What book are you reading...

Just finished 'Second Shift: Order' by Hugh Howey (whom I beleive is on Radio 2 right now). A nice little read, looking forward to 'Third Shift: Pact'.

But before that I'm about to start 'The Blade Itself' by Joe Abercrombie, book one of the First Law trilogy.
 
Malazan! MALAZAN. MALAAAZAAAAAN. And buy the second book now, because you will want to move straight onto that. The first book can take a while to get into, simply because of the amount of stuff Erikson introduces in a relatively short space of time, but once you get to the stage where you can 'hold' all the characters, factions, locations etc in your head, it'll all come nicely. Some sections may need a read through again to fully make sense of it, but don't let that put you off.
Just finished Gardens of the Moon and I enjoyed it. It was a good story with some really good characters and locations but I did think the ending could have been better. There was a big build up for something exciting/interesting to go down, and then not much happened really. It felt a bit rushed. It didn't grip me enough to want to go straight onto the 2nd book (are all of the characters in it or just a couple?), so I think I'll go back to Deighton's Game Set Match trilogy.
 
Just finished Gardens of the Moon and I enjoyed it. It was a good story with some really good characters and locations but I did think the ending could have been better. There was a big build up for something exciting/interesting to go down, and then not much happened really. It felt a bit rushed. It didn't grip me enough to want to go straight onto the 2nd book (are all of the characters in it or just a couple?), so I think I'll go back to Deighton's Game Set Match trilogy.

I know exactly how you feel about Gardens, I felt the same after reading it. Nevertheless I carried on and got book 2 (Deadhouse Gates), and found it to be a much more enjoyable read. There are several characters from the first book in this, but it also introduces some new characters that are written really well, with several distinct storylines that have their own little climaxes, rather than the big messy climax that ended with a whimper in the first book.

In other news, in addition to reading through The Hydrogen Sonata (above), I've also been reading through Steve Perry's Matador series. I found it to be quite a good read, certainly something I'd want to read again in the future. The sci-fi is easy to keep on top of, as is the combat, and the books themselves (there's 8 of them so far) are relatively short so it never seems to drag along. Each book concentrates on a different character but you never feel that they're completely seperate to everything else due to the shared cast.
 
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I have a few on the go at the moment but have just finished reading Story of O for the first time and found it a very interesting read and far better than the 50 shades of rubbish books. I like to read a variety of genres and am enjoying getting back into reading more now. Always looking for the next book to read.
 
Just finished Blood and Bone by Ian C Esselmont. His part of the Malazan arc, it was garbage. He tries so hard to be like Erikson but he's not anywhere near as good, nothing to be ashamed of as few are, wish he would stop trying and develop his own style. He lacks the build up and engagement skills of Erikson and his attempt at an ending was such a damp squib. Really poor :(

Reading Firewall a Wallabder book, always enjoy these :) and worst case it can't be any worse than the last book :p
 
Reading the last few of the Discworld novels now. Just finished The Amazing Maurice and his Educated rodents which, despite being a childrens book at its core, had some very powerful messages behind it. It was also a hell of a lot of fun.

I'm nearly 1/3rd of the way through The Wee Free Men which again is one of his 'For Younger Readers' Discworld books. It's had a promising start and made me chuckle a few times. However I'm looking forward to reading another one of his more mature books in Monstrous Regiment next.
 
Reading The Quantum Thief ATM, the first chapter I was like wtf, it's just a chapter of flowery descriptions, I was thinking what the hell is this and why am I not giving up. However I'm now halfway though and enjoying it a lot. It's certainly not my normal easy reading but hey ho. It certainly took a few chapters to even working out what the hell was happening and the storyline as well as get the head around this future galaxy of brain hacking.

The Quantum Thief is a dazzling hard SF novel set in the solar system of the far future - a heist novel peopled by bizarre post-humans but powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge and jealousy. It is a stunning debut. Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy - from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to steal their thoughts, to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of the Moving Cities of Mars. Except that Jean made one mistake. Now he is condemned to play endless variations of a game-theoretic riddle in the vast virtual jail of the Axelrod Archons - the Dilemma Prison - against countless copies of himself. Jean's routine of death, defection and cooperation is upset by the arrival of Mieli and her spidership, Perhonen.
 
Need some recommendations for a new fantasy series. However, nothing with magic, dragons and fairies. I'm more into historical fiction set in Greece/Rome etc.

I've just reread David Gemmell's Troy series for the 4th time and if I can find any series that's half as good, I'll be happy.

So, any recommendations?
 
Just finished The Wolf of Wall Street. Eye-opening, entertaining, gratuitous and crass... and really funny. Given what he consumed I have no idea how the guy lived.

Looking forward to the film.

I start reading the Big Short tonight :)
 
After a visit to the Harry Potter studio tour at the weekend (which was fantastic), I felt compelled to read the first book again whilst waiting for my delivery of The Blade Itself: Book One of The First Law.
It's hard to think that the first Harry Potter came out 16 years ago! Whilst none of them were written particularly well, and the later ones drift off all over the place, the story is fantastic.
 
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, fairly sure I read it as a teenager but that was a while back now so I don't recall much of it :-)
 
Still getting thru the dragonlance series....neverending but brilliant..

Just finished Playtime with Pooh...blame my grandson.
 
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