My current reading list

[Head Mutant]

Interesting... I just picked up the third book in Moon's Vetta series, which is a good read and worth your time, if you like her style.

[Spiderdancer]

Just don't read anything she coauthored with Anne McCaffrey. Sf/fantasy authors have this weird thing some of them do when they hit middle age wherein they quit writing for character and start writing their sexual fantasies instead. I think it's like a midlife crisis, only instead of buying a sports car, you write your tall dark-haired multi-scarred space marine into a situation on a boat with two coeds or your dragonriders into increasingly kinky situations. Moon hasn't done it, but McCaffrey sure as heck has.

DTH - Nancy Collins? I'll have to look her up.

[DTH]

admin said:

Interesting... I just picked up the third book in Moon's Vetta series, which is a good read and worth your time, if you like her style.

cool When I've finished this one, I'll probably venture to the book shop and pick up some more.

[DTH]

spiderdancer said:

Just don't read anything she coauthored with Anne McCaffrey. Sf/fantasy authors have this weird thing some of them do when they hit middle age wherein they quit writing for character and start writing their sexual fantasies instead.

DTH - Nancy Collins? I'll have to look her up.

LOL! Funny you say that, because Frank Herbert (my favourite author) suddenly developed a lot in his writing talent for the latter two books in the Dune Chronicles. However, suddenly there's naked people!

I will warn you: the main character is a half-human/half-vampire that somehow is better than anything else in it... yes, soooo tired

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

In a bizarre turn of events, this summer has me focussing on fantasy and alternate-history books. I love the "what-if" potential of alternate-history books, and my research into the genre (meaning "searching titles on wikipedia") brought some seemingly-interesting books to my attention.

Right now, I'm reading:
Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin. I'm only a couple hundred pages in, but I'm obviously loving it. I've imposed a limit of two chapters max. a day, so I can absorb the story as best as possible, which I don't feel I did so much with Clash of Kings. And the inclusion of his chapters has turned Jaime Lannister into one of my favorite characters.
The Gunslinger (Dark Tower 1) by Stephen King. Definitely one of the King's better books, but so far hasn't knocked It and the Stand out of the number 1 spot in my head. But we'll see.

On hold for me at the library are:
-Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno
-The Man in High Castle by Phillip K. Dick
-On a Pale Horse by Anthony Piers
-West of Eden by Harry Harrison

[DTH]

I have mentioned it before and I will mention it again: the Song of Fire & Ice series by George R R Martin is some of the finest fantasy you will ever read.

I am currently reading the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy by Terry Brooks. I have read pretty much everything he has written, however, most of it when I was a lot younger. I never really realised how trashy and poor a writer he is.

Its an interesting story and I've stuck to it (and enjoyed it, I might add!) but I am sure I remember him writing better.

I am a bit tired of his perpetual pimping of the Shannara world. I half expect to be reading the B*ner of Shannara when I'm 70 or something That said, I will have paid c70 (that's catdollars) for the pleasure in the year 2046, so he'll have done his job

[eatmyshorts]

Oh the Glory of it All- Sean Wilsey.
Mystic River- Dennis Lehane.

[Ms. Jellybean]

Since I've matriculated with my high school diploma and gotten back satisfactory (actually, better than) AP scores, I've actually got time to read.

I finished Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and am starting Son of a Witch. Both by Gregory Maguire.

Very good stuff, even if it's slow at points. But be warned if you adore L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz or the musical Wicked, because both Maguire books take on rather adult themes.

[sarahbot]

dth said:

I've been on a reading bender recently and worked my way through the following stuff:

1. Orson Scott Card's "Ender" & "Bean" series. These are two seperate series of books set in the same universe and both are some excellent examples of sci-fi. If you are interested in sci-fi at all, I urge you to at least read "Ender's Game". It is excellent.

