"Old Man's War" by John Scalzi
I recently started rereading Moby Dick, which I haven't read since high school and college. Unlike most of stuff on my English syllabi back then, I actually enjoyed it, but it's slow going.
The whale got put on hold when my Kickstarted copy of Fate of Cthulhu arrived; I just finished reading it this morning. I spent the past week or two alternating reading chapters of that and On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Bernard Heuvelmans, which was a Christmas present from my in-laws. The latter book is one of the seminal works of cryptozoology, which I've been trying to locate a copy for years, so I've very pleased with it.
"Linux Networking Cookbook" O'Reilly
I recently started rereading Moby Dick, which I haven't read since high school and college. Unlike most of stuff on my English syllabi back then, I actually enjoyed it, but it's slow going.
I read Moby Dick myself a while back after somehow dodging the bullet during my education, and when I finished, I remembered the comment of one of my college professors, who said "after I read Moby Dick, I knew more about whaling than I ever wanted to know." Very true.
Currently reading one of my Christmas presents, The Story of Baseball in 100 Photographs, which is what it says on the tin, but there are commentaries with each picture which are making the seam-head in me very happy.
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Recently bought and read the novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. I'm going to follow that up with "Frozen Hell", the supposedly novel version of the same story (with like 45 more pages) supposedly discovered among some of Campbell's stuff in storage (at Harvard, I think).
I'm also (slowly but surely) working my way through Volume 2 of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, as well as "Liberty" by Isaiah Berlin.
Currently reading Four Fish by Paul Greenberg, about how the fishing industry has interacted with (surprise) four fish species: salmon, bass, carp, and tuna. Good narrative read so far.
Looking forward to the Brandon Sanderson book I just got: The Well of Ascension. Continuing the Mistborn series has been on my to-do list for a while, but I obviously just got around to it.
Aberzombie, I don't know how you and others who read multiple books at once do it; I have to plow through mine one at a time.
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Aberzombie, I don't know how you and others who read multiple books at once do it; I have to plow through mine one at a time.
Well, with my more recent stuff.....
"Who Goes There?" was a really quick read. Took me less than a day. The Smith collections are all short stories, so that's easy to pick up and put down. Berlin's "Liberty" is a collection of his writings - not an easy read, but still broken up, so I can read a one piece at a time. For me, full blown novels at the same time is a bit more challenging.
Of course, it helps that I'm currently a shiftless layabout. So I have a lot of time on my hands.
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Aberzombie, I don't know how you and others who read multiple books at once do it; I have to plow through mine one at a time.
Ugh, I try to read more than one book at a time, I get them all mixed up in my head and it's a mess. :)
Fortunately I read super-fast, and can read a couple of books a day on a day off (which, again, leads to characters and plots migrating around willy-nilly, so I avoid more than one a day!).
Back in the 1980s and -90s, when my interest in the Doctor Who TV show was at its height, I collected over 100 novelizations of those TV serials. Those stories had fascinating concepts. And to this day, I marvel that so much plot could get crammed into such short books. That's one major reason I used to read the vast majority of them many, many times.
Because those stories were written by many different authors, they didn't refer to each other as much as one would expect from a series by just one author. That was okay; many an individual serial / novel would stand well on its own right. But still, some of those stories left intriguing, dangling threads that just screamed to be picked up.
Take, for example, The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, fell in love with a man named David and was going to marry him. Undoubtedly, later, when the Doctor gained better control of his time- and space-traveling machine, he should have visited her. When he did, how would Susan feel about her life? Furthermore, Susan, who was an alien, would age so much more slowly than David, and couldn't have biological children with him. How would THAT relationship turn out? A few of the later stories briefly touched upon the subject, but none dealt with these questions head-on.
