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What are you currently reading?
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Jenny
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May 06, 2012 06:35AM
I'm reading Gil's All Fright Diner on my Kindle. It's a fast and fun read. I'm also listening to Coraline narrated by Neil Gaiman himself. His voice is amazing. I also love the music he incorporates into his audio books.
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Just started reading this on nook color.
Also looking for nook friends as well.
Reading Hyperion. I am so loving this so far. It's kind of difficult to get into but good. It's definitely a style you can't even accidentally skim with. Reminds me a bit of Erikson and Herbert. Even some Lovecraft with it's crazy descriptions.
What I loved about HYPERION - which I'd describe to folks as "The Canterbury Tales...IN SPAAACE!" - are the different sfnal sub-genres/styles/themes embedded within the broader narrative. James Blish, David Drake, William Gibson...too much fun.
Mod
I think you'd like it. It's almost poetic the way Simmons puts words together.
I just started Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. This is the first Butler book for me and, based on what I am reading, will not be the last.
I am in a comic book/graphic novel phase, it would seem. I've never read much of that in my life, so I suppose now is as good a time as any to start. I wanted to read some Philip K. Dick or Jack Vance, but since I cannot find either in any of my local libraries I had to find something else. So, I ended up with some graphic novels. I just finished V for Vendetta and have just begun The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes and Black Orchid.
And of regular books I am in the midst of A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold.
Just started Miles, Mystery & Mayhem by Lois McMaster Bujold. The Vorkosigan's are always a treat. It starts with Cetaganda. The first 10 pages tell me this one is on target as usual.Just finished Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. Wow! Gut wrenching wonderful. Bujold is a deserved change of pace.
I'm currently reading Story Time by Linell Jeppsen which offers an interesting mix of apocalyptic themes. I really enjoyed Extinction Point and Towards Yesterday by Paul Jones, as well as The Zona by Nathan Yocum. Each of those books offer unique and creative approaches to apocalyptic sci-fi and I'm pleased to note that all three of those indie authors gave rave reviews to Voyage of the Dead by David P. Forsyth
Mod
Just finishe..."
Parable is one of my TBR-just because I want to books...cant wait to get to it!
I finished Footfall, which I didn't like much, too many actions but very little character depth. I started Pandora's Star by Peter Hamilton right after, and it is much, much better.
I liked Footfall, but not nearly as much as Lucifer's Hammer. Both are good apocalyptic stories. For some reason those are my favorite genre...
So much to respond to here in 16 pages of WAYR posts!! Wow.Don wrote: "Just started Miles, Mystery & Mayhem by Lois McMaster Bujold. The Vorkosigan's are always a treat. It starts with Cetaganda. The first 10 pages tell me this one is on target as usual."
I'm a huuuuuuge Bujold Fangrrl (and Loyal Minion), been raving about the Vor series all over the place lately. I'm getting really excited for Ivan, His Booke which is officially called Captain Vorpatril's Alliance and coming out in the fall (Oct/Nov 2012). I've read that entire series at least 5 times. The Miles, Mystery & Mayhem omnibus has to be one of my favorite 3 books in one package. Ivan, in Cetaganda, is just so funny you'll laugh 'til you cry. I don't know which is more hilarious: (view spoiler) Both of those scenes are such TYPICAL Ivan!
Then the novella, Labyrinth is just typical Miles, "accumulating" friends, enemies, lovers. SOoooo Milesian. The 3d story, Ethan of Athos is one of my favorites because, other than Miles and Ivan, Ethan is probably my favorite Heroic character in the entire series. Plus, OMG hilarious the way he reacts to first seeing those strange creatures called.....((drum roll))... women. LOL.
Bujold's storytelling is of such a high calibre, both in plot-weaving and characterizations--not to mention her hilarious wit--it's almost not fair to those of us just starting out! Then again, it's always good to have something to which to aspire, even if there's zero chance in the entire Nexus of ever reach it. To paraphrase Miles in the end of Komarr, one has to set goals on a planetary scale, galactic even :)
Don also said: Just finished Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. Wow! Gut wrenching wonderful. Bujold is a deserved change of pace.
