Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Mouthwash]

Echopraxia is a sidequel to Blindsight, taking place closer to Earth. The elements are similar to that of Blindsight. It's more of the same really although I enjoyed it anyway. Both are recommended but Blindsight is the better one.

How did you even get through Echo? After they blast off into space the writing becomes incredibly obfuscated, and it was already taxing to follow before. That happened from time to time in Blindsight, but things were usually cleared up by the next few pages. Does it ever get better?

 

[Hakim]

Actually, no, I wasn't always on the same page (no pun) as the writer throughout Echopraxia either. There's a lot between the lines that could have been fleshed out. Also, the ending wasn't that good. Still, if he continues the series with another book I'd probably buy it.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

A Comparative History of Commerce and Industry, vol. 2 (Converging Trends and the Future of the Global Market) by David McNabb. Looks at the UK, Germany, Japan, and the US. Introductory, and with an obvious ideological slant (government intervention bad). Blames the 1970s slump on government intervention, acknowledges the post-war economic boom only when government intervention isn't involved (apparently, Britain never experienced it), and despite being written in 2016, is very quiet about the 2008 downturn.

Metamaterials: Theory, Design, and Applications, edited by Tie Cui, David Smith, and Ruopeng Liu. Invisibility cloaks, directional antennas, and other interesting devices in a dry, mathematical style.

Currently reading Realpolitik by John Bew, regarding the history of and the ideas represented by the titular word. Its origins were with Ludwig von Rochau, writing about the failures of the revolutions of 1848 and coining it as a new approach to domestic politics. It would then continue to change and evolve through thinkers and policymakers from Germany, Britain, and the US through the rest of the 19th, 20th, and the beginning of the 21st centuries.

 

[Lexicus]

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, Barrington Moore Jr

 

[Takhisis]

A Comparative History of Commerce and Industry, vol. 2 (Converging Trends and the Future of the Global Market) by David McNabb. Looks at the UK, Germany, Japan, and the US. Introductory, and with an obvious ideological slant (government intervention bad). Blames the 1970s slump on government intervention, acknowledges the post-war economic boom only when government intervention isn't involved (apparently, Britain never experienced it), and despite being written in 2016, is very quiet about the 2008 downturn.

Sounds as if the author were one of those people who believe the New Deal and the Marshall Plan were not instances of government intervention.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Sounds as if the author were one of those people who believe the New Deal and the Marshall Plan were not instances of government intervention.

To me it sounds more like he's part of the "FDR made it worse" crowd.

 

[caketastydelish]

Watching Communism Fail: A Memoir of Life in the Soviet Union

Linkin Park: The Unauthorised Biography in Words and Pictures

Weight Training for Dummies

 

[JollyRoger]

Library of America Volume 1 - containing 3 novels by Herman Melville:

Typee

Omoo

Mardi

 

[Takhisis]

I think I'll start rereading my entire collection of Roald Dahl short stories.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Brave Men, a compilation of Ernie Pyle columns. He wrote very well, with great 'voice' and sympathy. We could all learn a lot about simple words and their power from Ernie Pyle.

 

[warpus]

I always bring 1 or 2 soft cover sci-fi novels with me when I travel. It's a bit of a tradition. I don't read much on my trips, but transit and rain days usually add up and give me enough time to make it through 1 or 2 novels. It's also how I discovered Iain M. Banks (when I ran out of stuff to read in New Zealand and bought the most interesting looking "random" book at a small local bookstore)

I am looking for suggestions on what to get for my trip to Japan. To be blunt I am pretty much only interested in stuff that will make me think and has good characters. So for example Iain M. Banks novels have been perfect for this and I have a couple that I own that I haven't read yet. But I wouldn't mind mixing it up a bit. I was going to bring some of the Hyperion Cantos, but I only have 250 pages left (of the 800 page long 4th and last book) so I figure I might as well finish it before my flight instead of dragging a huge book along with me that I'm going to finish soon anyway.

Grand sci-fi space opera type stories seem to tend well to rain/transit day readings on trips, if the characters are good, such as in the Dune. Stuff that is written well and is epic in scale and has good dialogue is usually fairly engaging, so since you can't control the rain it is easier to get into at the drop of a hat. But I have already gone through the original 6 books twice. I have some of the prequels that I haven't read yet. Mentats of Dune is the only soft cover one I have. I might bring that, but Kevin J. Anderson and Herbert Jr. are mediocre at writing dialogue. The characters are decent but a bit wooden. So I wouldn't mind reading this book, but maybe there's better options that I don't know about.

