What are you reading?

I've not read any Neil Gaiman, but I know the name and know I should. Going to Amazon now to order something.

 

Haha. Had to look that up.

"We play music as well as Metallica writes novels." – Dave Barry

• "Rock Bottom Remainders? Who the hell are they?" – Kirk Hammett, Metallica

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Bottom_Remainders

 

The band is one thing I do know about Stephen King, haha. I also learned from it that "remainders" are apparently leftover books no one wants to buy? Very appropriate given the band's lineup

@Kernel Kurtz I can recommend Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things. Both short story collections are representative of his writing style, I feel. Good Omens (which is a Netflix series now I think? Haven't seen) is a hilarious novel, and Stardust is pure fairy tale excellence.

Thinking about Stardust reminds me of another book series I read around the same time in my formative years. If you're not against reading children's books I highly recommend Nancy Farmer's Sea of Trolls trilogy, which is a well-crafted adventure story that simultaneously falls into all the tropes you'd expect them to fall into but likewise manages to surpass them. Beautiful work overall, I read the first book before I knew a sequel was due out and, upon coming across The Land of Silver Apples (book 2), I promptly freaked out in the bookstore and begged my grandpa to buy the book. I still have the trilogy tucked away somewhere. He and I used to go out often on weekends, and he often bought books for me.

Shit now I'm crying again haha. But yeah, Sea of Trolls is great even for older children (at heart), and Farmer's House of the Scorpion prompted some musings about identity, giving me an early taste of existential dread. The sequel, The Lord of Opium, was a good book on its own merits, but doesn't love up to Scorpion in my opinion.

The fact that the books I love are all works of fiction says something about me I feel, as does the fact that a great many of them are technically aimed at younger readers

 

Reading Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves". Its a bit of a commitment since its an enormous book. I'm 2/3 through and its just started getting compelling (up to this point its had some pretty dry parts).
I really like Stephenson - but some of his books are really difficult to finish (very slow paced).
The ones I really liked (and would recommend to someone who was thinking of trying one of his books) - "Reamde", "Snow Crash" and "Zodiac".

 

I have read all of his books other than Zodiac, and haven't been disappointed yet. There is a new one out called Fall, or Dodge in Hell (I think). Dodge is the character from Reamde. I would probably already have read it if they didn't want $17 for an ebook.

 

LOL...yes. I couldn't finish "Reamde" because it just took FOR-EV-UR to get there.

 

This is illustrative, as it is probably his fastest moving book. Or it was for me, anyway.

 

^if you guys have read it, is it any worse than Jordan's Wheel of Time? I've watched paint that took less time to dry than Jordan describing how secondary characters were clothed.

 

I've gotta agree about the length of Stephenson's books though I have enjoyed them. He could really cut cut down a lot of the long, dry technical parts.

Having said that I enjoyed Snow Crash, Seveneves and Cryptonomicon with the last being my favorite so far. Bobby Shaftoe was both amazing and hilarious. I just started Anathem. One of my critiques of Stephenson is that while he's often a great writer there are these weird times where his figurative language literally sounds like some of the stuff my students would write when I taught 4th grade writing. You can see a lot of this in the similes he uses in the first 1/4 of Cryptonomicon and some in Snow Crash. Its kind of a headscratcher because the rest of the time he is competent. I think what most keeps us coming back though is his vision, creativity and characters.

William Gibson remains one of my absolute favorite authors though. I would love to have more novel-length content from him. Eventually will go back and start rereading his books.

 

Definitely agree with Senorx12562 - "Snow Crash" then "Reamde" are his "fastest" books. I barely managed to get all the way through "Anathem" (and the Baroque Cycle books did not gel for me).
Stephenson just has great ideas and concepts which for me make his books worthwhile reads.
[For (much) faster-moving reads with awesome ideas - William Gibson books are awesome.]

Edit - DigMe beat me to the reply!! (by a couple of secs/mins!!)

 

Ha! We basically have the same opinions on books!

 

@DigMe - you are a much faster writer than I am - but we do both have impeccable taste in cyber-punk/sci-fi books.
(Mind you, really can't go wrong with Gibson, Stephenson and prob Gaiman for this book genre.)

 

BTW, just finished Simak's Waystation. Really great book and Simak is a wonderful writer.

 

I totally agree with this, and I'm really looking forward to rereading the series again, but it probably won't be for another couple years.

The only book of the series I'd personally put above The Drawing of the Three, is The Dark Tower. There were multiple chapters that I re-read because they were so good, and I re-read the final few chapters multiple times in the first month after I finished the series.

 

So I actually managed to inadvertently miss one of the best books in the Dark Tower series.

That's just my luck really

By the way, anyone else here a fan of Craig Schaefer's Daniel Faust series or am I the only one who likes on-the-nose supernatural noir? First few books excellent, they get progressively more bleh towards whichever is the newest release but I keep reading them because they're like good junk food.

 

You'll have to let me know what you think. I've got this queued-up after I finish my slow progress through the Revelation Space series.

 

Love Neil Gaiman's writings. The movie Stardust made me buy the book, and even though I enjoy the movie immensely, the book is awesomer. I'm reading his Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes graphics novels, along with Unfreedom of the Press by Mark Levin.

 

I'm about halfway through it. I like it so far. I have read a number of other things by him, and the imagination/world building is very impressive, the character development less so, and in this one, both are in line with my previous experience with his work. He reminds me a lot of Iain Banks' sci-fi work. So far, this one seems a little better in both regards. Ironically, the SF I read just previous? Revelation Space. Where is Rod Serling when you need him, huh?

 

Love Banks. His Culture series is a fav, and the stand-alone novels were pretty good as well. I’m bummed he passed. Too young.