The Sword and Laser discussion
What Else Are You Reading?
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What Else Are You Reading - September 2011 Edition
Sean wrote: "Hmm, I picked up Zanzibar on Audible a couple months ago but haven't had a chance to listen yet. Maybe I should move it to the top of the virtual book pile." Come along.... you belong.... :)
Sean wrote: "Hmm, I picked up Zanzibar on Audible a couple months ago but haven't had a chance to listen yet. Maybe I should move it to the top of the virtual book pile."One of us....one of us....
:D
Just read Ready Player One started The Dervish House and have The Tears of the Sun: A Novel of the Change on the way...good month.
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terpkristin wrote: "Funnily, if memory serves, Stand on Zanzibar feels a bit disjointed..."This book was as much about experimenting with how a story is constructed as it was about the story. Each chapter is one of several "types". I friend of mind once described the chapter types as a series of nested cylinders with the innermost being the main storyline and each successive outer cylinder "type" being more disconnected from the main story.
Probably worth another read.
Markt5660 wrote: "This book was as much about experimenting with how a story is constructed as it was about the story. Each chapter is one of several "types". I friend of mind once described the chapter types as a series of nested cylinders with the innermost being the main storyline and each successive outer cylinder "type" being more disconnected from the main story.Probably worth another read. "
(If you decide to go back, come join us over here).
Ploughed through Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker in just a few days, so now I'm giving The Hunger Games and the rest of the trilogy a go, since I missed it while it was the S&L pick a few months back.
I'm listening to a bbc dramatization of Asimov's Foundation. The audio quality is a little on the low side, but it's a fine listen nonetheless. On the physical media front, I picked up Cujo and Cell at Oxfam for €1.75 a piece. They look like snappy reads.
Also on the docket for the near-future is Never Let Me Go. I fell in love with the movie last week, and I'll have to read the novel.
Nevan wrote: "Also on the docket for the near-future is Never Let Me Go. I fell in love with the movie last week, and I'll have to read the novel. "Innnnteresting. I think most people that read the book first are disappointed by the movie. I'm interested to see what you think.
Jenny wrote: Innnnteresting. I think most people that read the book first are disappointed by the movie. I'm interested to see what you think. My reaction to the movie may have been somewhat coloured by the fact that I am, by most definitions, in love with Carey Muligan. She's probably my favourite actress.
I'm currently trying to finish The Dark Tower. It's been a great journey and I'm looking forward to wrapping up the series.
Still listening to the first book in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. This books is the first Stephen King novel I've read. I have no idea why people say this book (and series) is so fantastic. The writing is poor, the story-telling is so far uninteresting, and I'm completely uninterested. The only thing that's keeping me going is that everybody says this series is great, and I've heard people say that the first book is the hardest one. I so far don't think it's "hard" just not good.So, what says the hive mind? Should I bother finishing this book and the series (well, I won't sign up to reading the entire series...I will sign up to finishing this one and giving the 2nd book a go)?
Seriously I felt the same way about The Gunslinger, which reads more like a western. The second book starts out slow but then suddenly you're spiraling into this world....That said, not everyone will like every book. :)
terpkristin wrote: "Still listening to the first book in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. This books is the first Stephen King novel I've read. I have no idea why people say this book (and series) i..."If you downloaded it from Audible, I'm assuming you're listening to the revised edition. When King finished the series, he realized the later books contradicted a lot of stuff from The Gunslinger, so he went back and rewrote large parts of it. He not only changed story elements but the style as well -- he wrote the first parts of the book while still in college, and it has a very different (and better, IMHO) style than the subsequent books.
Jenny wrote: "Seriously I felt the same way about The Gunslinger, which reads more like a western."
You say that as though it's a bad thing.
Ok I guess I'll finish The Gunslinger and give the 2nd book a go. Also, I just read my post above. Talk about poor writing! I'm going to blame that on trying to type, play with the cat, and pay attention to Chopped all at once...
Just skip to book 2, not that I've finished it.
I'm reading Ready Player One, but I just finished up The Finder Library: Volume 1. Has anyone else ever read this? AMAZING comic series. Dense, with great characters.Sci-fi world building at its best.
I didn't get hooked on The Gunslinger until about 300 pages in. I enjoyed the next three books A LOT more.
