What are you reading?

[Axident]

Originally Posted by Markh

A while ago I picked a book of his - the first of the Flinx series. I am currently reading through that and haven't read any others - I might have to try reading the Spellsinger series next.

The Spellsinger series starts off okay. The first book actually has a bit of a hard and gritty undertone to it. That's lost by about the third book and the series turns into a fairly formulaic fantasy adventure story. Avoid Son of Spellsinger.

Originally Posted by Markh

I tried to buy 10, 12 & 13 from the MobiReader store - it turns out that because I am in NZ they are not available to me.

That really &#*@ess me off. And they wonder why peope DL books from alternative sources.

[Axident]

Originally Posted by caffiend

I hav'nae read The Great Gatsby. Is it good?

Or am I missing some kind of joke (as suggested by the wink/smiley)?

For ages I thought it was a kidult book. I read it in middle school, along with The Crucible and Of Mice and Men, and always thought they were pretty simplistic. The Great Gatsby was one of the more enjoyable ones though.

[Rince]

Dan Brown - Most Donated Author (to Oxfam):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08...fam_donations/

lol

[Markh]

Originally Posted by Axident

That really &#*@ess me off. And they wonder why peope DL books from alternative sources.

Downloading copyrighted material is illegal, but when you try to pay money for that material it seems that they don't want it. I had the same problem when Napster first re-opened as a pay site - I was willing to pay US$1 for some songs, but they wouldn't sell them to me.

[Lylmik]

Originally Posted by caffiend

Good work - the classics are always worth a read.

I really liked A Tale of Two Cities, didn't like Great Expectations much at all.
Only other one I've read that you listed is Jane Eyre, which [surprisingly] I found reasonably enjoyable.
I also found Crime and Punishment interesting from a "this guy is fucking nuts" (the author) point of view.

[Markh]

I now have 3 more books to read - I tried buying them again and this time I lied about what country I was in.

I wonder how long a new release stays at a high price for - the last book in the serious only came out recently and it cost US$26 to download it. It seems fairly expensive for a download, their costs can't be all that high. I wonder how much of that goes to the author? Probably less than $2.

[doppelgänger of someone]

I've been reading the canonical Sherlock Holmes stories. The granddaddy of detective genre is pretty CRAP. Sherlock Holmes was portrayed as smart because the whole Scotland Yard were complete IMBECILES.

[ilk]

You have to put it into the context of the time - using scientific (or even quasi- or pseudoscientific) techniques to solve crime was really groundbreaking at the time. Plus it is fiction, the competing agencies are always going to be dumber than the hero

[cryocore]

Originally Posted by Markh

A while ago I picked a book of his - the first of the Flinx series. I am currently reading through that and haven't read any others - I might have to try reading the Spellsinger series next.

Unfortunately I have hit a road block - I don't have 10, 12, 13 or 14 of the Flinx series. I tried to buy 10, 12 & 13 from the MobiReader store - it turns out that because I am in NZ they are not available to me.

Have you tried buying it with hotspot shield? I've used it to buy D2D U.S only released titles.

[ilk]

Ooh, that looks interesting, would be good to watch Adultswim.com and Daily Show full episodes. Will my ISP put me on a terror watch list if I use that?

[crocos]

Ad supported :-/

Still, if it works it works and you don't get something for nothing nowadays. Not really anyway.

[_Incubus_]

Just finished Iron Angel from the Deepgate Codex Trilogy, the first one is great as well..Scar Night.

Picked up and couldnt put down Altered Carbon..cyberpunk detective novel with plenty of twists pretty cool.

[Perfk]

just grabbed House of Leaves out of the flatmate's bookshelf

[cryocore]

Originally Posted by Perfk

just grabbed House of Leaves out of the flatmate's bookshelf

that book will fuck you up!!!!!!!

The ONLY horror/suspense book to ever really affect me.

Dont read it on the bus/train though. People will think you're a bit special with all the rotating, and upsidedown reading it requires.

[Bent]

Just finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. A really good read, so I'll probably read Quicksilver next.

[dead goon]

Originally Posted by cryocore

that book will fuck you up!!!!!!!

