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What are you reading at the moment?

Rawns

By Rawns
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pooley

pooley

Posted
Posted (edited)
Just re-reading Feists' Magician series again. Will take a look at World War Z next. Although I have fond memories of the Duncton Wood chronicles from too many years ago, may dig them out next. Edited by pooley
spelling mistake
E_G_R2

E_G_R2

Posted
Posted
Just re-reading Feists' Magician series again. Will take a look at World War Z next. Although I have fond memories of the Duncton Wood chronicles from too many years agom, may dig them out next.

 

Halfway through the Kings Buccanear, Fiest is such an easy read. World War Zeee (I hate that) is a great book, the film will be nothing like it.

Thesweeney

Thesweeney

Posted
Posted

Not long finished Ken folletts world without end, now wading through the new Dan brown one.. Like others have said, bit hard going but typical brown really..

 

Waiting for the third part of Robyn youngs insurrection trilogy hopefully some point this year.. Failing that might try to find dantes Devine comedy ;D

LiamH

LiamH

Posted
Posted

Re-Reading Sniper One at the moment, Bit of an armchair general so enjoy books by Stephen E. Ambrose along with fiction by Chris Ryan.

 

Song of Fire and Ice (game of thrones) is a good long read, the first book I couldn't put down, found the second one a struggle though.

 

Christopher Hitchens is always a thought provoking read. (not just his religious books *ducks*)

AMLinington

AMLinington

Posted
Posted
Not long finished Ken folletts world without end, now wading through the new Dan brown one.. Like others have said, bit hard going but typical brown really..

 

Waiting for the third part of Robyn youngs insurrection trilogy hopefully some point this year.. Failing that might try to find dantes Devine comedy ;D

 

I loved both these books - Pillars of the Earth and World without end. Both of them gripped me and I was able to immerse myself easily. The new Dan Brown one is dire. It's awful. I found reading it was like wading through wet sand. ICanhascheezburger was more entertaining of a lunchtime...

simpsonj

simpsonj

Posted
Posted
Reading 'The Long Earth' by Terry Pratchett and Steve Baxter, love the concept and the authors are exploring it beautifully. Already looking forward to it's sequel.
Sdrawkcab

Sdrawkcab

Posted
Posted
Game of Thrones feels like the only fantasy series aimed at adults, not at teenagers. So many paint the world in very broad strokes ("and this is the King and he rules the land") instead of fleshing it out with details on the structure and repercussions of society. So very many assume good/evil is a black & white dichotomy and evil's motivation is evil for its own sake. More than anything, so many take LotR as a template, not an example. Your fantasy novel does not need to be about following a farm boy coming into his destiny! We do not need a quiet, bucolic origin story until evil suddenly crashes in on this idyllic existence! (This was one of my main problems with WoT book one, incidentally). ASOIAF is possibly the only traditional fantasy novel that dealt with shades of grey when it came to morality and motivation, and felt like the setting was complete and inherent to the story rather than a mere backdrop to proceedings.

 

ASOIAF is far from the only book to do this, and I don't even think it does it particularly well. Don't get me wrong, I've read the whole series and thought it was great, I just didn't think it was as subversive to the genre as everyone is making it out to be. If you want to read a really subversive/non-traditional fantasy series, start reading The Prince Of Nothing series by R Scoot Bakker, starting with The Darkness That Comes Before. I've just finished the 5th book in the series, and I can honestly say it's the best fantasy I've read to date. Makes ASOIAF look like a childs story. It gets pretty graphic at times, but it's no worse than other "adult" fantasy books (ASOIAF etc) are really.

 

I don't understand how you guys could stick with Wheel Of Time for so long. It's the most boring, stodgy guff I've ever read. The main characters are literally never in danger, and the plot is unbelievably easy to predict. I'd say it's a book for teenagers, but imo it's pitched too low even for them. I stuck with it up to book 3 but I had to stop because the plot was just annoying me. It reminded me of some terrible anime plot, something like Bleach or DBZ where the characters face progressively larger "evils" (each time slightly too strong for them initially) and keep conveniently discovering NEW UNKNOWN ANCIENT TECHNIQUES to defeat them. As an adult, I wouldn't bother.

