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What are you reading these days?
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
On Audio, Endymion which is book 3 of Dan Simmons' Hyperion series. I'm about 1/3 through the book and am finding the plotting quite plodding. I can see the big picture though and will carry on, because there's still much to uncover. I'm hoping it takes a turn here soon though.
On physical, Transition by Iain M. Banks. This book reminds me of the TV show Loki - specifically the parts about the TVA. If you have read anything by Iain Banks, I think this is a good mix of his sci-fi with some tame(r) parts of his regular fiction. His regular fiction books are wild. This one is fine. I decided I wanted to hit at least all of IAB's Sci-Fi, and this is one of them.
After loving the first 2 Hyperion books (without any doubt the best sci-fi book I have ever read, I really see them as a single book split in 2) I couldn't even finish the third book it was so bad. I think I made it about halfway before tossing it. Hopefully it gets better for you, but it didn't work for me at all especially after how amazing the first 2 are.
At minimum it is SUPER different - there's two total POVs through 33%, and they're basically one small group in a ship, and another small group in a ship following them. I really hope we're setting the stage for something bigger. The quest given to the MC seems to be absolutely massive but the story is incredibly small.
What is interesting is how this whole series is often recommended. There has to be more with this book!
I read it as the first book is all just character development, we get the super rich back stories of each character on the ship. The second book is where it becomes plot based and we close in on the time tomb. The pacing is a masterpiece in the second book, I remember flipping pages so fast as it closes in on the climax, such a fun reading experience!
So is it a trilogy or can you satisfyingly end the story without reading the 3rd book?
The first two books (Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion) form a complete story, and reach a satisfying conclusion. You will not feel like you are missing anything if you stop there.
The third and fourth books (Endymion and Rise of Endymion) have a new storyline, with new characters, set in the same universe.
My personal opinion:
I found the later books to be less entertaining, in terms of story and characters. They also undermine (or subvert?) a major theme of the previous books. However, they explore some truly fascinating sci-fi concepts, which for me were definitely worth the experience.Personally I'm totally happy with just the first 2 books. I pretend the other books don't exist, it's better that way ;)
Use of Weapons by Banks is one of my favorite books. It’s one of the few books with “weird” structures that I can confidently say used it well.
The Culture Series is good reading, right behind Le Guin and a few other for “universes.”
I could not finish Consider Phlebas (the first Culture Series book). I really loved the world, and the world-building, and all the neat scifi details. I just got so dang bored by brooding special boi MC and all his brooding thoughts.
Are the rest in the series noticeably different? I know Culture is a widely respected Scifi series, and I really liked the non-MC side-vignettes and general vibe, but being chained to the narrative following this bloke killed my momentum. If the following books let go of the need for the narrative focus I could see enjoying them more
I thought the author did a pretty good job of writing fairly distinctive books. They're less a series and more of a collection of independent novels that take place in the same shared universe.
Consider Phlebas is known for being the oddball of the series. I'm not a huge player of games guy, but Use of Weapons is great and all of the rest are also great in their own way. I would not do Inversions until you have read a few though. Matter, Surface Detail, Look to Windward, Hydrogen Sonata, all fantastic.
I was trying to figure out how to say Consider Phlebas is readable but only if you’re big on reading complete series. It’s like Ringworld Engineers by Nivens: I don’t really want to read this, but I will because I need to read it to finish the series.
You can skip a book or two in the series and not really miss much; just like with Le Guin, the books are “in a universe” but they’re definitely readable stand alone, too.
The Use of Weapons is great for so many reasons, but I can’t really talk about those reasons without spoilers. I enjoy Games but it’s distant second to Weapons.
I'm on The Count of Monte Cristo for around the fifth time. It may be my favorite book... but who knows. After this I'll be reading the source material for The Handmaiden (2016, perfect film), which likely has the greatest title of all time with, Fingersmith.
Last week I read On the Calculation of Volume... by Solveg Balle. The NYT Book Review is all about it. Not a bad book, but the main character really didn't do anything to take advantage of her rare predicament, which was a let down. I'm hoping the other two novels improve on this.
Holy crap that book is so long! I did an audio book version when I picked up my parents for a road trip when I lived abroad. I'd say the thing was around 50 hours, and he had only come home to discover his father starved when I dropped them off at the airport to head back home. I can't even sit still for that long, let alone read, and I doubt I'll ever attempt the unabridged audiobook again!
