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The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton -- Great sci-fi epic about the souls of the dead returning and possessing the living. Hamilton created a very deep universe and technology, and has dozens of characters involved in their own stories. As a result, this entire work runs roughly 3500 pages in three oversize paperbacks, but it never feels padded or gets boring. Highly recommended for fans of intelligent space opera. 9/10
I've been contemplating beginning one of his trilogies - is it The Void? I'll definately give him a whirl.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calidore
1. The Departure by Neal Asher. A solid sci fi about an overcrowded dystopian earth that has become ruled by a world government - with frequent references to the Eurozone - which has decided to annihilate a large portion of the billions who would die anyway. Our hero, Adam Saul, has developed an organic interface to computers and implanted it in his brain in order to overcome the military backed bureacracy. Pacy beginning to a new series. 7/10
2. The House of the Dead by Doestoyevsky. A brilliant depiction of life in a Siberian jail in the 19th century. The characterisation, the relentless drudgery described, the themed chapters that veer away from a chronological account, the events that punctuated the years in jail and the pathos of the men and animals all combine in to a life of slow horror. 10/10
3. The Battle for Crete by Anthony Beevor. An interesting and comprehensive account of the fall of Crete in WW2 when the Germans launched their first and only parachute invasion. It charts the dithering and incompetence of the British command, and how they lost a battle they nearly won. 8/10
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip Dick. Set in a dystopian, nuclear future, a Bounty Hunter is charged by the police department to "retire" 6 new androids produced by a shady corporation. It examines the relationship of man to living and non-living beings in an autopsy of empathy. A good, though provoking read. 8/10
5. Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett. This concerns the time travels and trials of Commander Vimes in Ankh-Morpork. It's a great plot, and an enjoyable read. The thing with Pratchett's books is the weak humour, often based upon tired stereotypes such as the "Aunties" that patrol certain streets and are reputedly deadly with an umbrella. We've seen this kind of thing with the Grannies in Monty Python. Nevertheless a good read. 7/10
6. Embassytown by China Mieville. You never know quite what you're going to get with Mieville's work, as the blurb never does justice to the story. I had a space opera preconception about this book, but was surpried to find it being about language - the hosts of an alien planet have a unique way of communicating with humans - which may prove to be an allegory about the failure of human cultures to speak and understand one another. There's political intrigue, exotic aliens and landscapes, and a story that is both surprising and interesting. 8/10
I was disappointed with Moll Flanders which, whilst revolutionary at the time, I found to be repetitive. I'm reading The Castle of Otranto at the moment. It's quite mad isn't it. (I had thought it was a giant hand - perhaps my memory is failing, but I wasn't disappointed it being a helmet).Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Oooooh, that sounds really good. Going on my wish list.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calidore
Nope, that's his recent series, which I'm currently hunting down. I've now picked up a standalone novel of his also: Fallen Dragon. I'm definitely a fan now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
The Night's Dawn trilogy consists of The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, and The Naked God.
It is. Good characters, tons of ideas, and quality action scenes. What else is needed?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
You do have to pay attention some, especially at first--he opens things with a technobabble-heavy space battle--but he's never trying to be obtuse, and it's not hard to follow, and the ideas are cool. He's just worked out his universe in great detail. Check out the opening chapter in a bookstore, and if you like the way he handles it, you'll like the whole thing.
Almost every sci-fi/fantasy novel I've ever read begins really confusing and then slowly reveals itself as it goes along. I'm currently reading Meiville's The City and the City, and it's exactly that way. It comes with the Genre territory.
The weird thing about Otranto is, that while the plot is insane, it's also amazingly predictable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
5. I read Antigone in it's entirety a couple of weeks ago. I read snippets in classics so I thought I'd really like the whole thing, but it turns out that my prof just axed the boring bits so I didn't gain much more from it this time. Still, I like Antigone (surprise surprise). 8/10
6. Re-read Maus on my days off. It always makes me feel slightly nauseous, but that just means it's effective. 8/10
7. A Clash of Kings - okay, I like this fantasy. Someone told me that it was a tv show too, so I watched the whole first season a couple of weeks ago. The show is better than the books in my opinion (as usual, I love filmed versions of stories more than text versions almost every time as long as they're done well). When I saw that season two was coming out in April, I read the second book. I'm very happy that they got the swashbuckling female pirate type in there, that's one of my favorites. Asha's like Isabella from DA. 7.5/10
I thought the adaptation was very good, but I still liked the book of Game of Thrones better. Still, I read all four books and was already pretty infatuated with them before the tv series started, so I'm not sure it was even possible for them to meet my expectations.
You have to go on and read the third, Juniper. It's wisely considered the best of the series, and definitely has the best plot turns.
Interesting thread - I like to nosy at what others are reading.
I'm off to a slow start this year - I did move country though in January, to be fair!
1) Anna Karenina - Tolstoy 7.5/10 - I thought it was great - a fabulous set of characters.
2) Me Before You - Jojo Moyes 7/10 - Chick-lit but better. Don't judge.