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sonofsanta

sonofsanta

Posted
Posted (edited)
Thanks @Sdrawkcab - I'd hoped there would be more than just ASOIAF out there, I just didn't know what it was. I will scout out that trilogy as soon as I can, much appreciated :cool: Edited by sonofsanta
nyiss

nyiss

Posted
Posted

Just finished The Tears of My Soul by Kim Hyun Hee. A very interesting book about a North Korean trained as a terrorist and how she deals with her actions once she realises life outside North Korea is very different from the image she has had beaten into her.

 

Now I need something slightly more lighthearted though! So I am reading Train Man/ Densha Otaku. Its about an Otaku in Akihabara and his fellow geeks guiding him through his first dating experience. Its very sweet/scarily familiar. Its also copied straight from an internet forum with plenty of ASCII art included so I feel right at home!

GeeHubb

GeeHubb

Posted
Posted
Re-reading The White Queen by Philippa Gregory prior to it being televised. It's the story of Elizabeth Woodville wife of Edward IV and mother of the Princes in the Tower. I'm a bit of a sucker for a historical novel. The difficulty being separating the fact from the fiction and everyone seems to be called Edward, Henry, George or Richard! A good read. Hope the TV lives up to the book
  • 3 years later...
ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted

Bringing this thread back form the dead as I've been thinking we needed a reading thread for a few days now.

 

 

Reading Book 1 on The Expanse (Leviathan Wakes) at the moment.

 

It's a pretty bloomin' good good IMHO. Great descriptions of a colonised Solar System with a lovely conspiracy holding the story together.

 

I was talking to @ZeroHour and @Dos_Box about it the night before this years EDIT conf and Shaun pointed out that SyFy had actually made it into a series.

 

Worth a read, and then possibly a watch :)

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LeMarchand

LeMarchand

Posted
Posted
Bringing this thread back form the dead as I've been thinking we needed a reading thread for a few days now.

 

 

Reading Book 1 on The Expanse (Leviathan Wakes) at the moment.

 

It's a pretty bloomin' good good IMHO. Great descriptions of a colonised Solar System with a lovely conspiracy holding the story together.

 

I was talking to @ZeroHour and @Dos_Box about it the night before this years EDIT conf and Shaun pointed out that SyFy had actually made it into a series.

 

Worth a read, and then possibly a watch :)

 

Good call! I'd been having similar thoughts and (despite contributing) had forgotten this thread!

 

"The Expanse" forms part of my "to read" mountain. Watched the first 2 or 3 eps of thethe show, but it has yet to enthral me so haven't got any further. The books get better reviews.

 

I'm reading "The Magician King", second in a trilogy of generally well-reviewed books also adapted by SyFy. I thought the show was great and wanted to see what the fuss was about the books. Will probably save book 3 for now as the first season of the show was based on parts of the first two books and I don't want to "get ahead".

 

So far, the books are "OK". They're often described as "Harry Potter for adults" and I'd agree - down to being not works of great literature, but you sure want to know what happens next. I'd recommend the show and cautiously recommend the books.

Duranis

Duranis

Posted
Posted

I'm currently re-reading The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I have read the first 3 or 4 books a couple of times but at the time the rest hadn't been written. I bought the rest of them recently so started reading from the beginning again.

 

Honestly it is pretty standard fantasy formula, normal person revealed to have special powers, massive evil badness that only that person can stop, must go on quest to unlock power and stop bad guy. There is a love story sub plot in there as well but the premise of that is honestly pretty shallow and should have been well and truly finished after the first 2 books (but instead is dragged on and on and on...). Not saying this is a bad thing as pretty much every fantasy book follows the same formula but the way it's done isn't amazing and it gets a bit stale after the first couple of books. That being said though apparently the later books are different.

