What are you reading right now?

[deanb]

I've barely being reading anything at all of late, though I found out I own Annihilation on kindle. Also I did grab that management bundle on HIB the other week I should probably read through a couple of those.

Just not been in a very reading mood of late

[Bogie 2.0]

I've been reading Adam Tooze's The Deluge, a really interesting one about how the USA checkmated the UK before the Great War, shifting who's daddy in the process.

 

Also, I've just finished The Batman/Judge Dredd Collection! Not a big fan of the bat but I couldn't resist them badass 90's stories and Bisley's art:

______

BTW, can any one recommend me some great recent comics? I know Marvel and DC are a mess right now but I'm not really that up to date with any publisher anymore.

[danielpholt]

Just finished reading Artemis by Andy Weir. For those interested, its the follow up to his previous (and first) novel The Martian.

 

I'll be honest, I'm a little disappointing. It never really takes off in the same way The Martian did, although I'm willing to admit that TM is telling a much smaller, more condensed story. Plotting aside, I had a few issues with how Weir writes his female lead (I feel like he fell into that trap that male writers writing female characters fall into far too often), shes super smart, sarcastic, beautiful and yup, one of the boys when it comes to sex, nudity and, well profanity as a whole. There's also a whole condom subplot that frankly, felt forced.

 

All in all it's fine. It's a pretty sizeable drop from The Martian, but if you're into science fiction then its still worth a shot.

[TheMightyEthan]

I completely forgot we had this thread...

 

My thoughts on Artemis were the same. It was fine, but not as good as The Martian.

[toxicitizen]

Oh hey, didn't realize we even had this thread. I started reading again this month (or back in January, I guess) and this time I actually managed to stick with it and have been burning through books at a pretty brisk pace. Last time I tried, I was reading Metro 2033 which was alright but not exactly incredible since I ended up never finishing it.

 

What got me started was wanting to read the Witcher books because of both the Netflix show and Witcher 3. I read the first one on my phone, which is a short story collection and then moved on to Neuromancer, which I had bought with google play credits a while ago. I also read Annihilation because I loved the movie and those sequels sure as shit aren't getting movie adaptations and wow, that went in a different direction. I enjoyed all three although Neuromancer was more of a bummer than I expected it to be and Annihilation was kinda... I dunno, just weird.

 

At this point, I decided I didn't like reading on my phone, so I ordered some stuff from Amazon. I wanted to try out some fantasy and heard about this Brandon Sanderson guy. Read his first book Elantris, since it was standalone and I didn't feel like committing to a 5+ book long epic thing. I really enjoyed it and I'm eager to read more of his stuff now since it's supposed to only get better from here. After that was Ender's Game which I finished last night and wow, I was not prepared for how much I would end up loving this one. It starts out slow and eventually it becomes clear that it's not going to pick up any kind of speed. It kept getting more and more interesting as it progressed but I was not prepared for those last two chapters. Man, what an ending. I'm half curious to check out the movie now but I can't imagine it's going to work anywhere near as well.

 

After I finished it, I immediately ordered the sequel (along with the "sequel" to Neuromancer) and the first three Wheel of Time books, because I'm stupid like that. Holy fuck, they are some thicc bois. These three could probably last me over a month all on their own. I'm gonna be reading this series all year, aren't I?

[Mal]

I hope to go through books like that one day... again. Maybe I'll do it when I laze around with my dog.

[toxicitizen]

The only reason I've been able to get through so many is I tend to get tunnel vision when I set my mind to something like this lol. I cancelled Netflix and, other than a quick Picross session the other night, I haven't played any video games in like two weeks. It's been good for me, though, even in ways I didn't expect. Turns out going to bed with a book makes it easier to fall asleep than staring at a computer screen until the last minute. Who could've guessed?!

