[Dec 2015] What Are You Reading?

[delericho]

So, for the last time this year, what are you reading? Anything interesting? And particular recommendations? Or, indeed, anything we should definitely avoid?

I'm currently reading "The Frood" by Jem Roberts - an authorised biography of Douglas Adams with heavy focus on the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". It's okay, I guess, but I'm not really enjoying it - it was a Christmas present last year that has only now made its way to the top of the to-read pile.

Next up will be "Dune", which I've somehow never read. And Pathfinder #100 when it arrives. And once I've read those three, I'll have hit my target of 60 books for the year.

Time permitting, I'll then re-read "Last Human" by Doug Naylor, finish the Musketeer saga by reading "The Man in the Iron Mask", and, if I'm extremely lucky, make a start of the Sherlock Holmes stories. But the chances of me getting through all that are remote, and getting more remote all the time.

I'm also going to need to come up with an at-least-partial reading list for next year.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The Sherlock Holmes tales are really wonderful. As is the first Dune novel – in some ways, more fantasy than science fiction.

I just finished N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdoms. Having a mostly blind main character was very interesting, and the word-building was both vivid and imaginative.

Currently re-reading Eddings’ The Diamond Throne. Haven’t read that in about 15 years, and thought I’d see how it holds up.

 

[Jhaelen]

After finishing 'The Extremes', I started reading 'The Separation' yesterday, both by Christopher Priest.

'The Extremes' is named after the fully-immersive VR scenarios that are used to train FBI specialists. Basically, these scenarios are about trying to survive or 'solve' encounters with (mass) murderers. After the protagonist's husband gets killed by a mass murderer in Texas, she travels to the UK to investigate a mass murder that happens there exactly one year later with a lot of similarities to the previous event. As part of her investigations she also increasingly spends time in a facility offering 'Extreme' scenarios to the public. She finds out that the UK mass murderer had visited that facility on the day of his killing spree and starts to experience crossover between real and virtual events...
I enjoyed 'The Extremes' quite a lot until close to the end when it started to spiral away into utter chaos. I guess, that was the intention, but I'd have preferred a more convential resolution.

 

[Tonguez]

Title: The Endeavour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks
Author: Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820)

these days I find myself reading a lot more historic journals and accounts, with my particular interest being early European accounts of South East Asia and Oceania but also contrasting these with Edwardian and Victorian accounts of London and the like.

 

[Nellisir]

I just finished N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdoms. Having a mostly blind main character was very interesting, and the word-building was both vivid and imaginative.

I love NK Jemisin. The Broken Kingdoms were awesome. The goddess of hunger getting pissed at (what was basically) a sphere of annihilation, because eating everything was HER schtick? Sheer wonderful fun.

 

[Nellisir]

I'll have to go back and check a few titles. I know I just finished Bring Out The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel, but I read another book on the plane yesterday and can't remember it. :/

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - a charming read, with a whole lot more murder than the movie.

I’m finally getting to tackling Grossman’s The Magicians. I’ve heard good and bad things about it, so we’ll see how it goes for me.

 

[PurpleDragonKnight]

Death's Heretic - James L. Sutter (Pathfinder Tales)

http://www.amazon.ca/Pathfinder-Tales-James-L-Sutter/dp/1601253699

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Just finished reading Grossman’s The Magicians. I thought the characters were well-designed, but the post-modern cynicism vs. a sense of wonder theme in it sabotaged itself in places. Hopefully the second book will resolve that conflict a bit better.

I started Glen Cook’s Surrender to the Will of the Night. It’s been a while since I read the last book, so I’m floundering a bit as I remember what happened previously.