What Books Are You Reading Right Now?

[IthilanorStPete]

Aye, I've developed a real fondness for Martin's shorter fiction over the years. As much as I like A Song of Ice and Fire, it suffers in the exchange of scope for laserlike focus I think. Something like A Song for Lya or (if I hate myself) Meathouse Man is kinda like getting punched in the gut.

Oh gods, Meathouse Man...that's an intense story. It really hits home for me at my age (22); plays off a lot of the uncertainties, anxieties, and fears I have. A Song for Lya doesn't work for me, partly because I'm not as fond of the writing, partly because the romantic angst doesn't resonate much with me. It's interesting how stories work differently at different ages. (By contrast, something like Sandkings is just terrifying for all ages)

(Speaking of movie adaptions, I'd love a good version of Dying of the Light. Worlorn is a place that's just begging for a really opulent production, and it's been too long since anybody's made a really excellently depressing sci-fi movie.)

I'd like to see an adaptation of Fevre Dream. It's a great period piece and a good vampire story that doesn't rely much on romance.

[TiaC]

I just read Digital Divide(The first nine chapters are here) the first novel by K. B. Spengler. She is the author of the webcomic A Girl and Her Fed and the book is set in the same universe. It follows Rachel Peng, an ex-military cyborg liaison to DC Metro Police. It's a cop story that is also all about discrimination and acceptance. It's hard to say more as a lot of information is held back for the first few chapters.

[Piggy Knowles]

Right now I've got Larry Mcmurtry's Lonesome Dove going on audiobook, and I'm reading David Simon's The Corner and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.

(Also, for those talking about Martin's non-SoIaF work, I found Tuf Voyaging in a used bookstore last year and loved it.)

[Eldariel]

Currently mostly course books on linguistics, unfortunately. Little time for anything else; that said, right now I'm just about to finish Martin's A Dance with the Dragons with the spare time (I'm about 100 pages from done).

[warty goblin]

Oh gods, Meathouse Man...that's an intense story. It really hits home for me at my age (22); plays off a lot of the uncertainties, anxieties, and fears I have. A Song for Lya doesn't work for me, partly because I'm not as fond of the writing, partly because the romantic angst doesn't resonate much with me. It's interesting how stories work differently at different ages. (By contrast, something like Sandkings is just terrifying for all ages)

I think I agreed with you the first time I read A Song for Lya, but as I've aged I think I find the story increasingly disturbing. It's not really about romance at the end of the day, it's about isolation, and how despite hating it, we're too afraid of not being fundamentally alone to entertain the (alien) notion of true communion.

I'd like to see an adaptation of Fevre Dream. It's a great period piece and a good vampire story that doesn't rely much on romance.

I've never understood this thing that some people seem to have against romance in a story.

[IthilanorStPete]

I think I agreed with you the first time I read A Song for Lya, but as I've aged I think I find the story increasingly disturbing. It's not really about romance at the end of the day, it's about isolation, and how despite hating it, we're too afraid of not being fundamentally alone to entertain the (alien) notion of true communion.

That's an interesting take on it; reminds me of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I've never understood this thing that some people seem to have against romance in a story.

I think it's a mix of:
-disliking poorly written romances
-disliking how romance sometimes seems to overshadow other, more interesting ideas
-disliking the trope of the angsty, overly sexual, less-threatening vampire (which IMO ends up being less romantic, actually)

[Palanan]

So, new books for me!

Just started listening to Michael Drout's audio course on The Norsemen: Understanding Vikings and Their Culture, which promises to be fun and wide-ranging as usual. First five minutes and he's already worked in a mention of Tolkien.

And, by circuitous means, a late gift card has allowed me to pick up Lincoln Paine's The Sea and Civilization, which will be good background before my next reading of the Aubrey/Maturin novels. And lots of other things.



In other news:

Originally Posted by Hawriel
My next book will be either Patrick O'Brian's 4th Jack Aubrey book The Mauritius Command, or Red Shirts by John Scalzi.

I have the audio CDs for The Mauritius Command right here on my desk. It's one of my favorite books from the series. I think I've already mentioned the hilarious scene with the drunk Russian captain and the Scottish mad-doctor.

Originally Posted by Seerow
Just started (and finished) Earth Unaware today. Was honestly better than any of the Ender's books IMO.

You know, I've been eyeing that one, but wasn't sure whether to give it a try. I appreciate the recommendation, definitely on my short list now.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
Wait, Card wrote something actually readable after Ender's Game? ...The last one I picked up was Empire, which was terrible in some fairly special ways.

Keep in mind that Empire was a video-game tie-in, so some of the sillier aspects (battlepods, magic energy fields, etc.) have to be taken in that context. By no means one of his best, but I read it when I was living in D.C. and enjoyed the local touches.

