Stephan > Recent Status Updates

My first book by V. E. Schwab - and I'm liking it. I find her style easy to read, I like how she describes situations. And I'm excited about what happens next.

And I'm also excited to find out, if I will start one of her series right after finishing this book.

I absolutely love techno thrillers and 5-starred part 1 of this. Currently the book is in detail describing the BDSM practices, sex scenes at the club and at home. While I don't mind characters indulging their sex life I'm not liking the different topic the author is introducing. Previously it was about social networks, hacking and crime and I loved it, now I'm only at 3 stars - hoping for more..

Ch. 4 done. I still not sure about the best method to read this..

Stunning. The prose sweeps over me like an ocean. A great followup to Blindness!

Going smooth. This is a techno thriller.

I can't read this. I might try again in future, but right now there is far too much resistance within me. I'm an atheist who has survived 7 years of Jesuit boarding school. So I know how they really are. In my opinion the catholic church is a sick money making power scheming institution that breeds child abusing alcoholics. I should've known better than to approach a book about the topics I - sorry to say - despise.

I'm not sure about this..

So here goes an atheist who survived 7 years of Jesuit boarding school (yes, me) and reads a book about Jesuits and god. My oh my, Laurie! This book was supposed to be China Mieville's The Scar..

My current feeling is that the main story feels short in a way, like as if the plot could be described in few words and right now, the main character seems a little naive and the solution a bit railroaded, but as I am aware, I am not even half way through - this impression could change totally.

Suarez's ideas where technology is going to be at in 25 years is definitly interesting and thought provoking.

At around page 40 the thrilling started. The abbreviations are still annoying but I'm choosing to not let that ruin my reading experience..

This isn't starting well, even though he is one of my favorite authors. More 3-letter abbreviations without explanation. And then he just mocks me by spelling out Federal Bureau of Investigation. Really?

Maybe I'm spoilt by my recent reads. 6 books by Ben Aaronovitch and 2 by China Mieville. Both with excellent command of the language and no calling me stupid.

Do authors think its funny to throw 3-letter abbreviations at you without explaining? Do they laugh at silly readers that don't intuitively know what they could mean in a speculative future world?

Well, I'm not laughing.

Often there is this switch in the telling of the story near the end of the book, that I dislike. It occurs at the precise moment when the main character suddenly finds clarity and has a plan. This plan is not shared for the purpose of suspence. From this point on, the reader isn't part of the story anymore, (s)he is merely permitted to watch. Now I'm disappointed, but now I remember he did this in TC&TC too. :(

"Frflcfc"? What? I already am stunned my Mieville's command of English, but I'm not ready to accept that as a word.. Must be a mistake.

"You think you can go frflcfc?"

I think Mieville must be the only author on earth where you would even consider this not being an error.
edit: I checked. It's not an error. But what does it mean?

"Frflcfc"? What? I already am stunned my Mieville's command of English, but I'm not ready to accept that as a word.. Must be a mistake.

"You think you can go frflcfc?"

I think Mieville must be the only author on earth where you would even consider this not being an error.

Some very dark stuff going on here. I told a friend about Mieville, he looked him up and came back to me saying "Dreadful! Don't you get nightmares from that weird shit?" I was stunned by his assessment because my fascination by Mieville's writing made me totally one-sided and now I am much more aware of aspects that could be seen as horror. Doesn't change my fascination by one bit though!

If you haven't read Mieville before, here are some of the words that he uses: hirsute - hairy, argot - slang, skein - tangle, chary - vigilant, brine - water of the sea, charnel - filled with corpses, inchoate - incipient and sometimes all on one page..

Again I'm hooked already! Mieville has me invested in the story. At first I was only fascinated and stunned & enjoying it, now I'm really in. New elements have my special interest. Not only are this authors books good, I find them expanding on ideas, taking them further & exploring the what-if's. I've encountered judgement for reading fantasy, seeing the genre as escapist. Well, dear judges, this is so much more!

"Temagant!" he moaned after her. "Shrew! Harridan! All right, all right, you win, you, you... uh... virago, you spit-fire!"

Where do these words come from? Thank goodness for my Kobo's dictionary, so many words I've never heard of! Does Mieville spend his free time reading thesauruses and dictionaries? I can only add Xanthippe to above quote...

Ch. 3 finished. I've never read a book so slowly, but that's a foregone with this type of book. I liked the extra personal touch via the notes and the insert letter from Jen. The story itself remains weird...

Stop. Being. So. Fun. And. Inspiring. Goodreads.

Seriously, my dog wants me to walk her and I can't get away from reading your thoughts and inspirations.

And stop putting books on my TBR, unless you know where I can put in an order for a higher hours per day with less sleep per day ratio. Joking - keep them coming, please!

Mieville awes me. I read the first four pages of chapter one 3 times, it's paints such a vivid picture. I drifted through the scene, saw it happening, smelled the local scents, moved back and forward. I've closed the book to head off and find out a bit about Mieville and what made him into this inspiring author.

Now it has taken on a new twist and for me and is on a level with Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. The diary form takes out some of the immediacy but adds something I still can't quite define yet.

This is taking up speed! Already wasn't slow to begin with.. I am coming up with experiments myself and wondering, planning along and want to yell at father dude that I want him to try something!

This is quite something! It's speculative fiction to me, what if this-or-that were to happen, how would that develop?
I love stories taking place in contemporary times, with current level of technology & culture I can relate to, so this is a perfect fit.
The diary form makes it different. Can't explain yet & I'm not saying it is worse-because it is working for me. More next update!

I was already liking this before I opened the book on my Kobo. The first thing I saw was the amount of pages (623). I like books to have 400+ pages, gives the story more room. This just shows I'm not used to paper books anymore!

Ch. 2 finished. I tried a different approach, this time read story chapter first, then go back & read the margin notes. Easier to read for sure and also more involved in the story, but also less intrigued by the margin notes somehow.
Going to continue with this approach for now. I wonder if after all this I'm going to want to read House of Leaves, too.

Only finished the intro and already feel inspired!

We think emotions corrupt our rationality sometimes, but the statement here is, it might not be emotion but errors in our thinking, that we fall for. Fascinating!

We documented systematic errors in the thinking of normal people, and we traced these errors to the design of the machinery of cognition rather than to the corruption of thought by emotion.

5 stars atm! Lots of questions and uncertainty, theory, guesses. In a normal book this could be signs of bad writing or a very weird story. In this case it's more than design. Each page is filled with margin notes, written by 2 people at different points in time, weaving layers of metaplot.

So, one part is the story itself and that just turned from a dark fiction to horror within one paragraph! Wow - intense!