85 replies to this topic

[chiasaur11]

Speaking of Night Watches...

How about Pratchett's Night Watch? Best time traveling cop named Sam ever.

Heck, all the Discworld books.

All Pratchett's stuff. He's an amazing writer

[Thorondor]

@FA: finished me 'We' last night. Thanks for the tip!

::

Belong.

[FullAuto]

Welcome mate, glad you liked it.

The Atrocity Archives/The Jennifer Morgue/The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross.  These three books are the Laundry trilogy, following Bob Howard, a computer programmer in the employ of the Laundry, a division of SOE that was formed to deal with the occult.  Lovecraft was correct, and the mad Elder Gods want into our world.  Thankfully, magic is available via sufficiently advanced mathematics, and combined with computers, we have a defence against CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, the widespread invasion of our reality by things that want to eat our brains and then our souls.

With a dark sense of humour and plenty of geekery, Bob rises from being an IT bod to field agent, and faces off against all sorts of 'orrible fings wot man should not wot of.  Bob's the thinking technogeek's hero, and while lacking in the brawn department, give him a length of CAT5 cabling and a PDA and he's trouble.  Rival occult intelligence agencies, infovores, Nazis, basilisks, zombies, sexy technology, Deep Ones, it's got the lot.

I devoured these books like Shub Niggurath at an all-you-can-eat soul buffet.  Read, laugh, be horrified.

[Sgt. Strike]

Terry Prachett's discworld series. Good stuff there.

[FullAuto]

Declare, by Tim Powers.  Set in WWII through to the Cold War, it's about espionage, and a lot of it is factual, but it incorporates the supernatural, as secret secret services use magic and sorcery to fight the Cold War. Quite a lot of the framework is factual, it features a lot of real people (one of the main characters being shitbag Kim Philby) and real events, but fills in the unknown bits in history with the supernatural. Good stuff.

It's been compared to Stross' Laundry books, but it's not the same idea, really.  Stross writes about a secret service combating beings from other dimensions, whereas Powers' book is about secret services using the supernatural to fight each other.

[Thorondor]

"The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects" is the kind of comic you'd unexpectedly find on a dusty bookshelf to the back, on some lost magic corner of an old bookstore.

Inside it has these little quirky, humorous short stories set in a place all their own and yet somehow familiar to any reader. Light-hearted, endearing and yet mysterious enough that, as in life, you won't get all the answers.

This inconspicuous small black book published in hardcover by Dark Horse Comics is the brainchild of Mr. Mignola and at least two of the stories deserved an Eisner award.

::

Go ahead and get it before it vanishes like a Zoltar fortune-telling machine.

[Pete]

Finished "I Shall Wear Midnight" - the latest in the Tiffany Aching series of Discworld stories (supposedly for younger readers, but not dumbed down any from the other novels which is refreshing).

It was good, as usual, but I feel he was covering a hell of a lot of ground trying to wrap Tiffany's storyline up a bit as well as the storyline of some characters introduced a long time ago - one in particular from some 30-odd books ago which was a lovely surprise!

I'm hoping as this is supposed to be the last Tiffany book that what this means is that she's now old enough to appear in the main series and this whole "the last Tiffany book" think (no idea where I actually read it) is all a decoy.

Even suffering from the early stages of Alzheimers, Terry's fortunately showing no signs of lack of imagination. Here's to the next 30 books!

[i]"There can be only one thousand!"[/u]

[FullAuto]

Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks.  One of the few writers that can blow my mind, his whole Culture series is great, and this is no different.  Perhaps a little formulaic for him, as he's done this kind of story before (clashing civilisations of various technological levels) but still an excellent read.  Not a good intro to the series (although nowhere near as indecipherable to a newb as say, Excession), nor better than The Player of Games, but a worthy book.

[chiasaur11]

Anyone else hear about Machine of Death?

Anthology about a machine that can tell you how you'll die (no details, just "drowned" or "electrocuted" or "Eaten by ravenous wildebeasts".)

Bunch of authors and artists, lot of them known internet types (Ryan "Dinosaur Comics" North got the ball rolling), lot of people who it's their first published book.

Currently the #1 amazon bestseller, first 40 pages are free online, worth a look.

[Knan]

Crooked little vein (Warren Ellis) is a good one. Especially when you are in a cynical mood.

"Stop it. You're frightening me." --William Gibson

Definitely not one for younger readers.

[Space Voyager]

FullAuto, on 27th October 2010, 12:13am, said:

Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks.  One of the few writers that can blow my mind, his whole Culture series is great

Love Banks as well! Hope I get my greedy hands on Surface Details.

