What are you reading?

Hurls said:

An author friend of mine rule is if you arent hooked by 100 minus your age pages into a book, drop it and go elsewhere, time is too short.

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LOL, I don't know if 42 pages is sufficient for me to make that decision

But to go with the gist of it, more often than when I was younger I am indeed asking myself why I would continue with it.

Myrthos said:

LOL, I don't know if 42 pages is sufficient for me to make that decision

But to go with the gist of it, more often than when I was younger I am indeed asking myself why I would continue with it.

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Or 34.

pibbuR who remembers that max HR is (very) roughly calculated as 220 - age. And who leaves calculation of his max. heart reate as an exercise to the readers.

Redglyph said:

I'm wondering how this is appreciated by newer generations who are used to get everything almost instantaneously. Maybe it's a style that will get lost because it won't be popular anymore.

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I assume so; and this being used to almost instant gratification is something the video games industry is training so to say "western" generations.

What nobody really notices is, that what the video games industry makes is like a gigantic psychological experiment. What people are trained when playing video games surely carries over into REAl Life as unconscious behaviour patterns.

The worst thing is, imho, that people don't have readily access to unconscious behaviour patterns, and thus won't realize what they are actually doing.

Which is one reason why I'm so much against violence in games. It becomes an unconscious behaviour pattern, I fear.

Emphasis on "unconscious".

pibbuR said:

Or 34.

pibbuR who remembers that max HR is (very) roughly calculated as 220 - age. And who leaves calculation of his max. heart reate as an exercise to the readers.

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Or 37? I used complete everything I started except 1 book, now I’m much more pragmatic

It is a reading thread Alrik, so best leave the devilish game industry out of this thread. Unless it is a book about said industry

As to LOTR, I like the books, but I also see that they are books of their time and helped in making fantasy books main stream. Looking at the books with current views, one would probably not find them that remarkable, if they did not have the history they do have. If released now for the first time, they would just be one of the many fantasy books that are already out there.
What I like about what Tolkien did is to create a complete world with a rich history consisting of many tales and languages, with LOTR being the last of all these tales.
All his other stories take place before LOTR and lay the foundations for that book. To think the reason for writing the LOTR book was because the publisher wanted more about hobbits. Tolkien actually wanted the Silmarillion to be published, but the publisher refused and wanted a hobbit story.

Myrthos said:

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What I like about what Tolkien did is to create a complete world with a rich history consisting of many tales and languages, with LOTR being the last of all these tales.

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This. This is exactly what makes LOTR special for me and in a league of its own, above every other fantasy work I've read.

… Tolkien actually wanted the Silmarillion to be published, but the publisher refused and wanted a hobbit story.

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Interesting.

BTW: I don't agree with Alric that young people of today don't appreciate LOTR.

pibbuR, currently in Moria. And who will probably loose all credibility when people read the highly subjective PS's below.

PS. Highly subjective opninion upcoming: I don't read much fantasy. I'm sure there are really good works out there (WOT not among those), but I have a hard time finding them, so in general I don't bother (got plenty of other books I want to read). It's a bit like watching football - 1 out of 10 matches are worth watching, which means I have to watch 9 boring ones for evey good match I stumble upon. DS.

PPS: I did like the first 3 books of WOT, but I lost interest in book 4. Seems like a lot of those who lost interest did so during that very book. DS.

PPPS: FYI: I didn't like Game of Thrones (TV series) either. DS.

PPPPS: I did like Dark Tower, but the last 3 books weren't nearly as good as the first 4, when SK was still 18. One thing I appreciated about DT was all the cross references with other SK works, like the Talisman books coauthored with Peter Straub (my favourite horror author). DS.

OK, since I have humiliated myself by admitting my slightly below average (with a few exceptions) appreciation of fantasy in general and some well known looong series in particular, here are a few thing I like to read.

1. Everything of substance in mathematics and physics.
2. Horror stories.
3. Science fiction.
4. Weird stuff.

Favourite math and physics books: "Ordinary Differential Equations" by Kenneth Howell and "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose (Yes, the Roger Penrose).

