So what is everyone reading?

[Michaelangelica]

I think there might be some confusion. The Adrian Mole series is by Sue Townsend, and there are no fairies. So are you referring to the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer?

OOps, Yes I just read them all

[Pyrotex]

"Why Things Bite Back --

Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences"

 

by Edward Tenner.

 

Good read!

[Monomer]

Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years

 

Also reading some Australian Artists magazines.

[Michaelangelica]

"Why Things Bite Back --

Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences"

 

by Edward Tenner.

 

Good read!

 

amazing just posted an article about this from a military magazine in the Iran war and Imperialism thread

 

I am reading lots of Kerry Greenwood's Pyryne Fisher detective series.

Delectable, a tech decadent & very delightful

 

She is a great detective in the same league as Pirot and Lord Peter Whimsey.

Of course, a very different character.

Phryne Fisher website - Kerry Greenwood - Allen & Unwin

[Europa]

Over and over again, I feel a microscopic gravitic attraction to Where The Red Ferns Grows.:hihi:

[Boerseun]

Started reading "A State of Fear" by Michael Crichton.

 

It seems (only seems, I'm only at page 80 now) that he's gonna try and debunk Global Warming in the book, novel-style. I wanna see how that's gonna pan out...

 

If you've read it, don't spoil it, now. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the book is in support of it... lemme see...

[Tormod]

Started reading "A State of Fear" by Michael Crichton.

 

It seems (only seems, I'm only at page 80 now) that he's gonna try and debunk Global Warming in the book, novel-style. I wanna see how that's gonna pan out...

 

I'm not going to spoil it. But if you google for it, you'll find lots and lots of interesting info. :rolleyes:

 

I am currently reading Accelerando, a sci-fi novel by Charles Stross.

[Boerseun]

I'm not going to spoil it.

...that's why I haven't googled it yet! :rolleyes:

[Jay-qu]

I just started Foundations Edge, trucking my way through the series :eek2:

[Michaelangelica]

I just started Foundations Edge, trucking my way through the series :)

So long since I read it; I should read it again. Asimov is one of the greats.

I have just about given up on modern Sci-fi as a genre-too depressing- reading murder mysteries instead:)

 

Fantasy too, is mostly predictable (always 3 vols at least-why are they always traveling somewhere!?) Just read "Assassin's Apprentice" by Hobb but doubt I will read any more in the series unless my daughter promises they improve.

 

Just started "The Song of an Innocent Bystander" by Ian Bone. It was short-listed by the Children's Book Council of Australia. Enjoying it so far, it looks promising.

[Jay-qu]

what do you mean by depressing?

[Michaelangelica]

what do you mean by depressing?

I can't find any that are imaginative, clever, full of ideas and life enhancing. They all seem to belong to the post-apocalypse school. I am not prepared to plough though a dark, dank, polluted, oppressive Blade Runner world for anyone. I can create that in my own head, and often do. Few of my friends read SF or are totally into it(and therefore can't believe I will read E Doc smith).

 

I love the classics: Wyndam, Asimov, Anne Mccaffery, Ursula La Guin, (as long as her characters don't travel anywhere. Her best is the best but she has the occasional clanger too) . I enjoyed the world of "The Mote in God's Eye" (Niven?) because of its complex recreation of how alien sociology might work. (I studied social psy) I usually try to find a writer I like and read everything he writes.

 

I love Prattchet for his wit and wisdom and poking fun at any and everything. I find he is the only author I can re-read several times. Probably because I forget so much of what I read. His recent "A Hat full of Sky" is suburb. Human, humane, humorous, touching, funny, full of invention but in some strange way humble and understanding of the human condition. (You probably need to read all the 'witch' books and the book before first) There is a depth to Pratchett that is so often ignored. His characterization is superb. "Death" and "Granny Weatherwax "are two of the greatest characters ever created by anyone. He does not get the recognition that he is due, I think because of prejudice to his "low-brow" choice of genres.

