|
|
Post by Head Mutant on Feb 23, 2007 11:06:58 GMT -5
You know, I tried that one out and got bored somewhere around page 100 and gave up. Can't quite understand why it was a best seller.
|
|
|
|
Post by PoolMan on Feb 23, 2007 13:08:54 GMT -5
I'm about 270 pages in now (they've FINALLY introduced Jonathan Strange!), and it's picking up again. I'm going to stick with it, but I hope it continues with the momentum it has now and doesn't go back into the social scene of 1808 London...
|
|
|
|
Post by sarahbot on Feb 27, 2007 10:20:32 GMT -5
Reading for school? Who does that? I used the excuse of my friend being in town to pig out at Chapters. I bought:
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - by Christopher Moore
Emma - by Jane Austen
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by someone who I can't remember right now
and I FINALLY bought The Eyre Affair (the first Thursday Next book), by Jasper Fforde.
And I'm also reading North & South (paaaaaainful - the miniseries is better) and Prince Caspian, because I needed comfort reading.
|
|
|
|
Post by Al on Feb 27, 2007 12:03:15 GMT -5
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - by Christopher Moore Huzzah for Christopher Moore! I'm eagerly anticipating the paperback release of A Dirty Job, and totally thrilled his new book (You Suck!) is a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends. Everything that guy writes is gold. In the meantime, I'm whetting my appetite with Last Stand! by Brian Perrett, a chronicle of famous last battles, and will soon begin what is possbily the greatest novel ever written: Planet X. This *was* a crossover we were all dying for? Right? |
|
|
|
Post by Head Mutant on Feb 27, 2007 16:51:28 GMT -5
Just wanted to report that I finished "The Runelords: The Sum of All Men" and found it quite excellent. It doesn't quite get away from typical fantasy conventions a la "Song of Ice and Fire", but it's quite close. Really believable and interesting characters, imaginative lands without going overboard on glitzy or stereotypical fantasy trappings, and a slam-bang ending.
I'll definitely be picking up the rest of the books in the series (well, two series now):
Earth King Series
1. The Sum of All Men
2. Brotherhood of the Wolf
3. Wizardborn
4. The Lair of Bones
Second Series
1. Sons of the Oak
2. Worldbinder
|
|
|
|
Post by Spiderdancer on Feb 27, 2007 19:02:49 GMT -5
So are those also by George R.R. Martin?
|
|
|
|
Post by sarahbot on Feb 28, 2007 0:05:09 GMT -5
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - by Christopher Moore Huzzah for Christopher Moore! I'm eagerly anticipating the paperback release of A Dirty Job, and totally thrilled his new book (You Suck!) is a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends. Everything that guy writes is gold. I actually haven't read anything else he's written. I love Lamb so much that I wasn't sure how his - unique take on a particular story would translate into other stories. |
|
|
|
Post by Al on Feb 28, 2007 0:59:51 GMT -5
I would definitely recommend Fluke as another to try. That was the first novel of his that I read, and it immediately inspired me to go out and purchase every other book he wrote. Overkill? Perhaps, but they are all darn good and I consider it money well spent.
Chris Moore manages to balance being brlliantly weird, superbly funny and tremendously intelligent in a way I haven't seen another author match... ever, really. Of course, there's a ton of stuff I haven't read, so take that with a grain of salt, but he is probably my favorite find since Stephen King, and that was at least twelve years ago.
Fluke and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove were the two of his I jumped into no problem and two I can easily point towards for someone looking to check out more of his stuff. The others, while still excellent, I did have to push myself through a certain number of pages before they hooked me, but every one of them did hook me before the end. There's a significant lack of funny novels out there today, and he made me realize how long it had been since a book made me laugh out loud so hard I actually had to put it down and recompose myself. In my humble opinion--IMHO, if you will--Christopher Moore is one of the best English-speaking active fiction writers today. I just realized I may have hyperboled myself right out of the realm of serious criticism there, but you should really check the guy out. He pretty much completely rocks my socks, if you can't tell.
|
|
|
|
Post by Head Mutant on Feb 28, 2007 11:32:46 GMT -5
So are those also by George R.R. Martin? No no... it's a guy named David Farland. In other news, I stared "World War Z" last night (by Max Brooks), and have been hooked to the point where I can't stop reading it. It's a tremendously inventive way to present a zombie holocaust tale -- from fake "interviews" of first-hand eye witnesses of the beginning, middle and end of the great zombie war. It reads like a really engrossing history text of something that's never happened -- but imagines that it did, and how people and nations would react. |
|
|
|
Post by DarthShady on Feb 28, 2007 15:57:03 GMT -5
In other news, I stared "World War Z" last night (by Max Brooks), and have been hooked to the point where I can't stop reading it. It's a tremendously inventive way to present a zombie holocaust tale -- from fake "interviews" of first-hand eye witnesses of the beginning, middle and end of the great zombie war. It reads like a really engrossing history text of something that's never happened -- but imagines that it did, and how people and nations would react. I want that book so bad! I was very angry when I saw it at my school's bookstore after it first came out, and I didn't have any money at the time for it. But when I came back from break, I made sure I had the money for it....And wouldn't ya know it? They didn't have it anymore. Now a trip to Barnes & Noble is at the top of my To Do List. |
|
|
|
Post by Al on Feb 28, 2007 16:29:29 GMT -5
WWZ was definitely a good read, although I could have done without the rather thinly veiled political commentary. It's been optioned for a movie by Brad Pitt's production company, so I hope that pans outs. And I realize not everyone is as big into books on tape as I am, but the audiobook version is outstanding. It's abridged, so some stuff has sadly been dropped, but the cast is awesome: Max Brooks (as the interviewer), Mark Hammill, Henry Rollins, Rob + Carl Reiner, Alan Alda. Really worth your time.
