razz
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Post by razz on Sept 10, 2021 9:25:31 GMT
Peter F Hamilton - Commonwealth series
Evolutionary Void
Kind of late to party on this one, I've read all the other big series from Hamilton but never this one. First two books Pandora star Judas unchained, amazing! But this second series wasn't as great, and this final book... Zzzzzzzz
Zzzzzzzzzz the series started off alright but seems to slowly die on its arse towards the end, I struggled to finish the final book as it was so so boring. At bit like the Saints series really.
I think I need to reading more exciting sci fi
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dfunked
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Post by dfunked on Sept 10, 2021 9:35:31 GMT
Haven't actually finished it yet, but I've read through 3/4 of the stories in Stephen King's "If it bleeds"
First one is pretty standard King fare, second one is a bit out there and the third one (the titular novella) is pretty damn good. It kept me up until 1am anyway, which is rare. I've never read any of the Bill Hodges stuff, which the third one is set in the world of, but have seen a few seasons of Mr. Mercedes so enjoyed returning to that world, even if it's ruined a little by me picturing Jerome and Holly as the actors.
8/10 so far overall.
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Post by retro74 on Sept 10, 2021 11:22:45 GMT
I read a book called ‘An American Caddie in St Andrews’ which, unsurprisingly, is about an American caddie working at St Andrews Old Course. One interesting fact is that the author is the brother of one of the Beastie Boys. Loved it 9 out of 10
Also, finally, finished Ready Player Two. I’m not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed the first one, didn’t feel the same about this though. Quite badly written in my uncultured opinion. Did not hate it but 4 out of 10
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Sept 10, 2021 11:28:31 GMT
I read The Dinosaur Artist. It's a true crime thing about the guy who sold a (stolen) dino skull to Nicolas Cage for $275,000.
It's actually really interesting! Goes into a lot of discussion about who "owns" fossils when they're dug up, how fossils are important for science, and generally investigates the surprisingly lucrative fossil smuggling trade.
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Sept 13, 2021 14:40:31 GMT
Endymion / Rise of Endymion - Dan Simmons
Reviewing together as it's essentially one book/story unlike Hyperion / Fall of Hyperion. Really enjoyed this. I was disappointed with FoH and had pretty much decided not to bother with these two, but due to curiosity/completionism(?) I did do, and really glad I did.
Its not as original as Hyperion but I think that overall, the story and characters were better. Simmons is excellent at world building even if at times he spends a couple of pages describing a once off, minor location when I wished he'd just bloody well get on with things!
I think the whole Cantos is one of the best series I've read and anyone who likes sci-fi should do so.
9/10
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Post by Techno Hippy on Sept 15, 2021 9:52:17 GMT
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir's latest, and it's a definite step up from Artemis, although it doesn't quite reach his accomplishment with The Martian. The story is engrossing, the technical aspects are superb, but he seems to only be able to write one type of character well. Rocky was aces though :-) Despite this weakness in his writing, the whole thing kept me page turning and I loved it.
9/10
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Sept 15, 2021 14:41:30 GMT
Faust Eric - Terry Pratchett Short, funny and brilliant. Currently sits tied with Mort and Guards Guards! for my favourite as I work through all the Discworlds.
10/10
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Post by Dougs on Sept 19, 2021 21:24:18 GMT
The Midnight Library - Matt Haig. 8.5/10
I really like Haig's laid-back style. It's quite conversational but is still well written. It's quite similar in tone to 5 People You Meet in Heaven, without the god-bothering. I won't spoil it, but deals with lots of issues including mental health, love, loss and appreciating ourselves. Loved it, whipped through it in 2 days.
The Night Fire - Michael Connelly 6/10
I usually rattle through Bosch books but struggled to get in tothisss. I think because it has 2 protagonists and it took me out of it quite a bit. Decent ending once it ramped up but I think the author is recognising that it may be time to move on from Bosch.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Sept 20, 2021 9:11:03 GMT
The Black Company by Glen Cook
A collection of the first three books about the mercenary band The Black Company. Very good generic fantasy with an interesting twist. The twist being they are swords for hire, and get hired by the evil sorcerer queen.
It does abandon its grunt on the ground perspective in latter books, where the narrator gets ever closer to the central movers and shakers. But it keeps feeling different enough through out. It also manages to have each book having its own arc, and juggling the bigger story arc that gets nicely wrapped up at the end of the third book, whilst at the same time setting up for future trilogies.
I can see myself reading more of them.
For fans of the genre
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dogbot
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Post by dogbot on Sept 20, 2021 9:25:41 GMT
The Black Company is great.
I don't have as much time to read as I used to, so I mostly use Audible these days.
I've just finished slogging through Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer, which is the third incredibly weighty tome in a series of incredibly weighty tomes, the Stormlight Archive.
I'm probably going to upset someone here, but...
I read Mistborn years ago and I was utterly "meh" about the whole thing and so I've avoided Sanderson (bar the end of the Wheel of Time) ever since. I was persuaded to have a go at Stormlight by a mate of mine, and I did enjoy the first book... but I'm finding myself just less and less engaged.
