Books you're reading now...or then...

[Kalindras]

Just read Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, at the suggestion of a friend. I have to say...


I'm disappointed.


I'm not sure what it is, lately, but in the last few years, I'm finding a lot of authors seem to do great build-ups in the first half of the story, but then it's like either they run out of steam about two-thirds of the way through, they hand off the book to an intern to finish up for them, or they hit the crack-pipe with especial ferocity. Michael Crichton was another one of these...of the books of his that I read (Jurassic Park and Timeline, I was extremely pleased with the initial chapters, wherein he would explain the central technology at the core of the book. Crichton made the science behind the story very accessible to the layman, as well as keeping it grounded enough that you would look at it and say, "Huh...that could work, I guess." Then he'd build up a great story--very rich, very intricate. Then, it was like he got tired of telling the story, and would just sort of throw at dart at his Deus ex Machina board, and wrap it all up in a chapter or two.

Goodkind did the same damned thing!! Four hundred pages of painting a story into a corner, then he seems to have looked down, noticed what he was doing, grumbled, "Well, dang!" and decided to just knock out a straight line to the nearest conclusion he could muster.

The other thing that drove me crazy throughout the book was how he would spend fifty pages and multiple scenes describing the infallibility or inescapability of some magical power or scenario, and then turn around and casually pop off a paragraph somewhere, essentially saying, "...Oh, except in this instance." It's like building a house of cards, so that after thirty or forty courses, you can say, "Ah, I changed my mind," and blow it down in a second.

And, finally, just for the "knife/blade" content...just how many times CAN you have a character block dragon's/wizards fire with a sword, and NOT have it lose its temper?!? I want to know just what the heck they forged that sucker with--a warp core? I know, I know..."It's fantasy." "It's just a book." "You're letting the details ruin that book." "Are you going to complain about that ALL night, or are you going shut up and let me sleep before I pop you one in the pie-hole?"

GAH!!! I'm going back to technical treatises and scientific texts. Maybe the occasional Penthouse Letters column...

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Yah, I hear you on Goodkind, but I liked the book/s until they just kept
going and going and going, I ran out of steam trying to read them all so
I just quit, it was too much, read 4 or 5 of them I think and just quit...
but I did like the initial ones a lot.
G2

 

[markksr]

I just now finished reading Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. A fantastic book which bares only a cursory semblance to the movie (which I might add I also enjoyed). I highly recommend it. :thumbup:

If you liked that (and everyone does), I recommend Armor by John Steakley. Same premise of a man in an invincible suit in armor, but deals more with the psychological aspects of being a lone survivor, when everyone else gets killed.

You're the second person to mention that book, I will have to check it out next. I am reading Asimov's I, Robot now.

 

[Psychopomp]

I'm taking a break in my World War 1 reading for some light reading. Right now I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It's very entertaining and had to put down.

While on vacation last month I picked up a few more WW1 books so I'll get back into that when I'm finished with American Gods. First up is A World Undone by G. J. Meyer, and then World War 1, the African Front, by Edward Paice. It caught my eye because I've read a lot about the Western front, Russia and the south, but not a whole lot about Africa. Should be interesting.

 

[OwenM]

Been re-reading some Haig books(love the Sean Drummond character), Extreme Measures by Vince Flynn, and am about to start David Baldacci's Stone Cold.

 

[OwenM]

'Tis the season to be jolly, indeed!
Just bought Your Heart Belongs To Me, Dean Koontz's latest

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Thanks Owen, might have to grab a copy on my way to FL next week!
G2

 

[lizardman_u]

Just finished Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and wish I had read it 20 years ago.... however in hindsight I probably wouldn't have had the patients to get over the dry spots 20 years ago.

Dave

 

[jawilder]

Just finished Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and wish I had read it 20 years ago.... however in hindsight I probably wouldn't have had the patients to get over the dry spots 20 years ago.

Dave

That was my most recent book too. I was amazed to see some similarities between that book and some current economic/political issues today. Kinda scares me to see what will happen in the future.

