I posted a separate thread but kind as we'll ask here.
Any recommendations on super easy popcorn sci-fi reading?
The Expanse series is great and fits that bill pretty well
I posted a separate thread but kind as we'll ask here.
Any recommendations on super easy popcorn sci-fi reading?
John Scalzi Old Man's War will hit the spot just right. It's real page turner.I posted a separate thread but kind as we'll ask here.
Any recommendations on super easy popcorn sci-fi reading?
I'll check these out thanks!John Scalzi Old Man's War will hit the spot just right. It's real page turner.
I think I have to stop reading Wheel of Time. Starting these books feels like torture. I'm more than 200 pages in to Lord of Chaos and I still feel like the book hasn't even started. I like them once it starts getting in to the plot and character interactions but good god does it take forever to get to it.
You have more mental fortitude than me, I didn't make all the way through Eye of the World.
I think I have to stop reading Wheel of Time. Starting these books feels like torture. I'm more than 200 pages in to Lord of Chaos and I still feel like the book hasn't even started. I like them once it starts getting in to the plot and character interactions but good god does it take forever to get to it.
What part are you up to?I think I have to stop reading Wheel of Time. Starting these books feels like torture. I'm more than 200 pages in to Lord of Chaos and I still feel like the book hasn't even started. I like them once it starts getting in to the plot and character interactions but good god does it take forever to get to it.
Yeah, the girls get kinda boring in this part, but Egwene's bits are probably the more important of them. The books tend to cycle through the Emond's Field 5 in who gets the most "screen time". So this one is Perrin, Egwene and Rand if I remember correctly. I might be wrong, depending where Nynaeve and Elayne are.I'm in Lord of Chaos about 300 pages in.
Currently the dream team of the rebel aes Sedai are ransacking Elaidas desk for info. So far Rand talking to Taim has been most interesting part of the book and I think that was the two shortest chapters.
I would seriously just start skim reading the boring stuff but it's in those parts that I get my favorite tidbits that occasionally happen. Like in the Forsaken chapter with the POV of Graendal he slips in a tiny detail of how the Warders are a new thing to Aes Sedai and the forsaken don't understand it. Stuff like that or how Rand subtly drops the detail about how no one knows what a dragon is. These tiny details are my favorite parts and it makes me suffer the boring stuff about clothes and hair pulling.[\spoiler]
Oooo, will check out next.Ken Liu's new book of short stories came out, only 2 stories in and it reads a lot like Paper Menagerie, a blend of Sci-Fi and historical fiction
If you liked Paper Menagerie I can safely recommend
This also kinda sounds up my alley.Almost done with:
Released about four years ago, I came to it via the Wallace listserve. It's not as accessible as Wallace, but more accessible than Pynchon. Gauer is a mathematician and a poet, and this novel shows an incredible amount of erudition. All this was fine when I was moving through it at a fast clip, but now that I'm picking it up sporadically, it's not working nearly as well for me.
Plot: guy wakes up in a small city in Mexico with no idea who he is, but all his knowledge is intact. Two gunmen are supposed to kill a guy in El Paso and end up having to chase him in Juarez. A venture capitalist in Silicon Valley sits down to write his memoir. All these players may or may not be related. It's a drug book, but not really. It's meta, for sure. And it's quite a bit of work. And, it's 700+ pages. For brave readers (by nature, gluttons for punishment) only.
Really enjoyed the Percy Jackson books. The second series is alright but not as good, I thought.Finished up the last two Percy Jackson & the Olympians books this week. Ended up enjoying them quite a bit. Not quite on the level of Harry Potter but the last two books were definitely very good.
The Percy Jackson books are wonderful, and perhaps contrary to popular opinion I love the first few books of the second series (Heroes of Olympus?) perhaps even more than the main PJ books. Hilariously though, I kinda grew out of the series by the time the last book of HoO came out, so I never finished it, or took a look at the other series Riordan has written since then.Finished up the last two Percy Jackson & the Olympians books this week. Ended up enjoying them quite a bit. Not quite on the level of Harry Potter but the last two books were definitely very good.
Penguin Random House said:Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: he's merely Generic Asian Man. Every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here too. . . but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the highest aspiration he can imagine for a Chinatown denizen. Or is it?
After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he's ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family, and what that means for him, in today's America.
Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu's most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.
The chapter from the perspective of his opponent was soooooooooooo good.I binged through the last 20% or so of The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks.
That was a great book, the world building, in retrospect, reminds me quite a bit of The Gods Themselves by Asimov.
I wanted more mindgames from the ending but I suppose the way it ended is the point.
Like Consider Phlebas, I felt like this book suffered from middling character writing, which I'd say is the biggest flaw. Like Asimov, a lot of the characters feel like they were written as a plot device first and a person second. This one was definitely far more deserving of my time though.
