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[Salazar]

I'm reading a random Kindle selection - The Crown Conspiracy by Richard Sullivan.

Ever so slightly above-average fantasy. It's the first in a series, and I suppose I am interested enough to read at least the next two or so.

 

[way more]

This book is awesome. It's like The Wire but set in Harlem during the crack epidemic. But with Puerto Rican's instead of blacks. And with out the cops side.

Well, it's like The Wire because it's engrossing and you get a look into crack den life you've never seen before. It's both personal and enlightening. It's also nice to find out that crack dealers have the same doubts the rest of us do about our chosen career and the daily grind.

 

[Eklesp]

Reading the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo at the moment. Cannot see what the fuss was about but Im only half done with it.

Yeah I didn't think it was all that good. Kinda dragged.

 

[Fireblend]

Reading the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo at the moment. Cannot see what the fuss was about but Im only half done with it.

I wish I could tell you it gets better =/ if anything the second half is a complete mess.

 

[AnkitT]

Finished reading Pygmy. Chuck has a very nice way of describing things which make sense to you/makes you feel like you know the place or thing, but I didnt like the story too much overall, though there were moments of brilliance. Now, on to The Will To Power.

 

[Chorazin]

Finished Richard Kadrey's Kill the Dead, the sequel to Sandman Slim, starring the titular character. Awesome, hard-boiled supernatural story, with one of the best recent urban fantasy characters in quite a while. Love the direction it took, and I'm sad that he's only planning on doing one more Sandman Slim book before hanging up the character.

 

[sharkmuncher]

Just finished:

One of the funniest books I have ever read. So good.

Just Started:

 

[lazyAna]

the book is so much better

Good Omens is really awesome!!

 

[Kraftwerk]

I am looking for a book to read,involving one of these topics:

1- A book about 'the end of times' and by that i don't mean 2012 or something,more about the earth dying,loneliness and whatnot.Time and the universe coming to an end as a whole i guess.Similar to the last question by Asimov.

2-A book similar to The Club Dumas,Where our protagonist travels and has a lot of adventures in real world setting looking for an object.I prefer it to be a little dark but not really important.

 

[KingGondo]

1- A book about 'the end of times' and by that i don't mean 2012 or something,more about the earth dying,loneliness and whatnot.Time and the universe coming to an end as a whole i guess.Similar to the last question by Asimov.

I looked up the plot synopsis to The Last Question, and it reminded me a lot of:

Heavily philosophical and engrossing with an apocalyptic bent, and a structure similar to The Canterbury Tales. I really enjoyed it, although it ends with a cliffhanger (and I haven't had a chance to read The Fall of Hyperion yet).

 

[Fireblend]

1- A book about 'the end of times' and by that i don't mean 2012 or something,more about the earth dying,loneliness and whatnot.Time and the universe coming to an end as a whole i guess.Similar to the last question by Asimov.

Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End

The Last Question is one of my favorite short stories. (Here's a link for those who haven't read it yet), and the second half of Childhood's End definitely makes me recall how uniquely it describes humanity's evolution. To get a rough idea of what I'm talking about, the book is referenced as one of Hideki Anno's influences for Neon Genesis Evangelion's final episodes, in case you've seen that.

You might also want to try another one of my favorite sci-fi short stories, The Gentle Seduction by Marc Stiegler. It also has an interesting take on "The end of the world".

Also, I'd like to bring attention to the Readability "plugin" (more like a javascript bookmark) which is a blessing for reading short stories on the web: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ try it with some of the stories I linked above and marvel at the results

 

[Relix]

 

[FnordChan]

1- A book about 'the end of times' and by that i don't mean 2012 or something,more about the earth dying,loneliness and whatnot.Time and the universe coming to an end as a whole i guess.

Hrm. James Morrow's Godhead trilogy explores, in a thoughtful and often blackly humorous manner, the death of god and humanity's reaction, so that might be something like what you're looking for. The first book, Towing Jehovah, is literal; God's body has been found floating in the ocean and the Vatican is having it towed to a tomb, with many complications (philosophical or otherwise) cropping up along the way. The second book in the sequence, Blameless in Abaddon, puts god on trial, and the third, The Eternal Footman, shows humanity confronting the end times as it's being wiped out by plague and ennui, all while god's skull orbits the planet. The Eternal Footman is the book that really comes to mind as what you're looking for, but I wouldn't recommend jumping in there without at least reading Towing Jehovah.

Alas, I haven't read Morrow's nuclear holocaust novel This Is The Way The World Ends, but based on the title it may be the sort of thing you're looking for as well.

