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My favorite part of the series by quite a lot is THE WASTE LANDS, book #3.Hmmm. Lemme see; I'd probably rate them, in order from favorite to least favorite:
Wizard and Glass - The Gunslinger - The Dark Tower (1st 1/3) - Wolves of the Calla - The Waste Lands - Drawing of the Three - Song of Susannah - The Dark Tower (2nd 2/3). I'm leaving out Wind Through the Keyhole because it's outside the main sequence, but I really liked it a lot.
Regarding the final ending: ** spoiler omitted **
Let's not derail the thread by opening an "ending of the Dark Tower" discussion here, but I'll just say that if the way you accept the ending is denying that it actually happened, that doesn't count for much. Personal opinion and not meant as an insult, of course.
Lately, on this thread, I've been relating my fourth reading of the Dragonlance Chronicles by Weis and Hickman. I mentioned that I inserted "Dragons of Dwarven Depths" into the right point chronologically, reading that one for the second time. As I went on to finish the Chronicles, I reflected that I've read many Dragonlance novels, most of them not worth re-reading, but that I re-read every Dragonlance novel that I particularly liked...
...with one major exception. I enjoyed "The Soulforge" by Margaret Weis, when I read it back in the 1990s. Why did I never re-read THAT one?
I couldn't think of a suitable answer, beyond "I never felt any inclination to do so". So after I polished off the Chronicles trilogy, I bought an old copy of "The Soulforge" - even though there were other Dragonlance books I wanted to read more - and started reading it.
I soon wished I hadn't. Unlike most of the Dragonlance novels, which were adventure stories, "The Soulforge" was more of a character piece. The first half or so of the book had almost no plot.
I stuck with it, though, and I'm now 2 pages away from finishing the thing. A fan of the Dragonlance books can find a few things in the novel making it worth reading... once. We get the story behind the mob that was about to burn Raistlin at the stake. We finally get clarification about Raistlin getting possessed.
But I've never read "Brothers in Arms". I've never heard anything about that book to make me want to read it, so I don't intend to do so now.
Let's not derail the thread by opening an "ending of the Dark Tower" discussion here, but I'll just say that if the way you accept the ending is denying that it actually happened, that doesn't count for much. Personal opinion and not meant as an insult, of course.
1. This is a thing, and one that was lampshaded a number of times previously in the series.
2. It doesn't have to "count" as a canonical event, as long as it allows one to finish the series without undue angst.
Anyway, back to what we're reading. I'm most of the way through Lee Child's new thriller, Personal. I think I have the mystery all figured out now, but I'll wait and see because it's fairly goofy, even though it fits all the facts so far. Then again, the solution to the mystery in the last one, Never Go Back, was even goofier than what I've come up with for this one. They're still incredibly fun to read, and you can even mine them for D&D ideas, if you swap the tech for magic and change the setting.
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I think I am going to start Stephen King's The Shining as my annual October thriller. I was having a conversation with some friends earlier this year, and the subject of favorite King novel came up. A few agreed upon The Shining, and I have somehow never read it, so I suppose that needs to be rectified.Just be warned that there are not many similarities between the Kubrick film and the King novel, if you have seen the former. If not, enjoy!
So I've been told. It's been at least 15 years since I saw the movie, and I have very little recollection of it. As far as I am concerned, it is a clean slate.
Interestingly, switching from Herman Melville to Stephen King, I am amazed at how rapidly I can turn these pages :)
Hah! But did you enjoy Moby at all?
I'm reading Les Miserables for the first time. Man, is it depressing. Nobody ever gets a break. Hugo is brutal to his characters. This is not a book to read when you're feeling down.
War in Tethyr will probably be re-donated to the charity shop. Not too bad, but not worth keeping either. Have a book about the Barbary pirates to look forward to, but am going to get through Three Kingdoms by Lo-Kuan Chung before I start on it.
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman.
Poor Hermie.
