I can't remember who recommended Effinger's When Gravity Fails, but thanks, it was exactly the middle-eastern vibe cyberpunk murder-mystery I was looking for. Sort of Flatlander meets Neuromancer...
Barker's most horror-centric stuff is his six collections of short stories, the Books of Blood, about which King and Campbell raved. His first novel, The Damnation Game, is straight horror, but after that he creates his own genre of fantasy/horror/weirdness with Weaveworld The Great and Secret Show. He may have peaked with Imajica soon after, to be honest, though I very much like his Abarat books.
Fans of GRRM should sit down and stop fucking whining about lateness, because Barker has three series left unfinished right now, one of which has been there, waiting patiently for a final volume, for twenty years.
Can anyonerrecommend me some audio books? I got an audible account and blazed through Sigler's infected trilogy and really enjoyed that. I'm a fan of Sci fi, horror, and stuff like Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and The Dresden Files. But I have a decent commute and need stuff for when I run out of podcasts. Recommendations?
Can anyonerrecommend me some audio books? I got an audible account and blazed through Sigler's infected trilogy and really enjoyed that. I'm a fan of Sci fi, horror, and stuff like Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and The Dresden Files. But I have a decent commute and need stuff for when I run out of podcasts. Recommendations?
ok so it's not fiction but I will never pass up a chance to recommend the History of Rome podcast. It's fun
Or alternately the same dude now does a podcast called Revolutions, where he's going through a variety of important revolutions and covering them. It's a bit shorter and has better production than the Rome one did when he started.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I'd really be in the mood for some popcorn-y humanity fuck yeah reading. It's just something that's difficult to find something worthwhile in, mainly due to the generally atrocious writing skills of the people that make it.
Maybe I should just re-read the Dahak books. Sometimes you just want a burger instead of a fillet mignon, y'know?
If somebody knows another series/books that are kinda similar, and not too terrible, I'd appreciate a recommendation.
I'd really be in the mood for some popcorn-y humanity fuck yeah reading. It's just something that's difficult to find something worthwhile in, mainly due to the generally atrocious writing skills of the people that make it.
Maybe I should just re-read the Dahak books. Sometimes you just want a burger instead of a fillet mignon, y'know?
If somebody knows another series/books that are kinda similar, and not too terrible, I'd appreciate a recommendation.
John Scalzi's Old Man's War, maybe? Definitely fits the McBurger category of literature. One of the books in the series skirts into YA territory and is a retelling from a different perspective of one of the other books.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
I gave up on Starfish 2. Whoever warned was right. It's just shite.
I have a few random Huge award winners on my ereader so now I'm reading something about PLANET FULL OF SPIDERS WITH A STRANGE SUN OR SOMETHING. So far it's poorly written but interesting.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
I'd really be in the mood for some popcorn-y humanity fuck yeah reading. It's just something that's difficult to find something worthwhile in, mainly due to the generally atrocious writing skills of the people that make it.
Maybe I should just re-read the Dahak books. Sometimes you just want a burger instead of a fillet mignon, y'know?
If somebody knows another series/books that are kinda similar, and not too terrible, I'd appreciate a recommendation.
John Scalzi's Old Man's War, maybe? Definitely fits the McBurger category of literature. One of the books in the series skirts into YA territory and is a retelling from a different perspective of one of the other books.
Hmm... I think I've heard the name somewhere. I'll take a look, since I'm in the mood for something light, silly, and quick to read. I've been working through too much heavy reading in the past month or so, to have patience for anything that's too smart.
After taking a quick wiki look, it seems promising. Thanks!
Am slowly progressing through Anna Karenina. Not reading too much, but man this book is funny. It's utterly superb in so many ways so far, but Tolstoy's sense of humour is way better than I remembered from previous attempts.
The Dagmar Shaw series by WJW, about a woman who writes and runs world-wide Alternate-Reality Games. Pretty darn good. A little floaty, until book three nails it with a brand-new first-person narrator.
I was thinking I'd hit up Cormac McCarthy next, but with a nasty fever running that's a big nope. Nope nope noperoni.
I'm thinking I need to give WJW a try, and I'm vacillating heavily between Aristoi and Dread Empire's Fall. I like low commitment single books. I also like big space stories!
I'm thinking I need to give WJW a try, and I'm vacillating heavily between Aristoi and Dread Empire's Fall. I like low commitment single books. I also like big space stories!
I'd say not Aristoi as a starting point. If you want a one-book example of why WJW is good and fun, try Hardwired. Dread Empire's Fall is way up at the top of my list, though.
Why? Aristoi is an amazing book. I'm half way through re-reading it for like the 8th time at the moment.
I also have huge love for Metropolitan.
