Return of the Book Thread

[IainC]

IThe full story follows the adventurers through youth and into old age and dealing with their children and the hopes and disappointments of life.  It's actually a really amazing and touching story arc.

So basically Dumas ripped off the Dragonlance saga?

[dd0029]

If you want to read Three Musketeers in fantasy format, read Steven Brust's The Khaavren Romances. I enjoyed the first two the most.  Parts of the Viscount subseries are really good and there's lots of world information for Dragaera as well.

The Phoenix Guards
Five Hundred Years After
The Viscount of Adrilankha
    The Paths of the Dead
    The Lord of Castle Black
    Sethra Lavode

[Johny Cee]

One of Erikson's (acknowledged) big influences is Glen Cook.  Try not to get too attached to any one character because they die.  Alot.  They also come back to life.  Alot.  But plenty stay dead.

They also die like bitches. A lot.  I'm still haven't gotten over Reaper's Gale enough to pick up Toll the Hounds.

That's also very Glen Cook.  He likes to have major characters die either in total bitch ways, or off screen.  Reaper's Gale was dedicated to Glen Cook, which was a big hint.

Dust of Dreams (book 9) of the Malazan books is set to be released this month...  Hopefully will be more action than setup, since the series finale is book 10.

[Chenghiz]

Dust of Dreams (book 9) of the Malazan books is set to be released this month...  Hopefully will be more action than setup, since the series finale is book 10.

Having just finished Toll the Hounds, I hope his editors stepped on his balls a bit more than they did last time. There was way too much exposition in that book, ye gods.

[Rasix]

They also die like bitches. A lot.  I'm still haven't gotten over Reaper's Gale enough to pick up Toll the Hounds.

That's also very Glen Cook.  He likes to have major characters die either in total bitch ways, or off screen.  Reaper's Gale was dedicated to Glen Cook, which was a big hint.

Ahhh.  Didn't remember the dedication.  Silver Spike and Books of the South had tons of those types of death.  They didn't irk me as bad as Reaper though as Silver Spike still remains my favorite in the Black Company series.

[Sheepherder]

Excellent book. Have you read A Farewell To Arms?

No, I haven't actually.  I should, because The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls really impressed me.  Apparently this Hemingway guy was a pretty good writer or something.

[Ironwood]

So basically Dumas ripped off the Dragonlance saga?

Haven't laughed so hard in ages.

[Luxor]

Dust of Dreams (book 9) of the Malazan books is set to be released this month...  Hopefully will be more action than setup, since the series finale is book 10.

I was at an Erikson book signing event for book 8 where he stated that in each book he tried to get the majority to be build up then the last 100 pages to be the payoff. He then stated that Book 9 would be the build up and Book 10 would be all payoff. Take that how you want it...

[Sheepherder]

All Quiet on the Western Front.  Now.

Excellent book. Have you read A Farewell To Arms?

Update: I have now.  I don't find it to be Hemingway's best work, it lacks the coherency of his later books, and it doesn't quite play with your emotion like All Quiet on the Western Front does.

[Khaldun]

Just finished Battle Royale. I was surprised at how much it drew me in, even with some of the annoying JRPG-ness of some characters and their internal monologues.

[stu]

Just finished Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk. Maybe the most fun I've ever had reading.

Here's the premise from the author:

The lead character is a 13-year-old foreign exchange student sent to live with a suburban, white, middle-class family.  Oh, and they're Christians.  The visit is for six months, and he's one of a dozen similar kids, all shipped to America to live with typical families.

The secret truth is that Pygmy is a terrorist, trained since infancy in martial arts, chemistry and radical hatred of the United States.  He has six months to build a prize-winning project for the National Science Fair.  If he succeeds, he and his project will go to Washington, D.C. for the finals competition -- where the project will explode, killing millions.

Here's an example of the narrative taken from Pygmy's first trip to Wal-Mart:

"Aftershave," repeat say pig dog brother, say, "Drives the fine ladies wild."

Printed in English letter, word letter black against white label of bottle, English letter spell, "Listerine."

