What are you reading right now?

Mr.Monkey wrote:

新世界より wrote:^ SPOILER ALERT!!!

Everybody dies, because George R.R. Martin is a fucking dick.

"fucking dick" No it's fantastic because you don't get that passive feeling when reading the action sequences because you know "in the end they'll be okay".

Haha, trust me. I know. A Song of Ice and Fire is my single favorite series at the moment. I just wish he would put out the last two books in a reasonable amount of time. Years and years is just painful. And I wouldn't be surprised if in several years he is like "hey, sorry guys, but I am changing the series length to 10 books! Cause, you know, the story just won't be told otherwise." I mean, come on! It was supposed to be a trilogy in the beginning.

So I may just wait like 30 years and read it all then, if it's even done.

At least the TV show will be safe. Apparently there's a document somewhere about how it's all supposed to end, that George wrote just in case he dies before the last book gets out.

Apollo wrote:At least the TV show will be safe. Apparently there's a document somewhere about how it's all supposed to end, that George wrote just in case he dies before the last book gets out.

Haha! Kind of like what Robert Jordan did.

Have picked up the odd habit of starting books and not finishing. Trying to finish up:

Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance
The Stand by Stephen King
Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

But keep getting distracted by other books halfway through.

Hadrian wrote:Have picked up the odd habit of starting books and not finishing. Trying to finish up:

Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance
The Stand by Stephen King
Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

But keep getting distracted by other books halfway through.

"Cryptonomicon" was a hard read. I couldn't get into it for the life of me. I finished it, finally, after setting it down for other books about eight times.

I read Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind yesterday and am currently "reading" Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Mephisto wrote:I read Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind yesterday and am currently "reading" Ovid's Metamorphoses.

I love the Sword of Truth series! I think Soul of the Fire isn't my favourite book there but the rest are just fantastic. I'm currently reading A Clash of Kings from the Game of Thrones series

The other day I finished reading Princess of Mars, the first John Carter novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Really not as good as I had hoped. It's probably due to the "progress" made in the adventure and sci-fi genres, but it's a very unexciting read, predictable as all hell, and the antiquated views on women and people different from yourselves is really offputting. I know it was a product of a different age with different beliefs but other classic novels that are the product of their times have much more to them that covers for the awkward racism and sexism. Now, I'm not offended by the novel at all (I really don't like it when this gets brought up), but it was just annoying and "typical". That was the only thing I could think of while reading it, just "Oh look, not-so-subtle racism. Go figure.".

lou21 wrote:

Mephisto wrote:I read Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind yesterday and am currently "reading" Ovid's Metamorphoses.

I love the Sword of Truth series! I think Soul of the Fire isn't my favourite book there but the rest are just fantastic. I'm currently reading A Clash of Kings from the Game of Thrones series

I love the series too! I've been reading it piecemeal over the years since it's hard to find a bookstore that stocks them all, and I didn't want to fork over a bunch of money to buy them all initially, so now I just go from when I find them. Soul of the Fire was my least favourite by far; no epic climax and everyone's a horrid bitch or dies.

I read Ender's Game a few days ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. I found myself comparing it to Dune quite often though. Both stories are told with the device (I'm not really sure what to call it) where the main characters are children who are hyper-intelligent, to an almost-omniscient degree. Which is cool because it makes the reader also feel pretty smart-- like they know exactly what's going on with the plot at all times. On the other hand, such a device felt limiting in the sense that the only way to develop the plot and still surprise the reader was to have something happen that makes no fucking sense or was completely unforeseen by anyone. As a result (and without spoiling anything), I felt a little gimmicked by the end of Ender's Game.

Whereas Dune made me want to smash my head into a desk.

Now I'm reading A Path of Daggers. Jeez, no matter how poorly Jordan writes his female characters, no matter how annoying the braid-pulling and beard-scratching and scarf-tightening gets, I keep coming back to his world. Guess I'm just a sucker for fantasy.

Now I'm reading A Path of Daggers. Jeez, no matter how poorly Jordan writes his female characters, no matter how annoying the braid-pulling and beard-scratching and scarf-tightening gets, I keep coming back to his world. Guess I'm just a sucker for fantasy.

Yes but there's so much fantasy actually worth reading. Actually that's not true at all - but there is some.

Finished The Stand. Don't regret reading it, but wouldn't recommend it. Confirmed that Stephen King isn't for me. Some part of his writing grates on me - like listening to a good song that has an barely perceivably but eventually aggravating whine in the background. And now while I attempt to actually finish the half dozen books I've got going, I just bought Gibson's Virtual Light. Shit.

Clive Barker's Abarat. A phantasmagorical adventure through lands unknown, and seas unexplored.

Come, join us. For everyone asks the inevitable question... "where is when?"

A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

^ One of my favorite books of all time.

Wuthering Heights. For the thousandth time.

I've finished the second Halo book today and I am not sure what to read next.

I'll either continue with the third Halo book or Band Of Brothers. I've been wanting to read Band of Brothers for a while now but I just can't find the time. The TV miniseries was awesome so the book is probably good too. On the other hand I am really interested in the whole Halo universe.

I've picked up Nemesis and The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. Also Beast of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala.
Would like to hunt down some Haruki Murakami too but fuck carrying the one giant book they have in the library and I have no monies for others

Anna Karenina. This guy I know made fun of me for wanting to read it. He just graduated university. America.

Abendlichter wrote:Anna Karenina. This guy I know made fun of me for wanting to read it. He just graduated university. America.

Given the opportunity I also would have made fun of you for wanting to read it.

Derek wrote:

Abendlichter wrote:Anna Karenina. This guy I know made fun of me for wanting to read it. He just graduated university. America.

Given the opportunity I also would have made fun of you for wanting to read it.

He made fun of me because it was a book. He'd never heard of it and had no idea what it was about.