Metal Reviews

NR: Eat Thy Neighbour: A History Of Cannibalism by Daniel Diehl & Mark R Donnelly. Quite fascinating so far.

Mark Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Should be good.

it is good. i liked it better than Tom Sawyer, but then again they are very different books and admittedly i probably missed most of the humor in TS, not to mention that i read it when i was 20 or something (i think most people read it when they're younger). what i'm trying to say is that it's a fine book

my cousin lent me The Peleponesian War, but i won't start at least until i'm done with exams.

outside school stuff, i picked up "When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management" again. about a hedge fund led by leading academics and bankers, including Nobel Prize winners Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, that had a catastrophic collapse after a few years delivering stunning results.

My favorite Mark Twain book, personally, is The Adventures Of Huck Finn. I find it to be his most witty and all-around most interesting book overall, personally. Especially with its not-so-subtle take on pre-Civil War black slavery.

For another good book with a somewhat similar message, I recommend The Slave Dancer.

I've heard some good things about Doug Adams' books, but I haven't really read any of them yet (although, from what I've gathered, they're similar in style to Terry Pratchett - of whom I'm a fan). May be I'll check one of them out sometime.

Douglas Adams is hilarious, though inconsistent. Read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for sure, and the sequels, though two of the five are pretty bad.

Gene Wolfe- The Urth of the New Sun

I couldn't resist. After hearing so many great things about these books, I decided to buy "The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Ultimate Edition" (which includes all five novels).

so my aunt is coming over from London, and i wanted to take the occasion to ask for a book or two. any recommendations? preferebly something in the style of ASoIaF, i miss those books :(

what do you think of these?
Glen Cook – The Black Company
Hunter S. Thompson - Hells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw
Steve Erikson – The Malazan Book of the Fallen
something by Cormac McCarthy?

I like Malazan and McCarthy, but they are nowhere near the style of ASoIaF. If you want a really good trilogy (it starts off okay, but the second book is very good and third fantastic) that is Martinesque I recommend The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie- the first book is The Blade Itself, the second is Before They Are Hanged, and the last is The Last Argument of Kings.

Another trilogy thats liked by a lot of Martin fans is The Prince of Nothing by R. Scott Bakker- its much denser than ASoIaF, but is similarly based in medieval history (this time the crusades). Be warned, there's a lot of philosophy- but Bakker has his PHD, and its very tastefully and thoughtfully done. The first book is The Darkness That Comes Before, the second is The Warrior Prophet, and the third is The Thousandfold Thought.

You could go for Malazan if you wanted to try something very different, though. I warn you, a lot of people don't like the first book and only get into it in the second, and a lot of people just hate the series. The series is insanely complicated, has a humongous cast of characters, takes place over three continents, and really focuses on magic and plot and battles over characterization. Another thing is that this series is going to be ten books long (there are eight out right now), but that even those ten books won't cover all plot threads and there's going to be another 5 or 6 books written after, which really sucks. So, this series is an investment, but if you're interested, check out Gardens of the Moon, and maybe Deadhouse Gates as well, just to make sure, since it is a much better book.

I wish there was a "thumbs up" system (like on some other forums) to give to useful posts like the above. Thanks Brahm, your advice on books is always important and appreciated.

thanks Brahm.

i think i'm going to ask for The Blade Itself. the Cormac McCarthy books i can buy here.

Glad to hear I'm helping you guys out. Though you may not be so thankful when it turns out that the books I recommend suck.

only book you recommended that i didn't quite like was Dune. i mean, excellent word-building and atmoshphere, but damn i can't stand Frank Herbert's writing. you know, how he doesn't use "and" and only uses commas, like:

He began thumping, waited.

that and when he described the effects of melage "his awareness spectrum started to blur, timelines and linear convexions merging and splitting" and shit like that.

obviously it was still very much worth reading.

Its been a while, but I do remember being slightly annoyed by Herbert's prose. I still think that Dune is fantastic, though, even if its not one of my favourite sci fis, and that it was a real milestone for science fiction.

George RR Martin- Tuf Voyaging (I thought I'd be reading this last week, but I got drunk a lot instead, and then Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun came in the mail).

I just read Mao - The Untold Story, an incredible book, makes Hitler look like Gandhi.

Started The Hades Factor by Robert Ludlum. Meh, nothing groundbreaking, another thriller where the main character always evades death by an inch/is indestructible who has to stop a virus which is incurable and the release of which is masterminded by a shady character in high places.

Yeah I have been reading quite a lot about Mao recently too.... I am reading Wild Swans (by the same author as the Unknown Story I think- Jung Chang) What a nut... She talks about how during the famine in the early 1960s Mao told every family to go out every day and beat pans under trees to scare sparrows away... so the sparrows wouldn't have anywhere to sleep and so would die of exhaustion. This is because the sparrows were eating a lot of grain in the fields.

GET A SCARECROW YOU FUCKING PSYCHO

I also just got "Zizek Presents Mao", which is actually a selection of Mao's own writings on politics. Should be quite interesting to read.

Just finished Twain's A Connecticut Yankee and am now reading Consumed by Benjamin Barber which is about how the consumerist market infantilizes consumers and corrupts democracy.

JPod, by Douglas Coupland

how is that? i read Hey Nostradamus a couple years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it

Not bad so far, will post more when I've gotten further with it.