This agent, eye of operative me suffering fire pain, say how in America told all ladies glad liberated to always expose many fragrant vaginas. No ever possess maidenhead. Develop hobby of enjoying many frequent abortion.  Always hungering to fashion moist lady mouths tight around gentlemen genital.

Pig dog brother merely rest eye on this agent. Eye no blink.

Mouth of operative me say, "Is no correct?"

Host pig dog say, "I wish..." Swinging smudge blood face from side then side, say, "Little pygmy, from your mouth to God's ear."

Reminds me a little bit of posts from loank.

chuckpalahniuk.net/files/features/pygmy-book-excerpt.pdf

Available at a library near you.

[Johny Cee]

Just finished Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk. Maybe the most fun I've ever had reading.

Here's the premise from the author:

The lead character is a 13-year-old foreign exchange student sent to live with a suburban, white, middle-class family.  Oh, and they're Christians.  The visit is for six months, and he's one of a dozen similar kids, all shipped to America to live with typical families.

The secret truth is that Pygmy is a terrorist, trained since infancy in martial arts, chemistry and radical hatred of the United States.  He has six months to build a prize-winning project for the National Science Fair.  If he succeeds, he and his project will go to Washington, D.C. for the finals competition -- where the project will explode, killing millions.

Here's an example of the narrative taken from Pygmy's first trip to Wal-Mart:

"Aftershave," repeat say pig dog brother, say, "Drives the fine ladies wild."

Printed in English letter, word letter black against white label of bottle, English letter spell, "Listerine."

This agent, eye of operative me suffering fire pain, say how in America told all ladies glad liberated to always expose many fragrant vaginas. No ever possess maidenhead. Develop hobby of enjoying many frequent abortion.  Always hungering to fashion moist lady mouths tight around gentlemen genital.

Pig dog brother merely rest eye on this agent. Eye no blink.

Mouth of operative me say, "Is no correct?"

Host pig dog say, "I wish..." Swinging smudge blood face from side then side, say, "Little pygmy, from your mouth to God's ear."

Reminds me a little bit of posts from loank.

chuckpalahniuk.net/files/features/pygmy-book-excerpt.pdf

Available at a library near you.

I actually almost picked this up today.  Been meaning to read more Palahniuk, ever since I enjoyed Haunted so much.

Charles Stross has a new collection of short stories out in hardcover now.  Supposed to be some decent stories there, including the Bob Howard short story I linked a page or two back.  Stross has a new Bob Howard book coming out in 2010.

Nightshade books seems to have sent my order by mule train weeks ago....  Unfortunately, an outbreak of consumption or the scarlet fever amongst the doughty porters has delayed my receipt of two Glen Cook hardcovers I haven't read yet and MY IMPATIENCE IS EATING ME ALIVE.

Reread Cook's original "Dread Empire" trilogy and the prequel books in the mean time.  If you enjoy realistic or gritty fantasy, you should read these.  If you want to see where Steven Erickson cribbed a good 50% of the Malazan series, you should read these.

Cook doesn't use traditional epic fantasy heroes....  He has a bunch of more or less sympathetic protagonists, and some even more sympathetic antagonists.  And most of them die, in silly or heart-breaking ways.

The original trilogy has by far the most realistic medieval military campaigns I've ever read.... 

[FatuousTwat]

For some reason, I just didn't finish the Dread Empire. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood or something.

[HaemishM]

Finished J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World. Very good book. It had some things that were very much a sign of the times it was written in (the stiff upper lip Brit types), but was well-written. Makes me want to read more of his stuff.

Decided to switch to Asimov's Foundation series, since it's another sci-fi classic I've never read. I'm liking it so far.

[Paelos]

One of Erikson's (acknowledged) big influences is Glen Cook.  Try not to get too attached to any one character because they die.  Alot.  They also come back to life.  Alot.  But plenty stay dead.

They also die like bitches. A lot.  I'm still haven't gotten over Reaper's Gale enough to pick up Toll the Hounds.

If you do, just read the last 200 pages. The rest of that book is the same shit you've been hearing in the first six. "Civilization is doomed, they never learn, EMO fit!" Erikson is starting to bore the shit out of me with all the unnecessary fluff.