Favourite horror author is Peter Straub. First came upon him when buying his "Ghost Story" because I was going to Belgium and had forgot to bring along things to read (this was before my Kindle days). As said in my post above, he has written two books with mr King: "Talisman" and "Black House". Recommended. Other recommended works: "Shadowland","Floating Dragon" and especially "Mr X". He has also written a series of crime novels with a twist, well worth reading: "Koko", "Mystery", "The Throat".

Favourite Sci-Fi writers: David Brin, especially his 2 "Uplift" trilogies. And Ursula Le Guin (the Hainish book cycle). And China MieVille ("Perdido Street Station" is an excellent piece of work). And many others. Among the newer things I've read I recommend the "Broken Earth" trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (very original, Hugo Award winner), and the Murderbot Stories by Matha Wells.

In the weird stuff category I'll mention only one book: "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl. It's not everybody's cup of tea. I think it's safe to say that if you don't like it after 5-10 pages, it's not for you. But if you like it, you're really gonna like it. Unless I'm wrong.

pibbuR who would recommend more books if he could remember them.

This morning I polished off book one of the Gentleman Bastard series, the Lies of Locke Lamora. I've had plenty of people tell me, for the past decade or so plus, that I need to read this series, and they're all correct. It has many things I enjoy: stories within tales, true deduction at its' finest, a great story with a fabulous world-setting, and intriguing characters. I will certainly be reading volume two!!

And yesterday a novel popped into my kindle that I'd requested some time ago, Rebel, book one of the Nathaniel Starbuck tales. I'm a huge fan of Cornwell so I suspect I'll enjoy this offering.

I'm currently re-reading the Inhibitors Trilogy by Alastair Reynolds, in preparation for the publication of Inhibitor Phase next month. It's a (now) classic space opera trilogy, one of the early gems of the New British Space Opera, and it's been long enough since I read it that it's almost new to me. Good stuff.

Yeah, I think what Tolkien was trying to do was to create something that felt like it had been discovered from the timeless past, because he felt the English had a lack of those mythical sagas that other cultures enjoyed. It is quite dry, and really not designed as a page-turner - it's much more like reading an older work that requires a bit of patience. I think Moby Dick is a great book, but half of it is essentially a whaling manual.

I did a creative writing course years ago and, though I got something from it, I didn't like all the advice. There was a great emphasis on the need to grab people from the first page if you ever wanted to get published. There's a place for that, but I think it's a shame if everything is written to that prescription.

This afternoon I completed Rebel, book one of the Nate Starbuck novels, by Cornwell. As usual, this author doesn't disappoint, and these books are dealing with matters that have fascinated me since a child, namely the American Civil War. My next book won't be the sequel, as I'm on a time crunch due to needing to knock the dust off and finish the books I've currently on hold, yet I'll be coming back to this series for book two. And likely the rest after that!

Last night I finished book two of the Lonesome Dove series, Streets of Laredo. It's a funny title actually, because very little action takes place in the town, or any town at all, for that matter. The action mostly takes place out in the Texas wild, with the occasional homestead thrown in for good measure. I'd not re-read this book in decades, so it was a great revisit, since I'd re-read Lonesome Dove about two months ago. Both are excellent reads, I've requested book three yet I don't think I recall enjoying it as much as the first two, we'll see what happens.

Next up for me will be Copperhead, book two of the Starbuck series.

This morning I polished off Copperhead, book two of the Starbuck chronicles. This one starts off with some combat, then morphs into some real serious intrigue, and we get to see both sides of clandestine operations in the civil war era. It made for a fine interlude, then the book concludes with Nate returning to his legion, with some folks pleased to have him back, and others....not so much! I've already requested book three, so that'll happen soon. Until then, I've picked up a thriller called Midnight, which is quite the change from the two series that I've been reading recently.

And I completed the thriller I was reading, it turned out to be not so much a thriller really, it was all about some child that had been kidnapped and being forced to work as a slave. It seemed maybe written for high school kids, I've got to sort through those offerings that Amazon talks about a little more thoroughly in the future.

