I'm just reading SSR3. Finding it a little shallow and annoying, TBH.

yeah latest books they're worse because the prices are constant around the world and they go by UK/US currency.
but if you pick an author and are starting from the beginning, their books are about 6 dollars cheaper. (eg. all paperback crime fiction books at borders are about 22-28 dollars, regardless of when they were published).
also if you go to borders and they don't have it, they'll order it in and charge you extra.

I see a Deepness in the Sky precedes it, but was written afterwards. Worth reading first?

Also: "Mr. Vinge is currently (early 2009) working on a sequel to this novel, set approximately ten years later."(wikipedia)

I haven't read Deepness yet but it won the Hugo Award, so must be a worthwhile read.

I've just finished The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It was so utterly absorbing that I devoured the whole thing in less than a day. Definitely the finest book I have read in a while. If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction it's essential reading. Think Fallout 3, but even bleaker :)

Finished New Moon and am reading Eclipse (both by Stephanie Meyer). These are parts two and three of the four books that start with Twilight.

The fact that I'm still reading should tell you I'm still enjoying them. It'll suck if part four is arse...

[BTW these may well be chick books - they're intensely romantic. If you coped with Buffy and Angel it'll be okay, but approach with caution if you have a penis (or an e-penis)]

I finished this last week. I thought that it was somewhat okay, something like a 7/10.

Today, I finished listening to The Graveyard Book by Niel Gaiman. Probably worth an 8 or 9 / 10.

And now, on with Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud.

I get my audiobooks from audible.com (mainly), and of late, I've been listenting to them at 200% speed (using "similarlity" in GoldWave to do the speed conversion). Using "similarity" the speed gains comes (mostly) from removing the gap between the words. So, it sounds as it always did (same tone), but read faster.

Except that where Buffy and Angel had strong female characters, occasionally entertaining banter and lesbians, twilight has a dribble who likes to monologue about sparkly vampires with perfect skin and godlike looks. It's particularly great how whenever she shows signs of developing a spine everything goes wrong until she goes back to relying on edward.

I find it vaguely worrying that the most popular book for teenaged girl at the moment was written by a crazy mormon...

If you're going to read in the urban fantasy genre then Kim Harrison is very good and has the next book in the series coming out this month.

Good point. She does whoosie about. At least the mad mormon can write though.

I can't agree about Harrison. I think she's awful. She, like so many writers in the genre, writes badly and as though she were simply committing her own fantasies to paper, rather than writing an actual novel. Incoherent is probably the word I'm looking for.

The Business by Iain Banks - not really what I was expecting, but a good read nonetheless.

We The Living by Ayn Rand, pretty interesting reading about post-Revolution Soviet Russia from the perspective of the daughter of a private trader. Sorta sounds like what might be coming soon in america and here if the economy doesn't stop spiralling downwards =x

I still have to read that. Her book Atlas Shrugged has the most parallels to a possible nightmare future in America. Check it out! :) _b

jah, I thought that was ok too. Prefer his scifi

noticed in Borders the latest to the night watch series, Last Watch I believe its called, that will probably be my next purchase :)

Jalnyfen: My bad. I realised this morning that I was confusing Kim Harrison with Laurel Hamilton. Harrison is marginally better than Hamilton.

I wouldn't recommend recommending objectivist literature here, too many commies. But yeah I loved it and the fountainhead. Anthem was a bit short though. Sucks that jolie got knocked up and delayed production of Atlas Shrugged movie :l

1) Everyone else: Shut up!
2) Part 4 is quite different, but still of the same quality - an easy to read page-turner.

Right now I'm reading a bunch of Silver Age Green Lantern comics.

Just finished American Psycho (haven't seen the film, I imagine I would enjoy it more than the book, which was interesting and disturbing but vaguely unsatisfying), currently reading a Scott Adams "I'll print my blog entries for the last couple years and call it a book" book that I got given - amusing but it is always depressing to be reminded that we almost certainly don't have free will.

Cool. That's all I want from monster books _b

I read all 4 books over a 6 day period - including going to work as-normal (I don't take books to work) and one day of not reading anything at all. VERY easy to read :D

Hmm, is just a book. I'm certain the ideas inside should appeal to anyone with an enquiring mind. The hero in Fountainhead is a ginga, so that's a hardsell. Yeah I'll have to apologise to Brad, lolol ahahahhaaha ..... nevermind. I think she's beautiful though I never pictured Dagny looking like her.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler and Down Under by Bill Bryson. I can see why the big sleep has been so influential on films and other books; the characters, plot, writing style and imagery are great. Its quite funny too.

The reissuing of classic Penguin books for c. $10 is fantastic, btw.

Woken Furies by Richard Morgan... third in the series, but apparently readable as a standalone, won't have too much spoilerness about it. Will probably read the second one when it's available (Broken Angels)

Just finished 'Prador Moon' by Neil Asher. A lighter Polity novel which is like a giant gob of comfort food scifi. Lots of things blowing up, concerned AIs and implacably evil aliens.

Also finished 'Spitfire, portrait of a legend' by Leo McKinstry. Fascinating look at the development, use and eventual phasing out of the Spitfire along with all its variants. A much fairer assesment of the various choices that surrounded the plane and reveals a lot of the bickering and indecision going on behind the scenes. Well worth a read if you find history interesting.

Just finished Chart Throb by Ben Elton, and now doing the new Dune one.

I don't have high hopes.

^^ reading Gridlock atm

Yeah Gridlock is pretty good, as are This Other Eden(?) and Stark.

finally finished reading the Golden Compass tril. Dont see what the controversity was about.... decent story all the same.

What next on the list o' recomendations

I think the problem was that:

A. The books are proper adult novels, but the film was aimed at children.
B. The movie stripped and gutted the book and put it's undies on its head.

Just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. Very promising new fantasy series. The guy's a good writer, the world is interesting and the characters fallible. Although I did feel the first book was better than the second.

Also, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is a decent page turner. I enjoyed it enough, but there's just something bugging me about it. Bit too much pathos perhaps.

And regarding Hamilton's stuff:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/6/2/

says it all, really :(

Yeah I only lasted 10 mins of the actual movie..my gawd that was bad.

Have to admit I reall enjoyed that one...waiting for the next, he certainly has set himself up for a lot of books to go into that story

?? In NZ? Any bookstore in particular?

There is no controversy unless you are a wingnut - in which case it is atheist propaganda.

Hey, the zealots have Chronicles of Narnia, let us atheist have our propaganda to.

And to cap it off, you spend all of the movie hanging out for that thing that happens at the end of the book, and... the movie just stops! That was like taking those undies off it's head, wrapping them around a brick and hitting me in the face with it.

Well, i'm not reading it yet however I will be reading it once it comes out:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Oh yeah! _b

That's all it needed :D

Finished the Twilight series
Enjoyed it :)

My sister in law said the same thing.


Smashed out 3/4 of the 2nd brent weeks book yesterday.

I didn't think he'd be able to keep the pace up, but he has. Excellent read!

NOTE: If you are into fantasy.