How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is amazing. I have the final sentence of it hanging on my wall. My wife was so taken by it she cross-stitched the entire thing for me.
Absolutely beautiful, heart-wrenching book.
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What are you reading? (May 2017)
- Thread starter Maklershed
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How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is amazing. I have the final sentence of it hanging on my wall. My wife was so taken by it she cross-stitched the entire thing for me.
Absolutely beautiful, heart-wrenching book.
Blasted through the last three available books of the Saxon Series (The Empty Throne, Warriors of the Storm and The Flame Bearer). Feels like he's been playing it safe the last few books - while he's rarely defeated there have at least been consequences for his actions, but just recently he's marching forth almost unchallenged. Still fun though, even if nothing has matched The Pale Horseman as far as I'm concerned.
Moving on to The Great Passage, which was a Kindle First book:
Thought the premise interesting, so I'm giving it a go.
Moving on to The Great Passage, which was a Kindle First book:
Thought the premise interesting, so I'm giving it a go.
Maklershed
Member
Putting The Last Mortal Bond on pause for a day or two while I read The Running Man. I just watched the movie again yesterday and got curious as to how it compares to the book. So far its pretty different - Ben Richards volunteers to go to the game show network to make money to so he can take his sick daughter to a doctor (as opposed to being forced into it as punishment). And he is not a particularly tough guy. He's 6'2" but 165lbs. I also find it interesting that the setting of the book is more depressing and authoritarian than in the movie. It reminds me a lot of 1984.
The Running Man by Richard Bachman
The Running Man by Richard Bachman
Jag
Member
I love Cornwell, but his books are the definition of formulaic. Almost every book follows a similar pattern. Saw that with the Sharpe series as well. I enjoyed them for what they were. Pulpy action oriented stories in a historical fiction setting. But they generally don't stray very far from the basic formula.
Does it make sense out of context? Now I'm curious....
The first Dark Tower book is sort of slow. The Drawing of Three is much better. As are books 3 and 4. I never read the final 3 novels that King pumped out after getting hit by that vehicle/almost dying about 15 years ago.
Lovecraft Country
This was entertaining but I felt a little let down by the end. My problem with it is that it's too clean, too neat, and overall way too happy. The tone of the book is fantastic - it's set in 50s America from the perspective of a black family, and is made up of shorter stories from the perspective of the different family members getting into weird supernatural situations. There's an overarching plot and a conclusion, but I think that's where my beef is. For something inspired by Lovecraftian tales, this definitely falls into the category of Happy Lovecraft. It's the sort of Lovecraftian story you find in mainstream videogames where you can actually win at the end, and the horror flavoring is about building the atmosphere of a conspiracy, a cult, and cool cosmic horror mythology without the actual hopelessness of cosmic horror.
I liked the characters, once again I looooove the tone, and a couple of the stories are actually pretty outstanding, but overall everything fit together way too neatly and it made the world which was impressed upon the reader to be much larger than our imagination feel so small instead. The social commentary cuts deep though, and overall works really well. The HBO show will probably be well received if they are faithful. There's some good humor in it too which could play off really well with a good cast.
The cover is fucking awesome though. Would recommend the book based on that alone. (lol)
This was entertaining but I felt a little let down by the end. My problem with it is that it's too clean, too neat, and overall way too happy. The tone of the book is fantastic - it's set in 50s America from the perspective of a black family, and is made up of shorter stories from the perspective of the different family members getting into weird supernatural situations. There's an overarching plot and a conclusion, but I think that's where my beef is. For something inspired by Lovecraftian tales, this definitely falls into the category of Happy Lovecraft. It's the sort of Lovecraftian story you find in mainstream videogames where you can actually win at the end, and the horror flavoring is about building the atmosphere of a conspiracy, a cult, and cool cosmic horror mythology without the actual hopelessness of cosmic horror.
I liked the characters, once again I looooove the tone, and a couple of the stories are actually pretty outstanding, but overall everything fit together way too neatly and it made the world which was impressed upon the reader to be much larger than our imagination feel so small instead. The social commentary cuts deep though, and overall works really well. The HBO show will probably be well received if they are faithful. There's some good humor in it too which could play off really well with a good cast.