Later in the 1990s, I bought a lot of the earlier The New Doctor Who Adventures and Doctor Who - The Missing Adventures books. They didn't have such great concepts and they were too long, so I read them only once or (in a few cases) twice. I lost interest and eventually gave up on them altogether. I was not the least bit impressed with the one Paul McGann TV special and never even looked into the "Eighth Doctor" books. And in the 21st Century, I watched a few dozen episodes of the new Doctor Who TV show which didn't impress me all that much. I occasionally picked up one of my old Doctor Who novelizations but I went over 20 years without reading a new DW book...
...until this very year. Imagine my surprise, while perusing a used book store, when I found an Eighth Doctor book that dealt with the very questions I asked earlier in this post. It's Legacy of the Daleks by John Peel. It shows David, who's decades older, while Susan has the appearance and maturity level of an eighteen-year-old girl, and discusses the difficulties of their relationship. It features the awakening of a group of Daleks that had been in suspended animation for decades. It deals with a power struggle to gain control of a still-recovering Earth. And as if that weren't enough, we get another classic DW villain: the Master, as he was in the old show.
Of course, there's still the problem of the book being considerably longer than those old novelizations. I doubt I'll read it more than once or twice. But it's refreshing to read a Doctor Who book that's new to me. And my inability to finish it quickly has one advantage: it gives me a feeling of suspense. My life being the way it is today, I have little time to read on weekdays, so I probably won't finish it until Friday night or Saturday. And until then, I have the fun of speculating what might happen in the story.
For instance, what if Susan gets killed and regenerates into a body that appears older and has a more mature persona? That would be a nifty resolution. I doubt that's what will happen, but my thinking of ideas like that help to fill the tedium of the daily grind.
Now that I have a great deal of time on my hands (because shelter in place), I am trying to pick off a number of the classic (AKA old) books in my to-read pile(s). Currently it is The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame. It's a ripping good yarn, albeit with several eye-rolling turn-of-the-century superiority-of-the-white-man passages that bounce me out of the narrative.
Next up: Dante's Inferno.
I'm reading Dan Carlin's The End Is Always Near, which came out late last year. It looks at some of the apocalyptic moments of the past as a way to frame the challenges we'll face in the future. I just finished the chapter on pandemics. Lovely.
This morning I read a few more pages of Legacy of the Daleks. In regards to the plot line I mentioned in my last post, I felt disappointed.
I'm back to plugging away at Moby Dick, a couple chapters or so a day. I've also finally starting the couple of big, thick gaming books that I received for, or just before, Christmas: Goodman Games' Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Arcanum Worlds' Odyssey of the Dragonlords (both for 5E).
Paradise Lost, Book 6, when Michael crits on Satan with the colossal holy avenger
but the sword [ 320 ]
Of Michael from the Armorie of God
Was giv'n him temperd so, that neither keen
Nor solid might resist that edge: it met
The sword of Satan with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheere, nor staid, [ 325 ]
But with swift wheele reverse, deep entring shear'd
All his right side; then Satan first knew pain,
And writh' d him to and fro convolv'd; so sore
The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Passd through him, but th' Ethereal substance clos'd [ 330 ]
Not long divisible, and from the gash
A stream of Nectarous humor issuing flow'd
Sanguin, such as Celestial Spirits may bleed,
And all his Armour staind ere while so bright.
Paradise Lost, Book 6, when Michael crits on Satan with the colossal holy avenger...
Looking forward to it! (I have finished The Inferno, and have begun reading Paradise Lost as the last of my current "classics" string... Not sure where I'm going after this.)
I'm reading iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy by Olivia Hill.
It's the first novel in a series, and is the setting for the TTRPG of the same name.
'Tales From The Sorcerer's Skull' magazine - top-notch sword and sorcery short stories from Goodman Games.
Also,
'With Malice & Cunning: Anonymous 16th Century Manuscript on 16th Century Bolognese Swordsmanship', trans. and introduced by Stephen Fratus.
And
'Espada y Daga: the sword & dagger fighting art', by Dan Anderson.
