[Falco]

Sir Thursday;143671 said:

although at times I found it a tad self indulgent (what with those excerpts at the start of every chapter telling you how great the author is)

I bought a reprint, in which the authors acknowledged that and removed those and put the whole article in the back of the book along with a bunch of columns they wrote and extracts from their blog.

[Messremb]

SE - The Bonehunters

(wandered into a shop and saw a second-hand one for £1.50 so had to finally get it. p234 at the moment.)

[Kallor]

i am reading, for the umm, 4th (or 5th) time, 'Locksley' by Nicholas Chase. It's an autobiography of robin hood. i mean this baby's so tattered that pages are taped in (as most everyone i know has read it), but what a great, effortless read.

'the Knights of the Black and White' was okay; if you're a whyte fan then by all means, but i have to say that it read more like a history text than a novel. ended great though; the last third of the book was worth waiting for.

i have tried reading mielville time and again, without any success whatsoever, but SE reads him.

[councilor]

i'm reading 'the god delusion'. partly because i think it could be inrtersting, and partly because i want to bug my religious friends - i'm a rabble rouser...

also working on some books by Ian M Banks - currently on inversions...

[ChrisW]

i have tried reading mielville time and again, without any success whatsoever, but SE reads him.

Well there's a good reason not to read him.

Currently reading Hood by Lawhead.

[Tiste Simeon]

Kallor said:

i have tried reading mielville time and again, without any success whatsoever, but SE reads him.

China Mieville is OK. I read "The Scar" and it was getting really good for a while. Then the ending happened and I was like "that was a waste of time!"

Memories of Ice. Love it more and more each time!

[Murrin]

Tiste Simeon;144504 said:

China Mieville is OK. I read "The Scar" and it was getting really good for a while. Then the ending happened and I was like "that was a waste of time!"

The journey is more important than the destination. Especially true when it comes to reading. It's not about the ending.

[Falco]

'Hallowed Hunt' by Lois McMaster Bujold. Pretty good so far...

[Astra]

Murrin;144558 said:

The journey is more important than the destination. Especially true when it comes to reading. It's not about the ending.

Do you mean in this particular book or in a literature as a whole?

[Murrin]

As a whole.

[Astra]

Probably it is very personally.

For me the ending is as important as the journey itself.
For example one of the last books by Dean Koontz - The Face. The book was quite interesting but when I arrived to the end and finished it....I thought: what a wate of my time. The ending was so dull and uninteresting that it was not worth to read a whole book to arrive to such stupid ending. It is just an example. I personally, require a quality ending, on the par with a journey
Maybe I am too demanding? Don't think so... I like Feist and many don't

[caladanbrood]

Murrin;144558 said:

The journey is more important than the destination. Especially true when it comes to reading. It's not about the ending.

Lucky really, because the endings to Mieville's books are shockingly bad, compared to the rest of his writing.

[Murrin]

I haven't really found them to be so. The Scar had a pretty good ending, with the paradoxes and the questions, and of course the futile obsession of one particular character leading down the inevitable path.
Iron Council's ending was lacking, in that while it was completely appropriate for the story, it didn't have the same impact as in his other books--the ending seemed broken into a few small climaxes rather than one larger one.
Perdido Street Station I enjoyed all the way through.

But as I say, I find the journey more important. If you enjoyed the act of reading the book, even if that enjoyment only goes up to a certain point, then it may be disappointing, but it was not pointless.

[caladanbrood]

The Scar was the best of the three, ending wise. Somewhat anticlimactic, but otherwise ok. Iron Council's was entirely inconsistant with respect to the explanations given for the events, and PSS with respect the the characters themselves.

Still enjoyable certainly though, like you say.

Another good example of that is the Night's Dawn Trilogy - wonderful books, and love the trilogy, but the ending was ridiculously weak in comparison to the rest of the series.

[Tiste Simeon]

Murrin said:

The journey is more important than the destination. Especially true when it comes to reading. It's not about the ending.

I'm going to have to disagree with you. I think they are just as important. If not, the ending is even more so. The journey can be great but if it ends, it is a huge anti-climax and I hate that.
I have found a lot of John Grisham books to be opposite - they are fairly dull for the first 3/4 then suddenly I am hooked, and I can never tell when that bit comes around. But it has happened with most of them.

With the Scar, I was getting really into it then suddenly it was just like "Oh no-one knows what really is happening, and something could have happened but it didn't. I'm going home. See ya."

That sucked.

[Dr Trouble]

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

MMMmmmMMMmm

[Tiste Simeon]

Trouble said:

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

MMMmmmMMMmm

I have been wondering about reading one of his books - are they really hard to get into? I don't have much time in life, atm, and if it takes forever to get into a book, I probably won't read it...

[rlfcl]

Tiste, try reading "Notes From the Underground" first, as it is fairly short and also very very well written (dark though)

i am currently reading Prelude to Foundation by asimov. seems sort of like a poor man's Frank Herbert so far.

[Tiste Simeon]

Thanks rlfcl. I shall check it out when I can.