Book Club

[redgrail]

This guy will read it with you!

(no seriously. I read it two times and needed both UA and a class to have my breakthrough. it is now my favorite book of all time. seriously, get a companion work or just don't bother reading it unless you have encyclopedic knowledge of everything and the world's largest amount of patience)

[habia]

I like books pretty well. guess I would read one sometime if you guys did it too.

[NESK]

i just started underworld after reading about 9 novels last month. just the bulk of it is intimidating and makes me put it down more often than i normally would.

[haploid]

I'm a big Vonnegut fan... But I'm finding Slaughterhouse Five to be not what I had hoped. I really like science fiction, like Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End... But most scifi books I pick up lack the punch and emotion that I like... Does anyone have any recommendations?

[broneck]

A friend was telling me about a sci-fi series based on the Canterbury Tales, it's called the Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons. I haven't read it myself, but I was told it's some of the best sci-fi written, and takes on some pretty deep philosophical concepts.

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

[NESK]

yall some nerds.

[indesertum]

I'm a big Vonnegut fan... But I'm finding Slaughterhouse Five to be not what I had hoped. I really like science fiction, like Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End... But most scifi books I pick up lack the punch and emotion that I like... Does anyone have any recommendations?

i read flowers for algernon this past summer (; I bought it at SF downtown Borders and I sat there and read the whole thing). Really really good. Highly recommend.

it's about a surgical operation researchers do on a mouse and a retard that makes them extremely intelligent.

almost better than uniqlo socks. just almost.

[BrokenGlass]

A friend was telling me about a sci-fi series based on the Canterbury Tales, it's called the Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons. I haven't read it myself, but I was told it's some of the best sci-fi written, and takes on some pretty deep philosophical concepts.

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

reading dan simmons now

First read The Terror, which is more historical fiction. Then I realized he'd written a shit load of science fiction, which I'd never really read, so I picked up Ilium and then it's sequel Olympos. Those were really cool. Now I'm on the Hyperion series, 3rd book in. It's cool stuff, never thought I'd read science fiction but I've since been told not to get my hopes up, Dan Simmons is an exceptional writer that happens to write sci fi.

[requiem]

has anyone read any crowley? i'm three quarters of the way through moonchild at the moment. very heavy going. wouldn't mind another persons take on it.

[newaesthetic]

I'm a big Vonnegut fan... But I'm finding Slaughterhouse Five to be not what I had hoped. I really like science fiction, like Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End... But most scifi books I pick up lack the punch and emotion that I like... Does anyone have any recommendations?

Zamyatin's We. I found it better than 1984 and Brave New World.

[Servo2000]

london fields[/i] by Marin Amis (half)

Had to return to library unfinished when moving to New York in September to start current job. Read right after finishing Money, so my expectations were extremely high. Honestly seemed almost like another version of Money but with slightly different emphasis… will try again later.

didnt look to see how old this post was but if you'd be interested in borrowing my copy habia, let me know. an impressive list! i've been meaning to get into gibson and this post has definitely inspired me. I really need to start writing down ahead of time what I want to read in the year - I often find myself at the book store moments before leaving on a train grabbing anything that looks even remotely familiar.

[tmadd]

So whats all this about reading The Unbearable Light of Being...I have a copy on the way to me later tonight, and am excited to get back in the swing of things...who all is participating?

[Halifamous]

i just started underworld after reading about 9 novels last month. just the bulk of it is intimidating and makes me put it down more often than i normally would.

Just read the first chapter.

It's the best one.

By a lot.

The book is totally good overall but Donny boy can't write a compelling character to save his life. Phenomenal stylist though.

A friend was telling me about a sci-fi series based on the Canterbury Tales, it's called the Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons. I haven't read it myself, but I was told it's some of the best sci-fi written, and takes on some pretty deep philosophical concepts.

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

Hyperion is really good, I would bump that to the front of your reading list. The entire series is solid but the first two books can be read as a closed story and the others only need follow if you're really interested in the background. The Cantebury structure is pretty loose but he has a very good command of the historical elements that he integrates. Simmons is a smart writer, one of the few guys that's keeping me reading sci-fi these days.

If you were looking for something that hews closer to a classic narrative his Olympos series (starting with "Ilium") is a retelling of the Trojan wars that is much more directly referential. Not as good as Hyperion, but still pretty excellent.

Calling any of that stuff "some of the best sci-fi written" may be going a little far though. Simmons is an excellent distiller of ideas and an unabashed classicist fanboy, but apart from a bit of babble regarding "the singularity" he doesn't expand any current questions or concepts in a meaningful way. The best Sci-Fi authors are distinguished by their ability to confront the new and strange directly and without camp, to ultimately comment on the place of humanity amidst the fantastically familiar.

