So since we're talking about Sanderson now, has anyone read his YA book, Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians? I Amazon'd it on a whim while ordering some other stuff and am curious as to whether I will be disappointed.
So since we're talking about Sanderson now, has anyone read his YA book, Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians? I Amazon'd it on a whim while ordering some other stuff and am curious as to whether I will be disappointed.
No clue on his YA stuff.
My guess would be pretty good for YA, just based on his writing style and such.
Way of Kings is generic as all hell and bloated to high heaven. It's like standard Sanderson writing without anything interesting to spice it up like with some of his other stuff. It's boiler-plate epic fantasy.
And the bloat. God the bloat. So much book, so little happens.
This is the way I felt.
The Mistborn series felt tightly written. Nearly always something happening that was plot important even if you didn't realize it till later or even a re-read through. The world was described through the actions of the players.
On the other hand, Way of the Kings felt like an entire book of set up. Like the older friend of the king. 20 or so (I may be exaggerating or so) chapters of him pining about honor and people thinking he might be crazy if they knew he was having crazy dreams.
Way of Kings is generic as all hell and bloated to high heaven. It's like standard Sanderson writing without anything interesting to spice it up like with some of his other stuff. It's boiler-plate epic fantasy.
And the bloat. God the bloat. So much book, so little happens.
This is the way I felt.
The Mistborn series felt tightly written. Nearly always something happening that was plot important even if you didn't realize it till later or even a re-read through. The world was described through the actions of the players.
On the other hand, Way of the Kings felt like an entire book of set up. Like the older friend of the king. 20 or so (I may be exaggerating or so) chapters of him pining about honor and people thinking he might be crazy if they knew he was having crazy dreams.
You probably aren't.
But yeah, what struck me after looking around after reading the book was Sanderson's comments about "wanting to write this book for a long time now". It really feels like a book straight out of the mid-90s when everyone was trying to be the next Wheel of Time.
Has anyone picked up Ready Player One? I downloaded the sample chapter and are curious to find out if it ever becomes more than just an excuse to cram in references that are supposed to excite me because I'm a nerd.
I managed to be first in line for Ready Player One from my local library. Started it at midnight, 5 hours later I'm done. It's a great read; particularly for anyone around my age who grew up in the 80s, but it feels like a book that every gamer would enjoy. Highly recommended, and it is a fine coming-of-age story in a scarily possible post-apocalyptic near-future world. Characters are fairly flat, but the setting is well designed and the story feels solid. Plus, built in soundtrack in your head as songs are mentioned and iconic movie scenes.
Finished the last Night Angel book last night. It was good, but weird.
Series ending spoiler commentary:
I didn't see the sudden hard left turn into Disney-esque sentimentality coming at the end there. The whole 'the black ka'kari is fueled by love' thing I could deal with, but then the whole war ended and the world was saved pretty much entirely by everyone's combined Power of Love, which was weird. And then all of these plot lines and mcguffins that had built up over the course of 2.5 books either vanished or got tied up in a little box.
Considering how it ended I'm really surprised Weeks doesn't plan to write any more books about Kylar. I mean, he introduced two new conflicts in like the last 10 pages. Oh well. He said on his website that he wants to write more books in the same universe, but with a focus on new characters, so perhaps I'll eventually get to find out what Ezra was up to and what's going to happen when Satan or whoever busts out in 20 years.
Shortly before finishing that I discovered a copy of Snake Agent by Liz Williams under my nightstand that I don't recall purchasing, so I started on that. It's odd but seems promising so far.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I agree with everything you've written about the Night Angel trilogy CptHamilton. Especially about it needing more books.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I enjoyed Mistborn and am avoiding Way of Kings until the series is at least close to complete. I think I am starting to learn my lesson.
Interestingly, there is a new Mistborn novel coming out in November, takes place 300 years after the trilogy. Looks to be interesting, at least.
I do not know how to feel about this. On the one hand, excited, on the other apprehensive
Given how the trilogy ended the world will be fairly unrecognisable compared to what it once was without the characters we've come to know and love. The only thing that will remain should be the magic system, more or less.
