What are you reading ?

[Cormac]

I'd say this thread was begging to be born.

I recently completed Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. McCarthy is one of my favourite author and I was disappointed at first with this novel: the aging author is no more the incredible prose stylist he was in Blood Meridian (a fantastic 'western', highly recommended) and his other books, he now writes in a much simpler way that's hard to believe is the effort of someone who's elevated english prose to his level, but by the end my appreciation changed. Not one of his best, but still good and very moving.
Now reading the latest from arguably the finest contempory french novelist, Richard Millet. If anyone is curious, I'd suggest they try 'Ma Vie Parmi les Ombres' (My life amongst shadows, for a literal translation), a great novel.

[Whip-0]

Currently reading "Black Powder War" by Naomi Novik. Third book in her Temeraire series (Her Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade) and an adventurous romp through a pseudohistoric 1800th century where the british isles are under attack from Napoleon - both by sea and AIR! Novik (who I also found out was a programmer (!)on NWN:SoU ) succeeds in adding dragons to a well known setting without making it cliche fantasy (no magic, undead, elves et c). Excellent, refreshingly "simple" and entertaining read that's labelled by some as Patrick O'Brian meets Susannah Clarke. Also, Peter Jackson has recently bought the rights.

[Cormac]

Trying some contemporary fantasy novels. Currently reading Cook's The Black Company, which isn't bad, really. Then I'll probably start a 800-page brick by some guy named George R R Martin.

[txa1265]

I'm working on both re-reading Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist' and also 'Republic Commando: Triple Zero' (a Star Wars book)

[Danicek]

Dostoievskij - Idiot (probably fourth time through, great book that I really love)

[nameless hero]

Erich von Däniken's 'Chariots of the Gods' - Awesome!!!

[slam23]

Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything": a rare popular scientific pageturner that appeals to almost all of my friends, even those that are not into science in any way. Very humoristic and brilliant in explaining things through metaphor and visualisation. Funny short biographies of famous scientists and their quirks. I now have the illustrated version which is even better.
Also perusing several new D&D books I bought recently, for example "Dragons of Faerun". Although I don't actually use them to play pnp rpg, I like looking at the wonderful illustrations and collecting them.
Last but not least: "The executive brain" by Elkohonon Goldberg. This is an eye-opener in the neurosciences by a former student of the great Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria. It deals with understanding the nature of the most complex cognitive functions we have as humans: the frontal lobe or "executive" functions. Also highly recommended for non-professionals, although a passing knowledge of basal neurology, -anatomy and -psychology is helpful.

[HiddenX]

Terry Goodkind - Phantom

Raymond E. Feist - Into A Dark Realm

Christopher Paolini - Eragon

[Khass]

George Orwell - "1984"

One just HAS to read it as he's playing Half Life 2 :) "Farm of the animals" was charming, and I really want to see how this comes out, then join the debate of whether the movie or the book was better.

HAHAHA! Apparently people like the farm, as seen here (http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=278) :D

[slam23]

@HiddenX: I like both Eragon and Eldest. That series feels like a cosy and familiar amalgam of a lot of different fantasy influences. Nothing high-concept about it, just good ol' plain fantasy in the best sense of the word. What's your take?

[txa1265]

@HiddenX: I like both Eragon and Eldest. That series feels like a cosy and familiar amalgam of a lot of different fantasy influences. Nothing high-concept about it, just good ol' plain fantasy in the best sense of the word. What's your take?

My son is rereading Eragon, and tells us we all need to read it before the movie ;)

[slam23]

Good advice! Although it's labeled a children's book I think it will appeal to grownups also. I'm not sure though if I would completely qualify for that latter group ;) I didn't know a movie was being made, I checked out the trailers: it looks like a promising movie, although more in the B than A category. But hey, they got Malkovich and Irons so there is some star power. And the director knows his special effects. Now to see if they can tell the story.

[HiddenX]

Eragon is a good book for fantasy beginners - young and old.

The Author is very young:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paolini

and I am curios about his future as a fantasy author.

[txa1265]

Eragon is a good book for fantasy beginners - young and old.

The Author is very young:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paolini

and I am curios about his future as a fantasy author.

My older son (now 10) was anxious for 'Eldest' to come out, and swallowed it up when it arrived. I was pleased that it exceeded his expectations - he likes it better than the first. Too often this type of young author is a 'flash in the pan'. I hope the last in th etrilogy maintains the quality!

[txa1265]

Does reading the Manual for Gothic 3 count?
Considering the purpose of the thread is to share reading experiences so perhaps we can find cool new stuff to read ... I'd say 'no' ;)

[slam23]

I think he is already finding his stride as a more independent author (style- and idea-wise) in the second book. I think he'll develop into a fine fantasy author in time.

[Myrthos]

I'm reading Children of Amarid, the first book in the LonTobyn Chronicles by David B. Coe.
What is it that fantasy writing authors just have to write books in a series of at least 3 instead of just one.

[slam23]

"The curious incident of the dog at the night-time". A great little book that is written from the standpoint of an autistic child of about 10 years old. It's kind of his journal about him being a detective in a "murder" case. Besides being a quite truthful representation of what an autistic child would write and do, there's also a moving underlying story that you only "get" while reading through the lines of the matter-of-fact writing. Such theory-of-mind things like feelings, motives and the ability to lie are dealt with beautifully from the autistic standpoint.

[Corwin]

Exile's Return by Feist, 3rd book in the series!!

[txa1265]

We were at Barnes & Noble on Sunday, as my older son had birthday gift cards burning a hole in his pocket (and wanted the brand new Artemis Fowl book). They had the 'collector edition' of the 'Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide' collection for ~$17, so of course I grabbed it. Hadn't read the 4th and 5th books ever, and only read the trilogy when they first came out. Just re-read the first book this summer, so now I will take a crack at the rest!

[titus]

Anybody who knows Dean R Koontz? hewrites horror, piece by piece great books.
Some of them have been made to a movie, but the book was defintely better and scarier. I am reading his books again after a long break. Now i am reading : Chills (if i translated it correctly

[Jaz]

Koontz may get a little repetitive after a few books, but he still is my favorite horror author (but perhaps I'm a little prejudiced because I got to interview him for a Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy magazine back in '91 or '92, and he was an *extremely* nice guy). My favorite Koontz book is 'Midnight'... so far, he couldn't beat it.

I cannot disclose the title of what I'm currently trying to read... I got the book from my sister-in-law, it's X-rated, and I must say I'm quite shocked about her literary tastes. So far I don't like the book in question a bit (preferring books with a story ^_^).

[titus]

Dragonklock or something dragon tear? read that one of him? that was the first book I read about him, damn i was scared of dark alleys afterwars :D

[Jaz]

Dragon Tears? Sorry, I haven't read it :( , but I read a lot of Koontz after discovering a musty issue of 'Hell's Gate' in a chest full of books in our basement. 'Hell's Gate' was supposed to be SF, but as such, it -frankly- stank. Where the book worked extremely well was in the first part which was truly nerve-wracking horror - there was one scene which reminded me of a (good) Carpenter movie... I actually jumped when reading it. Subsequently I searched for Koontz books and discovered that he had - luckily - decided to write Horror.

[slam23]

I have read some when I was younger. I had this horror thing going on, reading Stephen King, Dean R Koontz, Peter Straub, and Clive Barker. Can't remember any specific novels of Koontz. Can you name some oldies?

[Jaz]

Here's a bibliography - take your pick: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/dean-r-koontz/

[Corwin]

I've never enjoyed horror at all. I grew up devouring all the SF I could find and when that ran out, I began on fantasy. I would have read at least 15,000 books if not more. As a teenager, I read up to 3 a day; I was voracious and I'm a fast reader!!

[curious]

just finished 'empire of the sun' by j. g. ballard. i've read nearly all his other books over the past 4 years and its great to see the story of how his life was shaped and makes clear how such a vivid imagination could have erose and shaped his books he would write.

[Corwin]

If you enjoyed that book, the movie is excellent!!

[Cormac]

As a teenager, I read up to 3 a day; I was voracious and I'm a fast reader!!

It was the same with me. Of course when you're older you just can't read as much as you want, lately the only free time I've had for reading is on the subway going and coming from work. But I still buy tons of books.

[Corwin]

Back then, I didn't have computer games sucking up so much of my time either!! :) I still try to read, usually while watching NFL games; there are SO many commercials!!

[Jaz]

Yep, back in the days I had no computer, no family, no fulltime jobs... when I was still in school I read the Mists of Avalon in one night, The Foundation Trilogy the next night and all of Moorcock's Corum novels the night after that one (long nights for sure). Nowadays: reading = restroom (neither counting the reading I have to do for work, nor reading picture books to sonny).

[Khass]

As a teenager, I read up to 3 a day; I was voracious and I'm a fast reader!!

Dear god ... 13.7 years just reading ...

I envy you :(

[ToddMcF2002]

A Feast For Crows

I've loved the series up to this point but I'm getting a bit tired of the endless rape discussions. And I do mean endless. I think Martin has an issue frankly.

[Neo]

At this moment I am reading Tears of the Gods, third part in the Krondor trilogy of Raymond E. Feist. At this moment I have read 14 books written by Raymond. The Riftwar Saga, Krondor's Son, Empire Trilogy, Serpentwar Saga and now in the last book of the Krondor series of the Riftwar Legacy.

I recommend these books to every fantasy lover. Marvalous writer.

EDIT: Oh, and for everyone who isn't too lazy to read my post; Magician is still Feists best book ever IMO.

[Corwin]

I agree Neo, but next read his Conclave of Shadows series!!

[JonNik]

Finally got Started in Steven Erikson's Malazan books.
Very good stuff from my early impressions...

3 books a day ! Heh I'm lucky these days if I get through
3 books a month. I still buy them by the bucketload myself too.
(~20 books every 3-4 months from play.com the last few years...
needless to say my "unread" shelf has an average of 20 books
on it at any given time)

I always read before I get to sleep though. A ritual that follows
me since my early teens... I practically cant sleep if I dont get at
least an 1-2 hours of reading unless I am dead tired... Or dead drunk ;)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

My last three books were :

- The amazing Maurice and his educated Rodents
- Glennkill (a sheep murder mystery story) (translated into English with the strange title "Three Bags Full")
- Thud!

Right now I'm reading a book explaining the Egyptian Hieroglyphs quite nicely :
The original (English) title is "decoding egyption hieroglyphs", it was written by Bridget McDermott, and it was originally published by Duncan Baird Publishers Ltd. in 2001. I can really recommend it !

[Lintra]

Just finished the last of the Disc World books (Thud). Classic Pratchett. How *does* he manage to keep it up?

"The Cold War" by John Lewis Gaddis. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the period. Not very detailed, but that was not the goal of the book. It is a good quick review of the period. And surprisingly, for a history book, relatively agenda free.

"Eragon" Very nice light read ... am about to start the second book.

"His majesty's Dragon" series. First is a great ... second starts slow but picks up ... third is pretty good, though not *quite* up to the quality of the first.

[ToddMcF2002]

I finished A Feast for Crows. Definately the weakest of the series and I can't understand why he is introducing additional content at this point (given the grand story arc). But, it good enough to keep me wanting more.

Started Tad Williams ShadowMarch this morning. He tends to be a plodding author but Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is still an amazing series taken as a whole. His character development is as strong as Martin. I was left wanting more after that series - even if it needed a good douse of editing.

[Arma]

I read Thud! last year. The only nice thing to say about it is that it made me see some good thins in Night Watch, the previous one in the series. A huge let down, there is absolutely no character advancement, no new memorable characters, and Sally is the blandest vampire in the entire series. The entire books lacks the usual Pratchet style humour, and I only remember only one joke from the entire tome!

I began Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. So far the series looks pretty stable, but I am only 3 books into it.

[Lintra]

I like Brust's stuff some of it is really good - but there is a book (or two) during which the author was going through a divorce and it was reflected in his writing and *man* oh man, was it *ever* depressing.

While Thud! didn't really introduce any new characters and will is not in my top 10 Disc World books, I enjoyed the visit with my favorite characters ... and I *like* Sam Vines as a dad. Very endearing.

I think Prachett has solved too many of Ahnk-Morpork's problems by now ... and now has to hunt around for issues. I would like to see a return of Rincewind before he retires the series.

