Return of the Book Thread

[Margalis]

I'm picked up 3 different Penguin compendiums, first published in 2004. Does not appear to be much duplication, maybe not any.

I hate "Best Ofs" for both music and stories because I always end up going back and buying the full collection later.

Link to one of them:

http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-Witch-House-Stories-Classics/dp/0142437956/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207711679&sr=8-2

[Samwise]

Woohoo!  My Amazon wishlist was looking pretty sparse after this last Christmas.     Once I get these maybe I can give my Del Rey books away to my younger relatives.

[lamaros]

I read a couple more books, all for uni. My personal reading list is getting longer and longer, I doubt I'll get time to get through it all on the holidays:

The Awakening, Chopin: Actually liked it a bit. Nice and short, style is ok.
In The Miso Soup, Murakami: Much fun! Probably my favourite. Short enough, still moderately cringe inducing, funny, and pretty thought provoking.
Wrong About Japan, Carey: Nice short and clear, but a but simple and boring. Nonfiction (I think) account of a trip to Japan with his son.
Baumgartner's Bombay, Desai: Boring. I've have enough of such boringly contrived narratives. I've also had enough of the holocaust. Despite that it had some points of interest. But still.

Now to read the few articles of criticism on Cormac McCarthy I could find. If anyone knows of some recent stuff let me know; haven't found anything that relates directly to 'The Road' at this point.

[Johny Cee]

I hate that, that's why I always look for complete collections.

I'm a little bit through the first Lovecraft compendium. It holds up surprisingly well so far, written in 1920 but not anachronistic at all.

Did you ever try The Dark Chamber?  Also from the '20's,  but a pretty good read.

[Rishathra]

So I was browsing the shelves at the local B&N today and I saw this..



Is this for real?  I mean, I know that history is written by the victors and all that, but I always thought that we were pretty much right on the money calling this guy a douchebag.

[Samwise]

The Amazon reviews say it all.

***** The birth of the left, November 7, 2007
By  M. Powell (Texas)

Very well written and very well documented. Irrefutable documents.
A roadmap of deception, apathy, and censoring those who overturned rocks the Democratic Party (also known by their card carrying aliases within the Democratic Socialists Party) didn't want shown.

When you read you will understand profoundly the foundations of the radical left wing of the Democratic Party and liberal nutjobs. Theirs has been a long succession of deception and undermining the American people.

[Johny Cee]

I'll recommend David Keck's In the Eye of Heaven.  It's medieval fantasy,  in tone very like Kay's writing of historical fiction/fantasy.  Has a strong Arthurian mythology vibe.  Basically the lead falls into a Lancelot archetype:  in love with his sworn lord's wife.

The magic/supernatural angle is much more toned down and in the background.  Solid story.  I found it because quite a few authors I like had nice things to say (John C Wright, Erikson, Carey).

[cmlancas]

Is this for real?  I mean, I know that history is written by the victors and all that, but I always thought that we were pretty much right on the money calling this guy a douchebag.

Did you happen to leaf through the pages? The left hand pages say 9/11 and the right ones say Terrorism.

 

[Rishathra]

Is this for real?  I mean, I know that history is written by the victors and all that, but I always thought that we were pretty much right on the money calling this guy a douchebag.

Did you happen to leaf through the pages? The left hand pages say 9/11 and the right ones say Terrorism.

 

I couldn't work up the courage to actually touch the thing.  Just reading the title made me 

[Sky]

Trying to get through the Order War (Modesitt). Too distracted by rl.

So mostly reading about 4 plumbing books, 5 bathroom books, 3 concrete masonry books, a siding book, and 2 flooring books. Cram time for the big test (Coming Soon™).

[Morat20]

I just finished Off Armaggedon Reef. I'm going to say the same thing I said about Turtledove's WWII/Alien series -- it works better than I thought. I mean, cybernetic Merlin samurai come to lead the Reformation on a lost colony, after Earth is wiped out by aliens?