This should be a must reed (very long read) for everyone.

 

[jerrinfla]

A seasonal type of thread, one to spark the interests of books we might not
have access to or have heard about.

I've lately been reading a lot of Dean Koontz and on a recent trip to FL I picked
up a nice thick hard back book, not realizing that it was a collection of
short stories, so the read is quick and intersting. and it's a 624 page turner...

It's called Strange Highways link to Amazon's page about it.

So far a nice read, also the Odd Thomas books that Dean Koontz isn't known
for making trilogies/or higher sets of, but this character has his imagination
working overtime and he can't seem to end his tales. Some of the books were
so so, I liked the first one the most and the last one was ok.

Odd Thomas link to Amazon's page about it, ya gotta love a guy that sees Elvis

so, there's quick start, list em' if you've got em'
G2

I've read all of his books except for the newest one and "The Darkest Night". I'm a bit miffed over the plethora of books he's pumped out without completing his Frankenstein trilogy. Some of his books I haven't cared for, but so many of them are so riveting I can't resist giving anything he writes a try. So far my favorite book by Koontz is Intensity, but I am really chomping at the bit waiting for him to finish his darned trilogy.

 

[OwenM]

I'm a bit miffed over the plethora of books he's pumped out without completing his Frankenstein trilogy. Some of his books I haven't cared for, but so many of them are so riveting I can't resist giving anything he writes a try.

Same here on both counts, though the ones I don't like are few and far between. In the back of Book Two: City of Night it says the finale is supposed to come out in the summer of 2006.
Guess it could be worse. My dad wanted to boycott Bernard Cornwell 'til he finished the Starbuck Chronicles(there should have been one more), but now it's been 13 years since the last one...
Your Heart Belongs to Me was something really different. Creepy, but you don't know why. There's just a sense that "something is wrong with this picture". Right about the time your subconscious starts putting things together, he devotes a few paragraphs to a book by a character discussing underlying subtext that makes you want to start over from the beginning to see what you've missed-then the surprise is almost anticlimactic because part of you was kind of on to it. It wasn't very exciting as far as Koontz books go, but genius in its own way, I suppose. Guess I have to read it again now.

 

[cash2006]

Flynn, Thor and Lee Child are similar and great
The Road did not appeal to me

the Armor rec reminded me of Simon Greene- sf but plenty of british humor an loads of fun violence

Which reminds me of Jim Butcher and the dresden books.

Merry Chrismas all!

 

[jerrinfla]

Same here on both counts, though the ones I don't like are few and far between. In the back of Book Two: City of Night it says the finale is supposed to come out in the summer of 2006.
Guess it could be worse. My dad wanted to boycott Bernard Cornwell 'til he finished the Starbuck Chronicles(there should have been one more), but now it's been 13 years since the last one... .

Well, I hope I live long enough to read the 3rd Frankenstein book. 13 years ..... yikes! lol
I've gotten caught up in a lot of "series" type novels:

F. Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack" series, which back in 1984 without really losing any momentum. Jack doesn't fix appliance, he fixes problems that often are unwordly problems.

Kim Harrison's fantsy series about a female witch/bounty hunter/investigator (Rachel Morgan) whose partners include a female vampire and a pixie. That's a fairly new one, a 6th book is due out in I think February of 2009. For me, her books are like potato chips. I bought the second book in the series in a used book store near me for a dollar and wound up hunting the other 4 either in used bookstores here or from Amazon.com. This seemed to be a really unique character to me, but between her last novel and the one due out next year, I picked up a few by the extremely prolific writer Laurell K. Hamilton, who does an Anita Blake - Vampre Hunter series and now I'm about halfway through the 16 or so books that series is up to as well. It's sort of a similiar theme.

Someone else mentioned Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child in this thread. I just started the newest one they have out, "The Wheel Of Darkness". I thinks this is a continuation of their FBI Agent Pendergast series that started with "The Relic." Besides this series, they've written quite a few books together & also individually.