The cover is fucking awesome though. Would recommend the book based on that alone. (lol)
The Culture Vulture
Member
Lovecraft Country
This was entertaining but I felt a little let down by the end. My problem with it is that it's too clean, too neat, and overall way too happy. The tone of the book is fantastic - it's set in 50s America from the perspective of a black family, and is made up of shorter stories from the perspective of the different family members getting into weird supernatural situations. There's an overarching plot and a conclusion, but I think that's where my beef is. For something inspired by Lovecraftian tales, this definitely falls into the category of Happy Lovecraft. It's the sort of Lovecraftian story you find in mainstream videogames where you can actually win at the end, and the horror flavoring is about building the atmosphere of a conspiracy, a cult, and cool cosmic horror mythology without the actual hopelessness of cosmic horror.
I liked the characters, once again I looooove the tone, and a couple of the stories are actually pretty outstanding, but overall everything fit together way too neatly and it made the world which was impressed upon the reader to be much larger than our imagination feel so small instead. The social commentary cuts deep though, and overall works really well. The HBO show will probably be well received if they are faithful. There's some good humor in it too which could play off really well with a good cast.
The cover is fucking awesome though. Would recommend the book based on that alone. (lol)
Oh man. I'm starting this tomorrow. Hope I like it a bit more.
Finished Watership Down and Mongrels which I enjoyed quite a bit and would recommend if you were looking for a werewolf story that has it's own spin on the mythology.
Go into it with the right expectation and I think it'll be fine. It's an entertaining read but more pulp horror with black humor than true Lovecraftian. I just expected a bit more from the premise but everything else worked for me. The main running theme is that in Jim Crow America, no matter what terrible horrors you run into, it can't really be worse than the reality you already have to deal with as a black person. Which is a pretty cool and fresh approach!
I don't want to spoil any of the premises of the other stories in the book after the first one, but I reaaaaally liked two of them in particular.
AngmarsKing701
Member
It's been many years now, but I don't remember the first book feeling slow for me. It definitely moves even faster after that though. Wizard and the Glass (book 4?) is outstanding and probably the best in the series, and it works even as a stand alone story. I remember finishing 5 but it was a huge drag and I got through half of 6 before calling it quits. Definitely wasn't the same, and they got more and more bloated and filled with (imo) irrelevant indulgence in Kingverse fanservice.
Maklershed
Member
Thanks to your post I bit too.
Maybe slow is the wrong word. The series picks up in book 2, and as such, book 2 is a more interesting read. Maybe part of that is that we get the other main cast members beyond Roland and Jake.
Finished up Peril at End House by Agatha Christie over the weekend. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Up there with the best of Christie that I've read. Glad I picked it up for $2 during the recent Kindle sale.
I'm now reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. This is pretty dark. I expected a Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice type-story and to a certain extent that's what I'm getting, but the characters are largely made up of manipulative sociopaths and their victims. It's good so far, a little plodding in its pacing but I'm enjoying the depth of characterization.
I'm now reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. This is pretty dark. I expected a Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice type-story and to a certain extent that's what I'm getting, but the characters are largely made up of manipulative sociopaths and their victims. It's good so far, a little plodding in its pacing but I'm enjoying the depth of characterization.
Ranger Taffles
Member
I personally find Moth Smoke to be his best work. It depicted my city in a way I could instantly relate and understand about, so I could be a bit biased there. But I remember the expression brought out the story so well and the characterization is just superb.
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is pretty decent as well, although I found some parts of it oddly predictable. It does have a memorable narrative around the plot.
Personally, I'll recommend Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, In Other Wonders. It's a great collection of short-stories which broadly centers around similar social factors and deeper issues conflicted within such societies (South Asia). Just exceptionally vivid with brilliant storytelling.