Haha yeah, it’s long but it flies by for me. You could do it in parts and break it up into the parts. For the audiobook, I really like BJ Harrison’s performance at 1.5x.
Wow, totally responded to what I thought was another comment... oops.
But yes, I've realized I can usually handle most readings at 1.3x, and some at 1.5 if the narrator enunciates especially well.
the most I've done is 2x for Don Winslow's Power of the Dog -- but it isn't very enjoyable. :)
Finished: The Sediments of Time My Life Long Search for the Past - a memoir by Maeve Leakey. It gets quite technical about paleantology but it also shows the lived experience of their life hunting for hominid bones in East Africa and discusses primate discoveries from other parts of the world in context as they happened.
Finished the Stand by Stephen King. I really liked this book.
Finished A Parade of Horribles, the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl. The first half felt a bit formulaic but the ending really worked for me.
Finished Heart is a Lonely Hunter and loved this insightful moving novel about disparate people in a small town.
Currently Reading: Pnin by Nabakov for Tildes book club,
Currently Reading: Knock Wood, a memoir by Candace Bergen,
Currently Reading: Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. This is a science fiction that was recommended to me by a fellow Tildes user.
Tell me about what you thought of this book! What character did you like best? What is your take on Singer? What did this book say to you, did you identify with the lonely solitude of it? I found it a deep look into the human condition, very read characters in very real circumstances living very real but lonely lives.
I still think about Mick, how she was young with hopes and dreams but then what happens to Singer destroys her, the realities of life set in and her dreams are now fading, her story is very tragic.
I loved the book and I plan to reread it eventually.
I was very impressed at how unique each character was and how each person's motives and plans were misunderstood by the other people they interacted with. Each character is an individual. The author really conveys how difficult it is to appreciate someone else's perspective.
I loved Mick. I also really liked the restaurant owner, the doctor, his daughter, Singer.
The prose was lovely. And yes there was a lot of sadness. I felt for these people.
An amazing accomplishment for someone who was only 23 at the time they wrote it. Looking forward to reading more of her work.
The library just graced me with fulfilling my reserved copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl. I will be starting tonight, ADD permitting.
I'm finally reading The Strength of the Few. It has been in my shelf for a while but I was a well-behaved boy and read other things I was interested in first. The story is immediately gripping again (I did read the wikipedia summary of the first book to refresh my memory of all the character names).
I recently succumbed to peer pressure and reluctantly read Dungeon Crawler Carl. Honestly, it was better than expected! As a guy who reads a lot (and who is willing to try all kinds of weird obscure stuff as long as it's fiction) I have encountered some really, really bad light novels in the past, as in, I-can't-believe-this-author-isn't-ashamed-of-asking-for-payment-in-exchange-for-this bad. As far as LitRPG goes, Dungeon Crawler Carl is good! It actually features some creative ideas, good pacing and emotional moments (I understand enough spanish...) The prose is extremely accessible, to the point where it can feel the story is being conveyed in too basic a fashion at times, but I am told the writer actually gets progressively better throughout the series. If the potential I see here is being fulfilled, I'm happy to keep reading.
EDIT: mistake
I felt about the same after the first book, pleasantly surprised . I've read 7 now and only like them more. They remain silly and fun, but new layers keep getting added on. its well crafted pulpy fun. I'd recommend anyone keep coming back to it when they are in that kind of mood. It reminds me of the bobiverse.
The only thing that I didn't like was the audiobook. Respect to the talented voice actor, and to Patrick Warburton, but it was just too much. This became a read only.
I just got book 8 and i think its next on my list!
After my post in the last thread I thought I would follow up some progress updates for those books.
Finished:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress I picked this back up and finished it in short order. I enjoyed seeing the fruits of the Lunar independence movement's efforts pay off and it got me thinking about how a functional lunar colony would work eventually. I'd love to see a permanent lunar colony in my life time and greater space exploration.
Tarzan of the Apes was a decent read, and one that I did enjoy. It is definitely dated, but it has that pulpy action story reads that made it a quick read once I got in to it. Also incredibly different from the Disney version which was the one I first experienced as a kid. I don't think I'll read more of them, but who knows I could find myself back there eventually.