I was considering whether I'd go directly into the third, but now that I've read this I know I will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Needed something lighter after that monster SF trilogy, so I went with Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud (the Bartimaeus trilogy), which I wanted to read before giving it to the kid. Excellent YA fantasy told in the style of an Icelandic hero saga. I liked Bartimaeus but loved this. 9/10
1. Aphra Behn - History of the Nun - 6/10, I get a lot of enjoyment out of how ridiculous early prose stories can be.
2. Aphra Behn - The Fair Jilt - 7/10. This one is more ridiculous than the other, and thus better in my book.
3. Eliza Haywood - Love in Excess - 6/10. Not big on amatory fiction really, but this is one of the 3 best selling novels of the 18th century.
4. Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist - 9/10. Not really one of Dickens' best, but it's one of his funnier novels, and who can forget Fagin, Mr. Bumble, or Sikes.
5. Lynn Breedlove - One Freak Show - 7/10, a transcription of lesbian/trans man musician and comic Lynn Breedlove's show One Freak Show, essentially a series of humorous anecdotes about her life and the status of trans people in the LGBT community in the United States. Some parts of it are not that great, but it's a short breezy read, so the bad parts are easy to overlook.
6. Richardson - Pamela - 5/10. This is a painful read but a very influential book, the first part is much better than the "how to be a good housewife" manual that forms the final part of the novel.
7. Arthur Conan Doyle - Sign of Four - 8/10. Campy, fun Sherlocke Holmes novel that is terribly racist in parts.
8. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey - 9/10. Probably Austen's funniest novel, we all know a girl like Isabella Thorpe.
9. Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - 9/10. This is a re-read, but it's always a fun light read.
10. Craig Thomson - Habibi - 8.5/10. Wonderful graphic novel, but a bit long in parts. I particularly like the tongue and cheek retelling of the Noah's arc story. I don't think it's as powerful a comment on how people relate to religion as Blankets, maybe because of the lack of personal depth that Thomson's earlier work had.
11. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews and Shamela - 7/10. A fun read. To get the most out of Shamela you have to read Pamela first.
12. Daniel Defoe - Journal of the Plague Year - 5/10. I thought I had included this since I read it in January, but oh well. It's an OK read, a lot of it is terribly boring reprinting of death statistics and Defoe's meandering philosophizing on the best way to handle a plague, but it is occasionally spiced up with Defoe's clever little "slice of life" stories. Defoe's Rebecca is a much better novel, I read it last year and it was a lot of fun.
13. Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto - 6/10. Bizarre novel that opens with someone being mysteriously crushed by a giant helmet that appears out of nowhere.
14. Henry James - The Aspern Papers - 8/10. There's something special about this that's hard to place a finger on.
15. Michael Adams - Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Multiculturalism in Canada - 8/10. Great book that addresses a lot of the misinformation and media hysteria about immigrants with actual empirical evidence. Pollster Michael Adams doesn't shy away from waxing philosophical on ideas like Canadian and Quebecois national identity, which is probably the weakest part of his book when he tries to explain why the data is as it is. However, the data he gathers itself is compelling evidence that multiculturalism has not failed, but has been successful and is continuing to be even more successful as a strategy of integration for a just and liberal society.
Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.
Books:
1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.
2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.
3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.
4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.
5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontė -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.
7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 8.5/10. I'm becoming more of a fan of magical realism, and this book is why. Strange story, well (and unusually) written, interesting characters. What more is there to say?
8. The City and The City by China Meiville -- 9/10. This is an author I've been meaning to read for some time,*and he didn't disappoint. The story was good, the world well built and original, and the writing nice and fast-paced. Just a very enjoyable read. I will definitely be checking out more of his work.
Comics/graphic novels:
1. Sandman #1-8 by Neil Gaiman, et al -- 9/10. Possibly the best graphic novels that I've ever read. Good, dark story with just the right amount of black humor. I wasn't too crazy about the artist of the first 6, though. The charCter designs struck me as much too cartoony for the dark tone of the story.
2. Avengers # 500-503 by Brian Michael Bendis, et al -- 6/10. Mostly read because it's a lead up to the Civil War series. Pretty common superhero stuff--the Avengers are attacked and outnumbered and they must figure out why. Good brainless entertainment.
3. Marvel's Civil War by Mark Millard, et al -- 8/10. This is probably the most hyped/talked about Marvel series/event that took place over the last decade, excepting the death of Captain America, which follows shortly. It's about the government wanting to register and emlly all superheroes--no more vigilantism. One side, headed by Iron Man is for it, another, needed by Captain America, is against it, and it culminates in an epic battle. I found the story pretty good--it wasn't a bad social commentary, of sorts.
4. Captain America # 22-42 by Ed Brubaker, et al -- 8/10. This comprises the "Death of Captain America" saga, from the vents leading up to Cap's death, the death itself, and the story of Cap's old sidekick, Bucky, taking up the mantle as the new Captain America. It's a good story with a pretty surprising amount of emotional depth, and good art.
5. Marvel's House of M by Brian Michael Bendis, et al. -- 8.5/10. A wonderdully comic-hooky story. An insane mutant warps reality into a world where mutants rule humans, and as various X-Men and Avengers begin to realize what has happened, they must find a way to fix the world! Good stuff.
6. Wolverine: Origins #1-10 by Daniel Way, et al. -- 6/10. Wolverine has always been a favorite of mine. The story is good enough, but I'm not a huge fan of the artwork. Still, I'll have to keep going in the series to see what happens between Wolvy and his insane, newly revealed son.