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Doc Faustus posted:I haven't read it myself, but "Feed" has gotten some attention lately. Seconding the recommendation for Feed as an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse. The author is interested in epidemiology, so she made a real effort with the worldbuilding and I think it pays off.
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Sep 11, 2011 22:31
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Doghouse posted:I know this is going to be very general, but it's worth a try. I want a book that has the following qualities: Mike Chabon and Glen David Gold come to mind. Sadly, the best Chabon novel, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, features some graphic sex, but you could probably gloss it, and you shouldn't let that stop you from reading a beautiful and approachable novel. I don't think Gold has any sex scenes, but he's not as good as Chabon. Still, his novel, Carter Beats The Devil is a fantastic book about stage magicians, love, and the assassination of a president.
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Sep 11, 2011 23:51
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Doghouse posted:I know this is going to be very general, but it's worth a try. I want a book that has the following qualities:
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Sep 11, 2011 23:55
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I know we've touched on this before this thread, but: anyone have cyberpunk recommendations? Gritty is great, but I prefer books that aren't too 'trippy.' Loved: Snow Crash, everything by Gibson, Altered Carbon, some of Phillip K Dick's stuff, Mirrorshades, Burning Chrome Was less fond of: Revelation Space, Charles Stross, Vurt
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Sep 12, 2011 02:27
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Doghouse posted:I know this is going to be very general, but it's worth a try. I want a book that has the following qualities:
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Sep 12, 2011 03:07
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AARP LARPer fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Sep 12, 2011 04:46
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My nephew is 13 years old and likes science fiction. He's right at the age where "young adult" isn't really appropriate any more, mostly because he's smarter than that and he's a fast reader anyway. This was about the same age that I started reading Asimov, so I was going to introduce him to that with the starting two books of he Foundation series (Prelude and Forward); I was also planning to loan him my Philip K Dick short story collections. Heinlein and Bradbury are two other good possibilities, I think. Does anyone have any other suggestions? His mother's only stipulation is that there not be any sexual content, which probably means older authors will be best for the most part.
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Sep 12, 2011 13:37
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Ender's Game is almost the canon response to "what sci-fi will a teenager enjoy?", and it is a good book make no mistake, but just make sure you give him a second hand copy or something because gently caress Orson Scott Card making any money ever again off his books. Boycott that fucker 
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Sep 12, 2011 13:49
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Powdered Toast Man posted:My nephew is 13 years old and likes science fiction. He's right at the age where "young adult" isn't really appropriate any more, mostly because he's smarter than that and he's a fast reader anyway. This was about the same age that I started reading Asimov, so I was going to introduce him to that with the starting two books of he Foundation series (Prelude and Forward); I was also planning to loan him my Philip K Dick short story collections. Heinlein and Bradbury are two other good possibilities, I think. Does anyone have any other suggestions? His mother's only stipulation is that there not be any sexual content, which probably means older authors will be best for the most part. E.E. Smith's Lensman books would be a great introduction to space opera, and as a bonus he has the youthful energy to plow through the duller parts to get to all the tossing around black holes parts.
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Sep 12, 2011 13:50
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I'm looking for literary novels wherein interrupted, deferred, or sacrificially/selflessly un-acted upon love/relationships over a long time period is the main theme. Obvious touchstones would be Casablanca, Love in the time of Cholera, The English Patient, maybe Nabokov's Ada to a lesser extent (the characters are more pigheaded about getting together than selfless or sacrificial). Wuthering Heights would be similar on the scope/scale of star-crossed relationship but ultimately the opposite of what I'm looking for thematically, in that the characters act selfish and horrible and end up with scorched earth results instead of taking the high road. I'd prefer literary fiction that speaks to this recurrent human condition over, say, Nicholas Sparks novels.
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Sep 12, 2011 16:46
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Transistor Rhythm posted:I'm looking for literary novels wherein interrupted, deferred, or sacrificially/selflessly un-acted upon love/relationships over a long time period is the main theme. Obvious touchstones would be Casablanca, Love in the time of Cholera, The English Patient, maybe Nabokov's Ada to a lesser extent (the characters are more pigheaded about getting together than selfless or sacrificial). Wuthering Heights would be similar on the scope/scale of star-crossed relationship but ultimately the opposite of what I'm looking for thematically, in that the characters act selfish and horrible and end up with scorched earth results instead of taking the high road. AEW Mason, The Four Feathers. The main characters speak about putting off their relationships in order 'to not ruin more than two lives' (or something like that) all the time, and at the same time there's a colonial adventure story going on.
