[Slow Ben]

Just started "Annals of the Black Company" by Cook last night. Kind of weird getting used to the writing (first person and jumps around a lot), but i'm enjoying it so far.

[Tremolo]

Reading:

'World War Z' by Max Brooks
'The Eyre affair' by Jasper Fforde
'Bang your head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal' by David Konow

[MTS]

I have to read The Eyre Affair for uni right now. Pretty good book.

@SB, you get used to it. It also gets less jarring and doesn't jump around as much. It also gets better. Especially the last book. So awesome

This post has been edited by Mappo's Travelling Sack: 22 July 2009 - 09:02 AM

[Tremolo]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jul 22 2009, 09:01 AM, said:

I have to read The Eyre Affair for uni right now. Pretty good book.

@SB, you get used to it. It also gets less jarring and doesn't jump around as much. It also gets better. Especially the last book. So awesome

Yup, pretty good. I like the alternate history and I wish we could have chosen those kind of books back when I was at Uni.

[MTS]

I'm liking the selection we have in this course I'm doing. Frankenstein, War of the Worlds, Dracula, The Eyre Affair, Notes from the Underground, Northanger Abbey, Shadow of the Wind...it's great

This post has been edited by Mappo's Travelling Sack: 22 July 2009 - 09:13 AM

[Grimjust Bearegular]

fan-fiction....oh yes.

[Deornoth]

Finished Jonathan Green's 'Evolution Expects', more 'James Bond Steam Punk' with the adventures of Ulysses Quicksilver! Ulysses' escapades are as fun as ever but Green didn't leave himself an awful lot of room, to do everything that he wanted the book to do, and this resulted in a book that felt very disjointed at times. My full review is over Here. I'm now well into Nathalie Mallet's 'The King's Daughters'...

[polishgenius]

Got some book vouchers for my birthday yesterday and picked up The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (the first in the Barthimeus trilogy - yes it's a kid's series, but a good one by the looks of this) and The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas (a short way in, very intriguing).

[MTS]

I'm reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. Thank God. Real vampires.

[Deornoth]

Finished reading 'The King's Daughters' (Nathalie Mallet), sequel to 'The Princes in the Golden Cage', where Prince Amir must solve the mystery of various kidnappings if he is to stand any chance of getting the King to agree to letting Amir marry his daughter. My description doesn't make it sound like much but an intriguing mystery, interspersed with plenty of action, made 'The King's Daughters' a very enjoyable read. It's just a shame that I found myself wanting to throttle Prince Amir after only a couple of chapters... My full review is over Here.
I'm now finishing off Mark Chadbourn's 'Lord of Silence'.

[stone monkey]

I found The End of Mr Y a bit of a disappointment in the end. Which is a pity, because it starts off very well.

[pat5150]

Just finished Jim Butcher's Fool Moon.

If you are looking for fun and entertaining urban fantasy novels featuring a down-on-his-luck and endearing wizard, the Dresden Files are for you!

Check out the blog for the full review. . .

Patrick

[Obdigore]

PS - Please don't read the Briar King Pat. The first one is ok then the series degrades. Coe's stuff is better, and I think you would do much better reading Consider Plebas then going from there in the Banks-verse.

[lobo the wolfman]

Going to give Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon a third and final try.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Tell me, is Robert Jordan a good author, or is he reviled in the way of Goodkind and Eddings (R.I.P.)? I got Eye of the World and I want to know if it'll be good.

Reading Kate Elliott's King's Dragon. Pretty good-lots of multiculturalism.

[MTS]

Jordan is both good and bad. Not nearly as reviled as Goodkind though. A lot of his ideas are horribly cliche, like Rand's arc, he feels the need to describe every little action, the dialogue can be repetitive and the pace drags somewhat in a lot of places, but damn, in his prime he could write compelling characters and create a brilliant atmosphere, as well as write an interesting story. Worth a read, but don't expect to be blown away. It drags a lot, and even after his death it's still dragging.

This post has been edited by Mappo's Travelling Sack: 25 July 2009 - 07:58 AM

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Pilgrim, on Jul 16 2009, 07:45 AM, said:

I'm about halfway through Stephen R. Donaldson's The Gap into Conflict "The Real Story" and I'm quite frankly amazed. The only thing I've read by Donaldson prior to this was the Unbeliever first chronicles, and the writing style is so different here it literally seems like an entirely different author. It's a great story and so far a really quick read, a sci-fi mystery/thriller of sorts. Good snack-sized fun, as it's little more than a novella. Has anyone else read this series? What do you think?

Pilgrim

Brilliant series, probably his best work, and this is coming from a total Covenant fanboy.

[Aptorian]

Ain't_It_Just_, on Jul 25 2009, 09:29 AM, said:

Tell me, is Robert Jordan a good author, or is he reviled in the way of Goodkind and Eddings (R.I.P.)? I got Eye of the World and I want to know if it'll be good.

Reading Kate Elliott's King's Dragon. Pretty good-lots of multiculturalism.

Compared to modern fantasy, The Wheel of Time is horribly outdated.

It's all cliches, hundreds of pages of travelling on horse back, travelling on foot, travelling on a boat, bla bla bla. People ignoring the truth making every story line overly complicated, insecure characters who are made unrealistically ignorant and indecisive, round about solutions to things that could be easily solved in a direct fashion, etc.

Don't get me wrong, The Wheel of Time has it's brilliant areas. The concept of the Wheel of Time is interesting, the Trollocks and the Halfmen are quite awesome, Rand as the Dragon, if he wasn't such a pussy, is a cool cat, etc.

But it's all so longwinded and very little happens in every book.

There is a reason to why there is drawn comparisons between Goodkind and Jordan, the worlds and stories are much the same, and unfortunantly Jordan also has that flaw where he spends 7/8s of the book just puttering along and then within the last 1/8 he tries to wrap all the story up.

I don't know if the story gets better after the 4th book, but I gave up during the 4th one.

[Fist Gamet]

lobo the wolfman, on Jul 24 2009, 02:00 AM, said:

Going to give Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon a third and final try.

You needed more than one try?! This book is seriously awesome!!

[lobo the wolfman]

Well a lot of people on here where raving about so i brought it a while ago, and i have to admit, 250 pgs in and I'm still a bit unimpressed.