I'd love prequel that told the story of the first chosen one, I loved the excerpts at the start of each of the chapters. They were so ominous and weird, especially when contrasted with what we knew of the world and what we thought he became.
I enjoyed Mistborn and am avoiding Way of Kings until the series is at least close to complete. I think I am starting to learn my lesson.
Interestingly, there is a new Mistborn novel coming out in November, takes place 300 years after the trilogy. Looks to be interesting, at least.
I do not know how to feel about this. On the one hand, excited, on the other apprehensive
Given how the trilogy ended the world will be fairly unrecognisable compared to what it once was without the characters we've come to know and love. The only thing that will remain should be the magic system, more or less.
I'd love prequel that told the story of the first chosen one, I loved the excerpts at the start of each of the chapters. They were so ominous and weird, especially when contrasted with what we knew of the world and what we thought he became.
I'm willing to believe that whatever Sanderson writes won't be a pile of shit, but any continuation of the Mistborn series will have to be a completely different beast. Most of the tension and drama in the first trilogy revolved around secrets in the world's history and its magic system (which seems to be Sanderson's thing). Unless magic has changed significantly in the intervening years (which it doesn't appear to have from the synopsis blurb) at least half of his schtick is out for the new book.
It will be interesting to see how the events of the first trilogy have changed over the course of 300 years' re-telling, and what kind of god whatsisname the feruchemist monk turned out to be.
Edit: Also, I recall reading somewhere (his website?) about a number of other metals and their powers, which presumably will come up in the new book, so that'll be neat.
I enjoyed Mistborn and am avoiding Way of Kings until the series is at least close to complete. I think I am starting to learn my lesson.
Interestingly, there is a new Mistborn novel coming out in November, takes place 300 years after the trilogy. Looks to be interesting, at least.
I do not know how to feel about this. On the one hand, excited, on the other apprehensive
Given how the trilogy ended the world will be fairly unrecognisable compared to what it once was without the characters we've come to know and love. The only thing that will remain should be the magic system, more or less.
I'd love prequel that told the story of the first chosen one, I loved the excerpts at the start of each of the chapters. They were so ominous and weird, especially when contrasted with what we knew of the world and what we thought he became.
It's more like Victorian era and the various magical talents are diffuse and spread out more in the population.
On top of some other books that I'm reading, I'm picking up Perdido St Station again, having read it like 5 years ago.
And holy crap is it good. I mean, I knew it was good, thats why I'm reading it again. But wow, just the prologue is amazing. I give Mieville grief on here because his settings are so good, seemingly at the expense of his characters. But the city is a character, to an extent I really hadn't realized before. I'm only a bit of the ways in, and knowing all the crazy stuff thats going to go down has me very excited. Reviewing this book has been very long overdue.
Well Jurassic park is nothing like the movie. It's funny though I can see scenes from all three movies flat out stolen from different parts of the book. Also, Hammond is a bit of a dick. Also god damned Crichton, I know you like to fill all your books with whatever sciencey thing you're interested in at the time, but there is A LOT of chaos theory discussion going on. ALSO... I'm going to go back to reading. 3/4 through.
That and Despair where very good. I've always wanted to read more of his work. There's a special brand of crazy going on in his writing that draws me in.
I finally managed to get around to reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I found the first three books generally amusing, but wasn't especially impressed until the fourth which I felt was so superior to the preceding books that I was quite blown away.
I'm a little apprehensive now though; it really felt like an excellent end point, but I hate to leave things unfinished. I know the fifth book was written while Adams was in a pretty bad place and that it affected the book, and I'd hate to tarnish the high I'm currently on.
Also, has anyone read the sixth book by Eoin Colfer? My only experience with him has been with his children novels, and of late his Artemis Fowl series has read like rather bad fanfiction.
I've been re-reading the Earthsea series - read four of them so far, now on the short story collection, Tales From Earthsea.
They really are amazing books, although there is a big difference between the earlier and later ones.
I know this is not the kind of thing people say in D&D here, but they're full of wisdom, about accepting yourself and others, and they've been helping me with some of my troubles, as well as being lyrical, beautiful novels.