Puck Beaverton
Banned
Snow Crash
I am currently about half of the way through Underground Airlines
The book is well written, and I am enjoying the characters and the proximate story, but I am having a damn hard time not letting the underlying concept pull me out of things.
If you have never heard of the book, it is set in an alternate timeline where Lincoln was assassinated before he took office. This caused the North and South to de-escalate what would have led to the American Civil War, and instead make a truce on the issue of Slavery to hold the Union together. As such, that timeline's 18th Amendment protects slavery for all time in slave owning states, and slavery is still in practice during the 2010s when the book is set.
That in itself is such a large stretch (given world history in the proceeding 150 years) that I had a really hard time swallowing it. To add to it, the author constantly makes pop culture references to people like Michael Jackson or Denzel Washington, like everyone would have magically been born and ended up doing generally the same thing with such a drastic change in American history...
Stuff like that is a pet peeve of mine. Otherwise, the first half is pretty good.
I didn't feel the pop references were that unreasonable. There are about only 4 or 5 states that still have slavery so life in the other 46 states is somewhat similar to the real world.
This has some very good writing in it, but it ultimately comes away feeling like less than the sum of its parts. Especially, the climaxwas not terribly engaging, and felt like it had little to do with what came before (though, conversely, the twist that precipitates it is well-handled). The biggest thing is probably that this is almost 800 pages long, and doesn't at all feel like it needs to be almost 800 pages long.involving a shootout in Amsterdam
Have you read The Secret History? One of my personal favorites, but I've kept away from The Goldfinch because I've heard it's so-so. Just wondering how it compares.
More_Badass
Member
After my detour over the last few months into horror/sci-fi/fantasy, I'm back on the history nonfiction train
Wedgwood and Crowley have that fantastic ability to make history read like literary fiction or an adventure novel, while still seamlessly injecting the necessary facts and context. Scars of Independence is a brutal read; it certainly is true to its promise of presenting the Revolution in its stark bloody merciless reality rather than the near mythical way it's usually portrayed in textbooks
Wedgwood and Crowley have that fantastic ability to make history read like literary fiction or an adventure novel, while still seamlessly injecting the necessary facts and context. Scars of Independence is a brutal read; it certainly is true to its promise of presenting the Revolution in its stark bloody merciless reality rather than the near mythical way it's usually portrayed in textbooks
I've decided to read Robert Frost's poetry collections one by one over time, which is a lot easier to digest than trying to go through the whole thing at once. There's only so much you can read at one time before you need a break and it all starts to blur together. Anyway, this time around I read Mountain Interval, Frost's third published collection.
This opens with "The Road Not Taken", one of Frost's most famous works, but I'd never heard of any of the other poems included here. There's a lot of rustic nature poetry, as you'd expect for a writer with Frost's reputation, and a smattering of other subjects and tones. "Brown's Descent" is quite whimsical, while "Out, Out-" takes one of the sharpest turns into tragedy this side of Robert Browning's "Porphyria's Lover". "Range-Finding" is perhaps the most evocative imagery of the bunch, and I quite liked "The Exposed Nest", which supplied probably my favourite quote from the book.
Zelenogorsk
Banned
Yeah Drawing of the Three blows Gunslinger out of the water. And really 2 through 5 are all fantastic. People like to lump the last three books together because they all came out within a year of each other but i think Wolves of the Calla (book 5) stand with the rest of the series, and I like it even more than Wastelands (book 3).
Now Song of Susannah (book 6) is a total mess. I'm reading the seventh (and final) book right now and while I'm enjoying it it's definitely out there. As I said before is seems to be King just vomiting every idea he has onto the page because he knows it's the last book. Which still makes it a fun read, it's just that King can do better.
Also Wizard and Glass (book 4) is one of the best books i've ever read. I couldn't put it down and it was one of the best reading experiences of my life. I wish I could erase my memory and read it again.
I just finished The Crown Conspiracy and I'm loving it! Great characters and a nice old school feel to the whole thing. Great witty banter too. I'm always a fan of "regular dudes get caught up in some crazy stuff that's over their heads" stories and this series seems to fit the bill pretty well. Sullivan definitely isn't afraid to infodump a lot of the lore but after reading Wise Man's Fear i'm fine with an author actually explaining the mythology.
