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What are you reading (April 2011)

A.KU.MU

Banned
Dean Koontz - The Taking.

On the morning that will mark the end of the world they have known, Molly and Niel Sloan awaken to the drumbeat of rain. It has haunted their dreams through the night, and now they find an eerily luminous and silver downpour that drenches their small Californian mountain town. As hours pass they hear news of extreme weather phenomena across the globe. An obscuring fog turns once familiar streets into a ghostly labyrinth. By evening, the town has lost all communication with the outside world. First TV and radio go dead, then the Internet and phone lines. The young couple gathers together with some neighbours, sensing a threat they cannot identify or even imagine. The night brings strange noises, and mysterious lights drift among the trees. The rain diminishes with the dawn but a moody grey-purple twilight prevails. Within the misty gloom the small band will encounter something that reveals in a terrifying instant what is happening to the world -- something that is hunting them with ruthless efficiency.
 

meadowrag

Banned
I just finished The Stalin Epigram. Fucking terrible book by the way.
Will probably start The Possessed by Dostoevsky tonight.
 
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Pleasant surprise. I would very much like a sequel. Steampunk fantasy.

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Enjoyed it.

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Not as much.
 

aidan

Hugo Award Winning Author and Editor
nakedsushi said:
I read the first two in the series. Can I skip the rest and head straight to this, or no? I guess I haven't read any of the real Miles books yet.

That website I linked to also contains downloadable versions of the entire Miles Vorkosigan series. All free, all legal. Baen might have bad covers, but they're a generous publisher!
 
movie_club said:
What is a reasonable number of books to be able to read a month?
I try to finish one book before picking up another, so the number of books I read in a month really comes down to how well I like what I'm reading. For instance, it took me like eight weeks to slog through Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I just didn't want to pick it up but I also wanted to finish it before getting into something else. On the other side, when I'm reading short, entertaining, serial, pulp crap and not spending a lot of time on games or whatever, I'll drop two or three a week.

A reasonable number is however many you're comfortable with. Are you trying to set a goal or something?
 
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Forgot to mention that I finished this too (12th book in the Liaden series, I believe). Nice progression in the story, but cliffhanger ending means we'll have to wait for the next book.
 

Jenga

Banned
KuwabaraTheMan said:
Started reading The Name of the Wind earlier in the week. It's okay so far, even though not much has happened.
you know I'm reading this right now and

I'm kinda hung up about the guy. it feels so mary su. I AM THE MAGICAL APPRENTICE OF ONE OF THE GREAT ALCHEMISTS AND ONE OF THE LAST OF A RACE WHO WERE ONE OF THE GREATEST JESTER SHIT OF ALL TIME WHILE BEING A GENIUS AT THE AGE OF 11! so I'm about 1/4 through. idk, is the rest worth my time?
 
Help Me! said:
Still reading The Pale King. The experience is difficult to put into words...

Just started it. Learned last night that Wallace is REALLY hard to read if you've got a b it of a buzz on...
 

Shiv47

Member
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Quite an interesting read so far. I enjoy reading pre-twentieth century crime stuff, the world and technology being so different.
 
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Because, as the author mentions in the introduction, people really stop learning how to read after sixth grade.

Also reading this:
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As im going back in september to finally finish my masters degree in history, so im going to spend the next few months brushing up on my theoretical history.
 
Been blasting through the Dresden Files for the last month. I'm up to Dead Beat right now, and I'm absolutely loving this series more and more with each novel. The only one I haven't really loved has been Blood Rites, and that's mostly because (Major Character Spoiler)
Thomas is now Dresden's brother. And while Thomas is awesome and I'm glad I'll get to see more of him, the bit in the library where Dresden found out was just lame.
.
 

Ceebs

Member
Alas-Babylon.jpg


Just finished reading it again, and it never gets old. It's easily my favorite book ever. I read it maybe two or three times a year at this point.


Was considering picking up The Hunger Games as I have seen it mentioned non-stop on all the movie blogs. Anyone read it? How is it?
 

DirtRiver

Member
oldschoolpinball said:
So far I'm really liking it.very cool how it recounts stories from different world viewpoints.I just found out today there's a prequel that I have to read also

What? how's it called?

I loved me some World War Z, even though I had to take a break from it but it was worth it, really liked the book, really amazing originality with the consequences of a zombie invasion.

