The Sword and Laser discussion
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What Else Are You Reading?
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What Are You Reading - January 2015
Dww108 wrote: " If Revelation Space is indicative of his other work I can see me reading everything he's done."Interesting. I read that book a couple months ago and didn't really understand why it gets so much hype. I liked the character Volyova but other than that nothing really impressed me. It was that book and Blindsight that made me realize i should stop looking for book recommendations on Reddit...
trying to finish bunch of books in my currently reading "Night Film" by Marisha Pessl, "The Plantagenets", " Star Wars A New Dawn" by John Backs n Miller ... bunch of magazines and comicbooks released this past week
Finished City of Stairs. Still great, in my opinion. Started Station Eleven, which seems to be a less bleak version of The Road so I'm hoping it's good.
Emily - I'm currently reading Promise of Blood and enjoying it a lot. Hope you do too when you read it!
Just read volumes 2-4 of Saga, Volume 2 in 2 days - I struggle with GN/comics to slow down enough to really appreciate the artwork. Making my way through the audiobook The Ghost Brigades but it's slowed down as I'm on holiday so not commuting.
Planning to read The Martian after The Sparrow; gonna make an effort to read the S&L picks at the time since 2 of last year's picks are now at the top of my TBR
The best books of the year lists were a great reminder this week. The last S&L podcast reminded me that Sand was in my Kindle Unlimited Que and pending deletion* so I paused the podcast, added that to what I'd already started and am a third the way through now.*I also started Station Eleven; finished off night circus ( great book just had to get tucked into it to enjoy); In addition to just beginning to read both the snow queen and the Sparrow, I am also reading to Lock In as an audiobook.
*need to go back and finish the podcast but got caught up reading
*Cancelled subscription as I ran out of technical books and can't find anything new that I want to read )
I started Somnium Scipionis: The Dream of Scipio but there was so much editorial intrusion I found it hard to just enjoy the original. Also, I'd heard it was an early imaginary voyage story but found the part I read a memorial to a dead friend. So I stopped reading.
Then I started Zorro The Curse of Capistrano And Six Stories from Project Guttenberg. But it was the worst OCR ever. All the Ts were changed to Ds. Much too distracting. So I stopped reading.
Now I've settled on reading The House on the Borderland. Hodgson tells such a good story. I'm quite enjoying this. Why is he not better known? Or is it just that I've missed hearing about him all this time? Just glad I found out what a good storyteller he is. This is the third book written by Hodgson I've read and so far my favorite. Very creepy.
Then I started Zorro The Curse of Capistrano And Six Stories from Project Guttenberg. But it was the worst OCR ever. All the Ts were changed to Ds. Much too distracting. So I stopped reading.
Now I've settled on reading The House on the Borderland. Hodgson tells such a good story. I'm quite enjoying this. Why is he not better known? Or is it just that I've missed hearing about him all this time? Just glad I found out what a good storyteller he is. This is the third book written by Hodgson I've read and so far my favorite. Very creepy.
Listening to Off to Be the Wizard from audible. Great characters and the performance is excellently funny.
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Luke Daniels is awesome! And the book is pretty good as well.
Once I finish reading a few things, I'm going to get the first book in the Wheel of Time series from the library. (How many books are in that series anyway?)
Lariela wrote: "Once I finish reading a few things, I'm going to get the first book in the Wheel of Time series from the library. (How many books are in that series anyway?)"14
Joel wrote: "Lariela wrote: "Once I finish reading a few things, I'm going to get the first book in the Wheel of Time series from the library. (How many books are in that series anyway?)"14"
But it feels like 723.
I think the correct answer is "too many".
Lariela wrote: "Once I finish reading a few things, I'm going to get the first book in the Wheel of Time series from the library. (How many books are in that series anyway?)"14. 15 if you count the prequel. I'm about halfway through with the last book, now. The audiobooks are great and are a good way not to get stuck on the middle books, like a lot of people have.
I'm reading The Hero of Ages, book 3 of the Mistborn Trilogy. Really enjoying it!After that, who knows? I'm trying to get though my to-read pile of books. Maybe Great North Road will be next.
I started The Brothers Karamazov the other day. This is my first time reading Dostoyevsky.My copy of The Sparrow should be arriving today. Assuming it does, I plan on starting that this weekend.