[MonGoliat]

I Like "Harry Potter"... Cant help it!

but now im reading (dont laugh) "Men are from Mars, Woman ar from Venus: Dating edition".
A friend of mine said I needed it! =p I think shes right! =D

[Lintra]

Started "The Fall of the Roman Empire" by Peter Heather. Very good read ... not *too* arcane. The author has packed the book full of bad puns and word play ... eg: "Thrace: The Final Frontier" is a section of chapter.

A very interesting hypothisis so far ... lets see where he goes with it. More on this as it unwinds.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

but now im reading (dont laugh) "Men are from Mars, Woman ar from Venus: Dating edition".
A friend of mine said I needed it! =p I think shes right! =D

Sounds like a good book ... I have the "regular version" of it.

My last book was Thud!, but now I'm reading "Healing Aloneness : Finding Love and Wholeness through your inner Child" , this one. (http://www.amazon.de/Healing-Your-Aloneness-Finding-Wholeness/dp/0062501496/sr=1-1/qid=1164661197/ref=sr_1_1/303-6307688-0749008?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de)

For me, it's actually a good book and came to me to the right time.

I would like to see a return of Rincewind before he retires the series.

Me too. I miss him.

I would be especially interesting in how he would develop - as a character. From the just weird "wizzard" towards a more serious man.

The entire books lacks the usual Pratchet style humour, and I only remember only one joke from the entire tome!

No; to me, this is essentially how Pratchett's books become through the years. They are no more really funny, but serious. And therefore interesting. At least for me.

I sure do miss the fun of the older books, but to me it's a shifting of an artist's work ... Like Picasso had his "phases".

I believe it is an illusion to think of Mr. Pratchett writing only "funny" books, and only being able to do so.
He has proved otherwise, can be deadly serious, but with a twist. What he offers is is no more a simple fun-game or parody odf the fantasy genre, but instead kind of a mirror of our own lives.

I heavily noticed this shift as I read a book by Piers Anthony this summer, named "Night Mare". His style is imho rather nearer towards early Mr. Pratchett's works.

[Corwin]

Anthony tends to be inconsistent, and Nightmare is a fairly old book!!

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Yes, but I bought it only a few months ago ! I didn't even know he existed up to that point ! :D

[enodenroH]

Napoleon Hill : How to think and grow rich.

[Prime Junta]

Christmas vacation, time to read. "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, "Shadows over Baker Street" by a bunch of different authors (Sherlock Holmes meets the Cthulhu mythos), and a book on Pompeii next up.

[Dez]

Adrian Goldsworthy - In the Name of Rome

[Corwin]

Wheel of Time Book 11, finally!!

[Jaz]

Just finished Terry Pratchett's 'Thud!'.

[Arma]

Wheel of Time Book 11, finally!!

My deepest condolences. A huge letdown for me, as I've said a number of times. To Jaz, also for Thud! for all the reasons above. Nommater what people say about Pratchet moving from funny into more serious business, Thud! is not an example of that. Monstrous Regiment, however, is. Going Postal is an example of the opposite - manages to be both funny and bring us one of the darkest Discworld novels.

Right now I've picked up Gardens of the Moon : A Tale of Malazan Book of the Fallen Book 1 by Steven Erikson. An excellent book (and series from what I hear so far), and though it's been a while since I read the last multi-huge-volume fantasy series the first several chapters are all confusing for all the new names of characters and locations and so on, I quite like what I read. I extremely recommend it to anyone read particularly WoT 11 and having a bad taste in his mouth :)

[Jaz]

My deepest condolences. A huge letdown for me, as I've said a number of times. To Jaz, also for Thud! for all the reasons above. Nommater what people say about Pratchet moving from funny into more serious business, Thud! is not an example of that. Monstrous Regiment, however, is. Going Postal is an example of the opposite - manages to be both funny and bring us one of the darkest Discworld novels.
I liked it. I liked it even better then some other Pratchett novels (like, for example, those with the witches, or Rincewind).

[Prime Junta]

Going Postal was excellent, as was Monstrous Regiment. Haven't read Thud! and by the sound of it, I won't. I liked The Truth well enough too.

Finished that book on Pompeii, though. Next up: American Mania by Peter Whybrow.

[GothicGothicness]

Wheel of Time Book 11, finally!!
My deepest condolences. A huge letdown for me, as I've said a number of times.

Why? This was one of the best book in the series IMHO! I can finally see everything coming togheter... and how brilliantly everything was planned from the start!!! I can't understand why people pick on this book...... the main complaint I heard from many people was that nothing moved forward. This book was the largest step forward in the entire series!

[Arma]

What exactly do you find moving forward? Everything in the series is a kind of stand-still since books 5-6. Stuff happened, but who cares? Nothing has advanced greatly, Rand has turned from a major character into a third rate bystander since Bobby and Hariet like to write about bath taking, dress making, dinner eating, tea sipping, and the like. With so many meaningless sub-plots Bobby definately has major trouble up his sleeve to wrap them all up in a single book nommatet how long.

[Prime Junta]

Finished American Mania. Good read, but the weird thing was that whenever the author was writing about anything I do know about, I caught him in pretty egregious factual errors, and the most interesting stuff was in things I don't know jack about -- which is a shame, since I can't really believe a word of what he says without cross-checking. Meh.

Out of books I haven't read already, except a few that I don't even want to. Crap. Perhaps it's time to get back to NWN2...

[GothicGothicness]

What exactly do you find moving forward?´

Everything did! It is setup for the last battle!

**BIG SPOILER WARNING**
It is obvious how Matt and Tuon will get married and make an alliance, the forces will join. The old and the new tower will be reunited, so they can battle togheter under Egwene. The black tower is becoming battle ready. The grasp of the dark one is becoming stronger and stronger.... just think when you read the book it is full of signs how the last battle is drawing near and how everything will come togheter..... however if you don't like to think I can understand if this book didn't do it for you :P

[txa1265]

Just finished re-reading Douglas Adam's "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" and am getting into re-reading "Life, the Universe and Everything". (BN was having a mega-special on their 'collectible' editions a month or so ago and I got the leatherbound edition for *really* cheap.

[Krzychu]

War of the Spider Queen Book V: Annihilation - Philip Athans

I just can't get through this. I got to the middle at my usual speed and after that I've been reading just a few pages once in a while. Something is wrong with this part, I don't know what, but it makes me stop reading. Book VI is lying on a shelf next to my bed, waiting to be read, but I can't start reading it until I finish the previous one.

[Kawika]

I'm currently reading Magic Time by Marc Scott Zicree and Barbara Hambly. It's a thoroughly enjoyable piece of fiction and the inspiration for a novella I'm writing myself called Soul Evolution. :)

[magerette]

Is that an SF title, Kawika? I'd like to see Barbara Hambly get back into her sf-fantasy books, though her New Orleans post-Civil War mysteries aren't bad. (Good luck on your own opus, as well.)

I'm reading The Last Kingdom, by Bernard Cornwell--and just finished a well written but [depressing biography of Janis Joplin -well, go figure--called Scars of Sweet Paradise.

[xSamhainx]

The Will to Power

Ive always wanted to sit down and just read a book by ol' Fred, but have never gotten around to it till now. Seen many quotes, but now I'm into the real meat and potatos so to speak of Nietzche. It's interesting, I'll say that much.

As with most philosophy that I have read however, I always come away from it feeling like Im just reading the ramblings of somebody with far too much time on thier hands!

[Corwin]

Having lectured in Philosophy in my past, I sympathise, but it sure can produce some great arguments!! :)

[txa1265]

Hehe ... that is why for my existential fix I prefer to read the fiction of Sartre of Camus - get much of the philosophy and some really good story-telling as well. I re-read 'The Stranger' last summer.

[Corwin]

Sartre tends to contradict himself too much; I did a major analysis of some of his work when I was in University many years ago. People like Beckett are much more fun!! :)

[txa1265]

Sartre tends to contradict himself too much; I did a major analysis of some of his work when I was in University many years ago. People like Beckett are much more fun!! :)
People spin that as 'evolution of concepts' ... good stories, though ;)

[Zaleukos]

I'm reading Sebag Montefiores biography of Prince Potemkin and Catherine the Great. Fun stuff but as with all history books it can get a bit annoying with extensive quotation of primary sources (in this case rather silly love letters between the two). After that I'll go into some -68 commie propaganda by Swedens chief unreformed Stalinist (Jan Myrdal), which will be an interesting study in that time period...

[crpgnut]

I just finished Robin Hobb's second series about FitzChivalry Farseer. The books are Fool's Errand, Golden Fool, and Fool's Fate. The series is quite slow moving and she seems to get stuck rambling sometimes. It was average.

[dteowner]

I just finished Robin Hobb's second series about FitzChivalry Farseer.Just started "Ship of Magic" myself, although I'm barely reading recently so my progress is slooooow. Enjoyed Robin's first series a long time back, so I finally got around to getting the second. We'll see how it holds up.

[txa1265]

My kids both read 'Bridge to Tarabithia' (upcoming movie) within the space of the day yesterday (MLK day off) ... and we're doing a 'family ready' on the Deltora Quest series ... it is nice that we can still do that on rare occasion.

[curious]

bridge to tarabithia-i remember reading that book in either grade school or middle school. it had a profound effect on me and my imagination/emotions. we got to see the 'made for tv' movie of it afterwards that i believe came out around the same time...

[Corwin]

After reading Hobbs first 2 series, I decided not to bother with any more!! Average is the best they deserve!! Perhaps she's trying to emulate Jordan!! :)

[GothicGothicness]

I also read the first two by hobb.... she can't even come up with names in her first series LOL. There is some interesting parts though. But of course it cannot even be compared to master Jordan.

[crpgnut]

Jordan is terrible. He had a wonderful 5 book tale that he's stretching to infinity just to make money. Nynaeve tugs on her braid at least 2000 times. None of his male characters act like males. It's pathetic. If Reader's Digest ever does an abridged version, I'll read that.

GG, I wasn't sure if you were calling Jordan a master of blah blah or if you really mean you think he is a masterful storyteller. I hope the former :D The first 3 books were pretty good then the series went straight to hell.

[magerette]

I agree on Jordan--I read up to number 7 or so and then finally realized he was never going to explain or resolve any of the plot twists in 1,2,3 etc. --ended up giving them to the local library. The Aes Sedai were a great creation, but I'm too old to try to remember 18 new characters in each book.;)

Just started Guy Gavriel Kay's new one 'The Last Light of the Sun'--it's a bit melodramatic occasionally, but I have hopes it will improve.

[dteowner]

I must be the only one left that still likes Jordan. Sure, he's a bit windy, but it's going to take a few pages to maintain 75 different plot lines and a couple thousand named characters. I'm not buying that there's only one book left, though. Unless the thing is 3000 pages long, he's got too many loose ends to clean up.

[Dez]

Jordan's problem is that most of his characters are one dimensional whiners and it seems that series is going nowhere. I quess his slogan is quantity over quality.

[Arma]

More like a 180 new characters per book, all of them more meaningless than the previous and non-distunguishable names (there seems to be like a dozen Aes Sedai with names starting with the letter M, for example). The problem with Jordan is, he cannot possibly complete all the plots he created in a meaningful way. Also there is too much bath taking, tea sipping, dress making and similar stuff that only make up page count. This stuff is so much, it makes the latest Wheel of Time volumes seem like a parody on itself.

One of the things that I liked in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson is the compact style of writing - there are non of Jordan's (more probably his wife Hariet's, but this is another story) non-sence writings.

Lately, I've started A Song of Fire and Ice by George Martin. While it was some good in the beginning (but certainly nothing spectacular) it quickly decended to Jordanism - far too many plots, far too many characters, and more than enough royal balls, dress making, dinner making and eating. And far too few characters that I care about. On the third book I grew entirely tired the hell out of this series for the time being.

[crpgnut]

Agree with Martin 100%, Arma. I grabbed a couple of his novels from the library and noticed that he keeps adding and killing off characters constantly. Way too dull for me. Martin wants to be Jordan, but most of us have learned the lesson.

