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[Caz]

I've picked up The Reality Dysfunction twice and haven't gotten through the first half yet. It's dense. Undoubtedly a good book, but not everyone may enjoy it.

Great trilogy. There's a lot of supernatural horror in that sci-fi, though I think the Primes (Commonwealth Saga) are a scarier antagonist. The whole concept of MorningLightMountain and their species is amazing. Heck, even the fantasy sections of the void trilogy were good. Hamilton is great and genre-bending and fantastic worldbuilding, too. Just a shame his endings always seem to be pulled from the ass deus-ex-machina-type deals. Now I gotta read Pandora's Star again...

Spoiler:  24/100 (click to show/hide)

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins  (387 pages)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins (391 pages)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins (390 pages)
The Four Agreements - Miguel Ruiz (144 pages)
Grotesque - Natsuo Kirino (480 pages)
Mammoth - Stephen Baxter (277 pages)
Theodore Boone - John Grisham (272 pages)
A Prison Diary - Jeffrey Archer (272 pages)
The Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M Auel (512 pages)
10 - The Valley of Horses – Jean M Auel (560 pages)
The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M Auel (784 pages)
Very Nice Ways to Say Very Bad Things – Linda Berdoll (143 pages)
The Book of Lies - Aleister Crowley (212 pages)
Le Couperet et Le Collet (Hunger Games fanfic, pretty damn good) - silvercistern (62,719 words)
Theodicy (EVE Online Novella) - (169 pages)
The Terrible Truth – EM (90k words)
In Defence of Dogs – John Bradshaw (308 pages)
The Myth of Sanity – Martha Stout (272 pages)
Fiction First Aid – Raymond Obstfeld (290 pages)
20 - Among Thieves: A Tale of the Kin – Douglas Hulick (414 pages)
City of Thieves – David Benioff (400 pages)
Manhattan in Reverse – Peter Hamilton (259 pages)
Journey to Ixtlan – Carlos Castaneda (281 pages)
HP and the Philosopher's Stone – J K Rowling (224 pages)

Starting to think I was a little ambitious with a 100-book goal. Got no patience for reading books on a screen these days... it has to be paper. But I don't have most of the series I wanted to read in ye olde book form. 

[Dutchling]

Finished book #8: Dune. Awesome world, great story, shitty ending.

A good book . Will definitely read some more books in the series later.

[Lectorog]

Will definitely read some more books in the series later.

Many people recommend you do not do this.

[Sappho]

I liked everything through God-Emperor of Dune, though I have mixed feelings beyond that point. I also have a couple of books written by his son, but after the first few chapters I just sort of lost interest, there was nothing holding my attention. They become more and more like textbooks on politics. I felt like I needed to read them with a notebook at hand just to keep track of what was going on.

I'm currently re-reading the series as well, though I haven't decided where I'll stop this time. I might give the later books another chance.

[palsch]

Finally going to update this;

Spoiler: 25 Down (click to show/hide)

Charles Stross
Merchant Princes series ;
1 - The Family Trade
2 - The Hidden Family
3 - The Clan Corporate
4 - The Merchant's War
5 - The Revolution Business
6 - The Queen of Trades
From the Laundry Files series;
The Apocalypse Codex

Seanan McGuire
October Daye series;
1 - Rosemary and Rue
2 - A Local Habitation
3 - An Artificial Night
4 - Late Eclipses
5 - One Salt Sea
6 - Ashes of Honor
InCryptid series;
Discount Armageddon
Midnight Blue-Light Special

Alastair Reynolds
Blue Remembered Earth

Iain M. Banks
The Hydrogen Sonata

Richard Morgan
A Land Fit For Heroes trilogy;
The Steel Remains
The Cold Commands

John Scalzi
Old Man's War series;
The Human Division: Episodes 1-13

Tamora Pierce
Tortall: Protector of the Small quartet;
First Test
Page
Squire
Lady Knight

China Mieville
New Crobuzon series;
Iron Council

The latest are the Richard Morgan, John Scalzi and Tamora Pierce books. And that's a weird mix.

The author's note for The Steel Remains, the first of the A Land Fit For Heroes series;

“If you had to – really had to – kill someone, which way would you rather they made you do it? With a pistol, or with an axe?

Exactly. So welcome to the brutal world of Ringil Angeleyes, scarred hero of Gallows Gap and death-wish-furious, semi-retired warrior aristocrat. I’ve been talking a good fight about fantasy noir for a while – now I’m putting my money where my mouth is. The Steel Remains is a grubby, blood-spattered trawl through exactly how unpleasant it might be to actually have to live in the average fantasy universe. Can you do noir in a fantasy landscape? You can certainly try…”

Oh, he also made two of the three POV characters gay, just to make it a little less pleasant for them.


The Human Division was Scalzi's attempt at serialised fiction, with all 13 (self contained short story) episodes making it onto the NYT bestseller list. I read it once all thirteen were out as a single novel and it worked great that way, with only a couple stories feeling even slightly disconnected. Helped that it's set in the Old Man's War universe which I've already spent lots of time in. It's been *ahem* renewed for a second season and I might just have to read along this time. Anyone interested should start with OMW though.


Tamora Pierce is children's fantasy far, far cleaner (but in no sense sanitised) than Morgan. The quartet I just read is the third set in Tortall, after the Song of the Lioness and the Immortals series, both of which I read last year. Each quartet follows a single girl growing up. The first follows Alanna, a powerful magic using noble, as she becomes a knight by posing as a boy, then her first adventures as the only female knight. The second follows Daine, a wild mage who has a strong connection to wild animals. This series follows Kel, daughter of diplomats to this universe's Japan expy, as she is determined to become the first openly female page/squire/knight. To a degree it's a repeat of the first quartet, only done about ten times better, IMO.

