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The "What Are You Reading" Thread
JacobkoshGamble a stamp!I can show you how to be a real man!Super Moderator, Moderatormod
This is the thread where we talk about what we're reading and why, recommend things to each other, and maybe find out about some things we never would have known otherwise. Because if you're anything like me, you're always on the lookout for something new and interesting, even if you have a stack of unread books climbing halfway up to your ceiling.
To get us started, here are some books that a lot of people in these parts have enjoyed.
The (Semi)Official D&D Recommended Reading List
GENERAL FICTION
Spoiler:
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino The Yiddish Policemens’ Union by Michael Chabon Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby Dubliners by James Joyce Ulysses by James Joyce One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy The Road by Cormac McCarthy Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell Black Swan Green by David Mitchell The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Harauki Murakami Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Harauki Murakami Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov The Quincunx by Charles Palliser Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder Life with Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
SCIENCE FICTION
Spoiler:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger Neuromancer by William Gibson Pattern Recognition by William Gibson The Forever War by Joe Haldeman Dune by Frank Herbert Brave New World by Aldous Huxley The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 1984 by George Orwell Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Hyperion by Dan Simmons Ilium by Dan Simmons Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson Anathem by Neal Stephenson Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick The Dying Earth by Jack Vance A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge Dread Empire’s Fall by Walter Jon Williams
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
FANTASY
Spoiler:
The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander The Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster Bujold The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher The Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke Little, Big by John Crowley The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson American Gods by Neil Gaiman The Magicians by Lev Grossman Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart The Dark Tower by Stephen King The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin Perdido Street Station by China Mieville The Scar by China Mieville The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss The Once and Future King by TH White Latro in the Mist by Gene Wolfe The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
MYSTERY/CRIME
Spoiler:
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Coben Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy American Tabloid by James Ellroy The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett
The Ripley novels by Patricia Highsmith Fletch by Gregory Macdonald
The Wallander novels by Henning Mankell
The Inspector Rebus novels by Ian Rankin Keeper by Greg Rucka
The Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers Hardcase by Dan Simmons Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
ESPIONAGE/THRILLERS
Spoiler:
Complicity by Iain Banks The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carré The Constant Gardener by John Le Carré The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
The James Bond novels by Ian Fleming Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene The Quiet American by Graham Greene Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer A Gentleman's Game by Greg Rucka The Crook Factory by Dan Simmons
HORROR
Spoiler:
Weaveworld by Clive Barker World War Z by Max Brooks House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski It by Stephen King The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub Demons by John Shirley Song of Kali by Dan Simmons Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
NONFICTION
Spoiler:
Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein D-Day by Anthony Beevor Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind The Centennial History of the Civil War - Bruce Catton The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot The Iranian Labyrinth by Dilip Hiro Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan by Seth Jones Kiss Kiss Bang Bang by Pauline Kael I Lost It at the Movies by Pauline Kael On Writing by Stephen King Battle Cry of Freedom by James MacPherson Fear of Music: The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk and Disco by Gary Mulholland This is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco by Gary Mulholland The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes by John Pierson The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon The Corner by David Simon and Edward Burns The Elements of Style by Strunk and White Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk
Those of you with a few hundred spare dollars should check out Centipede Press, a small-press dealer specializing in lavishly deluxe reprints of rare and hard-to-find books of all genres, from horror to sci-fi to early-20th-century European surrealism. And they're gorgeous. Anyone who wants to buy me one, feel free.
Looking for an awesome sci-fi series? Check this out:
Spoiler:
If anyone wants to check out the multiple-Hugo-winning Miles Vorkosigan science fiction series, you can get a free electronic compilation of the entire series in several formats here.
I'm reading Mike Carey's Felix Castor series. Well, I'm reading the first one, and I plan to read the rest. They're urban fantasy set in London. An exorcist/sensitive detective story (although the protagonist doesn't think of himself as a detective).
Pretty good, although they are structured like a murder-mystery and suffer from the same 'expositiondump just before the denouement' problem that most of them have.
