What Are You Reading, Part 2

[maxal]

17 hours ago, Ammanas said:

@maxal Ready Player One is a absolute blast! It's one of those books that if you wanted to be critical about it I could list several problems with it, but its just so much fun I really don't care about the flaws and just enjoy the ride!

Good to know, I've been looking for an easy to read light amusing book.

7 hours ago, Who Sharded? said:

Keep trying with the First Law.  I was mostly bored by the first book as well, but with the second book it became way more entertaining.  I can't think of anyone who writes more entertaining group banter than Abercrombie does.

I dropped the series after the second book. While it was much better than the first one, it still failed to present characters I actually enjoyed reading. I never bothered with the third book, I guess I'll eventually read it.

[maxal]

I have started reading Ready Player One.

On Saturday mornings, my kids have ski lessons, but this week my husband and I decided it wasn't worth both of us paying for an entry tickets as my son doesn't ski long enough yet. Thus, this morning, instead of hitting the slopes, I hit the Starbucks with my book  And OMG, I got so wrapped up in my book I forgot to go pick up my daughter at the end of her lesson  She eventually burst into the Starbucks yelling: "Mom there you are, you forgot to pick me up, I had to wait FIVE whole minutes" and proceeded to yell even louder: "Dad, I found her, she's in there.".

So huh now my moment of speculative theory of the day...

Spoiler

The Copper key is hidden into the Lupus world. Halliday grew up in a low middle working class slightly dysfunctional family: he'd not want the first key to be hidden into a faraway world only the right and the wealthy can have access to. He'd have hidden it where any kid from any social class could find it. I got to the riddle part and the "you have much to learn" quote definitely makes me think I am right.

So let's keep on reading 

[StormingTexan]

Haha glad you’re enjoying it so far!  

[maxal]

3 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

Haha glad you’re enjoying it so far!  

It's an amazing book! I can't believe they mentioned Bon Jovi. In a fantasy book! Bon Jovi! I am ecstatic  And there was a whole sentence on Midnight Oil  I am however bothered they listed "Beds are Burning" as opposed to "The Dead Hearts". I mean, The Dead Hearts was the theme song of the main knight of my Lego Eagle Crest Castle  I can't remember how my sister and I named the knight, but this was his theme song, whenever he went on a crazy adventure in the living room  

There you go, for the reference, this little fellow in black and blue, well, he had a Midnight Oil theme song carefully recorded on a cassette after my sister spent hours trying to catch it on the radio 

Good old 80s 

[StormingTexan]

Lego character theme songs aside Beds are Burning was a bigger song. Although I remeber the music video for The Dead Heart more. 

Recording your songs on cassettes is a struggle melinials will never know. Record and play at just the right time and hoping the DJ won’t talk over the intro. 

Edited January 28, 2018 by StormingTexan

[AngelEy3]

55 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

Lego character theme songs aside Beds are Burning was a bigger song. Although I remeber the music video for The Dead Heart more. 

Recording your songs on cassettes is a struggle melinials will never know. Record and play at just the right time and hoping the DJ won’t talk over the intro. 

Don't forget to hit pause, record, and play all together. That removed the tape delay so you could get your recording going faster just by unpausing it. 

[Ammanas]

Man @StormingTexan@AngelEy3 you guys are bringing back some memories!

I can remember my younger self hunched over the radio just hoping they would play Semi-charmed Life by Third Eye Blind so I could have it on cassette. It actually kind of reminds me of trying to capture a rare pokemon; a lot of patient waiting and just hoping that you can capture it without it running away or fainting.

[StormingTexan]

@AngelEy3 haha that’s a pro tip I forgot about! 

This process grew increasingly difficult as you were attempting to make that perfect mix tape for the special girl in your life. I remember spending hours trying to get The First Time by Surface recorded perfectly.

[maxal]

8 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

Lego character theme songs aside Beds are Burning was a bigger song. Although I remeber the music video for The Dead Heart more. 

Recording your songs on cassettes is a struggle melinials will never know. Record and play at just the right time and hoping the DJ won’t talk over the intro. 

I was young at the time and I couldn't understand the lyrics... It became known to me as the "Tulut-tulut-tulut" song  It is only much, much later I found the name of the band and the song... 

