I could write a great novel if my neighborhood weren't so upscale (book thread)

[YojimboMonkey]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hey davy did you ever read this?  I know I've repped it tons of times with mixed results so I'm just curious whether you dug it.

[Ah_Pook]

i read the girl who played with fire today, and im going to start the girl who kicked the hornets nest in a minute. theyre entertaining enough, but the sheer amount of entirely implausible people showing up places at the same time and such is kinda trying after a while. plus the author is introducing shit like mysterious twin sisters into the plot and... i dunno. its a bit much on the give me a fucking break scale, but i guess thats what youre in for reading something like this.

the first one was really pretty good though, and didnt have much of that kind of nonsense going on.



edit: i should note that im not against some ridiculous coincidences here and there to move a plot along or have an action scene or whatever. i mean im a huge genre fiction fan, thats something that happens in books like that you know. but when its every single time anyone goes anywhere they magically show up right before someone else central to the plot almost dies at that same location or whatever it gets pretty ridiculous.

[jebreject]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hey davy did you ever read this?  I know I've repped it tons of times with mixed results so I'm just curious whether you dug it.

Someone at worked loaned it to me but I haven't been able to get into it. I think he got mad at me for not sticking with it.

[Ah_Pook]

you should keep at it, it picks up. then personally i think the sequel is much better, and worth getting to.

the second set of related books Endymion and The Rise Of Endymion goes pretty batshit nuts, and is also well worth checking out if youre into that kinda thing.

[davy]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hey davy did you ever read this?  I know I've repped it tons of times with mixed results so I'm just curious whether you dug it.

I do actually own a copy now, so there's that...and as much as I've enjoyed the other Dan Simmons books I've read, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, but I haven't actually started it yet.

[YojimboMonkey]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hey davy did you ever read this?  I know I've repped it tons of times with mixed results so I'm just curious whether you dug it.

Someone at worked loaned it to me but I haven't been able to get into it. I think he got mad at me for not sticking with it.

dude it's pretty great, and if you don't like it right at first just keep in mind that it's basically a set of 7 novellas with a framework storyline tying them together.  So if you don't like what you're reading now, you're going to be reading something completely different very soon.

you should keep at it, it picks up. then personally i think the sequel is much better, and worth getting to.

the second set of related books Endymion and The Rise Of Endymion goes pretty batshit nuts, and is also well worth checking out if youre into that kinda thing.

I actually thought the Endymion books were much more of a straightforward adventure story, and that the second book, Fall of Hyperion, was the wackiest mindfuck of the series, but YMMV.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hey davy did you ever read this?  I know I've repped it tons of times with mixed results so I'm just curious whether you dug it.

I do actually own a copy now, so there's that...and as much as I've enjoyed the other Dan Simmons books I've read, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, but I haven't actually started it yet.

See my response to jeb above

[Ah_Pook]

nothing comes close to the sheer WTF of the ilium/olympus books, anyway. those books are seriously unhinged. i need to revisit them sometime and see if they make more sense this time around.

[davy]

Doubtful. They are fucking nuts. I haven't finished Olympus yet...got 40 or 50 pages into it and just couldn't take it anymore. I plan to finish it at some point, but yeah, you're right. Completely ridiculous.

I also started his new one--The Black Hills, is it? I gave it about 20 pages. Too silly.

Did anybody read Drood?

The Terror sure was excellent. I wonder if he'll hit those heights again.

[YojimboMonkey]

man the terror damn near put me to sleep, I gotta give it another shot one of these days though

haven't read drood or black hills, checked my library for both of them looking for books to take on my trip tomorrow but my library sucks unless you don't mind requesting interlibrary loan and waiting for a month, or if you're 4 years old.  Anyway, thinking about books to read for the trip is what got me going back through this thread and bumping it.  Any suggestions?

[davy]

Have you read any China Mieville yet?

He's got two recent novels that both sound really excellent. And then there's the New Crobuzon series, which I'm excited about getting back to now that school is done.

[YojimboMonkey]

yeah I read the new crobuzon stuff, and some of this other books were on my list to look up at the local library (interlibrary loan, the newest one there are 12 hold requests already)

[davy]

I wrote down a name at Borders the other day. John Twelve Hawks--he's got a fairly recent sci-fi series that's already being reprinted in tradepaper editions by Vintage, which is a good sign.

The first book is called The Traveler.

The time is roughly the present, and the U.S. is part of the Vast Machine, a society overseen by the Tabula, a secret organization bent on establishing a perfectly controlled populace. Allied against the Tabula are the Travelers and their sword-carrying protectors, the Harlequins. The Travelers, now almost extinct, can project their spirit into other worlds where they receive wisdom to bring back to earth—wisdom that threatens the Tabula's power.

Also, THIS!

John Twelve Hawks (also known as J12H or JXIIH to his fans) is the author of the 2005 dystopian novel The Traveler and its successors, The Dark River and The Golden City, collectively comprising the Fourth Realm Trilogy. John Twelve Hawks is a pseudonym  and his real identity is unknown.

[Anne the Man]

I finished The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh today. I liked it. Maybe I'll read some more Waugh.

