What SF/F Book Are you Reading? .. Redux

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling

[Klaus]

Just finished Crompton Divided, the first Robert Sheckley I've ever read. It's about a man on a quest to reintegrate two parts of his personality that were removed in childhood and placed in cloned bodies [because he was a murderous schizophrenic] and now against doctors' advice he's trying to combine his disparate mental parts back together.



Wow, what a loon! A stunningly talented, witty, laugh-out-loud-funny loon. In the blurb in my copy Harlan calls him the literary equivalent of the Marx Brothers, and Ilúvatar help me if it isn't a pretty damned good comparison. There are some riffs in this book that Groucho would have loved! I've got a couple more of his books in the collection, and they just jumped WAY up the list.

And now for something completely different... Philip Wylie's end-of-the-world thriller Triumph.

[Mistral]

Just re-read The Cosmic Computer by Piper. Not sure what's next. Christmas broke me, so no new books for a while.

[timothy]

reading the john carter of mars series by edgar rice burroughs currently reading book #3 warlord of mars plan to read strieght through and then onto the DUNE saga.

[nvek86]

"The Female Man" by Joanna Russ

It was... a book. I can't really say much more, because to say that it was good or bad, I'd have to understand it. I read the description on wikipedia afterwards and while I remember most of the stuff mentioned there, there were whole chapters I still have no idea what they were about.
So: A great premise (four people, who are the same person just from different realities, meet), but a very confusing book.

[Klaus]

Finished Philip Wylie's Triumph... Good grief, what a sobering book. It centers around 14 people who survive a truly worst-case scenario nuclear war between the US and USSR in the fabulous underground shelter of a Connecticut millionaire [an amusing touch for me as I live about fifty miles from where it's supposed to be lol]. It details their physical and psychological travails and also describes the devastation. desperation, and chaos outside in what I can only describe as loving detail. It was written in 1962 [and refers to the 2nd Kennedy administration ] and is set later in the century but not too long afterwards.
It is vehemently anti-Communist but also critical of the naivete and materialism of the West as well, and follows a line of not-illogical reasoning from the last war that if another one came, it would a war of annihilation, not mere victory... and that the Soviets would have been willing to destroy most of the world if that ensured their rule over most of what was left. And one has to buy the idea that the entire northern hemisphere could be scoured and rendered uninhabitable in a mind-blowingly thorough series of nuclear attacks while weather patterns kept the fallout away from most of the southern hemisphere. It is notably a book written before the "nuclear winter" theory was developed!
The character interactions are predictably dated in their gender and racial dimensions given when it was written, but entertaining nonetheless. The main character is a good one, and it even sort of deserves the title by the end, though I'm not sure a book with a billion-plus dead can be said to have a happy ending!

On to Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch!

[WarsTrek1993]

I said this in the TrekLit area: I am currently reading:

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda.
-As a huge fan of the Splinter Cell series, this is a solid book with lots of sneaking and some action.

And-DS9: The Search.

So far, it's an okay book, but Diane Carey uses the strangest metaphors.

[stonester1]

The Dark Tower, Book 4: Wizard and Glass...when I got past the cliffhanger from book three and realized the lion's share of this book was going to be a prequel/flashback, I at first was "Really"? SK said, "Trust me". Glad I did, this has been a gripping, tragic ride.

[Mistral]

Santa Klaus wrote:

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Finished Philip Wylie's Triumph... Good grief, what a sobering book. It centers around 14 people who survive a truly worst-case scenario nuclear war between the US and USSR in the fabulous underground shelter of a Connecticut millionaire [an amusing touch for me as I live about fifty miles from where it's supposed to be lol]. It details their physical and psychological travails and also describes the devastation. desperation, and chaos outside in what I can only describe as loving detail. It was written in 1962 [and refers to the 2nd Kennedy administration ] and is set later in the century but not too long afterwards.
It is vehemently anti-Communist but also critical of the naivete and materialism of the West as well, and follows a line of not-illogical reasoning from the last war that if another one came, it would a war of annihilation, not mere victory... and that the Soviets would have been willing to destroy most of the world if that ensured their rule over most of what was left. And one has to buy the idea that the entire northern hemisphere could be scoured and rendered uninhabitable in a mind-blowingly thorough series of nuclear attacks while weather patterns kept the fallout away from most of the southern hemisphere. It is notably a book written before the "nuclear winter" theory was developed!
The character interactions are predictably dated in their gender and racial dimensions given when it was written, but entertaining nonetheless. The main character is a good one, and it even sort of deserves the title by the end, though I'm not sure a book with a billion-plus dead can be said to have a happy ending!

On to Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch!

Sounds like Malevil. Malevil is a 1972 science fiction novel by French writer Robert Merle. It was adapted into a 1981 film directed by Christian de Chalonge.

Very depressing and very detailed.

I'm reading New America by Poul Anderson. Good collection of related stories.

[nvek86]

"Engineering Infinity" - ed. by Jonathan Strahan

This book is an anthology and not quite what I expected when I read the description at the back (I don't think any of the things mentioned there actually happened in the book). There were good and bad stories with my favourites being "Mercies" by Gregory Benford (about a man travelling to parallel dimensions and killing murderers before they can commit their crimes) and "The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees" by John Barnes (about a discovery at the bottom of the ocean - well, it's a bit more exciting than that).

[Klaus]

Finished Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch... wow, another searing and fascinating book. It's about an experiment to make prisoners smarter by infecting them w/a disease that makes them genius before it kills them, done as entries in journal by a fellow inmate charged to report on them. It's set in a slightly-alternate 1970s where Robert McNamara is president (!) and the US is engaging in biological and tactical-nuclear warfare against Soviet client states around the world. A smart and disturbing book, and the most words I've ever had to look up in a book not written by Stephen Donaldson.

Next: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, finally getting around to it. Gotta pick up the pace, Camp Concentration deserved a faster read.

[Mistral]

nvek86 wrote:

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"Engineering Infinity" - ed. by Jonathan Strahan

This book is an anthology and not quite what I expected when I read the description at the back (I don't think any of the things mentioned there actually happened in the book). There were good and bad stories with my favourites being "Mercies" by Gregory Benford (about a man travelling to parallel dimensions and killing murderers before they can commit their crimes) and "The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees" by John Barnes (about a discovery at the bottom of the ocean - well, it's a bit more exciting than that).

The book had mixed reviews at a site I visit-they said the same thing. Those 2 stories were singled out.

I'm re-reading Ian Slater's WWIII series out of boredom but I want to go get The Mirage and the new Stephen King.
The Mirage is a "mirror world" Where the United States of Arabia is in charge and Christians are terrorists-it got a wonderful review.

[zakkrusz]

I'm currently reading Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator by Kouhei Kadono.

[Lowdarzz]

I'm currently reading Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

[nvek86]

Mistral wrote:

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The book had mixed reviews at a site I visit-they said the same thing. Those 2 stories were singled out.

What site are you using for reviews? I visit "Worlds Without End" quite often, but they only cover books that won/were nominated for awards.