My sister once recorded the entire top 100 songs of all times on cassettes. At the time, I was ecstatic: I thought I was being privy to grand radio moment. Later, I found out radio stations do a "top 100 of all time" on a regular basis. Still, those cassettes became my music reference for, well, at least a decade  I had a nearly "hero-worship" relationship with Stairways to Heaven because it was THE best song of all time  It felt so mythical because it was so old 

If my sister was the queen of making radio cassette, I was the queen for making VHS cassette with my favorite music videos  This was a real struggle... Recording hours of Musique Plus (our own French MTV), looking out if they were going to play my favorite clips or anything by Bon Jovi  Then, I had to remember when, on said cassette, I had important videos recorded such as not to erase them. I had to remember onto which cassette I had enough time to record a full show in between two important videos  Not to forget fast-forwarding my cassette to s specific Bon Jovi video so I could watch it again and again and again.

Being a kid in the 80s/90s was complicated  Kids nowadays, they don't see how easy they got it.

I also can't believe the book mentioned the Ewok movie or Howard the Duck! He forgot a few classics... Where is Labyrinth? Or Willow? Though, he did mention Beastmaster. Ah..... Beastmaster.... 

[Briar King]

Wall of Storms has ground to almost a complete stop on my part. I can’t motivate myself to really get into it though Malazan 6&7 probably isn’t helping a bit. On pg 152 and I doubt I have read 10 full pages in the past 2 weeks. I still like it but Malazan is a high bar to meet for other books and it’s really showing right now.

[Ammanas]

Dang B.K. you are breaking my heart! If you can get through part two (titled Gusts and Gales) the action really picks up and becomes more of the story I think you were expecting. I personally really liked the first two sections with its exploration of different themes, society, and legend but get that some people may not like it.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Ammanas

[Briar King]

Oh no worries I ll most definitely finish it I’m just not really into Zomi and the academic focus/setting currently. Though I did really enjoy the bit how her leg was injured. I just realllly want to get past this setting.

a lot of the boredom I’m feeling is likely as I said due to Malazan reread.

[Stampede]

I'm on book three of The Belgariad I can't help but think I would have really enjoyed the series when I was 14 or so, though it's not bad now. After I'm planning on reading A Crown of Swords and see how many pointless words Mr. Jordan can add to that book.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Stampede

[Ammanas]

Listening to the audiobook Legends of Ahn book three in Kade's series. This series has a lot of problems, but the narrator does a excellent job and its kind of guilty pleasure reading about a guy who is awesome at everything  (greatest assassin in the world, head of a criminal empire, every woman wants him and every man wants to be him) he surrounds himself with powerful friends and they just go out and kick butt. 

I am reading Midnight Front by Mack. It's a good book if you are into WW2 history, magic, and demons. I think its a lot of fun so far!

Edited February 1, 2018 by Ammanas

[Storming Radiant]

On 26.1.2018 at 3:23 PM, Storming Radiant said:

I actually read Ready player one last week becuase I got stuck with my WoT read. I finished The Dragon Reborn and had to order the next book. It was awesome. I'm still waiting for it, so I took the first book in The First Law trilogy for the weekend. I've tried to read it a while back but got bored by it, so I hope that's changed 

So I dropped it again halfway thourgh. I just couldn't bring myself to like the characters and the story itself wasn't interesting enough to keep me reading. The good news is that my WoT books have finally arivved, and I also bought the Kingkiller books in english (including The slow regard of silent things which I haven't read before). I read a translated version and loved it, but everyone around told me that the english version is way better so now I can give it a try sometime...

[maxal]

I finished Ready Player One and what a ride  I loved this book , it was so much fun. I loved how it unraveled and the ending was beyond sweet even if predictable. There are so many great elements within this book, such as the discussion as to whether or not the Oasis is a good thing...

Now, I think I will try to read Night Angel which I bought into my Kindle... The reason for it being my Kingle suggested it to me, I thought the cover looked nice and it had a catchy sentence on the top of it  I heard it was very different from Lightbringer which was alright, but not ground breaking, so maybe it won't have the same flaws. I'll try the first book and see what I do next.

[StormingTexan]

19 minutes ago, maxal said:

I finished Ready Player One and what a ride  I loved this book , it was so much fun. I loved how it unraveled and the ending was beyond sweet even if predictable. There are so many great elements within this book, such as the discussion as to whether or not the Oasis is a good thing...

