October 2010 - What are you reading?

[Raskolnikov]

Finished Adam Roberts's Yellow Blue Tibia. Loved it. Roberts manages to mix deep themes and dark humour to great effect. Recommended if you're looking for a book that's thought-provoking and very entertaining at the same time.

I picked this up blindly at the bookstore, without even knowing who Adam Roberts was. It was a pleasant surprise. Even just for the humor alone, I found myself going back a few pages here and there just to read the funny bits again.

[Cuchulain]

I picked this up blindly at the bookstore, without even knowing who Adam Roberts was. It was a pleasant surprise. Even just for the humor alone, I found myself going back a few pages here and there just to read the funny bits again.

The funny parts are great. The police interrogation with the castration threats is comedy gold.

[RobMRobM]

Just finished 'Blue Highways' by William Least Heat-Moon. Very enjoyable nonfiction indeed. I picked up Mickey Zucker Reichert's 'The Last of the Reshai' and couldn't make it past the prologue. Really Really Bad. I am now rereading DM Cornish's 'Lamplighter' in preparation for the final book in the trilogy being released this winter. I am enjoying it even more than the first time. Cornish is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

If you really want to go for broke with William LHM, read Praryerth, his follow up to Blue Highways. Takes the exact opposite approach - book creates a "very deep map" of a single county in Kansas, examined from all points of view: history, economy, geology, politics, culture, etc. Incredibly impressive, but overwhelming at times. Rob

For me, almost done with Erickson's Malazan books, which I like very much but don't love, and almost done with my Vorkosigan re-read, which I am emjoying without reservation. (Note - if you want to dip into Vorkosigan, one of the best pieces - the Hugo winning novella, Mountains of Mourning, is free online at Baen books. Google "mountains of mourning" and baen and it should come right up. Hard to imagine a better use of a few hours of your time. Miles is one of the great characters in SFF - think Tyrion if he had loving parents and too much personal honor to use whores, and was the only child of his powerful family.

[Chaldanya]

am reading The Passage by Justin Cronin at the moment. post apocolyptic world + vampires = solid good read.

N

[beniowa]

Last night I finished Soulless by Gail Carriger. I liked the setting of an alternate Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves have "come out" to become part of society, much like in Carrie Vaughn's Kitty series. Carriger also has a real quirky sense of humor so the book was often very funny. What I didn't like is that there is a romance sub-plot which I found quite ridiculous. The characters often argued or misunderstood each other and I always hate that. The sequels are supposed to be a bit better so I do plan to check them out.

I'm going to get caught up on the Nightside novels with Just Another Judgment Day and The Good, The Bad, and the Uncanny by Simon R. Green.

[kcf]

Well, after a couple of weeks of procrastination, I finally wrote up my review of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin for the SF and Fantasy Masterworks Reading Project. It's good, really good. It earns the right to at or near the top of 'best of' lists for SF. I also finished up Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes - a review will come shortly.

Now I'm reading the Swords and Dark Magic anthology edited by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan while I wait on my copy of Towers of Midnight.

[Larry.]

Today marked the first of hopefully several group reviews of hard-to-categorize fictions that I myself, Jeff VanderMeer, and Paul Smith will review on the same day (all without consulting with each other about anything other than when to have the reviews go live). The first book? Grace Krilanovich's debut novel, The Orange Eats Creeps. It is one of those raw, visceral novels that may be too intense for some, but which might be the perfect novel to read, particularly during this month.

[shadow catlady]

Well, after a couple of weeks of procrastination, I finally wrote up my review of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin for the SF and Fantasy Masterworks Reading Project. It's good, really good. It earns the right to at or near the top of 'best of' lists for SF.

I enjoyed your review! I loved this book, too, but The Disposessed is still my favorite of hers. Wondering what you thought of it.

I finished Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, yesterday. I'd heard about the movie in my own belated way and thought the plot sounded interesting. I liked it, and thought it was October-scary enough, though I'm wondering if the movie is just a bunch of good-looking people with sexy British accents with period settings, to the point where I probably won't make an effort to watch it.

Today I finished The Red Tent, since countless female friends recommended it. Underwhelmed, slightly depressed that so many people I like liked this book. I hope I can avoid mentioning my thoughts on this so I can fake fitting in for a bit longer. Or, since that was probably shot years, decades, ago, at least avoid insulting these people.

