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+--- Thread: !Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! (/showthread.php?tid=3051)
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Darunia - 12th July 2005
We're all smart here, so we all must read a lot!
I've always wanted to read the Heir to the Empire trilogy by Zahn, but by the time I decided to read it, the first book had been out of print for some years... every book store I went to didn't have it...but I finally found one lonely copy sitting at the Barnes & Noble in Dartmouth, and I am finally about to embark upon it. I also picked up "The Ten Thousand", by Michael Curtis Ford---which also looks very promising... hopefully it'll be like "Gates of Fire", by Steven Pressfield, which is without doubt one of the best novels I've ever read.
I'm finishing up my first Ben Bova sci-fi book, "Jupiter." Anyone else here ever read anything by him?
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Great Rumbler - 12th July 2005
I have Saturn by Ben Bova, I haven't gotten around to reading it yet because I've been busy with other stuff. Right now I've started reading Imajica by Clive Barker but I haven't gotten far enough into it to form an opinion about it yet.
Let's see, here's some recent books I've read:
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein - one of the the original "space marines fighting alien bugs" books and it has a lot of philosophical points that are still relevant today. A must read.
City of Embers by Jeanne DuPrau - it's more for kids really, but I really enjoyed the setting [a underground city] and the characters were pretty good.
Wizard of Earthsea and Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K Le Guin - Fantasy classics. I decided to get them after watching the Scifi Channel miniseries [I'd read them before though] and they are 100X better than that steaming pull of poo Scifi dumped on us.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Weltall - 12th July 2005
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham.
It by Stephen King.
Intensity by Dean Koontz.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Fittisize - 12th July 2005
State of Fear by Michael Crichton
The Family by Mario Puzo
Harry Potter....soon (closet Harry Potter reader)
GR--I totally agree. Starship Troopers is an excellent novel (got it off eBay for $1) and a definite must read.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - A Black Falcon - 12th July 2005
What have I been reading? Hmm... here are a few of the noteworthy ones.
-A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, book 1) - George R. R. Martin (great series, now I need the other two (and to wait for the fourth one... :))
-New Spring - The Novel - Robert Jordan
-War of the Flowers - Tad Williams (a bit more depressing than 'Otherland' or 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn', and thus perhaps I wasn't quite as interested, but it shows that Tad Williams can write whatever he wants to the absolute highest level... Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn in fantasy, Otherland in scifi/cyberworld, this in real world/faerie... a great author. But read Otherland or Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn before this. :))
I've read other stuff recently, but I'm not sure if there's anything of note... the rest of this post is older books (stuff I've read this year, but not that recently) that I think are good.
Some other stuff I've read in the last few months... yeah, not summer, but they were good books so I want to mention them anyway. :)
-The Bone Doll's Twin (Tamir Triad Book 1) - Lynn Fwelling
-Hidden Warrior (Tamir Triad Book 2) - Lynn Fwelling (reading these two books of a new prequel trilogy got me to read books one and two of the original series -- Luck in the Shadows and Stalking Darkness)
-The Elder Gods - The Dreamers, Book 1 - David Eddings (very similar to his previous works, and not as complex as works from Jordan, Willams, Goodkind, etc, but still good...)
-Chainfire - The Sword of Truth, book ... 9? 10? - Terry Goodkind (don't have it, but I read it for two hours in the store... and it was quite good. Better than Naked Empire, the previous book in the series, for sure... I'll get it when it comes out in paperback.)
Uh, do books you started a while back and mean to get back to count? :) ... I hope not, because there are too many of those to mention... or how about books I have and mean to read but haven't gotten around to yet? I got a bunch of stuff at the library book sale I haven't read yet... still, I should mention a few.
Nonfiction (history) books -- these mostly fall under the "should read" or "have read part of but haven't read it in a while" (erm, months really...) categories. :)
Alexander the Great - Paul Cartledge
The Life of Greece - Will Durant
Blood for Dignity - David P. Colley
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Laser Link - 14th July 2005
I just finished Shadow Puppets, the third book in the Bean-spinoff-of-Ender series. I started it months ago and got busy, so I finally finished it. I need to go get the 4th and final book "Shadow of the Giant", but it's only in hardback and I hate buying hardback books.
