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Haven't started reading it yet, but last night I picked up The Whispering Swarm, by Michael Moorcock. Was surprised to see something actually new from him on the bookstore shelf, rather than just another reprint.

Three at the moment:
1. Zaloga's comparison of Soviet infantry formations vs. German formations with a focus on TO&E discussions. I've gotten hooked on Zaloga's comparison books.

2. A book primarily from interviews of soldiers and pilots during the Six Day War. Just finished them putting a flag on the Wailing Wall.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lions-Gate-Front-Lines/dp/1595231196

3. The Exorcist. yes that one.

Recently finished The Holy Machine, by Chris Beckett.

The Holy Machine expands some of the themes found in The Turing Test short story collection.

This novel is set in the late 21st century, by which time the world has experienced a huge religious backlash against science and most countries have devolved to at best a late-20th century level of technology and slowly sinking further. The exception is Illyria, a city state on the borders of what used to be Greece and the Balkans.

Here the world’s surviving scientists have set up a republic of secular reason, and made new inventions like Artificial Intelligence, SenSpace virtual reality and Discontinuous Motion. By trading pieces of high tech with the rest of the world, Illyria imports raw materials, foodstuffs, and also guest workers to do all the low level drudgery like cleaning lavatories.

Unfortunately there is a worm in Illyria’s technological Edenic apple. Continuing disruptions with the guest workers demanding freedom of religion and citizenship, have led Eden’s authorities to develop sophisticated androids to replace them. This includes the creation of robot prostitutes, or Autonomic Sensual Pleasure Units (ASPUs) as they are termed. Gradually the government represses religion more and more, until pretty much all imaginative thought is under threat by a series of laws intended to put everything on a sound basis of empirical evidence. A tyranny of scientific atheism.

The book follows the story of three main characters who live in Illyria; the protagonist, George, his mother, and a robot called Lucy, as they go on voyages of self-discovery and development of their personalities into full maturity.

George, a young translator, has difficulty relating to the women around him. In frustration he visits an ASPU bordello, where he falls in love with Lucy, one of the androids. Lucy, whose design includes the capability to evolve her own programming through experience, gradually becomes self aware. This kind of problem is creating difficulties in many of Illyria’s advanced robots, causing the government to decree they should all be memory wiped every six months, to remove the cumulative evolving programming.

Trying to impress a woman he fancies, George joins the Army of the Human Spirit (AHS) a terrorist organisation that opposes the increasingly repressive government. When George realises that Lucy will be wiped and lose all memory of him, he steals Lucy and escapes from Illyria to the religious city states of Greece and the Balkans. He therefore is on the run from the Illyrian government, the AHS organisation, and from the ordinary religionists who live in all the Balkan states, as Lucy is to them an abomination.

Things go horribly wrong, of course. George loses Lucy to a religious mob, and goes on a punishing journey of self-discovery in the midst of a ghastly religious war. Eventually he encounters The Holy Machine, a new robotic prophet who has arisen in the course of the wars. Learning new wisdom from The Holy Machine, George makes some kind of sense of his experiences, and returns to Illyria, whose government has by now been replaced by a less reactionary regime, where he manages to start a proper mature life.

In parallel with this story, George’s mother goes on her own journey of self-discovery, by a very different path that comes to a different kind of end. Lucy too, has a journey to make.

While this book has many depressing scenes, essentially its message is positive, because by the end of it, all the main characters have grown and found some mental peace and maturity in the ways they make sense of and deal with the world.

I read the Kindle edition available from Amazon.co.uk for only 99 pence.

Started reading Les Miserables. I honestly thought I wasn't going to like this due to the rather large amount of detail I heard is in the story. So far it's pretty good though. I remember I liked the musical because I saw a few themes in it that I enjoyed. If those themes carry on into the book, I'm really going to enjoy this read.

I read The Dwarves by (Markus Heitz), having found it in a half-priced book store and enjoyed it very much. So I picked up the sequel The War of the Dwarves, and found it to be dreadful. I put it in the "Take to half-priced books to sell" pile after I was only halfway done. Oh, well. There were 4 books in that series and I was hopeful.