FnordChan

 

[Chorazin]

Hrm. James Morrow's

As an aside, Only Begotten Daughter is hands down, one of my favorite books of all time.

 

[FnordChan]

As an aside, Only Begotten Daughter is hands down, one of my favorite books of all time.

That's been in my to-read pile for ages and ages. Thanks for the reminder that I should move it up the queue!

FnordChan

 

[Chorazin]

That's been in my to-read pile for ages and ages. Thanks for the reminder that I should move it up the queue!

FnordChan

No problem, hopefully you'll love it!

 

[tmarques]

Finished this last night and couldn't help crying a little. Story was bland, but the characters are memorable - as always with Dickens.

Need to decide between Maugham's Up At The Hill and Murakami's After Dark now. Both have been on my backlog for ages.

 

[sparky2112]

There were so many excellent things about this novel, and yet it didn't fully come together for me, particularly the whimper of an ending. I certainly think it's worth reading and would heartily recommend it, but with caveats.

The whole cheapening/ubiquity of female sexuality was depressing/hilarious.

 

[Fireblend]

1- A book about 'the end of times' and by that i don't mean 2012 or something,more about the earth dying,loneliness and whatnot.Time and the universe coming to an end as a whole i guess.Similar to the last question by Asimov..

I already answered above, but I just read Exhalation by Ted Chiang since I noticed it's available online, and I think you'll enjoy it. An awesome take on the "End of the World" theme, and I could swear it seems like a nod to Asimov's The Last Question, it even has its own great take on the concept of entropy. (Way more enjoyable than his other short story "The Lifecycle of Software Objects", by the way, which had left me a little disappointed).

 

[FnordChan]

Fnord- on your rec, read one of the Liaden (C)(R)(TM) books. Not brilliant exactly, but fun. Sort of Bujold-lite. I'll definitely read more.

I seem to recall there's a whole reason for the Liaden Universe(tm) bit, but, yeah, it's pretty goofy alright. And, yeah, Bujold-lite is a pretty good way to describe the Liaden books; it's never going to be up there with the heights of the Vorkosigan series, but it's got some similar elements and is a lot of fun. I discovered them after running out of Bujold and desperately wanting something else in the same vein and found that Liaden scratched the itch rather nicely.

Which of the books did you wind up reading?

FnordChan(tm)

 

[robor]

The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.

It's a good book I guess, and it helps that it encourages PRACTICAL application but for me, I'm not looking to be a game designer but a game composer so while I want to dabble in some rudimentary experiments on simple gameplay, I don't want to dive as deep as this book encourages. Speaking of deep, I feel this book over indulges in set rules for a novice game designer (i.e. 50 bajillion lenses to remember), I feel that going by this book like the bible would hurt your experience more than it would enhance it. There needs to be some "airflow" in order to extend your own unique abilities as a game designer. Too much reliance on a such a thing will turn you into a carbon copy of Mr. Schell.

It also doesn't help after reading Half-Real by Juul, now THAT was an interesting read!

I'm moving onto Rules of Play next.

 

[Monroeski]

The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.

It's a good book I guess, and it helps that it encourages PRACTICAL application but for me, I'm not looking to be a game designer but a game composer so while I want to dabble in some rudimentary experiments on simple gameplay, I don't want to dive as deep as this book encourages. Speaking of deep, I feel this book over indulges in set rules for a novice game designer (i.e. 50 bajillion lenses to remember), I feel that going by this book like the bible would hurt your experience more than it would enhance it. There needs to be some "airflow" in order to extend your own unique abilities as a game designer. Too much reliance on a such a thing will turn you into a carbon copy of Mr. Schell.

It also doesn't help after reading Half-Real by Juul, now THAT was an interesting read!

I'm moving onto Rules of Play next.

I think following practically any book "like the bible" for artistic endeavors would probably hurt your experience.

 

[LQX]

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Its great so far.

 

[robor]

I think following practically any book "like the bible" for artistic endeavors would probably hurt your experience.

Oh, I should of rephrased that. What I'm trying to bring forth here is that some of the lenses in that book didn't feel as universal and that some were trappings of the author's own individual solutions (like a claustrophobic reaction to a design issue etc), rather than adhering to the user-base and considering the variations from user to user.

 

[b0neshank]

A guilty pleasure of mine. On book #17 of the series. They are harder than hell to find, but there is something about the main character that makes him the legendary badass.

 

[luxarific]

you've made my day :lol

Banks-related infodump with some links to (ecstatic) reviews of the new novel and interviews with him.

