What Books Are You Reading Right Now?

[Qwertystop]

At the moment I'm reading City of Angles. It's a serial novel (well, serial novel trilogy - he's currently finishing up the conclusion of the last/third book) that's also being published in print - Gagne posts things a little bit at a time, people comment and find typoes, then when it's done he starts selling paperback and ebook versions with a bonus side-story added (but leaves all the pieces online as well). It's pretty good - cool setting, interesting characters, reality breaking all over the place and people dealing with it in reasonable ways. Those reactions fall into two categories: caution (because it's not very good to walk into a restaurant and end up in a cathedral whose entryway, if you turn around and go back, leads to a bookshop) and marketing (because if you find a phone that's still on the counter after you pick it up, you've struck gold).

Other than the first two chapters of book one that set everything up, each chapter has a different PoV character (per book - the second and third books stick to the same cast, don't worry) in slightly different plotlines that all mostly wrap up at the end of their chapter, but then it all comes together for a finale at the end of each book. Very neat reading.

Somehow they manage to take [gigantic spoiler] and actually builds an excellent setting out of it. Best I can describe it as is "optimistic horror" - there's creepy stuff, but the creepy stuff is not the point, and the general message is that things can improve.

Spoiler: aforementioned spoiler - do not quote if you don't want to see

Show

"It was all just a dream"

[happyturtle]

I just finished Lock-In by John Scalzi. It was entertaining enough, but not brilliant. I wanted it to be brilliant, because it's about disability, but it was simply an entertaining murder mystery that happened to include disabled people.

[dehro]

halfway through The long war by Pratchett and Baxter. it's... interesting and well written. the challenge, like with the first book, is to figure out who wrote what, and who made what contributions to plot, dialogue and so on. I also find that reading the Pratchett name on the cover does create some level of expectations in terms of style, content, themes and pacing and those expectations are wholly subverted. 2 books in, I'm still trying to figure out if I mind the subversion.

[Eldan]

If you read "A Blink of the Screen", which is a collection of Pratchett's short stories, you see that he can also write some quite serious science fiction.

[dehro]

If you read "A Blink of the Screen", which is a collection of Pratchett's short stories, you see that he can also write some quite serious science fiction.

I have and I know.. but still.

[sameer12]

At present I am reading "The very thought of you" and I found myself very much interesting and I think it will take me couple of days to finished and after that, I am planning to read Sweet offering.

[GloatingSwine]

I also find that reading the Pratchett name on the cover does create some level of expectations in terms of style, content, themes and pacing and those expectations are wholly subverted. 2 books in, I'm still trying to figure out if I mind the subversion.

On the other hand, it does feel a hell of a lot like a Stephen Baxter book.

Anyway, I finally finished Ship of Magic, it grew yet another protagonist before the end and the overall feeling of the book was that I'd read the first 150 pages of four different stories which barely impinge upon one another. I'm sure the cast of thousands will meet up in the other stories, but I don't think it will all turn out to be "worth it" as opposed to editing more savagely and doing the whole thing from one or two perspectives.

I've started reading Empire of Ivory now (book 4 in the Temeraire series, by Naomi Novik), which is probably a lot less ambitious than the average Robin Hobb story (it's Sharpe with dragons) but I'm 45 pages in and the main challenge and stakes for the story are already established. Fancy that!

[thorgrim29]

I recently finished "The first fifteen lifes of Harry August" by Claire North. It's about a subset of humanity that relives their lives over an over again (it's full of paradoxes, but whatever). The main character gets a message from the future that the end of the world is getting faster at each ieration, and embarks on a multi-life quest to find out why and fix it.

It's pretty good, a lot slower paced and with less action then what I usually read, but fun

[Feytalist]

Picked up the xkcd What-If? book for myself over the weekend. It's hardly your average novel, but it's hilarious and interesting at the same time. (Hilaresting.) Good for some timewasting when you should be studying.


I've come to the conclusion that some of the great classics... aren't, really. Out of the very few books that I've found it impossible to finish, Moby Dick was one. Robinson Crusoe was another. Just so... dry. Sheesh.