[Arma]

Well, at least he kills some of the characters, and most of them major ones. Jordan just keeps dragging his cast along, resurecting the few ones that actually got killed. Btw, this was one of the good things that have happened to the WoT series, as the Forsaken and their Darkfriends, despite proving to be very incompetent in everything they do, are his most likeable characters, since they have the same goals as me, make the rest of the leading cast suffer ...

[Dez]

yeah you said it. I truly hope that elayne and nyanaeve in particular face a horrible suffering. :biggrin: I can't understand why nearly every important female character in Jordan's books is some kind of over jealous narrow-minded tyrant. Sure there are expections like min, but they are only expections.

[Arma]

My theory about Jordan's female characters, is that most of them are based on Hariet, Bobby's wife :)

[Maylander]

Just read WoT: New Spring. Great book, love the series, hopefully he'll finish it at some point. The series as a whole will be a masterpiece once/if completed.

[GothicGothicness]

I agree with DTE and Maylander, WoT is great, it is not for everybody though, it requires you to invest a lot of time and understanding... otherwise it will appear like things never move a long. The world Jordan created is unique, never have I seen such a detailed expression of a living world.

For people who likes something light and straight to the point where you don't need to think, I reccomend Steven Erikson instead.

I do agree about Martin however, his first books were great... but he screwed up after that...... the worst part was when he started to resurrect everyone! He had some likeable/cool characters but they all died or became idiots except for Arya... she is still kind of cool :D

[Arma]

Actually, I find that you are not right on the matter. Jordan's world is complex, indeed, but so is Erikson's. Actually, I believe that Erikson's works present a far more complex world than WoT, however I am not that far into the series, having read the first book only so far.

What exactly is there to understand to Elayne taking a bath? For several pages? Or several chapters of tea sipping and the like? And Other similar stuff of equal boredom? I don't care about such stuff, I actually want something to happen but not just for it happening's sake, but for the sake of the plot to move forward. In the last 5 book of the WoT there has been, no it's not zero movement, but the plot move backwards, several absolutely unnecessary plots were introduced (Elayne's Succession of Andor and Perrin's saving of Faile quickly spring to mind, which is bad, since for a few books, or The Dragon Reborn at least I actually liked Perrin's character) with even more senceless going ons. I admit to the books being very well written and enjoyable, as Bobby managed to learn how to write his characters into doing absolutely nothing and still be, well somewhat enjoyable for some of the characters. Since most of the characters are absolute idiots, especially 99 % of his female characters, and it is a very difficult task to like them and keep on liking them after all their moronic actions.

What I liked about Erikson's style of writing, as opposed to Jordan's, is his compact writing. No nonse sniffing, tea sipping, dress making, dinner eating, bath taking, and stuff. If Gardens of the Moon was written by Jordan, it would have taken 12 volumes all by itself as Paran, Tattersail, Cruppe, Whiskeyjack and rest would have been taken through all that idle nonsence. Erikson's style is so compact, he even includes only a vague discriptiong of his characters. There are many things that are obviously left vague as to be filled in by my imagination. That is what I call a book that takes time to understand as to make sence. I found myself prone to quick checking the scarce reference notes about the cast and other explanations that were included in the local edition (I haven't seen the English edition, but I would think that it includes these as well)

[crpgnut]

I read quickly, so I get to post here alot :) I just finished a series called The Seven Brothers. It follows the story of Llesho, an exiled prince from a pseudo-oriental land. It features mortal gods, dreams, and fairly interesting military operations. It's not great, but it flows quickly and there's not a lot of down time in the book. Even when something as mundane as prayers or laundry is taking place, there is an ulterior reason for it. It was written by Curt Benjamin.

My next series is called Bridge of D'Arnath. It's looking much better than the Benjamin series, but I'm just in the first book. I'll post my thoughts after a few more books.

[Cormac]

I'm in the middle of John Keegan's Intelligence at War, a book about, uh, well the use and misuse of intelligence in war (I think). Greatly enjoying it, especially the chapter on Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaign. I'm pretty sure Jackson would have been into turn based gaming if he'd lived in our time, he's that cool.
Also reading and rereading the stories of Henry James. Those who like ghost stories shouldnt miss his attempts at the genre, like The Turn of the Screw, The Jolly Corner and Owen Wingrave. Good stuff.
Some more highbrow goodness just got here from Amazon, Newman's Arians of the Fourth Century. RoFL !

[ToddMcF2002]

Anyone here try J V Jones? Cavern of Black Ice? Its excellent. Fortress of Grey Ice was pretty damn good too. Her 3rd book should be out in the next few months.

[dteowner]

I enjoyed JV Jones. She's got several other books out. There's the "Baker's Boy" trilogy (or something like that) which was a solid debut. Then came the "Barbed Coil", a decent stand-alone book. She's been writing very, very slow on the current trilogy, so I haven't even bought Cavern yet.

[Corwin]

Yep, Jones is a great writer!! Been reading a fantasy series by Karen Hancock which wouldn't suit everyone, as it's very strongly Christian in theme.

[txa1265]

I'm reading a couple of things:

"The Areas of My Expertise" by John Hodgman. Hodgman is the guy who plays the 'PC' in Apple's latest commercials, and is also a humorist who has been on NPR, the Daily Show and others. This is sort of a Almanac of made-up and generally funny stuff.

"Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson. This is a quick read, and everyone else in my family has finished it ... we are determined to all read it before going to see it for my younger son's birthday in a month (we're having his party at one of those really cool dinner / movie places)

[GothicGothicness]

Actually, I find that you are not right on the matter. Jordan's world is complex, indeed, but so is Erikson's. Actually, I believe that Erikson's works present a far more complex world than WoT, however I am not that far into the series, having read the first book only so far.

Thank you, I really like to discuss this subject, it would be boring if we agree all the time. Well, sometimes Jordan overdo the entire tea-sipping and description thing, you are right. But on the most part your complaints is a matter of taste, you want a lot of actions all the time, and blanks to fill in yourself about everyone.... this requires use of your imagination. Jordan's world however is described in such a detail, IMHO you can't compare that to Eriksson's fuzziness, I played an online game based on Jordan for 7 years.... We could recreate the environment of the seanchan personality of the different races, everything from meeting to wedding rituals for all the different races in great detail with the information from the book, and with amazingly few inconsistances..... I know of only two minor bloppers he made but they can be saved. We can also recreate the languages of the different cultures, all of their cermonies... everything. This is just because he is describing the characters everyday life in detail, and not only the kind of "action" you appear to want all the time. AS for it not moving forward, you can read the post with a spoiler warning I posted earlier in this thread, which explains how everything took a big leap forward in the latest books.

[Black Hood]

This is great, two threads (the other being the "what are you listening to" one) that I've taken a couple of notes from on things to check out.
I'm currently reading those J.V. Jones "Book of Words" novels, 1/2 way through "A Man Betrayed". I have to say I'm not that enthralled by them, they feel a bit formulaic to me, but there's the occasional bit or character that keeps my interest enough to keep going, which is more than I can say for the majority of the modern giant fantasy epics. I remember back when I was into "The Belgariad" and then at some point I just gave up on it; it kind of gives me that feeling. However, I'm trying to catch up on the popular fantasy series of the past few years so I'll give it a chance. I read "The Ill-Made Mute" just before this and I liked that a bit more. Sadly I haven't found the next book in that series yet; I need to go to the library. Then there's this "Tawny Man" book that's next on the list to read.
I also have a copy of "Dashiell Hammett - Five Complete Novels" here on my desk at work, I'm re-reading "The Maltese Falcon" during my breaks. Great stuff.
I have a hankering to re-read Tanith Lee's "Tales of the Flat Earth" books, those are some fine reading.

[crpgnut]

If someone would like romantic relationships with their magic, one might read the Blendings novels by Sharon Green. I found these books to be fairly interesting and the magic system was unique. I've never read anything remotely like it.

[ToddMcF2002]

Black Hood,

You should try J V Jones A Cavern of Black Ice especially if you've read and enjoyed Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series. Pretty similar in feel, no obvious formula that I can see. Lots of twists.

[curious]

got barack obama's book "the audacity of hope" for christmas from my parents. finally got to this evening. i'll share some thoughts when i'm done. it's a shame that i haven't read much lately (last 4-5 months). bloody computer games!

[crpgnut]

Okay. I've read 3+ books in Carol Berg's series, The Bridge of D'Arnath. This is a two-worlds tale where one land is a world of magic and the other is mundane. The writer is good at making you assume one thing to be true and then pulling the rug out from under your assumptions. I found book two to be kinda dull, but necessary. The rest of the series has been a joy to read.

[dteowner]

@curious- would llike to hear those thoughts when you're ready. I've heard very little from/about Obama and am curious (well, no, you're curious, but I'm, well, you know) what he's bringing to the shindig.

[Lucky Day]

My theory about Jordan's female characters, is that most of them are based on Hariet, Bobby's wife :)

this is true, he said so on his blog. Harriet was surprised when she discovered this. his females basically fall into to types: the domineering Nynaeve type which is most of them, and the annoying domineering type like Faille and Min.

The disease Jim has been getting treated for at the Mayo clinic is almost gone. This is very good and for the rest of us who have been shlogging through the end of this series we'll have some closure finally, even if a number of plot threads will never get finished.

---

I just finished Hunters of Dune. I would highly recommend people re-read the last two sequels written by Frank Herbert himself Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune first though.

"Hunters" is based on the plot outline that Brian discovered in a safety deposit box in 1997. However, Him and Kevin J Anderson wrote a number of excellent prequels and much of the background understanding of "Hunters"uis based on these prequels.

Most people by this point would have finished the prequels and may have forgotten the last sequels.

[Arma]

He had to admit this? My mind cannot imagine what must Hariet have done to him to do it in public ... Though it is good to hear about his illness.

I'm reading the (supposedly) Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, and having a blast. I decided to finally treat myself (putting it off a side for a special time) after finally enduring A Storm of Swords from the Song of Fire and Ice series.

[spars]

Love in the Time of Cholera written by Gabriel García Márquez. A story about love and the proclamations of it's immortality. Written with the most deft touch of the hand.

[txa1265]

Love in the Time of Cholera written by Gabriel García Márquez. A story about love and the proclamations of it's immortality. Written with the most deft touch of the hand.

I love Marquez ... I haven't read Cholera in at least 20 years ... read 100 Years of Solitude again last year - just a beautiful, beautiful work ...

[magerette]

@curious- would llike to hear those thoughts when you're ready. I've heard very little from/about Obama and am curious (well, no, you're curious, but I'm, well, you know) what he's bringing to the shindig.
I'm also cur--er,interested and would like to hear your views, curious.
I read a magazine article that he contributed(at the dr's office -forget what mag). Unlike most politicians, he seemed interested in ideas rather than idealogy, in why people want what they want, and in who his supporters actually might be. It wasn't a long article, but what I got out of it was a sense of positivity and tolerance. What's your take?


As for me, I just finished Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Read it in high school for it's doomed romantic qualities, but this time I was amazed at what a realistic, grim tale it was; of the cruelties human beings inflict on each other; of ghosts and obsessions and family life that makes "dysfunctional" sound like a compliment. A stark, uncompromising novel and not really a romance at all.

[Cormac]

As for me, I just finished Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Read it in high school for it's doomed romantic qualities, but this time I was amazed at what a realistic, grim tale it was; of the cruelties human beings inflict on each other; of ghosts and obsessions and family life that makes "dysfunctional" sound like a compliment. A stark, uncompromising novel and not really a romance at all.

I agree, it's a great novel.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Currently : Night Watch (http://www.amazon.com/Night-Watch-Novel-Sergei-Lukyanenko/dp/1401359795/sr=8-1/qid=1170781516/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4997434-7578301?ie=UTF8&s=books)

An very interesting book, although I must say that I'm only through the first 100 pages.

On Wuthering Heights : Kate Bush made a song of it, which has gained legendary status for being sung with an extremely high voice. ;)

[txa1265]

Currently : Night Watch (http://www.amazon.com/Night-Watch-Novel-Sergei-Lukyanenko/dp/1401359795/sr=8-1/qid=1170781516/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4997434-7578301?ie=UTF8&s=books)

An very interesting book, although I must say that I'm only through the first 100 pages.

Is that the basis of the Russian movie & game?

