I'm currently reading two books:

The Triumph of the Sun by Wilbur Smith (Fall of Khartoum, 1885 in the Sudan, fictional heroic adventure novel set with the Mahdist-British war as a background)

Day of Infamy by Harry Turtledove, what if alternate history book about what would have happened had the Japanese followed up the Pearl Harbor attack with a seaborne invasion of Hawaii.

I'm reading Dead Beat by Jim Butcher. It's the most recent of his Dresden Novels which is a series similar in tone to Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe detective novels. The big differences are that it's modern and Harry Blackstone Dresden (the plucky detective) is the only wizard to advertise in the Chicago phonebook.

I'm also reading the Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum.

I am reading "A Game of Thrones" by George R R Martin. I am currently on page 4 so I can't give you guys an in depth analysis. Gimme a couple of days.

The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams.

Very deep, and verbose, but very good. I would highly suggest it to others.

The Lord of the Rings (again)

Drive to the East - Harry Turtledove (alternative history)

Thief of Lives - Barb & J.C. Hendee (fantasy)

*casts thread resurrection*

Designing Virtual Worlds - Richard Bartle
Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games - Edward Castranova
Player's Guide to Eberron
Attack of the Bacon Robots (collected book, volume 1 of Penny Arcade)
A Linux+ certification guide

Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
BY Christopher Moore

recently finished
Aint Nobody's Business if you Do
By Peter McWilliams
This book is fantastic! Even if you dont agree with all of it (and I sure as heck dont) it should be on everyone's shelf.

Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

BY Christopher Moore

Lamb is excellent! I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like pretty much all of Christopher Moore's books (although I haven't read his newest 'Dirty Jobs'. My wife did and told me I would really like it.

I just finished 'Going Postal' by Terry Prachett (loved it, as with all Prachett) and am now reading 'Midshipswizard Halcyon Blythe' by James Ward (from the Forgotten Realms: Pools trilogy). I'm enyoing Midshipswizard...kinda a Harry Potter-esque fantasy meets Horatio Hornblower naval adventure. Good for shaking on some nautical flavor before the Savage Tide comes in.

The Ptolus campaign setting by Monte Cook. I am planning on starting my Ptolus campaign in a week or two.

I finished Haruki Murakami's fantastic "Kafka on the Shore" a few weeks ago, and I think that, along with his other novels and short stories, it was one of the best books I've ever read. Now I'm rereading Moorcock's Elric stories in the compilation "Song of the Black Sword", I believe.

Almost at the end of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" - awesome, awesome book. Read his "No country for old men" last week, and that's a great one, too.

Robin Hobb "Shamans crossing" and Stuart MacBride "Dying Light".
Nothing like sordid murders in Aberdeen if Hobb gets too boring!

Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule" since the Sword of Truth books are being turned into a miniseries by Spiderman and Evil Dead director Sam Raimi.

Shake Hands With The Devil by LGEN. Romeo Dallaire-UN Force Commanders account of the 1993 UN peacekeeping mission to Rwanda which failed to stop a civil war and genocide.

Ptolus.

Fiendish Codes I: Hordes of the Abyss. Starting this one today :)

And now for something completely different...

I'm just starting The Algebraist by Iain M Banks, but I haven't decided if I like it yet or not. I just completed the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton and I'm still working my way through The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose.

I guess this is my escape from DMing such high fantasy.

Preulde to Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Next up is either Children of Dune or the first Thieves World. I can't decide.

"The Golden Barge" by Michael Moorcock (as part of the Earl Aubec collection).

I’m reading a weird and wonderfully eclectic mix of books at the moment, some old and some new. Isn’t it strange how those favorite reads from your childhood can yield all kinds of shocks and revelations once read with adult eyes?

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Dragons of Summer Flame by W&H

A Year With Swollen Appendices: The Diary of Brian Eno
by Brian Eno

Me Tarzan - You Jane by Dick Hennessey

In a Persian Kitchen by M. Mazda

Making Latex Clothes by San-kate Mooney

Myths and Folklore of Ireland by Jeremiah Curtin

Our Wullie (collected comic strips from the Sunday post)

‘Under Plum Lake’ by Lionel Davidson

‘Communities Dominate Brands’ by Tomi T. Ahonen and Alan Moore

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (Great Discoveries) by David Leavitt

Lips by Byron Edwards

The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 by Alan Gallay

Wolfgang Puck's Pizza, Pasta, and More! by Wolfgang Puck

The Thing: Idol Of Millions TPB by Dan Slott

The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird

Never Enough: The Story of the Cure
by Jeff Apter

Y the Last Man: book 6 'Girl on Girl'

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay
by Michael Chabon

I am about 100 pages into it right now and I love it. Chabon is a vocabularic wizard.

is "vocabularic" a word?
hmmmm.
Michael Chabon I am not.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay

by Michael Chabon

I am about 100 pages into it right now and I love it. Chabon is a vocabularic wizard.

is "vocabularic" a word?
hmmmm.
Michael Chabon I am not.