[Mal]

Had a go with The Electric State. It's a narrative art book, basically a picture book but with a sci-fi story. Overall I like the basis of the story. It helps that it takes place in what was California so I know and feel all the illustrations. I'm not sure if book layout was taken full advantage of though. The text and images depict the same thing which I'm not sure if all pairs were successful in portraying the subjects of said text and images. The text can say extra things that are not in the image. 

 

But yeah, I'm so game for this kind of format. 

[toxicitizen]

Not gonna go through everything I've read the past few months but here's a few things I've read recently.

 

The Stand: holy shit, this is basically the most Stephen King book ever. Masterclass in characterization but the plot is a rambling mess and that ending is like a fart in the wind. Not his worst ending by any means but given the premise of the book you'd expect something a little more climactic. It's basically the MGSV of novels: I can't say the actual plot is good but there isn't a single chapter out of the entire thing that's not fantastic. It is way too fucking long, though. At almost 1200 pages, it took me over a month to read. I had to lower my goodreads reading challenge because this fucking thing set me back so much.

 

Mona Lisa Overdrive: This is the final book in the Sprawl trilogy that starts with Neuromancer. At this point, I'm sold on William Gibson. Definitely gonna keep working my way through his bibliography. I get why Neuromancer is the one people still talk about because it was pretty groundbreaking at the time but MLO is at least as good and has better pacing. Count Zero, the second book, is kinda forgettable and is carried by Gibson's writing style alone. I couldn't even remember what I liked about it until I started MLO and went "Oh, right!".

 

Snow Crash: This is one I've wanted to read for a while and I'm really glad I finally did. For me, it was one of those books that kinda recalibrates your standards, like "Yeah, no. THIS is a five star book!". It actually made me go through my goodreads and lower some ratings. It's not perfect by any means and it could've used an extra chapter or two (I can just picture Neal Stephenson going "What's a denouement?") but, even when it went on a 50 pages long infodump on ancient Sumerian mythology, I could not put it down. This book completely wrecked my sleep schedule because it kept me up all night multiple times. If his other books are anywhere near this good, I may have found my new favorite author.

[Mister Jack]

King always seems to have a problem with writing a good ending for some reason, at least in everything I ever read from him. It's a shame because he's really good at buildup.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, he's sort of infamous for his endings. He just doesn't give a fuck lol. I've even watched talks by him where he literally says he "doesn't want to ruin a perfectly good book with plot". To him it's all about the characters and their journey, the destination is an afterthought. So you end up with books like Needful Things where you're on the edge of your seat basically the entire time and then you reach the end and it's like "What the fuck was that???".

[Mister Jack]

Ah yes, the J.J. Abrams school of writing. Everybody loves that.

[toxicitizen]

Lol to be fair, King does write fantastic characters. So he's playing to his strengths as a writer and you'll rarely be disappointed in the actual character arc. It's the climax he tends to whiff. Even with his underwhelming endings, I can't think of a single King book I've read that I felt wasted my time. They're still pretty good reads!

 

Whereas J.J. has this moronic "mystery box" philosophy where all he cares about is the initial hook and he just pulls something out of his ass when the time comes to give answers. I feel like this is so much worse lol. Him having to conclude the absolute mess that was the Star Wars sequel trilogy had to be some kind of karmic retribution.

Edited July 27, 2020 by FLD

[toxicitizen]

Spent most of September binge reading the Witcher books. I read the first two short story collections earlier this year and the first proper novel back in June but only got around to checking out book 2 this month. Mainly because book 1 wasn't amazing. It wasn't bad or anything but it was pretty slow and uneventful. It's mostly set up and no payoff and at the time I really wanted to read The Stand so I did that right after.