I'd love it if more mystery/crime/suspense fiction had multiple aspects to each mystery and they gave you more tools to work then out yourself. Whenever I read them I just bumble along until the villain is revealed and then they tell us everything that's happened. Perhaps if I was more familiar with the genre I might get the conventions enough to work things out - but then most of the mysteries I read are F/SF that turns out to be a murder mystery, so I'm not assuming that the villain must have been one of the characters introduced in the first few chapters, for example.
Also reading some Soseki Natsume short stories (in the original because I'm pretentious) - they're quite unsettling and not what I expected at all from him.
Neal Stephenson wrote:
It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.
Reading Gone-Away World in those moments when I'm not reading something for class. I really like it so far. Harkaway's prose is wonderful, and once the plot picks up its riveting.
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, because I just haven't read much of the Russians outside of the three or so big name people like Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. It is fucking excellent, and the story of how the novel came to be is also excellent. I'm also reading the autobiography of Rafael Nadal, because I love that man and occasionally need something that I can pick up and put down without any problems.
The Hammers Slammers series by David Drake. A series of sci-fi stories in the same universe about a mercenary armored regiment. The only recurring character so far is the leader of the regiment.
Normandy Crucible by John Prados. Its about the aftermath of the Normandy invasion, for the breakout to the Falsie Pocket.
I Also own Collapse by Jared Diamond, and plan to read this after I finish up with Normandy Crucible.
A few years ago I picked up a Babylon 5 book called The Shadow Within, which explained Anna's mission to Z'ha'dum, and John gaining control of the Agamemnon. I enjoyed how Cavelos handled Anna and John; they felt correct.
Stumbled across her trilogy in omnibus format (The Passing of the Techno-Mages) at HPB a week or so ago, and picked it up.
Finished it yesterday. Low points? Lots of repetition (agitating tech, energy surging). The way Cavelos expands on the episodes her trilogy intersects (The Geometry of Shadows; And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place; Z'ha'dum) annoys me slightly. In the first place, too much time is spent reliving Geometry; in the second, I dislike the explanations she gives for the 'behind-the-scenes' moments. Not completely, but at a significant level.
Still, it's an interesting read and look at the B5 universe.
---
Re-reading Night of Knives, by Ian Cameron Esslemont; part of the Malazan Book of the Fallen universe.
I already owned this book, which joins it to a very short list; and it's the first I've intentionally re-purchased. See, it's a numbered, signed hardcover edition (257/300), and it was $6. I do so love HPB
I'm currently finishing Leviathan Wakes by Daniel Abraham and that other dude. It's..mmmmm...ok.
After it I'm going to re-read Lud-In-the-Mist and after that I'll give another shot reading those Jasper Kent novels. I've started Twelve before and I abandoned it pretty fast, but he keeps writing so they must be good! Right?
I'm reading Mike Carey's Felix Castor series. Well, I'm reading the first one, and I plan to read the rest. They're urban fantasy set in London. An exorcist/sensitive detective story (although the protagonist doesn't think of himself as a detective).
Pretty good, although they are structured like a murder-mystery and suffer from the same 'expositiondump just before the denouement' problem that most of them have.
Keep reading man!;o)
Edit: Christopher Priest's The Islanders is supposed to come out next week and quiet probably as soon as it's out I'll drop whatever I'm reading to plunge into it.
Also, the OP depresses me because Reading Rainbow was murdered.
The sound of eight hooves reaches his ears, comes from the heavenly light, two wolves howls fills his heart with fear, and he sees two ravens fly. Down from the sky a warlord rides, like fire his one eye glows, and just before the preacher dies he knows his god is false.
Oh nice, I've been needing suggestions for reading -- haven't touched anything but technical books in something like a month.
A couple of suggestions for the list, though:
For Borges, I would recommend "Collected Fictions" (translated by Andrew Hurley) over Ficciones for English readers; I'm pretty certain that Collected Fictions includes the entirety of Ficciones and dozens of other stories beside. It's certainly more convenient than getting copies of all of the smaller collections individually.
Under Horror, a smattering of Lovecraft should really be included. Yes he was kind of a dick, but it's practically required reading for the genre.
So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.
I can't believe The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks and the Black Company books by Glen Cook aren't on the Fantasy list.
I would agree with the second, but your mentioning the first is so shameful, I can't support the other idea when it comes from you. Even if I agree with it.