The concept is ludicrous, except possibly for UO players. :)

[sidereal]

Finished Erikson's Gardens of the Moon.  I'm pretty happy with it as an example of gritty political epic fantasy and I'll commit to finishing the series (all Jordanesque billion ongoing pages of it), but he needs to work on pacing.  150 pages of nothing, then climactic battle, then 2 pages of character development, then two consecutive climactic battles, etc.  You're killing me.  Also, he's very much of the school of fantasy naming that involves a lot of nonsense three-syllable words that sound like a weak attempt at Tolkien linguistics interspersed with a metric fuckton of apostrophes.  Here's a hint for any burgeoning fantasy linguists out there:  unless you're referring to a glottal stop (and believe me, unless you're developing Klingon and know what the fuck you're doing, you're not referring to a glottal stop), THE APOSTROPHE IS NOT A SOUND.  I don't know where this shit started.  Tolkien didn't do it.  If your name is A'tr'alla K'thel'il'ithin YOU HAVE FUCKING ISSUES.  YOU JUST WRITE IT ATRALLA KTHELILITHIN!  NOBODY NEEDS 75 EXTRANEOUS APOSTROPHES!!  AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

[Murgos]

Finished Erikson's Gardens of the Moon....

Stuff

... AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Dude, undead-sword-armed-archmage-tyrannosaurs, seriously.

[JWIV]

Finished Erikson's Gardens of the Moon.  I'm pretty happy with it as an example of gritty political epic fantasy and I'll commit to finishing the series (all Jordanesque billion ongoing pages of it), but he needs to work on pacing.  150 pages of nothing, then climactic battle, then 2 pages of character development, then two consecutive climactic battles, etc.  You're killing me.  Also, he's very much of the school of fantasy naming that involves a lot of nonsense three-syllable words that sound like a weak attempt at Tolkien linguistics interspersed with a metric fuckton of apostrophes.  Here's a hint for any burgeoning fantasy linguists out there:  unless you're referring to a glottal stop (and believe me, unless you're developing Klingon and know what the fuck you're doing, you're not referring to a glottal stop), THE APOSTROPHE IS NOT A SOUND.  I don't know where this shit started.  Tolkien didn't do it.  If your name is A'tr'alla K'thel'il'ithin YOU HAVE FUCKING ISSUES.  YOU JUST WRITE IT ATRALLA KTHELILITHIN!  NOBODY NEEDS 75 EXTRANEOUS APOSTROPHES!!  AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

You might want to avoid the R. Scott Bakker "Prince of Nothing" series.  He seems to revel in crazy words with as much punctuation he can shove into them.   It's a good series if you can get past that though.

[sidereal]

Finished Erikson's Gardens of the Moon....

Stuff

... AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Dude, undead-sword-armed-archmage-tyrannosaurs, seriously.

 

[Johny Cee]

Finished Erikson's Gardens of the Moon.  I'm pretty happy with it as an example of gritty political epic fantasy and I'll commit to finishing the series (all Jordanesque billion ongoing pages of it), but he needs to work on pacing.  150 pages of nothing, then climactic battle, then 2 pages of character development, then two consecutive climactic battles, etc.  You're killing me.  Also, he's very much of the school of fantasy naming that involves a lot of nonsense three-syllable words that sound like a weak attempt at Tolkien linguistics interspersed with a metric fuckton of apostrophes.  Here's a hint for any burgeoning fantasy linguists out there:  unless you're referring to a glottal stop (and believe me, unless you're developing Klingon and know what the fuck you're doing, you're not referring to a glottal stop), THE APOSTROPHE IS NOT A SOUND.  I don't know where this shit started.  Tolkien didn't do it.  If your name is A'tr'alla K'thel'il'ithin YOU HAVE FUCKING ISSUES.  YOU JUST WRITE IT ATRALLA KTHELILITHIN!  NOBODY NEEDS 75 EXTRANEOUS APOSTROPHES!!  AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

 

Keep in mind,  Gardens is Erikson's first book.  It very much feels like an author's first book:  you can slice off parts that are basically Glen Cook,  other parts very much like Tolkien,  a bunch with the feel of Jordan or Martin.  He hits his stride the next two books.  There are some pacing and story development issues,  especially for the depth of the world he's shooting for.

Don't worry about series-itus.  The books are self-contained enough that you never feel like you're plowing through slush to get to a story nugget.


