What Are You Reading Right Now 2.0

[Lord Pounder]

Finished reading Age of Darkness from the Horus Heresy yesterday, over all and interesting collection of short stories.

Today I started reading one of the several hundred strong Kindle freebies I got recently, Fireproof by Gerrard Brennan. It's about a guy who makes a deal with the devil to start a new Church of Satan. I'd normally skip a book like this, Glen Duncan's I Lucifer was IMHO the definitive book to read on Lucifer, but it's set in Belfast so it's nice to read about home.

[Dalton]

Currently reading Forbidden the Stars by Valmore Daniels. Iffy on this one so far but it's still early.

Up next maybe is United Moon Colonies by Tom Merritt (of CNET/TWiT fame). Trying to burn through a backlog of freebies.

[loomer]

The Domesday Book translation. Arrived yesterday. Really interesting stuff if you have a fondness for minutiae, though I wouldn't exactly call it thrilling reading.

Allow me to provide an excerpt for anyone who'd like to know just what the hell it is.

Rainer holds PAYEMBURY from Balwdin. Alnoth held it TRE, and it paid geld for 2 hides. There is land for 8 ploughs. In demesne is 1 plough, with 1 slave; and 12 villans and 9 bordars with 5 ploughs. There is a mill rendering 40d, and 14 acres of meadow and 40 acres of pasture. Formerly 40s, now it is worth 60s.

Great reference, and a fucking perfect cure for insomnia even for me.

[Argosh]

Up next maybe is United Moon Colonies by Tom Merritt (of CNET/TWiT fame). Trying to burn through a backlog of freebies.

Got that as audiobook this week. Not bad for a techie, not bad at all. A little too Hollywood ending though and with a sequel hook in the end.

[JME2]

Almost done with Of Fire and Night, the fifth book in Kevin J. Anderson's The Saga of Seven Suns. Now that the series is in its second half, the narrative's picking up as we near the end.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Is Kevin Anderson any good? I haven't touched any of his books since the Jedi Academy trilogy, but if he is cheesy in his own setting I can imagine there might be some positives.

[JME2]

Seven Suns is decent enough space-opera with dozens of characters and multiple plot lines.

The first book took a while to get going, but only because KJA was establishing the world. The narrative also suffers a little bit in the first half given it's a seven book series and it lags a little given how much KJA's dealing with.

Now that I'm in the second half, however, things are progressing nicely and the endgame is nigh.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Still trying to read Dodger, work not making it easy, spending a week without insulin means I cant read that well right now...

[Ahriman238]

Finished the Gift. Starting the new HH anthology, Shadows of Treachery. Who knew that Sigismund, of all people, could become a complex and interesting character?

[JME2]

Working my way though A Dance with Dragons. Among other things I'm glad to see that...
Spoiler

Davos Seaworth wasn't killed in the last book; the Onion Knight is my 3rd favorite character.

[Dalton]

Preordered Gaiman's latest, "The Ocean at the End of the Lane". He quickly rose to the level of Neal Stephenson in my Awesome List.

[Crazedwraith]

Finished HMS Surprise. Didn't read the preview chapter of the next book. Not suckering me into buying more the series that way anymore.

Started Look to Windward by Iain M Banks. Been a while since I read a culture book. Hoping this one doesn't end quite so grimly as some of the others but I'm not really expecting it.

[JME2]

Almost finished with Metal Swarm, the penultimate novel of The Saga of Seven Suns. KJA's pulling the plot together and it's going to be a heck of a finale.
Spoiler

I'm still loving the mental breakdown of the corrupt Hansa Chairman Basil Wencelas. From the very beginning he's been a control freak and a character you love to hate. But as the Hydrogue War has progressed, he's descended further and further into irrationality, delusions of grandeur, and extreme paranoia. Now he's finally crossed the border into full-on insanity and it's giving me grim satisfaction to see his last, loyal supporters finally turn on him.

[JME2]

And because I couldn't wait, I started on the finale, The Ashes of Worlds.

There's a real apocalyptic feel and not just because this is the final chapter in the Saga. And since it is the end and anyone is fair game, I fear for some of my favorite surviving characters. And while it finally came to a head in the last book...
Spoiler

...Hansa Chariman Wencelas has really gone of the deep end.