|
|
|
|
Post by TheOogieBoogieMan on Feb 28, 2007 17:55:22 GMT -5
All this talk of WWZ really got me interested, so I looked into getting a copy from the library. I found, to my dismay, that there are 9 copies available and 70+ holds on it already.
Drat.
So I'm starting Plan B: trying to download the audiobook.
|
|
|
|
Post by sarahbot on Feb 28, 2007 23:07:41 GMT -5
World War Z is amazing. I'm considering buying the (gasp!) hardcover, because I don't want to wait for the paperback. It's that good. I've only gotten into zombie stuff really recently, and the focus on day-to-day survival is completely fascinating - maybe it's like Justin's love for the post-apocalyptic story? Actually, thinking more about it, it's like The Stand, with zombies. And more international. But mostly the first thing.
|
|
|
|
Post by doroanne55 on Mar 1, 2007 1:25:52 GMT -5
I finished it not so long ago and I agree it was quite excellent. I also enjoyed Buttercup's simplicity - the fact that she named her horse 'Horse' is, to me (for some reason), one of the funniest things in the book. However, I admit to being a little disappointed at just how similar the novel and movie were. A lot of stuff I gave credit to Rob Reiner or the actors for, like Peter Cook's Impressive Clergyman (Mahwidge!), I was surprised to find in the novel exactly as they protrayed it onscreen. Still, good stuff. Al I'm not sure I understand what you're on about; why would the movie have to be better than the book? I find that whole idea that the movie should be different, and better if possible is kind of rude. If the movie people thought enough about the story to want to make it into a movie, why not film it the way it was written? I also didn't like the Stanley Kowalski-type staging which was done for Romeo and Juliet with Leo. DiCaprio. It was too much like selling a pile of rusty metal and asking Van Gogh prices, for me. I was all excited about The Postman when it came out in the theaters; but I'm glad we were too strapped to pay 1st run ticket prices, watching it at home was good enough. It was a good enough movie if you had never read the book, but it was a real disappointment for those of us who read the book. It it was a few little changes, so what big deal. They didn't cut a little bit they cut some of the best and most thought-provoking elements, then had the extremely bad taste to tell people David Brin had anything to do with it. The way water from a tap has something to do with the drops of rain which come down to wash away the winter snow. Sure it gets there sometime along the great timeline of the universe, but the taste isn't the same, the color isn't always even the same, and some of the water coming down from the sky is cleaner than the tap water; then again, sometimes it isn't. Now that I've ranted up here on my soapbox for awhile, I guess I'll go and call it a night. I'm tired and I'm going to starting falling asleep while I sit here and write. I have some editing to do on my story (probably just a short story) tomorrow and I need to be awake, so I don't leave in the spelling mistakes my grandson would be making at the age of 5 1/2. I don't usually do this kind of thing but I must have been recovering from one of my surgeries at the time; there are the kind of mistakes I would only leave in when going through something after a Demerol Jugular. When it comes to pain, nothing better than a Demerol Jugular; I had it for the first time after the C-Section with my youngest son. Then there was my other two biggies - the time they pulled out my plumbing, so to speak; and the one where I got a vertical smile from breast-bone to below the navel. Anyway, those times were fraught with pain, leaving my brain weak with sympathy. Au Voir and Goodnight. |
|
|
|
Post by Al on Mar 1, 2007 10:02:01 GMT -5
I'm not faulting the movie for sticking to the story, exactly. Actually, when a movie can adhere that closely to it's source material, it simply makes me more impressed. I was just surprised when I read the novel to find out that, except for the Zoo of Death and two or three other small bits, the movie wasn't missing a whole lot. In most film adaptations, you can sit down with your buddy after the movie and say, "Yeah, that was good, but you should have seen this part in the book! Man, I wish that had made it onscreen!" That's not a conversation you can really have in The Princess Bride. In fact, there were things (most specifically the Impressive Clergyman's accent) that I always assumed was an invention of the film crew to spice up a potentially boring scene that were, in fact, taken verbatim from Goldman's book. I didn't mean it as an insult to either medium (and I suppose I can see how my last post may come across as such), just an unexpected observation.
In other news, Welcome to the forum!
|
|