'Dawn of the Jedi'

Loving it so far! First honest to god novel I've put my hands on in a while. Feels great to be reading a physical book again.

 kronk wrote:
I read The Dwarves by (Markus Heitz), having found it in a half-priced book store and enjoyed it very much. So I picked up the sequel The War of the Dwarves, and found it to be dreadful. I put it in the "Take to half-priced books to sell" pile after I was only halfway done. Oh, well. There were 4 books in that series and I was hopeful.

Yeah, first one was great. Second one was horrible but I happened to read it when I had a fair bit of spare time so finished it and tried the third. 10 pages in I was sad I'd wasted money

 djphranq wrote:
'Dawn of the Jedi'

Loving it so far! First honest to god novel I've put my hands on in a while. Feels great to be reading a physical book again.

That's a good book! Shame there won't be any more set in that time period. Feth you Disney!

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Currently reading Gardens of the Moon, it's a bit of a slog though. Almost feels like homework. I put it away last week and decided to give it another shot. Little more than halfway done now. After this is Lies of Locke Lamora and then Name of the Wind.

Yeah, Gardens of the Moon is kinda boring, as the characters are in a stasis except for the last (hundred) pages. I'm currently reading Deadhouse Gates and it's a lot better.

Name of the Wind is not worth reading imo, it's always saying how different it is from "normal" stories, but it's really not. It's a generic fantasy story with a teenage protagonist that is good at everything. And for all the praise it did get for the writing, I can't agree with that sentiment.

You were spot on for the synopsis for Gardens of the Moon, that's exactly what it felt like! I still kind of enjoyed it, it wasn't bad but it wasn't particularly great either. I will probably pick up the next book in the series, as I've read online that Gardens is pretty much like a prologue to the rest of the series. I just finished reading Lies of Locke Lamora and holy gak that was a good read. Really, really dug it. Can't wait to pick up the next one. I'm a chapter into Name of the Wind so far, I'll let you know if I share your opinion when I'm done with it.

Currently rereading the R. Scott Bakker Second Apocalypse books. Some of my favorite fantasy novels. Saw this




which I thought was cool.


Leavening this with The Tome of Bill, a series about Bill the Vampire. Got the first one on kindle unlimited and it was surprisingly good. Currently on book 7; they are fast, funny reads. Also for when I can't bring my kindle I am slowly working my way through the Dark Conspiracy trilogy by Michael Stackpole.

Does anyone have any recommendations for magical realism? I think that's the term I want. Specifically, I would want something with the same 'feel' as Pan's Labrynth, with otherworldly grandeur tinged with darkness. Some weird Guillermo Del Toro or Wayne Barlowe-esque twisted fairy tales would work, too.

(I tried reading Barlowe's God's Demon but couldn't get past all the "then he sat in a chair made of suffering human souls and spit into the spittoon of suffering unbaptized infants" kind of stuff. I'll probably try again later because I'm pretty sure the point of the book is to redeem some part of that hell.)

 Hulksmash wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I read The Dwarves by (Markus Heitz), having found it in a half-priced book store and enjoyed it very much. So I picked up the sequel The War of the Dwarves, and found it to be dreadful. I put it in the "Take to half-priced books to sell" pile after I was only halfway done. Oh, well. There were 4 books in that series and I was hopeful.

Yeah, first one was great. Second one was horrible but I happened to read it when I had a fair bit of spare time so finished it and tried the third. 10 pages in I was sad I'd wasted money

That was almost exactly my experience. I'm not sure how much to blame on the translator and how much on the original author, but that series was an awkward read even when it was good.

Finished East of Eden. Fantastic.

Starting Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia Butler.

Just started Lineage of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East.

Pretty dry, extremely exhaustive on its citations, hopefully its gets good at some point. I like to be entertained with my information.

On top of required reading for classes, I am about half way through "Fires of Heaven," which is book 5 of the Wheel of Time series.