[Aolbain]

I've started reading Empire of Ivory now (book 4 in the Temeraire series, by Naomi Novik), which is probably a lot less ambitious than the average Robin Hobb story (it's Sharpe with dragons) but I'm 45 pages in and the main challenge and stakes for the story are already established. Fancy that!

Empire of Ivory was properly the worst book in the series. Not that it was awful, but the alternate history went to places I didn't feel had been foreshadowed enough.

[Thiel]

I'm currently re-reading the Serrano Legacy by Elizabeth Moon. I'm currently partway through Change of Command, the sixth book.
It's a pretty decent military space opera which makes some interesting points on how extremely long lifespans would affect human cultures and on governments in general.

[veti]

Currently I'm reading a non-fiction book, 'Dirty Politics'. It's a detailed and authoritative, but irritatingly polemical, account of backhanded collaboration between certain politicians and one particularly unpleasant blogger. If it's of any interest to you, you've probably already heard quite a lot about it.

Picked up the xkcd What-If? book for myself over the weekend. It's hardly your average novel, but it's hilarious and interesting at the same time. (Hilaresting.) Good for some timewasting when you should be studying.

I've been wondering about that - how much of it is original material, and to what extent is it recycled from the website?

I ordered a copy for my father, but he doesn't do 'online' so he can't answer that.

I've come to the conclusion that some of the great classics... aren't, really. Out of the very few books that I've found it impossible to finish, Moby Dick was one. Robinson Crusoe was another. Just so... dry. Sheesh.

You have to make allowances. (Well, you don't have to. Unless you want to understand why they're considered "great".) Allowances for the huge changes in language, frames of reference, audience education and expectations, since they were written.

[Gnoman]

You have to make allowances. (Well, you don't have to. Unless you want to understand why they're considered "great".) Allowances for the huge changes in language, frames of reference, audience education and expectations, since they were written.

-EDIT- MIxed up titles in my mind. Post deleted.

[Feytalist]

I've been wondering about that - how much of it is original material, and to what extent is it recycled from the website?

I ordered a copy for my father, but he doesn't do 'online' so he can't answer that.

About half/half, I'd say. I might be missing a few that I can't remember from the website, but there is enough new material to make it worthwhile I think. Of course, someone who doesn't follow the website won't have that problem anyway.

There's a couple of sections where he simply printed some of the weirdest questions he received without answering them, except for some funny pictures. Highly amusing.

You have to make allowances. (Well, you don't have to. Unless you want to understand why they're considered "great".) Allowances for the huge changes in language, frames of reference, audience education and expectations, since they were written.

Understood, but that is part of the problem, I think. So much has changed since they were written, much of the stuff isn't relevant any more. In relation to modern works, they're simply dull. It could be that they're considered great now, simply because they were considered great in the past.

It's a common argument, I know. Should novels be read in a vacuum absent of contemporary knowledge, or should they be considered in the centre of a whole slew of historical context? Whatever. I found it boring as hell.

(I enjoyed Gulliver's Travels though, so there Although much of its parody is still relevant today anyway.)

[Eldan]

What If is worth it even if you have already read the website extensively. There's quite a few new questions there.

Also nice: the blurb on the back: it directly adresses the reader and explains several uses for the book and how efficient it would be at it ("This book as armour", "This book as a projectile" etc.) Also: "Bonus feature: this book contains words!"

[Piggy Knowles]

Would What If? be worth it without the pictures?

I listen to audiobooks a lot, since I am in a car ~6 hours a day, and I recently saw that What If? was on sale as an audiobook, narrated by Wil Wheaton. (He's actually narrated a lot of fun books, such as the Merlin cycle of the Chronicles of Amber.) I've enjoyed the web series, but it feels wrong to get an audio version of something so inherently tied in to a visual medium.

[Eldan]

It does have the pictures. Just no mouse-over text.

[Feytalist]

It does have the pictures. Just no mouse-over text.

I sincerely doubt that the audiobook has pictures

Would What If? be worth it without the pictures?

I'd say... probably not. Like you said, the pictures are such an integral part of the idea. As are the footnotes. But maybe they work around it somehow, by adding more lines or something? I wouldn't know.

