What are you reading?

[bomaye]

I just finished Isaac Asimov's The Naked Sun.

It's like he knew the dangers of the internet 50 years before it even existed. For a guy best known for writing about robots and space empires, he had his fingers on the pulse of the human condition

[Caffeinated]

Nearly done with Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. And my to be read pile is enormous.

[eselle28]

I'm reading The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. It's clockwork punk alternate history that both has lots of action and that has some sort of interesting discussions of the nature of free will. I'm really enjoying it.

[litterature]

I'm reading The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. It's clockwork punk alternate history that both has lots of action and that has some sort of interesting discussions of the nature of free will. I'm really enjoying it.

Oh, I've read good things about that one, been meaning to pick it up for a while!

[reboot]

Confessions of the Lioness by Mia Couto, a bit of a feminist mystery set in Mozambique

[Wondering]

I am making my way through Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, but not all in one go.

So I'm also starting Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot. Described as: "A precise scientific exploration of the differences between boys and girls that breaks down damaging gender stereotypes and offers practical guidance for parents and educators."

[Werel]

In the Company of Crows and Ravens, which I was excited to buy cause it seemed like a cool mashup of both intercultural conceptualizations of corvid-human interaction and actual science about their behavior and social structure, but which has ended up being a lackluster collection of silly personal anecdotes and 101-level "did you know"s.

Next up is Ahmadou Kourouma's Allah is Not Obliged, a nice light beach read about Liberian child soldiers.

[readertorider]

Just finished Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Was rather disappointed--it was an entertaining read, but the whole virus = religion thing made less sense than usual and of his books I've read he's now 4 for 6 for weird/rapey sex On the otherhand it was kind of cool to see a concept of alternate reality and the internet written ~10yrs before it took off!

Next up is a Poirot mystery I've mostly forgotten and then either Ancillary Justice or Sorcery & Cecelia or The Enchanted Coffee Pot!

Confessions of a Lioness looks like it will be migrating over to my to be read list...

[eselle28]

I'm reading The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. It's clockwork punk alternate history that both has lots of action and that has some sort of interesting discussions of the nature of free will. I'm really enjoying it.

Oh, I've read good things about that one, been meaning to pick it up for a while!

If you like the general concept, I'd definitely recommend it. It's sort of in my wheelhouse anyway, and I picked it up based on that and a recommendation, but it's exceeded my expectations.

...and then either Ancillary Justice...

I've read that one. Very cool worldbuilding, and goodness did it make me think about gender. It was a good space opera once I finally got used to the pronouns, too!

[KMR]

I'm reading The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. My boyfriend recently introduced me to Sanderson, who is his favorite author. I've been thoroughly enjoying his work so far, plus his writing style really resonates with me, so I figure I'll be making my way through all of his books at some point in the not-too-distant future.

[reboot]

I am now reading Lion Eyes by my friend Claire Berlinski. It is a bit old and I hesitated to read it for fear I would not like it. Now I am on the fence because I get a kick out of it's semi-autiobiographical nature, because I know a lot of the people she talks about and lightly veiled their identities, but it is not particularly good. I mean it is a fun page turner and it is 98% true, but some stuff, including her own character, are much more annoying than IRL.

tl;dr Read friend's books with caution

[CP96]

Just finished Fool's Quest. I don't know what it is about Hobb's writing, but I can read pages upon pages of basically nothing happening and never once get even a little bit bored. Her grasp of character and family dynamics is mesmerising.

Currently reading Raw Spirit by Ian Banks. It's a very unfocused, pleasantly meandering memoir. In the hands of a lesser writer it would just be boring and aimless but Banks' wit holds it together.

[Hirundo Bos]

Ehm, First Blood by David Morrel, the book that would be turned into the first movie about Rambo. Who is not exactly my role model... but I read about the book in another book, become interested in its composition and its pop-cultural position, and there we are.

One strange thing about it is, I'm not familiar with Rambo as a character before, but I am familiar about him as a concept, and it's strange to see his name on print from before he became a concept.

[sky]

I'm working my way through The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams. Although I've read two of the individual books a few times before, I seem to have completely missed out on the other three, as I've reached a part of the story that is not sounding at all familiar to me in that way you get with books you've read before and then completely forgotten about until you try to read them again.

His writing style is so different from the things I usually read that I'm enjoying being completely unable to guess what is coming next at any given point.

[bomaye]

I'm about 100 pages into Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov.

I didn't think there was anywhere to go with Foundation, but then someone dropped the "E" word and then someone else suggested there may be a third party involved and DAMNNNNNN got me just like that

[bomaye]

Foundation's Edge started strong but kind of tailed off in a weird direction near the end. This book kind of tied in a lot of Asimov's earlier fiction and I had missed one of the books that tie in, so maybe that was part of it too.

