What Books Are You Reading Right Now?

[Piggy Knowles]

Pushing my way through Rise of Endymion. Honestly, it's not terrible, and it's actually a big improvement over Endymion, but I lost momentum with the last book and haven't been able to power through Rise the way I usually do. The universe is certainly interesting, and Simmons has some neat ideas, but for whatever reason these two books just aren't working for me. If they had been the first two in the series instead of the last two, I don't think I would have made it this far.

Anyhow, I'm only about a quarter of the way through Rise. I think I read all of Hyperion in the time it has taken me to get this far...

[Palanan]

You may just need a Simmons break. Nothing wrong with that.

[warty goblin]

No kidding. Really expensive to get a reprint on Amazon, compared to more recent books from the 70s and onward.

But we'll see about ILLs.

This is the edition I got. It's pretty nice in terms of printing etc, and the introduction is good if not vital. Just allow four to five weeks for the surly warehouse temp to forge a sword out of starmetal under a full moon at the crossroads, quench the blade in the blood of a white stag, and descend the Stairs of Madness into the Nether Pit to vanquish The Great Moist One Clad in Slime, Shqualgok the Demon Toad-God of reprints.

Remarkably, all of this is covered by the $6.00 S&H fee, which explains why the warehouse temp is so surly. That barely covers the dry-cleaning expenses.

[Feytalist]

I suspect that the sort of reader who likes to say things are dated and/or problematic would say this is dated and/or problematic in a lot of ways, but it very much worked for me.

Sounds exactly like the sort of thing I shouldn't read, then. Heh.

Although, actually, I'm quite fine with dated works. As long as they, uhm, stay dated. 1930's Weird Tales is great, if that is explicitly what you set out to read.

Ahh, memories.

Hey, I'm still reading Malazan.


Taking a small break now with a blast from the past: the novelisation of the original Men in Black movie. Why I have this I have no idea, but it's one of the most hilarious things I've ever read. It's as if Will Smith wrote his character's dialogue himself. The whole book is campy and pulpy and low-brow and great.

[warty goblin]

Sounds exactly like the sort of thing I shouldn't read, then. Heh.

Although, actually, I'm quite fine with dated works. As long as they, uhm, stay dated. 1930's Weird Tales is great, if that is explicitly what you set out to read.

To be honest, I tend to like things specifically because they're dated. The earlier renditions of a theme often lack the polish of its later evolutions, but they usually have a lot more edge and raw life to them.

[Aolbain]

Bujolds Diplomatic Immunity. It's good, but far from her best.

[IthilanorStPete]

Picked up C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen and Ursula K. LeGuin's Lavinia from the library, along with a collection of LeGuin short stories. I haven't read anything by either of them before, so I'm looking forward to exploring their work.

[LibraryOgre]

100 pages from the end of Game of Thrones and Clash of Kings arrives in the delivery today.

[blacklight101]

After I finish Count of Monte Cristo, I think I might read Dune again. Just the first book though (not to say the rest aren't good, I just really liked the first one).

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete
Picked up C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen and Ursula K. LeGuin's Lavinia from the library, along with a collection of LeGuin short stories. I haven't read anything by either of them before….

Much as I enjoy CJ's worlds and writing, Cyteen may not be the best one to start with. It's CJ in a deeply involute mode, and the story takes a very, very long time to get going.

I would suggest starting with something a little quicker and snappier to get a feel for how she rolls. One of her best SF novels is Downbelow Station, which is emotionally nuanced, morally complex and tense as all-get-out in spots. It has a future-historical scope, but the key moments are understated and very personal, and it walks a realistic line between grim and hopeful.

For an inverse look at first contact, you might try Pride of Chanur, which involves several alien species, one especially alien species, and a trading crew that takes him in. It's both fast-paced and thoughtful, with some great action sequences and a few truly hilarious moments.

Another of her best is Foreigner, in which she introduces a wonderfully detailed alien culture and worldview, as gingerly explored by a low-level diplomat and lexicographer. My only reservation about recommending this one is that it's the first in a long-running series, and while it works as a stand-alone novel, it does draw you onward.

