miss direct
misfungled
Well yes, but I think it depends how abstract the title is...this book really is about a girl on a train so the title is memorable 
*What book are you reading? (part 2)
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Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
It just seems a terrible shame that the person who spent months or even years working on it, on their own, is so readily forgotten or unacknowledged.
People are even worse with films though.
But not so bad with music.
I wonder why...
People are even worse with films though.
But not so bad with music.
I wonder why...
neonwilderness
What would Badgers do?
Finished Sword Song by Bernard Cornwall last night.
I'll to go for a rummage around the book stalls at the market at the weekend and see if I can find the next one in the series.
I'll to go for a rummage around the book stalls at the market at the weekend and see if I can find the next one in the series.
Impossible Girl
Time traveller and Companion
Restarting the Discwold from scratch tonight, just because ... 
Then alternate with a french author, Bernard Werber, "Le livre du voyage" (the book of the journey).
Then alternate with a french author, Bernard Werber, "Le livre du voyage" (the book of the journey).
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Just finished Heaven's Queen by Rachel Bach, (http://www.rachelaaron.net/) a good sci-fi thriller and part of a trilogy which I have also just finished and goes "Fortunes Pawn", "Honour's Knight" then "Heaven's Queen".
As I understand it she mainly writes fantasy and these have been her first sci-fi books, I enjoyed them.
As I understand it she mainly writes fantasy and these have been her first sci-fi books, I enjoyed them.
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
Excellent post-apocalyptic SF, one of my all time faves...
Mr. Miller was a veritable barrel of laughs, it seems! 
Have you read Riddley Walker [by Russell Hoban] yet? Seems closely related, theme-wise... with a british twist. Hurts a bit to grok the future-primitive language he's created, but once you get into it it's fucking excellent... Fantastic book.
Excellent post-apocalyptic SF, one of my all time faves...
Have you read Riddley Walker [by Russell Hoban] yet? Seems closely related, theme-wise... with a british twist. Hurts a bit to grok the future-primitive language he's created, but once you get into it it's fucking excellent... Fantastic book.
No, I haven't read it. But I'll definitely try to when I've finished reading the books on my "to read" list.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I haven't read this kind of SF in a long while. it's a bit testosterone pumped. might have enjoyed it a lot more as a teenager.
"I became abruptly aware that i was swinging a hard-on like a filled fire hose".
"Exuberant breast strained the fabric of the leotard. i wondered if the body was hers".
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Jago - Kim Newman. Religious cults, west country festivals. So far, so good.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
"The Thirty Years War" by C.V. Wedgwood. Nicely written - snappy and detailed without being up itself.
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
It's amazing what being cut off from wifi and urban can do for your litritch ... littra ... literacy rate. In the past few weeks I've read a small virtual stack of books and amazingly none of them was a complete waste of time. (Tho I'm still somehow not as physically/emotionally wrapped up in reading on a Kindle as I used to get on those paper things.) But I want to thank urban for some good recommendations as well!
A Dance with Dragons - George RR Martin. Cos I sort of had to. Better than its predecessors but really, considering the shortness of life and the number of books there are to read in the world: save yourselves the effort, just watch the DVDs instead. The writing style and technique aren't really good enough to justify the hours of wading through the written version, although the books are (agreeably) tougher and more cynical than the tellybox and the plotting is still exhaustingly inventive. 6/10
Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban - it's completely brilliant. Every other postapocalyptic thing I've read/seen pales in comparison; because it's not at all another of those po-faced meditations on how horrible human beings are, how civilisation is but a paperthin veneer and we're all cannibals at heart, etc etc etc. It's a genuinely strange, almost hallucinatory, sort of road trip through your own head; the writing is astonishing, experimental and woozy and weird. The setting in Kent makes it of special interest to urbs; the inevitable holes in the world-building and the lapses in logic just don't matter. There are horrors and mysteries and plenty of death but oddly it's not a miserable book; rather a thing of wonder. READ THIS BOOK. It is so worth it.
Marks out of ten would be wrong - about 20? 50? 1,000? Just read it.
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Not bad - it's unusually subtle and 'human' for SF that wins the big prizes - but it's still a bit clumsy in its treatment of its central premise (diffused, shared consciousness among all 'segments' of a giant mega empire-serving intelligence, made up of 'segments' which were once human rebels against that empire) and, of course, it suffers from too many silly names. Got a nicely satiric/subversive edge at some moments, but doesn't pursue those ideas very far. Not as revolutionary as it could be. 7.5/10
The Testament of Jessie Lamb - Jane Rogers - another kick around of the Children of Men "no more babies for you, humanity" scenario, but in a carefully-controlled, rather suburban British (Midlands?) environment and without a lot of macho action derring-do; it's more about the subtler effects that sort of thing would have on human relations and what it would be like to be a teenage girl in those circumstances. It won lots of prizes. Some of the writing seemed amazingly clunky and bathetic to me, but maybe that was deliberate and the author's way of ramping up the tragic ending. 7/10
Two travelogs about Colombia: The Robber of Memories by Michael Jacobs and Short Walks from Bogota by Michael Feiling = both fine, sensitive, interesting books by literary-minded Brits about a fascinating and very scary place. Both really well-written and have a lot of good background about the conflict with the FARC/ELN/paramilitaries / criminals and worth your time. I preferred the Feiling by a hair, but there's not much in it. 9/10
Jennifer Government -Max Barry - fast, furious, snarky, not-very-deep pulp SF satire/fiction, a bit like Richard Morgan but less brainy. Moves like a rocket and has its heart in the right place when it comes to consumerism eating the world. I liked it a lot cos it had no pretensions and was a quick, satisfying, well over-the-top read. 8/10
A Dance with Dragons - George RR Martin. Cos I sort of had to. Better than its predecessors but really, considering the shortness of life and the number of books there are to read in the world: save yourselves the effort, just watch the DVDs instead. The writing style and technique aren't really good enough to justify the hours of wading through the written version, although the books are (agreeably) tougher and more cynical than the tellybox and the plotting is still exhaustingly inventive. 6/10
Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban - it's completely brilliant. Every other postapocalyptic thing I've read/seen pales in comparison; because it's not at all another of those po-faced meditations on how horrible human beings are, how civilisation is but a paperthin veneer and we're all cannibals at heart, etc etc etc. It's a genuinely strange, almost hallucinatory, sort of road trip through your own head; the writing is astonishing, experimental and woozy and weird. The setting in Kent makes it of special interest to urbs; the inevitable holes in the world-building and the lapses in logic just don't matter. There are horrors and mysteries and plenty of death but oddly it's not a miserable book; rather a thing of wonder. READ THIS BOOK. It is so worth it.
