The Iceman of the North Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Starting Catch-22 tomorrow. Better be great. Oh, it is. Maybe. I think this is the kind of book that you either love or hate. Maybe hate is too strong though. I never got into it myself, so to me it seems overrated. But YMMW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 see if my funds can withstand shelling out for the pretty-expensive-for-its-size Night of Knives. Have you checked amazon.co.uk? It is £8.98 right now. Anyway.. I am 2/3 into The Lions of Al-Rassan by G.G. Kay. I like it so far, although there are a few drawbacks but I wont discuss them until I finish the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greywolf2375 Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Because of a comment niamh O'toole made about Druss, I am currently re-reading for the umpteenth time the Drenai saga by Gemmell. Midway through Quest for Lost Hero's... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winterfella Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Maybe. I think this is the kind of book that you either love or hate. Maybe hate is too strong though. I never got into it myself, so to me it seems overrated. But YMMW. On Catch-22: Yeah, I can see it as a definite YMMV book. But you can pretty much tell if you're going to like the style in the first couple of chapters. I thought it was one of the funniest books I've ever read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arbor Gold Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Oooh, i didn't really love Kite Runner, but I heard him reading from this and discussing it on NPR the other day. Please remember to report back on it! Ok, so I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns last night, and while IMO it has it's flaws, the sheer force of Hosseini's storytelling and the depiction of day-to-day life in Kabul are more than enough to make up for my quibbles and allow me to confidently recommend this book. I felt The Kite Runner started out strong, then completely fell apart in the second half. With A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini starts out a bit heavy-handed with fairly one-dimensional characters. The story gradually picks up steam and emotional impact, culminating in a very powerful (and for me, satisfying) ending. This book takes the reader through the Soviet occupation, the triumph of the Mujahideen, the constant fighting between rival warloards, and the rise and fall of the Taliban. Reading about these different periods in Afghanistan, and how daily life was impacted (particularly for women), was quite an education. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pat5150 Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Just finished Weis and Hickman's Dragons of the Dwarven Depths. Their last Dragonlance offering, The War of Souls trilogy, was a far cry from their popular Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends. This new series, The Lost Chronicles, will explore some of the storylines that were not part of the narrative of the original main sequence. Hence, it boded well for fans eager to see Weis and Hickman recapture their erstwhile excellence. After all, they were going back to their old stomping grounds, the world of Krynn, during the War of the Lance. The predominant problem with Dragons of the Dwarven Depths lies in the fact that there's nowhere near enough material to make a full-length novel. At best, this should have been a novella. Personally, I believe it would have worked best as a short story such as the ones Weis and Hickman came up with for the Tales trilogy. There is so much "filler" in this book. . . I couldn't quite believe it. There are unnecessary portions filling us in on the back story. Given the fact that one needs to have read the original Dragonlance Chronicles, these parts of the narrative are totally obsolete. Add to that the inordinate amount of time spent journeying and I estimate that a good 50% of the novel could be excised without readers losing much of the story. The second shortcoming of this book lies in the selection of the plotline that would serve as its backdrop. The search for the Hammer of Kharas was not part of the original saga, and there's a good reason why it was only alluded to in Dragons of Winter Night. It was only part of the Dragonlance roleplaying modules because the storyline wasn't that interesting to begin with. As I mentioned, not enough material. . . Hence, as fun as it is to go back in time and return to the events that marked the beginning of the War of the Lance, Dragons of the Dwarven Depths is a disappointing effort. Check the blog for the full review! Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lessthanluke Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Im reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King and im on the 3rd book The Waste Lands now. Im enjoying the books so far but they're not exactly unputdownable if you know what I mean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arbor Gold Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Im reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King and im on the 3rd book The Waste Lands now. Im enjoying the books so far but they're not exactly unputdownable if you know what I mean. Haha...I put down the first book in the series when I was about 40 pages in and it has sat on my shelf ever since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lessthanluke Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Haha...I put down the first book in the series when I was about 40 pages in and it has sat on my shelf ever since. Lol it took me a couple of attempts to read the 1st one but I found the 2nd one to be much better and now i've read the first two I want to finish the series! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wolf Maid Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Just bought The Blade Itself yesterday and finished it around that time, too. Excellent stuff. I may be in love with Logen. Mmmmm. Now if only my local bookstore would get the second book and before they are hanged, I'm a happy girl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arbor Gold Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 Since I devoured A thousand Splendid Suns in three days, I am suddenly left without reading material. I guess now I have time to tackle the seven issues of the New Yorker that have piled up on my coffee table. Edit: the summer fiction issue just arrived today, so I think I will tackle that one first. Edit II: Disregard previous edit. The June 4 issue (the one with Tony Soprano on the cover) has a David Sedaris essay. I am totally reading that first. :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oneeye Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 I've been reading Empire of the Word by Nicholas Ostler (history) and light of other days by arthur c clarke/baxter which was interesting though pretty anti religious if that matters to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lany Freelove Cassandra Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 I'm going to finish the Dresden files and then the new Scott Lynch book Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellis Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 Thanks, Arbor Gold. I read Altered Carbon on a plane last week. As expected, it wasn't my thing. Also, I was pretty certain I'd seen it all before. I'm about halfway through Boys and Girls Together by William Goldman. This is not SF, FYI. A series of short stories about a few recurring characters, growing up tales, tales of early to mid 20th century America. Very well-written and highly recommended. Apart from that, I'm suffering SF fatigue and running low on reading materials... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zach Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 I read altered carbon last week and loved it. I'm about 150 pages into revelation space right now and I'm not too impressed so far... I probably would've given up but a friend lent it to me and I feel like I owe it to him to read it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellis Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Really? That surprises me. Would you say you typically like more fantasy than scifi then? i would say i generally don't enjoy hard SF, crime fiction, or gratuitious violence/sex. So yeah, pretty much about as not-my-thing as you can get. But tried based on board recs. I probably would have liked it much much more if I hadn't read Neuromancer, Charles Stross, PKD, Cory Doctorow, first. So, the conceptual novelty had worn out. IIRC, you had the exact opposite experience lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betrayer of hope Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Currently reading Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie. Really good book. I just love the way he keeps throwing in new words, it really brings the story to life. Plus all the references make me so nostalgic . Also going through hp4, after reading the first three in the middle of my exams( at the rate of 1 a day ). Now I'm finally starting to remember why I love HP so much. Starting Catch-22 tomorrow. Better be great. Cant help but be. thats one of my all time favourites, right up there with Satanic Verses and Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy(which, come to think of it, I might be re-reading soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackwater Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Dan Simmons Olympos It's been almost a year since I read Illium so I have problems remembering what happened and who is who. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vintertroll Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 I just finished "Veronica Decides to Die" by Paulo Coelho, and I liked it very much, easpecially his comments on how humans are caught in the importance of the term normal. Also, I'm still reading The Scar by Mieville, and I just can't finish it at a decent pace; I've been reading it for a month. I just find it extremely boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turinqui-Calima Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Starting Catch-22 tomorrow. Better be great. Oh, it is. Yup. It was effing awesome! People looked at me funny as I was lol-ing when reading on the subway, but I didn't care. It's hard to feel crazy when you're reading Catch-22. On Altered Carbon: I read it a while back and though it was ok. Problem for me was that I wasn't very interested in the actual crime story. Instead I kept getting annoyed cause I wanted to know more about the history (future) of humankind. Next book will probably be Lamb: the gospel according to Biff by Christopher Moore or the Armageddon Rag by GRRM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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