The Second Apocalypse

Miscellaneous Chatter => General Misc. => Topic started by: SrancHammer on August 17, 2017, 07:27:52 pm

Title: New titles?
Post by: SrancHammer on August 17, 2017, 07:27:52 pm
When I've reached that point that comes after I finish every Bakker book. What do I do with my life now? What are all you guys reading in the interim?


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Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Wilshire on August 17, 2017, 07:36:24 pm
Presently, I'm reading  Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.
I've got more books on my list than I will likely ever get to, so there's always more to come.

So much activity here on the forum its hard to keep up with, does that count as reading?
Title: New titles?
Post by: SrancHammer on August 17, 2017, 07:38:54 pm
I hear you there wilshire! I barely get an hour or two of reading time. Between work , hobbies, and my wife I'm pretty booked. Currently building a conversion van, vintage truck, 3 motorcycles, and one bass guitar. Oh and just signed up to go back to college in the fall


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Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: H on August 18, 2017, 01:00:02 pm
My best advice is to eschew genre fiction, for the most part.

Read some "classics."

I'd highly recommend War and Peace.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Wilshire on August 18, 2017, 01:25:00 pm
My best advice is to eschew genre fiction, for the most part.

Read some "classics."

I'd highly recommend War and Peace.

Never! I will cling to my magic and my laze guns till death - or until I grow up, whichever comes first.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Woden on August 18, 2017, 01:46:54 pm
I am ready to start the reread of Gibbon's Decline and Fall (this time in english).
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: SrancHammer on August 18, 2017, 04:42:14 pm
I read other genres but only high fantasy gives me that escape. Something to be said when you read the unholy consult in order to relax


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Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Wilshire on August 18, 2017, 05:00:25 pm
Plenty of places around here to get suggestions. I like new fantasy and old scifi. Dune is great, especially in light of TSA, if you haven't gotten around to it.

Anything on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_Hugo_and_Nebula_awards , is worth reading if you ask me, though I haven't gotten to all of them so I can't personally vouch for any.

The Hyperion Cantos remains my favorite scifi.

Magicians by Lev Grossman was a fun recent fantasy read of mine, plenty of other stuff to comment on if you're looking for suggestions :) .
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: TLEILAXU on August 18, 2017, 05:13:59 pm
Reading Dune is a MUST if you haven't. It's a fantastic series of books overall, and you'll get to see where Bakker-Senpai got some of his inspiration from.
I've actually never read Hyperion. I probably should start doing that...
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: SrancHammer on August 18, 2017, 05:27:22 pm
I bought it, haven't started it yet.


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Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: solipsisticurge on August 19, 2017, 01:31:10 am
About as far from Bakker as one can go, but the Books of Babel by Josiah Bancroft. (Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx, with a third volume on the way.) A quite original steampunk-ish fantasy, though utterly without Bakker's ruminations on philosophy, humanity, etc. Great lighter reading. I had abandoned the second book partway through (due to time constraints and other desires, not lack of quality), restarted it when summoned to jury duty Wednesday, and am thoroughly hooked again. The main character carries many shades of Achamian in his Legion.

EDIT: Upon reflection, not utterly without said rumination, just at much lower volume and frequency, with a much different take at times.

The Hyperion Cantos remains my favorite scifi.

I really, really need to read this again. Been probably ten years at this point. Where does the time go?
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Madness on August 19, 2017, 03:38:07 pm
Just finished Blindsight - Peter Watts. Very much can see the similarities between Bakker's TDTCB and Watts opening sequence. Rough and mysterious in the same style.

I've always encouraged people to read at least the first two books of Tyrants and Kings trilogy by John Marco. Or all the Monarchies of God by Paul Kearney.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: H on August 21, 2017, 02:12:35 pm
If you haven't read Blood Meridian, I would do so ASAP.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Wilshire on August 21, 2017, 03:15:09 pm
The Hyperion Cantos remains my favorite scifi.

I really, really need to read this again. Been probably ten years at this point. Where does the time go?
10 years ago I had not heard of Bakker, or Hyperion. I still thought RA Salvatore and the Forgotten Realms were the best fantasy ever(!), lol.
So many books, so little time.

Blindsight was awesome, people should read that if they like Bakker.
Everyone says the same about Blood Meridian. I need to read that.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: H on August 21, 2017, 06:52:24 pm
Everyone says the same about Blood Meridian. I need to read that.

Well, I feel pretty confident that Bakker's Crabicid will be his own version of it, so you've got some time to get to it.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Thing called Sarcellus on August 21, 2017, 11:00:25 pm
My favorite non Bakker series is The Gap Chronicles by Stephen R Donaldson
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: solipsisticurge on August 22, 2017, 06:18:40 am
If you haven't read Blood Meridian, I would do so ASAP.

