What Are You Reading?

lordgoat

Nody wrote: »

Are you sure it's a parallel universe and not someone's diary of the 2016 election?

No this one is just after he comes to power. Is there a prequel I missed?

lordgoat

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/5/16833598/sci-fi-fantasy-horror-book-recommendations-2018

Some interesting ones on here.

smacl

Xofpod wrote: »

Boy on the bridge, M.R. Carey. A big disappointment after the first book - just felt so unnecessary.

Wow, I really enjoyed it. Different strokes and all that

david75

Finished the three body problem. Wackadoodle. Especially the last third.
I’m reluctant to get into the second book. Any encouragement would be welcome.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Xofpod wrote: »

Boy on the bridge, M.R. Carey. A big disappointment after the first book - just felt so unnecessary.

Reading 'The girl with all the gifts' atm, really enjoying it. I was wondering if any of the rest of his was similar. I might download a few samples to see.

ixoy

31% into "Deadhouse Landing", the 2nd book in Ian C. Esslemont's "Path to Ascendancy". The series is basically a "before they were famous" of some of the Malazan Book of the Fallen characters and it's very enjoyable. Like "Dancer's Lament", it's a big improvement on ICE's previous works - it's shorter, lighter, and quite funny in places. Definitely recommend this series for BotF fans.

david75 wrote: »

Finished the three body problem. Wackadoodle. Especially the last third.
I’m reluctant to get into the second book. Any encouragement would be welcome.

I enjoyed the 2nd book but not so much the 3rd as the lead character was annoying and, if it was written in Europe, her character would likely have been shredded IMO.

mcgovern

david75 wrote: »

Finished the three body problem. Wackadoodle. Especially the last third.
I’m reluctant to get into the second book. Any encouragement would be welcome.

If you didn't like the first one you probably won't like the rest. The second book is quite different (and doesn't have the historical flashbacks from what I remember) but equally crazy.

Finished The Scarab Path, it was a real page turner. I don't think there has been a bad book in the series so far.
Now onto Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. It's yet to get going really. I think it might be helped by being set in an unfamiliar period but the author seems to be trying to mention every known race in the Star Wars universe, at least in passing.

nhur

Xofpod wrote: »

Boy on the bridge, M.R. Carey. A big disappointment after the first book - just felt so unnecessary.

ha! i read that as Mariah Carey! funny how the brain works (or doesn't).

keane2097

I'm about half way through The Amber Spyglass. It's a most enjoyable series, glad I went back and read it properly.

smacl

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Reading 'The girl with all the gifts' atm, really enjoying it. I was wondering if any of the rest of his was similar. I might download a few samples to see.

'The Boy on the bridge' is very much the same stuff as 'The girl with all the gifts', so if you want another slice of that cake I'd recommend it. The time-line precedes the original for the most part and moves past it a bit at the end. I loved it and were Mike Carey to add another book to this series I'd buy it without hesitation. Of his other stuff, I enjoyed 'Fellside' which is a not-quite ghost story set in a prison and reads very easily. I also have 'The devil you know' sitting on my kindle but haven't got around to reading it yet.

shootermacg

Enjoying Red Rising. Nothing original but, a big time page turner!

Mr Meanor

Enjoyed this, read it very quickly.

Sea of Rust
by C. Robert Cargill

A world where humans are extinct and robots rule the world after the AI wars. A history of how it happened narrated by a 'female engendered care robot' turned notorious killer called Brittle and how the Ai society is now at war with itself, how the AI's differ from each other, along with the gritty bloody and small details of the war that add credibility to the story.

It has a pretty good plot with a twist at the end. I didn't expect a twist at all

Ave Sodalis

Ave Sodalis wrote: »

Oathbringer is out?! How did I miss this?! Thank you thread! This solves the whole "oh Ave, what do you want for xmas" thing! Gives me time to reread that others first! Woo! Just made my day!

Still don't have it It's been out of stock for ages... apparently it was shipped a week or two ago (not sure what my aunt said) but still not here.