God whenever I write in this thread I feel so unliterary- it's always "I read a book and liked it lol". I do apologise.

[G.C.R]

Keep quiet Anne! No one will notice! Hows about that New Moon book you liked so much?

Vile Bodies is fun as Waugh goes, though reading about awful rich english sub-aristocracy is something I definitely have to be in certain mood for these days.

I am finally -finally! getting through Oakley Hall's Warlock. I think it is the first Western I have ever read, and I feel like in due course I will be sorely disappointed to find that they're not all this fucking awesome. The  build of getting to know everyone in the town was of course missing from the film (which I also loved), especially all the Matewan style troubles with the Wobblies at the mine, but holy hell I can't see anyone reading the slow burn suspense of deputies and prisoners awaiting an approaching lynch mob and not wanting to make it into a film. I'm surprised (and glad, too) that the book hasn't been adapted more.

[Ah_Pook]

man the terror damn near put me to sleep, I gotta give it another shot one of these days though

haven't read drood or black hills, checked my library for both of them looking for books to take on my trip tomorrow but my library sucks unless you don't mind requesting interlibrary loan and waiting for a month, or if you're 4 years old.  Anyway, thinking about books to read for the trip is what got me going back through this thread and bumping it.  Any suggestions?

have you read Carrion Comforts by Dan Simmons? its one of his earlier horror novels, and its pretty grisly/entertaining. recently back in print too.

you could try either Caught Stealing or Already Dead by Charlie Huston, also. or The Chronicles Of The Black Company by Glen Cook. those are the biggest things in recent memory that have really grabbed me.

[davy]

I thought I was into The Black Company while I was reading it, but then I lost interest pretty abruptly, about 2/3 of the way through.

[Ah_Pook]

2/3 of the way through the first omnibus edition, or 2/3 of the way through the entire series?

[jebreject]

I started reading 'Drama City' 'cause I know people love Pelecanos but I think it's kinda crap. Don't like how the dude writes AT ALL.

I'm also reading this comic, Buddy Does New Jersey, and it is really good.

[davy]

2/3 of the way through the first omnibus edition, or 2/3 of the way through the entire series?

2/3 of the way through the first book, I think.

[davy]

Nathaniel Philbrick has a new book out about Custer's Last Stand. It's called, appropriately enough, The Last Stand.



I am interested because his second book, In the Heart of the Sea (about the true events which inspired Moby Dick), is one of the best narrative nonfiction books I've ever read. But I'm wary because his third book, The Mayflower (about the pilgrims), is one of the worst.

Also, I just finished a sassy little book entitled Me, Chi & Bruce Lee, an autobiographical account of a guy who tries to get a black belt in Kung Fu in a year. He soon realizes the impossibility of the task and abandons it, and the book takes the shape of a travel narrative as he roams around the world learning about different martial arts and meeting influential senseis. The writer's name is Brian Preston, and the only other book he has published, Pot Planet, is about marijuana culture worldwide. I couldn't possibly be less interested in that topic, and that is a real pity, because this guy is a dynamite writer. In fact, surprisingly enough, this book is probably an all-time top five laugh-out-loud book. And that has less to do with the subject matter than the guy's conversational writing style. Little offhand comments like "Bob has the healthy good looks of a pool lifeguard, or a bartender in the kind of bar where women want to sleep with the bartender" had me chuckling every few pages. Then there's his one-sentence encapsulation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship: "Put up or shut up time for kickboxers versus Karate Kids versus Kung Fu Fighters versus Tae Kwon Do boys versus good old fashioned Marquess of Queensbury pugilists, dropping the gloves to go at it bare-knuckle."

Anyway, it was a hell of a fun read, a really effective post-graduate school reminder that reading can be impulsive and fun.

Now I'm onto The Way of Aikido, which is less fun--almost to the point of reading like a self-help book (I mean, I think it is a self-help book, but that's no excuse for reading like one). But I'm learning some things, so I'll keep at it.

[Greg Nog]

You guys ever read any Iain M. Banks?  I haven't, but am sorta thinking about picking up one of his Culture books.  Had a mild craving for sci-fi, the last few days.

[davy]

I have noticed his books always look classy, but that's about all I have to offer.

[davy]

I am in love with the new Vonnegut jacket designs! The colors are fantastic and the images are all Vonnegut originals. Plus, each book has his depiction of an asshole on the spine!





It may be heresy to admit it, but I was never big on the old "V" design and I'm looking forward to repurchasing these new editions. Most of the titles I saw today were trade-sized, but Slaughterhouse-Five was also available as a mass market. I'm hoping this holds true for all the titles. And not just because it will save me money (though that's nice, too)--fact is, I was introduced to Vonnegut via scrappy mass markets, and for sentimental reasons, I'd like to stick to that format.

[girl]

You guys ever read any Iain M. Banks?  I haven't, but am sorta thinking about picking up one of his Culture books.  Had a mild craving for sci-fi, the last few days.

Just saw this because I haven't been around, but I've read Iain M. Banks. In the nearby pile of books, I see The Wasp Factory and Look to Windward. I remember enjoying Look to Windward.

[davy]

New Rob Sheffield book! It goes on the list.