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Whats everyone reading?

Started by Paul faplad Finch, 30 March, 2009, 10:04:36 PM

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pictsy

Akira We know this is a great read so I've not got much to say about it.

Consider Phlebas  This turned out to be okay.  The world building is great and I liked the characters.  The overall conclusion wasn't too far off what I was expecting considering the tone of the book throughout.  It can drag in places and wasn't the easiest read for me, but it's not the least enjoyable or hardest thing I've read by a long way.

The Player of Games  This was so much more enjoyable.  I really loved all the bits that described the games being played and they were certainly my favourite bits.  The rest really fleshed out the story and provided a good amount of tension even though I felt the general conclusion was kind of obvious.  How the book went about concluding was a bit of a delightful surprise, but it still wrapped up much as I was expecting and hoping it would.  It almost seemed like an alternate perspective to CP having the ideological differences of two societies being pitted against each other, but it goes into more depth in this book.  I am also feeling that the Culture is a better representation of a post-scarcity society than the Federation is.  At the least I'm liking it more and questioning it less.

moly

Just finished monstress vol 1 really enjoyed this with great art will definitely pick up volume 2

Mardroid

First volume in the new Eaglemoss Batman collection: Year Zero

It was pretty good. I picked up the second volume recently so I will read that soon.

abelardsnazz

After a bit of a marathon, interspersed with reading various Tooth stuff, I'm nearing the end of Peter F Hamilton's Void trilogy. For huge, galaxy-spanning, multiple-volume space operas with ideas, worlds and characters to spare, Hamilton is hard to beat. If you're thinking of embarking on these, read Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained first, as these follow on from those. Or try his standalone novel Great North Road, still pretty epic at 1200+ pages.

TordelBack

Quote from: abelardsnazz on 15 January, 2018, 12:21:20 PM
After a bit of a marathon ... I'm nearing the end of Peter F Hamilton's Void trilogy.

Heh, you know he's already written a two book follow-up to the Void trilogy, right?  I think he writes 'em faster than I can read 'em. 

TBH I don't really know how I feel about Hamilton.  I love a great long book (or series of same) to dive into and get lost in, but  Hamilton's characters or plot resolutions never seem to justify the length: there's so much set-up, and so many set-backs, so many clones/uploads/duplicates/time-looped versions of almost every character, that it can feel he's never going to get to the point.  I don't think he's really produced anything as good as the first two Commonwealth books yet, but he's at least always readable.


abelardsnazz

Quote from: TordelBack on 15 January, 2018, 12:32:50 PM
Quote from: abelardsnazz on 15 January, 2018, 12:21:20 PM
After a bit of a marathon ... I'm nearing the end of Peter F Hamilton's Void trilogy.

Heh, you know he's already written a two book follow-up to the Void trilogy, right?  I think he writes 'em faster than I can read 'em. 


Yes, I'll give those a go in a while, think I'll read a couple of one-off's in between!

manwithnoname

I got the hardcover Dark Knight III - The Master Race at Xmas. Came to it very fresh, having avoided reviews and not reading any of the individual issues, obviously.

It's great. Of course it's nowhere near as brilliant as DKI - how could it be? - but it's far better than the divisive, often incoherent DKII. I'm not sure if that's because Miller ceded more control to Azzarello, or if there was more time and thought that went into it, but one of the big reasons is that Miller's contributions to the art are limited, with Janson inking Kubert's pencils.

This has meant the story is far easier to follow, and there's less art atrocities on show compared to DK2.

The plot is a thinly-veiled ISIS trope, but it still works and the return of Batman and Superman is great to see, as Miller gloriously resurrects both heroes in fine style.


manwithnoname

Quote from: pictsy on 13 January, 2018, 11:49:33 AM
Akira We know this is a great read so I've not got much to say about it.

Consider Phlebas  This turned out to be okay.  The world building is great and I liked the characters.  The overall conclusion wasn't too far off what I was expecting considering the tone of the book throughout.  It can drag in places and wasn't the easiest read for me, but it's not the least enjoyable or hardest thing I've read by a long way.

The Player of Games  This was so much more enjoyable.  I really loved all the bits that described the games being played and they were certainly my favourite bits.  The rest really fleshed out the story and provided a good amount of tension even though I felt the general conclusion was kind of obvious.  How the book went about concluding was a bit of a delightful surprise, but it still wrapped up much as I was expecting and hoping it would.  It almost seemed like an alternate perspective to CP having the ideological differences of two societies being pitted against each other, but it goes into more depth in this book.  I am also feeling that the Culture is a better representation of a post-scarcity society than the Federation is.  At the least I'm liking it more and questioning it less.

I read "Use Of Weapons" recently. Most enjoyable.

I've read quite a bit of Iain Banks, more of his non sci-fi stuff admittedly, although I've also read "The Algebraist", "Excession" and "Surface Detail".

I'm not really an expert, but I think one of the reasons his hard sci-fi is so popular is that while he does deliver the requisite 2 billion years into the future world-building and what the fuck?! stuff (Sentient space-ships! Emotion clouds! giant gas planets with a sense of humour - all that "made-up space shit"), he never shows any genre embarrassment, or worse, lofty ideals.

All his novels are grounded in emotion and among all the gleaming chatty spaceships and pan-sexual cloud aliens, he often has "lesser" societies, with all their primitive mud, blood and shit gloriousness. And this juxtaposition works.

Even the plots and characters could often be easily transported from any classic fairytale or story, and that familiarity also works, even if it's light relief from all the snippy AI kill-knife rockets or whatever.

"Use Of Weapons" is a great example of this, it even has castles and treachery!

pictsy

I've just started 'Use of Weapons'.  Haven't had much time to get into it, yet.  I have yet to form a proper opinion on the culture series as a whole, but if the quality stays at the level of The Player of Games, then I'll be happy.

