The "What are you Reading" thread part deux

Long, long ago, when the Americans and the Europeans were seperated by the Great Forum divide we Europeans had the wonderful "What are you Reading" thread which was a mine of useful recommendations.

Since it's raining decent Sci-fi at me this month I figured it was time to bring back that thread (without the need for messy necromancy and zombie threads wandering the forums). So here we are.

So this month has been very kind to me. First while shopping with my daughter and making a snap purchase (because she's 3 and it's hard to spend 20 mins picking out a book for myself with her grabbing random Catherine Cookson books off the shelf for me) I picked up The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi on a whim. Brilliant book altogether although slightly bewildering (unlike a lot of authors he doesn't disgress to a paragraph explaining any new Tech or concepts but leaves you to figure it out yourself).

Now I'm on to the new Iain M Banks Culture novel "Surface Detail". I was a bit disappointed with his last, Matter. It felt a little pedestrian by Banks standards. This new one is far more enjoyable with a lot of ideas bouncing around, some horrific scenes and some great dialogue.

So what are you reading at the mo? Any and all recommendations (or criticisms) welcome

I'm currently reading Machine of Death, a collection of short stories about a world where there's a machine that tells people how they'll die, compiled and edited by a few prominent geeky webcomic writers. It also pissed off Glenn Beck, which I consider a bonus.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson, sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and 2nd book of the Millennium trilogy. I've stalled out on the book a bit and haven 't read any in a while, though it's not really the fault of the book. I've just been "too busy to read" lately; which I hate. I did enjoy the first book quite a bit.

I'm currently about 1/2 way through Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I'm thoroughly enjoying it, there's a lot of good humor in this.

Re-reading Stone 588 by Gerald A. Browne. And wondering AGAIN why it hasn't been made into a movie...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Halfway through Andre Norton's Quag Keep right now.

On the stack right now:

The Forbidden Tower by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Been a long time since I read the Darkover books, I'm working my way back through 'em.

The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar
It got an enthusiastic cover blurb from James Blaylock, so I picked it up.

Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon
Looked interesting and I'm always on the lookout for new authors.

Recently finished Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey, that was a good one with plenty of geek appeal.

Just been reading some Robin Hobb books, blech, she has a horrible tendency to stall the hell out of the story then rush to the end.

read "Best served cold" by Joe Abercrombie, after the exelent first law trilogy this was a horrible disapointment really. Still better than Robin Hobb though.

Just finished reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Excellent, though by no means a quick read - I found myself chewing on the details quite a bit, though in a good way.

Before that, I'd read the first five Amber novels, and I'm now working on the second half. I'd previously only made it up to the eighth novel - this time I have Knight of Shadows and Prince of Chaos ready to go, so I'll finally have the whole series.

I've been re-reading all of Robert Crais' Elvis Cole novels from the start. Good, fun, clever mystery/thriller stories that just get better and better.

Flawed Dogs by Berke Breathed

Next up, Flatter Land by Ian Stewart.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar.

Recently finished reading:

Quantum Prophecy 2: The Gathering by Michael Carroll. See Superhero Fiction thread for a brief review. 3.5 stars out of 5.

Spectrum 17: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. Although a bit heavy on Alice in Wonderland, it's excellent as always. 4.5 stars.

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld. Vampires that are more like superheroes, way better than I expected, with an interesting take on society and parasites. 4 stars.

Out of the Dark by David Weber. Starts off as a typical alien invasion novel, then for no particular reason we get our collective butts saved by Dracula. I'm not kidding. Terrible book. 1 star.

Proofiness: the Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception by Charles Seif. The first half is basically one long, very awesome rant about how people and corporations play with numbers to achieve their ends. When he gets into nitty-gritty detail about elections at the end it kind of loses momentum, but overall it's excellent. 4 stars.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. God, this is a horrible, horrible book. It's essentially a Marty Stu and aside from the actual porn there are other varieties as well, such as computer porn (apparently Stieg was computer shopping the day he wrote that boring-*** chapter) and Swedish publishing porn which has nothing to do with the story (but everything to do with Larsson's real life). I don't get the hype, this is one of the worst books I've ever read.

Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart et al. Parts of this book are seriously laugh-out-loud funny. To wit: “As our larynxes descended, we were able to make sounds with our mouths in new and far more expressive ways. Verbal language soon overtook physical gesturing as the primary means of communication for all human beings except Italians.” It's funny because it's true. (I'm Italian.)

Currently reading:

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris. Only in chapter 3, but the premise that one can use the measurable template of "general well-being" to determine the morality of a society is interesting, and the opposition he's run into from moral relativists is aggravating.

45 (Forty-Five) by Andi Ewington. This is an interesting hybrid between prose and comic book. It takes place in a world where superheroes exist as the result of a genetic mutation and the premise is that the author is going around interviewing people with powers or who have kids with powers. Even early on there are hints of murder and conspiracies. Each one-page interview is accompanied by a one-page piece of art.

I just finished Ex-Heroes (which I heard about on another thread here). It wasn't a bad zombie story. It wasn't the best book I've ever read, but it was an entertaining zombie story. My biggest complaint was I wanted more.