The Culture is somehow rather uninteresting by itself, but I suppose that's kind of the point.
Overall, the individual story was kind of nice but the overall universe still feels... ill-developed. Thoughtlessly developed, even. That might just be me expecting too much.
I don't know if, or when, I'll go back to another Culture novel.
Have you played What Remains of Edith Finch? Because that sounds veeeery similar to it.My favorite genre is anything supernatural, horror, paranormal.
So my current book is this.
"
There's something wrong with Ashburn House...
The ancient building has been the subject of rumours for close to a century. Its owner, Edith, refused to let guests inside and rarely visited the nearby town.
Following Edith's death, her sole surviving relative, Adrienne, inherits the property. Adrienne's only possessions are a suitcase of luggage, twenty dollars, and her pet cat. Ashburn House is a lifeline she can't afford to refuse.
Adrienne doesn't believe in ghosts, but it's hard to ignore the unease that grows as she explores her new home. Strange messages have been etched into the wallpaper, an old grave is hidden in the forest behind the house, and eerie portraits in the upstairs hall seem to watch her every movement.
As she uncovers more of the house's secrets, Adrienne begins to believe the whispered rumours about Ashburn may hold more truth than she ever suspected. The building has a bleak and grisly past, and as she chases the threads of a decades-old mystery, Adrienne realises she's become the prey to something deeply unnatural and intensely resentful.
Only one thing is certain: Ashburn's dead are not at rest."
The Haunting of Ashburn House|Paperback
From USA Today bestseller and rising queen of atmospheric horror Darcy Coates comes a haunting story of intrigue, misery, and fear. There's something wrong with Ashburn House...Everyone knows about Ashburn House. They whisper its old owner went mad, and restless...www.barnesandnoble.com
I'll keep that in mind, thanks!The chapter from the perspective of his opponent was soooooooooooo good.
Use of Weapons has a more interesting character at the heart of it (an outsider recruited into Special Circumstances to infiltrate less advanced civilisations), plus is more about the seedier aspects of The Culture, so you might enjoy that one.
The chapter from the perspective of his opponent was soooooooooooo good.
Use of Weapons has a more interesting character at the heart of it (an outsider recruited into Special Circumstances to infiltrate less advanced civilisations), plus is more about the seedier aspects of The Culture, so you might enjoy that one.
Have you played What Remains of Edith Finch? Because that sounds veeeery similar to it.
Finished this off quite quickly last week as the last half of the book really gripped me. Think it may just enter the top 3 of the series (so far) for me.
Now onto Dust of Dreams
I posted a separate thread but kind as we'll ask here.
Any recommendations on super easy popcorn sci-fi reading?
Finished:
Only photo I could get working!
Really interesting - it's a psychology book about why some people play games, written by a psychologist who plays games (he's played Mass Effect, Demon's Souls, Myst for example)
Dispels some of the myths we all know are still common with video games for example about how it makes people violent, talks about the psychology behind GamerGate and the ways that gaming has been part of some of his counselling sessions. It's very informative and has made me think about some of the reasons why I play games and my relationship with them. Highly recommended!
That sounds awesome.Finished:
Only photo I could get working!
Really interesting - it's a psychology book about why some people play games, written by a psychologist who plays games (he's played Mass Effect, Demon's Souls, Myst for example)
Dispels some of the myths we all know are still common with video games for example about how it makes people violent, talks about the psychology behind GamerGate and the ways that gaming has been part of some of his counselling sessions. It's very informative and has made me think about some of the reasons why I play games and my relationship with them. Highly recommended!
This sounds really good. Been thinking I should try read more non fiction.
I just finished this yesterday too. It was good but I don't think I liked it as much as The Heroes, maybe a little less than Best Served Cold too. It just went so hard into Western tropes that it often didn't feel like it belonged to the same universe. And it really made sure to hit all those Western tropes.
Just finishing up a re-read of the standalone books before starting A Little Hatred.
Can anyone recommend some good audiobook apps besides audible?
Started with the 'Powdermage Trilogy' by Brian McClellan and I am about 10% into the second book "THe Crimson Campaign"
Somewhere around this I dropped it the first time couple years back. I relly enjoyed the read so far. Buit again now this bleakness sets in of everything is shit , will turn to shit or somebody will come and take it away from you. I think this was what led me to drop it the first time.
And how everybody keeps increasing their power level.
And eveybody is in danger and gritty and sad and ...
I really enjoy the series and the thrill but always using the same methods to create them wears off
You're in for a treat then, much of Murakami's bibliography has the exact same dreamlike quality to it!I've been struggling to find a book that grabs me for ages but finally found it with Kafka on the shore. Loved the weird dreamlike quality to it.
Despite being a small part of the book a characters hatred of what he called hollow people really resonated given the politics of recent years.
Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe.