What are you reading?

[SadisticCynic]

Just finished Excession by Iain Banks. Probably my favorite Cutlure novel so far but I haven't read a whole lot of them yet, just this Player of Games and Consider Phlebas.
The difference b/w FH and Banks about how mankind will react to AI is pretty stark, but I think Banks does show that some of humanity has given up thinking to the Minds. The humans in Culture, by and large, seem to live in a utopia where they no longer provide much to society.
That being said, I think I'd rather live in the Culture-verse than the Duniverse. Free-flowing sex, drugs, and space travel seems a lot more fun than getting stabbed by an angry Fremen/Fish Speaker/Honored Matre.

Read "Use of weapons" next. It will blow you away.

I'll pick it up next time I'm at the bookstore. I read the first half on my iPhone but decided I couldn't read on that small a screen and haven't gotten back to it yet. But I'll take your recommendation as some impetus.

I have read all the Culture novels and "Use of weapons" is clearly my favourite. "Surface detail" climbed to second place recently.

I've read all but Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata. Inversions is my current favourite, with Use of Weapons a close second. Good to know I can look forward to Surface Detail.

[SadisticCynic]

I don't know if this counts as non-Dune discussion, but I'm re-reading Dune again. Ahhh, the magic is still there!

[leagued]

I just finished GEoD again. Taking a break before Heretics w/ Timothy Zahn's 'Choices of One', Stephen Pressfield's 'The Afghan Campaign', and maybe, maybe Vol 4 of Churchill. Maybe.
I also just got my omnibus copy of the Pandora Sequence which may become my vacation beach read.

[Naïve mind]

Thanks to Zeuhl's link, I stumbled upon Elixir, by Alan Sullivan. So far, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. There's Ixians, and Bene Gesserit, and Devious Plans within Plans, and it's all written at an adult literacy level.

If anyone is interested, I've converted these stories to ePub and Mobi format for easy reading on a tablet or Kindle.

Posted in non-Dune, because it's not, in the Orthodox Herbertarian sense.

[inhuien]

That's nice of you, have you dropboxed them, or would you prefer an electronic mail address?

[Naïve mind]

Dropbox, I think. Do these links work for you?

ePub .mobi.

I don't have a kindle, so I haven't been able to test if the .mobi will work on one, but by all accounts, it should.

[Omphalos]

Dropbox, I think. Do these links work for you?

ePub .mobi.

I don't have a kindle, so I haven't been able to test if the .mobi will work on one, but by all accounts, it should.

Thanks. I'm going to add these to the list.

[SandRider]

The Art of Guerrilla Warfare, Ernesto Guevara .... (again)

[inhuien]

Dropbox, I think. Do these links work for you?

ePub .mobi.

I don't have a kindle, so I haven't been able to test if the .mobi will work on one, but by all accounts, it should.

Thanking you muchly.

[Robspierre]

The Mongoliad: Book Three


Rob

[Omphalos]

Just started Flood by Stephen Baxter. Another great one (a la Greg Bear) seems to have been lured over by the siren song of dime-a-dozen thrillers, but I'm kinda in the mood to stop thinking for a bit.

[Lisan Al-Gaib]

In the Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco. I`m learning a lot about church's history. I have read a more recent book from him before, Baudolino, it's like a forrest gump in medieval times. Great Book.

[Hunchback Jack]

Lisan, I read The Name of the Rose a while back. I agree, great book. I liked his Foucault's Pendulum as well, which I just finished earlier this year.

Lately I've been listening to audiobooks to/from work. Amazon/Audible have this "Whispernet for Voice" agreement going on, where if you buy a Kindle ebook, you can sometimes get the audiobook from Audible for a significant discount. You can use your existing Amazon account for both, and don't need a monthly subscription to Audible. The audiobook is not a streaming service or anything like that, either - it's the regular Audible download you'd normally pay ~$25 for. So even if you have the ebook, the cost of both can work out cheaper than buying just the audiobook at full price.

I've picked up a couple of these, just because it's a cheap way to get audiobooks without subscribing to Audible. I got Mister Slaughter by McCammon ($7 for ebook, +$2 for audio), and Mongoliad, Volume 3 ($3 for ebook, +$2 for audio). These were on the cheaper side of what they offer though. The downside is that the audiobooks are DRM'ed, but I convert them to MP3 so I can play them on anything.

(I know this sounds like a commercial; I'm not affiliated with Amazon or Audible in any way. But I like audiobooks, and thought others here might be interested).

Edited to add:

Oh, a couple of gotchas if any of you try this out:
* Buying the audiobook still requires you to sign up with Audible, but you can use your Amazon account to do so. But you will have an account there.
* The first time you do this, Audible will automatically add a subscription option to your cart. Watch out for that, because it's free, but they will start billing you after a month, I think. Yes, I know, they are bastards. If you don't want to subscribe, just remove that item from your cart before you check out; you should only have the audiobook that you want in your cart at checkout.

HBJ

[SadisticCynic]

Read a few recently:

The Greatest Show on Earth by Dawkins. Brilliant, as expected. I think I'd actually recommend this one before reading his others on particular parts of evolutionary theory. That said, I've only read The Blind Watchmaker so far.

The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. Wanted to know more about what socialism means. Very interesting. The images I've picked up about Marx, socialism, communism etc have all been negative, but even the very little reading I do about capitalism makes it sound rather bad.

Now I'm reading Fashionable Nonsense (also published as Intellectual Impostures) by Sokal and Bricmont. A criticism of the abuse of science and mathematics in postmodern (whatever that means) philosophy. Excellent so far. It's related to the Sokal affair.

Also onto Dune Messiah.

[Lawliet]

Been reading Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Fucking great.

[Freakzilla]

I just picked up Surface Detail for when I trudge through the rest of Speaker for the dead.

I also got the latest ACE Dune Paperback for my son. I think he's a little young at 11 but he asked for it. It's 883 p including the afterwards by The Other Guy.

[Sandwurm88]

Don't like Speaker, Freak? I remember it being slow initially but enjoying it once it picked up steam.

[Freakzilla]

Don't like Speaker, Freak? I remember it being slow initially but enjoying it once it picked up steam.

I don't know, please tell me the last half of the book isn't those kids trial.

[Freakzilla]

It did seem to pick up steam in the middle but I guess I got bored.

Ian M Banks is exciting from page 1.

[Ampoliros]

Yeah I really liked Surface Detail. I get the feeling that Hydrogen Sonata is a semi-sequel to it: Surface Detail deals with the ideas of Hell, Hydrogen Sonata is about Heaven.

currently reading Vol.2 of the Complete Sherlock Holmes. Debating if I care enough to tear apart Hellhole Awakening. It already has its first shill review!

[Freakzilla]

Debating if I care enough to tear apart Hellhole Awakening. It already has its first shill review!

[Serkanner]

I am reading "The mystery of Anna Chekhova" by Anthony Beevor, my favourite historian of the moment.

[Tleszer]

I finished Old Man's War by John Scalzi a while back. A fun read and the main character's humor reminded me of my dad. I just started 1356 by Bernard Cromwell a few days ago.

[leagued]

Finishing up Chapterhouse while also reading Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding, a very enjoyable follow-up to Revelation Falls. Airship-heavy steampunk adventure stories with some fun characters. Got my eye on a new Winston Churchill biography afterwards.

[Serkanner]

am near the end in China Miéville's Railsea ... a wonderfully crafted story.