Reading The Passage by Justin Cronin right now. Pretty good book so far. The writing reminds me alot of Stephen King, but with perhaps better plotting.
We shall see in the end though. The middle was very powerful I thought but it's headed in a potentially weird direction.
jakobaggerCopenhagen, The Iron IslandsRegistered Userregular
Sword of Shannara was pretty bad. Even reading it as a clueless teenager it was fairly obvious how much it ripped off Tolkien. And badly at that.
And I'm reading the Windup Girl. Great so far, halfway through. Very different, very believable near future world.
Apart from that I'm reading the Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs. Really interesting, I recommend it to anyone with an interest in urban planning and/or economy. In general I really enjoy this sort of non-fiction. Grand theories and synthesies of history, economy, anthroplogy, science etc. Eg. Jared Diamond etc.
Other than that, it's textbooks all the way down - one on search engines, the rest on Sanskrit.
lonelyahavaOne day, I will be able to say to myself"I am beautiful and I am perfect just the way I am"Registered Userregular
I'm currently about halfway through Absolute Monarchy Which is a brief history of the papacy looking at the popes in chronological order. It's quite fascinatingly intriguing.
I also just finished Devil in the White City about the Chicago world's Fair and the serial killer H.H. Holmes. Very good. page turning delightfulness.
I powered through all the A Song of Ice and Fire and am reminded why i wanted to kill GRRM a few years ago.
up next (after the papacy) I'll be headed back into fantasy/Fiction with Steven Lawhead's King Raven Series (Hood, Scarlet, Tuck). And if I can make it through those, I might look at his Avalon books...
I also just finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, and really didn't think much of it. It was incredibly overlong - I was reading it on Kindle, so I only really noticed the length when I had been reading for days and looked down and was at 45%. The first 2/3 of the book could have been condensed into an introductory chapter or two. The characters were incredibly unsympathetic and their motivations completely opaque, even after finishing the book.
The setting was complex without being interesting, and I kept getting the feeling that I'd read it before but had forgotten it - so either I forgot reading it due to the voracity of my book-consumption and the dullness of the book, or it's merely incredibly derivative. The 'surprises' at the end of the book were predictable from the start, but so foreshadowed that I was really expecting something surprising, instead of being exposition-dumped with things that had seemed obvious since the start.
I just don't get how he's so popular.
Neal Stephenson wrote:
It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.
Reading The Passage by Justin Cronin right now. Pretty good book so far. The writing reminds me alot of Stephen King, but with perhaps better plotting.
We shall see in the end though. The middle was very powerful I thought but it's headed in a potentially weird direction.
Let us know what you think of it, I finished it recently.
Reading three books from authors I enjoy to wash the awful taste of Ready Player One away.
The Gentlemen's Hour - Don Winslow
Deep Six - Jack McDevitt
The Midnight Mayor - Kate Griffin
Steam - Talon Valdez : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk
I'm currently finishing Leviathan Wakes by Daniel Abraham and that other dude. It's..mmmmm...ok.
I ended up liking it a bit more than OK, but it took me awhile. The main problem I had was that it took me about a third of the book before the characters and story started to gel.
It didn't hurt that, for most of that time, I hadn't clued into the fact that the dialogue was supposed to be Whedon-esque snark. Without the delivery of an actor, that style really doesn't work well on the page.
I liked The Passage right down to the end when I thought it lost something. Right now I just finished A Feast for Crows which I thought was excellent and I can't wait to get my hands on A Dance of Dragons. Before that I recently finished The Magicians and The Magician King which were OK but I wouldn't really recommend. I've been on a real fantasy kick. Once I'm done with Martin I'll probably pick back up with Erickson. I've got Deadhouse Gates on the Kindle ready to go. My problem is that I've so enjoyed Martin that I have a feeling I'll be disappointed no matter what I read.
I'm finishing Circle of Enemies, the third book in the Twenty Palaces series by Harry Connolly. It's not Shakespeare but it's pretty good, and I suspect anyone who likes the Dresden Files books will really like this series too. Plus, the hero is not a twerp like Dresden. (Full disclosure: I read the first Dresden book on a recommendation from several friends, didn't think much of it, and was told "Yeah, it gets a lot better around the third book." WTF? Life's too short.)
