The Book Thread

[sledger]

The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.

Pretty good i thought, currently reading against a dark background by the same author, anyone else read either of these?

 

[Magrat Garlick]

The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.

Pretty good i thought, currently reading against a dark background by the same author, anyone else read either of these?

Read the Algebraist. I have to say that The Player of Games by Banks is a lot better, tho...Algebraist is a nice read but there's nowt much to think about in it.

 

[sledger]

i will have to read it, but personally i thought that the algebraist was a very thought provoking novel.

 

[Steulen]

Must be a law of nature that every book thread on every forum turns into a Wheel of Time debate. I might pick up volume 10 shortly, as I'm still interested to know how it'll all end despite losing a real keen interest midway thorugh book 4 when the only action was women combing their hair.

Lost interest in George RR Martin as well, these endless series just don't do it for me. Give me a good trilogy any day!

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Must be a law of nature that every book thread on every forum turns into a Wheel of Time debate.

Lowest common denominator and whatnot. *ducks*

 

[Chubb]

Read the Algebraist. I have to say that The Player of Games by Banks is a lot better, tho...Algebraist is a nice read but there's nowt much to think about in it.

Use of Weapons is the best IMO. I also liked Inversions.

Best book I've read recently is I, Claudius by Robert Graves

 

[Beleg]

I quite liked Player of the Games myself.

 

[David]

The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.

Just finished that about a week ago. Was pretty good, but not the greatest book of all time.

 

[Johnners]

Trace - Patricia Cornwell
Four Blind Mice - James Patterson

According to Skull - Autobiography of Kerry O'Keefe, legendary stuff and a book i would recommend to anyone!!

 

[pug]

Hasn't anyone else here read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossini?

 

[Matt79]

i bought it, lent it to my boss, and have never seen it since - a great book borrower is she!

 

[Langeveldt]

Hansie - sy Lewensverhaal (his life story)

the Hansie story from start to finish, interesting read..

Gazza - Gary Kirsten

A very good autobiography, because most of it is other cricketers talking about him.. And when you are such a decent bloke, you don't have to worry about other people talking about you..

I have a varied and exciting reading life as you can see

 

[Slow Love™]

Read a fair bit recently: Heralds of Valdemar trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (which was very weird), Web by Tor Åge Bringsværd (similarly weird but at least understandable). If I can go three months back, Doll's House by Neil Gaiman was frighteningly good (although that's comics )

Great novel, one of my favorite books from my childhood. Although on the Zelazny scale, it's around "middling" in the sense of it's weirdness.

I've been trying to read (without much success - not 'cause of the book, but 'cause of the difficulty in finding the time) Michael Connelly's The Narrows - which is a sequel to a very cool crime novel, The Poet.

The last good thing I read recently was Ben Elton's Dead Famous, which was a reasonably clever light-hearted look at "Big Brother" like reality-TV, looking at both the type of people that run it and the types that participate in it, and all packaged up as a murder-mystery. Not bad at all, and a nice easy read, too.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Great novel, one of my favorite books from my childhood. Although on the Zelazny scale, it's around "middling" in the sense of it's weirdness.

From your childhood? (I s'pose there's a bit of a funny story to get at in there, but it's hard to prise out...)

 

[Slow Love™]

From your childhood? (I s'pose there's a bit of a funny story to get at in there, but it's hard to prise out...)

Haha, I don't really mean early childhood so much as being early-to-mid teens. I wasn't clutching it with my teddies, if that's how it sounded...

 

[TT Boy]

A book about Eugenics (War Against the Weak), very good read. I’m inclined to agree with Churchill, Bernard Shaw et cetera regarding selective breeding shame Ernst Rüdin his mates and the US government *******ised it.

 

[Matt79]

I just finished reading "hunters of dune" - the continuation of the Dune saga by Frank Herbert's son Brian and Kevin Anderson. Really quite disappointed. Their prequel novels were simply not comparable to the original 6 novels by Frank Herbert, but I was willing to give this finale of the original series a go as it was supposedly based on an extensive outline left by Frank.

What a disappointment - the prequels were only slightly annoying because they butchered characters, were lacking in subtlety and depth, and had laboured prose. It felt a bit insulated from Dune proper because they didn't purport to be rewriting the main saga. For some reason its much much worse now that they're writing as part of the original series.

SPOILER
I swear when the mysterious ENEMY turns out to be a return to the stupid Omnius and Eramus characters from their prequels, I nearly threw the book, although it was so obviously telegraphed through the book that it wasn't much of a shock - i just kept on hoping they wouldn't do that. It really annoys me because this finale to Herbert's original series now makes no sense if you aren't prepared to wade through the quite average prequel triologies, which was obviously NOT part of any of Herbert's outline.

2/5.

 

[David]

Loved Dune
Tolerated Dune Messiah
Disliked Children of Dune
Couldn't finish Heretics of Dune
Never bothered with any others.

As for GRR Martin, be glad you didn't have to wait the 5 years from A storm of Swords to A Feast of Crows.

Recently started reading Matthew Reilly, really enjoyable, fast reading, also catching up with some Ludlum.

 

[Beleg]

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

Although I have read some truly great novels recently, this one is easily the best.

For some reason or the other, I really disliked Lord of Light, even though I am a big Zelazny fan.

Edit: Dune was a powerful book; IIRC, I started a thread about it here. The sequels were a bad bad idea.

 

[Matt79]

The high points of the Dune series were definitely the original and God-Emperor of Dune. God-Emperor is one of my favourite books - its just an awesome exercise in imagination, compared to the normal cops and robbers in spaceships dross that is regularly churned out. Heretics of Dune was hard work, but Chapterhouse was a bit of a return to form setting up a great finale, which has now been pissed upon from a great height.