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Outside of a dog, the [books] thread is man's best friend

JedocJedoc In the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

But you're not inside a dog, you lucky old thing! You're out in a world filled with wonderful and terrible and perplexing books! Let's talk about them!

Best book I've read so far this year: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Imaginative, optimistic, and reliably fun sci-fi. Basically probably what the universe looks like from inside the head of Kaylee from Firefly.

Worst book I've read so far this year: The Last Ship by William Brinkley. Expertly combines the paranoic Cold War politics of the 20th century with the gender politics of the 19th century and the long-winded narration of the 18th century. Just drop the rest of the nukes and let me go home.

Book I'm most emotionally invested in someone else finishing: @Butler For Life #1 's epic read of Infinite Jest. You can do it, buddy! Just one more layer of recursion and you're almost out!

What are you reading?

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Posts

  • A Dabble Of TheloniusA Dabble Of Thelonius It has been a doozy of a dayRegistered User regular
    Sci-Fi!

    I am reading Six Wakes which is set in 2394 on a largely automated colony ship. Six clones wake up to find that their predecessor clones were murdered. It's good!

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    Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
  • Brovid HasselsmofBrovid Hasselsmof [Growling historic on the fury road] Registered User regular
    I am currently still rereading Gardens of the Moon. I decided I should really just get on and complete the whole series since I bought them all on my kindle a while ago. But it's slow going because I only manage to read maybe couple of chapters a week. I'm on leave later this week though so hopefully I might make it to the end of rereading Deadhouse Gates by then.

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    I was clocking through two books while I was working in China and then I got back here and it's all work no read.

    So I'm still toward the back end of Chasing the Sea, a journalist's travelogue through Uzbekistan - which I'm finding so fascinating that I keep texting people trivia about it - and Bring Up the Bodies, which is obviously fabulous.

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    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • TossrockTossrock too weird to live too rare to dieRegistered User regular
    Finally chewing through The Baroque Cycle, halfway through The Confusion. Once I finish, I'll have read Stephenson's entire ouvre sans Zodiac. I want an achievement trophy.

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  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited April 2017
    I've also abandoned The Buried Giant again.

    Sorry Ishiguro.

    Lost Salient on
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    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    Anyone know a good urban fantasy series I could get into other than the Dresden Files? I've got an itch I need scratched.

  • tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Tossrock wrote: »
    Finally chewing through The Baroque Cycle, halfway through The Confusion. Once I finish, I'll have read Stephenson's entire ouvre sans Zodiac. I want an achievement trophy.

    wait why would you leave out Zodiac
    it's his best book

  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    Anyone know a good urban fantasy series I could get into other than the Dresden Files? I've got an itch I need scratched.

    Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey kicks off a series about a guy escaping back to the mortal world after spending a decade banished to Hell by his own friends. The first book especially is a lot more grimdark than the Dresden Files, and I find the main character's constant assholery grating sometimes, but the world that builds up over the series is fascinating.

    If you're turned off by the main character as I nearly was, you might try Kadrey's The Everything Box instead. It's about a magic-immune thief who gets drafted into working for an SCP-style magic bureaucracy, and is very much played for goofs instead of badassitude.

    Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid chronicles are very much written in the same template as the Dresden Files, only starring the world's last druid instead of Chicago's only practicing wizard for hire. He spends a lot of time pissing off and then trying not to get killed by various gods and monsters, and he's got a dog he can talk to. It's not as widely beloved as the Dresden Files, but I enjoy them.

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  • HandgimpHandgimp R+L=J Family PhotoRegistered User regular
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    Anyone know a good urban fantasy series I could get into other than the Dresden Files? I've got an itch I need scratched.

    Phone posting from work but umm Rivers of London series; Rook and its sequel; Simon Green's books; Kate Griffin?

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  • TossrockTossrock too weird to live too rare to dieRegistered User regular
    tynic wrote: »
    Tossrock wrote: »
    Finally chewing through The Baroque Cycle, halfway through The Confusion. Once I finish, I'll have read Stephenson's entire ouvre sans Zodiac. I want an achievement trophy.

    wait why would you leave out Zodiac
    it's his best book

    I've never really heard anything about it, and given that it was (more or less) his debut, I assumed it was below his later standard. But if you think it's his best then maybe I'll check it out and hit that sweet 100% completion bonus.

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  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    Ooh! Yeah, read Zodiac. If I had to name the bad book he had to write to get it out of his system, it would be American U, and even that has some enjoyable bits. But Zodiac is a tight thriller with some unusually science-based ecological themes.

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  • Butler For Life #1Butler For Life #1 Twinning is WinningRegistered User regular
    I now know why the Entertainment was created

    Feels like I'm approaching the final stretch here

    My energy is high, I'm gonna get through tbis

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    Anyone know a good urban fantasy series I could get into other than the Dresden Files? I've got an itch I need scratched.

    The Laundry Files by Charles Stross?
    It's sort of fantasy. Think 007 + Cthulhu + Office Space.

    They're a lot of fun.

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  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    edited May 2017
    Oh, I was just reading about those books. Whyyy was it. Mmm something... something informative and they referenced that the thing was present in The Laundry Files...

    Oh, right, I was reading about Hands of Glory to try to determine if it was possible that one be made out of an adipocere hand.

    Wikipedia did not answer this question for me.

