alternate Jasons. The fact that there was no original Jason and every Jason was very much the same person presented an interesting philosophical question and an excellent narrative opportunity. But I guess the author wanted the book to end on a happy ending more than anything.
I started reading Fluency by Jennifer Fohner Wells, and then I stopped, because it was terrible. Rehashed Rama with a dash of Farscape thrown in and a crew of twittering high schoolers dressed as adult professionals. Just genuinely the worst thing I've read in years.
Finished Book 2 of Wayward Pines two days ago. Super fast read.
Started Book 3 yesterday. Already 20% in (according to my Kindle). I'm enjoying the series quite a bit and look forward to the ending. May finish 3 books in a week at this point, ha.
Curious to see what you think of it when you're a bit further in because I started it then put it down. It was really cool and promising at first, then slipped into trope-ville/generic blah quite suddenly and made me feel like I was wasting my time a bit. I haven't restarted it since, but if there's some kind of reason to keep going I'd love to hear it.
I've read the series last year I think and I can remember that I found them pretty generic too, but it does actually get better once shit starts to go down. When I think of the series I always think of it as "more than the sum of it's parts". Also, I love Royce, he's so nasty and he actually get's worse as the series goes on, if I remember it right...
I finished City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett yesterday. It was a very satisfying conclusion to the trilogy even if
The main threat of the book is dealt with in a rather quick and off-hand manner at the end
While the book does leave room for future follow-ups, I would be content to leave the Divine Cities world where it was at the end of City of Miracles.
Audible users should check on the current 2-for-1 credit sale. There are a ton of great books on offer. If you have debated a trial membership, now is the time to do it!
Some highlights in the genres that I regularly read
Sci Fi:
- Underground Airlines (Haven't read, but I have heard good things)
- Hyperion
- Flowers for Algernon
- Leviathan Wakes/Abaddon's Gate (if you have been watching the Expanse series)
- Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Mote in God's Eye
- Binti
- Seveneves (I haven't read this yet, but I like Stephenson).
- The first two books of John Lee's Commonwealth Saga
- Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Fantasy
- The Name of the Wind/Wise Man's Fear (popular but sort of love/hate around here)
- The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies
- Assassin's Apprentice
- Nine Princes in Amber
Non-Fiction (I mostly stick to history)
- SPQR
- The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
- The Guns of Augst
- Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
- The Great Courses: The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World
- Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East
- Helter Skelter
- Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church (the book that Spotlight was based on)
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (before he started getting into internet flame wars)
- Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (in Bios and Memoirs)
General Fiction
- All Quiet on the Western Front (the only book President Trump has read/heard of)
- Fahrenheit 451
- The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring
- Crazy Rich Asians (this is going to be released as a film next year)
- The Count of Monte Cristo
- Alas, Babylon
- The Winds of War
- A Little Life (I haven't read it, but Mumei and others have had high praise in these threads)
- The Color Purple
- The Bell Jar
- The Sympathizer
- Sleeping Giants
- The End of the Affair
- The Poisonwood Bible
- Americanah
Tons to choose from. There are other genres that I don't really read (Mystery/Thrillers, Romance, Young Adult, Self Help) which probably have good stuff as well.
I have way too many books on my "to be read" pile and after some analysis paralysis I just grabbed whatever and started reading. Turns out whatever is actually Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan
I'm not too far in but I gotta say this book is awesome! Just some cunning thieves doing thief stuff and having fun doing it.
I'm also still reading The Dark Tower (VII) which is very entertaining even if it seems like King is just vomiting out every possible idea he has since it's the last book in the series. The scene where
This series is fantastic all the way through though it gets better as it goes, especially the end. His new series is also great and book two is coming July 25th. It takes place thousands of years before that series and there are definitely connections, though it isn't required to read anything before.
Well... it's not a shit-written book, but it's not necessarily Dickens' #1 page-turner either. In my opinion it's not the Dickens you should start with. First one should be Great Expectations -- you're following a charming little old main character through mystery and adventure from the get-go -- or maybe Bleak House. Although you should just read the Brontës instead.
