Which book are you reading now? Volume XIII

The first book in the Expanse series was excellent! I've started the second. So far it tops the TV series by a lot.

1. Leviathan Awakes
2. Caliban's War
3. There are many more...

 

I'm taking a break from non-fiction and reading Retief At Large by Keith Laumer, a comic/satirical sci-fi series based on the authors experience serving in the US Foreign Service in the 50s and 60s. If you can track them down, they are some delightful short stories (although the later ones, after the author had a stroke, aren't that good unfortunately). The author savages the incompetence, bureaucracy, and careerism found in any large organization. One of my favorite lines is:
"Don't worry Mr. Magnan. Just pretend you are at a Tuesday morning all-staff meeting. The relief when you find yourself here should carry you through anything short of an utter catastrophe."

 

Awesome! I'm going to see if my library has an audiobook of it. I'm bored with my normal podcasts and spend a lot of time walking around and listening half-heartedly.

Do you think they can be read out of order?

 

No. At least for the first two. So far in book 2, the whole basis for the events are tied to book 1 and some of the characters have carried over.

 

I'd say the series really has to be read in order. The first four books are pretty self-contained as stories, so it's probably doable, but there are too many characters and relationships and events carrying between novels for it to make proper sense. Corey is an author who isn't afraid to let his big, explosion-y climaxes have genuine consequences for his setting.

 

James S A Corey is actually two people both of whom have worked for GRRM: Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck; they live in Albuquerque.

 

Yeah, don't read The Expanse out of order. I think I read the first 4 or 5, but I lost track after that.

The tv series is quite good too, fwiw. Generally speaking, if you're going to read a book and watch its film/tv adaptation anyway, you should read the book first, and I think that holds true here. There are some things where you should just go ahead and watch the movie, because the book is kind of 'meh', but I think both versions of The Expanse are worth the effort for anyone into sci-fi. The casting for the tv series is completely different from what I had in my head while reading the books, which I kind of enjoy. I know that aggravates some people. But I think if I see a movie and then read the book, I just have the movie's cast and performances stuck in my head. Also, if the movie's a stinker, I may never read the book at all, but if a book is a slog, I can still think "...but I'll bet somebody could make a good movie out of this." I tried reading The Bourne Identity after seeing the movie, and it was a real drag. I don't think I even finished it.

 

Awaken Online: Catharsis by Travis Bagwell

This book is my unicorn that I've been chasing for a couple years now. The protagonist is a necromancer. The downside is that it's in a video game world. The upside is that it's a 'true VR' (read and write to your brain) game which is also run by a true artificial intelligence. So really it's highly promising and conceptually everything I could want. It's just that the writing can sometimes get bogged down in too much video game nonsense that really isn't necessary and reads terribly. But that's a minor issue on the whole.

@EgonSpengler I never finished the LOTR series and to be honest I'm glad of it. One of the very few cases where the movies are better than the books. There was another example I've seen but unfortunately I lost it in my train of thought.

 

This sounds really interesting. You love it? Got any examples of the video game nonsense?

 

Question:

Do any of you binge read? - I seem to go through a cycle where I will get bored of reading halfway through a book, not pick a book up for months and then i'll read half a dozen in a month, before the cycle repeats.

It might be something to do with an obsessive personality (I tend to focus on one thing for a period then change focus to something else).

 

Yes, and it's all free with Kindle Unlimited so if you have that there's no reason not to check it out. No examples come to mind but the main character does pull up his stats every now and then in a big table format so you can see his total mana and health and etc.

I absolutely binge read, usually because I finally find a great author or concept to explore and then either finish everything available or get tired of it.

 

I am reading the diaboliad, by bulgacov

 

I am reading a book about the Higgs Boson. Not trying to really understand the thing at a mathematical level but at a recreative level since the book is pretty basic.

I have tried with a serious book like Road to Reality by Roger Penrose but my head begins to spin like the girl in The Exorcist. Would need several years full time to digest such monster of a book.

 

right now reading "die Gelehrtenrepublik", in English "the Egghead republic". I expected it to be a dry book about dead old white philosophers and it turned out to be a post-apocalyptic tale of a mutant world. only 20 pages in the protagonist has sex with a centaur. the book is absolutely bat**** and his style and prose (two different horses..) are genuinely the most unique I've ever seen.

I definitely get why he is the most celebrated German author of the 20th century, at least in many elitist circles. the guy can write.

 

The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal. Just finished The Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson.

 

It was quite cool!
Imo

Spoiler :

the main character dies in the end of chapter 2; the other 8 chapters are the nighmare he saw as he was dieing by phosphorus poisoning

The blue teapot!

 

What's the Higgs Boson book called?

Have you read Uranium by Tom Zoellner? It's the same sort of book and it's great. Well I think it's the same sort of book. The science is more or less basic but he does a decently-deep dive in the political and economic impacts of uranium.

 

It is some random book in Spanish written by a not very known physicist called David Blanco. The tittle is simply "El Boson of Higgs". It tries to explain very complex things from the standard model that only make sense from a mathematical POW in simple terms anybody can understand. Don't know if it really does a good job since I don't know the mathematics behind, but it is very interesting and entertaining in any case.

Haven't read the book about uranium. Will try to find it.

 

Read Chekov's "The Lady with the Dog". I was a little disappointed. It's a good story and all, yeah, psychological depth.. Didn't do much for me. Maybe the reason I was so let down is because it's so highly praised..

 

You could try chekov's "the black monk"