[slam23]

- Gurps 4th Edition, basic book 1. It's an excellent read for a manual....
- Albert Einstein biography with some good explanation of relativity theory
- Being an Only Child: debunking the common myths (yes, only childs can share.....)
- A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers, by Vilyanur Ramachandran. This author qualifies imho as one of the best writers in the neuroscientific field and is at the same time a good and understandable read for the layman. See also: Phantoms in the Brain. Great reading!

[crpgnut]

Reading or read 3 sets of books:

Pit Dragon trilogy-This is a series about a serf who forms a quasi-telepathic bond with dragons that are raised to fight in pits. It's how he grows to hate bondage and fights for a different life with his dragon(s). Good read.

The Enchanted Forest Trilogy-This is a terrible series for an adult to read. It is basically a set of really short stories all connected with the same characters. I think it would be a wonderful start for a young girl though. Might be good bed-time reading too for youngsters.

The Bronze Canticle-I'm in the second book of this one and it's a series about 3 worlds that share a fate but can only interact with one another through dreams and metaphor. When something great happens in one world, then something terrible will happen in the others. These happenings are based on magic that is made possible during dream time and then acted upon after awakening. It's a very interesting premise, but the writing is unclear and makes for a hard-to-follow story.
I can't decide if I like this or not.

Pit Dragon Trilogy-Jane Yolen
The Enchanted Forest- Patricia C. Wrede
The Bronze Canticle-Tracy and Laura Hickman

[Jaz]

Currently at the restroom: The book accompanying the Elemental Tarot and 'Les Diables Verts' by Jean-Yves Nasse.

[skavenhorde]

I just finished Chainfire by Terry Goodkind and because of this topic I found out that he has released a new book called Phantom. So I'll be picking up that one up today.

[magerette]

In the middle of A Breath of Smoke and Ashes, by Diana Gabaldon, her latest and I hope not final book in The Outlander series. I don't usually care for time-travelor historical fiction, but she does it very well and is excellent at creating believable characters and resolving innumerable plot twists, as well as beinf very credible in her treatment of the 1700's.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Is that the basis of the Russian movie & game?

I don't know of a game, but movie : Yes. :)

[txa1265]

I don't know of a game, but movie : Yes. :)

I know there is a game based on the movie ... I just signed up to review it for another site ... it uses the Silent Storm engine.

[Arma]

It is the same, though I heard that they cut off some of the original plot in the book for the first movie. It is a series, Night/Day/Dusk (or Twillight, not really sure) Watch with an upcoming Final Watch as titles of the respective first to forth volume.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Yes, there are 4 I think of them.

Could you point me towards the review when it's done ? I'm interested.

You can PM me, if you want to.

[txa1265]

Could you point me towards the review when it's done ? I'm interested.

Well, since it is a PC RPG, I'll end up posting the link ... but I still am waiting for the game so it will be a couple of weeks ;)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Okay. :)
So you know more than me. ;)

[Lucky Day]

Originally Posted by magerette View Post
As for me, I just finished Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Read it in high school for it's doomed romantic qualities, but this time I was amazed at what a realistic, grim tale it was; of the cruelties human beings inflict on each other; of ghosts and obsessions and family life that makes "dysfunctional" sound like a compliment. A stark, uncompromising novel and not really a romance at all.

I agree, it's a great novel.


I just read this 6 months ago. Its pretty crazy. I do find the ending a bit far-fetched. No one quite knew what to make of the book at the time except that it was powerful, was written by a man and then later probably the same woman as Jayne Eyre. I keep an eye out for books in the public domain going on sale at Barnes & Noble. They can sell them in hardcover for nothing.

I picked the Bronte sisters and a Jayne Austen collection for cheap. Reading some of the reviews of Austen for the next 100 years it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that's read both of them that Charlotte Bronte didn't like Austen's work.

[Lucky Day]

Thanks to my new MP3 player I've been discovering audio books on my commute. I'm in the middle of Philip K Dick's the Man in the High Castle. Its a story of several people in the Western US 10 years after Germany and Japan have won World War 2. The Man in the High Castle himself is actually an eccentric author who wrote a very popular fiction saying the US and Great Britain won instead.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

More or less on- or off-topic (depending on the view) : On Branwell Brontë (http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/bradford/index.shtml)

[magerette]

More or less on- or off-topic (depending on the view) : On Branwell Brontë (http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/bradford/index.shtml)

Interesting material, and a lot of truth to the idea that everybody has an agenda, even--or especially-biographers.

[Danicek]

Needed a short break with fun and so bought another Pratchet, this time it's Carpem Yugullum and it's fun. I like these books even though the style gets slightly boring with more games you read from him...

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I've actually found a review and a official site for the "Night Watch" (German : "Wächter der Nacht") book/movie : http://www.waechterdernacht-game.de/

There are two other languages available apart from German :
http://www.waechterdernacht-game.de/index.php?sprache=uk
http://www.waechterdernacht-game.de/index.php?sprache=us

Since it's turn-based, I'm actually looking forward to it.

I can't say much more, since I discovered the site literally just minutes ago.

[txa1265]

I've actually found a review and a official site for the "Night Watch"

I have had a look at the Wiki for the Night Watch movie and books as I've been playing. The game reminds me very much of Hammer & Sickle, but I think it is better. H&S I thought was a mess, but this actually seems to somewhat work. Not great, but the tactical combat has more time to shine.

[crpgnut]

Not really a book, but it's something I read every chance I get:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootslatest.html

It's a comic that pokes gentle fun at AD&D with a group of adventurers called the Order of the Stick. I'd suggest reading from the beginning :)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Order of the Stick ? This is a classic among my friends !

[Corwin]

Oots is a MUST read for me, along with PvP, The Noob, Looking for Group, and Real Life!! I like to begin each day with a smile!! :)

[crpgnut]

Oots is a MUST read for me, along with PvP, The Noob, Looking for Group, and Real Life!! I like to begin each day with a smile!! :)

You wanna link to your sources, Corwin? Or are you keeping your reading material to yourself :D

[Corwin]

Yeah, guess I can share my source code!! :)

PvP (http://www.pvponline.com/)
Real Life (http://reallifecomics.com/)
The Noob (http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.html)
LFG (http://www.lfgcomic.com/)

[Arma]

I'm finishing Atira of the Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust. So far this series has been an astonishing mix of great and not that great books. Atira, sadly is one of the latter.

[crpgnut]

I just got done reading several series of books by Tamora Pierce: Song of the Lioness(4 books), The Immortals(4 books), Protector of the Small(4 books), and Tricksters(2 books). These books all contain the same basic character. A young female who has an extraordinary talent that slowly developes throughout the series.

(Allana, Lioness) is a girl who wishes to become a knight. This is a male only class though, so she dons a disguise and the story is fairly predictable throughout.

(Daine, Immortals) is a girl who can speak to animals, called Wild Magic. Her power grows through the books and this was the best of the 4 series.

(Keladry, Protector) is almost like a rewrite of the Lioness series. The main difference is that while Allana was a solo-knight, Keladry is part of a squad and eventually has commander type status.

(Aly, Tricksters) is a spy. She gets kidnapped and once free becomes a tool for a god, Kyprios, and helps him to regain power through her skills.

All of these books are decent reads. Immortals was best, followed by Lioness, Trickster, and Protector. Protector rates lowest only because most of the first two books have very little differences from Lioness. A great thing about this series is that previous heroines have cameo roles throughout the following series. These books would be ideal for any young teenage girls that you might have lying around.

I'm trying to read a series by Kate Forsythe next but it's really going slow so far. If it doesn't pick up real soon I may have to bail. It's called Witches of Eileanan and so far it's dull as lead.

Oops, I've also read Buzz Bissinger's Three Nights in August. This is about what goes on behind the scenes during a baseball season. It follows St. Louis Cardinal's manager Tony Larussa, showing all the decisions that get made during a game, how different players are dealt with, etc. It's a very good read if you are a fan of baseball. It's almost mandatory reading if you're a diehard Cardinals fan, as I am :D

[Corwin]

I'm currently half way through Feist's 'Flight of the Nighthawk' which continues on from the Conclave of Shadows series!!

[txa1265]

(Aly, Tricksters) is a spy. She gets kidnapped and once free becomes a tool for a god, Kyprios, and helps him to regain power through her skills.


My older son read one of the Trickster books, and keeps meaning to get back to them ... he generally isn't so much into female leads (he *is* 10 ... ) but really liked Aly.

I've started 'Night Watch' - decent start, we'll see how it goes.

[magerette]

Finished A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diane Gabaldon and was vastly relieved to see she left an avenue to continue the series, instead of killing off the main characters as the previous book implied. Til she writes her next one, I'm going back to an old favorite, the Everien trology by Valerie Leith--starting with The Company of Glass with Tarquin the Free lost in the floating city of Jai Perdu.

[Cormac]

I'm rereading The Worm Ouroboros, a fantastic novel I first read more than ten years ago, although at that time Eddison's pseudo-elizabethan (or thereabouts) language was quite the hurdle for the young Cormac. It's at the top of my (short) list of great fantasy novels, better than Tolkien, and right there with Leiber.

[crpgnut]

Has anyone read alot of Mercedes Lackey? I wouldn't mind reading a series or two of hers, but I can't abide homosexual males in my reading material. Has she written any series where she stays away from that? I've tried twice to read some of her work but both times she's had a gay male character. Sorry, I just can't read that crap without wanting to puke.

[magerette]

I'm rereading The Worm Ouroboros, a fantastic novel I first read more than ten years ago, although at that time Eddison's pseudo-elizabethan (or thereabouts) language was quite the hurdle for the young Cormac. It's at the top of my (short) list of great fantasy novels, better than Tolkien, and right there with Leiber.

That's an excellent read, though I agree the language is a bit cumbersome. Since I read it in high school back at the dawn of time, I've pretty well forgotten the plot--but I do remember it stood out from the fantasy crowd. IIRC, he added some books to that world later in life, but I haven't read them.

[Cormac]

That's an excellent read, though I agree the language is a bit cumbersome. Since I read it in high school back at the dawn of time, I've pretty well forgotten the plot--but I do remember it stood out from the fantasy crowd. IIRC, he added some books to that world later in life, but I haven't read them.

Indeed, he added two: A Fish Dinner in Someplace I Cant Pronounce, and Mistress of Mistresses (I think), but I never read them as I cant find them.
Now that I'm not so young anymore I can appreciate what the author attempted with the language and I rather enjoy it -- it's much more alive then the dull prose of most fantasy writers, anyway.

[Corwin]

Has anyone read alot of Mercedes Lackey? I wouldn't mind reading a series or two of hers, but I can't abide homosexual males in my reading material. Has she written any series where she stays away from that? I've tried twice to read some of her work but both times she's had a gay male character. Sorry, I just can't read that crap without wanting to puke.

I've read ALL of her work!! Her very first series had no gay males: Arrows of the Queen; Arrows Flight and Arrows Fall. By the Sword is excellent and the Oathbound series is worthwhile. After that you're going to hit a few gay character; especially avoid the Magic's Pawn series. Her last 3 which includes 2 with Exile in the title and one about a thief, are also good. Hope that helps!!

[dteowner]

She had the Jinx High series quite a while back. I liked those (don't remember any gays in that series), but that's all the Lackey I've gotten the urge to try.

[txa1265]

Well, I'm most of the way through Night Watch and I'm hooked ... the author does a great job of putting you in the shoes of a Muskovian ... I have a number of Russian-born friends at the conference I'm at and it is just very interesting talking to them with that as a backdrop ...

[Ammon777]

I read game manuals sometimes. Also I read about single-player games on the web ;). And I also read text in-game. So I guess I read a lot...

[txa1265]

I read game manuals sometimes.

Of course the funny thing with me reading Night Watch is that I'm also playing the PC game and have the movie on DVD on rental ...

[Ammon777]

Of course the funny thing with me reading Night Watch is that I'm also playing the PC game and have the movie on DVD on rental ...
Now thats total immersion! ;)

[Jaz]

I read game manuals sometimes. Also I read about single-player games on the web ;). And I also read text in-game. So I guess I read a lot...My favorite game manual was that of the original Tie Fighter, but only the localized version... it contained so many funny mistranslations.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

My favourite game manual - well, sort of - was then the official strategy book by Prima Publishing - I mean the German translated version of the Collector's CD-ROM version.

