Book thread

[CultExciter]

Not literature, but I just purchased Nick and Cody's Flash 400 and Scott's Rose Design book. I'm kinda stoked.

Thanks for the click'n'ship @steve1461686340

[Our Endless Days]

The Great Unknown layout looks pretty sweet.

[CultExciter]

Yeah, that and Eleven Fourteen are on my piggy bank save up list.

[Badtaste]

I just bought the first book of this series because of this, thanks for the recommendation.

Rad! Like I said though don't judge it by the first book, it's not bad, it's just his first novel and you can tell haha. It's a lite like wading through mud at times but from the second book on he starts to find his groove :)

[HaydenRose]

I've got to stop reading this thread for a little while. I've got a ridiculous stack of e-reads piling up on my kindle.

Same! Once I finish A Dance with Dragons I'm going to start reading every one's suggestions.

I'm also saving up for Eleven Fourteen. I've only heard great things about it.

[Graeme]

Rad! Like I said though don't judge it by the first book, it's not bad, it's just his first novel and you can tell haha. It's a lite like wading through mud at times but from the second book on he starts to find his groove :)

As long as it's good enough to hold my interest until the second book, I'm happy.

I saw that you're working the Montreal convention? I'll say hello.

[Beth]

There's a book called "When She Woke" its the scarlet letter but its in todays world and instead of a letter your skin is tattooed for your crime. My friends reading it and it sounds amazing. He's suppose to let me borrow it when he's done.

sorry i'm like for ever behind on this thread.

[deadsp0t]

A few pages into Stephen King's 'Under the dome'. So far so good. Simple concept' date=' it seems - town trapped under impenetrable dome degenerates as resources become scarce (I'm just trying to not think of 'The Simpsons movie').

I'm a sort of fairweather fan of King's, in many ways. I really like some of his (now) older novels like 'The Stand' and 'Salem's Lot'. He lost me for a bit then up until he restarted 'The Dark Tower' series and pulled off the amazing trick of managing to pull his entire back-catalogue into one huge mythos.[/quote']

I'm a big fan of Kings Dark Tower series. Been through the 7 book series 2x and now that 'wind through the key hole' has been added, I'm almost through them for a total of 4 times.. I'm a bit of a 'tower junkie' I'd guess you'd say..

Graphic novels, and just recently I picked up the first of the five 'fantasy and science fiction' that contain the Gunslinger.

[Beth]

The TV show Based on Under the Dome Is pretty good. I didn't get very far in the book unfortunately, i get easily side tracked into other books, but its was good and the show was pretty good too.

[RoryQ]

I finished 'Under the dome' a while back- not seen the TV show yet though.

Almost finished Joe Abercrombie's 'The blade itself'... Really, really enjoying it. Like a slightly funnier version of another (anti)heroic fantasy I read - Richard Morgan's 'The steel remains'.

Just when I think I am done with fantasy writing I get a taste for it again...

Got quite a backlog now after this... Peter F Hamilton's Void trilogy, 'The lies of Locke lamora', 'the name of the wind', the new Neil Gaiman novel and 'The wind through the keyhole'. Oh, and a Glen Cook 'Black Company' omnibus.

[HaydenRose]

I finished A Dance with Dragons yesterday.... :(

Time to peruse this thread for my next reading adventure!

[iowagirl]

I've not watched the Dome tv show..I just can't bring myself to, even tho I enjoyed the book. I thought the ending was...I dunno, maybe need to read the book again to know if I was happy w/it or not. I don't generally like the film adaptations of his books. I've tried to watch The Stand a few times and just get ticked so I don't bother anymore. I was so angry after watching The Mist I called my mom in tears. Seriously if I'd had SK's number I'd've called him up and given him the what for.

I do thoroughly enjoy the Gunslinger books tho. I dig all the stuff that threads back to his other works. The ending on that tho...mmm..dunno. I believe I muttered the phrase m'f'er when I got to the end. I like short story (is there one or two, I forget) in one of the compilation books, that is another side story of Roland.

Cell I liked, and Full Dark No Stars and Just After Sunset. I just dig him mucho.

I like sci fi/fantasy stuff a lot too.

[exume]

I lent my copies of the dark tower series off to a friend, haven't seen em since. I'd like to get back into them with the new book coming

[deadsp0t]

I lent my copies of the dark tower series off to a friend' date=' haven't seen em since. I'd like to get back into them with the new book coming[/quote']

I have several copies of of most of them

:towerjunkie:

I also have the audio for all the DT books and several other SK books. I actually have a good collection of real and audio books. Before starting my new job(@pepsi) I was driving two hours a day for 9 years.

[iowagirl]

You must like the audio books then? I've never tried one..does it interfere w/what you're doing? I don't know that I could listen and drive at the same time. I'd get so focused on what I was seeing in my head that I'd run full bore into a tree or something.

and oh oh oh there's a new one coming??? after wind in the keyhole or is that the one you meant, exume?

[deadsp0t]

You must like the audio books then? I've never tried one..does it interfere w/what you're doing? I don't know that I could listen and drive at the same time. I'd get so focused on what I was seeing in my head that I'd run full bore into a tree or something.

and oh oh oh there's a new one coming??? after wind in the keyhole or is that the one you meant' date=' exume?[/quote']

Wind through the key hole has been out for a bit now. IMO one the better written books in the series.

SK narrates the new one but the two guys that read the others are fantastic.. Particularly Frank Muller

[iowagirl]

I enjoyed Wind Through the Keyhole quite a bit. Of all the things he's written, the descriptions of the...what were they, swamp folk? w/the things on their faces etc..for whatever reason they freaked my shit out.

