what are you reading?

SimonB · Post by **SimonB** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:25 pm 0

As this thread's turned up again I'll say that since Gene above (and yes, Zoot, t'was superb) my books have been:

SFX Pulp Idol winners collection (should have put more in)
Jeremy Clarkson - On Cars (he makes Oi larf)
Terry Pratchett - Thud! (Likewise)

Now on to John & Mary Gribbin - FitzRoy (Captain of the Beagle when Darwin was on it and inventor of the weather forecast). Top stuff so far.

IronGiant · Post by **IronGiant** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:52 pm 0

Terry Pratchett - Pyramids (haven't read it for a while).

piku · Post by **piku** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:31 pm 0

Gibson, W (2004) Pattern Recognition. London, Penguin Books Ltd.

Muphex · Post by **Muphex** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:39 pm 0

Wild Highway by Bill Drummond and Mark Manning......and it's pure madness as you would expect

GrapeApe · Post by **GrapeApe** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:07 pm 0

Just finished the John Peel bio (finger on the button as always..)
On Stranger Tides-Tim Powers. Ace, Pirate/zombie/puppateer (I kid you not) yarn involving BlackBeard, voodoo swamps and all sorts of swashbucklery. Well worth, tracking down.

sty · Post by **sty** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:13 pm 0

grue wrote:
Bog wrote:Permit me to rephrase: Best non-culture sci-fi that Ian M. Banks has written.
Ok then.

What's your favorite Culture novel Bog? I can't pick between Excession (sp?) and State Of The Art. (Honourable mention of The Player though.)

Personally I'd go with State Of The Art, it was so elegantly done. At the time it came out I recall commenting that Banks had achieved more in a short story that Julian May had achieved with Intervention (which had pretty much the same premise).

I do have a soft spot for against a dark background though.

I'd also back you up on The Wasp Factory being absolutely bloody brilliant and still worth re-reading for the upteenth time whenever I feel like a treat.

sty · Post by **sty** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:18 pm 0

On the actual topic:

I've just finished reading

Room Full Of Mirrors, a very good Jimi Hendrix biography

and

Startrippin, a collection of the best Kerrang articles from Mick Wall. I'd recommend anybody into their Rawke to get along to http://www.mickwall.com and buy yourself a signed copy cheap before they run out.

currently I'm ploughing my way through J-Pod (douglas copeland) and it isn't going well, I'm also dipping into a primer on 3D maths for graphics and games which is fun.

I think I may start The Algebraist seeing as it is not a culture novel and won't mind if I read it out of sequence with my terrible Iain (M and not M) Banks backlog

Jac · Post by **Jac** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:23 pm 0

I just finished Geraldine Brooks' Year Of Wonders, which is NOT the thing to read when you've got 'flu (it's about the plague). Good read though, despite all the details about sickness.

Before that I read Ronnie Corbett's And It's Goodnight From Him which was really quite good. The next thing I read will probably be something that requires no brain whatsoever, as I think my brain has been filled with cement, or snot, or something.

stealthbanana · Post by **stealthbanana** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:25 pm 0

I recomended the Wasp Factory to a friend in Missouri. Apparantly its not in the general library shelves there and has to be specially requested, probably along with a notification to homeland security as a bomb making lunatic is in around.

Anyway, reading Priestess of the White by Trudi Lovegood, only picked it up as it was 2 books for the price of one in Smiths at a railway station, and there was nothing else that I fancied (The other book was Bernard Cornwell). Its really rather enjoyable.

ThetaReactor · Post by **ThetaReactor** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:24 am 0

I've just finished Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell. Very spiffy novel on the revolt in Heaven, biased a bit to Satan [it's only fair].

Next in the pile is Breaking Open the Head : A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck.

Chuffmeister · Post by **Chuffmeister** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:26 am 0

Dragons Egg - Robert L Forward.

grue · Post by **grue** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:57 am 0

Chuffmeister wrote:Dragons Egg - Robert L Forward.

I just put that in my Amazon shopping basket. It sounds very unputdownable. Thanks.

Chuffmeister · Post by **Chuffmeister** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:59 am 0

grue wrote:
Chuffmeister wrote:Dragons Egg - Robert L Forward.
I just put that in my Amazon shopping basket. It sounds very unputdownable. Thanks.

And there is the sequel 'Starquake' also - I have that here waiting to be brained.

lazerwalker · Post by **lazerwalker** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:51 am 0

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

It won the Hugo this year, and damn it's good! It's got a hard Sci-Fi premise (one day the Earth gets surrounded by some sort of membrane, which makes time pass much slower inside it - for each Earth year, the rest of the Universe ages 100 million years), but it concentrates as much on the characters who are caught up in this as much as the whizz-boom physics.

merman · Post by **merman** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:05 am 0

Carl Hiaasen - Basket Case

Rock & roll, obituaries, a frozen lizard and a kid who shots his computer monitor with an airgun... Gotta love Carl.