 

The series so far isn't terrible and is an easy read but I wouldn't say it was the best fantasy series ever.

 

What I really want is JV Jones to pull her finger out and finish writing Endlords, been waiting 6 years for this.

sonofsanta

sonofsanta

Posted
Posted

Sword of Truth is definitely fantasy by numbers. About par for the course for 80s fantasy :(

 

I've been reading N K Jemisin's Inheritcane trilogy, which starts with The Hundred Thousand Kingdom's (which is good) and then the Broken Kingdoms (which is absolutely incredible). I devoured the whole thing in two days. First time in a long time I've done that. Just starting the third book now.

 

Those of you with a Kindle, a spare evening, and a deep and abiding love for our Dread Lord Cthulhu would do well to read The Ballad of Black Tom. Only a short novella, but absolutely glorious. It's a retelling of The Horror at Red Hook (one of Lovecraft's most racist stories) from the perspective of a black man dealing with all the racism of 1920s New York. Superb stuff.

ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted
Those of you with a Kindle, a spare evening, and a deep and abiding love for our Dread Lord Cthulhu would do well to read The Ballad of Black Tom. Only a short novella, but absolutely glorious. It's a retelling of The Horror at Red Hook (one of Lovecraft's most racist stories) from the perspective of a black man dealing with all the racism of 1920s New York. Superb stuff.

 

Thanks for this! I absolutely love the all things Cthulhu-ey so will give it a look :)

 

An official Call of Cthulhu game was previewed at this years E3 btw (but that's a topic for another thread)

LeMarchand

LeMarchand

Posted
Posted
I'm currently re-reading The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I have read the first 3 or 4 books a couple of times but at the time the rest hadn't been written. I bought the rest of them recently so started reading from the beginning again.

 

 

What I really want is JV Jones to pull her finger out and finish writing Endlords, been waiting 6 years for this.

 

Is it true that in one of the Goodkind books the hero puts up a statue of himself that is so awesome that it averts a war? I must say that the TV show based on the series (Legend of the Seeker) was a bit of a guilty pleasure.

 

Maybe JVJ and GRRM are holed up together, avoiding writing?

 

Those of you with a Kindle, a spare evening, and a deep and abiding love for our Dread Lord Cthulhu would do well to read The Ballad of Black Tom. Only a short novella, but absolutely glorious. It's a retelling of The Horror at Red Hook (one of Lovecraft's most racist stories) from the perspective of a black man dealing with all the racism of 1920s New York. Superb stuff.

 

No Kindle, but will have a search tonight. Probably read "The Horror" as a teenager, and the racism must have gone over my head. Must take a look tonight as well.

 

Thanks for this! I absolutely love the all things Cthulhu-ey so will give it a look :)

 

An official Call of Cthulhu game was previewed at this years E3 btw (but that's a topic for another thread)

 

Cool! Didn't know about that! Oddly enough, it was a toss up between loading CotC: Dark Corners of the Earth or The Dig on my HTPC last night as a "waiting for the wife's shower to finish" game. Went for the latter as I thought it would be easier to dip in and out of. One extremely long cut scene later...

 

Shaping up to be a good year for The Great Old Ones in games. This looks interesting:

 

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ben_mayo

ben_mayo

Posted
Posted

Not really a book person (everybody keeps saying I should read more) but I just don't get a thrill out of it like most people do. (my last manager read 11 books over the 6 weeks holiday)

 

Here's me reading Guy Martin and I'm only 40 pages in after 2 weeks haha

LeMarchand

LeMarchand

Posted
Posted
Just read the first trilogy of the Shannara stories and have just started on the second trilogy. All this whilst I wait for the next Game of Thrones book.

 

You'll probably have time to read them all and watch every episode of the TV show before you get your hands on the next GoT book.

ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted
You'll probably have time to read them all and watch every episode of the TV show before you get your hands on the next GoT book.

 

Lets play it safe and throw the complete Wheel of Time in there too. Just in case GRRM takes a bit of extra time to do any re-writes :)

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