What are you reading?

txa1265 wrote:

Just started Pride & Prejudice and Zombies. It's a hoot so far

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I've toyed with the idea of getting one in that series, Mike. I may do so if they ever hit the Barnes & Noble bargain bin or the used book store.

I'm alleviating the holiday stress with Dave Baldacci's latest supersecret spy thriller, Divine Justice.

Just finished Raymond Fiest's Krondor: The Betrayal and Krondor: The Assasins. Krondor: The Betrayal is not too bad for a novel that started off as a game. I devoured The Assasins in less than a few days. Jimmy the Hand is one of the better characters Fiest has created and that book was mostly about him. I have to order Krondor: Tears of the Gods or play the game to finish up the trilogy. The only thing that felt missing was Owyn. The Betrayal is based around his adventures and then he just up and vanishes for the second book. I haven't read any of Fiest's latest novels, but I hope he throws him in a future novel.

I've had these books for years, but never read them. I should have a long time ago. They're a lot better than I thought they were going to be.

There's a good list of all Riftwar books and three different suggestions for a reading order.

1. by publication date
2. chronological
3. alternate

I don't know what you've read already. Personally I think I'd go with 3, although the others are good too. Hm, the last book I've read myself must be from around 2000 or so, which could mean Assassins. But I remember having read Jimmy the Hand as well. Hm. Anyway, seems I have some catching up to do! Oh, his last name is Feist, by the way, not Fiest.

Still "The Roman in Bavaria", a very detailed book - I bought it "for cheap money" in November as a birthday present to myself - now Amazon Germany doesn't list it
anymore for that price ...

It is very detailed (in German language) and definitively recommended to anyone interested in Roman Archaeology regarding south Germany and the Alps area !

Arhu said:

I don't know what you've read already. Personally I think I'd go with 3, although the others are good too. Hm, the last book I've read myself must be from around 2000 or so, which could mean Assassins. But I remember having read Jimmy the Hand as well. Hm. Anyway, seems I have some catching up to do! Oh, his last name is Feist, by the way, not Fiest.

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Thanks for that, but I've almost read everything Feist has to offer. I got hooked in his world after I read Magician: Apprentice when I was a kid. I held off on these books because they were based around the game and figured they wouldn't be as good as his other works. I was wong.

For Betrayal he took the basic plot from the game and made a decent novel out of it. Assasins was pretty good. Although I think he pushes the realm of possibility a little far with just how much Jimmy the Hand can do as a thief. Not too far mind you, but there are a couple of parts of the book you just have to sit back and say "No way he could do that" He goes into great detail on some of the traps, ambushes and secret doors. Sorta makes you wonder what Feist does in his off time

Finished one of the best books I've read in quite a while.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

It's somewhat a coming of age story and somewhat heroic fantasy, but it works incredibly well. The only downside is that it's book 1 of a trilogy and I haven't seen any estimates for when book 2 will come out (which means it's probably "out there" a ways).

Been reading a quite a lot lately. Hal Duncan's "Vellum" and "Ink" are worth mentioning. They're incredibly hard to categorize — sort of like if Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, H.P. Lovecraft, and William Gibson went on a week-long bender and then James Joyce showed up to write it all up. I thought Vellum was absolutely brilliant, among the best things I've read in years. The sequel, Ink, was disappointing, but perhaps only because of the insanely high expectations Vellum had set.

[ http://www.amazon.com/Vellum-Book-Hours-Hal-Duncan/dp/0345487311 ]

What is it about? Uh… well, the idea is that reality is "written" on a substrate that contains all possible realities, and this substrate is called "the Vellum." It's about a group of people who are really the same person, only they exist independently in a whole bunch of "folds" in the Vellum, and then one of them discovers a book called the Macromimicon (ring any bells?) which propels him actually into the Vellum, and then Metatron, Prometheus, Eris, and Lucifer show up, and there's lots of stuff about tattoos and flayed skins, and these nanites called the Bitmites which are created by Metatron, who's sort of the boss of the angels, but who get contaminated by the blood (or tattooing ink, take your pick) of Eris, who's sort of the devil only not really, and then they go berserk, and then there's this girl called Phreedom Messenger who's actually one of the Unkin, which is Sumerian for… never mind, go read it yourself. And, almost everyone is gay, except the women. I think there's a political message in there somewhere too. Or, like, a dozen.

But in any case, I recommend it incredibly highly to anyone who thinks they'd like a gay Michael William Neil James Howard Phillips Moorcock Gibson Gaiman Joyce Lovecraft. If you think you wouldn't, don't bother: the Amazon ratings for it are characteristic -- the two most frequently given scores are 1 star and 5 stars. IOW, you'll either love it or you hate it with a passion, and I think that's just how the author intended it.

magerette said:

It's written in a kind of period style, and it takes a little getting used to, but eventually I think the style gives the book a lot of its authenticity. There is also a lot of dry detail about the expedition, but if you have the patience to wade through it, it also feeds into the sense of doom and fear, imo, in that no matter how competent and practical things appear on the outside, there's no stopping the end result.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

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Yeah it took me a while to get through this one (i.e. The Terror), and often it felt like it was going nowhere. Overall, though it was an enjoyable read with plenty of scares. The dread was most compelling. I enjoyed how he went through the backgrounds of many crewmembers, but I wish he had gone more into Ensign Dickey & his lackey's stories. Those two were scarily evil.

