Hopefully I like it more from here on out, as I hated the last portion of Part I. Made me realize I really hate action sequences in books. Carrying around the hardcover sucks too on public transit. I keep putting this book off to read smaller books. Nevertheless, I'm excited for the upcoming Seveneves.
Nearly done with Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach and I can't recommend it enough. A ton of fun SF action and world building, a good romanctic sub-plot, and lots of mystery. I'll move right onto the sequel, and it's been a long time since I read the same author back-to-back.
Started on Ancillary Justice. Since school started, it's been harder to read non-fiction along with all my readings for class. So far this is interesting, if a bit unclear. The use of female pronouns for everyone is pretty cool so far.
Started on Ancillary Justice. Since school started, it's been harder to read non-fiction along with all my readings for class. So far this is interesting, if a bit unclear. The use of female pronouns for everyone is pretty cool so far.
Don't let this discourage you! I struggled with this for the first half of the book before it all clicked for me. Went on to become one of my favourite books of the year, and the sequel is even better (and has a much clearer and more direct plot!)
Hmm, I don't usually disagree with you, but I do here. I thought it was fairly decent right up until the very end (and maybe you haven't hit this part yet) where
her memory gets erased to protect the secret and blah blah blah fuck you reader hahaha.
I hate that shit. I take that as a betrayal on the part of the author. Yes, no doubt it will be resolved in the next book, but I'll never know since I'm never reading anything from this author again.
I bought it second hand, years ago at a school fair and never got around to reading it. Goodreads reviews seem to indicate new versions may have been abridged or toned down a bit for younger readers, so I guess it's lucky I have this old one.
Finished Andy Weirs - The Martian. Pleasant and worthwile. Like someone already said, sometimes very heavy on the technical details and mathematics if you are not Stephen Hawking. Some good laughs.
Thanks to this thread for inspiring me with these books.
I've only read two of McCarthy's other works, those being Blood Meridian and The Road, and Suttree is my least favorite of the lot. I could tell this is an early work of his because his prose is all over the place. Actually, the writing feels downright amateurish at times, and I feel like an asshole for saying it because what do I know about writing? But it honestly felt like McCarthy was trying too hard several times throughout the book. It was weird. The images he so easily paints in Blood Meridian (one of my favorite novels of all time) are a slog to get through in Suttree at times. He's incredibly verbose to the point of irritation. I began the novel with a dictionary by my side, but after my pace slowed to a crawl from referencing it every few lines, I put it away.
There were some fantastic chapters, and some truly well-written dialogue, but very little happens in the book. It's hard to sympathize with Suttree because he continually makes stupid decisions that are for the most part entirely within his control.
Not sure what McCarthy novel to read next. What would you guys suggest?
Finished The Emperor's Soul. Great story. It was a pretty short book, but it felt like it went by even quicker than it should have. Not in a bad way, though.
Finished Pynchon's Inherent Vice. Definitely his most accessible book. Dunno if I want to call it a masterpiece or anything, though. It's just a fun, sometimes touching detective story with the usual weird Pynchon-characters. And random songs.
Now, starting a big classic: Middlemarch by George Eliot. Have read a few pages, and it's surprisingly hard to follow, with very long run-on sentences.
Currently reading Leviathan Wakes after stopping it a few months ago and... I Like it. I'm trying to get more into Sci Fi and I've heard good things about this book so far it's good not great. The whole Belter, Mars, and Earth terminology is a bit confusing also Holden is an annoying self righteous prick. Miller is awesome. That is all.
My activity on Gaf will be limited for the next couple of years! But I am about to get to the meat of the story, since I just finish the second chapter, which involved Norton's taking up his field position for that island. I'm liking it a ton more than your other book.
Going on and off with it with my Malcolm X biography. Going to focus more on People of the Trees tomorrow.
My activity on Gaf will be limited for the next couple of years! But I am about to get to the meat of the story, since I just finish the second chapter, which involved Norton's taking up his field position for that island. I'm liking it a ton more than your other book.
Going on and off with it with my Malcolm X biography. Going to focus more on People of the Trees tomorrow.
As stated, get The Collected Fictions. It has every short story he's ever written in it.
Start with the Fictions, as that's probably some of his best work. Really if you get this collection and go front to back with it you can't go wrong though (Ficciones is the second book so it's only 60 or so pages in). Some of my favorite short stories.
Guys, I'm reading The Count of Monte Cristo and I need some plot clarification that I'm otherwise too scared to google for fear of spoilers.
I'm up to the
gendarmes taking him to the Château prison in the boat
, so fairly early on still.
