Read any good books lately?

[Dounreay]

About now I would be thinking of loading up the covered wagon and travelling to the big smoke to buy up some books, this being a thrice a year thing with me. However, in the true spirit  of "I can't be arsed" I've decided to do it on-line this time.

In a further outbreak of Can't Be Arsed-ness, I thought I would get somebody else to pick the books for me rather than read up on the reviews meself.

So dear boarders, knowing how intelligent, cosmopolitan, popular with the ladies (or gents as the case may be) and kind to children and small animals you all are , I thought I would ask you.

What would you recommend from recently published SF? What would you avoid like a turd in a swimming pool?

Obviously buying on-line will mean missing out on four-odd hours of quality drinking time on the train home. Worry not, I'll kick back in stately Dounreay Hall with a fine malt while sifting your recommendations. If nobody replies I'll just stare at the message board for a few hours until I fall off the chair.

[Quirkafleeg]

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan is one of the best books I've read in a long time... puts the noir back into cyberpunk with plenty of the old ultraviolence.

Also check out China Mieville's Perdito Street Station and The Scar. They?re fantasy but damn good dark and gritty fantasy. The huge Ash by Mary Gentle, which is basically the length of four normal novels, is a great historical fantasy that turns into something else. Well worth the time spent reading it. Avoid the equally huge Hamilton doorstops which do not return the time spent on them.

Presume with a name like Dounreay you know all about Banks and Macleod.

I'm currently a quarter the way through M John Harrison's new one Light ... to early to tell as yet but in the words of the immortal Tap - it's real close between clever and stupid...

[DavidXBrunt]

Micheal Chabon's 'The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay'.

Italo Calvino's 'If, on a Winters night, a traveller'.

Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods'.

Scott Nestell's 'Why I am always right and everyone else is always wrong and probably perverts'.

[DavidXBrunt]

For no real reason I've always imagined that Gerry Finley-Day looks like Micheal Palin.

Research has proven that Si Spurrier looks like Will Young.

And I imagine that Dave Bishop looks like his photo in 'Comics International' but older.

So what do you imagine that the writers and artists of 2k look like? Or fellow board members for that matter.

[Marbles]

If you really want to treat yourself read 'A Game Of Thrones' by George RR Martin. I promise you won't regret it.
   

Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/000647988X/qid=1038470475/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/202-1039633-4362217" target="_blank">Game Of Thrones

[Dog Rough]

I would sujest anything by Iain M Banks, the man is an imaginative genius.
Talking of genius I have to mention Frank Herbert's Dune saga
You probably already read it, but it needs to be mentioned anyway.
Plus anything by William Gibson is usually good.

[Trout]

"Micheal Chabon's 'The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay'."

"Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods'. "

This fish endorsed both of the above suggestions.

However, I still can't get into that Calvino book, David. I'll try again soon!

- Trout

[Queen Firey-Bou]

Hey Doun' (that popular beatles song)
are you actually from the place of thy namesake, ie a very long train ride from the big smoke? Its gratifying to find so many cal hab residents are also squaxx, but nicer to know theres someone else in the far flung rad lands.
Iain Banks always a favorite.

[Bolt-01]

I have to make do with our local library mostly, but some good stuff (IMHO):
Alastair Reynolds- Revelation space.
Stephen Baxter- Titan.
Stephen Kings Gunslinger books.
Anything by Orson Scott Card.

Dave6795

[Dounreay]

Ta for the tips. Morgan, Chabon and Gaiman are on the list. Mary Gentle is nearly there. I like a good epic of a cold winters night.

Too late for the warning on Mr Hamiltons stuff though. Although after reading there is fun to be had by piling them up and trying to climb to the top of the pile without oxygen.

I'm about half way through Revelation Space. Good stuff but it jumps about too much for my liking.

And no, I'm not from Dounreay. No-one is. There's no gathering of houses of that name.

Check out the map between Upper Dounreay and the fair village of Reay, home of the most expensive petrol in the country.

I'm not far away though...

[Queen Firey-Bou]

hi ho, so why did they call the golf ball doun-reay then?  was about to bet our petrols worse, when i remembered a trip to dunbeath/latheron way last year or so & juice was like ?7billion quid per litre, god ye could transport it by horse & cart in milk bottles from Inverness tescos cheaper.

also books...what about philip pulman (? i think) i haven't read the trilogy thing,its for kids but dark & highly recomended, but hands off the inter library loan I'm waiting first.

[Dounreay]

The golf ball's next to Upper Dounreay but down hill a bit so that would make it Lower Dounreay. However, thats a bit of a limp name for a research establishment born in the white heat of a developing technology, so they shortened it to Dounreay to make it sound snappier.

You may have guessed I'm guessing here...

Speaking of pricey things, I was across the Skye bridge recently. A fiver for the pleasure of driving across a fekking concrete hump.

I was sorely tempted to take the motor to bits and in the spirit of the great Johnny Cash, take it across in my pockets one piece at a time.

I've got the Dark  Materials trilogy on the shelf. For some reason I've not read it yet.

[Queen Firey-Bou]

Skye bridge is right ! what a rip off, at least in the ferry days you could wink at the ticket boys & go free. Have ye been to Strome ferry-no ferry where Iain Banks's complicity was set?

[Demon Chicken]

I'm begining to feel much more at home here now, with all these new Scottish boarder.  It makes a simple chicken very happy.

[judge dreddd]

as a break from sci-fi try
how proust can change your life by alain de botton

and

the mating mind by geoffrey miller

not sci-fi but well worth reading