I want to go finish the actual Ender series as well, since I've only read Ender's Game. The others sound like they head off into some wacky lala-land philisophical stuff, but I want to see for myself.
I also just finished Nine Princes of Amber by Roger Zelazny. I'll start on the next soon. It was good, but not on the WoT or Ender's Game level of great. Hopefully the series will pick up.
And of course there is Knife of Dreams, Book 11 of the fabulous Wheel of Time coming out in October. I think this one will finally be the book we've been waiting for since Lord of Chaos. Yes, I've said that for the past 5 books, but I'm sticking to it. It should be very, very exciting. The full prologue comes out on eBook form on the 22nd, and I'll be buying that right away. Tor was nice enough to sneak part of the prologue (so we're talking about the first part of the first part of the book...) into the paperback version of A New Spring, and I read it at Borders. I was shocked to see what happened in just those few pages, and the implications are huge. If the rest of the book even comes close, it should be fantastic. Now I know RJ has a tendency to put some exciting stuff in the prologue and then ignore it for the entire rest of the book, but I don't think that will happen this time.
On the non-fiction side, I'm looking forward to reading Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus and maybe some more Tozer or CS Lewis. Which leads me back to reading more fiction, since the Narnia movie is coming out soon...
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Darunia - 15th July 2005
I finished Ben Bova's 'Jupiter', and I'm up to chapter ten in Heir to the Empire... I have to say, you can tell that it was the first-ever licensed Star Wars novel... the way its written is so articulate and stuffy, how it only makes references to the classic trilogy, never any of the rest of the canon universe... which is good. :)
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Great Rumbler - 15th July 2005
Quote: you can tell that it was the first-ever licensed Star Wars novel
Not quite, Splinter of the Mind's Eye preceeded it by about 5 years.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Dark Jaguar - 15th July 2005
Narnia movie... I find it a bit odd that they went with Lion as the first movie instead of Magician's Nephew. Oh well, the second book is the most famous of them for reasons I'm pretty much unaware of.
Currently I'm reading "The Illustrated On the Shoulders of Giants" with commentary by Steven "MC" Hawking.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - A Black Falcon - 15th July 2005
Quote:Not quite, Splinter of the Mind's Eye preceeded it by about 5 years.
Actually, about 15 years. 'Splinter' came out between ANH and ESB, after all, while the Zahn trilogy (and the modern Star Wars fiction series) started in, I believe, 1994. 1992 or 1993 at the earliest. Even saying the latest date for Splinter and the earliest for Zahn's book, it was 10 years at least (and almost certainly more).
The other Star Wars books in the late '70s/early '80s (after these there was pretty much nothing for ten years) include the three Han Solo Adventures books (great fun, read them! Han Solo at Star's End, Han Solo ... something ... and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (collected in one volume) and the three Lando Calrissian Adventures books (also now collected in one volume), which I haven't read but which are supposedly pretty bad.
Quote:Narnia movie... I find it a bit odd that they went with Lion as the first movie instead of Magician's Nephew. Oh well, the second book is the most famous of them for reasons I'm pretty much unaware of.
Um... because it's the first book, going by publishing date? :)
Older editions of the books don't have them in the current chronological order, you know... the ones out town library (that is, the first version I read) had for instance had The Lion, The Witch, and the Warderobe as book 1, while Magician's Nephew was... book five or so? Actually, I think A Horse and his Boy was book 4, and Magician's Nephew was book 6... or something like that. :) The point is, not the chronological order -- and I'll bet the majority of people who have read the series started with 'Warderobe'.
What I'm comparing this movie to, though, isn't so much the book as it is the '80s BBC television version of Narnia (they did TLTWATW, 'Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader', and 'The Silver Chair' -- leaving out the two "side plot" novels without the major characters and the final one, either because of lack of money or because it's too religious...), which we own on tape and is pretty good, once you ignore its low production values at times...