I am into Written in Red. I kept hearing about this book and I finally checked it out. A interesting take on urban fantasy with a different world where humans are not the top of the food chain. I am also reading The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. These are a mix of traditional Sherlock Holmes short stories with some really interesting fantasy shorts as well. I have really liked all of them that I have read so far.
I have found myself reading more of the classics, lately.I know I read the Foundation Trilogy in High School and I tried reading Dune in High School as well but could never get into it.
However, now that I am in my 30s, I've been re-reading a lot of books like Dune and have really been enjoying it now that I'm older.
Finished Station Eleven. I really enjoyed it. The description of it as a less dark The Road is pretty accurate. Though as someone who is currently suffering with the flu, reading a story about the aftermath of a flu pandemic that leads to the end of civilization might not have been the best plan.Now reading The Weed Agency: A Comic Tale of Federal Bureaucracy Without Limits which is hilarious in a Catch-22 sort of way, and probably depressingly close to reality.
Madelyn wrote: "Not Sword or Laser, but Maplecroft is sstill a very cool book."Agreed. I am really looking forward to more in that series!!
I finished Lock In by John Scalzi. Superficially a murder mystery, in a setting discussing disability accomodation. I can see this one generating some book club discussion.Currently reading Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan Maguire, a poetic ghost story. And still slowly listening to a Malazan audiobook.
Finally started on The Martian. It's fun, and as someone referred to it in another thread, pretty good "technical manual SF." I'm just having a bit of a hard time relating to the character. The book is alternately "things are great!" then the next chapter, "it didn't work out! I'm screwed!" And when that wasn't enough exposition they did a "we can see you but you can't see us" bit. A good enough book, but I don't see why it's considered so great.
Finished What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton. This is 130 essays mostly about books that she has reread because she loved them. It was kind of hit and miss for me. When it was about a book I knew then I found it interesting but the majority were about obscure and/or out of print books that I had never heard of. She also has over a dozen consecutive essays each on Bujold's Vorkosigan series and Brust's Taltos series detailing every book and that gets pretty tedious. I did add a couple books to my to-read list but unless you have a very similar reading history to her I wouldn't really recommend it.
Emily wrote: "Lariela wrote: "Once I finish reading a few things, I'm going to get the first book in the Wheel of Time series from the library. (How many books are in that series anyway?)"14. 15 if you count t..."
So I should read the prequel after the others, yes? Mainly reading it because I am curious, and my library doesn't have much other epic fantasy novels.
Just tore through Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff and have moved on to the sequel, Kinslayer. I stumbled upon Stormdancer last week in b&n, I went intending to purchase Sabriel but sadly they has not one book by Garth Nix on the shelf. But the trip was not in vain!I'm loving these books, lots of plot twists. The world is awesome, Steampunk crossed with feudal Japan is right up my alley
Lariela wrote: "o I should read the prequel after the others, yes? Mainly reading it because I am curious, and my library doesn't have much other epic fantasy novels. "It was originally published in between books 10 & 11 and reading it there is fine. I think if it's your first series read-through, then reading it there or at the end is a good choice. If you've read the series more than once and are looking for all the foreshadowing type things, reading it at the beginning is equally fine.
This would be my first time ever reading that series.
Finished Firefight. It was meh - like watching Carrot Top host the Lawrence Welk Show.Still working on my non-fiction pick, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading.
Going to read the last two Powder Mage Novellas, Murder at the Kinnen Hotel and Return to Honor while I wait for The Providence of Fire to come out on Tuesday.
I also picked up the latest Humble Bundle comic bundle, so I'll be reading Saga, Volume 1 and The Walking Dead, Compendium 1 soon
Finished The Weed Agency: A Comic Tale of Federal Bureaucracy Without Limits which is hilarious in a "this is probably depressingly close to reality" sort of way. The best moments of it are when the characters are interacting with real life figures, in particular Al Gore and Newt Gingrich who's personalities the author writes so well that those section are amazing.Started on Perdido Street Station which is... bizarre. I hope no idea where any of the plots are going or how they're going to intersect, and I would be shocked if I actually understood what was going on at the end. But, I will continue on regardless in the hopes that my concerns are wrong.
