[The E]

Okay, so this is a bit of an experiment. Let's see if we can get a thread going about books, novellas, short stories and graphic novels the way our music and anime threads are going. What I would like to see here are books you are reading, or are excited to be reading in the near future.

To start things off, I have currently started to read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which as it turns out, I have been putting off for far too long. It's amazing.

In other news, Neal Stephenson recently posted the beginning of his upcoming book seveneves on his site. It's amazing, and has one of the best opening sentences I have seen recently:

The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.

I cannot wait to get my hands on that thing.

[Scotty]

Currently reading my way through Wolves on the Border by Robert N. Charrette.

As one of the very first BattleTech books, it's chock full of old-timey goodness.  Really happy that I found it at a used bookstore.

[Phantom Hoover]

Okay, so this is a bit of an experiment. Let's see if we can get a thread going about books, novellas, short stories and graphic novels the way our music and anime threads are going. What I would like to see here are books you are reading, or are excited to be reading in the near future.

To start things off, I have currently started to read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which as it turns out, I have been putting off for far too long. It's amazing.

In other news, Neal Stephenson recently posted the beginning of his upcoming book seveneves on his site. It's amazing, and has one of the best opening sentences I have seen recently:

The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.

I cannot wait to get my hands on that thing.

the first sentence is good but the ones after that go downhill pretty rapidly

[The E]

I can't help it, I'm a Stephenson fanboy.

[Mongoose]

I need to get around to This Book is Full of Spiders one of these years, since John Dies at the End was such a blast.

[pecenipicek]

Hyperion - Dan Simmons....


I read it once around 7-8 years ago. Time to read it again and get the rest of the books too...

[edit] its just a pity the thrice damned booked picked up that lovely "musty" smell like it was sitting in a damp cellar or something...

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Hyperion - Dan Simmons....

Hehe, I'm just about to finish The Fall of Hyperion.

[Snarks]

Okay, so this is a bit of an experiment. Let's see if we can get a thread going about books, novellas, short stories and graphic novels the way our music and anime threads are going. What I would like to see here are books you are reading, or are excited to be reading in the near future.

To start things off, I have currently started to read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which as it turns out, I have been putting off for far too long. It's amazing.

Cool, I've been reading American Gods in the past couple of weeks as well! Slow progress since I need to kick it into high gear for the end of the semester. It's the first full length book I've read from Gaiman. I've read short stories from Gaiman before, and American Gods feels very different. I'm not sure if it's this particular book or if he writes a little differently when writing novels than short stories. When I'm done with that, I've got Neuromancer, Onyx and Crake, and The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart to look forward to reading.

[StarSlayer]

James D. Hornfischer's  The Last Stand Of The Tin Can Sailors

Battle of Samar, Taffy 3 vs. IJN's Center Force, massive USN epicness ensues. 

Course I start reading it and Bob Hagen?  Where have I heard that name before...  Christ Neptune's Inferno he was on the Aaron Ward at the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.  Poor guy must be fly paper for major surface action with the IJN.

You do have to wonder what would have happened if Willis Lee and TF 34 had been detached to plug San Bernadino.

[InsaneBaron]

Now that school's done I've been burning through novels like a lunatic. Finished two good ones in the last few days.

Cobra Outlaw, by good old Timothy Zahn. The Cobra saga continues. In two sentences: Jody is a Cobra, Yay! Everything else is going down the toilet.
In longer terms, Zahn hasn't lost his touch, and the characters we've known and loved for the past four books are still growing. We get to see a DOM ship in a full-scale battle for the first time, which is cool- Cobra space battles are somewhat different from Thrawn-Trilogy ones. And the whole Troft mystery just keeps getting more convoluted- you might want to draw yourself a chart as you read.

Divided we Fall, by Trent Reedy. A well-written story with some intense political commentary. It's not really partisan, even if the fairly-sympathetic governor is a Republican and the kinda-unsympathetic President is a Democrat; it's mainly a scathing rebuke of my-party-right-or-wrong mentalities, media-circus behavior, government surveillance and political scapegoating, among other things. If you're the type to worry about a "Second American Civil War," be warned, this is a very realistic book that will cost you a lot of sleep.

[pecenipicek]

Hyperion - Dan Simmons....

Hehe, I'm just about to finish The Fall of Hyperion.

Your thoughts? I got pretty... disgusted by the book midway through, by the way it all went waaaay down the ****ter, but the ending kinda sorta made it all better. I'm scared of picking up Endymion+Rise Of Endymion...

