What are you reading?

[Gillianren]

I've started The Doctor and the Kid, by Mike Resnick. I don't think I'm going to finish it. It's about a dying Doc Holliday who goes after Billy the Kid. There is steampunk and Geronimo's magic. Thomas Edison and Ned Buntline are characters.

[Cougar]

Now on to Dick Teresi's Lost Discoveries, the ancient roots of modern science - from the Babylonians to the Maya. Seems to be a bit over-attributive, to coin a word, but apparently well researched and pretty interesting.

The first chapter on early mathematics was pretty interesting, but then Teresi did a chapter on astronomy claiming how astronomically sophisticated people were thousands of years ago. Well, OK, they were noticing the solstices and some other things, but they had a LONG way to go to be actually "sophisticated."

Then Teresi did a chapter on cosmology, and here, OMG, I determined I could no longer read this book. Teresi was conflating very old, mostly ignorant cultures and was basically saying that our current precision cosmology is no better than the mythical cosmologies of thousands and tens of thousands of years ago. Excuse me? Teresi doesn't seem to have a clue, which is not all that surprising since he is not a scientist.

The book Teresi co-authored with Leon Lederman ("The God Particle") was one of the best I've read. But this Lost Discoveries was one of the worst.

[swampyankee]

Right now, A Short History of Byzantium, by John Julius Norwich. I'm going to lump it into the category of "popular history," mostly because there aren't about a dozen footnotes or endnotes per page. Nice read, though. The history of the Roman Empire didn't really end with the fall of Rome: it just moved east.

[Gillianren]

I read The Hunger Games this evening. However, the roommate I borrowed it from is asleep, so if I do any more reading tonight, it'll be back to the Resnick.

[Gillianren]

I read The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. It was okay. I suppose it's the nature of collaboration, but it's missing a lot of the things that are why I read Pratchett, which Good Omens was not. I guess Gaiman's writing style is closer to Pratchett's.

[Buttercup]

Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic (the authorized biography) by Douglas E. Winter.

[Parrothead]

Phantom, Jo Nesbo's latest "Harry Hole" mystery. I'm continuing to read this series out of order. Out of the translated ones, I still have to read The Leopard (the one prior to Phantom) and The Redbreast (the first of his novels translated to english), both of which I have holds on at the library.

[TJMac]

The Morgaine Saga still awaits.

I cannot just go by the library! I cannot just drop books off! Is this a sickness? Why must I always get more?

I finished a book of short stories, labeled Urban Fiction. All stories with a touch of vampire/werewolf/witch type plots. That needed dropping off along with a Loren Estleman, "Amos Walker" novel.

Then, in spite of the fact that my daughter just loaned me all of the Hunger Games books, I still felt compelled to pick up a Richard Laymon book, Quiet Waters by Glen Cook, and a tryout of Patricia Briggs. (Cry Wolf, I think)



TJ

[Gillianren]

The Hunger Games is a fast read, at least; I read all three over a weekend.

[geonuc]

I finally finished the Change series, by S. M. Stirling. Overall, very enjoyable with a great premise (sudden loss of technology, such as electricity and gunpowder weapons, which forces a reversion to basically medieval times). The last book got a little too wrapped up in king making, though. The series is actually two sub-series, with the other one dealing with a group of people transported in time back to 1250 bc, at the same time the loss of technology occurred in the world they left.

[Darmund]

Almost done with Art Spiegelman's Metamaus which is an 'autobiography' of sorts of Maus. Very nice look into his creative process. It comes with a dvd-rom overstuffed with bonus materials, haven't put it in the computer yet.

Also reading the 1st volume of Dc Comics Showcase Presents: The All Star Squadron. It's making for a bit of interesting reading, especially when you compare the portrayal of the Japanese in early 1980's stuff like All Star Squadron to comics from the actual time period of WWII like Captain America. Roy Thomas has said in interviews that his plan/goal with Alls Star Squadron was to have each issue take place a week apart in terms of actual time passing in the comic. He obviously hasn't gotten that quite sorted out in the early issues as he's dealing with Pearl Harbor and it's aftermath and introducing the Spear of Destiny. It is kind of jarring seeing the Earth-Two Superman and Batman making appearences.

Also re-reading Foot'e Civil War trilogy and Robert Caro's LBJ biography.