I also read Magician King, which I didn't really like - I felt that the first book had a finely-judged ironic tone that made me wonder if the whole thing was just in Quentin's head, or alternatively that all of the magical people were vastly wrong about the world. The second was just more of a magical adventure, and I didn't really care. The chapters about Julia's backstory were more interesting.
And in other news, I joined the (Japanese) library today. Been putting it off for years for a weird reason that I won't bother boring you with.
I got Fellowship of the Ring and a book of Greek Myths for me, and Wizard of Earthsea and The Lies of Locke Lamora for the missus. I was surprised how many recent fantasy novels were there in translation - it's a small library in a Japanese resort town, you don't expect to see The Name Of The Wind in translation there!
Of course, LOTR is a slightly too hard for me to read easily, but fuck it, I know it almost word for word anyway. I will have to pump the librarians for some young adult or kid's fiction to read - I know classical Japanese literature a bit, but what I really want is the Japanese equivalent of Narnia or actually just Harry Potter or Bartimaeus, because shallow=easy to read.
I am on the third book of the Alera series. This is Jim Butcher's fantasy series, him of Dresden fame.
I'm really enjoying it. I thought the first book was a bit 'meh', but good god this man can write an action sequence. And I like his characterisation a lot - although it has a different feel and style, it does remind me of the way GRRM doesn't allow characters to be reducible to a few characteristics.
I am looking for a general survey on Italian architecture ranging from Etruscan right up until now, if anyone has any recommendations. I'm going back to visit and as it has been a decade or so since I last did any reading or study on that kind of thing, I'd welcome any suggestions.
Freedom for the Northern Isles!
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GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
So if anyone still has a mid liquidation borders near them I would recommend dropping by.
I just got a hardcover collection of everything Sherlock Holmes for $4, a huge pulp anthology and 8 other novels for less than $40
I've attended a going-out-of-business sale before.
Never. Ever. Again. Ye gods, people can be fucking animals.
I did, however, grab something intriguing-looking today, History Lessons: How Textbooks From Around The World Portray U.S. History, by Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward. I haven't yet tucked into it, but I think it'll be an interesting spin on the concept of Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Gosling on
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
So if anyone still has a mid liquidation borders near them I would recommend dropping by.
I just got a hardcover collection of everything Sherlock Holmes for $4, a huge pulp anthology and 8 other novels for less than $40
I've attended a going-out-of-business sale before.
Never. Ever. Again. Ye gods, people can be fucking animals.
I did, however, grab something intriguing-looking today, History Lessons: How Textbooks From Around The World Portray U.S. History, by Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward. I haven't yet tucked into it, but I think it'll be an interesting spin on the concept of Lies My Teacher Told Me.
It sounds like a book of 'They hate us for our freedums!' to me...
Is it pretending to be a balanced book about foreign textbooks or what?
I've read that in general the Borders liquidation isn't/wasn't any better than simply buying the books on Amazon. Mostly because the liquidators are still able to return stock to the warehouse for a refund at cost, so there's little point in giving people amazing deals. There weren't any closing near me, though, so I didn't check it for sure.
(that and many of the books on my "to read" list are generally not the books most widely available at Borders. Or I'd rather buy them in hardcover instead of mass-market paperback, because, seriously, mmpb is painful to read)
I finished Invitation to a Beheading. This is more typical of Nabokov's overall oeuvre isn't it. I mean, there are flashes of surrealism in Lolita, and Pale Fire is abstracted from the surreal elements of the story to make it rather engaging, but ItaB strikes me as what a lot of people think about when they read Nabokov. I enjoyed it, although the surreal elements didn't strike me as particularly profound. I don't think he was going for profound, mind, but I do think it strikes the reader harder when they're surprised by how the story turns out.
Continuing with Moby Dick as my bathroom reading, and about 30% into The Crossing. So far, I'm liking this more than All The Pretty Horses, but there is more spanish (and I'm really rusty beyond the normal conversational aspects, let alone the horse-related talk).
Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Finished Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe. Odd, to say the least. I liked it though.
