PixlBit

Not to do with what I've been reading lately, but I just wanted to announce that Nobel winner and pretty much the most famous Colombian author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, passed away on April 17th. Though I didn't cry, I was pretty much shocked by the news (i'm Colombian and I liked what I read of him after all). May he rest in peace.

yeah i saw that.  I read "Love in the Time of Cholera".  He was a great writer. 

I thought it was funny to break out the book while in line opening night for the film. Kept telling people to not spoil the ending for me as I was hoping to finish before the film started.

I just finished the "Age of Discovery" trilogy by Michal A Stackpole. I've enjoyed all of his books and I really liked where this series was going until the end of the second book (or maybe the beginning of the third). It just got out of hand and overly complicated for my liking though it may have been because I returned the last one to the library due to due dates and checked it out a month later to finish.

But I also listened to a podcast the author used to do and he mentions struggling with the conclusion and the last book in general. I could tell reading it he hit a few snags. A few too many characters and different sub-plots with radical twists going on that needed to be cleaned up.

But he created a very colorful and unique world. I would read future titles in the series an will probably reread the series in the future. Maybe a second read will make it seem more clear to me (without taking a huge break in the middle of book 3).

Never heard of "Age of Discovery"... sounds like it might not be worth the investment.

I finally finished The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (it's the book I started reading when I started this thread). It took me a long time due to a bunch of factors and other books in between, but I'm done. I did enjoy it, even though it got a little metaphysical and odd as it went. I like other Stephenson books more, but this one is definitely worth reading and seeing him sort of go in a wild direction that you might not be expecting. 

Diamond Age is one of my favorites.... or at least it was.  I don't really remember it now. 

My Wife just gave me the entire collection of Game of Thrones for my Birthday, as well as the Amazing Spiderman Essentials, Vol. 1.

I'm going to be busy for a while now.

Patrick Rothfuss is coming out with a new novella this year that I'm super excited for. It's not book three in the Kingkiller Chronicles, but it's a short-ish story centered on Auri from Kingkiller Chonicles. She's an interesting and super weird character with a lot of mystery and eccentricity so I'm looking forward to what kind of odd story will come out of this new book.

The new book is called The Slow Regard of Silent Things.

Reading The Career Guide for Creative and Unconventional People by Carol Eikleberry, but I also just picked up a dozen sci/fi short story collections published in the 70's from my library book sale. They're in those cheap hard back versions they used to send through the mail via catalogs. I was a member of the Sci/Fi and Fantasy book club back then. I like the short story collections. I may start doing some short stories of my own. My discovery of these books synchronized with my watching of the film Gentlemen Broncos which kind of loves and makes fun of scifi/fantasy writers. The movie starts off with shots of typical scifi/fantasy book covers from the early days of the genre. Stuff I used to collect like mad 'cause they were so weird and interesting to me. Funny how things happen in bunches like this. Shout out to you Matt Snee, who's own sci/fi book covers mimic the very same style I'm talking about.

yeah i love those old covers too.  They rule. 

Just finished A Storm of Swords. I'm going to start on A Feast of Crows once it syncs to my iPod. 

Reading Healthy in a Hurry, a recipe book my sister sent me. I'm really psyched to make my own food. So many ingredients, so interesting.

I finished reading Leviathan Wakes. I know there's some people that like the Halo novels around here, if you do you should check out The Expanse by James SA Corey, in which Leviathan Wakes is the first book. It's way better than the Halo novels. Leviathan Wakes is a space opera with lots of great action, a big detective noir aspect, spaceships, great pacing, and vomit zombies.

I'm almost finished reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb and loving it. It was tough to get into for the first few chapters but it turns into an incredible story with a rich world as it develops. If you like Kingkiller Chronicles or even Game of Thrones, Assassin's Apprentice will be a good read for people looking for a sharp adult medieval fantasy.

I bought A Dance With Dragons and I'll start reading that once I finish Assassin's Apprentice.

@Michael117 - oh, vomit zombies. I like my projectile vomit whether it be in film or on the written page. I'll have to check those books out.

I know you like the Halo books, comics, and that style of sci-fi and action, so you'll like Leviathan Wakes. If you like the show Firefly you might like it too, the crew in Leviathan Wakes has a very Firefly vibe that is pretty satisfying.

I'll have to look into Leviathan Wakes, Mikey. Thanks for the rec.

Just started The Best of John W. Campbell. The first story The Last Evolution was excellent and it was written in 1932! Very much ahead of its time.

Finished a Feast for Crows last night, and a little bit later on today I'm going to start A Dance with Dragons. 

never heard of him!  what's it about?

The Last Evolution was about humans giving over their legacy to machines after being attacked by aliens.

John W. Campbell was the main force behind the Golden Age of Sci/fi in the 30s and 40s, bringing scifi to the mainstream with his editorship of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction. Some of the greats got their start during this time like: Asimov, Bradbury, and Heinlein. Campbell's story Who Goes There? was the basis of the The Thing films.

hmmm, maybe I've read stuff by him, I can't remember.  I was pretty diligent in my golden age reading. but it's hard to get everything.   

I just finished The Forever War by Joe Halderman.  I have had it for years and have been meaning to read it for a long time, so I'm glad I finally did.  I really enjoyed it, it was really good military science fiction.  Much better than Starship Troopers, in my opinion.

I also just started William Cooper's Behold a Pale Horse.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist (the book is about the illuminati and new world order conspiracies as well as alien stuff), but I'm finding it very interesting so far.  Alot of the stuff seems like BS to me, but I still find it fascinating.  

I'm also reading through collections of the comic Fables.  I have been enjoying the TellTale game based on it so much that I went out and bought a bunch of collections.  I think I'm about half-way up to the current issues (I'm around issue 80) and I plan on reading them all.

@Matt Snee: I wanted to read his short stories a while ago but couldn't find a collection. I stumbled across this one at my library's book sale. 

I wonder if Astounding magazine is collected anywhere. The first issue was 1929!

Joe Haldeman I believe. I remember reading that and really disliking it. I forget why, but I remember getting angry about it. One of those, throw the book down in disgust moments. I should revisit it to see what bothered me about it way back when.

You're right, it's Haldeman.  My mistake.

I'm curious what made you so angry about the book, so if you remember later, post it on here.  I thought it was a really good allegory of the Vietnam War. It's probably my favorite military sci-fi novel that I've read (although I admit that I haven't read too many in that sub-genre) .

There is alot of stuff in it that some people might find objectionable though.  For one, it doesn't sugar-coat the fact that many of the troops die, often meaninglessly.  Also, although it never goes into any kind of graphic detail, it is very straight-foward in the fact that there is alot of sex going around.  Then later in the book basically the entire planet is made up of homosexuals for population control reasons (and those that don't wish to be are "corrected").

you ever read Alfred BEster?  he was great.  Theodore Sturgeon is probably my favorite though.