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

[synistar]

Well I'm trying to read Chronicles of the Black Company but it hasn't been able to hook me despite throwing me into the wtf-is-going-on meat grinder off the bat. Two friends said it would be worth my time but boy do I feel so detached from the characters. Ugh so hard to push through.

Also finished the Mistborn trilogy. Enjoyed it very much though the first book was a bit predictable.

[Souj]

Just finished the His Dark Materials trilogy.

Meh.(not surprising considered the age group for the book). The only thing I found really interesting with the book was how there were like 10 different Deus Ex Machinas but they were all central to the plot.

gonna read 11/22/63 next, and then maybe start the Wheel of Time series.
I need to start the Aspect-Emperor trilogy, but I think I might wait until the 3rd book comes out.

[Jakson]

Also finished the Mistborn trilogy. Enjoyed it very much though the first book was a bit predictable.

Eh, I felt the same way about the first one and for the first time in ever I didn't finish a series. I've been reading the Thrawn Trilogy, and because I didn't read these in 5th grade I'm not really enjoying them. I feel like, every once in a while, Zahn has to buddy-up, nudge-nudge, wink-wink some reference to episodes 4/5/6 in and it feels a bit forced.

Not a huge fan fiction...fan, but does anyone know of any SG:U material that isn't terrible? SG:SG-1 has a bunch of books and I'm just hoping that someday somebody will at least attempt finishing Universe's story.

[Brill Weave]

Got bored so I started rereading the Summoner trilogy by Gail Martin. Nothing fantastic but entertaining nonetheless.

[Acturus]

Got bored so I started rereading the Summoner trilogy by Gail Martin. Nothing fantastic but entertaining nonetheless.

Did you finish Codex Alera?

[Brill Weave]

Oh yeah a while ago. I had read it before. I really enjoyed the series.

[Acturus]

Oh yeah a while ago. I had read it before. I really enjoyed the series.

Ditto. Butcher recently tweeted to the effect that he was working on Cold Days with a deadline to his publisher of July 1.

I started re-reading Dresden for the billionth time last week after reading his tweets.

[Brill Weave]

I read the first four or five Dresden novels then fell off on them. Sooner or later I'll pick the rest up from Half Price Books or something. They aren't very many writers that I like to the point I enjoy just about everything they write. The only two I can think of off the top of my head are Butcher and Deborah Chester.

[Acturus]

Yeah, I keep telling myself to go dig up his Spiderman book one of these days. Never have.

And I read in an interview that he didn't get the Dresden stuff published until after he had written the first four. He's also commented that it took him three or four re-writes to get Storm Front passable. When I pick up his series, I usually start at book four because the first three just aren't as much fun to read.

[Wulfgang]

So I've been doing a lot of fantasy reading lately. Finished the entire Malazan Book of the Fallen series (<3 Fiddler), read the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss (absolutely amazing books), and am on book three of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Kingkiller books are my favorite, but I'm absolutely loving the Wheel of Time series. Malazan BotF is great, but a bit overlong and uses way too much introspective reflection / philosophy on war and the human condition in my opinion. He also has too many characters (something I also feel about George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series) which can make the flow difficult and, if reading over a long period of time, somewhat hard to follow / remember everything.

If anyone has additional suggestions similar to the ones I've mentioned, let me know; though, I will likely be cruising through the remaining Wheel of Time books for the next month or two.

[Zetanio]

I'm also making my way through the Wheel of Times books. Can't believe I didn't find out about them until recently.

[Wulfgang]

I'm also making my way through the Wheel of Times books. Can't believe I didn't find out about them until recently.

I still love them, but there is definitely a ton of borrowing almost it seems from LOTR.

-Two Rivers = Shire
-Moiraine = Gandalf
-Ogiers = Ents (this is really obvious)
-Lan, the displaced king and sole heir of Malkier and master swordsman = Aragorn, the wandering king and heir of Gondor and master swordsman
-Trollocs = Trolls + Orcs
-Padan Fain = Gollum
-Mat = Perrin + Merry combined

So many more. Doesn't bother me too much, but it's definitely there.

[Indalecia]

Ha...oh you poor thing. The cast of characters expands at an exponential rate. I'm not slamming it, it is by far my favorite series ever.

But its not going to stay limited to like...oh, 20 characters or so. It grows every book.

Also, wait til the later books for Mat. He's really a bitch for the first 6 books.

[Wulfgang]

Ha...oh you poor thing. The cast of characters expands at an exponential rate. I'm not slamming it, it is by far my favorite series ever.

But its not going to stay limited to like...oh, 20 characters or so. It grows every book.

Also, wait til the later books for Mat. He's really a bitch for the first 6 books.

I have more characters, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone; that said I'm sure the cast will expand immensely. Mat has finally become cool since...

Spoiler: show

He became a boss with a quarterstaff out of nowhere and talks smack while rolling fools in dice

I find myself wanting to read the books more than I want to play Diablo III by a pretty wide margin. Not sure if that speaks well for the books or poorly for D3 haha

[Indalecia]

It's the books. Everytime a new one came out, I dropped everything. Think I missed an E.body when book 10 came out.

Started reading them in '94, so the series wrap up this fall has me on my toes.

[Zetanio]

I'm slamming through them at a terrific rate (Summer weekends by the pool :D )

[Aumaan_Kujata]

re: The Wheel of Time:
Think I read somewhere in a fairly old interview or something that the plot-related similarity to Lord of the Rings in the first book was a deliberate thing, particularly the leaving-the-shire general setup (make readers comfortable, blah blah). Definitely diverges after a bit- it would have to; there's not nearly enough LotR to plagiaraize 14 doorstops out of. Also, don't get too excited about the Fall- Tor's set the publication date for A Memory of Light at January 8 (making the series just a hair under 23 years long, heh). The Michael Whelan cover art's been posted on their site if anyone hasn't seen it yet. If you're early enough in the series and look too closely, I suppose it might be considered a spoiler in a few details.

[Resin]

So I just read Ender's Game for the first time (yeah, yeah, I know) and about to start on Speaker for the Dead but was told some books in the series are worth skipping. Thoughts?

[Doombear]

I would say see how you feel after Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game (the first novel) is really quite different feeling than Speaker and Xenocide. I liked all three, and read them in that order. Some people read the books in Chronological Order, but I never did as I read most of them as they released. I felt that after the initial trilogy a lot of the interest I had in the characters faded and some of the books are just worlds different than the first three as far as the pace and tone of the books.

Like I said I have only read the first 5 or so (publication date listed) and found the newer ones to just be less interesting. I would at least suggest that you read those first three and see if you care to go on.

[Buffy]

So I just read Ender's Game for the first time (yeah, yeah, I know) and about to start on Speaker for the Dead but was told some books in the series are worth skipping. Thoughts?

Ender's game and Ender's shadow are the two best books of that universe imo. Last time I re-read them I did speaker for the dead and then stopped. They get kinda weird at one point.