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1. •  
     CommentAuthorJ.Brennan
   • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2011

    (9362.1)
   @Fauxhammer: Agreed, Glokta is awesome. Although, and I feel it does a disservice making a vague pop culture connection, about halfway through the first book I got an image of House in the Inquisition and after that couldn't stop reading Glokta with Hugh Laurie's voice. I finished that series about a month ago, I'd be interested to hear what you think of the ending. I was a little torn myself, the journey there is more than worth it though. I believe he just released a new book focusing on a couple of the secondary characters from the First Law series, going to grab that when I get a chance as I like Abercrombie's style.
   
   At the moment just blasted through Rise of the Horde because I'll unashamedly admit I'm a big WoW Lore nerd. Picked up The Spy Who Came in From the Cold on a friend's recommendation, so that's next.
2. •  
     CommentAuthorCreativeImbalances
   • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2011

    (9362.2)
   I've just downloaded a free copy of The Art Of War and I guess I'll be looking at that since everyone else is. Meanwhile, my former elementary and high school classmate Karen Russell has received Editor's Choice status by The New York Times for Swamplandia!. I'm glad for her because despite her recent success, she was one of the few in my senior class who didn't have a superiority complex. Take that, overrated class clown!
3. •  
     CommentAuthoroddbill
   • CommentTimeFeb 18th 2011

    (9362.3)
   Just addicted to The Last Ringbearer now. Once the (very compelling) Tolkien revisionism is established, this book turns into a very gripping Robert Louis Stevenson style swordplay and intreague adventure! Think of The Black Arrow. It's good like that.
   
   Lots of fights, but so well imagined. Each conflict is a setpiece, with unique reasons, circumstances and rules. The people involved fight the way they do because of who they are and what they want. Each fight is a puzzle, solved or botched by intelligence driven action.
   
   There are still many weird anachronistic trips in the prose and dialog. Faramir's term of endearment for Eowyn, for example, is "baby" at one point. And the amateur nature of the translation from Russian shows here and there.
   
   But mostly the translation works, disappearing from your awareness, leaving only a thrilling page-turner. The small missteps just fade into the background of an excellently spun adventure!
4. •  
     CommentAuthorWarped Savant
   • CommentTimeFeb 19th 2011

    (9362.4)
   Finished Cherie Priest's Clementine. Fun story, decent adventure, filled with action, not 2-D characters.
   The book deals with Captain Crog trying to get his ship that was stolen from him in Boneshaker. It's not necessary to have read Boneshaker but it let's you know who the characters are. Also reading the short story "Tanglefoot" adds a little as well. (You can read that for free on her website.)
   
   Now reading The City & The City. Coming along very nicely.
5. • CommentAuthorallana
   • CommentTimeFeb 19th 2011

    (9362.5)
   Finagle, i hadn't bothered to think of Heinlein and Bataille in terms of each other, but now that you've mentioned it i'd prefer not to. the misery of Heinlein's "utopias" somehow manages to bring down the ecstasy of Bataille's "hopelessness," if that makes any sense.
   
   i just read Ayn Rand's Anthem in one sitting, in the bath (in one bathing?). it was pretty cute. i got it as a starter, to build up courage to tackle her other novels, and it did the job.
6. •  
     CommentAuthorWarped Savant
   • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2011

    (9362.6)
   Allana -- Rand's Fountainhead is a little easier to read than Atlas Shrugged. I've read all of her novels/short stories and, in my opinion, the order of story versus philosophical essay goes something like this: Anthem - We the Living - Fountainhead - Atlas Shrugged. Oddly enough, that's also the order of size and publishing date. That being said, Fountainhead followed by Atlas were the ones I liked best.
7. •  
     CommentAuthoroddbill
   • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2011

    (9362.7)
   Finished The Last Ringbearer last night. Final thoughts: It was good. The translation was poor to adequate. It is very different in tone from what anyone expects from medieval tinted fantasy that it is sure to put most potential readers off on that alone. It is really more of a swashbuckling spy adventure with global geopolitical overtones, but the global geopolitics is Middle Earth based, not actual earth based. It's action setpieces are terrific, a long detour into spy vs, spy intrigue in the middle section gets bogged down with too many characters who have names like the Plenipotentiary of This or Station Chief Something, etc., that it becomes really difficult to keep track of. Though there are some pretty great espionage outwittings in there. Some characters have names bordering on the absurd, like Makarioni or Jacuzzi (yes, there is a major character in the section that takes place in Umbar who's name is actually Jacuzzi), even though this is not a parodic novel, so you do have to get used to that and read past it.
   
   I found it plenty entertaining and would recommend it with those cautions. It's not something I probably would have picked up if it didn't have the revisionist Lord of the Rings angle, but that angle ultimately didn't have all that much to do with the reasons I actually enjoyed it.
   
