What are you reading right now?

[Greedy Fly]

Blindsight by Peter Watts
Lots of neat concepts, I enjoyed how he described the scifi vampires and worked out their predator/prey relationship with humans. Just as a matter of personal taste, I don't really enjoy First Contact plots where humans ultimately can't get along with the aliens and everyone dies or the two species go their separate ways. I think I've been spoiled by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I only want big universes jam packed with weird aliens.

Wind and Truth by Sanderson
Ugh. I normally like Sanderson, I didn't read this just to shit on him, but it's an awful low point in the series. I was physically cringing during the fucking Kaladin chapters. I read this series for the world building, and he went and slapped babby's first self-help book all over the nice fantasy setting. The saving grace is how it's so long, there are still hundreds of pages with interesting characters and arcs.

This book was truly infected by Sanderson spending WAY too much time on reddit-- and it shows.

Absolutely nailed it. He's reached the point in his career where he's surrounded by yes-men (even worse, yes-men from reddit) and zero real editors. Very sad to see.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Murakami
Just barely started this one. It's been, what, a decade since I first came across Murakami and read Hard-Boiled Wonderland? Big treat to find he's revisited the setting, can't wait to see where it goes.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

I got about half way though Blindsight and it's okay, but I got bored. I'm probably going to pick it up again but it's one of those stories where it's definitely going somewhere but the author sidetracks a lot.

Reading Hillbilly Elegy right now, it's a pretty short book but I'm liking it. It's JD Vance from 10 years ago and my dad said I'd like it, I'm about a third of the way through it and it's pretty entertaining. Big hardcover edition, formatted like a paper I would have written in college. Small margins and big font. Probably be done with it in a couple of days.

 

[Fig Kommandant]

I got about half way though Blindsight and it's okay, but I got bored. I'm probably going to pick it up again but it's one of those stories where it's definitely going somewhere but the author sidetracks a lot.

I tried to get into that one once or twice, I really hate when authors fumble a good premise.

Also as far as sci-fi goes, Project Hail Mary from Andy Weir was mostly good, but the prose is nearly unbearable at some points. The author's characters sound like millenial redditors.​

 

[Mr. Manchester]

I tried to get into that one once or twice, I really hate when authors fumble a good premise.

Also as far as sci-fi goes, Project Hail Mary from Andy Weir was mostly good, but the prose is nearly unbearable at some points. The author's characters sound like millenial redditors.​

I'll take note, think I'm going to dive into some classic I haven't read. Never read Asimov and I feel like I should.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I'll take note, think I'm going to dive into some classic I haven't read. Never read Asimov and I feel like I should.

I liked diving into his short works first.

 

[Doktor Grimm]

Reading Anna Karenina for the second time. I tried last year and dropped it for being a slog, but decided to give it another shot after learning a bit about Russian literature. Somehow I'm enjoying it a lot more this time around.

 

[Susanna]

Also as far as sci-fi goes, Project Hail Mary from Andy Weir was mostly good, but the prose is nearly unbearable at some points. The author's characters sound like millenial redditors.

Artemis is quite good too, it’s a welding story set on a Kenyan moon base.

 

[Flatline]

Artemis is quite good too

That's Weir's worst book.

 

[Susanna]

That's Weir's worst book.

Nah, welding’s fun.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

Update on Hillbilly Elegy, "Lindsey (his sister) told me that, as a child, I had a peculiarly large and misshapen head-"

Prophetic.

 

[Fig Kommandant]

Never read Asimov and I feel like I should.

I never liked Asimov, thematically I find his stuff unappealing. The big classic I was often recommended is the Foundation series. The first book is Asimov (jewish author) telling the story of why the unwashes masses need a small group of high IQ chosen people to lead them from the shadows. It's just a fictional version of the jewish doctrine of Tikkun Olam.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Been reading through "The King in Yellow" recently and I had no idea what I was getting into. Never thought I'd enjoy romance stories but they're pretty captivating.

Spoiler: My favourite quote

These are soft shell crab dreams.

 

[Jinn in the phone]

Currently one third through Herbert Werner's war memoir serving on various uboats in the North Atlantic and the Baltic, "Iron Coffins". Nearly at the end of the good year of 41. Very cozy reading

 

[Farsided]

Been reading through "The King in Yellow" recently and I had no idea what I was getting into. Never thought I'd enjoy romance stories but they're pretty captivating.

Spoiler: My favourite quote

These are soft shell crab dreams.

I had a dream that played out like The Yellow Sign story in that book. But I had the dream before I read it. Spooky shit yo.
Also, there's no description of the yellow sign. What's yellow and is considered a curse ?

Spoiler

 

[Quantum Diabetes]

Dungeon crawler carl book 7, “This inevitable ruin”, if you haven’t discovered this series it’s a must read.

 

[ScurvyRat]

Wind and Truth by Sanderson
Ugh. I normally like Sanderson, I didn't read this just to shit on him, but it's an awful low point in the series. I was physically cringing during the fucking Kaladin chapters. I read this series for the world building, and he went and slapped babby's first self-help book all over the nice fantasy setting. The saving grace is how it's so long, there are still hundreds of pages with interesting characters and arcs.

