Which book are you reading now? Volume XIII

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when she invites you over to her house and says just acknowledge that I have a peculiar obsession that not everyone shares. :eek::lol::shifty::banana:
 
Sure, I didn't mean to disparage anyone, just acknowledge that I have a peculiar obsession that not everyone shares.
This is true of most people.

(says Tak, still hellbent on the Discworld bender)
 
I read the Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells.

Well, I suppose I expected something more... organized?
The entire story is a mess. The revelation is a bit formulaic too, although it is the same thing which happens (more elegantly there, though) with Dr. Jekyll's own account of his strange predicament. Namely the Invisible Man (Mr. Griffin) presents his own story, speaking to a friend.
But the entire story is a bit farcical. And not in a way which seems dramatic, in my view. The Invisible Man basically does nothing of importance, and is defeated by a rather boring stratagem, mostly because he is outrun and then lead to the village center where various people attack him.
Also, I think I had read somewhere on the web that he actually died by being killed by dogs (which would indeed be a more interesting ending; now it seems he just dies on a bed, after being wounded by some people).
The epilogue chapter is (imo) very bad.

I did like the first few chapters (that is up to the point the Invisible Man is betrayed for what he is). But the pace should have been a lot different, I think.
 
Tiamat's Wrath, book 8 in the Expanse series, was just awesome. Another page turner with a great open ended ending. It could easily be the last book or have a follow up. All the loose ends were tied up nicely. All eight books were great reads.
 
I finished Caliban's War (2nd in the series) yesterday and it was rad too. It got a little soft on the details of the plot about 2/3 in but other than that it was perfect.

One odd discrepancy with the show is that they dropped the subplot of Prax being accused of pedophilia entirely but kept several foreshadowing scenes where Amos talks about pedophiles earlier in the book. In the show this made Amos out to be a real weirdo who just likes to talk about kid-diddlers and it plays out like that in the book until the accusation drops and the reader goes oooooooooooohhhhhhhhh.

I find the show does a better job visualizing the space battles and ships flying around than the books. Obviously the books don't have images but the authors are not very descriptive of the action whereas the show has pretty good special effects. It's all exciting but I mostly don't know what any of the ships look like from the picture they paint. I will say however that when the protomolecule leaves Venus, the book's description is much cooler than the show's - and the show already had a really cool scene/effects as it is.
 
Just finished The Girl With All The Gifts, which ended, I think, just as it had to.

Now begun a re-read of Neuromancer, for the first time in about 20 years.
 
Just finished The Girl With All The Gifts, which ended, I think, just as it had to.

Now begun a re-read of Neuromancer, for the first time in about 20 years.

Is it readable? (language/style). Cause I once tried to read it in greek, and (maybe due to the translation) I couldn't.
 
Is it readable? (language/style). Cause I once tried to read it in greek, and (maybe due to the translation) I couldn't.
Not sure which one of the two you're talking about, but I assume Neuromancer, because TGWATG (hmmm... what an unfortunate-looking acronym...) is written in a very simplistic style, and it's hard to see how any competent translator could screw that up.

Neuromancer? Much less so. It assumes a fully realised pre-existing world/situation without necessarily describing every facet in detail, uses a lot of slang and idiom (some of which WG made up out of his own head), and reads a bit like Raymond Chandler. I would imagine that a poor translation could very quickly become unreadable. Your English comprehension seems easily good enough to read the original, though (if you're still interested?).

Hell, maybe you could even try making a better translation...? ;)
 
Not sure which one of the two you're talking about, but I assume Neuromancer, because TGWATG (hmmm... what an unfortunate-looking acronym...) is written in a very simplistic style, and it's hard to see how any competent translator could screw that up.

Neuromancer? Much less so. It assumes a fully realised pre-existing world/situation without necessarily describing every facet in detail, uses a lot of slang and idiom (some of which WG made up out of his own head), and reads a bit like Raymond Chandler. I would imagine that a poor translation could very quickly become unreadable. Your English comprehension seems easily good enough to read the original, though (if you're still interested?).

Hell, maybe you could even try making a better translation...? ;)

Yes, I meant the Neuromancer :)
 
I started re-reading Andy Weir's The Martian. Sometimes I can't deal with these super-detail-oriented tech books - I couldn't finish Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, for example - but I find this one very readable. I like Weir's/Mark Watney's sense of humor, and I usually like survival stories. I haven't read Weir's next book, Artemis. It wasn't as well-received, iirc, but maybe I'll give it a try anyway.
 
Seveneves is a bad book, period. Very stupid plot and a lot of questionable science elements, even when you concede the whole moon blowing up part.

Artemis is OK but not nearly as polished or believable as The Martian. Also not as funny. Weir workshopped the Martian online for years and that made the boom much tighter and better whereas he worked in Artemis in secret and it shows.
 
Not sure which one of the two you're talking about, but I assume Neuromancer, because TGWATG (hmmm... what an unfortunate-looking acronym...) is written in a very simplistic style, and it's hard to see how any competent translator could screw that up.

Neuromancer? Much less so. It assumes a fully realised pre-existing world/situation without necessarily describing every facet in detail, uses a lot of slang and idiom (some of which WG made up out of his own head), and reads a bit like Raymond Chandler. I would imagine that a poor translation could very quickly become unreadable. Your English comprehension seems easily good enough to read the original, though (if you're still interested?).

Hell, maybe you could even try making a better translation...? ;)

I started reading the Neuromancer (only half-way through chapter 1 though).
Tbh, if I didn't know some of the plot (the two computers) I wouldn't really feel interested to go on reading at this point ^_^
 
I started re-reading Andy Weir's The Martian. Sometimes I can't deal with these super-detail-oriented tech books - I couldn't finish Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, for example - but I find this one very readable. I like Weir's/Mark Watney's sense of humor, and I usually like survival stories. I haven't read Weir's next book, Artemis. It wasn't as well-received, iirc, but maybe I'll give it a try anyway.
Better read Casey and Andy instead.
 
I just finished John Varley's Millenium. A pretty good premise decently executed. In all a rather original take on the well worn concept of time travel.

Now to re-read Neuromancer...
 
I started reading the Neuromancer (only half-way through chapter 1 though).
Tbh, if I didn't know some of the plot (the two computers) I wouldn't really feel interested to go on reading at this point ^_^

I've got Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive sitting on my bookshelves but Neuromancer is nowhere to be seen which is rather annoying now I want to reread it.

edit: Found it. It was in one of the bookshelves in my other room. I haven't read them in about 30 years so I can't remember much except being introduced to the term Iconerate by them.
 
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