Both reads were slightly spoiled by my first October read, begun in September, Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. I totally loved this book and fell for the mathic utopia and I'm still pretending I might grow up in one in some alternate reality. Thanks, forum, I got the idea for this book somewhere here!

[peterbound]

Both reads were slightly spoiled by my first October read, begun in September, Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. I totally loved this book and fell for the mathic utopia and I'm still pretending I might grow up in one in some alternate reality. Thanks, forum, I got the idea for this book somewhere here!

This book made me feel stupid.

[kcf]

I enjoyed your review! I loved this book, too, but The Disposessed is still my favorite of hers. Wondering what you thought of it.

I haven't read that one yet.

[shadow catlady]

This book made me feel stupid.

I know what you mean, but I like to imagine believe that with the proper discipline I'd be as smart as a Thousander some day.

I haven't read that one yet.

Like The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed is to me, a comforting "subtle and not didactic" feminist/ humanist/ political exploration, and a great story.

[siemprepe]

Reading the way of kings at work and the thousandfold thought at home.

[Astra]

I have finished We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

WOW! Fantastic book. Even more WOW! because I never expected to like it. I forced myself to read because it is known that this book influenced George Orwell's 1984.

Mind blowing. Simply mind blowing.

It is difficult to believe that the author could write it in 1920!

We is about everything. Government. Power. Big Brother? Feelings. Love!

Although, it was written 90 years ago, you never feel that it is "old"

As a consequence I started 1984.

[Zach H]

The Idiot, Dostoyevsky - Didn't expect this to be so "readable" as far as the dialogues kind of hooking me in a page-turner sense, but it's great. For lack of a better phrase the sense of "casual ambivalence" that underlines so many of the interactions and attitudes in contrast to Myshkin makes this book feel surprisingly modern.

The Warlord of the Air, Moorcock - probably the most accessible Eternal Champion. Definitely recommended even if you are one that considers Elric too "emo" or Jerry Cornelius too incomprehensible.

[VarysTheSpider]

I have finished We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

WOW! Fantastic book. Even more WOW! because I never expected to like it. I forced myself to read because it is known that this book influenced George Orwell's 1984.

Mind blowing. Simply mind blowing.

It is difficult to believe that the author could write it in 1920!

We is about everything. Government. Power. Big Brother? Feelings. Love!

Although, it was written 90 years ago, you never feel that it is "old"

As a consequence I started 1984.

"Now I no longer live in our clear, rational world; I live in the ancient nightmare world, the world of square roots of minus one." I love that book. I've always been a fan of dystopian literature, but while many may make me angry, We is probably the only one I've read that really made me scared of the extent of the state's ambition. Brrr.

[Peadar]

I'm reading Xenephon's The Persian Expedition. It's a bit dry, but fascinating as a first-hand account.

[Cantabile]

I have finished We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

WOW! Fantastic book. Even more WOW! because I never expected to like it. I forced myself to read because it is known that this book influenced George Orwell's 1984.

Mind blowing. Simply mind blowing.

It is difficult to believe that the author could write it in 1920!

We is about everything. Government. Power. Big Brother? Feelings. Love!

Although, it was written 90 years ago, you never feel that it is "old"

As a consequence I started 1984.

Thanks for the review, I'd never heard of it for some reason. It's now on my To Read List :)

[Cuchulain]

Finished Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. It's a very funny pastiche of hard-boiled detective fiction (with many references to Chandler, Hammett, etc.), set in the late sixties and featuring a private investigator who smokes so much pot that he can't remember what he's investigating half the time. Besides being very entertaining, Inherent Vice is also surprisingly accessible for a Pynchon novel (though there's still enough depth and complexity too). IV is an excellent starting point for people who want to read Pynchon, but think Gravity's Rainbow is too daunting.

[WickerMan]

At least until I pick up a leisure reading book, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Have to read Jungle for my American Lit class.

Semester reading goals:

1984 by George Orwell

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes, also Bradbury

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

I've read 1984 and F451 before, want to give BNW and ACO a second chance, and I've never read Something Wicked or Little Brother before.

[Cantabile]

I'm on a poetry binge at the moment, going through all the generic famous French authors. Had a dream last night that I bought Bakker's Neuropath though, so I'm thinking it's a divine sign that I should get off my lazy ass and finally read that book.