Edit: Is it the Zombie Survival Guide? Only thing from the same author
 
Jenga said:
you know I'm reading this right now and
(spoiler for The Name of the Wind)
I'm kinda hung up about the guy. it feels so mary su. I AM THE MAGICAL APPRENTICE OF ONE OF THE GREAT ALCHEMISTS AND ONE OF THE LAST OF A RACE WHO WERE ONE OF THE GREATEST JESTER SHIT OF ALL TIME WHILE BEING A GENIUS AT THE AGE OF 11! so I'm about 1/4 through. idk, is the rest worth my time?

I felt the same as you in that spoiler. It kind of continues for the entire book and I got pretty sick of it in the end.

Interestingly enough, I posed that questions on the goodreads topic about the book, but the consensus was that he's *not* a
mary su
: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/531316
 
Back from vacation. Didn't get as much reading done this year as I'd like. Just finished off Under the Dome is all (really enjoyed it). I'm now on to ..


The Appeal by John Grisham

Ceebs said:
http://www.reviewaddicts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Alas-Babylon.jpg[IMG]
[/QUOTE]
Loved it. Are you a fan of post apocalypse in general? Have you read The World Made by Hand?
 

mike23

Member
On the topic of Mary Sue characters, are there any good sci-fi/fantasy books with a Mary Sue lead? I feel like it could be a favorite genre of mine to be honest, heh.
 

Ceebs

Member
Maklershed said:
Loved it. Are you a fan of post apocalypse in general? Have you read The World Made by Hand?

I like the post apocalypse stuff in movies and games, not so much in books. I think it's the unusual post apocalyptic setting in Alas Babylon that makes it work so well for me. I mean their surroundings hardly changed at all, just how they had to live in them.
 

aidan

Hugo Award Winning Author and Editor
mike23 said:
On the topic of Mary Sue characters, are there any good sci-fi/fantasy books with a Mary Sue lead? I feel like it could be a favorite genre of mine to be honest, heh.

Try Rhapsody by Elizabeth Haydon or Lamentation by Ken Scholes.
 
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Probably one of my favorite novels this year. Debut novel that lives up to its hype, unlike The Unremehmbered. Can't wait for a sequel.




... I probably read too many books for my own good. :x
 

Goody

Member
Re-reading Child of God by Cormac McCarthy. It's one of my favorite books of those he's written. Really love his style and diction. Read quite a bit of it so far today. I'm probably going to go back and re-read a lot of his books throughout the year
 

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Finished

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Didn't like this as much as Tombs of atuan but they were still some beautiful moments with a fantastic ending - looking forward to reading tehanu with a open-mind. (considering the polarizing response).

Now reading

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For some reason, i read the first 100 pages of this a few weeks ago and it didn't engage me at all for some reason, but i picked it up again today re-reading it from the start, and it suddenly clicked for some reason, about 160 pages in, and can't wait to read the rest, I'm especially excited that it supposedly gets better as the series progresses.
 

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
About to start this:

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Anyone here read this?


Also, has anyone here read John Kennedy Toole's "Neon Bible"? I really loved Confederacy of Dunces and so Neon Bible being his only other book I really want to give it a try, but the fact that he wrote it when he was 16 kind of puts me off. Maybe it shouldn't.
 

aidan

Hugo Award Winning Author and Editor
Lafiel said:
208.jpg


For some reason, i read the first 100 pages of this a few weeks ago and it didn't engage me at all for some reason, but i picked it up again today re-reading it from the start, and it suddenly clicked for some reason, about 160 pages in, and can't wait to read the rest, I'm especially excited that it supposedly gets better as the series progresses.

It too me three false starts before A Shadow in Summer finally clicked for me. It went on to be my favourite novel I read that year and cemented Abraham as one of my favourite authors.
 
aidan said:
It too me three false starts before A Shadow in Summer finally clicked for me. It went on to be my favourite novel I read that year and cemented Abraham as one of my favourite authors.

It's interesting that I'm not the only one who felt this way regarding that book. I tried the book at least 3 times and could not get into it at all. Any book that does this is not worth reading to me.
 

luxarific

Nork unification denier
aidan said:
It too me three false starts before A Shadow in Summer finally clicked for me. It went on to be my favourite novel I read that year and cemented Abraham as one of my favourite authors.


I really enjoyed this series, save for the incessant references to
poses. Couldn't help but think of the characters throwing up gang signs at each other. Still, quite a good series overall.
 

leftstick

Neo Member
gDQT8

GDoNz


I'm reading a bunch of crime novels as research for a novel I'm writing. Reading always seems to help me to work out problems with things I write.
 
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