What are you reading?

[porkrind]

Me: Lately I've been rereading old favorites and some new stuff. I really want to find a new series to dig into. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.


Old favorites I’ve re-read lately:

- "1984" by George Orwell. Always excellent and scary. A must read.

- "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. Another excellent classic of scifi.

- "Dune" by Frank Herbert. His style of writing is incredibly descriptive and poetic. Ray Bradbury strikes me the same way. I struggled through the tiresome plots of the later books in the series, just because I like his writing. Dune is a classic of Scifi.

- "Liege Killer" by Christopher Hinz. Amazingly cool scifi action suspense. Really cool. The later books are good also, but hard to find.

- "Marching Through Georgia" by S.M. Stirling. Awesome novel, it's an alternate history scifi. Incredibly good. The later "Draka" novels are also good. I wish David Drake was this good.


New stuff I’ve read lately:

- "Altered Carbon” by Richard Morgan. Kick-ass futuristic scifi murder mystery. This first book of the “Takeshi Kovacs” series is fantastic, but I thought the second one (Broken Angels) wasn’t nearly as good.

- "Windhaven" by George R.R. Martin. Mediocre fantasy-type scifi fluff. (I don't know what that means either, I just don't know how to classify it) I like this genre, but I wouldn't buy this book. If you get it as a gift like I did, then it's worth a read.

- “Lord Valentines Castle” by Robert Silverberg. Good solid “coming of age”–type fantasy. BTW, his “Nightwings” is truly excellent.

- “Ringworld’s Children” by Larry Niven. Great book, and a good end to the series. With the exception of “Ringworld Throne,” this was a good series.

- “Eyes of the Calculor” by Sean McMullen. Very good first effort futuristic post-apocalyptic scifi from down under.

- "Saturn" by Ben Bova. Good (but not great) old-school "space-opera"-type scifi. Kind of a series. Bova is a very good writer, and this is not his best work, but it's definitely readable.


Non scifi I’ve read lately:

- “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins. This is one of my top 5 books of all time, I’ve read it many times. BTW, on this topic, has anyone read "The Red Queen"?

- “The Third Chimpanzee” by Jared Diamond. Also in my top 5, I’ve read it many times. Excellent. BTW, “Germs, Guns and Steel” is also very good.

- “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt. Entertaining pop economics-lite. You can read it in one sitting.

- “The Hunt for Zero Point” by Nick Cook. Cool look at the world of black aerospace projects. Very engaging. Reads kind of like “The DaVinci Code.” Recommended.

- “On Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins. He’s the guy that invented the Palm Pilot, and it turns out he’s also an amateur neuroscientist. The book is about his views on how the brain really works. Highly recommended, it will change your ideas about what you really are. Don’t miss this one.

[politicat]

1. My recent list:

Fiction:
Ben Bova's The Precipice and The Rock Rats. Near future space opera. I may or may not read the third one because I'm really disappointed with a character action in Rock Rats. They're okay if you like space opera.

1632 by Eric Flint. A section of West Virginia (including the coal miners, their town, their books and their guns) gets transported to the 30 Years' War. Fun.

Ruled Brittania (Harry Turtledove) An alternate history where the Spanish Armada succeeded in the invasion of England, and Will Shakespeare is hired by both Lord Burghley and the Spanish viceroy to write two plays: one commemorating the soon to be late King Philip of Spain, and one based on Boudicca to rally the English against the Spanish conquistadores. Well done alt.his

The Last Light of the Sun (Guy Gavriel Kay) Fantasy set in a world a single page over from our own; this one is recognizably set in post-Roman Britain, around the time of the Danish invasions. Excellent fantasy.

Capt. Hook: The Adventures of a Notorious Youth (J.V. Hart) details Captain Hook's youth as a schoolboy at Eton and his feud with, among others, Peter Darling. Interesting in audio (how I "read" it. Good for during housework and commutes.)