As for Card in general, I've read most of his novels and series, and met him at a book-signing several years ago. I can appreciate he's not everyone's cup of tea; but if you haven't already, I would really suggest you give Memory of Earth a try. There's some good writing in there, and he does a great job with the cultures and peoples involved.

.

[warty goblin]

Keep in mind that Empire was a video-game tie-in, so some of the sillier aspects (battlepods, magic energy fields, etc.) have to be taken in that context. By no means one of his best, but I read it when I was living in D.C. and enjoyed the local touches.

I never got that far. I think I bailed right after the lecture about gay marriage. When I want preached at that hard in my sci-fi, I'll open up some Heinlein, who's frankly a better writer, and from what I can tell both a better and more radical thinker.

As for Card in general, I've read most of his novels and series, and met him at a book-signing several years ago. I can appreciate he's not everyone's cup of tea; but if you haven't already, I would really suggest you give Memory of Earth a try. There's some good writing in there, and he does a great job with the cultures and peoples involved.

.

Tried that series a forever ago, I think I made it through the first book, maybe into the second. As I recall, not a lot seemed to be happening, but I was like fourteen when I tried them.


In other news I wrapped up the second Witcher book, The Time of Contempt, last night. Damn that got dark right at the end, we're talking Arya chapters of A Storm of Swords dark. Really liked the book though, Sapkowski stitches together scenes in very odd, often oblique ways. He also frequently ignores the horrid 'show, don't tell' rule, which means that what is shown is always interesting, and helps keep a person guessing because quite often the bit you need to understand the significance of a portion hasn't been told yet.

Next up: Metro 2033, because it's the end of January and therefore the best time to start cultivating a healthy crop of despair.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by warty goblin
I think I bailed right after the lecture about gay marriage. When I want preached at that hard in my sci-fi, I'll open up some Heinlein, who's frankly a better writer, and from what I can tell both a better and more radical thinker.

Hmm. I don't even remember any lecture, and don't recall feeling preached at, not in Empire at least. Card does have that tendency in his more recent novels, though.

As for Heinlein, he's very glib and clever, but ultimately I found him very superficial. I went through a number of his novels in college, and while they were fun and quirky, they haven't really stayed with me the way other books have. Heinlein did attempt some social commentary, but I've found that Steinbeck covered much of the same ground in a more nuanced and contemplative mode.

As far as Witcher, is this the Polish series? Apparently there are books, a game, TV series, the works. I watched an episode or so of the series, but it was...odd, and decidedly low-budget. Not really sure what to make of it.

[warty goblin]

Hmm. I don't even remember any lecture, and don't recall feeling preached at, not in Empire at least. Card does have that tendency in his more recent novels, though.

No, that was definitely in there. I think it was right after the protagonists Mr. Patriot and Mr. Patriot's Sidekick stumbled across people assassinating the President in exactly the way they were barnstorming at that very minute as a potential method of assassinating the President.

As for Heinlein, he's very glib and clever, but ultimately I found him very superficial. I went through a number of his novels in college, and while they were fun and quirky, they haven't really stayed with me the way other books have. Heinlein did attempt some social commentary, but I've found that Steinbeck covered much of the same ground in a more nuanced and contemplative mode.

I'm fairly selective about the Heinlein I read, and some of his stuff isn't that good, I'll freely admit. That said, I'll still happily put Time Enough for Love pretty high on my list of books I've found personally influential. Hell, it's basically post-second wave feminist sex-positivism written before second-wave feminism was even a thing.

As far as Witcher, is this the Polish series? Apparently there are books, a game, TV series, the works. I watched an episode or so of the series, but it was...odd, and decidedly low-budget. Not really sure what to make of it.

Indeed. All of which is based on the books, although the games don't really follow the books at all closely, and basically diverge right after the first short story collection. The games are good in the singular way Eastern European videogames are good, which is to say hard as nails, coupled with a determination to submerge the player in a world that's sometimes frustrating, occasionally baffling, often excellent, and always interesting.

The books are quite excellent, although the translation of the first two leaves something to be desired. The Time of Contempt however reads much more naturally in English, and I'd still recommend the first two. They seem to be operating in roughly the same meeting of high fantasy and sword & sorcery and grit as A Song of Ice and Fire, but with an exact inversion of ingredients. If ASoIaF is the grand scale of high fantasy shunted into the low magic and almost entirely human world of traditional sword & sorcery, the Witcher novels take the tropes and plethora of races of high fantasy, and are about a character straight from sword & sorcery. Thus ASoIaF ends up being mostly about how personal interactions determine the course of politics, while the Witcher is about how politics shape personal interactions, usually with an extremely jaundiced sensibility.