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - lazyfatbum - 15th July 2005
gufaw
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Dark Jaguar - 15th July 2005
Actually I didn't know that, but checking the original copyright year in my collection here confirms it. Other than that, all of them are in order except "A horse and his boy". They were both written before the last battle at any rate.
I had never bothered checking the years on these books before. Anyway, there's an interesting fact. They don't seem much like side stories though, even if written after the fact, but rather like important storyline info. Magician's Nephew in particular really sets up a lot of stuff. I suppose that's why in the end this guy renumbered them. Well, that's an assumption. Was it Lewis that renumbered them officially later on or someone else that had that kind of influence?
At any rate, with that one being written first I no longer wonder about why they picked that movie after all. If Lewis did however make the decision to renumber the books himself after the fact, that is something to take into consideration.
Oh and, I suppose how many of the books they end up making movies of (film WILL be an outdated term soon enough, it already is when you talk of the DVD versions) all depends on the amount of money they get out of the first one. If it does as big as Lord of the Rings (which seems to be the major motivation to get this movie made if you ask me), then I would wager ALL the books will eventually be released in movie format.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - A Black Falcon - 15th July 2005
Quote:I had never bothered checking the years on these books before. Anyway, there's an interesting fact. They don't seem much like side stories though, even if written after the fact, but rather like important storyline info. Magician's Nephew in particular really sets up a lot of stuff. I suppose that's why in the end this guy renumbered them. Well, that's an assumption. Was it Lewis that renumbered them officially later on or someone else that had that kind of influence?
I don't know. However, given that some '80s editions still had the original numbering system, I'm not sure if it's something C. S. Lewis actually did or if it's just a more modern thing... I remember finding it intresting when a few years after reading them they came out with this new set that reordered them into chronological order. As for when I was reading them... ' Horse and his Boy' really feels like a sidestory, and Magician's Nephew does set things up but I wouldn't say it makes as good an introduction to the series as 'Warderobe' does... I thought it also worked as book six or so with a 'look this is how it happened before the series started' thing (that is, a prequel. :)) What order the things are read later on isn't something the author really decides while writing the prequel, I think...
Quote:Oh and, I suppose how many of the books they end up making movies of (film WILL be an outdated term soon enough, it already is when you talk of the DVD versions) all depends on the amount of money they get out of the first one. If it does as big as Lord of the Rings (which seems to be the major motivation to get this movie made if you ask me), then I would wager ALL the books will eventually be released in movie format.
If it does really well, yes. If not... well, we'll see how far it goes. As I said, the BBC TV show only did four books.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Dark Jaguar - 15th July 2005
I remember seeing some snippets of those shows... Some of it was done well but on the whole I just didn't like the style. I'm not bashing production values, but what little I saw gave me this feeling of every single instance being a casual dinner conversation seperate from everything else going on in the world, even if it's supposed to be happening midbattle.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Weltall - 15th July 2005
A Black Falcon Wrote:TLTWATW
Acronyms should never be this long. Ever.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Dark Jaguar - 15th July 2005
An acronym that long is fine if it's a WORD, something you could actually say.
That, that's gibberish, and in general acronyms constructed of gibberish suck.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - A Black Falcon - 15th July 2005
Yeah... that's why I later called it 'Warderobe'. :)
Quote:I remember seeing some snippets of those shows... Some of it was done well but on the whole I just didn't like the style. I'm not bashing production values, but what little I saw gave me this feeling of every single instance being a casual dinner conversation seperate from everything else going on in the world, even if it's supposed to be happening midbattle.
I haven't seen them in several years so I don't remember exactly, but I thought they were good... and about as accurate to the books as you could really hope for. That is not perfect but close... but they had time -- each of the 3 films was three hours long, so Warderobe and Silver Chair were more intact... since Dawn Treader and Prince Caspian were combined they had less (especially Voyage of the Dawn Treader, some of their stops were cut out), but still, it's as much as you can hope for from a film adaptation of a book, content-wise...
