Bikeworks
Well-Known Member
Excellent series IMO, posted about it a few pages back. It's begging to be made into a series. Also, it's now 5 books in, with the final 2 coming next year I believe.
what do you read?
- Thread starter bonefishjake
- Start date
Big Dumb Animal
Hippo Nipples' #1 Fan
Oh that's awesome, thought it was just a trilogy. It would make for a great series, either a show or movies.
I gave up on Fall.
40% in and it just became a totally unending quagmire of zero narrative movement. In reading some reviews of this and his latest, he may be about done. It started out so well and in the end just started to suck.
I still had 500+ pages to go so I cut my losses.
40% in and it just became a totally unending quagmire of zero narrative movement. In reading some reviews of this and his latest, he may be about done. It started out so well and in the end just started to suck.
I still had 500+ pages to go so I cut my losses.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
So it's been a long while since I posted in here. I've read too many different books to catalogue them, but there are a few things worth mentioning. First, I saw someone mentioned Stephen King's "Fairy Tale". I've never been a big horror fan, so I haven't read much of King's stuff but I think he's a fantastic storyteller and I really enjoyed this book. It's pretty atypical for him (in fact, I read an interview he gave in which he claims it was a book he wrote during the pandemic to keep himself positive, so hearing that you kinda know you're not getting "Pet Sematary.)
I've read a bunch more of Hamilton's stuff - I've now read probably two-thirds of his books in the Commonwealth Universe plus I read a few standalone (Fallen Dragon and The Great North Road). I've enjoyed all of them quite a bit, but the more of his I read, the more I realize that he's not for everyone. He is obsessively dedicated to detail to the point where he can go off on long tangents describing minutiae of some unreal futuristic process so if that's not your bag, he might not be for you. That said, I just really like the worlds he creates. I would want to live in those futures. Plus, I think his chapter introducing the alien "Morning Light Mountain" in Pandora's Star is - hard-stop - as good as sci-fi gets.
Other than that, I've been mixing a lot of non-fiction and fiction lately, but there are two I really want to recommend for now.
First, I just finished the third book in Adrian Tchaicovsky's "Children of ..." series (which I really think is going to be more than a trilogy), Children of Memory. I ordered this way back in June when it was first announced for publication at the end of January for the U.S. Another absolutely fantastic novel. I loved the first two - Children of Time is at this point on a lot of people's short lists for the top ten sci-fi novels ever, and while I've seen some comments online from people who didn't like Children of Ruin quite as much, I thought it was just as good (if not better.) The ideas in the first two are just huge, and three continues in that same vein, especially with respect to what it has to say about a theme that has wound its way through the whole series so far but gets its most direct treatment here. It'll be weird for a while, but stay with it. And I don't want to say another thing about it because almost any detail could be a spoiler of a fantastic payoff of twists on twists and it's really worth a read.
Second, if anyone is looking for a quicker read, last year Blake Crouch took the role of collator/editor on a series of short novellas written by six different authors around the common theme of near- or far-future. The series is called The Forward Collection, and you could read them in any order. I got them as a collection on my Kindle and just went straight through one to the next, but you don't have to do that - each is actually sold separately as a standalone short story as well. The authors are Crouch, Veronica Roth, NK Jemisin, Amor Towles, Paul Tremblay and Andy Weir. Every one is very different from the others and you may like some more than others, but I thought this was a group of great authors stripping their stories down to a bare essence and just delivering the goods one and all.
That's about it for now. I've got a few others that I've really enjoyed, but if I start going down the road I'd probably want to say something about all of them and that'd be a novel in and of itself - I had a lot of downtime away from work at the end of last year and I think I read like a dozen books in December alone.
I've read a bunch more of Hamilton's stuff - I've now read probably two-thirds of his books in the Commonwealth Universe plus I read a few standalone (Fallen Dragon and The Great North Road). I've enjoyed all of them quite a bit, but the more of his I read, the more I realize that he's not for everyone. He is obsessively dedicated to detail to the point where he can go off on long tangents describing minutiae of some unreal futuristic process so if that's not your bag, he might not be for you. That said, I just really like the worlds he creates. I would want to live in those futures. Plus, I think his chapter introducing the alien "Morning Light Mountain" in Pandora's Star is - hard-stop - as good as sci-fi gets.
Other than that, I've been mixing a lot of non-fiction and fiction lately, but there are two I really want to recommend for now.
