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Maeglin Dubh
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Maeglin Dubh »

I would contend that Eragon (and company) are the Twilight of the geek world.

Everyone reads them, but there's a small faction of us who realize just how terrible they really are.
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Corvvs »

Maeglin Dubh wrote:I would contend that Eragon (and company) are the Twilight of the geek world.

Everyone reads them, but there's a small faction of us who realize just how terrible they really are.
Yes. Absolutely. The plot of Star Wars + the setting of Lotr with a few tweaks, presented in a deluge of cliches and predictable events, culminating in a contrived ending. That's just the first book though - I stopped after that. Maybe it got better? Probably not. :|

Just as there are so many Star Wars sci-fi books that have swamped the sci-fi market, Tolkien imitators, and now imitators of imitators, have flooded the fantasy section of my local bookstore with their drivel. Makes me sad.
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Velensk »

For what it's worth, it seems that most of the people who edit the TV tropes wiki agree with you (I do too, however I never got through the first book so I'm going to avoid saying anything about it).
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Jequ »

I am attempting to read an original (english) Lee Child's book which I found from our cottage on hire for tourists. Some English tourists has left it to there. I don't know the name of the book because the cover is missing. Its hero is Jack Reacher so I must be Child's. I have nearly read ten pages of it... :?
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Rex Umbrarum »

Limabean wrote:
Rex Umbrarum wrote:I assume you're talking about the novelization of Nightfall. The original short story is probaly the greatest of all time, but streaching it out into a book made it lose some of the impact.

Oh, and I'm reading Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. Seems okay so far, and the plot is getting more original as compared to the fist two (barely)
that's right, I guess i'll have to check out the short story once i'm done with the novel
Well, the short story is just one section from the novel with a few alterations, so reading the short story after reading the novel would be like rereading part of the book. I think the reason I don't like the novel as much is because the short story was just so fantastic it would be impossible for the entire book to reach that level.
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Crushmaster »

I'm currently reading a book called "Knowing God's Will - Biblical Principles of Guidance".
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Noy »

Nice to see this thread started...

So Two books:

Weiner and Banuazizi (eds.) The State, Religion and Ethnic Politics: Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan
(Not that anyone cares) Its an older book from 1986, (Not that anyone cares) but it has one of the few articles discussing the identities of Afghan citizens... kinda important in today's context.


Doris Kearns Goodwin Team of Rivals

I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I haven't read this book; it came out in 2006 and is s now considered essential reading because it reportedly influenced how Obama has made his cabinet choices. Its a fairly easy read, yet very very long and detailed.
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Turuk »

Noy wrote:Doris Kearns Goodwin Team of Rivals

I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I haven't read this book; it came out in 2006 and is s now considered essential reading because it reportedly influenced how Obama has made his cabinet choices. Its a fairly easy read, yet very very long and detailed.
Do not be, the fact that you are reading it at all is good enough. I picked it up on a whim when it first was published and loved it. I did not know the little tidbit about Obama though, I will have to look into more on that.
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Noy »

Turuk wrote:
Noy wrote:Doris Kearns Goodwin Team of Rivals

I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I haven't read this book; it came out in 2006 and is s now considered essential reading because it reportedly influenced how Obama has made his cabinet choices. Its a fairly easy read, yet very very long and detailed.
Do not be, the fact that you are reading it at all is good enough. I picked it up on a whim when it first was published and loved it. I did not know the little tidbit about Obama though, I will have to look into more on that.
Well its slightly different for me as I sorta need to read it for work... or at least enough so I don't look like the dunce when everybody else brings it up.

Thankfully I've already read the other "in book" this year, David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest which examined the Johnson Administration's blundering into the Vietnam. The title gives the premise of the book; the people in the Kennedy and Johnson administration were some of the brightest lights in the foreign policy world. Yet they all supported the failing policies that contributed to the disaster in Vietnam. Its a classic book, and alot of people try to make parallels with Obama's cabinet because they are all foreign policy heavyweights in their own right. I'd probably argue its not a fair comparison, as Johnson's administration didn't actually have that deep foreign policy experience at high levels. Many were academics or managers of corporations, and operated in a vacuum above their departments. By comparison, many of Obama's people have extensive foreign-policy and executive experience in their departments (particularly Robert Gates) which might help him avoid his predecessors errors.
I suspect having one foot in the past is the best way to understand the present.

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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Dave »

I just finished reading Daughter of the Empire by Feist and Wurts. The first novel I've read in a long time.

I was rather impressed by it -- it was a book largely about politics in a fantasy world, that resembled Feudal Japan. It detailed a woman whose father and brother are killed, leaving her to become the leading Lady of her clan, and is thrust into position to bring it back from near ruin. The book contains only a very small amount of magic, and one race of non-human creatures (who were very ant-like). My only real criticism is that some parts of the plot seemed a little contrived.
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by LemonTea »

I finished Great Expectations recently, made a start on Oliver Twist but have been devoting too much time to Wesnoth to read it much :(
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Mapar007 »

Sgt. Groovy wrote: And if it's your French you're trying to improve, there are heaps of great comics in French...

Considering your sig, you must be speaking of Asterix and Obelix :D. (the scene in Astérix chez les Goths when they come from the druids' reunion after the capture of Panoramix)


These are my favorite french comics. (everything before and including Astérix chez les Belges, the rest is less good IMO)
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Velensk »

I agree. Also, a great many of the puns and chokes translate remarkably well to english (though english copies of those books are hard to find).
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Yeah, Asterix and Obelix are great, but there are more, like Tintin and Lucky Luke, works of Jean Giraud (Blueberry and buch of scifi stuff under pen name Möebius), Benoît Sokal (Canardo), Enki Bilal, François Bourgeon (great historical stuff), Jacques Martin (Alix), Edgar P. Jacobs (Blake & Mortimer), J.-C. Mézières & P. Christin (Valerian), Didier Comès, Jacques Tardi, and that's just stuff that has been translated into Finnish (I don't speak French myself, I've often thought that I should learn, just so that I would have more comics to read). France and Belgium together make up a comic superpower, and then there is the rest of the French-speaking world, Canada and many parts of Africa.

EDIT: I almost forgot, Blacksad made by Spanish artists but published also in French (though translated to English also) and the works of Lewis Trondheim.
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Re: What are you reading right now?

Post by Eleazar »

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.
A very interesting explanation on how geography allowed civilization to form and advance in different places at different rates.

Medea: Harlan's World by Harlan Elison, Hal Clement, Larry Niven, Frank Herbert, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, etc.
Several top sci-fi authors put together the specs for a planet, other authors brainstormed about stories that could take place there, and then they all wrote short stories. Includes the transcripts and letters they wrote before as well as the final stories. Primarily of interest for the insight into the process... most of these authors have done better elsewhere.

A Song of Ice and Fire (books 1-3) by George R. R. Martin
My new favorite fantasy writer (after Tolkien of course). There's relatively little magic in the world, the story focuses a lot of the politics of medieval-type nobility, with a large cast of interesting and distinct characters, and a very convincingly real world. Everything i liked about Wheel of Time is done better in this series.
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