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GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
By 'around the world', the table of contents mentions textbooks from Brazil, Canada, the "Caribbean", Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
The aim, expressed in the introduction, is to take various moments in American history that involved other nations, and then look at them through the perspective of those other nations. That's basically the book. Introduce the moment, reprint verbatim what the other principal nations say in their textbooks about it, and move on to the next moment. Whoever those principal nations might be. Slavery, for example, is told from the perspectives of Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Portugal, Britain and Mexico. The Korean War is told from the perspectives of Britain, Russia, Canada, Japan, and both Koreas.
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
Finished Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe. Odd, to say the least. I liked it though.
One never really finishes a Gene Wolfe book, as such, one just gets asymptotically closer to understanding it. Read it again in a year (ideally after you finish the other 4 in the series) and you'll be amazed at what you missed the first time around.
Also I implore you to read the Soldier sequence as well, because it's just straight up beautiful. Everything about it is perfect.
And The Fifth head Of Cerebrus, god damb that book is a mindfuck.
By 'around the world', the table of contents mentions textbooks from Brazil, Canada, the "Caribbean", Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
The aim, expressed in the introduction, is to take various moments in American history that involved other nations, and then look at them through the perspective of those other nations. That's basically the book. Introduce the moment, reprint verbatim what the other principal nations say in their textbooks about it, and move on to the next moment. Whoever those principal nations might be. Slavery, for example, is told from the perspectives of Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Portugal, Britain and Mexico. The Korean War is told from the perspectives of Britain, Russia, Canada, Japan, and both Koreas.
Ah, so I guess you mentioned Lies My Teacher Told Me to mean, 'Sometimes our teachers didn't get it right'?
Sorry, I took it to mean, 'Foreigners lie about the good ol' U S of A'.
That sounds like the kind of book everyone should read. I know I've found it interesting hearing about WW2 from the point of view of Japanese people.
I've read that in general the Borders liquidation isn't/wasn't any better than simply buying the books on Amazon. Mostly because the liquidators are still able to return stock to the warehouse for a refund at cost, so there's little point in giving people amazing deals. There weren't any closing near me, though, so I didn't check it for sure.
(that and many of the books on my "to read" list are generally not the books most widely available at Borders. Or I'd rather buy them in hardcover instead of mass-market paperback, because, seriously, mmpb is painful to read)
I finished Invitation to a Beheading. This is more typical of Nabokov's overall oeuvre isn't it. I mean, there are flashes of surrealism in Lolita, and Pale Fire is abstracted from the surreal elements of the story to make it rather engaging, but ItaB strikes me as what a lot of people think about when they read Nabokov. I enjoyed it, although the surreal elements didn't strike me as particularly profound. I don't think he was going for profound, mind, but I do think it strikes the reader harder when they're surprised by how the story turns out.
For the sale I'm not sure if it's much better than buying it all on Amazon. There were some much better deals than others, such as hardcovers for books that just came out in paperback since they where on sale to scale back the stock then there was the liquidation % off on top of the sale price. I think it was mostly just more fun to dig through a bookstore looking for gems.
Invitation was the first Nabokov I read and unfortunately the ending was spoiled for me because I read it after reading Reading Lolita in Tehran for a class in high school. Still though I thought it was a very good book. I agree that it isn't the most profound. It's sort of a more nonsensical depiction of a dystopia. It was really interesting to read a book like Despair after it and recognize all the surreal elements of beheading in a more grounded setting. They're sort of opposites of each other with their world/protagonist settings.
By 'around the world', the table of contents mentions textbooks from Brazil, Canada, the "Caribbean", Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
The aim, expressed in the introduction, is to take various moments in American history that involved other nations, and then look at them through the perspective of those other nations. That's basically the book. Introduce the moment, reprint verbatim what the other principal nations say in their textbooks about it, and move on to the next moment. Whoever those principal nations might be. Slavery, for example, is told from the perspectives of Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Portugal, Britain and Mexico. The Korean War is told from the perspectives of Britain, Russia, Canada, Japan, and both Koreas.
Ah, so I guess you mentioned Lies My Teacher Told Me to mean, 'Sometimes our teachers didn't get it right'?
Sorry, I took it to mean, 'Foreigners lie about the good ol' U S of A'.
That sounds like the kind of book everyone should read. I know I've found it interesting hearing about WW2 from the point of view of Japanese people.