It's all a bit... well, meh. The big twist in Oathbringer was plodding and obvious. The writing is nice enough and he obviously has some craft and skill, but I can't find it in myself to really give a shit. Sorry, Brandon.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2021 12:24:11 GMT
Wheel of Time Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn 7/10 I think.
Few hundred pages too long and too much angst and repetition. The ending was okay, but took forever to get there and then was over really quick. Could have been a 50 page book if they chopped out all the waffle.
Wheel of Time Book 4 - The Shadow Something or other DNF
I got sick of Nynaeve tugging her braid, people sniffing and people generally not acting like they had half a brain cell. I've read that later books get worse, but I just got sick of the pages of small talk and repetition and figured I would just bin it and find something I enjoy all the way through rather than a small bit at the end.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Sept 20, 2021 12:36:25 GMT
Oh and I find b-ok.cc much cheaper than Amazon. Wow. Never heard of that site. Great way to screw over authors even more.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Sept 20, 2021 12:37:47 GMT
Anyway, finally read Normal People. Was actually really good - lot better than I expected and nicely captured the turmoil of those teenage years/early 20s.
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Post by Dougs on Sept 20, 2021 14:41:48 GMT
How did it compare to the TV series?
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Sept 20, 2021 14:45:02 GMT
How did it compare to the TV series? Yet to watch the series, but on the list.
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Post by Dougs on Sept 20, 2021 15:09:28 GMT
👍 I didn't watch much of it, just when my wife had it on. She loved it for the same reason you liked the book though, so bodes well.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Sept 20, 2021 15:45:53 GMT
I did finish off Perdido Street Station by China Mieville a while back, but haven't gone back to fiction for now. Though I certainly have lots and lots of options lying around. I'm just not very fast anymore. Probably a matter of never reading enough to get the momentum going on anything.
At the moment I'm reading a book on the middle ages by Johannes Fried since I don't think I have ever read a more general account.
And Defeat into Victory by William Joseph Slim. It's basically a history of the bit of WW2 that took place in Burma from the perspective of the army commander. Just because Fried's book has turned out to be a pretty hard, slow read.
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Post by HighlandPete on Sept 20, 2021 16:43:54 GMT
Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander.
Nicely dark & very funny take on identity /religious upbringing looking at a family of cannibal Americans. Doesn't quite hit the heights of his first book but still well worth checking out.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Oct 3, 2021 9:13:09 GMT
I'm about half way through Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon on Audible Plus.
I knew nothing about it going in, but it was one of the few 'plus' sci-fi titles that was by a name I at least recognized.
Very little has happened so far, but I'm rather enjoying it. That's largely down to it having an unusual protagonist for a sci-fi novel. A grumpy old lady. Like, properly old, not just greying-middle-aged. The Company decides to cancel the franchise on their planet, so all the colonists get shipped off to another planet, but she decides to hide out and stay behind. Alone(?)
Probably some sci-fi stuff will happen, but so far it's mainly been mundane details about her life surviving alone, and feeling freed from the expectations of society. Lots of little detail, and the writing is nice.
I have no idea really how it's going to end up.. whether it's going to get more action, or just continue as the internal thoughts of an old lady all alone.
But given that I picked it totally at random, it's not bad.
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Post by khanivor on Oct 4, 2021 2:06:29 GMT
The Midnight Library - Matt Haig. 8.5/10 I really like Haig's laid-back style. It's quite conversational but is still well written. It's quite similar in tone to 5 People You Meet in Heaven, without the god-bothering. I won't spoil it, but deals with lots of issues including mental health, love, loss and appreciating ourselves. Loved it, whipped through it in 2 days. The Night Fire - Michael Connelly 6/10 I usually rattle through Bosch books but struggled to get in tothisss. I think because it has 2 protagonists and it took me out of it quite a bit. Decent ending once it ramped up but I think the author is recognising that it may be time to move on from Bosch. I feel our Kindle libraries would be quite similar
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Post by spacein_vader on Oct 4, 2021 6:23:58 GMT
As someone mentioned BBQ books on the last page my own personal bbq bible is "Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling".
Loads on all types of meat, fish, sides & sauces plus some science on certain things like why you shouldn't trust the lid thermometer (unless you want to eat the lid) and how deep a soaked brine really gets (or doesn't) into the meat. Also useful bits on how to trim various cuts of meat & fish, up to and including a whole pig.
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nazo
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Post by nazo on Oct 4, 2021 8:11:10 GMT
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson.
Another big thing that had passed me by but having read it I'm not sure what the fuss is about. The central character is not the eponymous girl but a financial journalist apparently so charismatic that women can't resist him and men don't mind sharing their wives with him. The central mystery - basically a variant on the locked room murder mystery is pretty well done and some of it really hits home in light of recent crimes against women here. Surrounding this is a less interesting story around abuse of corporate power which isn't fleshed out enough to connect.
3/5
Serpentine - Philip Pullman
A kind of post-script to His Dark Materials. At about 20 minutes to read, this barely qualifies as a short story. Enjoyable for fans but they've a cheek to sell this for full price. Not bad for the 99p I paid for it.
2/5
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mcmonkeyplc
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General Martok Qapla!
