What have you been reading recently?

[Ephesos]

Originally Posted By: Micawber

Currently reading many books by Jack McDevitt. This guy's books are addictive. Sort of like a series of sci-fi disaster movies.

Yes. Win. McDevitt is made of win. Read Eternity Road if you get the chance, too.

[everyday847]

Steven Crane's collected poetry: the volume has Black Riders, War is Kind, and a few freestanding poems.

[La paix]

Quote:

Non-native speakers of Latin

Wouldn't that be the whole world?

We read The Princess Bride in my English class. I thought it was a really fun book, with a funny (but totally false) frame story. It's also laced with interesting bits of satire, especially in the made-up frame story parts. Without the fabricated backstory, the book would lose a lot of depth and appeal. All in all, I liked it. It's better than the movie, though the movie is one of my favorites.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: Fractal

Quote:

Non-native speakers of Latin

Wouldn't that be the whole world?

Now, yeah. Vergil wrote for Romans. I'm just saying, I think the Aeneid in translation might drag in a few spots. It's a deservedly classic epic poem, but in a dead language, and it's not the rollicking adventure yarn that the Odyssey is.

[questionmarket superscrip]

Aeneid > Odyssey

[Dantius]

Well, the bioweapons thread encouraged me to put the Aeneid on hold and jump back into geopolitics with The Atomic Bazaar and 7 Deadly Scenarios. Both are great books, if you're into that sort of thing, I guess.

[K_I_L_E_R]

The Earthsea Quartet.

[-=microphage=-]

Originally Posted By: Andraste

Originally Posted By: Drew

I've been reading "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin

Crazy. Sporefrog and I are reading it too.

Good, but too much incest.

I'm halfway through it now! "A Clash of Kings" is waiting (book 2 in the series) next.

I've looked for the thread about Doug Adam's "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and remembered some new author was supposed to write more since Adam's passing. Couldn't find the thread I wanted, but here goes anyhow...

I just finished reading "The Hitchhikers Trilogy" which is all 5 (yes, a 5 volume trilogy) volumes in 1 hardcover book. I've read and re-read all 5 but this is my 1st re-read of all 5 from start to finish in about a week. Adam's definately finished the whole HHG2TG series. Over. Done. Wonderful! Loved them all! But he FINISHED it!

Maybe there was some slight undocumented editing (in the compilation), but there are no loose ends to hang another series on. It would be an insult.

The "Adam's Universe" is still out there but if someone did try to soil it by new books I think I'd be offended.

Did any new ones get written or did Adam's fans squash them?

DON'T PANIC!
MK2 PANIC!
New author?: GAG

Oops. This from wikipedia:
And Another Thing...
Main article: And Another Thing... (novel)
It was announced on 17 September 2008 that Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer had been commissioned to write the sixth installment entitled And Another Thing... with Jane Belson, Adams' widow.[17][18]
The story begins as death rays bear down on Earth, and the characters awaken from a virtual reality. Zaphod picks them up shortly before they're killed, but completely fails to escape the death beams. They are then saved by Bowerick Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged, who they agree to help kill. Zaphod travels to Asgard to get Thor's help. In the meantime, the Vogons are heading to destroy a colony of people who also escaped Earth's destruction, on the planet Nano. Arthur, Wowbagger, Trillian and Random head to Nano to try to stop the Vogons, and on the journey, Wowbagger and Trillian fall in love, making Wowbagger question whether or not he wants to be killed. Zaphod arrives with Thor, who then signs up to be the planet's God. He almost kills Wowbagger, but thanks to Random, he only loses his immortality, and gets married to Trillian. Thor then stops the first Vogon attack, and apparently dies. Meanwhile, Constant Mown, son of Prostetnic Jeltz, convinces his father that the people on the planet are not citizens of Earth, but are, in fact, citizens of Nano, which means that it would be illegal to kill them. As the book draws to a close, Arthur is on his way to check out a possible university for Random, when, during a hyperspace jump, he is flung across alternate universes, has a brief encounter with Fenchurch, and ends up exactly where he'd want to be. And then the Vogons turn up again.

The book was published by Penguin Books in the UK and Hyperion in the US on October 12, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy

They actually did it. Has anyone read this? Opinion?

[Alorael at Large]

Actually, while the series begins and ends just fine the way Adams left it, he didn't consider it a complete and unalterable thing. He had mentioned thoughts about and maybe even concrete intentions regarding the sequel to Mostly Harmless, but then he died before writing anything.

 

—Alorael, who has not read and who has very little intention of reading Colfer's addition to the series. Maybe he'll pick it up one day, but he thinks it would be more worthwhile to reread the original series.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: {Cartouche}

Actually, while the series begins and ends just fine the way Adams left it, he didn't consider it a complete and unalterable thing. He had mentioned thoughts about and maybe even concrete intentions regarding the sequel to Mostly Harmless, but then he died before writing anything.

Wasn't some of his notes on the incomplete book published under the title The Salmon of Doubt? (hehe. Salmon. Did Salmon ever take the title "Doubtful Salmon"? I'm sure he did at one point...)