Lots of shorts and novellas, most available electronically through fictionwise.com

Non-SF and F:
Bronte - a fictionalized version of the lives of the Bronte children, most of whom died young and before their talents were realized. It's okay, but the original literature reads better. Gotta be a history-lit buff, though.

Sense and Sensibility - for the umpteenth time.

Austen juvenilia - interesting to see where she came from.

Non-fiction:
Victorian High Culture (David Morse) I'm trying to build a cultural comparison study of the Japanese middle Shogunate, the Medieval knightly and courtly culture of 12th c. France and Victorian culture. (Inspired by The Diamond Age, in part.)

The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis (Thomas Dormandy) The disease that will not leave humanity alone.

Dress and Undress: A History of Women's Undergarments

Catastrophe (David Keys) A discussion of the climactic changes in the middle 6th century that seem to have caused social changes in most of the world; the author makes a compelling argument for a volcanic eruption or a meteor strike.

Collapse (Jared Diamond) Why civilizations falter. (Or, how stupid can we be now that we know what we know about how stupid people used to be?)

[porkrind]

2. Wow, excellent list!

I read "Precipice" and thought it was solid and finishable, but forgettable.

"1632", "Ruled Brittania", and "The Last Light of the Sun" look interesting. Thanks for the tip.

I also read "The Diamond Age" and thought it was great. Is your cultural comparison study for your own interest only, or for some project? (Are you writing your own "steampunk" novel? :) ) Sounds interesting.

"The White Death" sounds grim. BTW, did you ever read "The White Plague"?

I think I'll have to pick up the last two you mentioned, "Catastrophe" and "Collapse". I like those subjects. I think your reading list is great. Thanks!

[politicat]

3. Glad to be of service!

The cultural comparison study is a paper I have to write to be considered for entrance to the grad program in history at CU. (I'm a resident and my GREs were good, so admission is based mostly on prior art.) I'm scarily academic; I do not belong in the private sector. But I may have to write a proto-steam punk one of these days; Austen's drawing rooms would be an interesting setting for it. (The Ladies' Tea, Mathematical and Radical Society, perhaps....)

The White Death is amazingly informative, and not nearly as grim as I thought it would be; the fact that we have done so well against TB until the multi-drug resistant varieties cropped up is pretty impressive. I read The White Plague (and a lot of studies on TB, leprosy and smallpox) for my master's work in historical demography.

The last two are interesting - but Catastrophe may need to be taken with some salt. The author is a journalist, not a scientist, and it sometimes shows. He has the tendency of a non-professional to make logical leaps that are not necessarily founded.

[YankeyMCC]

4. My list

I recently finished re-reading a couple of old favorites:

"Red/Green/Blue Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson
I followed that with a read of "Martians" by KSR, which I hadn't read before although it was published long ago.

The "Empire/Robot/Foundation" novels by Asimov.

Currently I'm reading:

"One Million AD" a collection of Novella's edited by Gardner Dozois, authors include; Robert Reed, Robert Silverberg, Nancy Dress, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross, Greg Egan.
BTW: I highly recomend this, I'm extremely happy with this - sometimes it's hit and miss with these collections so far every story's been a hit with me.

Also, reading the current issue of "Asimov's Science Fiction" magazine

Non-SciFi
I haven't been doing much of this lately.
"God Playground: A History of Poland" Vol II by Davis

[porkrind]

7. Sorry it took so long to reply...

Kind of busy this weekend.

"Red/Green/Blue Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson: My take: Good books, sometimes a little long. I especially liked the first one, but I think he goes on way too long about old age in the latter ones. It really detracted from the series.

"Empire/Robot/Foundation" novels by Asimov: Always excellent.

I'll give your "One Million AD" a try. Thanks!

[YankeyMCC]

10. Funny you say that about RGB Mars

As I was reading Blue Mars this time around I was thinking much the same thing, that I would've ended the book probably about half-way through Blue Mars.