That man can turn a phrase until it's dizzy.

Book 3 in R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen series. "Condemnation" it is called.

And the latest National Geographic...

That man can turn a phrase until it's dizzy.

he turned one so well it cured my dyslexia.

no lie.

TOTALLY CUR3D.

Book 3 in R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen series. "Condemnation" it is called.

And the latest National Geographic...

War of the Spider Queen is a very cool series - you'll like it, I'm sure. Mad props to the National Geographic as well.

The Jade wrote:

That man can turn a phrase until it's dizzy.

he turned one so well it cured my dyslexia.

no lie.

TOTALLY CUR3D.

Reminds me of the graffitti someone sprayed onto the side of my house:

DYSLEXICS OF THE WORLD UNTIE!

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic insomniac existentialist who stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog?

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic insomniac existentialist who stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog?

What does a dyslexic rabbi say?

Didja hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper?
He ended up selling his soul to Santa.

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic insomniac existentialist who stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog?

The original version (or so I may mistakenly believe):

What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic?
Someone who can't get to sleep while pondering the existence of "Dog."

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar.
Bartender looks up and says, "what, is this a joke?"

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar.

Bartender looks up and says, "what, is this a joke?"

What did the the cockney cabbie say to the three eyed, one legged man with no arms?

"Ay-ay-ay! You look 'armless, 'op in."

(well the Ay's are pronounced as I's but I don't know of a legtimate spelling.)

Ear, ear!

d13 wrote:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay

by Michael Chabon

I am about 100 pages into it right now and I love it. Chabon is a vocabularic wizard.

is "vocabularic" a word?
hmmmm.
Michael Chabon I am not.

That man can turn a phrase until it's dizzy.

Looked for him at the bookstore, came up dry.

A nerdy type of guy, rich, well dressed but obviously not cool, sees a beautiful girl sitting at the local bar. Mustering up all his courage, he saunters across the floor to her, sizing her up as he goes.

"Well, hello beautiful," he says. He catches her attention and she looks at him with a sneer and disgust. "Get lost, creep"

Determined to play out his hand he replies, "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" The woman's head perks up and she looks at him with newfound respect and coos, "Why certainly, handsome."

The nerd smiles mischieviously, "Would you sleep with me for five dollars?" The look of disgust and the sneer returns to the woman's face, "Five Dollars!! Are you crazy? With a nerd like you? What the hell do you think I am??!!!"

Which the nerd replies coolly, " We already established what you are my dear, now we are just haggling over the price."

A nerdy type of guy, rich, well dressed but obviously not cool, sees a beautiful girl sitting at the local bar. Mustering up all his courage, he saunters across the floor to her, sizing her up as he goes.

"Well, hello beautiful," he says. He catches her attention and she looks at him with a sneer and disgust. "Get lost, creep"

Determined to play out his hand he replies, "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" The woman's head perks up and she looks at him with newfound respect and coos, "Why certainly, handsome."

The nerd smiles mischieviously, "Would you sleep with me for five dollars?" The look of disgust and the sneer returns to the woman's face, "Five Dollars!! Are you crazy? With a nerd like you? What the hell do you think I am??!!!"

Which the nerd replies coolly, " We already established what you are my dear, now we are just haggling over the price."

Huh?

Anyway, I'm reading the Endymion Omnibus by Dan Simmons. Very good epic SF, but the first two books (Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, collected in the Hyperion Omnibus) are better.

War of the Spider Queen is a very cool series - you'll like it, I'm sure.

Have to disagree a bit. The first volume is good, they gradually decline in quality (to the absolute nadir of Philip Athans volume) before picking up a bit at the end. I finished the series wondering why I had devoted all that time - the end seemed a bit incoherent to me.

"Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn

A very awesome book, I rocommend it to anyone will to question the role of humanity on this planet and the potential repercussions of that role.

Tam

What's the matter, Aubrey, you don't get the joke? They were telling jokes for a while on the thread a little higher up.

I am currently reading, The Rite, the third in the series of the Year of Dragons by WOTC. Pretty entertaining yarn so far.