 

[kinn]

1- A book about 'the end of times' and by that i don't mean 2012 or something,more about the earth dying,loneliness and whatnot.Time and the universe coming to an end as a whole i guess.Similar to the last question by Asimov.

Maybe you would like:

The Road
Day of the Tiffids
I am Legend (much better than the movie IMHO)

 

[Max]

About half way through, really enjoying it. I'm also around halfway through VALIS which I probably won't be finishing till after Flow My Tears. Pretty excited to see what the film adaptation looks like.

Thinking about getting Ship of Fools back from the library, I got to the second part labelled "Ship of Fools" and stopped :lol Right when it probably got interesting. Also seeing the trailer for the Game of Thrones on HBO makes me want to check out the book, as well as The Girl Who series.

 

[Salazar]

Maybe you would like:

The Road
Day of the Tiffids
I am Legend (much better than the movie IMHO)

And Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson (who died recently).

http://www.amazon.com/Wittgensteins-Mistress-David-Markson/dp/1564782115

In this unsettling, shimmering novel, the reader is immediately drawn into the world of a woman who has gone mad because she is the last surviving creature on earth. Sitting at a typewriter in a beach house day after uncharted day, she keeps no calendar or clocks, she pours out her thoughts on music, art and ancient Greek legends, and remembrances of her travels across the globe in abandoned cars, looking for other living beings. But after a while, some discrepancies creep into her rambling, compelling monologue: an accident that she first says took place in New York now occurs in Leningrad; memories become distorted by imaginings. Were they ever really memories in the first place? By the end of this seamless stream of consciousness, there is no distinction between fantasy and reality, past and present. Markson (The Ballad of Dingus Magee) keeps the reader off balance and finally unsure of even the foundation of his character's madness. Perhaps she is alone only because she believes she is.

It really is extraordinarily good.

 

[Alucrid]

Oops, my bad. It's by Richard K. Morgan.

edit: And it's called Thirteen in the US, by the way. I just like the other title so much more. But I really should have mentioned that early on, totally my fault.

Ugh, they changed it for America? Lame. :lol Thanks though, I'll be picking this up along with a few others this weekend.

 

[Easystride]

Not too far in yet, but I just started this:

 

[FnordChan]

Fledgling. Which means I now have to go find the immediate sequel.

I really enjoyed Fledgling, as well as the sequel Saltation. However, while it isn't crucial to the scheme, parts of the latter are busy tying those two books into later portions of the Liaden continuity, so if you think you're going to be interested in reading more of the series you may want to hold off on Saltation just this moment and move on instead to, say, The Dragon Variation, a three volume omnibus that collects a lot of Liaden backstory. Or, hey, just go straight into Saltation; like I said, it's not a deal breaker.

FnordChan

 

[eosos]

It's amazing. I'm going to read Slaughter House Five next.

 

[nakedsushi]

Ever since I started reading most of my books on the kindle, I've been missing the feeling you get when you start a book with an awesome book cover. This was not one of those times. I was glad I got this on the Kindle because the book cover is too cringe-worthy to carry around in public.



Despite the cover, I still enjoyed the book. Definitely more romance than my previous Steampunk Month picks so maybe not for you boys, but it had a surprisingly deep world.

Review:

For being a book whose cover features a shirtless guy wearing a shiny leather jacket and showing off his washboard abs, The Iron Duke was quite good! It skews more towards romance than the previous steampunk books I've read this month, but it also doesn't shirk its responsibilities in the world-building department.

The world in The Iron Duke is based on a post-Industrial Revolution England, where some controlling entity, only referred to as The Horde injected the people of England with a nano virus some two hundred years ago. The nano virus lets the Horde control the people's emotions, dictating when they're passive, and when they go into a frenzy of emotion (perfect for when it's mating time.) Through some chain of events, the Horde is overthrown, the infected people, called buggers regain control of their lives back, and the book picks up from there.

More specifically, the book revolves around Mina, a police inspector in England who barely gets any respect just because she was the unfortunate product of a Horde raping her mother. She gets spit on and threatened daily because of her mix-raced features and has to work extra hard to prove that she's just as good as everyone else. She meets Rhys, the Iron Duke, they go on air ship adventures, they shag, they fall in love, etc. etc.

Yes, the book was formulaic to the paranormal romance genre even though there wasn't exactly anything paranormal going on. I guess there were zombies. Do zombies count? Even though the plot wasn't ground-breaking, the book was a joy to read and pages sped by quickly.

The Iron Duke has steampunk, romance, air pirating, evil secret cults, roguish men, strong women, and a pretty darn good world built around it. It's no wonder I liked it. The second book will be on my radar when it gets released.

