Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[LMNO]

I started reading Shine a Light, the Bob Mould (Husker Du, Sugar) autobiography.  It's a little clumsy, but quite a fun and quick read.

[Cain]

American Tabloid by James Ellroy.  It's the way history is meant to be read - like a crime novel, hardboiled and gritty.  Alas, lacking in fedora hats, but it was the 60s.  Drugs, sex, rock and roll, the Mafia, the Teamsters, Kennedy fucking everything that moved, police agent provocateurs, Hoover's all encompassing paranoia and assassinations.

[Cain]

American Tabloid by James Ellroy.  It's the way history is meant to be read - like a crime novel, hardboiled and gritty.  Alas, lacking in fedora hats, but it was the 60s.  Drugs, sex, rock and roll, the Mafia, the Teamsters, Kennedy fucking everything that moved, police agent provocateurs, Hoover's all encompassing paranoia and assassinations.

Just got up to the 1959 Cuba Revolution.  Lots of fun, especially the whole doublecross Castro pulled on the Mafia.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Working through book one of The Mongoliad, which (although some really good writers are involved) is more or less as you might expect. It's possibly the most boring historical fiction I've tried to drudge through. Somehow, both Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear manage to be tedious. But, for a collaboration between speculative fiction authors whose only other connection is a love of hitting each other with fake swords in historically-accurate ways, there is surprisingly little swordplay or even swordplay-discussion (less than there was in Snow Crash or in The Baroque Cycle). It might be because the main character of every other chapter is a binder/druid girl who (thus far) has not wielded a blade bigger than a dagger, and spends most of her internal monologue talking about how dreamy one of the celibate knights is and how lame and stupid a different one is.

On the flip side, I finished The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World and I'm considering obtaining more Ellison.

I also finished Zodiac, and it is not the abortion that Stephenson sometimes makes it out to be (although I suppose I might be misinterpreting some of his vitrol, and that it may be directed at Big U). Zodiac is at least as entertaining as Snow Crash or The Diamond Age, and I suspect that I'd get more out of it if I had a background in organic chemistry. It's certainly more entertaining than I expected a book about monkeywrenchers to be.

I'm partway through The Immanence of Myth, of which I finally scored a copy. It's not bad, although I'm almost certainly not the intended audience (I read the editor/author's blog religiously and own several of his books, and this one in particular spends a lot of time elucidating a model of myth and narrative that had simply been a prerequisite assumption for the blog). My main complaint is that it is extremely tall and flat, and so it won't fit on a shelf upright but is too floppy to put horizontally above a row of shorter books.

I'm also partway through Brain Children by Daniel Dennett, and Body of Secrets by Bamford. Dennett's book bothers me a bit because it constantly veers off topic and makes non-sequitor arguments (although Dennett's arguments are much more lucid than that classic of the genre, the Chinese Room Experiment... he spends a long time talking about how the original Turing Test is a really good measure of general intelligence, how nearly all modifications weaken it, &c., and then claims that nobody will ever pass it anyway, because expert systems suck and robots don't have hands). Bamford's book seems in places overly specific or detailed, and it jumps around in time constantly; I may be too unfamiliar with the details of the early Cold War period to easily follow it, or I may be having trouble because I keep reading it during complicated and interesting lectures about cryptography and getting distracted. I'll continue with both.

[Don Coyote]

Working through book one of The Mongoliad, which (although some really good writers are involved) is more or less as you might expect. It's possibly the most boring historical fiction I've tried to drudge through. Somehow, both Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear manage to be tedious. But, for a collaboration between speculative fiction authors whose only other connection is a love of hitting each other with fake swords in historically-accurate ways, there is surprisingly little swordplay or even swordplay-discussion (less than there was in Snow Crash or in The Baroque Cycle). It might be because the main character of every other chapter is a binder/druid girl who (thus far) has not wielded a blade bigger than a dagger, and spends most of her internal monologue talking about how dreamy one of the celibate knights is and how lame and stupid a different one is.

I've read two excerpts of The Mongoliad, the first I read was a rather detailed accounting of a young man fighting in an arena using supposedly historically accurate arms, armor and techniques. I was not impressed by the use of armor that was several centuries too early, or the use of fighting techniques intended for use against an unarmored foe being used against an armored foe.
It's one thing to write fight scenes knowing you are not being accurate for reasons of drama or because the average person doesn't know or wouldn't accept certain techniques, it is an entirely different matter to claim to be attempting a more historically accurate adventure epic with much more realistic fight scenes and use the entirely wrong subset of techniques.
Also, that sound horribly tedious.


I'm about to start reading The Bane of the Black Sword.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

It gets worse. I'm not even into fiction about that period; I'm just reading it for the inevitable Neal Stephenson moments, none of which have come yet.

[Dildo Argentino]

It gets worse. I'm not even into fiction about that period; I'm just reading it for the inevitable Neal Stephenson moments, none of which have come yet.

In my estimation, the last one happened in Anathem (at the end, of course). Reamde was deeply disappointing, particularly on account of the Hungarian character and the bits and pieces of dropped information about Hungary - which were all off - but also in general. Very long and somehow quite pointless. And this coming from me, who actually read the Baroque Cycle twice. The Mongoliad: no thanks after two pages.

If you like that sort of thing though, and if you don't know him, I recommend Charles Stross. He even has a book up for free, Accelerando, which is quite a good place to start. And he's been prodigious. I can't speak about the Merchant Princes series, but the Eschaton, the Halting State and the Laundry books, and in particular the stand-alone novel Glasshouse, are all excellent. His blog is a good place to hang out, too.