The naming is especially funny because on the one hand you have Cook derived names (Fiddler, Whiskeyjack, Blend, Picker, Quick Ben) and on the other you have the 18 letter monstrosities. 

[Raging Turtle]

Picked up and blew through The Day of the Triffids.  Short book, but it lived up to the hype I've heard about it (allowing for some dating issues since it was written in the 1950s), and managed to make a ridiculous premise work well. 

Now reading On Beauty By Zadie Smith, who wrote White Teeth.  Lovely prose, I'm about 50 pages in so far and enjoying it.

[Reg]

John Wyndham is good. I didn't realize he was still in print anywhere. If you can find it, "The Trouble with Lichen" is even better than triffids.

[HRose]

Yeah, Erikson second book is far better than the first. Flows better, is better written and has better character development. And it also starts to fill some parts of the puzzle.

I don't agree that the first book needs better pacing. There's no filler and in fact it needed more pages to let linger more some parts. The problem is that all that happens through the book is never resolutive, so it all leads to the last 100 pages, that then feel rushed.

THE APOSTROPHE IS NOT A SOUND.  I don't know where this shit started.  Tolkien didn't do it.  If your name is A'tr'alla K'thel'il'ithin YOU HAVE FUCKING ISSUES.  YOU JUST WRITE IT ATRALLA KTHELILITHIN!  NOBODY NEEDS 75 EXTRANEOUS APOSTROPHES!!  AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

I warmly recommend you the Prince of Nothing by Scott Bakker :)

[penfold]

I'm currently reading The Kraken Wakes by Wyndham. I found it when packing some books the other day, I forgot I had it and hadn't read it before. It's a really old copy, 1963, it cost 6 shillings 3 pence. It puts me in the mood for some classic sci-fi, i think I'll finally get round to getting all the Foundation, Lensmen and Skylark books, which I've been meaning to for ages.

[Murgos]

I'm currently reading The Kraken Wakes by Wyndham. I found it when packing some books the other day, I forgot I had it and hadn't read it before. It's a really old copy, 1963, it cost 6 shillings 3 pence. It puts me in the mood for some classic sci-fi, i think I'll finally get round to getting all the Foundation, Lensmen and Skylark books, which I've been meaning to for ages.

I  the Lensman and Skylark books.  You are in for a Pulpy treat.

[penfold]

I'm currently reading The Kraken Wakes by Wyndham. I found it when packing some books the other day, I forgot I had it and hadn't read it before. It's a really old copy, 1963, it cost 6 shillings 3 pence. It puts me in the mood for some classic sci-fi, i think I'll finally get round to getting all the Foundation, Lensmen and Skylark books, which I've been meaning to for ages.

I  the Lensman and Skylark books.  You are in for a Pulpy treat.

I have Children of the Lens, Vortex Blasters and Skylark Three and have read them both many times. It's about time i got them all.

I finished The Kraken Wakes last night, the melting of the polar ice and massive rise in sea levels induced by the invaders was strangely prophetic. Great stuff.

[NowhereMan]

Can't remember if it was in the last thread but I've just got done with the Gormenghast trilogy, had heard about it a lot but didn't know anything about beyond it Peake being a contemporary of Tolkein's. Readable enough book though it really wasn't the high fantasy I'd expected, I couldn't help but feel this is a trilogy I would have enjoyed a lot more if I'd been younger. The writing felt somewhat turgid, there's a lot of time spent with nothing much happening really with a few side plots going on that really have nothing whatsoever to do with the main story-line. I'm not regretting reading it but I can't say it's one of my favourites and I can see why it never achieved anything like the popularity of the Hobbit or Narnia books. Probably worth a read just to know about it (for geek cred or just a sense of completeness) I guess it would be a step up in maturity for someone who's read the Hobbit or Narnia and wants to read something fantasyish.

I've also started reading On the Road but I've got a fair amount of essay related reading and writing to do so not sure if I'm going to get much more of it read in the next couple of weeks.

[Margalis]

Oh God Lensman. Tell us what you think when you're finished. Space opera for the win.

[HaemishM]

Finished Erikson's Gardens of the Moon. 

