What are you reading?

[Sparq]

Finished The Prince, now reading The Man in the High Castle.

The Man in the High Castle is one of my most favored books! one cool thing about it is, if you read other works by PKD, especially VALIS, the book willl then take on an entirely new dimension.

Finished TMitHC last night, I felt it ended a little too abruptly. On the whole, though, I really enjoyed it. I will make a note to enquire after VALIS. I want to say I've read some PKD before but for the life of me I can't remember what it actually was.

Book VI of The Dark Tower is now ominously watching me from across the room, so I think I'll re-read some David Drake science fiction until The Cobra Event arrives.

[tulip]

On the whole, though, I really enjoyed it. I will make a note to enquire after VALIS. I want to say I've read some PKD before but for the life of me I can't remember what it actually was.

Perhaps "A scanner darkly"?

[Hel OWeen]

Or "Ubik".

[Diicc Tater]

On the whole, though, I really enjoyed it. I will make a note to enquire after VALIS. I want to say I've read some PKD before but for the life of me I can't remember what it actually was.

Perhaps "A scanner darkly"?

About the only one I really enjoyed by him. I wasn't in a mood when I read the others and one really has to.

[orcane]

I don't know, I think Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and several others are not especially hard/derp to read.

There are a couple of short stories though which are really , VALIS is a mess (you can really feel the LSD) and even A Scanner Darkly has it (although not to the extent that it takes special effort to read it).

[Diicc Tater]

Yeah, I was thinking about the short stories and VALIS in particular. Androids was OK but one had high hopes because of the Bladerunner..

[Space Panda]

VALIS reads like fucking dostoyevsky, but it's great. the most difficult part is getting in tune with the crazy narrator. once you breach that, it all starts to make sense. it's well worth it.

a really good short, that will take you 30 minutes to read, is Minority Report. it shares the same connection to the rest of his work, but it's very subtle. be warned though, it'll make you hate the movie, assuming you don't already hate it (it's shit).

[Sacul]

Picked up Iain m. Banks 'Transition'.
Absolutely love it so far.

I cant believe how brilliant the man is in his writings :totafanboi:

[Mynxee]

Picked up Iain m. Banks 'Transition'.
Absolutely love it so far.

I cant believe how brilliant the man is in his writings :totafanboi:

Probably my favorite of all his books...the audio version was so compelling.

I'm closing in on the end of the the third book in Dan Simmons' Hyperion series, Endymion. I originally listened to this without having listened to the first two books (Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion). I've corrected that oversight so this is my second listen of Endymion, in sequence this time. It has been an even more engaging book as a result of knowing what led up to it. I can't wait to start the fourth and final book, The Rise of Endymion, tomorrow. 29 hours of listening for that one!

Just finished all of Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga. Wanting similar stuff, maybe that I can put on my phone. Any suggestions?

If you haven't read the Hyperion series, it is very similar in terms of being epic sci fi with a lot of compelling characters and switching back and forth to tell their stories as those stories entertwine more and more.

===

Also reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. I found this book at the "Freebies Shed" at my local recycling center. It is a great read! The description from Audible.com:

...a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.

Elphaba is born with green skin, a precocious mind, and a talent for magic. An outcast throughout her childhood in Munchkinland, she finally begins to feel as though she fits in when she enters the University in the Emerald City. While she hones her skills, she discovers that Oz isn't the Utopia it seems. She sets out to protect its unwanted creatures, becoming known as the Wicked Witch along the way.

Narrator John McDonough draws you in to Maguire's magical world of witches and talking animals, making it possible to believe in a land somewhere over the rainbow.

There are three more books in this series; I will probably look for the print version of those at my favorite used book shop and use up some credits. The narrators of the audio versions are terrible.

===

Queued up on my iPod is Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker, uploaded from CDs borrowed from my local library. Five minute preview sounds like it will be good; I like almost everything Clive Barker has written. Also queued up from borrowed library CDs is Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Five minute preview, not so impressed. I will probably give it a half hour to get good or else delete it.

[Rodj Blake]

I've been re-reading How The Dead Live by Will Self.

It's a good book, but in the decade since I last read it Self has become more famous. And this is a bit of a problem because he uses quite distinctive language and so it's his voice that I hear in my head rather than the narrator of the tale who is a dead woman.

But his facility for language is good, almost to the point of pretentiousness.

[Hel OWeen]

Just finished all of Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga. Wanting similar stuff, maybe that I can put on my phone. Any suggestions?

If you haven't read the Hyperion series, it is very similar in terms of being epic sci fi with a lot of compelling characters and switching back and forth to tell their stories as those stories entertwine more and more.