    Lost Salient on
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    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • Butler For Life #1Butler For Life #1 Twinning is WinningRegistered User regular
    I am in the very closing stretches of Infinite Jest, I think

    soon, my work shall be complete

  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    Then what happens

    Broke as fuck in the style of the times. Gratitude is all that can return on your generosity.

    https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
  • Butler For Life #1Butler For Life #1 Twinning is WinningRegistered User regular
    We shall find out now, for I am finished

    Boy was that an abrupt ending

    Very good book! I enjoyed it, although I'll confess that there was much of it that I felt went over my head

  • Butler For Life #1Butler For Life #1 Twinning is WinningRegistered User regular
    I just read an explainer of the ending

    I missed literally all of that, even knowing I was supposed to go back and read the beginning again!

    I feel stupid, but also like I could never have figured it out myself in a million years

  • shalmeloshalmelo sees no evil Registered User regular
    We shall find out now, for I am finished

    Boy was that an abrupt ending

    Very good book! I enjoyed it, although I'll confess that there was much of it that I felt went over my head

    That's why you have to read it several times!

    I'm mostly kidding, but if you can muster up the energy in a few years IJ is a book that is about 2x as enjoyable and 200x as comprehensible on the second read.

    Steam ID: Shalmelo || LoL: melo2boogaloo || tweets
  • Butler For Life #1Butler For Life #1 Twinning is WinningRegistered User regular
    I'm definitely going to give it another read down the road

    I'm trying not to feel too bad about missing basically everything the first time through, it's an unusual feeling for me
    I assumed Hal's behavior at the beginning/ending of the book was the result of drug withdrawal

    I totally missed the thing about the mold making him emotionally numb and then his wraith dad reversing it with DMZ

    One hell of a book

  • tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    now read The Pale King!

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    No no now read Finnegan's Wake

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    Nah, DFW is good, complicated writing. Joyce is just wanking all over the page while maintaining unblinking eye contact with the reader.

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  • Butler For Life #1Butler For Life #1 Twinning is WinningRegistered User regular
    BFL's Reading List:

    The Pale King
    Finnegan's Wake
    Infinite Jest, Again
    Ulysses
    War and Peace
    The Cat in the Hat
    Just Kidding, it's actually Infinite Jest Again
    The Fine Print on the Migraine Medication Bottle

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    Jedoc wrote: »
    Nah, DFW is good, complicated writing. Joyce is just wanking all over the page while maintaining unblinking eye contact with the reader.

    Don't you kinkshame me

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
  • Grey GhostGrey Ghost Registered User regular
    I don't take any pleasure in being the contrarian, I want everyone to know that
    But I made it a hundred pages into Infinite Jest and found absolutely nothing to like about it

  • Mr FuzzbuttMr Fuzzbutt Registered User regular
    All these fancy-pants "literature" books.

    Meanwhile, I'm reading The Wolf's Hour, by Robert R. McCammon.

    It's about a werewolf who fights Nazis.

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  • ChicoBlueChicoBlue Registered User regular
    Little old Nazi got mutilated late last night

    Aaaoooooooooo

  • Mr FuzzbuttMr Fuzzbutt Registered User regular
    Is it ok to maul a Nazi?

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  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    edited May 2017
    Live by the werewolf, die by the werewolf.

    Also, I'm going to take this opportunity to once again shit on Werewolf Cop by Andrew Klavan. This is a 300-page book where the titular cop doesn't even turn into a werewolf until page 200, and at that point the only person he messily devours is the evil woman who tricked him into having sex with her so she could blackmail him. During the rest of the book, he's not even a very exciting cop. More of a self-hating adulterer, sexist, and racist. Not-Werewolf Shitty Cop has a boss who is a woman with a hyphenated name, and the author is so sure that these two facts are repulsive enough to the reader that he treats her as one of the primary villains without bothering to give her any other negative traits. Also, Europe has been overrun by radical Islam. This book isn't set in the not-too-distant future, and this fact has no bearing on the plot at all, the author just wanted to remind you that he's an asshole.

    Andrew Klavan, you horrible bastard, you have written a book called Werewolf Cop with practically no werewolf and possibly negative levels of cop. You could not have fucked up a sure thing more badly if you had started off your first date with an escort with "As you probably know, I spent all my money failing to cure my genital warts. Also, don't we all just really hate Muslims?"

    Your werewolf book is bad and you should feel bad.

    Jedoc on
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  • EtchwartsEtchwarts Eyes Up Registered User regular
    How do you fuck up werewolf cop as a concept

    Shit writes itself! And there's nothing about radical Islam!

  • tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    the only possible way I could be less interested in that book is if it was also co-written by Jeffery Archer

  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    The President is lost somewhere in the White House, can you find him

    Broke as fuck in the style of the times. Gratitude is all that can return on your generosity.

    https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
  • DouglasDangerDouglasDanger PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
    Hobnail wrote: »
    The President is lost somewhere in the White House, can you find him

    If there is not a joke in there about hiding in the oval office, you know, in reference to Trump not getting a W "joke" about there being no corners to hide in, not a Monica joke,

  • ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    I'm reading Anathem right now

    this book fulfills most of my needs

    1) is about someone going to school

    2) not afraid to get fuckin' pedantic and pedagogical as all hell

  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    That one is squarely in my "love that book, can never recommend it" pile.

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  • Grey GhostGrey Ghost Registered User regular
    Yeah I really enjoyed Anathem but I'm not sure there's anyone I'd recommend it to who hasn't like, already read it

  • tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    I loved the premise, hated the execution. Well, the last half anyway.

    still think locking nerds away in their own citadels is a great idea though.

  • Grey GhostGrey Ghost Registered User regular
    this reminds me I gotta read Seveneves
    Reamde was... well parts of it were more entertaining than others

This discussion has been closed.