Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

@FuriousMachine It is indeed 'The Black Loch' must be the paperback releasing.

@MightyDemon82 Right, that makes sense. It's another good one from May, I read it last November and that was after my first visit to Isle of Lewis/Harris, so my perception of the place was somewhat different this time around (not quite as grey, cold and bleak as May had initially led me to believe )
Hope you'll enjoy this series as much as you did the China Thrillers

I'm currently reading The Long Walk. Not a bad book so far, makes me think about it when I go running or for a long walk in the brutal heat.

@Propaperpusher I'm planning to get through that myself, before the adaptation hits theatres in September. I hear it's a good one!

Currently on book 5 of the Orphan X collection. Very good reads imo. Theyre like a real live John Wick without all the fluff.

I recently started Bleak House by Charles Dickens, sticking with the Penguin Classics for the time being.

Edit: 50 pages in now and feeling fully-immersed in the old, foggy, Dickensian world of Victorian London.

@RogueCooper yeah they are very good reads. Ive been hooked once ive started reading them and im not really a big reader.

Reading/listening to The Satauma Complex narrated by Bob Mortimer himself. He is an absolutley shocking narrator that sounds like he is reading a matter-of-fact non fiction essay, or perhaps just a list of unconnected words that he has never seen before, at a nervous pace in front of his classmates, and yet, it is Bob Mortimer so all is forgiven. He's much better when doing the characterisations, to be fair, and the fact that everyone in London sounds like they are actually from Middlesboro (or sometimes kind of yorkshire-ish) is entertaining. And it is definitely better written (in his Bob based style) than he makes it seem when he is actually reading it out loud himself.

I'm enjoying it anyway, for what it is, so you can disregard those criticisms as general thoughts rather than real criticism.

In a way it reminds me quite a bit of the televisual, not-a-book, flop (undeserved flop: courtesy of the BBC's initial scheduling) 15 Storeys High written by and starring the late, great Sean Lock. And the equally great Benedict Wong.

And for any people that aren't British/English I'd recommend either of the mentioned if you want to experience the real flavour of our Isles from a comedic perspective.

so, iam still reading Sigrid Undsets Olav Audunssønn and i am still enjoying these norwegian medieval times a whole lot. There is murder, adultery, jealousy, disease and power struggle. It seems like Olav is making bad decisions on the account of love and his strong sense of honor and family. Olav is heading into darkness slowly and alone at the moment. Since his beloved Ingunn is looking more and more like she is heading into madness. Looking foreward to see how it goes for Olav and his beloved Ingunn. THings can only get better

I am still reading Bleak House by Dickens, which has led me to add some books by Trollope to my reading list, about 100 pages in to Bleak House at the moment and the novel is shaping up nicely, Money seems to have been even more crucial to survival back in those days than it is now. Well, I suppose money or some form of currency, barter, exchange, whathaveyou has always been crucial to survival and quality of life, but, yeah, that's a whole other story in and of itself.

Been catching up on some books that I fell off of last year, especially when work starts (teacher) - so summer time is a good time to get some reading in.

>Currently reading: Adobo and Arsenic by Mia P. Manansala
I'm also reading JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Manga (Shining Diamond's Demonic Heartbreak)
>I have started and restarted: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (I've read most of his previous work, but I can't get into this one as much...)
>Looking for recommendations, books that touch on genres such as mystery, sci-fi elements, suspense, action. OR recommendations for a short Manga series.

@straw-hat-crew For a bit of sci-fi mystery, I can recommend The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton.

Also by Turton The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (depending on where you are, the title may be "The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle"), which isn't really sci-fi, but is a closed location murder mystery with a fun twist on the "Groundhog Day" concept (which I guess is sci-fi, kind of).

@FuriousMachine great! thank you, I'll check these out! Happy Reading and Happy Gaming!

Mind power, forgot the author.

After realising I hadn't paid any attention to one of my favourite authors for some years I did a search and found a couple of Neal Stephenson books I had missed.
So I'm currently reading Termination Shock, another tome (700+ pages), this time around the theme of climate change. I'm around a hundred pages in and no idea where the plots gonna go, just getting to grips with the technical stuff and the disparate characters who will inevitably cross paths or come together many chapters later.
Liking it so far, getting back into Stephensons writing style is like putting on a well worn pair of slippers, somehow comforting and to me feels right.

@sorteddan I've only read Snow Crash and I remember loving it, though it was many a moon ago and I don't remember much from it. Will have to give it a re-read, I think.

Which would you say is your favourite book of his? (or top 3 if it's impossible to pick just one)

@FuriousMachine
I think Snow Crash was the first of his I encountered as well, also many moons ago when I was mainly reading dystopian and sci-fi stuff. Great book with an amazingly named hero/protagonist as I recall...

Good question. Has had my scratching me head and second guessing myself but here are the three that I would recommend and maybe suggest they're therefore my favorites. Though they are all long so I'd only recommend to someone who was in for the long haul.

Cryptonomicon. Code breaking and computer geekery set in the WW2 era and the present.

Anathem. A bunch of monks set out to save the world via meditation.

Seveneves. Humanities future history after having to evacuate the earth for... reasons.

You can probably (definitely) find better plot summaries of each of these but I'd say any of them is well worth a read.

Also Reamde and The Diamond Age are not happy they weren't included but hey ho.

@sorteddan Thanks, I went ahead and added all five of them to the reading list (as well as Snow Crash). I will probably start with the adventures of Hiro Protagonist - one of the few things I remember is the excellently named main character. I also remember it having a brilliant cyberpunk setting and that I vastly preferred it to Neuromancer (which is a bit of a hot take, I guess). I recently re-read the entire "Sprawl" series and it still left me little cold. It was good, but not excellent.

How about you, are you a fan of cyberpunk novels? If so, do you have any recommendations outside the ones mentioned?

@FuriousMachine
I'm with you and your hot take at least. I remember struggling with Gibson's Neuromancer and I think that probably put me off the genre so no, I don't have much I can contribute or recommend there. Except for the obvious Do Androids Dream.. by PKD which I assume everybody would have already read.
...
Just checked t'net for some standouts in the genre and it turned up a book called The Wind-Up Girl which I have definitely read (still have it on a shelf) but remember absolutely nothing about. Not sure if that attests to the quality of the book or to my memory!

Also found something called the Maddaddam trilogy by Margaret Attwood so I should probably check that out as I've enjoyed a few things by her so that could be a route into the genre. Also a book called Altered Carbon seems to be highly praised and might be something I'd like.

How about you, anything you'd suggest?

@sorteddan Maybe Stephenson set some expectations for the genre not even mister OG Cyberpunk himself could live up to? I'm still looking for books that can compete with Snow Crash and so far I've found only one (well, three, as it's part of a trilogy); the aforementioned Altered Carbon (and I thought the sequel, Broken Angels was even better). Other than that, my experience with the genre is limited, so your research was very welcome.

The Windup Girl has received some solid buzz and Attwood is a celebrated veteran in the dystopian sci-fi genre (though I've yet to read any of her works), so I've added both "The Windup Universe" and ""MaddAddam" series to my reading list. Thanks, mate!

Read "Do Androids..." a long time ago (my first PKD, actually) and I liked it, but I remember I was stunned at how little it actually had in common with "Blade Runner".
I also read a collection of his stories, Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (link), which contained some good ones, but as a collection I felt it was somewhat weak overall, so I haven't really sought out much Dick after that (I should probably rephrase that...)