Also "similar" in terms of being enoyable, not "srs hard scifi" but "pure Space Opera stuff" is Family D'Alembert by E. E. "Doc" Smith & others. Although pretty old (first book published 1976), it's fun to read. Think: "A family of James Bonds in space".

[cullnean]

Picked up Iain m. Banks 'Transition'.
Absolutely love it so far.

I cant believe how brilliant the man is in his writings :totafanboi:

last third is mind bending awesome sauce

[tulip]

Picked up Iain m. Banks 'Transition'.
Absolutely love it so far.

I cant believe how brilliant the man is in his writings :totafanboi:

last third is mind bending awesome sauce

It's a good book and I'm a fan of his work (signed book ftw) but compared to a lot of his other stuff Transition has a couple of internal inconsistencies.

  Spoiler:

When they go to the dead earth where mankind is extinct, whose bodies do they jump into? The others are small but considering how good he usually is at wrapping up and rounding off his they do stand out.

I was also surprised that he published it under Ian Banks, not Ian M. Banks his sci-fi semi-pseudonym, perhaps he feels that his sci-fi is good enough to try and drop the stigma sometimes attached to it, I'd be inclined to agree with his publisher if that's the case but he's released Culture novels under Ian M. Banks since so I guess not.

[Redmoore]

Gateway by Frederik Pohl , excellent classic sci-fi , published 1977

The last policeman by Ben Winters, close future asteroid about to hit earth detective story, not bad easy reading

also finished the second book by James A Corey , Calibans War. space opera as good as the 1st book and a set up for the 3rd, worth a read.

[Sparq]

On the whole, though, I really enjoyed it. I will make a note to enquire after VALIS. I want to say I've read some PKD before but for the life of me I can't remember what it actually was.

Perhaps "A scanner darkly"?

No ... god, I feel awful now for not remembering what it was. I might trawl Wikipedia later. It could have been Do Androids Dream because I remember being motivated to read it after watching Blade Runner in high school ... fudge.

Okay, so in the immediate forecast:

I've purchased all four of the "Hannibal" novels by Thomas Harris. I'm not going to lie, it's more because of the portrayal of Lecter in film by Anthony Hopkins than anything else. I've always wanted to read them (of course I know they'll be different to the movies) so I scooped them up.

I also went a little crazy (brace for irony) by buying a copy of The Red Book by Carl Jung. It's like a large illuminated manuscript, that took him about 16 years to produce. It was finally published back in 2009 and has been sitting on my Amazon wish list ever since. So I finally got off of my ass and put money down on it.

[shoki]

two days into 'Metro 2033' by Dmitry Glukhovsky, almost two thirds into the book, fuck that shit is really good.

[Aramendel]

Just finished all of Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga. Wanting similar stuff, maybe that I can put on my phone. Any suggestions?

If you haven't read the Hyperion series, it is very similar in terms of being epic sci fi with a lot of compelling characters and switching back and forth to tell their stories as those stories entertwine more and more.

+1.

The first Hyperion book is not stricly "epic" (in terms of scale, not of quality), but more a collection of short stories. It leads however to a rather epic conclusion in the 2nd book. In general I would classify it as a bot more "adult" form of Peter F. Hamilton's books.

As a sidenote, from Peter F. Hamilton there is also the Nights Dawn trilogy, which is quite nice as well, if you haven't read that already.

[Chaot1c]

Started reading the theft of swords. Very enjoyable.

[Mynxee]

Just finished all of Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga. Wanting similar stuff, maybe that I can put on my phone. Any suggestions?

If you haven't read the Hyperion series, it is very similar in terms of being epic sci fi with a lot of compelling characters and switching back and forth to tell their stories as those stories entertwine more and more.

The first Hyperion book is not stricly "epic" (in terms of scale, not of quality), but more a collection of short stories. It leads however to a rather epic conclusion in the 2nd book. In general I would classify it as a bot more "adult" form of Peter F. Hamilton's books.

As a sidenote, from Peter F. Hamilton there is also the Nights Dawn trilogy, which is quite nice as well, if you haven't read that already.

Peter F. Hamilton also has a new book coming out later this year called The Great North Road. Here's a handy bibliography of his works, from his own Web site.

[Miep]

two days into 'Metro 2033' by Dmitry Glukhovsky, almost two thirds into the book, fuck that shit is really good.

yip, great book. but never touch the sequel. trust me.

Currently reading "Kafka on the Shore" by Murakami, my non SF favorite author.

Last Sf book was "The Accidental Time" Machine by Joe Haldeman, good read but not as good as forever war