Matt B
United States
Cincinnati
Ohio
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The Algebraist - Iain M. Banks
My second Banks novel, after Excession. Looking forward to reading more of the Culture series.
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DORGON
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
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For someone looking for a read in Febuary. Maybe take a moment to read something from author Ardath Mayhar who passed away today at age 81. She has a varied range of works in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
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MWChapel wrote: For someone looking for a read in Febuary. Maybe take a moment to read something from author Ardath Mayhar who passed away today at age 81. She has a varied range of works in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Thanks, Chapel!!
Any particular title you recommend?
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Michael B.
Canada
Stratford
Ontario
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Started reading:
the story of Richard Pierpoint, freed black slave who fought in AWI in Butler's Rangers and formed regiments that fought for Canada in the War of 1812 and the various rebellions of 1837-38. His new "career" began at 67 years of age!
Switched to:
Gold for Crete by C.S.Forester
Then bits of game rulebooks...
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Calavera Hermosa
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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It was a busy reading month for me. I finally got around to finishing:
Which I would rank in Murakami's top 3. Bizarre, intense, beautiful, but the ending was somewhat dissatisfying.
I also finally got around to this one:
I've read almost everything else by him, including the appallingly trashy Merchant Princes stuff, but somehow had overlooked this sequel to Singularity Sky. I actually liked it better than Singularity Sky overall. Stross continues to please.
My non-fiction for the month:
I am very interested in the subject matter (essentially, "to what degree is violence a reasonable, necessary, or useful tool in art and literature?") but the writing was so overloaded with the pretentious and dogmatic language of art criticism that it simply irritated the sh** out of me. I cannot recommend it.
A reread of one of my favorite graphic novels:
Kafkaesque in the best way.
And my fourth read-through of
I cannot seem to get enough of this book.
Also, there has been lots of bitching here in chit chat that Mieville isn't "real" science fiction. I don't really know what to tell you about that. Maybe it's time to move past the butt-clenching nerd-insistence on specific labels. For me, this is the best sci-fi novel I have read in ten years. Give it a chance - it can have a slow start, since it takes him some time to set everything up, but if you can make it to the halfway point, it is well worth the effort.
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Rishi A.
United States
Alexandria
Virginia
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MScrivner wrote: Which I would rank in Murakami's top 3. Bizarre, intense, beautiful, but the ending was somewhat dissatisfying.
What other Murkami books would you recommend? As I said earlier in this thread, I've only read two Murakami novels, but I intend to seek out more.
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W M Shubert
United States
Portland
Oregon
KGS is the #1 web site for playing go over the internet. Visit now!
Yes, I really am that awesome.
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Rishi wrote: MScrivner wrote: Which I would rank in Murakami's top 3. Bizarre, intense, beautiful, but the ending was somewhat dissatisfying. What other Murkami books would you recommend? As I said earlier in this thread, I've only read two Murakami novels, but I intend to seek out more.
Edit: And I think that overall the female characters in Kafka were a bit better than in Bird. In Bird it was only the teenage neighbor who I thought was a real character, but in Kafka there were several.
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Calavera Hermosa
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Rishi wrote: MScrivner wrote: Which I would rank in Murakami's top 3. Bizarre, intense, beautiful, but the ending was somewhat dissatisfying. What other Murkami books would you recommend? As I said earlier in this thread, I've only read two Murakami novels, but I intend to seek out more.
First and foremost his collection of short stories, The Elephant Vanishes. I think Murakami is at his best as a short story writer, and the collection contains stories that are alternately surreal, laugh-aloud funny, achingly sad, or chock-full of Murakami's trademark existential dread.
After that, his best novel is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It manages to perfectly capture the surreal and terrible horror of the mundane and everyday.
Norwegian Wood is actually book one in a psuedo trilogy, though they aren't really marketed as such in the U.S. The next two books, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Dance Dance Dance have the same narrator/protagonist and are far weirder than the first one. I will say that some people find these really slow paced, but I actually really like the gentle narrative approach, it's like he packs on the weirdness and dread one tiny snowflake at a time until it's after midnight and you realize you've been caught in a terrible blizzard.
If you like detective noir, he has a strange sci-fi novel called Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World. It has alternating chapters between a hard-boiled detective-type and a fantasy world and it doesn't make sense until near the very end how they are even related, but it's beautiful read. Certainly his strangest and most disjointed book, and it really reminded me of Paul Auster.
The Murakami I dislike includes:
Kafka On the Shore - which was too heavy-handed and surreal to be enjoyable. Like he was trying too hard to write another Wind-Up Bird.
[edit: I see the previous poster preferred it. *shrug* - I read Wind-Up first, right when it came out and have actually read it over ten times. I really do think it is his masterpiece. Kafka just feels... too bizarre? I think it's that Wind-Up Bird is about more than just it's own story - there is all of this social commentary built in about modern-Japanese life, and about the Japanese-Chinese front of World War II. It is about more than just weird crap happening, and that's ultimately what I want in a story. Also Kafka on Shore is very incesty, which I can do without.]
Underground. This is non-fiction about the Aum-Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, but it is presented as a collection of short stories, with each chapter being a narrative of the events from the perspective of various people - either victims or cult members. I felt like I had gotten the point after the first three or four chapters and so it felt like he belabored the point. Also it felt like he was trying too hard to be like one of his big heroes, Truman Capote.
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Mike Adams
United States
Brigham City
Utah
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Leezer wrote: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
It was the first book I read on my new Nook. Quite good. However, based on discussions here in Chit Chat and from looking at some descriptions online, I don't think I have any interest in reading any of his other books.