Additionally, slowly reading through Blickle's "The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants' War from a New Perspective." It's very slow going for me, as I have to work more time for it, but it is extremely well written, and remains very "modern" for a book first published in the 1890s (to be fair, this translated version was released in either 1975, or 81, I'm not sure which version I have). Also in my stack are Engel's work "The German Revolutions," Scribner and Benecke's "The German Peasant war of 1525, New Viewpoints," and Bax's "The Peasants' War" (a book that I know this copy was printed/released in 1899, so I'm excited, reverent, and a bit scared of damaging the book)

The oldest book I own was published in 1863, The Rise of the Dutch Republic by Motley. I'm never going to read it, it's hardly worth selling, being worth very little, and I don't want to give it or throw it away. It's a bit sad, just taking up space in my book shelves.

Oldest I have is a first printing (in America) "Revolt in the Desert" by T.E. Lawrence from 1927.

I am much too nervous to read it. Even though I absolutely want to read it lol.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Does anyone have any recommendations for magical realism? I think that's the term I want. Specifically, I would want something with the same 'feel' as Pan's Labrynth, with otherworldly grandeur tinged with darkness. Some weird Guillermo Del Toro or Wayne Barlowe-esque twisted fairy tales would work, too.

Not familiar with that specific example, but it sounds like the fantastic Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell would be right up your alley. The writing style is very Dickensian, depspite it being a rather recent book, and it's over 1000 pages (though that is 3 separate 'books', just all printed together), but it's utterly brilliant. The story of two magicians in 19th century England, in an age where magic is believed to have died out; most 'magicians' simply study magic as history, performing it is unheard of... The reclusive Norrell is the last Practical Magician, Strange is given a book of magic and seeks out Norrell for tutelage and guidance. They become firm friends, master and apprentice, but with a little meddling from a Fairy (not the nice kind, the damn spooky kind), things go south rather rapidly...

The story of their friendship and rivalry is epic and at times utterly tragic, the treatment of magic itself definitely harkens back to a more traditional approach, with something of a scientific approach thrown in, the writing is excellent and the story and setting exceptionally well fleshed out through extensive footnotes and the text itself. Truly a modern classic. There was also a superb BBC dramatisation of the book last year, that's highly recommended too (I'd actually recommend watching the show first, it'll give you a frame of reference for the more complicated parts of the novel).

"Monte Cassino: A German Perspective".

An interesting book translated from German from a battalion commander of the Falshirmjagers present at the battle. I haven't gotten into the German perspective part, still in the extremely detailed history leading up to the battle including step by step events leading to the Italian surrender and their outright betrayal of their former allies to get some extra cookies from the Allies(which they didn't get), details of the battles of southern Italy and how it almost didn't happen and all of the crazy mismanaged stuff that went on behind the scenes due to misguided priorities between the allied command and even interbranch rivalries.

Tacitus: The annals of Imperial Rome

As an avid reader of Roman historical ficiton from "I Claudius" to "I Claudia" its very interesting - in style as well as content. He has an interesting voice on the many and vared events of the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius and Nero - sadly much of his wirtting has not surived.

 Paradigm wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Does anyone have any recommendations for magical realism? I think that's the term I want. Specifically, I would want something with the same 'feel' as Pan's Labrynth, with otherworldly grandeur tinged with darkness. Some weird Guillermo Del Toro or Wayne Barlowe-esque twisted fairy tales would work, too.

Not familiar with that specific example, but it sounds like the fantastic Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell would be right up your alley. The writing style is very Dickensian, depspite it being a rather recent book, and it's over 1000 pages (though that is 3 separate 'books', just all printed together), but it's utterly brilliant. The story of two magicians in 19th century England, in an age where magic is believed to have died out; most 'magicians' simply study magic as history, performing it is unheard of... The reclusive Norrell is the last Practical Magician, Strange is given a book of magic and seeks out Norrell for tutelage and guidance. They become firm friends, master and apprentice, but with a little meddling from a Fairy (not the nice kind, the damn spooky kind), things go south rather rapidly...

