Books, Books?, Books!, Books...What are YOU reading? aka the WoT, GoT, Orson Scott Card thread

[Zetanio]

I like his writing style. The story isn't the most compelling ever but it's a nice journey imo.

[Rulke]

Just finished the Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown. Absolutely fucking loved it! When I book gets me to read outside my normal dedicated reading time, its a great thing. No clue as to what I will read next. Guess its back to browsing.

[Cantih]

The last chapter of arc 2 of Mother of Learning is out.

Spoiler: show

Well, fuck.

[Zetanio]

I'm reading a whole mess of Erik Larson books and I'm really enjoying them.

[Jaybar]

Trying my hand at Neal Stephenson. Unfortunately I'm not into techie stuff but I'm enjoying Diamond Age right now. I have Grace of Kings by Ken Liu on deck.

[Aumaan_Kujata]

Diamond Age is a good choice. Some pretty unique stuff in there, and considering it's over 20 years old now some of the predictive content is... impressive. Not that there are really any bad ones, just depends on your tastes in subject matter. Stephenson is a geek about a lot of only-semi-related things, and his books, especially recently, wander into a lot of different genres. Hell, his last one decides to become its own different-genre sequel about 2/3 of the way through.

Brace yourself for an excellent example of his cavalier attitude towards tidy explanatory endings, though.

The best introduction to Stephenson, for my money, is the first few pages of the chapter "Wisdom" in Cryptonomicon. Too lazy to find a link right now, but they're around here and there.

[TheDirtyHobo]

The Diamond Age is definitely my favorite Stephenson book, and one of my all-time favorites. Actually just finishing up my third time through Snow Crash right now.

Hell, his last one decides to become its own different-genre sequel about 2/3 of the way through.

Seveneves made me a bit upset because of that. From the synopsis, it seemed to me like the council of the seven eves would be like, chapter 4 or 5, not the climax of act 2. I was most excited for the evolutionary aspects of it, and they were kind of a rushed letdown where what I thought would be the mostly-meaningless introduction was the meat (and much better portion) of the story. The ending also felt non-existent but at this point that's not a surprise for Stephenson.

[Cantih]

tbf, there is some speculation that Seveneves may be a rarity in that he's going to do another book in the setting.

[Wulfgang]

Book 3 of the Greatcoats series is being released today.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...-saint-s-blood

The fourth and final book will likely be out next year. I have enjoyed the first two books; it is basically a fantasy version of The Three Musketeers that has a very similar vibe to Riyria Chronicles in terms of mood, resolution, etc. Basically the opposite end of the spectrum from Abercrombie's fantasy noire / antiheroes / etc. Also one of the few series where the second book was materially better than the first.

[Jaybar]

Diamond Age is a good choice. Some pretty unique stuff in there, and considering it's over 20 years old now some of the predictive content is... impressive. Not that there are really any bad ones, just depends on your tastes in subject matter. Stephenson is a geek about a lot of only-semi-related things, and his books, especially recently, wander into a lot of different genres. Hell, his last one decides to become its own different-genre sequel about 2/3 of the way through.

Brace yourself for an excellent example of his cavalier attitude towards tidy explanatory endings, though.

The best introduction to Stephenson, for my money, is the first few pages of the chapter "Wisdom" in Cryptonomicon. Too lazy to find a link right now, but they're around here and there.

I'm definitely getting a Jules Verne premonition feel from the book, especially after looking at the publishing date. I think I might stop after Diamond Age, although I'm told Cryptonomicon is amazing.

[Zetanio]

Reading The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K Dick and Empire Rising by Thomas Kelly

[BaneTheBrawler]

Re-reading the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, leading up to her newly released addition to said series. Still a blast.

GF is super into books, so book stores have become a kind of date thing; dangerous for my wallet... but i've been pretty good so far. only bought one book (and that in small-form paperback!): Independence Day: Crucible, a prequel to the upcoming sequel to the original film. Haven't read it yet, but it's first up after I finish the Vorkosigan books. Saw some other tempting books, though, including two new additions to the Saga of the Seven Suns series by Kevin J. Anderson, which I had thought completed.

Also, GF's taste in books diverges slightly from my own, just enough that we only overlap on a few major things, like ASOIAF and LOTR. So we've been swapping books back and forth; She loaned me A Study in Charlotte, an interesting variant of Sherlock Holmes-related material. Not sure how to describe it without going more into a synopsis. It was fun, though. I had my parents rustle up their old unused 3rd edition Kindle, wiped it and sync'd it to my account and let her borrow it indefinitely. She hasn't read anything from it yet, as she still has a few hard-copies she hasn't gotten to, but I'm hoping to get her hooked on a few of my more beloved sci-fi series.

[Souj]

Alright, let's see...

Still waiting for Morning Star to get to paperback.
Still waiting for both new mistborns to come out in paperback.
Read the original Dragonlance books for the first time ever. They were pretty good. Also picked up the first Raistlin prequel book, and the first chaos war book, though haven't read either yet.

Just started the third Warhammer 40k Word Bearers omnibus book, which'll put me at finishing those 3 up, Eisenhorn trilogy, first 3 Horus Heresy books, and Titanicus. Does anyone have any other suggestions of any good non-Chaos related stories? Or at least with minimal Chaos. Not that I don't like the Chaos stuff, just that I may want a little break from it after going through that Word Bearers trilogy lol

And I also picked up Westerfield's Leviathan series super randomly because the used book store had a b1g1 deal so I picked up all 3 for $6. Haven't start that yet either. Not even sure if steampunk literary genre is my sort of thing. Guess I'll find out eventually lol.

[Cantih]

I've read it, it's pretty enjoyable. It's also not pure steampunk.
If you like the style but not the setting, you might try his Uglies series.

[BaneTheBrawler]

ooooh, that's a fun one. there's an art book that goes with it, i'd highly recommend looking through it. some very beautiful artwork.

[Wulfgang]

Just finished book 3 of The Greatcoats series; the series has actually gotten better as it's gone on. Fans of traditional adventure fantasy like Riyria Chronicles will enjoy. Essentially a fictional Three Musketeers story in short.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...-saint-s-blood

[mallister]

just finished the Nightmare Stacks, charles stross, Laundry Files collection. wasn't looking forward to it, the POV was a newly introduced 2ndary character i wasn't impressed with at all. i was pleasantly surprised, it's an excellent book. highly recommend the series.

[Zetanio]

My summer reading has been progressing nicely.

So far:

Full Dune reread
Neal Stephenson - Seveneves
Malka Older - Infomocracy
Austin Grossman - I Will Soon Be Invincible
Erik Larson - Devil in the White City
Jay Miller - Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works

I enjoyed "I Will Soon Be Invincible" the most out of everything I've read recently. It's funny, fresh, easily accessible and well-written.

[mallister]

how is devil in the white city? been on my list for a minute.

[Zetanio]

It's pretty good. It was touted as a "holy shit this is amazing" book by a friend so I had the bar set high.

It's got great historical content and has a good story line but it didn't "wow" me at all.