Read any good books lately?

so good. it's been a long time, I've been considering rereading.

just finished:



The Mechanical by Ian Tregellis

good piece of spec fic in the steampunk/slipstream genre. The basic idea is hundreds of years before the story the Dutch developed these alchemical robots to serve the crown and the Dutch people. They use them as servants mostly, but also soliders, law enforcement, etc. The Dutch exclusively have this technology and are in a constant war with the French, who do not have Mechanicals and are thus grossly underpowered. Aspects of political intrigue overlay a story basically about free will, what is the soul, what makes a human being sentient, etc. Pretty good yarn and good world building. It's part of a series, looking forward to the next book.

so what did you think?

seeing your post did inspire me to reread it for the first time, and I was relieved to find it just as magical, emotional, and engaging as my first read. I think I was in my early 20s when I first read it, 34 now. Still one of my favorite and most creative premises for a book.

some of my other summer reading:



I know Stross's Laundry stories are just supposed to be a bit of fun, and the overall premise is cool (that magic and the occult is real, demons are real, the multiverse is real, but its actually accessed via complex mathematics, which is a secret safeguarded by various government organizations), but I can't say I've been totally thrilled with one of the books yet. But they are entertaining enough, and the Jennifer Morgue is no different. I'm sure I'll keep plowing through the series because I have such a high regard for Stross's more elevated science fiction books.



This book was great fun, and I'm looking forward to the next one. The characters were maybe a little too likable though, like they were painted in this fuzzy funky funny way that made me picture them like cute little hipster panda bears or something. But that is a small complaint. Our heroes are the crew of a ship that works punching holes into space in order to create what are basically wormholes to allow fast travel over long distances. Deals with themes of religion, sexuality, prejudice, racism, and violence. A quick and fun read, looking forward to seeing what else this author brings to the table.



Ah, now we are talking! When you start talking about particle physic, time/space, and our perceptions of reality vs the "true" nature of reality, you got me. I burned through this one last week (I'm typically a slow reader), just couldn't put it down. I don't want to say too much because I think its best just picked up and read, but the ideas were super interesting, and the story was well told. Big thumbs up, recommended if you dig particle physics and stoner thoughts.

I loved it. It hooked me early on & I found it to be a fun, interesting read. Now I am looking forward to the TV series coming out.

Any book recommendations? I enjoyed Americans Gods. I followed it up with the newest Bridget Jones book, because I am a girl & thought it would be a nice break. It ended up just depressing me. Think of starting the Dark Tower series. Used to be a huge Stephen King fan when I was younger, but I never got around to that series.

Do it! All 7 are excellent

I have quite a fascination with the late 60's, and this book covers a whole lot that happened politically and culturally from 69-70. I just started reading it yesterday and already I'm almost 150 pages in, which is a lot for me, especially considering that this may literally the first book I've ever read that's come from the U.S. History section of the bookstore (I usually can't stand history books). If you're interested in that decade I'd really recommend it.

ha, I just finished this book last week, and it rather germane to your interests.


It came out around the same times at Capote's In Cold Blood and Thompson's Hell's Angles and was part of the "nonfiction novel" genre that was emerging. It tells the story of the great hero Norman Mailer and his account of the march on the pentagon in 1967 to protest the Vietnam war. The first half is very novelized account, with the author's editorial spin on things, and the second part is a more cut-and-dry factual explanation of the machinations of the whole thing. Fits your fascination with the late 60's politics and culture, plus it won a pulitzer. If you aren't familiar with Mailer, he can be annoyingly verbose at times, but he strings it all together rather masterfully. I also found quite a few passages about the political culture that resonated pretty sharply with what is going on right now.

I've read it. What's up?

I'm in the middle of a few books right now. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (Hunter S. Thompson covering the 1972 presidential campaign) is, at times, eerily relevant to the primaries and presidential election going on right now. I'd love to be able to read his commentary on the current events, though I think I could copy/paste some passages that speak pretty directly to the current situation.

In tandem with that, I'm also reading The Selling of the President, by Joe Mcginnis. More political journalism about Richard Nixon's campaign in '68. Both are pretty interesting and give a lot of insight into the theatrics of politics on the national stage.

to totally distract me from all the politics, both in book and current events, I am reading Genome: The autobiography of a specias in 23 chapters by Matt Ridley. It is about the history of genetics, from discovering the gene and how DNA works into more recent stuff like what genes control (and don't) from sex and intelligence, environmental influeces, ethics and eugenics, etc. It is absolutely fascinating. Lots of science, history, and philosophy but very easy to read and nothing too dense. If you have taken a biology class you can understand the concepts, it isn't a textbook.

i read this one in the past few months and loved it. gaiman really has a gift for making what feels like modern day fairy tales, but always with a dark twist. his stuff is always compelling, but also always a little bit sad, but in a way that leaves you feeling good? if that makes sense.



I just finished this one. Kind of an insane and brutal piece of existentialist sci-fi, it is a first contact story dealing with questions like the nature of consciousness and the nature of human perception, also there is a vampire. The author recently published a sequel but I don't know if I'm ready to go back there. Good stuff though.

Mark Z. Danielewski is coming to my local bookstore for a book signing next week. House of Leaves is one of my favorites.

Yeah. I forgot to mention to you that my perspective also may have been skewed some because I got on the train when book 4 or 5 came out of what was supposed to be an eight (i think) book series.

I had thought about starting those because I listened to the two books that have been released so far of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series, and I know he was the one who ended up finishing off the last three books of the Wheel of Time series. I ended up really, really liking the Stormlight books, but it took me a while to get into the first one.