'Tales of the Dying Earth' by Jack Vance. Wasn't that into it the first time around, but really liked it when I re-read it
And
'Black Mountains' by Fred Saberhagen.
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Currently, I'm rereading one of my favorite novels of all time, the sci-fi classic Destination: Void, by one of my favorite authors of all time, Frank Herbert.I should hunt that down. I've read The Jesus Incident, which was a sequel, but not that.
My copy is from a mass market paperback box set put out in '86, which also included The Jesus Incident & The Lazarus Effect (books 2 & 3 of the Pandora Sequence, as well as Whipping Star & The Dosadi Experiment (his two ConSentiency novels).
It wasn't until years later that I found a copy of Ascension Factor (the fourth book in the Pandora Sequence).
Eventually, I'm considering purchasing a newer, larger printing of Void. I want to give my old copy a break. Plus, if it's bigger, it's easier for me to read.
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Kraken, by China Mieville. It's okay, but the "nerd culture" stuff hyped up by the reviews at the front of the paperback edition doesn't age well.
Class struggle and surrealism do, of course, though the familiar strike plot so far (about halfway through the book) comes off as somewhat forced and very ancillary.
The Schooled in Magic series by Christopher Nuttall has been pretty good so far. I am on book five and I can't wait to get to the other books in the series.
The Girl in the box series by Robert J. Crane was also damn good.
I'm reading Brief Cases so my wife will allow me to read Peace Talks. :D
Since my last post, I have finished Moby Dick, and am now rereading Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small quartet. Kel informed quite a bit of the sense of being a hero for one of my all-time favorite PCs, who I finally get to play again for a limited run "reunion arc," so it's well past time to refresh my memory of that story.
'The Ice Schooner' by Michael Moorcock.
Am also around 7/8ths through 'Mistress of Mistresses' by E.R. Eddison.
I have also been listening to 'The New Jim Crow' by Michelle Alexander, which was good work, and 'Appendix N' by Jeffro Johnson, which is not really doing it for me.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
I read the "Theros Ironfeld" Dragonlance novel to find out how he got his magic arm...
<spoiler>
...IT NEVER TOLD THE STORY OF HOW HE GOT HIS MAGIC ARM!!!!
</spoiler>
I forget, is Theros getting his arm one of those parts of the module series they didn't novelize or was it something Weiss and Hickman made up for the books?
The module DL7: Dragons of Light reveals the story of Theros getting the Silver Arm.
<snip>
Yeah, just to make my answer clearer, I don't think the PCs ever see Theros get the Arm, but they might be there to help him start forging dragonlances in DL7.
I'll now confess that in the past, I've only briefly flipped through the original Dragonlance modules, reading an encounter here and blurb there.
Lately, I've been reading those old Dragonlance modules more thoroughly than I ever have before and I'm now up to DL7: Dragons of Light. In it, Theros reunites with the PCs and tells them the story of how he found the Silver Arm and then saw "this hell-beast with green glowing eyes" and ran.
This week, while giving the module a more thorough reading, I read an event I had never noticed before. The PCs encounter...
'Petty Gods', by the Oldschool Role-Playing Community. A superb resource, consisting of a listing of very, very minor deities, and servitors of those deities. Designed for B/X and the like, but could easily be adapted for later editions, and is chock-full of flavour. I would recommend it to anyone.
"Bert the Dark Lord" tis very cute.
"Bert the Dark Lord" tis very cute.
Who's the author? The title sounds like it might be up my alley.
Currently reading The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick; I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I have also recognized at least three stories that were premises for movies I have seen (The Adjustment Bureau, Minority Report, and Total Recall). I knew Dick had some of his stories taken for film (Blade Runner, duh), but I didn't realize he was at "Stephen King lite" level.
Also, do not read Dick if you're feeling anxious about stuff already; he kind of makes paranoia to a literary art form.
