guess

BTW, I don't see the point in even responding to the initial poster. If you only read 10 chapters, then read the cliff notes in the wiki, you don't know enough about the story to really make a decision. So what is the point in arguing with a know it all? He doesn't like the story. It would be kind of different if he stopped after 10 chapters cause he thought it was boring and didn't like the writing style, etc... , he basically looked at the cliff notes and decided he knows best. So what is the point?

If you study the middle ages, these books are much closer to how things really were. In pre-industrial societies only a tiny fraction of people can be wealthy. They maintain their wealth by repressing others. The concept of moral actions is actually pretty modern. His books were written to resemble the actual period. The darkness was done to be different. This reminds of some John Scalzi blog entries where he says no matter what you write or do someone will not like it for some reason. I can't really argue with this guy about his reasoning for not liking it. The moral ambiguity is why I like it. All that being said, I think the books would have been more interesting if Joffrey was actually a good kid. This would have left Eddard in a really tough situation. Joffrey means well and not having a civil war is in everyone's interest, but his silly honor requires him to tell Stannis which engulfs the realm in civil war. Making Joffrey a little bastard, makes some of the decisions by others easier.

Blackout by Mira Grant. Note this is not the Alternative History book that one the Hugo last year. It is the 3rd in a zombie series. The Elite Book Reviews gave the first 2 very good reviews. I generally liked them. I was dissappointed in the 3rd one. In all 3 books the main villains tell the details of their evil plans to the heroes at the end of the book. I can accept this once, maybe twice,but all 3 times? It is the same plot mechanism that the Scoobie Doo cartoons used. The book is told in first person. The first book is told from the sisters perspective, the second from the brothers and the 3rd from both. I liked this and I like the contrasted viewpoints discussing the same scenes. I also like the complex personalities of the antagonists (I think Becks is hysterical). I did not like the ending. It seemed too easy. I think the excuse that the President had for getting away with what happened was a cop out. I don't want to go into too many details because it gives away too much. Lets just say, I think the president would end up impeached and in prison if he did what this one did. It doesn't matter what the personal consequences would have been. The Zombie series was pretty good. I am not a huge zombie fan, so I can't tell you how unique the series is compared to other zombie books (only other Zombie book I read was World War Z). I don't find the world she created all that believable, mainly because I think it would be much poorer. Everyone is trapped inside, so how do you farm, mine? How does food get transported? If you can't eat meat anymore that really limits food sources. This makes acquiring food much harder and more expensive. That being said, it was a fun world. I will keep an eye out for other books by this author.

I am thinking that people like this should home school their kids. They shouldn't have the ability to force their narrow beliefs on the rest of us. If you are so worried about something like this, then teach your kids yourself.

Anyone else bugged with the many unnecessary changes from the books to the TV series? Some of the changes are necessary and fine such as shortening Arya in Harenhal, the Battle of Kings Land,John in the North, and capture of Winterfel. You have to cut stuff out the book is too long and battle scenes are expensive for TV shows. I am also ok with moving some elements from the 3rd book to season two such as Jamie leaving with Bryne, the last episode in Kings Landing, and the others. I also understand that GRRM's use of viewpoint characters works in a book, but is limiting on TV. So they showed more of Rob and Margary. I really wish they would have spent more time on the Warlocks, but it looks like they didn't have enough screen time. I don't like Ros. I don't see the need to having a made up prostitute character. Plus the scene in the bedroom with Joffrey didn't really have a point. It seemed like they felt the need to 'hboize the show'. Which is add sex and nudity because that is what people pay for and can't get for free on network TV. I am ok with that if it fits the plot, but that is screen time they could have spent with Dany in Quarth. I also don't like the way they modernize Rob's love interest. The woman is likeable because she has the personality and values of a modern woman we can all identify with. She doesn't fit the world at all. I guess this was a way to simplify it and make it easier for people to identify with Rob.

I read the first Malazan books due to all the people on here who like them. I had to force myself to finish it. I was really bored.

