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What are you reading? (July 09)

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About half way through at this point. I gotta say it's my least favorite book in the series so far. I was actually looking forward to hearing about Roland's past, but this just isn't doing it for me right now.
 

Spider from Mars

tap that thorax
Just finished re-reading the Harry Potter books and my Potter Boner is as large as ever. I love the shit out of those books. So i went to the book store and picked up these on a recommendation from a friend.
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About 2 or 3 chapters in and already im a bit flustered by the format of the book.

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Thinking about reading this first however, seems like an bit of a shorter read.

Next I am going to start either A Song of Ice and Fire (i like fantasy but im not a huge fan of the genre) or Dark Tower. Which should i read....HALP
 

gdt

Member
Salazar said:
Ice and Fire, no question. If you start now, you'll be in the swing of it when the new one hits.

If thats your reasoning he can start a year or two from now.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Wanted to get into Noir but couldn't find the published compilation I was hoping for, so I ended up getting...

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:D :D :D
 
BlueTsunami said:
Wanted to get into Noir but couldn't find the published compilation I was hoping for, so I ended up getting...

2e1d2f8.jpg


:D :D :D
Dude, I just started reading that. WHY DO WE READ PKD AT THE SAME TIME?!?!
 

Musashi Wins!

FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
Salazar said:
You have a point, and I wouldn't invite him to dinner, but what typically filters through lacks the background you've given. To Mishima, his suicide was a philosophical act, not merely or much more than it was an emotional one. Crazy is probably still an applicable adjective, but it's a little general. Misleadingly so.

Good point, and the way I flippantly came off about it would maybe lead someone away from reading him, which would be bad. I'd also be lying if the uniqueness of his character didn't at the time bring him to my attention.
 

grumble

Member
This is a tough one for me, as I'm a very heavy and very fast reader. If I go on a bender, I can easily read two thousand pages a day.

This month:

Frank Herbert - Chapterhouse: Dune
Larry Niven - Building Harlequin's Moon
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 1
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 2
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 3
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 4
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 5
Fred Saberhagen - A Century of Progress
C. J. Cherryh - Cyteen Trilogy
Anne Rice - Interview with the Vampire
Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years
David Gemell - Wayfarer
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 1
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 2
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 3
David Weber - Empire of Man 1
David Weber - Empire of Man 2
David Weber - Empire of Man 3
David Weber - Empire of Man 4

Of the books, I would most recommend Piers Anthony (NOT like his other stuff, very cool and mature), Boat of a Million Years, Cyteen and Chapterhouse: Dune (if you're a Dune fan).

I just got a few books by Peter Hamilton, an author I've never read, looking forward to that.
 

Alucard

Banned
grumble said:
This is a tough one for me, as I'm a very heavy and very fast reader. If I go on a bender, I can easily read two thousand pages a day.

This month:

Frank Herbert - Chapterhouse: Dune
Larry Niven - Building Harlequin's Moon
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 1
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 2
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 3
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 4
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 5
Fred Saberhagen - A Century of Progress
C. J. Cherryh - Cyteen Trilogy
Anne Rice - Interview with the Vampire
Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years
David Gemell - Wayfarer
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 1
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 2
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 3
David Weber - Empire of Man 1
David Weber - Empire of Man 2
David Weber - Empire of Man 3
David Weber - Empire of Man 4

Of the books, I would most recommend Piers Anthony (NOT like his other stuff, very cool and mature), Boat of a Million Years, Cyteen and Chapterhouse: Dune (if you're a Dune fan).

I just got a few books by Peter Hamilton, an author I've never read, looking forward to that.

Do you...work or go to school?
 

InnerFu

Neo Member
grumble said:
This is a tough one for me, as I'm a very heavy and very fast reader. If I go on a bender, I can easily read two thousand pages a day.

This month:

Frank Herbert - Chapterhouse: Dune
Larry Niven - Building Harlequin's Moon
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 1
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 2
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 3
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 4
Piers Anthony - Space Tyrant 5
Fred Saberhagen - A Century of Progress
C. J. Cherryh - Cyteen Trilogy
Anne Rice - Interview with the Vampire
Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years
David Gemell - Wayfarer
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 1
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 2
Ben Bova - Asteroid Wars 3
David Weber - Empire of Man 1
David Weber - Empire of Man 2
David Weber - Empire of Man 3
David Weber - Empire of Man 4

Of the books, I would most recommend Piers Anthony (NOT like his other stuff, very cool and mature), Boat of a Million Years, Cyteen and Chapterhouse: Dune (if you're a Dune fan).

I just got a few books by Peter Hamilton, an author I've never read, looking forward to that.

2,000 pages a day? Can you see beyond 2 feet anymore?
 