First, I just finished the third book in Adrian Tchaicovsky's "Children of ..." series (which I really think is going to be more than a trilogy), Children of Memory. I ordered this way back in June when it was first announced for publication at the end of January for the U.S. Another absolutely fantastic novel. I loved the first two - Children of Time is at this point on a lot of people's short lists for the top ten sci-fi novels ever, and while I've seen some comments online from people who didn't like Children of Ruin quite as much, I thought it was just as good (if not better.) The ideas in the first two are just huge, and three continues in that same vein, especially with respect to what it has to say about a theme that has wound its way through the whole series so far but gets its most direct treatment here. It'll be weird for a while, but stay with it. And I don't want to say another thing about it because almost any detail could be a spoiler of a fantastic payoff of twists on twists and it's really worth a read.
Second, if anyone is looking for a quicker read, last year Blake Crouch took the role of collator/editor on a series of short novellas written by six different authors around the common theme of near- or far-future. The series is called The Forward Collection, and you could read them in any order. I got them as a collection on my Kindle and just went straight through one to the next, but you don't have to do that - each is actually sold separately as a standalone short story as well. The authors are Crouch, Veronica Roth, NK Jemisin, Amor Towles, Paul Tremblay and Andy Weir. Every one is very different from the others and you may like some more than others, but I thought this was a group of great authors stripping their stories down to a bare essence and just delivering the goods one and all.
That's about it for now. I've got a few others that I've really enjoyed, but if I start going down the road I'd probably want to say something about all of them and that'd be a novel in and of itself - I had a lot of downtime away from work at the end of last year and I think I read like a dozen books in December alone.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
By the way @Norm - I have "Fall" on my "Want to Read" list over on goodreads. That and "Snow Crash". Just based on "Seveneves", I can see where Stephenson's books could feel "glacial" in their movement. But I really liked that book. So reading your comment, I'm kind of torn now - I'm willing to put the time in with a slow moving novel if the payoff is worth it (I felt it was with Seveneves but if there isn't a payoff I'd feel like I wasted my time and I do agree with the idea of putting it aside if it doesn't click because there are millions of other books out there waiting to take its place.)
One more thing: last night, I started "Wayward" by Chuck Wendig. It's the sequal to "Wanderers", which was fantastic (that's a strong "recommend" for anyone who likes thrillers.) I'm only a few chapters in but it's already got me. I didn't even know this was coming out until I saw it at B&N, which is surprising because Wendig is actually pretty local (he lives in New Hope, PA) so the small local bookstore over in Doylestown hypes his stuff pretty hard. I must have just missed it.
I read Snow Crash & Seveneves. I believe they were both worth the time put in. I just saw no point in The Fall.
I am really torn on your previous post. I really did not like Children of Time. I am wondering if this was a me problem.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Thanks - that's good to know. It's funny - I just saw a blurb on The Fall's goodreads page that described it as part Paradise Lost. That sounds horrifying to me - I remember reading that years ago and I hated it in a way that I know I would never change my mind. Like some things you read when you're in school you may re-read again as an adult and realize they were much better or maybe much worse, but you have a different reaction one way or the other. But I remember hating everything about Paradise Lost to such a degree that when I had to write a paper about it I actually took the time to write a very carefully thought out essay on why I thought it was the worst thing I ever read, and putting effort into anything for me when I was that age was a rarity so that was worth noting. So maybe I need to reconsider keeping The Fall on my "want to read" list, huh?
As for Children of Time, can you describe what you didn't like about it? I could tell you if the others have that same thing going (for example, all three are largely told in the present tense - e.g., "The portiids are using ants for calculation" as opposed to "the portiids used ants for calculation" - and that's a literary device that can feel hit or miss.) If it's just the story itself, not sure what to say - while they all build on one another, I thought the new things introduced in the second book were a pretty big departure from what happened in the first, and the third is completely different than the other two, so you might enjoy those more. As I see it, there is a single underlying theme that is woven into and connects all three even though the stories are very different - you would definitely know what I mean if I mentioned one word, but I won't do that because it's very much the main idea of the latest book. I saw that because it's actually overtly addressed and there is a chapter when certain (fantastic) new characters speak to it directly in a way that really solidified this as a great story for me.
I can't, because I really don't know. I just read the plot of the book on wikipedia and I think maybe I was just in a shitty point to have read the book, because while I do remember it, I read this plot summary and think, "I don't quite remember that aspect." I think sometimes books work for your place in life and other times they don't. Maybe this was just the wrong read at the wrong time?