And for classic fantasy with a moody Celtic feel, there's The Dreaming Tree, which is an omnibus of The Dreamstone and The Tree of Swords and Jewels. The writing is marvelous, and her approach to the Sidhe is convincingly otherworldly.

So, I'd recommend starting with one of these, and then returning to Cyteen once you have a sense of how CJ tells a story. Just my suggestion, based on the reading I've done. I want you to have the best possible introduction to CJ's writing.

[Marillion]

I'm reading Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle, which just came out a couple months ago. I don't usually buy new books, but JD is one of my favorite musical artists (Singer, songwriter, guitarist of The Mountain Goats) and the lyrics are the best part of his songs, so I knew this would be a gem. 3/4ths through, and I was right. It's about a man who's been isolated for most of his life by a disfiguring facial injury. He starts a play-by-mail RPG, and when two of his players take the game into the real world and someone ends up dead, we start to go back through time, getting snapshots of his life. It's a very dark and sad book, though somehow hopeful at the same time.

The highlight is definitely JD's turns of phrase. He's got such a gift for metaphor, for expressing in words things every sad person has felt but been unable to say. I haven't finished it yet, but I know I'm going to read and re-read this book.

[warty goblin]

Finished Black God's Shadow, the second Jirel of Joiry story. The first one was good, this one blew it out of the water. A truly capital variation on the classic journey to the underworld, with some delicious language, hints of an unexpectedly nuanced moral structure, and imagery so trippy it makes the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey look positively tame. The Achilles comparison breaks down here, since the driver of the story is no longer rage and destruction but emotional life and redemption. Fortunately there's still an immediate classical reference in Dante Alighieri's Inferno. Or, if you insist on keeping the Homeric comparison going, the story is the really weird metaphysical version of the audience with King Priam by way of Lovecraft.

Also, it's worth noting that after two stories, there have been a sum total of three characters with names; one of whom is almost entirely irrelevant. There's something to be said for being parsimonious with characters.

[Piggy Knowles]

I'm reading Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle, which just came out a couple months ago. I don't usually buy new books, but JD is one of my favorite musical artists (Singer, songwriter, guitarist of The Mountain Goats) and the lyrics are the best part of his songs, so I knew this would be a gem. 3/4ths through, and I was right. It's about a man who's been isolated for most of his life by a disfiguring facial injury. He starts a play-by-mail RPG, and when two of his players take the game into the real world and someone ends up dead, we start to go back through time, getting snapshots of his life. It's a very dark and sad book, though somehow hopeful at the same time.

The highlight is definitely JD's turns of phrase. He's got such a gift for metaphor, for expressing in words things every sad person has felt but been unable to say. I haven't finished it yet, but I know I'm going to read and re-read this book.

I read this a couple of months ago and absolutely loved it. One of my favorite books of the year.

[turkishproverb]

Reading Too Long A Sacrifice by Mildred Downey Broxon. Unusual little book.

[IthilanorStPete]

Much as I enjoy CJ's worlds and writing, Cyteen may not be the best one to start with. It's CJ in a deeply involute mode, and the story takes a very, very long time to get going.

I would suggest starting with something a little quicker and snappier to get a feel for how she rolls. One of her best SF novels is Downbelow Station, which is emotionally nuanced, morally complex and tense as all-get-out in spots. It has a future-historical scope, but the key moments are understated and very personal, and it walks a realistic line between grim and hopeful.

For an inverse look at first contact, you might try Pride of Chanur, which involves several alien species, one especially alien species, and a trading crew that takes him in. It's both fast-paced and thoughtful, with some great action sequences and a few truly hilarious moments.

Another of her best is Foreigner, in which she introduces a wonderfully detailed alien culture and worldview, as gingerly explored by a low-level diplomat and lexicographer. My only reservation about recommending this one is that it's the first in a long-running series, and while it works as a stand-alone novel, it does draw you onward.

And for classic fantasy with a moody Celtic feel, there's The Dreaming Tree, which is an omnibus of The Dreamstone and The Tree of Swords and Jewels. The writing is marvelous, and her approach to the Sidhe is convincingly otherworldly.

