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What are you reading? (December 2014)
- Thread starter Maklershed
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I only read a little bit of the Winter King, but I definitely had the same feeling. It gets lots of praise, and I'm sure I'd like it whenever I read it, but that feeling of it going on and on was there too.
Tragicomedy
Member
Then you definitely shouldnt read any Terry Pratchett books. His version of chapters is to just press "Return" and tab a space inwards
I'm 11 books into Discworld and it's painful! I'm reading Reaper Man right now and made the mistake of also picking it up on audiobook. Total pain in the butt trying to pick up the audiobook where I left off in the book. Freaking guess work. Damn you, Terry!
Good books, though.
You should read Seiobo There Below.
Something tells me that would be a big mistake.
Yeah, the premise was really interesting and the story is consistently good. Buuuuut...it was probably my slowest read all year. It took me longer to read than Words of Radiance, which was freaking 1,088 pages. So yeah. I definitely will return to the sequels at some point, but that's lower on my priorities list for now.
Also, go Chiefs! Also, add me on PSN. I've joined the PS4 master race! User name: Tragicomedy.
Magical realist book about God sending a second flood to wipe out all life, except for a children's hospital which has been specifically designed to survive and take float.
The writing is gorgeous and I'm pretty impressed in how it uses its subject matter to explore a number of philosophical and religious questions without proselytising.
Enjoyed Traitor's Blade by Sebastian de Castell quite a lot, and will absolutely read the books in the series to follow. Nothing too revolutionary, but a very solid story with a few great characters (Falcio, Aline, Paelis and Ugh come to mind) and lots of action to keep the pages flying by.
Next up:
Next up:
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. My college has a pitiful fiction selection but his name caught my eye when I was looking through the shelf when taking a break from a project: I was familiar with him primarily for finishing the Wheel of Time, so I thought it would be appropriate to read his original works. The fact that the mass market paperback style it uses is heavily reminiscent of the WoT books helped to make it more visible.
I didn't start reading it until last night, and I must say the prologue really caught me. It reads almost like a Platinum game tutorial, with background details put to the side in favor of mechanical explanation: the foot-first lashing intro (I could nearly see the bayonetta-style ground drop), the spear impalement (such creative use of magic mechanics in literature is so foreign), and topping it off with a "boss" fight against a guard immune to your primary mechanic. If there are more scenes of this level this will be a very enjoyable read.
I didn't start reading it until last night, and I must say the prologue really caught me. It reads almost like a Platinum game tutorial, with background details put to the side in favor of mechanical explanation: the foot-first lashing intro (I could nearly see the bayonetta-style ground drop), the spear impalement (such creative use of magic mechanics in literature is so foreign), and topping it off with a "boss" fight against a guard immune to your primary mechanic. If there are more scenes of this level this will be a very enjoyable read.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. My college has a pitiful fiction selection but his name caught my eye when I was looking through the shelf when taking a break from a project: I was familiar with him primarily for finishing the Wheel of Time, so I thought it would be appropriate to read his original works. The fact that the mass market paperback style it uses is heavily reminiscent of the WoT books helped to make it more visible.
I didn't start reading it until last night, and I must say the prologue really caught me. It reads almost like a Platinum game tutorial, with background details put to the side in favor of mechanical explanation: the foot-first lashing intro (I could nearly see the bayonetta-style ground drop), the spear impalement (such creative use of magic mechanics in literature is so foreign), and topping it off with a "boss" fight against a guard immune to your primary mechanic. If there are more scenes of this level this will be a very enjoyable read.
Get ready to enjoy the book a lot, then. Afterwards, pick up Mistborn by Sanderson. It features a similar-level of detail to the combat and magic system.
Tragicomedy
Member
Most of the chapters are something like four or five sentences.
What?!? That sounds amazing.
No, your problems with Tigana were pretty much my own. I'll put this one on my to-read list though since I have always heard good things about the author.
Slow pace, with a political intrique and personal focus is actually right up my alley
I am being slightly misleading, but I will say that it is indeed amazing. It might be the best prose fiction I've read this year. Other possible contenders would be The Waves, Catch-22, Americanah, Beloved, or The People in the Trees, and (collectively) some of Bujold's respective series, I think.
I am being misleading in that the sentences can last for up to twenty pages, so four or five sentences might mean "five page sentence, six page sentence, three page sentence, fourteen page sentence." But it's great!
If you havent, you should read Stoner.
Tragicomedy
Member
Anything that gets compared to the greatest book ever written deserves my attention!
Have you read it?
I will add it to the queue, if it isn't there now.
I don't think it's comparable in the sense that it reminds me of it at all, just so we're clear.
No I haven't. I still need to finish Acceptance.
Seiobo is better tbh.
You should also read VanderMeer!
User 479360
Banned
Starting this now
But all the things I suggest are great, so it's okay.
You suggest tomes that are impossible to get in a digital form!
The fact that The Story of the Stone is only completely available in paper just makes it greater!
Not for someone who doesn't have any room in his luggage for it!
The Culture Vulture
Member
Starting this now
Decent story.... Never seen that art before.
m_shortpants
Member
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. My college has a pitiful fiction selection but his name caught my eye when I was looking through the shelf when taking a break from a project: I was familiar with him primarily for finishing the Wheel of Time, so I thought it would be appropriate to read his original works. The fact that the mass market paperback style it uses is heavily reminiscent of the WoT books helped to make it more visible.
