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What Are You Reading? |OT| One Thread to Rule Them All

Famassu

Famassu

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,186
I'm pretty excited they finally reprinted an out of stock Finnish book that has gone for, like, 80 euros in online auctions. A friend from the Uni I went to recommended it to me years ago but I've never managed to get my hands on it. It translates to Lomonosov's Engine and it's supposedly a pretty weird book, but the friend who recommended it to me is a pretty interesting person so I've been intrigued ever since she mentioned it. I finally ordered it. Here's my attempt at translating the book's description:

"Something has happened at the remote lands of Novaja Zemlja. A systematic approach to going through it may reveal secret connections between the diminishing natural resources and human society. As the probe into the matter deepens, the scientific world and the world of natural faith collide and switch places. Beliefs become real, scientific facts turn out to be beliefs. Lomonosov's Engine is the cause for all of this. But what is Lomonosov's Engine? And why does the fate of mankind seem to hover above it all?

Antti Salminen's experimental prose work Lomonosov's Engine probes the borderlands of literary genres and builds a fascinating world combining steampunk, notes, etnology, alchemy and cross reference logic."
 
Excuse me

Excuse me

Member
Oct 30, 2017
2,033
I'm on re-read roll and currently reading Neuromancer... Another disappointment. I mean, I really like some parts, like the first chapters set in Night City... but as the story progress it just doesn't hold my interest.
 
RepairmanJack

RepairmanJack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,354
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I think I found my spirit animal. I loved every second of reading this character. The plot and scene setting I thought was a little lacking, but every second with Murderbot more than made up for it. Can't wait to read more.
 
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Jag

Jag

Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,692
RepairmanJack said:
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I think I found my spirit animal. I loved every second of reading this character. The plot and scene setting I thought was a little lacking, but every second with Murderbot more than made up for it. Can't wait to read more.
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I keep seeing this series pop up, but haven't actually known anyone that's read it. Probably stick it on my list.
 
Famassu

Famassu

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,186
Has anyone read Jennifer Fallon's books? I found her Wolfblade trilogy of books (Wolfblade, Warrior, and Warlord) for cheap, just thinking if it's a series worth getting into. Seems it's also part of some bigger saga, should I read them from the start or can these different trilogies be enjoyed separately? Goodreads is so unreliable when it comes to book reviews. Some absolutely baffling 4+ average scores. >__>;
 
arkon

arkon

Member
Nov 6, 2017
492
Famassu said:
Has anyone read Jennifer Fallon's books? I found her Wolfblade trilogy of books (Wolfblade, Warrior, and Warlord) for cheap, just thinking if it's a series worth getting into. Seems it's also part of some bigger saga, should I read them from the start or can these different trilogies be enjoyed separately? Goodreads is so unreliable when it comes to book reviews. Some absolutely baffling 4+ average scores. >__>;
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I've read her Tide Lords series a few years ago. It was decent. Nothing to write home about but also not turned me off any of her other work. I've been planning to get back to some of her other books at some point. Oddly enough the Hythrun books were never amongst those I wanted to check out. My interest was always in the Tide Lords books and the Second Sons trilogy. Not sure if that helps you any.

I generally don't pay attention to the average scores on goodreads. I'll have a skim through a couple of the meatier reviews, if there are any, to see if the positives and negatives are to my tastes.
 
fakefaker

fakefaker

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
284
Wrapped up City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett last night and really enjoyed it, even if it wasn't quite as good as the first book. Next up is City of Miracles so I can see how this trilogy ends.

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Jag

Jag

Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,692
fakefaker said:
Wrapped up City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett last night and really enjoyed it, even if it wasn't quite as good as the first book. Next up is City of Miracles so I can see how this trilogy ends.

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First book was the best. Trilogy is not really required reading. Sort of like Lies of Locke Lamora.
 
eisschollee

eisschollee

Member
Oct 25, 2018
355
sackboy97

sackboy97

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,615
Italy
Has anyone here read Worm by Wildbow? I have seen someone mention it in OT and it seems very interesting, though exceptionally long. I know an "edited" version is in the works, but it doesn't look like it's coming out soon, from what I could tell.
 
ninnanuam

ninnanuam

Member
Nov 24, 2017
1,958
My self quarantine/isolation has given me the chance to get back into reading in a big way.

Finished Three Men in a Boat, The Big Sleep, and then i made a terrible mistake and read Rule Zero and The Spherical Void.

