Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So what are you READING?

Right now I'm re-reading some favorites. Secret Histories by Simon Green, Iron Druid by Kevin Hearne. Dresden of course and that's about it.

I don't get a lot of time to read anymore or look for new authors anymore.

I was liking A. Lee Martinez's stuff, but it kinda played out for me.

Found a book about essentially an ahole vampire by J.F. Lewis, but it kinda played out for me as well.

Not really finding a lot of new stuff that excites the old noggin.

I won't tell anyone.

Make Room was a great start. Actually watched Soylent Green the other day when I was done. Lots of changes but both are good taken on their own. I would defintely recommend reading the book though.

Next up was Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Oh man was that bad! I haven't been able to read anything since, it just killed the mood.

66 had some pretty good sci-fi that I added to my list, beyond Make Room. These are the ones I'm thinking of reading through although I'll probably cull the list down a bit. There is a new Joe Hill out that I need to read after all.

Isaac Asimov – Fantastic Voyage
Ray Bradbury – S is for Space
Truman Capote – In Cold Blood
Agatha Christie – Third Girl
Philip K. Dick – Now Wait for Last Year, The Crack in Space and The Unteleported Man
Ian Fleming – Octopussy and The Living Daylights
Robert A. Heinlein – The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – Conan the Adventurer
Daniel Keyes – Flowers for Algernon
Thomas Pynchon – The Crying of Lot 49
Rex Stout – Death of a Doxy
Jack Vance – The Eyes of the Overworld
Roger Zelazny – The Dream Master and This Immortal
Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

The last was written, never finished, well before 1966 but wasn't published until then and was actually the one that started me thinking of going through the books of that year.

Finally got around to starting The Martian.

Best. Opening. Sentence. Ever.

"I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this" was a standout.

My favorite book of 2015.

I just finished reading "In the Garden of the Beasts" by Erik Larson. He also wrote "The Devil in the White City".

"Garden" is about the first US Ambassador to Nazi Germany. Accompanying him is his wife, and grown son and daughter. The daughter is a bit flamboyant. Before going to Germany, she had been secretly married and was in the process of divorcing her husband. She had multiple affairs simultaneously. One with a Russian diplomat who was working for what would become the KGB and another who was the head of the Berlin Gestapo.

In the footnotes, was a joke that went around Berlin at the time, albeit not too loudly. At the Belgian border a huge number of rabbits appeared one day asking for political refuge. "The Gestapo wants to arrest all giraffes as enemies of the state." "But" replied the border guard "You're not giraffes." "We know that, but try explaining that to the Gestapo!"

I just re-read Wintersmith by Pratchett. And it reminded me why I had trouble buying and reading his last book. That means it's over. No more from him.

And lets face it, Pratchett was an amazing study of human character and faults and foibles while still able to bring about a sense of hope and renewal.

You can hold up the classics as the greats and thats fine, but this was an example of someone that knew the human condition on many more levels than most people will ever know.

Our history and popular culture are starting to show some focus, belatedly, to the Soviet side of WWII. There's tons of stories to be mined there. A buddy and I were looking at stats from that war: 8 of 9 German soldiers killed in the war were killed on the EASTERN front. Shows a whole new balance to what occurred.


Reading about Nazis getting their butts kicked never gets old. Curious our literature doesn't have the same focus on the war in the Pacific. There doesn't seem to be the same bloodthirst to read stories about Japanese getting beat as there is with Nazis.

I just finished a reread of "The Golden Age" by Robinson, Smith and Ori. I really like how they mix Golden Age heroes and enemies into the near post WWII - beginning of Cold War era.