I didn't start reading it until last night, and I must say the prologue really caught me. It reads almost like a Platinum game tutorial, with background details put to the side in favor of mechanical explanation: the foot-first lashing intro (I could nearly see the bayonetta-style ground drop), the spear impalement (such creative use of magic mechanics in literature is so foreign), and topping it off with a "boss" fight against a guard immune to your primary mechanic. If there are more scenes of this level this will be a very enjoyable read.
Great read, and so is it's sequel.
If you'd like more of it I'd definitely recommend the Mistborn trilogy which is excellent as well. Warbreaker is another great book by Sanderson but it has slightly less action but more political intrigue and another awesome magic system, which he is great at creating across all his books.
User 479360
Banned
Neither had I, but I dig it.
The library had this version, which seems to be most common. The art is kind of bland, but I'm about 20 pages in and really liking it so far.
User 479360
Banned
I liked Horns. It didn't blow me away, but I enjoyed it through until the end. Some of it was a bit out there, though.
N0S4A2 was also quite good
Finished these over the last few days and have started on The Tyrant's Law. I am enjoying them but I'm guessing that when the 1st book was written it was always planned as the 1st in a series so the books I have read so far feel like massive chapters in a saga rather than stand alone stories.
The characters are quite interesting, the good and bad guys don't seem to be very defined.
Dawson for instance, while he came across OK in his chapters, when you look a little deeper he is a horrible person, he might be honorable but when you consider his views on the other human races and non noble people he is a complete bastard.
Going to enjoy seeing how the things go from here
but I am hoping that Geder's story does a 180, he is going down a dark path and it seems he doesn't even realise which is quite tragic.
Ancillary Justice is $2.99 on Kindle for anyone who was looking to get into it (I know there's a dedicated Kindle thread but it appears to be dead a lot - this seems like the de facto Books OT)
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I finished Regarding Ducks and Universes. It was a cozy read but not very gripping. I liked the style and upbeat characters but not a lot really ended up happening and it all just kind of ended incredibly abruptly. I'd read more by the author, though.
Starting 1984 now. Never read it.
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I finished Regarding Ducks and Universes. It was a cozy read but not very gripping. I liked the style and upbeat characters but not a lot really ended up happening and it all just kind of ended incredibly abruptly. I'd read more by the author, though.
Starting 1984 now. Never read it.
RepairmanJack
Member
Nice, going to pick this up even though I've tried and failed with the audible version. Figure it's worth trying to actually read it since I've heard nothing but good things about it.
Jag
Member
Finished it last night. It was ok. Probably won't finish the series. Which is rare for me. It just seemed to drag at times and I really didn't get vested in the world she created.
Now why is your inability to prioritize properly the book's fault?
I'm actually won't stop buying books until I can make a bed from their pile.
But it'll be a problem when I have to study abroad.
I haven't bought a book in ages, mostly due to the fact that my wife has around 1200 books in our house and the thought of adding more is decidedly unappealing. Most of them were donations from when she was younger, family members or libraries getting rid of boxes and boxes of books. Forget making a bed of books - we could probably make a fort.
Just bought Giving Tree to my nephew. What a fucked up story, it doesn't really make a good children's book no matter what angle you read it. I guess the Jesus interpretation would make sense. But any other way, no way. It's a good book for a parent tho. Be a doormat and spoil your kid and he will become asshole and you will end up as stump
Time for an epic. This should last me over my Christmas vacation home.
Now reading...
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Now reading...
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Now why is your inability to prioritize properly the book's fault?
The book's fault for not considering my feelings, even if I wouldn't be born to the world until 122 years after its publication. It should have had foresight!
Yeah, I have a 100 lbs limit for my luggage when I move oversea.
Peace Corps was delightful enough to send me a reading list of esteemed South African novels. Discovered I have not read 16 of the 18 books recommended to me. So I know what I'll be reading for the 50/50 challenge next year!
Just finished Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. A great book, no question about it. Highly ambitious and inventive, with a very touching human, emotional element. It's not perfect - some parts felt like daydreaming or wish-fulfillment, as if the author took the easy way out and went with what turned out best for her characters. But then other parts weigh up for that in spades. Recommended for anyone, really. Oh, and thanks to the guy here who recommended it to me.
Have to admit, I bought the book believing it was actually The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Mixed them up in my mind as I stood in the bookstore. As brainfarts go, that was a happy one!
Now, starting something probably nobody else here has read: Krüger & Krogh: Brennpunkt Oslo no.1, the first of a series of comics by the Norwegian trio Kabicek, Skandfer and Agdestein. It's a detective-comic set in Oslo in 1964, and every detail of the city is rendered down to the tiniest detail. The 44-page album took over ten years to make, most of them involving research and finding reference-material. The setting is the lead-up to the Nobel Peace Prize-award that year, which was given to Martin Luther King Jr. Something "non-conventional" is threatening both him and Oslo, and detectives Krüger and Krogh have to find out what.
Have to admit, I bought the book believing it was actually The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Mixed them up in my mind as I stood in the bookstore. As brainfarts go, that was a happy one!
Now, starting something probably nobody else here has read: Krüger & Krogh: Brennpunkt Oslo no.1, the first of a series of comics by the Norwegian trio Kabicek, Skandfer and Agdestein. It's a detective-comic set in Oslo in 1964, and every detail of the city is rendered down to the tiniest detail. The 44-page album took over ten years to make, most of them involving research and finding reference-material. The setting is the lead-up to the Nobel Peace Prize-award that year, which was given to Martin Luther King Jr. Something "non-conventional" is threatening both him and Oslo, and detectives Krüger and Krogh have to find out what.
*thumbs up* I agree with you all around. Niffenegger really earns those easy moments for Clare and Henry.
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