I just read my first-ever Octavia Butler, Lilith's Brood. It was kind of good for me to read it because I was writing my first book Conditioned Response, at the same time (in the 1980s) and clearly, Butler and I had some of the same influences--what we did with the same ideas, of course, is entirely different but it's clear to me 30 years later she was reading and hearing and thinking the same kinds of stuff. It's amazing what congruence there was in the SF/F universe back in the 1980s. I definitely see why Butler was so well-touted back then. Even so, I was a little disappointed with Lilith's Brood, esp. given I've read Bujold's Vor series 5+ times and am a Heinlein devotee before that. I'm also a huge Asimov fan and medium-level fan of Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke. All of these authors wrote hardSF or at least pure speculative fiction in the Classic SciFi "What if..." way (which is what I write).
I don't like Fantasy genre so I never read Butler's stuff before and Lilith's Brood was allegedly an SF trilogy but I dunno, it felt way more fantasy-ish than SciFi-ish. Or at least, it was a social science fiction, not hardSF which I guess is what I was expecting when I saw the notes about genetic engineering. I definitely have that at the core of my own book, but I put actual genetic discussion into Conditioned Response whereas Butler just vaguely referenced the idea of it as an explanation for mutations and "powers." That's what kind of let me down with Butler and never does with Bujold. Then again, Bujold claims Vor books are Space Opera so she never really has to have any real science--and then she does, anyway.
In fact, the genetic engineering question of separating the production of offspring from the female's body is why those 3 books are grouped together in that omnibus, Don. Did you know that? It's in her Afterwords remarks. Or is in another book's Afterwords. She took the uterine replicator and set it into 3 totally different cultures on the 3 planets (Cetaganda, Athos, Jackson's Whole) and wrote a book on each planet to demonstrate just how differently the exact same technological advancement would impact "people" based on their cultural context. It's a great question for an Author. I think I'd like to try that approach sometime, see how many books I can get one "What if...." question to spawn on the same technology.
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
Marjorie -Stephen Baxter - in some ways the heir to AC Clarke (to the point that they collaborated on 4 books) - did a similar thing as Butler wherein he tackled 3 different responses to the Fermi Paradox. In MANIFOLD:TIME, MANIFOLD:SPACE and MANIFOLD:ORIGIN, Baxter has Reid Malenfant, former astronaut and current space entrepreneur, begin each novel from essentially the same starting point but he (and the Earth, the Universe and Everything) end up in very different places by each novel's climax.
Not my very favorite works by Baxter, but still worth a look, especially MANIFOLD:SPACE.
Science fiction wise I'm reading Armor and have the final 2 of the Lost Fleet books up for next if I don't have another pile of library books.
Jaime wrote: "Marjorie -Stephen Baxter - in some ways the heir to AC Clarke (to the point that they collaborated on 4 books) - did a similar thing as Butler wherein he tackled 3 different responses to the Fermi..."
Thanks for the recommendation. This sounds a lot more like what Heinlein did with Lazarus Long's perspective of his childhood/Mother Maureen in Time Enough for Love (my #2 favorite Heinlein) and then again with Maureen's perspective of "him" in To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Same story, different POV. Also done by Orson Scott Card in Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow (sooo much prefer Bean's POV)
What Lois did with her 3 stories was quite different. She wrote 3 totally different stories, no connection between them at all (except maybe the SERIES character of Miles Vorkosigan but the series is a collection of stories of his adventures after all) but rather she examined a question of how each different culture perceived or reacted to a technological advancement (creation of the uterine replicator). There's no synchronicity whatsoever in Lois's books. In the ones you mention and the ones I did above, the synchronicity is the kewlness factor :)
I'll have to be sure to check out Baxter but I have to say that if your recommendation on him is that he's "heir" to Clarke due to having collaborated with the man, not sure I'm interested. I tried Clarke early on and found many of his early works to be exceptional but pretty much from Rendezvous With Rama on forward, I found Clarke to be sooooo inanely boring and dry and uninteresting, I stopped expecting to enjoy him (and he did not stop disappointing me no matter how many books of Clarke's I picked up and tried...I always put them down unfinished).
