Baen, it turns out, is also offering a free library of books on its website. Some of them look awful, but there are some science fiction gems there and plenty of things to read if you're looking for a break from thinking too hard.

The title 'Berserker Throne' intrigues me, as does 'Sheepfarmer's Daughter', though I doubt the latter is actually about what I imagine it to be about.

Cool. It even has them in the correct format for my reader.

Perhaps you could point out some gems though Jennie: I'm conflicted between 'Ethel the Space Pirate's Daughter' and 'Fiddler Fair'.

Sheepfarmer's Daughter, although not what you perhaps wish it was about, is an excellent book. Fiddler's Fair is a collection of short stories (if I remember correctly) set in the same universe as "The Lark and the Wren" which is actually fun and also available. David Drake and Eric Flint can be fun, and I thought they had a Glen Cook on there (he is great...), but it appears to be gone.
More free books are at: http://manybooks.net/
and
http://www.feedbooks.com/.
I have been downloading them onto my XO and pretending I own an e-book reader. So far, it has been working well.

Given that I referenced this thread from 'Best of the web', I should probably have quick chat about Charlie Brooker's Dawn Of The Dumb.

For those of you who don't know, Brooker is responsible for the genius that is Screenwipe on BBC2 (think TV Burp, but more angry).

He also writes for the Grauniad - about television mostly. These articles basically involve Brooker spewing bile at whichever cretins are currently hogging our television screens. The book is a compendium of these articles from 2005 onwards, and very funny it is too. Here he is on Alan Sugar in The Apprentice:

'Looking eerily similar to Jon Culshaw impersonating Russell Crowe, he neters wearing the face of a man who's just stubbed his toe on the gravestone of a close relative, and continues to grumble and bark his way through the rest of the show. Even his introductory greeting is downbeat.There's not so much as a handshake. Instead, he glares at the line of hopefuls like they're a group of work experience kids who've just trodden dogshit into the boardroom carpet.'

The book is recommended, but if you can't be bothered to buy, then go here for his Guardian articles.

So read his latest article on Obama's inaugeration:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...ma-inauguration

Quite funny.

...but could someone please explain where the hell the last paragraph came from?

Yeah, I couldn't work that one out either. Oh well.

The inauguration one wasn't one of his best. Try the one on the new series of 24 instead. He's much better when talking about TV shows.

Screenwipe is most enjoyable. I couldn't help reading the article in Charlie Brooker's voice. A most unusual experience.

Just thought I'd say that Jennie was right about Sheepfarmer's Daughter; it was most fun. Very obviously the first book of a series though; it sort of leaves the heroine at a point where she hasn't yet conquered the world which is most unusual for a fantasy novel. I did like the fact that she concentrated on the work of becoming a good soldier rather than finding some armour that turns a character into some human/elf hybrid who can cut swathes through the enemy. I am however a little worried that I might actually have to pay to read the concluding parts of the story...

Also recently read The Dreaming Void by Peter F Hamilton, an author who's work I've so far avoided as all his books are HUGE. However he is a constant presence in the sci-fi section so I thought I'd give him a go in paperback, got bored of carting a LotR-sized lump around and downloaded it instead. I'm glad I did as it was an enjoyable read, full of techy stuff I didn't understand and he didn't bother to explain (this is a good thing IMO), but let you decifer through the story or possibly past experience. Good enough for me to want to know how the story goes (unbelievably, it's a trilogy); I've got the next from the library.
Strangely enough Iain M Banks's last, Matter, was about as long but could have done with trimming down. Perhaps Banks got a bit carried away with his world; his plot to environment ratio was not high enough; Hamilton has it about right I think. That's not to say Matter is bad of course...

Bill Bryson's Shakespeare

Tells us in this tome of an hour and a half's worth of reading that we know very little about the bard. But Bryson's undulating wit, wry humour and easy going tone make this a fun albeit a bit of a nerdy journey through the instances around Willy's life and Elizabethan England. Loads of random facts to be gleaned from this one, it's definitely worth a read.

I'm also reading Zen (tad old and boring but nice for the descriptions of American landscape and um motorcycle philosophy) and India Unbound by Gurcharan Das. Essentially Ill report back next year when I'm half way through those.

xx

On the subject of Banks, any M. Banks fans may well enjoy this (I did):

http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~stefan/culture.html

which I came across quite randomly the other day, and if you can get past the incredibly poor typography and layout - making reading nigh on impossible - it's quite interesting. Particularly the bit about infra/ultraspace and the energy grid which Banks seems to relish the implausibility of.

