book recommendations RCF book club

[Jack Brickman]

Finished The Sun Also Rises. I have kind of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wish I had read it sooner, but on the other, I'm not sure I would have appreciated it had it been assigned in high school. Seems like a book best enjoyed in your early thirties after you've lived a little life and done a little traveling. My generation doesn't have something like World War I that everyone is trying to recover from from like the characters of this book, but I don't think I would have been as able to empathize with these people if I had read this when I was seventeen.

I liked it a lot. Hemingway's writing style reminds me a lot of Elmore Leonard. There's occasional vivid descriptions that really give you a sense of place and the feeling that the author was there himself, but the bulk of the book is just dialogue. It's not quite as compelling as Leonard's dialogue tends to be, but that's largely a product of this book being written in 1926 when people talked quite a bit differently, especially the type of people who make up a good chunk of this book's cast.

Anyway, as they say, sometimes the classics are classics for a reason, and such is the case here. In a novel where almost nothing happens, I was still turning the pages to see what would happen next and what would become of these characters I'd come to appreciate. The first quarter of the book is a bit slow, but once Bill Gorton shows up and adds a bit more levity, it gets a lot better and more or less stays that way.

Would recommend.

 

[Obscured By Clouds]

Finished The Sun Also Rises. I have kind of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wish I had read it sooner, but on the other, I'm not sure I would have appreciated it had it been assigned in high school. Seems like a book best enjoyed in your early thirties after you've lived a little life and done a little traveling. My generation doesn't have something like World War I that everyone is trying to recover from from like the characters of this book, but I don't think I would have been as able to empathize with these people if I had read this when I was seventeen.

I liked it a lot. Hemingway's writing style reminds me a lot of Elmore Leonard. There's occasional vivid descriptions that really give you a sense of place and the feeling that the author was there himself, but the bulk of the book is just dialogue. It's not quite as compelling as Leonard's dialogue tends to be, but that's largely a product of this book being written in 1926 when people talked quite a bit differently, especially the type of people who make up a good chunk of this book's cast.

Anyway, as they say, sometimes the classics are classics for a reason, and such is the case here. In a novel where almost nothing happens, I was still turning the pages to see what would happen next and what would become of these characters I'd come to appreciate. The first quarter of the book is a bit slow, but once Bill Gorton shows up and adds a bit more levity, it gets a lot better and more or less stays that way.

Would recommend.

Damn it I miss Dutch, my favorite author.

 

[N7RobBob]

Blake Crouch is fun- very Black Mirror-esque. If you liked "Dark Matter", I think you'll like "Recursion" as well. The basic premise is a scientist invents a memory chair to help Alzheimer's patients hold on to their core memories. The technology falls into the wrong hands and things spiral from there as people have a difficult time separating their real memories, from false ones on different timelines.

Read both of these back to back and really enjoyed them. Like Crouch's style of writing and the very possible worlds he creates.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Damn it I miss Dutch, my favorite author.

Planning to read a bit more of him in the near future. I've read his Raylan Givens stuff because I was a huge fan of Justified. I just read Bandits, which was great, and I've read a couple of his other books, with 52 Pickup being the only one I remember offhand. I'm pretty sure I've read Get Shorty as well back in the day, but I know I've seen the movie too and so I'm not entirely sure.

Next up for me is more Bakker, though, in the form of The White-Luck Warrior.

 

[Obscured By Clouds]

Planning to read a bit more of him in the near future. I've read his Raylan Givens stuff because I was a huge fan of Justified. I just read Bandits, which was great, and I've read a couple of his other books, with 52 Pickup being the only one I remember offhand. I'm pretty sure I've read Get Shorty as well back in the day, but I know I've seen the movie too and so I'm not entirely sure.

Next up for me is more Bakker, though, in the form of The White-Luck Warrior.

For your next Dutch, put either Pagan Babies or Tishomingo Blues at the top of your list.

Can't wait for the new Justified limited series coming out. They are adapting City Primeval(another great novel, and maybe the one you should read first), but they are changing characters to make Givens the lead. IIRC he wasn't even in that novel. Dutch used characters in and out of his books, one might be the lead one novel, the next he is in one paragraph standing in a corner randomly mentioned.

Nobody got odd ball characters, and dialog(as in how people really talk) like he did.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Finished The White-Luck Warrior, the second book in Bakker's Aspect-Emperor series. What a fucking book that was. I'd put that up there with Martin's A Storm of Swords as one of my favorite fantasy novels. That book was just a constant onslaught of insanity. Violent, hectic fights for survival, sorcerous duels, a motherfucking dragon guarding a pile of treasure, a sociopathic child manipulating his royal mother into making terrible decisions, a shocking death of a key character...this book hits all the notes.

I definitely recommend checking out Bakker if any of you guys is looking for a new fantasy series to start. I've still got two books to go out of seven total, but this series seems to get better with each installment.

 

[MadThinker88]

I got hooked on the works of Tom Clancy when The Hunt for Red October hit the movie screen back in 1990..
From there I read all the books and then moved into the unabridged audio versions as the series continued to expand (even after Clancy's death).

While listening to the books proves to be faster, you would still be busy for a couple months to get thru them all.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Finished The White-Luck Warrior, the second book in Bakker's Aspect-Emperor series. What a fucking book that was. I'd put that up there with Martin's A Storm of Swords as one of my favorite fantasy novels. That book was just a constant onslaught of insanity. Violent, hectic fights for survival, sorcerous duels, a motherfucking dragon guarding a pile of treasure, a sociopathic child manipulating his royal mother into making terrible decisions, a shocking death of a key character...this book hits all the notes.