Yeah, I wouldn't mind reading it, or something like it. I remember the first time I went to Paris or Berlin and wandered through their streets, museums and the like, seeing the civic reminders of wars or events that my country was on the other side. It was a pretty cool experience, if a little superficial
Freedom for the Northern Isles!
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BobCescaIs a girlBirmingham, UKRegistered Userregular
So, finally got some new stuff in.
First up is Ladies First which is written/edited by a mate of mine and is a history of the Queen Margaret Union at the University of Glasgow. Also picked up a book of poetry by a Glasgow author Songs for Death and the Devil, a lot of which are based on ancient mythology so should be pretty interesting.
So I read the Lev Grossman ouevre and fuck it. It had enough to get me to the end, so it has that. Now I'm re-reading A Storm of Swords and it is still awesome as fuck. I read it a long ass time ago so it's almost like reading it anew which may help, but it is so much better than all the fresh fantasy I've been reading lately.
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
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GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
World War 2 as told by Japan is present. Actually, World War 2 gets quite a bit of play...
World War 2- European Theater: Britain, Germany, Russia
D-Day and European Liberation: Britain, Canada, France, Italy
Resistance: France, Italy, Germany
World War 2- Pacific Theater: Philippines, Japan
Atomic Bomb: Japan, Philippines, Canada, Britain, Italy
Also, turns out why the "Caribbean" got lumped into one big group is because none of the smaller islands individually make for a big enough textbook market, so they just kind of share based on language.
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
On top of some other books that I'm reading, I'm picking up Perdido St Station again, having read it like 5 years ago.
And holy crap is it good. I mean, I knew it was good, thats why I'm reading it again. But wow, just the prologue is amazing. I give Mieville grief on here because his settings are so good, seemingly at the expense of his characters. But the city is a character, to an extent I really hadn't realized before. I'm only a bit of the ways in, and knowing all the crazy stuff thats going to go down has me very excited. Reviewing this book has been very long overdue.
I think Mieville is a writer who is absolutely improved on the reread, if nothing else because being freed of needing to know what happens next really gives you the space to just stretch out and enjoy these luxuriously-appointed settings he's created. Details that seem frivolous or indulgent when you just want to motor through the book the first time end up being things that really enhance your subsequent enjoyment.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Also, anyone who likes comics, I can't recommend Grant Morrison's Supergods enough. It's rough around the edges in parts - it needed a better fact-checker, as he occasionally remembers an issue number wrong, or mislabels the artist of a page - but it's basically 300 pages of reasons why this wonderful, bizarre medium matters, mixed in with a lot of very honest autobiography.
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No clue on his YA stuff.
My guess would be pretty good for YA, just based on his writing style and such.
This is the way I felt.
The Mistborn series felt tightly written. Nearly always something happening that was plot important even if you didn't realize it till later or even a re-read through. The world was described through the actions of the players.
On the other hand, Way of the Kings felt like an entire book of set up. Like the older friend of the king. 20 or so (I may be exaggerating or so) chapters of him pining about honor and people thinking he might be crazy if they knew he was having crazy dreams.
You probably aren't.
But yeah, what struck me after looking around after reading the book was Sanderson's comments about "wanting to write this book for a long time now". It really feels like a book straight out of the mid-90s when everyone was trying to be the next Wheel of Time.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Interestingly, there is a new Mistborn novel coming out in November, takes place 300 years after the trilogy. Looks to be interesting, at least.
I managed to be first in line for Ready Player One from my local library. Started it at midnight, 5 hours later I'm done. It's a great read; particularly for anyone around my age who grew up in the 80s, but it feels like a book that every gamer would enjoy. Highly recommended, and it is a fine coming-of-age story in a scarily possible post-apocalyptic near-future world. Characters are fairly flat, but the setting is well designed and the story feels solid. Plus, built in soundtrack in your head as songs are mentioned and iconic movie scenes.
Series ending spoiler commentary:
Considering how it ended I'm really surprised Weeks doesn't plan to write any more books about Kylar. I mean, he introduced two new conflicts in like the last 10 pages. Oh well. He said on his website that he wants to write more books in the same universe, but with a focus on new characters, so perhaps I'll eventually get to find out what Ezra was up to and what's going to happen when Satan or whoever busts out in 20 years.