Speaking of the Brontës (who I haven't read, yes, shame on me), I was listening to a podcast, which you can listen to here, where Cat Valente was interviewed about various writing-related things—her history, her process, her upcoming projects—and one of the projects was a middle grade fiction book called The Glass Town Game book, which she describes as taking this fantasy world that the Brontë children made up and she says that they kind of LARP'd, which was "built out of a child's understanding of British politics and the Napoleonic Wars and Yorkshire fairy tales and all of this crazy stuff." They even wrote "in-universe magazines that were published by their characters." And we apparently still have a great deal of the material. The idea of The Glass Town Game is that Glass Town was actually a real place that the Brontë children went to.
If you're familiar with the concept she used for the Prester John books (all the myths about Prester John are true!), you've already seen she's using the same concept here; I'm hoping it works as well here as it did there.
Given your proficiency and speed at reading, you should tackle his Baroque Cycle at some point. It's too big and ponderous for a lot of people, but you recommend Story of the Stone to everyone you meet, so...
Hey, I have recommended it to a handful of people.
Also I bought Queen of Angels and In the Ocean of Night and Foreigner and Invader, and Inheritor. So "at some point" probably isn't soon unless someone really manages to sell it.
Do you guys know of a place that might have databases of 1990s fantasy novels? I'm trying to remember the name of a book I read in elementary school, but I don't recall if it was young adult or general fantasy. I don't remember the title or author...just that it had a blueish colored cover with a skeletal/ghostly knight front and center on it.
I notice some of you have read or are reading The Once And Future King. I got it during the recent Kindle sale and I'm about 30% through. Almost finished the first book in the collection of four contained in the novel.
The Sword In The Stone, the first book, has been pretty slow so far and I can't say I'm enjoying it. Each chapter or group of chapters seems to be its own short story and there's been very little in the way of overarching plot.
For those who've read it, do the subsequent parts of The Once And Future King get any better? More overarching plot, less random animal transformations?
I notice some of you have read or are reading The Once And Future King. I got it during the recent Kindle sale and I'm about 30% through. Almost finished the first book in the collection of four contained in the novel.
The Sword In The Stone, the first book, has been pretty slow so far and I can't say I'm enjoying it. Each chapter or group of chapters seems to be its own short story and there's been very little in the way of overarching plot.
For those who've read it, do the subsequent parts of The Once And Future King get any better? More overarching plot, less random animal transformations?
The animal plots aren't random; there's a point to them. Conveniently enough, there was actually an article today on Vox—which you shouldn't read in its entirety because it spoils the rest of the novel—that addresses what the first book is about and the animal transformations particularly:
The Sword in the Stone is the story of Wart's political education, which takes the form of him getting turned into various animals by Merlyn and seeing how they run things. It is all very charming and joyful and evocative — and, at its core, political.
As a fish, War learns about absolute monarchy; as an ant, he learns about totalitarian communism. Wart's ideal becomes the pacific and playful geese (not, it is safe to say, the Canadian geese of North America, who are anything but pacific), and while he has fantasies of the pomp and glory of chivalry, he cannot stomach the endless, pointless wars of the ants.
So in the rest of the book, after he becomes king, Arthur devotes himself to finding a political system that will do away with the brutal excesses of feudal power and its ”might makes right" ethos. At first he tries to channel his knights' violent urges into the fashionable ideal of chivalry, of protecting the innocent and saving the pure. Later, he tries to focus it on religious quests, and later still, he introduces the innovation of civil law.
But despite everything Arthur does, Camelot creeps ever closer to the decadence and self-conscious irony of modernity. Every system Arthur creates only invites the worst of his knights to find new ways to twist it toward their own purposes.
It goes on to more spoilery stuff the influence of World War II on the novel and the plot of the latter three novels, so just read the book and find out what happens~
And yes, I do think it gets better. The Once and Future King is one of my favorite novels, let alone favorite fantasy novels.
