[Vengeance]

Smith & Roberson's BUSINESS LAW 13th edition....Yeah....

[Mentalist]

lol @ Venge: I feel for you--will be reading tons of tetbooks myself in the next while

however, I DID manage to find a complete collection of all of Andrzei Sapkowski's original "Witcher" short stories --"The Last Wish" and "The Sword of Destiny" together, and in Russian, which is as close to the original as I can get (my Polish is mediocre at best, and I distrust English translations... ). So whenever i feel like I'm about to collapse and die from over-studying, I'll be able to take a break and read one those short stories--since I have to wait tillAugust for visiting relatives to bring me the actual "novel" novels--"Blood of the Elves" and the rest...

[Mentalist]

Hate to double-post, but here it goes:
I have finished "THe Last wish". In Russian. I found it to be an awesome, absolutely hilarious collection of short stories, quite similar to my favourite short strories writer of all times--Jack London. Don't know what Pat didn't like about them, maybe it's the translation. "The Last Wish" that I read is absolutely priceless, possibly because many of hte names, terms and themes that it mentions are very familiar to Eastern Europeans but seem more odd to Western readers. for example, many of creatures hunted by the Witcher come directly from Slavic folklore, so that I have no clue how one would translate them in English in the first place. Also, a number of plays on words that can be translated from Polish to Russian would be more difficult to make as funny in English.
Plus, Sapkowski in a fairly traditional Eastern European manner constantly throws out situations of moral ambiguity, and questions the absolutes of his world--something that the "traditional" Western fantasy has avoided for a long time.
Overall, the book appealed to me a lot, whiuch works, since I belong tot he culture that was the original target audience. Whether it works for Westerners, I'm really far from the being the best judge of that.
Still have the other Witcher collection "the Sword of Destiny" to got through..

[Astra]

Some people said that the Witcher series is almost as good as The Great Book of Amber or The Lord of the Rings.
I am looking forward to reading it soon.

[Spindrift]

just about finished sandersons Mistborn. I don't know why i avoided this book for so long, it's fantastic.

[drinksinbars]

just started fall of kings by gemmell. enjoying it so far.

[pat5150]

I just finished Stephen King's The Gunslinger. Early on, I made a promise not to begin The Dark Tower until the entire series was finished. I know I said the same concerning Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and Erikson's The Malazan Book of the Fallen, but sometimes I actually manage to keep my word.

In the introduction, Stephen King explains how the original version needed to be revised and expanded for it to make more sense and be on par with the subsequent installments. I don't know if it's because I read the revised edition, but I thoroughly enjoyed The Gunslinger. Some people mentioned that the fact that the novel is in truth five short stories put together to be offputting, yet I found the narrative to be fluid throughout.

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

To be honest, Stephen King had me with the very first sentence.

If, like me, you have yet to embark on the quest to find the Dark Tower, let yourself be tempted by Stephen King's The Gunslinger.

Check out the blog for the full review.

Patrick

[High House Death]

Dark Tower is great, hope you won't be disappointed.

Finally finished House of Chains and started Midnight Tides.

[cerveza_fiesta]

ooh envious. Midnight tides is awesome.

I'm reading the "intelligent investor"

Basically about how to not be a dumbass when you invest

[Zanth13]

Night watch


good book but something is wrong... I think they did a poor job at translating it or something because sometimes lines just dont make since in the context, especially dialogue

[Hume]

The Knight by Gene Wolfe

[Mentalist]

Zanth13;287577 said:

Night watch


good book but something is wrong... I think they did a poor job at translating it or something because sometimes lines just dont make since in the context, especially dialogue

sometimes there are idioms wich they translate word-for-word...
which is why I try not to read translations...

[Dag]

Zanth13;287577 said:

Night watch

good book but something is wrong... I think they did a poor job at translating it or something because sometimes lines just dont make since in the context, especially dialogue

I had the same problem with the German translation. They rushed to translate it and publish the book when they noticed that the movie was becoming a huge hit, and the result was terrible. I had to translate whole sentences in my head back to Russian (of which I have some humble knowledge) to understand what the hell they might mean.

[Mentalist]

Finished "Sword of Destiny"--the second collection of Witcher short stories
I must say, in contrast with "the Last Wish", the tone is much darker. there's less humour and a lot more philosophising about the nature of things--Good, evil. Destiny, etc. We are introduced to whom I believe is the last main character of the following series of actual novels--won't say who to avoid spoilers. And Geralt's relationships with humans, especially with jennifer (I think that's the correct English translation, dunno for sure ), really come to the fore...
It really does suck that I have to wait till Augustt to read the actual books....

Oh well, next up--"Death Masks" and then "Blood Rites"--books 5 + 6 of the Dresden files..

[Spindrift]

reading Counting Heads by David Marusek. possibly the best book i've read all year, so far.

[Zanth13]

So I put down Night Watch for now...

and started reading Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, first short story was interesting and it should get the thinky juices flowing (as Abyss would say)

[Mentalist]

Done the next two Dresden files books--"Death masks" and "Blood Rites"
For th next couple of days will be doing so heavy reading of "Social Psychology", once that's done--will probably read "River of blue fire" (Otherland, volume 2), or "The Sarantine Mosaic" by Kay...

[Slum]

Big Sur - Jack Kerouac

I'm gonna teach Am Lit in community colleges if I ever get my Master's...

[caladanbrood]

Just starting my shiny new signed copy of Al Reynolds' newest, House of Suns. When I asked him about it yesterday he said it was a bit lighter than previous ones, so sounds like it should be good - I was a bit put off by all the philosophising in The Prefect.

[Topper]

Zanth13;287577 said:

Night watch


good book but something is wrong... I think they did a poor job at translating it or something because sometimes lines just dont make since in the context, especially dialogue

"The Night Watch" (Ночной Дозор)
--Sergei Lukyanenko

Maybe I have equally disjointed thinking or something, because I haven't noticed anything peculiar in my English translation, which was translated by Andrew Bromfield.