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I was very surprised that so many people didn't love it. I was such a big fan of it I almost started reading it again when I first finished it (the first week it came out).
WiiU - vamenn (MONSTER HUNTER!!!)
XBL - dachishbudoka
PS3 - dachish
"Woe be to him that defies the tree"
I can't get into any of his fight scenes and I think I only really enjoyed one of the POV characters in Way of Kings, which made it really hard for me to want to keep reading. It was one of those books I really WANTED to like, mainly because Sanderson always has really interesting ideas when it comes to world building and I could see there were some cool things going on in there, I just couldn't get into it.
NEEEERRDDDSSSSSSS
Jk. I expected Arya to survive, but I thought Cersei would bite the bullet before book four at least.
No spoilers! thought i finished all the books, i know some people are following the show.
I'm also noticing that there is almost no description of anything in this book, which is weird for spec fic. Katniss gets on a train. It is our first introduction to anything to do with the Capitol, and literally all we are told is that it is a train and it goes 250 miles per hour. What does it look like? Who cares! I guess!
It just all feels so amateurish.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Wow - that could have been my review of the first Twilight book when my wife made me read it. Felt like a teenage girl wrote it and then never edited it. I don't think anyone even proofread it.
I think it's better than Twilight. The girl actually has a personality, for one thing.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
My sister, whom got me into Harry Potter and thus has good tastes, is currently reading The Hunger Games. Her inital verdict is "meh."
This same author wrote "Gregor the Overlander", which happens to be pretty good pre-YA fantasy stuff. I have no idea what happened between series, or why does the shit one get all the readers and movies and stuff.
Like, I sort of hated the sequels because they never go into what makes the world tick. It's just sort of more of the same "OH NOEZ TEEN ANGST AND OCCASIONAL MURDER" nonsense. It's engaging nonsense, but I want to know more about where it takes place, and you never really get that.
So, I just found the Way of Kings book after finding a random list of books someone provided of a similar style.
After finishing it last night, I have to agree with Vamen. I loved this book. The world is fantastic, and I can't wait to see the back story that's been hinted at.
Then I went online to see when the next one is coming out. Late 2013....damn it all.
I read the first Hunger Games book and thought it was "okay" based on the genre and what else is out there. I didn't run out and watch the movie or even pick up the other books.
It IS a lot better than the Twilight books. It's readable, for one.
Currently I am SLOWLY re-reading Bonehunters by Steven Erickson (I enjoy the Malazan books, but they're pretty dense. I usually take a break after each one).
I just finished reading The Shining by Stephen King for the first time and was surprised by just how good the book was in the sense that the character of Jack Torrance was actually sympathetic and well written. I did not feel any sense of "generic baddie" that I sometimes get from reading King's work. Don't get me wrong, when I like his books I really like them. When they're bad however, holy hell, they're REALLY bad. (lol Dreamcatcher)
Simmons is great at creating a compelling and haunting atmosphere, but I just can't stand the fact that there will be PAGES or even CHAPTERS where he just sits me down and tells at me. Endlessly. About things and people I don't even care about yet.
I wasn't able to get into Hyperion either, so I guess he's just not for me.
Definitely on my to-read list. Right next to 'Alloy of Law'. But, as @AustinP0027 pointed out the release date for #2, not in a huge rush.
I just finished 'Tigana' and loved it. A bit of fantasy and intrigue, but moves with a decent pace.
Looking forward to starting 'Ready Player One' sometime tomorrow.
Also finished Warren Hammond's KOP Killer and John Scalzi's Redshirts. Both pretty readable, although I felt like Redshirts was a very good book and KOP Killer was more of a guilty pleasure.
Currently reading Bukowski's Ham on Rye, which I got from a friend with considerably more literate tastes. Incredibly readable prose, and every bit as ugly and beautiful as people say it is. Also reading Scalzi's You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing as part of a general Scalzi blitz in the past month. Definitely in his voice, not really sure what else to say about it so far.
@oldmanhero tumblr
Yeah, I finished The Terror and mostly liked it, but there are some parts that are seriously tough to trudge through. I really didn't care for the ending much either.
WiiU NNID: BigDookie
WiiU NNID: BigDookie
I always always feel guilty putting books down like that, but there's so many good books out there and only so much time!
