What are you reading ?

Originally Posted by Benedict
Highly recommend anything by Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favourite authors. I've got the Etched City sitting at home in a recently arrived order so I'll let you know how I get on with it

Edit - btw read a couple of weeks ago that Philip Jose Farmer died as well, and that it was actually him who'd written that novel under the pseudonym Kilgore Trout rather than Vonnegut who I'd always assumed was behind it. Might try some of his stuff finally, I keep meaning to.

Cool definitely update on here about Etched Ciy. I have been looking for some Bar-Lag type worlds to read in, and have heard about Etched City, Virconium-M. John Harrison, Trial of Flowers-Jay Lake and Majestrum: A Tale Of Henghis Hapthorn-Matthew Hughes.

Originally Posted by Corwin
Team Corwin is currently playing Lankhmar Nights, a NWN mod set in that world with some of those characters.

Woah, is this a multiplayer or single player mod, and for NWN1 or NWN2?

Originally Posted by buckaroobonzai
Cool definitely update on here about Etched Ciy. I have been looking for some Bar-Lag type worlds to read in, and have heard about Etched City, Virconium-M. John Harrison, Trial of Flowers-Jay Lake and Majestrum: A Tale Of Henghis Hapthorn-Matthew Hughes.

Not really heard of Hapthorn Matthew Hughes, but it sounds like you're after new weird novels (more mature settings, heavily city influenced, real world political themes etc).

If so you might like this new weird anthology as a place to start, has quite a few different authors (including K J Bishop & Jay Lake) so you can get a feel for a few options. I'd also recommend Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris books, another great city setting, strange mushroom people & a bit of an obsession with squid, along with probably the only really good exploration of the arts & culture scene in a fantasy world (which generally gets glossed over in favour of sword fights).

Plus Felix Gilman's novels Thunderer & Gears of the City, which are critically well received new weird stuff regularly compared to Mieville (and which I've probably already spammed too much on here so will leave it at that).

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
Yeah, Fritz Leiber rules. Lankhmar was a huge influence on first-edition AD&D; the Legends & Lore book even had a section devoted to Nehwon. In fact, I discovered Leiber through AD&D. It's a brilliant mix of light-hearted fantasy with dirt and grit and moral ambiguity, sort of the best parts of both low and high fantasy all rolled into one. Conan without the bombast, Lord of the Rings without the wordiness, Discworld without the too-clever-for-its-own-good satire, and all beautifully written. Quarmall has got to be one of the most wonderfully imagined fantasy environments in any book.

(Okay, so it's also a bit uneven — The Bleak Shore for example read more like a bad acid trip than anything else.)

The Lankhmar tales are just so…easy to read, fun if you will. So many modern fantsy writers fail to make their works fun to read, or if they are fun, they are usually fun only to pre-pubescants.

Originally Posted by Benedict
Highly recommend anything by Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favourite authors. I've got the Etched City sitting at home in a recently arrived order so I'll let you know how I get on with it

Edit - btw read a couple of weeks ago that Philip Jose Farmer died as well, and that it was actually him who'd written that novel under the pseudonym Kilgore Trout rather than Vonnegut who I'd always assumed was behind it. Might try some of his stuff finally, I keep meaning to.

Hmm, I thought I remember watching a Kurt Vonnegut movie or TV movie over a decade ago. I really wonder how some of his work can be envisioned for film. I think it's surreal qualities would be fun to see envisioned.

Originally Posted by dteowner
Finished Hyperion a while back. Good enough to get me to buy Fall of Hyperion, but I'm not sure about all the drooling and "landmark" claims.

Currently getting to the end of Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth from Simon Green. I'm still eating up the Nightside stories. Taylor is getting a little too powerful, IMO, but I suppose he's got to be pretty stout to deal with the situations Green is putting him in recently. Shouldn't have any part in a discussion of "serious and proper" fiction, but the series is a lot of fun to read.

From some critiques I read about Hyperion, there is a lot of things going on "under the hood" in these novels. Some of the few sci-fi novels that use literary concepts, themes, symbolism, etc. that elevates it above the usual pulp quality writing of the genre.

Originally Posted by Benedict
Not really heard of Hapthorn Matthew Hughes, but it sounds like you're after new weird novels (more mature settings, heavily city influenced, real world political themes etc).