[Sarachim]

I think Salmon was an incomplete Dirk Gently book, not an incomplete H2G2 book. It might have had other stuff included in it, though.

[Jumaj]

I am reading Terry Prattchet's Thief of Time, it is very good and funny, I love it, his books are always full of things that make me laugh for days and smile for months, Terry is my favourite writer.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Jumaj

I am reading Terry Prattchet's Thief of Time, it is very good and funny, I love it, his books are always full of things that make me laugh for days and smile for months, Terry is my favourite writer.

Everybody here loves Terry Prachett. He's awesome.

Personally, I'm on a William Gibson binge, attempting to read Neuromacer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive at the same time.

I don't particularly care for his premise. Or his plots. Or his characters. But the man's writing style is very, very good.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

I don't particularly care for his premise. Or his plots. Or his characters. But the man's writing style is very, very good.

this is like the exact opposite of what everyone else has ever said about gibson

[Student of Trinity]

No, I think Gibson's style is a huge part of his success; but I don't think it's a matter of writing poetic sentences or anything like that. Gibson has a knack for doing just enough too little exposition. He leaves the reader with enough of a gist of what's going on to keep reading, but with enough blurring at the edges to create a sensation of breathless speed. I don't think it's easy to manage this; I think it's a finely tuned thing.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Dantius

I don't particularly care for his premise. Or his plots. Or his characters. But the man's writing style is very, very good.

this is like the exact opposite of what everyone else has ever said about gibson

Yes, because a plot about how "It's the future and Japanese superconglomerates are using private mercenary armies to control a cyberspace network" is such an original plot, Thuryl.

Although it may have been original when it came out(I don't remember myself). But still.

[Lilith]

i've never actually read any of his novels i'm just reporting what i've heard other people say

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Yes, because a plot about how "It's the future and Japanese superconglomerates are using private mercenary armies to control a cyberspace network" is such an original plot, Thuryl.

Although it may have been original when it came out(I don't remember myself). But still.

Well, Gibson is one of the fathers of cyberpunk, so yeah.

But I know what you mean. Someone reading Neuromancer without being aware of when it was written would roll their eyes and think "Man, what a ripoff of Ghost in the Machine. And eXistenZ. And The Matrix." It's the same reaction people have when they think Lord of the Rings is cliché fantasy.

(To pick another example that was recently mentioned, I was underwhelmed by Terry Pratchett's Small Gods. By the time I read it, I had consumed enough similar works so that it wasn't bringing up anything new for me.)

[questionmarket superscrip]

Well, Ghost in the Machine does predate it by two decades.

[Lilith]

ten fake dollars says he actually meant Ghost in the Shell

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

But I know what you mean. Someone reading Neuromancer without being aware of when it was written would roll their eyes and think "Man, what a ripoff of Ghost in the Machine. And eXistenZ. And The Matrix." It's the same reaction people have when they think Lord of the Rings is cliché fantasy.

(To pick another example that was recently mentioned, I was underwhelmed by Terry Pratchett's Small Gods. By the time I read it, I had consumed enough similar works so that it wasn't bringing up anything new for me.)

Personally, I thought that it also had a lot of parallels to Blade Runner, most notably in the setting/atmosphere of the Japanese city in the beginning. Plus, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep predated Neuromacer by a good decade and a half.

[Dintiradan]

Quote:

ten fake dollars says he actually meant Ghost in the Shell

Click to reveal..

(Yep -- can you tell I have yet to watch/read it?)

I know Gibson isn't the first cyberpunk author (though I didn't know Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was that much earlier), but I still think he was more pioneer than follower.

But hey, I'm not a huge reader of that genre, so if you know better than I, feel free to shoot me down.

(Now that I think about some more, that Tolkien hack was really ripping off Beowulf, wasn't he? ;-) )

[questionmarket superscrip]

Not to mention the Eddas... I mean sheesh

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

Not to mention the Eddas... I mean sheesh

And King Arthur. I think the secret of originality is ripping off enough different sources simultaneously.

[Dintiradan]

Stealing from one source is plagiarism.

 

Stealing from many is research.

[questionmarket superscrip]

It isn't a coincidence that his first protagonist was a burglar.

[Randomizer]

Did you really expect much originality from a college professor? Come on if he was any good as a writer he would have been out there publishing. Instead he was sitting in his dusty study writing literary criticisms of Old English literature.

[Alorael at Large]

No, he was publishing on Old English. (And translating, too!) He was writing a new epic. He just couldn't be bothered to publish it for a while.

 

—Alorael, who supposes he never bothered. His son did, though, and promptly made no great splash in the greater memepool.

[Dikiyoba]

Dikiyoba keeps reading the Warriors series. Dikiyoba doesn't know why. The individual books are usually decent, but somehow the writers are completely incapable of pacing and resolving the overall arc story of the series in any sensible way. They've failed in all three series now.

[Actaeon]

Finished "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and loved it. I'll get around to reading the somewhat derivitive "House of Spirits" sometime soon.