Do you guys know of a place that might have databases of 1990s fantasy novels? I'm trying to remember the name of a book I read in elementary school, but I don't recall if it was young adult or general fantasy. I don't remember the title or author...just that it had a blueish colored cover with a skeletal/ghostly knight front and center on it.
The animal plots aren't random; there's a point to them. Conveniently enough, there was actually an article today on Voxwhich you shouldn't read in its entirety because it spoils the rest of the novelthat addresses what the first book is about and the animal transformations particularly:
It goes on to more spoilery stuff the influence of World War II on the novel and the plot of the latter three novels, so just read the book and find out what happens~
And yes, I do think it gets better. The Once and Future King is one of my favorite novels, let alone favorite fantasy novels.
Thanks for the reply. Is the tone of the rest of the novel any different from the lighthearted zaniness of the first book? I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if I haven't enjoyed the first third, is it likely my opinion will change?
Thanks for the reply. Is the tone of the rest of the novel any different from the lighthearted zaniness of the first book? I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if I haven't enjoyed the first third, is it likely my opinion will change?
One of the quirks of electronic copies is that you are probably less apt to read pull quotes on the back cover. They are lovely endorsements:
"A fierce and damaged man, T.H. White wrote about fierce and damaged people—and children, and animals—with a brilliant, painful innocence that has no equal in literature. He is so good at hurt and shame—how did he also manage to be so funny? I have laughed at his great Arthurian novel and cried over it and loved it all my life." — Ursula K. Le Guin
"Certain books offer pleasures so rich and enduring, they become part of what defines us. The Once and Future King is like that for me. It manages—by some miracle—to be about its own time, and a distant, legendary time, and about today. It mingles wisdom, wonderful, laugh-out-loud humor, and deep sorrow—while telling one of the great tales of the Western world. I envy the reader coming to it for the first time." — Guy Gavriel Kay
So yes, to be clear, there is a tonal shift. It still manages to have its moments of wry humor and levity, but the arc of the story of King Arthur is a tragedy, after all. One of my favorite moments is in the first book, during the coronation, when his dog, Cavall, brings him the best present:
"Cavall came simply, and gave him his heart and soul."
The novel says the nicest present was a hat, but let's be real; it's the dog.
One of the quirks of electronic copies is that you are probably less apt to read pull quotes on the back cover. They are lovely endorsements:
"A fierce and damaged man, T.H. White wrote about fierce and damaged peopleand children, and animalswith a brilliant, painful innocence that has no equal in literature. He is so good at hurt and shamehow did he also manage to be so funny? I have laughed at his great Arthurian novel and cried over it and loved it all my life." Ursula K. Le Guin
"Certain books offer pleasures so rich and enduring, they become part of what defines us. The Once and Future King is like that for me. It managesby some miracleto be about its own time, and a distant, legendary time, and about today. It mingles wisdom, wonderful, laugh-out-loud humor, and deep sorrowwhile telling one of the great tales of the Western world. I envy the reader coming to it for the first time." Guy Gavriel Kay
So yes, to be clear, there is a tonal shift. It still manages to have its moments of wry humor and levity, but the arc of the story of King Arthur is a tragedy, after all. One of my favorite moments is in the first book, during the coronation, when his dog, Cavall, brings him the best present:
"Cavall came simply, and gave him his heart and soul."
The novel says the nicest present was a hat, but let's be real; it's the dog.
Thanks again for the reply. I've just finished the first book. It was a nice gift from Cavall alright. I'll likely take a break and read something else before approaching the next book. I liked it enough to continue.
The upcoming movie finally made me pick up the series. It was pretty nice read, even if somewhat cliched. But it felt like half of a book, ending when stuff became really interesting. Seems movie will be very different thankfully.
Started reading:
I'm now halfway through and finally enjoying it. But dear God, does this novel start slow. Aside from inquisitor chapters the first third of the novel is a real slog.