The story of their friendship and rivalry is epic and at times utterly tragic, the treatment of magic itself definitely harkens back to a more traditional approach, with something of a scientific approach thrown in, the writing is excellent and the story and setting exceptionally well fleshed out through extensive footnotes and the text itself. Truly a modern classic. There was also a superb BBC dramatisation of the book last year, that's highly recommended too (I'd actually recommend watching the show first, it'll give you a frame of reference for the more complicated parts of the novel).

When you say Dickensian, do you mean that the writer wrote as if paid by the word? The story sounds like a good one, so I'm putting it on my list. Would you say it's more like S. L. MacGreggor Mathers vs Aleister Crowley (occultists who may be frauds) or more like Peter Straub's Shadowland (stage magicians who may be occultists)? I've heard a lot of great things about the book, but I want to be in the right head space to enjoy it.


PS: If you have to chose one Peter Straub story to read, read Ghost Story. If you have to chose two, read Ghost Story and the book he wrote with Stephen King. If you have a table with one short leg, that's where Shadowland comes into its own. Ghost Story was great.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Does anyone have any recommendations for magical realism? I think that's the term I want. Specifically, I would want something with the same 'feel' as Pan's Labrynth, with otherworldly grandeur tinged with darkness. Some weird Guillermo Del Toro or Wayne Barlowe-esque twisted fairy tales would work, too.

Not familiar with that specific example, but it sounds like the fantastic Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell would be right up your alley. The writing style is very Dickensian, depspite it being a rather recent book, and it's over 1000 pages (though that is 3 separate 'books', just all printed together), but it's utterly brilliant. The story of two magicians in 19th century England, in an age where magic is believed to have died out; most 'magicians' simply study magic as history, performing it is unheard of... The reclusive Norrell is the last Practical Magician, Strange is given a book of magic and seeks out Norrell for tutelage and guidance. They become firm friends, master and apprentice, but with a little meddling from a Fairy (not the nice kind, the damn spooky kind), things go south rather rapidly...

The story of their friendship and rivalry is epic and at times utterly tragic, the treatment of magic itself definitely harkens back to a more traditional approach, with something of a scientific approach thrown in, the writing is excellent and the story and setting exceptionally well fleshed out through extensive footnotes and the text itself. Truly a modern classic. There was also a superb BBC dramatisation of the book last year, that's highly recommended too (I'd actually recommend watching the show first, it'll give you a frame of reference for the more complicated parts of the novel).

When you say Dickensian, do you mean that the writer wrote as if paid by the word? The story sounds like a good one, so I'm putting it on my list. Would you say it's more like S. L. MacGreggor Mathers vs Aleister Crowley (occultists who may be frauds) or more like Peter Straub's Shadowland (stage magicians who may be occultists)? I've heard a lot of great things about the book, but I want to be in the right head space to enjoy it.

It is very wordy, yeah, but very well written. Definitely something that proves anyone who says fantasy fiction can't be literature is talking gak.

I'm not sure if fits either archetype, really; Strange and Norrell at least are out and out magicians/sorcerers/wizards (whichever term you choose. Magicians is the one used mostly in the book itself). There are several other characters that are perhaps frauds or perhaps genuinely magic (can't say any more without spoiling some major plot points), but magic is definitely a proven and recognised reality, even if there are only a handful of people capable of harnessing it.

This trailer for the TV series probably does a better job of getting the style/feel across:

I'm now reading Star Trek TOS: The Latter Fire. Very good book so far, like most Star Trek books I've read.

Reading through a book called The Lucifer Effect. It's basically about one of the most ethically-grey psychological experiments to date. Very fascinating read so far.

At the moment I am reading the lost legion by turtledove and father's and sons by turgenev

 SkavenLord wrote:
Reading through a book called The Lucifer Effect. It's basically about one of the most ethically-grey psychological experiments to date. Very fascinating read so far.

