What BOOK(s) are you reading?

It's on my list with foner's book, you and I got the same southern lost cause oriented non history of reconstruction, it sounds like.

Sagrilarus wrote: Reconstruction, which my grade-school education did not cover in any detail at all

Same here. Someone out there a lot smarter than me has probably already done this in long article or book form, but I think there is a logical through line from Reconstruction to the events of last summer. There are so many historical touchstones flowing out from that era that inform the plight of non-white Americans to this day, and most people are either largely ignorant of them, or even if familiar, often unwilling to seriously grapple with them.

It's been a long time since I read early Gene Wolfe, and I do want to revisit the Book of the Long Sun at some point. But reading Wolfe can sometimes be maddening due to the unreliable narrators and the bewildering endings. Wolfe gets better at sticking his landings in his 21st century writings, and his unreliable narrators become easier to interpret.

I've been reading cyberpunk lately. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan holds up well. No, I haven't seen the show yet. The book is better than I remembered, with a combination of hardboiled detective and high-octane action, in an interesting setting. I look forward to reading the rest of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy in the near future. I just finished Neuromancer by William Gibson, and that is still an amazing book. It might not be the first cyberpunk novel, depending on your definition, but it was definitive work for the genre. And the level of creativity reaches beyond the default boundaries of the genre at times. More recent works by Gibson might share the same level of quality writing, but the wild creativity got replaced with a more realistic setting.

Right now, I am reading Hollywood Dead, by Richard Kadrey. It's the 10th book in the Sandman Slim series, which features a supernatural anti-hero who gets into a lot of trouble, ranging from the firmament to the pits of hell. He is like a psychobilly version of Marv from Sin City (Micky Rourke's character), smiling and laughing his way through extreme adversity and stacking up the bodies. Oddly enough, I first tried this series because William Gibson recommended it, but Kadrey is nothing like Gibson in style. I was worried that the formula might wear thin by the 10th book, but there is still plenty of life in this series.

Shellhead wrote: I've been reading cyberpunk lately. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan holds up well. No, I haven't seen the show yet. The book is better than I remembered, with a combination of hardboiled detective and high-octane action, in an interesting setting. I look forward to reading the rest of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy in the near future.

I liked the Kovacs trilogy; there's lots of good stuff in there. But fair warning to those looking for recommendations - Richard K. Morgan is a firm believer in the notion that sex (and violence) sells.

JoelCFC25 wrote: Same here. Someone out there a lot smarter than me has probably already done this in long article or book form, but I think there is a logical through line from Reconstruction to the events of last summer.

There absolutely is. There's a lot of dependence on the "genius of the Founders" in American culture and slavery, the Great Stain, is something that people would rather attempt to gloss over than grapple with and accept. Those people are usually the ones who implicitly think that the life station of Black people should still be low... just not that low. ("Implicitly" being the key word here since, again, no one REALLY wants to talk about those things (see: "gloss over.")) But the fact that those fabled founding documents are inherently rooted in and make allowances for slavery and Reconstruction was the manifestation of largely not wanting to deal with that simple truth has suffused the national culture ever since.

I'm also a huge fan of Neuromancer and I'm disappointed that Gibson now looks at it as "a juvenile book". I've enjoyed almost everything he's done since, but that remains a flashpoint in my memory, because it was transformative in my creative outlook.

He also pointed me towards Kadrey, but I've yet to engage the latter. His stuff is on my towering list of "Books I should read someday."

In particular, potential readers should be aware that Morgan's fantasy trilogy (A Land Fit For Heroes) includes some descriptive homosexual sex scenes. Otherwise, it is just as good as his other works, and offers an interesting and unconventional fantasy setting.

I started back into the Witcher books. Breezed through the short story collections but damn, following the narrative of the actual novels is WORK! Between an avalanche of names, nationalities, and races, there is a very twisted scene structure where an event might get described by several POVs at different times with no real clear idea of what actually happened, time is not well marked, and there are great info dumps but they are loaded with observer bias so everything and everyone are shades of gray.

It is delicious and refreshing!

Geralt of the books is a bit different from the games (well, Witcher3 anyway) and VERY different from the show. A lot more philosophy as well, it almost feels a bit like those infamous John Norman Gor campfire scenes where 2 barbarians wax eloquent (though on very different topics). The polish/soviet experience is palpable, very different from the English or American flavors of fantasy I normally read.

Yay! Neuromancer! I totally agree that he moved away from the wild creativity of that first book.
I read Altered Carbon on a trip, and it felt like an HBO special. I think I gave it away, which I never do.
Richard Kadrey: I stopped reading after the book in which he goes to hell and rides a motorcycle around and has to fight Satan or something? Ugh, I can't remember but now I want to pick up the series again.

Back cover blurb for Sandman Slim (book 1): “An addictively satisfying, deeply amusing, dirty-ass masterpiece.” —William Gibson.

RobertB wrote:

Shellhead wrote: I've been reading cyberpunk lately. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan holds up well. No, I haven't seen the show yet. The book is better than I remembered, with a combination of hardboiled detective and high-octane action, in an interesting setting. I look forward to reading the rest of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy in the near future.

I liked the Kovacs trilogy; there's lots of good stuff in there. But fair warning to those looking for recommendations - Richard K. Morgan is a firm believer in the notion that sex (and violence) sells.

Yep, that stuff is gonna happen in his books. I'm reading his most recent book Thin Air, which is set in the same world as one of his previous books, Thirteen (or "Blackman" in the original UK release). This one is on Mars, and plays up the conflict between rich Earth and scrubby workingman's Mars. I really liked the first one a lot, this newer one is good but different. More Mars-noir than anything else, sort of like Altered Carbon without the body-switching stuff.

The copy of Altered Carbon that I checked out from the library was a new edition, and so included a preview chapter of Thin Air at the end. It starts out a little rough, but suddenly comes into sharp focus shortly before the action begins. Morgan writes action well, moving along at a brisk pace with just enough description for clarity without bogging down in the details.

Bought myself a Kindle Paperwhite recently as an upgrade from a 10 year old kindle... then I learned that amazon prime members get "prime reading" or what I think used to be the kindle lending library, so I've been checking out some Sci Fi from there. Finished Dawn by Octavia E. Butler who I only knew through her Parable series. Good stuff about a post-apocalyptic world where aliens "rescued" humanity and are going to try to reestablish humans on Earth. Now reading Forever War by Joe Haldeman. I swear I read this 20+ years ago during my "read every Hugo and Hebula winner" phase, but I'm not remembering much and maybe I'm confusing it with Starship Troopers. So maybe my crappy memory is helping me out here!

I also started Master & Commander but decided I hated the protagonist... a lot. So that was sunk.

O'Brian is a great author, but yeah, they take some warming to, as well as requiring a naval dictionary (and ones specific to this series exist) so if you ever want to try again, it is very rewarding IMHO.

ratpfink wrote: I also started Master & Commander but decided I hated the protagonist... a lot. So that was sunk.

I lasted about fifty pages of book one with that guy, asked myself what the chances were he’d be dead by page 100, stopped reading.

I'm leaping to the conclusion that he grows as he story progresses. But life is too short to spend time with self-absorbed empty suits, even if they're due to change. Maybe I should start with book five.