What Are You Reading, Part 2

[Kaymyth she/her]

2 hours ago, Who Sharded? said:

You must not have seen many film adaptations if you think the Hobbit movies are the worst.

I mean, at least all the extra material in the Hobbit adaptations were raided out of Tolkien's actual writing.  Whereas other films/TV are, "Hey, let's take this well-known author's material and adapt it to the screen!  Only we'll make up our own plot, change around some of the character roles, and totally change the main character's personality!  It'll be great!"

[Dunkum he/him]

6 hours ago, Who Sharded? said:

You must not have seen many film adaptations if you think the Hobbit movies are the worst.

i do try to avoid them most of the time.  that said its more that i really like the book, so I was way more disappointed in those films than I would be for something I don't care about quite so much.  I do have to give htem credit for one thing: Martin Freeman was perfect casting fro Bilbo

[Left he/him]

1 hour ago, Dunkum said:

i do try to avoid them most of the time.  that said its more that i really like the book, so I was way more disappointed in those films than I would be for something I don't care about quite so much.  I do have to give htem credit for one thing: Martin Freeman was perfect casting fro Bilbo

I would argue that most of the casting was fair to fantastic. My problems were with the plot, side stories, and a lot of the action. 

In particular, the elf-dwarf romance, Azog's lack of charisma, the Lord and Steward of Laketown( my gosh, I wanted their heads smashed in), a lot of Radagast's screen time, and the ridiculous Elven and Dwarvish stunts like the Barrel Chase or Legolas's stuff with the Bats in the Battle of Five Armies.

 

 

[Dunkum he/him]

3 hours ago, ScottLeft said:

I would argue that most of the casting was fair to fantastic. My problems were with the plot, side stories, and a lot of the action. 

In particular, the elf-dwarf romance, Azog's lack of charisma, the Lord and Steward of Laketown( my gosh, I wanted their heads smashed in), a lot of Radagast's screen time, and the ridiculous Elven and Dwarvish stunts like the Barrel Chase or Legolas's stuff with the Bats in the Battle of Five Armies.

 

 

can't speak to the rest of the casting so much, but nothing about it struck me as bad, but I will second that second paragraph in its entirety.  In theory, I should like Radagast, and I think they got a few parts of his personality right, but almost everything about him was wacky to the point of being irritating.  I didn't bother watching the second adn 3rd movies, but the escape sequence from the goblin caves in the first one was atrocious

[Sunbird she/her]

I will say this about the Hobbit movie trilogy: Smaug was storming AWESOME. Not just Benedict Cumberbatch's voice acting, which was, of course, fabulous, but the visual rendition of the dragon onscreen. And if you haven't seen the behind the scenes footage of Benedict doing the motion capture, crawling around on the floor pretending to be a dragon, go watch it now.

What I've been reading lately, in order to keep this post at least semi-on-topic: just finished The Darkest Magic by Morgan Rhodes, the 2nd book in a sort of spinoff/prequel series to her Falling Kingdoms books. Funniest character in the book was a reanimated severed head (who was somehow able to talk and complained of being in danger of drowning, even though his lungs were not attached...?).

Next up: The Last Star, the last book in Rick Yancey's 5th Wave trilogy.

Update: I have given up on The Last Star. I realized that I don't actually like any of the characters, and the author's failure to stay in one tense was driving me up the wall. Moving on to To Be or Not To Be? by Ryan North--a choose-your-own-adventure adaptation of the Shakespeare play Hamlet.

Edited July 22, 2016 by Sunbird

[Eki]

Finished The Light Fantastic. I definitely appreciate the Discworld books more the more of them I read. People say the first ones aren't as good, and I agree, but they set up things that I now recognize from later books. It's nice to know their beginnings.

They didn't have the third book when I bought this one, so instead i also picked up Guards! Guards!, which a lot of people recommend (even as the first book to read, I believe,?).

[Left he/him]

Oh yes, Guards!Guards! Is fantastic, one of my favorites. It is one of the books I normally recommend people read first as well . 

Finally started Good Omens, it's FANTASTIC!

