Member Forums > Ender's Book Club
What are you currently reading?
rabbit:
I love Cryptonomicon. I read it a couple times, and it's definitely worth the time.
Sidoh, I definitely recommend Jack McDevitt's Hutch series. Starts off with The Engines of God. As for a must read...try out Pratchett's Watch series if you haven't already.
Ender:
--- Quote from: Sidoh on January 03, 2011, 03:15:51 pm ---I finished Speaker of the Dead a few days ago, now I'm reading Xenocide. I'm starting to regret it, though. The pseudoscience and crappy metaphysics are kinda painful.
I have a Kindle and an Amazon giftcard to blow through. Anyone have any "must read" suggestions?
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I remember that I really liked some books in the Ender series, and then didn't think too highly of some others.
I don't really know what you like so it's hard to give suggestions. I'll cover a broad range of genres, though:
Fantasy
I remember being enamored with the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. There are a lot of books in the series... but they are all very good. It's almost like reading a Diablo II storyline.
Novels
If you're looking for a more artistic book, I'd recommend Vladimir Nabokov. A good starting point is probably Lolita - an infamous book from the 50's/60's.
Classics
Give poetry a try! Try Dante, Homer, or Virgil. For Virgil and Homer I would recommend either the Fagles or Fitzgerald translations of The Iliad and The Aeneid. For Dante, it's harder to say. I have two copies of The Inferno: one is by Robert Pinsky, and it is a lot more poetic, meaning it sounds better; the other is by Robert M. Durling, which is a much more literal, direct translation, meaning that it is more accurate and true-to-Dante, but less poetic.
iago:
--- Quote from: rabbit on January 03, 2011, 03:22:57 pm ---I love Cryptonomicon. I read it a couple times, and it's definitely worth the time.
Sidoh, I definitely recommend Jack McDevitt's Hutch series. Starts off with The Engines of God. As for a must read...try out Pratchett's Watch series if you haven't already.
--- End quote ---
I am enjoying it, but it feels like it progresses very slowly, and each story arc almost returns to baseline. The all-encompassing story that it's building to (the gold and e-commerce stuff) doesn't seem to be a big enough payoff.
But I still like it. :)
deadly7:
--- Quote from: Sidoh on January 03, 2011, 03:15:51 pm ---I finished Speaker of the Dead a few days ago, now I'm reading Xenocide. I'm starting to regret it, though. The pseudoscience and crappy metaphysics are kinda painful.
I have a Kindle and an Amazon giftcard to blow through. Anyone have any "must read" suggestions?
--- End quote ---
The psuedoscience isn't why you read those books. I love OSC's writing because he does an excellent job in creating human relationships and getting you to empathize with a character's suffering while understanding his decision process.
Also, relativistic travel is not really that unheard of. His science is internally consistent, which is more than can be said of other sci-fi novels I've attempted to read.
--- Quote from: rabbit on January 03, 2011, 03:22:57 pm ---I love Cryptonomicon. I read it a couple times, and it's definitely worth the time.
Sidoh, I definitely recommend Jack McDevitt's Hutch series. Starts off with The Engines of God. As for a must read...try out Pratchett's Watch series if you haven't already.
--- End quote ---
I can't power through it. It's just so damn boring and long. Brevity is beautiful.
Sidoh:
--- Quote from: deadly7 on January 04, 2011, 12:46:04 am ---The psuedoscience isn't why you read those books. I love OSC's writing because he does an excellent job in creating human relationships and getting you to empathize with a character's suffering while understanding his decision process.
Also, relativistic travel is not really that unheard of. His science is internally consistent, which is more than can be said of other sci-fi novels I've attempted to read.
--- End quote ---
Mmhm. That's why I liked Ender's game, and that's why I continue to read the other books in the series. It gets progressively harder to suffer through, though. There was very little of it in Ender's Game, there was a little more in Speaker of the Dead, and there's a whole chapter in the first quarter of Xenocide that talks about the "philotic connections between people".
Have you read the other books in the series?
I don't mind the space travel stuff at all. That's kind of enjoyable, actually. It's interesting to read about a world that sees the effects of relativistic space travel. I was actually quite pleased that OSC included those details. The other scifi details are starting to become a little painful, though. The "philotic connections", the pseudo-sentient subatomic particles, the details of the piggies' reproductive cycle, and descriptions of the Descolada are getting ridiculous. I continue reading because I enjoy the bits in between (especially the initially separate story about the girl on Path, the Chinese world), but holy shit that chapter aboute the philotes was fucking paiiinnfful.
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