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Sep 12, 2011 17:25
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Transistor Rhythm posted:I'm looking for literary novels wherein interrupted, deferred, or sacrificially/selflessly un-acted upon love/relationships over a long time period is the main theme. Obvious touchstones would be Casablanca, Love in the time of Cholera, The English Patient, maybe Nabokov's Ada to a lesser extent (the characters are more pigheaded about getting together than selfless or sacrificial). Wuthering Heights would be similar on the scope/scale of star-crossed relationship but ultimately the opposite of what I'm looking for thematically, in that the characters act selfish and horrible and end up with scorched earth results instead of taking the high road. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.
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Sep 12, 2011 18:36
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Powdered Toast Man posted:My nephew is 13 years old and likes science fiction. He's right at the age where "young adult" isn't really appropriate any more, mostly because he's smarter than that and he's a fast reader anyway. This was about the same age that I started reading Asimov, so I was going to introduce him to that with the starting two books of he Foundation series (Prelude and Forward); I was also planning to loan him my Philip K Dick short story collections. Heinlein and Bradbury are two other good possibilities, I think. Does anyone have any other suggestions? His mother's only stipulation is that there not be any sexual content, which probably means older authors will be best for the most part. Yeah, i'd go with EARLY Heinlein like Starship Troopers and Citizen of the Galaxy (NOT late Heinlein, let him find out about the joys of time travelling incest on his own), early Niven like Ringworld, early Asimov (try Caves of Steel), etc. Maybe the first Dune book.
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Sep 12, 2011 18:52
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DirtyRobot posted:The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. Yes, this is an excellent book/call.
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Sep 12, 2011 18:56
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Transistor Rhythm posted:literary novels wherein interrupted, deferred, or sacrificially/selflessly un-acted upon love/relationships over a long time period is the main theme. Oh, also A Girl I Knew by J.D. Salinger. It's only a short story, rather than a novel, but that only means you should read it right now because it's the best short story ever.
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Sep 12, 2011 18:59
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DirtyRobot posted:The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. Black Swan Green remains my favorite coming-of-age book to date, but I've really held off on this one because it sounded like overwrought "historical fiction" from Mitchell. I think this may tip me over into giving it a read.
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Sep 12, 2011 20:32
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Transistor Rhythm posted:Black Swan Green remains my favorite coming-of-age book to date, but I've really held off on this one because it sounded like overwrought "historical fiction" from Mitchell. I think this may tip me over into giving it a read. It's not a costume drama like some historical fiction, full of expository paragraphs showing off how much research the author did about what people wore and ate; the time and the place dictate the interaction between characters in a really interesting way and are very relevant to the themes of isolation/not belonging found in the book.
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Sep 12, 2011 21:37
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The Nerd posted:I know we've touched on this before this thread, but: anyone have cyberpunk recommendations? Let me recommend: Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams: http://www.amazon.com/Hardwired-Walter-Jon-Williams/dp/1597800627/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1315867497&sr=8-2 and The Artificial Kid, by Bruce Sterling: http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Kid-Context-San-Francisco/dp/188886916X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315867527&sr=1-1
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Sep 12, 2011 23:45
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Transistor Rhythm posted:I'm looking for literary novels wherein interrupted, deferred, or sacrificially/selflessly un-acted upon love/relationships over a long time period is the main theme. Obvious touchstones would be Casablanca, Love in the time of Cholera, The English Patient, maybe Nabokov's Ada to a lesser extent (the characters are more pigheaded about getting together than selfless or sacrificial). Wuthering Heights would be similar on the scope/scale of star-crossed relationship but ultimately the opposite of what I'm looking for thematically, in that the characters act selfish and horrible and end up with scorched earth results instead of taking the high road. What you need is some Kazuo Ishiguro. Both The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go have that stuff in spades.
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Sep 13, 2011 16:37
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Okay, I'm looking for some sort of epic fantasy series. I've been trying to search on Amazon but there are so many... I don't know which ones are good. I like Tolkien and ASOIF, and I liked the first 4 Wheel of Time books but then the series kind of shat itself and I stopped reading. I'm not particularly fond of Harry Potter-esque stuff about kids in magic school and I don't like stories where characters from the real world end up in a magical world (like Narnia). I'm not very fond of stories that have a lot of magic in them, but I can deal with that if the books are good. I don't mind books that have a lot of sex and/or violence or anything. Any ideas?
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Sep 14, 2011 10:48
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I'm generally interested in knowing how a common man lived in the past society and I've been looking forever for a book about how people generally lived in the USSR/DDR. Most pieces of information and books I've come across has been mostly about the bigger scale of things such as the functions of the military or generally how bad and evil the government of those states are in comparison to the US. I just want something that reflects the life of the everyday man/woman/child living in those places and I'm quite sure there must be atleast some books which gives me exactly that. Also, this "recommend me" post also applies to pretty much every totalitarian/dictatorship countries both present and past such as nazi germany, north korea etc etc. King Zog fucked around with this message at 12:42 on Sep 14, 2011 |
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Sep 14, 2011 11:59
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the kawaiiest posted:Okay, I'm looking for some sort of epic fantasy series. I've been trying to search on Amazon but there are so many... I don't know which ones are good. The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.
