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Rate the latest book you've read.

Started by Mr.Obvious, July 14, 2014, 05:29:28 AM

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Atheon

There's this book that Ken Ham kept recommending during the debate with Bill Nye. It's title is something kind of silly, like "The Bibble" or something, if I recall correctly. Well, I have to say I wasn't impressed. The main character, whose name keeps changing from "gawd" to "the lard", seems like a petty tyrant. Then there's his son, Jebus, who seems like a nice guy but who's prone to throw temper tantrums. Anyway, it's long and boring, and the ending makes no sense.
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca

Mr.Obvious

1984
I rate it 19.84 out of 20.
The only thing I didn't like about it, was that I read it in Dutch. (Bought it second hand for half a euro at a flea market.) Let met tell you 'Grote Broer' isn't quite as catchy as 'Big Brother'.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

dtq123

I finally finished the ASV bible!
Shit out of really bad.  :oak:
A dark cloud looms over.
Festive cheer does not help much.
What is this, "Justice?"

Mermaid

Revival by Stephen King. Good premise, stupid book.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Savior2006

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on November 11, 2014, 05:51:21 PM
How was it?

Whoops, forgot to answer this question. Well this will be a month late I guess.

The premise is similar to Salem's Lot. In that story, a town gets slowly converted from humans into vampires. The same basic thing happens here in New York City. The town is overtaken in three nights, with widespread chaos on the final one.

It begins with a commercial airliner that literally goes dark after landing. A terrorist/hostage situation is feared and they send in a counter-terror unit that discovers that all the people are "dead" with no visible injuries. As they are examined by a doctor, some of them still have their activated phones in their hands, with their loved ones desperately calling them.

The novel switches POV more than you see King do in Salem's Lot, and again, most of those people exist solely to be killed. Because the vampire always kills and converts the same way (with their tongue-stingers), it can get somewhat repetitive.

The characters are kind of what you expect. You have the honorable plague doctor, his smart son who loves his father to death just as his father loves him. The doctor's ex-wife is kind of a bitch, of course. And of course has to date someone who is a jerk and hates the ex-husband for no reason, the wise Obi Wan old man who has a significant history with the threat of vampires.

There's also a pest exterminator who gets caught up in it, I guess it's because a group of heroes always needs a "Big Guy," and this dude is big.

There's a kind of ex-criminal named Gus, who also gets caught up in it, as he delivers the vampires coffin to a place for reasons I can't really remember. He will have a very special task in the next books, I wager.

The master vampire in this book gets a little more development than Barlow in Salem's Lot--a little more backstory with the Obi Wan. That's cool, and I imagine that development will only get bigger as you get into the 2nd and 3rd book (The Fall, and Night Eternal).

There's a lot more action than in Salem's Lot (yes, I will be comparing the books a lot). As I said, an entire city gets taken over and the Obi Wan has anti-vampire weapons including silver blades, nail-guns, and UV lamps that will blast the assholes. It's good fun.

del Toro and Hogan are also making a TV series based on the book. Don't know if I will watch it since I have all three books.

I'd give it an 4 out of 5. I probably would've liked it more than Salem's Lot if I were 15 or 14. But now that I can keep better track of just what the fuck is happening in books, I would probably score the Lot higher, at a 5/5.
It took science to do what people imagine God can do.
--ApostateLois

"The closer you are to God the further you are from the truth."
--St Giordano

Mr.Obvious

The white lioness by Henning Mankell.  (Original: Den vita lejoninnan)
It's part of his 'Wallander' series. Which, when you get down to it, is a basic 'detective novel' with your archetypical burned out detective with a failed mariage and a cynical look on life itself.
But if you like such novels, you'll love this series and this one is no exception.
8,5/10
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Hydra009

#36
Just finished all 5 A Song Of Ice and Fire books.  9/10.  What a ride.  I highly, highly recommend.

Part of my motivation for reading it was my heartfelt love of the series.  Part of it was a fear of spoilers.  May the Others take you loose-lipped book readers! 