Don't get me wrong I liked the books alot, it's a bit of a poor man's Dirk Gently with a bit of an actiony/superhero thing going on. However when I started Rule Zero I thought the series was finished. As I bought Rule Zero on recommendation years ago. It's not, there are only those two books and the second one does not finish neatly.

Now I don't know what to read. I'd like to stay on the weird comedic kick I've got going on, weird detective comedy would be best. I tried Harry Dresden a few years back but I remember not liking it that much.

Anyone got any ideas where to go next? Also whatever it is needs to be available on Kindle? You know on account of being stuck in a room.
 
mhayes86

mhayes86

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,272
Maryland
Practically done with book 7 of Wheel of Time. I've been really loving the series so far and am aware I'm about to or have started to hit the lull since this book kind of slowed down, but I'm still enjoying it. However, I really wasn't expecting a certain scene with Mat. It caught me off guard since the series has been more or less clean outside of a few battles.

Mat being raped by Tylin at knife point. Her toying with him a couple chapters before was kind of amusing since it goes against his usual experience of him doing the flirting, so a woman taking control flipped him on his head. It eventually made him uncomfortable with how pushy she was, so he made every effort to avoid her which was presented in a comical game of cat and mouse. Then she got into his room and raped him.

Apparently this scene is a point of contention when I looked it up online.
 
djinn

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
15,867
mhayes86 said:
Practically done with book 7 of Wheel of Time. I've been really loving the series so far and am aware I'm about to or have started to hit the lull since this book kind of slowed down, but I'm still enjoying it. However, I really wasn't expecting a certain scene with Mat. It caught me off guard since the series has been more or less clean outside of a few battles.

Mat being raped by Tylin at knife point. Her toying with him a couple chapters before was kind of amusing since it goes against his usual experience of him doing the flirting, so a woman taking control flipped him on his head. It eventually made him uncomfortable with how pushy she was, so he made every effort to avoid her which was presented in a comical game of cat and mouse. Then she got into his room and raped him.

Apparently this scene is a point of contention when I looked it up online.
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Yeah

We... We don't like that part.
 
Chibs

Chibs

Member
Nov 5, 2017
4,522
Belgium
Jumped into my very first Discworld novel, Mort.
I'm really enjoying it, never read anything like this before. I'm constantly laughing.
 
RepairmanJack

RepairmanJack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,354
Giving Dresden Files another try. I remember liking the first two books decent enough but thought they were repetitive. Gonna try to skim reread the first two and keep going.
 
Famassu

Famassu

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,186
arkon said:
I've read her Tide Lords series a few years ago. It was decent. Nothing to write home about but also not turned me off any of her other work. I've been planning to get back to some of her other books at some point. Oddly enough the Hythrun books were never amongst those I wanted to check out. My interest was always in the Tide Lords books and the Second Sons trilogy. Not sure if that helps you any.

I generally don't pay attention to the average scores on goodreads. I'll have a skim through a couple of the meatier reviews, if there are any, to see if the positives and negatives are to my tastes.
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That's also not always reliable since people have massive blind spots to racism, sexism & other problematic aspects that I'd prefer to avoid supporting, especially the subtler/more casual kind, and genre fans tend to dismiss/ignore/be used to certain worn out, annoying or plain out bad tropes that can often kind of come with the genre (or they even like them because of that).
 
Agamon

Agamon

Member
Aug 1, 2019
1,781
Jag said:
First book was the best. Trilogy is not really required reading. Sort of like Lies of Locke Lamora.
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While technically true, that's like how you can eat a piece of pie and still throw the rest in the garbage. :)

(Gentlemen Bastards is my fav series, by quite a bit)
 
snogrigg

snogrigg

Member
Sep 11, 2018
129
Been tearing through Replay by Ken Grimwood, about 2/3 done. I stayed up to 2:30 am a few nights ago reading it. I love it.

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Allice

Member
Oct 9, 2018
150
Progress since my last post :

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin, consistently breathtaking. Consistency is the key here, even in the slow moments there is a build up towards something colossal and the way Martin foreshadows is sublime. Martin somehow manages to outshine my favourite scene from the show, when Daenerys gets the Unsullied ; i love the little touches here like her anxiety beforehand and her euphoria upon hearing the ' dracarys ' back. Furthermore, knowing what we know now, you can still sense the infinite sadness of Daenerys and get the feeling that she is broken at a fundamental level by her yearning for a ' red doored house ' above all even at Meereen.

