What are you reading now?
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Still kind of working on my previous books on teh black death, but am taking a break for "lighter" reading.
So far, a cute book. It is a Japanese book about a boy who inherits a bookstore from his grandfather and is not sure he can keep it running. He finds a talking cat to help him. LOL
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@george-k said in What are you reading now?:
Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multifaceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds. His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that left 900 people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus. But then his investigation uncovers something far more serious than mass slaughter---a covert plot by an enigmatic entity who seeks nothing less than total control of the Glitter Band. Before long, the Panoply detectives are fighting against something worse than tyranny, in a struggle that will lead to more devastation and more death. And Dreyfus will discover that to save what is precious, you may have to destroy it.
This was a fun read. Very complicated story, built in a totally unique "universe." I enjoyed it thoroughly.
That said, I picked up the sequel last week and finished it yesterday:
Perhaps not quite as engaging as the first book, but it was worth the time. It's definitely not a "stand-alone" book, because so many of the concepts are laid out in "The Prefect." Nevertheless, a good ride.
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Meanwhile, being a huge Scalzi fan, I decided to refresh my memories of this:
"The Interdependency is a thousand-year-old human empire of 48 star systems connected by the Flow, a network of "streams" allowing faster-than-light travel. Each stream is one way and has an entry point and an exit point. There is no faster-than-light communication faster than the Flow, and interstellar trips are not instantaneous—ships carrying mail or passengers from Hub, the capital of the empire and the system with the most Flow connections, arrive at End, the most distant, nine months later—but the network permits life-sustaining intersystem trade. As a natural phenomenon, the Flow is poorly understood; Earth disconnected from the network thousands of years ago, and civilization on another system collapsed more recently when its pathway suddenly closed."
I finished it this weekend, and hungry for more, I started the sequel, "The Consuming Fire" this morning:
I'm about a quarter of the way through it.
I love, LOVE, Scalzi's writing. It's snappy, smart, witty and ironic.
Neither of these books has disappointed in any way.
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@george-k said in What are you reading now?:
I'm going to go thru the "Revelation Space" universe in chronological (not published) order. The short stories and novellas have given enough background to make it understandable.
Yeah. Reading them in chronological order is definitely worth the effort. Reynold's world-building is great. He has a very unique style - sometimes first-person, sometimes third-person.
Just started this the other day:
"The once-utopian Chasm City -- a domed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet -- has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted -- from the people to the very buildings they inhabit -- only the most wretched sort of existence remains. For security operative Tanner Mirabel, it is the landscape of nightmares through which he searches for a lowlife postmortal killer. But the stakes are raised when his search brings him face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget."
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Calibans war. Expanse part 2.
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Have had this on my list for a while, recommended by a friend living in Japan who knows I like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Curious if anyone else has read this? Enjoyable so far, and I know at some point things will be taking a weird turn. -
I am in the last book of The Wheel of Time (Audio Books)... I think it's over 300 hours I've put into this series over the last few months...
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Cyberpunk detective story, like all his other ones. And it's at least as awesome.
Something you can just burn through in a weekend. -
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Please love yourself.
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@aqua-letifer started reading it yesterday. What do you think?
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@klaus said in What are you reading now?:
@aqua-letifer started reading it yesterday. What do you think?
Interesting to hear the fleshed out story behind his health issues, and how he handled the timing of the publication in the midst of the pandemic.
Aside from that, as always his insights about the nature of storytelling, its importance, and how it works as a process are very sharp and much appreciated. (The humanities would be very well served by following a more structuralist model, but ah well, what are you gonna do.)
Only read the first chapter so far but it's been good.
What do you think? How far are you?
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@aqua-letifer said in What are you reading now?:
@klaus said in What are you reading now?:
@aqua-letifer started reading it yesterday. What do you think?
Interesting to hear the fleshed out story behind his health issues, and how he handled the timing of the publication in the midst of the pandemic.
Aside from that, as always his insights about the nature of storytelling, its importance, and how it works as a process are very sharp and much appreciated. (The humanities would be very well served by following a more structuralist model, but ah well, what are you gonna do.)
Only read the first chapter so far but it's been good.
What do you think? How far are you?
I tried to read the first and just felt you could learn a lot more in shorter and more interesting time from others.
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@loki said in What are you reading now?:
I tried to read the first and just felt you could learn a lot more in shorter and more interesting time from others.
Then you missed the point.
I'm not trying to be shitty or snobby about that. Peterson's a weird mix of things. I don't know much about clinical psychology or motivational self-help, so I can't speak to those aspects, but I know a lot about lit theory. Maps of Meaning is one of the most important books on the subject from the past century. Probably the most important of the past handful of decades. Not only is that true because of its insight—it's also true that no one else out there is even trying. Lit theory is currently undergoing a dark ages, and here comes this weird ass psychologist who talks about lobsters and room-cleaning and makes some of the most important contributions to the Humanities as anyone else alive. No, you literally can not find this information elsewhere, it's not taught anymore.
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@aqua-letifer said in What are you reading now?:
@loki said in What are you reading now?:
I tried to read the first and just felt you could learn a lot more in shorter and more interesting time from others.
Then you missed the point.
I'm not trying to be shitty or snobby about that. Peterson's a weird mix of things. I don't know much about clinical psychology or motivational self-help, so I can't speak to those aspects, but I know a lot about lit theory. Maps of Meaning is one of the most important books on the subject from the past century. Probably the most important of the past handful of decades. Not only is that true because of its insight—it's also true that no one else out there is even trying. Lit theory is currently undergoing a dark ages, and here comes this weird ass psychologist who talks about lobsters and room-cleaning and makes some of the most important contributions to the Humanities as anyone else alive. No, you literally can not find this information elsewhere, it's not taught anymore.
Sorry I should have been more clear. I was referring to the 12 rules for life. I have found his you tubes interesting and of course he’s been talked a lot about here. So, in part, my comment was meant to elicit feedback. I have enjoyed him enough that I will give maps of meaning a whirl. Honestly I was caught a bit off guard by the 12 rules for life but I’ll allow for the fact I could be missing something.
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@loki said in What are you reading now?:
Sorry I should have been more clear. I was referring to the 12 rules for life.
No I gotcha. 12 Rules isn't a lit theory book, but those lessons are baked in anyway. Maps of Meaning is much more dense. It took me several months to chip away at it because here and there I compared his analysis to source material.
FWIW, I also think his lectures on Genesis and Exodus provide perspectives that fill a lot of modern gaps.
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Uhm, George? Everything okay?