He cranked out five best sellers (that hardly anyone reads anymore except, maybe, English grad students) in four years, wrote Moby Dick which failed, hard, wrote six or so more novels in the next five years which nobody bought, gave up writing, and spent the next thirty years as a Customs Inspector.
But at least one of his (kinda) descendents made good.
Eminem doesn't seem to like Moby much. Ain't the whale's fault he's bald.
A tisk-it a task-it, I'll go tit for tat with
Anybody who's talking this shiznit, that shiznit.
Chris Kirkpatrick, you can get your ass kicked
Worse than them little Limp Bizkit bastards
And Moby? You can get stomped by Obie
You 36 year old bald-headed XXX, blow me
You don't know me, you're too old, let go
Its over, nobody listens to techno!
Poetry, I tell you. I think Melville would've approved.
Finished The Alloy of Law and moved on to The Rithmatist. When I have unread Sanderson everything else gets put on pause.
I want to party with anarchists.
I'm game.
I want to party with anarchists.
I'd give you directions to my house, but then you'd find out that some of us are pretty boring. It would ruin the mystique.
I dunno. The only time I've ever seen strippers at a political event was at the Anarchist Bookfair.
Seems to be a lot of anarchism going about at the moment. Maybe it's time to dig out Kropotkin (or dig up Kropotkin, and sell him for parts)
Viva POUM!
[Pedantry]
The POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista) weren't anarchists.
The Agrupacion de los Amigos de Durruti, on the other hand...
Vive le Galt!
What about the Judean People's Front, gobbo?
IIRC, they were Zealots. With a bad position on trans rights.
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What about the Judean People's Front, gobbo?
Judean People's Front? Splitters! They will never be as good as the People's Front of Judea!
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I'm reading Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost. It's slow going. I can't read it before/after I eat because it's about Oxford vivisectionists in the 1660s. Each time I try to describe to my sister what's happening now in the story, she gives me this look that says WTF? Why did you tell me that?
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I also finished L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s The Soprano Sorceress. It wasn't as dull as it was made out to be, but it was not as interesting or exciting as it ought to have been, judging by the title/cover. It's one of those books that just didn't live up to its potential but wasn't frustrating/boring enough for me to not finish reading it.
Things that specifically got on my nerves:
The large cast didn't help round out the world as much as it ought to have. The villains were an ensemble; the BBEG didn't get enough face-time or active moments in the story (except for very early on), which made the plot feel less urgent and disconnected. I don't like it when villains just cackle evilly and scry on people most of the time and then the Mary Sue comes in and wipes them out before we get a chance to really know them.
Finally, one of the characters, Daffyd, who dies in the end with no real payoff, is one of the few Modesitt actually spent a lot of time building up with an interesting background and motivations. I thought his relationship with Anna was actually worth exploring more than it was and I was frustrated that his death didn't lend anything to the story.
I may read the next book in the series, but more likely I won't.
The Regional Branch meeting on "Left-Wing Communism," An Infantile Disorder was nowhere near as painful as I had anticipated, huzzah!!!
Even got to tell a funny story about Louis Fraina that I didn't include above:
Anyway, Louis gets to Moscow, is given a copy of "Left-Wing" and is instantly converted (Comrade Reed, otoh, went down fighting on the IWW question).
At the end of the Congress, he gets sent to Mexico to help build the fledgling Communist Party of Mexico which is mostly made up of ex-anarchists. Louis gets there and the Mexicans are all ultra-lefts. Elections? Trade unions? Let's go blow shiznit up! Viva la revolucion! No, no, no, companeros, here, read this.
Eventually, the Mexican ex-anarchists are like, okay, here's what we do: We pretend to do electoral work, print up some leaflets, write some fake reports, send them along to Comrade Fraina, and, in the meantime, we can keep blowing shiznit up! Huzzah!
Apparently, Comrade Fraina never figured it out.
Ultra-left for life!
In other news, I finally get to start The Knight and Knave of Swords and finish up the saga of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, who definitely are members of the Brotherhood of Inebriated Perverts.