[swampyankee]

Started Alistair Reynolds's Terminal World. I am finding it quite easy to put down.

[ToSeek]

The Hunger Games is a fast read, at least; I read all three over a weekend.

And what did you think of them?

[Gillianren]

Well, for one thing, I thought about half the names were interesting and half really dumb. I thought the concept was interesting, though I didn't know how sociologically possible it was. I wish, just once, we could have a story like this that didn't have to be about the romance. (Frankly, unless she got treatment for her obvious PTSD, I didn't think Katness should have been in a relationship with anyone.) The writing is pretty good up until about the last fifty or so pages of the third book, where it felt as though the author thought the end was in sight but did not herself know what it was yet. I may reread it at some point, and I would definitely recommend them to my fourteen-year-old daughter, but I've read better.

[Parrothead]

My hold on Jo Nesbo's The Leopard came into the library, picked it up. Will start that one and put Phantom aside, so I can read the books in order.

[baskerbosse]

VALIS is really very good, albeit hard going at first - at least it was when I read it in my teens.

A very interesting book indeed.
Makes me wonder what happened to Philip K Dick in 1974.
Seems like he might have had a first minor stroke already then?
I have to get the other two parts now.

Peter

[mike alexander]

My wife got me a copy of Alastair Reynold's Pushing Ice, my first exposure to the author.

Must admit I'm underwhelmed so far. Read the first 40 pages, have skimmed the next 40. Hoping for a little less engineering and a bit more story, but...

[DoggerDan]

Working my way slowly through the latest Clive Cussler novel: The Kingdom. Not as good as the Dirk Pitt or Austin stuff, but it's ok.

[Paul Beardsley]

A very interesting book indeed.
Makes me wonder what happened to Philip K Dick in 1974.
Seems like he might have had a first minor stroke already then?
I have to get the other two parts now.

Peter

I only know little bits about Dick's life so I don't know how many of the events in VALIS are mapped onto real events.

One thing I really do like is that the possible future existence of the film Blade Runner is an important plot point in this novel.

[ngc3314]

Started Alistair Reynolds's Terminal World. I am finding it quite easy to put down.

For me, that has been the slowest going of all his novels. I have that happen sometimes - an author that I'm normally a big fan of writes something that I just can't get into. I haven't even been able to finish the Burning City books, Uplift Wars, Til We Have Faces... At least for Terminal World, I figured out what planet it was set on way before he made it obvious.

Poul Anderson wrote nothing in this category for me. I've been going through some of his earlier things, spurred on by a big new used-book store opening an hour away, so I could easily replace a bunch of paperbacks lost in domestic flooding (washing-machine hose issue a few years back),

[swampyankee]

For me, that has been the slowest going of all his novels. I have that happen sometimes - an author that I'm normally a big fan of writes something that I just can't get into. I haven't even been able to finish the Burning City books, Uplift Wars, Til We Have Faces... At least for Terminal World, I figured out what planet it was set on way before he made it obvious.

Poul Anderson wrote nothing in this category for me. I've been going through some of his earlier things, spurred on by a big new used-book store opening an hour away, so I could easily replace a bunch of paperbacks lost in domestic flooding (washing-machine hose issue a few years back),

I've had very mixed results with currently active sf/f authors: some are, in my opinion (I'm not a literary critic; if I were, I'd probably like Hemingway or James Joyce) excellent, and some are easy, fun reads, and some scale new heights in turbidity. I liked House of Suns, so I risked Terminal World, but the latter is not working for me. On the other hand, nothing by Peter F Hamilton has worked for me. Aah, well.

[Solfe]

I love Alastair Reynolds but I don't recall reading Pushing Ice. I picked up a hodgepodge of his books when Borders went out of business.

I read the Hunger Games and liked the fact that it had a reasonable depiction of violence including the fact that if you are injured, you don't hop right back up. I found the first part of the book more entertaining than the actual Game. I did enjoy the intrigue created by some of the character's choices to avoid combat until the dangerous people were worn out.

Right now, I am reading What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. It is a series of counter-factual essays.

My boys have selected The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary to read to their sister. I must have read this book at some point, because it seems so familiar. It is very cute watching them read, one boy reads the left pages while the other reads the right side. I pick up the slack from time to time and read a few pages too.

