read any good books lately...

The Pessimist wrote: sleeper wrote: Just finished Pratchett's latest, Raising Steam. It doesn't have the fall-out-of-your-chair funny moments that older books of his had (Drop Bears anyone?), but his story telling is still brilliant. I've been meaning to get this one. What you've I find really valid too regarding later Pratchett. Up until around Wyrd Sisters I find he mostly focuses on joke telling, whereas the later he gets the better the storytelling is. I prefer his later works, The Truth and Going Postal especially...

I agree, I think he found an excellent balance from around then with Night Watch being my particular favorite.

sleeper wrote: The Pessimist wrote: sleeper wrote: Just finished Pratchett's latest, Raising Steam. It doesn't have the fall-out-of-your-chair funny moments that older books of his had (Drop Bears anyone?), but his story telling is still brilliant. I've been meaning to get this one. What you've I find really valid too regarding later Pratchett. Up until around Wyrd Sisters I find he mostly focuses on joke telling, whereas the later he gets the better the storytelling is. I prefer his later works, The Truth and Going Postal especially... I agree, I think he found an excellent balance from around then with Night Watch being my particular favorite.

If you've not read it yet, I'd recommend 'Monstrous Regiment' - effectively a re-write of Catch 22 for the Pratchett era.

Right now I'm reading this:



Probably the single most aggressively 1980s novel I've ever read that wasn't by Bret Easton Ellis, despite being nominally set in a distant future and written in that setting's street argot a la Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange, but that's a feature not a bug since I love the entire paradoxically colourful and stylized type of dystopian grimness that's so peculiar to much film/literature/music from that decade.

Also, while it's got a much more conventional plot than the short stories contained in the Burning Chrome anthology as it more or less follows the tropes of the "gentleman thief" heist genre... I still maintain that Wm. Gibson's one of the most misunderstood currently living authors: Even here he shows way more inspiration from the Beat Generation and post-modernism in general than from inside the science-fiction genre, with his creative priorities reflecting that. The way most debate about Neuromancer still centres around how well it predicted the future is a textbook example of missing the forest for the trees.

Triceratopsoil wrote:

ProgMetaller2112 wrote: Triceratopsoil wrote: This inspired Close to the Edge

well, thankfully the book is a lot better than the album

I thought Siddhartha was really beautifully written but I didn't understand very much of the religious content.

Finally at a point where I am reading nothing but this:

It was quite interesting, very quick read.  About a post-apocalyptic society that hates any deviation from what they consider normal

an extraordinary novel settled in England in the early 19th century in a slightly alternative reality, a reality in  which magic really exists. or rat her existed, because the few remaining magicians have become mere historians of magic; none of them knows how to perform magic anymore. that is, until the arrival of Mr. Norrell who is a real magician and wants to restore magic to its original glory in  England. unfortunately he is kind of a miser and does not really know how to deal with people.

he acquires an apprentice, Jonathan Strange, who has a natural magical talent but is in character rather the opposite of  his teacher. the relationship between the two men grows into a rivalry, which leads to lots of complications.

this description somewhat sounds like the book is just an ordinary fantasy novel, but it is a lot more; it is more like a satire. the prose is deliberately held in 19th-century style like Charles Dickens or Jane Austen. it pretends to be a record of historical events. there are many hilarious footnotes and some good illustrations too (which are also done in 19th-century style). the paperback edition has close to 1000 pages, but once you get started you can hardly put down the book.

BBC will broadcast a 7-part tv-series of it starring Eddie Marsan and Bertie Carvel as the title characters; it will probably start this year. as far as I know a date for that has not been set yet

Edited by BaldJean - February 18 2014 at 09:58