I took Jason's suggestion and started The Lies of Locke Lamora. It took about 50 pages before I liked it, but now I'm really into it. Can't wait to read more.
The Book Thread
- Thread starter James Stevenson
- Start date
It's not the objectively highest quality book out there, but I had fun reading it (and the sequel, haven't gotten around to the third).
Mostly I read it because a girl I was into at the time recommended it. This is her legacy.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
This is definitely not a book. If I'm generous I could call it a short story. Nevertheless, it made my eyes tear and I may have giggled 
http://www.touchofembellishment.com/2012/01/show-and-tell.html
http://www.touchofembellishment.com/2012/01/show-and-tell.html
sf
currently reading, seems decent but i'm not at the end or anything:
cj cherryh - downbelow station
some stuff that i enjoyed that's in my already-read ebooks folder:
literally anything by alastair reynolds
ann leckie - ancillary justice
catherynne m. valente - silently and very fast
vernor vinge - rainbow's end
iain banks - use of weapons
iain banks - excession
ursula k leguin - the dispossessed
not quite sf but "weird fiction" or whatever the hell that means:
china mieville - the city & the city
currently reading, seems decent but i'm not at the end or anything:
cj cherryh - downbelow station
some stuff that i enjoyed that's in my already-read ebooks folder:
literally anything by alastair reynolds
ann leckie - ancillary justice
catherynne m. valente - silently and very fast
vernor vinge - rainbow's end
iain banks - use of weapons
iain banks - excession
ursula k leguin - the dispossessed
not quite sf but "weird fiction" or whatever the hell that means:
china mieville - the city & the city
Most of asimovs work seems to be out as audiobooks, and the robot books are pretty short. I'm reading the wool trilogy at. Themoment and enjoying it.
China mievilles books usually getcalled urban fantasy or something I guess? But I've liked what I've read of his stuff.
Edit: writing on the ipad makes me look smarter then usual.
China mievilles books usually getcalled urban fantasy or something I guess? But I've liked what I've read of his stuff.
Edit: writing on the ipad makes me look smarter then usual.
Yeah I think Pratchett has given me all the urban fantasy I need for a while, and I'm way over my limit for fantasy as is. I think I need something that makes me wonder or makes me uncomfortable so maybe weird fiction can go in there too? Southern gothic? Classic Robert Chambers / Lovecraft style american terror literature?
Hahaha I bet you look like something out of a mid 2000s SF movie shot in a blue filter!
Oh and I might as well contribute:
Hahaha I bet you look like something out of a mid 2000s SF movie shot in a blue filter!
Oh and I might as well contribute:
- MINDWEBS more or less bought me into audio fiction. It's a 70s radio show reading, then classic SF, great voicing. https://archive.org/details/Mindwebs_230
- Escape Pod has submitted / award winning stories read by professionals and volunteers in the SF genre http://escapepod.org/
- Pseudo Pod is the horror channel of Escape Pod's parent. Much better reading actually, but worse web design. http://pseudopod.org/
- Pod Castle is the least of the three channels and is the fantasy stream, usually well read though. http://podcastle.org/
- A part of the "Books should be free" project, librivox takes volunteer readers and expired or open license works and puts them on the internet just for you, for free! Here is an index of their expansive list of Short Science Fiction Collections
- http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/...on_Index#LibriVox_Short_Science_Fiction_Index
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I can highly recommend Auto-da-Fé, by Elias Canetti, if you want something bizarre. Don't read the wikipedia entrance, it contains major, major spoilers.
This is a pretty special book, I was blown away. I've read a few other things by her and they're good too. Even her short stories are thought-provoking.
I put down The Lies of Locke Lamora because someone lent me Atlas Shrugged and I want to finish this fat tome.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
what does 'inter-textually' even mean
It's thought provoking and I enjoy reading it, so I'm happy. Like all other books, I will devote no deep thought to it, I will read it and expect to become wiser through some sort of osmosis, just as I expect to be a good magic player, not by thinking but just by playing more than others. I'll never get anything out of Eyes Wide Shut, but because I've seen a shit ton of films, I feel my opinion about film is somehow valid.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I wouldn't let it bother you; Atlus shrugged is an excellent work, it’s just a little heretical in this day and age.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
So you have never read it?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Well that should be fine than, Atlas shrugged isn't politically liberal. Ayn Rand was the founder of a philosophy called objectivism, which is more or less modern libertarianism.
At any rate, it’s healthy if a literary work gets you thinking and challenges some of your preconceptions. It might not be the book for you, but I would suggest at least giving it a try. I certainly found it enjoyable even if I don’t agree with every aspect of her objectivism.
At any rate, it’s healthy if a literary work gets you thinking and challenges some of your preconceptions. It might not be the book for you, but I would suggest at least giving it a try. I certainly found it enjoyable even if I don’t agree with every aspect of her objectivism.
As I'm taking it, that's kind of the point. There may well be people like the main characters in this book - totally driven, smarter than almost everyone else, selfish, logical, cold - but they're such extremes of character that you might as well take them as abstractions. Part of what makes it interesting is to question whether these could be real people. The more I read of the book the more human they feel. I mean, what are you going to do with 1100 pages if not character development?
Yeah I'm sure it's totes the point. It just seemed so cartoonish when he read it and like every character or argument from the way he described it seemed to be part of some obvious straw man argument. Maybe that's the point too, but it didn't seem like it would be as entertaining to me as it would probably just make me manic, overwhelmed and desensitized, being surrounded by something like that via audio for so long (it's fucking long). You know how it feels when you realize that all the walls around you are made of cardboard? That sort of thing.
I also don't think I'd give it justice because 1) It's too fucking long for me to really try to read critically and intentionally. 2) My exposure to it has already totes tainted my opinion of it. 3) I tend to think libertarians are either doofuses or ghouls and I assume that would further ruin my reading.
@Grillo I'm also just totes not into exposing myself to things that are in political extreme that I don't agree with because I find it takes on the quality of satire and I am in my discomfort more likely to embrace their opposite. I prefer more negotiated exploration etc and to not be ruled by squicky impulses, and from one thing I know about that novel it's extreme.
I also don't think I'd give it justice because 1) It's too fucking long for me to really try to read critically and intentionally. 2) My exposure to it has already totes tainted my opinion of it. 3) I tend to think libertarians are either doofuses or ghouls and I assume that would further ruin my reading.
@Grillo I'm also just totes not into exposing myself to things that are in political extreme that I don't agree with because I find it takes on the quality of satire and I am in my discomfort more likely to embrace their opposite. I prefer more negotiated exploration etc and to not be ruled by squicky impulses, and from one thing I know about that novel it's extreme.
I told a friend I was reading it and he said "Oh no James, don't become a libertarian." So I finally managed to ask someone what that meant. Whenever CML would rant about them I'd look it up on wikipedia and it'd be like "Libertarians are people that hold liberty to be the highest right" or something, and I never got what the problem was. I think I probably still won't get it until I meet one. But hey! That's another exciting thing I can do when I'm in North America!
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
It’s basically a combination of Ron Paul supporters being obnoxious and progressive leaning professors being opposed to it. My general experiences with them is that they’re all right, though I think certain aspects of the philosophy are a bit naive.
You’ll form your own opinions though I’m sure.
You’ll form your own opinions though I’m sure.