What are you reading right now?

[inception_state]

I just started Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Cryptonomicon was great, and Snow Crash is also on my list to read soon.

Worm, which is a, well, I guess you could call it a dark, superhero deconstruction story if you want to be a total nerd about it. It was good until it wasn't, but I'm willing to see it to the end anyway. But boy, to say that its reception is mixed is an understatement.

Don't bother with Ward, the sequel. I was pretty much in the same boat as you when it came to Worm, it started strong and was good enough to finish but the last quarter or so was a struggle. Ward just completely falls flat, despite a new setting with a lot of potential and great existing characters to work with. The worldbuilding is basically non-existent, and the author wrecks a couple of character arcs resolved in Worm for no apparent reason through retcons.

Unfortunately the author just never really hits the same quality as the first half of Worm in any of his other works. He also picked up some social and political hangups that show through in his more recent writing - DEI pandering and a lot of therapy-speak used in completely inappropriate contexts, like YA protagonists in Pale.

The fandom around Worm also went batshit insane post-Trump. Go on r/Parahumans and suggest that Purity anything other than pure evil and watch how quickly it devolves into a dumpster fire.

 

[AnOminous]

I just started Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Cryptonomicon was great, and Snow Crash is also on my list to read soon.

Cryptonomicon doesn't get enough praise, possibly because it's incredibly long. I have tried reading Snow Crash a couple times and for some reason found the style off-putting. Maybe some time.

It helps I read Cryptonomicon at a time when I had a job that was basically "sit around for hours waiting for something to happen" and many days it just didn't. I also read Bleak House by Dickens and Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon at that job.

 

[Deogracias]

Don't bother with Ward, the sequel. I was pretty much in the same boat as you when it came to Worm, it started strong and was good enough to finish but the last quarter or so was a struggle. Ward just completely falls flat, despite a new setting with a lot of potential and great existing characters to work with. The worldbuilding is basically non-existent, and the author wrecks a couple of character arcs resolved in Worm for no apparent reason through retcons.

Unfortunately the author just never really hits the same quality as the first half of Worm in any of his other works. He also picked up some social and political hangups that show through in his more recent writing - DEI pandering and a lot of therapy-speak used in completely inappropriate contexts, like YA protagonists in Pale.

The fandom around Worm also went batshit insane post-Trump. Go on r/Parahumans and suggest that Purity anything other than pure evil and watch how quickly it devolves into a dumpster fire.

Oh, that's a shame. I'm curious about what you mean by "therapy-speak". I actually liked the chapters that focused on the therapist since I have a low-key interest in psychology but I'm guessing you mean characters who shouldn't know much about psychology still using medical terms anyway, unless you meant something else.

And yeah, Trump Derangement Syndrome is no joke. It's one thing to have some disagreements with the former Pres; you can find both good and bad in any president regardless of political affiliation if you search hard enough. But I'm sick of people acting like he was anything other than a lucky loudmouth at worst. I'm guessing that bleed into his later works as well.

 

[inception_state]

Oh, that's a shame. I'm curious about what you mean by "therapy-speak". I actually liked the chapters that focused on the therapist since I have a low-key interest in psychology but I'm guessing you mean characters who shouldn't know much about psychology still using medical terms anyway, unless you meant something else.

It was tolerable in Worm because there were only a handful of chapters featuring therapy, and it was interspersed with a lot of plot progression. But in Ward, a major plot point is the protagonist joining a group therapy session. This took up a lot of the focus of the early part of the story, in my opinion to the detriment of plot progression. Worm had this constant momentum up until arc 18 or so, Ward just felt kind of directionless.

It's been a while so I can't pull up any egregiously annoying examples of "therapy-speak" from Ward, but here's an article describing the concept.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rise-of-therapy-speak

If you're interested in psychology maybe you will enjoy it. Ward is very polarizing, people seem to either really like it or hate it. Maybe it will work for you.

Cryptonomicon doesn't get enough praise, possibly because it's incredibly long. I have tried reading Snow Crash a couple times and for some reason found the style off-putting. Maybe some time.

Cryptonomicon got pretty into the weeds on some technical topics, but I enjoyed those parts honestly. I can definitely see it not being for everyone though, and it is quite long.

 

[Womble of Wimbledon]

The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present, by Ronald Hutton, which is waaaaay more academic than I was prepared for. I'm working through it very slowly.

Interesting but overly detailed in many aspects and reads more like an academic paper than a book. It kind of gives the impression that he didn't have enough material for a 250 page book about witches so he veers off into a lot of tangentially related topics and goes into immense detail with all of them.

 

[AnOminous]

Cryptonomicon got pretty into the weeds on some technical topics, but I enjoyed those parts honestly. I can definitely see it not being for everyone though, and it is quite long.

I actually liked its digressions even more than the actual plot, to tell the truth. On that general subject, I should probably re-read Tristram Shandy at some point, a book that is pretty much nothing but digressions.

 

[Panoramic Overton Window]

The new Musk bio by Walter Isaacson just dropped. Should be interesting...

 

[Climaxing Sunset]

American Psycho, which I've procrastinated finishing for a long time. Got to the chapter titled "Approached by Faggot" today and it made me snicker.