I read an interview last night w/the King family and knew that Owen, Joe and Tabitha are authors but didn't realize Owen's wife is as well. In that interview, they decided that House of Leaves is the best example of the Horror genre. It's one I'd heard about before but haven't read. Just another one to add to my mile long list. So many I want to read and so many I want to read again..or for the 15th time as the case may be.

[exume]

Ah, see that's what I get for not paying attention, its already out. I'm gonna have to pick that up next, been about 8 years since I read through the initial series though.

[Graeme]

I recently read The Croning by Laird Barron. It's his first novel after a couple of collections of short stories and while I think he hasn't quite mastered the longer form, it's a good read if you're into Lovecraftian horror. It's got a good creepy atmosphere, malevolent cosmic entities and the cults that worship them, ancient megalithic tombs in the woods, all that good stuff. It's a fun read.

I am currently reading The Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson and thank you @Badtastebetsy for the little warning because I'm not entirely convinced by it yet. It isn't bad, it's just that I feel that there's way too much "world building" stuff and not enough story yet. As a reader, I don't really care about the intricacies of how magic systems work in this world (in this respect I can totally see how the books came out of an RPG campaign), I want adventure and excitement and peril and good battles and all of that stuff. Granted I'm only a little over a hundred pages in right now and since it's a ten-book series I need to take a long view of the thing.

[Tight-Lines]

@hogg I finished The Sisters Brothers today and was really impressed. I got the Cormac vibe from a lot of it, but it lacked the intensity that Cormac brings to his writing. I guess you cannot expect that from too many people.

I will say that it was a lot more comical though. Good read.

[hogg]

@dcostello I'm sorry if I misled you into thinking it'd have that Cormac intensity; I agree that he's in a league of his own.

Glad you dug it.

[Avery Taylor]

For father's day, my wife gave me a copy of The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt. As it says on the front cover, "If Cormac McCarthy had a sense of humor, he might have concocted a story like Patrick deWitt's bloody, darkly funny western." I love it, and i think that @dcostello and @Jake might, too.

I missed this post. I read that book a few months ago and loved it. The writer is Canadian and mutual friends with some friends of mine. They gave me the book, and I read it in a couple of days. I am pretty sure that John C. Reilly bought the film rights to it so you should expect to see it as a movie.

[Beth]

[quote name='iowagirl;71503

Cell I liked' date=' and Full Dark No Stars and Just After Sunset. I just dig him mucho.

I like sci fi/fantasy stuff a lot too.[/quote']

Cell Was great!! They're talking about making it into a movie/short series. I understand that with the big zombie craz right now it makes since but I dont think its what the public is wanting. I loved it though and hope it does really well.

[RoryQ]

I recently read The Croning by Laird Barron. It's his first novel after a couple of collections of short stories and while I think he hasn't quite mastered the longer form' date=' it's a good read if you're into Lovecraftian horror. It's got a good creepy atmosphere, malevolent cosmic entities and the cults that worship them, ancient megalithic tombs in the woods, all that good stuff. It's a fun read.

I am currently reading The Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson and thank you @Badtastebetsy for the little warning because I'm not entirely convinced by it yet. It isn't bad, it's just that I feel that there's way too much "world building" stuff and not enough story yet. As a reader, I don't really care about the intricacies of how magic systems work in this world (in this respect I can totally see how the books came out of an RPG campaign), I want adventure and excitement and peril and good battles and all of that stuff. Granted I'm only a little over a hundred pages in right now and since it's a ten-book series I need to take a long view of the thing.[/quote']

I know what you're saying about world building vs characterisation - I think that's a legit criticism of Erikson that is true for the whole series. Its like he's writing sketches or historical record at times.

I'd say stick it out to at least the end of 'Deadhouse Gates' if you can, it's much stronger than the first book. Then decide, maybe.

I did enjoy 'Gardens of the Moon' by the end, but it took me the first half to get into it... The definition of a slow burner...

[Graeme]

I know what you're saying about world building vs characterisation - I think that's a legit criticism of Erikson that is true for the whole series. Its like he's writing sketches or historical record at times.

I'd say stick it out to at least the end of 'Deadhouse Gates' if you can, it's much stronger than the first book. Then decide, maybe.

I did enjoy 'Gardens of the Moon' by the end, but it took me the first half to get into it... The definition of a slow burner...

I finished Gardens of the Moon and I'll give Deadhouse Gates a try because Erikson set up enough cool stuff that I'm interested to see where he's going to take it, but I did find that there were enough serious flaws in the book that it really got in the way of my enjoyment of it. Again, I thought that it mostly came down to him putting the world he created ahead of the characters and the story, which is a real shame because there was so much in that book that could have been better developed that would have made the book a lot stronger. I didn't feel particularly interested or invested in any of the characters; where was the tension in Darujhistan after Pale fell?...there was a bit of talk in the book about different factions in the city vying to see if the city would resist the Empire or acquiesce to it, but surely this would also show itself in day-to-day life? While I really like that Erikson wrote this world where gods and demi-gods toy with mortals, I felt that this could have been better developed: how do the characters feel knowing that they're being used by gods for purposes they can't understand and will likely not survive? How do people live in a world where that can happen? I really didn't like the way that the RPG roots of the novel showed through in that too many characters were classes instead of proper characters. Though for all that, there are those epic magic and monster battles where everything gets fucking smashed and shredded and that is undeniably rad. I'll give that next book a read and see how I feel about continuing with the series after that.