Quality? I liked them quite a bit, when I first saw them when I was younger (which is of course the age group they were made for). Don't know exactly what I would think of them now as I haven't seen them recently, but my memories are good. :) We do own them though so I could rewatch them if I wanted...
Quote:, but what little I saw gave me this feeling of every single instance being a casual dinner conversation seperate from everything else going on in the world, even if it's supposed to be happening midbattle.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Dark Jaguar - 15th July 2005
I'm really not sure how to make it any clearer.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - me - 15th July 2005
Ryan Wrote:Intensity by Dean Koontz.
Dean Koontz writes straight-up weird books. I read like eight of them a couple summers ago, and I finally decided reading books like that just wasn't good for me. Talk about dark. Jiminy.
Anyway I'm reading Of Mice and Men and the Catcher in the Rye. My next-year english teacher came in on the last day of school and gave us journal assignments for both books due the first day of school, curse her. Also reading C.S Lewis' space trilogy--tough books.
BTW I'm Me, some guy that wanders in every so often. I registered this name a long time ago, thinking about registering a different one.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Dark Jaguar - 15th July 2005
I thought what I'd do is I'd pretend to be one of those deaf mutes...
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Laser Link - 16th July 2005
I think they are going with The Lion... first ebcause it was the first one Lewis wrote and because it seems to be the most well known of the series- probably since it was the first one he wrote. I think it makes sense too, because even though Magician's Nephew was chronologically first, it's a wierd book. It is! I don't think it would make a great movie, where Lion... has the whole Good vs. Evil plot thing going. And it really is the core book of the series, given it's obvious symbolism.
I remember seeing some of the old BBC movies, but it was a long itme ago and I was a kid. So I don't know if they were actually good or not. I think this new one will be very good though, in terms of production quality if nothing else.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - lazyfatbum - 16th July 2005
So i'm parusing the posts, noticing some conversations of minimal interest and something strikes me as abnormal, a feeling of bereaved discomposure and a noticeable shifting, almost alembic in its essence thus I hereby stake emphatic claim in to its errant core in the hopes of gaining composure over this lateral discontent.
...who the fuck is "me"? Who are you! Do you have a penis! BURN the WITCH! BURN the WITCH! MICROWAVE his DOG and give his loved ones a nasty anonymous letter with what for now and how's that space exclamation mark in bold sans merrit!
Size 14!
...in the background a dinner plate
(empty)
"me"....
Yet I know for a fact, regardless of your persuasion that you are not me. Me is you and I am not you but me as in myself which is different, a radically expressive self-contained being seperate from "me" and anything "me" (not I) might entail. You perform fellatio on horses, "me"! And you do it while your mother weeps and cries out "I deserve more!" YOU PERVERTED IMP, CHILD OF SATAN, SATYR OF WICKEDNESS! YOU CANNOT STEAL A NAME OF THAT WHICH IS ALREADY USED BY LIVING BEINGS! YOU ARE A DISEASE INFESTED LICH, ROTTING DRIPPING FLESH, EVIL... YUCKY... STUPID FACE!
YOU EAT POO!
*cries*
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - N-Man - 16th July 2005
I read a couple Agatha Christies lately- Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient-Express and Cards on Table. The last one was particularly good. Generally I'm not a big reader, but I'm a fan of mystery novels, as they're entertaining without including any moralizing philosophy as every two-bit fantasy/sci-fi novelist tends to do. I also did the biography of Motley Crue a couple months ago as prelude to the concert - don't tell anyone. :D
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Weltall - 16th July 2005
me Wrote:Dean Koontz writes straight-up weird books. I read like eight of them a couple summers ago, and I finally decided reading books like that just wasn't good for me. Talk about dark. Jiminy.
I actually don't care for Koontz that much. I bought Intensity several years ago and never read it, until recently a friend suggested it. So I read through it, and I wasn't impressed.