Brilliant stuff all around.

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin, i have no problem with the limited scope or the focus on certain characters but the general flow and a stilted dialogue means i didn't enjoy this one as much as the ASoS. However, the constant lore and the worldbuilding are great and Martin's consistency is once again solid in those areas. Just off the top of my head, he actually mentions Aerys' imprisonment at Maidenpool in the journal entry of Ser Barristan. I also love Cersei's pov, her ptsd while not portrayed subtly is still captivating. Her plight during her conversation with Osney is just chilling stuff.

Overall i'm looking forward to the A Dance With Dragons, hopefully Ser Barristan will tell the story of Trident after all that teasing.

Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock, Moorcock had a grand idea and he realizes it well. Unfortunately, i'm not well versed in the myths and dignitiaries of early Christianity so most of the finer points and details were lost on me. However, i have the common sense to understand that if you are a devout Christian you may find the idea and the events during the book to be blasphemous, if you could look past that though there is some great and thought provoking fiction here.

Thorns by Robert Silverberg, Flies was a masterpiece for me and Silverberg claimed that Thorns was build upon the short story from that so i had to check this out, results were middling. First of all i recommend reading the Flies beforehand because it gives the book this tremendous feeling of dread and terror where you are not sure whether shit will go down or not. Beyond that, Thorns actually manages to stand on it's own feet and the characterization and the plight of certain characters are great, but...

Unfortunately, faults of the book are directly related to the man himself. Silverberg is largely forgotten from the public consciousness these days which seems weird considering that he is a highly decorated writer in terms of awards. But there is a reason for that, despite having a grand imagination and a strong style Silverberg's works are a product of their time due to a highly sexist point of view. It seems that some of his work suffer more from his blatant sexism and unfortunately Thorns is among those affected.

I still plan on reading some more of his work, particularly the Hawskbill Station, which was also great in short form on his anthology but could be great on a longer form with a more thought out and elaborated ending, however do realize that if you delve into his work you'll encounter some mild misogyny to say the least.
 
Bazza

Bazza

Member
Oct 27, 2017
844
After 11 weeks and 23 books I finished the Malazan series over the weekend and I have to agree with the person a couple of posts previous to this, the Malazan series is one of the best fantasy series I have read. With the exception of the two Bauchelain and Korbal Broach short story collections (and I only gave them 3/5 because in each of the books, one of the three stories just wasn't as good as the other two), every other book in the series is 4/5 or 5/5 in my opinion.

After finishing The Crippled God I am desperate for the release of the final book in the Kharkanas trilogy, No doubt the Karsa trilogy will carry on at the point after where Assail finished and yea I want them now but I don't mind holding out for those.

The 3rd part of the Kharkanas trilogy I think I would kill for though, there is a bit in the Crippled God that makes me want to read the series again already just to see if the answer is there but I know it won't be, And all because of
god damn Ben Adaephon Delat, a human (seemingly) who gods tread carefully around, and who the hell are the two unnamed souls he is holding. According to the author hints of one of the unnamed souls is in the final book and if that is the case he has access tho the knowledge of an ancient ascended Tiste.

Another thought did pop into my head though, The last couple of books since Draconus came back into play I have been wondering what happened to his son Arathan and if he was one of the souls or even Quick Ben himself. Gets even more mysterious after Quick Ben's full name is revealed to Ruthan Gudd who the T'lan Imass called an elder God and he says something along the lines of understanding why Quick Ben always kept his distance from him.

Anywho, I recommend the entire series to anyone who is looking to get there teeth into a serious fantasy series.
 
djinn

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
15,867
Dropped the Star Trek book series I was reading. Very badly written and pretty boring.

Moving on to Emma by Jane Austen.
 
RepairmanJack

RepairmanJack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,354
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Was looking for something more Space Opera-like and this cover for Agent of Change by Sharon Lee caught my eye. Thought was going to be some 80s schlocky sci-fi action but so far it's actually surprised me with the writing style and prose. Definitely shouldn't have judged this by the cover.
 
arkon

arkon

Member
Nov 6, 2017
492
RepairmanJack said:
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Was looking for something more Space Opera-like and this cover for Agent of Change by Sharon Lee caught my eye. Thought was going to be some 80s schlocky sci-fi action but so far it's actually surprised me with the writing style and prose. Definitely shouldn't have judged this by the cover.
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That's a problem with Baen covers in general. They usually aren't very good.
 

