Reading material
polycounter lvl 18
I know this sort of threadhas been done in the past, but amazon just delivered my big order of books and im interested in hearing what other people are reading at the moment. Or if anyone has read any of the below as i went abit crazy.
Replies
Usually I read a lot but I haven't really had time for it recently. Various art books are in a constant cycle though - D'Artiste, Paul Kidby's Art of Discworld, and the Lord of the Rings art book - Alan Lee rules.
The only stephen king story that I've read instead of seen the film is Cujo, which I remember being quite scared by when I was wee
edit: oh and not so long ago read 'his dark materials' trilogy by phillip pullman, and that was a quality story. There's this giant talking polar bear, hes so cool :]
Also plodding through James Clavell's "Tai-Pan". I like it (second time through), but it is a cumbersome read. Like everything else the guy's written, there's a whole lotta schlock in there, that a good editor really should've cut out.
Another reccomendation would be George R.R. Martin's series of books. Theyre freakishly good. Im eagerly awaiting his next book which will hopefully be done soon.
I also read I am Legend and Hell House by Richard Matheson, if you like Stephen King as much as I do you'll love these books.
Right now I'm re-reading Nightmares & Dreamscapes by Stephen King
On German Hennig Brand in 1675:
"Brand became convinced that gold could somehow be distilled from human urine. ( The similarity of colour seems to have been a factor in his conclusion. ) He assembled fifty buckets of human urine, which he kept for months in his cellar. By various recondite processes, he converted the urine first into a noxious paste and then into a translucent waxy substance. None of it yielded gold, of course, but a strange and interesting thing did happen. After a time, the substance began to glow. Moreover, when exposed to air, it often spontaneously burst into flame".
The substance later became known as phosphorus. Ah what a fun neighbour he must have been with fifty piss buckets steaming in his cellar. Well you learn something new every day as they say
i'm a weirdo
i've been reading a lot of trek lately. i've bought and read the IKS Gorkon series (all set entirely on a klingon cruiser), the first of the new titan series (following riker on his new ship after nemesis), the third paperback of the SCE series (follows a group of engineers) and i'm dipping into old discworlds in between. got 4 more SCEs to get and then i've caught up...
Recently finished Steven Kings Dark Tower series and it was easily his best works EVER.
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Excepting that the ending was so lame that he actually steps out of the narrative to berate the reader for having the audacity to want a conclusion, which he delivers in the form of a giant stinking turd of cliched fantasy writing and I feel it has to be among his worst work ever. I personally waited ten years to discover what was at the top of the Tower... reading it was perhaps the most disappointing 'resolution' I have ever had the displeasure of reading.
How he dealt with Flagg (an ages old, supremely competant, villainous badass in many of his works) was also downright awful. The way that character, the fight with the Crimson King and the Tower itself were all wrapped up make it seem to me that he was just pounding out the pages as fast as he could to get theis 'epic' behind him and write something else. Read The Stand and tell me if the Randall Flagg in that book would ever get punked like the Flagg in vol. 7 does...
Dark Tower v. 1-4 were fantastic, 5 was pretty good albeit a bit off-kilter, 6 and 7 were both books I'd rather have done without. Yeah, I'm not a happy camper.
Over the last few months I haven't read much, but I did manage to pack in "Whiskey Galore" and "The Curious Incident of the dog at midnight". And I re-read "Life of Pi". I can easily recommend all of those, unless you are a sucker for trashy sci-fi.
Rick S you avatar looks like how I feel today!!
Just recently I've gotten into David Farland's Runelords series. Great fantasy as well.
All of the Dark Elf books by R.A. Salvatore are very fun to read. Lots of action, and if you're into martial arts, it's a blast hearing him give blow-by-blows of the sword fighting.
My current favorite fantasy author is Steven Erikson. He writes some pretty interesting stuff, and has published a new book just about once every year. Hooray for quantity AND quality!
GRRM get's a few hate mails too for his unreleased AFOC, last I heard he was touring most of may, and part of the summer so is Set - 2005 the big day/month?
4 arguments for the Elimination of Television :Jerry Mander
A Pale Blue Dot: Carl Sagan
Lots of technical books on 3d & art, etc. No titles worth mentioning.
Pretty good read and is supposed to be some sort of a bible for project management for softeware development.
Loved the part about Tech Manuals, I been reading lots of little how to do portrait's art books while in the restroom at home.
I tend to read nonfiction these days, since I have so little free reading time. I'm finding I want to learn about things more these days, instead of my past escapes into fiction (as fun as they are). Besides I want to be teaching things to my kids. But hey, I'm sure I'll swing the other way again. Fiction is great for the imagination!
That whole series was full of cliches - the ending was totally appropriate IMO
I didn't think Flagg was belittled I think he just served to demonstrate just what a scary bastard spider boy was. With Flagg up against him it would be like comparing an adult cat to a lion cub. The cat may be the most wizened, cunning predator but the cub is just in a different class altogether. Spider boy had the cunning of the Crimson King who was pretty much Walter's -god- and a thirst for souls. I think Walter was just outmatched.