My local bookstore had a copy of Age of Myth so I went ahead and picked that up, I definitely want to order the next book once i finish Avempartha.
Finished The Fell Sword (The Traitor Son Cycle, #2)
Fun new characters and overall a lot of interesting story developments. Finally more of the Galles (though still not enough for my taste) and less of the Wild (good).
I'll read the next one but I need a break for a couple of months.
Fun new characters and overall a lot of interesting story developments. Finally more of the Galles (though still not enough for my taste) and less of the Wild (good).
I'll read the next one but I need a break for a couple of months.
Jag
Member
I'm all caught up on the books. I enjoyed them much more than I thought I would. These are big beefy books and for the first time ever, I'm using Kindle word look up because he's using some words I've never even heard before which is unusual for me.
isaacnukem
Member
I've been reading the Red Rising trilogy and I'm almost done with the third book. It is dreadful. Second one's the best.
Golden Son > Red Rising > Morning Star
Golden Son > Red Rising > Morning Star
Daily Show oral history (about as good as it gets wrt oral histories) and Junichiro Tanizaki's Naomi (biggest cuck in all of literature?) this month. Along with regularly thumbing through Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half collection for the hundredth time, hope she resurfaces.
Oh, and continuing to slog through the audiobook for Bitter Freedom, a history of the fight for Irish independence. Particularly hard to get through as an audiobook, it jumps back and forth in time constantly and takes numerous detours into what was going on culturally and socially at the time. Which would be great if I already had a confident grip on the cause-effect progression of the revolution, but I don't. That's why I sought out a book on it. Should've chosen a more straightforward introductory account.
Oh, and continuing to slog through the audiobook for Bitter Freedom, a history of the fight for Irish independence. Particularly hard to get through as an audiobook, it jumps back and forth in time constantly and takes numerous detours into what was going on culturally and socially at the time. Which would be great if I already had a confident grip on the cause-effect progression of the revolution, but I don't. That's why I sought out a book on it. Should've chosen a more straightforward introductory account.
MrOogieBoogie
BioShock Infinite is like playing some homeless guy's vivid imagination
Just finished this wonderful book. My favorite I've read this year, in fact.
Anyone read the sequel? I hear it's even better in some ways!
I'm crossposting this from the Sci-fi thread. I got a few suggestions from there, and even decided to take one of them (Gonna start Revelation Space soon), but maybe there are some sci-fi aficionados on here that can recommend me something even closer.
So something like that. Something that just encompasses a large spectrum of storytelling in sci-fi.
So something like that. Something that just encompasses a large spectrum of storytelling in sci-fi.
Jag
Member
Expanse has some decent ship combat, but it's more of a space opera.
AngmarsKing701
Member
And I'll answer the same way I did in that thread: Vorkosigan Series from Lois McMaster Bujold. Throwing it out here to see if others agree with that recommendation. I know there are some Vorkosigan lovers in here.
I checked it out, and while it sounds interesting, it's also 30 books long. I'm not opposed to long series or anything, but that's still a huge, huge commitment. Same thing with the Commonwealth series another poster suggested, which is like 10 books.
If it's really what I'm looking for, I'll read it eventually, but I'm hoping to find something more digestible.
AngmarsKing701
Member
Some of those are short stories and some of those are anthologies. I think the main series is in the 13-15 book range? They also tend to be shorter than your typical epic fantasy book.
I dont think Name of the Wind was good at all. But I'll second Vorkosigan Saga and Culture series.
They have the lighthearted escapism I love in SF with memorable characters while also staying intelligent and well written. A lot of them can be read on your own. I haven't finished either series.
Shards of Honour
MrOogieBoogie
BioShock Infinite is like playing some homeless guy's vivid imagination
Dude, you basically described Hyperion in your post. Holy shkt, if you haven't read that then do so now.