Shortly before finishing that I discovered a copy of Snake Agent by Liz Williams under my nightstand that I don't recall purchasing, so I started on that. It's odd but seems promising so far.
I do not know how to feel about this. On the one hand, excited, on the other apprehensive
I'd love prequel that told the story of the first chosen one, I loved the excerpts at the start of each of the chapters. They were so ominous and weird, especially when contrasted with what we knew of the world and what we thought he became.
I'm willing to believe that whatever Sanderson writes won't be a pile of shit, but any continuation of the Mistborn series will have to be a completely different beast. Most of the tension and drama in the first trilogy revolved around secrets in the world's history and its magic system (which seems to be Sanderson's thing). Unless magic has changed significantly in the intervening years (which it doesn't appear to have from the synopsis blurb) at least half of his schtick is out for the new book.
Edit: Also, I recall reading somewhere (his website?) about a number of other metals and their powers, which presumably will come up in the new book, so that'll be neat.
Its pretty good so far.
It's more like Victorian era and the various magical talents are diffuse and spread out more in the population.
I just got a hardcover collection of everything Sherlock Holmes for $4, a huge pulp anthology and 8 other novels for less than $40
And holy crap is it good. I mean, I knew it was good, thats why I'm reading it again. But wow, just the prologue is amazing. I give Mieville grief on here because his settings are so good, seemingly at the expense of his characters. But the city is a character, to an extent I really hadn't realized before. I'm only a bit of the ways in, and knowing all the crazy stuff thats going to go down has me very excited. Reviewing this book has been very long overdue.
That and Despair where very good. I've always wanted to read more of his work. There's a special brand of crazy going on in his writing that draws me in.
I'm a little apprehensive now though; it really felt like an excellent end point, but I hate to leave things unfinished. I know the fifth book was written while Adams was in a pretty bad place and that it affected the book, and I'd hate to tarnish the high I'm currently on.
Also, has anyone read the sixth book by Eoin Colfer? My only experience with him has been with his children novels, and of late his Artemis Fowl series has read like rather bad fanfiction.
They really are amazing books, although there is a big difference between the earlier and later ones.
I know this is not the kind of thing people say in D&D here, but they're full of wisdom, about accepting yourself and others, and they've been helping me with some of my troubles, as well as being lyrical, beautiful novels.
I also read Magician King, which I didn't really like - I felt that the first book had a finely-judged ironic tone that made me wonder if the whole thing was just in Quentin's head, or alternatively that all of the magical people were vastly wrong about the world. The second was just more of a magical adventure, and I didn't really care. The chapters about Julia's backstory were more interesting.
And in other news, I joined the (Japanese) library today. Been putting it off for years for a weird reason that I won't bother boring you with.
I got Fellowship of the Ring and a book of Greek Myths for me, and Wizard of Earthsea and The Lies of Locke Lamora for the missus. I was surprised how many recent fantasy novels were there in translation - it's a small library in a Japanese resort town, you don't expect to see The Name Of The Wind in translation there!
Of course, LOTR is a slightly too hard for me to read easily, but fuck it, I know it almost word for word anyway. I will have to pump the librarians for some young adult or kid's fiction to read - I know classical Japanese literature a bit, but what I really want is the Japanese equivalent of Narnia or actually just Harry Potter or Bartimaeus, because shallow=easy to read.
...
I think I need to go lay down for awhile.
I'm really enjoying it. I thought the first book was a bit 'meh', but good god this man can write an action sequence. And I like his characterisation a lot - although it has a different feel and style, it does remind me of the way GRRM doesn't allow characters to be reducible to a few characteristics.
I heartily recommend them. 3 thumbs up.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I've attended a going-out-of-business sale before.
Never. Ever. Again. Ye gods, people can be fucking animals.
I did, however, grab something intriguing-looking today, History Lessons: How Textbooks From Around The World Portray U.S. History, by Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward. I haven't yet tucked into it, but I think it'll be an interesting spin on the concept of Lies My Teacher Told Me.
It sounds like a book of 'They hate us for our freedums!' to me...