In the meantime, I read Ken Follet's "Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End." Both are great books set in different periods of medieval England. Pillars is the acclaimed standout, but World gets more into the nitty-gritty of the feudal system and the Black Death. I recommend them both, as I actually flew through each 1000 page tome rather quickly.

[Ironwood]

Another week, another Brookmyre book down.

"A TALE ETCHED IN BLOOD AND HARD BLACK PENCIL"

His finest yet.  Awesome, Awesome Stuff.

Alas, those of you across the pond would find it hard going.  The jokes would be entirely lost on you.  The school system would need explaining.  Also, there's a 5 page Glossary at the back to explain the Scottish words.

 

[Hindenburg]

Wish I had that list when I started reading Hellblazer.

Struggling through Lord Foul's Bane. Man, that book took a nosedive as soon as he starts thinking he got hit by the car.

[Ingmar]

Another week, another Brookmyre book down.

"A TALE ETCHED IN BLOOD AND HARD BLACK PENCIL"

His finest yet.  Awesome, Awesome Stuff.

Alas, those of you across the pond would find it hard going.  The jokes would be entirely lost on you.  The school system would need explaining.  Also, there's a 5 page Glossary at the back to explain the Scottish words.

 

Hey man, we've all read Harry Potter and seen The Meaning of Life, your school system holds no mysteries for us.

[Endie]

That paisley junkie abuses his authorial powers in that glossary to make fun of his social superiors. To whit: the fine citizens of the fair city of Greenock.

[Ironwood]

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir ?

[Sky]

Possibly a gust of wind in your general direction.

Just finished Hamilton's Pandora's Star. Liked it better than the Reality Dysfunction series. Thought it was standalone and about 50 pages from teh end (of the 1000 page novel) I'm thinking "How the hell is he going to wrap this up?" He ends with a literal cliffhanger (raft going over an ocean-sized waterfall) and To Be Continued...and I liked it. He's done much better weaving mysteries in this time, after a thousand pages I have no fucking clue who's behind anything and a dozen theories.

The next book is checked out for a week, so I'm using the respite to dig into The Coming of Conan, the first fifteen stories of Conan in the order they were written. Been reading the small handful of Savage Sword of Conan comics I still own, late mediocre issues (low 100s). Wish I had my full collection, probably gathering dust in a comic shop in CA.

[Endie]

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir ?

Do you wish satisfaction, sir?  If so, your friends may find me here at their convenience.

Anyway... I don't tend to like autobiography much, with a very few exceptions (Viscount Alanbrooke's memoirs, for instance).  However, I just finished reading The Islamist, by Ed Hussain, which is his description of growing up in England as part of a Bangladeshi family immersed in traditional Asian, spiritual Islam.  It then follows him through five years of intense political Islamist activism and indoctrination as a member of increasingly radical factions, from Jamat-e-Islami to Hizb ut-Tahrir, and his alienation from our western kuffar society; through to disillusionment with Islamism; a return to both his family and to spiritual Islam in the form of Sufism; and several years spent in Syria and Saudi Arabia and his distaste for the Wahabbist doctrine that he finds in the Islamic state he thought he had longed for.

The book worked on two levels for me.  One was educational: I learned more about both Islam and Islamism; about the vast gulf that separates the two; and about the continuing struggle for control of the former by the latter than I have ever done from decades of media analysis.  But it was also a deeply touching arc of redemption and forgiveness by Hussain's family, as well as a personal journey of reconciliation with his identity as a British Muslim.

By the end, I was also a little jealous of the brotherhood of the ummah, and of the intense, gentle faith of the Sufis.

Edit: thanks to a misunderstanding followed by a mistake, I am now reading a second autobiography: that of Mark Oliver Everett (E from the Eels), called "Things the Grandchildren Should Know."  That boy sure isn't a good person to be related to  

[Xuri]

Just finished Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. It was a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be, and I enjoyed reading most, if not all of it.

[NowhereMan]

Ah the classics, reminds me of my time in Vietnam since I didn't really have much internet access and no TV combined with government book shops that sold classic novels for about $1 I read quite a lot. Dickens is generally very,very good and Hard Times is another really great one of his. If you've exhausted Dickens or enjoyed the social commentary but would love a bit more Victorian romance, Elizabeth Gaskell's not bad. I don't like her in comparison to Dickens but she's very much the same social message kick.

