What was the last book you read? Post about it here.
I just finished Shadowrun #4 - Drops of Corruption (from the recent line of SR novels). I really enjoyed #1-#3, but #4 is a bit harder pill to swallow. First of all, 1-3 were a trilogy and all involved mostly the same characters. #4 has a couple of cameos from a few of the characters I liked in 1-3, and one character that I didn't like so well in 1-3 plays a more central role in #4. So I guess it was a bit frustrating at first not having all my "friends" from the series in it.
The plot in #4 however, I thought was very well done, if a tad slow moving. I can see why he did it the way he did, however. It involves the mafia, and one character who was basically a good person slowly getting trapped into working for the mob and how they hooked him in. There are a lot of nasty characters in this book as one might expect from a book dealing with organized crime. Even the main character, who was as I said essentially good, was hard to like for other reasons I can't get into without spoilers. So having a cast of essentially unlikable characters didn't help my enjoyment of the story too much either.
But as I said the plot was well done, and in the end, a rewarding story that actually did have a "lesson" or whatever. There were some really cool scenes in the book, and overall I felt this was a book worth reading especially for Shadowrun enthusiasts like myself. Not my favorite in the series, but I did end up enjoying it, even though it was a slow read for me and I set it down several times before I finally got into it.
This is not a novel I can heartily recommend to anyone. If you enjoy books about organized crime, this book might be for you, with the caveat that it is completely fictional and not all that realistic, plus set in a fantasy future. If you like Shadowrun, this book is definitely worth picking up for a couple of reasons. First, it's a good in depth look at how the mafia in Seattle operates, and secondly it involves a bit of Tir Tairngire, which was interesting, and of a mage who has "burnt out" so you kind of get a feel for how that would work. This book is not a "fan fiction" work, the writing is good quality writing, but the subject matter is such that essentially it will appeal to a limited set of eyes.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I'm out of town for the weekend and reading this one is a rush with the increased reading time. I see a lot of my own weakness in the narrator, watching him grow into a man, haunted by his past. I loved his father, Baba. It was awesome when he stood up against the Russians, risking everything to stand up for a stranger. How rare is that? Anyway, it's a wonderful read and had me reading up on Afganistan last night.
I also stopped in at Books-A-Million this afternoon and picked up Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. My Moms recently started me on an early birthday present--she subscribed to a nice set of leatherbound books, the "100 greatest novels of all time," and the first book was Huckleberry Finn. I've not read much Twain, but it seemed like a good time to start.
Finished The Dark Tower III -- The Wastelands by Stephen King this weekend. Won't start #4 until my next break in classes. Pretty good read although it didn't hold me like the first two. I banged through the first 200 pages in one reading a few weeks back and then found myself just putting the book down without that much motivation to pick it up again although when I did, I enjoyed it. Because of that, I would rank it slightly behind the first 2 books which I enjoyed equally as much.
Lovecraft is awesome. Check out The Horror of Dunwich, Shadows Over Insmouth, The Hunter In the Darkness, Whisperer In Darkness, The Witch House, Pickman's Model, ah hell just read all of them.
sgtshaggy wrote: > I was the same way with The Wastelands. It died on me (again)
> about midway...
>
> shags
>
>
I had no trouble getting through The Wastelands... the only one I've had trouble motivating myself to continue on with was The Gunslinger. The first half of that book is boring.
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virtuadept wrote: > Lovecraft is awesome. Check out The Horror of Dunwich, Shadows Over
> Insmouth, The Hunter In the Darkness, Whisperer In Darkness, The Witch
> House, Pickman's Model, ah hell just read all of them.
Reading The Corporation at the moment - I needed a break - but will return to Lovecraft soon after!
#530 posted July 4, 2008 at 1:00pm (EST) edited July 4, 2008 at 1:00pm (EST)
DR_SPOCK wrote: > HP Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness, Call of Cthulhu, Dagon,
> The Nameless City, The Hound, The Festival.
>
> Thoroughly engrossing literature. Love it.
>
>
Do you guys know of a Lovecraft collection that's pretty good? I was looking for one at my local bookstores and online, not sure which is worth getting.
"a woman that's not a veternarian knows mroe crap about dogs than I do!"
Just finished The Fellowship of the Ring for like the fifth time. Started The Two Towers for like the fifth time shortly after. Return of the King for like the fifth time will surely follow.
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The Hobbit-10/10-Wow, that's really all I can say. My first Tolkien experience through reading. Not really sure if a movie of this is possible, it would have to be absolutley perfect in every way. I never wanted a single chapter to end.
How do you guys read other adventure/fantasy books? Are there really books better written than this? I just feel like I will be dissapointed from everything else.