After I read this I went into a couple more Simmons books: Song of Kali (it had its moments), and Summer of Night (didn't care for this one. I think 'It' by Stephen King told this type of story better).

Currently finishing The Phoenix Transformed (3rd of the Phoenix trilogy by Lackey and Mallory) and then I move to the 2nd in the Imager series by Modesitt. If you enjoyed the Enduring Flame trilogy by L&M, you'll like this follow up set in the same world a 1000 years later.

I'm reading "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" by James Patterson. It's little umm... not Christian. Either my grandma or my aunt gave it to me (neither is a Christian) and I had no idea what it was about until I got so far into it.

Just started reading Slaughterhouse 5, my 3rd time reading it (one of my faves), after having finished re-reading another of my all time faves, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.

Both very short reads after having finished up Clive Barker's Book Of The Art which was split into 2 fat novels: The Great And Secret Show and Everville. Another author could not pull off his style or writing, I think. He goes from sophisticated, thought-provoking, poetic to completely vulgar and seemingly writing for pure shock value and yet he somehow pulls it off without it coming off as disjointed or schizophrenic, lol.

And just the same he creates these characters you can relate to and sympathize with and contrasts them with characters that can ALMOST seem like caricatures, just too vile and disgusting and evil to be true. And I say ALMOST because he still manages to give them substance somehow.

Next on the queue is Don Quixote, which I got halfway through a few months ago and then accidentally left at a friend's.

Don Quixote is a great book. I read it in high school and loved it, despite the difficulties of the language and trying to understand the minds of people at the time it was written. Robinson Crusoe is another book from the past that I loved.

Presently reading one of Bernard Cornwell's medieval efforts about the battle of Agincourt( called of course, Agincourt.) he's a decent writer and very involving, but I really could do with a little less gratuitous heretic burning, rape and spraying of brain matter about.

Imagers Challenge by Modesitt is excellent. Read the first in the series prior to this one of course, if you haven't already. It's quite political with 'magic' a very minor part of the world.

Currently I'm reading King Rat from James Clavell.

In the 80's I remember watching the Shogun TV series and just loving it. At the time I was reading Stephen King and there was no way I would read anything like Shogun. Well, it's a long time since then and I read every day. I've read all of Dean Koontz who is a particular favorite, John Sandford and Jonathan Kellerman. Those 3 are my favorite authors at the moment.

About 7 months ago I actually thought I'd read Shogun. It was brilliant! After I read it I bought the DVD's and watched them too. IMHO they are timeless and definately a great read and watch. So, then I started to read all of his Asian Saga series. Not in the order written but in the order of the year the books take place in.

Shogun - 1600

Tai-Pan - 1841

Gai-Jin - 1862

King Rat - 1945

Noble House - 1963

Whirlwind - 1979

Tai-Pan, Gai-Jin and Noble House are all about the same enterprise and I would recommend them!

King Rat is about a Japanese POW camp during WWII. It's a very easy read and is quite different from the others. I am enjoying the writing immensely even though the topic is quite unnerving. James Clavell wrote it from his experience in a POW camp. So it makes it interesting to wonder what part he wrote after himself. I've been doing a lot of research during reading his books and it's very interesting to see the parallels of actual things that happened. Of course his books are all fiction but he does base some things on memories of the past which makes it a very good series to read. Well, not so much a series as they aren't about the same characters but wonderful reading in any case!

Just my 2 cents!

Loves ~T

Temptress, I remember when Shogun aired, I think it was 1980?

I remember my older sister was watching it and I was so excited because in my 8 or 9 year old mind this was a "ninja" flick and boy was I let down when there was more dialogue than action. And love scenes to boot, lol.

Watching The Last Samurai (Tom Cruise… pretty good film btw) a few years ago reminded me of Shogun and I made a mental list to eventually get the DVD and/or novel and I completely forgot about it so thanks for the reminder!!!

Hey Relayer!

Yeah it was made in 1980 and aired yearly about thereafter for a while.

I was opposite you though. I bought and read Shogun THEN remembered about The Last Samurai and bought it after. It is MUCH more enjoyable to me now that I've read Clavell's books and have done some history buffing on those time periods. And yes, it IS a pretty good film as well. I liked it when I first watched it but even much more so now.

Loves ~T

I've read all Calvell's books and wish he'd written more; they are all actually linked. I remember teaching King Rat to a Senior English class MANY years ago. The movie (which is hard to find) is quite good too.

I'm in the process of getting all the movies based on his books. That's one that I can get on Amazon but just haven't gotten around to it. (King Rat)

I don't see where King Rat has anything to do with his series, however. And Shogun, to me, is not about The Noble House/Straun's but I suppose could be construed as the start of trade in Asia, so mebbe. But King Rat TO ME is more a stand alone book. His others show the evolution of The Noble House/Straun's throughout it's history. I've just never agreed with King Rat having anything to do with his series other than it being set in Singapore. Also, Whirlwind is still a stretch for me even though it has to do with The Noble House/Straun's evolution it's set in Iran and doesn't have the same flavor for me.

But, that's just my opinion.

KR fits least into the group, but at least one character from that novel appears in one of the other books. There is a link or 2 presented from Shogun to some of the others, but you have to look carefully for it. NH is the central unifying text in a way, so look there first!!

No offense, my dear, but am not lookin anywhere for anything! LOL. I've read them all and still love them and dat up yonder is just my opinion and am stickin to it.