I liked Speaker for the Dead better than Ender's Game myself. I've read some others of Card's books as well. But I don't like his style. There is just enough I like in his books to draw me in, but just enough about his writing style that bugs me that I'm left feeling unsatisfied in the end. I can't really put my finger on it, though.
She by H. Rider Haggard - I was in the mood for an old adventure novel and this definitely fit the bill. Unknown civilization deep in Africa, mysterious long-living powerful woman leader, lots of danger - everything I was expecting and more, actually. I liked it. The plot and characters ended up being more complex than I expected. The writing drones on a bit long at times expounding on this or that, but he actually catches himself at mocks that tendency at one point. Pretty good. I'll have to read some of his other books.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel - I'm most of the way through this and would like to comment more on it but am hesitant to until I finish. A friend lent it to me on my Nook and my time ran out when I was almost finished or else I would have finished it. Aaagh!
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jonathanWC
United States
Missoula
Montana
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Also just finished this. I started it in January, so I guess it counts. I was really eh on it. Everyone I talked to told me it was good. I was expecting the next Ender's Game. I don't think it ended up being daring enough. The stew sounded good though... Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland have me thinking the that the movie will be better than the book.
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Matt B
United States
Cincinnati
Ohio
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MScrivner wrote:
And my fourth read-through of (Embassytown / China Miéville)
I cannot seem to get enough of this book.
Also, there has been lots of bitching here in chit chat that Mieville isn't "real" science fiction. I don't really know what to tell you about that. Maybe it's time to move past the butt-clenching nerd-insistence on specific labels. For me, this is the best sci-fi novel I have read in ten years. Give it a chance - it can have a slow start, since it takes him some time to set everything up, but if you can make it to the halfway point, it is well worth the effort.
I actually thought the first half was excellent, but that the ending fell short. I guess I enjoyed the world-building and Miéville's language ideas with the aliens... but I didn't care too much for how he wrapped everything up. Embassytown was my first Miéville; I'm reading Perdido Street Station now and I must say it seems rather unexciting to me so far... but I'm not too far in yet, so hopefully it will pick up soon.
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Mike Adams
United States
Brigham City
Utah
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Mike A wrote:
Life of Pi by Yann Martel - I'm most of the way through this and would like to comment more on it but am hesitant to until I finish. A friend lent it to me on my Nook and my time ran out when I was almost finished or else I would have finished it. Aaagh!
Update: I ran to the library and picked it up to finish it today. As I was approaching the end I thought "hmmm, this was interesting, maybe my son would like it" and then I changed my mind. Sheesh. There are some very funny moments, very fantastic moments, very philosophical moments and very horrifying moments all in one. Good book, but I wouldn't recommend it to the squeamish like my wife - she would hate it. There is much more to it than the basic plot line lets on, and yet, the plot line is pretty basic. Good book, but I'm sure it's not for everyone.
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George Kinney
United States
Bellefontaine
Ohio
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A Winter Haunting - Dan Simmons. Started out creepy as hell, then cliched its way into meh. What is it with Simmons anyway? He can really knock it out of the park...then succumbs to sequelitis in the worst way. Happened with Hyperion, happened with Illium...oh well, guess that implies I might like 'Summer of Night' but I'll have to wait 'til the disappointment fades some. I was really looking forward to something scary (the only books that every really creeped me out where 'Ghost Story' by Peter Straub, and 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker. Its a surprisingly chilling read on a winter night with the wind howling under the eaves...)
The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester . I've never really liked the oddly tilted writing style of the 40s-50s period. But this story just doesn't let up. Gully is a beast, and more than a little bit cast in the likeness of a 40s Hollywood gangster, but he is what makes it worthwhile. If he wasn't such a madman, it'd just be another forgettable pulp novel.
Judas Unleashed - Peter F Hamilton. I made it through 'Pandora's Star', and well...I liked it enough to tackle the sequel. Like the first book, some of the subplots are interesting, some are tedious, but this time it hugely focuses on a character who I don't like. Its maybe just me, but the whole 'civilization saved by bimbo' angle wasn't all that interesting to me. And...there was no real resolution of *the entire problem* which was equally off-putting. The whole 'humanity is screwed!' angle just gets quietly dropped at the end. Not satisfying. I've got the first book of his 'void' series...but I'll set it aside until I get really bored.
Neverness - David Zindell - I am actually re-reading this. I read it when it came out in '88, and remembered it fondly...and realize my memory isn't nearly as clear as I like to think it is.  It has taken me a while to get into it, and frankly, I can't stand Mallory Ringess. What a petulant, shallow whiny little shit he is. A bit of a problem since he's the main character. (And why is that my mind insists that Soli is Viggo Morgenstern?)
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Heron Abroad
United States
Indiana
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The Einstein Syndrome by Thomas Sowell
This book was very interesting, and very reassuring to me as a mom of a son who just turned two and only has two phrases that he says: "Oh no" and "All done". While I don't necessarily think this son is "exceptionally bright", there is certainly nothing else wrong with him, and it was really nice to read a discussion about children who grow up to be just fine but don't start talking at the typical time -- as opposed to being inundated with news about autism spectrum disorders and so on, which he clearly does not fit into.
He does fit better into the characteristics described by Sowell -- he is closely related to three engineers, as well as two late talkers. After talking to my family, I found out that my dad (an engineer) didn't talk until something like four or five years old, and it turns out that I started talking at one point, and then abruptly stopped (which, these days, has people jumping to the autism conclusion) and eventually started talking again much later.
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