Book book book

[sebab]

As usual, nothing's ever all good or all bad. Currently I'm full of profound sadness, much anxiety, moderrate happiness, great anticipation, etc. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and all that

Comments

[darius]

I also read Stephenson, Banks, and Stross. You've said before that Vernor Vinge didn't appeal much, IIRC, but if you'd like to give his latest, _Rainbows End_, a look-see, I can send you some HTML

[bram]

Stanislaw Lem

Olaf Stapledon (esp. Star Maker, Last and First Men)

Greg Egan (esp. Axiomatic)

Not sci-fi

[lesliepear]

If you like "chick-lit" I enjoyed reading Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. I am also reading the biography of John Adams by David McCullough. His stuff is pretty good overall

Have you ever read the Harry Potter books? Or any of the Dan Brown books such as the Lost Symbol or Digital Fortress?

For total useless reading there's the Twilight series .

Re: Not sci-fi

[rhialto]

Digital Fortress was very annoying to me because of the absolute nonsensical things it said about computers.

[jonabbey]

Alastair Reynolds is good if you like space opera. There's a bit of cyberpunk in it, perhaps, but that's just adjunctive to the advanced technology involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space

If you like Bear and haven't read The Forge of God and The Anvil of Stars, I'd recommend them highly in the 'Earth Gets Destroyed and What Happens Thereafter' genre.

If you like anthropological science fiction, I'd *very* highly recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy).. although the trilogy spans centuries, life extension technology helps to keep the character list down a fair bit.

[jonabbey]

Oh, one other. John Varley's "Steel Beach".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Beach

It's sort of a spiritual sequel to Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

The opening line of the novel is particularly noteworthy.. "In five years, the penis will be obsolete." Lots of gender hacking and such in the thing.

[wolfden]

I'm really fond of Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. It's sort of time travel meets historical fiction and I found it to be a very good read.

I've enjoyed George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. A Game of Thrones is the first though I'm beginning to wonder if the series is ever going to be finished.

We've been reading a lot of Jacqueline Carey as well Ummmm Kushiel's Dart is the start I believe. Lots of sex and BDSM in those though - depends how you feel about that sort of thing.