Books

[Guard Dog]

I read all four of GRRMs ASoIaF books back to back to refresh for Dance of Dragons. Ugh... no more. It's like eating too much macaroni & cheese. Instead of Dance I started reading Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller.

[MechanicalLemon]

Finished The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay. So good. I can't believe I hadn't heard of him until recently. Now off to City of Thieves by David Benioff. Really loving it so far. His portrayal of Leningrad during WW2 seems to be pretty accurate.

[Shryke]

currently re-reading the Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

 

borrowed it and the sequel off my sister. i read the first one a few years ago, so trying it out again before going on to the next one

Good luck with Wise Man's Fear, you'll need it.

 

yeah kinda see what you mean now...

 

also read Dance with Dragons. some good parts, some bad

Tyrion's chapters are boring, and the brief bit with Brienne was a bit of a wtf moment

[Purkake]

Read Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem, awesome stuff. Also read Replay by Ken Grimwood it was interesting, but I didn't really dig the end part.

 

Still recommending Joe Abercrombie for anyone who wants modern fantasy.

[MechanicalLemon]

Still recommending Joe Abercrombie for anyone who wants modern fantasy.

 

This.

 

I still haven't had a chance to read his latest book "The Heroes" although I've heard good things. His next book "Red Country" is going to be a fantasy/Western mashup set in the same universe. Can't wait to see how that turns out.

[Purkake]

Heroes is more self-contained than the previous ones and the subject matter(war) has kind of been beaten to death, but it's still a decent book.

 

Looking forward to Red Country.

[Guard Dog]

Now reading Bloodheir the second book in the Winterbirth series. It's like a guy (named Brian Ruckley) woke up one day and said "What the heck, I think I'll write a fantasy series today" without any original ideas or any clue how to pull it off. But I bought the book, might as well finish it.

 

I finished Dance of Dragons. Overall it was good but it does seem to bog down a little.

 

 

If it was any other writer I'd say there was no way they would catually kill Jon Snow off after devoting about 30% of the pages in four books to him but you never know. I guess we'll find out in 2016.

 

Edited August 29, 2011 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

Now reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, a WWII story of a B-24 crew that survived a crash, days at sea and starvation only to be captured by the Japanese. I just started it today and at this rate I'll probably finish by tomorrow. Can't seem to put it down.

 

Also reading In My Time by **** Cheney. The guy at the book store gave me a dirty look for buying it which made me laugh.

[MechanicalLemon]

I finished Dance of Dragons. Overall it was good but it does seem to bog down a little.

 

 

If it was any other writer I'd say there was no way they would catually kill Jon Snow off after devoting about 30% of the pages in four books to him but you never know. I guess we'll find out in 2016.

 

 

I'm calling it now: Jon gets resurrected by Melisandre and/or becomes Azor Ahai. GRRM did an interview about ADWD and he gets asked why he killed off Jon. From his response, I think we'll be seeing Jon pretty soon.

 

 

Regarding Stannis...

From his response, I'm pretty certain that Ramsay's letter is a lie and Stannis and his army are alive. Since Theon can confirm that they have a fake Arya, perhaps they're marching on the Dreadfort instead?

 

 

I'm tearing through Guy Gavriel Kay's books. Finished Tigana and thought it was pretty good. I'm working through A Song For Arbonne and really enjoying it.

[Walsingham]

I just finished re-reading When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger.

 

The book only gets better as I get older. George R.R. Martin described this trilogy (of which this is the first) as 'wry and black and savage'. Yet no bastard has ever heard of it!

[Guard Dog]

I finished Dance of Dragons. Overall it was good but it does seem to bog down a little.

 

 

If it was any other writer I'd say there was no way they would catually kill Jon Snow off after devoting about 30% of the pages in four books to him but you never know. I guess we'll find out in 2016.

 

 

I'm calling it now: Jon gets resurrected by Melisandre and/or becomes Azor Ahai. GRRM did an interview about ADWD and he gets asked why he killed off Jon. From his response, I think we'll be seeing Jon pretty soon.

 

 

Regarding Stannis...

From his response, I'm pretty certain that Ramsay's letter is a lie and Stannis and his army are alive. Since Theon can confirm that they have a fake Arya, perhaps they're marching on the Dreadfort instead?

 

 

 

Was it just me or was Martin channeling Shakespere a little in Jon's last chapter. Just a little like Julius Ceaser.

[MechanicalLemon]

I finished Dance of Dragons. Overall it was good but it does seem to bog down a little.

