Books

[Purkake]

Well, you should like the First Law trilogy then, it really tears classic fantasy a new one, even more in some places than ASoFaI. Plus the series is all actually finished

Edited August 9, 2010 by Purkake

[Raithe]

Imager's Intrigue - Modesitt's tie-off to the Imager trilogy. Fairly standard Modesitt work (one of his fantasy, not sci-fi), jumps the world ahead by five years.. gets the mind working a bit. There's a lot of nice depth to it, but you never quite feel the characters getting that emotional.

[Serrano]

I've been reading the Millenium trilogy by Steig Larsson. I spent the entire day yesterday working through book 2 and am both looking forward to and dreading trilogy's finale, I really don't think I could handle a cliffhanger ending . Steig was a brilliant writer, I'd have loved to read more of his books.

[Monte Carlo]

Am trying to read D-Day by Stephen Ambrose but his hagiographic treatment of Eisenhower is making it a bit difficult, dragging us firmly and uncomfortably into fanboi territory.

[Raithe]

Picked up C# 2010 for Dummies... Thought I'd go back to the dirt basics to refresh my mind...

 

Say what you will about the "for Dummies" brand, but they do tend to include the really small background things you can totally forget about when you 'know' what you're doing...

[Guard Dog]

Finished Winterbirth. I'd give it a B-. Not bad, but it looks and reads like a first novel. The complexity of the subplots gets away from him a little. I love the setting though. I'll give the next book in the series Blood Heir a look.

[Walsingham]

I'm in the middle of the narrative history Rifles by Mark Urban, which follows the 95th, of TV's Sharpe fame.

 

It reads like a novel, but Urban is a pretty solid historian. I'd heartily recommend it on many levels. It's an interesting look at a revolutionary point in warfare, but also full of insights into the complications of a world built almost entirely on hereditary privilege, and some fantastic carachter sketches which I intend to use in my roleplaying campaign.

[Purkake]

Just started Charles Stross' Atrocity Archives. So far it's awesome, who knew that mixing up Lovecraft and spy fiction would be an awesome idea?

[Nightshape]

Picked up C# 2010 for Dummies... Thought I'd go back to the dirt basics to refresh my mind...

 

Say what you will about the "for Dummies" brand, but they do tend to include the really small background things you can totally forget about when you 'know' what you're doing...

 

Example please?

[Guard Dog]

Ok Purkake, I ordered The entire First Law trilogy from Amazon and it arrived today. If it sucks, i will hunt you down!

 

I also got Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones. It is a historical fiction about a man who rises to great fortune in 14th century Spain. It was origianlly written in Spanish and I wish my spanish was good enough to read the untranslated version. But I speak a broken latin dialect of spanish (learned when I lived in Miami) and Castillan spanish has always been very hard for me to follow.

[Purkake]

Great, let us know what you think.

 

There is very little actual discussion in this thread

Edited August 14, 2010 by Purkake

[Serrano]

I wanted to write a long post about the Millennium books but annoyingly I can't find the words. How do you even get writer's block when it comes to a forum posts? I basically cleared all of my free time and did nothing but read the last two books. It took me a week, but it was worth it. The overall ending is immensely satisfying. I was pretty shocked to learn that the author had something like ten books outlined for the series before he died, I mean usually hooks are deliberately written in case they're needed right? This guy had ten (Ten!) stories planned in advance. I just keep thinking it's such a loss.

[Purkake]

Finished The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross. He mixed together classic spy fiction and Lovecraftian mythos in a nice big pulpy pile. The setting and humor are excellent, as is the story in the Atrocity Archives. I felt that the Jennifer Morgue tried to do too much and ended up being all over the place.

 

Every Lovecraft fan should check this series out. If you want to get a feel for it, try one of Stross' free short stories from the same setting.

[Raithe]

Having a break from "serious" reading at the moment.. decided to catch up on the Honorverse.. so spent an evening on Storm from the Shadows, then worked through Mission of Honor...

[Purkake]

Mission of Honor was kind of light on the action, but it set things up really nicely for the following books.

[entrerix]

ooh a book thread. i never look in the way off topic and here I find a little gem here.

 

though there is a bit too many references to urban fantasy for my liking

 

ah well.

 

I recently finished re-reading call of the wild/white fang, Treasure Island, and a Man Who Was Thursday. all were quite good for very different reasons.