Word.

[broneck]

Care to illustrate an example?

[Halifamous]

If you actually want a detailed list I could holler, email me or something. Suffice to say that versus Robert Heinlein, Phillip K Dick, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clarke, Harlan Ellison, etc. Simmons is somewhat of a small fry. He's still a good writer, but he's a good writer in science fiction the same way that Ian Rankin (of Inspector Rebus fame) is a good writer of mystery novels. His books are excellent, and in many cases transcend the limits of his genre, but I wouldn't call him required reading for everyone in the same way I'd recommend mystery novels by Tony Hillerman or Elmore Leonard.

Also as a side note, Nabakov wrote a pretty excellent sci-fi novel called Ada or Adore, I know you guys read Lolita and liked it, so I'd recommend this one as well, I feel it's among his least read works.

Edit: Read Ian Rankin too, that motherfucker is tight as all hell, Knots and Crosses is almost enough to make you physically agitated with jealousy when you consider how young he was when he wrote it.

[NESK]

stephen what other delillo have you read? cause i think his characters are awesome.

[Baeyer-Drewson]

^Never consciously tackled the US lit heavyweights like Delillo, but picked up White Noise before I was old enough to know the significance... fucking loved it. Are all his works that kind of paranoid?

[gramps]

Yes, in a spectrum. Libra is full on shotguns in the trunk, men in Panama hats paranoid. Mao II (which I liked over Libra and Underworld, though it was still flawed) has more of a sad, limp coke dick paranoia. I don't know.

And like Stephen said about Underworld, Mao II's strongest moment is the opening.

[NESK]

i couldnt even engage mao. cosmopolis is probably my favorite. falling man was okay but too contemporary in subject matter. great jones street was good too.

[Halifamous]

Libra is actually a pretty excellent book. Some moments of paramount paranoia, the russian stuff especially, ill as hell. I think that section is some of his strongest writing. My biggest interest in literature is cold-war era and russian/eastern european diaspora writing and even though Delillo has no first hand experience I think he really nailed the way in which the communists were in turn comically ham-fisted and terrifyingly effective.

I havn't read Mao II, I should probably get on that. I've read Libra, Underworld, White Noise, Cosmopolis, and I started Falling Man but couldn't get into it.

Also, y'all droppin first names like y'all know me. Tom and Cory. Cory and Tom.

Edit: That's funny re: cosmopolis, I think it was my least favorite of the ones I finished. I think you're a bigger fan of the post-modern urban novel than I am (post-modern is a shit term, I guess.... globalist-individualist? I have no clue how to describe it, that sort of fractured yet interconnected effect, with huge turns coming from minor/unframed events, I felt it very heavily throughout that book).

[NESK]

dude says he wants to bottle-fuck a girl in the limo. thats a 'you had me at hello' moment where im from.

[NESK]

furthermore, i dug the connectivity and the idea that money can be understood like math or science. that main character seemed pretty awesome to me.

moreover, i DO know you, fool.

[Halifamous]

furthermore, i dug the connectivity and the idea that money can be understood like math or science.

I believe the markets themselves offered a rather convincing rebuttal to this idea recently.

MOREOVER ---> get at me this weekend.

[gfunkdocta]

gramps' first name is tom??

oh boy

[viv1984viv]

Zamyatin's We. I found it better than 1984 and Brave New World.

Id put 1984 above We ( not by much ) but miles above BNW.... Oryx and Crake is worth looking at too!

Whats the current book guys??

[habia]

I read Unbearable Lightness of Being but never posted my notes on here....

was enjoyable.

anyone other than Lan read it?

Just finished Chronic City by Lethem which was insane. such good

could possibly get behind new book club choice though have a lot of reading scheduled already for next two weeks

[NESK]

man we should have done chronic city. i read that shit in 2-3 sittings.

[jaac]

Finished some Clive Cussler mindmush when i was traveling, they make good train books if nothing else.

Just finished Open, Agassi's auto, was quite good and quite revealing, though really didn't have any insight into the tour itself, the locker room, player personalities etc which is what i wanted to know more about. Still a good read if your a tennis fan.

Just starting King's dark tower series, 2 books in.

Would love to join when ever next book is picked.

[dubcbadass]

i'm down, too. subscribed.

[Baeyer-Drewson]

how is a new book chosen? was about to go out into reality and find some flesh and blood humans at a bricks and mortar book club, but i'd rather stay here. should we have a few suggestions and then vote?