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Sep 14, 2011 13:59
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King Zog posted:I'm generally interested in knowing how a common man lived in the past society and I've been looking forever for a book about how people generally lived in the USSR/DDR. Most pieces of information and books I've come across has been mostly about the bigger scale of things such as the functions of the military or generally how bad and evil the government of those states are in comparison to the US. For North Korea, there's Bradley Martin's Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader and for Mao-era China there's Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang. Those are more biographies, but they go into detail on what the commoner's life was like (generally pretty lovely).
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Sep 14, 2011 16:21
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King Zog posted:Also, this "recommend me" post also applies to pretty much every totalitarian/dictatorship countries both present and past such as nazi germany, north korea etc etc. Barbara Demick's book about life in North Korea, Nothing to Envy, is excellent/devastating.
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Sep 14, 2011 17:18
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King Zog posted:Also, this "recommend me" post also applies to pretty much every totalitarian/dictatorship countries both present and past such as nazi germany, north korea etc etc. Life in the Third Reich by Richard Bessel I haven't read. Everyday Life in Early Soviet Russia is very good. Those are academic books, but a different look is Norman Lewis's Naples '44, a memoir by an intelligence officer in Italy at the moment the country was falling apart, a terrific read with lots of perceptive, hilarious observations of a beaten down populace struggling to get by.
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Sep 14, 2011 20:09
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Ornamented Death posted:The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.
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Sep 14, 2011 20:35
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King Zog posted:I'm generally interested in knowing how a common man lived in the past society and I've been looking forever for a book about how people generally lived in the USSR/DDR. Most pieces of information and books I've come across has been mostly about the bigger scale of things such as the functions of the military or generally how bad and evil the government of those states are in comparison to the US. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s by Sheila Fitzpatrick. I read it knowing next to nothing about the period or the history and I got a lot out of it. Soviet youth; twelve Komsomol histories. Edited by Nikolai K. Novak-Deker. Translation edited by Oliver J. Frederiksen. These are specific memoirs written by people after the end of WW2, all of whom got involved in the Komsomol in some form or fashion. They're all from different backgrounds, levels of education, etc. so the entirety of the book provides a lot of interesting angles on what it was like growing up during the early days of the USSR. Also, look for Anna Akhmatova's diary/letters; she was a poet who lived through the revolution and into the 1960s, and I know I've got something written by her that isn't poetry, but I don't recall what form it was in. Maybe a memoir?
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Sep 14, 2011 22:32
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King Zog posted:I'm generally interested in knowing how a common man lived in the past society and I've been looking forever for a book about how people generally lived in the USSR/DDR. Most pieces of information and books I've come across has been mostly about the bigger scale of things such as the functions of the military or generally how bad and evil the government of those states are in comparison to the US. One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich is a beautiful novella based on the experiences of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (the author) in the Soviet Gulag. Pretty well known as it was the first massively available literature about Stalinist oppression. It's also very accessible and you can read it on a lazy Sunday without any trouble.
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Sep 15, 2011 01:13
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funkybottoms posted:Barbara Demick's book about life in North Korea, Nothing to Envy, is excellent/devastating. Seconding this recommendation. This book is FANTASTIC.
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Sep 15, 2011 17:01
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This may be a tall order, cause frankly I have no idea if anything like this exists. I'm looking for detective/crime fiction (noir/hardboiled, or more modern) but with a scifi/fantasy twist. I've already read the Dresden books, and loved them, but he doesn't do much detective/PI work in that past Grave Peril. A concept like Penny Arcade's Automata (detective with a robot partner, robots are like second-class citizens) a few years back is somewhat what I'm basing this request on.
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Sep 16, 2011 18:03
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Generic Superhero posted:This may be a tall order, cause frankly I have no idea if anything like this exists. I'm looking for detective/crime fiction (noir/hardboiled, or more modern) but with a scifi/fantasy twist. Have you tried Mike Carey's Felix Castor books? I've only read the first one (The Devil You Know), but it seemed a little heavier on the detective stuff than Dresden.
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Sep 16, 2011 18:35
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Ornamented Death posted:Have you tried Mike Carey's Felix Castor books? I've only read the first one (The Devil You Know), but it seemed a little heavier on the detective stuff than Dresden. I've read them all and this is a good answer; there is an overall story arc, but each book has its own (mostly) self-contained mystery.