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Post by mcmonkeyplc on Oct 4, 2021 8:34:45 GMT
Foundation
I've had this as an ebook for nearly 10 years and only just got round to reading it completely unaware of the apple series being developed and now launched.
It's extremely easy to read and I love the fact that it's pretty much all dialogue between key characters that paints a picture of a vast story spanning the entire galaxy and a vast time period. It doesn't really suffer from being old, I think it was written in the 50's, but there are bits of technology that feel a little old hat but only a few and the lack of female characters is probably again due to the era this was written.
Overall I loved it and I'm a quarter of the way through book 2 now, Empire and Foundation.
4/5
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Post by Sarfrin on Oct 4, 2021 18:46:52 GMT
XX by Rian Hughes
An extraordinary book. I'd previously read and really enjoyed The Black Locomotive, which he wrote after XX, having picked it up on a whim on holiday. This is a different beast of a book, nearly 1000 pages long although some of those pages have very few of any words on. The story centres around a mysterious signal from outer space, taking in the philosophy of ideas and ending up at very grand scales indeed. Hughes being a graphic designer, there's all sorts of typographic playing assigned throughout. About a third of the way through I was getting really fed up with the typeface being used for a particular character, which I found almost unreadable, but right around then the character mostly stopped saying anything so I guess Hughes knew what he was doing. There's even an entire fictional 8 part novella threaded through the book. By the time I finished it was one of those books you don't want to end.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2021 10:19:32 GMT
Warlock - Wilbur Smith. DNF
It was okay... but I found myself skipping loads of detail and stuff that didn't really have a great deal to do with anything (could have used a serious editor). I got about half way through and read in way more detail than I ever wanted to about how a ~14 year old girl spent her wedding night with her much older husband who had previously murdered her dad. Then it got worse and I thought "yeah I'm done with this". It was fairly interesting when it was going on about pharoah's and wars, less so when it was on about pre- and barely post pubescent girls. It might be historically accurate but it doesn't mean I want to read about it. It could do with losing about a third of the other stuff as well. It just dragged.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Oct 6, 2021 10:41:34 GMT
Sixteen ways to defend a walled city
Fantastic breezy kind of fantasy novel about an unlikely character who ends up being in charge of the defence of the Imperial Capital when the barbarians attack. It's set in a fictional universe but it feels very much like the Roman Empire.
I thoroughly enjoyed it but it's a bit of a one trick pony. The anti-hero is faced with a problem, everyone else is an idiot, the anti-hero breaks all the unwritten rules and saves the day. Rinse repeat.
But it doesn't overstay its welcome, AND it has a few surprises up its sleeve.
Well worth reading
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2021 10:50:58 GMT
Warlock - Wilbur Smith. DNF It was okay... but I found myself skipping loads of detail and stuff that didn't really have a great deal to do with anything (could have used a serious editor). I got about half way through and read in way more detail than I ever wanted to about how a ~14 year old girl spent her wedding night with her much older husband who had previously murdered her dad. Then it got worse and I thought "yeah I'm done with this". It was fairly interesting when it was going on about pharoah's and wars, less so when it was on about pre- and barely post pubescent girls. It might be historically accurate but it doesn't mean I want to read about it. It could do with losing about a third of the other stuff as well. It just dragged. See I absolutely loved River God but I've heard so many negative things about the other novels I haven't bothered. Seemingly the newer ones like Desert God are appalling.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2021 10:55:49 GMT
My boy waltzed into the living room last night and declared he wanted to read The Shining.... Pretty bold statement but I've called him on it and presented him with my battered paperback.
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Post by Chopper on Oct 6, 2021 12:40:35 GMT
Last night I gave up on Fahrenheit 451, due to a writing style which really rubbed me the wrong way.
I looked for an excerpt on the internet to illustrate this, and the bit I found was really quite good, so I may go back (I'm 25% through). But I have a feeling the bit I found was pretty much the best part of the book (might even be the entirety of the book, condensed) so still unsure.
I did finish The Raven Tower, by Ann Leckie of Ancillary Justice fame. It was really different for a fantasy novel - very slow burning, a bit irritating due to the action (such as it was) being described in both first- and second-person narrative. It was more of a detective or politics and drama story than fantasy, though set in a fantasy world. Lots of people don't like it, it seems, but it's worth checking out to make your own mind up. And standalone, in these days of endless trilogies. 8/10.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Oct 7, 2021 3:30:48 GMT
I think I liked the writing style in Fahrenheit 451, though I found the ending a bit underwhelming. I really expected to love Ancillary Justice, but found the whole thing rather uninvolving, maybe because the protagonist was so cold and emotionless. Be interested to try some of her other stuff to see if that's just the particular character though. FYI for RPS refugees: Tor's monthly free ebook club is giving away Gideon the Ninth at the moment, which was highly recommended by LexW and I know found a few other fans on the old book thread. I ended up loving it. I did do the audible version though, which had a great narrator, so I'm never sure how big a part that plays. ebookclub.tor.com/ It says it's for the US/Canada only but it doesn't seem to check so I just picked US. Don't abuse it please though - don't want them to shut it down.
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