Book recommendations

Grunts, by Mary Gentle
This is a darkly humorous fantasy tale about a bunch of orcs who discover a cache of 'magic items' which consists of modern day wargear. The wargear influences the orcs who become marines. I've not read it in a long time but would highly recommend it. Jeff, I bet you'd love this.

This sounds absolutely amazing and I plan on reading it.... just after I am finished with this semester and the thousands of books and articles I still need to read.

With the end of the semester in sight, I am anxious to get to reading for recreation again. I just came across this and am dying to read it; someone on Reddit said it was their favorite 40k book ever and it is a fan fiction. That is pretty impressive.

It takes place hundreds of years in the future of GW lore where the Tau have taken over much of the galaxy. So, yes, it is a Tau fanboy's dream novel, but apparently it takes place from the point of view of an Astartes Chaplain who has awoken from stasis. Or so I think.

Anyways, someone was kind enough to put it all on a PDF file. Check it out!

https://www.pdf-archive.com/2015/05/22/rottfull/rottfull.pdfpl

Grunts is so great.

I'd suggest Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward; it's the story of more advanced humans who went to study a neutron star, wherein they found life. You follow the story of both the scientists and the newfound life.

I've heard great things about the Exiles Trilogy by Melanie Rawn, fantasy series about a revolution, with magic and shit.

Ive said it a thousand time, Starship troopers, Robert Klein.
I must've read it 2 or 3 times now.

Would you like to know more?

Heinlen’s Starship Troopers is a great novel. I read it when I was twenty; as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to disagree with the idea of a “good” fascist society, however. So, Heinlen may have been something of a weirdo. Even still, badass book.

On that note, if anyone is on instagram please follow my new account: pintsandprecis

I’m using it to talk about beer and books. I figured since grad school has driven me to new lengths of reading, and subsequently drinking, I might as well share that with the world.

Cheers, all.

Sent from Topic'it App

I've just ordered myself a copy of Starship Troopers, should get it in a few days. I shall report back once I've read it.

Jeff, read Grunts!

Gift it to my kindle! Merry Christmas, me!

Speaking of which.... we should do a gift exchange here.

Iron and Metal wrote:

Gift it to my kindle! Merry Christmas, me!

Speaking of which.... we should do a gift exchange here.

We'll see if I get you in secret santa...

Will try to read Grunts at some point as well as Starship Troopers. In regards to Starship Troopers I never got the impression, at least from the movie and what I've read about the book, that it was an argument for a "good" fascist society but rather how easily it could be to slip into fascism and stay there.

As for my own reading recommendations I can't strongly enough recommend the historical fiction written by Mary Renault. I've been starting out with her "Last of the Wine" and "Mask of Apollo" and they are very, very well written and interesting.

I recommend checking out Heinlen's other works as well like The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land. Very different from Starship Troopers and shows Heinlen's thinking wasn't all just fascist based.

Here's my list of recommendations.

Neuromancer & Altered Carbon: Great cyberpunk books. Both are gritty, violent, and have some very interesting ideas.

GFL Series by Scott Sigler: Does anyone here like football (and no I don't mean soccer)? Do you like sci-fi (duh)? Well this brings the two together and you basically get football being played with humans and aliens. Football not really your thing? I would still recommend it.

World War Z: I've re-read this book about three times now. Great take on zombie fiction that treats it with seriousness and has this awesome patchwork feel as you hear stories from the survivors and get hints on the changed world.

If anyone's a fan of horror/dark fantasy I would highly recommend Clive Barker, especially his books of blood. Some of the best genre fiction I've read in a long time.

I don't read much fantasy, but I'm a huge fan of A Wizard of Earthsea (mainly the first one, but they're all good). I find it very relaxing to read, probably because the prose is simple yet elegant. Feels full of timeless wisdom. I read it as an interesting allegory about depression, which hits home for me.

Le Guin also writes some amazing sci-fi - The Dispossessed is a super cool breakdown of how a Spanish anarchist style society would work, and contrasts it pretty evenly with capitalism through an intriguing story about a physicist traveling between both.