The ONLY horror/suspense book to ever really affect me.

Dont read it on the bus/train though. People will think you're a bit special with all the rotating, and upsidedown reading it requires.

sounds good!

[Kar]

Pandora's Star by Peter f Hamilton... can't put it down.

[crocos]

Originally Posted by Kar

Pandora's Star by Peter f Hamilton... can't put it down.

Found that just good enough to read, though light enough that I finished it in a day.

[HughMann]

Psychology
New Zealand Government & Politics
The Interpersonal Communication Book
Need to know: Social Science Research Methods.

[DrTiTus]

Monkey on a Stick - Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas

[Kar]

Found that just good enough to read, though light enough that I finished it in a day.

OK...

I found it well above the level of just good enough to read, though light enough to take my time, enjoy it, and finish reading it in just under a week.

Starting to read Judas Unchained now.

[Madman]

Originally Posted by Markh

Downloading copyrighted material is illegal, but when you try to pay money for that material it seems that they don't want it. I had the same problem when Napster first re-opened as a pay site - I was willing to pay US$1 for some songs, but they wouldn't sell them to me.

How old are these books? AFAIK copyright expires in the US 50 years after the author dies, and in NZ after 70 years (even if it's written by a US author)? Therefore a book that might be available to US customers for free or pay now won't necessarily be available in NZ for another 20 years?

But I agree, regional-based distribution methods are utterly useless on the internet, a region-agnostic series of tubes. Then again, what can you expect? It's old-school retailing on the internet, and it's not going to change for a long time I expect (except in limited circles).

Anyway, I'm currently reading up on .Net's MVC framework dealio. Yawn.

[TD]

Originally Posted by Madman

Anyway, I'm currently reading up on .Net's MVC framework dealio. Yawn.

Hey, that's good times!

[Markh]

Originally Posted by Madman

How old are these books? AFAIK copyright expires in the US 50 years after the author dies, and in NZ after 70 years (even if it's written by a US author)? Therefore a book that might be available to US customers for free or pay now won't necessarily be available in NZ for another 20 years?

But I agree, regional-based distribution methods are utterly useless on the internet, a region-agnostic series of tubes. Then again, what can you expect? It's old-school retailing on the internet, and it's not going to change for a long time I expect (except in limited circles).

Alan Dean Foster - still alive and the last book in the series was only finished a couple of months ago.

I suspect that the MobiReader E-Store doesn't give a damn what region you are in, but legally has to deny access to many books if you admit to being in another country. When I created another account and lied about what country I was in they sold be the 3 books I wanted - they ignored my NZ credit card & NZ IP and chose to blindly accept my selecting of USA for the country I was in. It strikes me as arse covering - "we asked what country the customer was in and they said USA!".

I am unimpressed with the US$26 price for the last book though - I can buy the hardcover book from Amazon for US$17 so I would expect an electronic download to be US$10 at the most!

[Axident]

What about Google Book's scheme. They're scanning all the books they can get their hands on and putting them online so people can access bits of them under 'fair use' copyright clauses. Rights holders have to actively opt out. If they don't, then Google gets rights to scan their material. The stunning thing is, that even if the authors are still alive but live outside the US, their works are classified as 'out of print' and will be scanned regardless. And to cap it, if you live outside the US, you can't use the Google Books archives.

Sort of divides the net into USA and Other. 'Don't be Evil' was a nice marketing slogan for a while

[Lightspeed]

Greg Egan - Diaspora.

Crickey.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Daemon - Daniel Suarez

Picked it up after hearing a SALT talk I heard him do. Pretty cool book.

Pixie

[Kryten]

Currently reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians - sort of a growns up version of Harry Potter/Chronicles of Narnia. Quite enjoyable so far, it's definitely growing on me.

[crocos]

Re-re-reading Terry Brook's Scions of Shannara - picked up a omnibus edition of all 4 books on the weekend.

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Greg Egan - Diaspora.

Crickey.

Love some of his high-concept hard-core sci-fi

[TD]

Online preview of the first chapter of the new Wheel of Time book is available.

It is only one chapter but I'm impressed. I've always liked the world more than Robert Jordan's writing so I'm looking forward to the new books with a new author.