SmarmySir wrote: > Just finished The Fellowship of the Ring for like the fifth
> time. Started The Two Towers for like the fifth time shortly
> after. Return of the King for like the fifth time will
> surely follow.
>
I've started Return of the King twice and failed to complete it twice. It was one oe of those, like the wastelands, I put it down and never bothered to pick it up again. Fellowship and Two Towers were great though.
Return of the King can be a bit of a chore at times, but they can't all be The Two Towers (or The Empire Strikes Back, etc). I love it all, however.
Jeffro... you ain't lyin' son. Read The LotR trilogy next if you're not burned out on Tolkien. It's amazing, and the movies did a decent job at capturing the books on film. There's a Hobbit movie in the works... I hope it works as well.
Read The Belgariad by David Eddings. Though maybe not on the same scale of Tolkien's work, it's still quite well done and enjoyable.
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The Road by Cormac McCarthy - I wholly enjoyed this short, poetic novel. There are so many beautiful, haunting strokes of brilliance in his prose, I know I'll be reading it again.
Feeb wrote: > DR_SPOCK wrote: >> HP Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness, Call of Cthulhu, Dagon,
>> The Nameless City, The Hound, The Festival.
>>
>> Thoroughly engrossing literature. Love it.
>>
>>
>
> Do you guys know of a Lovecraft collection that's pretty good? I was
> looking for one at my local bookstores and online, not sure which
> is worth getting.
I'm new to Lovecraft, but I've heard that the Library of America collection is the best on the market.
#540 posted July 14, 2008 at 5:36am (EST) edited July 14, 2008 at 5:36am (EST)
I've found myself with loads of free time during the past couple weeks, which I've spent with a a few books (some listed above) and a Gamecube.
HP Lovecraft - The Dunwich Horror
My least favorite Lovecraft story thus far. Enjoyable up until the end, at which point it feels like a bad horror movie.
Old men clambering up a mountain to cast a spell on an invisible elephant-sized monster that can only be seen when sprayed, the vision of which serves no purpose but to horrify? Pass.
Edgar Allen Poe - The Fall of the House of Usher, The Gold Bug, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Masque of Red Death, et al.
Going straight from Lovecraft to his predecessors. Lovecraft does a better job of creating a profound, climatic sense of dread, but Poe can create an atmosphere that leaves an undeniably strong impression upon the reader. I prefer the former, but am enjoying this brief foray into Poe's more celebrated pieces (particularly The Tell-Tale heart).
#542 posted July 14, 2008 at 2:42pm (EST) edited July 14, 2008 at 2:43pm (EST)
You can download most (all?) Lovecraft stories online too. They are in the public domain now because they are so old. For example: http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/ (though, you can get etexts of his works from many other places too. -- I like http://www.feedbooks.com/ which has them in Kindle format and pdf).
I've been reading Lovecraft stories in between other stuff (novels). I'm about 3/4 through the LoA book now, I think. I read "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" most recently. I thought it was one of his better stories.
I've also been reading the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. They are also in the public domain and available for free download. They are great little fantasy adventure stories. Again, nice to read in between novels for fun. Howard and Lovecraft were actually friends. Howard even wrote a story or two in Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. I haven't read it yet, but I'm planning to eventually.
Currently, I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It's a big book, for me. But, it's not hard to read. It's just going to take me months to finish it. I've been reading a lot of classics recently. Partly because I can download them for free and partly because I'm getting old and I feel like I should read some of these. Mostly, they've been really good.
sgtshaggy wrote: > ndrake wrote: >
>> The Happiest Days of Our Lives - Wil Wheaton
>
> I just watched Stand By Me. Never read anything by Wheaton, though.
> Any good?
>
> shags
>
>
Extremely good. Stories about growing up a geek, being a step-dad, his time on Star Trek: TNG. He's a great story teller.
He also has a great blog. A lot of the stories in the books were actually taken from the Blog. So, if you read the blog, you can get a good idea for what he's all about.
sandpaperback wrote: > Please provide a more detailed review of the Kindle. I really love
> the looks of the ebook readers, but they're a big hit on the wallet.
I don't have a Kindle, but a Sony Reader (PRS-500). It is the best thing ever! The e-ink display is very nice. Way better than trying to read off an LCD display. Battery life is excellent. Great for vacations as you can carry tons of books in the size of on thin hardback.
Downsides:
o Sony store ebook prices are kinda crappy (at least for new releases)
o Price of the hardware (I only got the Sony because I was able to get it for $60 when signing up for a Sony credit card)
Yeah, I love my Kindle. I assume it's pretty similar to the Sony. I think they have the same e-ink display, which looks great.
I agree, it costs too much. I got it as a gift. I don't know if I would have paid for it myself, probably not. I assume the price will come down eventually.
