What books are you reading now?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:48 am

Finished the Night Angel Series. Surprisingly good. I might legitimately suggest it to others.

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 3:10 am

Only might?

It's not perfect, but I really enjoyed it and would suggest it to others.

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:47 am

Just finished The Brothers Karamozov. I enjoyed it.

Akiosama · Post by **Akiosama** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:48 pm

Kaelik wrote:Finished the Night Angel Series. Surprisingly good. I might legitimately suggest it to others.

Weeks' second series, Lightbringer is pretty good, too. It starts off with The Black Prism and has three books out now, IIRC.

Like Sanderson, Weeks seems to be defining a lot of his world through the way magic works. Lightbringer is no different, using a rather interesting "color magic" system. The political intrigue setup of the story is pretty good, too. Not as in depth as Martin, but still quite readable and enjoyable.

I think it stacks up well to The Night Angel trilogy, and is worth reading if you enjoyed it.

My 2 yen,

Akiosama
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Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 9:26 pm

The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:04 pm

I'm finally getting around to finishing off The Book of Swords, with Wayfinder's and Shieldbreaker's stories.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:45 pm

erik wrote:Only might?

It's not perfect, but I really enjoyed it and would suggest it to others.

I don't make a habit of recommending books. The only non-fiction books I have ever recommended to anyone are ASOIAF and Mistborn trilogy. I might never be in a situation in which recommending Night Angel makes sense.

Akiosama wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Finished the Night Angel Series. Surprisingly good. I might legitimately suggest it to others.
Weeks' second series, Lightbringer is pretty good, too. It starts off with The Black Prism and has three books out now, IIRC.

I started it before I even made that post about Night Angel.

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 11:44 pm

Ah, I share and recommend books/movies to friends often. I've probably got almost a dozen books and movies of mine loaned out to friends. I don't have a very impressive library or collection, but only recently are some friends getting turned to Butcher, Niven, and others.

I'd rate Black Prism a "B" as opposed to the "A" Night Angel series. I wasn't drawn in enough to get the other Lightbringer books. I suppose I may try em out at the library and if I like it then buy.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 12:07 am

erik wrote:I'd rate Black Prism a "B" as opposed to the "A" Night Angel series. I wasn't drawn in enough to get the other Lightbringer books. I suppose I may try em out at the library and if I like it then buy.

My decision to begin Prism immediately is solely a commentary on Night Angel. So far... too much cutesy "character thinks about the secrets he knows that you won't know until the end of the book in a vague completely unhelpful way."

Just reading those sentences annoys me. At least Martin usually has those flashback thoughts serve some other purpose, and in Night Angel Weeks doesn't focus on characters who know shit, so Durzo making vague references is him being a dick to Kylar and not the author being a dick to you the reader.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:07 am

Reading "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" lately. I can see how Nietzsche appeals to a certain type of thinker but I don't think that type of thinker is me.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:44 pm

Jim Henson's Tale of Sand, from an old screenplay of Henson's and Juhl's back in his hippie days. Think The Cube in a much longer extended form and then set it in the American Southwest.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 1:14 am

Was reading: Think: Why You Should Question Everything. by Guy P. Harrison

Now reading: The True Believer by Eric Hoffer. and a couple of flash fictions by H.P. Lovecraft.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:24 pm

Been reading Worm; I've just finished arc 6. I'm liking it so far, though the main characters feel kinda overpowered for allegedly being underdogs.

The big ridiculous bullshit is Tattletale's power, which lets her know arbitrary things like security system passwords and exactly what to say to make her opponents do something stupid. Grue can pretty much trump anyone who doesn't have esoteric sensory powers, without seriously hampering the insect swarm.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 7:22 pm

name_here wrote:Been reading Worm; I've just finished arc 6. I'm liking it so far

Yeah Worm is awesome, though if you think Tattletales power is bullshit you're in for a wild ride.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:04 pm

I've noticed that a couple of people on this forum like Tim Powers. Where are some good places to start with him?

