Finished Halting State a while back, and man was it good! It took me a while to get into, but when the story speeds up it's quite a ride.

Idoru, for the first time. I'm tending to savour 2 or 3 chapters a night. Its so good, I'm trying to make it last as long as possible.

Finished "The Cruel Sea" - nod to MoM wherever you are.
Ironically, going on a cruise soon, so am now looking for a book to take. May re-read "Spook Country" or "Perdido Street Station". Leaning toward the latter, because I liked it the first go round. But still want to give the former another chance.

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Besides, I bought the book for $2.oo at Value Village and can sell it to a used book store for $4.oo.

seriously? seems the used book market here is collapsing.

Yeah, I average 1-2 dollars profit for every book. Not huge, but better than losing 15 to 20 each time.

Natsuo Kirino's Out

Halfway through it.
It's as bleak as a book could be.

I love it.

3/4 way through Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. Definately enjoying it, its fun. Its no great work of fiction, and definately derivitive of other works in the genre.. But, fun is good! Not all reading need be nourishing. Its got alot of smiles, and some really great ideas in it..

So, highly reccomended fun!

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
Natsuo Kirino's Out

Halfway through it.
It's as bleak as a book could be.

I love it.

i have had that sitting unread for sooo long its embarrasing. and i really liked the extract i read before buying it as well. just too much to read.

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Yeah, I average 1-2 dollars profit for every book. Not huge, but better than losing 15 to 20 each time.

i don't think you could manage to do that here

Wow.....sometimes the grass is greener underfoot?

krazy!

The Naming of the Dead (2007) by Ian Rankin

Police Procedural. "Scotland has the mortality rate of a third world country." This is DCI Rebus #16. Normally I hate series like this. However I've read every one.

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
Natsuo Kirino's Out

Halfway through it.
It's as bleak as a book could be.

I love it.

i have had that sitting unread for sooo long its embarrasing. and i really liked the extract i read before buying it as well. just too much to read.

It's a very quick read.

she has a second novel out as well, grotesque.
i'll try and bump it up my reading list, but i really do have an absurd backlog.


king of thorns book 4 arrived last night, so need to read that, and hikkatsu book 3 still waiting. though i did read alive 4 the other night, though now book 5 is out now.

and i have the last 3 love and rockets collections to read. and ashley woods robots vs amazons vs zombies, or whatever its called. and suburban glamour book 1.

Well, I went with neither a re-read of Perdido Street Station, nor Spook Country, but with Wild Sheep Chase. Sometimes you just never know what's gonna come at you.

quote:

Besides, I bought the book for $2.oo at Value Village and can sell it to a used book store for $4.oo.

erm, why wouldja want to sell a book?

Gollancz has been re-releasing old pulp in a "collector's edition" format.




just finished Next of Kin by Eric Frank Russell (bargain bin). lovely intergalactic military story. i love pulp.

personally, i think the collector's editions are the old yellowed 50 centers. either way, it's nice to see some of the greats reprinted, including Simak's Way Station, Big Planet by jack Vance, Wolfbane by Pohl & Kornbluth, and others by Leiber, Brunner, Sturgeon and others.

moved on to Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer.

i got the yellow covered editions of delany's "jewels of aptor" and vance's "big planet". i picked up a second hand copy of wolfbane a while ago, along with space merchants and the sequel. more to add to the list of stuff i need to catch up on.

Odd Hours (2008) by Dean Koontz

Fantasy/Crime. Koontz is a hack. OK, that's out of the way. I hate series. (Another thing out of the way.) However, the Odd Thomas series is really amusing. I like the cross-over of supernatural and crime, along with the witty repartee of the guileless protagonist. If anything the first book Odd Thomas is worthy summer reading.

Odd Hours is book four. While still amusing, I'm finding this one a bit tiresome. The digressive soliloquies on mortality are frankly boring. In addition, the author is working hard (like any hack) to perpetuate his franchise by setting up for book five. Otherwise, its more Odd Thomas.

quote:

erm, why wouldja want to sell a book?

Poverty.



(Nice to see ya!)

quote:

Originally posted by Black Jacque:
Odd Hours (2008) by Dean Koontz

Fantasy/Crime. Koontz is a hack.

I read some Koontz quite a few years back. I liked his stuff, fun fluff. But my big complaint is it was like he didn't know how to end his story. His endings always seemed rushed and contrived.

I've never liked Koontz either. I put him in that formulaic category of author that churns out books by the pulp pound.

However, the Odd Thomas character, shines despite the mediocre plots. I think the character is a rip-off of Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999). That works for me.

Anathem - Wow. I think it's a pretty uneven read, but as usual there were enough excellent bits to make up for frequent slogs through philosophical discussions on the order of "let us consider these shadows on the cave wall". There are also some bits towards the end that dragged me back into omg-can't-put-it-down mode for a couple hundred pages.

The book store owner I bought it from recommended reading the glossary first. I don't know if I'd go that far or not, but if you choose not then be prepared to have to use contextual clues to pick up a whole new set of alien scientific jargon as you read along.