[Piggy Knowles]

Footnotes are always odd in audiobooks. Some handle them fairly well - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was a surprisingly good audiobook despite the reliance on footnotes, because the narrator managed to integrate them into the main story without it being too disruptive. On the other hand, Infinite Jest was way tougher. It released its footnotes as a separate PDF that came with the audio file... which is totally useless if, say, you're listening to the book while driving or going for a run, the two main times I listen to audiobooks. Also, it's kind of disruptive, because you have to actually pause the audiobook when it references a footnote, open up the PDF, read it, and press play on the audiobook only to pause it again two words later.

Anyhow, I guess I'll pass on What If? in audio format and just get the physical book. I kind of suspected that it was going to be a miss even with the Wil Wheaton narration, just because Randall Munroe's illustration style is such a big part of his humor.

[warty goblin]

Finished the second of the DSA books. Actually not half bad, but bad enough to make me want to read something actually good. Which was precisely the point. I'm thinking Tess of the D'Urbervilles next.

[Knaight]

Finished the second of the DSA books. Actually not half bad, but bad enough to make me want to read something actually good. Which was precisely the point. I'm thinking Tess of the D'Urbervilles next.

It's a pretty good book. There are a few frustrations (the author was ahead of his time, but sometimes it feels like he wasn't quite ahead of his time enough, and there's an attitude in the subtext that is almost where it should be), but it's an engaging read, it's still far more topical than it has any business being, and I never found it dry. I say this as someone who generally does like classics, but also as someone who has a list of classics and "modern classics" that are pretty much there to take potshots at.

[Yora]

I read Swords and Deviltry today, the first of the Lamkhmar books. And I have to say it's quite bad. Not painfully horrible, but probably the worst written fantasy I've read other than Ed Greenwood. Maybe things were simpler in the 60s, but I doubt it would find a publishet today. It seems to do half the things that are today considered beginners mistakes that could easily be avoided by doing a minimal bit of research on common mistakes.

It's not so much that I feel the writer is terrible and has no idea what he's doing, but from the "Grand Master of Sword & Sorcery", I really had expected a lot more,

[Eulalios]

I read Swords and Deviltry today, the first of the Lamkhmar books. And I have to say it's quite bad. Not painfully horrible, but probably the worst written fantasy I've read other than Ed Greenwood. Maybe things were simpler in the 60s, but I doubt it would find a publishet today. It seems to do half the things that are today considered beginners mistakes that could easily be avoided by doing a minimal bit of research on common mistakes.

It's not so much that I feel the writer is terrible and has no idea what he's doing, but from the "Grand Master of Sword & Sorcery", I really had expected a lot more,

Many things now considered beginners' errors were quite stylish before literate people grew sick of them. Although Lieber was by no means the first in swords and sorcery (that might have been Talbot Mundy, sixty years earlier?) many of the quirks you find tiresome may still retain their freshness who read his work BEFORE the many imitations that followed. Kind of like Mondrian's paintings, or those of Monet, do not come across to a modern audience as innovative works, but merely as exemplars of a style?

[Yora]

I got myself to continue with Swords against Death, the second book in the continuity, which includes the oldest stories. The "prolog" dates from the same year as two of the stories from Swords and Deviltry, and is just as bad, if not even more so.
The first story is a noticable step upward, which unfortunately still only elevates it to mediocricy.

I'll read at least two more and try to make it through the whole book, but unless things improve significantly, I am not going to force myself to try another one.

[Cespenar]

I read Swords and Deviltry today, the first of the Lamkhmar books. And I have to say it's quite bad. Not painfully horrible, but probably the worst written fantasy I've read other than Ed Greenwood. Maybe things were simpler in the 60s, but I doubt it would find a publishet today. It seems to do half the things that are today considered beginners mistakes that could easily be avoided by doing a minimal bit of research on common mistakes.

It's not so much that I feel the writer is terrible and has no idea what he's doing, but from the "Grand Master of Sword & Sorcery", I really had expected a lot more,

Huh, I wonder what were these mistakes that I apparently overlooked all the way. I mean, the book itself wasn't anything eye-opening to me as well, but I expected that.

