I hope you are not disagreeing because my response if so would also be "rofl"

Just read through the rules book for Dread. Looks really fun.

~SE++

why would I joke about a book I am reading

i've never read the god delusion but it sounds boring or mean

its neither

just some good old fashioned logical thinking

logical thinking is usually boring unless it is about something interesting

religion (well not religion itself, but why people believe in religion) interests me I guess

religion itself sorta stinks imo

I'm a little interested in the artistic/personal beliefs that people have related to religion but if you're just talking about the metaphysical "what exists and what doesn't exist" i already have a clear enough image of that in my mind to not want to read about it.

I mean religion has spawned a lot of nice artistic works and architecture, but on the other hand a lot of war, oppression, and bigotry

something I'm not okay with

but yeah, the book is basically just an attempt to prove to people there isn't a god; totally uninteresting for most but I find it a nice read

If you're basing that on his twitter you're in for a shock cause get this; he is by and large facetious as **** there

whoa right

also when it comes to how religion "works" there is not really much to get

it is easy to say that there probably isn't an intervening super powerful consciousness floating around modern society tossing miracles about

it is more complicated to evaluate religions impact on society and its meaning to people as well as to judge the specific beliefs that followers may hold

Finished The Bones Beneath. I didn't like it.

Started the Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

WOW this was a weird one. It was good, but it kind of defies description. Norse Mythology Urban Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic Cyberpunk Sci-Fi Fantasy Drama? If that sounds like a mad libs to you, it kinda is. The setting is totally coherent and well put together, but it's like no one other thing. It takes all these disparate elements and weaves them together. This is a book that can pull off mentioning Einherjar, Valkyrie (styled Waelcyrge), shoggoths, orbital microwave projectors and "combat sorcerers and laser-guided death curses" on the same page and still have everything make sense. Like I said, though, it was good



Next up: Either Throne of the Crescent Moon or A Forest of Stars, as I go through the books on my wishlist that can be got used for a penny plus shipping.

Finished it. It was good. Nothing out of the ordinary, but a solid book. Enough for me to continue reading the series.

But I will read something else first: In the Woods by Tana French.



It picked my interest, but it doesn't have good reviews...

@True: I get the feeling that it wouldn't be for everyone. It's harsh (In the ways you would expect from post-apocalyptic, Dystopian, and Norse) and highly stylistic -- one character's point of view is rendered in present tense, for instance. It works in context, but it's a little bit jarring at first.

By being the unique mash up of everything, it's also nothing defined -- If you're looking for straight scifi, you don't get it. If you're looking for straight norse myth fantasty, you don't get it. If you're looking for straight up dystopia punk, you don't get it. I like what you DO get, but it's not any of a long list of things people could go in expecting.

Some people are going to be put off because one of the sympathetic main characters is very liberal with matters of the heart (or at least of the loins, in the poly/bi sort of way). The people who cheer for that are going to be put off because a different main, sympathetic character is significantly more prudish/conventional in some (but not all) ways, so both the hardcore Social Justice and Anti-SJW factions that want to see their faction being declared implicitly right and heroic as opposed to anyone with views that don't line up perfectly with theirs is going to walk away thinking at least one of those two missed having an epiphany. I for one don't give a crap and felt the handling of any relationship elements was tactful and mature.

In the end, I feel like this is the kind of book that might not be For You. It does it's own thing, and you'll like it or you won't. The advantage is that it's unique, but the disadvantage of being unique is that it's NOT "more like" the same thing you know you enjoyed and want to see more of. And there's nothing wrong with wanting more X and being disappointed when you don't get it after being lead to believe you would*. If it sounds potentially interesting and you can check it out from the library or pick it up stupid cheap, I'd recommend giving it a try, just to see something different.


*

I'm going to warn you, A Forest of Stars (assuming we're talking the Kevin J. Anderson book), sucks. Or rather, the series that it's part of sucks, imo. The setting is interesting, the covers are cool, but the story is completely predictable. By the time I got to the last book, I was pretty much just checking off a list of things I had seen coming a mile away. I finished it only because I didn't want to leave the story hanging once I'd started.

Atm, I'm crawling through Cook's The White Rose, book 3 of The Black Company.

Ok. You convinced me to try at least the first one of the series and judge for myself. I do like books that defy genre, but the major problem with them is exactly what makes them good, and normally the plot suffers because of that.

Take for example Perdido Street Station by China Mieville or Desolation Road by Ian McDonald, both are highly stylistic and defy normal conventions. You don't have any idea how these book will end. The first sustains this fact until the very end, the setting and the plot defy convention, but the real story is not that good. The second shifts to a more normal convention close to end, and after that the book loses its magical and unconventional appeal. Many storylines are not explored as they should too.

I enjoyed Hidden Empire, book 1 of that series. Was it hokey and predictable? Yeah, it totally was, but IMO there's nothing wrong with doing something that's been done before if you do it well. Like you say, the setting is interesting, and I enjoyed the characters in Hidden Empire, particularly the Roamers. It wasn't and I don't expect the rest of the series to be in the same league as Vernor Vinge's scifi (of which I've read A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky and loved both) but I was promised a space opera and I got a space opera, so I'm mostly satisfied. I'll consider myself warned, though, if it starts to become grating. 7 books is a lot of book...

I liked Black Company trilogy, but they ARE a slog sometimes. I might not remember them quite so fondly if they hadn't been all that was preserving my sanity waiting in the pool for jury duty when I first read them. I think Shadows Linger was my favorite, but White Rose was good too.

Ah, ok. I thought you were going to start with A Forest of Stars. I was fortunate enough to have been given book 2 & the rest were either borrowed or bought for 50 cents from the library, so I count it more as lost time than anything else. I hope you do enjoy the rest of the series.

I actually really like the BC books. I tried reading the first book as an epub, but someone screwed up the conversion, so there were header & footers scattered throughout the text. Made it completely unreadable, so I picked up the whole thing in hardcopy compilations. Most of my reading recently has been on the bus though, so with classess out, I've been lagging behind.