Latest Gene Wolfe book you read (1-10 scale)

[father of lies]

[*]There's like four now reading threads. Fuck that. Let's do this shit all proper like, with scores, so we can call each other retards.

A Scanner Darkly - PKD - 9

I finished reading this on the bus, and I am man enough to say I had to keep from getting all choked up in front of the hot ghetto black girls. Fantastic.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - 8.75

Would have been a 9, but a few parts were just a hair slow

I demand that this thread get to 50 squintillion pages like the movie one.

[Whee of the Dead]

Hell House - 5.5 out of 10, not as good as hyped up to be.

[danox3]

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova - 7/10

A what if Dracula was real,and still alive today. Kind of dragged in the middle, but over all a pretty good, albeit too long read.

[altars of radness]

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz 8.9
A Maze of Death - PKD 4
Halfway through Don Quixote - 11

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

The Ant-Politics Machine by James Ferguson. I liked it, but it's probably only interesting if you're interested in "development" in Africa.

[riley-o]

I haven't finished a book in forever. Fucking internet.

[DanBehavingBadly]

I'm reading this for the 3rd or 4th time now. 10 fucking skulls. I love submarine books.

[Hostage Grenade]

2/10 - The only reason I gave it a two is because of Colin Quinns foreword in the book. Its probably the funniest thing in the entire read. I love Norton, but he's much better off the top of his head. There is absolutely NOTHING in this book worth reading. Absolute filler from start to finish.

[THE KILL]

Terry Pratchett - Nation 10/10

As always a masterpiece. Feels like a summary of all the themes you usually find in Terry Pratchett's novels: rationalism, enlightenment, rationalism, culture clash etcetc. And a lot of fun, of course.

[The Torsion]

Body of Lies by David Ignatius- Maybe a 6 or 7, crappy romantic sub-plots suck. I also get the feeling that the Ridley Scott movie won't be much like the book. It was pretty specific about the main characters physical appearance that are important to the story. He might have an Italian name, but DiCaprio is way too all-American looking for the character from the book.

[Ray]

1984 - 9/10

Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman) - 8/10

[Goatus]

Xenocide - 9
Better than Speaker for the Dead and just as good, if not better than Ender's Game. I'll have to pick up the next one soon. I hope Card can keep up the pace. The first three are very impressive.

[captain]

I am really bad about not finishing books, so do with that what you may.

Last book finished: Wiseblood - Flannery O'Connor 9/10 Excellent. Seriously. Best retelling of the Christ story? Possible.

Others not finished:

Of Time and the River - Thomas Wolfe 9.5/10 I would give Look Homeward, Angel a 10, and probably this one too once I've finished it. Patience is a virtue with Wolfe though.

Who the Hell's In It - Peter Bogdanovich 7.5/10 Peter's recollections on some of the major film stars he worked with. Definitely interesting, and my only real problem being that Bogdanovich (though I love him) is really arrogant. Not surprising though.

A Game of Thrones - George RR Martin 8.5/10 What I'm currently reading. First time I've read fantasy in a very long time. Of course my score is not comparing it to something like Wolfe. Kind of cheesy, but hey, it's fucking fantasy. Even Lord of the Rings got cheesy at times. Fucking addictive as shit though.

Next up, something by W Somerset Maughm, probably Of Human Bondage, though I've also got A Razor's Edge and Cakes and Ale on hand.

[father of lies]

I'm in the middle of a few.

Do androids dream of electric sheep
Children of the mind
The road


All are very good so far. I think I will be getting through androids first since I have been reading it exclusively for a while.

DADoES is at the bottom of the short list of PKD stuff I've read so far. I liked The Transfiguration of Timothy Archer, The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, and Vulcan's Hammer more, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch the most.

I think Valis will be what I read after The Cat That Walks Through Walls by Heinlein and Children of Men (which is rather boring so far, about 60 pages in; endless character development is fine, but this just isn't interesting to me at all yet.... I think it's going to pick up soon, Theo just heard about the rebels).

[ibn Horowitz]

In Evil Hour - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
7/10
Pretty enjoyable, I liked the feeling of being thrown into the situation, though it could have stood to be more atmospheric at times. The mayor was a good character and sort of explained how people become that evil-latin-american-capitan-with-aviators type guy. Plus people shot revolvers up donkey's bums so it couldn't be seen how they died.

[Scumfucker]

Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis. 10/10

One of my favorite books by one of my favorite modern writers. Here's a fragment of a passage from the book,

"I laughed with disbelief at the noises roaring in my head and I kept talking to myself, but I was a man trying to have a rational conversation with someone who was losing it, and I cried let it go, let it go, but I could no longer avoid recognizing the fact that I had to accept what was happening: ..."

If you want to know the context of this quote, read the book. You'll like it even if you've disliked his other work. I promise.

[Scumfucker]

A Scanner Darkly - PKD - 9

I finished reading this on the bus, and I am man enough to say I had to keep from getting all choked up in front of the hot ghetto black girls. Fantastic.

Can you see how personal this particular book is? This book is so genuine in that the suffering is so real that you know it must be a very personal book with real skeletons and demons hiding in there. I love and hate this book. I think it's the best book at portraying the madness of addiction (especially the paranoia) and the suffering of course. However his vision is one of straight doom. Which for him personally, his drug use definitely sped up his mental illness if wasn't the main catalyst. It's beautifully written. The only reason why I hate it is because it represents addiction winning and completely destroying the soul irreparably and I personally struggle with addiction. I want to have hope for myself, not confirmation that the reality is many people deep into it will die and nobody will be unscarred.

[canon.docre]

I'm powering through The Watchmen graphic novel and it is fucking amazing. Easily 10/10. I love it. Rorschach is the shit!

Also working on the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, only a couple hundred pages into the first one and I can already tell I'll be reading every one of them.

[Whiffleball Ace]

Herzog by Saul Bellow
Actually just finished it, but reading it again. I know I missed something.
Next: The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates

[Geeheeb]

Currently working on Principles of Human Anatomy for my ANATOMY CLASS WOOOO!! 3/10

[Necrometer]

Short story, but:

Dreams in the Witch House - 7/10 Most of it had me because I thought it was going somewhere really obvious; the end was askew enough to cancel my eyerolls, but not awesome enough to make the total story great.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Why/how did Brown Jenkem bite the dust, anyway?

[Admiral Dick Fart]

some recent reading:

Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity (8/10) - solid stuff. Eggers is a very descriptive writer with a unique style. However, sometimes that lent itself to passages being very rambly. They always found their way back on track, though. This is probably the longest "story about nothing" I've ever read that didn't suck. Characters were very natural and well-crafted and made the story.

Tucker Max - I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (7.5/10) - Funny shit. Most of this was available on his website anyway but it still makes for hilarious reading.

Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero (9/10) - probably my favorite of this big batch of books I recently picked up. Ellis has a bare-bones, realistic style on this one that drew me in from the first page.

[father of lies]

I like that story bunches.

Would it have been as obvious if you read it when it came out?

[Necrometer]

I like that story bunches.

Would it have been as obvious if you read it when it came out?

I think so... his allusions are just too blatant here. I think delivery of similar info is more subtle in a lot of his other stories.

[father of lies]

Yeah... It's a little too... easy. The Colour Out of Space is really obvious, too, but that's probably my favorite.