The upcoming movie finally made me pick up the series. It was pretty nice read, even if somewhat cliched. But it felt like half of a book, ending when stuff became really interesting. Seems movie will be very different thankfully.
Started reading:
I'm now halfway through and finally enjoying it. But dear God, does this novel start slow. Aside from inquisitor chapters the first third of the novel is a real slog.
Has anyone here read Worm by wildbow. It's not exactly a book, but I turned it into an ebook so... Close enough.
Read the first act yesterday and really enjoyed it. I loved how every chapter ended in a small cliffhanger. The first act took me maybe 45 minutes and Moonreader's progress bar said I was.... 0.7 percent in. This will take a while.
I'm now halfway through and finally enjoying it. But dear God, does this novel start slow. Aside from inquisitor chapters the first third of the novel is a real slog.
Oh yeah, the beginning parts with Logen were dull. When things finally pick up, they never get boring again though imho. I absolutely loved the book, but somehow I still haven't gotten around to reading the rest of the trilogy.
e: Well then again, it was maybe the first tenth of the book that I found dull. Everything was well underway and exciting when I got to the 30% mark.
Speaking of the Brontës (who I haven't read, yes, shame on me), I was listening to a podcast, which you can listen to here, where Cat Valente was interviewed about various writing-related things—her history, her process, her upcoming projects—and one of the projects was a middle grade fiction book called The Glass Town Game book, which she describes as taking this fantasy world that the Brontë children made up and she says that they kind of LARP'd, which was "built out of a child's understanding of British politics and the Napoleonic Wars and Yorkshire fairy tales and all of this crazy stuff." They even wrote "in-universe magazines that were published by their characters." And we apparently still have a great deal of the material. The idea of The Glass Town Game is that Glass Town was actually a real place that the Brontë children went to.
If you're familiar with the concept she used for the Prester John books (all the myths about Prester John are true!), you've already seen she's using the same concept here; I'm hoping it works as well here as it did there.
Neat! There are so many Brontë spin-off books and retellings but most of them are lazy 'let's tell this story from the perspective of Heathcliffe's servant' type things. This seems more inspired.
Yeah, they LARPed and collaborated on fantasy worlds and drew fantasy maps and all. Tons of entertaining passages and signs of things to come in those writings, although trying to read it cover to cover is probably a bad idea as they went all-in in every direction. Charlotte and Branwell were the main forces behind Glass Town while Emily and Anne made Gondal.
Heh, felt the same and dropped it somewhere close to the end and never returned to it. It wasn't particularly bad or anything like that, just boring and unsurprising.
I remember picking it up because of the thief protagonists, and now I feel like reading about fantasy thieves thieving around again. Anyone got any good suggestions? I don't really want any evil-fighting or world-saving, I just want thieves doing what they do best. High fantasy, low fantasy, dark as fuck or light-hearted stuff, doesn't really matter. I only know of this series and Locke Lamora, which I couldn't really get into when I tried it a few years ago.
Yup. Exact same thing. The protagonists were exactly what I wanted in a fantasy series. They seemed nice and gritty, not too typical and the set-up was the same. Then...it all just went bland. I can hardly even remember the details now except for some eye rolls I had to do after certain parts that were so exaggerated they hurt my sockets. But, yeah. It wasn't actually bad per se. Just disappointing.
I'm also struggling to find some good fantasy thief protagonists aside from Locke Lamora. Strange you didn't like that one, though. I thought it was ace, especially the ending. The books that followed on the other hand...
Just had to pop in quick to say chapter 33 of The Last Mortal Bond (book 3 of The Unhewn Throne trilogy) is one of the best, most intense action sequences I've ever read. I had the chills multiple times and totally lost myself. Man I'd love to see that whole thing done in live action.
Still puttering away on IT by Stephen King. It's crazy to be reading on the ereader for a good long while and then when you close it, only a percentage or two has gone by, haha.
