Soldato
I recently finished reading the in her name series by Michael hicks. Bought it on kindle the starting book is free.
Best sci fi I've read really hooks you in.
Best sci fi I've read really hooks you in.
What book are you reading...
- Thread starter agnes
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Reading List:
I gave Up on the Horus Heresy, since understandingly the story tries to encompass as many views of the heresy as it can. This however invites some really badly written books, I gave up after Legion. I switched to Ravenor and Eisenhorn ( Bless you Dan Abnett)
Weaveworld.
Imajica.
The Great and Secret Show.
Above are all by Clive Barker, so far I loved Weaveworld and Imajica didn't put them down when reading them. Imaginative writer, and the prose is descriptive but not overly indulgent.
Next up:
I received an early Christmas present from my sister, The whole series for 'The Sandman' by Neil Gaiman'. I had lent my series out to a friend years back, and lost touch. She is awesome.
I gave Up on the Horus Heresy, since understandingly the story tries to encompass as many views of the heresy as it can. This however invites some really badly written books, I gave up after Legion. I switched to Ravenor and Eisenhorn ( Bless you Dan Abnett)
Weaveworld.
Imajica.
The Great and Secret Show.
Above are all by Clive Barker, so far I loved Weaveworld and Imajica didn't put them down when reading them. Imaginative writer, and the prose is descriptive but not overly indulgent.
Next up:
I received an early Christmas present from my sister, The whole series for 'The Sandman' by Neil Gaiman'. I had lent my series out to a friend years back, and lost touch. She is awesome.
Soldato
"Dark Rising" by Greig Beck. Shameless pulp action novel about a super-soldier (albeit it with a nice way that he gains his 'powers') and he faces bad guys, dangerous tech, ancient history and monsters. Not high literature but a fun, engaging way to unwind. I picked up the first in this series ("Beneath the dark ice") on Amazon for a pittance and loved it. Being a fan of monster movies it immediately hit the spot. 
I've just finished "Blue Remembered Earth" and it's followup "On The Steel Breeze" by Alistair Reynolds. Both quite good, though not as dense and hard SF as his Revelation Space novels. It is focussed on much smaller groups of people, and although lots of big things happen, they are a more considered style of SF.
Man of Honour
Be prepared for the fact that the first half is pretty dire. At that time Dick was churning out a couple of books a year. The best bits are great, much of it is poor.
I'm currently on "Blue Remembered Earth" by Alistair Reynolds, after finishing "The Hydrogen Sonata" by Iain Banks. Before that was the last two Harry Dresdens, and before that "A Talent for War" by Jack McDevitt.
I was thinking it wasn't that great...then I read the graffiti, about 1/3 through, and I knew I was in for something special. Now it is in my top three 'favourite' books!....only the ending is a bit disappointing imo.
One of my favourite books of all time. I have a paperback import I picked up from Forbidden Planet (when it was not at the current shop, not at the shop before, but the shop before that), published in 1989. No one does the sci-fi archaeological mystery story better than McDevitt. Brilliant twists and turns, and in the end, you find out the truth of the mystery, where even the book's main characters don't find out the final resolution.
I agree. I read Seeker a year or so ago, and I would say it is some of the best sci-fi I have read recently. Highly recommended
Wasn't he on and off anti-psychotic drugs for much of his adult life? It explains a lot of his books, and the very uneven quality of them.
I liked this book because it was part way back to some of Banks good Culture novels. Some of his previous ones have not really been Culture novels. Though they are supposed to be set in the same universe, they had very little in the way of Culture characters. Banks never seems to have reached the dizzying heights of his earlier Culture novels with his later ones. Strangely, some of his non-Culture books like "Against A Dark Background" and "The Algebraist" were better, and more SF than some of the Culture books he wrote at around the same time.
I was so disappointed that he recently died, especially at such a young age. I started reading his books in my early twenties, and I was looking forward to having him writing books for another twenty years.
Although I feel that Bank's SF books were later eclipsed by the new wave of British SF authors, I remember him as the vanguard, the first British author that planted the flag for modern SF to which others rallied.
All of the Dresden books are pretty much the same format and structure, but I do love reading them. Jim Butcher does a good job of moving the characters forwards so they do change, and he does write a tight and exciting story that makes you want to keep on reading. I recently realised that Butcher manages to finish every chapter on a cliff hanger. You want to turn that page to see what happens next, and before you know it you've finished the book in a couple of days.
Oh, I think I've read almost all of McDevitt's books. Certainly all the Alex Benedict and Priscilla Hutchens books (though I think there's a new one just come out though that's a prequel).
"Dark Rising" by Greig Beck. Shameless pulp action novel about a super-soldier (albeit it with a nice way that he gains his 'powers') and he faces bad guys, dangerous tech, ancient history and monsters. Not high literature but a fun, engaging way to unwind. I picked up the first in this series ("Beneath the dark ice") on Amazon for a pittance and loved it. Being a fan of monster movies it immediately hit the spot.
Good choice
I' now onto An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth By Chris Hadfield
He's inspirational and has such a good outlook on life. But such a hard outlook and determination to get.
Man of Honour
I still can't see what the fuss about McDevitt is. The problem is he wrote one good book. That worked so well he just writes the same book over and over. I've read about four of his books, and the only one which stands out is Slow Lightning. How the Hell Seeker ever won awards is beyond me: the competition that year must have been pretty weak.
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Man of Honour
Only from the late 1970s onwards IIRC. He claims he didn't try LSD until around then either. He may well have been mentally ill before then, but if so, it wasn't diagnosed.
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Just started 'Cold' by Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Soldato
Agree with this, didn't think I'd enjoy them but read from the first through to most recently published in about 2 month
really well written and its surprising how fresh he manages to keep it.My only "complaint" is that as he gets better his enemies do too, at times I would love to see him whale on some of the older bad guys and just mop the floor with everyone instead of always ateugglingz minor complaint though, really like the series.
I wouldn't know. I have only read Seeker, and I have one other somewhere that I started, but didn't finish for some reason.
Soldato
Just finished the picture of Dorisn Gray. Really good book and well written but didn't do anything special for me.
Going to try and finish book two of the Long Prove wuartet now, poor series but I'm muddling on in hope it will improve.
Going to try and finish book two of the Long Prove wuartet now, poor series but I'm muddling on in hope it will improve.
Recently finished "The Long Earth" and the "Long War" by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett. Nice, clever premise, that a large portion of the population can suddenly sidestep into alternate earths, where every planet is different, but inevitably, mankind never evolved past early hominds. It's not just a new planet as a frontier, but an infinite number of planets. It feels more like a Baxter book than a Pratchett book.