Game of Thrones, Clash of Kings, Storm of Swords (audio): Read these in 2000. Then it took Martin so long for the 4th book I lost interest. I am now audioing Feat for Crows. Much better than I remember. I remember getting a little bored with the first 2 books, but really liking the 3rd. Storm of Swords is the best of the 3, but the others are good. 2nd season of Game of Thrones in HBO is really annoying me. They changed alot from the books. Some of the stuff they had to shorten (like Harenhal) is fine ,but all the stuff with the prostitutes, Ros, and Rob's love interest (which is not in the books) is lame. Robs love interest has a modern personality. She does not fit in the book version of Game of Thrones. I actually liked the change the series did in Harenhall with Arya and Tywin. They humanized Tywin which was interesting. I am ok with this, alot of the other stuff is lame. Sex in TV/Books is fine if it fits the plot, but it looks like they 'HBOized' the series. People who pay for HBO expect sex scense they can't see on broadcast TV, so they added it. I thought it was boring. I also really don't like how Rob and John are adults in the series. They are more complex and more interesting as 14 and 15 year olds. I can understand it. It is hard to work with kids and women will like the good looking 20 somethings more... Hunger Games Trilogy: (audio): Like the first, didn't like the 2nd, like the ending to the 3rd. My biggest complaint is about personal taste and it is totally unfair to the author. I just don't like kid or even young adult literature. The whole tone did not seem to fit the context. I did like the ending. I found it fitting and satisfying. I would have liked them better if they were more adult books (with the same kid characters). These are very serious and dark issues and the grammar and tone was too light (yeah I now lots of people die, but there is a tone). However, I doubt the book I would have preferred would be nearly as successful as this. So its a lame criticism. Blackout by Connie Willis: Interesting. I did get kind of bored with the slow pacing. Very well researched. I like the way she contrasts people in the past through the eyes of modern people. Just a little slow for my taste. Too much of 'I think I changed history and then óh no I didn't'

Go to Brandon Sanderson's homepage. Go to his blog posts (left side). The latest one from the time of this posting (5/3/2012) has a link to one of Brandon's students starting to post his lectures on the web. He teaches a creative writing class. I have not seen it yet. Looks like he finally got the ok to post the lectures on the web. I second writing excuses. The take I get from Writing Excuses is that you have to write and actually finish something. Don't worry about making it perfect or brushing it up. This story will not be very good since its your first story and you are just trying to get a full story together. Then go back and edit it to make it better. Then throw it out and start on another one. Basically just do it, but make sure you finish it. Don't constantly revise. It doesn't matter if its not any good. The mere act of completing something will make your next story better.

I have not been able to make it to one yet, but I would like to go some day so I could meet the famous Peter Ahlstrom. Alot of the sessions have ended up on youtube the last few years. The best one was an interview with Team Jordan. Some of the stories they told about Robert Jordan were very funny. My favorite was the one where his assistant brought in her son's rabbit to work because she had to take it to show and tell. RJ said it had been a while since he had rabbit stew and his assistant said she could make sure he never found anything related to Wheel of Time ever again. Another good one was about a time when RJ, his brother, and his nephew went fishing. His young nephew was pestering him constantly about the books and tell him what he didn't like. Supposedly RJ was getting so angry he was about to blow before his uncle settled him down. The worst one is the one with the Production company developing WoT into a movie. They were obtuse and talked around every question. I couldn't figure out the point to the session. They said nothing.

The Naked God by Peter F Hamilton: Last book in Nights Dawn Trilogy. Great books in general. The ending was incredibly disappointing. The author spent 3000+ pages building up this really complex and interesting conflict (the dead come back to possess the living) and then solves it by having the hero character find this all powerful god like technology. Problem solved in 20 pages. This was really annoying. A story like that is much better off left in a complex state then finding magical technology to magically solve the problem. That being said. The other 3000 pages were fascinating. I will read more of Peter's books.

See top of the page. There are links to a Forbes article. Slashdot is a techie news site. I read Enders Game a long time ago. I don't remember anything the least bit sexual in it. I don't even remember it being violent. The fight with the aliens at the end was sort of distant and abstracted. The parents want charges pressed against the teacher? http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/20/1749236/teacher-suspended-for-reading-enders-game-to-students

This is supposed to be an adult book, so her audience will be different. I'll check the reviews on it. The prose and writing style of adult books vs. kid books is very different. She has an outstanding prose style for kids. I'll be interested to see how she adopts it to an adult book. She will sell alot of books just on her name. Dan Brown still sells millions of book and they get terrible reviews. It is next to impossible for 1 person to have the kind of success she had to with Harry Potter with something else. That being said, success is relative and she will probably still sell more of these books than 99.9% of authors do with their best sales.

