The Currently Reading Thread v. A Clash of Kings

[chknptpie]

Pride and Prejudiced... not sure if I'll make it through. Some reason these old "classics" are difficult for me to digest.

[masterthes]

Taking a bit of a break from the Trollope and switching over to God Knows by Joseph Heller. Catch-22 has always been one of my favorite books and I've always wanted to see what else he wrote, so we'll see how this goes. It's King David telling the story of his life and I've always been a sucker for theological fiction

[Cool Chris]

Just finished up with some Agatha Christie, trying to knock out the remaining books of hers I haven't ever read.

Moving on to Stephen King's Lisey's Story. I read it years ago, and for some strange reason cannot remember a thing about it, other than the basic premise, and the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[SchecterShredder]

White Night

[Prog Snob]

I just started day trading a couple of weeks ago, so I'm reading a book on technical analysis, Getting Started in Technical Analysis by Jack D. Schwager. It's one of the most recommended books on the subject.

[masterthes]

DNF'd God Knows. Still plugging away on the Trollope. It's a little slow, but there's enough there to keep my interest. I probably still have roughly 200 pages to go, but I'm taking a bit of a break because I got Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan off my hold list

[Evermind]

Finished The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King. Wow, that was one of the best things from him I've read. Looks like you guys were right about this one.

Now thinking of either plunging ahead with The Waste Lands or take a small break and read something else.

[masterthes]

I think The Waste Lands is just as good

[v_clortho]

Got Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence but I'm still reading Oathbringer so it might be a while before I get to that.

[SchecterShredder]

I think The Waste Lands is just as good

Yup

[SchecterShredder]

Small Favor

[Kwyjibo]

I think The Waste Lands is just as good

Yup

This, and imo Wizard and Glass is even better.

[Evermind]

I think The Waste Lands is just as good

Yup

This, and imo Wizard and Glass is even better.

Wizard and Glass is the one I'm looking forward to the most. I've heard so many good things about it.

[Kwyjibo]

The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams

[Sacul]

I liked The Wast Lands a lot, but less than The Drawing of Three. Still better then The Gunslinger tho.

I think The Waste Lands is just as good

Yup

This, and imo Wizard and Glass is even better.

Wizard and Glass is the one I'm looking forward to the most. I've heard so many good things about it.

It's very good, but there are some things I found kind of dumb or downright annoying - since it's mostly a huge flashback about Roland's teen years, some stuff typical of the age rubbed me the wrong way, but nothing too serious.

[SchecterShredder]

Problem with starting the Wastelands is that you're gonna end up going straight into Wizard and Glass after, so you better be committed. No way around it, really.

[Sacul]

Yeah, The Waste Lands ends in a bit of a cliffhanger so beware

[masterthes]

One of the best cliffhangers in literature IMO. I was so glad I was able to read Wizard and Glass right after. I can't imagine the wait people had to endure. I seem to recall there was a long wait between the two books, kind of similar to what us Game of Thrones fans are going through right now

Anyway, giving essay reading a try with Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen Jay Gould

[Evermind]

Problem with starting the Wastelands is that you're gonna end up going straight into Wizard and Glass after, so you better be committed. No way around it, really.

Alright, that's good to know, thank you.

[masterthes]

So, I'm putting the Gould book temporarily on hold to participate in the reddit Fantasy board's Bingo challenge, which I'll be doing for a while, because I will not be satisfied with only completing one row (5 books). I'll be looking to finish the whole card (25 books) before the end of next March.

For my first book, I'm going to be reading Omens of Fury by Sean Hinn, which I'll be using to either complete the non Western setting or the less than 25,000 ratings on Goodreads square

[ChuckSteak]

Bertolt Brecht - Der gute Mensch von Sezuan

[Sacul]

Finished Pluto. Damn beautiful, deep, and mature manga by Naoki Urasawa, a very creative re-imagining of Astro Boy. A very sad story about the world's greatest robots being murdered, in a time where they have the same rights as humans and AIs are almost indistinguishable from us. It's not too long, and I highly recommend it.

[WDADU]

Read Cycle of the Werewolf, by Stephen King a few days ago. Now reading A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving.