I was also blown away reading Lovecraft Country earlier this year. It's a short story cycle about a black family and their friends facing down cults, ghosts, aliens and other classic weird fiction monsters, but in the Jim crow south. So you see the protagonists dealing with horrors straight out of lovecraft...along with the very real horrors of racism from people like Lovecraft. Super interesting, entertaining, funny, and affecting. Reminded me a lot of Get Out, and I hear Jordan Peele is making an HBO series based on it.

I also read the forever war this year and loved it. What a cool concept and story - really makes you think about how fucked up Vietnam was, and the way it messes with time is very intriguing.

And everything Philip K. Dick. Because PKD.

Second the WWZ suggestion!

Stranger in a strange land has been on my shelf for the longest time. I plan to check it out soon, maybe after I finish The Stand...but that'll be a while lol.

Solodice wrote:

I recommend checking out Heinlen's other works as well like The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land. Very different from Starship Troopers and shows Heinlen's thinking wasn't all just fascist based.

I don't think it is as easy as saying Heinlen is a fascist - only that that book was very much in that line. But alas, that is only one book. I have been wanting to read both of the books you mentioned for a long, long time and have never gotten around to it. I am thinking it is time.

Solodice wrote:

Neuromancer & Altered Carbon: Great cyberpunk books. Both are gritty, violent, and have some very interesting ideas.

These sound awesome. Do they go together or are they completely separate books?

Solodice wrote:

World War Z: I've re-read this book about three times now. Great take on zombie fiction that treats it with seriousness and has this awesome patchwork feel as you hear stories from the survivors and get hints on the changed world.

Hands down, World War Z is my favorite zombie novel and one of my favorite novels period. The way the book is written and organized, very low key tying into one another, is just next-level.

Iron and Metal wrote:

Solodice wrote:

Neuromancer & Altered Carbon: Great cyberpunk books. Both are gritty, violent, and have some very interesting ideas.

These sound awesome. Do they go together or are they completely separate books?

Two different authors. Neuromancer is by William Gibson and is one of the most well known cyberpunk novels out there. This book was influential to the point it that it coined the term cyberspace. Some of it's ideas are dated (it was published in 1984 after all) but the story and characters are still great. Altered Carbon is by Richard Morgan and takes place a lot farther into the future where our consciousness have been digitized and humanity has basically become immortal (if you can afford a body to store your consciousness in of course). The lead character is a complete and utterly cool badass.

Haven't read Altered Carbon, but can confirm that Neuromancer is sweet. Pretty much what started cyberpunk. You can really see its influence on Android Netrunner, if you've ever played that.

Funny story about it: allegedly, William Gibson was about a third of the way through writing the novel and went to go see Blade Runner. Twenty minutes in, he "figured [Neuromancer] was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I’d copied my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film." Then the novel went on to be the first to win the scifi triple crown, no biggie...

On 40k level I just got the first part of the Gaunt's Ghost omnibus, so that's something to mention here on the thread.

Reading The Windup Girl right now, and its pretty good.

^^I've been meaning to read that for ages. Probably half a decade at least. How are you finding it?

Iron and Metal wrote:

^^I've been meaning to read that for ages. Probably half a decade at least. How are you finding it?

Right now I'm not finding it at all. I'm currently stuck in Mary Renault's historical fiction, which I have pledged to finish this year, so I borrow it out to my TT group's Only War GM, and he seems to be enjoying it very much.

Threadcromancy.


Right now I am reading "The Dawn of Everything," by David Graeber (RIP) and David Wengrow. It is a re-construction of the paradigm in which scholars have studied the history of humanity. It is fucking amazing, and I would highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in the topic.

Also just recently finished "A Boy's Life" (4.5/5) by Robert McCammon and "Seed" by Ania Ahlborn (3/5).

McCammon is the man. Period. King ain't got shit on him. "Seed" was good. I probably won't read it again, but it was the author's first novel, and it was fucked up enough to have me sitting with my mouth open at the end.

Happy reading, wonderful humans.

