For the Love of Books!: Looking for a good read?

[Smooth Criminal]

I agree with you on Fables, Lyth. It's kinda like how I feel about Vertigo's Sandman: Neil Gaiman's early run with that series was ****ing awesome, but when he jumped ship to do other things it went downhill really quickly. I can't remember the core writers for the some of the earlier stories for Fables but they really did good.

(Supposedly, Gaiman's returned to his brainchild and has been shelling out the awesome again. I've yet to read it.)

If you read Walking Dead for any reason at all, just read it for the characters. They're fleshed-out well.

Y: The Last Man is good but it's predictable. You'd have to read it to figure out what I mean by that 'cause I don't wanna spoil anything relating to the overreaching plot.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Lythium]

Hmm, good to know! Thanks, Smoove. :3c

 

[Requiem]

Finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin last night, I really liked it, though I feel there might have been a bit too much fluff in it.

Watchmen is really good, I second that. I also really enjoy Fables, but I find that I'm not enjoying some of the later issues as much as the previous ones.

I haven't read Walking Dead yet, but I'm getting kinda bored of vampires and zombies and stuff like that. Eventually.

I really want to read Y: The Last Man though.

I don't care about zombies, but Walking Dead is really really good.

I always enjoyed Broken Saints as a visual novel.

 

[Orboknown]

im reading Nietzsche now.almost done with the birth of tragedy.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

im reading Nietzsche now.almost done with the birth of tragedy.

Good ****.

Read Thus Spoke Zarathustra if you can. So good.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Orboknown]

ill do so soon.
this is a five in one thing.
The birth of tragedy, beyond good and evil, on the geneology of morals, the case of wagner, and ecce homo.

 

[Sucumbio]

The Wicked Years

SO I just finished the second book in this 4-book series by Gregory Maguire. Has anyone else read Wicked, or any of it's sequels? If so, what did you think?

 

[Lythium]

I read Wicked, but that's it.

I thought it was okay. I wasn't really into it.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I read Wicked, but that's it.

I thought it was okay. I wasn't really into it.

Same.

I did chuckle at the

Spoiler

glass blowing sex scene,

though.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Sucumbio]

LOL yeah. Actually that's probably the only thing I found a little... off about his writing - I've been trying to chalk it up to "well that's just modern writing for you" but I think it becomes a bit much in some of the scenes, and of course he's toned it down pretty far by the second book.

 

[Orboknown]

ok,started reading Zarathustra last week and it just..mind=blown

 

[Smooth Criminal]

ok,started reading Zarathustra last week and it just..mind=blown

<33333333

It's good, ain't it?

Smooth Criminal

 

[Orboknown]

IT REALLY IS.
except i dont understand half of it.

 

[Jim Morrison]

The Alchemy of Desire;

Anyone read it?

 

[Orboknown]

just need to read zarathustra pt 4 now,but i dont think ill get to it till after the school holiday is over.__.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Sorry for the necro, but I decided to to a dive (pun intended) into moby ****.

There's really one main problem about it that will probably one of the biggest deciding factors. Harman Melville is a fantastic author, and it really shows when he is concentrating on the story. However, for every chapter there is that pertains to the story, there are roughly 2-3 chapters that do not. Rather, they are almost nonfiction, dealing with things such as "The whale as a dish," "Different types of whales," and "whales in paintings." Though this might help your reading, the sheer mass of the extra information makes this, at the very least, a grueling read.

Also, he namechecks everything from Daniel Boone to the Bible.

 

[Lythium]

It's a typical format for novels of that era. Les Misérables has the same sort of thing going for it. Oh look, Jean Valjean is running through the sewers in Paris, so now you must be interested in French sewers, so we're going to have ten chapters about sewers! Hooray!

Makes for a difficult read though.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Tolkien did the same exact thing for the entire Lord of the Rings series. We're going to introduce the Hobbits, right? Oh look, twelve ****ing pages of tangent unrelated to the story of why a Hobbit's foot is hairy. You want your reader to be engaged, yeah, and maybe you wanna have them learn something about wherever or whatever you're writing, but don't lose sight of the damn story in the process. The characters and the struggles that they're embroiled in are infinitely more appealing than the minutiae of their environs; it has to be, after all. The whole point of a book (in most cases) is to resolve the characters' conflict; you can't really have a story without anything to propel it forward.