Other classic novels/series I have already made my way through: Foundation, original Ender 4-tology, Rama, The 2001 series including the time books.. and a whole crapload of standalone books from various authors but focusing on Asimov and Clarke

According to my research I should be considering these as options: Vorkosigan Saga, Mote Series, Zone of Thought series, Revelation Space, Lilith's Brood, The Night's Dawn trilogy, The Left Hand of Darkness, Hainish Cycle, Majipoor Series, The Heechee Saga, Xeelee sequence, The Gap Cycle

These are eliminated as options for various reasons: Ringworld, Mars Trilogy by KSR

As you can see this seems to be important to me, so I welcome any suggestions

tldr: Looking for a good book to read or two, good characters, epic in scope, well written, will make me think, sci-fi, elements of fantasy or other genres is fine

 

[Martin Alvito]

Currently: Robert Silverberg, Tales of Majipoor. Good stuff; Majipoor Chronicles was always the standout of that series for me, and this more or less continues the format.

Recently: got through Scalzi's more recent stuff (Fuzzy Nation, The Human Division, Lock In, The End of All Things), as well as Pohl's The Eschaton Sequence and The World at the End of Time. Also hammered out Zahn's first two Blackcollar books. Of them, I'd tell you to read Fuzzy Nation and The World at the End of Time.

Oh, and I finally got around to Lord of Light. Was a bit disappointed considering the hype. Not that it was bad (it's exceedingly original), just that it didn't live up to the hype that would put it on the plane of things like Neuromancer or Ubik.

 

[Mouthwash]

I always bring 1 or 2 soft cover sci-fi novels with me when I travel. It's a bit of a tradition. I don't read much on my trips, but transit and rain days usually add up and give me enough time to make it through 1 or 2 novels. It's also how I discovered Iain M. Banks (when I ran out of stuff to read in New Zealand and bought the most interesting looking "random" book at a small local bookstore)

I am looking for suggestions on what to get for my trip to Japan. To be blunt I am pretty much only interested in stuff that will make me think and has good characters. So for example Iain M. Banks novels have been perfect for this and I have a couple that I own that I haven't read yet. But I wouldn't mind mixing it up a bit. I was going to bring some of the Hyperion Cantos, but I only have 250 pages left (of the 800 page long 4th and last book) so I figure I might as well finish it before my flight instead of dragging a huge book along with me that I'm going to finish soon anyway.

Grand sci-fi space opera type stories seem to tend well to rain/transit day readings on trips, if the characters are good, such as in the Dune. Stuff that is written well and is epic in scale and has good dialogue is usually fairly engaging, so since you can't control the rain it is easier to get into at the drop of a hat. But I have already gone through the original 6 books twice. I have some of the prequels that I haven't read yet. Mentats of Dune is the only soft cover one I have. I might bring that, but Kevin J. Anderson and Herbert Jr. are mediocre at writing dialogue. The characters are decent but a bit wooden. So I wouldn't mind reading this book, but maybe there's better options that I don't know about.

Other classic novels/series I have already made my way through: Foundation, original Ender 4-tology, Rama, The 2001 series including the time books.. and a whole crapload of standalone books from various authors but focusing on Asimov and Clarke

According to my research I should be considering these as options: Vorkosigan Saga, Mote Series, Zone of Thought series, Revelation Space, Lilith's Brood, The Night's Dawn trilogy, The Left Hand of Darkness, Hainish Cycle, Majipoor Series, The Heechee Saga, Xeelee sequence, The Gap Cycle

These are eliminated as options for various reasons: Ringworld, Mars Trilogy by KSR

As you can see this seems to be important to me, so I welcome any suggestions

tldr: Looking for a good book to read or two, good characters, epic in scope, well written, will make me think, sci-fi, elements of fantasy or other genres is fine

There's also a whole different set of books following Bean, if you're interested. Ender's Shadow is almost as good, if not better, than Ender's Game.

