What are you nerds reading? :D

[tippy2k2]

Hello fellow book worms!

I read. I read a lot. Like...a lot a lot. My usual speed is about one book every two weeks (faster if it's a book I'm loving).

We don't get nearly enough threads about reading stuff so...uh....whatcha readin? What kind of a book is it? Is it good so far? How many tasteful nude scenes are in the book (I'm asking...for a friend....yeah.....)?

I've joked a few times about this in a few threads but I have finally decided to give one of the big sci-fi names a chance; I'm reading the Invader Earth series by L Ron Hubbard.

Now Hubbard has his own baggage to his name (main reason I've skipped him for so long) but I am greatly enjoying this book series. I am right now on book #2 and from what I've been told by my Dad (my primary librarian), the series is excellent. I have so far greatly enjoyed the book series; so much that I actually now have #2-10 waiting for me to be read!

The book series is a sci-fi book about a pretty horrible person (well, alien but they're human in appearance) who's mission is to oversee an agent sent to infiltrate Earth to save us from ourselves with all the pollution and destruction and whatnot. However, this person needs to make sure it fails without the agent and their government figure it out but he's kind of bad at it. It's not quite a comedy but it has a lot of humorous moments. I know Hubbard has a bit of a shady reputation now with Scientology and whatnot but I am loving this book so far. The perspective of seeing the story through the eyes of the bad guy alone makes it a lot more interesting than many current day sci-fi novels.

So...whatcha readin?

 

[Barbas]

I've been reading Bomber, by Len Deighton. His portrayal of the English and German bomber crews' daily lives are fascinating stuff. The nude scenes are warm and loving as well. It's all rather tastefully done.

 

[Frission]

"The ultimate Machine" by A.E Van Vogt. It's an interesting old science fiction book.

 

[Queen Michael]

I'm reading Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. It's about a hacker called Hiro Protagonist who used to work as a pizza delivery guy for the mafia, and spends lots of time on the VR internet called the Metaverse. Great fun, and probably the best cyberpunk I've ever encountered.

I'm also working my way through Dreams of Red Chambers by Cao Xueqin. Ancient Chinese novel. Over 2,400 pages. Very nice.

 

[shrekfan246]

Hiro Protagonist

I might have to read it just for that name.

OT: I've been working my way mostly through my dad's science fiction/fantasy collection over the past few months. Just recently I finished Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama and have now moved on to Childhood's End by the same author. Then on my desk as immediate follow-ups I've got Vernor Vinge's Across Realtime, Joan D. Vinge's The Snow Queen, and my own copy of Cloud Atlas.

Rendezvous With Rama was quite good, actually. It's about a massive celestial cylinder which comes screaming into our solar system on a direct path toward the Sun many years in the future, and the group of scientists who are dispatched to research it. I've not had much exposure to hard sci-fi in the past, and it was interesting to read a book where there isn't really any antagonist other than time itself.

 

[JaceArveduin]

MasterHarper of Pern, for me.

Fun series by MacCaffrey, should look into them if you haven't.

 

[Caostotale]

I'm currently picking through a huge box of 1950s-1970s sci-fi short-story/novella anthologies that I picked up at a nearby used bookstore, authored or edited by Frederick Pohl, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Damon Knight, Ray Bradbury, etc... The last of these I read through was an Pohl collection called 'Alternating Currents' and was simply excellent. I grew up reading loving the Bradbury anthologies like 'The Illustrated Man' and 'Golden Apples of the Sun', so it couldn't be more of a joy to dig deeper into a wellspring of that sort of writing.

Aside from that, this summer I've not read quite as many books as I'd hoped to. I read through the entire Dark Tower series by Stephen King and a very odd Peter Straub book called 'Shadowland'.

I've been interested in checking out Stephenson's books as well. I've never read a cyberpunk novel or anything about cryptography.

 

[Elfgore]

The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. One of the better fantasy series I've read. I'm only about half-way through book one, but I'm having a total blast. It's a total of six books in the series, so it should take quite a while to finish.

I really need to read Glen Cook's newest novel. I just have it sitting there in my bookshelf, tempting me.

