The Books thread.

Stainless · Post by **Stainless** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:24 pm

I've been reading Blue Mars for like 6 months now, such a painful fucking book. Everytime I read it, I just want to put it down and go do something else. Which pisses me off, because it's the only one in the series I've yet to read.

I did read the two zombie books by Max Brooks though the other week after ordering them online (books here are expensive).

rabidpeanut · Post by **rabidpeanut** » Sun May 25, 2008 11:34 pm

If you think you have ever ead something that is FUCK boring try reading the silmarilion. OMF

WORST

MOST BORING

BOOK

3V4r

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Mon May 26, 2008 3:52 am

Stainless wrote:I've been reading Blue Mars for like 6 months now, such a painful fucking book. Everytime I read it, I just want to put it down and go do something else. Which pisses me off, because it's the only one in the series I've yet to read.

I did read the two zombie books by Max Brooks though the other week after ordering them online (books here are expensive).

Blue Mars is on my summer list; I'm going to read it along with Ben Bova's Mars.

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Mon May 26, 2008 4:04 am

rabidpeanut wrote:If you think you have ever ead something that is FUCK boring try reading the silmarilion. OMF

WORST

MOST BORING

BOOK

3V4r

So you probably don't know where to find the secret entrance to Gondolin.

Or that Ungoliant may still be alive "Beyond the Gates Of The World".
(So she could show up in an alt. universe.)

Or maybe they finished her off with jets back in the 50s.

NakedLunch · Post by **NakedLunch** » Mon May 26, 2008 6:06 am

I think once I'm finished with my current reading crop I'll definitely have to read the Illuminatus Trilogy again :grassyknoll:

cazsim83 · Post by **cazsim83** » Mon May 26, 2008 8:10 am

rabidpeanut wrote:If you think you have ever ead something that is FUCK boring try reading the silmarilion. OMF

yeesh - I checked it out from the library after I had finished reading the trilogy and The Hobbit when I was about 10 - fuck I don't even think I made it fifty pages, dead serious.

rabidpeanut · Post by **rabidpeanut** » Mon May 26, 2008 11:19 am

I got about 4 chapters it is the most work i have ever done in my whole life. IT is like the worst history book ever written except there is nothing real in it. I think if you wiped your ass with the paper it would actually get shittier.

NakedLunch · Post by **NakedLunch** » Mon May 26, 2008 3:05 pm

Hypothesis: If you wiped your anus with the pages from the Silmarillion, the pages would become shittier.

Procedure: After using the bathroom, I wiped my anus with the pages from Silmarillion instead of regular toilet paper. It felt pretty rough, the typeface did not sit well with my sensitive skin. There were trace amounts of shit on the pages.

Conclusion: By wiping your anus with the Silmarillion, it will actually get shittier.

rabidpeanut · Post by **rabidpeanut** » Mon May 26, 2008 4:04 pm

Sorry, i meant your ass will get shittier.

Stainless · Post by **Stainless** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:24 pm

Redeye wrote:Blue Mars is on my summer list; I'm going to read it along with Ben Bova's Mars.

I really enjoyed Mars, but then again I'm a Bova whore and tend to enjoy anything he writes. Except Powersat, that was a little light on the sci-fi.

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Thu May 29, 2008 7:01 pm

Last night I finished World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler. It takes place several years after the fall of the machine age. A combination of wars, gas prices, DC and LA getting nuked, everything getting super expensive, and somekinda plague, caused the United States and presumably the rest of the world to collapse back into a pre-industrialized civilization. The story follows the life of one man in Union Grove, New York. His family is dead and he struggles to make a living doing carpentry work for the small town. Most people have died off, there are no cars, and global warming is making it the hottest summer on record.

This isn't so much like the typical post apocalyptic adventure. It's like a less naive Alas, Babylon. The book isn't long and they throw a lot of characters at you. Although it's pretty well written and I never felt lost or the story wasn't progressing. The bad guys are lead by Wayne Karp, ex-biker and founder of Karptown. You know he's an evil sonuvabitch, but I can't help but like his style.
A new religious group called the New Faithers show up and move into the abandoned highschool. These dudes are pretty annoying, and you expect a big showdown to happen but they turn out kinda cool. Things get weird again when you meet the "honey bee" or whatever they call it.