 

But yeah, started book 2 at the beginning of the month and boy, does it pick up. I was planning to at least read book 2 and 3 and MAYBE 4 if I was still feeling it (because I really want to finish them so I can go back and play Blood & Wine before Cyberpunk comes out) but they get so good from that point on that I ended up reading all the way to the end of book 5. These books are kinda weird. It's like Sapkowski keeps getting bored and decides to throw in random shit. Like, he got to the final chapter of book 3 and went "Oh! I know! I'll introduce a framing device where the story is actually being told to little kids in a village by a traveling hobo! And I'll never bring it up again lol"

 

To be fair, I'm pretty sure it's meant to tie into some weird timeline stuff in the last two books when Ciri starts doing her thing but at the time it's kind of out of nowhere. I don't mind playing around with format and structure but in this case it was often more distracting than anything else. Also, some of the books are weirdly structured in that what you would think of as the climax is halfway through and then the last few chapters are used to catch you up on world-building or whatever. Like, book 1 doesn't really have a climax but there's this big thing that happens in the middle of book 2 that totally feels like one. Then book 3 just kinda leads straight into book 4 and THAT one sure ends on a more exciting note. It feels like at some point it was meant to be a trilogy or something and it was broken up into 5 books, for some reason.

 

There's still technically a final book but it's a prequel that was written like 15 years after the series ended. I'll get to it later, I mostly just wanted to finish the main storyline so I could get back to Blood & Wine. I played the first couple hours back around March and picked up on some stuff that seemed to be directly referencing the books. And I already had the first 3 at that point, so I figured I'd wait before playing it. And now I'm really glad I did because there's at least one character that I really wouldn't have fully appreciated without context from the books.

 

But man, reading the books kinda reframes the games in a not super positive way. Like they're still great but they feel so fan fiction-y now lol. Especially Witcher 3 with the way it kinda, sorta retcons some stuff that the books can be interpreted at vaguely hinting towards but never really explicitly states. Also, I've wanted to revisit Witcher 2 ever since my playthrough of Witcher 3 at the beginning of the year, but now I'm morbidly curious to go back to Witcher 1 as well, which...

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by FLD

[danielpholt]

Worked my way through another reading of Animal Farm. It's still great. 

 

Then I grabbed Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here which is a decidedly more difficult thing to read when you're absolutely fucking exhausted from working, and parenting a pissed off toddler who has absolutely no chill whatsoever. 

 

That being said, I've got 10 night off work so I'm hoping to be able to give the book some time. The original chapters grabbed me, and with everything going on at the moment, I think it might be essential reading so, yeah.

 

 

[toxicitizen]

Stayed up until like 8AM finishing Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds the other day. I blame my messed up sleep schedule and coffee. Do not drink coffee at midnight. Or do, if you wanna stay up until 8AM reading Revelation Space, I guess.

 

Stop me if you've heard this one before: millions of years ago, an ancient alien civilization was mysteriously wiped out right around the time they developed space faring technology. At the start of the story, one of the main characters is on an archaeological dig site unearthing some kind of marker said civilization left buried there. It's also the first book in what's called the "Inhibitor trilogy". Sounds familiar? Yep, this is the book Mass Effect ripped off!

 

Well, not really. To be fair, the premise I described is essentially where the similarities end. The world of Revelation Space is actually way more grim and less Star Trek-y than Mass Effect. Incidentally (or not?), I also found it significantly more interesting. Which is fortunate because I actually bought the rest of the trilogy (along with another standalone book set in the same world) before I read a single word of this one. So a lot was riding on this book lol. Yeah, I never said I was a smart consumer.

 

I was super tempted to just jump right into the next book (which would be that standalone one I mentioned) but it's a thicc boi and, with Cyberpunk coming in a week, if I can't finish it in time then it's likely to be all I end up reading this month. So, last night I decided to start the third Wheel of Time book instead. I started the series back in March and I've only read two so far, so I've been neglecting it for way too long. I wanted to at least finish reading the first box set by the end of the year. Really gonna have to focus more on it next year because these 14 books aren't going to read themselves.

 

I also really need to finish Dark Tower already. I stopped after book 5 like a decade ago and I'm back up to book 4 now. I do want to read It before I reach the point where it becomes relevant though, which makes it a little daunting. That book is so fucking long lol...

