What are you reading?

[Walter]

Going to go for The Urth of the New Sun next and then I might try out some of Gene Wolfe's other stories.

Glad to hear you liked it as well! Urth is definitely next up. Finish the saga, then I’d say try something new as a palette cleanser.

When you’re ready for more Wolfe, I’d also highly recommend Wizard Knight, despite its incredibly generic title. I’m sure I wrote something up about that when I finished it last year. I’ve read it three times in total since then. If I find it i’ll update this reply.

Update, found it:
In brief, it's special to me because it's a genuine heroic fantasy. No anti-hero bullshit. It's simple, wholesome, and genuine in a surprisingly cool way. That went a long way for me, because it has always felt to me like most modern fantasy books are iterations on a theme: Cynical one-upsmanship. And this felt like a fresh return to what a new fantasy story could feel like if it shed all of that accumulated genre gunk.

 

[Dar_Klink]

Glad to hear you liked it as well! Urth is definitely next up. Finish the saga, then I’d say try something new as a palette cleanser.

When you’re ready for more Wolfe, I’d also highly recommend Wizard Knight, despite its incredibly generic title. I’m sure I wrote something up about that when I finished it last year. I’ve read it three times in total since then. If I find it i’ll update this reply.

Update, found it:
In brief, it's special to me because it's a genuine heroic fantasy. No anti-hero bullshit. It's simple, wholesome, and genuine in a surprisingly cool way. That went a long way for me, because it has always felt to me like most modern fantasy books are iterations on a theme: Cynical one-upsmanship. And this felt like a fresh return to what a new fantasy story could feel like if it shed all of that accumulated genre gunk.

I actually saw Wizard Knight at the book store I went to earlier, I almost bought it but decided to wait a bit since I've bought a ton of books/comics/manga lately without reading much of them.

I'd like to read Fifth Head of Cerberus as well.

On another note, it's been cool seeing over time the references Final Fantasy XIV has to BotNS
Character named Severian Lyctor
An enemy character's special attack called Terminus Est
Main villains called Ascians
A quest called Rise of a New Sun that when finished gives you "The Solar Cycle" achievement.
As well as some thematic/story things that could be simply treading similar ground but some of the writers and the translator(who also writes lore for the game) are definitely fans.

There's also the Symphony of the Night sword translated as "Terminus Est" although it's a Beowolf reference Hrunting in the original, so that's on the translator.

I think you posted about them before, but you've seen the Yoshitaka Amano BotNS covers right?

While looking into those I found an interesting article on the Japanese translation of the series

https://ultan.org.uk/japanese-lexicon-for-the-book-of-the-new-sun/

 

[Aazealh]

I'm reading a book about executioners and what their job entailed from the middle ages to the abolition of the death penalty in France. It's pretty rad.

 

[Rhombaad]

I'm reading a book about executioners and what their job entailed from the middle ages to the abolition of the death penalty in France. It's pretty rad.

Sounds interesting. Still hard to believe that was a viable profession for so long. I don’t think I’d have the stomach for it.

I’m currently reading The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. It’s a gorgeous hardcover book I got from my in-laws for my birthday this year. I’m loving the full-page McQuarrie art.

 

[Lawliet]

I'm reading a book about executioners and what their job entailed from the middle ages to the abolition of the death penalty in France. It's pretty rad.

Reminds me of the manga Innocent, which centers on the French Revolution Era executioner, Charles Sanson. I loved that manga. I'll assume you've read it already, but if you haven't then I recommend it!

 

[Dar_Klink]

Glad to hear you liked it as well! Urth is definitely next up. Finish the saga, then I’d say try something new as a palette cleanser.

Finished Urth now as well, what an insane ride that was, even compared to the rest. I'm going to order the book so I can re-read certain segments since it was hard to parse some stuff via audiobook while driving, I want to see if i can understand everything happening during the Apu-Punchau section.

Not sure what I'll go for next but as for what I read(listened to) leading up to starting New Sun over:
Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Haunter of the Dark, Shadow over Innsmouth, The Shadow out of Time, The Color out of Space, and The Whisperer in Darkness.
Wanted to try out Lovecraft since I'd never actually read any of his stuff and felt it was a giant blind spot(not that many people who "love" cosmic horror seem to have actually read his stuff anyway lol) My favorites were Shadow over Innsmouth, Mountains of Madness, and Whisperer in Darkness but I did enjoy all of them. I'm glad to find out he started to reject some of his bigotry and racism at an older age when he'd actually traveled more, Innsmouth was great but the big ending twist being a very thinly veiled "oh god what if I'm not racially pure!??!" was pretty blatant. Any other stuff you'd recommend of his over the rest I haven't read yet? I just sort of went by "I know this one is important" and then by "this is available on youtube/spotify and the narrator is okay" rather than trying to do too much research.

I also listened to the audiobooks for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Rum Diary for a change of pace. I grew up with a sort of dislike of Hunter S. Thompson for some weird reason, mostly just disliking DRUG CULTURE in my teens/early adult life enough to skip out on stuff people like that were into. I enjoyed them a lot and still need to watch the Fear/Loathing movie. Dunno if the Rum Diary movie comes recommended.

I also started listening to A Confederacy of Dunces which was interesting but I think the narration in it got to be a bit much and I was getting burnt out on audiobooks from then until I jump back into New Sun.

I miiight try out Brandon Sanderson's fantasy/sci-fi stuff next.

 

[Rhombaad]

While continuing to read The Making of the Empire Strikes Back, which has very tiny type and is difficult to read in bed before turning out the light, I read Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino.

Darwin's Blade was another interesting one from Simmons, right up there with The Crook Factory. It's about an accident investigator for a small insurance company owned and operated by a character from one of Dan's earlier books, Summer of Night. He's a former Vietnam sniper who ends up being targeted by Russian organized crime due to a prior accident investigation he was involved in. I could hardly put it down after a chapter or two. Highly recommended for those looking for a fun thriller to read over a weekend.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is one of my favorite Tarantino flicks, and I still can't put my finger on why. It's not really about anything, other than a day or two in the life of an on-the-outs star of westerns and his best friend/stunt double, but I love it. I love that time period in the history of Hollywood, too. It was the end of the Hays code and the beginning of the revolution in film that would be the 1970s. Plus, a lot of foreign films were just starting to hit America's shores, so we were being exposed to some amazing stuff from France, Germany, China and Japan, just to name a few. All that being said, the novel isn't a straight retelling of the movie. It goes into the backstories of the characters that I'm sure exist for almost every major character in a Tarantino film, but usually don't see the light of day. It took me about a week to read, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would (and I was expecting to enjoy it a lot). Not bad for Tarantino's first outing as a novelist. I'm hoping he does it again.

Next up is Clive Barker's Weaveworld!