Because it contained the story of Maarek Steele embedded in it - a story that was never published, I heard, except in very early versions of the original game as kind of a bonus.

For a similar reason, I'm still looking for the same strategy guide for the X-Wing Collector's CD-ROM version - because of the Story of Lt. Farlander, which has suffered a similar fate. I have never seen it.

My favourite game manual is, I think, that of Homeworld. But wait, SIM City 2000 was also very good. :)

That was the time when handbooks could sometimes be real work of art ! :)
Nowadays we have almost nothing but PDFs ... :(

[Jaz]

The Maarek Stele story was mistranslated as well, which led to some rather funny dialogs and scenes (which weren't intended to be funny in the original lannguage version). Couldn't beat the translation of 'Mortal Coil', though ('Einsellen sterbliche rolle auf ihre harte fährt' is brilliant. Even better than 'All your base').

[narpet]

I also am an avid reader... mostly sci-fi and fantasy... but it's interesting that some of you have expressed interest in reading game manuals.

The first thing I do when I get a new CRPG is grab the manual and read it all the way through. I don't really read it to learn how to play the game as much as I do to get a feeling for the game. A well written manual is great.

Of course now most (but not all) manuals are quite slim and lacking in any imagination, but the game manuals of old were great. It used to be common for CRPG manuals to be upwards of 100 pages long (and longer), and they would not only include the "how do I play" stuff, but backstory, history, and other "flavor" text that added to the gaming experience.

Games like - the later Wizardry games, Ultimas (though I'm not a huge Ultima fan), Infinity Engine games, Realms of Arkania games, The Magic Candle, and so many others, had great manuals that were a joy to read.

[Jaz]

Usually I'm a manual avoider, touching the pages only if I have to (if the code's in the manual, for example, or if I'm really stuck and might have overlooked a game feature). But some manuals are just too good to pass :).

[crpgnut]

I've read ALL of her work!! Her very first series had no gay males: Arrows of the Queen; Arrows Flight and Arrows Fall. By the Sword is excellent and the Oathbound series is worthwhile. After that you're going to hit a few gay character; especially avoid the Magic's Pawn series. Her last 3 which includes 2 with Exile in the title and one about a thief, are also good. Hope that helps!!

Thanks Corwin, this is exactly what I was looking for! I'll check out the arrow-minded series and see how I like her stuff.

[GhanBuriGhan]

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species :)

[txa1265]

Usually I'm a manual avoider, touching the pages only if I have to (if the code's in the manual, for example, or if I'm really stuck and might have overlooked a game feature). But some manuals are just too good to pass :).

I agree - I think of Dark Forces, Jedi Knight (original) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein as three examples where you don't *really* need to look at the manual ,but you'll be glad you did!

[Glacian]

I read Eragon a while back, which is really good and MUCH better than the horrible film. I then read Bridge to Terabithia (spelling?), which is a children's book, but grabbed my interest based on the previews of the film. The film is nothing like the previews make it look like, but it's an ok book.

I don't read much.

[crpgnut]

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species :)

One of the best fantasies I've ever read. Kinda dry though.

[Corwin]

I certainly agree about it being a fantasy!! :)

[curious]

what was that fable about the "the ass in the lion's skin"...

[txa1265]

Now thats total immersion! ;)

Too bad the Silent Storm engine is an awful means for conveying a story ...

[magerette]

While we're waxing nostalgic about game manuals, let me go on record also as detesting the tiny little illegible pamphlets we get crammed into the dvd case these days--I guess I should be grateful they're not in six languages like instructions. :)

I remember the Black Isle game manuals all had a spiral binding so you could lay them flat by the computer as you played--the Fallout manual had that black & white flecked school exercise book cover "Vault Tec Lab Journal"--the BG2 SoA manual is thicker than some paperbacks. The last game I got with a decent manual was Temple of Elemental Evil. The last rpg I got with turn based combat was ToEE as well--coincidence? ;)

[curious]

i agree about the quality or lack there of most modern gaming manuals. however alien shooter:vengeance- probably has one of the best i've ever seen and its only jewel case size. almost 30 pages packed with lots of useful info and humour too(the intentional kind). eg: intelligence (head icon) - the higher your intelligence level is, the less you think like a potato. besides this, you will be able to use better implants.what's shocking is this comes from a european developer.
i almost always read the manual the same night i install a game which gets me into the mood for the following day. online or pdf are good for reference but i almost never read them.

[Jaz]

One of my SNES games - a very boring game about a desert war, by the way, I even forgot the title - had an incredibly funny manual. It was definietely intended by the translators this time, but I'm pretty sure the original version's manual wasn't funny at all... my version had mission descriptions like '3. Take the stronghold. 4. Return to base, but don't forget to buy milk on the way back.'

[Cormac]

The last game I got with a decent manual was Temple of Elemental Evil. The last rpg I got with turn based combat was ToEE as well--coincidence? ;)

Probably not. And let's not forget the chocolate chips cookie of the gods recipe !
Have you tried Dominions 3 ? An incredibly deep TB strategy game that was released last year. It comes with a spiral bound 300-page manual, which you will definitely need.

[magerette]

Haven't run across Dominions--I pretty much forget to shop the strategy section anymore since almost everything is real time and/or WWII these days. I'll look it up.

Edit: Just checked it out at Gamespot--it looks quite interesting..("if you're the type of gamer who lets out a groan when he sees a manual the size of a phone book, the game probably isn't for you...") Learning curve: 3 hours.(!)
Thanks Cormac. :)

[narpet]

Right now I'm reading Well Of Darkness by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (Volume 1 of the Sovereign Stone Trilogy).

It's not bad, I like the take on the different races and their relationships with each other, and the story is paced well and interesting.

I'm not a huge fan of the work of Weis or Hickman, but they are both good writers. I've met Margaret several times at conventions and she's really nice to talk to.

[Cormac]

Haven't run across Dominions--I pretty much forget to shop the strategy section anymore since almost everything is real time and/or WWII these days. I'll look it up.

Edit: Just checked it out at Gamespot--it looks quite interesting..("if you're the type of gamer who lets out a groan when he sees a manual the size of a phone book, the game probably isn't for you...") Learning curve: 3 hours.(!)
Thanks Cormac. :)

Yes, the game is very complex. Fortunately the demo (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/Dom3/6.htm) comes with a very comprehensive tutorial which will teach you, if you do decide to try it, the basics of province management and combat (and a bit on magic too).

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Spiral-bound manuals ? I don't believe I've EVER seen one !

Only a few days ago I was digging through my chest full with old game manuals and not a single one was like this type !

Is this typical European or what ? ;)


The outcry was immense, by the way, when the gaming mags wrote about plans of the industry to only use DVD cases. Me, I felt like being treated not as a customer, but rather like ... a cash-cow. They want money from me and dare to deliver the least necessary for that. Cutting down production costs in all place ... Well, not all. Except the 3D graphics, of course. ;)

Of course the industry had won. No-one selld games in the so-called "Euro-Boxes" anymore. Everything has at least the height of an DVD box.

And THEN they try to put handbooks into an DVD case that *hardly* fit at all !

But I guess I'm becoming more & more off-topic ... Agree to open a new thread ? ;)

[txa1265]

Spiral-bound manuals ? I don't believe I've EVER seen one !
I have at least NWN, KotOR and ToEE ... perhaps more but being >3000 miles away from them makes it hard to check ;)

The outcry was immense, by the way, when the gaming mags wrote about plans of the industry to only use DVD cases.

We had much hand-wringing here about the move to small boxes ... the use of DVD cases is still spotty here - don't really know why, though. But don't feel bad - we don't get anything better in the boxes than in the DVD cases :(

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Well, I never had the three games you mentioned as full-price games, so I can't say ... don't have KOTOR not at all, and NWN only as a gaming magazine's version. TOEE as extremely low budget version.

[magerette]

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Spiral-bound manuals ? I don't believe I've EVER seen one !

Alrik, you're always getting the short end of the stick! :)

Spiral bound manuals in my collection:

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Icewind Dale
NWN and NWN Gold
Fallout
Temple of Elemental Evil

All, as you can see, by Bioware, Black Isle or Troika. I think there was an outcry about BG1 not having a spiral bound manual, so that's why the SoA edition did. I also got some 20-sided dice and a cool notepad with that one. :)

[Jaz]

...and another bump, just for magerette.

[narpet]

I'm reading Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East right now. It's a great book and he is, IMO, a great writer.

I'm reading it again now as a sort of remembrance since he just passed away last month. We lost one of the pioneers of the genre (sci-fi/fantasy), and a genuinely nice person.

[magerette]

...and another bump, just for magerette.

You guys rock. :)
Edit: Okay, I moved this in from the other book thread to keep things from becoming too schizoid:

Wishes do come true, eh? Thanks HiddenX. Now what is everybody reading? Besides narpet?

You ARE reading, right, expanding your young minds and vocabularies?? Exploring the frontiers of other cultures and ways of life? Learning new expressions and visiting the farthest realms of imagination?

**Yes, comic books count. (Especially The Sandman.) Even game manuals, around here.**

Good. Mother is proud. Please share :)

At the moment I'm reading the first volume of the Dark Tower, The Gunslinger, by Stephen King. I've been meaning to read this series for a long time, but kept putting it off waiting for the last book. Now that that has been published I have no excuse. I'm only on page five, but already weirded out. ;)

[Corwin]

The Shinto Mage trilogy by Dale Elvey

[txa1265]

Recently read:

- Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko - I had already read Night Watch (and played the game (http://www.gamerdad.com/detail.cfm?itemID=3630)and watched the DVD) so this was a natural when it was released in the US (it is a translation from Russian). It was quite good, perhaps not as good as the first, but still a nice read. The last one - Twilight Watch - was just released, and I'll grab that one soon enough.

- The Road by Cormac McCarthy - I knew very little about this other than liking his 'All the Pretty Horses' ages ago. This was a fairly quick read, but was stark and harsh and written in language that was at once sketchy and descriptive. Not an easy thing to read, but a really good book.

... now I'm working on the Best of H. P. Lovecraft (http://www.amazon.com/Best-H-P-Lovecraft-Bloodcurdling/dp/0345350804/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0603600-5851117?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180761799&sr=8-1)book that GamerDad had recommended ...

[danutz_plusplus]

Currently reading Pandora - The Jesus Incident. It's the first book of the Pandora Triloogy. A really great SF book written by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom that depicts God as a ship, an artificial conciseness created by mankind.

[Prime Junta]

I've been gobbling up Iain M. Banks's novels. Perfect summer reading. I particularly liked The Use of Weapons; had to read it three times to make sense of it, but it was worth it. I liked Consider Phlebas and The Algebraist almost as much.

Just finished Excession, and found it a bit too transparently preachy and thought the ending was a bit lame (although not as much as The State Of The Art, which I didn't care much for). Started on Player Of Games.

I'm also reading a history of 20th century Iran.

[Prime Junta]

... now I'm working on the Best of H. P. Lovecraft (http://www.amazon.com/Best-H-P-Lovecraft-Bloodcurdling/dp/0345350804/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0603600-5851117?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180761799&sr=8-1)book that GamerDad had recommended ...

Yah, HPL is something of a "must-read" I guess, if only to get all the pop-culture references to him that are literally all over the place (especially in games).

To be honest, I've enjoyed stumbling across the Cthulhu Mythos in surprising contexts much more than reading the actual original stories. Even though they're really marvelously imagined, they're often so god-awfully badly written that it's almost not worth it. (The exceptions are At The Mountains Of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, where he manages to keep his adjectives under control. Most of the time.)

I've particularly enjoyed Neil Gaiman's spin on it -- once you're done with that book, I'd nudge you towards Shadows Over Baker Street (which contains Gaiman's "A Study In Emerald")... and then there's that one short story about an American backpacker stumbling into an English seaside village named Innsmouth, sharing a few pints of Shoggoth's Old Peculiar with the oddly batrachian ("means, 'looks like a bloody frog,' dunnit?") locals...

[dteowner]

Just about done with "Voice of the Gods" (http://www.amazon.com/Voice-Gods-Five-Trilogy-Book/dp/0060815922/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-8693547-0994341?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186143300&sr=8-1) by Trudi Canavan. Nothing special, but a pleasant read. This concluding volume, as usual, is much better than book 2 of the trilogy.