 

[jademunky]

"Soon I will be invincible" By Austin Grossman

Essentially it is yet another humourous deconstruction of the superhero genre. This one spends a lot of time trying to get into the head of a supervillain and explain why he feels the uncontrollable compulsion to repeatedly try to take over the world.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The King in Yellow, which seems to have inspired in name - and nothing else - the villain of True Detective. It's written by Robert W. Chambers, who's supposed to be a successor to Poe and a mentor to Lovecraft, but out of the book's 10 stories, only the first 4 actually deal with the King in Yellow. These are very good. The remainder are 2 merely ok horror stories, 1 poem and 3 incredibly dreadful romances set in Paris across different time periods. I've been stuck on story #8 for longer than I care to remember.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Currently rereading the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher. The descendants of the Lost Roman legion meets Avatar the Last Airbender (or Pokemon, which was the original intention) fighting off wolfmen and the Zerg while starring a smartass whose setting is stuck on crazy awesome? Yes please, and may I have some more?

 

[x EvilErmine x]

The Long Mars by Pratchett and Baxter, I'm only on the first chapter so i can't really give any details yet other than it follows on from The Long War (A book which contrary to the title...didn't really have a war in it) and The Long Earth. They are a bit odd because they don't really go anywhere, it's more about the journey through, and the sights of the long earths. A basic premise of the story is that one day this guy invents and device that allows people to travel to parallel earths that are different by degrees to ours and uploads the plans to the internet. On all the other earths there are no humans but there are other forms of intelligent life on some of them. The story sorta winds about exploring the other earths.

 

[tippy2k2]

Currently rereading the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher. The descendants of the Lost Roman legion meets Avatar the Last Airbender (or Pokemon, which was the original intention) fighting off wolfmen and the Zerg while starring a smartass whose setting is stuck on crazy awesome? Yes please, and may I have some more?

Oooooh shiny

I love Butcher's other series (Dresden Files). How does Codex Alera stack up against Dresden if you've read them both?

 

[TakerFoxx]

Oooooh shiny

I love Butcher's other series (Dresden Files). How does Codex Alera stack up against Dresden if you've read them both?

Personally I like the Dresden Files better (but then, Alera only has five books, so Dresden has a lot more space to fit crazy awesomeness), and the first Alera book is pretty good, but doesn't really match up to the rest of his stuff. But then again, it was reportedly written on a bet before he even started the Dresden Files and thus hadn't found his groove yet, while everything from the second book on is him pretty much taking this really interesting world he'd created and seeing just how much crazy stuff he can pack in. And believe me, that is a lot. Give it a shot, it's awesome.

What's hilarious about it is that it really was written on a bet. He used to be part of this online writer's forum, and he and this other guy got into a heated debate over whether or not skill or ideas were more important. Jim was arguing that a talented writer can make any idea work with the right execution, while the other guy was saying that some ideas are just bad and will never work, and challenged Jim to write a book using a bad idea of the guy's choice. And as Jim was feeling kind of cocky, he told the guy to give him two bad ideas instead of one. So the guy chose Lost Roman Legion and Pokemon. Jim accepted, wrote the book, and realized that it was publishable, so he refused to show it so as to protect the content. The other guy crowed victory, Jim patted him on the back, and after the Dresden Files had shot off, he dug the manuscript out, fixed it up, published it, and wrote four more books in that series. So yeah, I think his point was made.

 

[Phasmal]

Mogworld, actually. I was reading Equal Rites until recently, so I'm not very far in, but I like it so far.

Equal Rites is good also, but it's not my favourite Terry Pratchett book.

 

[Twintix]

I've been on quite a Discworld binge for the last 2 years. Right now, I'm reading Monstrous Regiment, which is the 28th (I think) book in the series. I really should be farther into the series considering the pace I'm reading them at, but I, for whatever reason, didn't finish Mort for ages.

On the topic of Discworld, I always get giddy when I see that Death makes an appearance in a book. It that weird?

Equal Rites is good also, but it's not my favourite Terry Pratchett book.

Did you just start reading Discworld or are you re-reading it? Because if you have read them already, ignore the next bit.

The books really get better as the series goes on. The earlier books, while excellent, were a bit wonky when it came to certain characterizations, as Pratchett was still trying to find a suitable style. Granny Weatherwax from Equal Rites will seem a bit weird to those who are farther into the series. Pratchett has stated somewhere that her characterization wasn't actually complete until Lords And Ladies. (Which I recommend to Hell and back. Such a great book!)

 

[Queen Michael]

Hiro Protagonist

I might have to read it just for that name.

Very early on, one character says that it's a stupid name.
"But you'll never forget it," Hiro replies.