 

 

If it was any other writer I'd say there was no way they would catually kill Jon Snow off after devoting about 30% of the pages in four books to him but you never know. I guess we'll find out in 2016.

 

 

I'm calling it now: Jon gets resurrected by Melisandre and/or becomes Azor Ahai. GRRM did an interview about ADWD and he gets asked why he killed off Jon. From his response, I think we'll be seeing Jon pretty soon.

 

 

Regarding Stannis...

From his response, I'm pretty certain that Ramsay's letter is a lie and Stannis and his army are alive. Since Theon can confirm that they have a fake Arya, perhaps they're marching on the Dreadfort instead?

 

 

 

Was it just me or was Martin channeling Shakespere a little in Jon's last chapter. Just a little like Julius Ceaser.

 

Et tu, Bowen?

[Raithe]

Read an amusing editorial on just how "rapey" George R R Martin's fantasy series is. Identifying each major female character, and just how many incidents of threatened rape, actual rape, raped and fell in love with rapist, which book either happened in, the general spousal abuse, and the teenage rape. Ended with an "if I hadn't run into Mr Martin at a convention and found him fairly pleasant, I'd think he'd be an exceptionally creepy man if I went by those books..."

[Walsingham]

In defence of the old boy, rape was pretty common and still is common in many countries. Maybe he does it to convey a sense of violence which we tend to miss when he's talking about cutting heads off etc.

[Guard Dog]

Looks like the Wheel of Time will turn a bit longer. Tor has pushed the release date of A Memory of Light back until late 2012. Bummer.

[Malcador]

Finished Titanicus by Abnett, 40k books are like TV, heh. Thinking about reading more of Gibson's stuff, doesn't seem very cyberpunky though.

[Raithe]

David Weber's "How Firm a Foundation" turned up around noon, and I ended up getting drawn into reading it for the rest of the day between distractions...

[Guard Dog]

Now reading The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss. A little slow to start but I'm warming up to it.

[Hurlshort]

I've been reading Harry Turtledove's "Conan of Venarium", it's pretty good pulp fiction. I like it a lot better than his alternate history stuff.

[Guard Dog]

Hurlie, you ever read any of Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series? If so are they any good?

Edited September 14, 2011 by Guard Dog

[Raithe]

Hurlie, you ever read any of Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series? If so are they any good?

 

I got into those books when I was about 12 or so. The first few of the series (well, that would be about 9 or so), up to the battle of Waterloo are really quite good. The details of the napoleonic wars are certainly there.

 

Unfortunately, it then turned into quite a popular thing what with the tv series they did based on them, and he wrote another handful that just got a bit messy.

[Hurlshort]

Hurlie, you ever read any of Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series? If so are they any good?

 

I got into those books when I was about 12 or so. The first few of the series (well, that would be about 9 or so), up to the battle of Waterloo are really quite good. The details of the napoleonic wars are certainly there.

 

Unfortunately, it then turned into quite a popular thing what with the tv series they did based on them, and he wrote another handful that just got a bit messy.

 

I've read every single one of them and I loved them all. There are like 20 or so. I highly recommend them. I read pretty much everything Cornwall writes, the Saxon and the Longbow series are probably my favorites, but the Sharpe series was my first Cornwall books and I thought they did a great job of bringing the conflict between Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington alive. It also gives a great perspective of musket line warfare.

 

edit: If you decide to give it a go, try to read them in chronological order, even though the India prequel campaign was published later than the first books. It is best to see Sharpe work his way up from private.

Edited September 15, 2011 by Hurlshot

[Walsingham]

I like the longbow ones, but the Sharpe ones only ever echo the series for me. Limited imagination, on my part!

 

Still, I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy the Sharpe books at least enough to justify the borrowing from a library (if you have one nearby).

[Hurlshort]

I like the longbow ones, but the Sharpe ones only ever echo the series for me. Limited imagination, on my part!

 

Still, I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy the Sharpe books at least enough to justify the borrowing from a library (if you have one nearby).

 

Ah, see I've never even seen the show, so it was easy to use my imagination.

[Raithe]

I read the books before the show came out, and while the show did mish-mash a few of the storylines up, they pretty much nailed the characters.

The amusing thing I always found was that the books laid out the grand battles and gave you a sense of scale of the warfare.. but the show tended to have a cast of extras in the 30's.. So grand battles with about 20 people tended to look a bit funny.

 

Sharpe's Rifles through to Sharpe's Waterloo, those were the ones I found the best.