Current reading material is good old Ciaphas Cain novels, first omnibus. I saw they are up to 9 books now and i only has 4 -.-

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Personaly, I'm big lover of the Hyperion Cantos. I like the fact that it's not afraid to have things "go down the ****ter", but still end on a rather hopeful note. I also like the oganic way the world and characters are introduced, the various points of view and story styles in the first book, and how all of this unfolds during the Fall.

I'm not too fond of Endymion + Rise myself. Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, I thought that the romance bits were rather unimaginative, and that the story laced itself a bit much in symbolism. It's still an enjoyable read, but in my opinion falls a bit short as a followup to Hyperion.

[Veers]

I've just finished reading Tobruk by Peter FitzSimons, and I bought a lot of books while in China so now spoilt for choice on what to start next.

Probably the American Sniper next, I took it with me overseas but didn't start it.

[InsaneBaron]

Just burned through two more books, this time by Robin McKinley: "The Blue Sword" and its prequel, "The Hero and the Crown." TBS is the best take on "ordinary person gets sucked into magic realm and discovers great destiny" that I've read since Narnia. TH&tC has a big shift in prose style, since it's supposed to be the ancient legends from the first book; still very entertaining.

Next up: Veronica Roth's "Divergent" series.

[The E]

Okay, let's see, what did I read recently:

Neal Stephenson - Seveneves
Starts really strong, and continues to be really strong for about 2/3rds of the book. Then about half of a sequel has been tacked on. Which is also a good story, mind you, it also has its intriguing points, but it sort of stops halfway through its own story arc. I have no idea what Stephenson, or his editors, were thinking with that.

John Scalzi - The Human Division
In preparation for the episodic release of "The End Of All Things", I caught up with the Old Man's War series. This book does a good job of furthering the plot, introduces a couple of fun characters, but what interested me was how it all came together structurally. If you don't know, Human Division was originally released as a series of short stories and novellas and then put together into one release; this has interesting implications in terms of how this whole thing is structured. It actually reads more like a novelization of a TV series than anything else.

Andy Weir - The Martian
Saw the trailer on Monday. Got the ebook. Finished Monday evening.
It was the first time in a good long while that I had a book which I could not put down, but this one definitely grabbed my attention and refused to let go. It's sort of a fictional version of James Lovells' "Lost Moon", if you liked that book, chances are you're gonna love this one (and if you haven't read Lost Moon, do; It's awesome).

It's also really funny.

[StarSlayer]

Timothy Zahn's  Conquerors‍ '​ Pride

[InsaneBaron]

Been reading like a librarian's banshee lately.

Divergent Series: read the whole trilogy. Thumbs up. Biggest strongpoint is the characters: three-dimensional, complicated people who have a lot more to them then you first suspect, and tend to do surprising things that make a lot of sense in hindsight. Kinda like real people, ya know? Also, I was reading these sans-spoilers, so

Spoiler:

The ending of Allegiant

left me in shock.

Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfield: I read the first two, waiting on the third to get here. Rollicking good steampunk fun. 

Son, by Lois Lowry: The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger were some of the key books in my childhood; imagine my face when I found out there was a fourth book. It lives up to the legacy.

Currently reading:
Many Waters, by Madeline L'Engle: Kinda a spinoff story of the Wrinkle in Time/Wind in the Door/Swiftly Tilting Planet trilogy. Intriguing so far.

[StarSlayer]

Timothy Zahn's  Conquerors‍ '​ Heritage

Timothy Zahn's  Conquerors‍ '​ Legacy

Isaac Asmiov's  The Stars Like Dust

Has anyone had a chance to check this out?


A knight in Gotischer Plattenpanzer astride an Allosaurus?  I may need to buy this **** in hardcover... 

Well Battuta you and this fellow just became the first novels I bought on the physical media platform in a long while.

[NGTM-1R]

How I Killed Pluto, And Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown; a history of fall of our Solar System's ninth planet, told by the man who largely made it happen when he discovered Eris.

It's actually pretty amusing.

[pecenipicek]

reading Iain Banks' culture series.

Blew through Consider Phlebas, was ok i suppose. Assholes all around. The main character especially...
Player of games now and i keep finding the book... boring. Yes, okay, Azad are pants on head backwards compared to culture, yay, are we pointing to some current country and pretending its something else or?