RedEyedGhost Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Wow still no thread?I finished up January with The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding. It was fantastic! A great continuation of the first book, and he very successfully built upon what he had created there. So much fun and so well done. I can't wait for The Iron Jackal!Then I breezed through Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper, which is a fast paced crime novel that is very hard to put down. I read about 30% on Saturday, then got the flu on Sunday read another 30%, and finished it yesterday while I still felt awful. Great book, and highly recommended for fans of Charlie Huston... if only Bazell was as prolific as Huston.Today I started MLN Hanover's Vicious Grace, and it's very good so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gormenghast Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Reading Midnight Tides (slowly), rereading Deadhouse Gates for Tor re-read.Then finishing Glen Cook's The Tyranny of the Night, and Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before.Maybe too much at the same time, especially since none of these is a light read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkynJay Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Rereading Lonely Werewolf Girl by Miller. One hell of a book, give it a try. Mostly because I'm waiting for The Heroes to hit the library, I'm first in line on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guinevere Seaworth Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 I polished off Command Decision last night. I'm well into Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon thanks to a major delay in public transit this morning. I think I found my gateway SF book/series. :smoking: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedEyedGhost Posted February 2, 2011 Author Share Posted February 2, 2011 Rereading Lonely Werewolf Girl by Miller. One hell of a book, give it a try. Mostly because I'm waiting for The Heroes to hit the library, I'm first in line on it.Have you read Curse of the Wolf Girl? I haven't picked it up, even though I really enjoyed the first one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eponine Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Finished Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff Vandermeer and started Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (from a board rec). Shriek was brilliant, well written, but not very enjoyable. I love Ambergris as a setting, and I think that the interwoven histories and the build up of mystery and horror that follows the Grey Caps through Vandermeer's books and stories are extremely compelling. The tone of the main narrator is truly realistic - however, it's realistic of someone who is self-indulgent and melodramatic and goes on far, far too long about her personal issues and manages to make even the most interesting events all about herself. Every time she used the phrase "flesh necklace", I hated her a little more. I felt like it was more of an exercise than a novel. This should have been the short story, and The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris the full novel. My mixed feelings about the length of this book won't stop me from reading the last Ambergris book. I wanted to read some short stories before getting into another novel, and I'm really enjoying Ted Chiang. I like that even when they deal with a difficult topic, the stories themselves are very quick and easy to read. I also downloaded the MP3 of The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - it's free via podcast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mashiara Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 I finished Maelstrom and Behemoth by Peter Watts, books 2 and 3 of his Rifters series. I didn't like them as much as the first one, to be honest. The science part was indeed amazing but it seemed as if he was trying more for character development and failing. They weren't easy books to read.I also finished Irena Karafylli's Ασυμβίβαστη Μούσα which translates to Uncompromising Muse, or something like that, and talked about the life of a strong-minded, independent woman in one remote Greek island from WW2 onwards, through the German occupation, the civil war that followed and the military regime a few years later. Not a bad read. Google tells me Karafylli is a Canadian writer and I can find other books of hers in English but not this one. Another book I read was The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean. A sweet little book talking about the story of a woman who helped hide the paintings and artwork of the Hermitage museum back when Russia went to war with Germany, and then suffered the ravages of extreme hunger as the city was under siege. The most interesting part of this book was the fact that it also talked about the present, about this woman being in her 80s and suffering from Alzheimer's, unable to do simple daily things or recognize her loved ones while the memories of her past were still very alive in her mind.I'm about to start Le Parfum d'Adam by Jean-Christophe Rufin. I'll also spend a couple of weeks -or longer- carefully studying Elizabeth Fenwick's The Complete Book of Mother and Baby Care, on loan from dalthor's boss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEvilKing Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Reading The Heroes. 