For myself I'm reading a book about the construction of the core railroads in the 1850s and 1860s in my homeland.

After that I'm looking for marathon project of re-reading all my Dark Heresy RPG supplements in one extended go.

I haven't been avidly reading in a while. But I've been slowly reading the complete Lovecraft stories. Some of them are good and some are really boring. It seems the longer he describes something that is supposed to be somewhat "Indescribable" the less impact it has. The 80 page dream sequence short story was so dreary I ended up listening to narration on youtube before I moved on the the next one.

I really liked how fallout 4 tied into "Pickman's model" story, and pickman shows up in some other stories too. Kinda cool.

***
Ive listened to a few battletech novels, 18 so far. Some are good, others not so. Trying to catch up to the current battletech events. Theres 50 more before I hit the dark age novels, and there's 31 novels set in the dark age before I get to the Ilclan era (current era) with 3 books. Its not going to happen anytime soon and I think Ill end up skipping a few, trying to stay close to the main events in the story line.

***

Last year I read the first of Conan the barbarian short story collection. I found that one much better than the Lovecraft ones. Almost every story was a good one. I didnt realize that the majority of the original Conan stories were short stories.

I plan on reading more classics when I get the chance. Dracula is after the lovecraft stuff is done.

Gurkhal wrote:

For myself I'm reading a book about the construction of the core railroads in the 1850s and 1860s in my homeland.

After that I'm looking for marathon project of re-reading all my Dark Heresy RPG supplements in one extended go.  

This is the nerdiest reading list I have seen in a long time, and I love you for it. Please remind me where your homeland is again. I want to say somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I've forgotten.

Cheers to you on the DH Supplement re-reading!

Heath - sounds intense. How have you found listening to stories? When I was on Instagram, I would ask Bookstagrammers how they got through so many stories so quickly, and they typically listened to them at 1.5x normal speed. I can't seem to get into that. My brain wanders too much. Also, an 80-page Dream Sequence? Fuck that noise. There's no way. I got tired just reading you write about it.

Iron and Metal wrote:

Gurkhal wrote:

For myself I'm reading a book about the construction of the core railroads in the 1850s and 1860s in my homeland.

After that I'm looking for marathon project of re-reading all my Dark Heresy RPG supplements in one extended go.  

This is the nerdiest reading list I have seen in a long time, and I love you for it. Please remind me where your homeland is again. I want to say somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I've forgotten.

Cheers to you on the DH Supplement re-reading!

Thanks!

My homeland is in Northern Europe, and is Sweden, to be precise.

Also looking forward to the Dark Heresy stuff because the current book is really not written with me as the intended audience, I can tell you that much.

Sweden! I was way off.

I am curious, what do you mean exactly about the current book? And are you talking about the newest ruleset that was just released by 7cubicle (or whatever they're called)?

Iron and Metal wrote:

Heath - sounds intense. How have you found listening to stories? When I was on Instagram, I would ask Bookstagrammers how they got through so many stories so quickly, and they typically listened to them at 1.5x normal speed. I can't seem to get into that. My brain wanders too much. Also, an 80-page Dream Sequence? Fuck that noise. There's no way. I got tired just reading you write about it.

That story was hard to get through. Granted, in the end it got much better and it apparently ties in to the other mythos, which is something I like.

So I found that google books on my android has a feature where it will read any epub file you upload to it. So any battletech or 40k stuff Ive "read" in the last 3 or 4 years has been this way. Its not perfect. Sometimes the monotonous mechanical voice wears on my attention span, and I find it takes me longer to understand the different characters. Updates have made the voice less mechanical. Its the only way for me to get any Storytime done with time being so limited.
For the classics, all physical copies baby!

Iron and Metal wrote:

Sweden! I was way off.

I am curious, what do you mean exactly about the current book? And are you talking about the newest ruleset that was just released by 7cubicle (or whatever they're called)?

I'm talking about the book about the railroads. It presumes you know more than I do about railroad construction and maintainence. And thus there are alot of things and references that isn't really explained and while I can figure out some from the context, there are alot of stuff that I simply have no clue what it actually means.