- What book is currently on your nightstand?
- Who is the author?
- What genre?
- How do you like it?
- Would you recommend it to others?
I’m juggling a couple.
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. Historical fantasy / horror about a fallen knight crossing a plague ridden France in what feels like the apocalypse, and dealing with demonic entities that mar his path. Really evocative descriptions and concise prose. It feels a bit like Berserk: a novel.
The Way Inn by Will Wiles. A professional convention surrogate is attending a convention for convention organizers, when he becomes trapped in an endless fractal of nondescript corporate mediocrity. Not sure how this one will end up yet, so far it’s a delightful satire with a really dry wit.
Currently reading The Haunted Forest Tour by James A Moore. The premise is a safari thru a forest filled with horror creatures that goes wrong, and I am LOVING it so far! I’m still pretty early into it, but so far so good. After this, I think I’ll go back to another Agatha Christie whodunnit
Currently reading Wool by Hugh Howey. It’s the book that Silo is based on so I was hoping to see how close it is to the show and also read farther than the show got to since season 1 just ended. It’s in the scifi dystopian genre. I would recommend it yes@McBinary@kbin.social
I put the Stormlight Archive 1-3 (as one book on kindle) onto my reader and after a solid week of camping with at least a few hours a day it says I’m 16% of the way in. Holy F this is long. I check goodreads and it says 3800 pages.
It’s compelling, though. There are times when I want to know what’s going on in another arc and they take a little while to get there, but from a character receiving ethics lessons while contemplating betraying the teacher to a powerful lord contemplating whether he’s receiving divine guidance or going insane, I never quite know what anyone is going to do. The cultures are weird (though you can see parts inspired by various cultures around the world and historically), and the magic is building out nicely.
I’m a huge fan of Sanderson, especially his Stormlight Archive books. I’ve read them all and am going back piece by piece to re-read them.
I’m really enjoying it. It’s just a touch too much for me to follow at my typical 2x speed audiobook rate, so I’m reading it as an ebook instead and I have a lot less time I can read that way. It’s going to take me a fucking while to get through. But of the characters we’ve seen depth with so far, I really can identify with a lot of them. Maybe not Sadeas (I can “see”, but also not), but Kaladin, Dalinar, Adolin, Jasnah, Shallan, I can see where they’re all coming from and why they see the choices they do.
Also I really want to play a video game as whatever Szeth is called. It would be tough to execute but it could be really fun.
I’m currently reading Dune by Frank Herbert. I tried to read it once when I was in my early teens and didn’t finish, but I figured I’d give it another go with all the hype over the recent TV adaptation. I’ve just passed the point where I gave up before (~150 pages) and I’m kicking myself, because it turns out I stopped just short of where all the action seems to really get going. The book is front-loaded with a lot of worldbuilding by way of sci-fi/fantasy terms presented without much context, so I can understand why my younger self got bored and gave up. I’m really enjoying it this time around though, I think I’m a lot more patient as a reader now than I used to be.
Oh, power through for sure! Dune is one of my all-time favorites. When you’re finished with the book, be sure to stop over at the wiki and read about the lore. The lore is deep in Dune and not a lot of it makes it into the movies and doesn’t shrine through in the first book. Especially check out lore on the various factions.
The Bene Gesserit for instance seem like a cult of witches at first read, but they are much, much, more with a 10,000+ year history of eugenics.
I am also reading through dune right now, I’m enjoying it so far. I was fine with the world building, partly because I really liked the sets in the movie and also because I found it novel compared to the very generic space faring stuff or Tolkien rip-off you get as a backdrop in sci-fi and fantasy respectively.
I’m also really enjoying a lot of the environmental musings in the book, after I finish it I will look up more about Frank Herbert’s relation to these topics, I get the feeling there’s something about it.
This is a pretty interesting article that talks about a story that Herbert worked on as a journalist that ties in directly to some of the ecological concepts covered in Dune: https://niche-canada.org/2020/04/24/frank-herberts-ecology-and-the-science-of-soil-conservation/