What's the matter, Aubrey, you don't get the joke? They were telling jokes for a while on the thread a little higher up.

I am currently reading, The Rite, the third in the series of the Year of Dragons by WOTC. Pretty entertaining yarn so far.

Yeah, I kind of picked up the thread a bit later, in reverse, sort of...

I'm currently reading two books:

The Triumph of the Sun by Wilbur Smith (Fall of Khartoum, 1885 in the Sudan, fictional heroic adventure novel set with the Mahdist-British war as a background)

Day of Infamy by Harry Turtledove, what if alternate history book about what would have happened had the Japanese followed up the Pearl Harbor attack with a seaborne invasion of Hawaii.

Im currently reading A feast for crows, by George r.r Martin and Warrior: En garde, by Michael A stackpole for the 156th time, or something like that. The cover is repaired with tape so you get the picture

Looked for him at the bookstore, came up dry.

BUT, Wikipedia sez he's working on Snow and the Seven for Disney, which will be a martial arts retelling of Snow White.
Alzo working on a Kavalier and Klay screenplay, according to Wiki.

That sounds like a tall woman surrounded by a bunch of karate dwarves. Hmm... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anyone?

A nerdy type of guy, rich, well dressed but obviously not cool, sees a beautiful girl sitting at the local bar. Mustering up all his courage, he saunters across the floor to her, sizing her up as he goes.

"Well, hello beautiful," he says. He catches her attention and she looks at him with a sneer and disgust. "Get lost, creep"

Determined to play out his hand he replies, "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" The woman's head perks up and she looks at him with newfound respect and coos, "Why certainly, handsome."

The nerd smiles mischieviously, "Would you sleep with me for five dollars?" The look of disgust and the sneer returns to the woman's face, "Five Dollars!! Are you crazy? With a nerd like you? What the hell do you think I am??!!!"

Which the nerd replies coolly, " We already established what you are my dear, now we are just haggling over the price."

I have heard this story ascribed to George Bernard Shaw.

the answer is probably either, "Jack the Ripper" or "George Bernard Shaw"

just FYI. . .

Just finished Book seven of the book of lost swords by Fred Saberhagen...need to find book eight somewhere.

Just starting Sharpe's Fury by Bernard Cornwall..Naploneonic war fiction..good stuff..

I just finished reading the entire Taltos series by Stephen Brust. If you haven't read them, go and find them. truly amazing.

Thanks for the info, d13, I'll stay tuned for that Jeopardy episode, but no breath holding in the meanwhile.

Reading Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard at the moment. His typical caper with a scam, bad men, wily women, and a smart, lonely cop. Very much reminiscent of Jackie Brown.

D&D shared world fiction, which is unusual for me. With the exceptional effort of Salvatore, Cunningham and Weis/Hickman, I'm usually disappointed by the genre. But this Eberron-themed stuff has been pretty good.

"In the Claws of the Tiger," by James Wyatt (nice guy, he signed it for me at GenCon).

"Eberron: Tales of the Last War," anthology. I'm halfway thru. So far, the best story is by Edward Bolme.

I also picked up at the used book store: "Warlocks and Warriors," edited by L.Sprague de Camp; an anthology compiled in 1970 and published by Berkley Medallion. It has short stories by Ray Capella, Lin Carter, Robert E. Howard, Henry Kuttner, Fritz Leiber, C.L. Moore, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, H.G. Wells and Roger Zalazny. It's a treasurehouse of sword'n'sorcery short fiction!

Fiction; am currently reading Bloodwalk; a Forgotten Realms book; and am halfway through and it pretty much sucks; can tell you why if your interested. It is a definate dont recommend.

The Wheel Time books on number 5

Sloop of War by Alexander Kent. Naval fiction set in 1778. Good read so far, esp against the backdrop of the American War of Independence.

I'm currently reading a 1960 paperback called "Planet of Peril," by Otis Adelbert Kline. In his day Kline was seen as the only Edgar Rice Burroughs clone worthy of the master. He discovered Robert E. Howard and acted as his literary agent, and served on the editorial staff of "Weird Tales."

And now he is pretty much forgotten.

--Erik

"Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin. Waiting for arrival of "Meeting at Corvallis" by S.M. Stirling (got it on order from the SciFi book club).

Unfortunately, I have little time for pleasure reading until after October 20th.

Uther by Jack Whyte. Fantastic stuff and an interesting look at Roman-Celtic soldiers as well as the history of the Arthurian legends. Highly recommended for any fantasy lovers although there are precious few fantastic elements. But a great rundown on the life of the soldier at that time.