The Reading Corner.

[Buster's Uncle]

He writes like a grad student in writing is what he does.  That style is largely about showing off...

[Buster's Uncle]

Against All Things Ending by Stephen R. Donaldson.  -This is the one that made it 103 pages before anyone left the spot the previous book ended and the plot commenced...

The Last Dark by Stephen R. Donaldson.  -So far, it hasn't gotten any better since I read it in January.  It does have the virtue of my re-read not having gotten back to Linden yet; all the passages about her in the last chronicles read like fanfic.  Pretty sad when you're a less likeable character than Thomas Covenant...

[Lord Avalon]

Oath of Swords, by David Weber.
The Tank Lords, by David Drake.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Eastern Standard Tribe, by Cory Doctorow.

[Bearu]

The Cooperative Commonwealth by Lauerence Grunlound remains a treatise on the proper position of the capitalist, or bourgeoisie, with the proletariat in society. The book discusses how the capitalists produce wealth in the 1880's. The premise remains pertinent today since the majority of the bourgeois investments remain in the stock markets.

[Buster's Uncle]

Bodyguard and four other short science fiction novels from Galaxy edited by H. L. Gold.

[Lord Avalon]

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town; Little Brother; Makers; For the Win, by Cory Doctorow

[Buster's Uncle]

Moving Mars by Greg Bear.

Really, it's about a young woman who doesn't know what she wants, and the men she gets involved with, none of whom the author manages to sell for a second.  -Also, about politics being a hopeless quagmire.

-Not so much about Mars and Bell Continuum physics, though one gets the idea that that was the idea...

No idea why I burned through it so quickly, aside from being desperately bored, lately...

[Lord Avalon]

The War God's Own, by David Weber
The Rapture of the Nerds, by Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross

[Buster's Uncle]

The Year's Best Fantasy 4 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

-Pretty good.

[Lord Avalon]

Wind Rider's Oath, War Maid's Choice (War God 3 & 4), by David Weber

[Lord Avalon]

The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh

[E_T]

The Unforgving Minute, A Soldier's Education by Craig M. Mullaney

[Unorthodox]

Dao of the Evil God.

I can't say I recommend this series to anyone.  But I also can't seem to put them down. 

If these books were translated, they must have used google translate.  If they were written in english first, someone has serious problems with the language.  Language/grammar is ROUGH.  It also somehow adds to the charm. 

If I wanted to describe it, best allegory I can come up with is I'd say take Harry Potter, and instead of being taken to Hogwarts and having every little need conveniently find it's way to shaping him into the good hero, shove him into a Daoist version of hogwarts, where he flunks out and is relegated to being a squib, which makes him angry and depressed...just what is needed to start building a demonic power. 

Presently in book 2 of the series where he is in a treasure filled crypt more interested with frankensteining the corpses into daoist zombies (not exactly but basic concept in the traditional zombie meaning) than acquiring the magical treasures.

[Lorizael]

Reading a lot of history of astronomy right now, especially the transition from astronomy to astrophysics that occurred in the 19th century with the introduction of photography, spectroscopy, and (improved) reflecting telescopes. Would highly recommend Starlight Detectives by Alan Hirshfeld. Currently in the middle of The Glass Universe, which is about the women of the Harvard Observatory, but I'm not really liking Dava Sobel's style, despite the acclaim she has received for science writing.

[Elok]

Revisited a bunch of old Star Wars books I read as a teenager to see how they read now.  That Yevetha book is . . . really, really hard-right.  Tom Clancy goes to Coruscant.  I checked out Hyperion from the library because it seems to be one of those sci-fi books everybody's read, haven't gotten to it yet.  Now I'm going through a history of Byzantium in prep for my next project (kid's history of the Byzantine Empire, since we know there's a desperate market for it).