Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

I've finished Recursion. Another great one from Blake crouch. I'm not sure what to read next but leaning towards Kenzaburo Oe's Death by Water. I may read the first volume of Usagi Yojimbo first though!

@MightyDemon82 Glad you enjoyed "Recursion", it's one of my favourite Crouch novels.
I'm curious about "Death by Water", but I worry that it might be a bit on the "heavy" side, for me. Would love to hear your take when you're done with it

"He’d used decks in school, toys that shuttled you through the infinite reaches of that space that wasn’t space, mankind’s unthinkably complex consensual hallucination, the matrix, cyberspace, where the great corporate hotcores burned like neon novas, data so dense you suffered sensory overload if you tried to apprehend more than the merest outline."

Bobby, aka "Count Zero", is a young and inexperienced deck jockey who's given a new piece of software to try out, but almost as soon as he jacks in, he is killed by intrusion countermeasures. He hears an angelic voice and then he is resurrected and ejected from the matrix. And this is only the start of his problems.
Meanwhile, Turner, a professional headhunter, is contracted to extract the top biosoft researcher from his contract with one of the largest and most powerful biotech companies, and Marly, a disgraced former gallery owner, is hired by the world's wealthiest entity to locate the creator of a particularly strange piece of art.

"Bobby was working on a new theory of personal deportment; he didn’t quite have the whole thing yet, but part of it involved the idea that people who were genuinely dangerous might not need to exhibit the fact at all, and that the ability to conceal a threat made them even more dangerous."

Count Zero (Goodreads page) is the second novel in William Gibson's "The Sprawl" trilogy and weaves together three loosely connected narratives that all ultimately end up in the same place. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as I enjoyed "Neuromancer", but it wasn't bad. It took too long to get going and I wasn't really engaged with any of the stories until well into the book. At a certain point the stories picked up pace and things got more interesting, so it went from an initial two-star tale to a final three stars for me.

Next, I'm going to check back in with Harry Bosch, first with the short story Switchblade (Goodreads page), followed by the full length novel The Burning Room (Goodreads page)

Still reading through Telephone by Everett. I don't like some of the "tough talking" in it so much, but there's not so much of that, and i like the more philosophical portions of the novel, I'm about halfway through it so far, seems like a good book, but I think I prefer the Western European classics to the contermporary American Fiction genre.

"If nothing else, Bosch was confident in himself as an investigator and believed he observed things others did not. He knew this was egotistical, but a healthy ego was a requirement of the job. You had to believe you were smarter, tougher, braver, and more resilient than the unknown person you were looking for. And working cold cases, you had to believe the same thing about the detectives who had worked the case before you."

Harry Bosch is in the final stretch of his career in the LAPD as his deferred retirement looms, when a mariachi player finally succumbs to a gunshot wound he suffered many years earlier. The case is marked as homicide and handed to the Open- Unsolved Unit with Bosch as the lead investigator. Along for the ride is his new partner, "Lucky Lucy" Soto, a young up-and-comer eager to seek justice not only on this case, but also one that ties back to her childhood.

"The good ones all had that hollow space inside. The empty place where the fire always burns. For something. Call it justice. Call it the need to know. Call it the need to believe that those who are evil will not remain hidden in darkness forever.

The Burning Room (Goodreads page) is the 17th novel in the Harry Bosch series (and the 27th in the "expanded universe") and while there is nothing new here, it is still compelling and highly readable. I really enjoyed the pluck of Harry's new partner; she fit the bill of a protégé worthy of him and Bosch warms to her in a way he rarely does with other people. Maybe he's turning into a big softie in his older years? This was another four-star read for me.
The short-story Switchblade (Goodreads page) on the other hand, was simply too short and felt too thin on the ground. Three very weak stars on only worth it for die-hard completionists.

Next up is the final entry in William Gibson's "The Sprawl", Mona Lisa Overdrive (Goodreads page). The second novel in the series was a step down from the first one, IMO, so here's hoping this is a step back up.

Can't decide if Telephone by Everett is better than James ,but they are both very good books.

@FuriousMachine I finished Death by Water, this morning. I resonated with the protagonist a lot. Like him I lost my father when I was very young so always looking to find out who he was as a person. At times it was a heavy read but inspired me to look more into who my own dad was as a person!

Next up, I'm jumping back into Malazan with The God is Not Willing. It's been sat on my shelf for almost 2 years, I wanted to read something special, as I'm onto my 50th book of the year. Hopefully it's not a disappointment!

Finished Telephone by Everett this morning. It had some corny moments but also some more emotionally disturbing moments, and moments which hit the right narrative beats for fiction. I'd describe it as a minor American classic.

Just started African American Art and Artists by Samella Lewis this morning after finishing the last one, quite interesting so far.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I'll add both Telephone and James to the reading list! I Love a great art book, that one looks great. Enjoy!

@MightyDemon82 Excellent. Hope you enjoy.

@Jimmer-jammer Yeah, it's definitely cool how there are three different endings to it. How are you anyway, my friend? Read any good books lately yourself?

@MightyDemon82 Sorry to hear that; that's a rough deal. The book is added to my to-read list...

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN ... as is Telephone (James was already on there)

I’ve has a digital copy of the Disaster Artist that I lost access to due to region lock which is pretty goofy. But luckily I have other means to get back to it.