Marks out of ten would be wrong - about 20? 50? 1,000? Just read it.
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Not bad - it's unusually subtle and 'human' for SF that wins the big prizes - but it's still a bit clumsy in its treatment of its central premise (diffused, shared consciousness among all 'segments' of a giant mega empire-serving intelligence, made up of 'segments' which were once human rebels against that empire) and, of course, it suffers from too many silly names. Got a nicely satiric/subversive edge at some moments, but doesn't pursue those ideas very far. Not as revolutionary as it could be. 7.5/10
The Testament of Jessie Lamb - Jane Rogers - another kick around of the Children of Men "no more babies for you, humanity" scenario, but in a carefully-controlled, rather suburban British (Midlands?) environment and without a lot of macho action derring-do; it's more about the subtler effects that sort of thing would have on human relations and what it would be like to be a teenage girl in those circumstances. It won lots of prizes. Some of the writing seemed amazingly clunky and bathetic to me, but maybe that was deliberate and the author's way of ramping up the tragic ending. 7/10
Two travelogs about Colombia: The Robber of Memories by Michael Jacobs and Short Walks from Bogota by Michael Feiling = both fine, sensitive, interesting books by literary-minded Brits about a fascinating and very scary place. Both really well-written and have a lot of good background about the conflict with the FARC/ELN/paramilitaries / criminals and worth your time. I preferred the Feiling by a hair, but there's not much in it. 9/10
Jennifer Government -Max Barry - fast, furious, snarky, not-very-deep pulp SF satire/fiction, a bit like Richard Morgan but less brainy. Moves like a rocket and has its heart in the right place when it comes to consumerism eating the world. I liked it a lot cos it had no pretensions and was a quick, satisfying, well over-the-top read. 8/10
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malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
karl marx by francis wheen and marx Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
Cameron's Coup - How the Tories Took Britain to the Brink, Polly Toynbee and David Walker.
The Man Who Couldn't Stop by David Adam. A book about his experiences of OCD.
The Man Who Couldn't Stop by David Adam. A book about his experiences of OCD.
Half-way through the fourth volume of My Struggle by Knausgaard, titled Dancing in the Dark. Like all the others, it is brilliant but perhaps a little more so for me because it recalls exactly and very precisely the sort of things that I was thinking about when I was 18. It has this weird time-warp effect that brings my own memories back in such crystal clarity.
When I'm done with that, I'm looking forwards to attempting In the First Circle by Solzhenitsyn, which I will try and read alongside Darkness at Noon by Koestler (probably one of my all time favourite novels).
When I'm done with that, I'm looking forwards to attempting In the First Circle by Solzhenitsyn, which I will try and read alongside Darkness at Noon by Koestler (probably one of my all time favourite novels).
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
Bronze Summer by Stephen Baxter. Second in an alt-history trilogy about ancient life. Not enjoying it as much as the first one (Stone Spring), it lacks the first's meditative Mesolithic setting and he's tried to cram too much in, to the detriment of character and plot. Also depressed at the formulaic rape and pillage throughout, although that is more my issue since it is probably true to life at that time. ALSO annoyed by minor editing fails like character names and ages switching around! But still a ripping yarn.
Orang Utan I've got Altered Carbon lined up when I finish this trilogy. Looks like I'm in for a laugh
Orang Utan I've got Altered Carbon lined up when I finish this trilogy. Looks like I'm in for a laugh
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
"I made a half-hearted attempt to masturbate, mind churning damply through images of Miriam Bancroft's voluptuous curves, but I kept seeing Sarah's pale body turned to wreckage by the Kalashnikov fire instead."Orang Utan I've got Altered Carbon lined up when I finish this trilogy. Looks like I'm in for a laugh
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I'm sorry, I missed the last line:
And sleep dragged me under
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
Really want to read that soon ^^^
Currently reading 'Iron Winter', last in the Baxter trilogy. Much better than the previous installment.
Currently reading 'Iron Winter', last in the Baxter trilogy. Much better than the previous installment.
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
... ahem!
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/what-book-are-you-reading-part-2.180864/page-310#post-13780991
(*sorry, just being grumpy- you explained it much much better than i did
)Fantastic book.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
The Last Word, Hanif Kureishi
Engaging. My expectations had been raised however by the testimonial on the front cover "Brilliantly funny" Evening Standard. Perhaps my sense of humour is lacking because while I did find it engaging and very readable I didn't find it funny. 
Engaging. My expectations had been raised however by the testimonial on the front cover "Brilliantly funny" Evening Standard. Perhaps my sense of humour is lacking because while I did find it engaging and very readable I didn't find it funny.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Adam Roberts- Jack Glass
Hard to say what its about- 3 linked stories. Its Adam Roberts usual stark style
Hard to say what its about- 3 linked stories. Its Adam Roberts usual stark style
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