 

But I often find I have to go to the Young adults section of the library to find good strong stories. I like good story tellers (Eoin Coffler my latest discovery) Too much adult stuff relies on sex, sin and sadism. Boring and often horrifying. Does Borne need us to see in lurid detail the evivisection of a human in the first few pages?

 

I have been a long time fan of Dr. Who because of its imagination. I forgive it a lot. The recent series is excellent. The old series was predictable but I liked that, you knew you would always get a happy or at least a clever ending. (The boy must always get the girl in the end -Fred Astere movies are great for that; you can rely on the formula)

 

I liked the original Star trek because of its ideas; everything since has degenerated to a version of "USA Cops and Robbers in Space". (although I did enjoy some Joss Wheldon stuff I saw recently- which was just that! But Wheldon is an alien is disguise and does not count. I am looking forward to seeing where he goes next) Or "Will we find the "magic ingredient" before the Borg anniliate us"? (UM, well actually. . . Yes you will).

 

In desperation I have turned to Buffy and Angel. The 'silent' and 'musical' Buffy's were wonderful. Both shows occasionally have brilliant script writing.

I hang in there for the nuggets of gold often tossed my way (I have enjoyed US TV a lot better on DVD I can use subtitles and can then understand Yankee talk - usually too fast and soto voche and garbled for me in Buffy). Again people, especially adult friends and my wife, are bemused by my taste. Fortunately I have eclectic smart kids who feed me stuff.

 

So given the above if you have any sci-fi or fiction you think I might like I would love a list. I read a few books a week occasionally giving away fiction and reading sciency environmental type stuff type stuff and lately an occasion biography (Ploughing though the huge biography of Keating on and off at the moment. It is good but dense.). I loved Latitude and Captain Cook's biography- although badly written- he was such an extraordinary man much overlooked by history.

 

So Jay-qu I don't know why your one line questions keep my two fingers pumping away at the keyboard for so long!

Would love a list

michael

[Jay-qu]

An accidentally well placed question perhaps :)

 

I find some SF depressing because I know the lives that get led in such fictional worlds will more than likely not be realised during my own lifetime and that I will forever be stuck to this rock (or at best still be stuck to this solar system) when there is an entire galaxy to explore just out of reach :eek:

[Tormod]

I can't find any that are imaginative, clever, full of ideas and life enhancing. They all seem to belong to the post-apocalypse school.

 

I think you are right to a certain extent. But not all the way. My best reads are set far into the future, off-planet. Like Richard Morgan's novels, or Peter F Hamilton. Imagination, clever, ideas, life enhancing? That's where I *get* those things now. :eek:

 

Neal Stephenson is also a must. And Charles Stross (there is a sort of apocalypse there, but it's not nuclear but "alien" in the sense that we're talking AI). And Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds... want more? :)

[Pyrotex]

While unpacking box #183 during our move, I found a paperback copy of "Time And Again" by Clifford D. Simac.

 

I loooooove Simac! I thought I had read everything he had ever written, I never even heard of this book. I'm half way through it now. Can't stop.

 

The novel is science fiction. A human agent of the Department of Alien Affairs returns to Earth from an Alien planet where he has been missing for 20 years. He has two problems. He has learned something on that alien planet that he is destined to publish in a book that will alter human history and probably cause the deaths of millions of people over many centuries. He knows this, because people from the future are trying to kill him so he can't write the book. The other problem is that he remembers NOTHING of what happened during those 20 years on that alien planet.

[Buffy]

While unpacking box #183 during our move, I found a paperback copy of "Time And Again" by Clifford D. Simac.

Oh my. I don't really go for much sci-fi, but "The Big Back Yard" is one of my favorite short stories ever....

 

Bigger on the inside than on the outside,

Buffy

[Pyrotex]

I can't find any that are imaginative, clever, full of ideas and life enhancing. ...Would love a list

michael

 

Michael,

why not try this thread , if you haven't already.

 

:naughty:

Pyrotex the Pundit