What Are You Reading, Part 2

[Sunbird she/her]

Finished reading Jumper by Steven Gould today and liked it better than the movie, so I picked up the next two books in the series from the library.

I've also started reading This Is A Book by Demetri Martin on a friend's recommendation. Pretty funny so far!

[Briar King]

Finished my reread of Dragonlance 1 earlier. Onto 2 now.

[Argent he/him]

I am rereading the Alcatraz series. It's been a while since I read them, and since we don't talk about them here as much as we do about Cosmere books, I don't remember much. I am doing this so I can jump into the last one, of course.

[Yata he/him]

I am just started the 3rd book of Elric of Melimbourne.

From a couple of weeks Calamity will be released in my language. To read it again

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

Ooooh Elric is such a good series.

Anyway, I just finished The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski. Apparently it's what started the Witcher video game series, and it's definitely worth picking up.

[Left he/him]

So Golden Son was STORMING AMAZING. Ahem. 

The Dark Talent was pretty good too. 

On to Morning Star, then all of the Flash and Batman comics I've been waiting to read. 

[Sunbird she/her]

After many many people recommended it to me, I have finally started reading Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas, and I'm enjoying it a lot so far. (28% in according to my Kindle's progress bar.)

[Eki]

Slowly but surely getting through Dune. I just arrived around where the text on the back ends. A little over half of the book, in other words.

[Magestar he/him]

Oh Yeah.  Dune is tough.  I read the first couple of books in the series, then got slowly

                                                                                                                                             Bogged

                                                                                                                                                           Down.....

Yeah, it's tough.  But now I'm on WoT, and my brain is functioning normally once more.  It depends on how you read, I think.

[AliasSheep]

19 minutes ago, Magestar said:

Yeah, it's tough.  But now I'm on WoT, and my brain is functioning normally once more.  It depends on how you read, I think.

Don't worry, WoT becomes a drag as well eventually! (Worth it for the last 3 books tho imo).

 

And update on 2312.  Like, it's hard not to love Wahram.  And of course I love KSR's narrative style, so that definitely helps.

Edited September 13, 2016 by AliasSheep

[Magestar he/him]

6 minutes ago, AliasSheep said:

Don't worry, WoT becomes a drag as well eventually! (Worth it for the last 3 books tho imo).

Right now I'm on knife of dreams.  The last two or so books seemed a bit like filler, with a little action to make things happen, and I'm hoping this one picks things up a bit.  This is the first of the last three, I believe?

[AliasSheep]

Just now, Magestar said:

Right now I'm on knife of dreams.  The last two or so books seemed a bit like filler, with a little action to make things happen, and I'm hoping this one picks things up a bit.  This is the first of the last three, I believe?

I think Knife of Dreams is the last Jordan one, and then it's The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light.

They basically increase in quality from each book to the next (imo at least.  I certainly was more enraptured by A Memory of Light than The Gathering Storm).

[Bugsy he/him]

On 9/10/2016 at 7:39 AM, LeftVash said:

So Golden Son was STORMING AMAZING. Ahem. 

On to Morning Star

Ooh, you're in for a treat!  

I actually came on here to say that I was rereading Red Rising, what are the odds? 

[Left he/him]

8 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

Ooh, you're in for a treat!  

I actually came on here to say that I was rereading Red Rising, what are the odds? 

Never tell me the odds

I finished Morning Star late Sunday night. I still haven't recovered from the lack of sleep. It was worth it. 

Havent had much time to read, but I've been working on Batman Court of Owls. 

[Argent he/him]

Finished rereading Alcatraz 1-4, the new editions.I love the new illustrations! I also think I liked the first two more than the last two (and rereading all of them was the next best thing to reading them fresh, I barely remembered anything!). Then, as is natural, I moved on to The Dark Talent. It was not what I expected - it was, in many ways, so much more. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out a way to review it without spoiling anything, but it was - unsurprisingly - worth reading. 

I am not sure what I'll read next...

[Savanorn he/him]

On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 0:14 PM, Assassin in Burgundy said:

Ooooh Elric is such a good series.

Anyway, I just finished The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski. Apparently it's what started the Witcher video game series, and it's definitely worth picking up.

Seconded. Tower of the Swallow came out in translation recently. 

I was suitably impressed.

On Wednesday, September 14, 2016 at 7:46 AM, Eki said:

Slowly but surely getting through Dune. I just arrived around where the text on the back ends. A little over half of the book, in other words.

Definitely worth the read. 

I just finished Joe Abercrombie's First Law + Great Leveller works. Probably the best fantasy books I've read for a long while, espeically in regards to complex characters and morals, but some of the books are so bleak they make Martin and Mark Lawrence looks cheery by comparison. 