Tjm86

Finally got round to picking up Empire Games, the latest Merchant Princes offering from Charles Stross.  In preparation I decided to re-read the first 6 novels ...

Not ... bad, but certainly not his best.  Don't think they've aged brilliantly but still enjoyable although some things do seem to drift if you are not careful.

Empire Games seems a stronger offering with far more potential.  Almost as if Stross has realised the scope of what he created.  It's mildly amusing to see an ex-Stasi officer railing against the US government and another alternate timeline government talk about bringing democracy to America.  It's touches like that that show where the novel works it's best.  After the Laundry novels I think that this has the potential to be some of the best material Stross has produced.  Having said that, the diversity of his oeuvre does present challenges in deciding that.

Apestrife

Read Em and Weep: Goodnight, John-boy.

Had as much fun reading this one as the first one. I'm amazed it manages to continue everything (which was a lot) Serial killer set up. Everything from the thing for fur to hiding teachings how to kill people in a comic. Very much looking forward to where things head in the upcoming Grim reader.

Hope Pat continues to write full length novels after he's finished Read em and weep.

Smith

Paperiniks New Adventures. You might think a comic about superhero adventures of Donald Duck would be stupid,but you would be wrong.Cuz this is awesome.

Colin YNWA

Over the last month or more I've been reading Sweet Tooth alongside my Prog Slog. By Jimney that is one superb comic series. I got it digitally in some sale or other, everythings in a digital sale eventually, but this one, this one I think I will get hardcopy its so good. I mean seriously fantastic.

Its not as if the world if short of post apocolypic saga, but Jez this one had so much to say and was so beautifully realised. Its story of a Big Man and a Boy, all be a hybrid deer boy is so massive in scope, dealing as it does with the end of humanity (literally) yet so close and personal. Its ability to perfectly blend such things that make it so magnificent. Its both breathless and thrilling paced, yet allows itself room to breathe and dwell when it needs to. Jeff Lemire's art is so loose and jagged, yet so precise and smooth. The characters so fresh and new, yet so familar and real.

It really is the comic that does it all and in just 40 issues covers so much ground in exicting new ways, yet tells a tale so familar and comfortable it feels like an old friend returning to tales you've shared a hundred times. It wasn't that long ago I came on here and raved about Scalped, that is great, this is 10 times better!

Apestrife

Read Suiciders: The big shake. Written/drawn by Lee Bermejo. Read a bit like a so-so imitation of John Carpenter. A future take on gang war and bloodsport with some twists thrown in, for example a journalist who also happens to be a cannibal. Story has some good moments and points to make, but I wish it was better written. The pacing especially can feel off at times. One side story especially could'v been done with much earlier, giving the rest of the story more room.

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 17 February, 2018, 08:59:09 PM
Over the last month or more I've been reading Sweet Tooth alongside my Prog Slog. By Jimney that is one superb comic series. I got it digitally in some sale or other, everythings in a digital sale eventually, but this one, this one I think I will get hardcopy its so good. I mean seriously fantastic.

Its not as if the world if short of post apocolypic saga, but Jez this one had so much to say and was so beautifully realised. Its story of a Big Man and a Boy, all be a hybrid deer boy is so massive in scope, dealing as it does with the end of humanity (literally) yet so close and personal. Its ability to perfectly blend such things that make it so magnificent. Its both breathless and thrilling paced, yet allows itself room to breathe and dwell when it needs to. Jeff Lemire's art is so loose and jagged, yet so precise and smooth. The characters so fresh and new, yet so familar and real.

It really is the comic that does it all and in just 40 issues covers so much ground in exicting new ways, yet tells a tale so familar and comfortable it feels like an old friend returning to tales you've shared a hundred times. It wasn't that long ago I came on here and raved about Scalped, that is great, this is 10 times better!

Amazing book. As you say, it does so many things and brilliantly so. Probably my favorite of Lemire.

Professor Bear

Sadly, the familiarity of Sweet Tooth's material will probably sink it with most readers, as this is a very common trope now, to the point the last TMNT cartoon even did an Old Man Raphael arc (most likely inspired by Logan) without even bothering to explain what the apocalypse that occurred offscreen even was, only that after it happened, all human children were born as animal hybrids.  Station Eleven's author even tried to distance the novel from the sci-fi genre in a desperate attempt to make it seem less derivative, presumably because its setup and the plot strand that lends the novel its title could have been lifted wholesale from The Last Of Us, a videogame whose movie adaptation was scuppered by the appearance of The Girl With All The Gifts, which was a carbon copy of TLOU but with added superpowers and "intelligent zombies" tropes.
This whole "get the ring to Mount Doom but the ring is a child" genre is crowded right now.

"I have a pitch for a post-apocalyptic story, it's about a man and a boy and the man is trying to get the boy somewhere safe why are you looking at me like that?" - yeah, I have no idea how Sweet Tooth got past the pitching stage, but I assume it's on the strength of Lemire's not-inconsiderable critical reputation, as it's not likely to be on the strength of his previous commercial successes - not that this matters at DC anymore, which I know Colin likes people to point out when they can - and while I wouldn't call the material "fresh", I think what elevates it is the execution, which on a basic level has a rough charm lacking in many of Vertigo's latter ventures (Wake and Suiciders especially looked a bit too polished to be convincing), but more intimately is unquestionably a creator's own story being told as he wants it to be told, with little things here and there like the story titles integrating into the artwork speaking of someone following their muse.
Except in the case of "Dandy" the deer, of course - clearly someone sat his ass down there and told him in no uncertain terms that shit had to go.
Still, Sweet Tooth is well worth a look.