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Book recommendations
I have read all my books at home.
Please, recommend some interesting books to me, that I may not have already read.
Ideally, they will be available in paperback, and not tooo heavy; I tend to do most of my reading on public transport, and lugging![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grrm's "A feast for crows" around was just too hard. It also wasn't that thrilling reading material - it reminds me a bit of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. First trilogy starts well, and then the fourth book* (feast for crows and God Emperor of Dune) just bogs down into politics, dialogue between characters you don't care about, and a whole lot of nothing really happening.. at great length.
Hopefully GRRM will manage to pick up the pace again in the next few books, as Frank Herbert did, before wrapping up the second trilogy (as Frank Herbert didn't, RIP).
[*: I call A Feast for Crows the fourth novel, despite it being the fifth in the series, because the *actual* third and fourth books were meant to be taken as a single book, but just became too large and were split in half.]
Actually, what do other readers think about the two different ways GRRM coped with splitting the books? A song for Ice and Fire was split in the middle chronologically, but A feast for Crows has been split geographically, and we're told the next book will contain the events that occurred in the same time period as AFFC, but in the north and east.
This leads to some odd bits where we hear about news from those quarters, such as the betrayal and death of Davos, and yet will be reading about the events leading up to that from Davos' perspective in the next novel. Hmm. Unintentional spoiler from the author, do you think, or misdirection?
Please, recommend some interesting books to me, that I may not have already read.
Ideally, they will be available in paperback, and not tooo heavy; I tend to do most of my reading on public transport, and lugging
grrm's "A feast for crows" around was just too hard. It also wasn't that thrilling reading material - it reminds me a bit of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. First trilogy starts well, and then the fourth bookHopefully GRRM will manage to pick up the pace again in the next few books, as Frank Herbert did, before wrapping up the second trilogy (as Frank Herbert didn't, RIP).
[*: I call A Feast for Crows the fourth novel, despite it being the fifth in the series, because the *actual* third and fourth books were meant to be taken as a single book, but just became too large and were split in half.]
Actually, what do other readers think about the two different ways GRRM coped with splitting the books? A song for Ice and Fire was split in the middle chronologically, but A feast for Crows has been split geographically, and we're told the next book will contain the events that occurred in the same time period as AFFC, but in the north and east.
This leads to some odd bits where we hear about news from those quarters, such as the betrayal and death of Davos, and yet will be reading about the events leading up to that from Davos' perspective in the next novel. Hmm. Unintentional spoiler from the author, do you think, or misdirection?
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Sorry if you have already read all of these!
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I haven't heard of the other ones you mention, so I'll go look them up on amazon now. Thanks!
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(I can see a few different meanings of the term, but don't know if one is the accepted meaning - or if there is indeed one at all, or if they're just a couple of words you through together that I haven't interpreted well)
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IIRC, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is mostly realism, but there's an extended section right in the middle that's just way, way out of touch with reality...
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Thus spake wikipedia:
Have you read much/anything by Philip K. Dick?
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I have read quite a bit by PKD. Some aspects of his writing style irritate me, but overall I like his work.
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Automated Alice isn't as good as the others, imo, but is still not bad. Pixel Juice, his short story collection, is also worth picking up.
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This is turning into a large amazon order :)
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As for recommendations, go to town (http://xterminal.livejournal.com/tag/recommendations). If I had to recommend just one, not knowing if you've read anything on that list or not: Perdido Street Station. It's like butta. Turned me into a lifelong China Mieville fanatic.
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I'm currently reading Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, which is, so far, quite excellent. It gets a big bonus for being set in a town I lived in (Ooh! I went to dinner at the Albion! Hey, there's a club there now! The West Pier was still standing?) and for opening up with the root of some classic online parlance (AICM5UKP). Possibly the best writing I've been privy to for quite some time.
That's saying something, because also under the microscope were:
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald. A great American novel. I love novels and films about this era, particularly detective stories, but this one will do fine. It's lacking something to let me call it great, but is definitely a good read. It's worth looking at the political reasons behind it as much of the book is based in metaphor.
Devil in a Blue Dress - Walter Mosely. Like I said, I love this era, especially detective stories. This is great. It's been made in to a film, but I think the book is far superior, not least because I don't like Denzel Washington very much. I'm looking forward to reading more of the series soon.
The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles. Being so close to Morocco, I just had to read this. It's the book that's responsible for the oft quoted "How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless." To be honest, I read this so fast the first time that I managed to skip that paragraph. He writes beutifully and has great characters, though the end of the book lets it down somewhat. Still worth the effort.
On The Road - Jack Kerouac. One of the defining novels of the beat generation, this gives you a view of America you've probably seen before. Thing is, it was probably based on this book. I'm not sure how much of the story is fiction (not much, I'm guessing) and a lot of names have been changed to protect the innocent. William S. Borroughs appears, along with Neal Cassady and other great minds of 60s.