I know that some people dig that kind of style, and I know that in some cases that is a plausible technique (how else could you learn about Middle Earth in some cases? It doesn't exist in real life), but it's fuggin' annoying to me considering that a good portion of writers know how to weave in that sort of extraneous detail seamlessly into the story without impacting its pacing.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Virgilijus]

I think people exaggerate the tangents in Lord of the Rings. Yes, there is more singing that most would like, but in terms of detail he doesn't really overindulge in my opinion.

 

[Lore]

I agree, Virg.

Now the Inheritance Cycle... Bad writing and too much detail doesn't mix.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I think people exaggerate the tangents in Lord of the Rings. Yes, there is more singing that most would like, but in terms of detail he doesn't really overindulge in my opinion.

But why backtrack at all to explain something that isn't pertinent to the story at hand? I guess I'm just not a big fan of that style.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Virgilijus]

The reason he explains things is because the books were part of a mythology he was creating. England didn't really have a mythology like the Greeks or Nords and he took it upon himself to create that fictional universe and populate it and tell his stories. When he mentions a rivers name it's because, elsewhere in the mythology, that river was the scene for some other encounter or act. He doesn't go into full detail then and there (letting the reader take their time and find out about them in the Silmarillion or the Children of Hurin or Other Tales), but just lets you know 'The world is larger than just this story' and it truly is.

 

[Virgilijus]

I agree, Virg.

Now the Inheritance Cycle... Bad writing and too much detail doesn't mix.

Holy crap, stop agreeing with everything everyone one says ever

 

[GoldShadow]

As much as I dislike the amount of time spent world building in The Lord of the Rings, I rather enjoyed the sidebars in Moby-****. It gave the experience of reading a more authentic feel. Maybe it's also partly because I'm willing to forgive tangents and sidebars in older novels than I am in more recently published fiction.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Well, yeah. I cited that bit earlier on in my posts. How else can you learn about Middle Earth if there's nothing equivalent to it? Really, my statement was more rhetorical than anything, Virg. I just don't enjoy those kinds of asides all that much. To me, it felt like the narrative was more focused on building up an entire world and mythology in certain areas rather than on building up the characters themselves (though I won't deny that a good portion of it does tie-tin and is not mutually exclusive).

I guess it's just a product of the times, because plenty of other authors in the future eras managed to talk about their worlds and their stories simultaneously. Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant does a really good job of this. In that series you get a sense of the world's scope and breadth through the eyes of the titular character; you learn as he does about the Land that he was whisked away to, and it always relates to the overreaching story in some way. It never feels like Donaldson had to put in stopgaps in the narrative to mention something here or there; it flowed seamlessly and (mostly) in dialogue. Most importantly of all, you never lost sight of the character Donaldson was focused on writing, something I felt quite often when I was reading Lord of the Rings.

Like I said, it's just my opinion. I have a lot of respect for Tolkien because if it wasn't for him, a lot of the books that I read nowadays wouldn't be possible. He grandfathered modern fantasy and Middle Earth is an amazing setting even to this day. I just couldn't get into the stories that he wrote within his worlds.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Lore]

Holy crap, stop agreeing with everything everyone one says ever

I agree, I should stop.

All jokes aside, though, I do enjoy the world building in LoTR. I'm a huge world building/lore nut, as seen by my reading of way too many books in skyrim and morrowind.. It's also why I enjoyed the "boring" parts of The Wise Man's Fear.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

All jokes aside, though, I do enjoy the world building in LoTR. I'm a huge world building/lore nut, as seen by my reading of way too many books in skyrim and morrowind.. It's also why I enjoyed the "boring" parts of The Wise Man's Fear.

Okay, people are effing nuts if they think the lore-building parts of The Kingkiller Chronicles are boring. /fanboy

Seriously, though. I enjoyed those parts too. I didn't feel like they detracted from the overall story. Instead, I felt it just added on to what was there because it didn't happen every other chapter. It had its place.

Smooth Criminal

 

[NegativeZero]

I'm a fan of Rick Riordan's "mythological updates" as I like to call them. It's because of Rick that I got back into reading. I wonder if Pit reads Percy Jackson?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Forgot to mention that I finished reading a book in Wilbur Smith's long running Courtney Saga, Assegai. It's good stuff, but you really gotta have the stomach for the sometimes really dry tone of the narrative. Smith does a great job putting together a scene; his choice of language is oftentimes technical, seldom mincing words and putting a decidedly "no frills" environment in your head. Even then, Nothern Africa is a wondrous and beautiful place as told through Smith, from its teeming and myriad forms of wildlife to its mountains.