So, I'd recommend starting with one of these, and then returning to Cyteen once you have a sense of how CJ tells a story. Just my suggestion, based on the reading I've done. I want you to have the best possible introduction to CJ's writing.

Well...Cyteen was what they had at the library. There were a bunch of books in the Foreigner series, but not Foreigner itself. I'll keep an eye out for other books of hers.

[BWR]

Well...Cyteen was what they had at the library. There were a bunch of books in the Foreigner series, but not Foreigner itself. I'll keep an eye out for other books of hers.

You might enjoy the Faded Sun trilogy. Not to be confused with the Fading Suns rpg. Sort of a Cherryh take on sword and gun planetary romances.

[LibraryOgre]

Well...Cyteen was what they had at the library. There were a bunch of books in the Foreigner series, but not Foreigner itself. I'll keep an eye out for other books of hers.

Ask your librarian about interlibrary loan!

[warty goblin]

Taking a break from Jirel of Joiry for Thanksgiving break, since the collection isn't very long and I was halfway through it. Instead I jumped into Northwest of Earth, a collection of C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories. These are basically Han Solo meets H.P. Lovecraft. This works surprisingly well.

Am also halfway through Troy and Homer: Towards the Solution to an Old Mystery, which is a translation of a German text summarizing the last hundred and thirty years of archaeology in the Troad and the related discovery and research into the Hittite empire. The Trojan stuff is mostly material I had already seen referenced in one place or another, but Latacz writes up the story very well, it is very nice to have the entire argument laid out in one place and a lot of the Hittite stuff is new. I was previously aware for instance of the cuneiform Hittite archives discovered at Hati, but had never heard about the 'hieroglyphic' Luwain script before. I had seen mention of the letter from the Hittite king to the ruler of Wilusa mentioning the water tunnel before as well, but had never seen the description of this as having been a local deity, which is a fascinating detail. The water tunnel would have been well in excess of a thousand years old by the time of the letter.

[Feytalist]

Finished The Dark Defiles during the weekend. I'm slightly conflicted. The first two thirds of the book was such a great read. Fast-paced, intriguing, heaps of backstory. And then somehow in the last bit, two of the until-this-point main characters got hilariously sidelined and their character arcs ended without influencing the main plot whatsoever. Make no mistake, the actual ending was glorious. Well, as satisfactory as a Richard Morgan ending can be. The man does not do happy endings. It's just as if he intended to write another book, but somehow got forced into finishing the plot in this one. Oh well. At least the story threads got tied up pretty awesomely.


Somehow during the years of reading David Gemmell I missed the Stones of Power series. A friend gave me the omnibus yesterday. It's Gemmell, so I'm assuming that it will at least be not completely terrible. Sometimes it's nice to go back to something familiar

Also started on Malazan book 7 (wow I'm at book 7 already), Reaper's Gale. The previous one was my favourite of the series so far. Let's see how this one goes.

[BWR]

Now that WoT is finished (and strictly speaking has been for a while) I decided to finish it. I'm about half way through "Eye of the world" after a couple hours of reading, mostly because I'm skimming a lot of stuff. I knew intellectually there was a lot of bloat in the series but I had forgotten just how bad it is. I'm all for world building and in general have no problem with things taking the long, scenic route to get to the end but the scenery along the way has to be engaging. It isn't exactly bad but you aren't really missing out on much if you don't pay 100% attention.

[Verte]

Ok, I guess I'll jump into this thread. Right now I'm reading Going Postal, and I'm about a fifth of the way through. I've realized that the most recent Discworld novel I had read before this is Lords and Ladies, or maybe Wintersmith, which didn't feel as connected to Discworld. I had read the first fourteen novels roughly in order otherwise. My point is - am I supposed to know what the clacks are beforehand, or is that something that is revealed in this book?

[thorgrim29]

Let's see, since I last posted here I've read up until the second to last book of the Safehold series. My conclusion is that it's a fairly good series, but it's badly edited and when a character has 2 titles and a name the author need to stick to one of the 3 instead of alternating.

