What book are you reading...

Last week I finished The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova. A pretty nice read based in Bulgaria with a few places I could recognise after my trip there last year. I think it was better than her last book The Swan Thieves, but not as good as the debut The Historian.

I've just started to read Jack Kerouac's book On The Road, starting promising so will look forward to the rest of it.
 
I enjoyed On The Road, albeit a few years since I read it.

After finishing Robert Service's biography of Leon Trotsky - a well-researched but lengthy book that increasingly became a slog due to the weight of the political terminology - I am now at the point of finishing Philip Marsden's The Crossing Place: A journey among the Armenians. I would go as far as to state this is my favourite travel book ever; that is, travel as a 'journey' not travel as a guide or purely for the sake of sightseeing. It centres on the 1915 Armenian genocide and the author's desire to move through the diaspora, visit some of the sites of atrocities and get to the heart of what is left of Armenia and it's culture. Exceptionally well-written, with a delicate and occasionally humorous touch, lots of anecdotes, and a depth of metaphors which evoke the places, sights and people the author interacts with. Occasionally-mediocre publisher proofreading aside, one of the few books that I could quite easily soon pick up again.
 
Teh_Next said:
I'm on the last book of the The Night's Dawn trilogy.

Hamilton is easily one of most fluent and descriptive writers I've ever read. His ability to draw imagery in the mind is unsurpassed. Coupled with his hybrid Space opera come Horror mix and you got a whole modern classic right there...if you're into that sort of thing :)
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I really enjoyed this trilogy but I can't stand anything else he has written, weird but I would recommend the Night Dawn to anyone (though about a fifth of the last book is dross, you'll probably realise which bits when you read them)
 
No1newts said:
I really enjoyed this trilogy but I can't stand anything else he has written, weird but I would recommend the Night Dawn to anyone (though about a fifth of the last book is dross, you'll probably realise which bits when you read them)
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There's some ambling I've noticed which makes me want it to get to the good bits. Still brilliant though.
 
No1newts said:
I really enjoyed this trilogy but I can't stand anything else he has written, weird but I would recommend the Night Dawn to anyone (though about a fifth of the last book is dross, you'll probably realise which bits when you read them)
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Have you read his Mindstar trilogy? I think that's probably where he was sharpest, before he started into three thousand page trilogies.
 
Steampunk said:
Have you read his Mindstar trilogy? I think that's probably where he was sharpest, before he started into three thousand page trilogies.
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Nope.

I started trying to read the Commonwealth series I believe it was (iirc they had created tamed wormholes for travel or something) but I just found it stodgy and gave up half way through and never been that tempted to pick up anything by him again.

If there was a ever a nights dawn follow up I would be sorely tempted mind, with all the TV series of books now I think that would translate pretty well.
 
No1newts said:
Nope.

I started trying to read the Commonwealth series I believe it was (iirc they had created tamed wormholes for travel or something) but I just found it stodgy and gave up half way through and never been that tempted to pick up anything by him again.

If there was a ever a nights dawn follow up I would be sorely tempted mind, with all the TV series of books now I think that would translate pretty well.
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There are a couple of follow-ups, but you won't enjoy them as half of it takes place in a pocket universe that is written more like fantasy than science fiction. The Mindstar books were his first books, and they are more like near future action thrillers than the expansive space operas Hamilton then went to with the Night's Dawn books, but he definitely lost his sharp storytelling in favour of massive backdrops and world building.
 
Steampunk said:
There are a couple of follow-ups, but you won't enjoy them as half of it takes place in a pocket universe that is written more like fantasy than science fiction. The Mindstar books were his first books, and they are more like near future action thrillers than the expansive space operas Hamilton then went to with the Night's Dawn books, but he definitely lost his sharp storytelling in favour of massive backdrops and world building.
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Read the Night dawn trilogy and the fallen Dragon. Literally felt like both were the same.
Is it just me or do his stories always end up with a Deux Ex moment with some godlike ancient alien saving the day?
 
Baron C said:
Read the Night dawn trilogy and the fallen Dragon. Literally felt like both were the same.
Is it just me or do his stories always end up with a Deux Ex moment with some godlike ancient alien saving the day?
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Yeah, it's kind of his trademark, along with writing two dimensional female characters. I think he's sort of disappeared up his own backside a bit with his later books, which is quite different from the earlier Mindstar novels. I did love the worlds he built in Night's Dawn, so I found it very disappointing when the followups only have a little of that, and it's mostly all the fantasy stuff in the pocket universes.
 
Teh_Next said:
Culture books are some of the best, loved Hydrogen Sonata.
Player of Games character Irwin Skwell just totally captivated me.
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Loved all of them so far :)

I probably chose the wrong one to start with though. Excession was tough to get into for someone new to the series. I'll definitely go back and read that one again.

Favourites have been Use Of Weapons (that ending!) and Look To Windward.
 
Look to Windward, defo.


His non Culture Sci-fi is good too. Though according to Wikipedia Feersum Endjinn is culture I never thought it was.
Feersum Endjinn, takes time to get around with the mad phonetics and 1st perspective. Worth sticking with.
 
Teh_Next said:
Look to Windward, defo.


His non Culture Sci-fi is good too. Though according to Wikipedia Feersum Endjinn is culture I never thought it was.
Feersum Endjinn, takes time to get around with the mad phonetics and 1st perspective. Worth sticking with.
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I do have a few of his non culture books to read. The Algebraist, against a dark background and feersum endjinn.

Such a shame he passed away, a big loss :(
 
I was about 60% through James Clavells' Whirlwind but I'm finding my attention is drifting, probably because this is the 6th books in the series I've read back to back.

Picked up a Kobo One the other day and to test it out I bought Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa, enjoying it so far, good to read something fresh
 
Finished The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester this weekend. Another excellent book, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I accidentally also bought it as an audiobook and it just didn't carry across right for the telepathic bits, nor could it I guess. Stick to paper for this one. It made me think, they really don't write them like this anymore, or if they do, the books can't be doing well. Have we just become much more cynical as a society? Modern writing all seems very dystopian/EvilCorp if you see what I mean.

I've also finished my first listen through of The Black Swan by Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It was an interesting book, I've started my second round to try to dig into it. I found it both extremely annoying from the tone of the author (not improved by the narrator!) as well as an interesting journey and collection of anecdotes about the fallibility of how we don't know nearly as much as we think we do; which does not prepare us for unexpected things happening, which happen a lot more often and have a lot more impact than we recognise.

Now onto Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
 
shroomz said:
Finished The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester this weekend. Another excellent book, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I accidentally also bought it as an audiobook and it just didn't carry across right for the telepathic bits, nor could it I guess. Stick to paper for this one. It made me think, they really don't write them like this anymore, or if they do, the books can't be doing well. Have we just become much more cynical as a society? Modern writing all seems very dystopian/EvilCorp if you see what I mean.

I've also finished my first listen through of The Black Swan by Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It was an interesting book, I've started my second round to try to dig into it. I found it both extremely annoying from the tone of the author (not improved by the narrator!) as well as an interesting journey and collection of anecdotes about the fallibility of how we don't know nearly as much as we think we do; which does not prepare us for unexpected things happening, which happen a lot more often and have a lot more impact than we recognise.

Now onto Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
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I've read children of time, great book. Think you'll enjoy reading that.
 
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