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemmingway. Reading this, I get the idea that I've missed out on something special. He writes very well, as would be expected by someone with this reputation, but I failed to be gripped by the story or chracters. Although interesting, I felt as though I'd seen them before. Perhaps this is just through having watched too many derived works (the English nurse, the American soldier, the rowdy, family-oriented Italians). I am looking forward again to reading his other works (The Green Hills of Africa, To Have and Have Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls are on my list), but they may have to wait until I'm feeling a little more gay about life.
In counterpoint, I present 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Despite this being one of the books you hear about as being all-time classics, I really didn't like it. It's interminably dull. Not in subject, but in the style of the prose. It just drones on and on and on... I got bored and stopped reading numerous times. I doubt I would have finished reading it at all if it hadn't been the only thing around. I suspect that it is given merit more on the idea that the author is trying to convey than anything else, but I think I missed whatever it was he was trying to say because I was too bored to pay attention.
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The book was published in 57, so doesn't cover any of the events of the 60s.
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The book is set in the late 40s, early 50s.. It was written in 1952, although it took five years to get published, in 1957.
Characters identified so far: (with some help of reading Wikipedia's descriptions of the prominent identities of the Beat Generation :)
Dean Moriaty == Neal Cassady
Carlo Marx == Allen Ginsberg
The husband & wife down in New Orleans (forget the name off top of head) are definately Boroughs and his wife Joan.
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Perdido Street Station btw is one of Tim's favourite books as well, are you still interested in gametesting?
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re games testing.. I'm still curious about it, but unfortunately I just don't ever seem to have any spare time :(
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Hm. I'll try to restrain myself.
First, I assume you know that MMS (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/vampires/newstory/smith_p1.shtml) is writing a "crime/thriller" series as Michael Marshall - skin crawling stuff.
In the cyberpunk category, you probably know of Bruce Sterling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Sterling), but if you didn't, he's about halfway between Gibson and Iain M. Banks. The Artificial Kid is fun. Oh, and if you've not read Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester#The_Stars_My_Destination), haunt second hand bookshops for a copy. It was originally published as Tiger! Tiger!, but he rewrote some of it for the new title, and it's often considered the ancestor of cyberpunk. It's got wired reflexes, way back in the 50s.
Lois McMaster Bujold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_McMaster_Bujold)'s Vorkosigan Saga (http://www.baen.com/series_list.asp#VS) is heady SF crack. It's now quite difficult to get hold of them here in .au, but Baen seem to be re-releasing them as three book compilations, usually with "Miles" in the title.
She's now writing a fantasy series, which I've yet to get into.
I've been told that Stephen Brust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Brust") is equally addictive, and suspect he'll be the next major drain on my book budget.
Hm. Google Sets (http://labs.google.com/sets?hl=en&q1=Lois+McMaster+Bujold&q2=Michael+Marshall+Smith&q3=Iain+M.+Banks&q4=Neil+Gaiman&q5=Stephen+Brust&btn=Large+Set) offers a pretty comprehensive Who's Who if you type in a few relevant names.
David Brin's Uplift Saga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplift_Universe) is good solid SF (and was apparently an inspiration for the Star Control games), and his standalone The Practice Effect is one of the most enjoyable books I've read.
(Oh, and keep an eye out for Connie Willis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Willis) and Janet Kagan (http://www.janetkagan.com/)).
For mental bubblegum, Robert Asprin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Asprin) is often compared favourably with Pratchett - go with the Myth series for fantasy, and the Phule series for SF (I prefer the latter series).
His more recent novels are co-authored, for interesting reasons.
Still in the light reading category, David Weber's War God (http://www.baen.com/series_list.asp#WarGod) series is enjoyable fantasy fluff, less interminable than the Honor Harrington novels... although I'm amazed that none of Weber's protagonists have pulled their noses off yet. At least three of them (each in a different series) "pull on <their> nose" every other page, it seems.
Finally, so-called juvenile fiction. This tag causes a lot of people to overlook some good stuff. I should mention Garth Nix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Nix) and Isobelle Carmody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobelle_Carmody) to support the local market, but really, just go out and buy every Diana (http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/) Wynne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Wynne_Jones) Jones (http://www.suberic.net/dwj/) book you can lay your hands on.
There's more - lot's more - but I've already spent far too much time on this. Enjoy. Oh, and I've had Perdido Street Station strongly recommended to me by a couple of people now, so I'll have to check that out myself. And maybe a few of the others mentioned above...
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Oh, and one more book to look for; it's out of print, rare and hard to find, but if you see a copy of Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, grab it.
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The tagline is "A novel of Ancient China that never was", which is about the closest you'll get. By parts comedy, detective story, legend, and general weirdness.
One of those books that "cool people know about". Like Only Forward.
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Bastard. (The FOAF, not Neil).
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