Now, I think I will try to read Night Angel which I bought into my Kindle... The reason for it being my Kingle suggested it to me, I thought the cover looked nice and it had a catchy sentence on the top of it  I heard it was very different from Lightbringer which was alright, but not ground breaking, so maybe it won't have the same flaws. I'll try the first book and see what I do next.

So glad to hear you liked RPO. It really is a fun book. I’m actually a recovering video game addict and what you mention about if the Oasis is a good thing really resonated with me when I first read the book. 

 

Good luck on Night Angel. I read the first book and just couldn’t get in to the series but really like Lightbringer. 

[maxal]

2 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

So glad to hear you liked RPO. It really is a fun book. I’m actually a recovering video game addict and what you mention about if the Oasis is a good thing really resonated with me when I first read the book. 

I thought the Oasis was scary: a place where people forget reality, lose themselves. I love how the book ended: I thought it was perfect.

I'll see about Night Angel, maybe I'll like it. If I not, then I'll pick something else.

[Sunbird]

It finally came my turn to check out Ready Player One from my library's ebook catalogue, so I'm glad to see so many positive opinions of it in here. I haven't started it yet since there are a few other books I need to finish first, but it is high on my list of priorities!

[Who Sharded?]

Ready Player One is awesome.

With Night Angel, give it a couple hundred pages to grab you.  I wasn't really into it until the intro phase was over, then I couldn't put it down.

[maxal]

8 hours ago, Who Sharded? said:

Ready Player One is awesome.

With Night Angel, give it a couple hundred pages to grab you.  I wasn't really into it until the intro phase was over, then I couldn't put it down.

I have read the first six chapters of Night Angel tonight and I am really liking it so far  I find it much more grabbing and taking than Lightbringer where too much of the Black Prism felt like info dump. 

Apparently, I have to sit out skiing tomorrow once again (my father-in-law is coming to watch the kids ski, so my husband will ski with him, of course, so I'll get the next two Saturdays) which means it will be myself, Starbucks and my book tomorrow morning while the little ones learn the sport.

One colleague of mine bought Ready Player One and started reading it after hearing me speak of it so passionately during lunch break. I have a hard time picturing readers not liking this book, this is just how fun it was.

[Briar King]

Night Angel was written before Black Prism. Many people have problems with it and like Prism much better as he gained exp. I’m really happy as he is going back to NA setting after Prism series is done.

[maxal]

31 minutes ago, Briar King said:

Night Angel was written before Black Prism. Many people have problems with it and like Prism much better as he gained exp. I’m really happy as he is going back to NA setting after Prism series is done.

I guess it depends on the reader... I found Lightbringer could get very technical and it was very trope-y. So far, I find the premises and the setting of Night Angel to be much more interesting. All the characters look interesting.

[Dunkum]

59 minutes ago, maxal said:

One colleague of mine bought Ready Player One and started reading it after hearing me speak of it so passionately during lunch break. I have a hard time picturing readers not liking this book, this is just how fun it was.

Personally, I thought it was OK, but nothing more.  the whole virtual world scavenger hunt thing appeals to me a bit, so the premise was doing a lot more work than any of the characters in terms of what parts of it I did enjoy. but honestly I don't understand how anyone can love it as much as the last few comments on it in this thread indicate.  it baffles me that anyone could feel that level of like for what I thought was pretty mediocre.

rereading what I just wrote, it comes off a bit harsh, and that isn't really intentional, but I did want to throw out a countervailing opinion on it and don't have the energy to rewrite it just now.

[maxal]

3 minutes ago, Dunkum said:

Personally, I thought it was OK, but nothing more.  the whole virtual world scavenger hunt thing appeals to me a bit, so the premise was doing a lot more work than any of the characters in terms of what parts of it I did enjoy. but honestly I don't understand how anyone can love it as much as the last few comments on it in this thread indicate.  it baffles me that anyone could feel that level of like for what I thought was pretty mediocre.

rereading what I just wrote, it comes off a bit harsh, and that isn't really intentional, but I did want to throw out a countervailing opinion on it and don't have the energy to rewrite it just now.

I guess everyone's tastes are just different. If we all liked the same books, then all books would be the same and that'd be boring  I loved the book, I thought it was a fun ride: it wasn't perfect, but it got me hooked from page one to the last. All the tip bits about the 80s really got me going: I loved this. It's OK if others didn't like it, I didn't really mean it when I said everyone would love this book: there is no such thing as a universally loved book.