[Moose]

Well, for one thing, I thought about half the names were interesting and half really dumb. I thought the concept was interesting, though I didn't know how sociologically possible it was. I wish, just once, we could have a story like this that didn't have to be about the romance. (Frankly, unless she got treatment for her obvious PTSD, I didn't think Katness should have been in a relationship with anyone.) The writing is pretty good up until about the last fifty or so pages of the third book, where it felt as though the author thought the end was in sight but did not herself know what it was yet. I may reread it at some point, and I would definitely recommend them to my fourteen-year-old daughter, but I've read better.

I dunno, Gillan. I'm not sure the love triangle was ever much more than a plot device (same as the games themselves past the first book.) The impression I got was that the series itself became mainly about PTSD.

As for sociological plausibility, maybe. The thing to remember is that the population of North America was implied to be low enough for the viability of the population to be considered at risk. There may have been fewer than half a million people, total, across all districts. If true, such a limited and hyper-focused economy might have been a necessity to prevent a total collapse of civilization. Still, some diversification...

[Gillianren]

Fair enough, Moose, but the point is that I didn't think we needed one. I think it would have been more interesting if she and the one boy had been just friends and if it had been just a ploy with the other. And the fact remains that the author did think Katness should end up with one or the other of them and that taking a third option didn't come up.

I'm curious as to what exactly happened to drop the population so precipitously . . . and what was going on in the rest of the world at the time.

[Moose]

Fair enough, Moose, but the point is that I didn't think we needed one. I think it would have been more interesting if she and the one boy had been just friends and if it had been just a ploy with the other. And the fact remains that the author did think Katness should end up with one or the other of them and that taking a third option didn't come up.

I think the issue, on both ends of the story, would have been continuity. To give the author a reason to hint at how society changed after the fall of the Capitol; and before, as Peeta's call to action. He wouldn't have been so altruistic, nor so liked by the populace, without Katniss as his crusade. Peeta also needed an exploitable vulnerability for the brainwashing. Gail, also, required that dynamic in order to grow (and be traumatized) as he did/was.

I did, however, like the author's emphasis that PTSD would always be a challenge for both Peeta and Katniss. I'd also suggest that neither Peeta nor Katniss could ever be functional with someone who didn't fully understand what they went through in the Arenas. You can see it all on TV, but it's a whole other living hell to actually experience it, I'm sure.

I'm curious as to what exactly happened to drop the population so precipitously . . . and what was going on in the rest of the world at the time.

The "Dark Times". It suggests global nuclear war. One flew, then they (nearly) all did. It explains the near total loss of infrastructure, the strong reluctance to consider the use of nukes, and the effectiveness of that deterrence. It also explains the population collapse, and the extreme measures that came to be used.

Biological warfare that got out of hand would also be sufficient to explain it, which could also explain the (IIRC) lack of biological agents in the story, while there's clear evidence of gas warfare and the presence of nukes are also evident. It's not so implied by "Dark Times", though.

As for the rest of the world, there may be a rest of world, there may be no functioning society at all. There may be extreme isolationism on the part of Panem (which, I think, is plausible), or we may never have been in a position for Katniss to experience the possibility of non-Panem. It's not really hinted at, just that there does not appear to be in evidence a functioning global network of nations.

[Dickenmeyer]

Just started David Brin's new one, Existence.

[ToSeek]

Just started David Brin's new one, Existence.

Should I ask what it's about or what it's not about?

[geonuc]

Mother of Storms, by John Barnes. A world-wide natural disaster book, but what I particularly like so far are the fairly good scientific descriptions of things like hurricane formation and the effects of methane in the atmosphere.

[headrush]

I'm re-reading the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - again !
I'm into book two of the second chronicles at the moment, but I'm trying to time things right so that I can get the new one just when I need it. That being "The Last Dark", the fourth book of the third trilogy (?).

No science involved, but I find them surprisingly engaging.
I might also re-read Ventus when I get chance.

[Romanus]

Alwyn Scarth's La Catastrophe, about the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee; it's well-illustrated and well-written. Having read and enjoyed his Vesuvius: A Biography as well, I recommend his work to anyone interested in volcanology ([cough]DGavin[cough]).