What BOOK(s) are you reading?

I recently finished Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. It's the sequel to The Way of Kings, which will give you an idea of whether or not that's something you'll enjoy. He's undertaking a massive epic fantasy series with this, WoR being the second of ten (!) proposed volumes. But it was a great book. There isn't this feeling of stalling for time that I sometimes get from epic fantasy. It really changes the stakes from the first two books by the end, and there's a sense that the story will require 10 books because it's just that huge. As such it's definitely a brick of a book at 1100 pages. If you like that kind of thing it's a good one.

Just about to finish Simonson's run of Thor. I only have the final giant issue to read. It's so good. It might have bumped Thor up to one of my favorite Superheroes.

The guy at the book store said something cool about it, he said that everyone identifies with Charlie at a different point in the story. Either when he's the butt of the jokes, or he is accidentally scaring people as he shows intelligence and changes, or how he gets people sympathies as he gets worse.... it's a great book. I think I cried too but it was so long ago. I wanna reread it so bad.

Black Barney wrote: Just finished Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King. Still really good, but it's awkward when he writes from the viewpoint of the husky.

Wow, I haven't read that one in years and years. Glad to hear it holds up.

I recently finished "The Half-Made World" by Felix Gilman. It's a mashup of fantasy and Western genres, which end up going together quite well. It's the second book of Gilman's that I've read ("Thunderer" being the other). They both have really inventive world-building with great settings and characters.

Unfortunately, both suffer from saggy plotting. A good editor would have lopped 25,000 words out of "The Half-Made World" and made for a much tighter narrative. Gilman is basically "China Mieville lite." I'd rather just read China Mieville.

Right now I'm reading "The Dwarves" by Markus Heitz, a German author. It's okay so far. His world-building is lifted straight from Tolkein, but focusing exclusively on the dwarves makes it feel unique. His prose is kind of flat and lifeless though, maybe because of the translation from German.

Joebot wrote: Gilman is basically "China Mieville lite." I'd rather just read China Mieville.

Railsea was soooooo good.

Just read MIRACLEMAN trade. I am confused about when this was written though--is this from 1986? That seems revelatory if so--ahead of WATCHMEN? It's very post-modern. It might be so post-modern I can't even tell when it was written. I will call this post-nodermism.

Speaking of post-modern comics, I also picked up the trade for the SQUADRON SUPREME 12-part miniseries that I loved when it came out. It still holds up, even if it gets a little heavy-handed with the "ARE YOU GETTING THIS?!" exposition at times.

A generic question I have about trades is why-are-they-so-fucking-expensive! Holy shitsnacks. They wanted like $80+ for something I was interested in. That big-ass SANDMAN anthology--OK, but this was like some GREEN ARROW or something. I could probably dig through the 5-cent bin and find the whole run that's in that trade. Jeez.

That said--I would like some recommendations. Seminal trades, largely self-contained story if possible, and if not, then Marvel, as I know most of the lore there. Stuff I liked:
WATCHMEN, SQUADRON SUPREME, DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING (Moore), MAUS, DARK PHOENIX SAGA, SANDMAN, SUPREME: STORY OF THE YEAR, LUCIFER, Miller's run on DAREDEVIL, early SIN CITY

Stuff I didn't care for:
CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (or FINAL CRISIS), WALKING DEAD (too grim), BONE (why all the hype for this?), NEXUS (same complaint), SPIDER-MAN in general (all the stories are the same--it's like still reading MARMADUKE), Miller's run on WOLVERINE, late SIN CITY, PROMETHEA (overwrought).

For example, I have been looking for a DREDD trade--I never read that but I like the idea of it.

I just finished reading Zlatan Ibrahimovic's autobiography. It is fucking gold. Sort of stream of consciousness, hilariously honest. My best friend summed it up perfectly: it's a real version of "You're Fucking Out" by the main character from Eastbound and Down.

@Sax: That sounds entertaining.