It's somewhat ironic that Clarke bores me to this extent. His The City and the Stars was the very first SciFi I ever read (around age 11 or 12) and it hooked me so completely, I started writing SF myself (started writing fiction around age 9 but hadn't figured out what genre until I read Clarke)
Is there a better Baxter to recommend? One that is NOT so influenced by Clarke? Depending on how "true to [Clarke's] form" Baxter tries to be in the Manifold trilogy, I might find the stories awful just for being reminiscent of Clarke ((smirk)) I can detect a dry, boring Clarke-ism a mile away! I'd hate to judge Baxter on that basis.
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
Marjorie - I think I conflated Butler's books with Bujold's in your post AFA the "3 unconnected narratives that are linked only thematically" thing was concerned.
As for Baxter and Clarke, wellll...I suggested Baxter based on your self-description as a 'medium-level' fan of Clarke. 'Influenced' is kind of a strong word; I just used Clarke as a thumb nail descriptor -"Baxter's like That Guy": a Brit, frequently uses the Big Picture narrative in his novels (like Clarke and Stapledon), ginormous vistas of time n space, etc. My very favorite Baxters are THE TIME SHIPS, the authorized sequel to Wells's THE TIME MACHINE that was published to coincide with Wells's centenary, and EXULTANT, a hyper-futuristic space war saga reminiscent of the story of 617 Squadron and the Dambusters. There was a point where Baxter was putting out so much stuff so quickly that the quality did seem to suffer, in my view, not unlike Harry Turtledove.
Jaime wrote: "My very favorite Baxters are THE TIME SHIPS, the authorized sequel to Wells's THE TIME MACHINE that was published to coincide with Wells's centenary, and EXULTANT, a hyper-futuristic space war saga reminiscent of the story of 617 Squadron and the Dambusters. "Okay, now Wells I loooooove so I'll definitely shelve The Time Ships and let you know what I think. I might be changing jobs so I might suddenly have no time to write leaving me (oddly enough) all kinds of time to read! :) At least until August. I'm a speed reader though so with only a handful of books on my shelf as of now, I'll be hungry by July!
Thanks for the follow up post and additional recommendation!
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
re-reading 'chasm city' and have got 'century rain' lined up to read again after. i love reynolds' dark settings.
I'm listening to Ender's Shadow on audio. It's the only scifi I'm getting right now but I'm craving more. I've been on a fantasy streak.
I read the first couple stories in David Gerrold's With a Finger in My I. Good stuff. I'm on a late 60s/70s SF kick lately.
Jenny wrote: "I'm listening to Ender's Shadow on audio. It's the only scifi I'm getting right now but I'm craving more. I've been on a fantasy streak."Jenny if you really are craving more than you're getting right now (and you can excuse my self-interest here *grin*) please consider joining the SciFi and Heroic Fantasy group's June Reads - Neil Gaiman's American Gods is the primary read (I just started it and I'm already having mixed feelings). My own book, Conditioned Response is the secondary read, Mine is definitely a Classic SciFi / Social Science Fiction Dystopia with a machine-turned-man story as its backbone. It's Huxley meets Heinlein meets Asimov with my own original spin on it all.
So far people either LOVE or HATE my book, which is actually pretty good because I think indifference would kill my soul. I'll be giving the SciFi and Heroic Fantasy Group a coupon code (on the announcement thread here) to get the book free the first week of June so no risk. I'm hoping to stay fixated on the Gaiman discussion so I don't intimidate people trying to openly discuss my book in front of me.
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
I've read several YAs since I last posted (Ship Breaker, The Drowned Cities, Railsea) and some other stuff. Right now I'm slowly trudging my way through 2312. I had mixed feelings about it before I even started it but I'll see it through. I'm also continuing my 'All Things Dune' quest and working on the audiobook of Dune.