I'm checking out the book Yoga Bitch: One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment
.
The latest Orson Scott Card kerfuffle reminded me that Ink and Steel has been in my tbr pile for years so I finally picked if up and having gotten over of Elizabeth Bear's seriously dense prose I'm really enjoying it, although not understanding the political intrigue much at all.
terpkristin wrote: "Still listening to the first book in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. This books is the first Stephen King novel I've read. I have no idea why people say this book (and series) i..."I felt the same way about this one. Having read a couple of King's horror novels, this one seemed to be way out of his comfort zone. Did not enjoy it enough to put the rest of them on my 'to read' list.
I appear to be doing a WOT re-read. I say appear because I picked up the The Eye of the World for $3 and blew through it in a day. Then I knocked off The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn over the next couple of days. Now I'm reading The Shadow Rising, so yeah, it's starting to look like a re-read.
terpkristin wrote: "Still listening to the first book in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. This books is the first Stephen King novel I've read. I have no idea why people say this book (and series) i..."I agree. I'm just about done with book 3, The Waste Lands,
and I find it difficult to put down. It was about midway through book 2 that I noticed how involved I was in the story.
Mod
Also still powering through The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie.
Tom wrote: "Also still powering through The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie."Exactly how long have you been reading that book? Seems like you've been talking about it longer than you've been talking about the Dark Tower?
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I finished The Man in The High CastleThe Man in the High Castle for my other book club. I liked the characters and setting, not so much the plot. I'm still not sure about the ending. It kind of peters out, like a Neal Stephenson book. But it got me looking at the I Ching again. Re The Gunslinger, I really liked books 2 and 3, not so much 4 and 5, and I never finished the series.
kvon wrote: "I finished The Man in the High Castle for my other book club. I liked the characters and setting, not so much the plot. I'm still not sure about the ending..."I finished this on a train last week, and I was pretty astonished by the ending. I had to think about the 'I Ching' bit for a long time afterwards. Of course it's one of those questions which doesn't have a 'right' answer — in other words, it's sci-fi at its best.
Also finished reading 'Never Let Me Go.' I don't think that the movie greatly departs from the book. Something I did notice, though, is that the main characters vacillate a helluva lot more than I notice in my usual sci-fi/fantasy fare. I felt uncomfortable at times, oddly. I guess there is perhaps something to this whole Literary vs Genre thing after all...
As for The Foundation, it's giving me exactly what I wanted from LOST.
Mod
I've just finished a marathon read of the three Iron Druid novels- Hounded, Hexed and Hounded. They are so enjoyable- what a fast, fun read. I can't recommend them enough.Currently reading Way of Kings by Sanderson and Terminal World by Reynolds, supplemented by some classics- H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.
I finished Best Served Cold which honestly was disapointed in. I loved the first law trilogy but this just seemed lacking in comparison. I also read Midnight Riot and the second book Moon Over Soho which I thoroughly enjoyed and would highly recommend.
I have trouble finding good urban fantasy novels at times. So many of them are thinly veiled romances or poorly written. Both of the Ben Aaronovitch books were very good, with a main character that was believable and who evolves over the course of each book.
I've finished Ink and Steel and fallen completely in love with Elizabeth Bear, so I picked up New Amsterdam second hand and am now breaking my 'no vampires' rule and loving it.
I just finished The Hero of Ages and now I'm kind of looking forward to when The Alloy of Law comes out, it should be interesting to see where Sanderson goes next with the series. Starting Plugged: A Novel this evening, hopefully some laughs in there before I finally get to reading Flashforward.
Just finished Wired, which had a pretty rocky start, but got much better in the second half. The writer makes a couple of character-building cliches early on which soured me a bit, but redeemed itself by a more interesting and complicated story and delving pretty deeply in the effects and implications of highly-accelerated human intelligence. The book is mostly a thriller with a bit of mystery, all surrounding the topic of highly advanced human intelligence, but mostly in the second half of the book and very, very heavily in the epilogue.
If any of you are looking for a fast decent and dirt-cheap (79 cents!), definitely pick it up.
Just picked up Rainbows End but will first finish Swamplandia!, which I'm loving! And since I finally finished Ulysses, I have downloaded the audiobook for The Night Circus, read by Jim Dale, so exciting!