Barney Hoskyns's "Small Town Talk" is the most pleasureable non-fiction prose reading experience I've had in a long time. There is some overlap with Hoskyns's excellent 1992 biography of The Band, "Across the Great Divide", but both books are absolute must-reads IMHO. "Small Town Talk" is a panoramic look at the musicians coming in and out of Woodstock, NY, from the early 1960s to the present day. At the center of it all for most of the book is the legendarily fearsome rock manager Albert Grossman, a grizzly-bearish but complex man without whom we wouldn't have had the work of Bob Dylan, or The Band, or Todd Rundgren. At the end of the book, it's hard not to shed a tear as Hoskyns recounts the bittersweet final years of The Band's heart & soul, singer/drummer Levon Helm, culminating in the mysterious final deathbed conversation between Helm and his friend-turned-nemesis, guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson. To this Rundgren fangirl, the chapters on her fellow Philadelphian are a tonic, her hero coming of as someone whose lack of social graces is more than compensated for by his work ethic and his genuine maverick streak. I really hope Hosykns does a full-blown Rundgren biography one day. The only sour note is struck when Hoskyns recounts Rundgren's association with original Utopia keyboardist Jean-Yves Labat, whose side project M. Frog happens to be a favorite of Julian Cope, with whom Hoskyns has been feuding off and on for over 30 years. Hoskyns, to his discredit, simply can't resist taking a cheap shot at Cope, which is sad. And yet there is so much to recommend this book that I can overlook, if not forgive, this slight against another of my heroes.

True to my threat about ten pages back: now re-reading Nadine Gordimer's *Burger's Daughter* and it's been far too long. The title character grapples with young adulthood in apartheid South Africa. Her everyday observations and experiences always taking a backseat to the legacy of her Communist parents: both martyrs in the struggle against their own government.

Gordimer likes to mess with your head, in that she'll change from 1st to 2nd to 3rd person perspective and back, returning to events that have already transpired. They're rewritten, taken back, or painted in more fully, depending on the narration. It requires a lot of concentration, but that's appropriate given the complicated subject matter, I think.

I am now reading a biography of Belva Lockwod. Mrs. Lockwood ran for president of the US in 1884 & 1888. She was also the first woman to argue a case before the US Supreme Court.

I just finished Mental Floss' History of the U.S. It was an informative, entertaining overview of U.S. History.

I'm just about finished with "The Great Controversy," which I only read because I promised a friend who is a 7th Day Adventist that I would read it.

I think I have a deal with my daughter - if I read Harry Potter, she has to read one of my Heinlein books. We'll see what comes of that.

I recently bought a recliner, which I have in my bedroom. It has a reading lamp behind it, with bookcases on either side. It's my reading place.

One of the books beside my chair is the Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. I try to read one story out of it every day. They're typically not worth commenting on, however, I just read a story called Clever Gretel which is hands-down the funniest fairy tale I have ever read. It's quite short. Here's a link:

http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-26.html

I actually finished "The Sign of Four" a few weeks back. I do so love Sherlock Holmes.

Also, I've been reading the complete Dick Tracy that IDW publishing is putting out. I just request a book through inter-library loan and wait for it to come in.

Reading place: porch swing. The day flies by. I bought porch plants so it doesn't look so hermity. I rock, I read. Cat comes near, I chase cat, read some more.


Saw a cover at the library that looked interesting. It was the, "first of a second trilogy," grrr. Whose idea was it, these trilogies? Now there's first, second, third.. trilogy. I don't like that person. Anyhow, I checked out the first book of the first trilogy.


It...was....a.....chore. Kept putting it down and picking it up. Two days before it was due, it got interesting. REALLY interesting. I went to renew it but SOME EVIL BASTARD had put a hold on it. Who puts a hold on a 12 year old book? Probably someone who got the same idea I did.

So, I had to turn it in without finishing. But I'm wise. KNOWING there's some person out there... one book behind me, I checked out the SECOND book in the first trilogy. I order the first book again using the stateside system, so now I am in possession of both books. Bwa Ha Ha!!!!


Being polite, I'll quickly finish the first, read the second so that whoever is behind me won't have to wait for it.


