What are you reading?

Just finished "Kraken" by China Miéville. It's about a pickled giant squid that gets inexplicably stolen from the Darwin Institute in London, and a whole mess of supernatural intrigue that follows, including a bunch of competing apocalypses (apocalypsi?), a crimelord who's actually a tattoo, and is therefore known as the Tattoo, Londonmancers, the Sea, a special police unit that deals with cult crime, a church that worships cephalopods, some Angels of Memory, a trekkie teleporter with a tribble for a familiar, an origamist, Chaos Nazis, another crimelord who's dead, some professors, an ancient Egyptian spirit who has unionized familiars, and a guy called Billy who's sort of in the middle of it all.

Confusing as hell, but a pretty good read, if you're into that sort of thing. I'd say that if you dig Neil Gaiman, you might also dig this.
 
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I quit reading Salvatore several years ago. Around the Lone Drow I think. Never even finished that part of the series.

Finished the Lost Chronicles. Ultimately, I was disappointed. The last book, Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, was basically a love-fest for Weiss and Raistlin, and an attempt to make him more likable. As a result, I wasn't entirely sure it was even the same character as in the original Chronicles!

Overall, only Kitiara and Lord Soth survived the new books intact more or less (and Soth became a prophet of doom, since he knew everything that was in Legends. Guess it was the stay in Ravenloft that did that).

I read through book 6 of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman". As usual, it was a strange, yet entertaining read. Next up is actual a re-read. I'm going through Terry Pratchett's Soul Music again, which is one of my favorite books.
 
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Just finished a commentary on Patañjali's Yōga Sūtra. Some pretty weird shit in there, but very interesting stuff.
 
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Just finished reading Jane Jensen's Sins of the Fathers - a novelization of her Adventure game by the same name. It was pretty cool to see the game fleshed out like this. Definitely worthwhile if you've played the game, or wanted to, but found the graphics too old. I'll be on the lookout for GK2 and/or other books by her as well.

Next up: a re-read: The Claw of the Conciliator, being vol. 2 of the Books of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. :cool:

The only prob with this series is that they should have made them one big volume, because they follow one another so closely. So.. *ahem* I find I'm having to re-read the last bit of Shadow of the Torturer, to pick it up again.
 
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Read "Tunnels" during the last week.

It's a rather weird but also imho quite grim novel - with a partly unique setting.
Well, not entirely - the setting as such is quite well-known, but this incarnation of this setting is imho quite unique.

Currently I'm wondering whether i should be the two following books ?
 
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Well, I got a Kindle for father's day and I bought a book "The Ghost King" by Salvatore which I enjoyed very much and then I discovered the free classics!

I ran across Mary Shelley's "The last Man" and have just started it
A very imaginative author for her time
 
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I read some stuff by this Indian guy called Vasubandhu. Heavy shit; I wrote some of it up on my blog.

However, I had to take a break from it, so I read some comics for a bit. I came across a really excellent series by this guy called Hub. He's French. The series is called Okko, and it's named after the main character, a rōnin in a fictional world called the Empire of Pajan, which looks a lot like Shōgun era Japan, only with lots of nice fantasy elements layered on top. There are six albums out now: the Cycle of Water, the Cycle of Earth, and the Cycle of Air, at two volumes each. I would expect two more pairs in the next few years, namely Fire and the Void.

They're really well drawn, really well written, the storylines, mythology, and settings are way-cool, and the characters are compelling, too. The main characters are Okko the demon-hunting rōnin, Noburo, his half-demon near-immortal naginata-wielding bodyguard/companion, Noshin, an alcoholic monk with a knack for calling up kamis (elemental and nature spirits), and Tikku, the narrator; a young boy and student of Noshin's at the time of the events, an old, wandering monk at the time of the narration.

I hear the cycle is being translated to English, and at least the first two volumes are out in translation. Check it out, it's cool.

Okko.jpg
 
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Thrasher said:
I've read a few of the Drizzt series and the also the Cleric Quintet, and liked them, so I just may look into that.
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The first book of the Cleric's quintet was alright, but the second book was one of the most cliche', unimaginative, and repetitious books I've read, I did not even read the third book because of it.
 
