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What books are you reading?
wraith808:
[...] I think he fell victim to two things.
1) New author
2) the Genre, as I said, was Gunpowder Fantasy. That first part was pure fantasy.
-wraith808 (August 14, 2016, 04:27 PM)
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That sounds like he needed a good editor to suggest improvements. Perhaps publishers and agents don't bother any more.
You said you read a lot. How do you pick what books to read next, given the vast number available and limited time to read? Do you frequent favourite review sites, and if so, which?
-rjbull (August 15, 2016, 03:38 PM)
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Nothing that measured. When I need a new book, my nook suggests books in the genre that I read. I browse for a bit, buy the one that catches my fancy, and put the other interesting things on my wish list. When there's nothing on the Nook suggestions that I like, I revisit my wish list. I visit Goodreads also, but I can't say that it's a part of my regimen anymore, but I also pick up suggestions from Amazon, and just find them on the Nook, or if I like them well enough, just buy it in the kindle app.
To round that up, I also use the bundle sites, i.e.
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/
http://storybundle.com/
and visit the Baen and Tor sites on occasion.
http://www.tor.com/
http://www.baen.com/baenebooks
rjbull:
Lavie Tidharw's The Bookman, first of a trilogy.
fantasticfiction bibliographical record for Lavie Tidhar
Steampunk to the max. The Queen is an alien lizard; her Prime Minister has the ominous name Moriarty; her equerry is Sir Harry Flashman VC. Two factions of the opposition are lead by Karl Marx and Mrs. Isabella Beeton. The viewpoint character, Orphan, meets both Holmes brothers, Prince Dakkar (aka Captain Nemo), H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, the Mechanical Turk, Inspector Irene Adler, and an automaton of Lord Byron.
You wouldn't read this for the action sequences, but for the characters and the invented world. I loved the myriad references to other fictional (and some real, I think) authors and their books, and was delighted when I recognised a few of them. The spoiler are some that Orphan searches through in Chapter 16, 'At the Bibliotheca Librorum Imaginariorum':
SpoilerJo March's A Phantom Hand. William Ashbless's Accounts of London Scientists. Hawthorne Abendsen's The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The Encyclopedia Donkaniara. The Book of Three. Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Captain Eustacio Binky's Coffee Making as a Fine Art. Ludvig Prinn's De Vermis Mysteriis. Gulliver Fairborn's A Talent for Sacrifice. Colonel Sebastian Moran's Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas. Gottfried Mulder's Secret Mysteries of Asia, with Commentary on the Ghorl Nigral. Cosmo Cowperthwait's Sexual Dimorphism Among The Echinoderms, Focusing Particularly Upon the Asteroidea and Holothuridea. George Edward Challenger's Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuk Skulls.
[...]
Gossip Gone Wild by Dr Jubal Harshaw. In My Father's House by Princess Irulan. Burlesdon on Ancient Theories and Modern Facts by James Rassendyll, Lord Burlesdon. The Truth of Alchemy by Mr. Karswell. Stud City by Gordon Lachance. Boxing the Compass by Bobbi Anderson. The Relationship of Extradigitalism to Genius, by Zubarin. Megapolisomancy by Thibaut de Castries. De Impossibilitate Prognoscendi by Cezar Kouska. Eustace Clarence Scrubb's Diary. Azathoth and Other Horrors by Edward Pickman Derby.
More things fell from the books. A coin, so blackened that its face could no longer be discerned. A map of an island drawn in a child's hand. A butterfly, the wings black save for two emerald spots. A newspaper cutting from the Daily Journal, that read:
12 June 1730
Seven Kings or Chiefs of the Chirakee Indians. bordering upon the area called Croatoan, are come over in the Fox Man of War, Capt. Arnold, in order to pay their duty to his Majesty, and assure him of their attachment to his person and Government, &c.
Aunt Susan's Compendium of Pleasant Knowledge. Broomstick or the Midnight Practice. R. Blastem's Sea Gunner's Practice, with Description of Captain Shotgun's Murdering Piece. The Libellus Leibowitz. Augustus Whiffle's The Care of the Pig. Dr Stephen Maturin's Thoughts on the Prevention of Diseases most usual among Seamen. Professor Radcliffe Emerson's Development of the Egyptian Coffin from Predynastic Times to the End of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, With Particular Reference to Its Reflection of Religious, Social, and Artistic Conventions. The Book of Bokonon. Kilgore Trout's Now It Can Be Told. James Bailey's Life of William Ashbless. Hugo Rune's The Book of Ultimate Truths. Harriet Vane's The Sands of Crime. Jean-Baptiste Colbert's Grand System of Universal Monarchy. Toby Shandy's Apologetical Oration. ...
derekbd:
I ran out of new books to read. I am waiting on a few releases in the autumn including Thomas Dolby's memoir The Speed of Sound
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D8FKXV4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#nav-subnav
Also, the third in a trilogy by Cixin Liu which is newly translated. https://www.amazon.com/Deaths-End-Remembrance-Earths-Past-ebook/dp/B00WDVKZY0/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1471695337&sr=1-3&keywords=the+three+body+problem#nav-subnav
I'm reading some old favourites. I always enjoy doing that.
I only met Banks' sci-fi 6 years ago. Buggerin' cancer deprived us of a treasure. <tear>
(I loved The Crow Road on BBC from about 2000, which Banks said was in some ways better than his novel! The device of Rory speaking to Prentiss was a clever invention of the script.)
tomos:
(I loved The Crow Road on BBC from about 2000, which Banks said was in some ways better than his novel! The device of Rory speaking to Prentiss was a clever invention of the script.)
-derekbd (August 20, 2016, 07:21 AM)
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(will have to watch that again, as I can only remember snippets. I do remember enjoying it, looking forward to next episode.)
derekbd:
Banks' novel "Whit , or Isis Among the Unsaved" is the funniest of his non-scifi by far; a witty commentary on the modern world (well, of 1980ish). It pokes tremendous fun at religion while respecting those who truly believe and benefit from it their lives.
Read it!
Some comments on the novel can be found on the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whit_(novel).
Don't know if the attachment is allowed. I shall review the faq and rules now.
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