Is it pretending to be a balanced book about foreign textbooks or what?
(that and many of the books on my "to read" list are generally not the books most widely available at Borders. Or I'd rather buy them in hardcover instead of mass-market paperback, because, seriously, mmpb is painful to read)
I finished Invitation to a Beheading. This is more typical of Nabokov's overall oeuvre isn't it. I mean, there are flashes of surrealism in Lolita, and Pale Fire is abstracted from the surreal elements of the story to make it rather engaging, but ItaB strikes me as what a lot of people think about when they read Nabokov. I enjoyed it, although the surreal elements didn't strike me as particularly profound. I don't think he was going for profound, mind, but I do think it strikes the reader harder when they're surprised by how the story turns out.
Continuing with Moby Dick as my bathroom reading, and about 30% into The Crossing. So far, I'm liking this more than All The Pretty Horses, but there is more spanish (and I'm really rusty beyond the normal conversational aspects, let alone the horse-related talk).
The aim, expressed in the introduction, is to take various moments in American history that involved other nations, and then look at them through the perspective of those other nations. That's basically the book. Introduce the moment, reprint verbatim what the other principal nations say in their textbooks about it, and move on to the next moment. Whoever those principal nations might be. Slavery, for example, is told from the perspectives of Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Portugal, Britain and Mexico. The Korean War is told from the perspectives of Britain, Russia, Canada, Japan, and both Koreas.
One never really finishes a Gene Wolfe book, as such, one just gets asymptotically closer to understanding it. Read it again in a year (ideally after you finish the other 4 in the series) and you'll be amazed at what you missed the first time around.
Also I implore you to read the Soldier sequence as well, because it's just straight up beautiful. Everything about it is perfect.
And The Fifth head Of Cerebrus, god damb that book is a mindfuck.
Ah, so I guess you mentioned Lies My Teacher Told Me to mean, 'Sometimes our teachers didn't get it right'?
Sorry, I took it to mean, 'Foreigners lie about the good ol' U S of A'.
That sounds like the kind of book everyone should read. I know I've found it interesting hearing about WW2 from the point of view of Japanese people.
For the sale I'm not sure if it's much better than buying it all on Amazon. There were some much better deals than others, such as hardcovers for books that just came out in paperback since they where on sale to scale back the stock then there was the liquidation % off on top of the sale price. I think it was mostly just more fun to dig through a bookstore looking for gems.
Invitation was the first Nabokov I read and unfortunately the ending was spoiled for me because I read it after reading Reading Lolita in Tehran for a class in high school. Still though I thought it was a very good book. I agree that it isn't the most profound. It's sort of a more nonsensical depiction of a dystopia. It was really interesting to read a book like Despair after it and recognize all the surreal elements of beheading in a more grounded setting. They're sort of opposites of each other with their world/protagonist settings.
They also got in about 1000 new books across fiction and non-fiction, that took quite a while to comb through.
Yeah, I wouldn't mind reading it, or something like it. I remember the first time I went to Paris or Berlin and wandered through their streets, museums and the like, seeing the civic reminders of wars or events that my country was on the other side. It was a pretty cool experience, if a little superficial
First up is Ladies First which is written/edited by a mate of mine and is a history of the Queen Margaret Union at the University of Glasgow. Also picked up a book of poetry by a Glasgow author Songs for Death and the Devil, a lot of which are based on ancient mythology so should be pretty interesting.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
World War 2- European Theater: Britain, Germany, Russia
D-Day and European Liberation: Britain, Canada, France, Italy
Resistance: France, Italy, Germany
World War 2- Pacific Theater: Philippines, Japan
Atomic Bomb: Japan, Philippines, Canada, Britain, Italy
Also, turns out why the "Caribbean" got lumped into one big group is because none of the smaller islands individually make for a big enough textbook market, so they just kind of share based on language.
I think Mieville is a writer who is absolutely improved on the reread, if nothing else because being freed of needing to know what happens next really gives you the space to just stretch out and enjoy these luxuriously-appointed settings he's created. Details that seem frivolous or indulgent when you just want to motor through the book the first time end up being things that really enhance your subsequent enjoyment.