Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm reading Gaiman's American Gods. It's pretty pro, so far.

I can confirm, from recent experimentation with my lab partner, the smoochitron does exist.

I hereby nominate Trooper for the Nobel Prize for Physics, and for the Barry White Memorial Award for Services to Lurrrve.

This thread has now made me all melancholy for Calvin and Hobbes

Your argument is weak. Weak like gravity. And your lemon drink.

It's just strong enough, though.

Just had a very interesting read about fundamental forces but now I'm left with the questions: What are the flavours that quarks come in? Will Walkers be making new ones for the next Comic Relief?

The existing ones are quite silly enough, thankyou.

I've just read "The Long Walk" by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) again.
Fuck me, it's one Hell of a story.

I don't think I've ever read a book that affects me to the same level that The Long Walk does.

I have a horrible desire to walk the twenty miles to my parents' house this weekend.
I hope to fuck that goes away.

I haven't read it for a while, but yeah, it is one of his better ones. I really liked 'The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon' too.

It is very good.

Ex-Patriots, the sequel to Ex-Heroes, is out. Warning: it's £7+ though (Kindle "hardback" pricing).

And via Nathon Fillion on Twitter: "Guess who makes a guest appearance in Ex-Patriots, the sequel to Ex-Heroes? Superheroes and zombies, together at last."

I do so hope it's Captain Hammer.

Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" is good. Not as good as Neverwhere nor American Gods, though. I've read some real rubbish on the Kindle of late.

"The Mall" by S.L. Grey is about a couple of people that end up wandering through the mysterious subterranean levels of a shopping mall in South Africa in search of a lost child. It was engaging enough to keep me reading, but not terribly satisfying to read.

"Pretty Little Dead Tings" by Gary McMahon is about a man who can see dead people, and there's a lot of dead people. He witnesses a murder and then is engaged by the police to unravel it. It set in Leeds. It's quite a dark book, but once again, not engaging enough to keep my turning the pages.

"The Honour of the Knights" is a book about space war and involves the escapades of a band of plucky young spaceship pilots deca-handedly saving capital spaceships fromt he enemy using their advanced spaceships and blah blah blah. It wasn't great. Apparently, it was written by an unemployed banker.

The best book I've read recently is "The Moon is a Harsh mistress". It's acebest. Everybody should read it.

I've just read Alan Bennett's (shortish) auto/biography of his family "A Life like Other Peoples". It's bloody brilliant. He doesn't spare himself over some questionable things he's done, either. He lays it all out without any splother. Beautifully written with a deceptively hard punch to the stomach. Reading what his mum went through when she began to imagine things was a sad insight for me, as my late grandad was beginning to go the same way.

Jesus, that guy can WRITE. The ending, again devoid of splother, is strangely and quietly perfect. Read it in a day, which is a good sign.

I just finished reading 'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness.

It's very short, and ostensibly aimed at the Young Adult market. The plot concerns a young lad, whose mother is ill, being visited by a monster.

I adored it, and recommend it unreservedly to anyone whose heart is not made of stone.

Are there tentacles?

I'm reading the Belle De Jour book - it's very interesting.
Was that book with the mimes by Patrick Ness too, Curio?
Finally, is the third book in The Painted Man trilogy out yet?

It has no tentacles. Not the slimy sort, anyway.

The book with the mimes was 'The Gone Away World' by Nick Harkaway. His second book (not connected to that one) is called 'Angelmaker', looks marvellous, and is out on February 2nd.

I have previously pimped out Patrick Ness though (so to speak). He wrote 'The Knife of Never Letting Go', which featured a boy called Todd Hewitt as the protagonist and was the one where you could hear everyone's thoughts (called 'Noise') in the book. It was the first of a rather fabulous trilogy.

This one is very different, but has had a huge effect on me (for personal reasons, so when I say 'unreservedly', I should perhaps have caveated that!).

Oh.
Oh.

Ooh, Cam Winstanley wrote a book. It's less than £2 on your Kindle, too.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/B-spine-ebook/dp/B006IQ4A6A

Sounds good. Worth £2 at least.

The name is sort of a call back to the AP days, too

I got it. 12% in and it is quite good.

I am starting to read 'The Twelve', sequel to the effing amazing 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin.

If you haven't read 'The Passage' then sort yourself the fuck out.

We have a new generic book thread!

Right. So far I'm about 85% of the way through.

Good points: Thes tory is quite exciting and the world it is set in is quite interesting. Some characters are good.

Bad points: At times, it is terribly written. Some lines are lifted wholesale from films. The narrative switches between past and present. I can see what the intention is, viewing events from different protagonists viewpoints, but it is clumsy at times. It also switches from third to first person a coupl eof time. The editor should have picked that up.

Overall: Probably worth the £2.

I totally missed this, it is now £4.44.

In related news, I really need to stop buying books on my kindle i'm unlikely to ever read, it's just so easy to buy them though.
I may actually start to read Ex-Patriots though, you never know.

Currently I'm Kindling (that's a verb isn't it?) "Gaslight Grimoire", a collection of Sherlock Holmes 'supernatural' tales. It' OK, nothing more, unfortunately some of the stories come across more as writing exercises than proper pieces and should be expanded on. Still not a bad little read.

Not only did I start, I finished. That was thoroughly good.