If so you might like this new weird anthology as a place to start, has quite a few different authors (including K J Bishop & Jay Lake) so you can get a feel for a few options. I'd also recommend Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris books, another great city setting, strange mushroom people & a bit of an obsession with squid, along with probably the only really good exploration of the arts & culture scene in a fantasy world (which generally gets glossed over in favour of sword fights).

Plus Felix Gilman's novels Thunderer & Gears of the City, which are critically well received new weird stuff regularly compared to Mieville (and which I've probably already spammed too much on here so will leave it at that).

Thats a lot of New Weird stuff! I might have to look for audiobook versions of some of those, I just don't have enough time to read everything I want to.

Originally Posted by buckaroobonzai
Thats a lot of New Weird stuff! I might have to look for audiobook versions of some of those, I just don't have enough time to read everything I want to.

I'd be surprised if there were any, I'd have thought the new weird was still pretty niche.

Partly sparked by this thread, I went and bought the last volume of Mike Carey's Lucifer series. It was better than I expected. Good yarn all in all; I'd heartily recommend the series to anyone who likes Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Very interesting twists on the Judeo-Christian mythos of the Fall and stuff. I think Corwin might particularly enjoy it.

Ordered a load of books for my trip to Australia, i hope my girlfriend doesn't want me to talk to her on the plane at all. I've got Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke), Accelerando (Charles STross), Natural History (Justina Robson), The Etched City (K.J. Bishop), Palimpsest (Catherynne Valente) & Sacco And Vancetti Must Die (Mark Binelli). Mostly new weird / fantasy type stuff, should be interesting. Plus I've ordered The Onion's Our Dumb World atlas thing for some toilet reading.

Let me know what you think of that Susanna Clarke book. I've almost bought it several times.

I'm currently working on a Robert Asprin Myth book. I'm a bit behind on those right now, as I've got 2 more new ones after this one.

Originally Posted by dteowner
Let me know what you think of that Susanna Clarke book. I've almost bought it several times.

I'm currently working on a Robert Asprin Myth book. I'm a bit behind on those right now, as I've got 2 more new ones after this one.

So far - it's big. Really big, much bigger than I was expecting. Only about £3 second hand in a good condition hardback though so I'm happy

I've been rummaging in one of my boxes filed with older books … I took out one book that is related to King's Quest: "See No Weevil". I remember it has been a funny book, so I'm intending to read it again.

Just read the elves of Bernard Hennen. Not a bad book, but I would rather recommend the Dwarves from Heitz and that's not only cause of Jaz's link to the author.

Originally Posted by Benedict
Palimpsest (Catherynne Valente)

Not massively getting into this so far . . . . some lovely imagery and well written but the narrative dynamic hasn't really kicked in at all yet so it's all a bit floaty and dreamlike and, well, really very girly.

Fingers crossed it'll pick up.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. The characters in this book are endearing, there are some very dated concepts, but overall a good book. Valentine Michael Smith is probably one of the most interesting characters I have read. With a close second being Jubal Harshaw, all in the same book!

I read the book almost non stop this weekend. Used Mountain Dew Voltage to sustain me when it got late lol. The marketing company I work for is doing a campaign for Mountain Dew so I had a lot from around the office to keep me reading

Anyone else like Voltage? I hadn't tried it before but now i can't get enough.

AI - Game Engine Programming by Brian Schwab. For school (I'm not that nerdy ). I like it, it's easy to follow the examples and lines of thought. He stays on the conceptual level rather than overindulging in the underlying math/programming, a trap far too common in this kind of literature (in other classes I've been up to my ears in math to the point where I dreamt nightmares of my teacher choking me with second grade polynomials…).

I've also got V for Vendetta lying around. I've become depressingly bad at getting around to reading fiction the last few years, but I've borrowed this from a friend so I hope I can start reading soon.

Übereil

Let's see, I read Stranger nearly 50 years ago and I still remember it. That's why it's a classic!!

Just finished 'The Last Watch' by Sergei Lukyanenko … I really liked the series, and that was an excellent finish.

Thanks for your reply. Yeah I read The cat who walks through walls months ago and enjoyed it so I moved on to his most classic work.