Picked up a pretty lengthy first book in a trilogy called Devices and Desires by K.J. Parker. So far it's been a pretty entertaining read. It's not really like anything I've encountered before. No magic whatsoever but there is quite a bit of engineering. The art and skill of it is being monopolized by one nation and has been for quite some time. Until.....

From Amazon

 

So this book is based on the Tv show Sliders?

 

Abridged your statement a bit to be more accurate: I found Old Man's War to be incredibly corny and a disappointment from a guy who is a supposed "next big thing" in speculative fiction (president of SFWA, among other things).

 

Yeah, I have read a few of Scalzi's novels (I haven't read Old Man's War, but I did read Zoe's Tale) and while I generally liked them, I don't get the wows and the awe - he's an okay writer, but his books are kind of cheesy and focused more on being clever than being great.

That said, I like his blog a lot.

 

Old Man's War was terrible. A lot of tell, none of it good, some of it silly imo. Fiat had the best description of it:"Like Starship Troopers but less relevant". There's just a lack of a certain ineffable quality...polish/elegance in his characterization perhaps?

 

When did I say this?

I mean, I agree, but I genuinely don't remember saying it.

 

I have only read the first few chapters but I have to ask why you thought this book so great? In my opinion it is absolute bullshit..

For example the protagonist.. experienced soldier with combat experience who seems to dislike sorcerers but does everything in his power to protect a raging witch who killed one of his teammates and if that was not enough he picks a fight with the sorcerer who not only outranks him but also saved his goddamn live. And as soon as he shows his powers he seems to forget all his service/friends etc and jumps in the nearest wormhole thus becoming what he hated...
So I have to ask.. what is the redeeming factor?

@ Old Mans War

I liked it.. but I would never compare it to Starship Troopers. It is funny, interesting and solid written science fiction nothing more and nothing less.

 

Religion in Human Evolution by Robert Bellah
Its non-fiction, and focuses on the interplay between religion, society, and human cognitive capabilites. It also talks about the biological origins of religion, and history as a whole, and many other things. Its a very dense read, especially the the Preface and first 2 chapters, because its going through different ways of classifying religion, religious thought and human cognitive capacities, etc. but its a very entertaining read because Bellah is a very clear writer, especially for an academic.
I read this book for a class in university, but I would reccomend it to anyone.
Its beautiful to see how much knowledge went into this book-- the author spent 13 years writing it and it delves into sooo many different field. Even though Bellah is a sociologist he delves into biology, animal behavior, and history in a way that's very lucid. He writes about 'big history' and his thesis, though its relatively simple (religion evolves in a way that conserves certain core human cognitive capabilities and changes in response to societal/historical pressure) is so nicely illustrated and so large in scale that's it just cool to see how he ties everything together.

 

A quick heads-up. Red Country is out.Just spend the last 10 hours reading it and IT IS BEYOND AWESOME.

Will come back and leave a proper review tomorrow.

 

The Sandman Slim series was mentioned a while back, but I finally picked up the first book last week. I loved it. Stark is a bad ass. Get's banished to hell and survives for 11 years as Lucifer's hit man. Once he escapes he only has one thing in mind. Kill anyone and everyone who had anything to do with him being stuck in Hell. Boy does he make good on that plan.

Oh, it's written by Richard Kadrey.

 

Libriomancer by Jim Hines:

Decent read of the urban fantasy/magic crime thriller type. Because of the nature of the magical system, there are references to other sci-fi/fantasy books, so that could be fun for some people.It's an interesting magic system that has some novel ideas about unintended effects on the natural world.

A couple of unusual effects of the magic system that are mentioned early on in the book are discussed below if you want a mildly spoiling teaser.

Spoiler

As an unintended effect of reaching into books with infectious creatures, budding libriomancers can be accidentally bitten by vampires/werewolves etc. As a result, there are dozens of breeds of vampires existing in the world, most of them exact replicas of fictional ones, and they are named as such (Sanguinarius Stokerus, Sanguinarius Meyerii).

Other books with overly dangerous items are "locked" by Gutenberg to prevent them from being used in the real world (examples: The Hobbit-the one ring, HP3-time turner). Bit of a plot hole as to why books with infectious species aren't locked, but whatever. Gutenberg himself is still alive, as the first thing he did after inventing libriomancy and the printing press was pull the Holy Grail out of the Bible and make himself immortal (he promptly locked it afterward).

EDIT: I said there was a slight plot hole earlier regarding locking books with infectious species, but the answer to that is implied later in the book.

 

I had to LOL at the holy grail thing thats one fukken cool plot point. That guys an asshole and he knows it. Thanks for the rec Im deffinatly gunna read that.

 

I haven't seen this recommended on this thread yet, so I'll throw it in. The Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson.

From Amazon:
Much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, Gia, Repairman Jack doesn’t deal with appliances. He fixes situations—situations that too often land him in deadly danger. His latest fix is finding a stolen necklace which, unknown to him, is more than a simple piece of jewelry.

Some might say it’s cursed, others might call it blessed. The quest leads Jack to a rusty freighter on Manhattan’s West Side docks. What he finds in its hold threatens his sanity and the city around him. But worst of all, it threatens Gia’s daughter Vicky, the last surviving member of a bloodline marked for extinction

That's the summary for the first book in the fifteen book series. One of the good parts is that the series is already complete, and is actually a small piece of Wilson's overarching Myth arc involving the The Secret History of The World. Honestly I can't help but compare it to Dresden Files, even though Jack doesn't have magic, just guns, more guns, ingenuity, knifes, and plenty of explosives. Which brings me to one of my favorite things in the series; the sheer amount of awesome that occurs.

One small sample is when Jack lobotomizes a man nearly twice his size. With a fork.

 

Hmm. A solid rec. I'll check it out this weekend.

*Crosses fingers*

Anyone have anything to add about that series?

 

If it means anything I liked the first book in the Repairman Jack series so much I finished it in 2 days... My local chapters is taking their sweet ass time with my order of the second one too.

 

I've read the first in the series, and it was alright. I never followed up on it. I think part of the reason that I didn't really take to it was that I felt the explanations regarding Jack's motives and personality were a bit heavy handed. It felt almost preachy at times. It was a while ago so perhaps I'm not remembering correctly.

 

No, your absolutly right. It is not a book everyone will like or even many horror/magic/"Dresden Files" readers at that. But I've also spoken with quite a few people who loved it like I did. It's one of those one's where you give it a shot and if you like it you like it, if you don't no big loss. My recomendation: Give the first one a shot at least.

 

The Galaxy Unknown series by Thomas DePrima is enjoyable SciFi. It is a lot like Honor Harrington only more modern in both writing and the technological descriptions. It has lots of action but nowhere on the level of "The Lost Fleet". It has quite a few outrageous and funny ideas and is one of he better modern military SciFi series that I managed to find.



Somebody here who read "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and is willing to explain what makes it so great? I finally got around reading it and don´t understand the Hype. Charlie is a whining, sad little child with absolutely no clue about social life, sex or anything else. It is like reading about a six year old baby and not a goddamn teenager.
The writing is so bland that I never even remotely cared about the characters and even the dramatic revelation of his childhood left me cold. So what is it that redeems all those failures?

 

Emma Watson is in the movie.

 

That was the reason for reading the book... But if the film follows the book closely even she isn´t enough of a reason to watch the movie.