CajoleJuice said:
I'm on pace for 25 or so this year, and I thought that was decent. :(

I wouldn't worry too much. Reading faster or slower makes little difference if you can't actively engage with the text. And of course, some of us have more time than others to indulge in reading.
 

grumble

Member
Alucard said:
Do you...work or go to school?

Hahaha, I know it seems like a lot, but I manage to fit it in. I do go to school, finishing advanced accounting courses right now in prep for the hiring season in September.

To read that much when busy, you have to sit down and read nonstop. I have a thing with novels where I can read them without looking up, cover to cover. For example, I finished the asteroid war series by ben bova without getting out of my bed over a single weekend day. It's totally doable, and I manage to fit in a very full social life too. Just don't sleep much.
 

Big-E

Member
Getting through Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco at a decent pace. Dear lord though, the amount of allusion is huge and there are no notes in my shitty paperback version.
 

Zophar

Member
Been on a great little steampunk kick, just finished up this one:
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With this book Schroeder launches a saga set on Virga, a balloon-world warmed by artificial suns. The inhabitants build, besides their own suns, floating towns. The spaces between the towns, lacking nearby suns, are wintry cold, and only a few pirates and the utterly desperate live on the towns' edges. Hayden Griffen is dead set on revenge for his parents' deaths in the destruction of his home, Aerie, by the nation of Slipstream six years before. Somewhat unexpectedly, after catching the attention of Venera Fanning and becoming her driver, Hayden is dispatched on a mission under Admiral Chaison Fanning, the man he believes responsible for his parents' demise, to find a vast treasure and, even more valuable, a key to the sun and the world outside, where posthumanity reigns. The satisfying opening of a promising space opera.

Waiting for the second book in the series to come to me in the mail, so I decided to go ahead and start up this series:
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As the story opens, the great Traction City of London is chasing a small town. When one city takes over another, it processes all reusable materials to create power to run the motorized wheels that enable the city to travel over the land. London's mayor has bigger plans than the domination of a small town, plans involving the use of the weapon that laid waste to Earth millennia earlier. Several young people endeavor to stop the carnage--among them, Tom, an apprentice at the London Museum; a young woman who tries to kill the museum's head historian; the historian's daughter, Katherine; and an apprentice in the Guild of Engineers. The pace of the violence-filled story is frenetic, the sense of helplessness is palpable, and not all the young people survive. A page-turner, this adventure in a city-eat-city world will have readers eagerly suspending disbelief to follow the twists and turns of the imaginative plot.

Both have been immensely enjoyable and I look forward to burning my way through both series.
 
Tonight I'm starting:

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epitome said:
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I am trying with this one because it seems a short enough read but I am not a fan of this guys writting style. i hate reading a page of words just to describe how the weather is for the day. I dunno how else to describe it, I am nowhere done reading the book and I will read it all the way but just saying do not care for this type of writing style. Again I do not read much fiction I have always been a non fiction reader until I started checking out these threads. I was checking out the Blood Meridian how is it? I enjoy western movies but this will be my first western book to read and again 2nd book by McCarthy, is it written in the same style?

McCarthy only has two books written in that same "simplistic" style (as far as I know... I have yet to read The Border Trilogy), and the other is No Country for Old Men. His descriptions of the scenery and weather are not included without a reason.

Blood Meridian is much more complicated and dense. Occasionally McCarthy will spend a good amount of time describing the surroundings in Blood Meridian, but again, there's always a reason why. It has a Western theme, but don't expect a standard Western plot. McCarthy does tend to use long sentences in all of his books, which some people dislike, but I wouldn't say Blood Meridian is written in the same style as The Road, no.

And for what it's worth, I would highly recommend Blood Meridian. It's one of my favorite novels.

DubloSeven said:
re-reading
CormacMcCarthy_BloodMeridian.jpg

*thumbs up* :D
 

Stairs

Banned
Night_Trekker said:
McCarthy only has two books written in that same "simplistic" style (as far as I know... I have yet to read The Border Trilogy), and the other is No Country for Old Men. His descriptions of the scenery and weather are not included without a reason.

Blood Meridian is much more complicated and dense. Occasionally McCarthy will spend a good amount of time describing the surroundings in Blood Meridian, but again, there's always a reason why. It has a Western theme, but don't expect a standard Western plot. McCarthy does tend to use long sentences in all of his books, which some people dislike, but I wouldn't say Blood Meridian is written in the same style as The Road, no.

And for what it's worth, I would highly recommend Blood Meridian. It's one of my favorite novels.


I'll second your Blood Meridian rave. And, yes, The Border Trilogy is written in the same style as Blood Meridian, although, in my opinion, not nearly as good.
 
Big-E said:
Getting through Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco at a decent pace. Dear lord though, the amount of allusion is huge and there are no notes in my shitty paperback version.