Has anyone else here read American Gods? I'm still only on page 8 (it's not a fast-read...and it's thick) but I'm seeing where the negative reviews come from. I'm wondering if it's my hardSF origins or what. Geesh, I haven't even gotten to the actual fantasy stuff yet either! haha
I recently finished Flesh and Bone and A Princess of Mars.Now, I'm going to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
Marjorie wrote: "Has anyone else here read American Gods? I'm still only on page 8 (it's not a fast-read...and it's thick) but I'm seeing where the negative reviews come from. I'm wondering if it's my hardSF origin..."If I remember right, it took awhile to get to the fantasy stuff and there wasn't a lot of it at that.
Mod
I had a hard time with it too. I think I needed a better background in Mythology to be able to understand a lot of what was going on....
Victoria (vikz) wrote: "I am reading Debris and am really enjoying it. (If that's the word for such a dystopian work.)"Thanks for mentioning this book. I'd never heard of it before but since I write dystopias, I just had to look. The description sounds really interesting. I've added it (after much battle with my iPad over shelving) to my "to-read" shelf ;-)
@Maggie, I actually have a fairly strong background in various mythologies (I did a minor in college in Classic Mythologies actually *haha* That and anthropolgy both of which I focused on because I write science fiction and need to understand how human cultures form, grow, die, etc.) So far, mythology seems to be more of an affectation than a relevant context for messages. But I'm still in the prison setting which is so fantasized and unlike reality in a high-security prison I'm having a hard time connecting at all. It's like a sanitzed battle front or something where all the pretty pictures are painted because that's easier for the author to relate to than actually having to have blood and other bodily fluids flying when a person is blown to bits by a shrapnel etc. I can't buy into this sanitized supermax prison of esoteric philosophical discussions. Unless this is supposed to be a joke? Maybe that was Gaiman's intent. If so, he made the parody quite ridiculous so I guess he succeeded, so long as it was supposed to be a parody.
@Scott - saw your comments after I'd posted. I'm not sure but I think he's in a fantasyland in the prison scenes (smirk) Yeah, I'm being snarky but since I really dislike fantasy genre, I'm dreading encountering that aspect. I had just kind of hoped the book's storyline was going to grab me faster, or the characters...or something. It's a thick book. I should be hooked on page one. I was turned off on page one by the ludicrous idea that the USA is not a Christian country. (I'm not Christian and trust me, this place so over the top Christian in every little detail, an outsider notices it on a daily basis)
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
I was turned off on page one by the ludicrous idea that the USA is not a Christian country. (I'm not Christian and trust me, this place so over the top Christian in every little detail, an outsider notices it on a daily basis)Heh - that's the entire basis of my review of AMERICAN GODS here on Goodreads.
Jaime wrote: "I was turned off on page one by the ludicrous idea that the USA is not a Christian country. (I'm not Christian and trust me, this place so over the top Christian in every little detail, an outsider notices it on a daily basis)Heh - that's the entire basis of my review of AMERICAN GODS here on Goodreads. "
LOL!! I'm just so glad I'm not the only one :-) Thanks, Jaime! I especially liked the "redolent" remark. Good connotations there, for good or ill (or evil even! *haha*)
Okay, I'm gonna finish this stupid thick book if it kills me, which it just might, but I think I need to take the whole thing with a grain of salt, like a parody. Trying to get an actual story out of it is probably not gonna serve me well.
The USA isn't a christian country, no matter how much certain people are trying to turn it into one.
The thing is that the majority of the people in the U.S. are christian and it is founded on christian values.
Scott wrote: "The USA isn't a christian country, no matter how much certain people are trying to turn it into one."Actually, it is. Legally. Our Constitution cites the Christian Bible and our Bill of Rights start out with Christian "rights." Trust me as a Jew, which is 180 degrees from Christian thought, I can assure you, this is not only legally a Christian country, but it is philosophically and culturally a Christian country.
Perfect example. You have a car accident, first thing you do is get the other person's insurance info because you want to be sure you can get your car fixed. You are worried about protecting your rights. Under Jewish law, this is completely backwards. First thing you do under Jewish law is determine what you OWE to the other person.