[magerette]

Yah, HPL is something of a "must-read" *snip*...

...Even though they're really marvelously imagined, they're often so god-awfully badly written that it's almost not worth it.

They remind me a lot of the Robert E. Howard opus in that respect. The writing often gets in the way of the magnitude of the literary event that is their work. No one else could probably have written it better, yet as you say, sometimes the purple prose is overwhelming.

I've particularly enjoyed Neil Gaiman's spin on it -- once you're done with that book, I'd nudge you towards Shadows Over Baker Street (which contains Gaiman's "A Study In Emerald")...

Thanks for the reference to this book. I had no idea Gaiman had written a Holmes pastiche,especially with Lovecraftian overtones. This collection is definitely a new take (though Daniel Stashower did venture into the territory with The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic Man.)
If you care at all for that sort of thing, I recommend Michael Kurland's The Infernal Device where he explores the Holmesian world with Professor Moriarty as the protagonist, and Holmes as an almost certifiable paranoid. Quite well done. :)

[Prime Junta]

You can download _A Study In Emerald_ as a PDF from Neil Gaiman's website: [ http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf/ ]. Legally. :-)

[Gig]

I'm reading Jim Butcher's Dresden books right now.

[Gallifrey]

In regards to Lovecraft... I'm a big fan, have been for a long time, and I utterly love all that early 20th century weird fiction. Lovecraft, Blackwood, Derleth, C.A. Smith, R.E. Howard... Just fantastic. Once upon a time I ran a discussion list dedicated to that sort of thing. I disagree with PJ's assessment that the stories are badly written and only worth reading so you can catch the pop culture references. Lovecraft's prose is certainly a rich purple, but he does successfully convey the horror, mystery and overwhelming madness required for the tales. And the pop culture references we see now are so far removed from Lovecraft's intentions of his stories as to be utterly disconnected and meaningless.
Also, while Lovecraft is most known for his Cthulhu mythos, his other stories (and the bulk of his canon) are, I think, much better. And a lot of that mythos was actually realised by Lovecraft's friend and author August Derleth. Dertleth took it all after Lovecraft's death and put it into an organised codex of sorts and wrote a number of pastiches based on that content. Lovecraft himself never saw it all like that, it wasn't mean to be ordered and such.

Gaiman's A Study In Emerald isn't very good, surprisingly. He basically took Doyle's A Study In Scarlet and revamped it, with pretty poor results. Gaiman is largely much, much better than what he wrote in that story, but then I'm also a big fan of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I suppose with that story my expectations were just too high, the combination of three of my favourite authors just couldn't fulfill what I imagined ;)

Gig - how are the Dresden books? I really liked the short-lived TV series.

Currently I'm reading The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul, the second Dirk Gently book by Douglas Adams. I read both books when they came out (the first in 1987 - I bought my copy of the first book at a reading Adams did in Toronto and I got it signed) and I thought 20 years later is probably a good time to re-read them both.
Brilliant stuff, and better than Hitchhiker's.

Also reading The Enemy Of The World, a novelisation of the Doctor Who serial of the same name (2nd Doctor). Last summer I went into the local used book shop and they had stacks of the old novels (first through to fifth Doctor) so I bought them all. The funny thing is, I went in to sell books becasue we were moving into the house we had just bought and were trying to reduce the collection a bit. Didn't quite work out.

[Zakhary]

I'm reading Alastair Reynolds. My fav hard scifi author.
I'm finishing "Pushing Ice" and next up would be "The Prefect" and the
"Galactic North" short story collection I bought recently.

Great stuff.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm currently reading

- "Neurosis & Human growth : The struggle for self-realization" by a Karen Horney
- "Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra", a small magazine-like printing about the ancient sky disc of Nebra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk).

[Prime Junta]

In regards to Lovecraft... I'm a big fan, have been for a long time, and I utterly love all that early 20th century weird fiction. Lovecraft, Blackwood, Derleth, C.A. Smith, R.E. Howard... Just fantastic. Once upon a time I ran a discussion list dedicated to that sort of thing. I disagree with PJ's assessment that the stories are badly written and only worth reading so you can catch the pop culture references. Lovecraft's prose is certainly a rich purple, but he does successfully convey the horror, mystery and overwhelming madness required for the tales. And the pop culture references we see now are so far removed from Lovecraft's intentions of his stories as to be utterly disconnected and meaningless.

Hardly *only* worth reading for the pop culture references -- I didn't even say that. My problem with HPL's prose is precisely that it falls flat just at the worst possible moment -- usually the build-ups are great, but just when things come to a head, he vomits out a huge puddle of adjectives, which pretty much ruins the atmosphere. So for me, he fails to convey the horror, mystery, etc. There are a few exceptions; The Color Out Of Space for example.

Compare with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is even a bit older: the subject matter is much more conventional, but that book is written so well it still scares the willies out of me. There, all the Gothic horror is in the story; the dry, almost matter-of-fact writing makes it that much more effective.

Also, while Lovecraft is most known for his Cthulhu mythos, his other stories (and the bulk of his canon) are, I think, much better.[QUOTE]

Which ones do you mean? It so happens that my favorite HPL story is not a Mythos one; it's "The Rats In The Walls," as it happens. But he really didn't write that many non-Mythos stories, other than the Dunsanian stuff (Dream-Quest of Ancient Kadath and so on), and I thought those were *really* lame.


Gaiman's A Study In Emerald isn't very good, surprisingly.

I believe you're in the minority with this opinion. I certainly enjoyed it a lot; IMO it's among his better short stories. But yes, he is a very uneven writer.

He basically took Doyle's A Study In Scarlet and revamped it, with pretty poor results. Gaiman is largely much, much better than what he wrote in that story, but then I'm also a big fan of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I suppose with that story my expectations were just too high, the combination of three of my favourite authors just couldn't fulfill what I imagined ;)

That would explain it. I like the atmosphere in the Sherlock Holmes stories, but I'm not what you'd call a huge fan. (In fact, I like the BBC TV series with Jeremy Brett more than the actual stories.)


Currently I'm reading The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul, the second Dirk Gently book by Douglas Adams. I read both books when they came out (the first in 1987 - I bought my copy of the first book at a reading Adams did in Toronto and I got it signed) and I thought 20 years later is probably a good time to re-read them both.
Brilliant stuff, and better than Hitchhiker's.

Funny thing, taste. I found TLDTTOTS pretty blah (liked Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency a lot, though, probably better than most of the HH's.)

[slam23]

I'm reading the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman and right now I'm at the "Amber Spyglass". It's just unusual and surprising enough to keep reading but I'm not blown away. It's a bit of a Frankensteinian mishmash with steampunk, quantum mechanics, religion and high fantasy rolled into a book caught between children's and adult level. My immersion gets stretched a bit too far on this one. Next up is "Down Under" by Bill Bryson (I like how that sounded :) ). "A small history of nearly everything" was the first book I read by him and I was completely blown away. Imagine a page-turner in the popular scientific literature. I think that's rare. Then I discovered more work by him and liked that too. Because I'm set to become a dad for the first time in september I alternate a bit between reading "pregnancy literature for men" and aformentioned stuff.
@Alrik: I actually haven't read anything by Karen Horney but she is a widely respected author in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. I'm surprised to see somebody here who reads her work. I rather would expect people to read Freud, Jung, Fromm, Eriksen or a more contemporary author like Yalom. Is it any good? Are you employed as therapist yourself?

[Gallifrey]

My problem with HPL's prose is precisely that it falls flat just at the worst possible moment -- usually the build-ups are great, but just when things come to a head, he vomits out a huge puddle of adjectives, which pretty much ruins the atmosphere. So for me, he fails to convey the horror, mystery, etc. There are a few exceptions; The Color Out Of Space for example.

Colour Out Of Space is brilliant, I agree. But I find that Lovecraft's prose style works for what he's trying to tell. He's not a great writer, and I'm not so sure his stories would work as well if he had been a trained author. His abundant use of adjectives works for me, because I feel it hits upon the chaotic state of mind the protagonists would be experiencing. Perhaps not those words in particular, but the excessiveness, for me, has a useful function.


Compare with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is even a bit older: the subject matter is much more conventional, but that book is written so well it still scares the willies out of me. There, all the Gothic horror is in the story; the dry, almost matter-of-fact writing makes it that much more effective.

See, I found Dracula to be more a slightly atmospheric drama than anything else, and I don't like Stoker's writing style. It comes across as trying to simply mimic the more established Victorian authors, and doesn't have a voice of it's own.

I believe you're in the minority with this opinion. I certainly enjoyed it a lot; IMO it's among his better short stories. But yes, he is a very uneven writer.

Emerald is perhaps Gaiman's worst short story. Pretty much everything he's ever written is better than that one. It falls flat in every regard, and Gaiman almost never falls flat. The problem there is that he essentially did a pastiche of Doyle, and so it wasn't his own imagination at work (not that everything he's written is utterly unique) and it's obvious he had difficulty in combining the fact-based nature of Doyle with the cosmic strangeness of Lovecraft. This is something he admits freely in his Introduction to the Fragile Things anthology.


That would explain it. I like the atmosphere in the Sherlock Holmes stories, but I'm not what you'd call a huge fan. (In fact, I like the BBC TV series with Jeremy Brett more than the actual stories.)

Those are excellent; Brett is the best screen Holmes there has ever been.


Funny thing, taste. I found TLDTTOTS pretty blah (liked Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency a lot, though, probably better than most of the HH's.)

I just started Teatime, and I remember pretty much nothing of it from 20 years ago. Holistic though was superb, and definitely better than Hitchhiker's. It's clear Adams put a lot more thought and effort into Holistic.

[Corwin]

I enjoy Adams in small doses. I've read all the SH books, seen the movies and most of the TV shows.
Just began Wizard's Ward by Deborah Hale.

[curiously undead]

finally got a hold of a copy of kingdom come by jg ballard. about 2/3 thru it and i'm enjoying it more than his last book. on top of all his well known works it still amazes me that he's nearly eighty and still fashioning interesting stories and intriguing societial constructs.

[xSamhainx]

Lovecraft always is a good read for me. One of my favorites which I shall read again right now is The Tomb (http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/library/stacks/literature/lovecraft/stories/tomb.htm).
See you later ='.'=

[Remus]

... just bought the seventh and the last book in the Harry Potter series. I took a sick leave today so i would probably read some pages...

[Artran]

I'm reading Anna Karenina by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy and I enjoy it very much. Great book.

[Prime Junta]

@Artran -- no no no no NO. This is RPGWatch, you're not supposed to read actual *literature.* Now, be a good boy and pick up some pulp sci-fi or fantasy book, m'kay?

(Seriously, though -- I never enjoyed Tolstoy that much. He's too damn conscious of his own greatness for his own good.)

[Corwin]

I fell asleep trying to read War and Peace many years ago!!

[Artran]

@Artran -- no no no no NO. This is RPGWatch, you're not supposed to read actual *literature.* Now, be a good boy and pick up some pulp sci-fi or fantasy book, m'kay?

:biggrin: Well then - one of my last fantasy books was Hour of Dragon by Howard. Actually I used to read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy in my teen years but nowadays I read those damn classic authors :)

(Seriously, though -- I never enjoyed Tolstoy that much. He's too damn conscious of his own greatness for his own good.)

I have this feeling when I read Puschkin. But we must admitt: they ARE great arn't they?.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

@Artran -- no no no no NO. This is RPGWatch, you're not supposed to read actual *literature.* Now, be a good boy and pick up some pulp sci-fi or fantasy book, m'kay?

You didn't get upset when I wrote above that I'm actually reading a work on Neurosis ? :D

It's an older book, but friends who know some things about Psychology say that it is still a fair book - from a scientific point of view.

[txa1265]

@Artran -- no no no no NO. This is RPGWatch, you're not supposed to read actual *literature.* Now, be a good boy and pick up some pulp sci-fi or fantasy book, m'kay?
Despite that being largely true, you will find examples to the contrary sprinkled throughout the list. Modern ones as well, such as Naipaul ...

[GothicGothicness]

I am reading "Rise of a demon king" it has some reference to BaK, and RtK, by R. Feist... a bit sad his third game never got finished.