Ethically grey experiment??? Im no shrink but you got me intrigued.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 SkavenLord wrote:
Reading through a book called The Lucifer Effect. It's basically about one of the most ethically-grey psychological experiments to date. Very fascinating read so far.

Ethically grey experiment??? Im no shrink but you got me intrigued.

The Stanford Prison experiment. Students were put in a prison environment, either as guards or as prisoners. Those who were guards often became cruel and abusive to those students who were prisoners. Was massively criticised due to the lack of oversight of the students behaviour and systemic flaws in the sample selection which raised doubts about the conclusions drawn. Basically he argued that putting someone in a position of power over someone else will inevitably lead to corruption of the person in power. However flaws in the selection of those used in the experiment made the conclusion suspect as those who volunteered to be guards were likely to enjoy and crave power, otherwise they wouldn't volunteer.

The professor who was in charge of it was later called as an expert witness for the defence of soldiers who were involved in the abuses at Abu Grahib prison.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 SkavenLord wrote:
Reading through a book called The Lucifer Effect. It's basically about one of the most ethically-grey psychological experiments to date. Very fascinating read so far.

Ethically grey experiment??? Im no shrink but you got me intrigued.

The Stanford Prison experiment. Students were put in a prison environment, either as guards or as prisoners. Those who were guards often became cruel and abusive to those students who were prisoners. Was massively criticised due to the lack of oversight of the students behaviour and systemic flaws in the sample selection which raised doubts about the conclusions drawn. Basically he argued that putting someone in a position of power over someone else will inevitably lead to corruption of the person in power. However flaws in the selection of those used in the experiment made the conclusion suspect as those who volunteered to be guards were likely to enjoy and crave power, otherwise they wouldn't volunteer.

The professor who was in charge of it was later called as an expert witness for the defence of soldiers who were involved in the abuses at Abu Grahib prison.

Ahh.,.. Yeah, I've read a bit about the Stanford Prison experiment... I was thinking either that, or perhaps the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, although admittedly, the Tuskegee experiment in my mind, is far more dark than Stanford.

Anne of Green Gables.

I've never actually read it before, see.

A classic of children's literature.

My brother was devoted to the Little House on the Prairie series and transcribed some of them for Project Gutenberg.

I am still very fond of the Swallows and Amazons stories by Arthur Ransome.

To get back to the topic, I have just finished Marcher, by Chris Beckett.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marcher-Authors-Preferred-Chris-Beckett-ebook/dp/B00MEINJ5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457853296&sr=1-1&keywords=Marcher

This is the Author's Preferred Text, available for £2.99 on Kindle.

The novel develops two themes from the short story collection The Turing Test; the idea of social division, and a drug or device that allows people to shift into parallel worlds.

It's set in Bristol (west England) in the near future. The protagonist is an over-worked Immigration Officer, whose remit is to deal with "shifters". These are immigrants entering the UK from parallel worlds. This is done using a device or drug-like substance called a seed, which looks like a small glowing ball. You swallow it, and within a few hours, you are translated to a parallel timeline.

Shifters entering the UK this way tend to end up in so-called Social Inclusion Zones, which are in fact sink estates where the government confines the urban underclass in a semi-prison. Such places are easy to hide in if you don't have proper ID.

Not to reveal too much of the plot, a group of shifters plans to perform some crime and escape using seeds. Meanwhile, the rather bumbling forces of official bureaucracy are dealing with various kinds of social problems.

Simply being near a shifter, especially when they shift, causes a person to experience aftereffects such as weird dreams and out of body experiences. Gradually the protagonist becomes more affected by this, and is tempted to take a seed himself. Towards the end the book starts to branch off into multiple versions of the same scene with different outcomes, giving a feeling of dislocation and parallel worlds.

Like all other Chris Beckett stories I have read, it is very well written, with a highly effective, rather spare prose style, and ultimately rather sad. Don't read it looking for a triumphal finish.

Recently finished "Ready Player One".

In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

There's a ton of homage to the 70's & 80's.

Also, Steven Speilberg is slated to direct this in a movie to be released in 2017.