The Currently Reading Thread v. A Clash of Kings

[jasc15]

Started with the second book of the Dark Tower series last night - a few chapters in and I'm really enjoying it.

Kept reading it and damn, this is some impressive creative shit.

And you're only on book 2.  I forgot most of the stuff King came up with throughout the series since there was always something new coming along.

Edit: BTW, what direction were they traveling on the beach?

[Fluffy Lothario]

Did-a-chick? Dod-a-chock?

That’s what makes that series so great. If you had to stick a genre tag on it, it’d be fantasy, but it’s remarkably unbeholden to the regular ideas and tropes. King’s world is refreshingly unique. I remember trying to read Shannara after those, since it was a praised fantasy series and I needed something new to read, and the difference in creativity and imagination was obvious. It felt like rehashed paint-by-numbers Tolkien in comparison.

[masterthes]

Dark Tower is western sci-fi fantasy, duh 

[Fluffy Lothario]

Just finished Frankenstein.

I thought it improves a lot as it goes on. The exposition is pretty clumsy, and for the first half to two thirds of the novel, it builds and goes forward quite slowly. The ideas are great, but the story that bears them is not quite as interesting as you’d hope. Then, in the last third, the story catches up with the ideas, and the last chunk of it was really great.

The creature Frankenstein creates reminded me a little of Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. It’s like in his experiments at the boundary between life and death, Frankenstein releases this relentless agent of death on the world.

When I read it as a kid, I was surprised by how intelligent the monster was. This time, I was surprised again by how human it was. The thing could have turned out fine, if it hadn’t been neglected. Mary Shelley is kind of just writing about the responsibilities of parenting, but then it’s kind of a pondering of where human evil comes from and what makes people who were once blank slates capable of doing horrible things. Considering it’s a pretty short novel, I thought she explored this really well.

I also liked that it was (I’m presuming), for its time, a new take on the medieval cautionary “distrust of science and knowledge” theme like Faust, but the issue is that Victor is ambitious without proper heed of the ramifications of the knowledge and technology he is pursuing, and his responsibility to them. It’s like a mid-point between a story like Faust and one like Cat’s Cradle.

[masterthes]

Caesar was definitely the worst of the series so far. Should not have taken me almost two weeks to read. Looking forward though to The October Horse next month, see how she deals with the relationship between Caesar and Cleopatra and his assassination

Anyway, marathoning The Passage series by Justin Cronin with the last book coming out shortly

[Prog Snob]

The Eye of the World.

I figured I should finally start reading this series. I'm reading A Song of Ice and Fire at the same time but that's for some research I'm doing. ASOIAF is a much quicker read now that I've read through it twice already. I'm looking for specific items in it.

[Logain Ablar]

The Eye of the World.

Hope you enjoy it. It took me years to get through the whole series, but the first book is relatively easy going. 

[Sacul]

It took me just a year, while taking some breaks to read other, shorter stuff. Btw, I recommend you having a list with character names and descriptions, for there are dozens and they appear throughout the series and shit can get confusing. Hope you enjoy it

[hefdaddy42]

I'm interested in attacking The Eye of the World at some point.  How does it compare to other great fantasy works? 

[Logain Ablar]

I'm interested in attacking The Eye of the World at some point.  How does it compare to other great fantasy works?

I think it's fair to say that opinions are mixed on it. For me, Lord Of The Rings is still no. 1, and probably always will be, but WoT is definitely very good. The scope of it is absolutely huge, and probably even moreso than LOTR. There are a lot of secondary characters to memorise, and TBH quite a few of them are so similar they become indistinguishable. There is a really good 'magic system', with different groups of people having different abilities. There are some really cool baddies, and some epic battles.

There's quite a few similarities to Tolkien, especially in how the story starts out, with a rural farm boy going off to find his destiny with a few friends, but it starts to make its own path after a while.