I'm about 1/5 of the way through Simon Morden's Arcanum, and would definitely recommend it based on what I've read so far. I greatly enjoyed Arcanum's cyberpunk books, and Arcanum is similarly intriguing. It's a bit of a slow build at first, but hanging in through the first 50 pages is worth it.
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In other news, I finally get to start The Knight and Knave of Swords and finish up the saga of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, who definitely are members of the Brotherhood of Inebriated Perverts.
Our patron saints, in fact.
Before I read Three Kingdoms, I never realised 'eyebrows like silkworms' could be considered a compliment. The world seems a happier and brighter place now.
On an Angela Carter binge - nearly finished Nights at the Circus and will move onto The Magic Toyshop once I've polished it off. Nights... is the second book of hers to feature group sex with a troupe of Moroccan acrobats. I wonder why?
Read the second book of the Kingkiller Chronicles, The Wise Man's Fear.
I really enjoyed The Name Of The Wind. Sadly the follow up just didn't do as much for me. Kvothe is most definitely the most special of snow flakes, and was from the start, but holy crap this just turned it up to 11. It felt almost like reading fan fiction about the character. Enjoyable, but just felt like it went too far, even for epic fantasy.
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Finished REVELATION SPACE by Alistair Reynolds. Onward to EYE OF THE WORLD (Wheel of Time #1).
Finished REVELATION SPACE by Alistair Reynolds. Onward to EYE OF THE WORLD (Wheel of Time #1).
** spoiler omitted **
Be prepared for a slog like you've never experienced before with the Wheel of Time series.
I gave up around somewhere between books 5 and 7, can't remember which title exactly because I stopped using proper titles and gave them nicknames. I believe the last one I read was "More Subplots Begin", the thrilling sequel to "New Characters Show Up".
I keep thinking I should go back and read the series again now that it's finished, but just can't bring myself to.
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Quote about Eye of the World: Everything is awesome and atmosphere is thick. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, NOTHING HAPPENS!!!
Quote about Eye of the World: Everything is awesome and atmosphere is thick. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, NOTHING HAPPENS!!!
I really liked Eye of the World. I think I picked that up along with The World of the Wheel of Time lore book when I was like 12 or 13 at a bargain bin on a trip to Canberra. Must have re-read that first book so many times before I managed to find a copy of the second one at the library. But I think it says a lot about the series that the book that I'm most likely to read out of the whole series is the lore compendium, because damn it that world building is just fascinating, but I want it to be to the point.
WoT could stand a serious edit. Like pulling about half the pages out of the books at random. I don't mind slow books with lots of extra stuff apart from the main plot going on. It just has to be fun to read.
Yeah I guess the more accurate nicknames for the books would have been things like "More Subplots That You'll Lose Track Of" and "New Characters Show Up, Get One Chapter And You Won't See Them Again Until At Least The Next Book", but they didn't scan so well.
I have no issue with heaps of characters and subplots, but sometimes there's just too much going on and it becomes hard to keep track of.
I'll be curious to see how I go with the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. The first book (which I've just picked up again after a short break to read The Wise Man's Fear) drops you right in the middle of the story with no background, no context, and a lot going on, but I've not had any issues with it so far. It just seems to come together for me.
Tinkergoth is right - the lore book is better than the novels. There was a D20 campaign setting for the WoT too, I think, but I'm pretty sure it's a) out of print and b) damn' pricy if you do happen to find a copy. Will search on Paizo when I can be bothered.
Am reading 'The Airlords of Han' by Philip Francis Nowlan, a '20s sci-fi novel about a 21st century US that has been conquered by Mongolians from outer space after a war with Bolshevik Europe. No actual characters so far - just casual racism and unconvincing techno-warfare, but we'll see. Also restarted 'Pirates of Barbary'. Al-yaar.
Tinkergoth is right - the lore book is better than the novels.
Oooh I never get sick of hearing those first three words :P Sends shivers down my spine every time.
