What books are you reading now?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:53 pm

Maybe Going Postal is not as good if you're not mentally ill. I loved Moist as a portrait of mania.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 3:32 am

I'm ADHD. I liked Moist.

And yeah. Sanya -rocks-. I mean, a dude who does that whole "risk his life to save others" because he arrived at that conclusion, not being someone told him to.

Definitely a cool guy.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:28 am

Just finshed "Area 10" written by Christos Gage and art by Chris Samnee.

The plotting and the line sketch art was awesome.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:37 pm

I just started Unprotected Texts: The Bible's Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire, by Jennifer Wright Knust.

Written by a female Baptist minister, the introduction totally grabbed me with its comparison between Jezebel and Esther. The first chapter makes a case against Bible-justified abstinence-only "sex education."

I'm also reading The Sheikh's Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop Culture in the Muslim World, by Richard Poplak.

It's sort of a travelogue through Muslim countries that talks about how American culture has had an impact, and in many cases, how it's reflected back at the US. I would love to see what the author would have to say in the wake of the riots in the Middle East.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:07 pm

Maj wrote:I just started Unprotected Texts: The Bible's Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire, by Jennifer Wright Knust.

Written by a female Baptist minister, the introduction totally grabbed me with its comparison between Jezebel and Esther. The first chapter makes a case against Bible-justified abstinence-only "sex education.

I'd like to hear your thoughts once you've finished the book.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:16 am

Orion wrote:Maybe Going Postal is not as good if you're not mentally ill. I loved Moist as a portrait of mania.

Moist is great, but honestly my favorites in those books are Adora Belle and the ancient golem whose name I'm spacing on at the moment...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 3:12 am

Prak_Anima wrote:
Orion wrote:Maybe Going Postal is not as good if you're not mentally ill. I loved Moist as a portrait of mania.
Moist is great, but honestly my favorites in those books are Adora Belle and the ancient golem whose name I'm spacing on at the moment...

[nerd]
Anghammarad.
[/nerd]

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 6:11 am

Thank you, yes, him. I was so damned disappointed when

He died/was destroyed/whatever you want to call it

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:45 pm

I'm gonna get the 7th,8th,9th Dresden Files books when they come out in a 3-pack next I reckon. My opinion is much the same as others here. Starts out kinda meh, but gets better. Enjoyable secondary characters carry the novels.

I read Greg Keyes' Age of Unreason series. It was okay, not really a slam dunk though. I liked being reminded about various historical figures, but as a whole it certainly did not thrill me like The Briar King did when I first started that series.

I just read The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, and am fairly excited to go get the next 2 books in that trilogy. I'm skeptical that the next 2 will live up to the first book, but I'm willing to give it a chance.

I've been reading various Miles Vorkosigan novels by Lois McMaster Bujold and am still enjoying em.

I read Agyar by Stephen Brust. Vampire story... was so-so. Would have been better if I hadn't had about zero empathy for the main character.

I'll probably soon go back to reading more classical (that is to say, long deceased) authors. More Conan Doyle, Poe, and others.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:56 pm

For true Stephen Brust Genius you need to read Phoenix Guard, 500 Years After, And the Count of Adrilanka Trilogy.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 5:51 pm

Just finished the second Ember book (People of Sparks)...not great, even for a young adult book. The first one was slow, but I could tolerate it...this thing dragged like a mofo. And the moral message was trite as fuck ("fighting is bad").

Also finished everything up to the present for the manga series "Nana"...man, I love that series, even if it is shojou. I hope Ai Yazawa plans to finish it at some point.

Next up:

--Suicide Kings by George R.R. Martin (probably need to reread the prior book, though).

--Some alternate history bushwah my wife picked up for me...can't remember the title. It's not Harry Turtledove, though.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:42 am

The Wise Man's Fear is out.

Part 1 was the best bad book ever. One of the few books that calls itself a chronicle and means it. An account of one dude's life, in chronological order, and he doesn't even seem to lie. Hundreds of pages of slice-of-life unrelated to the main plot. Also, the main character is a classic nice guy and proud of it. Ew.

The good:

Language. Example: there are many books where unearthly beauty is attributed to songs (and pix), and while I know a number of poems I actually find unearthly beautiful, some of them in books otherwise filled with prose:

This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells,
And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells--
Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash,
Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash.

- any time the poem is described as awesomesauce in the book itself, it does not deliver. In Rothfuss' first book, the lyrics were nothing to write home about, too, but the effect they had on the character was described in a very evocative and poignant way, so yeah, much better than nothing.

Decent magic system. Example: When the character does something stupid, if you've been following the explanations so far (there aren't any obvious infodumps; the book, being freakishly long, can afford that), it's immediately obvious what would be the result. When a character is messed with, magically, you know what has happened long before he does (though to be fair he was kind of busy).

Some likable characters (YMMV). Bonus points for making the crazy wizard not senile/retarded.

All in all, Book 2 is likely to be even better, because the "I'm an average dude and my life is boring" part is now over. I won't read it for a while, though, what with the kindle version costing more than the hardcover (fuck those greedy capitalist bastards) and the hardcover, with shipping, costing more than I am willing to pay for a fiction book ($52).

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 8:18 pm

I read the second book in John Ringo's Troy Rising, which is a fairly typical John Ringo book, in that people who live in the southern US have magical engineering powers, all liberals have received partial lobotomies, every other nation on earth is some combination of stupid, cowardly, and evil except for former British colonies, and the aliens are also pretty incompetent. However, the action scenes are cool.