 

[lizardman_u]

I finished Atlas Shrugged a month ago, and wish I had read it 20 years earlier (but I may not have had the attention span to weather the dry parts 20 years ago), and before that I read the bible cover to cover both old and new testiments.

Dave

 

[Grim/Don]

F. Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack" series, which back in 1984 without really losing any momentum. Jack doesn't fix appliance, he fixes problems that often are unwordly problems.

Just read the last two RJ books to come out; found out I'd missed the one right before that. Any of them are highly recommended, but they follow chronologically; so you're better starting at the 1st.

Read Twilight the other day. Not bad if you can stand the teen/female/romance thing. Got the 2nd one on reserve at the library.

Currently re-reading the E.E. (Doc) Smith Galactic Patrol/Lensman series :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[c00per]

Read Twilight the other day. Not bad if you can stand the teen/female/romance thing. Got the 2nd one on reserve at the library.

I refuse to be a part of the current Twilight fad It sounds like its a book for highschool kids.
Am I missing something here? I mean, a vampire story set around kids at school? With added highschool drama? It hardly sounds like a basis for good literature, it just doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. I honestly want to know what I'm missing, I mean it must be quite good if you reserved the second copy at the local library, so what is it about it that you liked?

 

[jerrinfla]

I refuse to be a part of the current Twilight fad It sounds like its a book for highschool kids.
Am I missing something here? I mean, a vampire story set around kids at school? With added highschool drama? It hardly sounds like a basis for good literature, it just doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. I honestly want to know what I'm missing, I mean it must be quite good if you reserved the second copy at the local library, so what is it about it that you liked?

I haven't read anything from the current twilight fad, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the talent and imagination of the writer. Take for example Crichton's "Airframe". A novel about the investigation of a plane crash? The flyleaf description did not lead me whatsoever to buy the book, but I really do like his novels. So between that and the fact that I bought it used for a buck, I bought it and wound up riveted, finishing it in 2-3 days.
Some premises sound lame and uninteresting, but the right execution by the right author can really draw you in. Of course that is obviously a matter of personal taste. I've never been tempted to read a Harry Potter novel, but I found the movies to be rather entertaining.

 

[cmdionne]

I saw eaters of the dead mentioned twice here, and if you've already read the book, why not read the work its based on "Beowulf". Its actually a funny story, I had to read Beowulf in an english class in highschool, and while staying with my grandparents down in Texas, I picked up Eaters of the Dead at the library. The whole time I read it I was angry because it was a rip off of Beowulf. It was not until the end that Crichton admitted that it was based on Beowulf. I wished I had known this to start with, because the whole time I thought that Crichton was ripping of a great piece of literature.

/rant off

 

[jerrinfla]

Just read the last two RJ books to come out; found out I'd missed the one right before that. Any of them are highly recommended, but they follow chronologically; so you're better starting at the 1st.

Read Twilight the other day. Not bad if you can stand the teen/female/romance thing. Got the 2nd one on reserve at the library.

Currently re-reading the E.E. (Doc) Smith Galactic Patrol/Lensman series :thumbup::thumbup:

It seems like any of the series type novels are much better when they are read in order. They usually seem to work well as standalone novels, but most of the time there is also a back story working that you miss if you skip a few.
After reading Kim Harrison and Laurel K Hamilton, I might be tempted to look for Twilight now, but I've got an awful lot of books to work through here before I start running out of something to read.
Hey, one I'd recommend highly to you if you can find one (it's long out of print) is a werewolf book by John Skipp and Craig Spector named "Animals". I don't care that much for anything else they've written, but I've kept that book for a re-read in a year or two.

 

[jerrinfla]

Just read the last two RJ books to come out; found out I'd missed the one right before that. Any of them are highly recommended, but they follow chronologically; so you're better starting at the 1st.

Last one I read is "Harbingers". I've read them all since "The Tomb" and I am astonished that Wilson can keep the storyline going for so long with so many twists and turns. Of course, I might just be easily amused. lol