What are you reading right now?

Spent the weekend reading two stories by Robert Heinlein (Author of Starship Troopers) I'm not much for Sci-Fi stuff but Heinlein pioneered the field before it was taken over by George Lucas and Trekkies. As far as I know Starship Troopers is still on the reading list at West Point...

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The first one I read was "If this goes on-" about a future America ruled by a rabid Theocracy. A young Army Officer joins an underground brotherhood (Heinlein implies Masonic connections) and fights in an eventual revolt. Has a very 1984 feel to it but its a bit more satisfying. It's a short story and can be found in the "Revolt in 2100" collection of Heinlein works.

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The second Heinlein work I tore into was Variable Star. To call it a Heinlein is a bit misleading as he never actually wrote the book. It came out nearly two decades after his death based on a notes and an incomplete outline for a story that was fleshed out by Spider Robinson later. Anyhow I enjoyed the basic plot but not the way in which Robinson took to it...It's about a college student who finds out his Girlfriend is obscenely wealthy and was hiding the fact until he agreed to marriage, her father wants to change him and force him to abandon his plans for the future so he hops on a colonist ship for a recently discovered planet...along the way some other stuff happens...the sun explodes and kills everyone blah blah blah...I wouldn't recommend it.

I found it interesting that in both works the protagonist gets royally screwed by a woman he loves. Heinlein must have had issues with his mother.

 
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Just finished the Tucker Max books: I hope they server beer in hell, A**holes finish first and Hilarity Ensues. Alll very funny entertaining reads.

Next up is the hunger games book, if I like it I'll finish the series.

Then onto 50 shades of grey.

 
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Just started this last week, I've seen the movie and I wanted to give the book a try. So far, it's actually really good, and really violent (almost more violent than the movie).

 
aspeedlin4589 said:
Just started this last week, I've seen the movie and I wanted to give the book a try. So far, it's actually really good, and really violent (almost more violent than the movie).
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Nice speed! That book is awesome. I personally had to start over after about 50 pages or so, because it has so much of that slang Burgess invented for it. I understood the beginning much better after I re-started it.

Burgess is one of my favorite writers, actually. I'm actually reading the Steinbeck book on my Kindle, but I also have The Doctor is Sick in my garage where I (unfortunately) smoke my disgusting cigarettes. So I'm kinda reading both of them at the same time.

If you like the book, I strongly recommend The Wanting Seed by Burgess. It's a dystopian type novel in the 1984, Brave New World mode and it's actually my favorite novel of that genre. It's darkly, sardonically humorous. I bet you'd like it.

 
Nebula said:
aspeedlin4589 said:
Just started this last week, I've seen the movie and I wanted to give the book a try. So far, it's actually really good, and really violent (almost more violent than the movie).
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Nice speed! That book is awesome. I personally had to start over after about 50 pages or so, because it has so much of that slang Burgess invented for it. I understood the beginning much better after I re-started it.

Burgess is one of my favorite writers, actually. I'm actually reading the Steinbeck book on my Kindle, but I also have The Doctor is Sick in my garage where I (unfortunately) smoke my disgusting cigarettes. So I'm kinda reading both of them at the same time.

If you like the book, I strongly recommend The Wanting Seed by Burgess. It's a dystopian type novel in the 1984, Brave New World mode and it's actually my favorite novel of that genre. It's darkly, sardonically humorous. I bet you'd like it.
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Agree on the slang he uses, I didn't get the whole British slang when I started the book. But after awhile, and like you did going back and re-reading certain parts of the book it becomes pretty clear what they are saying.

 
huskersrule95 said:
Some books I read recently that I really liked were the Hunger Games Trilogy. It is probably one of my favorite set of books that I have read in quite a while. Here is a short little thing on what it is about:

The Hunger Games is a young-adult science fiction novel written by Suzanne Collins. It was originally published on September 14, 2008, by Scholastic.[1] It is the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy.[2] It introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where North America once stood. This is where a powerful government working in a central city called the Capitol holds power. In the book, the Hunger Games are an annual televised event where the Capitol chooses one boy and one girl from each district to fight to the death. The Hunger Games exist to demonstrate not even children are beyond the reach of the Capitol's power
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I just finished reading book one of The Hunger Games and honestly I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. I'm going to read the rest of the books now and I'm actually wanting to see the movie.

 
I've read "The Hunger Games" and just finished book two, "Catching Fire." I will start book three, "Mockingjay" probably on Monday.

I really enjoyed reading these books....they are linguistically simple, but thoroughly engrossing nonetheless.

 
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Just finished 11/22/63, an extremely interesting look at what the world may have become IF Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated.

Steven King pens this massive (800 + pages) narrative about an ordinary Joe slipping into a time-continuum bubble and being back in 1958 and whether or not he can go through with altering history by stopping the events in Dallas. Lots of butterfly effects to consider.

 
Wow. Since finishing the Swiss Family Robinson in late March, I've read ten novels! Started with Devil in the White City, about one of America's first known serial killers AND the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. It's a weird double story, with two seemingly disparate narratives mooshed into one book. The killer was far, far ahead of his time and the police had very little basis for dealing with him.

Since then I've been reading The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series of books written by different authors, all purporting to be the writings of Dr. John Watson. I've read:

The Giant Rat of Sumatra - figured out the plot in the first 30 pages. Not a good book.

The Angel of the Opera - Holmes meets the Phantom of the Opera in Paris. Pretty good read.

Seance for a Vampire - Holmes is distantly related to Count Dracula, who assists Holmes and Watson with a vampire problem in 1890s England.

The Scroll of the Dead - An ancient Egyptian scroll purportedly holding the key to resurrection is sought by academics and thugs.

The Stalwart Companions - A very young (pre-Watson) Holmes on tour with a Shakespearean company in New York meets Teddy Roosevelt, just out of college, and they solve a mystery together. "Written" by Roosevelt. It's a really quick read.

The Ectoplasmic Man - Holmes meets Harry Houdini, and helps him out of some serious trouble.

The Web Weaver - A new challenger nearly as devious as Moriarty rises, and Holmes must untangle the web to find the "spider" in the center. Holmes is cast as an ardent man, nearly a lover, which is entirely contrary to Conan Doyle's Holmes.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes - Holmes was the first to solve the mysterious set of crimes surrounding the enigmatic Mr. Hyde, but even he was shocked as the facts unfolded to the only possible conclusion. Robert Louis Stevenson has a small part in the final chapter, where Holmes provides him with the story - but cautions Stevenson to leave Holmes out of his work, and to make it a "fiction," rather than an account of real events.

The War of the Worlds - nearly as entertaining as HG Wells' classic. War of the Worlds remains one of my favorite novels, and this was a worthy "alternate history" to the original.

Some of these novels are quite good. Some are quite disappointing. But I've been thoroughly entertained by them, and I'm looking forward to finishing the next nine or ten on the shelf. Sam Siciliano wrote two of these, Web Weaver and Angel of the Opera, and for both he axes Watson and introduces Holmes' cousin, Dr. Vernier - a terribly poor replacement for Watson, who constantly derides Watson's writings and casts him as little more than an annoying hanger-on to Holmes - Siciliano's Dr. Vernier even goes so far as to have Holmes denounce Watson, something that Holmes purists probably find horrifying.

If you're a Sherlock Holmes fan, I recommend these books. They are NOT Conan Doyle-esque, but they're entertaining.

 
I am reading a book called Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson. It is about the life of Carlos Hathcock. A very good book so far.

 
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