Dragons of Autumn Twilight was a great DnD style adventure novel. I know there are two more and I'm curious to see what happens next. This was my first dive in to the Dragonlance setting and I also want to take a peak in to other DnD settings in the years to come as most of my reading was in the Forgotten Realms (mainly Drizzt) and I'd also like to read more of those as well.
The Wile E Engineer this was a very quick read that was right at the border of a long novella and a very short novel. Followed the adventures of a real smart guy who ended up being a Bitcoin billionaire deciding to create an "engineering utopia", who also happened to a marry a super hot wife and create an apocalypse proof compound. The story was predictable wish fulfillment, and was a solid popcorn style read after finishing one of the other books. I saw it recommended on Goodreads and figured I'd give it a try since it was so short.
The Tombs of Atuan is the second book in the Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is my first time reading through this series after having heard about it for years. This was a quick read that followed a new character who is supposed to the a reincarnation of a priestess who is dedicated some dark powers. She encounters the protagonist from the previous story which fundamentally changes the course of her life. This was another quick read and I'm holding myself back from binging through these stories as I'm wanting to really enjoy them and not have them blend together in my head.
I also read a couple of short stories which were enjoyable reads. I've been trying to check out more short stories as they break up the pace between bigger books and there also a lot of ones written by famous authors exploring interesting ideas. Short stories were the bread and butter of sci-fi and fantasy for decades. I've considered collecting some of those "best of" anthologies, but that will be a longer term project.
The Long Rain by Ray Bradbury was an interesting short story exploring an older idea of Venus in that it was covered in perpetual cloud cover where it would always be raining. This story predated a probe being landed on Venus by decades. I've enjoyed stories like this speculating about how things are or will be from the paste.
Nightfall by Issac Asimov features a planet that exists in a complex orbit in a solar system with 8 stars where there is always light and what happens during a one in a very long time period eclipse where no stars provide light and what happens to society during that time. This was "fixed up" in to a longer novel but I decided to read the original short story that has the meat of the story. It was an interesting short read.
Progress made
Warlock of the Magus World I'm continuing to read some chapters here and there. I slowed down after my last push, but I'm curious to see how this goes and will then probably pick up another one of these Chinese web novels to slowly read through. My friend has slowed down after reading a whole bunch of these over the years so I tend to just ask him for his recommendations.
The Fellowship of the Ring - I've read a bit more, but as always with The Lord of the Rings I read in spurts when the mood takes me
Under the Eagle by Simon Scarrow is a story about the roman empire during Claudias' reign following a young man who has been granted his freedom through joining the 2nd Legion. This has been on my to read list for a long time and I kept putting it off as it is part of a very long series, but so far I'm really enjoying it. It is fast paced and there is enough intrigue and plot threads to keep me interested.
No Progress:
AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models I've not been doing as much professional development lately and this back has been sitting next to my work desk for awhile. I think I'll move it back downstairs so I can get in a few pages here and there between kids stuff.
Imperial Smuggler - Book 2 of the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire I'll probably finish this sometime soon, but the characters aren't ones I'm feeling like spending time with at the moment.
The Fort by Bernard Cornwell I'm still in the build up phase of this book. I feel like I enjoy following Cornwell's character arcs over longer journeys and knowing that these characters won't appear again and so far none of them have really stood out to me has made this less of a priority.
Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation This was placed on my shelf during my move, so I need to take it off and put it somewhere I'll access it more regularly.
Swan Song I just haven't felt like getting back in to this. I also realized that my copy of this was not moved over to my new phone, so I'm needing to do that to start reading this again.
The Legend of Corinair I haven't felt like going back to this yet. Seems pulpy enough for a quick read occasionally, but the last few times I've read it didn't hold my interest. Getting close to deciding that this series isn't for me. This one may sit for a long time as I've sometimes found myself coming back a year or three later and being in a different frame of mind and enjoying a series.
The Emperor's Gift, The Brother's War, and The Three-Body Problem are all book club books that I'm reading with friends. My biggest rules when starting these book clubs has been that they are no pressure and we will make our way through the books slowly when we have time. I used my comment on the last post to reach out to the guys I'm reading with and hopefully we'll start making progress again.
The Artemis II mission got me HYPE on anything space related. Crushed ‘The Right Stuff’ by Tom Wolfe, ‘Pale Blue Dot’ by Carl Sagan, ‘Project Hail Mary’ and ‘The Martian’ by Andy Weir on audiobook, and am currently listening to ‘Seveneves’ by Neal Stephenson, and physically reading the aptly titled historical fiction novel ‘Space’ by James Michener. Starting to get a bit burnt out on the subject as I usually do when I fixate on specific topics in my reading, but riding the wave while it’s here.
