Books, Books?, Books!, Books...What are YOU reading? aka the WoT, GoT, Orson Scott Card thread

[Meph]

I never really thought about it until I read the article, but yeah...its pretty bad. Excluding davinci-code, all the books are pretty much written in quasi script-form, so its easier for them to make movies lol

[Byrd]

Is his books really like that article or is there some extreme exaggerating going on? (I'm guessing there is some exaggerating, but just how much?)
because if it's even just half as bad as it was in that article, it could be a humorous read.

The history and mythology is fascinating, that's what makes me read his stuff. I flew through the Da Vinci Code in one night, and enjoyed the hell out of it. Reading his other books, The Lost Symbol in particular, was tougher, and they were not particularly well written. Langdon becomes nigh-omniscient and almost superheroeseque, and the villains are over the top, nonsensical, and borderline vaudevillian. Several times in The Lost Symbol, I just sighed in exasperation.

[djzombie]

Been reading robot visions by asimov, its a collection of his short stories. Never read any of his novels, but this is a good introduction to his work, especially for someone with a particularly short attention span(me).

[Souj]

anyone able to point me in the direction of a .mobi English version of Metro 2033? Can't find it anywhere.

[Shade]

Been reading Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana" but I am tired of rolling my eyes at the saddest collection of female characters I've seen since Wheel of Time and all the manly inner-tears patriotism for the erased country, so I started A Clockwork Orange. I wish I had a glossary. Maybe it's time to go to the library for some actual-books instead of scavenging the bottoms of my mobi pile.

Just finished Malazan book 3 Memories of Ice. Will be starting book four.
Would I miss out on much if I skipped book 5, Midnight Tides? I'm already not liking how books 2&3 happen at the same time but are nearly completely unrelated (aside from what I assume with be in the grand scheme of things), and #4 goes back to following right after #2. Not so keen on starting up on book 5 with completely new settings/characters in a story that takes place before book #1.
I'm assuming that again, it'll have some stuff that's relevant to the larger picture, but is it also mostly just used to fill in some back story for stuff that happened in the previous books or are the really relevant things that I should read through for the next books?

All the jumping around to new characters when I just finished getting attached to other ones was the one thing I didn't like about the Malazan books (its not bad, just counter to how I like to read). I think I had the same reaction to book 5 as you did. That said, there are some gems in there, and it's not just prelude bullshit. You are going to need to know what the Letherii empire is all about, and in another 1-2 books everything will be directly relevant to the continued plot, even if it doesn't look like it right now.

[Manako]

Been reading Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana" but I am tired of rolling my eyes at the saddest collection of female characters I've seen since Wheel of Time and all the manly inner-tears patriotism for the erased country, so I started A Clockwork Orange.

So glad you posted this, I had put Tigana on my to-read list now I know better.

I am currently reading "The girl who kicked the hornet's nest" and when I chew through that I'll probably go to the Mistborn series. I still need to finish wheel of time but its been so long I can't speed-read like I did before so its rather painful. Read the final book in the Sookie Stackhouse series the day it came out, was very good -- much better than the more recent entries in the series. Broke down and bought a kindle but mostly use that for Felicia Day's book club reading

[mallister]

i read the first few stackhouse books, couldn't stomach more. author's writing style made my teeth hurt. ironically i love trueblood, it's so bad you just can't stop watching. i miss russel ; ;

[Thefonz]

has anyone picked up Silken Prey by John Sandford? I've started getting kinda bored with that series and was curious if anyone thought it worth picking up

[Belragga]

Tehol and Bugg. Enough Reason right there.

[Darkmagi]

Pretty much, some of the best characters in the series.

[Souj]

Ended up buying Metro 2033 off of Amazon 3 days ago. Amazon estimated it'd get there by the 25th so I started reading The Dark Tower.
Metro just came in the mail today and I'm half way through the 2nd Dark Tower book so I guess now I'll finish up dark tower book2and then read Metro before continuing on.

And a Dark Tower related question; I remember hearing about King rewriting one of the book or something? Can I get more details on that (obviously spoiler free details) like if I should read the original, the reworked, or both or if I just completely misheard/misremembered.