Boots wrote: "I just finished The Hero of Ages and now I'm kind of looking forward to when The Alloy of Law comes out, it should be interesting to see where Sanderson goes next wit..."I feel like Sanderson had trouble writing the middle book in a trilogy.
I'm still working through Stand on Zanzibar and listening to The Drawing of the Three. The narrator for this one isn't the same as for The Gunslinger; I don't think I like this one nearly as well. I'm still having trouble getting into the story, but I'm not going to give up on the series until I finish this one (or if I get sucked into it, I won't give up).Stand on Zanzibar is still keeping my interest piqued, but I'm moving pretty slowly through it. Unfortunately, that's likely to continue, as work is about to get incredibly busy.
On various shelves and nightstands around my apartment (and at various stages of completion): Leviathan (Paul Auster)
The Last Wish (Andrzej Sapkowski)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Juno Diaz)
Fatal Alliance (Sean Williams)
Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky)
...for those curious, I tend to have one book in each place I might read something: one on my bedside table, one on my desk, one next to the couch, and one in each bathroom. :-)
If anyone's reading any of these, let me know!
Kevin wrote: "I feel like Sanderson had trouble writing the middle book in a trilogy. "He certainly had a hard time living up to the first novel, but he set the mark pretty high with that one.
terpkristin wrote: "Still listening to the first book in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. This books is the first Stephen King novel I've read. I have no idea why people say this book (and series) i..."Yes definitely finish. She series is Amazing. The first book was rough. Getting used to the dialect and the story wouldn't be great if it had to stand as a lone book. I have listened to the Audio book nearly 10 times. The entire Series I have listened to at least 4 times. I would always re-listen before the next book came out. Get through the Drawing of the Three, and if you do not like it than don't bother going on. My favorite book of the series is the 4th book Wizard and Glass.
Not exactly Sword or Laser - just started the audio version of "A Fierce Radiance" by Lauren Belfer. It's about a photographer in WWII.Not sure why I picked up another book set in the war so soon after the "Blackout"/"All Clear" combo. Maybe it's because I just finished listening to Sontag's "On Photography" and my brain was in that mode.
Anyway - it's about 17 hours from audible. That's about two weeks of listening during the drive time from work to home.
Should fill in till I start reading the next S&L pick.
Just finished the first 4 books in the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger.Very entertaining, a nice light read!
I'm now about 1/2 way through re-reading Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon.
I have also been told that when you're unpacking books you haven't seen in years, your not supposed to read them before you put them on the shelves. Something about it taking too long...Fiddlesticks! I say!
Just finished The Way of Kings via Audible and was one of the best books I have listened to in a long while!Currently reading How Firm a Foundation and The Well of Ascension.
I expect to wrap up Sun of Suns in the next day or two. It's something I picked up either free or reduced price on Audible a while back and never really made to the top of the list. It reminds me of the animated movie Treasure Planet. An 18th century sailing and adventure story set in some futuristic space world. It's book 1 of at least 4 (though a 5th is listed with a 2012 release date). Has anyone read the rest of the series?
I just finished The Power of Six and it was fun but not great. There were some very sudden changes in perspective that were a bit annoying. One second one character is talking, the next line a different character on a different continent is talking to someone else about a different topic. Very jarring and I hope the author does not continue the trend.
I'm about halfway through David Weber's new Safehold novel, How Firm A Foundation. Will try to wrestle with the second half more this weekend.
I've ploughed through the entire Hunger Games series is fairly short order. Loved the first book the most, although I did like the rest of the series a lot too. It really seems to lose the "Young Adult" label towards the the end though when things start to get quite a bit darker and the death count really starts to rack up.Right now I'm reading Ready Player One. Only started it yesterday and I'm already nearly halfway through. I wasn't a child of the 80s so much as the 90s, but I'm still familiar with a lot of the content that comes up.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
The Swarm (other topics)Reamde (other topics)
Stand on Zanzibar (other topics)
The Drawing of the Three (other topics)
Fuzzy Nation (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Elizabeth Bear (other topics)Terry Brooks (other topics)
Bernard Cornwell (other topics)
Jim Butcher (other topics)
Jack Ludlow (other topics)
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Hmm, I picked up Zanzibar on Audible a couple months ago but haven't had a chance to listen yet. Maybe I should move it to the top of the virtual book pile.