I'm currently burning through the latest (last I presume) book in the Warhammer40k Macharius series. Not exactly deep reading, but it's 90 degrees with 90% humidity, so what kind of brainpower do you expect here?!? How anyone on the Indochina peninsula (or in the state of Mississippi) ever managed to learn how to harness the power of fire or the wheel with weather like this fascinates me as I'd like to do nothing more than hide in a cool, dark cave and remain as motionless as possible until, say, November...

So, WRT the book, while I would never tout any Warhammer universe fluff as anything more than the term "fluff" would suggest, the REALLY heavy-handed use of fluff-as-model-marketing has become appalling of late thanks to some poor product line decisions. While there's always been a connection, it's reached a new low thanks to the Lords of 40k just discovering that, gasp, zombies capture folks' attention.

It wouldn't be too terribly bad if, say, they had had this realization, oh, I don't know, 8 years ago. But I suspect 8 years ago, the line was overseen by someone who said "Uh, flamers and bolters>zombies to the point of 'who-gives-a-shit'. Move on." Or perhaps they were even smart enough to just say "Who gives a shit about zombies?".

But not now. No, now "the Curse of Unbelief" is the new hook du jour (along with the Knight--which is sort of a 1-man Titan and would be a far more interesting new twist in the fluff if it didn't require unbelievably unworkable retconning to fit into the 40k Universe) and so there's a zombie apocalypse everywhere you turn.

Funny part is, the concept of "the Curse of Unbelief" in particular actually works really pretty well as a root cause for ZA and Nurgle the Plaguefather has been long-established as one of the 4 pillars of Chaos, so it could have been cool--if they'd been at the front of the whole zombie thing 10 years ago. They've been doing it in Warhammer fantasy realm for forever anyway, so it's not like it's a new idea. But now, that train has not only left the station but the entire rail system upon which that train runs has been long retired and all the towns along it have withered and died. It's. Played. Out. But, hey, it's the New Shiny Thing capturing the [limited] imagination of the latest geniuses to run the 40k universe....


Ok, enough of that. The other thing I have queued up is Karl Marlantes' "What It's Like to Go to War." Was a birthday gift from my pop; received it last month and expect to start it soon [assuming my brain has been completely steamed or perhaps braised by the summer weather]. Reviews were great and it looks interesting as hell. Will report back when I get into it.

I recently read Ian Tregillis' "Milkweed Tryptych" books.

Actually, I re-read the first one, then read the two sequels. Looks like the first one was almost three years ago, way back on page 5 of this very thread .

The first one I meant to only skim to review, but I ended up re-reading in depth because I'd forgotten a lot of it and it was still really good. The second one was also very well-done, with a significant time gap between them.

The third one was pretty superfluous compared to the others, and I didn't much care for the final resolution.

Anyway, still recommended highly for the overall setting of Weird War II battery-powered German übermenschen versus the English warlocks and their blood rites.

Then since I apparently couldn't get enough revisionist WWII, I read "Farthing" and "Ha'penny" from Jo Walton, which were significantly different. They're an examination of a Britain sliding into Fascism after the war stalls out. Interesting, but her writing style annoys me (lots of semi-first person diary), and the plotting is incredibly transparent. The detective whose story makes up half the books doesn't do much detecting, and nothing changes anyway, just steamrollers on into the obvious conclusion.

I suppose in some sense it's drawing from Chandler there, and nothing good is ever going to happen, but unlike Chandler (and many many other homages), there's not much appeal in getting where you're going. There's another, but I think I'll skip it.

I'm reading Mark Twain's Joan Of Arc. I've always found her story fascinating.

I'm still plowing through Dan Abnett's WH40K books. I finished the Ravenor Trilogy (good, but not nearly as good as Eisenhorn), Titanicus (meh), and the first Gaunt's Ghosts book (it's super rough and though I haven't checked, I'm hoping it's one of his earlier books). I was VERY excited to learn that he's written the first in a new Inquisitor trilogy; Ravenor vs. Eisenhorn: Pariah. I'm nearly finished with it and it's almost as bad as a McNeill book. I'm not opposed in principle to a POV character other than Eisenhorn or Ravenor, but this book is dull and plodding besides. Meanwhile, Ravenor's had a glorified cameo and Eisenhorn has only properly shown up a chapter ago, and I only have about 35 pages left. There's a difference between setting the scene and not getting to the fucking point and having something meaningful happen, and this book is situated firmly on the wrong side of the line. I'll read the next one, but yeesh.

