Books discussion

[Corvvs]

-Just finished The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (actually I may have one left) by H.P. Lovecraft

-Also finished a bit ago: Scar Night and Iron Angel by Alan Campbell.

Hmm. You have good taste.

[Urs]

uh, yeah. Many internetz for lending those to me, good sir.

[Thrawn]

I'm not reading a lot of books these days. The last new pieces of fiction I read were the newest sequel to Erragon and The Last Command, an old Star Wars novel.

[snip]

The Last Command was ok, but the ending was rather contrived, and focussed too little on the fleet battle (is it just me, or does it seem like their is way too little focus on fleet combat in Star Wars?).

Did you read the other books in the series? Just wondering---it's not like I'm really fond of that trilogy or anything...and I I disagree about the contrived nature of the ending...=}

[TheGreatRings]

I'm not reading a lot of books these days. The last new pieces of fiction I read were the newest sequel to Erragon and The Last Command, an old Star Wars novel.

[snip]

The Last Command was ok, but the ending was rather contrived, and focussed too little on the fleet battle (is it just me, or does it seem like their is way too little focus on fleet combat in Star Wars?).

Did you read the other books in the series? Just wondering---it's not like I'm really fond of that trilogy or anything...and I I disagree about the contrived nature of the ending...=}

Yes, I read them. I thought they were a mix of good and bad, though their influence on the rest of the EU and the fan fiction community is obviously great. Oh, and Spoiler Alert:







The good:

The Noghiri (spelling?) in the first book. They were quite menacing, since they just never stopped and you never knew when they were coming again. Zahn did a good job of building suspense with them.

Making Leia a more important character, plus the whole story arc with her children, and her having to balance her family and protecting her children with her duties to the New Republic. In fact, Leia basically wins the whole war by turning the Noghiri.

Thrawn's cunning use of cloaks


The bad:

The minimalism in terms of fleet size and troop numbers. This one is somewhat arguable, since while a Galactic civilization should not consider dozens of ships and hundreds of thousands of troops a huge number, those forces would be spread out over an area the size of a Galaxy, and in this case between two evenly matched sides.

The idea that you can figure out an individual's psychology by looking at their culture's/species' art. If we were dealing with real-world cultures, this would almost certainly be denounced as racist. Of course, I rationalize this as a story Thrawn made up to cover his real techniques, or even just an excuse to keep an art museum on his flagship.

The pacing just seemed a little slow over all, and the battle descriptions seemed somewhat dry.

The final raid on the cloning facility dragged out too long for my taste. I'd have like to see more of the fleet battle. Leaving aside that the whole thing probably wouldn't have worked if the Empire had had proper security. Though to be fair, that goes for a lot of the Original Trilogy too.

Their's probably more, but these would be some of the main points.

[Turuk]

I guess there was not really a big hint that this happened, as it was only used in a couple other threads, but if you like, you can use

Spoiler:

the new spoiler tag to actually hide spoilers now.

[turin]

Update: I'm starting to read Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky) for my Literary Traditions IV class... It will hopefully be much more enjoyable than Austen's Mansfield Park, which we just finished.

[Turuk]

Crime and Punishment is good (or at least I enjoyed it), but I'm a bigger fan of Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. A brick of a book, but an interesting read, as I enjoy the trip that he takes into the human mind.

[turin]

Crime and Punishment is good (or at least I enjoyed it), but I'm a bigger fan of Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. A brick of a book, but an interesting read, as I enjoy the trips that he takes into the human minds.

Yeah, I plan on reading that too... eventually... probably this summer, if I can find time. It's been on my mental "must read this book ASAP" for far too long. And those people I know who have read it say it's amazing.

[Pk_JoA]

Now I am reading TLOTR, the first book. Pretty awesome, I have already read this but when I was younger and I don´t remember the details so I am enjoying it again.

[halifix]

After watching the History Channel until 2 am, I read the second half of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Just had an urge to read through it again. Although I was late to class again >_> I love satire, Mark Twain does nothing if not satire. I want to hunt up Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court again now...

[Crushmaster]

I'm currently reading..."The Adventure Of Missionary Heroism - By John C. Lambert (edited by Joshua M. Wean).
God bless,
Crushmaster.

[Velensk]

You know, I may have seen that book just yesterday

To avoid being off topic:
Startide Rising by David Brin.

[cobra]

I am currently starting on "The Christmas Sweater" by Glenn Beck. Just finished Inkheart and Inkdeath(great books!)

[Elvish_Pillager]

Finished Black Trillium about a week ago. It wasn't as good on the second reading, or maybe my standards for fantasy novels have gone up. I started on the sequel Blood Trillium, which is still quite nice.

(Black Trillium was written by three people: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Julian May, and Andre Norton. Each of the three wrote a sequel: Lady of the Trillium, Blood Trillium, and Golden Trillum respectively. I haven't read Golden Trillium, but I have read Lady of the Trillium, and it did not really continue the original story.)

[In_My_CrossHairs]

Just got done reading 1984 and Brave New World (rather interesting, to say the least).

Reading:
Strategy & Tactics of the great generals and their battles