That's the great thing about a long series like this. He's been a Grade-A asshole from his first page. But when I read Hidden Empire, I certainly didn't predict he would become 100% psychotic and unhinged from reality by the time I got to the last book.

Yet the seeds for that breakdown have been there since the beginning. It only took the strain of the Hydrogue War to harvest them one by one.

And I love it that his actions are threatening to bring down every major civilization in the Spiral Arm...and he's too obsessed with spiting and hurting King Peter to understand this. He's hellbent on unifying humanity under his banner and philosophy, yet his actions have ironically united everyone against him. Good going, Basil.

[Guardsman Bass]

I just read the two tie-in Dead Space novels, Martyr and Catalyst. Martyr was decent fare, but not great - I was pleasantly surprised, and it kept me hooked. Catalyst was terrible, one of the dullest reads I've done in months.

I'm working my way through a book about what a real Downton Abbey-style household would be like. It's interesting stuff, but the author feels the need to repeat everything several times. So you'll see the author say, "Servants were becoming restless, blah, blah, blah", then five pages later, he'll say it again. Then in another five pages, again. You expect authors to do callbacks, but this feels more like padding.

[JME2]

Just finished The Ashes of Worlds and, by extension, The Saga of Seven Suns. It's a pretty satisfying payoff to the threads and stories KJA's been telling and I'm going to miss these characters. And of course...
Spoiler

...I immensely enjoyed Chairman Basil Wencelas getting literally stabbed in the back by Deputy Chairman Eldred Cain while trying to make one last attempt at assassinating King Peter. Couldn't have happened to a nicer asshole.

Now moving onto the first book in Dragonriders of Pern based on a friend's recommendation.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Are you going to read the whole Dragonriders series? I'm curious how it holds up. I read some of the books as a kid and just couldn't stick to the series, so I wonder if they would be more enjoyable for me as an adult or if they would seem dated and be even more difficult to enjoy.

[JME2]

I'm giving the first book a try. If I like it, then I'll give the rest of the series a go.

[Dr Roberts]

Just finished "Ghost In The Wires" by Kevin Mitnick. Now on to "Exploding The Phone"

[Vendetta]

I'm giving the first book a try. If I like it, then I'll give the rest of the series a go.

I wouldn't read the whole series. Frankly quite a lot of them are rubbish, McCaffrey has a problem where a lot of the villains in her books are either saturday morning cartoon material or they're just Wrong about something because of Reasons. It makes it hard to invest in the conflicts when one side of it is portrayed so childishly.

Also, the tone of the early books is completely different to the later ones, since, y'know the first one was 1967 and it shows in the social attitudes and what was considered sensible SF writing.

[CaptHawkeye]

About to start Shirer's Collapse of the Third Republic.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Currently reading White Tiger, book one in the Dark Heavens series by Kylie Chan, and I'm really enjoying it. It's odd how a book can be objectively poor, but still fun. Mostly, I love it for the Chinese Mythology-meets-urban fantasy dynamic, but mostly for the goofy characters. Mostly. It's odd that a book that takes place in Hong Kong starring millennia-old immortals creates the most culture shock when it features the Australian lady thinking like an Australian. That doesn't make sense, but it's just alien to have the "Jack Burton" in this novel not be 'Merican. Also, the protagonist is the biggest Mary Sue I've read about in years. The only saving grace are the hints that she's actually a reincarnation of an enlightened being or shen who lost her memory. I'm not doing the book justice, but it is tremendous fun in the right mindset. It really makes me want to finish Journey to the West and read Three Kingdoms.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Reading "The Daylight War" (Book 3 of the warded man). Kinda dissapointed - it moves slow, and feels a bit of a retread. (And the cockney like Leesha is damned annoying). The first book was really great, and the second also nice, and the writer has a talent for prose, it's a shame that the main viewpoint character is just dull and annoying as ditchwater.

[edaw1982]

I've just finished reading "Just Determination" by John G. Hemry.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Started Existence by David Brin, though forgot I need to restart Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton.

Also have The Annotated Sandman Vol. 1 to finish.