There are tons of extremely memorable characters from all walks of life, lots of intrigue and plot twists, the setting is so damn well fleshed out and reminiscent of actual medieval history that you could easily imagine it as a real place, and I particularly liked how different places have distinctly different cultures, religions, languages/dialects, even food and song.  And you just can't wait to see what happens next.  Seriously, you can't.  *goes into withdrawal*

But the series is not without relatively minor faults:

It is possible to go overboard with the sheer number of characters and bury the reader in a bunch of trivially-important minor characters, which happens quite a bit.  And another problem with having that many characters is that you're dying to learn how a character turns out and he's not even in this book or the next.  Hell, he might not even make an appearance ever again.  *grinds his teeth*  And then there's the Samwell Tarly problem, where a thoroughly dull character gets oodles and oodles of screentime at the expense of interesting ones.

And the exposition dumps, which are normally handled fairly well, can get kinda clunky at times.  Some character is lost in thought and apparently goes off on a mental tangent that spans half the history of Westeroes on occasion.  And you'll be told some of the same exposition over and over again just in case you forgot.

As violent and terrible as Westeroes is, a surprising number of battles happen completely offscreen.  Why?  I have no idea.  Apparently, we need to focus on some orphans or a main character's trek that begins and ends with not much happening.  :l

And finally, there's a lot in the books that could be cut without affecting much.  It's interesting padding.  It's flavorful padding.  But it's still padding.

[spoiler]I can't wait to see Victarion and the Damphair on the tv show.  I <3 Victarion.  And Doran Martel.  And the fat Lord Manderly.  And a certain execution along the Wall.

And I swear to the God of Flame and Shadow, the infamous Bastard letter had better amount to nothing more than FILTHY, FILTHY LIES!!  *shatters his tankard against a wall, treks out into the snow and melts it by proximity alone*[/spoiler]

Munch

Not read it yet, but I treated myself with some money my aunt gave me for christmas to buy Richard Dawkins the god delusion.

The irony is my aunt is a firm believer in god, and someone who denounces evolution, so if she were to ask me what I spent it on, that will be an interesting conversation.

'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Mr.Obvious

'The wee free men' of the Discworld saga, by Terry Pratchett.
I know this book was intended for younger readers; but Blind Io be damned you're so clever Pratchett. 8.8 out of 10.

P.S. Green Bottle; read this book!
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

trdsf

Finally got around to Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe.  Better than his NOVA specials.  And, the first time anyone explained entropy in a way I could get my head around.  9/10 easily.

Currently on James Gunn's Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction and Lawrence Weschler's Boggs: A Comedy of Values.  Gunn is excellent so far (of course, the subject matter is my favorite author, so that's no shocker).  Haven't gotten far enough into Boggs to have a solid opinion yet.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

trdsf

Finished Boggs: A Comedy of Values -- it's not a large book.  A light read, at turns funny and insightful.  If you have an interest in money and art, I recommend it.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

PickelledEggs

Finally finished "god is not great" by Hitchens. 11/10

stromboli

Been reading the "Long Earth" series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. The premise is that human beings spontaneously develop the ability to travel to parallel earths by means of a simple device that someone dreams up. Which actually turns out to be a focal device for a latent skill we already have. Explores the nature of humanity and how we deal with the opening of a virtually unlimited space/time frontier. Just purchased "Long Mars" haven't read it yet.

"Raising Steam" latest Discworld book. Pratchett continues his introduction of new technology into Discworld and Ankh-Morpork, now with steam trains. The villains are a retro group of dwarves not unlike our fundie xtians or Islamists; Pratchett being an atheist, you get the message. Typical Discworld book, worth the read. Light satire in the form of scifi/fantasy.

trdsf

Nearly done with Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan.  As one might expect, it's beautiful.  The great thing about Sagan's writing is that you can hear it in his particularly cadenced way of speaking in your mind's ear.  :)
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Mr.Obvious

A lion on Tharthee by Grant Callin.

Old school sience fiction, which I find amusing to read. Being from 1987 it's older than I am. I picked it up for half a euro in a second hand shop and am glad I did. Apparently it's a sequel to 'saturnalia', but never realized that untill I finished it, which means I must applaud it's writing.
The book is not one that will be remembered in ages to come, but it is a good and interesting read with a fascinating focus on societies and their structures, which I appreciate. The only problem is that protagonist is very much an 'everything fits' character. By that I mean, he rises to any challenge and completes it with flair and suave. He is sometimes worried, but you wouldn't read it and you know he can handle it, which lessens the suspense. Also the fact that it takes about a third of the book going through logistics and preperations before the voyage to an alien world actually starts, didn't flow so wel with me.

7.7/10
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.