[Yora]

Since you asked:

Spoiler

Show

The first story is set in the Cold Corner of the Cold Wastes, where Fafhrd and other barbarians live with the Snow Women and the Snow Girls, and where you can find Snow Snakes and Snow Potatoes, and he treates an injured woman with Snow Bandages. That's like Bat-Copter, Bat-Credit Card, and Bat-Shark Repellant, or dwarves referring to everything in their home city as Dwarven Axe, Dwarven Beer, and Dwarven Pigs when talking among each other.

Fafhrd doesn't have any clear motivations. He is constantly getting in trouble, getting caught, and given a chance to appologize. But he never does and gives everyone the finger and continues antagonizing everyone around him. He tries to be sneaky at several points and remain unseen, but when it becomes clear that this is not going to work, he continues anyway and gets caught. And the people are quite clear that continual disobedience will not get him exiled, but killed. But he doesn't care, he just wants to have fun.
When everything goes finally downhill, he is given another chance to appologize and marry his pregnant girlfriend, who he told he wants to stay with forever and raise their child before, and which has the support of all the parents, but as he always does he refuses out of principle and makes everything just worse for him.
And then he makes his daring escape while trying to make a dangerous jump with his skis, that nobody had ever survived. And he makes it, with the assistance of rocket boosters. Then he runs off with some thief woman from the South who needs some dumb muscle to kill the leader of the thief guild for her revenge.

In the second story, the Gray Mouser comes across as nothing but whiny and overly dramatic. He is supposed to be in anguish and rightfully out for vengance, but the best comparison I can think of is Darth Vader in the last scenes of Revenge of the Sith. The story starts with his master being murdered (yawn), and he accuses his not-quite-girlfriend, who is the villains daughter, of being responsible and permanently tries to torment her with her guilt that her father might have her followed to the old masters home once. Then he is all "I hate you, and want you to suffer", then he just wants to die, and then in the end he of course rides off into the sunset with her. Also, he speaks in unneccessarily archaic words and strangely constructed sentences.

In the third story, the two characters meet by beating up the same two thieves of the guild and instantly think "hey, we should be best buddies", and Gray Mouser immediately takes Fafhrd and his thief girlfriend to his own super secret hideout where he lives with his princess.
Fafhrd tells Gray Mouser "My name is Fafhrd. F, A, F, H, R, D." and mouser asks "How do you pronounce that?". Which doesn't make any sense, since they are talking verbally, not in writing. Also: The writer points out himself that the pronounciation is Fafard. Then why doesn't he spell the name Fafard, but in a way that nobody can read? Bad, bad, noob mistake!
Then the two are getting really drunk and decide to go assassinate the guild leader right now. The one good point I give to the story is that the characters have some awareness that they might possibly be a bit stupid and their ideas of being cool a bit silly, and that Gray Mousers girlfriend might be such a helpless damsel because his overprotectiveness keeps her that way. There is a glimmer of the writer knowing what he's doing, but it doesn't save the story.
As they reach the thieves guild, they realize that a strange animal they saw during their attack on the thieves in the street might be a wizards familiar that could have very well followed them to Mousers hideout and informed his master. And they established earlier that they both need to be super secretive about everything, because the entire thieves guild would come to try and kill them if they find out who those two people are who are attacking thieves at night. But nah, it probably would be fine. No need to get back and warn the women, one of which is an old enemy of the guild master. Yes, they are both quite drunk, but there are so many points where they are debating that they are close to getting themselves and their women killed, but dismiss it as a problem for later every time. And of course the two women do get paralyzed by a guild wizard and eaten by rats while the two heroes are away. It's not quite as terrible as the first two, but this one won a Hugo Award! I am surprised it even got a publisher.

The second book begins with a prolog, that has the two characters fleeing from the city, vowing never to come back. In two sentences it is mentioned that they heard Fafhrds whole tribe was wiped out, including his ex-girlfriend and his child. It's never mentioned again. Then they meet a strange Witch who tells them to go back the the city Lankhmar and then disappears. Shortly after they meet another strange wizard who tells them the same. The story tells us that this was their first encounter with these two mages, which apparently get to come up again in later (but earlier written) stories. Then they just turn around and go back. This was completely pointless.