I was born and raised in Boston, Mass. about the most leftist area of the US and except for New York, a pretty densely Jewish population and yet, totally drowned in Christianity, day in and day out. Trust me, as a non-Christian, I can assure you, this is a Christian country. You might want to take a new/recent read of the Bill of Rights, too, Scott, because it also cites Christian "piety" and religious banter. I'm sure you can find a copy of the text online in under a minute - just make sure it's the real text and not a parody of the text ;-) The real text can be pretty funny to read to us, a couple of centuries down the line.
Just thought of another example in daily life that appalled me. I was called for Jury Duty. I was required--BY LAW, upon threat of being ARRESTED, no less!!--to place my hand upon a CHRISTIAN BIBLE and be sworn in BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN GOD. I actually did try, strenuously, to object on the grounds I am not Christian and this is against my religious beliefs. I kid you not, I was threatened with being held in contempt and put in jail for not wanting to swear "before god and jesus" so please, do NOT tell me I am not living in a Christian country. I served my civic duty--in a RELIGIOUS state (this incident occurred in No. Carolina, not Massachusetts).
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
The United States was founded on common sense as a home for people of all religious beliefs (or none, for that matter.) If anything, it was a refuge from the old christian "values." I have no idea what point you are trying to make about insurance. It only makes sense to exchange information. If the accident is not your fault, why would you own the other person anything? And how does any of it equate to christianity (or judaism)? It has nothing to do with religion at all.
I am sorry if you are drowning in christianity where you live, but it is by no means like that everywhere.
You are not legally required to swear on a bible in court. You had an overzealous judge who was not following the law.
Mod
Come to North Carolina! And I have lived in 17 of the 50 US States in my 51 years of life. It is the same everywhere, just worse (more blatant and less "PC") in The South (i.e. south of the Mason-Dixon Line). Except in Florida, where the majority of people are northerners.
You know, Scott, maybe you haven't encountered it, but just because you haven't doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Funny how that works. Same as "faith" - or bigotry and racism. White people never seem to understand how non-whites can get "so upset" at the littlest things. If they were subjected to those "little things" they'd understand. This is NOT a tolerant country. We just like to claim we are. Doesn't make it true anymore than your claims about this not being a Christian country.
I recently read a couple of John Scalzi shorts, Questions for a Soldier and After the Coup. They're both part of the Old Man's War universe. It was fun getting back to that story and it made me anxious to start The Ghost Brigades. I have so many series that I want to continue but the GR groups I'm in keep picking good monthly reads!
Jenny wrote: "I recently read a couple of John Scalzi shorts, Questions for a Soldier and After the Coup. They're both part of the Old Man's War universe. It was fun getting back to that story and it made me anx..."Just when I thought I'd read everything Old Man's War related. Thanks for pointing out those shorts. I'll have to go track them down.
Agreed!! I had no idea there WERE anymore stories in the OMW universe. Awesome news. Thanks Jenny :)Wait, what the heck is a "chapbook"??? It says Questions for a Soldier is a "chapbook" ((puzzle puzzle))
@Beezlebug you can read After the Coup on Tor's web site for free right here: http://www.tor.com/stories/2008/07/after-the-coup and if you love it so much you need to own a copy, they have links to buy a Nook or Kindle version. If you find the other one in something other than "chapbook" please share :)
-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
Just started Leviathan Wakes. Trying to make my way through the Hugo nominees by the end of the month.
Marjorie wrote: "Agreed!! I had no idea there WERE anymore stories in the OMW universe. Awesome news. Thanks Jenny :)Wait, what the heck is a "chapbook"??? It says Questions for a Soldier is a "chapbook" ((puzzle..."
Hmm, I have no idea what a chapbook is. Questions for a Solider was a plain old short story. Well actually it's not as much a story as it is a speech/question-and-answer session with John Perry.
Edit: Wikipedia says a chapbook is a "pocket-sized booklet". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapbook
Tad wrote: "Just started Leviathan Wakes. Trying to make my way through the Hugo nominees by the end of the month."Good timing Tad. If you like it, the next one in the series Caliban's War comes out this month.
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