Also if you ever feel tempted to read Conan Doyle's the White Company, don't bother. It's... bad. If you think detective novels are silly and contrived try G.K. Chesterton's Club of Queer Trades, I read it and assume it's a parody of Holmes. If he meant it seriously then, God, but I doubt he's that bad a writer to have done that.

[Sky]

I would read Donaldson before I'd read Great Expectations. We had to read that in 8th grade and it instilled an utter hatred of Dickens in me that burns to this day.

Well, maybe not so much utter hatred as a complete lack of interest. But yeah.

[FatuousTwat]

So I read the first Dresden Files book today while sweating and burning myself. I enjoyed it enough to order the next 4 from the library.

Finished The Talisman the other day, then tried to read Black House (I got about 50 pages into it and quit).

Also reading the second in the Virga series. Blurb about the first book from wikipedia:

"It is set in the fictional world of Virga, a world of multiple artificial suns, a fullerene sphere filled with air and full of drifting rocks and nations floating around Candesce."

It's pretty interesting.

[Khaldun]

The Virga books are good, though I think none of them are quite as satisfying as the first book in the series. Schroeder is leading up to something big, though, so we'll see if the next one pulls some of the triggers he's been setting up.

[Sky]

I want to sue the editor of this collection of Conan stories. Don't get me wrong...it's a great collection and I like it being in the order he wrote them rather than trying to make it chronological by the stories.

But after years of Vallejo and other AMAZING Conan artists, the guy they have illustrating it is making my eyes have saline leakage.

[Morat20]

Charles Stross has a new collection of short stories out in hardcover now.  Supposed to be some decent stories there, including the Bob Howard short story I linked a page or two back.  Stross has a new Bob Howard book coming out in 2010.

The one titled Toast? I rather liked it. One of the short stories was, basically, the genesis for Accelerando. A good collection -- especially A Colder War. Modesitt has a short story collection out as well that I rather enjoyed, as welll.

[Johny Cee]

Charles Stross has a new collection of short stories out in hardcover now.  Supposed to be some decent stories there, including the Bob Howard short story I linked a page or two back.  Stross has a new Bob Howard book coming out in 2010.

The one titled Toast? I rather liked it. One of the short stories was, basically, the genesis for Accelerando. A good collection -- especially A Colder War. Modesitt has a short story collection out as well that I rather enjoyed, as welll.

Wireless, though I think "A Colder War" is one of the reprints.

[lamaros]

I read The Forever War again last night. Made me want to re-read Hamilton. Because Hamilton is so very heavily influenced, but is much more fun to read. Golly some SF can be painful...

Would love to read some more detective SF of the kind that Hamilton does so well (in parts of his larger series and in his short stories), or even detective/mystery fantasy. But don't really know of any other authors who do it.

. Time to go back to lit theory and the classics... who said being a Uni student was fun?

[FatuousTwat]

Would love to read some more detective SF of the kind that Hamilton does so well (in parts of his larger series and in his short stories), or even detective/mystery fantasy. But don't really know of any other authors who do it.

Recently read The Sword Edged Blonde... Fantasy/detective. I enjoyed it.

[lamaros]

Recently read The Sword Edged Blonde... Fantasy/detective. I enjoyed it.

Looks really interesting, thanks for the recommendation. 

[glennshin]

Is there an easy way to return to a specific page (pg30 or so) while I'm working my way through this monstrous thread?

also, please to be getting more Historical Fiction recommendations

Here's a short rundown of recent books I've read on the theme.

With Fire and Sword
17th Century Poland at war. The first part of the trilogy.

Musashi
famous swordsman's life & author of Book of Five Rings.

Taiko
Epic story of one of the rulers who helped unify Japan in the 1400's.

Silence
Missionaries try to spread the word of God to a godless people who want none of it.

[Hindenburg]

Is there an easy way to return to a specific page (pg30 or so) while I'm working my way through this monstrous thread?

Yeah. If page 61 corresponds to http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=7548.2100 , page 30 will be near http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=7548.1030, page 45 will be close to http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=7548.1550 , etc.