Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Well, IMHO The Millennium Trilogy is really super special. A tip, if you read The Girl Who Played With Fire, just assume that you're going to also read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is much more of a free-standing book than these two). And also plan to read them back-to-back. I decided that I can't leave Sweden till I've also read John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Right One In. So I'm starting to read it right now.

Originally Posted by caleb72

Oooh - tell me what you think of it.

Originally Posted by alansplace

Well, first off the final movie in The Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest arrived today from Netflix, So I spent a couple of hours watching that. Thus I'm only 25% into reading Let The Right One In. What I will say is that IMHO, it doesn't quite come up to the standard of The Millennium Trilogy, but I'm putting the trilogy on a pretty high pedestal. It's been an enjoyable read thus far and I have seen the American movie version, Let Me In, which does a pretty good job following this original story even though they've transplanted it to New Mexico. I'd recommend it, but I'll perhaps have more insights when I've finshed it.

Today I finished reading Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist and I enjoyed it for the same reason I enjoyed the American movie, Let Me In. That reason was that it had a lot of different insights into Vampires that I'd not seen before. It's definitely not your standard Vampire story. Tomorrow I should be getting the Swedish movie version from Netflix. I haven't yet decided what I'll be reading next.

[The Terminator]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Unless things have changed since I got my eBook copies, both Transfer of Power and The Third Option were loaded with errors.

I'm reading the series in paper.

Originally Posted by benham

Excellent series! Term Limits used to be considered part of the Mitch Rapp series even though Rapp isn't in it. If you plan to read the series, Term Limits is a good one to start with or read early on because it defines the recurring background characters.

I read Term Limits last year and now I'm just starting the Rapp books.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by orlok

Can't agree more! Life of Pi is a great book that I've recommended to people around me.

[banjobama]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Today I finished reading Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist and I enjoyed it for the same reason I enjoyed the American movie, Let Me In. That reason was that it had a lot of different insights into Vampires that I'd not seen before. It's definitely not your standard Vampire story. Tomorrow I should be getting the Swedish movie version from Netflix. I haven't yet decided what I'll be reading next.

I loved the Swedish version, and lately I hate vampire stuff but I liked that movie. I liked it so much that I didn't want to ruin it for myself by watching the American version.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by banjobama

I loved the Swedish version, and lately I hate vampire stuff but I liked that movie. I liked it so much that I didn't want to ruin it for myself by watching the American version.

Another unusual take on vampires is The Dresden Files, a series (13 novels and over a dozen short stories with more of both coming) by Jim Butcher. The series focuses on various adversaries in each book, vampires being one of the many. There's a The Dresden Files thread in this forum where some die-hard Dresden fans hang out.

[Traye]

Originally Posted by banjobama

I loved the Swedish version, and lately I hate vampire stuff but I liked that movie. I liked it so much that I didn't want to ruin it for myself by watching the American version.

I loved the book and the Swedish version of the film. I haven't seen the American version and I probably won't.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Today I finished reading Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist and I enjoyed it for the same reason I enjoyed the American movie, Let Me In. That reason was that it had a lot of different insights into Vampires that I'd not seen before. It's definitely not your standard Vampire story. Tomorrow I should be getting the Swedish movie version from Netflix. I haven't yet decided what I'll be reading next.

I have the Swedish version on DVD, and it is excellent. Would be interested to hear how it compares to the American equivalent, which I haven't seen.

[SeaBookGuy]

I'm reading Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich - mostly a memoir, with some nonfiction crossover - about her time studying that language in India (Overdrive library download).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy

A competent military thriller, but I found the basic premise completely implausible. Perhaps it's the passage of time, but I can't see how the decision (by the Soviet Union) to go to war could possibly have been made.

Next up: Asimov's Feb 2012 by Dell Magazine Authors.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Next up: George Passant by C.P. Snow. If I like this as much as I hope to, I fear it's going to add to my TBR significantly, since there are several in the series. But it fulfills my "classics" goal, and also broadens my reading beyond the usual, so that's all a good thing.

Got about 1/3rd of the way through and got sidetracked by a library book that came in -- Eric Wright's "The Night the Gods Smiled". This is the first of the Charlie Salter books, and a real pleasure to read again.

For those who haven't been lucky enough to discover Eric Wright, he's a Canadian mystery writer. His primary series is the Charlie Salter series. Charlie is a detective inspector for the Toronto police who is married to Annie, from an old-money PEI family.

We first ran across Eric Wright's books on a trip to Mexico in the early 90's, LONG before we had even an inkling that we might end up as Canadians ourselves. But we liked the books, and hunted them out. Charlie is not your perfect copper, in fact he starts out the series as an overweight and out-of-favour police inspector who loves his wife, but is not at all comfortable with her family, or really in his own skin sometimes. If you want action and adventure, look elsewhere. But if you want more than chase scenes, then I highly recommend the series.