Finished to books today that I had been starting and putting down for a while so happy to have the wait lifted off of me. Club Dead and Opal I gave the first one two stars and the second one three It was almost two but I liked the ending so I bumped it up. Hoping to finish The Spiritglass Charade tomorrow or at the latest tuesday. This is a great series.
Well I had a plan.. and it totlly got derailed :P.. Finished Sparrow.. then had to read The Rithmatist because my son loved it. Then I quickly read the new short by Brian McClellan. It was cool to read a story featuring Vora... I'm insterested in here as a character but she hasn't had a ton of time in the main series. Now I'm going to start The Bane Chronicles, again because my son loved it.. and we both loved all the other cassandra clair series.
Started reading Anathem... I guess I knew what I was getting into when I bought a Stephenson book, but I sure hope the payoff is worth the quite considerable time investment.
Finished Red Rising and found it to be a pretty enjoyable read. Not the most original story ever, with nods to Hunger Games and Enders Game etc, but it was well told and had some decent characters in it.
Brendan wrote: "Started reading Anathem... I guess I knew what I was getting into when I bought a Stephenson book, but I sure hope the payoff is worth the quite considerable time investment."I bounced off ANATHEM the first time, but the second time I tried I pushed through and I really liked it!
Over the weekend, I started reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane on my Kindle and listening to The Sparrow on audio. Listening to the preview, I was unsure if I'd like it but now that I've started it, it's got the kind of sharp wit that I enjoy. I can't wait until I find some time to listen.
How do you find the audio for The Sparrow? I've got some other things I had planned to listen to in audio but my motivation for this month's pick just isn't where it should be. I have it in Kindle and audio but keep finding other things to read....like finishing a beta-read this past weekend and starting Firefight in audio and Game Over, Press Start to Continue: How Nintendo Conquered the World on my Kindle.
I finished up The Martian (pretty good) and have started in on Fallen Angels by Niven / Pournelle / Flynn.
I'm going to try to finish the spiritglass charade today and start the audio of The Martian hopefully also go ahead and get into The Sparrow.
terpkristin wrote: "How do you find the audio for The Sparrow? I've got some other things I had planned to listen to in audio but my motivation for this month's pick just isn't where it should be. I have..."There was a little bit of static in one of the chapters (I believe it was around Chapter 5) but it wasn't too distracting. Usually, I listen at 2x speed but this narrator talks a little faster than most so I had to bump it down to 1.5. Other than that I have no complaints.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane ended up being a very quick read. It was one of those I had trouble putting down. Going to start Foundation next.
I read Second Foundation (the 3rd Foundation novel). Definitely good--I was expecting the "twist" at the end, but still a good unraveling. I'm going to probably take a mini-Asimov break (again) to work on some Simon R. Green stuff. I finished Mistworld (so-so) and I'm about to finish Ghostworld (slightly better than so-so). Then I'll finish off with Hellworld before finally starting Deathstalker (my true goal).I also read Joe Posnanski's The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America which was a great look at baseball and talking about Buck O'Neil, one of the "ambassadors" of the Negro Leagues (very interesting bit on history).
David, are you going to read the later Foundation stuff? I found it fairly awful, but read it when I had nothing better on the to-be-read list. If you do, it would be good to read the Robot books first.If you can, read the three Foundation books, the original two Robot books (the ones featuring R. Daneel Olivaw) and then The End of Eternity. The End of Eternity was an informal capstone to Asimov's earlier work. It's a rollicking good story, and also implicitly resolves plot inconsistencies from his "galactic empire" books and other works.
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The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Gemini Cell (other topics)The Book of Strange New Things (other topics)
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Annihilation (other topics)
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I’m not quite sure how I feel about The Dig, it’s a great premise (Young man has the powers to touch an object and receive a psychic vision of the previous owner) but the writing is very different. It’s like reading a book that should really be a movie script outline. It jumps around point-of-views just between paragraphs and it’s been a little confusing. I’m sure I’ll get used to it as I go, but at the moment I tend to have to go back and reread some sections just to make sure I didn’t miss something. I am really intrigued by the plot though!
The books that are up next are Tigana on audio and The Sparrow (of course!) on paper.