Basically, I'm confused as to why
Villefort lost his shit so much with the letter addressed to his Bonapartist father. I mean, I've figured out that aligning with Bonaparte is bad, mmmkay, but not 15 pages ago, Villefort was talking with others about his father's traiterous ways and how different he is and how they can all move on amicably because he's numero uno royalist now, i.e. it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
Are there specifics in the letter that will be revealed later elucidating all of this? Or are there political ramifications that I'm just not picking up on? If it's the former, I'm happy to just keep reading on without an answer, but if it's the latter, a simple non-spoilery layman's answer would be much appreciated!
I'm also hearing that after you read Tawny Man you should read Rain Wild chronicles before moving on to the final trilogy, Fitz and The Fool.....but don't let all this bother you, just love them!
So I didn't have anything to do today, therefore I had me a long sitting which included Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.
Was definitely a good read, I feel a bit socially similar to the main character so i got a bit more emotionally attached than I was planning. I hope Murakami's other books are this good, the only other one I have on me is IQ84.
Either Labyrinths or the translated Ficciones is a solid starting point. There's a good deal of overlap between them. Though they both start off with "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," which is long, dense, and difficult. You might find it better to start with a story that's a bit shorter, yet encapsulates Borges' writing nicely: The Library of Babel.
Also check out The Aleph, which is a bit more like an ordinary story, though still deeply Borgesian.
As stated, get The Collected Fictions. It has every short story he's ever written in it.
Start with the Fictions, as that's probably some of his best work. Really if you get this collection and go front to back with it you can't go wrong though (Ficciones is the second book so it's only 60 or so pages in). Some of my favorite short stories.
I'm very glad I saw the movie counterpart before I read this book. Heinlein uses as many pages as possible to extol militaristic honor, corporal punishment, and other such rigor. Some of it is charming. Any name (because they are just that, names and ranks - not characters) exists for the express purpose of providing slight context of their role in Johnnie's life before they begin lecturing about the fall of man or the honor of the chain of command. Contrast this with Verhoeven's motion picture take on Starship Troopers, which borrows names from the book and fleshes them out into characters who exist exclusively in the movie's universe.
As a fan of contemporary science fiction, you see where they get it from. Heinlein's prose would not feel out of place on the shelves next to any of its modern progeny. That's impressive indeed, but not enough to convince me to return to this book's pages. I'll stick to the movie, but I'm glad I could see where it all started.
The film most certainly isn't a film version of the book, beyond superficial similarities. It is thematically utterly different. And in so many other ways as well.
Not a bad film, if you know what you're watching, a satire. A friend of mine thought it a bad film, because he didn't know it was satire (can't recall how he regards it now, only that he always complains about not knowing it was satire).
I prefer the book. So very interesting, even though i mostly disagree with the philosophy and ideas in it.
Does the Southern Reach trilogy have a satisfying ending? I was not expecting this Lovecraft level of 'not telling you shit or explaining anything' from the first book. It reminds me a little of Wool/Clive Barker, but a lot more frustrating to read.
Does the Southern Reach trilogy have a satisfying ending? I was not expecting this Lovecraft level of 'not telling you shit or explaining anything' from the first book. It reminds me a little of Wool/Clive Barker, but a lot more frustrating to read.
Most people will tell you no, not really. There's explanation dribbled throughout but no real bit of exposition filling in all the holes at the end, and there's still a loooot of uncertainty.
Most people will tell you no, not really. There's explanation dribbled throughout but no real bit of exposition filling in all the holes at the end, and there's still a loooot of uncertainty.
Does the Southern Reach trilogy have a satisfying ending? I was not expecting this Lovecraft level of 'not telling you shit or explaining anything' from the first book. It reminds me a little of Wool/Clive Barker, but a lot more frustrating to read.
It was satisfying for me, but opinions are certainly divided. He doesn't show the monsters, as it were, in the tradition of Lovecraft. You'll learn a lot more than you do in the first book, though. Many questions ARE answered quite definitively, other than the one you really want to know -- what the hell is going on? But you'll find out who's in the tower/tunnel, and what happened to most of the other groups, and what started it all, and a variety of other tidbits. But you won't have a clear definitive answer about what Area X is, or what's going to hapoen in the fiputure, because part of the premise of the book is that such answers are beyond our understanding. It's a book in which the alien is truly alien.
Compare it to King's Under the Dome, which gives you a very clear and concise -- and incredibly dumb -- answer to the central mystery, and I'll take Area X any day.
I don't look at preview information for books so I wasn't aware that it wouldn't be following Yarvi so I was a little bit disappointed at first but I liked the new characters.
The ending did surprise me, I fully expected Thorn to get her revenge.