I was also impressed with his depiction of the early 1900's in Africa. It was colorful mileu of events and people (Teddy Roosevelt essentially guest stars at one point), woven together in the background of the main story with adroitness. The stage was set for WWI; even in colonial Africa the tension from that impending conflict was felt and in later parts of the book, it reflected on that. I also enjoyed the parts with the natives, especially the Morai; their culture is fascinating.

About the story itself? I'll be brief, 'cause spoilers suck: It was passable. If I had to describe it without giving anything away outside of the summary on the inside jacket or back cover, I'd say it was probably the most visceral (and sometimes gory) Hallmark story I've stumbled across. Lol. Y'know, those made-for-TV jobbies dealing set in the environs of a far off place or time with indigenous people...? Yeaaah. Plenty of moments that you'd see in those kinds of movies strewn throughout, only painted in that literal and succinct tone of the author (timely rescues, oopsies, the soothsayer that foreshadows crucial events in prophecy, and the like). I liked the main character throughout the entire book, up until his love interest was introduced (towards the end of the book, mind you). Then I facepalmed for the rest of my time reading 'cause it was the kinda romance that you'd find (again) in a Hallmark movie, all starry-eyed and far-flung. It really, really felt rushed for me; I didn't really get a sense of development.

tl;dr it was good, but not for everybody. xD

Smooth Criminal

 

[Mota]

Started reading the Hunger Games books, after all the hype with the movie coming out. The movie got good reviews as well.

It was a decent, nothing special. The story is pretty predicatable. I know I shouldnt compare it to other books, but Harry Potter is just better written and with a more engaging story.

After the first Hunger Games book, the story takes a turn for the worse, almost feels forced and out of place.

Bought Catcher In the Rye to read, I've been telling myself to read this for years but never got round to it.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Hunger games really start to decline after the first.

So I started to read "What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng," and could not finish it. The first person view is one of the clumsiest I have ever read, with frequent use of the word "I". Though books such a Moby **** can make a first-person view seem alive, this one failed at it, with many sentences like "I did X." I try to drag myself through it, but reading it was like trying to swallow a brick.

 

[Lythium]

"What is the What" is a Dave Eggers book, correct? I find a lot of his stuff pretty try hard to be pretentious. It's less prevalent in his short stories though.

Yeah, I agree with that assessment of the Hunger Games series. The first book was alright, but starting going downhill about halfway through. The other two were terrible imo.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I'm starting on Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Probably should have started off with Cryptonomicon or one of his other more well-known books, but nevertheless I'm diving head-first into this one.

So far it's...weird, to say the least. I'm finding myself pausing at the end of each page I read to figure out the Earth-ly equivalent to whatever word or item that's being used in the story. I'm used to books sort of spoon-feeding me the lexicon of a setting as the story unfolds; Stephenson apparently expects the reader to actually speculate and guess at it, as it's part of the point of the book. Or at least that's the impression I got from reading the foreword...I dunno.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Lythium]

Part of me wants to like his stuff, but I find Neal Stephenson to be a bit too... cutesy. For lack of a better word.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Part of me wants to like his stuff, but I find Neal Stephenson to be a bit too... cutesy. For lack of a better word.

Cutesy? Would you mind explaining this to me, Lyth?

I am curious.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Lythium]

Well, I've only read a couple short stories of his, but I feel like he tries really hard to be cute. Like, I'm so witty and clever, look at me.

Not that it's necessarily a bad thing. It's just a little tiresome when it gets overused.

edit: The sarcastic version of cute, I guess.

 

[Muhti]

i have 2 book suggestions that many people don't know about:
1. The immortal secrets of Nicholas Flamel
2. Scavenger
Great books.

 

[Mischief_Maker92]

For anyone interested in some great wrestling autobiographies, i suggest any of Mick Foley's books, as well as Bret Hart's and Hulk Hogan's books. I also picked up a copy of Chyna's autobiography really cheap, but I haven't read that yet.

 

[Vinylic.]

Felt like this was the right place to post. Deadmau5 made a song inspired by this short story made by Ray Bradbury.

The Veldt:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~csigler/PDF files/bradbury_veldt.pdf

Anyone read this before?

====

Music link here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=14436893&postcount=149

 

[Lythium]

I've read it for school twice.