What are you reading right now?

[aerius]

I've started reading John Ringo's "Ghost". It's so terrible, it's entertaining, like a Segal movie on paper.

It gets better as the series goes on. Better as in gets even worse and more entertaining at the same time, kinda like how "On Deadly Ground" is probably the best Steven Seagal movie because it's so damn bad.

[Big Orange]

Alright I've begun to read Alastair Reynold's Chasm City and brought out TP's Going Postal from the library.

[Broomstick]

Under the Dome by Stephen King. I have some quibbles on the details, and the size (1,072 pages!) but the story moves along. Reminiscent in some ways of The Stand for size and large cast of characters. If you hate King don't read it. If you like King you'll probably enjoy it.

[Vanas]

Just finished Triumff by a Mr. D Abnett. I can't help but love it and it's quirkiness and it's horrible, horrible puns.

Also reading various short stories from a Lovecraft anthology. My poor mind.

[[R_H]]

I've started reading John Ringo's "Ghost". It's so terrible, it's entertaining, like a Segal movie on paper.

It gets better as the series goes on. Better as in gets even worse and more entertaining at the same time, kinda like how "On Deadly Ground" is probably the best Steven Seagal movie because it's so damn bad.

I'm reading Kildar now. It's a huge improvement over Ghost, less jingonistic and perverted.

[His Divine Shadow]

Started on the Codex Alera books, it's weird but I keep visualizing the first lord as looking like the burger king.

[Guardsman Bass]

Just finished reading New Moon (I'm a night owl, and the computer was scanning for a virus). Bleh - it was actually pretty good for most of the first half, but went downhill with most of the second half*, and the ending was godawful. Bella is fucked up. I have zero desire to read Eclipse right now, but I'll probably end up reading it when they come out with the third movie.

*Spoiler

I did find the Volturi to be interesting and repugnant (the scene where Bella walks out with Edward just as they're about to massacre and eat a bunch of tourists was well-done, although I wish it had more of an impact on Bella - it's the type of thing that might actually make a person question as to whether they want to become a vampire.

I'm going to re-read the First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie next.

[loomer]

And in my latest bump, I bought myself a best-selling vampire novel recently!

Go ahead, guess which one. DO IT.
Spoiler

It's Dracula.

[Dartzap]

Just rereading Matter at the moment, and I'm hoping to pick up Triumff later this week, apperently its very Space Captain Smithish.

[Twigler]

Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos by Michio Kaku. I like to get my head around some more advanced theories, but I have to admit it's slow going. I might drop it for a while and start on Unseen Academicals which has been tempting me away from it for a week now.

[Dalton]

I've been rereading Anathem, when I have time.

[[R_H]]

I finished reading the Doom movie novelisation early this morning. What a steaming turd! I've read quite a few fanfics that were better written than that sorry excuse for a novel.

[Shroom Man 777]

I just finished Innocence Proves Nothing by Sandy Mitchell, the guy who did the Ciaphas Cain 40k novels. Innocence is the sequel to Scourge the Heretic and while it's more of the same typical standard Sandy Mitchell Cain-style 40k GRIMDARKFUNNY, I genuinely enjoy his stuff and yeah, I like his likable characters and the story's pretty cool. I had funs and I leiked it.

[His Divine Shadow]

Finished Unseen Academicals a few days ago. It was alright I suppose, but it's not up there with the greats. I think it's Ankh-Morpork, the city has become so modern and steampunk now that it ruins the classic discworld feel. Here's hoping for some non AM stories in the future.

[salm]

Finished Unseen Academicals a few days ago. It was alright I suppose, but it's not up there with the greats. I think it's Ankh-Morpork, the city has become so modern and steampunk now that it ruins the classic discworld feel. Here's hoping for some non AM stories in the future.

The next book ist going to be "Raising Taxes" another Moist von Lipwig book, in other words a modern Ankh-Morpork book. There´s another title floating around - Scouting for Trolls. I wonder how many more books he´ll be able to finish until his brain is completely fried.

[RazorOutlaw]

I'm currently alternating between Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne and Why The Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill.