Deleted member 7279

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,553
On a real Agatha Christe kick

Her novels for me tend to have two parts. The part where it is before the thing happens is generally tougher to get through for me. The part after the thing happens or starts to happen is generally a race to the end and I can't put it down.

Death on the Nile had a very slow and at times boring opening. I understand introducing characters and giving back stories so I'm always patient during this time and never force myself to just plow through. The first chapter or so of And Then There Were None was also a lot of introduction and it is sometimes hard to keep track of who everyone is with all these names getting thrown at you.

Then you get launched into the full plot with the mystery and the nuance and the intrigue and it is fantastic. I read the final 70% of And Then There Were None in an afternoon. I read the final two thirds or so of Death on the Nile in a few days. Often times it is a fantastic ramping up of details and reveals and the smugness of Hercule Poirot that keeps me going. There are a few of her books that are in the public domain right now. Highly recommend trying her stuff out if you enjoy mysteries. They usually are not very long and are largely easy to read, although in the Poirot stories I've read he will sometimes utter things in French and often times there is no translation or anything and you just have to find out on your own what he's saying either by looking it up or context clues. But otherwise they have all been fantastic and fun and the three I've read so far never really felt like she was cheating to hide the culprit. Reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd right now
 
djinn

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
15,867
silkysmooth said:
On a real Agatha Christe kick

Her novels for me tend to have two parts. The part where it is before the thing happens is generally tougher to get through for me. The part after the thing happens or starts to happen is generally a race to the end and I can't put it down.

Death on the Nile had a very slow and at times boring opening. I understand introducing characters and giving back stories so I'm always patient during this time and never force myself to just plow through. The first chapter or so of And Then There Were None was also a lot of introduction and it is sometimes hard to keep track of who everyone is with all these names getting thrown at you.

Then you get launched into the full plot with the mystery and the nuance and the intrigue and it is fantastic. I read the final 70% of And Then There Were None in an afternoon. I read the final two thirds or so of Death on the Nile in a few days. Often times it is a fantastic ramping up of details and reveals and the smugness of Hercule Poirot that keeps me going. There are a few of her books that are in the public domain right now. Highly recommend trying her stuff out if you enjoy mysteries. They usually are not very long and are largely easy to read, although in the Poirot stories I've read he will sometimes utter things in French and often times there is no translation or anything and you just have to find out on your own what he's saying either by looking it up or context clues. But otherwise they have all been fantastic and fun and the three I've read so far never really felt like she was cheating to hide the culprit. Reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd right now
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Love Christie. Death in the Nile is one of my favourites. I can recommend you some of her books if you like? She also wrote a bunch of adventure romps as well, which are pretty good.
 
Piston

Piston

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,213
Finished with Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) and started Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov this morning for some light reading.
 
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RepairmanJack

RepairmanJack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,354
Finished Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I didn't really get it. I liked the first half, but the second half really just felt like there was no real plot and it was mostly driven by random events or random attitudes by individual side characters. I really liked the first half that was more of a fish out of water story, even though I didn't love the switching perspectives and getting all the characters backstories it more felt like getting to know a community. But it seemed like once all the characters were in place all character work and sense sort of went out the window.

I didn't really like it overall as it really became a chore to push through. If I knew so much of the story balanced on the backstory of the Jinni and how it interacted with his current life I probably would have dnf'd it a while ago.
 
djinn

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
15,867
RepairmanJack said:
Finished Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I didn't really get it. I liked the first half, but the second half really just felt like there was no real plot and it was mostly driven by random events or random attitudes by individual side characters. I really liked the first half that was more of a fish out of water story, even though I didn't love the switching perspectives and getting all the characters backstories it more felt like getting to know a community. But it seemed like once all the characters were in place all character work and sense sort of went out the window.

I didn't really like it overall as it really became a chore to push through. If I knew so much of the story balanced on the backstory of the Jinni and how it interacted with his current life I probably would have dnf'd it a while ago.
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Felt the same about the second half. I dnf/skim read.
 
Sean C.

Sean C.

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Oct 27, 2017
7,810
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
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The last of Abercrombie's standalone trilogy that I read, I had put off reading this one for the very superficial reason that the edition shown above had gone out of print in North America, meaning that the only commercially available edition wouldn't fit with Abercrombie's first five novels on my shelf at all. But my local independent bookseller has a UK supplier as well, and I was able to order one of their remaining copies in, so the first six books in the First Law universe are all of the same type. Satisfaction!