Fortunately, this one has a pretty good action to politics ratio.

Prime complaints:

1. Okay, seriously, why has no other race thought of the SAPL? I mean, it's not on the list of things that immediately occur to people, but it inherently makes sense.

2. Earth somehow encounters an annihilation plant fuel shortage. Which, since these are apparently the same as the ones in schlock mercenary and can therefore run on neutrons, is a pretty neat trick.

3. So, apparently the rule about not moving major defensive fortifications close to the gate is not actually enforced, as such.

4. They have a hard time shooting down missiles when said missiles have turned their engines off, because they are shitty at Eisenstein physics and thus cannot calculate the courses of things. As a result, they have a much easier time targeting them when they are accelerating at 400 gravities. Because that totally makes sense.

Datawolf · Post by **Datawolf** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 9:10 pm

Finished American Psycho. It was... excruciating.

Currently reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. Even though I've just started it, it's pretty decent so far.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:08 pm

name_here wrote:SAPL

What?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:13 pm

It's basically a bunch of mirrors that focus sunlight to blow things up.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:15 pm

I can't bring myself to like Adora Belle. She's actually a prett good character, but my reception was tainted by the fact hat it was in Going Postal that all discworld men have to share the same love interest. .

Seriously, have you read The Truth? William's girlfriend Sacharissa is basically *exactly* the same as Adora Belle. Okay, so she's supposed ot be naive and Adora is supposed to be cynical, but it manifests in basically identical mannerisms. Furthermore, although she's a protagonist, Susan is also basically the same person as Adora. Even Sybil is not that different.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:55 pm

Wait, Sybil?

No, really. Sybil?

You're going to have to lay out some evidence there.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 12:55 pm

Datawolf wrote:Finished American Psycho. It was... excruciating.

I've heard it was more graphic than the movie, but I didn't know anything beyond that. What was it that made it so terrible?

Datawolf · Post by **Datawolf** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:36 am

RobbyPants wrote:
Datawolf wrote:Finished American Psycho. It was... excruciating.
I've heard it was more graphic than the movie, but I didn't know anything beyond that. What was it that made it so terrible?

As a way of satirizing the vapidity of '80s yuppies, Mr. Ellis spent pages upon pages describing peoples' clothing, personal gadgets, furniture, homes, business cards, food, drinks, briefcases, etc.

The actual murder scenes (which were, admittedly, off the fucking hook) were rather short.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 2:10 am

After almost a month and a half of on-again, off-again reading, I finally finished "Shriek: an afterword" by Jeff Vandermeer.

The book is set in the same Ambergris universe as "Book of saints and Madmen" and "Finch." The book is basically supposed to be one of the characters writing an afterward to her brother's 100 page tourist guide about ambergris and its history. But the afterward also includes the brother's edits added in within [] as notes. This ensured a slow-pace for the reading but it was a fun read just like every last Vandermeer book I've read. After "Veniss Underground", this is possibly my favorite book by Vandermeer. The other books were a little easier to read but this one was a lot of fun and I loved the way it was written.

A couple days ago, I finished China Mieville's "The city & the city." Mieville seems to have this obsession with tackling a specific genre/sub-genre with each of his books. "Un lun dun" - was the down the rabbit hole sort of story. "King Rat" was the retelling of the Pied Piper Fairy tale. "Iron council" was an old western. "Scar" was a sea adventure. IN the same light "The city & the city" is a detective noir story. More police procedural than noir but it is an awesome read.

--

I've got Felix Gilman's "Thunderer" as my next read. The first 15 pages show it as a generic fantasy novel. However, I'm kinda wary because the title of the novel is specifically "Thunderer: a tale of high fantasy." I don't mind high fantasy or low fantasy or whatever else, but it is kinda scary when a book is labeled as that specifically.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 4:50 pm

I have the biggest Problem with the gen engineered baby boom.

I get it that the pill isnt working anymore, but a condome?
WTF?

As to the non-Innovation of the aliens, apparently they where at first contact at an much earlier development...

name_here wrote: Prime complaints:

1. Okay, seriously, why has no other race thought of the SAPL? I mean, it's not on the list of things that immediately occur to people, but it inherently makes sense.

2. Earth somehow encounters an annihilation plant fuel shortage. Which, since these are apparently the same as the ones in schlock mercenary and can therefore run on neutrons, is a pretty neat trick.

3. So, apparently the rule about not moving major defensive fortifications close to the gate is not actually enforced, as such.

4. They have a hard time shooting down missiles when said missiles have turned their engines off, because they are shitty at Eisenstein physics and thus cannot calculate the courses of things. As a result, they have a much easier time targeting them when they are accelerating at 400 gravities. Because that totally makes sense.

Post by **fbmf** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 5:24 pm

The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the Baring-Gould version, to my daughter.

Game On,
fbmf

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 6:52 pm

fbmf: When your kid is older, you should possibly try the great illustrated classics with her. It makes it a little more interactive as she gets to look at the pictures and interpret the pictures because of the text.

We just went through "Around the world in 80 days", "white fang", and "wizard of Oz." The next book on the list for my kid and I is possibly "Hound of the baskervilles" or "Journey to the center of the earth." I might try "Kidnapped" though based on how she feels about the subject matter.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 12:31 am

I second that, Cynic. Those are serious gateway books.