Also, last minute change of reading plans. My brother in law just sent me Daywatch, so Nightwatch got bumped up the reading queue, pushing Metro 2033 two places back. This is probably for the best, since it'll give me a bit more time to fail to finish the Metro videogames. Coordinating transmedia reading/playlists is complicated.

[Cespenar]

I'm tying up Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and will probably start on Ringworld next. I tried to get into On Basilisk Station, but got bored of it mid-book. Seems pretty generic military fiction with a side-dish of sci-fi. Not badly written, per se, but simply didn't offer anything new to me.

Yeah, it's a backlog-ish thing.

Also finished and liked Name of the Wind recently. I'm either still not bored of the fantasy genre, or the man can write.

[Eldan]

Also finished and liked Name of the Wind recently. I'm either still not bored of the fantasy genre, or the man can write.

He absolutely can. Name of the Wind is some of the most beautiful language ever put to paper.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

And again I feel shame for not having gotten around to reading Rothfuss.

[BWR]

Finished "Pirate Freedom" it's the weakest Wolfe I've read since Castleview (and I might actually like Castleview better if I read it now).
The time travel bit doesn't really add anything to the story, and the writing is slow and calm no matter what happens. I'd like to say it was boring except I was never noticed the passing of time while reading. I guess it's just Wolfe's skill that he can write something that seems boring and bland but keeps you enthralled so subtly you don't notice it, and the story and characters are clearly defined in your memory.

Started on Denise Mina's "the fields of blood". It's a social realism/murder mystery set in Glasgow 1981. It's a fair bit outside my usual reading fare, picked up only because I liked Mina's brief run on Hellblazer.
So far it's ok. I'm generally a sensitive sort and dislike reading about human misery in the real world (or what is near enough the real world, as in books like this).

[Cyrion]

I'm in the middle of Robinson Crusoe at the moment. I've particularly enjoyed reading it because of one of the statements in the introduction- that Rousseau viewed it as the quintessential educational book. So I've been thinking about it in terms of various educational theories.

I just finished Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear, and I can't say that he's really doing a lot for me. It's becoming sort of the Harry Potter of adult fiction. There are some things I really like about it, but I'm starting to have trouble with the lack of progress and development in the main character. He starts as a very precocious youngster; he grows older but isn't really growing up, and by the end of book two we still don't seem to have made much progress toward the innkeeper we know he becomes. That's not absent, but I don't know that it's going to hold my attention for another book or two.

[IthilanorStPete]

He absolutely can. Name of the Wind is some of the most beautiful language ever put to paper.

Wise Man's Fear, despite its flaws, also has some wonderful writing.

I just finished Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear, and I can't say that he's really doing a lot for me. It's becoming sort of the Harry Potter of adult fiction. There are some things I really like about it, but I'm starting to have trouble with the lack of progress and development in the main character. He starts as a very precocious youngster; he grows older but isn't really growing up, and by the end of book two we still don't seem to have made much progress toward the innkeeper we know he becomes. That's not absent, but I don't know that it's going to hold my attention for another book or two.

Well, Rothfuss has said that there'll be only three books in Kvothe's story. (He said in his recent AMA that he's writing some other stuff in the same universe, though) As for satisfyingly getting Kvothe to Kote the innkeeper...that's one of the big questions of book 3. I think of it like Rothfuss is two-thirds of the way through a complicated gymnastics routine; he's doing very well so far, but he needs to stick the landing. I think he'll get there, because I feel like things are set up for a tragic climax where everything goes to hell, thematically and structurally.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Cespenar
Also finished and liked Name of the Wind recently. I'm either still not bored of the fantasy genre, or the man can write.

You know, I couldn't get past the first couple of pages. The book came highly recommended, but I really could not get into it.

Originally Posted by Cespenar
I tried to get into On Basilisk Station, but got bored of it mid-book. Seems pretty generic military fiction with a side-dish of sci-fi. Not badly written, per se, but simply didn't offer anything new to me.

As far as military SF, have you read Armor, by John Steakey? It's not usually my subgenre, but I liked that one.

[Piggy Knowles]

I more or less enjoyed Name of the Wind, despite having some problems with parts. I really thought Wise Man's Fear had some major issues, though, enough that they outweighed the sections of it that I liked.

[Cheesegear]

Thanks to certain Vs. Threads right here on this forum, I'm reading Honor Harrington, it also helped that the first three (two?) were free on Amazon. I'm up to #8 - Echoes of Honor - and, so far, it's the only book in the entire series that I haven't liked - I'm about 40% of the way through, says my Kindle.

At first I was like "This is just Hornblower in Space!"
...Wait...I like Hornblower.
...Wait...I like Space.
...This is awesome!

[Palanan]

For Hornblower in space, there's always Midshipman's Hope and its several sequels.