EDIT (@13:24)::

I got fed up, looking at this again at lunchtime, so here's a slightly nicer formatting of the text.

http://thechriswalker.net/culture.html

The guy who just won the Newbery, Neil Gaiman (who has also done many other cool things, obviously), also has a movie of a different book of his coming out. Coraline is a great book in its own right, but the movie is being made by the same people that did "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and includes Daily Show "know it all" John Hodgman as some of the vocal talent.
His blog entry about it is here, and it includes the trailer.
Good stuff.
(I thought about posting this in the website or film category and then decided, ehh, it started with a book.)

I've been looking forward to this since last year when I first saw it on his blog; looks top-notch and will be in 3D in my cinema. It's a good book too. I got the graveyard Book for Chrimbo and am looking forward to readng it. I also heartily reccomend Neverwhere.

PS Very posh Tart. That article is v interesting (I think I posted that link some time ago, but yours is better).

About 13:33 on the 11th December 2003, so over 5 years. I think it might be worht re-reading again in another 5 years too...

Blimey; don't time fly when you waste it on the interweb?

Sorry to bang on about Charlie Brooker, but his article a couple of years ago on why he hates Macs is genius.

This post is probably also in the wrong thread, so further apologies for that.

Harking back to the Wheel of Time discussion, and the final book. I'm now annoyed as I have finished listening to the audio books of the other 11. It obviously didn't take long enough, as now I have to wait... balls.

Can anyone recommend anything suitably epic that I could listen to in the mean time? (Pete, I already have the ringworld trilogy).

Hmmmm.... Have you heard the Ender's series? It's done by Digital Renaissance, and it's incredible. If you want something new... I am loving "The Night Sessions" by MacLeod--it won some prize, so I'm sure there is an audio book about. Or anything by Neil Gaiman.

If you wanted to READ something good (much better than Jordan!) try the PC Hodgell books. They are available as an e-book from Baen if you don't want to cart around the large paperbacks.

I have read two Peter F Hamilton books so far (in the ...Void trilogy) and he seems to be worth a go; huge, swirling space opera stuff. I'm not sure if I'd buy them but worth 'getting out of the library'. I'd probably go for a trilogy he's finished such as the one that starts with Pandora Star.

Terry Pratchett must be worth a punt? Christopher Brookmyre?

I don't know if these can be found mind you...

Thank you both, that's given me plenty to investigate. I actually have quite a pile of stuff to read at the moment, but I need audiobooks for commuting purposes. In that respect the bigger and less complicated (it's often early in the morning...) the better - hence the Jordan stuff was great and has lasted me over 6 months.

More free books. Now from Random House. Red Mars is excellent.

'His Majesty's Dragon', despite being lumbered with a pretty poncy American title (it's called Temeraire in the UK), is also a good read. The Napoleonic wars but with dragons. Nuff said really.

The iphone app stanza is a free ereader for ipod touch/iphone and lets you download stuff from loads of places including project gutenberg for all your free classic book needs.

I have the chance through a website I write reviews for (bookgeeks) to pass some interview questions on to Raymond Feist. If you have any suggestions or something you would like answered, let me know.

As a side note, I also recently read "His Majesty's Dragon" by Naomi Novik and really enjoyed it. It's FREE right now if you have the stanza program on your iPhone.

The Call of The Weird by Louis Theroux

'Full of original insights' says The Grauniad. More like 'a pretty boring journey with Louis Theroux as he rambles across the American frontier searching for the weirdos and rejects of society that he interviewed on a previous and more enjoyable TV documentary, some years ago'. I've persisted with this book cos' it's a light read and does throw up the odd interesting insight, but otherwise, this is the kind of curled-up waiting room tome that turns your brains to mush. Read if you're in a waiting room and faced with this or The Guardian to flip through.

This post passed me by somehow: That's very cool Jennie; perhaps you could ask about the film rights to his stories - though I'm not sure I'd actually want to see Magician on the big screen as they'd probably have to lose most of the politics that informs and drives the whole conflict...