Also restarted (since I read 20 pages and then had read other stuff for a bit) Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey.
I am reading Red Sister. Almost finished it. It's a very good book as far as coming of age fantasy goes and I absolutely love the world Lawrence has set up, but I am not a huge fan of the characters. Which is odd as I find characters were his strong point in the past.
Still puttering away on IT by Stephen King. It's crazy to be reading on the ereader for a good long while and then when you close it, only a percentage or two has gone by, haha.
Also restarted (since I read 20 pages and then had read other stuff for a bit) Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey.
I read Stephen King's The Stand on my Kindle earlier in the year and turned off the progress bar/page numbers for the duration of the book. Now that's a strange experience, to be reading for a good month and having zero clue just how far you are until it ends.
Still puttering away on IT by Stephen King. It's crazy to be reading on the ereader for a good long while and then when you close it, only a percentage or two has gone by, haha.
r!
Just had to pop in quick to say chapter 33 of The Last Mortal Bond (book 3 of The Unhewn Throne trilogy) is one of the best, most intense action sequences I've ever read. I had the chills multiple times and totally lost myself. Man I'd love to see that whole thing done in live action.
I read the first book, but never made it to the second. Guess I should pick it up again.
Currently reading The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan. Gave the sample a shot, even after the last two books of his previous trilogy bored me to tears (dunno why since lots of stuff happened, but I couldn't care about any of the characters). Liking it.
Other most recent books were Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson and Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan.
I am reading Red Sister. Almost finished it. It's a very good book as far as coming of age fantasy goes and I absolutely love the world Lawrence has set up, but I am not a huge fan of the characters. Which is odd as I find characters were his strong point in the past.
Liked the ending of the past stuff a lot and am finally starting to like the characters, but the flash forward to the present stuff throughout the book was not very good.
I'm also struggling to find some good fantasy thief protagonists aside from Locke Lamora. Strange you didn't like that one, though. I thought it was ace, especially the ending. The books that followed on the other hand...
I don't disagree. I've figured it was probably a timing thing more than anything else, and I'm planning on trying to get into it again at a later date.
i'm really sad at myself for not being able to get into lies of locke lamora but i guess i really should accept if i don't want to keep reading a thing i shouldn't bother
anyway i just finished a book on yakuza i've been reading for months and need a new thing. i'll browse the thread after i finish this settlement paper...
Reading The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir. A little through the first story and it seems pretty interesting.
So there is this local used book shop I go to for budget reading. They don't have a lot of classics or much of what I typically read but have a massive stock of what looks like scifi and fantasy. Are there any baby's first for the genres I should check out? I actually read a lot of scifi years ago but never fantasy. I was going to get the Game of Thrones books but realized they don't really advance from the T.V series so I really have no idea what to get.
I am currently about half of the way through Underground Airlines
The book is well written, and I am enjoying the characters and the proximate story, but I am having a damn hard time not letting the underlying concept pull me out of things.
If you have never heard of the book, it is set in an alternate timeline where Lincoln was assassinated before he took office. This caused the North and South to de-escalate what would have led to the American Civil War, and instead make a truce on the issue of Slavery to hold the Union together. As such, that timeline's 18th Amendment protects slavery for all time in slave owning states, and slavery is still in practice during the 2010s when the book is set.
That in itself is such a large stretch (given world history in the proceeding 150 years) that I had a really hard time swallowing it. To add to it, the author constantly makes pop culture references to people like Michael Jackson or Denzel Washington, like everyone would have magically been born and ended up doing generally the same thing with such a drastic change in American history...
Stuff like that is a pet peeve of mine. Otherwise, the first half is pretty good.
I am currently about half of the way through Underground Airlines
The book is well written, and I am enjoying the characters and the proximate story, but I am having a damn hard time not letting the underlying concept pull me out of things.