This. Very different from Bakker in prose style, but the two are soul mates when it comes to interpreting a world. Blood Meridian is one of the greatest novels ever written.

...though I do wish the bastard would use goddamn quotation marks.

Just finished Blindsight - Peter Watts. Very much can see the similarities between Bakker's TDTCB and Watts opening sequence. Rough and mysterious in the same style.

Will need to check this out.

10 years ago I had not heard of Bakker, or Hyperion. I still thought RA Salvatore and the Forgotten Realms were the best fantasy ever(!), lol

I discovered Bakker after largely abandoning fantasy, having grown tired of the trite worlds of Salvatore, Weis & Hickman, etc., and seeing series such as Wheel of Time degenerating into endless money-printing doorstops waging a war against the need for a plot to have momentum so long as each volume hits the bestseller list. Whatever review/recommendation I found framed it as Nietzsche and Frank Herbert offering their version of Lord of the Rings, which seemed right up my alley. Reinvigorated my faith in the genre's potential. (I forget exactly when I found the series. It was after TTT was published, but not by long, I believe. Would have been '05-'06 based on where I was living at the time.)

I forget how or when I stumbled onto Hyperion, but it was some time ago.

...I need to find more new books.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Madness on August 22, 2017, 01:09:06 pm
My favorite non Bakker series is The Gap Chronicles by Stephen R Donaldson

Hiro will be happy to read this.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Wilshire on August 23, 2017, 02:43:57 pm

...I need to find more new books.
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1433.0
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1543.0
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=760.0
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1676.0
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=2137.0

Lots of those topics run together in many ways, but probably a decently place to start.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Madness on August 24, 2017, 01:36:02 pm
Thanks, #2 8).
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: solipsisticurge on September 20, 2017, 03:09:35 pm
Finished Blindsight the other day. How I overlooked this book for over a decade, I shall never surmise, but it has immediately leapt among my favorites. Waiting for Echopraxia to arrive in the mail.

Also, moved on to Sapiens by Harrari after enjoying Homo Deus profoundly. Highly recommend his works; he has a knack for reducing complicated concepts to easily-understood language for laymen such as myself.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Madness on September 20, 2017, 05:33:52 pm
Finished Blindsight the other day. How I overlooked this book for over a decade, I shall never surmise, but it has immediately leapt among my favorites. Waiting for Echopraxia to arrive in the mail.

I did Blindsight recently as well. Very much akin to TDTCB, I thought, in terms of debut roughness. I look forward to reading the second book when I have the chance.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: TLEILAXU on September 20, 2017, 06:57:33 pm
Blindsight is an absolutely fantastic book. It's almost eerie how similar Bakker and Watts are in their themes.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Srancy on September 21, 2017, 02:09:27 am
Echopraxia has lot more ranting but in between is a good story.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: TaoHorror on September 21, 2017, 12:52:15 pm
Reading Dune is a MUST if you haven't. It's a fantastic series of books overall, and you'll get to see where Bakker-Senpai got some of his inspiration from.
I've actually never read Hyperion. I probably should start doing that...

Hyperion is the coolest sci-fi environment ever conceived and is so much fun to read - Dan Simmons is a demon.

If you want a modern classic, check out Underworld, by Don DeLillo. Will blow your mind.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Madness on September 23, 2017, 01:28:23 am
At least the first two books of the Hyperion Quartet are a must read.
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: TheCulminatingApe on September 23, 2017, 09:38:59 pm
Presently, I'm reading  Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.
Great book
I'd highly recommend War and Peace.
Great book
If you haven't read Blood Meridian, I would do so ASAP.
and great book.

Cities of the Plain trilogy by Cormac McCarthy is also worth checking out.  Anything by Gene Wolfe is very good.  The Silmarillion, if you haven't read it already (if not what the fuck are you doing with your life).  James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy (American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Bloods a Rover) makes grimdark fantasy look like Disneyland.  Roberto Bolano is good. (2666 and Savage Detectives).  China Mieville is also worth reading, as is Michael Chabon.  Mary Gentle is very good - fantasy meets alternate history meets gender bending.  Also check out William Dalrymple for good travel writing (middle east/ India), Tom Holland for narrative history, Tony Judt for politics.  Diarmuid McCulloch (on Christianity) and Peter Heather (on the end of the Roman Empire and the beginnings of Europe) are also good reads.  The Conversion of Europe by Richard Fletcher is well worth looking up  - the process by which Europe became christian (not at all preachy) - on of the best books I've veer read.

You may infer I read a lot ;) :D
Title: Re: New titles?
Post by: Madness on September 25, 2017, 05:08:24 pm
You may infer I read a lot ;) :D

You are The Culminating Ape ;).