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What are you Reading Now?

Geo

Geo

Lore Master
Chesterama said:
Appointment With Death, Agatha Christie 1938. I read 7 chapters just last night. Granted, they're not very long chapters but sigh...I absolutely love her style. Everytime I open up one of her books it's like I've come home.
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My mother is a hard-core fan of Agatha Christie. She has all her novels and plays (~90 books), many of them both in Spanish and English. When I was little, those books were the only non-academic books we had at home (besides, of course, young children literature). I started reading them age 11 or 12, and finished before leaving for college. Kind of crazy to think my mother never said anything, since reading about murders and crime seems a very bad idea for a kid's psyche, but I'm not even sure she ever knew. Anyhow, just a comment seeing how much you like her.

At the moment I'm reading Dan Simmons Hyperion. Quite interesting.
 
Russ

Russ

Dark Lord
Just finished the latest novel from my good friend Robert J Sawyer and was super happy with it.

It is one of the rare SF books that grapples head on with the question of evil, executes a key plot twist in classic form with such aplomb that I did a face palm when it hit me, the solution was so simple and elegant, but utterly surprising, and the ending has the protagonist facing a massive moral dilemna and the way he tackles it will leave we thinking about the ethical and moral implications for months.

Great book.
 
TheCatholicCrow

TheCatholicCrow

Mystagogue
Recently finished Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl which I LOVED and Stephen King's Misery which was different than I was expecting. I think up next will be Slaughterhouse Five because I have yet to read anything by Vonnegut.
 
C

Chessie

Istari
Hi, CatholicCrow! Long time no see. :) I also really enjoyed reading Gone Girl although it messed with my head quite a bit. It was good.

Appointment With Death was different than Christie's other novels. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

And I started reading Firebird by Mercedes Lackey. It's on loan from the library so I have a week to finish that tome. -_-
 
TheCatholicCrow

TheCatholicCrow

Mystagogue
YES! I loved them both :) haven't gotten my hands on her first book yet (Sharp Objects) though it's supposedly not as good. The plot for Gone Girl was spectacular but I actually liked the characters in Dark Places better --also it was much cleaner so I don't feel as awkward recommending it to other people LOL.

To Chesterama ... yeah I kind of went into hiding while I've been working in the Mystery/Thriller genres. I still haven't published any of my own writing (I'm hypercritical and I want it to be perfect so I'm redoing my main WIP's ending ... again). I've decided to let it fallow a bit, maybe a bit more time will help me see things clearer. In the meantime I've been busy working. I've actually started ghostwriting (can you believe it? ME ... getting paid to write fiction) I just turned in my first manuscript today ... might pick up another contract next week, in which case, Vonnegut gets bumped from my reading list and will be replaced with the client's first novel.
 
evolution_rex

evolution_rex

Grandmaster
Since I've finished the first draft of my WIP, I need to get back into reading. Yesterday I started Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Out of his work I've only read The Road and I loved it, so I decided to pick up this one. I'm loving it so far, just as much as The Road.
 
Russ

Russ

Dark Lord
I am about half with through Greg Isles' Natchez Burning. It is fantastic. What is it about these natural story tellers from the Southern US? Maybe I need to move there.

Now I will have to buy his back list...
 
Brian Scott Allen

Brian Scott Allen

Dark Lord
Just finished The Bands of Mourning by Sanderson. It was incredible. Arguably my favorite of his Mistborn books. Wayne's POV was incredible! Trek/Odium(in my head) is messing up all kinds of stuff in the cosmere. Marasi became a badass. Harmony was great. MeLaan was awesom. And Waxillium was one bad mother who didn't take no crap from nobody!
 
Brian Scott Allen

Brian Scott Allen

Dark Lord
Finished Without Remorse by Clancy (started it before the Bands of Mourning) and am now reading the Aeronaut's Windlass by Butcher. It is pretty good so far and has an interesting world.
 
Incanus

Incanus

Shadow Lord
Finally finished The Brothers Karamazov the other day. It was a struggle through some of the earlier parts, but ultimately, I enjoyed it, though not as much as Crime and Punishment. It gets better as it goes and the courtroom drama at the end was my favorite portion.

I have a few shorts and odds and ends to read, then it's on to The Lies of Locke Lamora--
 
T

ThinkerX

Valar Lord
Been ordering a not quite steady stream of mostly Lovecraftian tomes over the past six or eight months. Most recent one was 'The Broken Hours' featuring HPL himself in a realistic setting, a year prior to his death. More sad than supernatural, though.

Far more disturbing - and interesting - is Thomas's 'Hades' series. Read 'Letters from Hades' and 'Fall of Hades.' He created an extremely twisted environment simply by taking fundamentalist Christian theology very literally. He did add a few things, mostly necessary logical extensions of that dogma. The hooded white robed angels (saved) scouring Hell on missions of murder may be a bit over the top, though.

'Sea of Ash' by Thomas's brother is both strange and fascinating; a quest taking place in three time periods, featuring an assortment of weird locals and strange people in the New England area (more or less). Supernatural things, some beneficial, some malevolent, just out of sight. More Clark Ashton Smith than HPL. I wouldn't mind a sequel.

F&SF has a 'Curiosities' column which deals mostly with books long out of print, sometimes for a century or more. A few months ago, I was sufficiently intrigued by one of these reviewed books to track it down: 'Monks Magic,' a well done charmer written back in the 30's. Features a young alchemist employed by an aging abbot who gets into ecclesiastical trouble and sets out to track down the sages who purportedly discovered the secret to eternal life. He meets a slew of interesting characters along the way: the youth Gabe, Thomas the drunken physician, a cabbalist, and assorted other folks. Includes a fair bit of racy humor...in appropriate places.

'The Broken Meats' and 'The Elder Ice' are part of a Lovecraftian series featuring an unusual protagonist - a former heavyweight boxer in late 1920's Britain, who does a bit of detective work on the side. Shows promise.

Most of the Lovecraftian material is on the shorter side: short stories, novelettes, and the odd novella. An exception is Alexander's 'Bell Forging Cycle,' apparently slated for six books, with three released. These tales are set in a far future earth devastated by a Lovecraftian (?) cataclysm. Strange place: beast drawn carts along ancient, crumbling interstate highways, yet the cities feature electricity, telephones, television, monorails, and elevators. Loads of Easter Eggs for those who know their Lovecraft. Yet these full length novels echo the same story three times.
 
xerolee

xerolee

Journeyman
Im currently reading The Dwarves: Book 1 by Markus Heitz but for the life of me I am struggling. It doesn't grip me the way Patrick Rothfuss or Brandon Sanderson does, but I will try and crack on with it.
 
Russ

Russ

Dark Lord
xerolee said:
Im currently reading The Dwarves: Book 1 by Markus Heitz but for the life of me I am struggling. It doesn't grip me the way Patrick Rothfuss or Brandon Sanderson does, but I will try and crack on with it.
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That is a pretty high standard to meet. I think Dwarves was very good, but not at a Rothfuss or Sanderson level. It also has a very different feel to it, and I remain not in love with the translation.
 
Brian Scott Allen

Brian Scott Allen

Dark Lord
Just finished the Aeronauts Windlass. It was a solid 4. It improved significantly at the end. My favorite character was the good ole Captain Grimm.
 
troynos

troynos

Master
Currently almost done with Michael Sullivan's Age of Myth that I won through a Goodreads Giveaway.

Really enjoying it. His Riyria Revelations is in my top five series and this new one will be up there.

Next on the list will be Terry Brooks latest or The Grim Company.
 
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