[phantom power]

5. In no particular order...

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, about a pair of 19th century English magicians. Imagine a fantasy done as a Masterpiece theatre victorian costume drama. But with a lot of oblique commentary on the human condition, British Empire ego, comedy of manners, etc.

The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks. Complete protection from the living dead.

The Immense Journey, by Loren Eiseley. Nonfiction essays on evolution, by the famous anthropologist/naturalist. For a book written 50 years ago, it seems not at all dated.

The War of the Flowers, by Tad Williams. A young, jaded musician finds himself in Faerie, hunted by the Faerie equivalent of robber barons and industrial plutocracy. Faerie is suffering an energy crisis.

Memory, by Linda Nagata. A coming of age story woven into a sort of science-fictional reincarnation myth. The author's trademark fascination with nanotech continues, with some interesting twists and variations.

I recently re-read Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear. I loved it even more the second time.

I'm about halfway thru Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson. I think I've been halfway thru for about a year now. I'm not exactly sure why. It's a very good book, but my reasons for picking up books or putting them down are inscrutable to me.

I just started Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, a nonfiction account of the religious murder of a Mormon mother and daughter.

[porkrind]

8. Nice list. Interesting.

"The Zombie Survival Guide" <- LOL!, I love it! The Krakauer book is already on my list (I'm pretty familiar with the story), and I think I'll add the rest. I have talked to friends who recommended "Darwin's Radio". Greg Bear is awesome. I'm kind of gun-shy on KSR, as I said in another post, I thought the Red/Green/Blue Mars series was mixed, but I'll give it a look. Thanks for the ideas!

[Sabriel]

6. I just finished The Intuitionist

Really good (trite, I know). Future fiction with race and social justice implications. Give it a try.

[porkrind]

9. Please tell us more!

Who wrote it, and what did you like about it? What else would you recommend? Thanks!

[Sabriel]

16. It's the Intuitionists v. the Empiricists

Here's the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385493002/102-3502653-8403357?v=glance&n=283155

The protagonist is a black woman trying to break into the elevator inspectors' "club," set in the future, where everything hinges on the elevators. It's part science fiction, part modern parable. I really encourage you to read it. Really a good first novel.

[Solon]

11. Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds...

Pretty good book, also part of a pretty good series of books he wrote so far. He's an actual, bonafide Scientist too! An astronomer.

Other books I read, 1632, 1633, 1634:The Galileo Affair, pretty good series so far, and its now a collaberation, which is cool, I'm thinking of submitting a story or two.

Other books, Fantasy novels by RA Salvatore, a historical fiction novel called Zorro by Isabelle Allende is an interesting take on that myth. She is the niece of former Chilean President Allende, who was killed by Pinochet and the CIA. Another Excellent book she wrote, that is nonfiction(Autobiographical) is "My Invented Country" talking about those terrible times on 9/11/1974 and how it relates to 9/11/2001.

[bullimiami]

12. i just did go through all 6 of the original dune books.

never got to the last couple before.

on a heilein kick at the moment.

[mtnester]

13. Re-reading the last three Dark Tower Series books

Just finished re-reading The Black House, and am getting ready to read Magic Hour by Kristen Hannah, and recently read Jodi Picoult "My Sister's Keeper"

[NewHampshireDem]

14. 'The Algebraist' by Iain M Banks

It's good, more in the vein of 'Excession' than, say, 'Use of Weapons." That is to say, very little action, much unfolding of the plot through conversation/reflection.

I finished "Woken Furies" by Morgan not too long ago. I highly recommend his stuff, except for 'Market Forces," which would have made a good short story but made a pretty crappy novel, IMHO. I'd agree that "Altered Carbon" is the best of the lot.

[Nevernose]

15. "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Of Mice and Men," and "On Basilisk Station"

I feel like I'm the only one alive who hasn't read any of the Honor Harrington books. A little right wing so far, but also enjoyable -- ultimately the test of any book.