st_lupo Posted August 5, 2021 Report Share Posted August 5, 2021 I'll add some: Historical Fiction: +Bernard Cornwall: Vikings, Napolianic War, the US Civil War, he's got it all and it is exciting and well researched +Patrick O'Brian: It's like Hornblower++, was really bummed to be finished with all of his books Introspective, moody fiction: +Cormac Macarthy: Just don't start with Blood Meridian (which is actually faaantaaastic and highly regarded) unless you want something pretty brutal. +Patrick deWitt: The Sisters Brothers (as the book) was a fantastic slightly surreal jaunt thru the old west. Fantasy/Sci Fi +Neil Gaiman: super imaginitive and human stories, with very well crafted prose. + Hugh Howey: Read the Wool books first. OMG! Nothing has ever presented a post-apocalyptic mythos better than this (well, maybe Macarthy's The Road is better... Maybe) !ark Lawrence: The Broken Empire series is unhinged, dark-funny, and has you rooting for the kinda bad guy. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted August 9, 2021 Report Share Posted August 9, 2021 Just plowed through all 14 books of the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. Super fun, very light. Urban fantasy. Speaking of which, finished the latest Dresden Files novel "Battle Ground" by Jim Butcher. Another great urban fantasy series with consistent quality throughout. Re-read The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley. This is another fantasy, super inventive and funny. If you've seen the TV show and didn't like it, try the book. They dropped the ball on the TV show big time, it feels nothing like the book. Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia is just as the title suggests - gothic horror/romance with a Mexican flavour. It was excellent. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st_lupo Posted August 10, 2021 Report Share Posted August 10, 2021 Oh yeah, Mexican Gothic! That was nice and creepy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pow4ever Posted August 10, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2021 thank you eBoot, Neil and st_lupo for the recommendation! This is awesome to get exposed to different genre/authors. cross pollination of ideas have a multiplication factor. my backlog is miles long and i love it. now my eyes are getting old and tired lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eboot Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 Looking forward to reading Ninth House, ordered and waiting. Also rereading Dune after 15 years, current movie release tweaked my interest again. Amazing that this series was written in the 1960's! Timeless SF that is not dated by the thinking limitations of the age. Below are some new books / series that I have just finished that are worth exploring, all different: A time of dread: John Gwynne (3 book series + 4 book follow on) The empire's ruin: Brian Stavely (4 part series) The blacktongue thief: Christopher Buehlman The Goblin Emperor" Katherine Addison Gideon the ninth: Tamsyn Muir Some authors that are worth exploring with many books each: Neal Stephenson (one of my favorite authors) Martha Wells Adrian Tchaikovsky Brandon Sanderson Alastair Reynolds Peter F Hamilton Neal Asher Stephen Baxter Kate Elliott James S Corey Linda Nagata Yoon Ha Lee Nnedi Okarafor Ann Leckie That should keep you going for a weekend 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 Really liked Gideon The Ninth, the sequel is purchased and in the queue to read. Bought The Raven Tower by Leckie and just can’t seem to get through it. I hate the second person narrative. I’ve read lots of Stephenson. Martha Wells' Murderbot series is good but way overpriced for the short novellas that they are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eboot Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 Nnedie Okarafor was a really exciting find for me, highly recommend her books Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eboot Posted November 23, 2021 Report Share Posted November 23, 2021 Ninth house was great it lead me to discover the Scholomance series by Naomi Novak, the first book is A Deadly Education : a novel This is not Hogwarts! Very good Bob’s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gawdzira Posted November 23, 2021 Report Share Posted November 23, 2021 I just finished Ghost Fleet by Singer and Cole. Really engaging read. World war 4 that starts in near orbit. With the recent space ammo test by Russia, the books premise may be coming too soon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunSurfer Posted March 16, 2022 Report Share Posted March 16, 2022 (edited) Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli. An exploration of the meaning of quantum theory. Can you accurately measure the speed and position of a carver at the same time? Maybe I should apply Feynman's Quantum Electro Dynamic theory to all the possible paths I could follow between the top of the chairlift and the bottom? Perhaps not. Rovelli makes the case that Descartes wasn't quite right. Not so much "I think, therefore I am." More "I interact, therefore I exist." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/26/helgoland-by-carlo-rovelli-review-a-meditation-on-quantum-theory Edited March 16, 2022 by SunSurfer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aracan Posted March 16, 2022 Report Share Posted March 16, 2022 Just discovered this thread after finishing the Patrick O'Brian canon for the third time. Before that I reread the classic noir novels by Hammett and O'Brien. Also recently read: Drop City by T.C. Boyle (very funny!) My Early Life by Winston Churchill, which I can highly recommend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted March 16, 2022 Report Share Posted March 16, 2022 On 11/22/2021 at 8:06 PM, Eboot said: Ninth house was great it lead me to discover the Scholomance series by Naomi Novak, the first book is A Deadly Education : a novel This is not Hogwarts! Very good Bob’s. I'm about a third of the way into that one and enjoying it. Another great Novak novel is Uprooted, it's a standalone. I read the first few books of her Temeraire series years ago but got kind of burnt out on the whole Napoleonic wars but with dragons thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allee Posted March 17, 2022 Report Share Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) Mexican Gothic was great. The reading list that recommnended that one to me also recommended Ninth House (gets another vote from me) and Bethany Morrow's A Song Below Water. Thumbs up for all three. I binged my way through Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle over Xmas. That series is definitely YA, if obsessively good, but the follow up trilogy - Call Down the Hawk, Mister Impossible and the October 22 release Greywaren - are much more adult and just as good. A couple of books I really liked that the sci-fi crowd here might enjoy - Claire North's "Touch" and Peter Clines "14". A re-read recommendation - Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel trilogy starting with Kushiel's Dart. If you like Game of Thrones/middle ages type stuff with a side of S&M you'll probably like this. This is on my re-read list because a new book from the POV of the main character's consort is coming out this summer. On my to-read list : Piranesi Laura Weiss's Leftovers Catherine House (supposed to be Mexican Gothic-ish) The Nightingale Sex and Vanity (because I loved Crazy Rich Asians) The Night Circus An Ember in the Ashes series Sorrowland The Code Breaker Edited March 17, 2022 by Allee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eboot Posted March 31, 2022 Report Share Posted March 31, 2022 Winter reading, much? I came across a completely new author whose quality of writing is breathless. Reading my next book felt flat by comparison. Great storyteller. Winterglass, the first of a trilogy, by Benjanun Sriduangkaew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NateW Posted April 2, 2022 Report Share Posted April 2, 2022 Factfulness, by Hans Rosling It's just full of interesting insights on culture and economics. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. He's been mentioned before in this thread, and this book is particularly amazing. I just picked up his Seveneves a few days ago, and I'm not far in yet but it's off to a great start. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philw Posted April 2, 2022 Report Share Posted April 2, 2022 I could say what I really like, but it's more honest to look at google books and see what I recently read. These all were easy reads: The Mars Room - Rachel Kushner - US prison stuff Washington Black - Esi Edugyan - Slavery but not massively depressing The Darkness - Ragnar Jonasson - Icelandic series. Well I did snowboard there. Looking back through the thread. I read the 1st Harry Potter to see what the fuss was about, couldn't tell, so read no more. I think there are way better children's books, for example Philip Pullman's stuff. Dirk Gently people may like Tom Sharpe (also set largely around Cambridge), although I'm not sure how well that has aged. Stephenson; haven't read beyond Quicksilver, which was a mighty doorstop from what I remember. I shall have to go do some catching up. Willian Gibson works in a similar area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NateW Posted April 2, 2022 Report Share Posted April 2, 2022 7 hours ago, philw said: Stephenson; haven't read beyond Quicksilver, which was a mighty doorstop from what I remember. I shall have to go do some catching up. Willian Gibson works in a similar area. I couldn't read Quicksilver either. I made it about a quarter of the way in, and gave up. I liked where the plot was going, but the writing style was unbearable. There were roughly 1,694 adjectives per noteworthy plot point, and it was just too much to slog though. I'd still recommend trying any of his other books. You would never guess that the same guy wrote them. Gibson's Neuromancer and Stephenson's Snow Crash were icons of the cyberpunk genre back in the day. I liked Neuromancer, but not enough to read more from Gibson. Snow Crash was great though, and I've been a fan of Stephenson ever since. ...except for Quicksilver and its sequels. On one hand, kudos to him for working in a completely unrelated genre, and with a completely different writing style. And lots of people love the trilogy. On the other hand, I am absolutely not one of those people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philw Posted May 15, 2022 Report Share Posted May 15, 2022 On 4/2/2022 at 9:38 PM, NateW said: I couldn't read Quicksilver either ... the writing style was unbearable. ...except for Quicksilver and its sequels. On one hand, kudos to him for working in a completely unrelated genre, and with a completely different writing style. And lots of people love the trilogy. On the other hand, I am absolutely not one of those people. Having read your post I tried the second in the "Quicksilver" series, and hated that too. However based on your input I skipped to Reamde and... absolutely, he just adopted a completely terrible style for the "Quicksilver" books