Three lines of plaintext:
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For classes this semester I'm reading Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism by David Enoch On What Matters by Derek Parfit The Nature of Normativity by Ralph Wedgwood Conscious Experience by Anil Gupta (unpublished manuscript draft)
and a shitload of selections from Kant.
On the side, I'm also gonna try to take another go at: The View from Nowhere by Thomas Nagel
and the relevant sections from Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
I think that's it for books, although sundry articles will also be involved.
Valuing scholarship above all else, the inhabitants of the Ivory Tower reward those who sacrifice power for knowledge.
lonelyahavaOne day, I will be able to say to myself"I am beautiful and I am perfect just the way I am"Registered Userregular
for nonfiction, I must say that I highly recommend Anthony Bourdain. Everything. No, seriously. I read all 4 of his autobiography/memoirs in like a week. could not put the kindle down.
Death by black hole seems pretty obvious. Gravity. Tidal forces. The ripping. The tearing.
I just realized I have an option after I'm done with Martin beyond Erickson. (sticking with fantasy) I've got The Lies of Locke Lamora on the Kindle. I think I tried to read it in the past but I can't remember. Is it as good as they say. I think it must be flawed to have been on my Kindle for half a year unread.
KamarAntivillainIn The BasementRegistered Userregular
Making my way through the Iron Druid series by Kevin Hearne. Pretty cool urban fantasy, reminds me of Dresden Files but with a less heroic protagonist. I mean, he's a nice guy and all, but he was born in the Iron Age and can be a bit callous about people dying.
Probably going to read the Wardstone Chronicles by Joseph Delaney next, because I have an addiction to YA fantasy.
The last book I completed was the nonfiction Bad Science by Doctor Ben Goldacre. It tears into self proclaimed nutritionists, how science is portrayed by the mass media and anti-vaccination sentiment. Some chapters made me genuinely angry at what some people do, and it's a fascinating read.
Gamble a stamp!I can show you how to be a real man!Super Moderator, Moderator mod
GENERAL FICTION
SCIENCE FICTION
FANTASY
MYSTERY/CRIME
ESPIONAGE/THRILLERS
HORROR
NONFICTION
Posts
And I just finished the Magician King. What a fantastic follow-up to The Magicians.
As for what I'm reading now, I'm trying to decide between a non-fiction and the second Mistborn book.
Then I clicked on the link and saw it cost $225 and I went nooooooooo!
At this point its pure force of will.
I could teach Olympic marathon runners lessons about sucking it up and powering through.
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty by Bradley Martin.
After that I will start rereading ASOIAF so I can finally read A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons.
Pretty good, although they are structured like a murder-mystery and suffer from the same 'expositiondump just before the denouement' problem that most of them have.
I'd love it if more mystery/crime/suspense fiction had multiple aspects to each mystery and they gave you more tools to work then out yourself. Whenever I read them I just bumble along until the villain is revealed and then they tell us everything that's happened. Perhaps if I was more familiar with the genre I might get the conventions enough to work things out - but then most of the mysteries I read are F/SF that turns out to be a murder mystery, so I'm not assuming that the villain must have been one of the characters introduced in the first few chapters, for example.
Also reading some Soseki Natsume short stories (in the original because I'm pretentious) - they're quite unsettling and not what I expected at all from him.
Temporal Void is next on my list to start, maybe this weekend.
Normandy Crucible by John Prados. Its about the aftermath of the Normandy invasion, for the breakout to the Falsie Pocket.
I Also own Collapse by Jared Diamond, and plan to read this after I finish up with Normandy Crucible.
Stumbled across her trilogy in omnibus format (The Passing of the Techno-Mages) at HPB a week or so ago, and picked it up.
Finished it yesterday. Low points? Lots of repetition (agitating tech, energy surging). The way Cavelos expands on the episodes her trilogy intersects (The Geometry of Shadows; And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place; Z'ha'dum) annoys me slightly. In the first place, too much time is spent reliving Geometry; in the second, I dislike the explanations she gives for the 'behind-the-scenes' moments. Not completely, but at a significant level.
Still, it's an interesting read and look at the B5 universe.
---
Re-reading Night of Knives, by Ian Cameron Esslemont; part of the Malazan Book of the Fallen universe.