Three of these four stories were written in the same year as backstory for the already established characters, with the Mousers origin story being 8 years older. But they all just feel half-assed.
The rest of the second book, which is most of the earliest written stories, is not as terrible, but still far from good. There are pretty much no descriptions how anything looks like. In one story, the two are traveling through a plain when first their guide and then Fafhrd disappears. Mouser follows them to a tower where he meets an old man, who immediately tells him pretty much the whole story of what's going on as an exposition dump. Then Mouser forces the man to take them both to the spiritworld where Fafhrd is fighting ghosts, the ghost turn on the man, and the other two are back to normal. This takes about a page or maybe two. Then the story is over. There is virtually no show, only tell.
Another story starts with the duo being cursed by an old man and walking out into the night. Then the majority of the story is about a sailor who traveled with them, on a long sea voyage during which nothing really happens. Then the last scene goes back to the main characters how left the sailors on a strange island. They are attacked by two creatures which seem invincible, but Mouser realized that the source of the creature is a strange big glowing egg, and he smashes the egg and the creatures fall over, the story done. And I am not leaving out all the details, there are really not much details. Almost all of the stories from the second book I read (about halfway through), are about the two traveling somewhere and only on the last 4 or 5 pages something unusually finally starts to happen, which is immediately resolved.

To summarize:
No buildup
No descriptions
No motivations
Bad, cheesy dialog
Barely any discovery
No development

[dehro]

mmmh I see your point, but at the same time, it comes off a bit as if you were complaining that Pythagoras didn't get quantum physics.
Those things that can be easily googled today and have been the subject of many a lesson on how not to put together a story were written at a time that predates ubiquitous "creative writing" classes run by people with genuine talent just as much as by people who couldn't hack it as writers and spend their lives criticizing others and compiling lists on what's good and what is not.
They predate the many great works of literature that have now set the bar much higher.
They predate the refinement of the palate of the average reader who today has a wealth of alternatives, some good, some masterpieces and some not so good. If those same stories were written today, they wouldn't be up to scratch, the same way a new car deprived of seatbelts wouldn't pass the safety tests and wouldn't be put on the street.
Today's rookie mistakes were not considered such at a time when anybody approaching the genre was a rookie or wasn't giving it the consideration and effort it was later recognized to deserve.
For their time and the context they were written in, they were rather good and made for decent reading.
As reading material for a young reader who has yet to be exposed to some of the better authors, it may still work today, though you could question that he might just as well skip them altogether and go straight for the good stuff.
Also consider the context: those stories were not written for straight publication as books... they were stuff quickly put together, to be printed inside a magazine.
Many of the stories that were consumed avidly by readers of the pulp magazines of the day would not stand up to today's stringent criteria for what makes a good story, because since then the genre has developed and expanded to the point where certain standards have been created where there were none. They were the literary clean equivalent of porn... the purpose was to titilate the reader's interest by presenting a scene and keeping him interested enough to buy into the next scene. The idea never really was to develop a saga or comprehensive tale or masterpiece. Asking for a complete character development or epic and comprehensive tale would be like asking for porn movies to have a plot. They may have one, but they can live perfectly fine without it and still get the job done.
Any backstory written was there purely to be a crutch to the writer and keep things vaguelly coherent to avoid angry readers write about glaring plotholes and threaten to unsubscribe. Some stories became great sagas later on, some remained what they were and were mostly left untouched, some remained untouched but still acquired cult status (think of Lovecraft or Howard). They may feel half assed because that's what they were. Disposable literature that was produced at quick pace, for little money and with little scope beyond putting out next week's magazine.

[Cespenar]

Yeah, what dehro said.

Also, I came very close to stop reading the post at the "Fafard" point. Instant counterpoint even if unnecessary: Kvothe explaining how his name is read, in The Name of the Wind, which I hope you won't bash down as poorly written as well, for both our sakes.

[dehro]

P.S. For the language issue.. Think of the times, of when Leiber grew up. That sort of archaic speach pattern is very much in the style of your average Errol Flynn type of pirate movies which would be very familiar to the author and his readers.

[warty goblin]

I haven't gotten around to reading Lieber yet, but to be honest, one of my favorite aspects of old pulps is their tendency to just have things happen. Then again, I am also on record as thinking that 'show, don't tell' is a horrible rule that often leads to flavorless, tedious bloat, and frequently causes a fixation on trees when the forest should have primacy.