I've become too much of a freak reading fantasy now though.. I am finding some mistakes in his writings... and "logical" mistakes... the only series I never found one was WoT.... it is extremly impressive!

[magerette]

@Artran: Anna Karenina is a classic for a reason. Have you read any George Elliot or Thomas Hardy? Both similar to me, meaty and somber authors who really would like to believe that Life isn't the hell hole they are protraying but just can't dismiss reality to do so. Reading these books, I often lose my sense that it's our times that are a disaster and a tortuous mess of lost values and see the injustice and misery of that era as far worse. :)

RE:Lovecraft; I think he is over the top in the same way Poe can be. Both are masters of atmosphere and translators of the dark imagination beyond compare, but it's not in their nature to see the traps of overwriting a thing.I think it's a pretty common fault of those working in this genre.

Witness case in point, Stephen King, who I am currently reading.(Finished The Drawing of the Three yesterday.) This Dark Tower series is a real mish mash of genres--including Tolkein, spaghetti westerns and his usual personal take on Lovecraftian horrors. I'm not a huge fan of his work, but he also has a unique gift for illustrating and unclothing evil in the human heart. His immersion breaker is his occasional lapse into too extended a look through his self-pitying sense of being an outsider. I am enjoying the books though, as I like good high fantasy a lot better than mass-produced horror and so far that seems to be where they are bound.

[Artran]

@magerette: I know poems by T. Hardy (some of them I have tried to translate to czech some years ago - question is whether it was good...), but I've read none of his novels. It was quite disaster when he lost his wife. His later works are jotted by his sad fate. But when he was eighty years old or so he wrote this beautiful poem:

Song to Aurore

We’ll not begin again to love,
It only leads to pain;
The fire we now are master of
Has seared us not in vain.
Any new step of yours I'm fain
To hear of from afar,
And even in such may find a gain
While lodged not where you are.

No: that must not be done anew
Which has been done before;
I scarce could bear to seek, or view,
Or clasp you any more!
Life is a labour, death is sore,
And lonely living wrings;
But go your courses, sweet Aurore,
Kisses are caresome things!

It's one of the most sorrowful poems I've ever read.

[Prime Junta]

I fell asleep trying to read War and Peace many years ago!!

Yeah, it is a bit wordy (and preachy) in places, but I sorta liked it anyway. More than Anna Karenina in any case... Russians say that foreigners prefer Dostoevsky while Russians prefer Tolstoy. I know that's true for me.

Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" has to be among my three favorite books, though. IMO he beats the pants off all of the other great Russian novelists.

[txa1265]

Russians say that foreigners prefer Dostoevsky while Russians prefer Tolstoy. I know that's true for me.
I wonder if there is something in the "translatability" of the text? Because I know it is true for me as well.

[Cormac]

Everything Tolstoy wrote is pure gold, not only the great novels but his shorter works also are not to be missed: The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man come especially recommended.

I'm reading Sapkowski's The Last Wish.

[Malk]

wow, i had no idea that there where other sherlock holmes books, apart from doyle's... can anyone tell me more about that? presicely, what should i read, and in what order. i've really liked doyle's holmes, and i also love the setting :)

btw, i'm currently reading terry pratchet's discworld books... erik is one of the funniest books i've ever read :)

[Prime Junta]

I wonder if there is something in the "translatability" of the text? Because I know it is true for me as well.

No, I don't think so. I've read some Dostoevsky short stories and some Tolstoy short stories in the original, and I still prefer Dostoevsky. I think it's more the world-view and thematics. Bluntly put, Tolstoy writes about Russia first, the universal human condition second, while Dostoevsky writes about the universal human condition first, and Russia second.

Pushkin, OTOH, does not translate well. Chekhov is another tough one -- his writing is so full of puns and other language games that you need to be an extremely creative translator to get much of it across.

[Dez]

Just finished stephen king: the song of susannah..Its the sixth book of Dark Tower series. I belive everyone knows this, but no harm explaining. After the wizzard and glass, the whole series has just gone downhill. Wolves of the calla was decent, but song of susannah was only boring and tedious. I felt like King didn't anymore know how to fill the book's pages, so he just wrote something and hoped the reader wouldn't notice the hoax. Too much mia-susannah inner debates which rarely served any meaning for example. Hopefully the last book is as good as the first four.

Now reading Frank herbert - the dune

I don't know why i haven't read this wonderfull book before. Either its always been missing from a local library or i have forgotten it when visiting there.

[txa1265]

Chekhov is another tough one -- his writing is so full of puns and other language games that you need to be an extremely creative translator to get much of it across.
Then he must be amazing in the original ... because I like his stuff in English.

[rooroosta]

Currently reading two books..

Parallel Worlds - Michio Kaku

Bring On The Empty Horses - David Niven

[magerette]

wow, i had no idea that there where other sherlock holmes books, apart from doyle's... can anyone tell me more about that? presicely, what should i read, and in what order. i've really liked doyle's holmes, and i also love the setting :)....

There is a ton of Holme's material not written by Doyle, but it tends to very uneven, everything from very amateurish to quite well done.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmesedited by Richard Lancelyn Green, is a nice collection that gives a feel for the Holmesian pastiche.
The only body of work that really excells to me though, is Laurie King's excellent series beginning with The Beekeeper's Apprentice.She posits a marriage between Holmes and an American/Jewish Talmudic scholar that works surprisingly well. My favorite in the series is O Jerusalem, where she and Holmes undertake an undercover assignment in the Mid East for Mycroft. Though these books are told very much from Mary Russell's perspective, they have more of the feel of Holmes as a real entity than many that just use the name and conventions.

@Artran--a sad and lovely poem. Hardy's novels are even more sorrowful, and some might even say depressing. I read them during a very unhappy time in my own life, though, and they were one of the major supports that helped me through. After reading Jude the Obscure, it's very hard to feel sorry for yourself! :)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

wow, i had no idea that there where other sherlock holmes books, apart from doyle's... can anyone tell me more about that? presicely, what should i read, and in what order. i've really liked doyle's holmes, and i also love the setting :)

btw, i'm currently reading terry pratchet's discworld books... erik is one of the funniest books i've ever read :)

I only know the original Doyle books, but there are several of them, I also liked his short stories *very* much ! :)


Discworld readiiing order guides :
http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/index.html
I think it would be a good idea to check this out.

www.lspace.org (with "lspace" standing for "Librarian Space" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Space)) is in general a good choice for learning about the Discworld !

[magerette]

Just finished stephen king: the song of susannah..Its the sixth book of Dark Tower series. I belive everyone knows this, but no harm explaining. After the wizzard and glass, the whole series has just gone downhill. Wolves of the calla was decent, but song of susannah was only boring and tedious. I felt like King didn't anymore know how to fill the book's pages, so he just wrote something and hoped the reader wouldn't notice the hoax. Too much mia-susannah inner debates which rarely served any meaning for example. Hopefully the last book is as good as the first four.

This is very bad news for me, Dez. I just finished the second one and I'm already really tired of Susannah. My husband is reading the last one, which is huge(~850 pages) and he says it's better, but he's a pretty uncritical guy where Stephen King is concerned.

Now reading Frank herbert - the dune

I don't know why i haven't read this wonderfull book before. Either its always been missing from a local library or i have forgotten it when visiting there.

Great book. Someday I need to read some of the many sequels but I've always been afraid they wouldn't measure up.

[Corwin]

They don't!! The Dune series goes downhill RAPIDLY!!

[fatBastard()]

"God Emperor of Dune" will be my guide book on how to run things once I'm elected Ruler of the World. :whip:

Right now I'm chewing my way through Picknett & Prince's "The Templar Revelation" about how sex supposedly played a far more important role in secret societies in Europe throughout the centuries than the Church would have liked. And when I'm saying chewing I really mean chewing since I only have time to read when I'm in my bed at night these days and nothing induces sleep faster than 4-5 references to source material on every page :bored:

[slam23]

I'm with Corwin about the Dune series. I unfortunately read them all because I kept hoping that the series would pick up again. It didn't imho. I had more fun with the prequels (by Brian Herbert) although they are not the pick of the litter also. The Amber series kept more quality but that also tapered off a bit.

[dteowner]

Finished the Trudi Canavan book, flew thru "Ghoul" by Brian Keene (gave me what I was looking for, but, meh), and started the final installment of the Dreamers series from David Eddings. So far, the series has been a major disappointment to me. Since Eddings is probably my favorite author, my expectations are quite high, but this series so far has been terribly anti-climactic and rather non-heroic. I could forgive that if the characters were really good, but there's too many for Eddings to really develop any of them. Maybe the conclusion will exceed the previous three volumes.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I once read the original "Dune" book, but never liked it. Interesting in its ideas, but far too dark for my taste, and weird.

I had the feeling as if this book had no soul.

[slam23]

@Alrik. Well, Herbert was accused of creating a fascist undercurrent in his work. I don't know if I agree with that, I for sure didn't pick that up when I first read it. But it could be that the soullessness (is that a word?) stems from that.

[Corwin]

I love the Amber series!! :)

[mudsling3]

"The politically incorect guide to the constitution" by Gutzman, it's time for a serious four-letter word -- the #&%@ FACT

[slam23]

@Corwin: I kind of figured that.... :) I really liked the first 6 books but then a new protagonist was introduced and I had trouble adjusting to that. I love the RPG based on Amber though, are you familiar with it?

[Corwin]

No, what is it?

[Sorcha Ravenlock]

I just finished the harry Potter series. We bought the whole set recently. I have to say they were much more enjoyable then I thought they would be, I found them hard to put down.
Unfortunately I think they'll be a bit too grim for our sensitive daughter at the moment though, she'll have to wait a year or two before she'll be allowed to read them ;)

Now I'm reading the Servants of Ark series by Jonathan Wylie. It's enjoyable light reading, perfect for the summer :D

[Corwin]

Wow, haven't seen that series in years!! I'm finishing The Destined Queen by Deborah Hale.

[txa1265]

Unfortunately I think they'll be a bit too grim for our sensitive daughter at the moment though, she'll have to wait a year or two before she'll be allowed to read them ;)

How old is your daughter? You might want to try reading aloud. That is how we have done it with our boys. Of course, when we started reading they were much younger and couldn't have done it themselves, but we have kept it up. We're reading #7 aloud now (that is, I read and my wife and boys listen) ... despite the fact that my older son read #6 in one day in younger son read #5 in 2 days right before we started this one. It is also amazing family time!

[Dez]

This is very bad news for me, Dez. I just finished the second one and I'm already really tired of Susannah. My husband is reading the last one, which is huge(~850 pages) and he says it's better, but he's a pretty uncritical guy where Stephen King is concerned..

Heh tell me about it. I agree 100%, she is a very annoying character. Not as annoying as Jordan's women in wheel of time though! :D Even if the sixth book was a letdown and clearly the weakest book in the series, I can't wait to see how it finally ends.

[Sorcha Ravenlock]

How old is your daughter? You might want to try reading aloud. That is how we have done it with our boys. Of course, when we started reading they were much younger and couldn't have done it themselves, but we have kept it up. We're reading #7 aloud now (that is, I read and my wife and boys listen) ... despite the fact that my older son read #6 in one day in younger son read #5 in 2 days right before we started this one. It is also amazing family time!


She is 7, but she is very sensitive. We do read a lot to her, but she is emotionally very young and there are certain parts in the later books that I know would upset her for days, like the deaths of certain characters.
She still finds Disney movies upsetting for example, even when we watch them with her.

It's not that I think the books aren't suitable for her age, but more for her character. And only the later ones at that, but I don't think it's fair to let her read part 1 and 2 and then tell her to wait a few yearsto read the rest. At the moment there are other books that she can read, the Potter books can wait ;)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

@Alrik. Well, Herbert was accused of creating a fascist undercurrent in his work. I don't know if I agree with that, I for sure didn't pick that up when I first read it. But it could be that the soullessness (is that a word?) stems from that.

I was young when I read it, I was a teenager during the 80s, and I didn't pick up things knowingly. I think it went rather the emotional way and unconsciously.

However, I have once read a book about his days in Tibet by a Heinrich Harrer which greatly felt like hatred through the lines to me. I have never had this as strongly ass there. And only much later I learned that he was a Nazi. I think, no, I believe I've felt his hatred somehow through the lines.

