What are you reading? Erudite Aug 2018 Edition

[Jhaelen]

I finally found the time to start a new novel. It's Kazuo Ishiguro's 'A Pale View of Hills'. I actually bought all of his novels at the same time and decided to read them in the order they were published.
I really needed a break from my usual sci-fi / fantasy fare.

 

[delericho]

I've now read all of the books I listed in my first post (with a little left of the SW RPG). Next up will be "Stonemouth" by Iain Banks. After that it will probably be some Shakespeare.

 

[GreenKarl]

I am on book 6 of the Tome of Bill Series Half A Prayer. Its a pretty funny series about a gamer dork who is turned into a vampire, accidentally starts a war, pisses off pretty much every creature more powerful then him, etc. I am also on Book 3 of the 'Apocalypse Gate Book 3' - Ruin Prevails. Kind of a depressing series as basically the "heroes" only hope is running. They can't face the monsters against them (except maybe one girl who has herself become a monster).

Next up will be to finish that last two book in the Tome of bill along with Critical Failure book 5 and also Atomic Sea: Volume One. I have a ton of others on my to-read list... too much I want to read

 

[HawaiiSteveO]

Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle Earth by Ian Nathan.

Really detailed and really, really interesting!

 

[Kramodlog]

I finished Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. This is in some ways a very complexe novel, so it is complicated to review, but I certainly why A Fire Upon the Deep was an inspiration. The big difference is there is more humor in Stross' novel and more hard science as there are no "zone of thoughts".

I've read a few Stross novels, it shows that this is among his first published work. He doesn't master his writing style quite yet, but this is full of neat, big ideas. Like what a post-singularity universe is about, what space battle actually look like if you use known physics (slow, technical, not flashy, almost boring), the implication that faster than light travel means access to time travel, nanobots, etc.

Sometimes the characters, the plot and the humor are juvenile and that's ok. It is Stross early work.

I think it is must a must read for all sci-fi fans who want to learn about what space battles are about with real physics, what FTL travel implicates, what nanotech can mean (althought Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age does that too), what the singularity could bring in terms of alien mentalities and agendas, etc.

 

[Blue]

So, I'm 2/3 of the way through Sarah J. Maas' Crown of Midnight. I'm got a stack of Pratchett to read, including the Tiffany Aching stories I've never read and have been assured are great, plus a miscellaneous To Be Read pile.

And then, TV Tropes.

I don't know how I landed there. But, like any event horizon, I had problems escaping. And I eventually found myself reading a trope that linked the Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. And then reading that. And then tearing up reading some of the quotes, erm, I mean the room was dusty.

So dropped what I'm reading and I'm part way into Falling Free, the proto-Vorkosigan story. Next up is the omnibus of Cordelia's Honor, and then I can get onto Miles hisself.

Gods, what a fantastic character he is.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Listening to Brave New World by Huxley on Audible. So far loving it. I'm a sucker for dystopian fiction about societies that have evolved into collectivist nightmares.

 

[Kramodlog]

Listening to Brave New World by Huxley on Audible. So far loving it. I'm a sucker for dystopian fiction about societies that have evolved into collectivist nightmares.

Is it collectivist or just totalitarian?

 

[Jhaelen]

Yesterday I finished 'A Pale View of Hills', the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was ... interesting, I guess. I already heard he's fond of using unreliable narrators to tell his stories, but being a fan of Christopher Priest, I thought I knew what to expect. As it turned out Ishiguro is a lot more subtle. The novel's almost over before you get the first hint of what's really going on. And it really isn't more than a tiny hint. The reader's apparently expected to do all the work of figuring out what it all meant - sheesh!

At times I had the impression there were misprints in my kindle edition since there are weird shifts in the middle of the narrative, but in retrospect I suspect this may be intentional. I also found the style of the characters' dialogues very unusual and also a bit annoying, as they're very repetitive. I assumed the author's been trying to replicate the style of japanese conversations in English, and this seems to be confirmed by the author's introduction to his second novel 'An Artist of the Floating World', which I started reading today.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Is it collectivist or just totalitarian?

I'll see what I think when I finally finish it. Haven't had much reading time the last few days and I'm stuck 4 chapters in.