One of the biggest criticisms is the pace of the series. Some of the books seem to plod along at a snail's pace, then explode into life in the last few chapters. The other related criticism is level of descriptiveness (?) of some of the text. Robert Jordan builds a really detailed world, but there are also painstaking descriptions of characters' clothing, hairstyles etc that can feel like a lead weight at times.

There is one of the books, Crossroads of Twilight that's regarded as the worst offender, so once you get past that, the series picks up again. Robert Jordan died before completing the series, and Brandon Sanderson took over to complete the last few books. IMO he did a fantastic job, and it got me into reading some of his own books.

If you think you have the patience to get over those few things, and still fancy giving it a go, I'd definitely recommend it. 

[Prog Snob]

The Eye of the World.

Hope you enjoy it. It took me years to get through the whole series, but the first book is relatively easy going. 

Thanks. I think I might create a thread for it as I get more into because I'll want to discuss it. Maybe I'll do it right now.

It took me just a year, while taking some breaks to read other, shorter stuff. Btw, I recommend you having a list with character names and descriptions, for there are dozens and they appear throughout the series and shit can get confusing. Hope you enjoy it

I plan on it. I'm anal like that. You should see what I'm doing for ASOIAF right now.

I'm interested in attacking The Eye of the World at some point.  How does it compare to other great fantasy works? 

It definitely reads like a Tolkien novel with all of the names and places.

[Sacul]

Except you don't have two hundred elves and dwarves lineages

[Prog Snob]

Someone above said that they think the world created by Robert Jordan might be more in-depth than Lord of the Rings and that is absolutely correct. However if you want to compare everything that Jordan created vs everything that Tolkien created, the depth of Tolkien's Middle Earth is unmatched.

[Logain Ablar]

Thanks. I think I might create a thread for it as I get more into because I'll want to discuss it. Maybe I'll do it right now.

If you haven't already created one, feel free to jump on the one I created one a while back. It didn't really have legs at the time

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=46134.0

Someone above said that they think the world created by Robert Jordan might be more in-depth than Lord of the Rings and that is absolutely correct. However if you want to compare everything that Jordan created vs everything that Tolkien created, the depth of Tolkien's Middle Earth is unmatched.

Yeah, I think that was me, and I agree with you. It might be better to say that WoT is broader in scope, in terms of the sheer number of characters, and there being a lot more actual text, but Tolkien's world (ie The Hobbit, LOTR, Silmarillion, ...) has more depth to it.

[Fluffy Lothario]

I read 1-9 at high school. It had its strengths and weaknesses. In aspects, it was obviously strongly indebted to Tolkien, maybe a bit too strongly, but in others, it was quite different and interesting.

[adace]

Finished Departure by A.G. Riddle the other day and didn't like it very much. It started out interesting enough but then devolved into a highly far-fetched and overly self-indulgent plot.

Now reading the Kasari Nexus by Richard Philips end enjoying it a lot so far.

[Kwyjibo]

Lair by James Herbert

[hefdaddy42]

James, the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls by Robert Eisenman

He's kind of crazy, but his heart's in the right place.

I've read that one. I find it fascinating. Religious history has always intrigued me, especially once you weed through the nonsense.

It's a re-read for me.

Yes, I'm re-reading a dense book of obscure scholarship, the results of which I don't even agree with.


What am I doing with my life?

God bless America, I am still only halfway through this FML

[TAC]

Finished two books this week:

Gene Simmons-KISS And Make-Up
Stuart Scott-Every Day I Fight

The Stuart Scott book was amazing. It will make you cry and it will make you hug your kids. Amazing!

[masterthes]

Moving on to The Twelve

[ozzy554]

FINALLY finished the stand. Life came up about halfway through reading and I did not have much time for reading for a while.

I really loved it even if the ending was kinda anticlimactic.

[masterthes]

Alright, here we go: The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin. I hope he sticks the landing

[ozzy554]

After reading the stand I decided to take a bit of a break from regular books and read some comics.

