What BOOK(s) are you reading?

It's so good, RobertB.

I'm finishing up book 3, Abaddon's Gate, in the Leviathan's Wake/Expanse series and loving it. Wish I hadn't heard of this until 10 years from now so I wouldn't have to keep waiting for the next book to come out.

Looking for something else to read when I'm finished, any good Sci-Fi suggestions for someone that loves Leviathan's Wake, Wool, and Cormac McCarthy?

Twilight

So here's my shameful admission: I'm a 33 year old with a Literature degree who loves Science Fiction, and I am currently reading for the first time 2001: A Space Odyssey. And no, I haven't seen the film either.

So far I've been pleasantly surprised at how it doesn't feel dated other than a few small things.

The only really jarring thing for me is when there is mention of how much something costs. I have to remind myself that when it says that maintaining people living on the moon costs $100,000 per person that it is meant sound like a lot.

Other than that, thoroughly enjoying myself.

Ain't no shame in loving science fiction around here. Anybody gives you grief about it in the English department you just let 'em know how wrong they are with the swift application of a ball peen hammer to the knee cap.

repoman wrote: Ain't no shame in loving science fiction around here. Anybody gives you grief about it in the English department you just let 'em know how wrong they are with the swift application of a ball peen hammer to the knee cap.

Oh, the shame isn't that I love Science Fiction.

It's the fact that I still haven't read 2001.

charlest wrote:

Looking for something else to read when I'm finished, any good Sci-Fi suggestions for someone that loves Leviathan's Wake, Wool, and Cormac McCarthy?

Cormac McCarthy makes it a tough SF pick; for me, anyway. Ancillary Justice is good. If you don't mind fantasy, all of Joe Abercrombie's stuff is good.

Wasn't the novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey written in parallel with the movie, and was based on Clarke's short story, The Sentinel?

I remember Childhood's End being another really good Clarke novel. Rendevous With Rama is kind of flat, as is Imperial Earth.

Michael Barnes wrote: You're talking about book fairs. Man, I loved 'em. I remember getting a "How to Breakdance" book at one once. You'd get that catalog and then when the book fair came to your school, what you ordered would be there and you could buy more stuff. I'd drop $20-$30 at them. Come home with paper airplane books, whatever SF/fantasy stuff they had, drawing books, etc.

They still have them, my kids do it at their school during Thanksgiving. Last year we didn't get much, a couple of Sofia the First and Power Rangers books and some LEGO stuff.

I love book fairs. I think the most pissed my mom ever got at me was over a book fair. My mom, brother, and I grew up in a very rural area and not with a lot of "walking around money" so to speak. Anyway, she saved up $125 for me to buy my brother and I an atlas, dictionary, and thesaurus -- really nice editions. I was in 5th grade (my brother was in 1st)

I got to the book fair, and they were completely sold out of the set. So I bought 1-36 of the Choose your Own Adventure Series. I came home with this ridiculous bag full of books. She was so mad. She put the books above the fireplace where I couldn't reach them - I had to wait for a month before I could read any of them.

Ha! One of those parent moments where you have to repeat over and over in your head "Must not kill child...must not kill child...must not..."

RobertB wrote: charlest wrote:

Looking for something else to read when I'm finished, any good Sci-Fi suggestions for someone that loves Leviathan's Wake, Wool, and Cormac McCarthy?

Cormac McCarthy makes it a tough SF pick; for me, anyway. Ancillary Justice is good. If you don't mind fantasy, all of Joe Abercrombie's stuff is good.

Thanks! I will check out Ancillary Justice after I'm done with the Twilight novels.

I could go either way on Fantasy, Lord of the Rings is really the only series I got into. I'm kind of out of touch with the Sci-Fi and Fantasy scene (typically read literature).

I'm in the second half of The Book of the New Sun. It is the weirdest thing I've ever read, and definitely an acquired taste. I like how weird situations set up in the first two hundred pages are dealth with 500 pages later. It's like the opposite of LOST.

After having read a fairly decent biography, Perdurabu: The Life of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynski which is way better than John Symonds, The Beast 666 fawning attempt at objectivity, I decided to read some of Crowley's fiction particularly of his thelemic (read libertarian) detective, Simon Iff.

The Simon Iff Stories and Other Works by Aleister Crowley are really quite different detective stories. Crowley was a reasonable writer in the early part of the 20th Century with a very strong link to British Intelligence particularly during WWI. This flavours the stories with a strong hint of colonialism rather like Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. Of course, Crowley's occultism peeps through but his view of occultism being all in the mind and not to do with the 'reality' or otherwise of entities, leads him down some pretty spectacular paths. They aren't horror/occult stories by any means and they aren't brilliant works of fiction but they are good entertainment in short doses. In addition, you get to read some fiction from this, most controversial, author.

Just finished Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King. Still really good, but it's awkward when he writes from the viewpoint of the husky.

Up next, I think I will reread Flowers for Algernon.

Ah Flowers for Algernon, one of the few books that have made me tear up at the end.