The Sound and the Fury. Dear lord in heaven, what was I thinking?! I can not understand a blasted thing that is going on.
Soo...poodles and Faulkner don't mix?
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I am currently reading Michael Moorcock's "SOJAN," his very first sword & sorcery/planet character originally published as a serial in "Tarzan Adventures," which he edited in the late 1950s.
In the meantime, I'm also finally reading SATANS ON SATURN, a 5-part serial by Otis Adelbert Kline and E. Hoffmann Price published in Argosy Weekly in 1940. It's taken me 3 years to finally track down all 5 installments, and I'm enjoying the story more than I thought I would.
It does not have the greatest reputation, but since it has never been reprinted most of the people who gave it that reputation are dead, and I'm trying to enjoy it. It's a dumb, fun easy pulpy read with just a touch of racism and American Exceptionalism. With fire-breathing red devil-faced bat-winged Saturnians who harvest humans for food.
Yum!
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I'm eager to hear what you think of Kothar. I read it a while back, and it was better than I expected, with a few really fun moments. Not Robert E. Howard, mind you, but better than I thought it would be.
I just finished up Kothar of the Magic Sword by Gardner F. Fox and I have moved on to Kothar and the Wizard Slayer, also by Gardner F. Fox.
I enjoyed Kothar of the Magic Sword. It was good old fashioned testosterone driven sword and sorcery. It wasn't life changing or earth shattering but it was a lot of fun. If anything, Fox was a very talented story teller. It was the type of fairly lurid stuff that really would have appealed to to me when I was teenager. That being said, it is the fairly lurid stuff that still appeals to me now.
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, the first of The Witcher books which inspired the game a couple of years back.
Soo...poodles and Faulkner don't mix?
No. I would think that they do since I appreciate what he is trying to do and the subtlety of his story telling. I just can not, for the life of me, figure out what is going on. And why does everyone smell like rain?
Currently reading Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, a print compilation of stories from the e-zine of the same name, available at www.hatrack.com, if anyone's interested. I'm really enjoying it so far...
Swords against Death by Fritz Leiber.
Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Really enjoying it.
Just read Storm from the Shadows by David Weber. Unfortunately, the book ends with a cliffhanger ("And in about five weeks, the Manties are going to get a late Christmas present they'll never forget.").
Finished part 3 of Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson a few weeks ago. Solid, but not excellent as the 2 others though. Highly recommended trilogy.
Read it in French, not sure what will be the title in the US, but first and second are The girl with the dragon tattoo (published) and The girl who played with fire (in pre-order on amazon).
I then read Stormqueen from M.Z. Bradley's Darkover sery. Quite satisfying.
Currently finishing Delta Green: Dark Theaters and I enjoy it too.
Don't know for sure what will come next. May be back to my Lovecraft Anthology (incl. contributions from his first half of 20th century friends).
"The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. It starts rather slowly, but I'm about half way through and really enjoying the story.
R. Scott Bakker, "The darkness that comes before". Epic Fantasy - wonder if it can keep it up through the next 1500 pages...
"Stategy and the National Security Professional"
-- it helps if you think international politics as a cool game..
... Few in the United States understand the role and theory of strategy, and fewer still can actually formulate it ... casual use of the term to describe nothing more than "what we would like to do next" is inappropriate and belies the complexits of true strategy formulation ...
-- it helps if you think international politics as a cool game..
I stumbled upon an excerpt on Foreign Policy.
Are you kidding? I am always mining current affairs for plot lines.
Chelsea Cain, "Sweetheart".
Linwood Barclay, "No time for goodbye"
Adam Greenfield, "Everyware; The dawning age of ubiquitous computing"
Currently re-reading the first three books in Greg Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series, starting with The Briar King, so I can finally read the fourth and final volume, The Borne Queen.
Currently reading Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora. I loved Lies but am struggling getting through Red Seas - it's good, just not as much of a page-turner as Lynch's first book.
Currently reading Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora. I loved Lies but am struggling getting through Red Seas - it's good, just not as much of a page-turner as Lynch's first book.
Sequels can have that problem.