I've also read book 2 and 3 of the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch. I still like the series but book 1 is the best one yet. Book 2 is almost as good. Book 3 is hampered a lot by the framing device of alternating between present day and flashbacks on a one to one basis, and neither story is really all that engaging. Its also the less self contained of the series, and I'm sure that it set up a lot of things for the future of the series, so it's still well worth reading.

Right now I'm about 20 pages in 1632, I'm a bit afraid it's going to be too 'Murican for my taste, but the basic idea is super engaging

[LibraryOgre]

Finished The Dark Defiles during the weekend. I'm slightly conflicted. The first two thirds of the book was such a great read. Fast-paced, intriguing, heaps of backstory. And then somehow in the last bit, two of the until-this-point main characters got hilariously sidelined and their character arcs ended without influencing the main plot whatsoever. Make no mistake, the actual ending was glorious. Well, as satisfactory as a Richard Morgan ending can be. The man does not do happy endings. It's just as if he intended to write another book, but somehow got forced into finishing the plot in this one. Oh well. At least the story threads got tied up pretty awesomely.

I think Archidi and Egar's arcs ended like they did so the story can somewhat continue (even if he doesn't write it); there's very much an implication that Archidi is going to fall into the plot around her.

And what could be cooler than Gil getting to end his story with a god bringing him a final cigarette?

[dehro]

Ok, I guess I'll jump into this thread. Right now I'm reading Going Postal, and I'm about a fifth of the way through. I've realized that the most recent Discworld novel I had read before this is Lords and Ladies, or maybe Wintersmith, which didn't feel as connected to Discworld. I had read the first fourteen novels roughly in order otherwise. My point is - am I supposed to know what the clacks are beforehand, or is that something that is revealed in this book?

the clacks appeared in the fift elephant where they were introduced and were a fairly important plot device. in Going Postal their story and technology is further expanded and they are central to the plot

[Verte]

Ok, thanks - do you think I need to read The Fifth Elephant before continuing with Going Postal? I hadn't realized I was jumping ahead so far when I picked it up....

[Eldan]

It shouldn't be too much of a problem. I don't think the mechanics were ever much explained. Though earlier books (Fifth Elephant and Thud) went into the politics of clacks a bit.

They are more complicated semaphores. Think a purely mechanical telegraph line that operates with flags or moving arms or lights.

They are politically important because they change the travel times of messages from weeks to hours.

[dehro]

Ok, thanks - do you think I need to read The Fifth Elephant before continuing with Going Postal? I hadn't realized I was jumping ahead so far when I picked it up....

Not really, what the clacks are and how they work is a central theme of going postal, so I'm fairly sure you get enough exposition about them to get it even without their initial introduction. All of Pratchett's books are self contained. You may have missed a few promotions occurring in the ranks of the city watch, but those don't really matter.
I would however not miss out on the fifth elephant, albeit at another time. It is one of my favourites.

[Feytalist]

I think Archidi and Egar's arcs ended like they did so the story can somewhat continue (even if he doesn't write it); there's very much an implication that Archidi is going to fall into the plot around her.

And what could be cooler than Gil getting to end his story with a god bringing him a final cigarette?

Yeah, I figure that too. It's just that I thought they were going to have a part in the whole Aldrain storyline. And in the end they didn't, at all.

But really, I love how their respective arcs ended. I'm a big fan of open-ended endings like Archeth's (and Gil's, but is there really any other way that particular set-up can turn out). Even Egar's ending was... apt. But in the end, it's just slightly disjointed.

And yeah, the gods really stole the show in this one

[BWR]

On to "The Great Hunt".
I haven't read the first two books since high school, so make that some 18 years ago. I think what I liked best about the series was all the mystery and ancient secrets and history. The actual characters were pretty bland and the current politics and action weren't as cool as reading about weird archways that give people answers or gifts, dreamworlds or ancient artifacts you have no clue what do.

[LibraryOgre]

And yeah, the gods really stole the show in this one

I read the first two mostly out of loyalty to Morgan; the third REALLY stole the show.