[Sunbird she/her]

I have been laughing my butt off today reading To Be Or Not To Be. No idea how much of the book I've gotten through since I'm jumping around haphazardly from page to page according to my choices, but I'm having a blast.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

Been re-reading Stormlight Archive again and have been noting quite alot of unusual things which I didn't give much thought to during my first few reads. Amazing how much there is hidden in the book!

[Sunbird she/her]

Finished reading an interesting (that's probably the wrong word) book today--I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga. I think GoodReads recommended it to me based on my interest in the John Cleaver books, and there were certainly plenty of moments when it reminded me of those. The violence in this book didn't make me as squeamish as I Am Not a Serial Killer did on my first read, but I think I Hunt Killers was more disturbing on a psychological level... What does it say about me that I intend to continue with the series?

I'm also beginning a re-read of The Vampire Files series by PN Elrod.

[Briar King]

Finished Safehold 3 today. Onto 4 now. 

[Sunbird she/her]

Finished the second books in the Jasper Dent, Vampire Files, and Arkwell Academy series in the last two days. On to books #3!

[Zathoth]

I finished American Gods, slow, but it was an interesting journey.

Now I guess I should continue The Lies of Locke Lamora and Perdido Street Station... but Dead Beat is giving me the puppy eyes...

[StormingTexan he/him]

Finished Winter's Heart. It's not my favorite in the series so far but not my least either and the ending...

 

Think I'm going to take a quick WoT break and read Sphere by Michael Crichton before the infamous CoT. 

Edited July 31, 2016 by StormingTexan

[Sunbird she/her]

@Morzathoth Yes! Give in to the puppy eyes! Dead Beat is one of my favorite Dresden Files.

[Zathoth]

@Sunbird Fiiine... I guess I can read it and Lies at the same time, but I still need to pick up Perdido Street Station again...

So much to read, so little time XD

[Sunbird she/her]

8 hours ago, Morzathoth said:

So much to read, so little time XD

Always!

Finished the Jasper Dent trilogy. Rather disturbing, but it didn't end as badly as I feared it might. I've now started Steeplejack by AJ Hartley, but haven't gotten far enough in to really form an opinion yet.

[Zathoth]

I know I posted yesterday, but I just finished Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti and that final story... wow... that was bleak. I love it.

[Briar King]

Only 60 pgs in Safehold 4 and struggling. 1-3 were so great but this one has been so boring! I even looked on Amazon to see rating and it appears to be the same for other people. It has the lowest of the series. This maybe a long 700 pg read it's looking like.

[DSC01 he/him]

I started reading Slade House by David Mitchell last night. I probably would have read the whole thing, but I stared falling asleep, so I stopped halfway through. It's short (a novella by fantasy standards, I suppose, but it's over 200 pages), but it ties into The Bone Clocks, which I unfortunately read long enough ago that I'm probably missing the less obvious connections. 

Anyway, Mitchell is one great author. I hardly ever read anything but epic fantasy, but his writing is really gripping. Granted, this is technically fantasy, even if it's not epic fantasy, but it's of a more literary bent. I also normally hate present-tense writing to the point that I can't even read books written that way, but Mitchell writes present tense so much in the POV character's voice that it really is like someone telling you a story about something that happened to them. It isn't distracting at all.

[Sunbird she/her]

Finished the 3rd and final book in the Arkwell Academy series and had a hard time holding back tears during the last few chapters because the ending was bittersweet. It has earned a spot on my Favorites shelf on GoodReads.

Soon I'll finally be starting League of Dragons, the final book in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. Super excited for that!

[Wychmire he/him]

I just Finished Legends: Darkstalker by Tui T Sutherland. Which while being written for children is still quite a good book.

If you decide to read it please note that it is not the first book. it can be read as the first book. But it was written as an explanation for the second series arc.

[Sunbird she/her]

@Wychmire That's a tie-in to her Wings of Fire series, right? I need to catch up on those.

[AliasSheep]

So I spent most of last week reading Scott Pilgrim multiple times. Which was pretty awesome. 

[Wychmire he/him]

@Sunbird Yeah. It is.

I think Book 6 is my favorite.