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August - What are you reading?

Psionicist

Explorer
Tolen Mar said:
I'm still thirsting for astrophysics info, so I'm on to 'The Elegant Universe' by Brian Greene. Its less simple than Hawking's books, but yet still written for people who don't come from a mathematics background. I'm really beginning to understand the basics of the various theories now (as opposed to simply re-reading the same things over again).

I'm also reading some populpar physics book right now. Flipping between The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes and Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by various.

I'm also looking forward reading The Killing Kind which is the third book in the Bird Parker serie of dark Hannibalesque thrillers.
 

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Lazybones

Adventurer
Just finished Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan. If you like his other stuff (I greatly preferred Altered Carbon and its sequels to Market Forces), then you'll probably like this one. Very much like Blade Runner in premise but Morgan is able to wring out a few unique touches from the old concept of artificially created superhumans trying to fit into a fearful society.

Started Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. It's good so far (I'm about 100 pages in), but it shows that it's a first novel. Interesting premise, about a society dominated by god-like magic-using humans until suddenly the magic just stops working and the "gods" become sub-human wretches. It's set 10 years after this cataclysmic event.

Next up: A Secret Atlas by Michael Stackpole. I enjoyed his Battletech books back in the day, so I hope his fantasy is up to snuff.
 

WayneLigon

Adventurer
I finished Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. Probably the best superhero fiction I've read in a long, long time and the best novel-length book in the genre. It's not snarky, sarcastic or mean-spirited which pretty much sets it alone among most novel-length stuff I've read or attempted to read. It is a nice tale of a quasi-realistic superhero world, heroes with some of the warts that normal people have, that bring them down to earth just a little. But there is no real second-guessing of what they do, nor is there anything mean in what's written. Writing that treats superheroes as some sort of joke, I despise with a degree you can hardly imagine.

It is an interesting examination of motives and inevitability. Doctor Impossible has come close to ruling the world 12 times now, and he's going to make an old school try for a 13th. He's the Smartest Man In The World, literally. He's so far on the outer edge of the bell curve that no-one but himself could ever really measure his brilliance. Yet he and the other scattered souls that share that rarified statistical area are all in jail.
 

freyar

Extradimensional Explorer
Crothian said:
I am also reading through the Dark is Rising series since that's coming out as a movie in a few months.

Really? The Susan Cooper books? Cool! :D One movie for all five books, or a series? Hope they don't kill the story...
 

Brogarn

First Post
Picked up Zorachus by Mark Rogers. Is there a darker word for "Dark" in Dark Fantasy? Yeesh! The depths of depravity and sexual deviancy make me cringe a bit and I'm certainly no angel.
 

Crothian

First Post
freyar said:
Really? The Susan Cooper books? Cool! :D One movie for all five books, or a series? Hope they don't kill the story...

I have no idea. I just saw the trailer once but from what I remember it really doesn't look like the books I've been reading.
 

Mallus

Legend
Just finished rereading: Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. A perfect mass-transit read, easily portable, and it makes you laugh to yourself like a dangerous madman.

In the middle of: Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. It's terrific. So far I'm enjoying it more than Cavalier and Klay.

Up next: either Gaiman's American Gods or Erikson's Reaper's Gale.
 

Chaldfont

First Post
Mallus said:
Just finished rereading: Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. A perfect mass-transit read, easily portable, and it makes you laugh to yourself like a dangerous madman.

I had to read that in high school and I loved it. I would love to see it performed as a play, although there was an ok movie version of it made.

I just finished the last Harry Potter book and for work, I'm slowly working through xUnit Test Patterns by G. Meszaros and Beautiful Code edited by A. Oram and G. Wilson.

I'm going to start Stardust, too. I can't believe I missed this one--I thought I had read all of Neil Gaiman's stuff.
 

Mallus

Legend
Chaldfont said:
I would love to see it performed as a play, although there was an ok movie version of it made.
So would I. The film's in my Netflix queue.

If the thought of seeing R&GAD done as anime (more or less, in a manner of speaking) is appealing rather than appalling, you should check out The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. There's a direct reference to the play in one of the episodes which kindled my interest in revisiting it.
 

Jubilee

First Post
freyar said:
Really? The Susan Cooper books? Cool! :D One movie for all five books, or a series? Hope they don't kill the story...

As far as I can tell from the trailers, they've moved the location of the story from england to the US. I shudder to think what other changes they've made. They've also changed the name to The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. *shrug*

/ali
 

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