The end is really the only part that was a little stupid. In one chapter they suddenly reveal this giant woman who leads the New Faithers with her apparent psychic ability. Then you never hear about it again. Something really fucking strange and unexplained happened at the very end and I still don't know what to make of it. The book seems like a straightforward end of civilization story then odd religious shit comes in and lightly suggests this dude Brother Jobe is God. Kunstler doesn't beat this notion into your head, it's just implied. The most logical thing I can come up with is he intends to make a World Made by Hand series. In that case, I'll leave it at the first one.

Stainless · Post by **Stainless** » Fri May 30, 2008 5:03 am

Sounds rather similar to how fucked up Dune got. How old is this World Made by Hand book? I might try and dig a copy of it up, it seems interesting.

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Fri May 30, 2008 5:47 am

Dune should have been left for dead unfinished.

The Herbert kid has pissed all over his father's legacy for money. Those new novels are utter trash, I've seen better writing and characterization in pro-wrestling skits.

rabidpeanut · Post by **rabidpeanut** » Fri May 30, 2008 12:16 pm

Read the first of the ender's saga by orson scott card. Not bad.

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Fri May 30, 2008 2:04 pm

Ender's Game, good.
Speaker for the Dead, godawful until literally the last 10% of the book when it all comes together and turned from suck to good, in a very different way.
Xenocide, it was meh, lost interest at this point.
Children of the Mind, if you haven't stopped this series at this point you are insane.

And Dune should've stopped after the third book as well.

Currently reading Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein. After that is A Canticle for Leibowitz or maybe The Forge of God or something.

Recently finished the (incomplete) Wheel of Time series. If you're into fantasy sort of stuff, it's pretty fucking good. I was a fan of the Lord of the Rings shit when I was little but I couldn't stand it come middle school-ish years. This series easily defines good fantasy reading for me. Very slow to start, but, as I said, fucking good if you're into fantasy at all.

Also recently read Forever War, pretty alright. Oh, and Old Man's War, highly recommended to anyone who digs the Forever War/Starship Troopers sorta thing. I read the sequel to it called.... Ghost Brigades or something, also good. Haven't read the third.

What else have I read lately. I dunno. I'll post again when I claw through the piles of books in my room.

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Fri May 30, 2008 2:06 pm

Stainless wrote:Sounds rather similar to how fucked up Dune got. How old is this World Made by Hand book? I might try and dig a copy of it up, it seems interesting.

It came out this year.

About Dune; I've owned a copy of the first book for years and have yet to open it. I'll save it for later because I just started on Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. It's very similar to Starship Troopers. An unknown alien threat is attacking humans from a far off star system, and a special team of highly trained soldiers is dispatched to take care of them all over the galaxy. Oh yeah, and it takes place in 1996 lead by Vietnam veterans. The new preface Haldeman explains how we should now look at his story as an alternate universe rather than a look at the distant future as originally intended. I dunno if I prefer it to Starship Troopers yet. The science is better (maybe because it was written decades after Heinlein's book) but the military atmosphere isn't as fleshed out. As usual, I'll report in when I finish.

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Fri May 30, 2008 2:09 pm

You pretty much covered the differences, MMRW. I prefer Starship Troopers just because Haldeman is just waaaaay over the top with WAR SUCKS I SURVIVED VIETNAM AND THIS IS HOW IT WILL BE coursing through every chapter. Still very good, just topped by Starship Troopers. I haven't read it in quite some time though.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Fri May 30, 2008 3:36 pm

Dune's first two books are really great, all the sequels are only there to fill your masturbatic nostalagia needs.

And once Paul disappears it's just not the same.

Nicolai · Post by **Nicolai** » Fri May 30, 2008 4:18 pm

jetbaby wrote:Recently finished the (incomplete) Wheel of Time series. If you're into fantasy sort of stuff, it's pretty fucking good. I was a fan of the Lord of the Rings shit when I was little but I couldn't stand it come middle school-ish years. This series easily defines good fantasy reading for me. Very slow to start, but, as I said, fucking good if you're into fantasy at all.

what have you been smoking, mango

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Fri May 30, 2008 5:46 pm

LotR is the king of fantasy, my sister.