Books discussion

[thespaceinvader]

No worries. Believe me, Mistborn gets BETTER.

[Rigor]

what about the first of his books? elantris?

[thespaceinvader]

Not read it yet, not managed to find a copy in this country.

[Midnight_Carnival]

I recently finished The Magic of Recluse by L E Modesitt.
Look, it was by no means the best book I've ever read, but actually I found it surprisingly good, especially the way it looks like the story is going nowhere and I thought it would be impossible for him to write a good ending in the ammount of pages left, hence I thought it would be one of those "you find out in the sequel" things, but he actually tied it up quite nicely and the way the plot developed (eg: the way it seemed to be going nowhere for a while and suddenly came to a dramatic climax) reflects the experiences of the main character.

I would actually be interested in reading other books by the same author.

[Moribund]

I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (amazing but depressing read) and the SERRA series by Mercedes Lackey (I know it's not fine art, but it's really fun) and have started Bedlam's Bard by Lackey.

[Bellerophon]

Just finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, excellent read as are most book by the author, more importantly this was the first book I read after almost six months, feels good man, feels good.

[Gambit]

How coincidental Bellerophon.
I just finished Children of the Mind (the last book in the series). Now I have to wait who knows how long for my next Ender fix. (Shadows in Flight)

[Moribund]

Is it just me or is Speaker for the Dead at least as good as Ender's Game? How come no one talks about Speaker?

Also, is the rest of the series good? I read some of the bean line after Ender's Shadow and it was so bad it turned me off of both series for a while.

[Joram]

I just finished rereading Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini, set just before the French Revolution.

I must say that Sabatini's best works (about half a dozen of them) are among the greatest books I've ever read. He has some really lousy ones too, but if you haven't read anything by Sabatini, I'd recommend you pick up Scaramouche, Captain Blood, or Bellarion (or, Bellarion the Fortunate; I've heard it both ways) and giving it a go.

To warn you, Sabatini wrote about a century ago, and so his books will probably be more difficult to read than most stuff written nowadays. That was back when the majority of English speaking people had a vocabulary (though to my surprise, he only learned English after mastering 5 other languages). If that wasn't enough, he often sticks in phrases, expressions, or sayings from the language his main characters are supposed to be speaking. Scaramouche is littered with French, only some of which I try to pronounce. Fortunately, he doesn't expect the reader to understand the foreign phrases, and so I can pick up what they mean by the context, or by explanation.

One other thing about his books is that his Historical Fiction actually is Historical Fiction. He takes some time to actually write the story as though it happened then, and not just stick the story he wants into a different time period.

Finally, Rafael Sabatini has some interesting comments on human nature. In the first and last book I mentioned above, he sprinkles in a certain amount of philosophy. Some of it I disagree with, and I think that he occasionally omits good arguments against his ideas, but it's interesting to me nonetheless.

[Rigor]

interesting!. but right now im reading robinson crusoe, and im reading it in a version that was given to my grandfather 1930, with old letters and such. im at page 12 now, and it has got 400 more, im not sure if i will manage to read it in a short time, because the language used is 1907 u know but so far it has been very very good. with a very good beginning that sucked me right in

[scienceguy8]

Sam & Max: Surfing the Highway by Steve Purcell. An awe-inspiring tale of friendship against the harsh, cynical modern world, in which...oh, heck, it's a 6 foot dog in a suit and a fedora and his fluffy, psychotic lagomorph friend bombing about time and space in a very neglected black and white DeSoto punishing bad guys in bizarre and humorous ways. A cult classic comic book series that was eventually made into a 24 episode cartoon show and a series of highly successful point-and-click adventure games, first by Lucas Arts, and later by Telltale Games. Surfing the Highway contains all publicly published comics to date (save for a brief web comic on the Telltale site).

[Captain_Wrathbow]

The Last Jihad, by Joel Rosenberg.

It's a conservative political thriller, according to the back cover, but I'm not sure that's how I would describe it.

[Limabean]

Just finished Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. As Arthur C. Clarke put it: "The best novel on the colonization of mars that has ever been written." I couldn't agree more. It's amazing the amount of detail that is included, and I swear this book would probably come in useful to the people who will be planning the real thing. It's obvious the author spent years researching cutting edge science in order to write this book. Now I'm starting the sequel, Green Mars. Yay for terraforming!

i am also reading The Defining Moment, by Jonathan Alter for my US History class. It's a partial biography of FDR that focuses on his first 100 days in office.

[Joram]

I am currently reading The Chestnut King, Book 3 of The 100 Cupboards, by N.D.Wilson.

It is a 3-book fantasy series for young readers, so nothing really profound. The first book was really slow paced (the first half should have been the first quarter), the second was a significant improvement as far as plot, and the third (so far) seems to me to be the best of the lot, and rather good actually. A few minor quibbles so far with the writing, but not much else, and noticeably better than the first two (not that the first two were bad, you understand).

If someone needs a relaxing read that won't tax them too much, then I'd recommend reading the first two so you can read the third.

This recommendation may change depending on how the last quarter of the book goes. I've read several series that were good up to a point, but where the author just couldn't handle the ending.

[lmelior]

Continued Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series with The Magician and then The Sorceress. Pretty enjoyable stuff, now on the waiting list for number 4, The Necromancer.

Also, I can't recommend the Penguin Classics (unabridged) version of The Count of Monte Cristo enough. There are tons of footnotes explaining the various references that modern readers (especially non-French modern readers). It was re-translated by Robin Buss in 1996 for Penguin, whereas most other editions such as the one on Project Gutenberg use an old, uncredited 1846 translation without references.