As to your question, if you're reading Iain Banks, than you probably aren't talking solely about classic sci-fi. So why not try Ra, which is amazing and practically unknown?

 

[FriendlyFire]

What price Honor
Age of Em

To read next:
Dark intelligence
Inventing Japan

 

[jackelgull]

Well, I'm reading the House of Night series. It is basically what you might expect from a young adult series in the post Twilight world (seriously, it still astounds me today how Twilight basically created a genre, though describing young adult as a genre might be misleading considering the wide array of books called "young adult", it is more a style of marketing, with a couple of conventions thrown in) - there is a girl who is special without really earning it, and has some boys totally in love with her. To be fair, the main character is not why I have stuck with these books. The reason is Aphrodite who begins as a self centered alpha dog, and undertakes a journey to redemption without feeling too different a character. The books are also heavily influenced by Cherokee mythology which I find to be pretty cool.

 

[JohannaK]

I have decided to put a halt on my book pirchases until I finish my pending readings. For classes I must read Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man right now, and queued up are Woolf's Orlando, Tolstoy's The Cossacks, three of Nietzsche's works, and a bunch of others, plus another four or five novels for class. God I am effed.

 

[Arakhor]

Warpus, have you tried Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories? They're a bit dated now, but they inspired the entire Dying Earth fantasy/sci-fi genre. Also of note would be Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, which was an early 80s' take on the genre.

I have decided to put a halt on my book pirchases until I finish my pending readings. ... God I am effed.

You can't stop buying books! If your bookshelves do not look like your Steam backlog, you're not doing it properly!

 

[JohannaK]

Hah, my Steam backlog wishes it could look like my bookshelves.

 

[warpus]

Currently: Robert Silverberg, Tales of Majipoor. Good stuff; Majipoor Chronicles was always the standout of that series for me, and this more or less continues the format.

Recently: got through Scalzi's more recent stuff (Fuzzy Nation, The Human Division, Lock In, The End of All Things), as well as Pohl's The Eschaton Sequence and The World at the End of Time. Also hammered out Zahn's first two Blackcollar books. Of them, I'd tell you to read Fuzzy Nation and The World at the End of Time.

Oh, and I finally got around to Lord of Light. Was a bit disappointed considering the hype. Not that it was bad (it's exceedingly original), just that it didn't live up to the hype that would put it on the plane of things like Neuromancer or Ubik.

There's also a whole different set of books following Bean, if you're interested. Ender's Shadow is almost as good, if not better, than Ender's Game.

As to your question, if you're reading Iain Banks, than you probably aren't talking solely about classic sci-fi. So why not try Ra, which is amazing and practically unknown?

Warpus, have you tried Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories? They're a bit dated now, but they inspired the entire Dying Earth fantasy/sci-fi genre. Also of note would be Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, which was an early 80s' take on the genre.

Thanks guys, I will print this off and take it to the bookstore with me!

Mouthwash, I have considered reading the new Ender series books, but Orson Scott Card has left a bad taste in my mouth after I found out about his.. views. And after I read his book "Empire", which was garbage. Plus it seems like he's just cashing in on the Ender name. Plus the Ender story seemed rather complete in my mind at least, after the first 4 books. Plus the part I hated the most about the series were the kids and the way they chatted on some message board and became famous. It was a bit cringeworthy. Bean was one of those kids IIRC. So for now at least I'm avoiding all Ender universe books.

 

[Mouthwash]

Mouthwash, I have considered reading the new Ender series books, but Orson Scott Card has left a bad taste in my mouth after I found out about his.. views.

All the same, there's nothing objectionable about Iain Banks deciding that he wouldn't allow certain publishers to print his books since he didn't like the country they came from?

Plus it seems like he's just cashing in on the Ender name.

Maybe the recent trilogy about the First Formic War could be, but the Bean series is classic Card.

Plus the part I hated the most about the series were the kids and the way they chatted on some message board and became famous. It was a bit cringeworthy.

The book was written in the eighties. I mean, the galaxy-wide media in A Fire Upon the Deep was based on Usenet (it was published in 1992). Who cares about hindsight? I still enjoy Asimov's early stories which involved landmasses on Jupiter.

Bean was one of those kids IIRC.

Dude, you are definitely not recalling correctly. Bean only shows up in Battle School and again during the invasion.