He does this, and Drood was worse about it, but after reading a couple of Simmons' books I think he's pretty self-aware. Drood is self-consciously painting its narrator in a specific way, The Terror is about men who are obsessed with one goal to the point of throwing their lives away for it (and also, it's a nod to Moby Dick), Ilium is a bunch of foreplay for Classics nerds before the surrealist punch to the nuts that is Olympos.
Simmons doesn't seem to give a damn about his readers' preferences and I sort of go for that kind of abuse. I finally start on Hyperion tomorrow night and it'll be interesting, as I have some inklings of what to expect. I despise sterotypical sci-fi. I loathe space opera. If there are starships, I don't want to be on one. Intergalactic intrigue is universally uninteresting.
We'll see how this goes.
when the indigo children come
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Yup, I actually finished it later last night. Really amazing book, especially considering how well it's held up fifty years later. Besfer wrote cyberpunk before anyone knew what cyberpunk was! Gully Foyle has to be one of the most interesting characters I've ever read, but all of them were interesting honestly. It baffles me that he could fit so much story into a 300 page book. Any author today trying to write the same story would no doubt have made it a 7-volume, 4000 page tome and beat me over the head with all the fluff that Bester knew well enough to leave out. I wish we had more crisp, clean writing like that today.
WiiU NNID: BigDookie
Ever read The Demolished Man, Bester's other novel?
It's different, but also excellent. Some neat tricks, haunting imagery, and a brilliantly constructed world that's really different from The Stars My Destination.
Man, Bester was amazing.
WiiU NNID: BigDookie
I don't even agree with his philosophy, but if you want an engaging world in which to grapple with ideas about rationality, quality, and the battle between intellectuals and romanticists, definitely worth a read.
I also attempted to read a Dean Koontz novel. "What the Night Knows." Every new page seems worse than the previous one.
If your completely new to brandon sanderson, go grab his other stuff. The Mistborn series is excellent, elantris is good, warbreaker is good.
I have also been reading the Romance of The Three Kingdom books of lae. Talk about hard to read. But they are well worth the effort.
Some of the stuff is dated at best and colored by his intense and judgmental worldview, but man he was good at weird, creepy and horrific
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The Rats in the Walls is still maybe his best story while simultaneously parading his racism as clearly as it was possible to do so
I always had a soft spot for Dagon and The Dunwich Horror, too
Xbox Live: GZOTP | Origin: Khuutra
a true xenophobe
but yeah, Dunwich Horror is one of my favorite pieces of cosmic horror, possibly ever
like I can envision that smell and that voice and ugggggh my skin is crawling
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Overall I enjoyed the small tidbits left at each chapter as to explain what was going on behind the scenes. It helped relief the stress of trying to understand how different characters and magic systems worked. Everything flowed naturally and my lust for searching the net for answers was quelled all the time.
However, Brandon Sanderson has consistently showed a particular flaw throughout all of the books. He writes and writes, showing the tension, the dilemma and the problem of a given situation. It never feels like it drags on at all. Yet suddenly Sanderson must have realized that the story had to end as each book is suddenly resolved within approximately 100 pages or so. The ending and epilogue do not feel rushed, but leaves one bereft of catharsis as both never lets the reader soak up the events and see how the events change the situation. It just... happens. Bum, done, finished. No long aftermath, no contemplation of what transpired and how it changed the world. I could understand this approach to the first two books as it is a trilogy, but the ending of the third used the same approach much to my dismay.
I wanted the characters to express their feelings concerning the events and not just a single sentence telling me that everything worked out fine. Goddamnit, it didn't! A lot of important characters were sacrificed to achieve this ending and not letting those sacrifices linger and allow the viewer to soak them up just leaves you feeling... empty. It is the same feeling as the one I felt after the original Mass Effect 3 ending. No catharsis because the ending is too damn short.
Overall I can recommend the books though the ending, while positive, was not sufficient enough in my opinion.
Brandon Sanderson's actually talked on Writing Excuses and his college lectures (you can find the 2012 classes online) about the "Brandon Avalanche" as something he's been taking pains to get away from because he knows it's a major flaw of his.