I'm reading Ivanhoe, very interesting.

I just finished reading The Passage by Justin Cronin. It's an apocalypse story, with viral "undead". It's a good read, and the first in a trilogy.

Next up: "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter". This should be fun.

Last night I finished an old novel by Clifford D. Simak, The City, that I am going to have to mentally chew on a bit. Very uneven, but some interesting concepts.

I just read The Scar by China Mieville a couple months ago, and I was considering a re-read since it is so dense with excellent writing. That or I have 2-3 on the "next up" shelf - but I forget what they are atm. Or I have about 1,000 other re-read potentials in my library. I look forward to the recommendations here (though I am sure my wife doesn't).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smersh Just finished reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Excellent, though by no means a quick read - I found myself chewing on the details quite a bit, though in a good way.

A good book, that made a nice template for a D&D session we ran back in the day, only with a real demon cult in the basement.

(An interesting movie too (Connery in an atypical role), though, it clearly cut down on the content a lot.)

The Fall by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro

and

Planetary: vol 1

Just got done with Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. It's really a collection of classic sci-fi and horror short stories from a common setting. I liked the book, but it had its weak spots. The framing narration is interesting but a bit foreseeable past a certain point. The actual shorts are on average pretty good. A third at least is excellent, though there's a few stinkers and ones that made me scratch my head.

For the most part, the stories work because they're believable. Or at least possible. Horrible autosexual accidents, the dark side of foot massage or the real depths of slumming. The few that I felt were weaker were the ones that traded on actual fantastic horror. Were-creatures, life after death or mystery plagues. Most of those still managed to be entertaining however.

It was a relatively quick read, professionally written and perfect for a commute due to the short story structure. Though you may find yourself thinking, 'just one more story' and just keep reading at times.


Next up, I'm looking to read Imperial Bedrooms by Brett Easton Ellis, but to be frank it looks pretty thin for the attached price tag so I'm still hesitant.

I finished up my re-reading of all the Wild Cards books (except for that one I don't have that's out of print). Great books, all.

Then I read Cell by Stephen King, left behind when my ex-girlfriend moved out. Still mad at King over The Dark Tower. This one was okay, I guess. A literary happy meal. A post-apocalyptic tale in which just about everyone except for a few people scattered here and there get 'zombified', essentially, by a signal sent to their cell phones.

Then I re-read Lin Carter's 5-volume 'Green Star' series which I last read as a teen back in the Pleistocene. Basically, it's an Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche with maybe some Clark Ashton Smith thrown in for leavening. In the first book, a bedridden Earth man learns astral projection and winds up inhabiting the body of a legendary warrior on a planet orbiting a green star. The human-like residents of this planet live in giant trees and ride giant flying insects. In true Burroughs tradition the first book ends with a cliffhanger, with the hero stranded back on Earth and the fate of his beloved alien princess - in big trouble when he last saw her - unknown. In the second book, desperate to find his beloved alien princes, he does the astral projection thing again and finds his way back to that planet but this time he winds up inhabiting the body of a teenage boy, with no idea where he is in relation to where he was the first time he was there.

Then I re-read Daybreak 2250 A.D. (originally titled Star Man's Son) by Andre Norton, another one I'd not read since way back when. I guess you'd call it a post-apocalyptic 'coming of age' story, with the main character, Fors - a mutant with silvery white hair - doing the coming of age in what's left of the world after something really bad happened. Fors has a telepathic link with Lura, a mutant cat (with Siamese coloring). Fors steals his father's gear and, with Lura in tow, sets out to find and explore a lost city, hoping to prove that he has what it takes to be a Star Man. Not as good, IMO, as 'The Beast Master' or its sequel 'Lord of Thunder' or lots of her other books, but not bad.

Then I cast about for something else to read, and found another book left behind by the ex, Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning. So I read it. Rather dubiously, as it were. Then it so happened while I was grocery shopping I saw the second volume, Bloodfever. And I thought, 'Ah, hell. Why not.' The next time I went grocery shopping, lo and behold, there was the third volume, Faefever. The next time I went grocery shopping there was no fourth volume. But the time after that - you guessed it - there it was: Dreamfever. I don't know what to say about these books. They are kinda Buffyesque - well, one might even say 'Buffyesque much', in that the central character is more or less a Slayer, only of Fae instead of Vamps - but lacking all the snappy dialogue and other fun stuff that made the Buffy TV series so much... er, fun. Like, for instance, the whole bit about substituting the word 'petunia' for the alternate word for butt. As in, 'Kiss my petunia!' Yeah. It's not all fun and games, however, as there are these things called 'death by sex' Fae that, well, let's just say that our valiant heroine finds herself stripping involuntarily in public upon more than one occasion and at the end of the third volume she gets cornered by three of them. Anyway, I guess I'll read the fifth volume, Shadowfever, when it comes out in 2011. If I run across it while grocery shopping. I've come this far, after all. Here's hoping if there's a sixth volume it will be titled Pringlesfever.

Oh, I forgot this one earlier. I just read "The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I really, really liked this story. A brief bit of the synopsis from Wikipedia: