Books
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I read whatever my dad buys cos he both reads and buys a lot. Currently on The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second in the Millennium trilogy by Steig Larsson and they are extraordinarily good IMHO. There is a reason he died straight after finishing them, cos he clearly did a deal with something evil to write that well.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
ChrisElston wrote:
There is a reason he died straight after finishing them, cos he clearly did a deal with something evil to write that well.
I thoroughly enjoyed the books. But the English translation I read (it's the popular (or only?) translation, at least in the US) felt like it was a bad translation. I keep wondering if it was done before it got popular, and if maybe someone could take a second crack at the translation. Or maybe it was just poorly written to begin with. Compelling stories, but the "writing" left a lot to be desired.
And sometimes when you're on, you're really f***ing on And your friends they sing along and they love you But the lows are so extreme that the good seems f***ing cheap And it teases you for weeks in its absence Rilo Kiley - "A Better Son/Daughter"
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Bassam Abdul-Baki wrote:
For SciFi, anything by Peter David is great, especially his "Star Trek: New Frontier" series. "Star Trek: The Q-Continuum" is also a great read.
I'm not really trying to be snide, but are there really Star Trek books that don't suck royally? Can they be put up against serious sci-fi? And listen, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, but the few books I've dared to try (and they had come with good recommendations) wouldn't be worthy to wear a Charmin label. For comparison, the latest sci-fi I've read have been Mote In God's Eye (Pournelle/Niven) and Pandora's Star/Judas Unleashed by Peter F. Hamilton (finishing it up now). If there are honest to goodness GOOD Star Trek books out there, I'd be willing to try them. The same goes for Star Wars... I've tried the supposed best of those books (at least at the time): the Zahn trilogy and Shadow of the Empire, but to me they just came off as so much fan wanking.
And sometimes when you're on, you're really f***ing on And your friends they sing along and they love you But the lows are so extreme that the good seems f***ing cheap And it teases you for weeks in its absence Rilo Kiley - "A Better Son/Daughter"
I agree. Aside from the other ST book I mentioned, Peter David is the only ST author I read. He's also a comic-book, TV, and movie writer[^], so I highly recommend him. If you want to try one of his novels, read Q-Squared. It touches on ST:TOS, but is in the ST:TNG world.
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I wanted to buy some good books for reading on the beach during my holiday and looked on amazon. What a disappointment... the site now so much rely on what you have already bought to propose you with new books, that you have to navigate at least 5 minutes and look at 50 different things (from children book to cooking books via Mongolian literature) to get the engine eventually be original in its choices. X| That's sad and new to me, since I had some good catches in the past... So, do you have any good recommendations ? What do you currently read ?
Ha! My wife, my son, and I all use the same Amazon account, so all sorts of stuff comes up as "suggestions". Fortunately I don't go to Amazon to browse, I go to order a particular book (or album) so I ignore all that crap -- I'd prefer to be able to disable it. http://www.amazon.com/Smoking-Frog-Lives-Pete-Goodman/dp/098213911X/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1[^] http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310044083&sr=1-1[^] http://www.amazon.com/Most-Complex-Machine-Computers-Computing/dp/1568810547/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310044144&sr=1-1[^] P.S. This is next: http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Computability/dp/0470229055/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310044236&sr=8-1[^]
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I got to book 9 in the wheel of time, after going back and starting again from book 1 at least 3 times, before I decided I wasn't picking up any more of them until the series was done. Then the fecker went and died before he finished them! FFS! I believe someone is finishing off the last couple of books, is it 13 or 14 now? As for going through all 11 books again, wasn't there 1 or 2 in there that you could skip completely (8 or 9 I think)?
Pete
Yes, someone named Brandon Sanderson, allegedly after Jordans widow requested him personally to finish the series. Book 12 and 13 are already published and he's now working on the final one. He claims that he rereads the entire series from scratch at least two times for every book he adds to the series. One time before he starts writing and one time after he finished the first draft of the manuscript. Apparently you barely notice it's written by someone else.
Giraffes are not real.
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I wanted to buy some good books for reading on the beach during my holiday and looked on amazon. What a disappointment... the site now so much rely on what you have already bought to propose you with new books, that you have to navigate at least 5 minutes and look at 50 different things (from children book to cooking books via Mongolian literature) to get the engine eventually be original in its choices. X| That's sad and new to me, since I had some good catches in the past... So, do you have any good recommendations ? What do you currently read ?
