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[Spehss _]

Currently reading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.

[Helgoland]

Oooh, that one's pretty awesome! Like an 18th century The Martian, just better - if you can stand a fairly bad Mary Stu main character, that is.

[Amperzand]

It's hilarious how common those are in old books. :V The Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, and on.

[Spehss _]

Oooh, that one's pretty awesome! Like an 18th century The Martian, just better - if you can stand a fairly bad Mary Stu main character, that is.

Already read it years ago, rereading it now. Still good. Still unnecessarily verbose.

All the 5 main characters seem op, but Cyrus Harding is the opest.

[Amperzand]

Oooh, that one's pretty awesome! Like an 18th century The Martian, just better - if you can stand a fairly bad Mary Stu main character, that is.

Already read it years ago, rereading it now. Still good. Still unnecessarily verbose.

All the 5 main characters seem op, but Cyrus Harding is the opest.

I begin to understand why. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[miauw62]

I got Count Zero  (whatever that Neuromancer sequel-ish thing is called), Green Mars and The Fifth Season for Christmas c:

What should I start with?

[ChairmanPoo]

Since I'm on a Glen Cook kick now I got the first Instrumentalities of the Night book.  Oh boy.  I don't really know what to do with this one.

Sort of like how the latter books of The Black Company adhere really strongly to Indian culture, IoN is pretty much 13th century Europe with all the proper nouns replaced with mad libs.  The main character is definitely not a janissary in service to what is definitely not the Ottoman empire.  Meanwhile the definitely not norwegians pursue some definitely not christian monks across the sea after their leader is murdered and then taken up by definitely not valkyries.  He may have been murdered by definitely not Denmark, or by the Hidden Folk, which are what's actually interesting about the book.

It sort of reminds me of a more mature, much more dense version of the Golden Compass.  You've got a world that very closely mimics the real one but with magic and shit.  The Holy Land is holy because of the Wells of Irhian which pump out magic.  The farther you get from the central concentration of wells (There are weaker ones elsewhere) the colder it gets until you reach endless darkness and ever-encroaching glaciers.  The world is infested with the Instrumentalities of the Night, which are spirits sort of like the Unknown Shadows in Black Company.   Everything from minor nuisances all the way up to the gods of the world are just bigger or smaller Night spirits.  The aforementioned valkyries, the all-father who sent them, the gods of the definitely not Muslims and definitely not Christians, are all these spirits that are somehow connected to the wells.

Anyway, the main character's band of definitely not janissaries gets attacked by a bogon, a malignant demigod, and in a fit of inspiration he fills the experimental cannon they brought along with silver coins and blows the thing away.  The rest of the book, when it wants to stick to what's actually interesting and not veer off into mind-numbing tangents about the history of the world (which you already know because it's identical to medieval europe), is about the upheaval that comes with that.  The gods of the world are just bigger, smarter bogons.  The genie's out of the bottle, man's discovered a weapon that can kill God as easily as it kills Bill from down the street.

That's why it reminds me of The Golden Compass.  I can't decide if it's good or not.  I think it would've been better if he'd focused on one or two subplots instead of burying you in history.

I began to read them after this post. Quite hooked.  I like it better than TBC

[Teneb]

I got Count Zero  (whatever that Neuromancer sequel-ish thing is called), Green Mars and The Fifth Season for Christmas c:

What should I start with?

It is called Count Zero and, since it is the only one in your post I recognize (and read), I suggest you start with that.

Reading The Differential Machine myself.

[Dutrius]

I got around to picking up Terry Pratchett's last novel, Raising Steam. It seems fairly good so far, being basically a Discworld novel.

It's not his last one, he managed to write another one, The Shepherd's Crown before he passed away.

[Amperzand]

I had not heard that. I'll have to look into it.

[redwallzyl]

reread the "His Dark Materials" series. loved it even more than i did years ago. i also found out he is releasing a new book as a companion series sometime this year!

[Emma]

I finished Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy a while ago and I thought that it was certainly... Interesting, it's in no way bad but I feel as though if some people wrote in the same style as Douglas Adams then they would not be seen in a favourable light. I started Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel a while ago and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy. I also decided to read some of Keats' poetry seeing as he is one of my mothers favourite poets and I generally find her taste aligns with mine, especially since she gave me Looking for Alibrandi in the past holidays because, 1. She's teaching it and wanted to talk to someone about it, and 2. She thought I would like it. She was certainly correct with her assumption that I would enjoy it. And finally my grandmother has given me My Name is Asher Lev, stating that it's possibly her favourite book and I'm looking forward to reading it. So, what has everyone else been reading?

[Teneb]

Well, just read Walter Benjamin's "Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire" for the second time already for an assignment. I really wish he'd done some kind of introduction instead of jumping straight in leaving up to the reader to figure out what the hell he is on about.

[Elephant Parade]

I'm currently reading—

I'm currently reading this thread.

an entirely different joke. I was definitely not going to make that joke.

[Amperzand]

Currently reading "Everything and More, a Compact History of Infinity" by one David Foster Wallace. It's interesting, and the edition I have has a neat introduction by a dude, describing an experiment he did with irradiating corn.

I find myself in a position to replicate the experiment, and as such will do so.