I guess I'm trying to recommend something more tightly scripted and generally intense? Aristoi is good, if it's what you're looking for -- I got sort of a Culture meets Ursula Le Guin vibe off it. Metropolitan would also be more in the direction I'm trying to point. Actually, it might be better-written and more fun than Hardwired.
Am slowly progressing through Anna Karenina. Not reading too much, but man this book is funny. It's utterly superb in so many ways so far, but Tolstoy's sense of humour is way better than I remembered from previous attempts.
The first third (or so) of AK is indeed very funny. I found the middle to be a chore. There's a hunting trip that goes on for like 80 pages that was just an unbelievable slog. The ending is quite good, though.
If you want more Russian humor, I would recommend Gogol's Dead Souls. It's hilarious.
Am slowly progressing through Anna Karenina. Not reading too much, but man this book is funny. It's utterly superb in so many ways so far, but Tolstoy's sense of humour is way better than I remembered from previous attempts.
The first third (or so) of AK is indeed very funny. I found the middle to be a chore. There's a hunting trip that goes on for like 80 pages that was just an unbelievable slog. The ending is quite good, though.
If you want more Russian humor, I would recommend Gogol's Dead Souls. It's hilarious.
I'll have to check it out. It's gonna be a while though; Anna Karenina is taking a while (although thank you Tolstoy for having such a clean, straight forward style - it's so much easier to read than other Russian literature I've read). Also, as much as I'm enjoying AK, I can't help but be excited that I've got Bleeding Edge and Against the Day waiting for me afterwards.
Am slowly progressing through Anna Karenina. Not reading too much, but man this book is funny. It's utterly superb in so many ways so far, but Tolstoy's sense of humour is way better than I remembered from previous attempts.
The first third (or so) of AK is indeed very funny. I found the middle to be a chore. There's a hunting trip that goes on for like 80 pages that was just an unbelievable slog. The ending is quite good, though.
If you want more Russian humor, I would recommend Gogol's Dead Souls. It's hilarious.
I'll have to check it out. It's gonna be a while though; Anna Karenina is taking a while (although thank you Tolstoy for having such a clean, straight forward style - it's so much easier to read than other Russian literature I've read). Also, as much as I'm enjoying AK, I can't help but be excited that I've got Bleeding Edge and Against the Day waiting for me afterwards.
If you want good Soviet-era jet black Russian humor, read The Master and Margarita. It's one of the few books that I'd recommend to both fans of literary satire and The Dresden Files.
Am slowly progressing through Anna Karenina. Not reading too much, but man this book is funny. It's utterly superb in so many ways so far, but Tolstoy's sense of humour is way better than I remembered from previous attempts.
The first third (or so) of AK is indeed very funny. I found the middle to be a chore. There's a hunting trip that goes on for like 80 pages that was just an unbelievable slog. The ending is quite good, though.
If you want more Russian humor, I would recommend Gogol's Dead Souls. It's hilarious.
I'll have to check it out. It's gonna be a while though; Anna Karenina is taking a while (although thank you Tolstoy for having such a clean, straight forward style - it's so much easier to read than other Russian literature I've read). Also, as much as I'm enjoying AK, I can't help but be excited that I've got Bleeding Edge and Against the Day waiting for me afterwards.
If you want good Soviet-era jet black Russian humor, read The Master and Margarita. It's one of the few books that I'd recommend to both fans of literary satire and The Dresden Files.
I've read it once in English and I'm not sure I took the most I could from it (perhaps I just read it at the wrong time). I kinda just wanted to be reading the Master's novel and be done with the rest of the book. And re: soviet humour, I kinda want to check out some Zoshchenko, but not sure where to start with that - dunno if anyone has any experience or recommendations?
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lwt1973King of ThievesSyndicationRegistered Userregular
I just started reading the Keep.
I get an odd feeling that I read it when I was a teenager.
"He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
Re-read Iain M. Banks' Look to Windward. Read it the first time not too soon after it came out in 2000 when I was 20, and I think it was the first Culture novel I ever read, so I doubt I could appreciate it properly back then.
And I really appreciated it a lot more this time. It's the only Culture novel with a primary setting inside the Culture itself, and it's filled with little Culture slice-of-life scenes that are just amazing. One such scene has two people having a Culture ship-naming contest.
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Re-read Iain M. Banks' Look to Windward. Read it the first time not too soon after it came out in 2000 when I was 20, and I think it was the first Culture novel I ever read, so I doubt I could appreciate it properly back then.
And I really appreciated it a lot more this time. It's the only Culture novel with a primary setting inside the Culture itself, and it's filled with little Culture slice-of-life scenes that are just amazing. One such scene has two people having a Culture ship-naming contest.
Mistake Not...
Culture ship names are the best.
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
I polished off the third Brother Cadfael mystery, Monk's Hood, which was quite good. You can see Ellis Peters improving a bit over the first two.