I tried to read the first of the Ender books a couple years ago and had to stop because I found it all just so depressing. I mean, he's just a kid! When you start to calculate just how young these kids are and how they're being manipulated, I just wanted to throw up. Is it really worth another shot?

[DTH]

sarahbot said:

I tried to read the first of the Ender books a couple years ago and had to stop because I found it all just so depressing. I mean, he's just a kid! When you start to calculate just how young these kids are and how they're being manipulated, I just wanted to throw up. Is it really worth another shot?

Hmmm, tricky question.

OSC really speaks to me as a writer. I have read all his Ender books (including the Bean quarter) and really like it all.

The first Ender book is an island unto itself. The later books go off on a serious tangent and are fascinating. Though if you don't like pseudo-spiritualism in your sci-fi, you might want to give them a miss.

The first book, well, I really liked the idea of training children from a young age, testing them and tempering them to become military geniuses. However, if the concept disturbs you on a fundamental level, then no matter how good the story and how engaging it is, I would probably advise you to give it a miss.

As much as I love them, I would never force something on a person if they weren't going to get anything out of it.

There are a few novels that I have read over the years that help expand the mind (at least for me). Dune is one. Ender's Game is another.

They have both certainly taught me that you never stop learning or improving your mind!

[DTH]

In a 'I've got money in my pocket and I am bored' bender, I recently purchased Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, Polgara the Sorcereress by David & Leigh Eddings and Sporting Change by Elizabeth Moon.

I first read David Eddings when I was in my early teens and loved his books to bits.

The problem for me now is that having sampled better writing since then (Frank Herbert, Peter F. Hamilton, Clive Barker and George R R Martin, to drop a few names), retracing old steps really highlights inadequacies I didn't notice before.

Much as I found with my recent Terry Brooks-revisit, Mr & Mrs Eddings aren't quite what I remembered. I enjoyed the The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara but it was trashy and not very well written. Polgara The Sorcereress is pretty good. Eddings' writing is alright and I am enjoying the novel, but its just not great.

Its kind of like watching the latest Terminator sequel or something of that ilk: you know you are going to enjoy it and it is probably worthwhile, but you also know you could be watching something better....

[Spiderdancer]

Just found The Wyrm Ouroborous again after losing it around my house. Almost done with it now. An amazing predecessor to Tolkien, though it doesn't exactly try hard to be accessible - the dialogue approaches Elizabethan, and anything "written" by the characters reads like Chaucer. And it's sometimes purple. But for all that, the characters ARE interesting. And the author does develop people on both sides of what is essentially a pointless international squabble between the Witches and the Demons. There's no "Us Vs. The Big Shadow" as in Tolkien and other fantasies with faceless, evil antagonists. (Not that I don't like Tolkien, because I do.)

I finished reading Sunshine, too, by the way. It was in many ways very typical of the genre, but that didn't stop me reading it cover to cover. It's a good narrative. The only big problem I had was the insertion of a near-sex scene where one didn't belong and didn't make sense given the characters. It was as thought the author went out of her way to make her vampires UNsexy, nearly alien, and then some editor came along and said, "Vampires are sexy. Make it so." I'd still call it worth a read, which is more than I'd say for most books.

[starwenn]

I'm currently working my way through "Watership Down" for the first time. I didn't think I'd get so into a book about a group of English rabbits setting up a new warren, but there's more action and violence in this book than in some action films! It's long going but definately well worth it. The rabbits in the story have their own culture, folk tales, wars, even language!

[Head Mutant]

I'm poking through The Traveler, which is supposed to be a 1984-meets-the-Matrix fantasy tale. So far, it's fairly okay, although it hasn't gripped me yet like I thought it would.

I also snuck a read at the opening book of Y: The Last Man at the book store (I'm too cheap to drop $13 on each of these things... they're TINY books!). Good stuff. Monkey.

[DTH]

I've heard awesomely good things about Y: the Last Man.

No doubt Kyle or Drew will have something to say on that too?