Reply With QuoteWhy Darwin Matters by Michael Shermer
I just read Captain Blood by Raphael Sabatini, which was about as ridiculous as it sounds (quite fun though), and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley which was good, although pretty much everything (well, utopian/dystopian fiction) has taken bits and pieces of its ideas so it doesn't seem particularly shocking any longer.
Why Darwin Matters by Michael Shermer
I've got that one queued up next, gunsmoke, you'll have to share your thoughts on it.
So I'm reading this complete collection of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories. They're cool and everything(they also get progressively better and I'm only 200 pages in), but WHAT IS IT with him and the subject of the sun either blowing up and destroying the earth or cooling down and freezing it? Rescue party, History lesson, The forgotten enemy, The star(well, not earth, but still), The songs of distant earth, Fountains of paradise... That's borderline obssession. I bet there'll be more, too.
Well, the sun is going to kill us you know. Not me personally of course.
False Memory. I'm not really a Koontz fan, I actually think he is a bit insane, he seems fixated on some sadistic and highly descriptive murder scenes. The formula: Highly intelligent villians, grew up as victimized children, some kind of manipulation of the genes, give themselves over to evil, sadists sent from some government agency or aliens, throw them in with encounters with normal people and the plot goes to the next level.
Anyway it was a real page turner on the last 200 pages and for the first 200, abit of a page skimmer with an exessive amount in setting up the story.
I am enjoying it so far. Despite the fact that I am a huge fan of the beat authors, this is one that slipped me by. I have some commuting to do on the bus for a job for the next month or so, so I have plenty of time to read.Originally Posted by Stitch
I've just finished reading Sunstorm by A.C.Clarke and Stephen Baxter and yup, it is about the sun gunning for human kind again.
Moving onto Homicide by David Simon of The Wire fame now.
Reading "The Wreck of the River of Stars" by Michael Flynn, which is the last of my current batch of library books. Pretty interesting book so far, I can't tell if he's actually setting it up like a tragedy or not (which is extremely rare in Sci-Fi).
I also recently realized that I got "Paul of Dune" for Christmas and I haven't even read it yet. I got a bunch of other books at the same time, and must have forgotten it was a new book at some point along the line. That one will be next after the current issue of Analog.
Don't read any Dune books that aren't Dune itself. I find this is a good rule when reading sci-fi. Also - don't read or look at anything to do with Stargate unless you're going to kill yourself straight afterward.
I'll disagree to a certain point.
I personally wouldn't read Paul of Dune, or at least I'm not planning on it. because it was written by brian herbert, not frank. Same goes with all those backstory novels like House Harkonnen and House Corrino and the Butlerian Jihad. Stick with the ones Frank wrote (as in the original books) and if you're really desperate to end the story, read the last 2 in the series that brian wrote with Franks Notes that he found in a safety deposit box after his death.
Other than that I'll have to agree with SubJeff that really it doesn't get better than "DUNE" and none of the sequels with the exception of God Emperor came close.
MY COURSE IS FINISHED!
which means i get to get back to For Whom the Bell Tolls. It's been like six weeks!
That's it! Thank you.
Some swines got me started on the Dresden Files novels and now I can't stop.
Continuing on J. London's collection. Finished "The White Fang", now reading "The Road" (or atleast I think that's how it's called in english... great story btw) and then going to look for "Call of the Wild", which, I suppose, is the prequel to "The White Fang"... Oops.
You are most welcome.
While I agree that Brian's books aren't as good, I still found them enjoyable overall. Since I have read and own the entire series up to this point, and I already own my unread copy of Paul of Dune, I don't think I'm about to stop now
Then again, it's rare for me to find a book that I honestly dislike. The only one I can think of recently is "White Light" by by William Barton and Michael Capobianco. Now that was an exasperating and escalating sequence of one unlikely event after another with a completely unlikable cast.
Just picked up a nice dusty old copy of this from a second hand bookshop so it'll be next on my reading list.
I'm currently reading Faulkner's Light In August which has been typically excellent so far but I've been having trouble getting some peace and quiet to read it in.
*Character mutters arcane phrase
*Turn to glossary to look up phase
*Flip back
*Repeat
Don't get me wrong; I love Dune and all, but the terminology can damage the pace of the story at times.
Incidentally, I'm reading the book again at the moment.
BTW, stitch...I am still plodding away @ Kerouac's 'On The Road', but haven't finished it yet.
I've also started On The Road and it's been an easy, enjoyable read so far.
Before that I read Philip K Dick's VALIS. I've always been a fan of his but this one blew me away. A very personal and suprisingly spiritual novel with Dick's typically droll humour and endearingly whacked-out characters. It made a real impression on me and hasn't been out of my thoughts all week. I know Dick is well regarded in the sci-fi arena but does some of that reputation extend into the general literary arena? If not, it bloody well should.
Dick is hit-or-miss for me. Some of his books are good, example being A Scanner Darkly and some are just... really obvious in their lack of editorial input.
Finished House of Leaves over the weekend, started reading The Road. So far, very good.
I seem to have missed this post during my vacation:
Yes, yes he really is that bad. His work is nothing but big bags of boring suck. His plots tend to be these awful 30-car pileups of various ideas that don't really go well together, and they're often 100-150 pages longer than they need to be. Snow Crash starts off by being an amusing deconstruction of anarcho-capitalism but then it gets into this stupid bullshit about ancient Sumeria I don't care about and it's just one big "how not to do postmodernist fiction" manual. I've heard his work said to be less science fiction and more sociology fiction, except that doesn't work for him either. Most overrated genre author since Stephen King. (And I like(d) Stephen King.)
Last edited by june gloom; 5th Sep 2009 at 07:29.
Oh, I agree but when he hits it can be something quite special and unique.
On to Count Zero by William Gibson.
I like how it has multiple points of view in this one(which I'm sure will converge at some point), makes the story more interesting. And I found the Bobby to be quite an interesting character, the way he describes things(including his strange mother, made me giggle a few times).
He's even put in references to popular culture.
Good stuff, just as great as Neuromancer.
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