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

[WT Sharpe]

I just finished "Movement", a short story by MobileRead member Nancy Fulda, originally published in the March 2011 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. This is a fascinating futuristic tale of an autistic young lady, told from a first person vantage point. Her father wants her to have an operation that will cure her autism, but perhaps at the expense of her special talents. Her mother wants her to continue with more traditional therapies. But what does Hannah herself want? And how does she experience the world? Highly, highly recommended. Available at Amazon & Smashwords.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I took a look at what he has for sale at Lulu. What's with the PDF? Why not ePub?

Just hasn't gotten 'a round tuit' yet, which I assume means he does everything himself (self-publishing plus a regular job plus writing books).

[missimpossible]

Right now I'm reading Nation by Terry Pratchett - something reasonably light to keep me going until the end of exams. It's... weird. I do like it (though I think it's thematically a bit heavy-handed) but Terry's writing seems a little odd in this one. Might just be me, though. I'm not as familiar with his more recent work (my first TP book was Thief of Time when I was eleven, I went back to the start of the Discworld stuff and have read up to Jingo, and read the first two Tiffany books, as well as Amazing Maurice along the way) so maybe the change in style will make more sense the further along I get.

Also reading The End of Faith by Sam Harris, but it's on hold until I'm finished exams because I'm just not in the right head space for it just now.

Next up fiction-wise will be The Scar by China Mieville. I LOVED Perdido Street Station, which I read earlier this year, with an unhealthy passion, so I'm hoping this lives up to my expectations. My boyfriend's read both and said he thought The Scar was even better than PSS, so that's a decent recommendation!

[anjirlly]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I just finished "Movement", a short story by MobileRead member Nancy Fulda, originally published in the March 2011 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. This is a fascinating futuristic tale of an autistic young lady, told from a first person vantage point. Her father wants her to have an operation that will cure her autism, but perhaps at the expense of her special talents. Her mother wants her to continue with more traditional therapies. But what does Hannah herself want? And how does she experience the world? Highly, highly recommended. Available at Amazon & Smashwords.

Sounds like Elizabeth Moon's Speed of Dark, although her protagonist is an autistic young man, and the story is set in the near future. According to Wikipedia, "it won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2003, and was also an Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist."

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by missimpossible

Next up fiction-wise will be The Scar by China Mieville. I LOVED Perdido Street Station, which I read earlier this year, with an unhealthy passion, so I'm hoping this lives up to my expectations. My boyfriend's read both and said he thought The Scar was even better than PSS, so that's a decent recommendation!

I must admit, I thought that The Scar was better as well. It might be that I read it first.

Absolutely loved it! Actually, I love all of his books that I've read - he's my favourite author.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by anjirlly

Sounds like Elizabeth Moon's Speed of Dark, although her protagonist is an autistic young man, and the story is set in the near future. According to Wikipedia, "it won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2003, and was also an Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist."

I've never read Elizabeth Moon's Speed of Dark, so I'm in no position to know, but I did just download a sample from Amazon.

[xg4bx]

just finished David Weber's Out of the Dark. despite less than stellar reviews i liked it enough. i don't see how readers who can accept the premise of dog aliens invading the earth had such difficulty with a certain other premise he introduced in the 2nd half. i like Weber but he is truly the king of the "info dump" which leads to some truly dull pages.

currently reading Ghost Road Blues by Jonathan Maberry. i had read the 1st 2 books years ago but would like to finish the trilogy so i started rereading them.

[amward]

Originally Posted by Traye

I felt exactly the same!
I wondered if she was the ghost of Giles' mother? I half expected her to be a figment of Florence's imagination and that Florence was mad.
But I totally agree, it didn't end well for me and that bothers me somewhat. I too like to have all the I's dotted and T's crossed and it just didn't happen.
I did love the book up to the last few pages really.

Apparently it's loosely influenced by The Turn of The Screw which i read years ago so am now going to re-read because I'm anal like that.

I'm sad about F&G because for me, then ending spoiled what I thought was a fantastic book.
I thought Florence's language was extremely well done.