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:14 pm

The Anubis Gates is a good place to start. It starts the weird up slowly, which some people find more comforting than being plunged straight into bizarro.

On Stranger Tides was the inspiration for the Monkey Island games and was optioned for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. If you like either of those product lines, you might want to check out the original source.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:35 pm

To be clear, Strager Tides wasn't very directly translated for PotC.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 4:32 am

James O'Donnell's Ruin of the Roman Empire is an engaging look at Late Antiquity. It's mostly from a narratival "Great Man" perspective, but it goes into a bit more depth than a standard pop-history book. It also has some super gameable stuff that you could turn into a kickass D&D game.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 7:19 am

I just finished R.S. Belcher's Six-Gun Tarot.

It happens in Nevada, a few years after the Civil War, set in a town called Golgotha.

It's basically Deadlands setting, up to 11.

The darkness in the old silver mine eats people, the Sheriff can't be killed by bullets and people have tried to hang him three times; this is common knowledge around town, and he'll show you the hanging scars if you ask. And once a week he goes to a cemetery and puts a circle of salt around a certain grave after what happened when he'd first taken the job and didn't know better (his predecessor was deceased by being hollowed out, stuffed with sawdust, and sewn back up). His emergency weapons pile includes rifles, shotguns, salt, silver, crosses, wooden stakes, Native American and Asian charms, and holy water blessed by the Pope himself; I got the vibe they get a regular shipment.

There's a taxidermist who's got some ideas about death being reversible with surgery and electricity, the sheriff's deputy will talk to to coyotes and evidently they understand him, and one of our main characters has an fake eye in his pocket that lets you see and talk to ghosts.

Recommended if you want some Weird West reading. Plot-wise, it's all right. It has several different viewpoint characters it switches between. I like a lot of the setting and the ability of the townsfolk to roll with some things.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 4:44 am

Read Pandorax in the WH40k Space Marine Battles series. Basically, an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, acting on information from an Alpha Legion captive, swipes a powerful artifact the Tau stuck in some random culture museum and takes it to a death world to destroy another powerful chaotic artifact, his obsession blinding him to the possibility that of course it's a fucking trap.

So the Grey Knights get wind of the resultant disaster and blackmail the entire Dark Angels chapter into helping them unfuck things, and bring along a bunch of imperial guard and Titans. Meanwhile, the Inquisitor's pet alien from the race known for randomly fucking with and improving technology gets his hand on a Baneblade variant and by the end it makes 200 KPH in dead silence and uses its main gun for precision antiair.

RedstoneOrc · Post by **RedstoneOrc** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:59 pm

Kaelik wrote: non-fiction books ... Mistborn trilogy

When did this become real to you Kaelik? Have you ever ingested a metal solution?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 11:07 pm

Going back through Lovecraft's letters. I've been toying with the idea of doing a full-length essay on his racism. Also hunting down Prohibition-era cocktail guides and bartender manuals, for a different project.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 11:10 pm

RedstoneOrc wrote:
Kaelik wrote: non-fiction books ... Mistborn trilogy
When did this become real to you Kaelik? Have you ever ingested a metal solution?

That was actually meant to be non-non-fiction books, but either my program auto corrected it, or I failed to double type.

The distinction felt necessary to me to convey the point that I recommend a lot of non-fiction books, but for obvious reasons, very few of those belong here.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 1:50 am

I'd be interested in HPL's racism. Largely because some of his writing seems pretty damn racist, but anyone who talks about either brushes it off entirely or starts hyperventilating whenever (and only whenever) dark skin is mentioned. So a sane, in-context look at it would actually be pretty neat.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 1:57 am

Yeah, it just...takes time. Lot of letters to wade through, not to mention criticism, notes, commentary, and contemporary sources. It'll be months before I have anything suitable for presentation, likely. But of course, the whole of the thing is to actually do the research no one else will...

The Gaming Den

What books are you reading now?

Brent Weeks' writing