Question What are you reading?

[Izack]

I got distracted again - the previous books will have to wait a while now.

It's not exactly a novel, per se, but I'm now reading/playing Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, which is [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel"]sort of a game except you don't do anything other than read narrative and dialog[/ame].

VNs have been a pleasure of mine since starting with 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors some years ago, and then quite recently, Ever 17. All three mentioned here are mind-benders, and absolutely gripping.

Also, the art in this one is truly horrendous. I'm not sure if it's on Touhou's level or actually worse.

 

[AstroBeatle]

OMG I just do not like the idea thinking about Catcher In The Rye...it's partly the inspiration for Mark David Chap..n (I do not want to mention his full name) to kill John Lennon.

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And do any of you here like Stephen Baxter? I've read Voyage and Titan, both about spaceflight...very realistic, even the possibility of apocalypse by humanity in the Novel Titan...except the last chapter when a tribe of intelligent beetles evolve.

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And for those of you interested, read Mission to Mars by Buzz Aldrin (2013), it tells relatively new insights on how to get there with the current deadline and NASA's planning stages and programs...it's a really good book. Especially it's by one of history's most renowned astronauts.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I like Baxter's stuff, Moonseed was pretty strange, readable but strange.

If you want some high quality first rate realisticish science fiction, read Ben Bova's Grand Tour series. All the wooks work independant of each other; so it's not important to keep them in order, but it helps. I started years and years ago with Mars and Return to Mars.

 

[AstroBeatle]

Yeah, Moonseed was from the same trilogy (NASA trilogy) as Voyage and Titan, I don't have it though...and I know about Ben Bova and seen his books you've mentioned (Among his most popular) including the Green Mars series, and I saw them in a secondhand bookstore but I purchased The Baxter books that day.

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And I have all the 2001 series in Clarke's books, I might buy his Rendezvous with Rama or maybe his short stories on space linking to the 2001 universe.

 

[Castor]

Prey by Michael Crichton

 

[Bibi Uncle]

You're reading my favourite book of Michael Crichton. It's in the mood of Jurassic Park, but even better. Really good choice.

I finished Life of Pi last week. Such a wonderful novel, probably in my top 3 ! I recommend it to everybody. I will surely buy other Yann Martel's books, his stories are just fantastic.

Next week are my finals, so I will start a simpler book, maybe an Agatha Christie. I miss Hercule Poirot... :lol:

 

[HarvesteR]

Reading World War Z now, for a welcome change of pace after binging way too much on LoTR and the Silmarillion before that... It was high time to get me something new to read.

Tolkien is awesome, but after a while you start to long for some nice strings of dialogue between characters.

Next up in my list are the Ender's Game series. I had read the first one a while back (before the movie, which was very nicely adapted IMO), now I got the entire series on ebook, ready to go.

Now for Michael Crichton books, I've been wanting to read the Jurassic Park novels for a while now. The good thing about reading a book after the movie is that you're almost sure to get a better version of the story, instead of the other way around, where it's very likely to end in heartbreak... I learned that the hard way with the John Carter of Mars movie.

I liked Ender's Game possibly for more than just its value as a movie... all the time through watching it I was thinking "please don't ruin it, please don't ruin it"... wasn't let down. That was like having a bonus round of points for it at the end.


Cheers

 

[Urwumpe]

Just received my shipment of new books to be read...

"Thinking, fast and slow" by Daniel Kahnemann and
"Forever Young" by John W. Young...

Already itching to start reading, the first opening the books in the middle was very interesting, but I have some work to finish this weekend first.

 

[Andy44]

"Old Mars", an anthology of modern stories about the planet Mars written as if the Mars of the 1930s had turned out to be true, with old canals, breathable air, and even a few local inhabitants.

 

[mode1bravo]

To Orbit and Back Again: How the Space Shuttle Flew in Space by Davide Sivolella

The NASA Northrop T-38: Photographic Art from an Astronaut Pilot by Story Musgrave, Lance and Anne Lenehan

 

[Felipi1205]

Ive just finished reading the fifth book of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. I've started reading the books before I could watch the TV Series, and I must admit it's one of the best books I've ever seen. I can't wait for the sixth book!

 

[fsci123]

I started reading "The Leftovers" Friday after seeing the tv adaptation trailer... I like the whole premise of a non-spiritual rapture thing. I wonder how would our scientists try to explain the sudden disappearance of millions of people.

 

[Urwumpe]

I started reading "The Leftovers" Friday after seeing the tv adaptation trailer... I like the whole premise of a non-spiritual rapture thing. I wonder how would our scientists try to explain the sudden disappearance of millions of people.

Maybe you should ask the right scientists for this. I recommend historians.

 

[Loru]

Some recent ones:

"Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny
"Saturn" & "Titan" by Ben Bova

and some research for my game:

"Forever War" by Joe Haldeman
"Full Thrust" Second edition rulebook & Fleet books.

 

[fsci123]

"Forever War" by Joe Haldeman

I liked the book but I always went into fits of rage when they described the warships accelerating at 20-100Gs. A hundred pages into the book I automatically started dividing the accelerations by 10.

 

[Loru]

I liked the book but I always went into fits of rage when they described the warships accelerating at 20-100Gs. A hundred pages into the book I automatically started dividing the accelerations by 10.

I knew the plot for ages as I have graphic novels for like 20 years (drawn by Marvano) but I kept forgetting about buying the book.

Even with in book justification of "acceleration tanks" it was still bit odd but I liked overall tone of the novel. Especially parts on the "transit planets" (not sure how they were called in English) where every screw up on your part meant your death.

 

[jedidia]

I liked the book but I always went into fits of rage when they described the warships accelerating at 20-100Gs. A hundred pages into the book I automatically started dividing the accelerations by 10.

Don't. Haldemann knows pretty well what he's doing, he's got degrees in both physics and astronomy. I know that many SF writers back in the day didn't really know what they were doing and were just like "OMG, we need some cool numbers" without thinking of the implications, but thinking of the implications is exactly what Haldemann did. The whole concept and plot of the book revolves around the ships reaching the speed of light very quickly. So he glossed over the physical impossibility of that kind of acceleration to be able to tell the story he wanted to tell. The whole book doesn't work if the ships wouldn't reach the speed of light in a matter of days, so mentally correcting the acceleration to something more reasonable (which I too tend to do in some instances, especially if the stated values by themselves are in conflict with the description of the effects) leads to major inconsistency with the whole premise of the book.

"transit planets" (not sure how they were called in English)

Collapsars. A bit of an archaic term for "black holes", actually, and exactly what is meant.

reading currently: Tuf voyages. Absolutely love it so far.

 

[Loru]

Collapsars. A bit of an archaic term for "black holes", actually, and exactly what is meant.

I meant those planets in orbits around collapsars where they were setting up bases.

 

[orb]

I meant those planets in orbits around collapsars

Portal planets

 

[jedidia]

I meant those planets in orbits around collapsars where they were setting up bases.

Ah, those ones