I'm also reading Dogfight: The Greatest Air Duels of World War II. It's an exhaustive analysis of five different pairs of enemy fighters: Spitfire vs. Bf 109E, P-47 Thunderbolt vs. Bf 109G/K, P-40 Warhawk vs. Ki-43 "Oscar," P-51 Mustang vs. Fw 190, and Seafire vs. A6M Zero.

Each section is organized thusly: The machines, Type history, The strategic situation, The men, Into combat, Analysis, Aftermath. Also included are paintings, photographs, schematics (including extensively labeled cockpits and isometric views of the aircraft), and maps. They draw on a lot of primary sources like pilot interviews and correspondences, and the authors have thus far done a good job of providing political and economic context.

The down side is that the book is very dry, almost a textbook, and I think I'm going to just skim the "Type history" section, as well as the bits on unit organization and pilot training. I'm not well-versed enough in military jargon to internalize different unit compositions on the fly (as this book demands of its reader), and then they start throwing in the German jargon and at that point I'm just trying to get through the paragraphs. Despite those issues I'm really enjoying it. I'm part way through the P-47 Thunderbolt vs. Bf 109G/K chapter right now and I hope to make better progress once I'm done with the Abnett book.

Dogmatix wrote: Lots of 40K stuff

Just FYI, Knights are some OLD piece of fluff from the Rogue Trader/Space Marine/Titan Legion days IIRC, which was abandoned, but they went and dug it up to sell even more expensive toys (those things are over $150 a piece I believe).

Plague zombies (Nurgle) have been part of the game for a good 15 years too in 40K. I guess they went and made them something bigger nowadays, probably thanks to someone at head office being a fan of Walking Dead/WWZ most likely.

SebastianBludd wrote: and the first Gaunt's Ghosts book (it's super rough and though I haven't checked, I'm hoping it's one of his earlier books).

You're right, it's his very first published novel. Book 2 in the series is a collection of the GG stories first published in Inferno! mag, padded out with a novella at the end, so that one's still rough and tough. The series really hits its stride with book 3, Necropolis, although it's still early days for the author besides comics work.

I just read Griftopia by Matt Taibbi, which is a great book.

Why you should read it if you're at all interested (why everyone should read it, really), is that its second and third chapters are hands, down, the best practical explanation of what happened during the US financial crisis in 2007-8. It's an amazing series of chapters. Forget his take/opinion stuff in that chapters when they come on strong, if you don't agree with it. But if you've ever wondered "hey, what was all that banking stuff really all about?" read those chapters!

It's an issue i've struggled to explain to undergrads in a way that they would understand... I'm considering assigning those chapters with a lengthy forewarning about its ideological viewpoint and how that's not what I want them to get out of it.

I'm still reading T.H. White's The Once and Future King (review by Lev Grossman). I originally read it when I was probably thirteen. The broadway play "Camelot" and Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" are based on it, but picking it up thirty five years later I realize it is much more dark, violent and political than I realized. There are naked knights being hung and beaten in a castle, a stream of beheadings, painful betrayals and the long, slow dissolution of Camelot. I haven't finished it yet but vaguely remember how sad it all got.

Grossman: White took hold of the ultimate English epic and recast it in modern literary language, sacrificing none of its grandeur or its strangeness (and it is very strange) in the process, and adding in all the humor and passion that we expect from a novel. What was once as stiff and two-dimensional as a medieval tapestry becomes rich and real and devastatingly sad.

Reading Soon I Will Be Invincible, which I received from Secret Satan. It's enjoyable, although slow-moving. Seems like it should be about 25% shorter.

I think I've read 6 of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. Loved them.

I'm reading the instruction manual of SEVEN WONDERS. I like all the pictures.

#notsureifthisisintherightthread