On a sort of related note, can someone recommend me a book on the history of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Troubles, etc.? I recently found out that the "Irish" my father's side of the family has always touted is actually Irish-as-in-Northern-Ireland and I feel weird not knowing all of the details behind that.
An Evil Guest: hard to put my finger on why I liked it -- it's obviously not as good as New Sun, or not as obviously good as Short Sun -- but I could hardly peel myself away. Have a few other books I'd been planning to read, but I may have to track down more of Wolfe's recent work and/or reread Wizard Knight instead.
Finished Zero History. I liked it, or rather I liked having a Gibson book to read and enjoy. This one is about marketing, branding, surveillance and, most importantly, military fashion. The problem with it is the same problem I've thought about several of his later books. He's a better writer now, but everything feels incredibly safe. The bad guys are mostly quite bad at their job and totally outclassed by the resources the good guys have at their disposal, a point the book itself doesn't fail to recognise. I like Gibson's writing and his thoughts on culture and how tech intersects with life (his observation about phones replacing cigarettes in universal physical gestures is typically Gibsonian) and everything, but although aspects of the plot are very interesting (military fashion influencing contemporary culture, the money trail behind it, etc), at no point are the old thrills present. Actual danger is in vanishingly short supply.
Also, typing in Jacobkosh gives you two autocomplete options. One is you, the other one is, uh, not you.
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Zero History sounds similar in theme and feel to Pattern Recognition which I liked a lot, but mostly for as you say Gibson's thoughts on culture etc. I don't remember the plot being anything to write home about.
I guess I might try Zero History once I'm done re-reading the Sprawl trilogy. Unless you'd recommend just reading Gibson's essays and interviews instead.
Oh, Zero History isn't a bad book, it's just that the thrills seem to have been surgically removed and reaplced with frictionless progress for the good guys. I seem to have vivid memories of Case and Molly Millions being close to losing horribly against overwhelming odds. Hollis Henry and her supporting cast of awesome dudes barely sprain an ankle foiling the nefarious plots of some guys they outclass by a factor of eight thousand.
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I feel like the quality of a Gibson book invariably stands in inverse proportion to the number of viewpoint characters it has. Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition, with one protagonist apiece, are his best; Virtual Light and Idoru and Count Zero, which have two apiece, are very good; Mona Lisa Overdrive, which has I belive three, is kind of forgettable, and All Tomorrow's Parties and Spook Country, which have three or four, are just not really up to his standard at all.
My theory is that it's because he sometimes creates characters as cameras with which to write about some current obsession he is having (the most obvious example being the watch-obsessed little boy in All Tomorrow's Parties), rather than for their own sake, and when he gives into this impulse it kind of short-circuits the drama, because it means he didn't have to find a way to get the main character to that point.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
Count Zero has three!
Bobby/Count Zero the wannabe hacker, Turner the freelance corporate muscle and Andrea the art dealer.
I should reread those since it's been ages since i have. I remember not being terribly impressed when I first read them as a teenager. Important bits may have just gone over my head though.
On another note, @TL DR, thanks for suggesting Accelerado in chat. That was pretty awesome.
I should reread those since it's been ages since i have. I remember not being terribly impressed when I first read them as a teenager. Important bits may have just gone over my head though.
On another note, @TL DR, thanks for suggesting Accelerado in chat. That was pretty awesome.
Have you read his Laundry stories? They're my favourite. Imagine the British Secret Service meets Cthulhu but hampered by the need to provide detailed expense information and attend the requisite DELTA GREEN clearances.
I should reread those since it's been ages since i have. I remember not being terribly impressed when I first read them as a teenager. Important bits may have just gone over my head though.
On another note, @TL DR, thanks for suggesting Accelerado in chat. That was pretty awesome.
Have you read his Laundry stories? They're my favourite. Imagine the British Secret Service meets Cthulhu but hampered by the need to provide detailed expense information and attend the requisite DELTA GREEN clearances.
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Fans of GRRM should sit down and stop fucking whining about lateness, because Barker has three series left unfinished right now, one of which has been there, waiting patiently for a final volume, for twenty years.
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ok so it's not fiction but I will never pass up a chance to recommend the History of Rome podcast. It's fun
Or alternately the same dude now does a podcast called Revolutions, where he's going through a variety of important revolutions and covering them. It's a bit shorter and has better production than the Rome one did when he started.
Maybe I should just re-read the Dahak books. Sometimes you just want a burger instead of a fillet mignon, y'know?
If somebody knows another series/books that are kinda similar, and not too terrible, I'd appreciate a recommendation.
John Scalzi's Old Man's War, maybe? Definitely fits the McBurger category of literature. One of the books in the series skirts into YA territory and is a retelling from a different perspective of one of the other books.
