What are you reading?

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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.

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.
 
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Anthony tends to be inconsistent, and Nightmare is a fairly old book!!
 
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Yes, but I bought it only a few months ago ! I didn't even know he existed up to that point ! :D
 
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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.
 
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Adrian Goldsworthy - In the Name of Rome
 
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Just finished Terry Pratchett's 'Thud!'.
 
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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 :)
 
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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).
 
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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.
 
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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!
 
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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.
 
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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...
 
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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
 
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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.
 
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