Books discussion

[lmelior]

Iron Council by China Mieville

-makes me want to stop writing alltogether.
Really, I mean the guy can write a single sentence well, and when it comes to the whole novel there is nothing I can do to compete with him.

(I mean that it is really good)

I've heard a ton of good things about Perdido Street Station, which is already on my reading list. Perhaps I'll have to check this one out too.

Just finished Neal Stephenson's Anathem. My brain hurts. This book is a masterwork. I will probably have to read it several more times to actually understand it.

A soaring flight of imagination, intelligence, education, philosophy, occasional humour, and deep, deep thinking. Wow.

I really need to dig into his stuff. Programmers tend to hype Cryptonomicon quite a bit, and this one sounds right up my alley too.


Also, this might help you guys, I just joined Goodreads to help keep track of my ever expanding "to read" list. I also added 150 books that I've already read, and added 50 that I want to read. It's quite nice.

[thespaceinvader]

Iron Council was brilliant, I read it a couple of years ago - the key idea is just so very clever. The Eternal Train was just a fantastic piece of imagination.

[Mussious]

"Going Postal" Terry Pattchett's. Super book, like the others made by Pratchett. He is one of my favorite authors.

[Hulavuta]

Reading To Kill a Mockingbird for school. After that I'll be reading Next, and TVTropes has mind controlled me to read The Princess Bride after that.

[thespaceinvader]

Plugging on through Wheel of Time. Thus far (middle of book three) I'm enjoying it, but I'm not overawed. It's nothing particularly special, but it's good solid fantasy, and definitely not without its flaws.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Hyperion by Dan Somebodyorother

Didn't get far enough to have an opinion, but seems like it might be really good.

[Joram]

Just finished The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick.

It was an exceedingly enjoyable book, and one of the best fantasies I've read in ages, up until the ending. It's the first book of series which I believe will be terminated after three books, and some of the things he did caused me a bit of concern at the end.

But I give it +1 for the setting being well thought out, +1 for the main character (who is not prophesied to save the world, and instead has a much more original and interesting "specialness" about him), +1 for a book set largely on ships, and +1 for having languages actually matter in a book that includes many different people groups.

Also +1 for being fantasy light, i.e., magic is kept to a bare minimum, and most fantasy races are integrated to the point that while unusual, you won't find people scoffing at their existence. Too many fantasies that I've read have their magic rule the world and their fantasy creatures stick out like a sore thumb.


EDIT: @thespaceinvader
Don't the girls drive you insane?

[thespaceinvader]

Thus far I'm not finding them too bad. But I've not been wildly impressed by the series in general.

[Myrien]

Jean-Paul Sartre - Nausea
A bit more drawn-out and harder to read than Iron in the Soul, but none the less an interesting read; the novel is mixed well with the philosophical essay.

Finally picked up A Clash of Kings again, and yes, I had a wrong impression from the not-so-good start. Another great book. A Song of Ice and Fire is becoming one of my favourite fantasy series.

[Gambit]

Continuing along the New Jedi Order series; I just picked up Vortex from the library.

[Limabean]

The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Suttcliff. Seems pretty good so far.

[thespaceinvader]

Recently finished The Dragon Rising. I begin to notice a number of amusing and interesting things about books I've read, specifically the large amount of parallels between Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth. And yeah, the whole sniping from every female character about men is beginning to grate. It's like the author felt a need to be very defensive about his equal treatment of the gender, to the point of misandry.

Now reading Chart Throb by Ben Elton. As I've come to expect from him, excellent thus far, bitingly satirical but very, very funny. The next few WoT books are next on my list, but Chart Throb is due back at the library earlier, so that's higher priority.

[Joram]

The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Suttcliff. Seems pretty good so far.

Childhood favorite of mine.

I personally like The Lantern Bearers best out of that series, but that might partly be a function of not having read any of them for a long time, with the exception of that one.

[Mountain_King]

You mean there's a series? I'll have to look into this.

[Joram]

"Series" is a bit of a strong word, I guess. It's more a sequence of independent books that have a small (sometimes trivial seeming) thing that appeared or happened in a previous one showing up in the next.

The next one, The Silver Branch is set a century or so after The Eagle of the Ninth. So yeah, not a strong binding.