If you have never heard of the book, it is set in an alternate timeline where Lincoln was assassinated before he took office. This caused the North and South to de-escalate what would have led to the American Civil War, and instead make a truce on the issue of Slavery to hold the Union together. As such, that timeline's 18th Amendment protects slavery for all time in slave owning states, and slavery is still in practice during the 2010s when the book is set.
That in itself is such a large stretch (given world history in the proceeding 150 years) that I had a really hard time swallowing it. To add to it, the author constantly makes pop culture references to people like Michael Jackson or Denzel Washington, like everyone would have magically been born and ended up doing generally the same thing with such a drastic change in American history...
Stuff like that is a pet peeve of mine. Otherwise, the first half is pretty good.
This has some very good writing in it, but it ultimately comes away feeling like less than the sum of its parts. Especially, the climax
involving a shootout in Amsterdam
was not terribly engaging, and felt like it had little to do with what came before (though, conversely, the twist that precipitates it is well-handled). The biggest thing is probably that this is almost 800 pages long, and doesn't at all feel like it needs to be almost 800 pages long.
I read Stephen King's The Stand on my Kindle earlier in the year and turned off the progress bar/page numbers for the duration of the book. Now that's a strange experience, to be reading for a good month and having zero clue just how far you are until it ends.
30% more! That's intense. It's a book that takes its time to set up all the pieces, which I appreciate more and more lately. Quick into the action is always good, but there's always something to be said about laying things out, too!
Great series. Nothing more to really say. Minor spoilers:
I thought it would go more "Lord of the Flies" than it did - I'm happy to say it didn't go that way. The ending felt very satisfying and left me curious about the future of the residents.
I don't know if I should go with Dark Matter or go find something else. I would love a good sci-fi/fantasy that isn't politics heavy (which is one of the reasons why I never got into Dune or Game of Thrones).
I am currently about half of the way through Underground Airlines
The book is well written, and I am enjoying the characters and the proximate story, but I am having a damn hard time not letting the underlying concept pull me out of things.
If you have never heard of the book, it is set in an alternate timeline where Lincoln was assassinated before he took office. This caused the North and South to de-escalate what would have led to the American Civil War, and instead make a truce on the issue of Slavery to hold the Union together. As such, that timeline's 18th Amendment protects slavery for all time in slave owning states, and slavery is still in practice during the 2010s when the book is set.
That in itself is such a large stretch (given world history in the proceeding 150 years) that I had a really hard time swallowing it. To add to it, the author constantly makes pop culture references to people like Michael Jackson or Denzel Washington, like everyone would have magically been born and ended up doing generally the same thing with such a drastic change in American history...
Stuff like that is a pet peeve of mine. Otherwise, the first half is pretty good.
Hmm, yeah, I can see the pop culture mentions bothering me in that kind of scenario too. It's not feasible that they'd exist or even have the same names of their real world counterparts, never mind having the same careers.
I've been reading a bunch of science fiction and fantasy this month.
The Thief of Always
The Last Unicorn
The Gods Themselves
Ubik
Roadside Picnic
Beetle in the Anthill
Hard to Be a God
Roadside Picnic (the basis for Tarkovsky's Stalker) was my favorite, followed closely by The Last Unicorn.
With Ubik, I honestly don't think Philip K. Dick knew what was going on in his own book, but it's a great experience.
The parallel between Pat Conley's ability in the "real" world and the nature of the later world strongly suggest that there is no solid footing at any point of the story, and no way to figure out what is "really" happening. But being totally lost with no way to figure anything out is, while unfair in some sense, actually realistic in another.
Just finished Hard to Be a God and it left me empty... while excellent, it's one of the most depressing books I've ever read somehow. I was going to follow it up with the movie but now I think I'd better stay away.
This has some very good writing in it, but it ultimately comes away feeling like less than the sum of its parts. Especially, the climax
involving a shootout in Amsterdam
was not terribly engaging, and felt like it had little to do with what came before (though, conversely, the twist that precipitates it is well-handled). The biggest thing is probably that this is almost 800 pages long, and doesn't at all feel like it needs to be almost 800 pages long.