[SchecterShredder]

Turn Coat

[Zydar]

Steve Turner - Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year

[masterthes]

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. One of the challenges in the r/Fantasy Bingo is to read five short stories, or the hard mode option is to read an anthology of stories, thus this book

[masterthes]

I'm going to use A Feast of Crows to satisfy one of my bingo squares, but because it's been a while, I'm going to reread A Storm of Swords first

[SchecterShredder]

Changes by Butcher

[ChuckSteak]

Comte de Lautréamont - Les Chants de Maldoror 

[Sacul]

Started reading Sandman, finished Vol. 1. Very interesting and creative stuff, looking forward to the rest of the series.

[masterthes]

It gets really good after the first volume. As the title suggests, it was really just a prelude (even though Gaiman would go back a bit farther with Overture)

[Evermind]

Changes by Butcher

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT READ THE SMALL TEXT BELOW if you haven't finished the novel, major spoilers:

I was spoiled about Dresden's death - I actually discovered Butcher while reading Dangerous Women in the hospital a few years ago - a collection of stories from different authors edited by GRRM, and there was a short story from Molly's POV where she faces the Fomor in the aftermath of Dresden's death, and I think before the actual story began there was an explanation, like "Jim Butcher surprised us all by killing off Harry Dresden in the end of Changes. Here's how his pupil manages to live on without him". So I remembered that, and I liked the short story, so I decided to give The Dresden Files a chance.

Then after some time I finally got to Changes and knew that Harry will die there, and the last hundred pages or so (when the standoff against the Red Court in Chichen Itza began) I literally thought "alright, here's where he dies, something's about to go totally wrong" every couple of pages, and when the actual vampire situation got resolved and they got back to the city safe and alive I thought, hey, maybe I remembered something wrong, apparently everything's alright with the guy. Then I got to the last few pages.

[Sacul]

It gets really good after the first volume. As the title suggests, it was really just a prelude (even though Gaiman would go back a bit farther with Overture)

Hell yeah

[Podaar]

Changes by Butcher

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT READ THE SMALL TEXT BELOW if you haven't finished the novel, major spoilers:

I was spoiled about Dresden's death - I actually discovered Butcher while reading Dangerous Women in the hospital a few years ago - a collection of stories from different authors edited by GRRM, and there was a short story from Molly's POV where she faces the Fomor in the aftermath of Dresden's death, and I think before the actual story began there was an explanation, like "Jim Butcher surprised us all by killing off Harry Dresden in the end of Changes. Here's how his pupil manages to live on without him". So I remembered that, and I liked the short story, so I decided to give The Dresden Files a chance.

Then after some time I finally got to Changes and knew that Harry will die there, and the last hundred pages or so (when the standoff against the Red Court in Chichen Itza began) I literally thought "alright, here's where he dies, something's about to go totally wrong" every couple of pages, and when the actual vampire situation got resolved and they got back to the city safe and alive I thought, hey, maybe I remembered something wrong, apparently everything's alright with the guy. Then I got to the last few pages.

 

I can totally see that. I've never read that short story about Molly. I'll need to hunt it down.

[Evermind]

Finished The Waste Lands by Stephen King. I liked The Drawing of the Three more, but this one was still a hell of a book, some fantastic stuff there. Sometimes I thought it was kinda slow, but the climaxes of the story Jake's drawing, Jake's rescue from the Grays and Eddie's and Susannah's showdown in the Cradle of Lud with Blaine were outstandingly well written and captivating.

Three books in, this is without any doubt, by far and away the best thing I've read from Stephen King. I'm enjoying this series a lot, and nothing I've read before from him (The Stand, The Shining, The Dead Zone to name a few) even comes close to this. I've only delved into this series because a lot of people on DTF told me to do this, and I'm so grateful to you guys. It's you who made me to decide to give this a chance. This is extremely good.

Question which may contain spoilers (also don't answer if the answer spoils the future novels in a big way, but I'm just curious):

The Ageless Stranger guy at the end of the third novel said his name is Richard Fanning (Fannin? I don't quite remember), are the RF initials a coincidence or does it have something to do with the main antagonist from The Stand? That guy also liked to go under R.F. initials.

Anyway, come Monday I'll be reading Wizard and Glass and I don't have enough words about how excited I am about this one.