I bought the book but I have yet to read it since I’m wrapping up Woken Furies (I’ve been reading on and off)

I do have an itch to read some more sci fi books. Maybe some more Gibson and Card’s books. Or perhaps the Dune Series

 

[Boston Brand]

The City of Marble and Blood by Howard Andrew Jones.

Second book in the new sword and sorcery series, and the first novel, Lord of a Shattered Land, is perhaps the best fantasy novel I've read in a decade.

Second book is just as great, meaning the Hanuvar series has the makings of something really special. Great hero, gripping action, wonderful Roman/Carthaginian setting, and rollarcoaster for plot and excitement. All beautifully written.

If you guys blow off every word I've said about publishing but one, make this the one: BUY THESE BOOKS. There needs to be a hype train for this series, and once you read them, you'll be all aboard too.

 

[Cheesegirl78]

Counting the Cost, by Jill Duggar. Just bought it this morning.
I LOATHE most of the Duggar family, but in the reviews I've read, Jill really rips her parents for protecting sex-pest Josh over their daughters. Rim-Job and Meech are mad that Jill went public with the abuse, and say family stuff should be kept private.
Maybe if those two idiots hadn't made every detail of their families' lives public in the first place I would have a bit of sympathy, but they're nothing but a pair of grifting hypocrites.

 

[AnOminous]

Rim-Job and Meech are mad that Jill went public with the abuse, and say family stuff should be kept private.
Maybe if those two idiots hadn't made every detail of their families' lives public in the first place I would have a bit of sympathy, but they're nothing but a pair of grifting hypocrites.

Also if you cover up child molestation you give up all expectation of privacy forever because you are a menace to the public.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

I’m not sure if there are any Marshall McLuhan fans on Kiwi Farms, but I’m thinking about reading these two books by him next. They seem like two good pieces of literature.

 

[AnOminous]

View attachment 5339491View attachment 5339492

I’m not sure if there are any Marshall McLuhan fans on Kiwi Farms, but I’m thinking about reading these two books by him next. They seem like two good pieces of literature.

They definitely are. I'm somewhat baffled they aren't more well known now that they're more relevant than ever. Or maybe people who know his work just don't bother even mentioning it because despite being virtually drowned in media, people are completely oblivious what it's doing to us or how to understand it.

Twitter is a perfect example of the medium actually being the message. And why that's a bad thing.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

I just got done reading The Faithful Executioner which is a book that I believe someone else in this thread or at least the board recommended. I definitely recommend it too after just finishing it. Looking at the professional history of a man during a city's prime and looking at the morals and ethics involved was fascinating and I'm glad the book captured that in its essence.

 

[BallsMcLongDong]

The TM 31-20. You can really learn some wicked stuff from decommissioned survival manuals.

 

[Vash the Stampede]

Thompson's works are so vivid

 

[skykiii]

I'm halfway through Frank Herbert's The Dosadi Experiment.

I said in the "Classics Worth Reading And Those Not Worth Your time" Topic that I can never tell if Frank Herbert is an absolute genius... or a complete fucking idiot who thinks he's smarter than he is. In a way he's kind of both, as what I've noticed in his books is they sometimes have great insights, but he likes to make absolutely everything sound like its big and deep when a lot of times, it isn't.

The eponymous experiment, for example... I have no idea what the aliens who set it up wanted to learn, and I'm not seeing how it would be so apocalyptic if the Dosadi residents managed to escape. To the best of my understanding (and again, I have yet to finish the book) the eponymous Dosadi Experiment is basically the Stanford Prison Experiment, just on a hell planet, over generations, and the runners of the experiment are actually in contact with leaders via some object that enables telepathic communication and which a lot of the leaders mistake for "talking to God" (though part of the plot is that a few of the Dosadi higher-ups have figured out that isn't the case).

All this is described as if its so profound and like the situation would have great implications (which to be fair one issue brought up is the legal and moral consequences and how it would affect society if it came to light, which is probably the most realistic fear expressed here) but at other times the people running the experiment also describe the Dosadi population itself as so dangerous that if they were to escape confinement the known universe would be fucked... and I'm just not seeing it. For that matter Dosadi is supposed to be a hell planet, but every glimpse of it we get shows it to be just... a place. They even have currency there.

And then there's ideas in the book that just sound weird-for-the-sake-of-weird (and admittedly I realized after reading that this was a sequel to another book called Whipping Star, so some things might've been explained better there). Like there's constant references to "bedogs" and "chairdogs." which some context clues lead me to believe are literally some sort of dogs that also act as either chairs or beds. Just what the hell?

 

[Sergeant Major Buzzkill]

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyvevsky. I don’t completely understand it, but I’m enthralled by it.

 

[JosephStalin]

Just finished West Coast Jazz, by Ted Gioia. Based on reading this book, bought a couple of sets of West Coast jazz CD compilations. Very good. Also bought Art Pepper, major West Coast jazz musician's autobiography, Straight Life. Just started reading that.

Also reading a book about the WWII invasion of Southern France and a history of radio and TV in Kentucky, among other books. Always read a number of books at any one time.

 

[Jewthulhu]

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyvevsky. I don’t completely understand it, but I’m enthralled by it.

It's one of my favorite books.
All you really need to understand from the book is atheism is cringe become Orthodox

Still making my way through "On Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century." Though I have to spend most of my time reading a fuckton of scientific articles on the axon initial segment if that counts.