We have music thread. So why don’t we have this one, right?
Anyway, currently reading Barsum Anthology of Burroughs. Great read, flows very easy from the beginning to the end. Each books gives something new, and I especially like the exploration and adventure feeling they provide.
I’m also a sucker for romances in my fantasies, so that’s also a nice addition. Started to read it, since I really liked the movie.
What are YOU reading guys? How’s the book, can you give a small review about it?
I recently finished the Artemis Fowl series. Artemis is a genius adolescent of our modern world, who finds out that fairies have gone into hiding under the earth. Subsequently he brings adventure to them and vice versa. The series is a wild ride of crazy ideas - featuring e.g. very unique dwarfs, who do not dig, but eat themselves through the earth … with all the digestive consequences. The narrative perspective switches from time to time between the characters - including the antagonists, so that you learn about them and their misdoings pretty early, which speeds up the stories’ pace.
I’m working on some nice, peaceful bedtime stories…
Also a couple Tom Clancy books.
Oh, uh, stuff about them…
Tom Clancy - military thrillers.
https://www.tomclancy.com/book_display.php?isbn13=9780425184226
https://www.tomclancy.com/book_display.php?isbn13=9780425101070
Lovecraft - happy stories.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
A little old. Grabbed it while at Goodwill since it looked interesting.
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Ate through Masha Gessen’s The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladmir Putin recently, nice and disturbing.
Before that was Charles Stross two books Accelerando and Glasshouse, as Accelerando is a “nice” antidote to the singularity-humpers, while I hadn’t read it’s quasi-sequel, Glasshouse in ages.
Next up is A Close and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, since I enjoyed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. After that, might re-read, for the first time in over a decade, Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells. Since I enjoyed it quite a bit last time, but never found in the local library system. Lets hope it hasn’t aged as badly as Ian Irvine’s books, which I now find a annoying as hell to read.
Beyond that lies The Delirium Brief, sequel to The Nightmare Stacks - Nazi elves with death magic invade Leeds, only a nerdy, ex-banker quant, now public servant, vampire PHANG* can stop them - from the mad mind of Charles Stross. Deals with the consequences of said invasion and because it’s set in the UK that means dealing with “fun” from the government. Comes out in June and I am so doomed to spend all night reading it in one sitting. Should really re-read The Nightmare Stacks.
Otherwise - as per usual, I haz a massive mound of e-books left unread, since the current depressive episode has lead to my skin picking disorder becoming worse, so not having the hands occupied leads to “fun”. But I suspect I’ll still chew through a few of the Hugo Awards nominees I haven’t already eaten up before the awards are announced.
Oh and on that particular note - N. K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth series kicks serious arse, the Hugo The Fifth Season won was well deserved even despite part of the vote being driven to hit the puppies with a newspaper** and to piss off that racist shitweasel, Theodore Beale as a bonus.
*see The Rhesus Factor for how that all happened, though as per usual Stross gives you enough info in each book to not be left in the dark 
**google “hugos puppygate” for the details, but basically, certain sad wankers decided to abuse the voting system to get “true” sci-fi/fantasy to win because apparently stuff like Ursula K. Le Guin and such isn’t actually “true” sci-fi/fantasy.
Short grim story about the descent of a man into mental ruin.
Love reading books, currently reading two at the same time:
and
depending on the mood.
Now chewed through:
Lovecraft Country - by Matt Ruff. Nice and utterly disturbing blend of Jim Crow era racism, lovecraftian mythos based horror and some damn fine story telling. Actually ate this one before the last post, but due to sleep debt forgot about it after I posted, a bit clunky and guaranteed to make Lovecraft spin in his grave due to not treating african american’s like shit.
Winter Tide - Ruthanna Emrys. And the following quote sums up my take on it nicely - “A mythos yarn that totally reverses the polarity on Lovecraft’s xenophobia, so that in the end the only real monsters are human beings.” ―Charles Stross
Exodus - Alex Lamb. Last book in his trilogy that started with Roboteer. Fucking brilliant, as it had me hooked and reading it all in one go, finishing about 7am NZ time. And if anything, he’s gotten even better at writing with the latest book. Some very decent hard-sci-fi bits in there on the problems tinned primates face in space, the fermi paradox and ships that make the Light Huggers from Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space 'verse look tiny.
No idea what I’ll read next, though I’ve “acquired” some non fiction anthropology stuff I should have a look at for boosting my general background knowledge on pseudo-history stuff. As most of the stuff I already know is NZ centric to do with the racist crazies who claim whites made it to NZ first. Otherwise I have plenty of sci-fi/fantasy etc left unread while I wait for The Delirium Brief to drop in July.
Weird. I didn’t even know Lovecraft was overly racist honestly. Searched it up. Found the RationalWiki writeup kinda humorous…
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft
What’s even more surprising, considering the previous facts, is that he greatly despised the American Republican Party. In a 1936 letter to fellow science fiction writer C. L. Moore, Lovecraft said that their ideas and beliefs deserved "the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.”[3] Of course, the Republican Party’s policies were very different at the time (the Democrats were known for their advocacy of segregation, not that the Republicans were particularly progressive towards ethnic minorities either).
Odd that the author found it “surprising” that he didn’t support the Republicans and then goes on to acknowledge that at that time period the Republicans were basically the Democrats of today. They changed places over the years. If he knew that then why did he even write the first sentence?
Maybe needs to work on his rationalization a tad.
I’m still trying to read through Dhalgren, by Samuel Delaney but I keep setting it down and reading/doing other things with my rare spare time.
I did just finish Providence, by Alan Moore/ Jacen Burrows. Some people really enjoyed this book, but I personally found it to be a boring mess that happened to take place in Lovecraft’s world.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve read Spin by Robert Charles Wilson and Chernobyl by Frederik Pohl, both of them was quite good!
Currently I’m reading The Witcher: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski and it is one of the best books I’ve read so far…
(I’ve read all these books in hungarian translation)
The next book will be the second part of The Witcher series and/or the second part of the Gateway series by Frederik Pohl
I don’t read books often but i should read more.I read all the books of Dan Brown. I recently bought “The Templar Legacy” written by Steve Berry.
How are the books from H.P. Lovecraft?
I’ve recently listened to Stephen King’s Under the Dome and IT via awesome audio books.
Love it when the narrator makes distinguishing voices for each character. IT was just amazing in that regard lol.
In terms of things actually written by Lovecraft himself, it’s hard to identify anything as a ‘book’. Even Call of Cthulhu is essentially just a long-ish short story, which has since been compiled into books either with Lovecraft’s other tales or with Cthulhu mythos stories written by others.
But the stories are quite good. If you’re into a more ‘haunting’ genre, I’d give them a go. There’s a reason a great many people find them memorable. 
Devoured The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross in under 8hrs recently with plenty of belly laughs thus induced, now on to a book I haven’t re-read in just about 2 decades - The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells. Loved it the first time I read it because it’s a tale that doesn’t make heavy use of lazy stereotypes and flowed well. So far, I’m still liking it, might have to dig into more of her fantasy books too, since her older ebooks are all about US$2.00 on Amazon.
Since finishing the Wheel of Time series, haven’t really got back into reading any fantasy. Now when I get time, it’s mostly sport biography books.
I just recently finished reading Theft of Swords, and The Cycle of Arawn - both quite enjoyable reads.
Still reading the Metro series and slowly going through the Witcher series.
I’m currently going through all his works, a real thick book this one!
I really like that the tension is created through just hinting at the horrible creatures/events and letting your mind fill in the blank, everyone’s scared of different things after all. I think that’s why people find his stories so memorable!
Maybe now that my thesis work is done I can actually finish it too…