Read it, loved it, haven't gotten around to the sequels, will probably have to reread it to do so because it's been forgoddamnever. But I'm also looking for something new.
(Despite it being more than a decade, I am still pretty sure I remember the broadstrokes of the story. A priest who finds his missionary crew dead, a poet who needs to finish his work, a jewish man with a daughter who ages backwards, a female detective that fell in love with an android or artificial human, and a few more I don't remember, and they all are trying to resolve their conflict by confronting the shrike which has fucked each of them over. And I think the main guy we are initially introduced to is a traitor or something. That's not bad for something like 15+ years since reading it, assuming I got it right, but I'm pretty sure I did)
It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but since you mentioned Firefly I think the Tales of the Ketty Jay series by Chris Wooding may be worth a read. It's not a big commitment, since they're not huge books and each entry is pretty independent. Read the first, Retribution Falls, don't like it? Not really a problem.
Thanks, will check it out.
The problem with this request is that it's not specific. It's not like a trope or plot premise that you can just point out materially within a story, like "Give me something that has sentient/sapient AI". It's more of the protagonist just going through their lives, and they're lives happen to go to a lot of diverse and interesting places doing various things. And that's challenging to write because to pull it off, it requires extensive worldbuilding as well as being able to fit all these things into a cohesive narrative arc that makes sense and is coherent with the characters. I like it because life itself isn't constrained by any singular genre or theme, so having the story shift around as it goes on like that makes it feel more realistic, but it's really easy to go wrong with it by meandering too much.
So I really do appreciate all the recommendations being sent.
The problem with this request is that it's not specific. It's not like a trope or plot premise that you can just point out materially within a story, like "Give me something that has sentient/sapient AI". It's more of the protagonist just going through their lives, and they're lives happen to go to a lot of diverse and interesting places doing various things. And that's challenging to write because to pull it off, it requires extensive worldbuilding as well as being able to fit all these things into a cohesive narrative arc that makes sense and is coherent with the characters. I like it because life itself isn't constrained by any singular genre or theme, so having the story shift around as it goes on like that makes it feel more realistic, but it's really easy to go wrong with it by meandering too much.
So I really do appreciate all the recommendations being sent.
Why did you think it was very very poor?
Then I'll second the Vorkosigan Saga recommendation. I haven't read the Kingkiller Chronicles books, so I can't make a direct comparison, but that sentence is what the Vorkosigan series is. It's a family saga, where the vast majority of the stories are about the life of one character (though the first two books chronologically are about that character's father and mother, mostly but not entirely from the mother's perspective). It also makes use of a wide variety of sub-genres (rom-com/regency romance mash-up; prison escape; corporate espionage; detective story, etc.) within the sci-fi trappings. And the series has probably the best character development I've come across in sci-fi (which is a low bar, I admit, but it clears it by a very wide margin!).
AngmarsKing701
Member
Mumei Mumei Mumei!!!
I finished A Man Called Intrepid: The Incredible True Story of the Master Spy Who Helped Win World War II. I gave it three stars in the end. I felt like it didn't know whether it wanted to be a biography of Bill Stephenson (the head of BSC, the British intelligence agency that ran out of NYC during WWII), or a holistic look at espionage during the war. It ended up being neither, rather just a series of vignettes about missions BSC were involved in, some interesting, some not so much. Although there was a lot of good stuff showing how much FDR actually helped prior to the official entrance of America into the war.
After that, I've started His Majesty's Dragon and have plowed through 150 pages in two days. Basically, it's How to Train Your Dragon with adults set in the Napoleonic Wars. Oh and the dragons can talk and have varying levels of intelligence. And it's ridiculously enjoyable so far. It looks like there's eight books in the series - for anyone who's read them, does it maintain its quality?
After that, I've started His Majesty's Dragon and have plowed through 150 pages in two days. Basically, it's How to Train Your Dragon with adults set in the Napoleonic Wars. Oh and the dragons can talk and have varying levels of intelligence. And it's ridiculously enjoyable so far. It looks like there's eight books in the series - for anyone who's read them, does it maintain its quality?