What Are You Reading?

ixoy

Just starting Neal Asher's "The Skinner", the first in his Spatterjay sequence (set in the Polity universe of his Agent Cormac books, although chronologically some time after them).

Liking it so far - Asher's flair for inventive alien life is on show again in the seriously screwed up ecology of Spatterjay. Characters haven't grabbed me yet - they seem a little thinly drawn - but I'm only at the start so it needs more time. It's less "punk" than the Cormac series - in fact it appears quite low-tech. Interesting to see where it goes, although the title of the next book in the sequence looks to be a mild spoiler for this entry...

Shryke

Finished Witches Abroad and more Hellboy. I'm now about half way through The Hitchhikers Guide! I've read the first one once before but I was pretty young and don't really remember it too well so it might as well be my first time. I got the box set of five really cheap in a second hand book shop. It was still wrapped in the plastic. Happy out.

Zion21

"On Human Nature" just got it from amazon. Very interesting.

Galen

Finished the Star Trek Destiny trilogy by David Mack and now I'm half way through the Brass Man by Neal Asher

PADRAGON

Illkillya wrote: »

Same here... the first 150 pages of the first Thomas Covenant was awful, but once you get over that then there are 8(?) good books to go.

Yeh the next ones due next year and the last in 2013. {sigh}
wishing my life away....

anonymous_joe

Started on George RR Martin's works.

Generally seems ok-ish so far.

Shryke

Now reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

meditraitor

Just picked up the 9th Malzan novel by Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams. Read a few pages on my lunch break ........ might have to take the rest of the day off

Sarky

It's out?

*cancels all appointments for the month*

Shryke

meditraitor wrote: »

Just picked up the 9th Malzan novel by Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams-

What!? How did I not know this was out? There's my next purchase.

ixoy

Shryke wrote: »

What!? How did I not know this was out? There's my next purchase.

The date's been set for a while. I'm picking up my copy on Thursday!

meditraitor

Sarky wrote: »

It's out?

*cancels all appointments for the month*

Picked it up from Waterstones (Jervis SC) yesterday,

Johnny Storm

ixoy wrote: »

Just starting Neal Asher's "The Skinner", the first in his Spatterjay sequence (set in the Polity universe of his Agent Cormac books, although chronologically some time after them).

Liking it so far - Asher's flair for inventive alien life is on show again in the seriously screwed up ecology of Spatterjay. Characters haven't grabbed me yet - they seem a little thinly drawn - but I'm only at the start so it needs more time. It's less "punk" than the Cormac series - in fact it appears quite low-tech. Interesting to see where it goes, although the title of the next book in the sequence looks to be a mild spoiler for this entry...

I read in Asher's short story collection ("the Engineer Reconditioned), that he was exposed to an illustrated biology textbook on marine parasites at an early age and obviously this has an a profoundly disturbing effect on him.:eek:
He may not be the most literary of SF writers but he is entertaining and he keeps them coming at a readable standard....

ixoy

And now, like others here, I'm also reading "Dust of Dreams". Nice light reading

Johnny Storm wrote: »

I read in Asher's short story collection ("the Engineer Reconditioned), that he was exposed to an illustrated biology textbook on marine parasites at an early age and obviously this has an a profoundly disturbing effect on him.:eek:
He may not be the most literary of SF writers but he is entertaining and he keeps them coming at a readable standard....

It makes me think of the Magic Undersea Kingdom in "The Little Mermaid" and what would happen if it was sent to Hell... Very enjoyable stuff even, as you say, he isn't as literary as say Neal Stephenson. Cracking reads.

bonkey

Picked up DoD yesterday.

Currently finishing book 3 of the Night's Dawn trilogy (re-reading). Should be done over the weekend, and then its off to see what the Malazan boys are up to.

pljudge321

Went into town today to pick up Dust of Dreams. Waterstones have it at 17.99 whilst everywhere else I checked had it for about 24. Seems good so far, looks like we will be learning quite a bit more about the K'Chain Che'Malle in this one, which is good as they've been the most ambiguous race so far in the series.

ixoy

Four people simultaneously reading the same novel on this thread - must be a record!

Trojan

ixoy wrote: »

Currently reading "Renegade's Magic" by Robin Hobb, the final book in her much-maligned "Soldier's Son" trilogy. I'm quite enjoying it but the series isn't up to the standard of the other three trilogies that she's written under her Hobb pseudynom. Still it's above average so far and hopefully wraps up conclusively.

I thought the first book was pretty good, the 2nd was difficult - I didn't like the way the plot went and not into these Specks guys. Haven't bothered to get the 3rd book, maybe if I see it for a couple of quid in the 2nd hand section I might get it, but after book 2 I'm not much interested at all. What a huge fall from the heights of the Assassin series (and Livetraders was bloody good too).

