Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

*What book are you reading? (part 2)

sojourner said:
Polluto - it's a literary magazine (looks like a novel with some fab artwork on the front http://polluto.com/) - and I'm in it heh :D Got the last page too, which is always good - first or last = good.

Anyhoo, there's TONS of great stories in there, loads of brilliant flash fiction and poetry, lots of what seems to be sci-fi but am sure it'ss a slightly different take on it (there's a fucking billion sub-genres now int there?). Am loving it. Totally got to try and get in this again.
Click to expand...

Ooh, I like the look of that soj :cool:

Currently reading Darkside by Belinda Bauer. Total book crack - I read Finders Keepers in less than a day, feverishly ignoring my children in order to read a story about someone stealing children.

Finished the Kristen Hersh a while back, it is AMAZING from start to finish. Very inspiring, very moving.
 
I have been reading the book daygame by Tom Torero, as I am an avid daygamer myself I thought this would be a good read as it was. For those who don't know what daygame is click the link to see Tom Torero talking about his book.
 
Just finished Ghost Milk by Iain Sinclair.

Currently reading The Return by Roberto Bolano, The Silence of Animals by John Gray and What is the Dharma?: The Essential Teachings of the Buddha by Sangharakshita.

There are a few other books on my desk that I am flicking in and out of.
 
it hardly a book were the subject matter is unknown..


book about a whale hunt and lots of refrences to america which the author had a right happy for

better

;)
 
Slaughterhouse-Five was ace. Just wish i'd read it 15 years ago.

Now reading Complicity by Iain Banks, and looking forward to how it progresses.
 
I've been through Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Interface. All neal Stephenson. In which I have learned:

Neal is a hugely entertaining prose stylist with big ideas and a dry wit. But. He could also do with an editor. His politics appear to be some sort of technocratic american liberal? and he's a huge intellectual snob. bit dodge perhaps. need to read some non fic of his to see really. Massive hard on for hackers.

Now onto this A door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski

I didn't know when I started it (soon realised though. Its part of a huge d/l of sci fi ebooks so pot luck as to wether I get asimovs milue of this sort of stuff) that this is feminist sci fi, heavy on the back to nature stuff. Well written so far.
 
DotCommunist said:
I've been through Snow Crash, Diamond Age and Interface. All neal Stephenson. In which I have learned:

Neal is a hugely entertaining prose stylist with big ideas and a dry wit. But. He could also do with an editor. His politics appear to be some sort of technocratic american liberal? and he's a huge intellectual snob. bit dodge perhaps. need to read some non fic of his to see really. Massive hard on for hackers.

Now onto this A door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
Click to expand...

Yep, I'm reading diamond age atm, some great ideas but when he gets distracted, or clever, I know there's going to be a lengthy and detailed derail on a par with Easton Ellis in American Psycho, and possibly just as dull, just to make a point.

The little descriptions of what is about to happen at the start of each chapter are annoying too, I know its a traditional practice but have never understood the purpose. Anyone?
 
ringo said:
Yep, I'm reading diamond age atm, some great ideas but when he gets distracted, or clever, I know there's going to be a lengthy and detailed derail on a par with Easton Ellis in American Psycho, and possibly just as dull, just to make a point.

The little descriptions of what is about to happen at the start of each chapter are annoying too, I know its a traditional practice but have never understood the purpose. Anyone?
Click to expand...

It's a fairtale thing, but I also suspect- and just guessing- that the practise could come from when books were serialised and published in quarterlies for the working mans pockets for whom real books were an unaffordable expense (dickens)

thus chapter headings summarising events would serve as a handy guide to getting you to remember plotlines after the 3 month wait
 
I liked that The Angels are the Reapers thing in the end.

Now reading Wolf Hall, which seems to coincide with BBC 2's upcoming Tudor season, which is nice.
 
Finished Distress by Greg Egan. It's good. I felt half way through that he'd bitten off more than he could chew but he pulls it off.

Lots of the biotechnology and Theory of Everthing stuff went over my head. Stateless is an interesting take on anarchist society.

Now about half way through Q by Luther Blissett. Brilliant well researched fiction about the social upheavels after the Reformation.
 
Dynamo said:
I have been reading the book daygame by Tom Torero, as I am an avid daygamer myself I thought this would be a good read as it was. For those who don't know what daygame is click the link to see Tom Torero talking about his book.
Click to expand...

I thought this was going to be about that thing where you walk around daydreaming and making up imaginary elaborate games in which you are the hero but actually it's some Pick Up Artist thing :(

Just finished Moxyland by Lauren Beukes - good if not excellent cyberpunk thriller. Nifty concepts, nothing mindblowing.

And Wolfhound Century by Richard Higgins - very good sci fi. Mash up of Mieville / Bulgakov in alternate weird Russia.
 
Just finished Complicity.

Thought it pretty average until around page 150, but it turned interesting. The last 20 or so pages though, wow! I was expecting the usual plot twist but it didn't really happen. Instead I was treated to some of the finest prose I think the man has ever written.


We really are losing a great writer :(
 
Been reading the Engineer trilogy by KJ Parker. It was bundled in with a massive ebook of sci fi but it is not sci fi. Its a weird conceit where you have a city-state broadly along Roman lines but its entire exitence is based around high tech for export- finest devices in the known world. Surrounded by fuedal societies it occasionally hires vast merc armies to keep the natives at bay.
They value their engineering knowledge so highly that runaways from the city are hunted down and killed- they'll crush nations to keep the secrets of the forges etc.

All of which basically becomes a set up where an ordnance engineer is the prime mover of the plot. Shouldn't work really, but does. Theres a lot of enthusiasm to the whole thing and the characters are not wafer thin unlike a lot of middling fantasy. I recommend.
 
DotCommunist said:
Its a weird conceit where you have a city-state broadly along Roman lines but its entire exitence is based around high tech for export- finest devices in the known world. Surrounded by feudal societies it occasionally hires vast merc armies to keep the natives at bay.
Click to expand...
Byzantium?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

frogwoman
Books everyone thinks are great but you hated (and vice versa)
3 4 5 6 7
Replies
206
Views
5K
Yuwipi Woman
Yuwipi Woman
K
Game of Thrones, are the books any good?
2
Replies
50
Views
1K
xenon
X
Pickman's model
  • Poll
Once more unto the book dear friends: 2024 reading challenge thread
24 25 26 27 28
Replies
833
Views
26K
inva
I
DaveCinzano
What films are currently on your TO WATCH list?
2 3
Replies
63
Views
3K
krtek a houby
krtek a houby
Cloo
Books you have re-read
2 3
Replies
63
Views
2K
hitmouse
hitmouse
Back
Top Bottom