The various features the kindle has and the scroll wheel and such are nothing great per se. The e-ink display is very nice, though. I love reading on it.
I'm a long time Amazon customer, so it's nice using their store to buy books. Though, mostly I've been downloading free classics and such.
The selection of books available is somewhat limited too.
> Extremely good. Stories about growing up a geek, being a step-dad,
> his time on Star Trek: TNG. He's a great story teller.
>
> He has three books out:
>
> Dancing Barefoot > > Just a Geek
> The Happiest
> Days of Our Lives
>
> He also has a great blog.
> A lot of the stories in the books were actually taken from the Blog.
> So, if you read the blog, you can get a good idea for what he's all
> about.
>
> Highly recommended.
Sounds like some reading I might enjoy, I may pick up Dancing Barefoot.
It's funny you posted just today about reading one of his books. The wife remarked while we were watching Stand By Me: "What ever happened to Wil Wheaton?" Now I know .
ndrake wrote: >
> You may be able to play with the Sony Reader in real life at Borders
> bookstores.
Thank you both.
I have seen the Sony at Borders and played with it a bit. Maybe it's because it's a floor model and gets a lot of use, but there definitely seems to be some burn in on the screen. The Kindle's wifi connection is appealing, as well as the newspaper and magazine subscriptions.
sandpaperback wrote: > ndrake wrote: > |>
>> You may be able to play with the Sony Reader in real life at Borders
>> bookstores.
>
> Thank you both.
>
> I have seen the Sony at Borders and played with it a bit. Maybe it's
> because it's a floor model and gets a lot of use, but there definitely
> seems to be some burn in on the screen. The Kindle's wifi connection
> is appealing, as well as the newspaper and magazine subscriptions.
It isn't actually burn in, but there is some ghosting with the e-ink. It usually goes away after a page turn or two.
#555 posted July 18, 2008 at 10:37pm (EST) edited July 18, 2008 at 10:37pm (EST)
Watchmen by Alan Moore - Lauded by many as one of if not the best graphic novel ever written, I had extremely high expectations when picking this one up for the first time. I had already read and greatly enjoyed Moore's V for Vendetta so I was familiar with his writing style. The Watchmen is a graphic novel that takes hours and hours to finish. I probably spent close to 4 or 5 hours with this book all in all. There are usually 9 panels per page, and a LOT of text on each page. The art work is very good to excellent. The panels are a bit too small, so if you can afford it, spring for the deluxe "Absolute" version of this that is coming soon in hard back, because the pictures will be bigger and there is a lot of detail in each panel that adds to the story if you pay attention. All in all I have to say this book was a bit too grim for my tastes. I preferred V for Vendetta, which while grim, at least left you feeling like there was some kind of hope for a better future, somehow. Moore must be one of the biggest pessimists of our time. However, the writing is superb, the story is not terribly predictable and has a lot of cool twists throughout, and the characters are amazingly well done. You've never seen superheros quite as realistically portrayed as this with regards to their psychologies and what kind of a person would become a superhero. This really is a must-read for anyone remotely interested in comics and especially superhero comics. Even if you have no interest in superheroes at all, this book stands out above all the rest and takes things to a different level that it's worth a look. 9/10
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - I can't believe it took me almost 36 years to get around to reading this in its entirety. Wonderful little novel. I'm reading Huckleberry Finn now and loving it even more. I also read the few articles in a recent Time about Mark Twain today, even added a Mark Twain avatar, lol. Lookin' forward to reading more.
Mark Twain is one of my favorite authors, and one who had a career that I'd die to have. He started penning these stories in his newspaper about anything and whatever at a young age while working various jobs, and after a while various publications were paying him to travel the world and write funny anecdotes about what he saw -- or to essentially be Mark Twain.
You should read The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, and/or A Tramp Abroad to see for yourself what I mean.
#558 posted July 19, 2008 at 7:35pm (EST) edited July 19, 2008 at 7:50pm (EST)
el_hefe wrote:
> Mark Twain is one of my favorite authors, and one who had a career
> that I'd die to have.
Agreed. There was a world map in the Time magazine article linking his various travels to the different books he wrote about them in different colored Indiana Jones dotted lines. Mark Twain is one of those people who makes you wish you were someone else instead of the married responsible guy with no time for steamboats, Europe and such.
> You should read The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, and/or
> A Tramp Abroad to see for yourself what I mean.
I used to take trips along the Kanawha River on the P.A. Denny when I was a kid. Loved it. Never thought about it, but it may have led to me joining the Navy. Spending 4 years on a Spruance-class destroyer is a far cry from any considerable time on a steamboat, I'm sure, but it was good times...and bad. I love being out to sea.
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