There was a D20 campaign setting for the WoT too, I think, but I'm pretty sure it's a) out of print and b) damn' pricy if you do happen to find a copy. Will search on Paizo when I can be bothered.
I may try and track that down just for my own interest. I doubt I'll ever play it, but I may be able to use bits and pieces of it.
But I've never read "Brothers in Arms". I've never heard anything about that book to make me want to read it, so I don't intend to do so now.
You definitely should! It gives an interesting perspective on Raistlin and Caramon's relationship, and you get a look at 'pleasant Raistlin', at a time when he was enjoying his life. I read it prior to "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" and I think it helped me appreciate the depth of Raistlin's character, instead of just the surly, bitter, power-hungry individual he later becomes. I highly recommend it.
I'm currently reading "Haggopian and Other Stories" by Brian Lumley, a collection of Cthulhu Mythos tales by (in my opinion) the best modern Mythos author.
I'm currently reading "Haggopian and Other Stories" by Brian Lumley, a collection of Cthulhu Mythos tales by (in my opinion) the best modern Mythos author.
Interesting. I've not heard many people with a particularly positive view of Lumley's mythos tales. Quite the opposite in fact, which is why I've avoided him. Out of curiousity, which stories of his would you recommend? The Titus Crow novels are the ones that I normally hear people ranting about.
Finished REVELATION SPACE by Alistair Reynolds. Onward to EYE OF THE WORLD (Wheel of Time #1).
** spoiler omitted **
Be prepared for a slog like you've never experienced before with the Wheel of Time series.
I gave up around somewhere between books 5 and 7, can't remember which title exactly because I stopped using proper titles and gave them nicknames. I believe the last one I read was "More Subplots Begin", the thrilling sequel to "New Characters Show Up".
I keep thinking I should go back and read the series again now that it's finished, but just can't bring myself to.
I suppose I'll be an outlier here and say that yes, there are some serious lulls in the story, but the payoff is well worth it. I enjoyed every book in the series for different reasons. And if you stopped between 5-7, I'd still urge you to at least read the last two for an amazing, IMO, finale.
I've been reading Story Physics, which uses The Hunger Games as an example of outstanding plot construction, so I bought all 3 books in the series and read them yesterday. Though they aren't my favorite books, I can see how the plotting works and works well.
I tried to pick the Sector General series up again, but the dialogue is atrocious. It's like all the characters are competing to be needlessly verbose. It's practically a parody of itself now; every several pages, someone interrupts someone else with a paragraph-long lecture about how he needs to get to the point.
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I've been reading Story Physics, which uses The Hunger Games as an example of outstanding plot construction, so I bought all 3 books in the series and read them yesterday. Though they aren't my favorite books, I can see how the plotting works and works well.
That's the problem with them, you can see the cogs and gears poking out all over the place.
And it is so structurally repetitive.
Tore through Jack Vance's "Joe Bain" mysteries: The Fox Valley Murders, The Pleasant Grove Murders, and the unfinished The Genessee Slough Murders. Really enjoyed them, and sorta wish he'd finished the last one, although from the chronology it appears he left it off to work on the "Tschai" series instead (City of the Chasch, Servants of the Wannek, The Dirdir, The Pnume) -- which is a trade I wouldn't make, so maybe it's the best.
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My next three reads are all things I need to build schemes-of-study for: The Woman In Black, The Sign of Four and Never Let Me Go.
The only one I haven't read before is Never Let Me Go.
Never Let Me Go is such a fun book that I ended up reading it into the wee hours and crying myself to sleep. (Well, I thought it was fun.)
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'Airlords of Han' is turning out to be the first attempt at writing a story by an excitable (and very right-wing) seven year old boy.
Vive le Katniss!
'Airlords of Han' is turning out to be the first attempt at writing a story by an excitable (and very right-wing) seven year old boy.
** spoiler omitted **
Sounds... lovely. Well, kind of how I felt about seeing Eragon.