On that note; does anyone else feel that (with the notable exception of the Daughter/ Servant / Mistress of the Empire series) after Magician he sort of gave up on the complexities of his world and started writing rip-roaring fantasy yarns with little depth but plenty of fun and action? It's not that I think they're bad, I enjoy them all muchly, I just wouldn't bother to have them on my shelves without the depth of character of his first novel. I wondered at the change, but figured that the simple stuff sells and he can whip them out without too much trouble...

You should ping Danny for questions though - he's a Feistian fan.

Anyway I'd definitely recommend the next Temeraire novel Throne of Jade but, while I quite enjoyed reading the rest, I think the law of diminishing returns starts to really kick in - there have been five Temeraire novels since 2005. I think Naomi Novik should take a little more time over the rest (apparently there's a definite end that would ideally come in the 9th novel).

Seeing as I have not contributed to this thread for a while:

Reading a book by an author named David Sedaris at the mo: 'When you are engulfed in flames'

He writes collections of auto-biographical essays. Very funny, I can recommend highly.

Anyone read any? Jennie?

I love David Sedaris. Try, if you can, to get a hold of him doing readings of his stuff: comedy gold.
My favourite is "Holidays on Ice"--it contains what must be the funniest description of what life is like for Santa's department store elves to be found anywhere.

As an aside, I managed to get my hands on Brookmyre's "Snowball in Hell": good stuff--typical Brookmyre.

Yeah I enjoyed Snowball but felt it was a little lazy - even the bad guy was from another book this time. I felt Simon Darcourt should have been left to Mellow Doubt (the short story included almost verbatim in the book as a chapter) and Angelique and Zal could have dealt with some other sinister menace. I appreciate Brookmyre's attempt to widen his MO but I kind of miss the sense of a huge conspiracy that turns out to be the work of complete muppets...

Yes, I wrote that in my review as well. I thought it really missed out on the chance for a few complete fools with Glaswegian accents. Is the rubber duck one better?

Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks is more like a whodunnit really. I enjoyed it but felt that it never really reached full speed; there's no improvised rope or flying arms in this one. There are some nice motivations but they only really become clear in the last few pages. Still it's worth a read - it's just not quite up to his early standards. I think he's more comfortable in Parlabane's head but the happenings in Snowball capture the imagination more readily.

I'll bring Rubber Ducks up with me if you'd like - I thought it was only Snowball you were after.

I recently came across a criticism of ebook readers relating to the fact that when reading on an electronic reader you don't know how far through the book you are.

King: is this true?

No: it tells you that you're on page x of y.

Admittedly this might make it harder to judge how far you have to read than comparing the thickness of paper on the right with that on the left, but if it's really a problem you probably should stick to Dan Brown and Spot the Dog.

I found that I really missed the tactile sensation of knowing where I was. It was especially weird as I approached the last third of a book because I had a difficult time "not knowing" how far away from the end I might be. Being told where you were just didn't feel the same to me, and, at least on the iPhone, you have to stop reading for a moment to check--instead of just knowing by feel/visual clues.

I was surprised at how I reacted, actually, but I apparently am quite aware of where I am in terms of pages while I read.

Aye, I'll do that then.

OK so I was being a tad flippant; it does make a bit of a difference; it's just one of the small, comforting touches that an ebook can't really replicate at the moment - I certainly prefer reading an actual book but don't have any real problem with reading an intangible version.

I can't see books being replaced in the near future, but I think it's just great for portable reading: Just as an iPod is more convenient to carry around than the LSO, even though it can't quite replicate the full effect. When retailers can get their head out their holes and make the files a reasonable price I think they'll take off. At the moment I'd say they're too expensive unless you're happy reading Dickens, Hardy and Doyle.

BTW Waterstones.co.uk has a link to a survey about ebooks. If you're interested you could fill it out and mention the expense a lot.

Maybe the next ebook reader will come with a tiny pneumatic pump that pushes air from one side of the reader to the other in accordance with how far through the book you are. Wouldn't be hard.

I reckon they could even make one with a 'page turn' effect that lets you perform this action. It would consist of two slides with a screen on each. You'd turn the page and the one you just read would then slip behind the second slide (and pre-load the next page).

Pedro, Marno - prototypes please!