The first is because after finishing Only A Theory by Kenneth Miller I felt I needed to know more about evolution and how scientists reach their conclusion (Miller's text was especially helpful because my understanding was extremely simple and he really murdered a lot of questions I was asking about science and God) and the second is because I like Thomas Cahill and the ancient Greeks are an interesting people.

Moving back to the science bit briefly, I have a whole new appreciation as to just how difficult being a scientist is and just how ignorant people can be when they simple-mindedly try to interject God into events. I think that's precisely why it happens too - "Goddidit" fulfills so many questions so easily that it's tempting to use it (especially about the origin of the universe or even morality). If evolution happened naturally, then, how might the universe have happened naturally? If God is invoked then the answer is temporarily satisfied and research goes elsewhere. It's intellectual suicide to think that we can't figure out, to the best of our knowledge, how things work. Maybe God is a separate matter, maybe not but why wouldn't you, for curiosity's sake, look anyway? Books like Only A Theory point out the flaws in easy-answers rather nicely, if not directly, then indirectly by reminding me of the answers that I've been given in the past.

Anyway I have a lot of other books I could be reading, especially fiction, but I've been really picky as of late. My interests are drifting to philosophy, biology, and history again.

[Surlethe]

Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure, by Roger Garrison. A prof got this for me to read, and it's interesting so far. Austrian business cycle theory makes sense so far, so I'm tentatively approving it, though I'm not sure what I'll think at the end of the book once it's had a chance to settle.

[weemadando]

I just finished "The Lost Symbol" which was alright, but had some STUPID contrivances and a ridiculous resolution. That said, for something to read at your wife's bedside in hospital it was just about perfect.

I'm moving onto "The Truth" by Pratchett as part of my quest to read all the Discworld novels I've missed.

[Terralthra]

The Politics of Regulation by James Q. Wilson. Good book about how bureaucratic regulation works in reality, not the caricature the mass media give us.

[Rye]

Straw Dogs by John Gray. I liked his Al Qaeda and what it Means to be Modern book a lot, and in this one, he's really going after humanism and anthropocentrist philosophy with a vengeance.

[Vendetta]

Have just started reading Collapse, by Jared Diamond, having recently finished Guns, Germs, and Steel, by the same.

I've not gotten to the meat of it yet, so can't report much.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Started reading Unseen Academicals in between classes (but not in my free time) yesterday. About half way through, wish I had time to read it for more than 10 minute increments. The opening was weak, but it's been good since, certainly leagues above Nation or the like.

[Big Orange]

Finished Unseen Academicals a few days ago. It was alright I suppose, but it's not up there with the greats. I think it's Ankh-Morpork, the city has become so modern and steampunk now that it ruins the classic discworld feel. Here's hoping for some non AM stories in the future.

The next book ist going to be "Raising Taxes" another Moist von Lipwig book, in other words a modern Ankh-Morpork book. There´s another title floating around - Scouting for Trolls. I wonder how many more books he´ll be able to finish until his brain is completely fried.

I don't mind Ankh-Morpork progressing and modernising as a city state, past the more Byzantine/Medieval/Turdor feel that it had between The Colour of Magic and Men at Arms, and the Discworld books being satirical about 19th/20th century technology, society and mediums started in earnest with Moving Pictures (which is similar to Going Postal). But it sounds like Pratchett has gone downhill a bit after Thud and his story overviews coming across as a bit too faux real life for my liking, with interesting supernatural antagonists like the Auditors of Reality, Dungeon Dimension Things, Discworld gods, and Elves left by the wayside. I finished Going Postal and it was one of his better Discworld novels, striking the right balance between fantasy magic and Victorian steam punk like Moving Pictures did.

Chasm City has gotten interesting (the hamadryads genuinely make my skin crawl) and I'm prepping for Banks' The Crow Road.

[[R_H]]

I started reading 1984 (haven't read it before) this morning in the training. What I've read so for is pretty interesting.

[weemadando]

Let me know if you think that the war was real or not. I have always argued that the war wasn't actually real, but just another level of control placed on society.

But that's a brilliant book anyway.

Now I just need to find my copy of Brave New World again.