what are you reading?

[WiteWulf]

Just finished reading Lisey's Story by Stephen King, nice atmospheric mystery/thriller that at first glance has no super-natural or monster threads in it but goes ape-shit towards the end. The way it's plotted really draws you in, impressive bit of writing. Following that I've just about gone back to the beginning and started reading The Stand, I'll be back here in a few months

[RageMatrix]

Just finished reading Lisey's Story by Stephen King, nice atmospheric mystery/thriller that at first glance has no super-natural or monster threads in it but goes ape-shit towards the end. The way it's plotted really draws you in, impressive bit of writing. Following that I've just about gone back to the beginning and started reading The Stand, I'll be back here in a few months

I gave up halfway through that - perhaps I should have struggled on? I found the repeated "non-words" that she used to use with her husband too much of a bore...that might be what happens in someone's head, but I don't really want to read about it. King seems to have a hard-on for such literary tricks these days, though. I think there was similar internal monologues of nonsense words and phrases in Dreamcatcher as well.

[moosedude]

in typical computer nerd fashion I'm reading this;

http://thedaemon.com/

essentially, a I.T. millionaire dies, but leaves behind a daemon which is programmed to start causing havok when it finds the name of its programmer in the obituairies. Its a good read, and its not as badly informed as I thought it would be (better attempt at explaining things, rather than using "hollywood" I.T. to link things together)

Don't buy if you don't like your books ended with "a sequel to follow" grrrrraaarrgghhh.

Also reading a translated book (from chinese I think) called "on the road and on the run in outlaw china" by aya goda. Not sure about the story, its a bit sequential buts theres something about the translation into english that makes it a very medative read.

[Zoot]

"Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot - had to read a chapter on my current OU course and it intrigued me anough to go buy a copy. First classic I have ever attempted.

[Cthulip]

I'm currently attempting to read The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear. I'm not doing very well. I'm about 3 chapters in and it's feeling like I'm not going to get much further. It's obtuse to the point of being impenetrable. I might switch to The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan and come back to this later.

Hmm, concerning Greg Bear - there has been some activity to CG some parts of Eon. I wanna see an end result this time as the Forge of God movie project fell through. Eon/Eternity are very nice reading. Haven't gotten around to The City at the End of Time yet... guess I'll have to order it. Got most of his books - but the recent ones like Slant and Darwin's Radio was not very interesting compared to some of his earlier works.

[Mat]

Just finished Snuff, which had a hilarious ending, although I'm sure it was hilarious mostly because Chuck's warped my world view beyond recognition.
It's really rather nauseating when you spend too much time thinking about the details, but the circumstances and characters just make it such a perfect way to end the book, and completely unexpected.

Now moved directly on to his Fugitives & Refugees, and it's already full of those wonderful little asides that define a lot of Chuck's style. The story about the activists puking in red, white and blue when George Bush Snr came to town was especially chuckle-worthy, especially because they didn't realise that the acids in the stomach turn blue food dye green, so it looked like a protest against Italy rather than the US

[SimonB]

Ian Fleming - From Russia With Love

[HGFB]

All those people who told me to read Altered Carbon need to sit down and read The Steel Remains. In future you'll be recommending that instead.

[thalamus]

The Fuck-Up (Arthur Nersesian)
Think Catcher in the Rye meets Bright Lights, Big City; I bought this book years ago because of the unusual title and the reviews on the jacket. Gritty and packed with detail, if a little negative when it comes to its portrayal of females, by the last chapter the book has you pleading for some kind of redemption for the main character. There's a chunk of the book dedicated to homelessness, too, and these chapters alone are frankly superb.

[VNVObit]

Picked up "De Collected Diaries of a Northsoide Taoiseach "

Collection of series of humorous articles from the Phoenix magazine (Irish magazine that is part political/business news digest part satirical) posing as the personal diary of Bertie Ahern

[Firefox]

Just had a second run-up at Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.

The first time I had a go at it I just couldn't get interested in it. The main reason was that the heroine - Cayce - is a marketing consultant whose life consists of going "meh" at new corporate logos, obsessing about her clothes, doing pilates, and constantly being amazed that England is different from America. Rather less interesting than Gibson's previous characters who are variously console cowboys, razor girls, techs, pilots, terrorist artists, cyborgs, rastas, Yakuza, backstreet surgeons, etc etc.

But, I stuck with it, and it does get better as you go on. True, a lot of it is detailed desciptions of Cayce being surprised that several other countries apart from England are different from America, but quite an interesting story develops with a surprising ending. I'm very glad I gave it another go now that I've finished it.

Spoiler: show

"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots."

[grue]

Toll the hounds - Steven Erikson

[nyarla]

Just had a second run-up at Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.

The first time I had a go at it I just couldn't get interested in it. The main reason was that the heroine - Cayce - is a marketing consultant whose life consists of going "meh" at new corporate logos

It's not just that she "meh"s at them, she actually has some kind of strong, uncontrollable allergy/reaction to logos of all kinds... which disappears/gets better at the end of the story, to her joy. (thats how I understood it anyway)

But yeah... not as exciting as some of the older Gibson books. Great atmosphere though. I also recently read the sequel-of-sorts, Spook Country, which I thought was a slightly better than Pattern Recognition.

I really like how in these two books there's stuff like....when someone wants to find out about someone else the first thing they think of is googling them. Maybe other current books have that sort of stuff, but I haven't read them. I tend to take a very long time to start reading new authors. So these two books are the first strongly current-tech books I've read. Sorta thing.

[offyoutoddle]

crikey, can't believe this thread is still going! Been away a while, so I'll put my contribution in - Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson. Probably the most engaging read I have had for years. I just can't put the book down - my poor wife will attest to that too

[benedictw]

Just read Galactic North - Alastair Reynolds and Stealing Light - Gary Gibson.

The artwork and cover of the Gibson reminded me a LOT of the revelation space books - and the book does read as kinda Revelation Space lite.