What Are You Reading?

[sedition]

Is House of Leaves good? That's the one with the wacky formatting, right? I'll probably read the Mistborn stuff as well soon-ish. It's been recommended to me so many times, I have to at least like it.

Finished Reaper's Gale and I need a long break from Malazan. That one was a trudge. Reading Fall of Giants ​by Ken Follet.

Reaper's Gale was hard to deal with after what Midnight Tides did. I really didn't like what he did with the Sengar Bros/Clip journey (miserable). I liked the Malazan stuff on Lether. Toll the Hounds or ICE stuff next; choose your poison.

I really like the House of Leaves experience. You are right, Danielewski does all sorts of weird formatting with the layout. I feel like I couldn't spend a lot more time getting into all the stuff in it, but I just read through it and messed around with the stuff I thought was interesting, all while taking in the story. It's a really well done ghost story.

[Shin Johnpv]

I just want to say I LOVED the Mistborn trilogy. Those books had me hooked from page 1. I read all 3 one right after the other. Still haven't read Alloy of Law though.

[Error]

The Martian by Andy Weir I started this a day before the trailer was released. I hustled through it then watched the trailer. Pretty cool. Basic plot: Guy is presumed dead, and left behind as the rest of the crew does an emergency evacuation of a mission on Mars. He has to survive with his skills and what little equipment he has. Another first time author maybe...? He does a good job, but might try to justify his science a little too much with detailed explanations of stuff like pressurization every time the character goes through an airlock. I rarely skim stuff but found myself doing it every once-in-a-while to get on with the action. This book reads pretty fast.

The Martian was Andy Weir's first published novel but he wrote two novels prior to it which he only posted on his website. He came up with the plot by imagining what could go wrong at every step of the way. I loved the book.

[Type Ryan]

Online articles notwithstanding, I'm not a huge reader. If anything, I'm more into philosophical/spiritual stuff from people like Lau Tzu and Eckhart Tolle. This led me into wanting to learn more about spiritualism outside of traditional religions (I was raised in a Catholic household, so I'm a bit of cynic when it comes to religion). Anyway, had a discussion with my friend's mom this past weekend about a quasi-near-death experience I had when I was in my early 20's. It wasn't a true near-death experience, but when I was explaining this story to her it seemed to resonate with some books she's read from Michael Newton. So, she recommended Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls. I've just started JoS and damn is it hard to put down. If anyone is curious to read about what happens to us when we die, this will be a good read. What's interesting about Dr. Newton is that he considered himself an atheist before doing this type of work, so there's no evangelical angle in his work.

If you're looking for more context, here's an interview with Dr. Newton regarding his work.

[Chux]

Work clamped down on the net, so now I read a lot. So far I've knocked out The Martian, and am almost done Ready Player One.

I need some dang recommendations. If I liked those, anybody have any ideas?

[A Robot Bit Me]

Snow Crash is a big boy Ready Player One.

[sedition]

Earnest Cline's new book Armada just came out about a month ago, if you liked Ready Player One.

I heard it's a retelling of The Last Starfighter.

[YellerDog]

Neuromancer's always a good one. Never read Snow Crash, I always figured I'd like it less.

[sedition]

I was going to recommend Neuromancer, but if Chux is into Ready Player One, he'll probably like Snow Crash more.

Snow Crash is definitely Stephenson's most mainstream, tropey work I can think of, but it's still maybe his best stuff because of it. Fuck that guy; He still owes me something for Kickstarting his bullshit Clang

[Chux]

Truth is I left Snow Crash at my last employer. Soundwave bought it for me ages ago. I should revisit it. That and Neuromancer are next.