200ish pages in, great stuff.Also finally getting towards the end of Snow Crash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Switchback Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 just picked up Towers of Midnight for my kindle, so finally going to read that. pretty excited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkynJay Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Have you read Curse of the Wolf Girl? I haven't picked it up, even though I really enjoyed the first one.No,i missed that release completely. Putting it on my list now though, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 I finished Steven Saylor's Catilina's Riddle on January 31. It's the third novel in his mystery series set in ancient Rome, where the detective is called Gordianus the Finder. Saylor seems to me to get better in terms of characterization and his presentation of Roman history as the series progresses. This book was especially good at giving one an idea of the relationship between slaves and masters in ancient Rome. I would recommend the book to anyone who likes "historical mysteries." I still think that Saylor (who got his start as an author of gay pornography) has Gordianus paying entirely too much attention to the physical looks of other men (and too little to that of the female characters) to be convincing as a heterosexual, but as a gay man myself I find that fault in characterization amusing rather than off-putting. :)Last night I read Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's only 111 pages. I am reading it as part of the three times a year faculty and staff book discussion at my university. It was chosen because it was decided to pick a short novel (111 pages) that has been made into a film. We will watch the film version on Friday before we discuss the book and movie. I've never seen the film myself and am looking forward to seeing how similar it was to the book. I was surprised by the book myself. It was less comic than I was expecting, and often I really didn't like Holly Golightly, the main character. Though she has some charming scatter-brained aspects, she's the sort of character I think would have become a lot harder to take as she aged. I think the book is a bit dated now, and I was disturbed by a few casual racist remarks made by both Holly and the narrator of the tale. And though there are a few references to objects having been bought at Tiffany's in the novella, there are no scenes actually set there. I also note that Holly is only 20 years old at the end of the book and Audrey Hepburn was 31 when she made the film. After reading the three Capote short stories at the end of my copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's I plan to start Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem, an omnibus of Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos, and Labyrinth by Lois McMaster Bujold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peadar Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 I still think that Saylor (who got his start as an author of gay pornography) has Gordianus paying entirely too much attention to the physical looks of other men (and too little to that of the female characters) to be convincing as a heterosexual, but as a gay man myself I find that fault in characterization amusing rather than off-putting. :)I didn't know he was gay, but I had suspected it.I think Catalina's Riddle is definitely one of the better ones, but even with the weaker books of the series, I really enjoy following Gordianus throughout his life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 A few days ago I finished His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.While the first book was good but very childish at the same time, the last book was not for kids or even teenagers. Some very strong feelings were involved. I loved it.Almost finished The Hunger Games [The Hunger Games #1] by Suzanne Collins. 1 chapter left. So far, I like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuchulain Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Finished Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly, which has to be the best novel on drug abuse I've read (aside from maybe Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).I also finished Slow Learner, a collection of Thomas Pynchon's early short fiction. Because these stories are some of Pynchon's earliest works, they are less developed and easier to read than his novels. They're still really well-written and entertaining, though.I'm now halfway through Samuel Delaney's Babel-17 and I have to say it's great so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jodan Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Delving through the Jack Reacher series at the moment by Lee Child, I'm currently 250 pages into Tripwire. I'll have that finished in the next week so I'm torn between going for the next book in the series, but I've already read the last two back to back, so I'm thinking of getting The Blade Itself. It's past time me and Mr Abercrombie crossed paths from all the love his books get on here.The only other option is Flashman's final adventure, Flashman on the March I'm not sure I can bring myself to end series, not yet anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobMRobM Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 I plan to start Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem, an omnibus of Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos, and Labyrinth by Lois McMaster Bujold.I love Vorkosigan but this is probably the weakest of her compilation volumes. Worth reading but I hope you're reading the others - all of which are free on line as of Nov. 2010 (one novel, Memory, is not available). Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedEyedGhost Posted February 4, 2011 Author Share Posted February 4, 2011 No,i missed that release completely. Putting it on my list now though, thanks.No problem, although, I had hoped you'd read it so I could get some feedback :PI'm a sucker for werewolf books, so I'll probably pick it up soon anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durckad Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 Working on both Matterhorn (by Karl Marlantes) and All Quiet On The Western Front (by.... erm that German guy whose name I can't remember). I'm only a little bit into Matterhorn so far, but it seems good. AQOTWF is very good, some translation issues, but most of the time the writing really shines through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starkess Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 Finished An Autumn War, which was truly fantastic! Really, really want to read The Price of Spring but haven't been able to afford it yet. So working on some free books now, although my heart isn't in it right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 KJ Paker's The Folding Knife, which is excellent. Next up is probably Leviathan Wakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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