 

My fiance recently asked for a book recommendation, something fun and quick to read but not cheesy... I recommended The Forever War, The Alienist, and Earth Abides... after she turned down Treasure Island and having finished Enders Game somewhat recently.

 

I also thought briefly of recommending Jurassic Park, but I felt that fell too far on the cheesy side of things (after finishing it, she said World War Z was outside the acceptable scale of cheese despite being a lover of zombie films)

 

anyone else have any recommendations for someone like her? (note: her favorite books are, i think, Enders Game, Dune, Neverwhere and Watchmen (the graphic novel) she probably only reads about 2 books a year though, so i have a hard time recommending things to her because I don't really know where to start...

 

I was also thinking maybe a stephen king book, but if you're only reading a few books a year it seems a bit of a waste. I own a lot of stuff, but its all over the map genre wise (though its 99% fiction if you exclude my law library)

[Guard Dog]

Brandon Sanderson has finished Towers of Midnight, the next to last WoT book. Check it out: http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/911/T...IDNIGHT-Is-Done

[Purkake]

Brandon Sanderson has finished Towers of Midnight, the next to last WoT book. Check it out: http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/911/T...IDNIGHT-Is-Done

Awesome! I look forward to the inevitably horrible cover art

 

@entrerix: Maybe American Gods by Neil Gaiman? Or Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan for some grittier modern neo noire cyberpunk? Or Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss for some non-standard fantasy?

Edited August 25, 2010 by Purkake

[Guard Dog]

Actually entrix, if you like Jack London I highly, highly reccomend The Sea Wolf. It is one of my all time favorite novels.

[Raithe]

Mission of Honor was kind of light on the action, but it set things up really nicely for the following books.

 

Well I had one of those nights when insomnia hit.. so I ended up reading it through till morning. Light on action as you said, and some of the talk on technical hardware aspects could get a touch overlong for my sense of rythym..but still entertaining for the building blocks. The way the honorverse has expanded and you've got the last few books are all on the same "time frame" but from different perspectives is interesting in its way... I can't quite decide whether I like it for the way it 'builds' the sense of the universe..or dislike it for the back and forth nature it can throw at you..

 

Still, I'm looking forward to the next book in the series. To think that he'd originally planned to kill off Honor and then do all the Mesa/Manpower about 20 years in the future with her kids..

 

Of course, Weber has that new book coming out in a month or so that looks like it could be amusing.. 'Out of the Dark' - Aliens invade earth, the rebellion forms..and then gets help when 'vampires' come out of the shadows to help..

 

Since Weber has done military sci-fi, space opera sci-fi, humerous fantasy, and a few genres in-between I'm not quite sure how it's going to read..but it should be fun.

[entrerix]

Of course, Weber has that new book coming out in a month or so that looks like it could be amusing.. 'Out of the Dark' - Aliens invade earth, the rebellion forms..and then gets help when 'vampires' come out of the shadows to help..

 

when i see plots like this it makes me wonder about the fate of humanity. then again the day of the triffids sounds like an utterly ridiculous premise and yet its actually pretty damn good so what do i know...

[Raithe]

Of course, Weber has that new book coming out in a month or so that looks like it could be amusing.. 'Out of the Dark' - Aliens invade earth, the rebellion forms..and then gets help when 'vampires' come out of the shadows to help..

 

when i see plots like this it makes me wonder about the fate of humanity. then again the day of the triffids sounds like an utterly ridiculous premise and yet its actually pretty damn good so what do i know...

 

As mentioned, Weber has done things that were tongue-in-cheek humour then all the way in the other direction of fairly hard core military/serious.. and I'm not sure which edge of those it'll fall into.. but it'll be interesting to see.

[Walsingham]

Actually entrix, if you like Jack London I highly, highly reccomend The Sea Wolf. It is one of my all time favorite novels.

 

Is that the one with the nutter captain?

[Monte Carlo]

Am reading the Jerry Cornelius books by Michael Moorc0c..k damn that language filter!

 

Louche, acid-trip hipster science-fantasy straight outta the 1970's you need to read this wearing a velvet smoking jacket and silver loon pants whilst taking a sip of absinthe. It's like, crazy, man.

 

I urge you all to check it out and to get into the author, for my money one of the best sci-fi and fantasy authors of the 20th century: wiki entry for MM.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Ha ha ha check out what the language filter did to that URL! Moderators, can you get a grip please this is ludicrous.