Dwarf Fortress: Hardest game I ever played. You can run a fortress of dwarves and you can also play in RPG mode. The game only has ASCII graphics so that the developer can work on content. It is INSANELY difficult. You will get crushed constantly. He just released a new version. It has been in development for 7 years. The game has a large number of plug ins by fans. The New York Times did a long article on the developer. He makes money from donations from fans. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html?pagewanted=all www.bay12games.com WARNING: Before even attempting to play this game. go to the forums. Go to the Help forums. There are stickies at the top. Go to the one that has a set of youtube videos. The game is unplayable unless you watch these. Go to the sticky thread about plugins and get the 'lazy newb pack'. The game is unplayable without this. There is also a wiki somewhere with details. It has a VERY high learning curve. You will have no idea whatsoever what to do at first. Amaranthine: Browser based timer game. You collect resources and work with clan members to build houses, weapons, potions, gain levels, fight monsters. Fun and leisurely games. You can let it run while you do other things. Security Checks are every 30 minutes and you can move them to an hour if you spend $3/hour. www.mcctservice.com:1180/Amaranthine

I liked the first one to a point. The second one seemed to be a rehash of the first one. Ok, lets go back to the arena. We already did that... how about exploring something else. I agree with your points, my only disagreement is that it is a Children's book and those are written for a younger audience. I have not read Lev Grossman yet, but I have heard great things about it. However, isn't that adult fiction? I generally avoid children's books because I just don't like the style (I didn't like them when I was a kid either), but I read the Hunger Games due to all the publicity. I wanted to see what it was about. I have not gotten to the 3rd one yet, but I'll finish it. I am not real hopeful. That being said, I think children's books should be measured in the context of what they are trying to do. I don't think Collins could have done what you wanted with a book for kids.

Riverword series. I really liked the first book and the concept of the books. I didn't like where the author went with the series. I also didn't like the moral angle they gave to it. I read these several years ago, so I may not remember it exactly. I would have liked it more if it was darker and the riverworld was a big zoo or something. Malazan Book. I only read the first one and got very bored. The guys at the Elitist Book reviews really liked them. Probably just taste difference. I can't put a finger on what I don't like about it other than it didn't engage me. There was one character who talked funny, that alot of people liked who just bored me. I believe I read that the series gets better with book 3. I may read more at some point in the future. Lord Fouls Bane: I am 60% of the way through the first book and cannot make myself finish it. Being reading it off and on for 2 years. It bores me to tears. I think it bores me because the writing style is too fantasy generic. People telling epic tales nad such. Plus the good vs. evil thing is too rigid. That being said, if I read the book in the 1970s when it first came out before being exposed to more modern fantasy I probably would have really liked it. That being said, I thought the beginning was GREAT. The whole idea of a guy with leprosy as a hero character was a great idea. Most fantasy books make heroes out of people who are great physical specimen. Well alot of people get sick or diseases through no fault of their own. They can be engaging characters also.

Game of Thrones (audio): I read the first 3 books in 2000. I remember thinking the first 2 were 'ok', but really liked the 3rd one in large part because Jamie was a viewpoint character. This was the first time I read a fantasy book where you had what you thought was a generic bad guy character, then you see, he isn't really that bad. It is a different experience going through it the 2nd time. I remember the first time around cheering for the Starks and hating the Lannisters (until Jamie became a view point character), now I see more of the complexity earlier on in the series. The audio books are very good and I appreciate the writing a lot more. In part because I am older and I have read alot of books in the last 12 years. I think it is also in part because I liked the TV series and I can see the scenes better. One thing that is very funny on the audio is that the guy reading it gave him a Scottish accent. What is it with dwarves and generic Scottish accents? The reading is very good. I think the actor reading the book really brings out the different personalities of the characters. I don't recall thinking Sansa and Arya were so childish when I read it the first time.

Thomas Covenent the Unbeliever. I am about 60% of the way through the first book and I can't make myself finish it. I am so bored. I think if I read this book when it came out in the 1970s, it would be new and fresh and I would like it. However, today it seems like it is really generic. All the fantasy tone stories and just the prose bores me to tears. I don't think it is a fair criticism, since the stuff that bothers me about it is that it seems generic. However, it probably seems generic because so many other authors have copied him. I still can't make myself finish the book.