I'm still reading "Why Love Matters" by Sue Gerhardt. I don't get enough time to read. Once I'm done with that, I'll probably dive straight into Sex, Time and Power by Leonard Shlain.

[LMNO]

I think Neal is best when he's in his crypto/physic/philosophy/adventure mode, rather than his "I read a lot of history books" mode.  So I can't really deal with his Baroque cycle (except for the parts with Newton), but I absolutely adore The Diamond Age.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

It gets worse. I'm not even into fiction about that period; I'm just reading it for the inevitable Neal Stephenson moments, none of which have come yet.

In my estimation, the last one happened in Anathem (at the end, of course). Reamde was deeply disappointing, particularly on account of the Hungarian character and the bits and pieces of dropped information about Hungary - which were all off - but also in general. Very long and somehow quite pointless. And this coming from me, who actually read the Baroque Cycle twice. The Mongoliad: no thanks after two pages.

I thought Reamde was passable. As a Neal Stephenson novel, it was shit. As a generic no-name thousand-page technothriller, it was excellent. I also thought there were some Stephenson moments in the stuff about simulating geology, and in the description of the strange word processor/exercise machine device.

If you like that sort of thing though, and if you don't know him, I recommend Charles Stross. He even has a book up for free, Accelerando, which is quite a good place to start. And he's been prodigious. I can't speak about the Merchant Princes series, but the Eschaton, the Halting State and the Laundry books, and in particular the stand-alone novel Glasshouse, are all excellent. His blog is a good place to hang out, too.

I have read every Charles Stross book in existence (except for Wireless, which I'm partway through). I also hang out on the blog constantly, and post on his mailing list. I think you hit the nail on the head with that suggestion.

Merchant Princes is strange in a very Strossian way. What the Laundry series did with cosmic horror, Merchant Princes did with the traditional someone-finds-a-magic-amulet-and-is-transported-to-a-feudal-society kind of fantasy book. In other words, he took the basic premise and made everything SCIENCE out, so it's a lot more depressing and a lot less escapist and nearly everyone dies.

[Cain]

I've never read his Merchant Princes series...I've been meaning too, but my book collection is bad enough as is, and is only going to get worse after Christmas.  I've seen mixed reviews, but if it's as depressing as you say, that could explain a lot.  I notice reviewers tend not to like writers who make them unhappy, unless it's done in such a baroque and epic scale that they can safely ignore said feelings.

I'm actually more interested to read it now, as I'm imaginging what happens when someone with even basic knowledge of modern technology and/or military tactics is put into a feudal society.  Upheaval, revolutions and essentially a gigantic bloodbath.

[Dildo Argentino]

I thought Reamde was passable. As a Neal Stephenson novel, it was shit. As a generic no-name thousand-page technothriller, it was excellent.

I agree entirely. And to be honest, I ploughed through it like a good boy. But I kept thinking about how much better Cryptonomicon had been and how it was not an excellent no-name technothriller that I'd signed up for.

I have read every Charles Stross book in existence (except for Wireless, which I'm partway through). I also hang out on the blog constantly, and post on his mailing list. I think you hit the nail on the head with that suggestion.

Oh well. I've not had time to do much on Charlie's blog due to a certain other message board...

Do you like Iain M. Banks, too? How about Bruce Sterling? (Islands in the Net, especially for the year, blew my head off a bit...)

And while thinking about authors... Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is definitely my favourite fantasy novel. Unless it's Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake... What are your other favourites?

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

I've never read his Merchant Princes series...I've been meaning too, but my book collection is bad enough as is, and is only going to get worse after Christmas.  I've seen mixed reviews, but if it's as depressing as you say, that could explain a lot.  I notice reviewers tend not to like writers who make them unhappy, unless it's done in such a baroque and epic scale that they can safely ignore said feelings.

I'm actually more interested to read it now, as I'm imaginging what happens when someone with even basic knowledge of modern technology and/or military tactics is put into a feudal society.  Upheaval, revolutions and essentially a gigantic bloodbath.

As a Stross series, it's not the best. (I don't think it holds up to Halting State, for instance.) However, it is very political. A lot of it has to do with how a feudal attitude interferes with the application of modern tech and tactics. It gets more interesting again near the end. However, it's quite firmly tied to the Bush administration (and some plot points have to do specifically with Dick Cheney), in ways that are surprisingly un-generalizable. However, if you're interested in Stross's ideas about political intruigue, all of it is neatly condensed in this series, along with far more physics-wankery and bio-wankery than you would expect to be able to put into a novel about a feudal society with modern firearms.

Do you like Iain M. Banks, too? How about Bruce Sterling? (Islands in the Net, especially for the year, blew my head off a bit...)

Haven't read any Banks. I read a Bruce Sterling story collection (Visionary In Residence or something) and a technothriller by him (whose name was some astronomical term I have forgotten). Both were entertaining, though I liked the collection better because of the overlap with Rucker.

[Cain]

I'll be sure to give it a go then.  Thanks for the summation.

[Eater of Clowns]

I'm reading All the Pretty Horses and, like every time I read Cormac McCarthy I'm stunned.

While inside the vaulting of the ribs between his knees the darkly meated heart pumped of who's will and the blood pulsed and the bowels shifted in their massive blue convolutions of who's will and the stout thighbones and knee and cannon and the tendons like flaxen hawsers that drew and flexed and drew and flexed at their articulations and of who's will all sheathed and muffled in the flesh and the hooves that stove wells in the morning groundmist and the head turning side to side and the great slavering keyboard of his teeth and the hot globes of his eyes where the world burned.

[McMegaDeff]

I started reading Donald Trump's "How to think big and kickass" like it was my new bible. I kicked so much ass I quit my job...not sure how that's gonna work out yet.