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. :/ 

 

Like Ender's Game, these two books are also considered staples of sci-fi.

Rama is fantastic adventure to an alien spaceship, lying dormant flying through space aimed suspiciously at our solar system's sun. A team is assembled to land on it and find out wtf is going on. I don't want to give up any details, but the rest of the book is fascinating as Mr. Arthur C. Clarke explains this alien ship and the adventures of the crew that explores it. Solid book, looking forward to the other two in the series (Ramans do everything in threes, after all.)

Foundation - I view this sort of as the anti-Ender's game. Whereas Ender's Game was about the world who pinned their hopes on a genius boy to save their bacon by combating an alien threat head on, Foundation is all about fore thought and planning on a grand, statistical scale. Relying on psycho-history (basically statistics and economics) the future has been mapped out very thoroughly by the greatest psycho historian the world has known (I forget his name though.) Long story short, the galactic empire is about to crumble and enter a thirty thousand year dark age. The psycho historians can't stop it, but they can shorten the dark age to only 1,000 years if they are allowed to do as they please. Well, the entire story takes places over 1,000 years, the first book only about 200 of those years, wherein Foundation, the bastion of scientific understanding, fends off threats in its small back-water part of the galaxy.

(Slight spoiler) Violence is a last resort, and the problems Foundation faces are all met through non-violent means, utilizing instead religion to control ignorance and trade embargoes to stifle war. I am looking forward to the other books in the series as well, this kind of story (handling conflict through non-violent means) very intriguing.

Good shit from scifi juggernauts. 

... are not very good :-( 

Kindle Paperwhite vs. Kobo Glo??

Read mostly sci-fi and fantasy, occasional thrillers and horror. 

I think either one is fine really, maybe a bit more book choices on Kindle because of amazon, but probably better interface/usability on the Kobo, and more DRM free books (all books on Amazon have DRM, so you can only read them on your kindle). 

Name me some good semi-obscure sfi-etc books that I can test, please xxx 

The Kobo looks nicer because cheaper, microSD and lighther (185g vs 220g). Now I want one too. 

http://www.amazon.com/Tain-Translated-Irish-Epic-Cuailnge/dp/0192803735

Blood, guts and warp spasms! 

http://www.v3.co.uk/IMG/224/241224/kobo-glo-ereader-pink-back-cover-320x198.jpg?1354020635 

 

Who here really, really likes the quakeinjector? :-D 

Silly EFF chart: https://www.eff.org/pages/reader-privacy-chart-2012

Without a cellular modem you should be pretty safe against remote backdoors like Amazon uses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S43YqAfpXQU is a long review video. PDF reading seems not so great, no reflow or column snapping. Damn. 

Anyone got any good recommendations for modern horror??

Particularly stuff where the environment / scenario / world-view is dark, fucked up and evil.

I do NOT like stuff where it all boils down to someone vaguely humanoid offing people in a cliched serial killer type way. I don't like vintage / classic horror with archaic writing.

Must have good, clear, snappy writing. NOT Stephen King (dull as fuck) nor Dean Koontz (lightweight as fuck) style.

Here's a few I've read recently with varying degrees of enjoyment:

Adam Nevill - Last Days - probably the best I've read, first 2/3 is great and genuinely creepy, last 1/3 both a bit long-winded and Hollywood-y but still good overall.

Dan Simmons - The Terror - lengthy but still quite gripping, gruelling setting and intriguing mythology.

FG Cottam - Dark Echo - can't remember much but it was spooky and the obsession of the characters in the mystery was good.

Michelle Paver - Dark Matter - great setting and initially intruiging although fades out at end.

Adam Nevill - The Ritual - pretty good, classic lost in the woods style to start and then goes into odder and less rewarding territory.

Dean Koontz - Phantoms - cliched characters and interactions but quite a good set-up.

Stephen Laws - Chasm - ditto! cool set-up but the epic potential a bit wasted with bland interactions.

Joe Hill - Horns - interesting idea but didn't really capitalise on it.

Dean Koontz - Hideaway - the Radio 1 of horror, yes that bland and lightweight. 

Have you read The Terror by Dan Simmons? You'd like it. Historical metafiction with a blatant, shameless lovecraft/poe influence.
Its not a modern masterpiece but its very good enjoyable, page turning horror. 

I read a story of his in an anthology of Lovecraft-influenced stuff - normally I don't buy those, but this one was edited by S. T. Joshi, and I'll buy basically any book with his name on it. Anyway, Barron had a story in there called "The Broadsword" which I thought was really creepy, a few times I was thinking "just what the fuck!!" Anyway, apparently he came out with a book a while ago called "The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All." I'm planning to check it out when I get a chance, probably over christmas. 

Did you read my post? 

Re the e-book reader discussion above, I got myself a 250� chinese 10 inch 1920x1080 tablet and am very happy with it for reading. 

shit.