Way of Kings (Audio) Same two people who read the Wheel of Time. The two main female characters had a tone similiar to female characters in the Wheel of Time. Not sure if its just because its the same woman reading them or maybe because Brandon was influenced by Robert Jordan and Harriet while finishing WoT. The book jumped around in time with one of the view points. That was done pretty well. I found the ending interesting. The use of God at the end reminded me of Mistborn. Brandon seems more interested in religion than most fantasy authors. I didn't quite follow how the bridge runners worked. They get to a chasm. How do the push the bridge across( I got the hardcover book too, so I looked at the pictures and the maps)? Its heavy. Isn't it likely to tip over and fall in the chasm? I also don't get the vengeance pact. If the Alethi need the gems for their soul casters, why did they wait to go get them? Wouldn't they be farming them all along? On top of that, how does each side know when a gem heart is available? They take them from Chasm fiends, but how do they know where they are? I would also think that morale would be much lower on the Alethi side. Constant fighting leads to alot of casualties with no end in site. The average soldier won't care about the Gems. He mentions this some, but I think they might be closer to mutiny. Overall I liked it. Part of this is probably because its the first book and there is more to explain. I would have liked it more if the book went a little darker and the surgeon killed the noble. I know why Brandon didn't do that, but I have darker tastes. Then again, I recently finished The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie so my opinions are trending dark. Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F Hamilton: 2nd book in Nights Dawn Trilogy. VERY good book. VERY good hard sci-fi. Minor beefs. He has Al Capone come back from the dead and I find I roll my eyes sometimes with this. Also, he gives lip service to non-Anglo/American cultures, but the book focuses almost entirely on them. He has one Kenyan ethnic group, but their culture was basically western. Hamilton has the dead come back to posess the living, but most of the main dead characters are anglo-Americans from the industrial age and forward. Not really fair to expect him to explore all this, but a little more would have made the books better. That having been said, these books are terrific. Over 1,000 pages long and it did NOT drag on at all.

you can do whatever you want, but you will not know what is going on. If these books were serials, then you could jump in. Serials are stories where you have an ongoing list of characters and the author just thinks of new stuff for them to do as he goes along. Stories are for the most part self contained. This series is not like that. The book (The Eye of the World) is one of the most influential fantasy books ever written. George RR Martin and Brandon have both said this. It is also probably one of the 5 best epic fantasy books ever written. Brandon said himself that the first 3 books greatly influenced his writing. you can probably skip books 8,9,10 and read the summaries. fast skim books 6,8,11 Not much happens in them.

I like Howard Taylor's transformation from a Wheel of Time hater to a Wheel of Time fanatic. Early on he made comments about crazy Wheel of time fans and then as he started listening to it over many episodes you see his comments become more and more positive. This is over many episodes. so you have to watch them from the beginning to see it.

Try the Epic Rap Battles of History. They are on youtube. They are short 1.5 - 2 minutes long. These are done by comedians where characters from history and fictional characters have a rap off. The main guy doing it goes by the name 'Nice Peter'. There are 15 on his nice peter page and 2 on this new page with more coming out www.youtube.com/ERB Note: This is not work safe. The songs have some cursing. Its not that bad. Here are my favorites: Darth Vadar vs. Adolf Hitler (there are 2 and Hitler gets served) John Lennon vs. Bill Oreilly Gandalf vs. Dumbledore Mr. Rogers vs. Mr. T Shakespeare vs. Dr. Seuss Sarah Palin vs. Lady Gaga is not very good.

Reality Dysfunction-- Peter F Hamilton: VERY good space opera. 500+ years in the future, humans have an interstellar civilization. Very well written hard sci-fi. Then the dead come back and start to possess the living. It is almost 1100 pages, but I did not get bored at all. I found all of the characters interested and the author future universe the author created is very well thought out. This is the first of a 3 book series(all around 1100 pages). The prose is very good too. He does a very good job of mixing up where he dumps information on you. All of this information is interesting. I have some minor issues. It is a galactic wide civilization, but virtually all of the characters are either american based or english based. This is true even of the dead that come back (Al Capone is in the second book). He has a key character who lived in an African Ethnic world, but there aren't a lot of characters like that. Alot of the worlds are set up to be based on specific cultures/ethnicities, but all the ones full fleshed out so far are Anglo-American. Not a huge beef. He probably did this because this is what he knows and can write about. I will probably end up reading every book Peter has written. I really appreciate the amount of thought he put into the technology and how an interstellar civilization would function.

Read Joe Abercrombie. He has characters grow darker and more brutal. Best Served Cold: Carl Shivers was a killer in the past. He wants to be a better man now. As the book goes on he descends and becomes a worse killer than he was before. He decides that everyone ends up dead, so why bother.

I started the first book in the Dies the Fire series and never finished. I read somewhere that in a later book a guy from that series heads east to find Nantucket. In the Nantucket series I think there is a brief and vague explanation about what happened. Basically, Stirling wanted to write a book about Nantucket going back in time, so he invented a reason.

I thought the battle scene at the end of Last Argument of Kings was the best battle scene I ever read. He really showed the chaos of war. He also had a very complex ending which I thought was brilliant.