Now we need someone else to read it and see what they think

I haven't read Turn of the Screw that I remember, maybe I should.

[bevdeforges]

Just finished The Big Short by Michael Lewis, which was a very coherent explanation of what went wrong in the sub-prime crash in 2007-2008. A little scary, too, because too many of the people he writes about sound just like folks I used to work with.

Also just finished The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. A real "expat novel" about people living in a foreign country (i.e. Italy) working on an English language newspaper that sounds suspiciously like the International HT here in Paris. I thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly for the expat angle.

Just started Room by Emma Donoghue and am already half way through it. Absolutely riveting - and I still do NOT understand how The Finkler Question got the Man Booker Award over Room - unless the ending is really bad or something! But I'll probably finish it before the weekend, so I'll find out.

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by caleb72

I must admit, I thought that The Scar was better as well. It might be that I read it first.

Absolutely loved it! Actually, I love all of his books that I've read - he's my favourite author.

I'm excited now! Starting some time today.

Finished Nation earlier on; was pretty good story-wise but I'm not sure what to make of it thematically. Seemed to skip about a bit. Last hundred pages flew by though!

[JSWolf]

last night I finished In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. It was a very good read. Very interesting to read about that time in history in Germany from a different point of view.

I've started 11/22/63 by Stephen King and so far it's rather interesting. Quite a different book for King.

[pilotbob]

Cruise reading... so... what of all the "stuff you have read" above would you recommend for my cruise? I figure I can get a book or two read.

I was thinking of getting a good start on a series, which all or many books are available. Two possibilities are:

A Game Of Thrones... there first 4 books are available as a bundle for kindle for $30.

Discworld... ok, so no way I can read all these on a 4 day cruise... but I expect I could get a book or two read.

Any other great SF/Fantasy trilogies out there? Keep in mind I've read LoTR, Shannara, Sward of Truth, Belgariad and some other pretty popular ones.

BOb

[Apache]

I am half way through Jeff Shaara's Rise to Rebellion. This is a historical fiction book and is about the events leading up to the American Revolution. It starts with The Boston Massacre and ends with The Signing of The Declaration of Independence. I am enjoying it and will also read the sequel The Glorious Cause.
Apache

[DiapDealer]

I recently went on a bit of a short story binge. Top o' the class was Vylar Kaftan's "The Sighted Watchmaker"—available online at Lightspeed.com. I've enjoyed a few of her stories now.

I also finished James P. Blaylock's first novel, The Elfin Ship, which was absolutely delightful. It was a rare used paperback read for me—since the pbook is out of print (and Gollancz is "unable" to sell their e-version of this book to residents of the USA and Canada through the SF Gateway)

Now I suppose I'll need to track down used copies of his followup books: The Disappearing Dwarf and The Stone Giant, as well. Even if Gollancz could sell me the ebooks (and they seem to be the only ones who do have them), I hear the quality of some of their backlist titles is rather "hit or miss" anyway.

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Discworld... ok, so no way I can read all these on a 4 day cruise... but I expect I could get a book or two read.

BOb

I don't know about your other choices, but if you're just starting Discworld I wouldn't start with the first two books (though I know there are others who disagree with me). Possibly start with one of the more standalone books like Small Gods, Moving Pictures, or Pyramids (personal recommendation would be Small Gods). OR you could start one of the other series-within-a-series, such as the Death series which begins with Mort or the Watch series beginning with Guards! Guards! The Wizards and Witches books are, to my mind, better read after one has a feel for the setting and situation.

I read Thief of Time, the last Death book, first, when I was eleven. Then Equal Rites, then I started from the beginning and have been reading them in order ever since. If I had read the first two books first I'm not sure I would have kept going (not that they're bad books, they're just very different to the other books, and to be honest, they're nowhere near the standard of most of the others).

Just an opinion though! Really, start anywhere in the series and you'll be golden, they're all great books (well, all the ones I've read).

(Also, sorry if you're not actually new to the series and I'm just blathering pointlessly.)