Now I'm on to book three of the Lonesome Dove series, Dead Man Walking. I think now I recall why I didn't care so much for this book and the one that follows, as they are prequels to the first two novels. Still, so far it's solid entertainment, I can always read about Woodrow and Augustus!

Dead Man's Walk is done, and I found it far more enjoyable than I remembered. Once I got over the whole chronology-outta-order thing and concentrated on the story itself, all was well. This is an excellent yarn, and explains much about why both Augustus and Woodrow think and act the way they do, especially in the titular Lonesome Dove, the very first novel. They both have almost an absolute hatred of Mexicans, and a few other subjects, which this book goes a long way in explaining. Do not let the out of order sequence mess with your enjoyment of this excellent novel.

And as a side note, I'd totally read more stories about Lady Carey and her entourage. They are only involved in maybe the last thirty or forty pages, yet they leave an indelible impression.

Next up for me is book three of the Starbuck chronicles, Battle Flag. And after that, my intention is to get back to the Expanse!!

I've begun with the catalogue of an exhibition that is (or was ?) shown both in Berlin and in Bonn, both known as German capitals.

Its title is this : "Die Germanen. Eine archäologische Bestandsaufnahme." This is by far the biggest catalogue I have seen with that topic - meant are the peoples from the ancient times, notably those as mentioned by Tacitus - and it has the most recent results of archaeological science.

It is meant to not only shed some bigger light on what's known about the ancient folks, but also to be a "myth buster", as it repells most or all myths with modern findings (some literally) in science.

But - it also deals with what main nationalist Europe - especially Nazi-infused Europe, but also the time before them - believed about them, thought about them, and tried to use, tried to bend innocent findings into being be "proof" of their nationalist thinking.

I can recommend it, but the book is so thick and has so many pages to tell that it is a read for a few weeks. Also, one must not be afraid to be shown texts about peoples' movements, how settlements were made of, and what kinds of findings were made.
The site which is currently believed to be the remains of the "Varus battle" is only 1 chapter among many different ones.

I rolled up the Battle Flag rather quickly, likely due to how stellar a read it was. The focus here is the second battle of Manassas(or Bull Run, should you be of the Yankee bent). You get lots of changes within the Legion in this book, and a host of new characters, with frequent changes in points of views. Again, the lacing of historical and non is almost perfect, with the full results staying true to what actually happened. A fine read, I fully recommend the series to anyone interested in the time period or battles involved. I'll be getting to book four at some point soon.

My next read was supposed to be a return to the Expanse books, yet I had a novel arrive for my Kindle that I'd requested back in May, so I dove into that this morning instead. It's called the Outsider, by Stephen King. I'm not very far in yet, so far it seems to be a murder mystery/thriller, haven't seen any supernatural elements as of yet.

Right now I'm reading Jordan Belford's books. It's based on the movie The Wolf of Wall Street.

Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome

Historical fiction, wasnt sure how much I'd be into it, but I'm really liking it.

Basically, it's told from the perspective of Cicero's main scribe, as he's drawn into the political wrangling of the "Cataline Conspiracy". Still pretty early in the book

I've been a real Rome nerd lately.

Just finished "Augustus: First Emperor of Rome", which was an exhaustive account of the overall life of Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) and what all happened w/ all that messy Second Triumverate business and his ascension to Rome's first true Emperor. Pretty amazing tale

I chugged right through the Outsider, which didn't surprise me, as I tend to devour the King books, when they come along. This novel reminds me a great deal of the Hodge story, similar in the sense that it takes a bit for the supernatural elements to show up, yet when they do, whammy! I'd call it average for King fare, and I'm a bit surprised someone's not latched onto doing a film or show for this book yet, as I think you could do it rather cheaply and the King name alone will get you, at worse, a King following.

Next up, and this time nothing shall deter me, book six of the Expanse! I'm thirty pages in and already feel like I'm holding hands with a good friend. -)