Read half way through, and I made a call. I could quit reading like I tend to do or force myself to finish it. I forced myself to finish it just to see if it would pick up pace or change or something. I can safely say Iain M Banks is a poop author. 

Player Of Games, Feersum Endjinn, Consider Phlebas, The Algebraist, State Of The Art etc etc 

Against a Dark Background is probably one of his weakest books in my opinion... 

Found it incredibly shallow and irritating, with characters that really had no reason to be in the god damned book in the first place (you've been pregnant for 20 years because a man-slut CHEATED ON YOU??? Did you not see that coming you stupid bitch?), and unbearably annoying and unnecessary ship-format text. I also give it a 1/2 of 10. 

You fail at books! 

 

 

She is the Darkness by Glen Cook - still slowly working away at this 80s-90s fantasy series, The Black Company (which inspired bungie's 1997 game Myth: The Fallen Lords). It is awesome how obvious it is that Cook is writing _AMERICAN_ fantasy - based on Vietnam - confusion, cynicism, greed - rather than WW1 (Tolkien) or WW2 (most fantasy) with the good/evil/despair etc. Cook writes in a low register, it's all slang, people are sick, cynical, greedy, pock-marked, liars - most of the soliders are black - and there are lying priests EVERYWHERE. All of this anti-fantasy praised since that's what Cook, does, he could have done a lot better if he thought things out more carefully, but then that's the curse of genre fiction, quantity over quality.

The Ancestor's Tale by Dawkins - a crazily intense view of evolution, starting with modern humans and going back to the dawn of time. Slow reading for a layman but incredibly enlightening and interesting, and well-written and engaging. Some of the life-forms described in this book have never made it into popular consciousness (2-foot long sea scorpions, carnivorous kangaroos, jesus) and I wonder why.

The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris - just started reading this, and it seems like his best book yet. I don't understand how anyone could disagree with this guy he has the clearest thinking and the most eloquent prose style I can think of. 

Just picked up Art & Fear: Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, and so far it seems to be an amazing (and very wise) book on what it means to be an artist. Granted, level design isn't what most people think of when they think of art, but I think it qualifies, even though materials, modeling, etc. might be better examples. An excerpt:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the �quantity� group: fifty pounds of pots rated an �A�, forty pounds a �B�, and so on. Those being graded on �quality�, however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an �A�.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the �quantity� group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the �quality� group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. 

 

I liked it. Pretty fast read, both in pacing and that you can read it in an afternoon if you wanted to. Doesn't get bogged down in detail, and what detail is given is interesting and pertains to the story. My only real complaint is the over use of the phrase 'of course' which I abhor. (Alistair Reynollddddsss!!!! *shakes fist*) 

My only real complaint is the over use of the phrase i've noticed this a lot these days... every author seems to have some phrase that they like to write over and over and over again... :\
for god sakes, brandon sanderson kept writing 'In addition'... ffs, is this a WoW spell tooltip?!
or david weber as his damn 'like so many/much xxxxx' 

http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/murakami-mieville-continuum 

based on reading some David Mitchell (cloud atlas, number9dream), who is supposed to have borrowed a lot from Murakami 

Overnight, the vast majority of Europe is replaced with alien wilderness in the early 1900s. As countries begin to explore and recolonize this new Europe, the story goes from the Finch Expedition to end of time to a final confrontation between the Archive and some galactic virus or something.

The only 'twist' in the book I didn't really accept was the one where it ended up as essentially Underworld - semi-immortal super-humans on side A face off against semi-immortal super-humans on side B in a covert war waged through the ages (though the build up of the 2nd half wasn't as gripping as the 1st half.)

I actually appreciated the explanation of what The Miracle was and how the entirety of Europe was replaced -

(SPOILER - A super galactic historical computer called the Archive which recreates history inside itself was attacked by super-complex viruses which invaded the Archive and tried to re-write things for its own purposes. /SPOILER)

- it seemed elegant enough an explanation and offered a lot of possibilities. I was expecting more of the 1900s exploration through alien wilderness story, it was sort of why I picked the book up in the first place. Kind of a shame it didn't continue down that path really, but I suppose the 2nd half of the book is alright in its own light.

P.S. Also a pretty light read, clocks in under 400 pages and goes pretty fast. 

Yeah I was pretty dissapointed by that one, it's ok though.
He's done better in my opinion, his best is still Spin I think (sequel doesn't live up to it unfortunatly). And I quite enjoyed his last one, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America. 

AFAIK I really liked that one.

Must check out more of his stuff. I'd read some previous ones (Chronoliths, Bios). 

Awesome book. If you know Neil DeGrasse Tyson, then you can read the book imagining him narrating it, which is pretty damn cool. It's like an extended episode of Nova Science! Now (if you're unfamiliar, it's a science show on PBS hosted by Mr Tyson that covers a range of scientific topics.)

It's essentially an easy-to-read science extravaganza for laymen. It's just got a ton of interesting, I suppose you could say trivia, but it seems so much more than that. It's all the cool things that science has discovered that you didn't know, or perhaps did know if you're a nerd like me.

Like I said, it's pretty easy to read, under 400 pages and just plain fascinating. The last section of the book addresses science vs religion, and their roles in relation to each other, if you're interested in that sort of thing. Pretty big deal in the states, so I was pretty interested.

Cool book. 

totally into religious/scientific discourse

I will check this out. thanks 

Well only the last part is dedicated to that - it's a small part (30 - 50 pages or so?) 

still interested 

Yo, this book is damn good. It's like all about this empathic genius kid named Ender Wiggin who basically gets drafted into the space army at age 6 and then later on saves the world and stuff. That's some crazy story telling.

Meanwhile, on Earth... his older brother and sister begin taking over the planet while he's all up in space yo and then they like all unify the planet and then Ender and his sister are like Yo bitch we leavin and then they go and start a colony, where like Ender finds the last of the alien species he killed off and then goes and gets them bitches goin again.

Yo that shit was deep. 

Hey, at least you get http://xkcd.com/635/ now! 

Nope, still don't get it. :/