What books are we reading now?

I'm currently finishing Colleen McCullough's Caesar's Women, partly on the recommendations of this thread, as well as a sparked interest in the topic from the HBO series (though I stopped watching the series a long time ago).

Yes it's my first novel of hers, and yes it's not in order. It happened to be the only one the library had. First Man In Rome is on back-order. After I finish CW and before I get my hands on FMiR, I'll start on the Sin City comic paperback collections I got from amazon (they're selling all 7 at a discount).

I just breezed through "Ender's Shadow" and "Shadow of the Hegemon" by Orson Scott Card and am going to get "Shadow Puppets".

Nothing like posting on a thread almost a month after the last post. I have alot of reading on here to do since I havent been on in 2 months.

I've been re-reading some older books of mine. Just finished one of my all-time favorites; Swan Song by Robert MacCammon. Now if only I can get ahold of the new Robert Jordan...

Ah, it's good to see this thread revived, actually.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through "The Stars My Destination". Next I think I'll be reading "A Canticle for Leibowitz".

What is the book "Swan Song" about? I think I've heard of it before, but I could be mistaken.

I'm currently reading Book 2 of the Centauri trilogy and Running from the Deity (A Pip and Flinx Adventure) by Alan Dean Foster.

What is the book "Swan Song" about? I think I've heard of it before, but I could be mistaken

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How to explain it...basically it takes place after a nuclear holocaust and how the people survive. The over-all theme of the book is hope. I know thats kind of vague.. But its one of my favorite books. Alot of people compare it to Stephen King's The Stand but the only similarity I find between the two is they are both post-apacoplyptic themes.

I'm currently reading Book 2 of the Centauri trilogy and Running from the Deity (A Pip and Flinx Adventure) by Alan Dean Foster.

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Do you mean rereading! The Centauri trilogy is a must read, answers a lot of questions. I hope you have book 3 handy.


I have always wanted an Alsatian mini-drag!!! Good to hear there's more story out there. I'll have to reserve it at my local library, hope there's not a long wait. Which brings me to Jordans latest in the Wheel of Time series and George RR Martins Song of Ice and Fire: They are both good reads and it seems like the threads are being tied up and the next in each world should be the conclusionary books. I'm both relieved and saddened. With HP coming to a conclusion and the Sword of Truth series of Terry Goodkind down to 2 more book, per the author, it seems that a lot of stories/worlds that I have spent a bit of time in are wrapping up. I love epic saga's but also am getting a little frustrated at how stories are being expanded from trilogy's to 12+ book story arcs. I'm old fashioned, I like to know the end of the story.

Thanks, JF. No, that summed it up pretty well for me. And a nice no-spoilers summary there.

Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. A fantastic historical and scientific novel. The depth of the research is breathtaking.

Volume 3 of JMS's Babylon 5 Scripts series. That and the owner's manual to my Sony 400 disc CD/DVD changer.

Later,

Joe

That and the owner's manual to my Sony 400 disc CD/DVD changer.

Later,

Joe

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So, did you take delivery, or just down-load the manual? After you've played with it a while, post your comments in the thread about it. There is a 24 page thread on it in the avsforum. I read the whole thing, in hopes of finding out how to hack it, with no luck. But, I did learn a bit more about it.

I've got the unit and just set it up tonight after the football game. I've loaded 24 discs so far, basically the first 24 discs I had handy since so much stuff is still in boxes and I didn't want to load the series sets out of order. (Although it looks like the folder function does let you organize things even if the discs are not physically grouped together.) I do wish the thing had more of a real GUI, that i could download images off the internet (my idea of how to do this wold be to allow me to download select disc info from DVD Profiler and that it operated a little more smoothly, but so far, not bad. The component output didn't behave itself properly, wouldn't auto switch between aspect ratios correctly, etc. I switched to HDMI and things are looking better. Give me a few more days and I'll give you an update. (Oh, and you were right about the depth of this thing. Even if I popped out the slots at the back of my entertainment unit it would not have fit in the enclosed shelves. It ended up on top. I may have to hang on to my 60 disc CD chnager just tohave something of similar mass to set on top of the other tower.

Right now I'm watching The Gathering with the commentary track running, since the movie boxed set was one I had out.

Later,

Joe

What is the book "Swan Song" about? I think I've heard of it before, but I could be mistaken

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It's hard to explain, as the book takes place over about seven years. But right at the start of the book, there's an all-out nuclear war, and everything goes straight to hell. Some of the survivors subcumb to their worst instincts; others still behave decently. There's this - entity- for lack of a better word, that is never really explained. Suffice to say that 'he' gets off on suffering and misery, and is busy going around making things even worse than they already are. And 'he' has targeted this young girl nicknamed Swan, who unknowlingly has the power of life - and hope.
It is a very long, very good book. It is also blacker than Dracula's underpants, so be warned.
Writer Robert Mccammon is in my opinion, a very underated writer.
He should be as well known as Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but somehow he isn't. And he is nowhere near as prolific, either.
His books are often set in the Deep South. Some have a supernatural elements - others are straight thrillers.
If you can get hold of his books, they are worth reading.

Writer Robert Mccammon is in my opinion, a very underated writer.
He should be as well known as Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but somehow he isn't. And he is nowhere near as prolific, either.
His books are often set in the Deep South. Some have a supernatural elements - others are straight thrillers.
If you can get hold of his books, they are worth reading.

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My sentiments exactly.

Sounds quite interesting. Thanks. I'll check them out some day... when I get around to it. I have books that have been waiting over a year to be read.

Candide, and I recommend the hell out of it.

Just finished reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion. Took me a while to get through it, but what an amazing book!

What to read next? Peter Hamilton's Judas Unleashed, Stephen Baxter's Transcendent and Ben Bova's Titan are waiting patiently on my book case, as are several B5 script books, and Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds.

Arthur Herman's To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World. I'm just up to the start of the English Civil War, and I'm rivited. I had read Herman's How the Scots Invented the Modern World and enjoyed it. (Herman, by the way, is neither British nor Scottish. ) To Rule the Waves begins with Henry VIII and really gets going with Elizabeth I and the Armada (which the Royal Navy survived, rather than defeated), which made the opening section especially interesting since I had just finished reading Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walshingham and the Birth of Modern Espionage.

Regards,

Joe

Children of the Night by Mercedes Lackey.

Just starting "The Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov. Will probably take me a few decades to finish it with the amounts of study material I *should* be reading instead