What book are you reading...

PlacidCasual said:
Not often covered in fiction but it's a safe bet that nobles would have had a far better diet than your average person and even average soldier. So in the same way that we are larger than people 100 years ago. Nobles in a medieval economy would be bigger and stronger because of better diets. An early developer 16year old noble might be as big or bigger than a peasant. Also nobleman soldiers would spend far more time practicing (practising?) and build muscle than your average part time soldier.
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Some of the bodies exhumed from Towton battlefield showed their skeletal development was likely driven by drawing heavy bows, over a long period of time.

A few of the late medieval Kings were absolute monsters, and renowned fir their size and strength. Edward 3 is a notable example of the warrior king, built to rule.
 
Just finished The Haunted Hotel, by Wilkie Collins. A victorian ghost story, it's very slow going and the dated language is unintentionally funny in parts ("I am but a woman, weak in body and spirit").

Not recommended.
 
Just finishing my second read through of the Malazan series and have just found out the there is a new one (The God is Not Willing)! Anybody read it yet? Any good?
 
Just finished a re-read of Foundation (Asimov) after the TV series prompted me.
Essentially is a collection of stories spanning a couple of hundred years but you only read about 5 or so main characters.
Originally written in 1942, it's interesting to compare Asimovs idea of technology to what we have now.
He refers to atomic as the power source of most technology. A televisor is the means of most media and I noticed that all of his characters are male. Hardly surprising considering when it was written but I always felt that science fiction had a more equal split in equality. Not so in this case.

Overall, I still enjoyed it like I always have. Some people are put off by his use of physics explanations in the books but I don't think they are very noticeable.
Foundation & Empire next.
 
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Finished the third Empire of Salt book by Conn Iggulden: The Sword Saint.

Very generic fantasy, just like the first two.

Pretty easy reading, not spectacular.

Back to 50s scifi short stories!
 
Reading the Murderbot Diaries at the moment by Martha Wells. Initially novellas but there are full novels later. Follows a part robot part synthetic who breaks it's behaviour controls and starts thinking for itself. Very funny and very well written.
 
Currently reading through the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch. There was a special offer price if you bought the whole series, so I did.

Urban Fantasy and very readable, but not a patch on the Dresden Files. He's trying too hard to make the main character funny in every situation.
 
OK, I am probably going to get grilled for this but.....

Ursula K. Le Guin...

I recently finished 'The Left Hand of Darkness'. I read it because I am on a big binge of sci-fi books at the moment.

I thought the book was very poor. Maybe 2 chapters in the whole thing that was any good.

Was expecting more. Thoroughly disappointed.

Currently reading 'The word for World is forest'. Another meh book.

I have the 'The Dispossessed' lined up next. I hope it's better.

Honestly I have no idea why 'The Left Hand of Darkness' is so highly regarded.

Poor book. Its hardly even sci-fi.
 
melmac said:
Currently reading through the Rivers of London series of books by Ben Aaronovitch. There was a special offer price if you bought the whole series, so I did.

Urban Fantasy and very readable, but not a patch on the Dresden Files. He's trying too hard to make the main character funny in every situation.
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Yeah I loved Rivers of London initially but I've found it's dropped off quite a lot after a promising start. I wouldn't even put it in my top 3 urban fantasy series now. Dresden Files, Sandman Slim, Alex Verus hold those spots.
 
Scam said:
I just finished Fahrenheit 451 and thought it was dull, dull, dull. Very disappointing.
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You definitely need to have different expectations when reading classic sci-fi. Been a while since I read Fahrenheit 451 but it is a different beast to say the Expanse trilogy or something by Peter F Hamilton. I'm planning to re-read Brave New World at some point and knowing how thin the book is I know it will be a very different experience to modern Sci-Fi.
 
PlacidCasual said:
You definitely need to have different expectations when reading classic sci-fi. Been a while since I read Fahrenheit 451 but it is a different beast to say the Expanse trilogy or something by Peter F Hamilton. I'm planning to re-read Brave New World at some point and knowing how thin the book is I know it will be a very different experience to modern Sci-Fi.
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Yeah fahrenheit451 is the temperature at which paper spontaneously ignites its s treatise on book burning and anti-intellectualism in 50's america, peoples expectations have really been dumbed down by hollywood action/sci-fi movies all flash bang boom and brain definitely not required.
 
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