[Kryten]

Scott Lynch, who we've discussed in this thread previously, replies to some hate mail.

http://scott-lynch.livejournal.com/159686.html

http://scott-lynch.livejournal.com/242033.html

What you're really complaining about isn't the fact that my fiction violates some objective "reality," but rather that it impinges upon your sad, dull little conception of how the world works. I'm not beholden to the confirmation of your prejudices; to be perfectly frank, the prospect of confining the female characters in my story to placid, helpless secondary places in the narrative is so goddamn boring that I would rather not write at all. I'm not writing history, I'm writing speculative fiction. Nobody's going to force you to buy it. Conversely, you're cracked if you think you can persuade me not to write about what amuses and excites me in deference to your vision, because your vision fucking sucks.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by crocos

Love some of his high-concept hard-core sci-fi

The end of Diaspora made me think of the concept of it's turtles all the way down.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Borris Stugatsky - fantastic book.

Pixie

[chubby]

Samuel R Delaney
'stars in my pocket like grains of sand'



currently re-reading a bunch of old(ish) classics

the dispossessed
highrise (freakin' awesome)
star king (formative)

Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Borris Stugatsky

love it.

[Spink]

Wow had to go ages back to find this thread.

Just finished The Trial by Franz Kafka, it turns out if I want to fully understand it I'll have to read it several times again with the chapters in different orders.

Also recently read Crossing The Line by Karen Traviss who's one of my favorite 'with the troops' type writer in a lot of established IP (Star Wars Republic Commandos, Gears of War and Halo) although this is her series set in her own universe. Really liked it and ordered the first book in the series so I can catch up with it more.

One thing that made me appreciate it much more was this quote from the FAQ on her site that asks why one of the alien species dislikes humans so much.

Some years ago my ex-husband - hereinafter referred to as H2, to distinguish him from H1 - was very unhappy about a SF novel where the aliens were the threat and the gallant humans (and their sidekicky but inferior alien allies) blew the Bad Aliens to Kingdom Come. H2, who was both a prolific SF reader and a man of science, had drunk his fill of this ethos and was spitting nails about it. "Why are humans always the good guys?" he ranted. "It's institutional xenophobia. Crap."

Hmm, I thought, wiping the foam from the kitchen table. If I ever write SF (and I had no plans to do so then) maybe I could ask that very question...

So I did.

[Asriel]

I have recently read:
The mark of the lion: The story of Charles Upham V.C. and Bar by Kenneth Sandford. Brilliant book! CU is quite an amazing man. Though I do wonder where all his pre-war hatred of Germans came from.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Very cool.
Ultra marathon man by Dean Karnazes. Douchebag, but extremely determined and, dare I say it, inspirational.

I am currently reading The Prize: the epic quest for oil, money and power by Daniel Yergin.

Lots of travelling and no uni makes for good reading times.

[Wally Simmonds]

Originally Posted by Kar

OK...

I found it well above the level of just good enough to read, though light enough to take my time, enjoy it, and finish reading it in just under a week.

Starting to read Judas Unchained now.

Just started the first one. Finished reading Night's Dawn trilogy not too far back and was fairly impressed, and this seems like more of the same.

[fidgit]

Just read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctrow. It's intriguing sci-fi, set in a world where everyone can get anything that matters (food, shelter) for free, and so society is based on accumulating worth ("wuffie") through others opinions of you and your work. Also: human cloning, meaning no one has to die, they can be rebuilt from a backup and only lose what they've experienced since their last back up.

Cory Doctrow's hard-on for Disney, and the Haunted Mansion (an affinity that isn't news to anyone that reads boingboing) is pretty front-and-center. I found a lot of ideas in the book were quite familiar territory if you read boingboing - UI, copy control, Disney.

He's written a short story sequel, a parable about Napster (his description), which is hosted on Salon: Truncat.

[eff tee]

Bone People - Keri Hulme

Interesting but disturbing story. So un-pc it's not funny, it's amazing what's changed in NZ in the 30 odd years since it was written.

[Baal]

Greg Bear - Eon.

I read it ages ago and now I have the sequels so re-reading to refresh my memory.