Mr Toppit is a story told mainly though the eyes of fictional Christopher Robin analogue Luke Hayman. His father's quintuplet of children's books, The Hayseed Chronicles, centred on the adventures of a young boy named Luke Hayseed who has many a run-in with the mysterious and always elusive Mr Toppit; who remains no more than a malign presence thoughout the books. After his father died, the books gained immense popularity, mainly due to the efforts of an American hospital radio DJ who happened to be present when Arthur Hayman was run over by a truck. Their popularity leads to attention for Luke, supposed subject of the books, and a mixture of wealth and trouble for the rest of the family and various hangers-on. That's about it; the narrative skips between characters and timescales, telling of the various happenings leading up to a rather minor little twist. The characters themselves mainly have little to reccommend them; Luke is reserved always watching, never really taking part in his own life, loathing his inability to escape his book-bound analogue, his mother Martha is typically eccentric - seemingly absent-minded, always self-centred ready to twist every gathering around her, his sister Rachel is his mother in miniature but with added drugs and torment at being excluded from her father's books and Laurie (the American connection) is a sort of Rikki Lake with her own batty mother, a missing daddy complex and an obsession with the Chronicles.

In the end none of the characters or their stories grabbed me in the slightest. In fact I would much rather have read The Hayseed Chronicles themselves as they are made to sound interesting. Unlike this book.

It rather makes me wonder if literary fiction is wasted on me...

Ahem. Well. Books I have read recently that were fun:

Johannes Cabal: Necromancer. A new take on the old "man sells his soul to the Devil" story. I liked Johannes: he is, I believe, one of the few "tetchy" necromancers in all of fiction. Even more fun if you have read Faust and/or Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes". (The Bradbury is wonderful in its own right, as well.)

The Epicure's Lament: another crotchety main character. This one is a man who is determined not give up his smoking/drinking/womanising even if it will certainly kill him. Fun if you also enjoy food-oriented asides (there's a lot of them, but they are short).

Christopher Moore: Fool. He rewrote "King Lear". Adding a number of curse words and making it more intelligible. I also, personally, prefer his Cordelia.

Also, if you haven't looked at librarything lately, they have added some cool stuff (collections, more ways to organize books).

Johannes Cabal sounded interesting; I'll check it out. Currently waiting for the library to get the first Nicholas Flamel book in for me.

Excellent, excellent. We're lucky enough to be heading down to Dartmouth at the end of the week. Bring my books?

Sure thing boss.

I quite enjoyed the Wild Cards book - very interesting ideas with a surprisingly unified voice. I didn't really get on with Seeing Redd; it had the same flaws as the first book...

I will admit to being pleasantly surprised by the Wild Cards book as well. I got it as a review copy and was a little hesitant at the whole "Big Brother" w/ superpowers! idea, but it really worked.

White Tiger

Coff. As I'm still holding onto my 90s angst of hating things that are popular, I've read this book suitably late. And its fucking brilliant. Dark, incisive and as an intelligent portrayal of Indian life as it is today, this book gives you a scatchingly truthful account of the divisions between rich and poor and well, 'men with small bellies and large bellies'. It had me in splits from the get go too. I know people like the narrator of this book and I got all the inside jokes by virtue of being from the curry continent. Did anyone else read this? How did it grab you?

4.5/5

What does this mean? All I can think of is old woollen undies ... I.E 'My Undies are SCATCHINGLY uncomfortable' Or 'My Undies are so bloody SCATCHY my butt is raw'.

Yes - you've got it in one. A cross between scratchy, scathing and achy like one might have been housed in a burlap sack and beaten with a stick by Scatman John. Not nice in any sense of the word.

My holiday reading has put me in the reviewing mood, so here goes.

Devil May Care - Sebastian Faulks
Goldfinger - Ian Fleming

I'll talk about these two together for obvious reasons. I bought the Faulks one a while ago and recently decided to buy Goldfinger firstly to have something to compare it two and secondly because, believe it or not, I'd read none of the Bond novels previously.

Goldfinger is great fun. If you've seen the film (and who hasn't?) then there is no tension as it's pretty faithful to the book and therefore there are no surprises really. The enjoyment comes from the situations that Bond finds himself in, particularly the meeting that Goldfinger sets up with America's greatest gang leaders (Pussy Galore included).