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Sep 16, 2011 18:41
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funkybottoms posted:I've read them all and this is a good answer; there is an overall story arc, but each book has its own (mostly) self-contained mystery. Thanks, I'll check them out. In terms of sci-fi/detective, I found The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez recommended earlier in the thread but I'd love any other recommendations anyone may have.
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Sep 16, 2011 19:21
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Generic Superhero posted:Thanks, I'll check them out. In terms of sci-fi/detective, I found The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez recommended earlier in the thread but I'd love any other recommendations anyone may have. Yeah, that one crossed my mind, too. Also consider Jeff Vandermeer's Finch, which is a standalone noir story set in his Ambergris universe. edit- Not exactly what you were asking for, but Charles Stross' Laundry Files series might also scratch your itch. funkybottoms fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Sep 17, 2011 |
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Sep 16, 2011 21:01
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Generic Superhero posted:This may be a tall order, cause frankly I have no idea if anything like this exists. I'm looking for detective/crime fiction (noir/hardboiled, or more modern) but with a scifi/fantasy twist. This is exactly what China Miéville's excellent The City & the City is.
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Sep 16, 2011 22:23
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Generic Superhero posted:This may be a tall order, cause frankly I have no idea if anything like this exists. I'm looking for detective/crime fiction (noir/hardboiled, or more modern) but with a scifi/fantasy twist. The books are very comparable to the Dresden books, but with less reliance on the trappings of genre fiction. It's more along the lines of your average working joe having to deal with all the bullshit of being a cop or private eye, he just happens to be dealing with bullshit that involves aliens. The aliens are sort of dealt with like immigrants, except there are a thousand treaties and various regulations related to the treatment of aliens that it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare to deal with them. And when some of the aliens are criminals... It's a fun series where problems are usually solved by being clever, and there are some good twists in the story to keep you surprised. It's also got some fun sci-fi concepts like people being networked to each other 24/7 with implanted technology.
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Sep 17, 2011 01:37
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So independently of my college class where we are studying Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso," I'm finally beginning to read the Illiad, odyssey, and Aeneid, Robert Fagles translations. What I'm looking for, however, is a collection of greek myth that discusses some of the origin stories or heroic stories associated with these books. The Greek myths I'm familiar with are all based in children's books I've read in elementary school, so I'd like to read some more intended for adults. Also, I'm looking for a collection of stories based in Arthurian Legend. The most interesting I've seen so far are, "The Idylls of the King," but can anybody recommend any others? My class dealing with Orlando Furioso is really getting me interested in reading more about Arthurian Legend. Lurk Ness Monster fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Sep 17, 2011 |
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Sep 17, 2011 03:48
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Lurk Ness Monster posted:What I'm looking for, however, is a collection of greek myth that discusses some of the origin stories or heroic stories associated with these books. The Greek myths I'm familiar with are all based in children's books I've read in elementary school, so I'd like to read some more intended for adults. Hesiod describes the origins of some of the Greek gods in his Theogony. If your're after a Roman take on it, Ovid's Metamorphoses is good too.
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Sep 17, 2011 04:00
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Lurk Ness Monster posted:So independently of my college class where we are studying Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso," I'm finally beginning to read the Illiad, odyssey, and Aenid, Robert Fagles translations. For greek myth, there's such a wide range that it kinda depends on what you want. Ovid's Metamorphoses is the best classical-era summary of greek and roman mythology; look for a modern translation as it'll be less expurgated. You might want to check out Edith Hamilton's Mythology, as the general go-to classic of "greek mythology, for intelligent adults." For an older classic version, you could try Bullfinch's Mythology, but it's heavy going even for me, and as it's victorian-era it's heavily expurgated. For an interesting take by a modern author, you could look at Mary Renault's corpus -- she made a career out of taking greek myths and history and rewriting them as historical novels, most notably with The King Must Die, and carefully *didn't* purge her novels of the sexual and homosexual content in the myths, like most other authors do/did. If you have a SERIOUS nerd-on, go look up Sir James Frazier's The Golden Bough, but don't say I didn't warn you about it. For Arthurian legend, again, wide range. If you want a go-to collection that says "These are the King Arthur Stories", I'd suggest you try Howard Pyle's four-volume set, though even that doesn't contain everything (most notably leaving out the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, probably due to the adultery; you might want to check out Tolkien's translation of that one). For a modern take, there's TH White's Once and Future King, which while written for kids is at least readable by adults. Alternatively, you could go back to the source and read Geoffrey of Monmouth and/or Sir Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur. Or you could read modern scholarly works on the history of the Arthur legends, which change significantly over time (just as one example, Lancelot is likely a 12th-century french invention; he's not even mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Sep 17, 2011 |
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Sep 17, 2011 05:31
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Alternatively, you could go back to the source and read Geoffrey of Monmouth and/or Sir Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur. Adding Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances to this part of the list.
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Sep 17, 2011 06:17
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