[DSC01 he/him]

I've started to read The Abhorsen Trilogy a couple of times, and it just was never quite the right time and I moved on to something else before making it past the beginning. So maybe this time will be it, and I'll actually read it.

I'm at one of those points where I don't really know what I want to to read and have trouble getting engrossed in anything. I just finished The Republic of Thieves, which seems to have taken forever, even though I was really interested in the book. The Gentlemen Bastards books had previously seemed like standalone adventures, with each volume being a sequel to last but not dependent on it the way each volume in, say, The Wheel of Time is on the last. However, The Republic of Thieves starts to bring some of the connective tissue that makes the series part of one big story, especially at the end. This naturally made me extra interested in the series, but alas, it is now unclear when the next volume is coming out.

Oh, well.

[Eki]

Finished Dune. I have mixed feelings.

The worldbuilding is great, but it's very... Great-Men-History-ish, you know? People who are better bred are better people (not necessarily morally so, but in terms of cleverness, strength, and stuff like that), and if they are bred "to perfection" you end up with a Messiah. Herbert certainly isn't the only one to write like that, but with all the future sight, "race memory", and prophecies (and actual selective breeding of humans), it becomes much more obvious. There were also issues with representation, but you can't really expect much in that regard from such an old book I guess... :/

The jumping between viewpoints wasn't as jarring as I thought it would be though.

And the book seemed much more fantasy-esque than sci-fi to me. Obviously it's both, and the line between them can be blurry regardless, but still.

We'll see if I decide to continue the series... I have a lot of other series to finish up (and I still haven't gotten to Elantris yet!).

[Left he/him]

1 hour ago, Eki said:

Finished Dune. I have mixed feelings.

The worldbuilding is great, but it's very... Great-Men-History-ish, you know? People who are better bred are better people (not necessarily morally so, but in terms of cleverness, strength, and stuff like that), and if they are bred "to perfection" you end up with a Messiah. Herbert certainly isn't the only one to write like that, but with all the future sight, "race memory", and prophecies (and actual selective breeding of humans), it becomes much more obvious. There were also issues with representation, but you can't really expect much in that regard from such an old book I guess... :/

The jumping between viewpoints wasn't as jarring as I thought it would be though.

And the book seemed much more fantasy-esque than sci-fi to me. Obviously it's both, and the line between them can be blurry regardless, but still.

We'll see if I decide to continue the series... I have a lot of other series to finish up (and I still haven't gotten to Elantris yet!).

Dune Messiah is okay, but Children is just storming weird. God Emperor is almost on par with the original, but book 5 I couldn't finish and I've only tried one of Brian's books. 

[Eki]

10 minutes ago, LeftVash said:

Dune Messiah is okay, but Children is just storming weird. God Emperor is almost on par with the original, but book 5 I couldn't finish and I've only tried one of Brian's books. 

Is there any book where the current story arch wraps up in a nice way?

In either case, I'm glad I read the book. As I said, the worldbuilding was great, and it's nice to finally get all the "walk without rhythm" references!

[Zathoth]

Small Favor. I cant stop reading Dresden Files.

[Briar King]

Outlander 3 is really great so far. I'm enjoying it the most of the series. 

[Sunbird she/her]

3 hours ago, Morzathoth said:

Small Favor. I cant stop reading Dresden Files.

This is the opposite of a problem.

I'm working on Reflex, the second book in the "Jumper" series by Steven Gould. (Remember that movie that starred Anakin Skywalker as a teleporter?) Another example of "The book was better than the movie."

[Zathoth]

1 hour ago, Sunbird said:

This is the opposite of a problem.

I'm working on Reflex, the second book in the "Jumper" series by Steven Gould. (Remember that movie that starred Anakin Skywalker as a teleporter?) Another example of "The book was better than the movie."

I finished White Night like two days ago. The only reason I even took a break was to read the shorts in Side Jobs.

The only case of movie better than book I can think of is Coraline. And possibly The Shining. I havent actually read The Shining though, but considering my usual opinion of Stephen King...

[Sunbird she/her]

11 minutes ago, Morzathoth said:

I finished White Night like two days ago. The only reason I even took a break was to read the shorts in Side Jobs.

The only case of movie better than book I can think of is Coraline. And possibly The Shining. I havent actually read The Shining though, but considering my usual opinion of Stephen King...

Because finding a movie that's better than its book is so rare, I actually keep a shelf of them on GoodReads. This shelf currently contains 10 books if you don't count the disappointing Heroes and Stargate: Atlantis novels I've stuck on it:

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

Contact by Carl Sagan

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Things these books have in common: I saw the movies before reading the books, except for The Giver.