With Devil May Care, Faulks does a more than serviceable imitation of Ian Fleming. I recognised the Bond as the same one who battles Goldfinger and implausibly turns Pussy Galore into a heterosexual. The villain (Dr Julius Gormer, complete with the hand of a monkey) is a pretty good one. The plot is a little weak (drug-smuggling, with a bit of Russian involvement) and some of the set pieces borrow heavily from Goldfinger it seems to me. For instance the game of golf in which Goldfinger cheats is mirrored by a game of tennis in which Gormer cheats. Aside from this and the unnecessary twist at the end it's a good read.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

I'm not sure I even need to review this one. It's Pride and Prejudice with 'all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem'.

This is genius and I have a feeling that every classic may have to be rewritten in a similar way. I will not say anything more but I'll give you a couple of questions from the 'Reader's Discussion Guide' at the end of the book to give you a taste of what the book is like:

Is Mr Collins merely too fat and stupid to notice his wife's gradual transformation into a zombie, or could there be another explanation for his failure to acknowledge that problem?

Some critics have suggested that the zombies represent the authors' views toward marriage - an endless curse that sucks the life out of you and just won't die. Do you agree , or do you have another opinion about the symbolism of the unmentionables?

Vomit plays an important role in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Mrs Bennet frequently vomits when she's nervous, coachmen vomit in disgust when they witness zombies feasting on corpses, even the steady Elizabeth can't help but vomit at the sight of Charlotte lapping up her own bloody pus. Do the authors mean for this regurgitation to symbolize something greater or is it a cheap device to get laughs?

The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde

Many of you have read this already I imagine and therefore I will just say that it's awesome.

No One Left To Lie To (The Values Of The Worst Family) - Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens demolishes the Clintons. Entertaining and leaves you amazed that they've been allowed to get away with so much. It seems that the media just gave up on investigating their various unethical shenanigans once Bill got towards the end of his second term.

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Can't believe it has taken me so long to get round to reading this one. Sheer class - I'll be reading a lot more of his.

Lost City - Clive Cussler

Pretty standard holiday reading this one. Requires not a lot in the way of brain engagement, but rolls along entertainingly for the duration.

The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown

Dan Brown returns to apply his usual schtick to the Freemasons. It's predictably ludicrous and just as episodic as all his other books. Not quite as fun as The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons but you'll rattle through it in no time at all.

I believe that "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" is coming out this October. Somewhere on the web, there is a video trailer for it that is hysterical.

I must get round to those ...zombies looks funny as.

In regards to Neil Gaiman, I would have hit you over the head with his books much earlier but I assumed everyone had been exposed to the genius...Neverwhere is still my favourite but all of his are worthwhile. His collection of short stories Fragile Things contains the best shorts I have ever read. This includes A study in emerald which mixes HP Lovecraft wit Sherlock Holmes. Brilliant

I shall also check out some Bond at some point.

I've just finished the second 'Alchemist' book by Michael Scott and although I really like the ideas and world created I'm not really sure I care for the characters a whole bunch...bit of a flaw really.

By the way Margaret Atwood has released a book set at the same time as Oryx and Crake dealing with different people in the same world called The year of the Flood. I thought Tart might be interested.

Heavier Than Heaven

This biography on Kurt Cobain is stifling, amusing, sad and brilliant in so many ways, its almost worth the inevitable depression for a day or two after you've read it. The guy has taken 4 years to retrace things such as the temperature on some days to what Kurt was wearing and even the remembered inflection of sentences. For all its detail it is not boring. I have been listening to Nevermind like a proper fanboy since then and man - I can see the light. Check it out.

Boy
As far as Roald Dahl goes, I wish I were him. Boy made me laugh so hard again, it was almost embarrassing. I've also been rereading his collected short stories too. I want to be this man. Renaissance dude if ever there was one.

Hell's Angels - Hunter S
Tedious and repetitive, I was expecting quite a lot more of the hell raising that comes with the Hunter S label. Sadly in close to half the novel, there's more detail on the actual highway bound scallywags than there is escapades of hilarity and mayhem.

Terry Pratchett - The novel about Death and all that
I can't believe I've taken so long to get to this dude. Genius all over, this is like reading Monty Python and Tolkien doing a joint acid trip. Joy of joys.

What's a good opening novel for Neil Gaiman? - I hear too much about him to have missed out.

Yes! I too am currently reading the collected short stories and they are the nuts.



I will defer to King on this if he contradicts me, but Neverwhere was my first and so far only Neil Gaiman read and I found it easily good enough to persuade me to read more of him in the future. Seems as good a starting point as any.