I read the first volumes of The New 52 Batman series Court of owls through death of the family. I also read the First volume of the Rick and Morty Comic.

While I'm waiting for my next batch of comics to be picked up at the library I'm reading Burglers can't Be Choosers by Lawrence Block.

[masterthes]

The Fireman by Joe Hill

[hefdaddy42]

The Fireman by Joe Hill

Gotta get that.

[jasc15]

Still reading Stranger in a Strange Land.  There is a nice jab at modern art that I thought was pretty good:

abstract design is all right-for wall paper or linoleum.  But art is a process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human.  What the self-styled modern artist is doing is a sort of unemotional pseudo-intellectual masturbation ... whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -render emotional- his audience, each time.

... In general it's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code like Pepys and his diary.  Most of these jokers don't even want to use language you and I know or can learn... they would rather sneer at us and be smug, because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at.  If indeed they are driving at anything-obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.

[masterthes]

The Fireman by Joe Hill

Gotta get that.

It's really good so far. I'm already more than a quarter done with it on my Kindle (and it's almost 800 pages, so that's saying something)

[Evermind]

Finished The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson. I was reading very slowly and only about an hour a day on the road back from work (and not every day too), and while I liked the first two acts more than I did in Shadows of Self, the ending was very underwhelming for me. Not going into any kind of spoilers (but I can go there if any of you also read it and want to discuss the details), but I think this could be my least favourite Mistborn book so far. Still enjoyable, but not on your usual "damn, this is bloody brilliant"-Mistborn-level enjoyable.

Maybe I'll feel different after reading the Mistborn: Secret History, a small piece Brandon released after this book.

[senecadawg2]

Any Murakami fans in here?

I just finished Jack Kerouac's On the Road, before that Albert Camus's The Stranger and Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgramage. All really good, I thought.

Now reading The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño.

[Tomislav95]

Any Murakami fans in here?

I read Norwegian Wood and Wild Sheep Chase. I'm still not sure what to think about the second, really weird but that's charm of it. I will probably check Kafka on the shore next (when my college year finishes).

[Prog Snob]

Darker Edge of Desire: Gothic Tales of Romance...

It's an anthology put together by Mitzi Szereto

[Logain Ablar]

Finished The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson. I was reading very slowly and only about an hour a day on the road back from work (and not every day too), and while I liked the first two acts more than I did in Shadows of Self, the ending was very underwhelming for me. Not going into any kind of spoilers (but I can go there if any of you also read it and want to discuss the details), but I think this could be my least favourite Mistborn book so far. Still enjoyable, but not on your usual "damn, this is bloody brilliant"-Mistborn-level enjoyable.

Maybe I'll feel different after reading the Mistborn: Secret History, a small piece Brandon released after this book.

Disappointing to hear that, as those two are are on my list..  Still working my way though The Way Of Kings, but I was planning to give those two a go afterwards.

[Evermind]

Finished The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson. I was reading very slowly and only about an hour a day on the road back from work (and not every day too), and while I liked the first two acts more than I did in Shadows of Self, the ending was very underwhelming for me. Not going into any kind of spoilers (but I can go there if any of you also read it and want to discuss the details), but I think this could be my least favourite Mistborn book so far. Still enjoyable, but not on your usual "damn, this is bloody brilliant"-Mistborn-level enjoyable.

Maybe I'll feel different after reading the Mistborn: Secret History, a small piece Brandon released after this book.

Disappointing to hear that, as those two are are on my list..  Still working my way though The Way Of Kings, but I was planning to give those two a go afterwards.

I'll say this much: it was excellent until a certain moment in the story. I understand why everything happened the way it did, but, well, that was a miss for me.

Let's discuss it when you've read it.

[Kwyjibo]

Rivers Of London by Ben Aaronovitch

[masterthes]

The October Horse by Colleen McCullough