I just finished A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and it was great! Makes me wish, once again, that GRRM wasn't such a flake because he really is a fantastic writer.
I'm currently reading Uncle Tom's Cabin.
I'm not sure what I was expecting. Obviously I knew at a high level that it was an abolitionist book and that the title character was written to be "one of the good ones" (or, put another way, a bootlicker) but I knew nothing of what the story was actually about. I didn't realize how much of the aspect of "an Uncle Tom" refers really to the perspective of the book as a whole more than just that specific character in the book.
I'm about halfway in. There's obviously a lot that you have to put in context of the time ("noble savage" not being nearly as progressive now as 2 centuries ago). Even beyond the actual racial aspects, some of the writing is so very 1800s. I do enjoy some of the minor cultural aspects that get casually mentioned, even the non-esoteric things like dinner being at lunch time.
It's not as "horrible" as I was expecting, as in depictions of horrific things. It is so very diplomatic for the era (a very different sort of politically correct), as much as it's clearly abolitionist and trying to show black people as actually human being, it criticizes the north much more directly than the south (and the criticisms largely still apply to modern liberalism and capitalism) and the type of people it depicts clearly negatively it does so in a way that any reader would view as "oh, that sort of person" more than themselves. Diplomatic yet sardonic.
Overall I'm enjoying it more than I was expecting. Makes me want to read some more older books.
ETA:
I finished the book now. The second half goes quite a different direction from the second half. I was not expecting it become such an overt christian allegory. There were certainly christian themes in the first half, but in the second half it is about two steps away from going "and you, dear reader, if you haven't yet saved your soul..."
But only after that's underway does it get into what I was expecting most of the book to be about, which is the overt inhumanity of slavery.
I was a bit surprised when one of the characters advocated for the "back to Africa" movement and Liberia. I had largely forgotten about that bit of history, god that's an uncomfortable colonial project. Glad we never had a successful movement where an oppressed people, in the aftermath of a horrific crime against humanity, colonized and then in turn oppressed an indigenous population.
The remarks at the end are a refreshing directness overall, and glad she made clear she wasn't actually meaning to offer Liberia as the solution. And appreciate that she made clear it wasn't her intent to imply most slave owners were the magnanimous, reluctant slave-owners who treated their slaves as family, like most of the ones we saw in the book were.
I found this book a bit strange, I think the pulp-culture understanding of this book and what is actually in the book is very different. Uncle Tom? Isn't the guy a hero? Why does 'Uncle Tom' have a negative connotation in pulp culture and how did they get that from this book? Maybe I just completely mis-understood it.
The negative connotation comes more from the minstrel-show stock character of Uncle Tom, which often portrayed him as a slavery apologist. Here's more info on those types of adaptations.
OK, so these shows are 'loosely based' off the book, I would say loosely indeed. I am definitely aware of the gross minstrel shows that went on and 'Some of these shows were essentially minstrel shows that utilized caricatures and stereotypes of black people, and thus inverting the intent of the novel.' makes sense then. So really the negative connotation with Uncle Tom is really just a mis-representing or twisting of the novel itself. Interesting.
Now that I've finished the book, I definitely agree with you about it being strange.
Pelagious is probably right that most of it comes from media in the century after, I remember hearing some radio recordings from the early 20th century where he was used as a problematic, Jim Crow-esque caricature. But I think some of it comes from the book itself. If you remove the religious aspects of the book, his main heroic acts are saving the lives of white people/slave owners and discouraging other slaves from ever taking up violence no matter how horrifically they're treated. It's not too hard to see the jump to him being an apologist for slavery, especially if you stop reading halfway through.
Of course, in light of the religious aspects some of that changes. And, more critically, that's ignoring that he also refused to take up violence against other slaves, even if it meant being beaten himself. He should be viewed in pop-culture more as a prototype for the (largely Church backed) non-violent civil disobedience famous of the civil rights movement a century later.
Dinner is still at lunch time where my parents live (south central Virginia).
Finished Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and highly recommend it. It's a historical drama, that follows a family of Korean peasants in the early to late 20th century, dealing with wars, Japanese colonisation and discrimination, and just general being poor problems. It mostly follows one Korean woman Sunja, but frequently changed perspectives to many different people involved.