I'm a bit sensitive, you know (ever heard about high sensitivity according to Elaine Aron ?).

[txa1265]

We just finished reading Harry Potter #7 aloud as a family. It has been my thing since we started with the first one years ago when it was too old for my boys to read. I developed the character voices and accents (and then tweaked them closer to the movie versions) and kept going book after book. I was sick this weekend, so my wife picked up for a bit but they stopped when they saw I had dozed off and then hounded me to pick up the reading after I woke up again. I really enjoyed this one, thought it was one of the better books of the series.

Myself, I'm still working on the Lovecraft collection, but have taken a sidetrip to re-read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. I had to get a second copy because my original was quite fragile and had been signed by the author at a talk he gave years ago ...

[dteowner]

Finished the Trudi Canavan book, flew thru "Ghoul" by Brian Keene (gave me what I was looking for, but, meh), and started the final installment of the Dreamers series from David Eddings. So far, the series has been a major disappointment to me. Since Eddings is probably my favorite author, my expectations are quite high, but this series so far has been terribly anti-climactic and rather non-heroic. I could forgive that if the characters were really good, but there's too many for Eddings to really develop any of them. Maybe the conclusion will exceed the previous three volumes.30 pages to go and the Eddings book continues to disappoint. What a shame.

[Corwin]

Just picked up the first of the Dreamers series today from the library. Currently reading Tony Shillitoe's The Amber Legacy which has nothing to do with the Zelazny series!!

[dteowner]

The last 30 pages somehow managed to be even worse. What a turd. I'm going to pretend the series was written by someone else that has pictures of Eddings naked with a goat.

Started Neil Gaiman's "American Gods".

[Corwin]

Perhaps Eddings is going senile with age!! :) When I have time to read the first volume, I'll pass on my thoughts.

[txa1265]

Well, aside from Cat's Cradle, our kids are bugging my wife and I to read some of their stuff.

I had read "The Warriors", which is about this whole other world of cats and was actually not too bad. Thought I was going to get to read "The Golden Compass" which my other son just finished, but he returned it to the library to get the rest of the series. So instead I am reading "So you want to be a wizard", the first of a (so far) 8 book series by Diane Duane. I don't think I'll like that as much ;)

But it is a break from Lovecraft ...

It is interesting that while it has been perhaps 10 years since reading Cat's Cradle, I remembered all of the humor, I knew it was cynical but had forgotten just *how* bitter and cynical it is wrapped in all of the humor. And the ease of reading it belies just how great his stuff really is.

[magerette]

Been a long time since I read Vonnegut, but a lot of it does stick with you. There is always that flavor of cynicism which I think comes a bit from the campus/"beat" coffee-house culture of the fifties and sixties, but in his case it's always tempered with compassion and humor.

Reading these rather silly Dark Tower books from King, I kept getting whiffs, as it were of Vonnegut's style--I remember very clearly Vonnegut using the concept of a karass I believe it was-- in one of his books(maybe God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater?) that is, a group of people aligned together whose fates are inextricably mingled through eternity. Found it rather derivative of King to re-use this calling it a "ka-tet" for his little group of planeswalking weirdos.
In fact, I'm having a hard time getting on with the series. It's kind of like junk food of the mind--;)

[txa1265]

The Karass and all of those other things are from Cat's Cradle, really one of his major works in terms of his humanist view. It is really amazing how much compassion, humanism, humor and cynicism he crams into such small works while crafting wonderful stories and characters.

Karass, vindit, wompeters, granfaloons and foma and on and on and on ... all great stuff. The whole idea of Bokonon and the religion of sweet, sweet lies is just completely wonderful as well.

[magerette]

Maybe I need to revisit that book. I know I have a ratty dissolving paperback of it around somewhere. Have you ever read Venus on the Half Shell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_on_the_Half-Shell)? Also a classic in it's way.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm currently reading "Es war einmal ein Schiff" ("Once upon a time there was a ship" - very rough translation made by me), which is a book on "maritime archaeology". Ships, and ports, and sea-trade, and of course the Vasa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)).

It's an really interesting expansion to my archaeology knowledge (this is actually my greatest hobby), because it puts light on a field I don't know much about.

I boight it last Sunday on a flea market, and it was a real bargain, because i got it for 7 Euros - they originally wanted 10 - and it is from this year ! :)

[Gig]

Gig - how are the Dresden books? I really liked the short-lived TV series.Frankly, I prefer the short-lived TV series. The TV producers took certain liberties that, in my opinion, made Harry's character more even tempered and heroic. They managed this even while weakening the character somewhat power wise. The tradeoff is that the TV Dresden is a much more confident, less timid, less unsure of himself, less apologetic character. Murphy is spot on, you still just want to reach out and choke her sometimes. And, BoB's... libido... was tamed significantly for television.

[Prime Junta]

Started Neil Gaiman's "American Gods".

I loved that book. IMO Gaiman's best -- there's so much more going on there than the surface narrative. Anansi Boys was another good one in the same style.

[slam23]

@Corwin: the diceless Amber tabletop RPG has some nice elements in it. All players play one Prince or Princess of Amber with corresponding powers, trumps and portfolio's. Aim of the game is to claim the throne and become King/Queen and that means fighting all your siblings. After customising your character in typical Amber-style an auction starts of the game. In the auction the portfolio's (dominion over sea, forest and/or castle), powers (i.e. ability to scribe new trumps, ability to teleport without walking the Pattern etc) and some major Amberian (?) artifacts get distributed amongst the highest bidders (sacrificing character points to get them). Then all are summoned to the castle to inform them that the King has disappeared and is in all likelihood dead. From that point the struggle for power commences with a lot of politics, backstabbing, forming alliances and armies, fighting, betrayal etc. I only played it three times (becoming king once) but I have fond memories of those campaigns. And I don't mean the pizza.... :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Diceless_Roleplaying_Game

@Alrik: I have read a book about high sensitivity and I am intrigued by this phenomenon. Although it lacks a thorough neuroscientific underpinning (imho), it somehow captures a lot of seemingly unrelated experiences and characteristics under one umbrella. Whatever the underlying neurophysiological processes may be, I think it mostly affects people who have a learned (or inborn) tendency to direct their attention to the moods and needs of (significant) others while at the same time not being able to shield themselves for incoming stimuli from the outside world. In my work I see it often in adults who had "unsafe" parenting and who have learned to cope with unpredictability by being attentive to "danger" signals emitted by the other. This becomes then a second nature survival strategy that exists well into adulthood. It potentially makes for really socially sensitive and caring people but it seems like they pay a price for not being able to shield themselves properly and thusly get bombarded with negative stimuli such as the depressed/angry/fearful mood of the other, or even harsh sounds and sights. It's not uncommon to see that they live a socially withdrawn life, content with being at home and directing energy towards creative hobbies that they can undertake alone.

Started reading the last Harry Potter, tragically some of the ending got spoiled for me by a friend who thought I had read it already while actually it was my girlfriend who had just finished. Because I just moved this week to a new home, TV and internet are still out (typing this at work now) so I'm happy to have something to read to get my mind off all the stuff that still has te be done in and around the house.

[Prime Junta]

Started reading the last Harry Potter, tragically some of the ending got spoiled for me by a friend who thought I had read it already while actually it was my girlfriend who had just finished. Because I just moved this week to a new home, TV and internet are still out (typing this at work now) so I'm happy to have something to read to get my mind off all the stuff that still has te be done in and around the house.

I've read all the previous Harry Potters, but somehow I just don't have any interest in reading the last one. Am I weird?

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Yes, the high sensitivity thing is very interesting.

What you describe is only one factor among others, as far as I know.

The only relatively certain thing I know about is an unusual high amount of Cortisol within these people.
Apart from that, scientific research is still "in its childhood shoes", as we say here.

[txa1265]

I've read all the previous Harry Potters, but somehow I just don't have any interest in reading the last one. Am I weird?

Maybe it is the mega-super-duper hype surrounding it. We loved it, there were good and bad elements like all of the books, but overall I found it very enjoyable and worth the read.

[slam23]

@ Alrik: Kinderschoenen? :)
Literal translation of expressions and figure of speech from one language to another is quite funny. That could be a nice thread, for example: I'm standing red on the bank (I'm in debt financially)....
It's interesting that you mention cortisol, because it is at the core of the human stress system (or axis as it often called). It is also suspected to play a role in (recurring) depression and is the major culprit in Cushing's disease. The latter patients suffer from fatigue and oversensitivity for harsh stimuli. Cortisol plays a crucial role in the "tonus" of arousal, the way the brain gets tuned to be extra alert to outside information. Now, the question then should be: do some people have a predisposition (genetically) to have high amounts of cortisol in their neurophysiological system (probably the leading hypothesis in the field of high sensitivity?) or does the amount of cortisol production increase irreversibly under enduring stressful situations leading to permanent cortisol disbalance and high arousal tonus?

@Prime Junta: having trouble saying goodbye maybe? I did not want to finish Lord of the Rings but I found that rereading has it's own merits. But sometimes I fantasize about using an Harry Potterian "obliviate" charm on myself so I would be able to read it like anew :) When I have it with games (not wanting to finish) it is usually a bad sign, most of the times I just lose interest, the payoff of cRPGs for me is in the development of the character, not in the conclusion of the (usual quite bland) story-arc. Planescape Torment being the big exception to this. Offcourse I might add :)

[slam23]

@txa1265: I'm enjoying number 7 now but I was put off by the hype in the beginning. I read somewhere in another thread that from book 3 onward, ms. Rowling was in dire need of a good editor, I'm inclined to agree there, especially number 5 was bloated. But for serious fans too much is never enough. Did anyone hear that story about the sixteen year old French schoolboy who translated book number 7 from English to his native tongue and posted it on internet before the official translation came out? And that experts say that it's was a very good translation? I think he earned his English degree. He was going to be arrested and fined for infringing on copyright but supposedly Rowling got them to drop charges.

[txa1265]

I read somewhere in another thread that from book 3 onward, ms. Rowling was in dire need of a good editor, I'm inclined to agree there, especially number 5 was bloated.

I know I said it, but especially starting at #4. Goblet of Fire read aloud was painful for the 200 pages of Quidditch World Cup. I found #5 not too bad despite the length, but 4 - 7 *all* could have shed at least a hundred pages through judicious editing.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

@ Alrik: Kinderschoenen? :)

Not exactly. It's "Kinderschuhe". The phrase "sch" in "Schuhe" is exactly pronounced like the English "sh" phrase, which means that Germans tend to pronounce the English word "school" rather like the German "Schule" - whereas the German "u" is pronounced like two "o" -> "oo".
And the "kinder" should be known from the "Kindergarten" already. :)

Seriously, your thoughts are questions you put forward on Cortisol are right.
But we don't have scientific proof of that, not in Germany.
Intuitively I expect other countries to actually be far more developed in that respect, but here in Germany things have just begun (in Austria, for example, the first association was founded around the turn of the millennium, but here in Germany only in the last days of April - although so-called "talking groups" and "helping groups" exist for a longer time).

In a forum where I'm active in, we are currently collecting bits and pieces from scientific news and newspapers to try to build a mosaic out of that.

Depression is rather not uncommon among highly sensitive people (HSPs).

The current belief is that high sensitivity is a result of
- genetics or at least a "genetic disposition"
- traumata ("post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome" or similar things)
- both.

Look at Wikipedia for that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_sensitive_person

There still is a lot of work to do !

[rooroosta]

Currently reading In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin...very interesting read.

[Prime Junta]

@ Alrik: Kinderschoenen? :)
@Prime Junta: having trouble saying goodbye maybe? I did not want to finish Lord of the Rings but I found that rereading has it's own merits. But sometimes I fantasize about using an Harry Potterian "obliviate" charm on myself so I would be able to read it like anew :)

I only wish. I don't want to sound like a snob about it, but while I found the Potters enjoyable enough, in the end they left me cold. I ended up just not caring much for the characters. Why? Perhaps because I didn't really find anything new in them -- I grew up on (a) fantasy and (b) old children's books à la Enid Blyton.

My impression of the Potters was a blend of Malory Towers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malory_Towers) and Dark is Rising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Is_Rising), only with dorky names, wordier, and not as well written.

(BTW, if you haven't read Dark is Rising and you liked Harry Potter, you're in for a treat.)