[March] What are you reading?

[Nellisir]

Finished Red Bones. Decent book. Still haven't found The Killing Moon, which is starting to concern me. Started Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, instead. Also picking through a few selections from the 1973 Years Best SF collection. Some of it stands up very well (James Tiptree Jr.), some not so much.

Of my comics, I've been getting: Avengers (White Event/New Universe! Yay! Except why wasn't this tied into the Phoenix? That seems obvious, and excellent...), Avengers Arena, All-New X-Men (very good/excellent), Cable & X-Force (I hope it gets more interesting), Fearless Defenders (only 1 issue so far, but Dani Moonstar is coming up, so yay!), Wolverine & the X-Men (I get why people like it, I just...don't. Much.), Uncanny X-Force (interesting), Uncanny X-Men (good/interesting), X-Factor (basically skewed into an alternate Peter David universe at this point, <sigh>), and I'll grab X-Men when it comes out. I'm honestly thinking of dropping several (more; already dropped Uncanny Avengers and X-Men Legacy); the teams overlap and lack distinction, and it seems like there's a real lack of focus (ie, what exactly is the point of Astonishing X-Men? Or the previous run of X-Men?). I've been reading the X-Men books for 25 years now, and I feel like with a few exceptions, this is the least engaging bunch of books I've seen.

Also, why the heck is Cannonball the designated rooky on every single team he's on? It's gotten stupid, people.

 

[Mark CMG]

Still doing readings for the Coursera Fantasy and SF course. On HG Well's The Invisible Man and The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Can you (or did you) post the syllabus?

 

[Mark CMG]

Don't forget that it is Read an RPG Book in Public Week!

http://www.theescapist.com/readrpgsinpublic/

 

[Crothian]

I finished reading a Biography of Charles Dickens that was very good.

 

[Mark CMG]

I finished reading a Biography of Charles Dickens that was very good.

Any revelations?

 

[Crothian]

Not really. I was already familiar with his life from his books and pieces of his biography that get included in some editions of those. It was a good book and he lived an interesting life. At the very least it showed some on how Victoria England is and that's always cool.

 

[nathanexplosion]

Just finished the Road to Woodbury.

 

[Jhaelen]

Not really. I was already familiar with his life from his books and pieces of his biography that get included in some editions of those. It was a good book and he lived an interesting life. At the very least it showed some on how Victoria England is and that's always cool.

I've read 'Drood' by Dan Simmons and felt that it already told me plenty about the life of Charles Dickens - although it's partly fictional, of course. I don't think I'd want to read a complete biography about him.

I did read a quite interesting biography about Tesla, though...

 

[EricNoah]

Reading Empire State - I had started it but set it aside and am now back into it. Sci-Fi, Superhero, Alternate History type thing.

Listening to 14 by Peter Clines. Sci-fi, maybe supernatural (not sure yet), has a strange building with a mysterious past and lots of clues ala the TV series Lost. Finding it very entertaining.

 

[Nellisir]

Didn't get too far with Captain Alatriste; read Legion of the Damned by Dietz instead, then started in on Introducing Garrett, by Glen Cook. I've read Sweet Silver Blues and Bitter Gold Hearts, working on Cold Copper Tears right now. I'm going to finish it before moving on, but Wool just arrived from Amazon, so there's a strong temptation to dive right into that.

I don't dislike the Garrett novels so far, but I don't feel like atmosphere is really Cook's thing. The fantasy aspect is pretty mundane (humans with pointy ears), and Garrett doesn't really seem to have unplumbed depths or really a lot of problems. He's a white knight with scary friends to back him up, so.... Still, they're a decent light read, and since I've been thinking a lot about noir fiction in sf & fantasy, it's interesting to actually read it (I think it could work really well in sci-fi; not so sure about conventional fantasy).