Does the Southern Reach trilogy have a satisfying ending? I was not expecting this Lovecraft level of 'not telling you shit or explaining anything' from the first book. It reminds me a little of Wool/Clive Barker, but a lot more frustrating to read.
I guess you are at the second book? The third one clears some things up while the second ads only new questions. A bit to "Control" heavy for my taste. But for your question read besadas post. I can appreciate what Vandermeer did but i'm still not really satisfied overall. Have crawled through some goodreads discussions now and some theories there are pretty good and round up the books better for me.
If i would read it again, i would probably get more of the hints a bit better but i don't think i'm going to do it, seeing my huge books-to-read list.
I finished Brandon Sanderson's The Alloy of Law yesterday and I have a few gripes.
First, I want to say that if it was a stand alone book I probably would have liked it better. Instead, I saw it as an extension of the Mistborn trilogy and as a result my view of the book was a bit biased.
The characters were extremely lacking. In the Mistborn trilogy you had Vin as the main character, Kelsier as a secondary main, and
Elend
as a secondary main
(until Spook magically got promoted)
. Vin was such a well written female character that it was refreshing.
In Alloy of Law, you had Wax, Wayne, and Marasi. Wax was about as boring of a main character as I could imagine. Honorable, amazing shot, blah blah blah. He didn't have any faults or flaws beyond accidentally
killing Lessie, his first love
. Which can be totally written off as an accident.
Wayne was fun. But he was not fleshed out enough. His humor was good and some of his quirks of character were unique.
Like the constant need of a hat, the constant "trading" of stolen goods, and so on
. But, again, there was something lacking in his characterization.
Marasi was a bore. I was never interested when she was mentioned and the downgrade from Vin to Marasi as a female character was almost startling it was so bad. She wasn't as bad as Steris, but the latter was the typical damsel in distress to drive the plot so I didn't mind that. Marasi? Not so much.
The story was decent, but again, was so short and without twists and turns that it was predictable. The book was short, and because of that the ending was so abrupt that it was a bit unsettling.
Wax figures out his uncle is the leader or part of some hidden Illuminati type group snatching descendants of Spook. Then a cliffhanger.
It wasn't bad but the obvious hook for a sequel was just that - obvious.
The absolute best parts of the novel were the simple callbacks to the Mistborn trilogy.
The deification of Vin/Kelsier was fun. With two religions spawning from them. The "Iron Eyes" stuff was very interesting - especially when Marsh himself appeared before Marasi there at the end of the book.
I was probably too overtly negative in this review thing, but I thought the book was worth a read at least. I hope the sequel trilogy can be longer and more reminiscent of the Mistborn trilogy rather than brief adventures like this one.
Which one is Wax and which one is Wayne? I assume Wax is the one in front, but then Wayne is totally off. Sure, he has a hat...but he also has a gun. Which his is utterly terrified of. So is Wayne the one in front without a gun? Why doesn't he have a hat?
Lame complaint but it really bothered me whenever I actually reached for the book to read.
The first couple chapters of Half a King are kind of generic for Joe Abercrombie. After reading five adult books of his, I'm having issues getting into his YA work.
The Alloy of Law began its life as a short story, and Sanderson liked it enough to extend it. May explain its shallowness.
It will get three sequels, this "Mistborn Adventures" series won't be a mainline story in Cosmere but it does bridge the gap between 1st Mistborn trilogy and the second one (when it will be done, i'm not sure, probably in the 2020s).
By the way, the current plan for the second Mistborn trilogy is to be
urban fantasy, with more modern-day like setting (1980s, roughly), starring a Misting SWAT team
.
EDIT Sanderson himself noted the cover is odd. Wax has goggles that are there because it implies steampunk, which is apparently popular. And yes, Wayne in the cover is holding a gun, which is wrong.
EDIT I have to note i loved The Alloy of Law because of it setting. Fantasy pseudo-western? Why not. Sure, the characters are a tad boring but then so are the original series' characters, to me anyway.
Also i've never forgiven Sanderson how The Final Empire didn't end up being a heist novel despite beginning like one, more or less.
Going to start this. Couldn't find it at first in the berlin library system (they let you also rent digital ebooks for 14 days) because they changed the title for the german version to the generic "Der Anschlag" (The Assault).
Which one is Wax and which one is Wayne? I assume Wax is the one in front, but then Wayne is totally off. Sure, he has a hat...but he also has a gun. Which his is utterly terrified of. So is Wayne the one in front without a gun? Why doesn't he have a hat?
Lame complaint but it really bothered me whenever I actually reached for the book to read.
Authors typically get zero input on the covers of their novels. The answer is probably that the author they commissioned knew very little of the characterization.
