Books discussion

[Midnight_Carnival]

Of course abuse is necesarry, pain helps your soul to develop. All existance is suffering, true happiness is surrendering to suffering, welcoming pain.
If you thought Ender had it hard, don't read The Gap Series by Stephen Donaldson.

Actually, do! becuse it is bloody brilliant!
I seriously fogot to breathe while reading the big climax in the end of the last book.

Ok, I'm reading about Uri Geller's life now, you know, whether that man was the read deal or a fake he was a genius.


Oh, and thanks, I shall look for more books by Mr Brian Stableford. - I know Google is my friend, but I have some pretty scary friends. Trust me.

Somebody read my writing and compared it to Graham Masterton, are there any Masterton fans in da howzz so to speak, and if so, can you reccomend a story of his to start on. I do not require trainer-wheels.
Thanks.

[Elvish_Pillager]

No rly. If you think Ender had it hard, don't read real life.

Actually, don't read real life anyway. It has sucky writing and teaches bad morals.

[Gambit]

Currently Reading: Enders Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Ender in Exile, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant

I am also reading the Fate of the Jedi series. The sith are back (again). If this comes as a surprise to you then you haven't been paying attention. The big twist is that they are no longer following the rule of two. There was a ship that crashed a long time ago (during the sith/jedi wars). A sith battle cruiser loaded with the buggers, and they landed on an isolated planet, populated by sentient beings who were pre-space-age technology. They had to advance these people and their technology up to the rest of the galaxies standards in order to get off the planet.
Luke has been banished from the Galactic Alliance and is trying to find out why his nephew Jason turned to the dark side.

REAL SPOILERS! WARNING:

Apparently he didn't go to the dark side at all. He saw the future where luke turned evil and took over the galaxy. [speculation]He then formulated a plan to make the whole galaxy hate and fear the jedi so that the future he saw would never happen.[/speculation]

[Bellerophon]

Currently reading Martian Time-slip by Philip K. Dick

A refreshingly short story after finishing Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell .

[Skizzaltix]

Currently trying to find my copy of Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery...I guess it's in a box somewhere, but heck if I know which one.
I figure it's about time I started rereading it

[Thanatos]

A refreshingly short story after finishing Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell .

I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

Just starting Lewis Carroll "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass".

[Bellerophon]

I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

Hands down it's one of the best books I've ever read, now I plan to lay my hands upon Clarke's second book as soon as possible.

Edit: After finishing his book it is confirmed that Dick still rawks.

Aynbody here read Broken Sky series by Chris Wooding? I'm thinking of re-reading it but am too afraid it'll spoil my childhood memories of it which are great too say the least .

[thespaceinvader]

I just finished Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn book 1. And I heartily recommend it. Apart from Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind, I've not read a better new fantasy book in a good few years. It's clever, internally consistent, extremely well written and characterised. Go read it

[Velensk]

I think my problem with this thread is that I do not feel inclined to actually post what I'm reading most of the time and that it would require me to update in constantly. This is especially the case when I've been reading several light (or not so light) entertaining books that do not especially stimulate the thought and it's kind of pointless for me to recommend them as I am very aware that most of the people in this forum have different tastes in books than I do. Does anyone else feel this way?

To stay on topic: the book I just finished reading was called the Night of Madness, I cannot especially recommend it even if you're fond of the setting it is from.

[Skizzaltix]

I always figured the point of this thread was to learn a little more about the other folks on this forum, maybe find some people who've read the same stuff you like, that sort of thing--and to tell others about yourself. Kind of like Twitter for those of us who are still too stuck up/introverted/whatever to actually get on Twitter.

Edit: an example of using this thread like Twitter:
I rarely post what I'm reading here, either, because A) 90% of it is comic books, B) 90% of those comic books aren't in English, and C) nobody else on here has heard of 90% of those
Just as an example; who else here has heard of Acony, Momonchi, Vetrarvíg, or Silent Sinner in Blue?

[Girgistian]

Steadily finishing R.A. Salvatore's "The Pirate King". It's acually a great improvement over the previous Drizzt books (the Entreri stuff's pretty good anyways because of the darker and more realistic touch), and kinda goes back to the dark elf trilogy when he still wrote books that weren't so naive and all about the freaking drama. There are even some pretty good dialogues, and Drizzt isn't that much of a world-saving-martyr-emo as before. He's still got the regular awsom fightin skillz Salvatore seems to fancy ([censored]-extension characters, anyone?), but they're not the center of the whole story like in a few of the other books. It's quite a good read, if you've got any clue what's happened during the 20 books that came before it

[thespaceinvader]

I'm also working my way gradually through the Warhammer 40k Horus Heresy series of books. Complete guilty pleasures, but there's little more diverting and entertaining, if mindless (although not always) then ten-foot power-armoured super soldiers battering seven bells out of one another in a currently 15-books-and-rising series, particularly when I need plenty of diversion due to lots of long travel and nights without any form of entertainment at placement (finished next week )

[Limabean]

I just started Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke. Good so far

[Midnight_Carnival]

No rly. If you think Ender had it hard, don't read real life.

Actually, don't read real life anyway. It has sucky writing and teaches bad morals.

Spoiler warning!

Spoiler:

The good guy dies in the end!

I'm reading The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus by Paul Zanker (translated by Alan Shapiro).

If you don't mind, there is a story behind why I'm reading this, it'll not take too long.

There was a woman in my M. Phil. Ancient Cultures study group who helped me, we shared ideas and perspectives and discussed work via email. Lately she has apparently been having a hard time of it so I offered to help. I told her that quote: if there is anything I can do, up to and including scanning in whole books and mailing them to you, please let me know unquote. Now you must realise that when I make an offer like that, I'm being dead serious, but I do apreciate a degree of compromise in the matter if possible.

-she promply sent me a list of authors and a vague subject on which they wrote and asked me to go to the university library (she lives too far away to visit it herself, easilly) and find them for her, then scan them in and mail them to her.

I have found the book in question to be a reasonably good source, and asked her to please let me know what she wants out of the book as it is over 400 pages long and scanning it all in may take some time (and would probably be highly illegal), I am reading it to see what would be useful to her and what I can leave out. If necesarry, I will go and take more books out of the library and scan them in too.

[HomerJ]

I just finished reading Watermind by M. M. Buckner and it was just awful.

Greetz
HomerJ