Part of it, IMO, is the way publishing works. Authors (especially new ones) usually have to write their first book as a a stand-alone to get accepted by a publisher. It's only after that first book is a success (or if the author has a proven track record of profitability) that the publisher will commit to a series. This tends to result in the second book being used to fill in a bunch of background, side-plots, etc. that wasn't important to the limited storyline of the first book, but is part of the expanded narrative of the series. This, in turn, tends to slow down the pacing of the sequel.
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I was given a £20 Waterstones voucher for my birthday last month. I spent it at the weekend, and after finishing off the last other book in my reading pile, started my new purchase last night.
I can thank James Jacobs, and a few others on these boards for what I acquired. Wandering around a saw a beautiful leather bound, jet black book, and down the side it said "Necronomicon"
"Ohh, I though, Lovecraft...." I put down the other three books I'd picked up, and hefted the weighty tomb that may drive me insane.
It is a truly wonderful book, the paper is heavy, the binding tight, and the cover wickedly intriguing. It contains all of Lovecraft's "Mythos" stories, in the order they were published, along with much else, and just reading a line at random sent shivers down my spine....I only hope I survive the experience.
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In the last week, I finished both Blood Meridian by Cormac Mccarthy and J-Pod by Douglas Coupland. It was interesting to finish both the best written book I've ever had the pleasure of reading (blood meridian) and something that made me spew "what the #### Coupland?!?!" every 3 pages (J-Pod), made even worse by the fact that I really enjoyed Microserfs, which is also by him. So ya. Read Blood Meridian, avoid J-Pod. My suggestions of the week.
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"The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. It starts rather slowly, but I'm about half way through and really enjoying the story.
I just finished it and am excited about the next one coming out soon. I loved his characters and think he's a wonderful storyteller for a first-time writer.
Highly recommended!
BrOp
Continuing with my classics kick, I'm reading Dashiell Hammet's Red Harvest and The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian collection by You-Know-Who.
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Continuing with my classics kick, I'm reading Dashiell Hammet's Red Harvest and The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian collection by You-Know-Who.
Holy crap, I didn't know Voldemort wrote too!
On a more serious note, since I like sci-fi too, a friend of mine recommended Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God’s Eye". Is it worth it? Sometimes he recommends excellent books, some other times I've been bored to death.
... a friend of mine recommended Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God’s Eye". Is it worth it? Sometimes he recommends excellent books, some other times I've been bored to death.
That's a good book, and an excellent morality play on population explosions and resource depletion. It will probably feel a little old-fashioned, as it occurs in a universe where the USSR and the USA have pooled resources to found the Co-Dominion, which then segues into an Imperial government that is very American/Russian influenced, so it has a very SciFi Cold War feel.
Mairkurion{tm}: I just want to let you know I finally got around to reading that book about Richard III's mistress, and I found it very even handed. R III is given a very fair handling, and I enjoyed some of the day-to-day detail the author puts in about the 15th Century.
Right now I just bought an interesting book, purporting to be a history of prehistoric man called After the Ice by Steven Mithen. I just cracked it, but it purports to be half history, half travelogue: Taking the reader into prehistory without it devolving into a dry archaeology discussion.
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Mote in God's Eye is an awesome book. It presents an alternate future for mankind, one where US and Russia set aside their differences to colonize the stars. Hundreds of years later, the Codominium collapses and a new empire is reborn, one that admires the political structure of ancient Sparta.
It also has a sequel called The Gripping Hand.
"The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. It starts rather slowly, but I'm about half way through and really enjoying the story.
I'm about 60 pages in and really liking it so far.
Gave up on Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch - after 200+ pages and still nothing grabbing my interest, I put it aside and picked up The Name of the Wind.
Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind
Also Called Sacajawea by Thomas H. Johnson
Thanks for the update, Patrick!
"The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. It starts rather slowly, but I'm about half way through and really enjoying the story.
I finished this last weekend, and have to add that it was a great read. A few weeks ago, I told a friend that I picked up yet another fantasy story that starts off in a bar, but I had to retract my initial misgivings.
Now off to "All the Pretty Horses" by Cormac McCarthy. I really liked "The Road" so I'm hoping I'll like this too.