What BOOK(s) are you reading?

Gary Sax wrote: I remember liking Guns of August but feeling it was very dry compared to the best histories. A very "overview" sort of history that's vital but doesn't electrify.

I actually liked the dryness, but I was also listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast on the same period which leans way towards the colorful side. So I kind of had a balance to offset any dryness that may have been present. I really liked how it bounced from government to government over each time period to cover how they were each responding to the new "inputs" being presented to them.

I'm re-reading the First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie and by god, are these books ever good! I recently re-read The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson. A beautiful sci-fantasy book set in a world long after an alien race had bred with tiny percent of the human population, and left. The descendents are looked at as demigods in the present world. Demane (dubbed the Sorcerer by others) is escorting a caravan of goods along with the Captain of the guard (also a descendant) who secretly is his lover. The world is inhabited by those of African descent and the language is enriched with African-Americanised English. Lovely, lovely storytelling and characters.

Dr. Mabuse wrote: I'm re-reading the First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie and by god, are these books ever good!

I just finished re-reading Abercrombie's The Heroes, and it's good too.

Saturn Run by Sandford and Ctein. This is hard science fiction with really good, really real science in it. It checked the box I had hoped Spacecorp would.

I'm not big on fiction but this one was especially well grounded. Good read.

I'm reading Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff.
It's merely okay. The mid-20th C. racial prejudice exposition is a bit too much for my tastes.

I just finished Gideon the Ninth by Tamryn Muir. Sci-fi necromancy and some Eldar-like bonesinging. Great novel and I am looking forward to the next installment.

I have just started the new book from Joe Abercrombie, A Little Hatred. More great writing. He really has a nice way of tying in events from the other books in this universe.

I'm deep into SPIDERLIGHT - in my quest to read all books featuring giant spiders!
This one feels like it’s setting me up for a huge twist.
Reads somewhat like a D&D campaign.

Forgot to say, just finished the first 3 books in the SPIDER WORLD saga.
It is, and it isn’t, the book you’re expecting.
Giant psychic, balloon-gliding spiders have reduced mankind to the Stone Age.

Yugblad wrote: I'm deep into SPIDERLIGHT - in my quest to read all books featuring giant spiders!
This one feels like it’s setting me up for a huge twist.
Reads somewhat like a D&D campaign.

How are you finding Tchaikovsky's books? I really enjoyed Children of Time (a little bit more than simply 'Spiders in Spaaace') so sought out a couple of his other Sci-Fi novels. Dogs of War was okay, I haven't yet been able to get into the Tripods book. Apparently the sequel to Children of Time is lacklustre so I'm wondering if he's a one-hit wonder and if his fantasy writing is any good?

I finished the The Warrior Prophet, the second book in R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series. I think I might be done reading Bakker. This book was a real slog to get through. By the end, I was just grateful to be done.

Two things about Bakker really grate on my nerves. One, the names. So many fucking names!! Names of people and cities and countries and religions, and almost none of them matter. I suppose he thinks he's adding background color, and showing off how very detailed and impressive his world-building is. But it comes off as just obnoxious noise. I've been reading fantasy novels for about 30 years now, so I'm pretty comfortable with weird fantasy names, but Bakker pushes the limits of my patience. It's almost like technobabble in a Star Trek episode -- it's just words that don't mean anything that are there to fill space.

The second thing is more of a writer quirk. The majority of the story is told from a limited, third-person point of view. The POV moves around to different characters, but you're only ever inside one person's head at a time, seeing events from that person's eyes. Pretty typical stuff. But then he does this thing when he's describing big picture events, like a big battle. It's like he pulls the camera WAAAAAAY back, and suddenly you're reading this omniscient, voiceless point of view. Instead of seeing the battle through the eyes of a character, it's like you're reading a dry, history textbook for a few pages. He does that all the time, and it's such a jarring, disorienting experience.

The book is also suuuuper grimdark, with lots of horrible people with suspect motives doing horrible things to one another. It takes a subtle hand to pull that off without descending into bleak nihilism. Bakker is not nearly as talented as, say, Martin or Abercrombie or Erickson, who deal in similar themes. Why should I care about ANY of these people when they're all fucking awful? There's no Tyrion or Logan Ninefingers to add some much-needed gallows humor.

Anyway, yeah, I think I'm done with R. Scott Bakker. I think I'm going to read some Bernard Cornwell next, as a bit of a palate cleanser.

mezike wrote:

Yugblad wrote: I'm deep into SPIDERLIGHT - in my quest to read all books featuring giant spiders!
This one feels like it’s setting me up for a huge twist.
Reads somewhat like a D&D campaign.

How are you finding Tchaikovsky's books? I really enjoyed Children of Time (a little bit more than simply 'Spiders in Spaaace') so sought out a couple of his other Sci-Fi novels. Dogs of War was okay, I haven't yet been able to get into the Tripods book. Apparently the sequel to Children of Time is lacklustre so I'm wondering if he's a one-hit wonder and if his fantasy writing is any good?

I'm really enjoying Spiderlight - I have Children of Time ready to go next.
I like to approach things in reverse order!

I just finished the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. I thought it was fantastic. I believe it was the first trilogy where every book won the Hugo for best fantasy novel.

I finished The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 by John Toland, which was fantastic. It is an excellent read with a focus primarily from the Japanese side and is based on a lot of research and first-person accounts and interviews when possible. It was written in 1970, so it has a lot of opportunity to interview individuals from all levels of the conflict from high level government officials down to basic infantry/sailors/pilots as well as civilians. That broad mix of viewpoints creates an interesting fabric as it will stay high level for a while covering discussions and overarching activity, but then dive into first person accounts for a while and get hyper-detailed on a specific conflict as representative of a type of action. For example, Burma and China are almost completely glossed over, but it spends four chapters on Guadalcanal.

I also read The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell based on my brother's recommendation. I have not read Cornwell, but I though it was a fairly engaging historical fiction with a lot of ties to actual history. I am curious to read the rest of the series, which I have because my brother dropped off a box of books last time he visited.

I just started Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror by Victor Sebestyen. I've only read the introduction and prologue, but based on those I anticipate it will be a quick, fast paced read. The writer's style is much more fluid and vivid than Pipes' work, though it might give up some of the scholarly edge as a tradeoff.

Rising Sun -- I read Embracing Defeat by Dower and it was excellent as well. Americans are so fixated on the Hitler persona that I don't think we understand how seriously jacked up Imperial Japan was, even in the face of total destruction. A fascinating era and location in history, and I'm not much of a Far East guy.

Just finished The Last Mughal. Highly recommended. His ability to paint a portrait of this polyglot premodern place (Mughal Delhi), pre-nationalism, is breathtaking. And then to watch it all fall apart... it imparts the sense of civilizational sadness while still acknowledging the ways in which it was all fucked up.