I'm in trouble then, I recent started using Amazon for books and some other things. I'm getting my first 2 orders next week. I guess now the filtering by my past orders starts :(
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson
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I agree. Aside from the other ST book I mentioned, Peter David is the only ST author I read. He's also a comic-book, TV, and movie writer[^], so I highly recommend him. If you want to try one of his novels, read Q-Squared. It touches on ST:TOS, but is in the ST:TNG world.
Bassam Abdul-Baki wrote:
I agree. Aside from the other ST book I mentioned, Peter David is the only ST author I read.
I might have to dip my toe into that pool then, thanks. :)
And sometimes when you're on, you're really f***ing on And your friends they sing along and they love you But the lows are so extreme that the good seems f***ing cheap And it teases you for weeks in its absence Rilo Kiley - "A Better Son/Daughter"
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Bassam Abdul-Baki wrote:
For SciFi, anything by Peter David is great, especially his "Star Trek: New Frontier" series. "Star Trek: The Q-Continuum" is also a great read.
I'm not really trying to be snide, but are there really Star Trek books that don't suck royally? Can they be put up against serious sci-fi? And listen, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, but the few books I've dared to try (and they had come with good recommendations) wouldn't be worthy to wear a Charmin label. For comparison, the latest sci-fi I've read have been Mote In God's Eye (Pournelle/Niven) and Pandora's Star/Judas Unleashed by Peter F. Hamilton (finishing it up now). If there are honest to goodness GOOD Star Trek books out there, I'd be willing to try them. The same goes for Star Wars... I've tried the supposed best of those books (at least at the time): the Zahn trilogy and Shadow of the Empire, but to me they just came off as so much fan wanking.
And sometimes when you're on, you're really f***ing on And your friends they sing along and they love you But the lows are so extreme that the good seems f***ing cheap And it teases you for weeks in its absence Rilo Kiley - "A Better Son/Daughter"
I found Micheal Stackpole good, he has written for the Star wars series (xwing amongst others), not sure about Star Trek
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Yes, someone named Brandon Sanderson, allegedly after Jordans widow requested him personally to finish the series. Book 12 and 13 are already published and he's now working on the final one. He claims that he rereads the entire series from scratch at least two times for every book he adds to the series. One time before he starts writing and one time after he finished the first draft of the manuscript. Apparently you barely notice it's written by someone else.
Giraffes are not real.
0bx wrote:
He claims that he rereads the entire series from scratch at least two times for every book
seriously? sure he'd spend more time reading the other books than writing the new ones.
Pete
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I've just finished reading "The art of racing in the rain" by Garth Stein. If you where ever curious about what a dog thinks about its owner, this is the book.
Looks good, I just ordered it.
Pete
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I wanted to buy some good books for reading on the beach during my holiday and looked on amazon. What a disappointment... the site now so much rely on what you have already bought to propose you with new books, that you have to navigate at least 5 minutes and look at 50 different things (from children book to cooking books via Mongolian literature) to get the engine eventually be original in its choices. X| That's sad and new to me, since I had some good catches in the past... So, do you have any good recommendations ? What do you currently read ?
I don't see it mentioned, and I haven't read them myself, but have you read the Game of Thrones stuff by George RR Martin? If they're mking TV out of it they can't be bad.
Pete
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I wanted to buy some good books for reading on the beach during my holiday and looked on amazon. What a disappointment... the site now so much rely on what you have already bought to propose you with new books, that you have to navigate at least 5 minutes and look at 50 different things (from children book to cooking books via Mongolian literature) to get the engine eventually be original in its choices. X| That's sad and new to me, since I had some good catches in the past... So, do you have any good recommendations ? What do you currently read ?
I'm too busy right now to read, but here are a few I've read that I enjoyed: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (still have 50 pages to go) Foundation series (only read 1 or 2 of these) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series The Brain that Changes Itself Flowers for Algernon Cradle to Cradle (you can get this book wet and keep reading)
Driven to the ARMs by x86.
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I don't see it mentioned, and I haven't read them myself, but have you read the Game of Thrones stuff by George RR Martin? If they're mking TV out of it they can't be bad.
Pete
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I did not want to start the series knowing that he has not written all books... I hate having to stop in the middle of a story.
Yeah, I ordered the first 2 books off amazon yesterday, and then thought about that (and the WoT) this morning. I'll read the 2 that are on their way and then wait for the series to finish before buying any more of them.
Pete