Years ago, I thought it might be fun to read a novel set during the Stone Age. Unfortunately, I found few, and most of those - such as Clan of the Cave Bear - to be slow and dull. Even GURPS Ice Age seemed unable to come up with many suggestions. I should mention that the novelization of the first Doctor Who serial ever, An Unearthly Child, is probably the best such story I've read, but as that's a TV tie-in, I'm not sure that counts as a novel.
And... well, this is Paizo's website, so I should also say a few words about the Planet Stories volume, Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty. That was OK, but having been written for pulp magazines, those stories have a few corny elements. For instance, Hok wins the love of a beautiful woman by inventing the kiss. He invents the bow and arrow. He gets and wields a sword from some otherworldly source. And I couldn't even finish the last story (which sees the caveman tribe get a visitation from extraterrestrials).
I discovered one OK stone-age novel called Suth's Story, the first book of Peter Dickinson's four-book series, The Kin. It began to develop some interesting plotlines... which, unfortunately, the second book completely destroyed.
In short, I couldn't find any great novels like that.
Last month, I happened to pick up White Fang by Jack London. I could go on and on about what I thought of it... but I've already finished White Fang. This thread is titled "What books are you CURRENTLY reading?" and I've already gone on for too long about books I read in the PAST.
But the point is that my copy of White Fang mentioned, in the author's biographical information, that he wrote a book called Before Adam about the life of an early hominid. Of course, I felt intrigued, so I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg. I'm most of the way through it, and... yeah, it might be just what I was seeking.
Oh, it doesn't start off very well. The main POV character tells the reader that he has dreams which, he's convinced, represent the memories of some ancestor from the Pleistocene epoch. Obviously, that premise isn't plausible to begin with, and the character goes on and on for too long arguing why it's possible. All that stuff makes the premise LESS believable, not more.
But once past that part, London manages to spin a nice yarn. I don't even know whether the cliches existed yet in 1906, but for whatever reason, the author managed to avoid them. The main character DOESN'T invent things, although the narrator points out that he hypothetically could have, but wasn't smart enough nor disciplined enough to do so. Neither is the main character heroic; his only goals are to survive and have fun. And the characters DON'T witness major events like the start of the Ice Age; the book explicitly points this out.
What with avoiding those tropes, Before Adam - I might have thought - would grow plotless and boring, yet the book has managed to keep my interest so far. But I'm only 80% or so through it. This week, I plan to finish and find out if it manages to come to a satisfactory conclusion.
I just finished reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which was a lot more entertaining than I was expecting.
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I just finished reading The Twisted Ones, which was brilliant and incredibly creepy. It just won the Dragon Award for best horror novel, too, so I'm not the only one who thought that. Recommended, with the caveat that you shouldn't read it if you're going to be cleaning out a hoarder's house out in the woods anytime soon. Like, in the next five to ten years.
I am now currently reading Empire of Grass, second in Tad Williams' Last King of Osten Ard series, having just finished The Witchwood Crown, the first in the planned trilogy.
I'm not normally crazy for "epic" fantasy, but I really enjoy Williams. I'm not self-reflective enough about my fan status (I tend to like what I like without examining it too much), so I couldn't say whether it is tight plotting, characterization or prose style (or some combination), but he manages to help the reader (me) keep track of a few dozen plot threads without it feeling like he's padding the runtime, so to speak.
Well it helps, Reader, he's done large epics before. (See Otherland series and Shadowmarch series.)
The series you mention, Mr. Seitz, in addition to the original Osten Ard trilogy, are the reasons why I trust Williams not to let me down. :-)
Yeah I feel that Reader. I was just pointing out to those that might not have experienced much beyond say, the original Osten Ard trilogy.
I picked up James Sutter's The Redemption Engine for cheap in a sale at my FLGS a while back, and finally picked up a copy of his first Salim novel, Death's Heretic, recently, so now I'm reading them in order. They may for an interesting tour of parts of Golarion and the Great Beyond.