I already owned this book, which joins it to a very short list; and it's the first I've intentionally re-purchased. See, it's a numbered, signed hardcover edition (257/300), and it was $6. I do so love HPB
After it I'm going to re-read Lud-In-the-Mist and after that I'll give another shot reading those Jasper Kent novels. I've started Twelve before and I abandoned it pretty fast, but he keeps writing so they must be good! Right?
Keep reading man!;o)
Edit: Christopher Priest's The Islanders is supposed to come out next week and quiet probably as soon as it's out I'll drop whatever I'm reading to plunge into it.
Also, the OP depresses me because Reading Rainbow was murdered.
A couple of suggestions for the list, though:
For Borges, I would recommend "Collected Fictions" (translated by Andrew Hurley) over Ficciones for English readers; I'm pretty certain that Collected Fictions includes the entirety of Ficciones and dozens of other stories beside. It's certainly more convenient than getting copies of all of the smaller collections individually.
Under Horror, a smattering of Lovecraft should really be included. Yes he was kind of a dick, but it's practically required reading for the genre.
I would agree with the second, but your mentioning the first is so shameful, I can't support the other idea when it comes from you. Even if I agree with it.
Mason & Dixon, Pynchon.
We shall see in the end though. The middle was very powerful I thought but it's headed in a potentially weird direction.
And I'm reading the Windup Girl. Great so far, halfway through. Very different, very believable near future world.
Apart from that I'm reading the Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs. Really interesting, I recommend it to anyone with an interest in urban planning and/or economy. In general I really enjoy this sort of non-fiction. Grand theories and synthesies of history, economy, anthroplogy, science etc. Eg. Jared Diamond etc.
Other than that, it's textbooks all the way down - one on search engines, the rest on Sanskrit.
My Band "The Wicked Girls" http://soundcloud.com/the-wicked-girls/sets
I also just finished Devil in the White City about the Chicago world's Fair and the serial killer H.H. Holmes. Very good. page turning delightfulness.
I powered through all the A Song of Ice and Fire and am reminded why i wanted to kill GRRM a few years ago.
up next (after the papacy) I'll be headed back into fantasy/Fiction with Steven Lawhead's King Raven Series (Hood, Scarlet, Tuck). And if I can make it through those, I might look at his Avalon books...
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
Vulgar???
The setting was complex without being interesting, and I kept getting the feeling that I'd read it before but had forgotten it - so either I forgot reading it due to the voracity of my book-consumption and the dullness of the book, or it's merely incredibly derivative. The 'surprises' at the end of the book were predictable from the start, but so foreshadowed that I was really expecting something surprising, instead of being exposition-dumped with things that had seemed obvious since the start.
I just don't get how he's so popular.
Let us know what you think of it, I finished it recently.
Reading three books from authors I enjoy to wash the awful taste of Ready Player One away.
The Gentlemen's Hour - Don Winslow
Deep Six - Jack McDevitt
The Midnight Mayor - Kate Griffin
Steam - Talon Valdez : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk
I ended up liking it a bit more than OK, but it took me awhile. The main problem I had was that it took me about a third of the book before the characters and story started to gel.
It didn't hurt that, for most of that time, I hadn't clued into the fact that the dialogue was supposed to be Whedon-esque snark. Without the delivery of an actor, that style really doesn't work well on the page.
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Non-fiction. A commentary on the unforseen consequences of reckless technological advancement.
Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism by David Enoch
On What Matters by Derek Parfit
The Nature of Normativity by Ralph Wedgwood
Conscious Experience by Anil Gupta (unpublished manuscript draft)
and a shitload of selections from Kant.
On the side, I'm also gonna try to take another go at:
The View from Nowhere by Thomas Nagel
and the relevant sections from
Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
I think that's it for books, although sundry articles will also be involved.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
I just realized I have an option after I'm done with Martin beyond Erickson. (sticking with fantasy) I've got The Lies of Locke Lamora on the Kindle. I think I tried to read it in the past but I can't remember. Is it as good as they say. I think it must be flawed to have been on my Kindle for half a year unread.
Probably going to read the Wardstone Chronicles by Joseph Delaney next, because I have an addiction to YA fantasy.