I definitely recommend checking out Bakker if any of you guys is looking for a new fantasy series to start. I've still got two books to go out of seven total, but this series seems to get better with each installment.

Haven't thought of Baker's books in a looooong time. Used to discuss those on the Westeros board. Definitely polarizing. I personally thought they got a bit odd after the first couple, but others swore by them.

As I recall, he was a philosopher before he wrote, so he wove a lot of his ideas into the narrative. So I guess it may depend on how you see that.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Haven't thought of Baker's books in a looooong time. Used to discuss those on the Westeros board. Definitely polarizing.

Anyway, my recollection is that they got a bit...odd after the first couple. I'll be interested to hear how you feel when you get a couple more into it.

I'm five books deep and I will say the fourth and fifth book definitely delve more into high fantasy than the first three. That element was always there in the form of world-building, but you don't really see many non-human characters in the first trilogy of books other than the skin-spies.

The trilogy is largely a conflict between men, whereas the four books that follow are about men trying to prevent the apocalypse, and so they embrace more high fantasy elements. You've got Cleric, who is effectively an elf. You've got the Sranc serving as orcs. There's a big chunk of the fourth book that is the Mines of Moria. Magic becomes more prevalent. Etc.

I loved the fifth book, though. As I mentioned in my previous post, it reminded me of A Storm of Swords where it was just crazy moment after crazy moment. The assassination of a certain key character was wonderfully done, and at the perfect moment.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I'm five books deep and I will say the fourth and fifth book definitely delve more into high fantasy than the first three. That element was always there in the form of world-building, but you don't really see many non-human characters in the first trilogy of books other than the skin-spies.

The trilogy is largely a conflict between men, whereas the four books that follow are about men trying to prevent the apocalypse, and so they embrace more high fantasy elements. You've got Cleric, who is effectively an elf. You've got the Sranc serving as orcs. There's a big chunk of the fourth book that is the Mines of Moria. Magic becomes more prevalent. Etc.

I loved the fifth book, though. As I mentioned in my previous post, it reminded me of A Storm of Swords where it was just crazy moment after crazy moment. The assassination of a certain key character was wonderfully done, and at the perfect moment.

I just have a vague recollection - somewhere around the second or third book when I stopped - of some weird stuff. Can't remember if it was sex-related or something else, though.

Do you have any clue as to what I'm referring, because I can't remember other than that I just stopped reading at that point. And did that continue, or kind of go away?

 

[Jack Brickman]

I just have a vague recollection - somewhere around the second or third book when I stopped - of some weird stuff. Can't remember if it was sex-related or something else, though.

Do you have any clue as to what I'm referring, because I can't remember other than that I just stopped reading at that point. And did that continue, or kind of go away?

I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to, mostly because there's a lot of weird sex stuff in Bakker's books, and some pretty horrific violence too.

One of my favorites is when he describes a demon attacking a human in the form of peeling his face like a grape.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to, mostly because there's a lot of weird sex stuff in Bakker's books, and some pretty horrific violence too.

Yeah, I guess that was probably it. I don't remember the details, but do remember generally going "ugh, no more!" I think it was the weird sexual violence stuff that got me more than the pure violence. Then again, I had to walk out of the theater during the rape scene in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so my threshold for that kind of stuff isn't very high.

 

[dark2332]

so as one of the things my work recommended is "start a book club" while we are all mostly staying home. I dont know how i feel about all of RCF sitting around and talking about Huck Finn, but i figured I would throw out some of the stuff i have been reading.

Brandon Sanderson. All of it. For those that havent heard of him he is the antithesis of someone like GRR Martin or Patrick Rufuss. Sanderson releases at least a book, or 3 a year and currently has several series he is writing, almost all of which are fantastic. For those of you that read wheel of time, he finished it.

I recommend Mistborn as a start, but pretty much any of his stuff is good (though i felt elantris was really dull).

@Sebastian yeah i found your 2017 thread, i decided to go for a new start.

As a Sanderson fan, a series lately—especially audiobooks—that have taken grip on me is the Cradle Series by Will Wight.

It’s progression fantasy, but large connected universe etc. with Cosmere vibes.

Another favorite of mine is definitely Dresden Files, but that’s just not everyone’s cup of tea.

 

[jjvors]

so as one of the things my work recommended is "start a book club" while we are all mostly staying home. I dont know how i feel about all of RCF sitting around and talking about Huck Finn, but i figured I would throw out some of the stuff i have been reading.

Brandon Sanderson. All of it. For those that havent heard of him he is the antithesis of someone like GRR Martin or Patrick Rufuss. Sanderson releases at least a book, or 3 a year and currently has several series he is writing, almost all of which are fantastic. For those of you that read wheel of time, he finished it.

I recommend Mistborn as a start, but pretty much any of his stuff is good (though i felt elantris was really dull).

@Sebastian yeah i found your 2017 thread, i decided to go for a new start.

Hi bob2the2nd & everyone else.

Before I recommend my own books, let me ask if self-promotion is ok. I write humorous scifi/fantasy.

Thanks,

jjvors

 

[jjvors]

Will put this in spoilers so you can get to it later...


On another note, I've started re-reading the Gentleman Bastard novels and am about a fourth of the way through The Lies of Locke Lamora. Great fucking book.

Thanks for your assessment of Rhythm of War. I've read that series and Mystborn. I'll be curious to see if the speculation you give turns out correct.

As always, I have a more positive outcome expected than you. Either good will win or the whole cycle will start again. The latter is what I expect.