People who claim to like/love FP are either 1) lying, or 2) 20x smarter than I am. I made it through f-ing PROUST (yes, all of it), so it's not like I'm a lightweight. And I'll admit that the concept is GREAT, but the execution is just painful. In the hands of someone less impressed with themself than Eco, this could have been great. Maybe it IS great and the translation sucks, I dunno. I doubt it.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
CajoleJuice said:
Nah, we're linked by that acid trip we took together. Or did that actually happen? Are we really just part of one consciousness?

/PKD story

:3

I started Marian Time Slip and I'm already re-lovin' PKDs style of writing
 

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
Finished A Feast for Crows and WOW - loved it. Now to move on and get to the 'classics' I've missed, starting with the first book in

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hack646

Member
Just Finished
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Hilarious book. Cat's Cradle is still my favorite Vonnegut book, but this one was superb as well.

Just starting
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Read both The Plague and The Stranger and loved both of them, so it only made sense to read this one as well.
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
Read book 1 - Dead After Dark - and I'm continuing on to Book 2 of the Sookie Stackhouse series. I liked Season 1 of True Blood better than Book 1, although I did wish they would've incorporated Bubba into the series somehow since he's an interesting character.

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With the upcoming film coming out in February, and somewhat positive feedback from people who have read it, I bought Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in Hardcover today. If the book turns out to be an entertaining read, and the film is halfway decent, I'll continue on in the series.

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Lastly, I bought The Game of Thrones today since I heard the Song of Ice and Fire series is being turned into a HBO show -- if the pilot is good enough. So I'll likely have that read in time for the series debut.

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I, also, plan to start up Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves since it's a light read and I already own the book.

Other books I'm looking at getting in the near future:
- The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
- The Yiddish Policemen's Union - Michael Chabon
- Best Served Cold - Joe Abercrombie
- Rainbow's End - Vernor Vinge
- Her Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik
 

Monroeski

Unconfirmed Member
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On GAF's recommendation. Good enough so far, about 150 pages in I think. I have the feeling that all the sleeving and such is going to be a huge mindfuck later on.
 

GMB

Banned
CiSTM said:
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I'm really hooked on Murakami at the moment. After the Quake was my first short story collection I read from him and I really liked it. Super Frog saves Tokyo and All God's Children Can Dance were my favorite storys. The Elephant Vanishes is next on my list and I'm really expecting lot from it because I've heard so many good things about it. I think short storys fits Murakami's writing style really well and I hope he writes more short stories in the future.
Cool man. I've read Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. Loved all of them. Now I'm working on After Dark, next up is probably After the Quake.

Spider from Mars said:
HOUSE OF LEAVES
About 2 or 3 chapters in and already im a bit flustered by the format of the book.
Yeah man, that is what puts me off too. I haven't actually read any of the book, but I heard the formatting can suck ass.
 

Mifune

Mehmber
Almost exactly halfway through Infinite Jest. Woo-hoo! Eat it, Infinite Summer reading schedule!

It continues to amaze.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Just finished Matter by Iain M. Banks. I didn't realise there was a whole series of these and that this was the latest, but oh well :p

I enjoyed it a lot. Very rich universe and realisation of that universe. My only niggle is that I didn't like how he resolved the
tyl Loesp/Oramen plot. It felt like he just wanted to get those out of the way. I was looking forward to djan going back with ferbin and kicking loesp's arse. But I guess maybe that would have been predictable and perhaps too easy for them, and where he ended up bringing the plot wasn't so predictable. But it did feel like a bit of a bait and switch where that whole part of the story was just neatly sidelined at the last moment by the Irn/Xinthian final battle etc.
I was most pleased that
Holse was the one to survive. He was my favourite character, light hearted relief, but not a shallow fool, he fleshed him out and his own circumstances decently. I was glad he got a relatively happy ending.
 

vareon

Member
I have finished the book of lost things. It was good at the beginning, but surprisingly average towards the middle and end.
 
I read Candide by Voltaire, very entertaining.

reading now

on the duty of civil disobedience - thoreau

wizards first rule - goodkind

inferno - barbusse

and v for vendetta
 

bengraven

Member
the-strain.jpg


Just couldn't finish it. I reached the section where
they find the morgues are empty and Eph has just killed Redfern
and frankly, it's just so Crichton-lite and predictable I can't handle it anymore.

Starting both of these now:

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theroad.jpg


Yes, yes, I know. "You say you can't read Strain because it's far too predictable, yet you read a novel everyone on GAF has already read?" GAF didn't steer me wrong with ASoIaF.

And it's important to keep the apocalyptic feeling in the back of my mind while finishing my first draft of SPREAD.
 

Monroeski

Unconfirmed Member
Finished part 2 of Altered Carbon the other day. All I have to say is

1. It's definitely starting to pick up.
2. Takeshi Kovacs is a total hardcore super badass. :lol
 
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