currently 1/3 done with soulless, for book to read while eat so far have found it amusing. Bit of a change after finally finishing the void trilogy. Which other than one characters sections getting rather annoying I enjoyed though not as well as the earlier commonwealth books, but more Paula and friends was nice.
45 or so pages left in sword arts online vol 4 passable somewhat amusing, will get around to teh second half of the anime after.
and about to start The dusk watchman : twilight reign book 5 a newer fantasy series I've rather enjoyed.
and will probably start Cross the Stars (to finish off the hammerverse novels) and Lucifer vol 4 sometime after that.
I've been waiting for this book to come out, and I just picked it up two weeks ago at my local Chapters finally. Having read all the other Culture novels I'm enjoying this one quite a bit now. I hope to hell Mr banks keeps writing for years to come.
Damnit, I can't keep up with him. Not used to authors that I really like actually releasing books regularly...
To anyone who's read it, how does it compare to some of the other recent Culture books? Still awesome I take it?
On November 20 2012 16:59 ShrykLdr wrote: House of Leaves is what I'm reading now, and it is arguably one of the greatest books of all time! A quasi-horror novel that really just has you constantly thinking through the entire book, and basically demands you re-read it later. The one thing though is that it is completely mandatory to have the illustrated version
I've tried several times to read House of Leaves, but can't get through it. I just got too distracted when the narration switched.
Have never read anything by Kafka until Methamorphosis and was a little bored one evening and I picked up the e-book for this. Holy shit now i MUST read all his work, started reading The Castle and have The Trial next on the list. I highly recommend this short novel:
Make sure you read kafka's short fiction as well. Get a collection and read through that. Especially "In The Penal Colony," man what a sick story. I would recommend saving The Castle for last, as it is incomplete.
The only reason I read this (and the first 3) is because it is my assigned research, but I'll admit I enjoy having a well read background in Christian Theology. Would not recommend to anyone but a sadist or a devout Reform Christian
I have infinite jest, but haven't had time to read it. I'll probably start on it during winter break, it'll be the first time I've read a book for my enjoyment in like 3 years, last book was catch 22, >.<
I've been waiting for this book to come out, and I just picked it up two weeks ago at my local Chapters finally. Having read all the other Culture novels I'm enjoying this one quite a bit now. I hope to hell Mr banks keeps writing for years to come.
Damnit, I can't keep up with him. Not used to authors that I really like actually releasing books regularly...
To anyone who's read it, how does it compare to some of the other recent Culture books? Still awesome I take it?
I'm on page 360~ out of 520~ and I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. It deals with a civilization (The Gzilt) that was one of the founding members of the Culture that's about to Sublime. An event occurs that might interfere with the Gzilt Subliming, so the Culture has to decide how much to help/interfere.
I will say the book is lacking action until later on, but learning more about the Sublime, which is never gone into in other books is pretty cool. It has quite a bit of Mind dialogue like Excession (Well, more than most of the other books), but other than that I can't really think how to compare it to the other books. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, and I can't wait to see how the story pans out, because it's hard to tell how things will develop.
Just finished reading Asimov's Foundation series. It was a great read, I suggest it to anyone who likes the science fiction even a little bit. Time to start reading the Robot series.
On December 11 2012 16:57 Lipko wrote: Just finished reading Asimov's Foundation series. It was a great read, I suggest it to anyone who likes the science fiction even a little bit. Time to start reading the Robot series.
I just finished the first in the series, Foundation. Honestly I was disappointed with the first one, after having read (and loved) the Dune books, up to Heretics of Dune, which I left in a hotel unfinished T.T. Foundation is a good novel, but it seemed to me to lack the depth of character and setting that other science fiction worlds (read: Dune) have in abundance.
In other reading news I just started Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell, and have so far found to to be fucking excellent. David Mitchell is just a fantastic writer.
Next up I have either Animal Farm, Brave New World or maybe finish off The Dead Hand by David Hoffman, which I started, liked, and then put back down, and I'm not really sure why.
On December 11 2012 17:27 Hamsterdam wrote: it seemed to me to lack the depth of character and setting that other science fiction worlds (read: Dune) have in abundance.
On December 11 2012 17:27 Hamsterdam wrote: I just finished the first in the series, Foundation. Honestly I was disappointed with the first one, after having read (and loved) the Dune books, up to Heretics of Dune, which I left in a hotel unfinished T.T. Foundation is a good novel, but it seemed to me to lack the depth of character and setting that other science fiction worlds (read: Dune) have in abundance.
In other reading news I just started Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell, and have so far found to to be fucking excellent. David Mitchell is just a fantastic writer.
Next up I have either Animal Farm, Brave New World or maybe finish off The Dead Hand by David Hoffman, which I started, liked, and then put back down, and I'm not really sure why.
I think the main reason of the lack the depth of characters are the incredibly long timespan of the whole story. These are just short stories, novels about the rising of the Foundation. There is only one reoccuring character in the whole series but it just manipulates from the back. I also read Dune(and loved it) until the God Emperor of Dune. These books tell a story of one family, through 600 pages, therefore we get to know the characters so much more. And Letho also lives for thousands of years in his sandworm form and the main character of 2 books so we get to know him. Asimov's novels are about 100-200 pages long and he also has a strange writing style. In his books there are a lot of dialogues but little to no description of the setting. The whole story is carried by conversation. It takes time to get used to it. I still suggest to read not just the Foundation, but the whole Foundation trilogy(love the Mule). It is even better to read all the 7 Foundation books, together those books connects everything, the whole story becomes much clearer(although there are some differences between some, not-so-important things because he wrote the original trilogy 30 years before My favourite of the Foundation series was the Foundation and Empire.
Just finished Haruki Murakami's After Dark. Really amazing writing by this guy. Not entirey sure what I'll read next, but chances are it's 1Q84, another Murakami book.