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  • #31
    Finished I'll be Gone in the Dark and am starting Lev Grossman's The Magicians. It has gotten VERY mixed reviews even just among my friends, so it's been sitting in my TBR pile an obscenely long time. Time to see which friends I agree with, I guess
    https://www.facebook.com/authorpatriciacorrell/

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    • #32
      The Mahabharata, an ancient hindu epic.

      This isn't as cultured as it sounds, I'm reading it because of a gacha game where Karna and Arjuna are characters.

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      • #33
        Quoth AnaKhouri View Post
        Finished I'll be Gone in the Dark and am starting Lev Grossman's The Magicians.
        I thought The Magicians books were pretty decent. The TV show definitely went a very different direction with some of the characters. I think the TV show has done some interesting original plot lines with the world too.

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        • #34
          Fiction: Allen Steele's V-S Day. Alt-history scifi where Germany goes for the Silbervogel instead of the V-2, FDR hires Robert Goddard, and the space race kicks off with a different country twenty years early. About a third of the way in, and it's alright; pretty exposition heavy so far though.

          Non-fiction: Dale Titler, The Day the Red Baron Died. Subject matter is obvious. It's an older book, and I haven't looked into the accuracy of it, but as a collection of reports and accounts from the time, it's definitely interesting. I've always had a (very) casual interest in WWI aviation.
          Cheap, fast, good. Pick two.
          They want us to read minds, I want read/write.

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          • #35
            I heard very mixed reviews on The Magicians before I read it, and I'm not sure why others might have disliked it, but I found it insanely boring. I got 65 pages in, realized I didn't care about anyone and the story had barely creaked forward, so I'm not going to keep at it. Some people really liked it apparently, but many seem to prefer the TV show too.

            Moving on to Amatka, which I have an ARC for and which Jeff Vandermeer recommended on Twitter.
            https://www.facebook.com/authorpatriciacorrell/

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            • #36
              Finished the previous book and started Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves. So far, I am thoroughly unimpressed. 40 pages in, and if I finish it, it will be out of sheer stubbornness.

              Some things keep bringing me out of immersion, like the lack of women (the only woman in the story so far is one character's unnamed date) and the historically inaccurate reporting of the world's population in 1972 as only 2 billion people.
              "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
              -Mira Furlan

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              • #37
                Quoth Ghel View Post
                Finished the previous book and started Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves. So far, I am thoroughly unimpressed. 40 pages in, and if I finish it, it will be out of sheer stubbornness.

                Some things keep bringing me out of immersion, like the lack of women (the only woman in the story so far is one character's unnamed date) and the historically inaccurate reporting of the world's population in 1972 as only 2 billion people.
                Given what I've heard about Asimov (and remember of his stories), it's probably better that he didn't try to write more women into his stories. Consider that one of the aliens in TGT is written as a somewhat-geeky "girl" by his standards.... In any case, it's typical of the time period, especially for him. And IIRC, that's actually one of Asimov's more durable early books, in that the aliens are at least somewhat interesting, and the moral of the story stands up fairly well.

                For a lot of old SF, it's better to think of their "real" world as an alternate timeline....

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                • #38
                  Quoth Mental_Mouse View Post
                  In any case, it's typical of the time period, especially for him. And IIRC, that's actually one of Asimov's more durable early books, in that the aliens are at least somewhat interesting, and the moral of the story stands up fairly well.

                  For a lot of old SF, it's better to think of their "real" world as an alternate timeline....
                  I hope the slog through the meh is worth it. I like most of Asimov's robot short stories, and a few of his other short stories are good, too. One of my favorites is still "The Last Question".

                  I used to really want to read all the books from the "golden age" of sci-fi. After having read a bunch of them... well, they just don't stand the test of time, I guess. And I've changed, too, of course. What I'm looking for in a novel just isn't the same.
                  "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
                  -Mira Furlan

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                  • #39
                    One of my favorite forums introduced the idea of the "Suck Fairy" and her sisters. Whenever you go back to read some book (or watch a movie, etc.) that you loved Way Back When, but then you're all "waitasec... why did I ever like this, it sucks!", well, that just means the Suck Fairy has been by and sprinkled Suck onto the book (movie, etc).

                    The Suck Fairy has many sisters, including the Sexism Fairy, the Racism Fairy, the Consistency Fairy, and so on....

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                    • #40
                      Quoth Mental_Mouse View Post
                      The Suck Fairy has many sisters, including the Sexism Fairy, the Racism Fairy, the Consistency Fairy, and so on....
                      Is there a 'needs a better editor' fairy? Because there are a few books that I've re-read where I had forgotten huge chunks of unnecessary sub-plots.
                      A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

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                      • #41
                        Quoth Blue Ginger View Post
                        Is there a 'needs a better editor' fairy? Because there are a few books that I've re-read where I had forgotten huge chunks of unnecessary sub-plots.
                        I'd consider that part of the SF's core mission. Of course, a lot of that is classic hubris -- authors who've gotten successful enough to be editor-proof. Some, like Stephen King, learn better. Others, not so much. "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud."

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                        • #42
                          Well, I was re-reading the SW novel "The Hutt Gambit" by Ann C. Crispin. I remember thinking a few days ago that I would take it with me when I went out, so if I stopped for coffee or a sandwich i could keep reading. I'm positive I changed my mind and took another book and left THG at home ... but now I can't find it.

                          And even worse, I think my all-time favourite bookmark was in it.

                          The book can be replaced easily enough. The bookmark ... not so much, although I bought it not too long ago.

                          I'm hoping it's somewhere in my car ... oir ossibly somewhere in my tiny apartment that I just haven't checked yet.

                          But I have a bad feeling about this ...
                          Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
                          ~ Mr Hero

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                          • #43
                            It's going to take me a while to finish, but upon a recommendation I started reading Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan". I say it's going to take me a while because I'm reading it in small chunks, and I've got other stuff I'm doing as well.
                            Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

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                            • #44
                              "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story" aka the most epic Hollywood crash and burn you've never heard of.

                              The nutshell version:
                              In 1950, Barbara Payton was an up-and-coming starlet making $10,000 a week and co-starring with the likes of James Cagney and Gregory Peck.
                              In 1967 she died at the age of 39 as a bloated, battered, alcoholic $5.00 hooker who was missing several teeth.
                              I question my sanity every day. Sometimes it answers.

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                              • #45
                                That's horrible. Poor woman. I bet it's a crazy story though.

                                Reading a novel called The Spirit Photographer. It's just not grabbing me but it's short-ish so I will probably finish it. Too much exposition and scene-seting via political/social conversations.
                                https://www.facebook.com/authorpatriciacorrell/

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