You do need to have read all eight previous books for certain parts of this series to make sense as the characters and stories carry almost directly over (the first book is set in the immediate aftermath of the Immortals series), which is a bit of a shame because these books are far stronger. She credits this to JK Rowling who made her publisher recognise children might manage another hundred pages in their fantasy stories, giving her the room to stretch. I'd hugely recommend these to anyone looking for female fronted fantasy or for fantasy books for younger relatives. In general they are quick and fun reads.

[Dutchling]

Finished book #9: The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. Only ten books behind schedule now...
 
I give it a 5/5. It was a very interesting book, and I'll definitely read some more of him. Probably either The Extended Phenotype or The God Delusion, as those seem to be his other most well-known books. I think I'll also read some more science books in general. Might as well get Darwin's On the origin of species. Kinda a must-have as a biologist

But yeah, great book. Would definitelty recommend it. Do get the latest edition you can get your hands on though, as he later added some chapters and a lot of footnotes.

[palsch]

Personal opinion warning;

Of his early evolution books, the best is easily The Blind Watchmaker. It's targeted pretty squarely at critics of The Selfish Gene and evolution in general and makes one of the strongest cases for (gene centric) evolutionary theory that exists. That said, if you have read any one of his pre-90's books you don't really need to cover the rest.

Outside that I would strongly recommend The Ancestor's Tale and Unweaving the Rainbow over his other work. The Ancestor's Tale is pretty comprehensive and written in an interesting fashion; working backwards from humans through each evolutionary division towards the last ultimate common ancestor while covering an important topic in evolutionary theory at each division. Unweaving the Rainbow is the major work he produced as the professor for public understanding of science and is his only real general science book. Probably not for everyone, but likely a better attempt at convincing people than The God Delusion.


I should get back to reviewing pop-science books.

[Dutchling]

Any other pop-science books you would recommend? I have read Pale Blue Dot (and loved it) but that's about it.

[palsch]

Wow that's a dangerous question. I'm just editing slightly a list I made over three years ago here. Spoilered for length;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Longitude - Dava Sobel
One To Nine - Andrew Hodges
Trick or Treatment - Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
The Republican War On Science - Chris Mooney
Why People Believe Weird Things - Michael Shermer
The Science of Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen
The Science of Discworld II; The Globe- Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen
The Science of Discworld III; Darwin's Watch - Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen
The Collapse of Chaos - Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart
Collapse - Jared Diamond
Chaos - James Gleick
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
On The Shoulders of Giants - Stephen Hawking
Big Bang - Simon Singh
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
Discarded Science - John Grant
QED - Richard P. Feynman
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out - Richard P. Feynman
Six Easy Pieces - Richard P. Feynman
Six Not-So-Easy Pieces - Richard P. Feynman
In Search of Schrodinger's Cat - John Gribbin
Schr๖dinger's Kittens - John Gribbin
Critical Mass - Philip Ball
Deep Simplicity - John Gribbin
Finding Darwin's God - Kenneth R. Miller
Faster - James Gleick
The Infinite Book - John D. Barrow
Why Do Buses Come In Threes? - Rob Eastaway & Jeremy Wyndham
Everything And More - David Foster Wallace
How The Universe Got Its Spots - Janna Levin
How To Teach [Quantum] Physics To Your Dog - Chad Orzel
How To Teach Relativity To Your Dog - Chad Orzel

Note that these are mixed between heavy and detailed science and fluffy, fun texts that maybe have less accuracy or detail. I could probably do more specific recommendations and reviews for anything people are particularly interested in. I do have a pretty heavy physics/maths bias as well and haven't included any of the obvious biologists.

[Dutchling]

Science of Discworld? That does not sound like real science

edit: I think (once I have some more monnies) I will start on the Dawkins book you suggested and the Hawking ones.

[palsch]

Those books are what got me into popular science in the first place, and I remember them being really, really good.

Spoiler: Concept (click to show/hide)

The books are split between hard science chapters written by Stewart (a mathematician) and Cohen (a reproductive biologist) and a Discworld story written by PTerry himself. The story serves to set up the science chapters. Basically the Discworld wizards accidentally create a "roundworld" (earth) in a bubble universe and start poking at it to see how something so absurd could possibly exist. The first book looks at the history of the earth as a whole. The second on humans in particular. The third on evolution.

The science bits are as much fun as the Discworld bits, and I actually skipped a lot of the Disc sections on re-reads. There are some really good concepts tied up in there, like lies-to-children from the first book.

[Dutchling]

Ah, that actually sounds very interesting. I was expecting something like Dune's "science" bits.

[palsch]

edit: I think (once I have some more monnies) I will start on the Dawkins book you suggested and the Hawking ones.

Didn't see this before.

The Hawkings books need a caution note;

On the Shoulders of Giants is actually a collection of classic physics texts that Hawking just wrote introductions for. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein. It's a nice way to follow the progression of thought through time, but frankly some of the texts are hard to read even if you know the ideas being discussed. Galileo is a joy to read, Newton absolute torture. If Hawking had included notes throughout the texts or some other value it would be worth it, but as it is it probably isn't worth spending money on. I'm pretty sure you could dig up all the texts (other than, maybe, the specific Einstein papers) online for free without Hawking's brief notes.

[Dutchling]

Well, it's mainly A Brief History of Time I'm interested in as I've heard that's good.

[Vector]

Feh, Newton writes like a mathematician.  If you're willing to put in a little time reading him, you'll find that he's hilarious :3