   I also started Pynchon's Mason & Dixon a couple of weeks ago, and will be turning full time to that for a while.
8. • CommentAuthorundulatingungulate
   • CommentTimeFeb 21st 2011

    (9362.8)
   The Possessed - Dostoyevsky
   Felt I had been reading a bit too much genre insubstantiality, and prevailed upon my friend Brian for the Best Novel Ever Written; this got the nod. It is pretty remarkable how gripping a novel which is mostly people standing around chatting in polite society in 1800s Russia can be. Brilliant psychological observation, and in general brilliant. Left me wondering what it would look like if it were written now. Ultimately seemed to be arguing that we are lost without God, or some Idea on that scale.
9. •  
     CommentAuthoroldhat
   • CommentTimeFeb 21st 2011

    (9362.9)
   Reading The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Only about 180 pages in, but it got me hooked quick.
10. •  
      CommentAuthorPPJJ
    • CommentTimeFeb 21st 2011

     (9362.10)
    Read Crooked Little Vein by someone that clearly no one here has ever heard of...
    I am notoriously slow about reading, but I killed it in 3 days.
    
    Poking around for something new. May try out A Game of Thrones the first book of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin, based on a few recommendations from friends.
11. •  
      CommentAuthordorkmuffin
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2011

     (9362.11)
    Reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians. After reading 2666 I decided to read some fluff, and this is that so far. It's kind of like if Harry Potter had actually dealt with sex and drugs and adult things and continued into college? But without the ridiculous magic world. There are also some amazing shout-outs at Narnia.
12. •  
      CommentAuthorFauxhammer
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2011

     (9362.12)
    @J.Brennan--That Glokta might have been designed after House never occured to me until you'd mentioned it.
    
    Now I've got "Teardrop" stuck in my head.
13. •  
      CommentAuthorSteven Thomas
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2011

     (9362.13)
    Recently finished Sand: The Never-Ending Story by Michael Welland
    The significance of sand in relation to the world's geological history (past, present, and future) at various scales: from the microscopic to the galactic and its relationship with humanity.
    
    Now reading Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan. Fascinating study on our furry urban neighbors.
    
    Also two graphic novels i picked up:
    
    Tribes: The Dog Years - Post-apoc tribes of children who do not live past the age of 21 due to a techno-organic disease that brought about the fall of man. I really enjoyed the artwork, settings, character designs, and the culture imagined...but panel layout and pacing seemed clumsy or fell apart when not depicting sweeping vistas. Consequently, dialogue was very hit-or-miss at times. Growing pains perhaps. Still lovely to look at.
    
    Okku Vol. 1: The Cycle of Water - Bought on a whim, knowing nothing about it or the artist. Loved the art and the characters were well defined. Intrigued to read more of it. Alt-reality of a quasi-medieval Japan with oni, elemental spirits, ronin, drunken monks, demons, and primitive military mech-suits in the form of Bunraku war-puppets
14. •  
      CommentAuthornigredo
    • CommentTimeFeb 23rd 2011

     (9362.14)
    Started Jonathan Lethem's MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, which is pretty interesting.
15. • CommentAuthor256
    • CommentTimeFeb 24th 2011

     (9362.15)

    Started Jonathan Lethem's MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, which is pretty interesting.

    
    Love that book.
    
    Lethem is, in my experience, a really up-and-down writer: Motherless Brooklyn was solid and fascinating; Fortress Of Solitude was good, but dragged in places a tiny bit; You Don't Love Me Yet (think that's the title) conversely had brilliant moments but quickly became SO annoying that I couldn't finish it (and it's not a very long book).
    
    I feel a sense of trepidation about starting his most recent, Chronic City. Not that I have a copy on hand.
16. •  
      CommentAuthordorkmuffin
    • CommentTimeFeb 24th 2011

     (9362.16)
    Started Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy today. It looks like it's going to be far more substantive than the last book I read—Lev Grossman's The Magicians (which I was kind of meh on).
17. • CommentAuthormybrainhurts
    • CommentTimeFeb 24th 2011 edited

     (9362.17)
    Just finished Steve Beard's Digital Leatherette which I loved. It's an epistolary cyberpunk novel consisting of leaked government memos, drug-centred chat room logs, screenplays about sixteenth century alchemy, shamanic MMORPGs and articles about interviewing Morrissey in Antarctica.
    
    Currently reading William Gibson's Pattern Recognition which I'm really tearing through. Also working on Juan Goytisolo's Count Julian (a stream-of-consciousness attack on Franco's Spain), Victor Serge's Unforgiving Years (a beautiful novel about the paranoia, struggles and joys of living under and in the shadow of Stalin's Russia) and Jeff Noon's Pollen (near-future VR cyberpunk set in Manchester).
18. •  
      CommentAuthorWarped Savant
    • CommentTimeFeb 26th 2011

     (9362.18)
    Just finished The City & The City by China Miéville. Wow, what an amazingly well written book. Love the ideas, not usually a fan of murder mysteries but there was so much more to this book. Thank you, everyone, for talking about it so much on here.
    
    Now to figure out what to read next...
19. •  
      CommentAuthorchainsaw.serenade
    • CommentTimeFeb 26th 2011

     (9362.19)
    @warped savant Check out China's Kraken. Reading it now and it is lovely.
20. •  
      CommentAuthorWarped Savant
    • CommentTimeFeb 26th 2011 edited

     (9362.20)
    Chainsaw Serenade -- That'll probably be the next one of his that I read. Probably going to check out Sleepless (Charlie Huston), Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi), Dreadnaught (Cherie Priest), The Once & Future King (TH White), and a few others first. But we'll see... my order of books to read changes quite easily.