really getting all of it.  I loved it.  The story was awesome, especially given the level of tech that was out there at the time it was written.  It still seems like a plausible future today, which I don't know if that's a good thing or not given what he shows as the future.  I wasn't the biggest fan of the ending, but the way the story laid itself out and the ideas presented were gorgeous sci-fi.  Pretty much everything he's written is now on my to-read list.

Still chugging along on the "Dumarest of the Terra" series when I can afford them.  Recently finished "Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun" and I think this is probably really where Tubb hit his stride.  The books get formulaic at times (okay, MOST of the time), but the recent ones I've read in particular he seems to not nearly lean on that crutch as much.

edit: Plan on finishing "Haven of Darkness" tomorrow night at work.

I'm starting to get interested in Witchcraft, and Black arts, Witch Trials, etc. for a story I want to write. If anyone can suggest anything, that would be pretty cool.

Also just got Chuck Palahniuks Kindle Single, Phoenix. About to start that.

ALSO,
delving into reading the Game of Thrones series with some friends, because I love the show.

So since my pc shit the bed. I have read Fight Club. Next is Black House by King and Strain. Then Insomnia by King...

Uh so my phone changed his name... Oops... For whatever reason I picked up the TDT books. I'm on book 4 Wizzard and Glass. Love them books. 

I watched Dune today (the shorter movie not the 3 hour one) anyway. It makes me want to read the book. I may have asked this before. But how are the rest the books in the series? I know Dune was the first book. But are the rest good as well? (or only really worth it if I love Dune?)

Also want to get Anthony Bourdain's first book since I'm a huge fan of his show.

I will also be buying Cyclonopedia as soon as Amazon has it back in stock... Its on my wish list at lest...

I just finished R.A. Salvatore's "The Last Threshold" and holy BALLS what a BULLSHIT way to end a 29 novel series (or 20, depending on how you count them).  I was starting to think that Salvatore had finally gotten back into his groove and then he blows it all in a horribly tacked-on unsatisfying climax.  I don't know if I've ever been more unsatisfied with a book.

rynne - are you reading Laird Barron?  You need to be reading him.

He's on my radar, but I haven't read more than a few stories in anthologies.  Would you recommend The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All as a good starting point? Also, any thoughts on Nathan Ballingrud?

Right now I'm going though Ligotti's Noctuary and Death Poems, then my Christmas present books: Michael Cisco's Member and Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge. (Thank you so much for recommending Cisco a few years back---he's quickly become one of my favorite contemporary authors.)

Plus the more my birding hobby progresses, the more books on that subject I need to obtain and read as well. As my dad has told me, becoming a birder is equivalent to becoming a field guide collector.

I would recommend any of the three short story collections as something you should read before considering reading either The Croning or The Light Is The Darkness, which are his longer works.  Ballingrud is okay, he just doesn't dazzle me like Laird does.  Also, on the more traditional tip, W.H. Pugmire's collection The Strange Dark One  - when you get praise from S.T. Joshi, you know you're doing something right.

Been reading Jeffrey Ford's A Natural History of Hell , which is a snazzy collection of short weird fiction. On-deck is Michael Cisco's The Knife Dances.

And then, when I'm super ambitious, my brother got me a signed copy of Alan Moore's Jerusalem for Christmas. I haven't felt this intimidated to start a book since Against the Day.

Quote from: rynne on February 14, 2017, 07:18:02 AMAnd then, when I'm super ambitious, my brother got me a signed copy of Alan Moore's Jerusalem for Christmas. I haven't felt this intimidated to start a book since Against the Day.

Or even Mason & Dixon - amirite?!  That's a helluva pressie tho, I'm so jealous!

My question for you is: are you reading Blake Butler?

So I've been doing a lot less reading lately, sadly, because my income these days is as a freelance audiobook proofer.  One of the ones I absolutely ADORED working on was Rhys Ford's Ink & Shadows.  The current Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse live in modern day San Francisco, and they've recently gotten a new Pestilence.  They're actually the heroes of the story though.  I really enjoyed Ford's characterization (and, for the audio, Tremblay's Death and War were just perfect) and the story was quite good, as well.

Airship 27's new Sherlock Holmes series isn't bad...  very predictable if you actually pay attention, but not being a Holmes enthusiast myself, I can't say if they're more simplistic than Conan Doyle's or if they follow a proud tradition of laying out enough clues that a reader can solve alongside the Great Detective.

The coolest thing by far that has happened was having a successor to a story I'd picked up on a whim on my nook show up in my queue.  Fiona Hardingham does a lovely job with the Lady of Devices series, which is a fun little steampunk vehicle with a female lead navigating both the engineering world and that of the expectations of ladies in society.  While raising a pack of street orphans.  The first one was quite enjoyable, as were the ones I proofed, but I missed something like 6 stories in between.

Mostly fluff, but it's got its place.

The book I feel I should be reading is It Can't Happen Here.

Yeah, I should get my hands on that one, too.  And find the energy to read it.

Quote from: chimera on February 14, 2017, 02:57:00 PM
Or even Mason & Dixon - amirite?!  That's a helluva pressie tho, I'm so jealous!

My question for you is: are you reading Blake Butler?

Oh god, yeah, I was not expecting that at all. He definitely got an employee discount on it, but that doesn't make it any less impressive.

I can honestly say I'm unfamiliar with Blake Butler. Who is he, and what would you recommend?

Quote from: chimera on February 14, 2017, 08:14:32 PM
The book I feel I should be reading is It Can't Happen Here.

If you want a nonfiction perspective, I strenuously recommend They Thought They Were Free.

It's really difficult for me to describe his style other than, say, High Weirdness.  But I think - knowing your tastes as I do - that you would "get" him.  I would say start with Scorch Atlas.

When Goose separates threads into other subsections of the forum, doesn't it feel a little like George Orwell's dystopian classic, 1984 ?!?!

PS - Three ? makes ???.  I can't tell if it's a prevention method, so that we don't overload our question mark limit, or if we've all agreed that the symbol for three ? Is ???.

Riddles in the ???.

PPS - Sorry for drunkenly derailing the subject, Goose is doing a great job.  Funny ha-ha.

PPPS - I love the edit button.

Deal wit it.

Oh, I have!  I wasn't trying to be insulting, but sometimes I can't help myself. :)

Quote from: chimera on February 15, 2017, 12:49:37 PM
It's really difficult for me to describe his style other than, say, High Weirdness.  But I think - knowing your tastes as I do - that you would "get" him.  I would say start with Scorch Atlas.

Sounds v. interesting. I will have to check him out.

I know you aren't too enamored with Nathan Ballingrud, but I got his novella(?) The Visible Filth for Christmas and liked it quite a bit. I think what I like about his stories are that the *weird* elements are less important than his protagonists' very human responses to them. In my mind, he's more similar to Caitlin R. Kiernan or Elizabeth Hand than, by contrast, someone like Laird Barron or Mark Samuels.

Which isn't to say I don't appreciate both styles for their own merits.

Yeah you know I like some things he's done, and that one is on my List to read because it's precisely the kind of scenario I love.

Also, did you read The Ballad of Black Tom?

No, but that's on my list---as are Pym and The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, which I understand likewise grapple with the inherent prejudices of early wierd fiction.

Ballad was one of the best pastiches I've ever read, so I'm sure you'll enjoy it.