And Angie finds herself facing a jewelled head, a thing wrought from platinum and pearl and fine blue stone, eyes of carved synthetic ruby. She knows this thing from the dreams that were never dreams: this is the gateway to the data cores of Tessier-Ashpool, where the two halves of something warred with each other, waiting to be born as one.

Angie, one of the world's biggest simstim stars, finishes a bout of detox in her Malibu home and decides to return to work, while Kumiko is sent by her powerful father to stay with an associate in London as pressing business concerns in Tokyo may prove dangerous for her. Slick Henry needs to care for a rather special package as an owed favour comes due and Mona's boyfriend Eddy may have finally closed the deal that will take them out of a life of squalor and prostitution, thanks to Mona's close resemblance to one of the world's biggest simstim stars.

Much like the previous novel in William Gibson's "The Sprawl" trilogy, Mona Lisa Overdrive (Goodreads page) consists of a handful of separate stories with tangentially related characters that slowly move towards a shared climax. Unfortunately, the keyword here is "slowly". While the novel was never boring, it took quite a while before things started to really happen. The characters are interesting and well fleshed out and the book is definitely compelling, so it's still a good read. I gave it three and a half stars.

Now would be the time to check back in with my favourite teenage sociopath, John Cleaver, but a couple of new releases have inserted themselves in my schedule. The first one is Peter May's return to the Isle of Lewis and Fin Macleod with the fourth book in the "Lewis Trilogy" (soon to be renamed?) The Black Loch (Goodreads page). The Lewis books, though bleak, are easily my favourite Peter May novels, so this one has some high expectations to meet.

@Jimmer-jammer Actually, thank you, but I recently discovered that my latest read was more of a reference book. So now I'm onto my current current read, The Cornel West Reader by Dr. Cornel West, a black intellectual from the States, I'm particularly looking forward to the chapter where he philosophizes on hip hop!

I should be finished The God is Not Willing later today. Fantastic book so far.

I am reserving horror books, at my local library. Any recommendations here would be appreciated.

So far I have added The Troop, Slewfoot, Interview with the Vampire and Empire of the Vampire (not sure it's horror, but heard good things!)

@MightyDemon82 I don't know if you've read anything by Stephen King Jr, Joe Hill, but I've read all of his books and can pretty much recommend them all. Heart-Shaped Box is my favourite, though (NOS4A2 is another corker of his).

As for daddy King, I'm sure you're quite familiar I don't remember much from the ones I read back in the day, but of my recent reads, The Outsider, Bag of Bones, Salem's Lot and The Regulators (as Richard Bachman) are standouts..

Also, Justin Cronin's The Passage is simply epic, both in scope and in quality IMHO. Post-apocalyptic vampires. Fair warning, though, it's a big trilogy, so if it grabs you like it did me, it may be a time-sink (in all the best ways). In the same vein, The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R. Carey is just fantastic. I haven't read the follow-up, as I just now discovered there was a follow-up, but the first one is sublime.

Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country and it's sequel, Destroyer of Worlds are brilliant Lovecraftian tales where, thankfully, it's the antagonists that are racists and not the author
Keeping with Lovecraftian themes, albeit with a bit more sci-fi slant, I highly recommend Peter Clines' 14 and The Fold. I absolutely adore these books and while they are part of a series, they are completely stand-alone and can be read in any order (though, characters from the first book have a small cameo in the second).

If you're in the mood for short-stories and novellas, you can't really go wrong with Clive Barker's Books of Blood. Here I would also once again champion the works of Joe Hill, particularly Strange Weather. Full Throttle is not as good, but still a fantastic read.

I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the brilliant Robert R. McCammon, so I'll conclude this wall of text with him. He's written what I consider one of my all-time favourite novels, Boy's Life, which some consider horror, while I do not. It is nonetheless a spectacularly good book IMHO and absolutely a worthwhile read that fits well with a dark and rainy fall night. Swan Song is considered McCammon's "The Stand" and I think I actually prefer it to King's epic. Gone South is a good southern gothic horror story that I really liked, and The Five is an incredibly tense thriller that put its claws into me and refused to let go.

(and that reminds me of Dean Koontz' The Servants of Twilight, written as Leigh Nichols, which is also an exceptionally tense thriller)

So, reading this post might qualify as having read an entire novel in itself, so I'll stop here so you'll have time to read other things as well

@FuriousMachine I am a huge Joe Hill fan, eagerly awaiting his next novel. It's been 8 years since The Fireman!

I should read more King, I have read The Dark Tower series and it remains a favourite.

Thanks for those suggestions. I haven't used the library all year as I'm trying to read everything I own, but as you know, that list gets bigger all the time. Now on top of what I own, I've reserved 7 books from the library.

@MightyDemon82 Wow, has it really been that long?! High time he got around to another one, then.
Also, looking at his Goodreads page, I realised that I lied when I said I'd read all his books: 20th Century Ghosts has slipped through unnoticed, so that will be the next short-story collection once I'm done with Ramsey Campbell's "Alone with the Horrors" (which I've been struggling with for two and a half years, but I recently soldiered on and the latest stories have been a huge improvement, so I'm hopeful that I'll get through it)