As to the book itself, this is Abercrombie's take on the western, and having read A Little Hatred already, it was interesting to see him begin to weave in some of the themes of technological advancement that are more fully realized in that latter novel. It'll be interesting to see how, if at all, the characters here recur in future installments -- one sort of hopes they don't, since things have worked out reasonably well for the survivors, and one imagines that being disturbed would just open new avenues for them to suffer. Abercrombie has gotten more subtle as a writer through the years, which is noticeable especially with the characterization of some people who recur here, especially Ninefingers, who I found really one-note in the original trilogy.
 
luca

luca

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,663
I finally decided to finish up Chapter House Dune, and thus I've completed my first series ever: the Dune saga. Took be probably a year getting through the six books but I feel fulfilled since before I started up Dune a year ago I hadn't finished a single novel for more than a decade.

It's kind of a bittersweet ending to me. It's grown to become my favorite franchise, and I dearly love this universe, all its characters and ideas it plays around with. And if I hadn't grown so interested in some of these characters the final book sets up I wouldn't have been this bummed that the story doesn't get to end and I am left here in this void for a lifetime left to speculate where Frank could take this.

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Sean C.

Sean C.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,810
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Pachimari said:
It's kind of a bittersweet ending to me. It's grown to become my favorite franchise, and I dearly love this universe, all its characters and ideas it plays around with. And if I hadn't grown so interested in some of these characters the final book sets up I wouldn't have been this bummed that the story doesn't get to end and I am left here in this void for a lifetime left to speculate where Frank could take this.
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Good news, Frank's son has carried on the franchise! Oh wait, no, self-isolate from those books like they just arrived from traveling in North Italy.
 
Cipherr

Cipherr

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,503
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Im going to have to stop reading this at night before bed. It's making me stay up waaaay too late. I just got to the end of the journals of the 3 score and 10 and this is fucking amazing. I'm so sad though about Father Dure. But holy shit. I have been unbelievably hooked since he went down to the the Basilica in the Cleft. It's a selfish thought, but I hope Im not jumping into scifi novels with.... "The Wire" where Im going to end up disappointed by everything else because I started with the greatest.

In any case this has been fantastic and its only been a moment so far.
 
mere_immortal

mere_immortal

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,780
mikhailguy

mikhailguy

Banned
Jun 20, 2019
1,967
Station Eleven

Still have to come into my office, but there isn't anything to do..so I'm finally getting around to this one. Have owned it for like 3 years.
 
LiQuid!

LiQuid!

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,986
Finished Dune last night at 11:50pm after a 5 hour binge of the entire final third of it to stay within my 1 book a month quota (I shamefully got lazy and took like a week+ off without turning the kindle on, sue me).

Dune was fantastic and I can't wait to get to the sequels but I'm going to read a couple quickies first to cleanse the palate a bit.

First up:
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I read the Chocolate War in high school and it was one of the small handful of curriculum reads that left a lasting impression on me. I don't re-read books often, as a matter of fact I can't think of anything I've read more than once off the top of my head, so this is kind of a first for me. After reading the first chapter I was immediately reminded of why it connected so well with me as a teen. I find the hyperbolic and sardonic writing style really entertaining. It's not very long so I hope to be done with it within a week or so, then I guess I'll see if I can find a recommendation from a friend or something
 

Deleted member 8860

User requested account closure
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Oct 26, 2017
6,525
Going through a bunch of Nebula/WFA/Hugo winners from the last decade after finishing up Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy (the first book of which was phenomenal, while the latter two were great but not as groundbreaking).

Read:
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Redshirts (a fun read with a cute concept)

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The Goblin Emperor (well written, but without a particularly engaging plot)



Reading:
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Throne of the Crescent Moon (the author's fake Arabia totally takes me out of the story, which anyway seems pretty cliché at the halfway mark; Chakraborty's City of Brass was so much more my speed)

Yet to read:
Six Wakes
Too Like the Lightning
Ancillary Justice
Luna: New Moon

Glad I got these right a week before the library system shut down.
 
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AllThingsPurple

AllThingsPurple

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,580
UK
Just finished The Girl With All the Gifts, really liked it, a nice twist on the zombie genre, really easy to read writing style.

Think up next I'll finally read Ready Player One which has been sitting on my shelf for about 7 years.
 
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