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

**Cantih** · 2017-01-10 21:44

Originally Posted by Andalusian girls

but none of them can poetry or song like JR, none display the raw cerebral + linguistic firepower he did by inventing half a dozen different ways for nerds to say their wedding vows.

Ah, but remember, there is a very large contingent of LotR readers in the "skip the poetry and songs" camp. And not everyone is a con-langer.

**Ghost_Wheel22** · 2017-01-11 10:10

No accounting for taste I suppose. I mean c'mon. Tom Bombadil.

**Wulfgang** · 2017-01-11 12:05

All in all, I generally found the peaks of WoT to make it worth drudging through the various troughs. Towers of Midnight (#12) is so good; by far my favorite.

All truly epic series suffer from tedium at some point; Malazan Book of the Fallen is one of my favorites (similar length to WoT) and it has several arcs that were just a chore to get through (e.g. the Snake / flight of the Chal Managal group of refugees). WoT is at its worst during the angsty "Dark Rand" arc, which unfortunately spans several books in the middle.

And agree with Andalusian on Tolkien; he will always be a legend.

**Gustave** · 2017-01-11 12:58

I'm going to start Kingkiller then WoT.

**Zealot** · 2017-01-11 13:01

Dispatches from Syria: The Day They Came For Us.

Very enlightening view from the inside of the Syrian civil war, circa 2012, put together by an embedded journalist and reflected on in 2015.

**Cichy** · 2017-01-11 15:12

I'm half way thought first WOT and I'm struggling, not what I expected and pretty boring so far...

**Deftscythe** · 2017-01-11 15:48

The first book is a LOT of world-building. If you can get through it, things pick up quite a bit for the next few books

**mallister** · 2017-01-11 20:15

ref neuromancer: page too late but, guys, i'm not saying it was a work of literary genius. i enjoyed it, i didn't have the issues with the book people here have mentioned (character motivations were pretty clear to me, i didn't have a problem with the jargon, etc). it was a defining book, early in the genre. /shrug

wheel of time vs. kingkiller: man, WoT goes on and on. echoing what folks have said: it's a slog but worth it, middle books are trash but it has a strong finish. first book does start slow, but gets good around the last third or so. the middle books are 4-600 pages of pointless rambling and 150 pages of actual plot progression. the last books are surprisingly good. i started reading these damn things the weekend the third book came out, so it was a long wait. might be a totally different experience to be able to just burn them down one after another.

kingkiller was great right out of the gate and it's only 2 books so far, much easier read.

**Zetanio** · 2017-01-13 09:55

Brandon Sanderson ‏@BrandSanderson 8 Dec 2016
That's a wrap, folks. Oathbringer is done at 461,223 words. Still much work to do, but we have a first draft. November 2017 release date.

Don't know if this was put in here.

**synistar** · 2017-01-13 10:08

I only mentioned that it will be out before Christmas this year sometime last week. Didn't post the tweet. Though it is so far away and only a novella next month to get my Sanderson fix, besides more Arcanum Unbounded I need to read.

Working on Book 2 of The Expanse. Soooo good that I can't wait for season 2 to air.

**Qalbert** · 2017-01-14 13:29

this is probably old news but I was reading this: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/s...-read-in-2017/
and I had no idea there was going to be another Red Rising book

**BaneTheBrawler** · 2017-01-14 20:32

expanse is baller, but lots of people didn't care for books 3 and 4 (or might be 2 and 3). if you find yourself struggling, don't worry. stick it out, the newer books make it worth it. also, once you go through, highly recommend you check out the novellas. they take place before/during the main series, so unless you can find a precise chronology w/no spoilers i'd suggest just reading the main line first before you touch the novellas... but the novellas are VERY good.

new expanse soonish, new Foreigner soonish, new Safehold in my queue, iirc new Honor Harrington book in the pipeline... I am mega-excited. I wonder if there's new vorkosigan in the works. I hope so. what a time for sci fi!

**Lurking Badger** · 2017-01-15 18:03

I just read a chinese sci-fi called the Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Pretty nice ideas in there, and a very different pace from what I'm used to. Highly recommend.

Spoiler: show

**Souj** · 2017-01-22 10:14

Finished Neuromancer a few days ago. It took me awhile to get through it, but I did. Story got better once they actually brought the AI component in but I still had a hard time keeping interested, perhaps for more personal tastes.

I decided to start the Magicians and I'm halfway through that right now and liking that so far.

**mallister** · 2017-01-26 00:40

reading the first Magicians book after catching the series on netflix. pretty good so far.

**Byrthnoth** · 2017-01-26 06:19

Originally Posted by Cantih

The last chapter of arc 2 of Mother of Learning is out.

Spoiler: show

Quote that you're never going to see probably but yeaaaah wowwwwowowowow.

I'm rereading Arcs 1 and 2 now (about 1/3 of the way through Arc 2) and this author is a cut above the rest in terms of actually planning shit and foreshadowing events way in the future in ways that aren't particularly suspicious.

Spoiler: show

**Cantih** · 2017-01-27 01:11

No, I check this thread regularly.

It is probably crazy prepared plotting, but keep in mind Andrew Hussie was able to pull the same thing with Homestuck, and in his case it was more an amazing ability to roll with things and improvise yet still have damn near everything tie together.

**mallister** · 2017-01-27 22:46

Originally Posted by Souj

Finished Neuromancer a few days ago. It took me awhile to get through it, but I did. Story got better once they actually brought the AI component in but I still had a hard time keeping interested, perhaps for more personal tastes.

I decided to start the Magicians and I'm halfway through that right now and liking that so far.

did you finish? i'm on the 2nd book now.

**Souj** · 2017-01-27 23:23

I'm halfway through the 2nd book now. I'll pick up the third this weekend. I'm liking it. It's absolutely nothing like I was expecting and super weird in how it combines childish fantasy world and the edgier teens with problems thing.

One thing I noticed from the first book to the second is that the author's been making more pop culture reference in the second book. Like he was trying to avoid it at first but realized people like that sort of thing a lot.

Not sure if I'm going to check up on the TV show or not yet.