I have been a Sanderson fan for over 10 years.
I don't think I can read anything from him ever again after the absolute fucking SHIT show that was Wind and Truth.
The whole time I was thinking: "How the hell did this get past the beta readers??"
Let me introduce you to the "quality" people that Sanderson employs as beta readers.

Suzanne is a Jewish "technical writer" based out of Israel. She has "reviewed" hundreds of "books" on goodreads. Most of them are straight up porn.

Literal. Porn. Over 90% of her reviews are on books like this. Lets see what she has to say about Wind and Truth!

Yea this heaping pile of flesh has more to say about porn (that she "hates") than the books she's allegedly getting PAID to read and review.

Sanderson had literal JEWS read thru his book and give him the greenlight.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

Let me introduce you to the "quality" people that Sanderson employs as beta readers.

Suzanne is a Jewish "technical writer" based out of Israel. She has "reviewed" hundreds of "books" on goodreads. Most of them are straight up porn.

Literal. Porn. Over 90% of her reviews are on books like this. Lets see what she has to say about Wind and Truth!

Yea this heaping pile of flesh has more to say about porn (that she "hates") than the books she's allegedly getting PAID to read and review.

Sanderson had literal JEWS read thru his book and give him the greenlight.

TBQF most negative reviews on GR are longer than the positive ones, and if she's a technical writer she very likely was a technical beta reader (checking for technical mistakes such as grammar and formatting, or plot mistakes such as putting the wrong character name or referencing an event that was removed from the manuscript in a previous round of edits). Beta readers are usually not responsible for large plot changes.

I don't understand why people read that romance slop but a lot of people binge buy e-books when they go on sale and that how this garbage gets readership. I used to be on an email list for e-book sales and I racked up 90+ e-books for <$80 in about 4 months. I've hardly made a dent in them and most of them are awful books I DNF.

Anyway I just read The Silent Patient. It's a perfectly mid book (I suspect much of the content about psychology and therapy in there is inaccurate) up until the final twist is revealed, which ruins the entire thing.

Spoiler

The novel is narrated in first person. We follow a psychotherapist who becomes determined to "fix" a female patient who has not said a word since she was convicted of murdering her husband. She is now in a care facility with other crazies. The therapist immediately is crossing many ethical and legal boundaries to interview her friends/family and read her diary. He learns she claims she was being stalked in the weeks leading up to the murder, but no one can confirm this. Meanwhile, the therapist's wife is cheating and he sometimes follows her to try to find out who she's cheating with. At the end of the book, you learn that the chapters about the therapist and his cheating wife took place in the past and the therapist was the patient's stalker, skulking around the house to watch the patient's husband go cheat with the therapist's wife. You learn the therapist broke into the home and bound the patient and her cheating husband, told the patient her husband was cheating, untied her, and left her with a gun. The reason the patient hasn't spoken is that her husband "killed" her with his betrayal. The book ends with the therapist being caught by law enforcement.

Creating twists by withholding information from the audience is the laziest and cheapest tactic. Had me genuinely seething.

 

[ScurvyRat]

TBQF most negative reviews on GR are longer than the positive ones, and if she's a technical writer she very likely was a technical beta reader (checking for technical mistakes such as grammar and formatting or plot mistakes such as putting the wrong character name or referencing an event that was removed from the manuscript in a previous round of edits). Beta readers are usually not responsible for large plot changes.

Sanderson has stated several times that he takes plot into account with beta readers. He's changed endings before based off their feedback.
Stop making excuses for the Jews who ruin things.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

Sanderson has stated several times that he takes plot into account with beta readers. He's changed endings before based off their feedback.
Stop making excuses for the Jews who ruin things.

Trying to blame Sanderon's dud on da Jews is cope of the highest magnitude.

Spoiler

Sanderson, a Mormon autist, with 12+ large novels under his belt, who pumps out these large novels at an incredibly fast pace, whose prose has always been middling and for whom character writing is decidedly not a strong suit, wrote an (alleged) dud with bad character writing and a meandering plot and Reddit humor. Is it:

A) Because he's an autistic Mormon who doesn't understand people (characters) and isn't giving his writing time to breathe, and with that many books you are bound to strike out once
B) Because of da jews

Adjusting an ending because all your beta readers said it sucked is very normal. Endings are usually what you have betas focus on and what you are most open to changing based on their feedback. What is not normal, and what almost certainly didn't happen, is writing your story from the ground up based on beta feedback. If what I hear about this book is true, then Sanderson is lying when he says it was heavily edited.

However I am biased against Sanderson because I thought Way of Kings was meh and Words of Radiance was unbearably dreadful.

Anyway book club is reading Lincoln Highway next month which I have wanted to read for a while. I liked Towles' other novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, well enough.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

finished Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think

What a fun ride. It's hella dark for a '40s story and Williamson executes it well. It's also pretty foundational it seems as it blends pseudosciences together to make what may just be the Werewolf Book in the same way that Dracula's the definitive Vampire book.

I enjoyed the hell out of it and will be looking forward to more Williamson. I still have his Legion of Space trio of novels, The Humanoids (and sequel), and some other SFBC hardcovers (Manseed and The Stonehenge Gate). I'll now consider Williamson an auto-pickup while thrifting and poking about. I'm now intrigued by all his co-authored books with Pohl and Gunn.

Not sure what to read next. I want a change of pace. Maybe something by Keith Laumer.