[Thursday Next]

Reading Hogfather (again) since it is that time of year.

 

 HO HO HO.

[toxicitizen]

 

2021 is off to a strong start as far as my reading goes. Finished it last night and oooooh boy, that sure was a Stephen King book. Last summer I said about The Stand that it was "the most Stephen King book ever" but yeah, no, this one is that. If you told me that the last third of this book was written during a 3-month long coke binge, I would believe you. Which makes it all the more impressive that at about the same length as The Stand (roughly 1150 pages), it's significantly more cohesive and focused. The Stand is a meandering mess (albeit a very good one) but It is much more focused and, imho, actually nails the ending. Build-up, climax and everything. Which is always nice in a Stephen King book. Like you're usually in for a good time regardless but a solid ending is a nice bonus.

 

The Stand took me 5 weeks to get through and by the end of week 4 I was so fucking ready for it to end. It wasn't bad or anything, the length was just starting to get to me. But I flew through It in just 3 weeks and I'm honestly a little bummed out that it's over. I still haven't watched the second of the recent movies (probably gonna rewatch the first one tonight so I can watch it tomorrow) and I'm really curious to see how the final confrontation will be handled in that one because in the 90s tv miniseries it was laughably bad and, while it works in the book, I'm honestly not sure it's possible to make it work on the screen without taking some serious liberties. The book goes full Lovecraft with cosmic/psychic bullshit and it's the best thing but it's essentially a psychic battle and the closest visual approximation I can think of for what's going on is, like...

 

 

Like I said: cocaine.

 

Also, it didn't occur to me to post it at the time but what the hell. I completed my goodreads reading challenge for 2020 despite getting a late start!

 

 

Full list in spoiler tag if anyone is curious. Starts at the bottom. And yes, I read Annihilation twice. I waited too long to read the sequels and it's really short so I said fuck it and just reread it.

 

 

Set it to 52 this year since I'm starting on time and shooting for a book a week seems reasonable. I expect to lower as the year progresses, though,  because I have quite a few massive books that I want to read in the near future, including 3 by Neal Stephenson that are all 1000 pages monsters. And It has already put me like 3 books behind schedule lol.

[Thursday Next]

Last book I finished was Machiavelli's The Prince, which is infinitely quotable these days. I've nearly finished re-reading Guards! Guards! so I'll probably end up doing the whole of the watch series now.

 

A particularly apposite Machiavelli quote springs to mind as impeachment looms:

 

"Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."

Edited January 26, 2021 by Thursday Next

[Mal]

I mentioned this on Discord but I'm currently reading Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson to get some scholarly* learning about before, during and after the Civil War. From what I hear, this is the best single volume read on the Civil War so I got it and so far am working my way through it. To be fair though, this is part of a series of textbooks on the United States but it synthesis everything very well.  

 

From what I gather from chapter titles, about a third of the text is devoted to the background/before the Civil War. Basically the root cause of it all is (on the question of) slavery. The Founders kicked the can down the road so a country can be made (Mason-Dixon Line) but the growing pains keep the question popping up. Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase opened it back up but the Compromise of 1830 of 36°30′ kicked it further down the line. Jefferson kind of thought all that land would last a hundred generations but that was not to be. The Industrial Revolution really kicked things into high gear on development and with the revolutions in Europe (and the Irish Potato Famine/Genocide...?) there were a fuck ton of immigrants (read: cheap labor). America was gonna manifest some destiny (much to the lament to most Whigs).