It feels very grounded, and while the book doesn't have a central moral to teach, I feel like it does a great job of showing multi-layered people in all kinds of strata and situations. Much like real life, no one is all bad or all good, just having their own motivations and doing what they think is best.
Would highly recommend
I started a Lord of the Rings book club and we’re slowly making our way through the Twin Towers. So far it’s a great read. Far more segmented between alternating storylines than the first but that’s to be expected. I also picked up a fun choose your own adventure by Rose Estes called Revenge of the Rainbow Dragon. If you’re looking for a serious fantasy read, this ain’t it. However, it’s light hearted and entertaining.
Is this your first time reading through the Lord of the Rings?
It is indeed. I always said I would do it but kept putting it off.
I keep buying books, starting them, and not finishing. I have WAY too many. But, Red Rising is one that I've stuck too pretty consistently.
Been reading "The AI Con" by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, about half way through. So far it's been stuff I pretty much already know, but there have been some points I hadn't considered. I feel like the people that would benefit most from this book are the ones that would never read it (or would have chatgpt summarize in a paragraph).
Finished Stella Gibbon's 'Cold Comfort Farm' Published 1932. I actually enjoyed this novel a lot more than I thought I would. A comedy/parody classic. Never silly, never over the top. Very well written and the ending is great. Always nice when something exceeds your expectations.
Finished Wolfgang Von Goethe's 'Faust Part I' Published 1808. It's always interesting to read such a famous and well known piece of literature. Sometimes they go well, sometimes not so much. This is a really good read, not too difficult at all and beautiful poetry of course. Must be something to read in the original German.
I knew it was supposed to be more challenging but I was feeling really good about Faust after finishing it and moved immediately into:
Wolfgang Von Goethe's 'Faust Part II' Published 1832. Well, well. This is a completely different beast. Huge parts of this novel are nearly incomprehensible. The beginning, there is a town celebration of sorts after Mephistopheles convinces the Emperor to invent paper money enriching the town and it's peoples greatly but of course the wealth is just an empty illusion. This part was really a total mystery, very hard to follow. Act II features Wagner creating 'The Homunculus' which is an artificial being without any physical presence, this sounds strange and it is, but I found I could follow it and understand it with some help from GPT, though parts of it are still pretty opaque. Act III: Impossible. Written as if it were a Greek Tragedy which I am not super familiar with. I read the words on the pages but the meaning was completely lost to me, even when having my hand held by GPT. If I went through it with line by line explanations then possibly I could have gotten more from it, but I'm no student of literature and I don't have time for that. Extremely difficult. If the work is so difficult that a regular reader cannot understand it whatsoever has the Author failed? Does Goethe even expect anyone to understand this? Who the hell am I to say Goethe has failed the reader with this Act?
Here's what Goethe has to say about Act III: "I never doubted that the readers for whom I effectively wrote would grasp the principal significance of the portrayal straight away. It is time that the impassioned dispute between classicists and romantics should finally be reconciled. The principal thing is that we should properly cultivate ourselves; the source from which we do so would not matter, if we did not have to fear the possibility of miscultivation by appealing to false models. For it is certainly a broader and purer insight into and around Greek and Roman literature to which we owe our liberation from the monkish barbarism of the period between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Is it not from this high level that we can learn to appreciate everything in its true physical and aesthetic value, both what is oldest and what is newest?"
Act IV: Back to reality, things are making sense again and I can follow and understand this. Great!
Act V: I'm just starting this now and the book is maybe 25 pages from completion. Looking forward to finishing this one.
Faust Part I: A good read and where most of the lore of Faust comes from.
Faust Part II: Something best left for Literary Study.
The movie version of Cold Comfort Farm is very worthwhile as well, and it's an excellent realization of the book. The cast is amazing - Kate Beckinsale, Stephen Fry, Ian McKellen, Miriam Margolies, Rufus Sewell...
All the comic turns and characterizations are spot-on, and the phrase "I saw something nasty in the woodshed" is hissed with all the dread you could desire.
I've been reading by the Book of Goose by Yiyuan Li. I was very much surprised its very very good! I can't put it down and when I must, all I can think about is getting back to reading! Its sort of doomer yuri set in 1950's France. It is really good
I'm about to finish The Fisherman by John Langan, then I'll be onto the second in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach series, Authority.