Thinking of starting The Robots of Dawn by Asimov, but might start something else by a different writer for a difference in tone too

[HSavinien]

I picked up 14 volumes of W Juliet last week, a manga series I started reading in high school. It's cute, but has some really effed up transphobic moments and the usual gender essentialism (e.g. women automatically become more femme as they grow up and tomboys/butch women are immature) I expect from Japanese media. Mostly continuing out of nostalgia and wanting to find out (ten years later) how it actually ends.

[litterature]

London Orbital by Iain Sinclair. It's pretty rambling and there are many references I don't get, but ages ago I stopped writing because I thought it was pointless to write about cities and have no actual story to tell, so it's an interesting read for me :>

[readertorider]

...and then either Ancillary Justice...

I've read that one. Very cool worldbuilding, and goodness did it make me think about gender. It was a good space opera once I finally got used to the pronouns, too!

Ended up reading the entire series in 4 days a couple of months back! The pronouns really didn't bother me which felt a little strange after reading many of the reviews who didn't even mention the multiple bodies same(ish) consciousness thing which I found fascinating.  

Just finished Octavia E. Butler's Kindred. That was powerful and nuanced and amazing. The time travel was more of a awful convenient plot device than a central part of the story which isn't what I'm used to, but reading the story I wasn't concerned that Octavia E. Butler didn't seem to care about the mechanics. I was also interested in the glimpses of 1976 as well--it was more modern and glossy, but still felt alien to me--like the bit where Kevin expected Dena to type his letters/book. Really wish I had skipped the essay at the end though. Sometimes bare/bland statements do feel less powerful than other ways of communicating and I felt the professor noticed/cared about different parts of the novel than I did.

[KitKat]

Just finished up Liane Merciel's Dragon Age-novel "Last Flight" and I enjoyed it more than I expected to going in. It did exactly what I want a novel based on a game to do, it gave me some things to go "I know that place/person/thing!" at, more context and world-building to draw on in-game and a couple of big backstory reveals that A. Hint at things to come in the series and B. Made me re-assess some choices I made in Dragon Age Inquisition for future playthroughs.

I love that we got an actual, more detailed look at how a 'real' Blight affects Thedas and the Grey Wardens compared to that short ordeal in Origins. Merciel managed to convey how a continent and her protagonists were changed over a decades long siege rather well, not to mention, Griffons! Lots and lots of griffons!

The Dragon Age novels are generally pretty good (except for Masked Empire) and well worth for a fan.

[Hirundo Bos]

I'm reading a series called A Song of Ice and Fire that some of you may have heard of. When the TV series started, I decided to wait with the books, because there are a lot of good fantasy books and fewer good fantasy shows, but now that the show is diverging anyway I thought I might as well pick up the books, and I enjoy them more. I see a lot of what Martin* tries to do, and I think he does a lot of it rather well. And although I understand why they made two seasons out of book three, it does make more sense as one book. And bits of those seasons were too drawn out... too many scenes of people traveling to places that I now see was to remind us that yeah, these characters are still here and have some stuff going on. So yeah. In the middle of the third book now, so the books will probably last me a while more.


* he gets a bonus for having my first name as his last, also it could be fun to marry him and take his name

[kath]

The thing I found about reading ASOIAF, was the jigsaw puzzle plot makes me want to devour it ... but it's not the sort of thing where I find the style really like rewarding and I want to read it over and over. I just have to know what's going on. I would kinda rather enjoy the ride a little more (like Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones).

I'm currently reading Oryx and Crake. I've read MaddAddam and The Year of the Flood, and I think I liked those better so far ... but I am reading the beginning where Snowman is narrating and I think I just don't like Snowman very much. Got a few other books I'm trying to make headway on ... but they aren't fiction.

[Werel]

I really loved Oryx and Crake, but haven't read the other two yet. I dug that Snowman was not particularly likeable and was actually kind of a sad gross abomination; it worked for me to have a dispiritingly shitty narrator for that world. Themes are on point for me, too (any dystopia about man dying of great loneliness of spirit after the beasts vanish is up my alley). Why'd you like MaddAddam/Year of the Flood more, if it's possible to say without spoilers?

[Wondering]

I just finished reading The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie. It's a series of vignettes about various Spokane Indians, most of whom live on the Spokane Reservation. Ended up being the basis for the movie Smoke Signals.

It's good. I would highly recommend it, though it is sad.

However, while I was reading it, I felt that something was...off in my experience of it. And as I reached the end, I realized that it was that not a single story was from the perspective of a woman. There are numerous different stories, all about different people in the book, but every single one of them is a man. And it really stood out to me in a book that was a series of vignettes in the way a book that was just about one character would not.

[bomaye]

I'm reading the first Halo novel, Fall of Reach.

I feel like a NERRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD but it's also kinda okay.

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