The first three books in the series are collected into A Charlie Salter Omnibus (or, a Kobo Link, for those who want ePub.) Sadly, not all the books are currently available as eBooks, though one can hope that will improve. I'd really like to re-read them all.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

I'm reading Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich - mostly a memoir, with some nonfiction crossover - about her time studying that language in India (Overdrive library download).

Ooh, I am putting that one on my TBR list for sure

Originally Posted by HarryT

I really, really enjoy Steven Saylor's books. This first one in the series is certainly not the best; they get a LOT better.

I really enjoyed Roma. I've been meaning to read some of his mysteries.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by orlok

I have the Swedish version on DVD, and it is excellent. Would be interested to hear how it compares to the American equivalent, which I haven't seen.

Like all visual adaptations for the movies some actions are omitted, some scenes are altered and some concepts are twisted as well as some content simply being changed. The American movie version left out and changed a lot more than the Swedish version did. However, I enjoyed both as well as enjoying the novel.

[benham]

Hunt For Red October.

[tecweston]

Currently alternating chapters between 1Q84, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons. Getting close to the end of 1Q84.

[ATDrake]

Finally finished Charles Stross's Rule 34, after having had it out for an embarrassingly long time from the library's New Books shelf.

In a way, it rather reminded me of the sort of story you might get if you mashed up parts of Peter Watts' last book, Behemoth in his Rifters Trilogy with parts of Robert J. Sawyer's Wake, first in his WWW Trilogy.

Long story short: in a few more decades, 3-D printing, malware, and viral memes will have pretty much taken over not only the Internet, but also everyday culture at large. But all is not lost, as corporations will be finally held to the responsibilities of legal "personhood", and not just the exemptions which they currently enjoy.

A number of seemingly disparate characters find that their personal story threads begin to intertwine and converge, as an increasing number of mysterious murders begins to cross all their paths as it all collapses into a singularity the plot thickens. Like a batch of INSECT-FREE FAIR TRADE ORGANIC BREAD MIX BARLEY-RYE, Produce of People's Number Four Grain Products Factory of Issyk-Kulistan. Which you should not be mixing with selenium under any circumstances, by the way.

On the face of it, this is a relatively standard "weird things happening, what's the ultimate point behind it all? the answer will surprise you!" kind of near-futuristic techno-suspense.

What really distinguishes this one is not so much the ideas presented, but the way in which they are presented.

Rather unusually, Stross tells nearly the entire tale in 2nd person narration, moving from character to character and addressing them as an invisible and unnoticed telepathic stalker/voyeur, describing and commenting on not only their external actions but also their internal reflections.

A lot of Scottish dialect and slang is used in this, and Stross neatly modulates the amount used to suit each character's personality and circumstances. The Detective Inspector in charge of the case and her sometime-girlfriend the corporate ethics auditor get a fairly formal Standard British English narrative address with only a few Scottishisms in it (albeit a bit more swearing in the policewoman's narrative when she runs into a case snag). The lapsed working-class Muslim guy involved in dodgy business he doesn't want his respectable family to know about tends to get less swearing, but also a more casual, colloquially slangy narrative not unlike that of the dodgy bars and contacts he frequents. The highly-placed foreign political gets the relatively crisp diction of properly-taught English as a Second Language, and so forth.

It's really quite interesting to read as Stross switches from "voice" to "voice" as he alternates the character-chapters.

And for all its one-decade-from-now futurism, the pop-culture references are mostly rooted in today's internet services and memes, which is probably going to read rather retro-weirdly* in said decade-from-now. But on the other hand, this is really a story of the now that we have, postulated as the future that might be spawned.

Overall, the story on this played out fairly well and mildly-to-not-really-all-that-surprisingly once one figured out what was really going on. But the structure of the novel is really the most stand-out thing about this and the experimental format of it looks like it'll be one of those like-it-or-hate-it-things for some readers.

I personally liked it. Not enough that I'm likely to go out and buy my own copy unless it were discounted to dirt cheap, but I'd be willing to pick up a French translation to see how they handle things.

Medium recommend if you like reading about the sorts of themes and ideas presented in the story and are okay with experimental narrative forms. And I probably shouldn't have to warn you explicitly, but I remind you that this is named for the internet "rule" about basically: whatever you're imagining, someone's done porn of it which can be found on the internet. Strong language and potentially disturbing imagery, plus the occasional violence of the ongoing murder investigation are only to be expected. But you've probably already seen worse on YouTube anyway.

Also, this book has convinced me to never, ever own any form of networked reprogrammable remotely-operated "smart" household appliance with potentially lethal capabilities. Just in case.

* Not that making up one's own future-pop-culture references for things as Margaret Atwood did in Oryx and Crake will keep things from sounding any less dated and self-parody-like, so it's probably just as well.