Oh the book? "Saga of the Seven Suns" Kevin Anderson (much better than his Star Wars books, which I've been told are hit or miss.

BB,

How much are the fines at your library? And how much longer did you need to finish the book?

Thought about that but I knew it had been put on hold so... felt a bit selfish keeping it. And with my poor attention span and summer projects, I'm not exactly tearing through my reading. Turning it back in seemed the more socialble thing.


Ordering it through the state, another copy of book 1 got to me within the week (today!) and I'm happily finishing it with the safe secure knowledge that I've got book 2 in my greedy little mitts and won't have to wait.

Yeah, and it's getting better with every chapter!


hmmm, wonder if that other reader is thinking about borrowing out book 3..... I think I've got a chore to do tomorrow.

Finished Burrough's "Place of Dead Roads". While the first book of the trilogy ("Cities of the Red Night") was a mash-up of Pirate and Hard-boiled private detective stories which ultimately evolve into a space adventure, this one was a Western/Time-Travel mash-up that unfolds into a space adventure. There's only one main character this time and he's (intentionally) less likable but oddly relatable. Burroughs continues to mediate on the idea that, as a species, humanity has to get off this planet as soon as possible if we are ever going to reach the next stage of evolution.

Doing a slow reading of Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild." An author I've had on my reading list for awhile, just getting around to it. Don't see much from her works being adapted to graphic format, just "Kindred," probably her most famous work. Her stories would adapt well I think. She paints a vivid image with few words and dialogue seems really a strong point, though I don't have a great sampling yet.

Re-read of "Monster Earth," a new-pulp anthology with local writer involvement. It's holding up really well, I like the concept, would like to see it in a movie.

Short description, Monsters are the WMDs. So it's a retelling of a few specific spots in history beginning with the Japanese invasion into China, with allusion to several more.

Most of the writing, top notch. A couple just a bit above "blogger." And the publishing leaves a lot to be desired, with errors as low as typos, reprinted sentences... but it's the read that matters.

Worth picking up.

Finished the third of Burroughs Red Night Trilogy "The Western Lands". It's the last full novel he ever wrote. It's markedly different from earlier works. It's almost devoid of Burroughs hallmark violent, often lethal, gay sex scenes and instead focuses on mortality or more precisely, how to reach immortality. The Western Lands are the far bank of the Nile that ancient Egyptians presumed you went to when you died (if your soul survives the journey), so Burroughs pulls in elements from across the trilogy as well as previous works to try and desperately work out the way there. It ends on a sad and somber note, and is a powerful, if bizarre, meditation on dying and legacy.

Making my way through a re-read of Gaiman's American Gods, in anticipation of the TV series. After that, I have Alan Moore's Jerusalem on tap (as daunting a brick as it is).

I've started the Moonstone, and by heavens it's a slog... a small type faced slog at that.

I have no doubt it gripped readers during it's serialisation. But I'm lacking a little patience getting through all the set up chapters. Collins does go to the trouble of having events told through multiple points of view, and is trying to make them all endearing. But I'm just a bit meh to it really... fingers crossed it will all pay off.

On the fifth book of Kevin Ansderson's Saga of the Seven Sons. Typical of almost any more than three book series I've read, it's just made up excuse after made up excuse to continue the series/$. There's a tendency to continue to add new characters and sub-plots until no one gets their due and he's following that trend.

His characters are good and there's a premise to his Universe that he really hasn't taken to advantage, mostly concentrating on the players within. Still, it's good.

I just finished Hamlet by Kent Shakespeare's cousin William.

I remember it being a slog to get through, though the basic plot is actually pretty good.

Yeah, I liked the plot. I've probably seen a few adaptations when I was a kid, that focused more on getting to the meat of it.

I can see the effort taken to give everyone a voice, and can easily imagine people of the day enjoying the instalments.

But science has shown that the world then rotated at a fraction of today's pace, and the that the people in it moved with similar tardiness. So could ya please just hurry it up?!