 

Cue the Mexican-American War (a rather unpopular [in New England, basically the coastal elites of the time] expansionist war) that concluded on 1847 and the purchase of Oregon from the Brits. So much land with Texas (as in the country and soon state but gotta figure out the state lines) and the territories of New Mexico (massive and some not so random Mormons were here or in...) and California. And there's gold in California. Well, the question of slavery is up again. Do 36°30′ get moved all the way to the west coast? Does it even apply to territories (It doesn't seem so)? So what happens when a slave territory becomes a state? The power balance of Congress was in question! Literal fist fights and duels happens in Congress because of this issue with calls of sessions already happening by 1850. In comes Zachery Taylor, a southern slave owning former military man, comes out swinging for a no on expansion of slavery and with no uncertain terms to the leaders of the Democrats who are bluffing/not bluffing on session with him personally leading an army to crush them and hang them all. Then Taylor died suddenly from going vegan (not really but he ate something wrong or something) and some other old timers are dying with the Union on the verge of disunion. It seemed to have calmed people emotions to... kick the can down the road again.

 

The issue of slavery was terminal and was dividing the country into two. There was plain Constitutional hypocrisy (all men were created equal) and growing religious distaste for slavery (how can we enslave any of God's children?). We got a federal government's powers being shat on by interstate slave catchers. It was a damn mess.

 

I'm missing tons of details (economic, family/feminist, and more religious and politics [Polk was an evil asshole]) I have much more to read but yeah, this is a good book on the subject.

 

The conditions of slavery needs it's own post and likely it's own book. Also of the Native Americans. This book from 1988 made it clear in few words that the Native Americans were absolutely fucked and genocided (you rounded them all up to place them in practically/literal deserts with numbers of 150,000 and get left with like 35,000...).

 

* I actually had interest to be a historian but humans are nasty fuckers and jobs seems nebulous. So I went to geology, the history of the earth. The rocks don't lie. You're just need to learn to read them.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Mal

[TheMightyEthan]

Man, y'all read serious shit. All I read is sci-fi and fantasy, with the rare literary fiction thrown in.

[Thursday Next]

19 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

Man, y'all read serious shit. All I read is sci-fi and fantasy, with the rare literary fiction thrown in.

 

The Prince is actually a pretty easy read, and feels weirdly relevant to todays geo and office politics. I'd suggest you give it a go for a change.

[TheMightyEthan]

Maybe I will then.

[Mal]

The Civil War text I'm reading is also an easy (it's not dry) read if you're up for some of that history. Everything is nicely woven together.

 

Edit: I might even hit up the the previous volume (What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe) to see if I can get a good synthesis on things even further back and maybe even hit on Jackson since he's so big (when I think of a president after the Founders and before Lincoln, I think of Andrew Jackson*). Honestly I have thought about that one tweet by Ethan on who's the worst president and I wonder if this would be a good book to get a good overview of the world he lived and help shaped. The book from what I gather starts at the Battle of New Orleans, where Andrew Jackson got his fame from and basically ends (Mexican-American War) a few years after he kicks the bucket. 

 

* Zachary Taylor gets 2nd place even though he died one year in his term. As I said, he comes out swinging. Dude probably would've been an anti-Robert E. Lee where he would fight to defend the Union, despite being a slave owner, if the Civil War started if he was alive. He probably also would've made good on his promise of hanging all the traitors. Like seriously, you sure he wasn't assassinated? 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Mal

[Mal]

What a book full of pictures and the story of the guy's (the photographer) experience of the Cultural Revolution (basically an excuse for Mao to consolidate power while doing what he thought was right), from about 1964 (earliest bits) to 1976 (arrest of the Gang of Four, includes Mao's wife who wanted to continue the Cultural Revolution). The books ends with the execution of, basically, a grifter who used the Cultural Revolution to gain power and money. It basically summarizes the Cultural Revolution. It in some ways allowed for self reflection and collective grieving for a short moment in time. Even the Party heads did so but that time only. Since Mao was/is the Party and the Party is China. Criticism of the Party is a big no no... Which brings me to this comic

 

lol

I'll report back later about this comic (I actually got the comic first before the older photo book). I need to process Red Color News Soldier first. You cannot look at Tiananmen Square 1989 without looking at the Cultural Revolution. I think the reaction of the government and even the people kind of makes sense now. Still evil though.