I have a few random Huge award winners on my ereader so now I'm reading something about PLANET FULL OF SPIDERS WITH A STRANGE SUN OR SOMETHING. So far it's poorly written but interesting.
Hmm... I think I've heard the name somewhere. I'll take a look, since I'm in the mood for something light, silly, and quick to read. I've been working through too much heavy reading in the past month or so, to have patience for anything that's too smart.
After taking a quick wiki look, it seems promising. Thanks!
I was thinking I'd hit up Cormac McCarthy next, but with a nasty fever running that's a big nope. Nope nope noperoni.
I'd say not Aristoi as a starting point. If you want a one-book example of why WJW is good and fun, try Hardwired. Dread Empire's Fall is way up at the top of my list, though.
I also have huge love for Metropolitan.
I guess I'm trying to recommend something more tightly scripted and generally intense? Aristoi is good, if it's what you're looking for -- I got sort of a Culture meets Ursula Le Guin vibe off it. Metropolitan would also be more in the direction I'm trying to point. Actually, it might be better-written and more fun than Hardwired.
Gotta love the weird shit
The first third (or so) of AK is indeed very funny. I found the middle to be a chore. There's a hunting trip that goes on for like 80 pages that was just an unbelievable slog. The ending is quite good, though.
If you want more Russian humor, I would recommend Gogol's Dead Souls. It's hilarious.
I'll have to check it out. It's gonna be a while though; Anna Karenina is taking a while (although thank you Tolstoy for having such a clean, straight forward style - it's so much easier to read than other Russian literature I've read). Also, as much as I'm enjoying AK, I can't help but be excited that I've got Bleeding Edge and Against the Day waiting for me afterwards.
If you want good Soviet-era jet black Russian humor, read The Master and Margarita. It's one of the few books that I'd recommend to both fans of literary satire and The Dresden Files.
I've read it once in English and I'm not sure I took the most I could from it (perhaps I just read it at the wrong time). I kinda just wanted to be reading the Master's novel and be done with the rest of the book. And re: soviet humour, I kinda want to check out some Zoshchenko, but not sure where to start with that - dunno if anyone has any experience or recommendations?
I get an odd feeling that I read it when I was a teenager.
You might also have seen the movie.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
And I really appreciated it a lot more this time. It's the only Culture novel with a primary setting inside the Culture itself, and it's filled with little Culture slice-of-life scenes that are just amazing. One such scene has two people having a Culture ship-naming contest.
Mistake Not...
Culture ship names are the best.
On a sort of related note, can someone recommend me a book on the history of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Troubles, etc.? I recently found out that the "Irish" my father's side of the family has always touted is actually Irish-as-in-Northern-Ireland and I feel weird not knowing all of the details behind that.
Finished Zero History. I liked it, or rather I liked having a Gibson book to read and enjoy. This one is about marketing, branding, surveillance and, most importantly, military fashion. The problem with it is the same problem I've thought about several of his later books. He's a better writer now, but everything feels incredibly safe. The bad guys are mostly quite bad at their job and totally outclassed by the resources the good guys have at their disposal, a point the book itself doesn't fail to recognise. I like Gibson's writing and his thoughts on culture and how tech intersects with life (his observation about phones replacing cigarettes in universal physical gestures is typically Gibsonian) and everything, but although aspects of the plot are very interesting (military fashion influencing contemporary culture, the money trail behind it, etc), at no point are the old thrills present. Actual danger is in vanishingly short supply.
Also, typing in Jacobkosh gives you two autocomplete options. One is you, the other one is, uh, not you.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I guess I might try Zero History once I'm done re-reading the Sprawl trilogy. Unless you'd recommend just reading Gibson's essays and interviews instead.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
My theory is that it's because he sometimes creates characters as cameras with which to write about some current obsession he is having (the most obvious example being the watch-obsessed little boy in All Tomorrow's Parties), rather than for their own sake, and when he gives into this impulse it kind of short-circuits the drama, because it means he didn't have to find a way to get the main character to that point.
Bobby/Count Zero the wannabe hacker, Turner the freelance corporate muscle and Andrea the art dealer.
edit: your theory makes a lot of sense though.
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For like the billionth time.
I should reread those since it's been ages since i have. I remember not being terribly impressed when I first read them as a teenager. Important bits may have just gone over my head though.
On another note, @TL DR, thanks for suggesting Accelerado in chat. That was pretty awesome.
Have you read his Laundry stories? They're my favourite. Imagine the British Secret Service meets Cthulhu but hampered by the need to provide detailed expense information and attend the requisite DELTA GREEN clearances.
Have you read his Laundry stories? They're my favourite. Imagine the British Secret Service meets Cthulhu but hampered by the need to provide detailed expense information and attend the requisite DELTA GREEN clearances.