Koontz is not a bad writer but he has several glaring issues that make reading his books a chore. For one, if you read several of his books, you see basically the exact same characters with different names, and that these character types are usually very clichè. Intensity's characters were all found in other, older Koontz books. Chyna Shepherd was the "Intelligent tough female with a haunted past" and Edgler Vess was the "Intelligent Serial killer who is convinced he's superhuman". The story wasn't really bad at all, but the characters are just too plastic, as in most of his books... the good guys and the bad guys are always very clearly defined. I also don't care for his descriptive abilities.
Maybe being spoiled by King all these years colors my opinion, but if there are two things King excels at, it's characterization and description.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - A Black Falcon - 16th July 2005
Quote:I think it makes sense too, because even though Magician's Nephew was chronologically first, it's a wierd book. It is! I don't think it would make a great movie, where Lion... has the whole Good vs. Evil plot thing going. And it really is the core book of the series, given it's obvious symbolism.
Magician's Nephew... I don't really remember what happened that well, but from what I can remember 'weird' would make sense... it definitely feels different from the "normal" books in the series. And yeah, the events in that book might not make quite as interesting a film as 'Warderobe'...
Quote:I remember seeing some of the old BBC movies, but it was a long itme ago and I was a kid. So I don't know if they were actually good or not. I think this new one will be very good though, in terms of production quality if nothing else.
I don't know if I want to watch them again, if they aren't as good as I remember... :)
Quote:BTW I'm Me, some guy that wanders in every so often. I registered this name a long time ago, thinking about registering a different one.
Hello me, come back more often...
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - CoconutCommander - 28th August 2005
I am currently reading:
I, Elizabeth by Rosaline Miles
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'engle
Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
The Secret History of Lucifer by Lynn Picknett
This week's TV Guide by Associated Press
I recently finished reading:
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverburg
Armor by John Steakley
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Last week's TV Guide by Associated Press
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Darunia - 28th August 2005
I'm on to Book Two of the Heir to the Empire trilogy (Dark Force Rising) and I'm still reading The Ten Thousand.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Weltall - 28th August 2005
I'm beginning my annual journey through the Wheel of Time.
Okay, not really. I'm knee-deep into The Dragon Reborn. I must've really just skimmed the books before, because I'm picking up all sorts of information I never knew before.
Ingtar was a Darkfriend. Well holy shit.
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - Great Rumbler - 28th August 2005
I think it's just that there's so much information to process that your brain can't take it all in at once. :D
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - A Black Falcon - 28th August 2005
What have I read some of recently? Hmm...
-A Game of Thrones - still
-Medalon - Jennifer Fallon - finished it (solid fantasy book. Nothing really special, just a good fantasy story... read if you like the genre.)
-The Pirate Coast - Richard Zachs - nonfiction - interesting book about a secret (American) mission during the War of 1812 to try to overthrow one of the pirate kingdoms of the Barbary Coast... good story, true, and a good book. :)
-The Sorceress and the Cygnet - Patricia McKillip - fantasy... interestingly written, kind of mysterious and unclear... I don't know how to describe it, but it makes it somewhat different.
-The Dark Hand of Magic - Barbara Hambly - third mediocre book in a mediocre fantasy series... I quit reading it. :)
... and I keep meaning to get back to reading Otherland. Tad Williams is such a fantastic writer...
!Darunia's Great Summer Reading Thread! - N-Man - 28th August 2005
I've been reading some Lovecraft recently (insert Cthulhu smiley), and through that I discovered Robert W. Chambers's bizarre and fascinating "The King in Yellow". Basically what it is is a series of short stories, linked together by the existence of the fictitious play "The King in Yellow" that drives mad or otherwise causes the decadence of anyone who reads it. The play doesn't actually exist, but supposed excerpts are provided near the beginning of each short story.
Here is a link: http://www.sff.net/people/DoyleMacdonald/l_kiy.htm
I recommend "The Yellow Sign" in particular, though I've read the first four stories and they're all quite good.