BTW, I hate the book if it is delaying the terror mission in your AAR.

[NKF]

Just finished reading "Unseen Academicals", yet another of the fine Discworld books. Since you can usually peg the various books down to a certain cast type, you could call this an Unseen University faculty and staff book. Mainly staff. A few of the old regulars in UU don't make any appearance unfortunately. But then there are so many new and interesting ones too, so can't complain.

Another fantasy species is brought into the city of cities, and it also involves football (soccer). While the game did feature in Jingo, it is re-invented up to modern day standards by the end of the book.

Finally got round to reading this book. I've had it sitting unread on my desk for the last 6 months or so. Reason why I didn't start reading it was because I kept worrying that it would be all over too soon. And sure enough, I'm now sad it's over.  

- NKF

[FullAuto]

Crossed is getting a volume in 3D.

In the meantime, I've been reading the Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers.  A literature professor brought in to guide some time travellers gets lost in 19th century London, and promptly gets involved with magic, alchemy, body swapping, treason, and a certain old religion willing to do anything for supremacy.  Rather good.

[NKF]

Just spent the day reading I Shall Wear Midnight from cover to cover today, and enjoyed it all the way through. Was also quite pleased to see a few old faces reappear. I do wonder why I found it in the childrens' fiction section though.

- NKF

[Pete]

NKF, on 2nd January 2011, 5:57am, said:

Just spent the day reading I Shall Wear Midnight from cover to cover today, and enjoyed it all the way through. Was also quite pleased to see a few old faces reappear. I do wonder why I found it in the childrens' fiction section though.

- NKF

Yup - he really dug deep into Discworld's past for one of those characters!

They're in the kids section because the Tiffany series is intended for younger readers (I'm guessing 11+ for the start of the Tiffany series). In terms of Pratchett however this means he doesn't change his writing style one iota save for one or two less really long words - something I really like as it gets children to up their reading skills and enjoy a more complex story as well.

I reckon Tiffany will return at some point in a slightly smaller role, but in a mainstream Discworld book. At least, I hope she will.

[NKF]

You could look at it as the concepts and vocabulary have grown less restricted with the character. This one certainly read to me much on the same level as Discworld books compared to the earlier titles, particularly with Tiffany rushing into the aftermath of domestic violence right at the beginning, which was why I was wondering if it was suitable to be put in the childrens' section. Probably not for the very young, but certainly teen readers I guess.  Plus I think my idea of what was child-friendly material in my day is radically different from today.

The return of the old characters definitely put them back in the story as such, since it felt like they just winked out of existence after the books they were in ended. Often did wonder about them. I suspect those of us who have read the previous Discworld titles will enjoy these little gems the most.

- NKF

[FullAuto]

Knan, on 27th October 2010, 4:59pm, said:

Crooked little vein (Warren Ellis) is a good one. Especially when you are in a cynical mood.

"Stop it. You're frightening me." --William Gibson

Definitely not one for younger readers.

Picked this up at work and enjoyed the Hell out of it.  Funny, and insane.

No one's filling my testicles with saline, let's put it that way.

Not quite as funny, and a whole lot darker, is In The Miso Soup, by Ryu Murakami.  One of those books that is a good read, but cannot be called enjoyable.  A psycho Westerner and his terrified Japanese guide tour Tokyo's nightlife.  Quite a harsh look at modern Japan, its sex trade and underworld.

[FullAuto]

Battlefields by Garth Ennis looks so good I've been unable to stop myself ordering it.

Ennis tells a fantastic war story, does his homework, and nearly always works with a great artist.  Plus, I got it for £15, and it collects three TPBs which are £8-9 each in one hardback.  Bargain, and it will endure the rigours of shelf life better.  While I was there (pickabook) I pre-ordered the second HB collection.

Super, smashing, great.

[Knan]

The Last Page, Anthony Huso. Tense and good debut novel. Fallible protagonists, no swashbuckling. On the other hand: Zeppelins, gaslight and treachery.

And vocabulary worthy of Lovecraft, it's been a few years since I needed to bring out the Oxford this many times.

[Azrael Strife]

Elminster: The making of a mage by Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Forgotten Realms himself. More decent than I expected, it's very good fantasy reading.

Can anyone convince me that Discworld is a good read? I'm aware there are some big fans around, like our good friend Pete, so I thought a brief comment to start my reading excited would be nice, especially since I bought the The Colour of Magic solely based on Pete's fanatism