Thargor

Mr Meanor wrote: »

Enjoyed this, read it very quickly.

Sea of Rust
by C. Robert Cargill

A world where humans are extinct and robots rule the world after the AI wars. A history of how it happened narrated by a 'female engendered care robot' turned notorious killer called Brittle and how the Ai society is now at war with itself, how the AI's differ from each other, along with the gritty bloody and small details of the war that add credibility to the story.

It has a pretty good plot with a twist at the end. I didn't expect a twist at all

This sounds perfect, cheers for that.

L

Rotherweird - an odd modern fantasy book that's kind of like Victoriana meets a town called Eureka. Hard to get past the initial patience-trying "whimsy" but once you do, it's not a bad book at heart.

pinkstars

Way of the Peaceful Warrior - loving it!!!

Kiith

Going to go through the Malazan books again (only got to Toll of Hounds last time), as i want to give it a while before I read Oathbringer.

Had already done GotM, DG and MoI, so i'm on House of Chains now. Wasn't looking forward to this, as i remember hating Karsa at first when i read it originally. I still extremely dislike him at the start of the book, but he becomes a very good character after he starts to doubt things. Looking forward to reading through them now, and plan on adding the Novels of the Malazan Empire by Casselmont as well. Should keep me busy for a while.

Are the Bauchelain & Korbal Broach books worth reading? I usually don't like 'bad' protagonists, and they weren't exactly nice people in MoI.

Apparently this is how i need to read them.

1. Gardens of the Moon
2. Deadhouse Gates
3. Blood Follows
4. The Lees of Laughter's End
5. The Wurms of Blearmouth
6. Memories of Ice
7. House of Chains
8. The Healthy Dead
9. Midnight Tides
10. Night of Knives
11. The Bonehunters
12. Reaper's Gale
13. Crack'd Pot Trail
14. Return of the Crimson Guard
15. Toll the Hounds
16. Stonewielder
17. Goats of Glory
18. Dust of Dreams
19. Orb Sceptre Throne
20. The Crippled God
21. Blood and Bone
22. Assail
23. Forge of Darkness
24. Fall of Light
25. Walk in Shadow

Fian

Very ambitious to try to get through both series at once/in parallel. Tbh just reading the erickson ones is enough of a challenge imo. Siilar to yourself i "re-read" the series last year having essentially given up on it before. I managed it and found it really interesting to follow "re-read of the fallen" on tor after i finished each chapter, to make sure i hadn't missed any nuances. Even so I was kind of relieved top be finished.

It is a fantastic work but imo it would have benefited from being better edited and shorter.

Personally i think it is a bad idea to try to read both series at once. Having said that i have not read any malazan books other than the book of the fallen series so maybe i am not best placed to opine..

nhur

Absolutely loving the Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space books - how can one mind conceive of such amazing stuff and make it gel! Reading such sci-fi epics defo encourages a more long-term and wide-ranging view... makes so much of what goes on in the news just appear to be noise in the grander scheme of things

Lady Haywire

Finished the Empire trilogy, definitely didn't enjoy it as well as the Riftwar saga but perhaps that's because there's a lot more politics in it and I have a hard time keeping up with politics in this world, never mind a fantasy one!:D

Also read Neil Gaiman 'Fragile Things' and am not back to finishing the Terry Brooks Word & Void trilogy. I'd actually thought Running with the Demon was a standalone book until I found the other two by mistake so reading A Knight of the Word now.

Dades

Started "The Strain" by Guillermo del Toro (& Chuck Hogan).
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6065215-the-strain

Good so far.

ancapailldorcha

Kiith wrote: »

Going to go through the Malazan books again (only got to Toll of Hounds last time), as i want to give it a while before I read Oathbringer.

Had already done GotM, DG and MoI, so i'm on House of Chains now. Wasn't looking forward to this, as i remember hating Karsa at first when i read it originally. I still extremely dislike him at the start of the book, but he becomes a very good character after he starts to doubt things. Looking forward to reading through them now, and plan on adding the Novels of the Malazan Empire by Casselmont as well. Should keep me busy for a while.

