What fantasy/science fiction book are you reading RIGHT NOW?

[Shaun das Schaf]

Ok, unanimous advice thanks guys. I'll see if the library has the first two.

In the meantime, just starting Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed.

(I *really* should get back to Malazan, but I stalled in Midnight Tides and can't get going again.)

[Avatar]

Count Zero.

So that led me onto Snow Crash, (because they're next to each other on the shelf) but I was very amused to see Gibson predict Google Street View, including the ability to enter museums virtually, when he wrote that back in '86...

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Almsot halfway through Trial of Flowers. Starting to realise... I really don't have much taste for gratuitous violence, rape and misery these days. It all seems kind of extraneous to the story. The novel's like an original spin on some well known ideas, but with a layer of this stuff on top in what might be an attempt to undermine "traditional" fantasy escapism/comfort. Without that stuff I think it would feel more like a callback to writers like Jack Vance (though that's still not quite right).

[Sorus]

(I *really* should get back to Malazan, but I stalled in Midnight Tides and can't get going again.)

How far into it are you? Midnight Tides is still my favorite.

[Avatar]

^ My least favourite, closely followed by []Reapers Gale[/i].

--A

[lucimay]

Count Zero.

So that led me onto Snow Crash, (because they're next to each other on the shelf) but I was very amused to see Gibson predict Google Street View, including the ability to enter museums virtually, when he wrote that back in '86...

--A

how did Count Zero (gibson) and Snow Crash (stephenson) end up on the same shelf next to each other? and was it gibson who "predicted" google street view or did you mean stephenson (cause tho i don't remember such
details, i could totally see hiro using a google street view sorta thing.)

i am one of those people who think snow crash is stephenson's best book.
i know...blasphemy, right?!

[Sorus]

Snow Crash was great. But I think the only other Stephenson I have read was The Diamond Age.

Top 3 Malazan: Midnight Tides, House of Chains, Deadhouse Gates. Reaper's Gale was good, but it's near the bottom of the list.

[Shaun das Schaf]

(I *really* should get back to Malazan, but I stalled in Midnight Tides and can't get going again.)

How far into it are you? Midnight Tides is still my favorite.

There was a stuff-up with the book copy I was sent, bunch of missing pages, so I got about 70pages into that and had to stop and wait for a new one. Ended up getting the ebook; my kindle tells me I'm up to page 92 of that. Unfortunately, stopped reading quite a while ago, don't know if I could just dive back in. Now I'm thinking I should if you list it above DG! <-- That was my favourite, then maybe HoC and MoI.

[Sorus]

It sometimes depends on my mood. DG might be my favorite if I'm in the mood for something dark. MT introduces some of my favorite characters in the series. It also has a lighter side that gets silly in places, but it serves to keep the dark and serious plotlines from becoming overwhelming.

[Fist and Faith]

Memories of Ice
Deadhouse Gates (A veeeeeeeeeery close second!)
House of Chains

I've read 1-4 three times. They're extraordinary. I've only read 5-10 once each. Not that they aren't great. They really, really are. But it's such a daunting task for a slow reader like me. It's so much easier to just read something I've never read that's much less complicated.

[Shaun das Schaf]

The Malazan-Fist alarm still works I see

Anyway, between the two of you, I'm convinced I need to go back in and finish the series. They're all waiting on my bookshelf. (Just such massive tombs to carry around. Tempted to be financially irresponsible and get ebooks now I have a reader.)

First things first though, to finish The Dispossessed.

[Fist and Faith]

The Malazan-Fist alarm still works I see

I hope you noticed I held off for a couple days. Just to see if I could.

[Shaun das Schaf]

Yes, extraordinary discipline.

[lucimay]

oh yeah shauny...The Dispossessed , The Left Hand of Darkness and book 4 of the earthsea cycle, Tehanu, are my favorites of le guin's. i met her twice at readings. she is an extraordinary woman.

[MsMary]

I just re-read Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky.

[Avatar]

how did Count Zero (gibson) and Snow Crash (stephenson) end up on the same shelf next to each other?

Both Sci-Fi?

...and was it gibson who "predicted" google street view or did you mean stephenson (cause tho i don't remember such
details, i could totally see hiro using a google street view sorta thing.)

It was Gibson. Hiro has a program called "Earth" which is a 3D globe, but that was written 6 years later, and Gibson's was much more specific and aligned to what Street View has become.

i am one of those people who think snow crash is stephenson's best book.

Only one I've read of his.

Tehanu

^This.^

--A

[Shaun das Schaf]

oh yeah shauny...The Dispossessed , The Left Hand of Darkness and book 4 of the earthsea cycle, Tehanu, are my favorites of le guin's. i met her twice at readings. she is an extraordinary woman.

Wow, I would love to meet her. I've always had a soft spot for TLHoD. We actually had to study it in year 10 (our theme that year was change, so it fitted nicely.) It's rare to be given such a cool book in school to study. Actually, I take that back, we had quite a few good books, but that was the only science fiction I ever came across in an English required reading list, and I'll always be grateful to whoever put it there.

I haven't read the Earthsea series yet. It's on my list though.

[Holsety]

i am one of those people who think snow crash is stephenson's best book.

OK, forgive me if I have told this story here before
and forgive me iff I have not told this story here before, but am telling it for the first time, because I shouldn't be tellingg it at all.

On Hiro/Heero/whoever's way to his first meeting with Uncle Enzo, he is driven somewhere so he can clean up. Don't remember what kind of establishment it is but basically he's in a restroom. Heero goes to take a shower, but he thinks about how he would like to take a number 2 in one of the nice stalls and read one of the magazines. I remember reading snow crash when I was like....I dunno, 9-12 and thinking,

"gee, really? If I had to go to the bathroom AND was kinda dirty and had a choice between using a toilet and using the shower, I'd use the toilet! Though I would probably pass on the magazines."

Somehow, even though I didn't agree with the protagonist Protagonist on this choice, and that would theoretically make me identify with him less, the fact that we had our individual, separate preferences (in my case) and priorities (in his case) in things that really have nothing to do with anything at all that anyone else would care about or even want to know, made me like him more.

Basically Heero taking a shower over a shit is my favorite part of Snow Crash.

[Fist and Faith]

I haven't read the Earthsea series yet. It's on my list though.

I've been trying to spread the glory of Earthsea for many years longer than Malazan. Read them now. Literally. Now. They're short and easy, and amazing!

[Shaun das Schaf]

I haven't read the Earthsea series yet. It's on my list though.

I've been trying to spread the glory of Earthsea for many years longer than Malazan. Read them now. Literally. Now. They're short and easy, and amazing!

Yes Sir, will do Sir! (I'll get as close to your literal now as I can, having just ordered them through BD, they'll be a week or two.) But everyone whose taste I admire, and now you too , have recommended these books, and given I've loved what little Ursula I have read, I am looking forward to finally moving them off my to-read list.