April's Amazing Adventures and Articles

[bluespider100]

Just finished reading The City and The Stars by ACC, it was a well-thought out book and is very engrossing, ACC is fast becoming my top 1 SF writer. now on to WWW:Wake by Robert J. Sawyer.

 

[AE35Unit]

Just finished reading The City and The Stars by ACC, it was a well-thought out book and is very engrossing, ACC is fast becoming my top 1 SF writer. now on to WWW:Wake by Robert J. Sawyer.

Yes it's a great read, been a good while since I read it. Have you read much else by Clarke? He's up there with my top sf authors too

 

[bluespider100]

Yes it's a great read, been a good while since I read it. Have you read much else by Clarke? He's up there with my top sf authors too

Let me see, the Odyssey Series (2001, 2010, 2061, 3001), The song of distant earth, Childhood's End, Rendevouz with Rama, Rama II, hmmm I think that's all, anymore recommendations from his works?

 

[Vertigo]

Oooo where to begin I think my top recommendation would be The Fountains of Paradise.

 

[Hypnos164]

Finished the Continental Op collection by Dashiell Hammett - excellent.

Continuing my current Glen Cook run with Faded Steel Heat a Garrett files novel (#9 in his semi-comic fantasy homage to noir series)

 

[thatollie]

Currently reading The Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe. This is my first time reading Wolfe and I'm really liking it.

 

[J-Sun]

Let me see, the Odyssey Series (2001, 2010, 2061, 3001), The song of distant earth, Childhood's End, Rendevouz with Rama, Rama II, hmmm I think that's all, anymore recommendations from his works?

Oooo where to begin I think my top recommendation would be The Fountains of Paradise.

Agreed with that one. Also, I just recently read The Deep Range and enjoyed it a lot - very impressive. And you can't go wrong with The Collected Stories.

 

[Rothgar]

Finished Erikson's- The Crippled God. The ending is worth every hour spent reading it.

Now reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin.

 

[gully_foyle]

Reading and enjoying The curious case of the dog in the night time by Mark Haddon. It explains the behaviour of a lot of people I work with.

Has anyone read The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi? Saw it at the bookshop and wondered if it was any good. Like a good cyberpunkish story so long as the story is not too confused (like The Quantum Thief was).

 

[Fried Egg]

Right, I've finished "The Collected Stories Volume 5" by Philip K Dick and now I'm going to devote the next three or four books to some of my favourite SF authors that I feel I don't get to read enough of generally: Robert Silverberg, Theodore Sturgeon and John Wyndham.

 

[AE35Unit]

Let me see, the Odyssey Series (2001, 2010, 2061, 3001), The song of distant earth, Childhood's End, Rendevouz with Rama, Rama II, hmmm I think that's all, anymore recommendations from his works?

Well I'd recommend these great early books- Earthlight, A Fall of Moondust, Islands in the Sky and The Sands of Mars for a start. The Deep Range is the one book of his I didnt like at all! For later books I'd suggest Cradle, The Ghost from the Grand Banks and Richter 10 (co written with Mike McQuay and very relevant with the current events in Japan!)

 

[AE35Unit]

Oooo where to begin I think my top recommendation would be The Fountains of Paradise.

Oh yes, definitely!

 

[Connavar]

Let me see, the Odyssey Series (2001, 2010, 2061, 3001), The song of distant earth, Childhood's End, Rendevouz with Rama, Rama II, hmmm I think that's all, anymore recommendations from his works?

I have The Song of Distant Earth book/collection and i havent read ACC really. You think its a good read to recommend to ACC newbie ?

I really dont know why i havent read ACC when i have read 90% of the classic SF authors.

 

[cornelius]

Ordered "Dust of Dreams" just now. I'm one book behind on schedule, but I'm a bit hesitant about Crippled God. I just don't want this ride to end just yet

 

[AE35Unit]

I have The Song of Distant Earth book/collection and i havent read ACC really. You think its a good read to recommend to ACC newbie ?

I really dont know why i havent read ACC when i have read 90% of the classic SF authors.

Hmm normally Id say Im not sure it would be a good idea because its more like fantasy than sf, but you may like it because you read a lot of Jack Vance! Which may be similar to you. But dont quote me if you find it nothing like Vance!

 

[J-Sun]

I have The Song of Distant Earth book/collection and i havent read ACC really. You think its a good read to recommend to ACC newbie ?

That one wasn't bad, but wasn't good, either. I don't think you'd run screaming, saying "I hate Clarke!" but I don't think it's one of his best and, thus, not one of the best to start with. But, if it's the one you've got, maybe go ahead.

I really dont know why i havent read ACC when i have read 90% of the classic SF authors.

I'd definitely recommend reading lots of Clarke, though.

 

[Connavar]

Hmm normally Id say Im not sure it would be a good idea because its more like fantasy than sf, but you may like it because you read a lot of Jack Vance! Which may be similar to you. But dont quote me if you find it nothing like Vance!

I might be a Vance fan but im also a Hard SF fan ala Heinlein,Asimov and co.

So coming from you who are ACC fan i might start elsewhere more typical ACC and then read Songs book later on.

 

[AE35Unit]

I might be a Vance fan but im also a Hard SF fan ala Heinlein,Asimov and co.

So coming from you who are ACC fan i might start elsewhere more typical ACC and then read Songs book later on.

For you I would recommend Earthlight, a bit politicy like Foundation but better, or Rendezvous with Rama, pure 70s hard sf

 

[Hypnos164]

Reading and enjoying The curious case of the dog in the night time by Mark Haddon. It explains the behaviour of a lot of people I work with.

Has anyone read The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi? Saw it at the bookshop and wondered if it was any good. Like a good cyberpunkish story so long as the story is not too confused (like The Quantum Thief was).

My goodreads review (3-star "i liked") was:

I found myself somewhat disappointed with this multi-award winner for reasons that I have trouble identifying.

The book has a lot of structural similarities to recent work by Ian McDonnald - a cast of disparate characters in an "exotic" location are drawn, on converging paths, into large scale events.

I suspect my disappointment is the sum of many small irritations such as:

- Mixing words from 3 languages into the narrative to be deciphered by
context (or Google) doesn't add much to the "flavour" of the setting, but it is quite annoying for the reader - a Glossary or the like would have helped.

- One of the characters persists after death ... maybe as a hallucination of another character, maybe as a ghost, maybe as a clumsy plot device to deliver information none of the principal characters would have access too...

- Technology ... certain elements just don't quite ring true - I can't take seriously the almost wholesale abandonment of electricity, with some functions replaced by enhanced domestic animals and some by Victorian style "gas lamp" networks.

In retrospect this technology point was probably the biggest killer of the work for me - the future world has interesting aspects (the calorie based ecconomy) but some of the other science/technology elements seem plain crazy.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

The Patience Of Maigret, by Georges Simenon. An excellent installment in this series, builds from an almost idyllic start to the unraveling of one of the darker crimes Maigret has had to solve.