The first one came out in about 1994, and I was really impressed by the deeply tortured protagonist, who made hard moral choices and hated himself for it. I followed the series for several more books, and while the main character never seemed to really grow, I still enjoyed the stories.

Until I finally read an actual, original Hornblower novel.

[FinnDarkblade]

I've just recently started the Malazan: Books of the Fallen series which was recommended to me after I like The Black Company so much that I bought the whole series on the spot. I've really been enjoying it so far. What can I say? I like my fantasy dark and bitter.

[Cespenar]

You know, I couldn't get past the first couple of pages. The book came highly recommended, but I really could not get into it.

It may seem slow in the first pages, but it begins to flow a lot faster when you reach the point where he actually starts telling his story.

As far as military SF, have you read Armor, by John Steakey? It's not usually my subgenre, but I liked that one.

No, I didn't. I don't like military SF that much, really, but I may put it on my list if I get more suggestions.

[Feytalist]

And then there's this thread.

Which I haven't seen before.

I'm reading... hmm.

I'm about 60 pages from finishing The Wise Man's Fear. Name of the Wind was excellent. I was hooked literally from the second paragraph. This one... well. Still good. But yeah, the story is progressing hella slow.

I'm also about two thirds through Gardens of the Moon (Malazan book one). It's sorta difficult reading, but I love me some world building. And I'm enjoying it so far. The action is finally picking up the pace.

I'm also reading Miéville's Railsea, but I have to surpress the urge to throw the book out of the window every few minutes. I hate his writing. But I'm going to finish one Miéville book, dammit, even if it kills me.

I just finished reading New Watch, the last in the Night Watch series. Damn but that was a good series. So wonderfully morally grey and cynical. I just love Lukyanenko's writing, even if it is translated. I'm going to have a go at his SF stuff next. (Although who knows, maybe I just loved this one series.)

I also recently finished Chosen, the fourth book in the Alex Verus series. Enjoying this series immensely. Just a shame they're so short, heh. But at least the fifth one is due sometime around September (I think?).

I've also been reading The Fountainhead. I've been reading it since like 2011. It's... slow going. But every month or so I'll read another 20 pages. At this rate it will only take another 2 years or so.

I just started The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. Too early to tell, really (I just read the prologue), but she's done some good stuff previously, so I'm looking forward to this.


Also thanks to this thread I now know the next Witcher book has finally been translated. So guess what I'm getting next


Edit: I seem to have forgotten that I'm also reading non-fiction. I'm reading Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street, in conjunction with The Little Book That Beats the Market, two investment books. Very informative. If you're into that sort of thing, I suppose.

[BWR]

"The fields of blood" was about what one could expect from dingy working class Glasgow murder mystery. Not bad, but certainly not my cup of tea.

On to something a bit more my taste: "Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories". All the big names are here: Scott, James, Saki, Poe, Dickens, Stevenson and more.

[Cespenar]

I'm also reading Miéville's Railsea, but I have to surpress the urge to throw the book out of the window every few minutes. I hate his writing. But I'm going to finish one Miéville book, dammit, even if it kills me.

I don't remember his writing annoying me much in Perdido Street Station, but it's the only book I've read of him yet.

[BWR]

Mieville has good plots and great world-building, but **** characters and writing, at least based on PSS and "The Scar"

[Feytalist]

Mieville has good plots and great world-building, but **** characters and writing, at least based on PSS and "The Scar"

Yep, that sounds about right.

I don't remember his writing annoying me much in Perdido Street Station, but it's the only book I've read of him yet.

I've tried three of his books and couldn't find it in me to finish a single one. The City & The City is the one I hated least, but even then I only got about half way. Railsea is particularly obnoxious because he purposefully uses odd sentence structure and punctuation, but I quite like the premise so we'll see how it goes.

[IthilanorStPete]

Mieville has good plots and great world-building, but **** characters and writing, at least based on PSS and "The Scar"

I kind of agree. I liked the characters in Perdido Street Station, but not in any of his other books.

[Cyrion]

"The fields of blood" was about what one could expect from dingy working class Glasgow murder mystery. Not bad, but certainly not my cup of tea.

On to something a bit more my taste: "Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories". All the big names are here: Scott, James, Saki, Poe, Dickens, Stevenson and more.

Speaking of classic names- have you read Stoker's "The Judge's House?" It showed up in a book of ghost stories I read ages ago and I remember it being a good read.

[BWR]

Speaking of classic names- have you read Stoker's "The Judge's House?" It showed up in a book of ghost stories I read ages ago and I remember it being a good read.

Indeed I have, in a collection of Stoker's work. It was pretty good. Took me a moment to recall it but the story came flooding back to me once I looked it up.