what are you reading?

[benedictw]

Recently, in no particular order

Virtual Light, William Gibson

The Expanse Series(Leviathan Wakes,Calibans War,Abbadons Gate) (James SA Corey) - really quite good, fun.

Anathem, Neal Stephenson (heavy but good)

Old Mans War, John Scalzi (pretty good)

Manna (Marshall Brain) - good as a critique of automation but no plot there really.

[Mat]

Fallen back on some comfort reading and having just finished "The Eye of Zoltar" by Jasper Fforde, I've decided to catch up with his other books. I've read the Nursery Crime stuff, but not the Thursday Next ones, so I'm currently reading "The Eyre Affair", and I adore his playfulness with language.

And thanks to whoever it was that mentioned "Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie. While the sci-fi itself was marginally interesting, what really caught my imagination was the author's central conceit on AI and gender. It took me ages to work out exactly what was going on, but once I figured it out, it blew my mind.

[Muttley]

Currently reading this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Copper-Promise- ... er+promise



It's a very enjoyable D&D-style fantasy romp with some very interesting characters.

[benedictw]

And thanks to whoever it was that mentioned "Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie. While the sci-fi itself was marginally interesting, what really caught my imagination was the author's central conceit on AI and gender. It took me ages to work out exactly what was going on, but once I figured it out, it blew my mind.

I'll have to give that a go, thanks.

You might want to give God's War (Kameron Hurley) a go. Almost all the men are either dead or at war, the local technology is based on insects and bugs and the anti-heroine appears to have pissed off everyone over the age of 10.

[everklear]

Recently finished "Year Zero" by Robert Reid. It was a light read, and took some appropriate shots at the record labels.
Next up will either be the Divergence books that are all the rage, or "Sword of the Lamb" by M.K. Wren, which was recently featured on boing boing as a $2 promo that I bit on.

[Mat]

"Sword of the Lamb" by M.K. Wren, which was recently featured on boing boing as a $2 promo that I bit on.

Yeah, I've got that one lined up too thanks to the BoingBoing promo.
Cory's usually quite good source of recommendations too, although he can rely a little too heavily on the "Young Adult" genre, something I don't think should even exist.
Fiction's fiction; it should be readable by anyone. Labelling a genre as "Young Adult" only serves to limit your audience as those who no longer consider themselves "young" are likely to ignore the genre completely.

[zip accident]

Just went through Larry Niven and Edward Lerner's worlds series, missing "Juggler of worlds" because the available edition was more expensive than the rest. They were okay to good, in a sort of Larry Niven way.

I have also just been through the first three of the "Watch" series by Sergei Lukyanenko. They are good. You get three stories per book (novellas? long for short stories, and all very near to the same length), all set in the same world, which is a sort of soft sci-fi wizards in an Agatha Christie style whodunit. The setting is the present (as it was then, it's the past now, since the first was written something like fifteen years ago) mostly in Russia, mainly Moscow, with vampires and werewolves, sci-fi in the sense that Anne MaCaffery's dragon books were sci-fi and that this magic follows a set of rules.

[merman]

Carl Hiaasen - Basket Case.

I love Carl's books, set in Florida. They mix up thriller, farce and ecological problems in a very heady brew. And there's usually a bizarre twist or two along the way, and a protagonist who gets injured in extremely creative ways. This one's about an obituary writer who investigates the death of a rock star who went diving in the Bahamas, but the dead man's sister suspects foul play.

[(o)(o)]

Andrew M. Lobaczewski. Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes

This could be a very important book. It certainly garners a lot of praise (see the reviews too!). Psycopathy is one of the major problems of human species.

The books subject is largely the disproportionate influence of psychopaths on corporate and political power structures today. We know that many top positions in the 'cut throat' world of business are ideally suited to psychopaths, who number 1-4% of the population, and it's no surprise therefore that many psychopaths not only occupy those position, but they also have undue influence on policy and decision making, due to their manipulative and controlling behaviour and lack of morality. It's also kind of paints a picture of how corporate globalist capitalist economies operate.

Don't get hung up on the use of the word 'evil'.. check the reviews for more primers

The original manuscript of this book went into the furnace minutes before a secret police raid in Communist Poland. The second copy, painfully reassembled by scientists working under impossible conditions of violence and repression, was sent via courier to the Vatican. Its receipt was never acknowledged - the manuscript and all valuable data lost. In 1984, the third and final copy was written from memory by the last survivor of the original researchers: Andrew Lobaczewski. Zbigniew Brzezinski blocked its publication. After half a century of suppression, this book is finally available. Political Ponerology is shocking in its clinically spare descriptions of the true nature of evil. It is poignant in its more literary passages revealing the immense suffering experienced by the researchers contaminated or destroyed by the disease they were studying. Political Ponerology is a study of the founders and supporters of oppressive political regimes. Lobaczewski s approach analyzes the common factors that lead to the propagation of man s inhumanity to man. Morality and humanism cannot long withstand the predations of this evil. Knowledge of its nature and its insidious effect on both individuals and groups - is the only antidote.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Political-Poner ... 1897244479

It can also be found online for free.

[benedictw]

Three Parts Dead - Max Gladstone

A God is dead, and our heroes are sent to resurrect Him.

Magic in this book is a lot more like Accountancy or Soliciting, 'Gods' are effectively banks. Its really strange and definately worth a read.

[zip accident]

Reread the Lord of the Rings.

I remembered very little apart from the main ending.

It was impressively Xtian for a Fantasy novel.

Stylistically it seemed very slow in places, though I suppose that's how pacing works sometimes.

[Dio]

If you look up "seems very slow in places" in the dictionary the first thing it says is "See Lord Of The Rings, notably the trudging through the marshes bit but frankly the fact that it takes JRRT longer to get out to Rivendell in that doorstop than he did to finish the Hobbit indicates that from the start he wasn't aiming for punchy prose".

[nyarla]

Andrew M. Lobaczewski. Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes

This could be a very important book.

Agreed! The way it shows how a group of "normal" people can become influenced ("ponerized") by the nonsensical ways of a psychopathic leader so that they begin acting in psychopathic ways...! Scary and relevant.

~

I just read Larry Niven's Ringworld books for the first time. Loved 'em, even the sequels.
Now I'm on Tad Williams's Otherland series, which I'm also enjoying immensely so far (still reading the first book).

[Governmentyard]

Right, well I'm all over that, then.

[limb_clock]

Currently reading: Console wars. It's about the Sega VS Nintendo stuff in the 90s, written from the point of view of Tom Kalinske, the CEO of SOA at the time. Very interesting, and really really long.