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Corwin said:
Half way through the latest from Feist, 'At the Gates of Darkness'. Enjoyable easy read in the same vein as most of his later efforts. Perhaps not quite as dark so far.
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Read Feist while in high school, he was quite enjoyable then. Does he still stand up to reading for adults? lol
 
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EvilManagedCare said:
Just finished The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington.
*** Mild Spoilers follow ***

This is another book with protagonists that one could call 'evil.' In this case it's an interesting take on sociopaths set in the 1300's. It was a good read initially, though the author seemed to be trying too hard to be shocking, e.g. the events at the beginning of the book (Sorry, to me killing children with attention to detail is crossing a line between tasteful artistic freedom and being edgy for the sake of being edgy). And a little over halfway through ground to a tedious halt (when the brothers got to Venice) imo. The frequent philosophical discussions between the brothers were not particularly interesting to me either. Also, the whole storyline with Heinrich seemed a bit of an afterthought with the ending hastily put together. On the other hand, his treatment of European mythical creatures and legends of the time was nicely done.

Not a bad book, though it left me a bit disappointed. I bought this book looking for a fantasy novel along the lines of The First Law series, which I enjoyed immensely, but was too cheap to buy the hardbound Best Served Cold. While the combat was described as effectively, the rest paled in comparison. I'll take Abercrombe over Bullington next time.
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Had to go back a ways to find this one. My opinion lines up pretty well with his. I thought the author tried to do too much. He seems to have wanted to make a comedy, a historical treatise, a satire, a shocker, and a dark heroic cycle, all at the same time. In doing that, each piece got watered down. Not a bad book, but certainly not the best I've read recently.
 
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I just finished Drood by Dan Simmons a couple of weeks ago. I have read Song of Kali, Children of Night, and The Terror. I think this is the best of those titles. While I have enjoyed his period writing, I have little interest in Black Hills, his latest I think. So I've moved on to Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombe since it was recently released on paperback. I'm too cheap for the hardbound, plus the cover for the hardbound in the US was cheesy. :)
 
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Finally reading the Foundation Series. I had trouble with the first book (Foundation). Individually I liked the stories, but I hated that the characters were gone after each one. I understand they were originally written as short stories, but it annoyed me. Finished Foundation and Empire and it was a real novel this time, but I didn't find the story as compelling as the first book. Now on Second Foundation and I'm liking the story much better. I have Prelude to Foundation as well, not sure if I will read that next or not though.
 
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Prelude is actually quite good since it was written much later and I think he got better over time.
 
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I liked all the Foundation novels, especially the ones that resolve the story, but that was many years ago.... ;)

Also, i think the robots appear in multiple novels (but in disguise).
 
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Just finished Imager's Intrigue, the third in the Imager series by Modesitt. I think this series is his best ever. If you haven't tried it, please do!!
 
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I am reading "Never fuck up" by Jens Lapidus it is the follow up to "Quick cash" loosely translated to English by me.... brilliant books. It is a kind of Stockholm books noir but with a lot more expertise in it ( the guy is a criminal lawyer, so he really know what he is writing about ).
 
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Thrasher said:
I liked all the Foundation novels, especially the ones that resolve the story, but that was many years ago….

Also, i think the robots appear in multiple novels (but in disguise).
Click to expand...

Foundation and Earth had a slight cliffhanger which I found a bit irritating due to the "dead author = no sequel" issue - see also Frank Herbert (the rubbish stuff written by his son doesn't count).
 
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Finished Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel kay. Although the novel was a nice sketch of the Chinese Tang dynasty, I was pretty disappointed by the way the book ended.

Now started with The Historian by Kostova.

EvilManagedCare said:
I just finished Drood by Dan Simmons a couple of weeks ago. I have read Song of Kali, Children of Night, and The Terror. I think this is the best of those titles. While I have enjoyed his period writing, I have little interest in Black Hills, his latest I think. So I've moved on to Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombe since it was recently released on paperback.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I've been meaning to try out Dan Simmons and Joe Abercrombie, btw.
 
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I'm currently reading the "Unseen Academicals" by a Mr. Pratchett.

It is a nice book, together with some slight tongue-in-cheek remarks about being evil.
And a few serious ones as well.
 
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