I saw this book at the Dollar General for $1 last night and figured that since it was a buck and people on here had talked well about it, I'd pick it up. Going to start on it after I finish Gatsby this weekend.

[Xilren's Twin]

Hell, I loved it for Dresden's ride at the end. :)

My wife's a writing teacher, and she's found them interesting simply because you see him go from "first published novel" -- written off a submission for a creative writing class, I think -- and work his way through a pretty demanding publishing schedule. You can see him grow as a storyteller, make mistakes, correct them, make new mistakes, etc. It really helped him that urban fantasy is THE genre right now -- at least he doesn't have too many lesbian vampires. Fuck, his main character was celibate for years, which is HUGELY different than a lot of the best-selling urban stuff at the moment. :)

I like the take that Harry keeps having potential romances that he just can't even quite close the deal on unlike much other urban fantasy (yes im looking at you Hamilton).  Glad he finally got laid, and in a normal way.

While I have no idea where the overall arc is going to end up, my guess is the next book will be about finding wielders for the swords of the cross?  Nicodemus better not be dead; he's a bad guy i can get behind.

BTW, for any michelle west fan's her prequel The Hidden City about Jewel is out.  I like her style but not enough happend in that book; i though it was going to interweave jewel's early life as an orphan with the current house wars.  It was all backstory.

[HRose]

Finished Erikson's Gardens of the Moon. 

I saw this book at the Dollar General for $1 last night and figured that since it was a buck and people on here had talked well about it, I'd pick it up. Going to start on it after I finish Gatsby this weekend.

I'm curious :)

[murdoc]

Just finished 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'. I had been meaning to read the Hitchhikers trilogy (of 5 books!) again all in a row, but after the 3rd one I'm getting kind of tired of it and need to break it up a bit.

[Rasix]

Finished two books on my vacation:

Newest Dreden book.  Liked it.  I think I need to sit down and re-read the series though, because I didn't get all of the references to earlier story lines.  Wasn't a whole lot of Bob in this one.

The Dragon Never Sleeps from Cook.  I didn't like it as well as I thought I would.  I was actually disappointed in some of the directions he took the story and characters I really didn't like did a lot better than I thought they deserved.  More of Cook playing with his shades of grey (mostly black here) but it really didn't work for me this time.   My interpretation of hero and villian was probably skewed here since every personality test I've taken puts me down as a strict authoritarian.   Don't want to dive too deep here and give the story away, since it is a well told story, if a bit difficult to get through (read this at about 1/3 to 1/2 my normal reading rate).

Now on to Reaper's Gale.

[JWIV]

Just finally got around to reading this - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.    She definitely needed a better editor, but I'm glad I finally read it.

[sidereal]

Just finally got around to reading this - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.    She definitely needed a better editor, but I'm glad I finally read it.

Have you kicked the shit out of a sick person yet? 

[Murgos]

My interpretation of hero and villian was probably skewed here since every personality test I've taken puts me down as a strict authoritarian.

Meh, the villain was the corporate group of psuedo-anarchists/ultra-capitalists.  They were simply trying to profit from the removal of order.  The guardships/canon were morally a little grey, but certainly not evil - lawful neutral at worst, and though Kez was put in the 'good guy' position he was actually working counter to his beliefs until near the end of the story.

[JWIV]

Just finally got around to reading this - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.    She definitely needed a better editor, but I'm glad I finally read it.

Have you kicked the shit out of a sick person yet? 

I've tried to enlighten the cats that it is their moral imperative to earn their meals by providing a service of equal value.   They don't seem to understand though. 

[WayAbvPar]

Just finally got around to reading this - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.    She definitely needed a better editor, but I'm glad I finally read it.

I bought it about 8 years ago on the advice of someone I worked with at the time. It has been sitting on my shelf ever since, gathering dust and annoying me. I can't bring myself to spend the time when there are so many other good books I have yet to read.

[Morat20]

Newest Dreden book.  Liked it.  I think I need to sit down and re-read the series though, because I didn't get all of the references to earlier story lines.  Wasn't a whole lot of Bob in this one.

Best line in the book didn't even reference Dresden. .

"I know" said Thomas bitterly. "Leper Outcast Unclean".