Whats everyone reading?

[Mardroid]

I registered at my local library in Dartford yesterday, and I borrowed three books.(I just moved I to the area in November. )

The three books are:
1356 by Bernard Cornwell. (This is the latest book in the series concerning the archer. I've read the original trilogy, but this one somehow passed me by, although I do remember seeing it advertised a while back.)

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

I've started with Equal Rites, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it so. An elderly wizard about to die passes on his staff to a newborn successor the eighth son of an eighth son. (That's special for some reason.) Except it turns out, this eighth son was not a son at all...

I've got to the bit where [spoiler]Granny Weatherwax (probably one of my favourite Discworld characters has taken young Esk under her wing to teach her the Witch Craft... (Which isn't the same thing as wizardry in this world.)[/spoiler]

[ming]

I'm getting stuck into Terminal World By Alastair Reynolds - so far, so good!  Anyone able to recommend anything more along these lines?

Revelation Space is a corker (kind of half way between the fetishistic science of Baxter and the emotional coolness of Iain M Banks) and the series, despite being diminishing returns, rarely dipped below "good" weighed less than half a ton.

FTFY.

I actually did enjoy Revelation Space but was put off the follow ups by the sheer size. Mr Back is, as ever, spot on with his short story recommendations.

I've read Dan Simmons' Hyperion Saga mega-tomes so I'm never put off by mere girth.

[I, Cosh]

I've read Dan Simmons' Hyperion Saga mega-tomes so I'm never put off by mere girth.

Ha! Me too. More than once and those last two could use some serious editing.

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Thanks for the recommendations, folks - I'll add those to the teetering pile of wordy terror that I aim to work my way through this year.

Terminal World is one of Stevie's absolute favourites of Reynold's oeuvre . Would be mighty interested to know if [spoiler]you can guess which planet the book is set on[/spoiler]  Ming.

The Revelation Space trilogy are the fan favourites but personally  Stevie thinks that they are more "promising books by a beginning novelist which wouldn't go amiss with a spot of pruning" & much prefers the singletons.

You really can't go wrong with either Chasm City, Century Rain, Pushing Tin, House of Suns or the superb The Harvest of Time.

Have his latest, Revenger, sitting near the top of the To Read Pile. Stay tuned.

[Mardroid]

I thoroughly enjoyed Equal Rites. I do find that some Terry Pratchett novels tend to end in a similar way, though,  but the journey there was still highly enjoyable.

I'm reading Carpe Jugulum now. On starting it, I realise I have read it before, (I'm not good at remembering the titles of novels) but it long enough that it should still feel fairly fresh. That's one of the good things about having memory like a sieve.

[The Adventurer]

Equal Rites is good, but one of Pratchett's early weaker works (Personally I don't think he fully hit his stride until Mort). He takes the same idea and jumps it up about a million percent in the Wee Free Men sequence of young adult books.

[Tjm86]

I'd second that.  From Mort on he shifted from satirising fantasy literature to satirising real life for my money.  I would compare him to Charles Dickens in the way that he puts up a lens to society, just with more wit and verve.  He had an unerring knack for seeing how people distort reality based on their world view and then showing how ridiculous it actually was.  The Tiffany Aching books (lets face it, they're more about her than WFM) were definitely some of his finest fiction.  <sigh>

[Mardroid]

I've read at least a couple of the Tiffany Aching books. Yes, I enjoyed those a lot, and it was one of those I was thinking of concerning the [spoiler]similar ending [/spoiler]in Equal Rites.

[Theblazeuk]

I think the only Discworld books I haven't thoroughly enjoyed were Unseen Academicals and Snuff, but both were still enjoyable books.

Damn, getting all maudlin again looking over his bibliography.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

I'm rattling through Reamde by Neal Stephenson. It's good but a closer to a vanilla thriller than I expected.

[Mardroid]

Just finished Carpe Jugulum. Yes, that was a good 'un.

[Pegasus P Artichoke]

Just finished reading Gyo the death stench creeps by Junji Ito

Absolutely brilliant, I'd heard about his work before and this is the first piece of his  I have read and I really enjoyed it

The story is excellent, I like it when horror isn't fully explained, suffice to say it all starts off with rotting fish walking on to a Japanese Island. To say anything more about the plot would spoil it but i found it to be a real page turner

The art matches the story perfectly with everything looking bleak and bizarre, slightly off somehow but that suits it well.

The edition I have has got two short stories afterwards one called The Sad Tale Of The Principal Post which is alright but the second one The Enigma Of Amigara Fault is fantastic and is so well done that I think it's worth the price of the book alone (however I didn't pay cover price as I picked mine up at the Glasgow Comic Con last year so that might not be how everyone will see it)

If you enjoy your manga with a good dose of horror then I would fully recommend this

Going to try and track a few more of his stuff down now

[ming]

Terminal World is one of Stevie's absolute favourites of Reynold's oeuvre . Would be mighty interested to know if [spoiler]you can guess which planet the book is set on[/spoiler]  Ming.

Well, within the first couple of hundred pages there are at least two references to [spoiler]the planet being Earth[/spoiler] and now I'm at the point where [spoiler]swarm reaches Spearpoint 2, having spotted lots of trashed flying machines bearing (presumably) Chinese flag symbols[/spoiler].  So, I'm guessing it's [spoiler]Earth![/spoiler].  Great book - definitely following up with those suggested.

[Theblazeuk]

Just finished reading Gyo the death stench creeps by Junji Ito

If you enjoy your manga with a good dose of horror then I would fully recommend this

Going to try and track a few more of his stuff down now

I got a collection of his stuff from the Comic Con last year and wow, creepy, creepy stuff. This was one I read a long time ago and it's real good: http://imgur.com/a/Wht7z The Enigma of Amigara Fault

[Dark Jimbo]

Funny that there should be a lot of Discworld mentions recently. I've started re-reading the series since the summer - devoured quite a few in my early teens up to Interesting Times before drifting away; it's nice having both the comfort of returning to long-lost friends and the thrill of so much new stuff lying ahead of me.

Currently on Pyramids, which I gave a miss last time round. What a mistake that was! Loving it so far. Not hugely funny, but a cracking read eliciting lots of wry smiles, and it's now embarking on really interesting time-twisty space-time shenanigans. Like Wyrd Sisters before it, it's a breath of fresh air at this point in the series not to be reading about Rincewind and the wizards of UU (massively overused in the first five books!)