I now feel like I should either consider rereading it or just go to book #2.
I ordered these books earlier today, and they arrive tomorrow. I'll let you know what I think you should do after reading the first book.
I really liked Snow Crash, but I read it 20 years ago. Not sure if I'd like it more or less now. I haven't read any of his stuff newer than Seveneves though.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
So I read Snow Crash and it was ... okay I guess. The story was good enough, but there were definitely a number of things I wasn't really into about it. Throughout the whole thing it kind of read like it would have been better off as a graphic novel or even anime, and then I read that it was actually originally intended to be a graphic novel. It just seemed like it was meant to be much more visual than a typical novel. And that's not a reason I wasn't thrilled. I suppose I was judging it by Seveneves, and I just think that was a much better novel. And I thought Stephenson loaded it with all kinds of cultural references that feel pretty dated now (L. Bob Rife is obviously L. Ron Hubbard, the prominence of the Mafia, and the dated technological references), which is unfair to hold against it since it was written in the 90's, but it kind of felt like it really doesn't hold up today. And I realize that's on me - as one point of how my own recency bias works, I wasn't picturing the Metaverse as a Matrix-like simulation (which apparently most people who've read this do) but rather as a Sims-like low quality cartoonish simulation. I think another issue I had was just how many chapters went off on the Sumerian exposition. What Stephenson pulled from that history just felt like utter bullshit. It served this story well, but ... nah. The whole mysticism part of that just isn't my thing at all. But like I said, the overall story was pretty good so I didn't hate it and it moved quickly. I just think Stephenson was basically a completely different (and in my opinion, better) writer by the time he wrote Seveneves.
I figured this would be the case.
Pro tip: Don’t read Isaac Asimov then. Not only does his stuff not hold up today, it would never stand a chance of being published. I find this the case with most classic SciFi.
johnbryanpeters
Well-Known Member
As would Shakespear...
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
About a week or two ago, I was watching Jeopardy and the final question involved "Snow Crash". It was in the category of "Modern Words" and the question was something along the lines of "Neal Stephenson coined this word in his 1992 novel Snow Crash and it was later shortened by a company to become its new name”. The answer was, of course, "metaverse". Apparently, tons of people complained that this question was too esoteric when no one was able to answer it correctly. It actually seemed pretty easy to me and I thought it would have been just as easy if I had never read the book because the second part of the question seems like a dead giveaway. I mean, how many companies have changed their name with as much (pointless) fanfare as Facebook in the last however many years? I had no idea that the term was first coined in the book, but it kind of makes sense now thinking about it since it was written 31 years ago. But I can't believe people would be up in arms over this as a question that was too tough. There are plenty of times when my wife and I are watching Jeopardy while eating dinner and I have no clue what the final answer is or even what half the single or double jeopardy round answers are, but this one I knew before they even finished reading the question. How is "metaverse" too esoteric in this day and age?
johnbryanpeters
Well-Known Member
Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko
Reading your post, I knew the answer immediately as well, and I also think it's more from the second part of the question than from the fact that I read Snow Crash like 20 years ago.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
So I've read a bunch of pretty good books lately. I finished off the God King Chronicles - I'd read The Black Coast about a year ago and read the second two, The Splinter King and The Godbreaker back to back just recently. This was a really cool trilogy, and I think it could contniue if Brooks wanted to because there are a few storylines that only kind of end. It covers quite a few themes, from sociopolitical philosophy to gender politics to class struggle to the power religious fervor can wield. I thought it got better and better as it went. One thing I particularly liked about it was how you could see Brooks did his homework on creating cultures within the world he built - the different cultures involved in the story are clearly based on real ethnic groups through history (e.g., the Tjakorshi are pretty much the Danes of the Viking age, even their naming conventions follow the Icelandic tradition for last names inferring parentage but in a slightly different way.)
