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I'm currently halfway through reading John Dies at the End. It's fairly Hitchhiker's-ish if that's what you're looking for.

I've not touched it in a while, but not through any fault of the book - it's just that I habitually read on my commute, which I haven't been doing lately...

Ra by Sam Hughes, a science ficton take on "magic" as a branch of physics (i.e. something involving a lot of complicated equations named after people) discovered in the 1970s. I find it entirely fascinating and since I habitually read in bed before going to sleep, precious little could stop me from missing sleep because I can't put it down.

I've been re-reading Book 3 of Sanderson's Stormlight series. Oathbringer, I think? I don't have it by me at the moment. The fourth book came out recently, but I felt like I needed a refresher.

Previous to that I re-read all of the Earthsea books which was really nice. I bought The Complete Earthsea a few years back and finally got around to opening it. There were a couple stories I never got around to reading my first time reading through the series, so that was nice.

Hey I just checked out Oathbringer from the library. Thus far first book is still my favorite in Stormlight series.

somitomi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:39 pm Ra by Sam Hughes, a science ficton take on "magic" as a branch of physics (i.e. something involving a lot of complicated equations named after people) discovered in the 1970s. I find it entirely fascinating and since I habitually read in bed before going to sleep, precious little could stop me from missing sleep because I can't put it down.

That sounds very interesting. Added it to my (way too long) to-read list

I'm currently (still reading) the first Culture book: Consider Phlebas. I don't really like it. It's too much action description for me.

I also just started Don Quixote, because I'm traveling right now and I didn't want to fill precious luggage space with a half-read book.

ratammer wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:16 pm I'm currently halfway through reading John Dies at the End. It's fairly Hitchhiker's-ish if that's what you're looking for.

I've not touched it in a while, but not through any fault of the book - it's just that I habitually read on my commute, which I haven't been doing lately...

Now that I have my commute back I finally finished it!

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

John does not die at the end.

And now I've started reading Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Seconds is quite nice, I should read it again sometime.

And thank you again for recommending it! It's good so far.

Just finished the first book of the Temeraire series. I loved it and will definitely be reading the rest of them. "The Napoleonic Wars, but with dragons" is a fun idea, and Naomi Novik definitely put some thought into what a military branch of dragon-riders might be like.

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

Temeraire is a wonderfully independent-thinking dragon and I hope he never changes. <3

ratammer wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:21 pm And thank you again for recommending it! It's good so far.

Huh, I did?

LingEarth wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:50 pm Just finished the first book of the Temeraire series. I loved it and will definitely be reading the rest of them. "The Napoleonic Wars, but with dragons" is a fun idea, and Naomi Novik definitely put some thought into what a military branch of dragon-riders might be like.

That sounds like my kind of fun.

somitomi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:24 pm

ratammer wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:21 pm And thank you again for recommending it! It's good so far.

Huh, I did?

This isn't even the first time I've reminded you about you doing that.

EDIT: And now I've finished it! Nice story.

Catch-22
So I'm a Spider, so What?
Lem's The Truth and Other Stories

I'm now reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman! Some pretty bad things happen to a rat in the first chapter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dj0yimUXVw

Brandon Sanderson's outfit in this livestream is ridiculously amazing.

Today I finished reading "The Girl Who Could Move Shit with Her Mind". I'd recommend it!

Sounds like a thriller.

I just read Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. It's got musicians who make deals with Hell, and aliens who run a donut shop. It's also very queer.

Just a warning--it does deal with some heavy topics at times. I'd recommend it, though!

Just finished the audio version of the Harry Potter series. Had only read them to myself and must say adds a lot to the story having a unique voice for every character.

I love to read books out loud. I should record some someday.

Listening to the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. In the middle of A Crown of Swords.

i'm making my way through the Dune series, currently at Children of Dune. the first book took me a whole year to read (plus another attempt 7 years earlier, plus watching both movies for extra motivation), but it was so worth it. like speaker for the dead after ender's game

I was trying to listen to the audiobook before bed at night, but the story is very hard to track when you fall asleep during it, I found it almost impossible to find where I was. Now that I'm mainly listening in the car and at work, I might give it another go when I finish Robogenesis (Robopocalypse book 2).

Some stuff I read recently:

• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was pretty delightful. The focus is on the characters and their relationships so the story is a bit episodic, but I think that makes sense for what is essentially a roadmovie IN SPACE. It also manages to do some nice worldbuilding along the way.
• The umpteenth installment of Rowling's crime novel thing, The Ink Black Heart is pretty much just more of the same stuff as before. I got it for Christmas and I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise. It's mostly all right and decently exciting, but I was a bit down on the ending of the last one and something like that happens again.
  Spoiler (Show/Hide)

  Which is that the big reveal has to surprise the reader and so the murderer turns out to be a character nobody within the story considered. That's kinda tricky to pull off after 1100 pages of the main characters detectiving the hell out of everyone who had any kind of connection to the victim, so in this one it turns out to be a character that had two rather brief appearances in the entire story.

somitomi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:39 pm Ra by Sam Hughes, a science ficton take on "magic" as a branch of physics (i.e. something involving a lot of complicated equations named after people) discovered in the 1970s. I find it entirely fascinating and since I habitually read in bed before going to sleep, precious little could stop me from missing sleep because I can't put it down.

Oh man, I was trying to remember this! I remembered you posting about it but for some reason I thought it was on the old forum. Adding to list.

Most recently read Ancillary Justice. Was really interesting. Probably up there as one of my fave science-fiction novels I've read. From wiki, apparently it's the only novel to have won the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke awards.

Back-Cover Summary:

Breq is an ancillary: one of the AIs used by the burgeoning Radch empire to control the bodies of its soldiers. She’s used to commanding a starship, with all its sophisticated machinery and deadly firepower at her fingertips. But someone has ripped her away from the systems that are hers by right: now she’s left with nothing at her disposal except fallible flesh.

I'm currently reading Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis and The Peripheral by William Gibson.

Next on the list is Circe and/or The Name of the Wind.

(apologies if double posting isn't allowed)