 

In the mean time, I'm on "Peace Like A River" and moving into "The Road" sometimes soon. To offset the heavy duty stuff, I've mixed in some occasional Carl Hiaasen and Jim Butcher.

 

It's all be very enjoyable. I suppose I'll slow down when I return to school and am deprived of a room of $1 books a block away, but my list is long enough to sustain me through much of the fall.

 

I gave up on Martin. I used to think willingness to kill off main characters was a sign of character in an author, but the man takes it too far. Besides, Feast for Crows was tolerable at best and Dance with Dragons is likely to be another decade.

 

Edit: But hey! Wheel of Time's looking worthwhile again. New book in Novemeber and my hopes are high.

[Niemand]

Quote:

"One Hundred Years of Solitude"

Aaaaaaah! I do not have words for how much I hate that book.

I recently got some books from the local used book store's bargain shelves. These were 'Planet of the Voles', which, sadly, was merely mediocre and did not live up (or down) to its terrible sounding title, and 'Catastrophe's Spell' by Mayer Alan Brenner, which turned out to be a quite enjoyable fantasy book. It was with great pleasure that I discovered last weekend that the latter book is the first of a set of four, and that all four are freely available. So far I've read the second one, and I am saving up the remaining two.

[questionmarket superscrip]

*blinks*

 

I haven't read OHYOS, but that's the first time I've ever heard someone describe it as less than "great." Huh. What did you hate about it?

[Actaeon]

It's long, repetative, and has very little continuity. It ends oddly. It's really not for everyone. The other day, I had a librarian tell me "I used to call it 1000 years of solitude, it was so long."

[Niemand]

Quote:

What did you hate about it?

The fact that it consists of 450 pages of pure nonsense. Possibly its only redeeming feature is that it is shorter than Midnight's Children, which is 650.

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: Niemand

Quote:

"One Hundred Years of Solitude"

Aaaaaaah! I do not have words for how much I hate that book.

I don't think we can be friends any more.

[waterplant]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

It's long, repetative, and has very little continuity. It ends oddly. It's really not for everyone. The other day, I had a librarian tell me "I used to call it 1000 years of solitude, it was so long."

A librarian showing you his/her witty side - you must be a favoured borrower.

[Lilith]

i was going to say they're never witty but then i realised it read "librarians" and not "libertarians"

[Student of Trinity]

OHYOS is indeed not for everyone, but I did like it. I like magic realism in general, because it takes advantage of the often overlooked fact that fiction is fiction.

 

I recently read Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and liked it. It's his version of a fairy tale, and he manages (more or less) to make a plot work despite the bizarre conditions of fairy tale magic.

 

Also, Regenesis by C.H. Cherryh. Man, do not bother with this one. It's Cherryh at her worst, rambling, inconsequential, pointless. A shame, because Cyteen was really interesting, though badly flawed by Cherryh's besetting inability to end a story comprehensibly.

 

And Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud, who wrote the Bartimaeus trilogy. This one gets two thumbs up. It's quite different from Bartimaeus. A sort of Viking saga with a young hero who speaks the unemotional prose of a Jack Vance protagonist.

[waterplant]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

i was going to say they're never witty but then i realised it read "librarians" and not "libertarians"

ouch!

[Actaeon]

Originally Posted By: waterplant

A librarian showing you his/her witty side - you must be a favoured borrower.

She's cute, too.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

i was going to say they're never witty but then i realised it read "librarians" and not "libertarians"

Eh, Heinlein came close. And I found Atlas Shrugged hilarious, but that probably wasn't intentional on the part of Rand. Speaking of which I should really get around to reading Anthem, since I've heard it's actually a passable good novel.

[waterplant]

and Doug Stanhope is more crass than witty.

[Dintiradan]

Eh, just get comfortable and listen to

, which is based off of it (in full disclosure, I've never read any Rand, and all my exposure to her has been through Rush).

[Sudanna]

I read the first two books in the Annals of the Chosen, and it's been fairly good fantasy fare so far. A bit of a deconstruction, which is always nice.

 

And then I read Orbis, which ruined things.

[Tyranicus]

I'm currently reading 1633, the second book in the Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint. The series is about a small town in 21st century West Virginia which was somehow transported back in time to central Germany at the height of the 30 Years War. As you can imagine, hijinks ensue.

[Dantius]

Somehow, I managed to find a complete first edition (All 9 volumes) of Scott's Life of Napoleon printed in 1827, and I got it for a steal. I understandably dropped everything and started reading it. Fascinating stuff, I've always found the Napoleonic era a... interesting... bit of history.

[Sudanna]

I've always hated Napoleon.

[Tirien]

Shhhhhh!! Napoleon might hear you!

Just finished the ninth book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen saga. Lord of the rings doesnt even deserve to be considered a epic fantasy when compared to this series.

[Callie]

I picked up Superfreakonomics at a bookstore and finished it by the end of the day. I think the previous book is better though.

[Student of Trinity]

I agree; the sequel was pretty much just cashing in on Freakonomics.

 

I just read The City of Ember on the plane. Pretty cool. I may have to buy the rest of the series, which is apparently up to four books now.