I also read a couple of nonfiction books in my favorite genre (exploration disaster!) I've read a bunch of these stories and some of my all-time favorite books are in this genre - Skeletons on the Zahara is one I read probably 15 or 20 years ago that stands out as probably the most incredible real life story I've ever read. In general, I think these stories mostly seem to come down to some variation of a few finite themes - like "stunning hubris in the face of nature", "genuine heroism" and "just plain old bad luck" to name a few. The ones I read recently were very different in the specific subjects they covered, but all three of those themes are all over the place in both. The first was "Empire of Ice and Stone" about the disaster of a polar exploration ship called The Karluk in the early 20th century. It's a pretty amazing survival story with plenty of moments of both incredible fortitude and stunning callousness on the part of different characters. The second was Buried in the Sky, the story of the 2008 disaster on K2 when 11 people died in the span of just two days. That one is kind of haunting because, unlike in many other climbing disaster stories where you see that a big part of the reason things went south was due to the deadly combination of inexperience and bad luck, this one seems to have been perhaps the most preventable because every single one of the people on the mountain that day were experienced and more than adept at recognizing the dangers in front of them before things got out of hand and yet they all chose to ignore it until things got past the point of no return. It's incredible that as many of them survived as did, and while I sort of recall there being a big blowback about what happened then at the time, I never realized just how justified that blowback was. The survivors should absolutely feel the full burden of blame for what went on up there because every single one of them knew enough to know they should have turned back well before things got out of hand. At any rate, both of these books did a really excellent job handling the material.
I read two books just this week that were really just fantastic. First, I read Alastair Reynolds Eversion. I actually figured out exactly what was going on before the twist was revealed (I think most people who read enough sci-fi will) but it didn't matter because Reynolds really is a great writer and the story was still riveting. This was the first book I've read by Reynolds, but I'll definitely want to check out some more after this.
Finally, I read MR Carey's Infinity Gate. This was just recently published and its the first book in what will be his "Pandominion Series" (not sure if it'll be a trilogy or something bigger yet.) I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed this story. Easily one of the best books I've read in the last few years. I enjoyed every second of it. It's about a multiverse where multiple different earths join together in a loose resource trade coalition called the Pandominion made possible by the discovery of interdimensional travel. Every single part of this just worked for me. Even the elements that require the suspension of disbelief (on my part - not necessarily universally) were absolutely fine for the story. My only disappointment is that because it's so new I now have to wait at least a year to continue it. I cannot recommend this one enough - I was sucked in completely from the first paragraph in chapter 0.
I also read a couple of nonfiction books in my favorite genre (exploration disaster!) I've read a bunch of these stories and some of my all-time favorite books are in this genre - Skeletons on the Zahara is one I read probably 15 or 20 years ago that stands out as probably the most incredible real life story I've ever read. In general, I think these stories mostly seem to come down to some variation of a few finite themes - like "stunning hubris in the face of nature", "genuine heroism" and "just plain old bad luck" to name a few. The ones I read recently were very different in the specific subjects they covered, but all three of those themes are all over the place in both. The first was "Empire of Ice and Stone" about the disaster of a polar exploration ship called The Karluk in the early 20th century. It's a pretty amazing survival story with plenty of moments of both incredible fortitude and stunning callousness on the part of different characters. The second was Buried in the Sky, the story of the 2008 disaster on K2 when 11 people died in the span of just two days. That one is kind of haunting because, unlike in many other climbing disaster stories where you see that a big part of the reason things went south was due to the deadly combination of inexperience and bad luck, this one seems to have been perhaps the most preventable because every single one of the people on the mountain that day were experienced and more than adept at recognizing the dangers in front of them before things got out of hand and yet they all chose to ignore it until things got past the point of no return. It's incredible that as many of them survived as did, and while I sort of recall there being a big blowback about what happened then at the time, I never realized just how justified that blowback was. The survivors should absolutely feel the full burden of blame for what went on up there because every single one of them knew enough to know they should have turned back well before things got out of hand. At any rate, both of these books did a really excellent job handling the material.
I read two books just this week that were really just fantastic. First, I read Alastair Reynolds Eversion. I actually figured out exactly what was going on before the twist was revealed (I think most people who read enough sci-fi will) but it didn't matter because Reynolds really is a great writer and the story was still riveting. This was the first book I've read by Reynolds, but I'll definitely want to check out some more after this.
Finally, I read MR Carey's Infinity Gate. This was just recently published and its the first book in what will be his "Pandominion Series" (not sure if it'll be a trilogy or something bigger yet.) I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed this story. Easily one of the best books I've read in the last few years. I enjoyed every second of it. It's about a multiverse where multiple different earths join together in a loose resource trade coalition called the Pandominion made possible by the discovery of interdimensional travel. Every single part of this just worked for me. Even the elements that require the suspension of disbelief (on my part - not necessarily universally) were absolutely fine for the story. My only disappointment is that because it's so new I now have to wait at least a year to continue it. I cannot recommend this one enough - I was sucked in completely from the first paragraph in chapter 0.