Dades wrote: »

Now about 2/3rds through on "Against a Dark Background" by Iain M Banks.

My favorite of his SF/Culture stuff so far (reading in order).

Yeah I thought that was fantastic. My favourite is The Player of Games, but I regularly re-read Against a Dark Background, Consider Phlebas and Excession when I run out of sf and need a quick fix.

mcgovern wrote: »

Finished The Temporal Void, which was good but still a bit disappointing

I just finished it too, it wasn't bad - put it this way, I immediately checked to see when the next was due (the fecker had me tricked into thinking it was a 2 book series like the last). The Edeard stuff was more interesting in the 2nd book than the first.

Been thinking about doing a re-read of Feist from Magician up, been a long time and I want to read the new serpent ones, so I'd rather have Riftwar etc fresh enough.

PADRAGON

meditraitor wrote: »

Just picked up the 9th Malzan novel by Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams. Read a few pages on my lunch break ........ might have to take the rest of the day off

Jesus theres nine of them?
Almost finished house of chains or rather its almost finished me.
My head is officially wrecked.
I feel like i should start again from the beginning.

Im also reading the wasp factory.
Frank seems a real charmer so far.:eek:

meditraitor

PADRAGON wrote: »

Jesus theres nine of them?
Almost finished house of chains or rather its almost finished me.
My head is officially wrecked.
I feel like i should start again from the beginning.

Im also reading the wasp factory.
Frank seems a real charmer so far.:eek:

:pac: Nine released, one to go (although dust of dreams is part one of the a two part finale)......
The toblakai trilogy to coma after

pljudge321

meditraitor wrote: »

:pac: Nine released, one to go (although dust of dreams is part one of the a two part finale)......
The toblakai trilogy to coma after

He's doing a trilogy on hte Toblakai afterwards!! I love that man.

bonkey

pljudge321 wrote: »

He's doing a trilogy on hte Toblakai afterwards!! I love that man.

The Toblokai trilogy is the "sequel trilogy" to the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.
The Kharkanas trilogy is the "prequel trilogy" to same.

ICE is also soing a total of 6 books, of which he's currently working on book 3.

Sesudra

Am reading "The Bonehunters" from the Malazan series.Did I hear tell that he's writing an encyclopedia for the series?Coz I'm finding it a bit tough keeping some things straight and that'd be great!

Love the series though,and be up to date with Dust of Dreams by the end of the year:D

Sleepy

A Clash of Kings from the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series.

Shryke

Sesudra wrote: »

Am reading "The Bonehunters" from the Malazan series.Did I hear tell that he's writing an encyclopedia for the series?Coz I'm finding it a bit tough keeping some things straight and that'd be great!

Love the series though,and be up to date with Dust of Dreams by the end of the year:D

The encyclopedia is meant to be released following the tenth and final book in Eriksons current Malazan series.

Currently reading Berlin by Antony Beevor. More WW2 history written with great depth and insight.

Finished all five Hitchhikers Guide novels. I enjoyed the first three the most. The fourth was a drop in events more than quality. The fifth, Mostly Harmless, was sadly mostly crap. It would have made such a great trilogy of three.

MultiUmm

I have Northern Lights from the His Dark Materials series lying there unread for nearly a month now. For shame on myself.

Avenuegirl

I finally decided to read the much loved Raymond E Feist (I've been putting it off because I've always found the stress of trying to find the books in order in the library too much!) and picked up Exile's Return. It's very good so far, and now I'm glad that I have so many of his books yet to read! However, I have just realised that the book is number three in a series so I hope it won't spoil the first two books too much.

growler

The Last Argument of Kings, Joe Abercrombie

quite enjoying this trilogy, he writes quite well and although as said above it isn't revolutionary, its very dark in many places and bloody violent.


Must have a look for Feist's new one although I think he's just churning them out for the sake of it in recent years.

Definately not going to get the last instalment of Robin Hobbs Soldiers Son, I'm not sure if she meant it, but I hate the main protagonist with a passion, whinging fat b@stard that he is :-)

bonkey

Avenuegirl wrote: »

I finally decided to read the much loved Raymond E Feist (I've been putting it off because I've always found the stress of trying to find the books in order in the library too much!) and picked up Exile's Return. It's very good so far, and now I'm glad that I have so many of his books yet to read! However, I have just realised that the book is number three in a series so I hope it won't spoil the first two books too much.

Exiles Return is book 3 in a series, sure. Its also about the 6th series Feist wrote on that world.

If you're going to continue reading Feist, start with Magician. Not only is it his best work, its where it all began.

ixoy

Currently reading "UnLunDun" by China Mieville. Reminds me a lot of Clive Barker's "Abarat" sequence - an illustrated highly-imaginative fantasy aimed at a young adult audience but that can be enjoyed by all. About 80% of the way through and enjoying it a lot.