Are the Bauchelain & Korbal Broach books worth reading? I usually don't like 'bad' protagonists, and they weren't exactly nice people in MoI.

Apparently this is how i need to read them.

I'm about to start Orb, Sceptre, Throne. I can't be bothered with the Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas and the other short stories. Will probably go for the Kharkanas trilogy when it's done as well as Esselmont's prequels.

kirk buttercup

Dades wrote: »

Started "The Strain" by Guillermo del Toro (& Chuck Hogan).
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6065215-the-strain

Good so far.

first one is really good it goes a little down hill from there imo

keane2097

Science fact rather than fiction (depends who you ask I suppose), but 'A Man on the Moon' by Andy Chaikin is absolutely spellbinding.

ixoy

nhur wrote: »

Absolutely loving the Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space books - how can one mind conceive of such amazing stuff and make it gel!

Currently reading "Revenger", also by Alastair Reynolds. It's not Revelation Space universe but it's a lot of fun and showing a good bit of imagination - it's basically space pirates at heart. Finding it far more entertaining than the two books in his previous trilogy.

Before that I finished "Spider's War", the fifth and final book in Daniel Abraham's "Dagger and Coin" series. It was good... and that's about it. The series as a whole was fine: no real complaints but nothing that stands out either. Merely sufficient: I much preferred his Long Price series.

TheIrishGrover

kirk buttercup wrote: »

first one is really good it goes a little down hill from there imo

I thought the first one was OK but thought the others were poor. Thought the books were very bland and the characters unlikeable (Not Want-to-punch-their-whiney-arrogant-hateful-faces-"Magicians" unlikeable but bad).

I was disappointed there was no real Del Toro flair. The impression I got was that he was just there really for the vampire design (Similar to Nomak in Blade 2)

stesaurus

Currently reading through Dune saga. I have finished Dune and now started Paul of Dune. Not exactly the reading order by release but read online somewhere that it makes more sense as the 2nd book.
Any other suggestions on reading order?

I was amazed at how well Dune held up considering how long ago it was written. Really was way ahead of it's time. Also WoT Aiel certainly seeing lots of influence from the Fremen or am I imagining that?

stesaurus

stesaurus wrote: »

Currently reading through Dune saga. I have finished Dune and now started Paul of Dune. Not exactly the reading order by release but read online somewhere that it makes more sense as the 2nd book.
Any other suggestions on reading order?

I was amazed at how well Dune held up considering how long ago it was written. Really was way ahead of it's time. Also WoT Aiel certainly seeing lots of influence from the Fremen or am I imagining that?

I'm doing a reread of the series but staying far away from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson abominations. I read quite a few of them years ago and found them to be an insult to Herbert's legacy, finishing off the series with a seventh book is one thing but they've turned it into a cash cow and raped the series for every last cent.

Nody

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm doing a reread of the series but staying far away from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson abominations. I read quite a few of them years ago and found them to be an insult to Herbert's legacy, finishing off the series with a seventh book is one thing but they've turned it into a cash cow and raped the series for every last cent.

Their finishing two books turned what were beautifully multifaceted characters into one sided morons; a brief 20 page summary of his notes and thoughts would have done it much more justice than the abomination they wrote to conclude it. The "Houses" books are ok but I also tried the Butlerian Jihad series and I stopped mid way through the second book as I got tired of it all (Think juiced up Decepticons taking on unarmed civilians and losing half the time as how bad it was written and we're talking 30m robots controlled by human warlords who lived for thousands of years who have less tactical sense than Hulk).

Nody

Nody wrote: »

Their finishing two books turned what were beautifully multifaceted characters into one sided morons; a brief 20 page summary of his notes and thoughts would have done it much more justice than the abomination they wrote to conclude it.

I never read their entries in the original series as their other work was so contradictory to what had happened that I had no faith in them finishing off the series.