and then flipped back again to stuff I can actually read. There's even cat skiing and a snowboarder in there. Stephenson clearly has sufficient technical background to not alienate technical people like me. I read his "Command line" thing at the time, didn't particularly agree with it, but clearly he's close enough to the technology to make an argument. Gibson is required reading, of course. Anyway, now I'm back on the rails with Mr Stephenson - thanks for dragging me across the flats there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NateW Posted May 15, 2022 Report Share Posted May 15, 2022 On a related note, I finished Stephenson's Seven Eves a couple weeks ago and it was great. It is "hard" science fiction, where everything seems compatible with known physics and technology that's on the horizon. At times, he may have worked a little too hard to explain the engineering behind some of his ideas, whereas other hard SF writers would move that kind of thing into an appendix. Still a good book though. Then I read Parable Of The Sower by Octavia Butler. It paints a bleak picture of life after an extended period of drought in the US. Yikes. Very dark. Not a complex plot, more like just an adventure that sets the scene for the sequels - which I will probably read, but I needed a change of pace for a while. So I read Three Body Problem, by Liu Cixin. It was fun to read a book that takes a lot of context from Chinese culture. Some of the alien technology seemed a bit fantastical, but it made for a good story. I bought the rest of the books in the series and they're near the top of the stack. I don't normally read books at that rate, but it was nice to binge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted May 16, 2022 Report Share Posted May 16, 2022 I don’t know about Stephenson’s tech knowledge. In Cryptonomicon he was writing so authoritatively about cryptography, a topic I know relatively little about, that I assumed he had done extensive research and that I was learning something. Then he made a big blunder in an area I am familiar with that caused me to question everything I had read so far. It really took me out of the book. I enjoyed Seveneves but I agree that it could have done with less technical explanation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Ong Posted May 22, 2022 Report Share Posted May 22, 2022 how does a texan solve climate change ? by building the biggest gun in the world !! Neal Stephenson's terminal shock is a fun and dystopian eco-thriller, could not put this down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aracan Posted June 7, 2022 Report Share Posted June 7, 2022 On 5/16/2022 at 2:06 AM, Neil Gendzwill said: Then he made a big blunder in an area I am familiar with that caused me to question everything I had read so far. Out of curiosity: Would you mind elaborating? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted June 7, 2022 Report Share Posted June 7, 2022 1 hour ago, Aracan said: Out of curiosity: Would you mind elaborating? Scroll down for spoiler… At one point there is an EMP, which is problematic all on its own, which damages a key computer. The problem is resolved by removing the hard drive and putting it in another computer. Hard drives are magnetic devices (at the time the book was written) that have built in electronics. If anything were to be damaged by an EMP… I’m not normally this nitpicky about fiction but in a book where the author is expounding at length on technical stuff… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aracan Posted June 8, 2022 Report Share Posted June 8, 2022 I remember that scene. At the time I assumed that while an EMP would probably fry the electronics of the HDD, it might conceivably leave the magnetic disc itself readable. But that is definitely not my area of expertise. Then again, I do know quite a bit about the baroque era. I found the Baroque Cycle very well researched, but I did not enjoy it as much as Stephenson's other works because I did not learn a lot I hadn't already known. So it seems he usually does his homework. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted June 10, 2022 Report Share Posted June 10, 2022 On 6/8/2022 at 1:44 AM, Aracan said: I remember that scene. At the time I assumed that while an EMP would probably fry the electronics of the HDD, it might conceivably leave the magnetic disc itself readable. But that is definitely not my area of expertise. Then again, I do know quite a bit about the baroque era. I found the Baroque Cycle very well researched, but I did not enjoy it as much as Stephenson's other works because I did not learn a lot I hadn't already known. So it seems he usually does his homework. The m in emp stands for magnetic. I expect a pulse strong enough to fry electronics would do worse to magnetic media. At any rate in the book they just plug it in to another computer, no fancy recovery of the disks themselves required. It’s similar to the sequel to 2001. In that movie one person demonstrates how they will dock to the monolith by holding a pen in the air and letting go, where it floats there, immune to the artificial gravity of the ship. Later on they stop the ship suddenly during the docking procedure as if it had space brakes or something. Basic physics mistakes in what is supposed to be a hard SF movie. Maybe if the rest of the movie had been good enough it would not have been so jarring. But here I am decades later and those mistakes are all I recall about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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