[Rulke]

^IIrc the "rewrites" early on aren't huge. They imply that the villain is the same person now rather than early on when I believe it was suggested to be two different people.

As a reader of the entire series, I would just read what is currently cannon (all mine were kindle editions). He has talked about wanting to rewrite more if he has time, partly because the books span such a long time in his life and his writing style has changed, grown etc, so he sees a lot of "flaw" in his earlier stuff he'd like to fix.

[Wulfgang]

Tehol and Bugg. Enough Reason right there.

Oh man, I have never laughed out loud while read a book until the exchanges between Tehol, Bugg, and Ublala; shit is absolutely hilarious

[Zetanio]

Just read Ready Player One. It's a bit of an 80's circlejerk but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[Wulfgang]

Just finished Tyrant's Law (book three of the Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham); highly highly recommend it. Marcus Wester is fucking awesome.

[Souj]

Stayed up to 2am to finish metro 2033, and Man, I was really disappointed by that ending.

[AlexRuzhyo]

Stayed up to 2am to finish metro 2033, and Man, I was really disappointed by that ending.

How was it? Is there a new print? I got a .pdf of it awhile ago but it was poorly translated/edited and broke the flow often... I ultimately gave up on it.

On a slightly related topic: read the STALKER: Southern Comfort book, which has been reprinted as the Zones of Alienation series, I assume from them losing the rights, and it was alright after the first quarter. Having read military/FPS tie-in novels, such as Gears/Halo, and the inspiration Roadside Picnic, I kinda knew what to expect in regards to the dry bits and some of the Russian tropes? It originated as Russian fan fiction and it can be felt often in places... almost as if the writer lacked certain objectivity or maybe I just don't don't get certain cultural assumptions? I'm unsure. If you're a fan of the STALKER series I can say it's worth a look but won't suit every fans taste.

[Souj]

How was it? Is there a new print? I got a .pdf of it awhile ago but it was poorly translated/edited and broke the flow often... I ultimately gave up on it.

It's translated very well. I'm assuming it's a newer print because they make mention of Metro: Last Light on the cover.
There's a few things I didn't like, but I'm not going to blame them on the book because it's just how the story was purposefully written;
(the vaguest of spoilers)

Spoiler: show

Like how nothing is explained or how the protagonist spends the whole book just going from one traveling buddy to the next as an excuse to get different versions of life in the Metro from each person.
(little heavier on the spoiler, but still nothing specific)

Spoiler: show

And then the last quarter of the book turned into a "Is life worth living/does man need a reason to live, even if its a lie" type thing, which would have been fine if it was handled better, but it's just shoved down your throat.

All that still would have been fine though and I'd still have called it a good read, but then the last 3 pages happened...
(ending ruining spoilers)

Spoiler: show

The beginning of the book starts with the big threat of The Dark Ones which are set up as the next human evolution on the surface and they're portrayed as such a horrible danger and they have psychic powers that can literally drive people insane with fear, so the protagonist goes on a journey to find a way to stop them from overrunning the Metro and killing everyone. Protagonist ends up finding out about an unused missile silo that they can use to blow up the nest of Dark Ones. By the end of the book, The Dark Ones have begun assaulting the Metro and killing lots of people. As the missiles are headed for the nest, Protagonist gets a vision from the Dark Ones a la Ender's Game where he learns that the Dark Ones and humans need each other and the Dark Ones were trying to communicate to them and tell them that they could coexist and killing the humans was the only way they knew how to do that. Then the Dark Ones all die.

[Souj]

60% through the Malazan Chain of Dogs book

Spoiler: show

Karsa just got the Knight of Chains position. Was the Crippled God's involvement in Karsa supposed to be a surprise? Because it played out like it was a surprise, yet I felt it seemed somewhat obvious.

[Jesifromgaruda]

Hey guys I was wondering if you could help me find a book.

So she says that the book is kind of oldish, around 1980.

It's a comedy, science fiction and is about a caretaker that has to take care of a werewolf, vampire and a mermaid.

She says that it is very funny and he has to learn things like how to take care of the werewolf's mane.

Thanks for any help you can give!