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The "What Are You Reading" Thread
Posts
Tycho discovered Temeraire right about the time I mentioned it here, BTW. But shhhhh!!! I do not want to scare them off!!!
Never finished the first book. I've never been so offended by an author's extreme refusal to actually explain what the fuck is going on.
"I'm going to throw readers into an extremely detailed existing plot without any useful exposition, and, to show that I'm hardcore, I'm also not going to give them any relatable characters or any understanding of how their magic works!
I think I'm 7/8 of the way through it and they were just starting to get to the main plotline. Still sitting on my counter after a year.
I have been reading Ravenor: The Omnibus, and I gotta say that Abnett, despite doing very similar fantastic military fiction in an alien setting to Erikson, sells me on it a lot better. I can sort out the weird terminology pretty easily, and the "magic" doesn't assume I know a laundry list of special rules already. It's not always consistant, but far more enjoyable.
Mid-way through the series, it looked promising if rough around the edges. But by book 7 or 8 it became apparent he didn't give a shit about things like consistency, making sense, continuity or pretty much anything.
It wasn't quite so much a story arc as [Quick and Snappy Intro to get readers and/or editors interested in reading more] [A bunch of daily life stuff that builds the world and seems like what the author actually wanted to write] [Oh shoot we're getting near 300 pages, time to end it with a battle!]
I did appreciate that there was generally a lot of hints about what was going to happen and what Temeraire could do if you recognized the allusions to famous battles. Guess I'll read another one and see what direction it all goes in.
For light reading, I prefer neuroscience. Self Comes to Mind is fantastic so far. Mmm, detailed discussions about the distinctions of consciousness in a neurobiology setting...my inner college nerd is giddy.
No, but I'm aware that I should. What should I be looking for at the Library/bookstore?
I disliked Anathem. It was a a slog. You could skip a half dozen, a dozen pages and Stephenson would still be describing buttresses. The fake language irritated more than it added to the experience of an alien world, and the ending felt anemic. The general story had a lot of promise and kept me interested, but by the final page I was glad to be done with it.
Any collection of short stories will do. I'm partial to the Jeeves & Wooster stories, but I've yet to read any bad Wodehouse.
Anathem is, imo, the best one can get out of Stephenson. It's got all his usual problems, but the rest of the parts are pretty good.
Meh.
Douglas Adams' Last Chance To See next.
Stephenson finally learned how to write endings!
No, he really really didn't.
I have so many freaking choices.
I've got all of Mistborn, some non-fantasy stuff.
so much to choose from.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
Book one is easily my favorite of the trilogy. Book two was my least favorite as it had far more agonized teen/young person love than I personally care for. Book three is better, but it's kind of a downer for most of the novel which, while honestly stays true to the story and makes for an amazing finish, was kind of dull.
Novak follows up on those hints in book two then foreshadows more awesome stuff than any decent lady of standing should.
Yes he did.
The baroque trilogy was godawful. Occasional interesting moments punctuated an otherwise dreary slog.
Guild Wars 2: Entriech.3507 | Scythe Gearsnap, Phlork, Irenic
Hey, some people love a well-formed buttress.
Anyway, people should read Feed and Deadline by Mira Grant. Heroic bloggers fight political corruption in post-zombie apocalypse America!
No, it didn't.
Like most Stephenson endings, it comes out of nowhere, ends abruptly and answers little.
The whole plot of Anathem is rambling and all over the place. The ending does nothing to pull any of this together. It's just "Ok, shows over, go home. Oh, and these random people fell in love cause ... why the fuck not."
Yes.
Snow Crash is at least more focused, but most of the book is info dump and the ending is an utter piece of shit.
Which is sad cause the other parts of the book are pretty brilliantly written and fun and inventive.
The infodump was bearable, at least. He could have done it a bit better though.
I almost completely ignore every Daenerys chapter. That shit is so fucking boring and seems to only consist of her dreaming about having sex with various men, having sex with various men, or sitting there listening to people bitch about what they think she should be doing.
Amazing story, can't stop thinking about it.
Highly debatable.
It was to me. One thing doesn't preclude the other.
Bottom line is, I'd rather have read it than not.
I'm pretty sure what you viewed as occasional interesting moments (pirate stuff?) I experienced as irritating interruptions in a torrent of fun.
I think I may skip this one in any future rereads that I do. Only one thing of significance happens in this book and it's in the very last chapter.
You and me, except the pirate stuff owned :V
I have to admit, I get it. Going through the Baroque Cycle, there were certainly moments of "Oh for goodness sake, not this again", or "We've been talking about
I think more people like Cryptonomicon because:
1) It *is* more tightly plotted, as a single book reall yhas to be
2) Geeks are a great core audience, and generically love them some crypto; many, but fewer, love them some swashbuckling with the occasional cypher.
Sure, the plot rambles all over the place - as does that of Anathem - but I can get lost in it for days at a time, and this isn't a bad thing. Whilst I've certainly heard that for specialists in the various fields (philosophy, cryptography, etc) that his discussions can be wrong, I think the average reader doesn't have that level of expertise. And even where it's wrong, I appreciate a book that is trying to make me think about why things are the way they are.
Snow Crash, I am coming to like less and less as I get older. At 15-18, it was a great rip-roaring sci-fi novel with some fun pseudo-historical-lingual connotations. Now it's...quite silly. And the
On the plus side, I have finally got around to reading Zelazny's 'Amber' books. Interesting thus far.
Hahahaha, what book did you read?
Man, I fucking loved Anathem, start to finish. Well, it's a little slow to start when you're still figuring out the vocabulary and whatnot, but when it gets going it's just utterly fascinating and thrilling at the same time.
I also enjoyed the Baroque Cycle more than Cryptonomicon, so maybe his style of writing just appeals to me *shrug*.
Come on,
Seriously, though - that's the book where I finally gave up on the series for the exact reason you stated.
I'm going to just spoiler this whole thing but note that I might spoil the Hunger Games as well as Battle Royale.
The one thing that stops me once in a while is considering whether 15 year old people would really talk and think the way the characters do. They seem much more mature than I remember being at that age.
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The BR manga is a gruesome and horrifying gorefest of blood and organs and mutilation. And that's just the first half of the first issue.