 

[milkyjay20]

i'm reading the dark tower series again. this will be the first time that i'll be reading it from beginning to end. i love DT.

but i got the newly revised "the gunslinger" and lordy it's got a bunch of junk that doesn't belong. roland's bringing back the mejis speech, say thank ya, and they won't stop talking about friggin 19. i hate this kind of tampering, it's no different than lucas and his special editions.

anyway, could i get some recommendations? something like the dark tower. a fantasy that is epic in scope with mindblowing ideas, but doesn't include swords, lords, or ladies.

 

[T.M. MacReady]

Every month a gaffer is reading American Gods. It's a good thing.

I'm still working my way through

 

[Vyer]

Felt like picking up a western, grabbed this:

 

[Sotha Sil]

Halfway through Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel.

Loving it. A surprisingly modern twist on 16th century England, focusing on the rise of courtier Thomas Cromwell. Beautifully written; it grips you and never let you go, which is worth mentioning when discussing a historical fiction, since you pretty much already know the ending . (You'll never look at Thomas More the same way after this!)

Henry VIII has become quite the stock character in fiction; he's either the old tormentor the young womaniser (ugh, The Tudors). It's really nice to get a glimpse of his human (albeit fictional) side.

 

[Salazar]

(You'll never look at Thomas More the same way after this!)

I haven't read the book, but at present I think he was a vicious cretin.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Just finished:
http://helium.lunarpages.com/~funky4/pictures/paperback/goodomens.jpg

One of the funniest books I have ever read. So good.

Just Started:
http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Reviews/AmericanGods/Images/AmericanGods-Reprint.jpg

Good Omens is hilarious, one of the funniest books I've read.

American Gods.. Bah. The less we talk about it, the better.

 

[Sotha Sil]

I haven't read the book, but at present I think he was a vicious cretin.

You're pretty much right on the mark, then

 

[Yasser]

the book is so much better

while i don't regret reading this, whenever someone asks me what's so good about it i can never come up with a satisfactory answer

 

[coldvein]

about to be done with THE LONG SHIPS by frans bengtsson. not too shabby. kinda dragged for me at times..
then on to UNDER THE VOLCANO by malcolm lowry.

 

[Salazar]

It's very good so far. The villains are interesting. There's an excruciatingly crap sex-scene early on, but I am in a forgiving mood.

 

[mike23]

Just finished this

And I loved it, book never slowed down once. Sadly, probably a good year before the third book comes out.

Also just finished this. I agree, it was great.

I think I'm going to read this one next.

It's hard to choose though. I've bookmarked 5 or 6 books just looking through this thread. It should be a quick read though.


I just realized how similar those two covers look, weird.

 

[Salazar]

I'm quite a bit further through Kell's Legend, and it really is an interesting book. I picked it up as run-of-the-mill fantasy filler, but it's worth a shot. The clockwork vampire stuff is actually very well done.

They came from the north, and the city fell.
It is a time for warriors, a time for heroes.
Kell’s axe howls out for blood.

Ferocious fantasy from a real-life hardman come to claim the post-Gemmell world.

The land of Falanor is invaded by an albino army, the Army of Iron. A small group set off to warn the king: Kell, ancient hero; his granddaughter, Nienna and her friend, Katrina; and the ex-Sword Champion of King Leanoric, Saark, disgraced after his affair with the Queen.
Fighting their way south, betrayal follows battle follows deviation, and they are attacked from all quarters by deadly albino soldiers, monstrous harvesters who drain blood from their victims to feed their masters, and the twisted offspring of deviant vachine, the cankers. As Falanor comes under heavy attack and crushing invasion, only then does Nienna learn the truth about grandfather Kell – that he is anything but a noble hero, anything but a Legend.

FILE UNDER: Fantasy [A City Besieged / A Dangerous Hero / Bloodsucking Hordes / Epic Battles]

 

[nakedsushi]

Currently reading:



Hoping to get through most of it this weekend. Apparently it's about a hi-tech, futuristic prison.

Almost halfway through steampunk month. I have The Difference Engine queued up next, sent to me by a co-worker.

 

[Monroeski]

Just finished:

One of the funniest books I have ever read. So good.

I have never known anyone, no matter their general taste in books, that has read this book and didn't love it.

 

[Maklershed]

I might have to get it to wash the taste of American Gods away.

 

[nyong]

I might have to get it to wash the taste of American Gods away.

Unless the book completely falls apart the last hundred pages or so, I would have to disagree.