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Re: So what are you reading tonight?
ClubNeon #375632 05/09/12 03:31 PM
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Originally Posted By: ClubNeon
Two days and 262 pages into The Wise Man's Fear. Not bad for a slow reader.

I do beg all of you, once again, if you have the slightest fondness for fantasy, e.g. you liked Neverending Story, or Princess Bride, you'd do much worse than to check out the first book, The Name of the Wind. I don't recommend books to people, to me they are more personal than music, but this is one of the best I've read in my life.


I'm about half way through the second book. I couldn't put the first book down, and find the second to be a bit slower, but just as good. The writing is very clever. Soon as I'm through this book, I start reading The Hunger Games.

Re: So what are you reading tonight?
Murph #375669 05/09/12 06:39 PM
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Originally Posted By: Murph
So Charles, you have done some writing. Where are the link(s).


I don't really recommend it, but you can find a sampling here. I don't have much that's complete, which is why I needed the kick in the pants. But if you read the last couple of NaNoWriMo beginnings I had, you can at least see my level of writing. Definitely at the level of self-publishing with no hopes of making money.

Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #375670 05/09/12 06:40 PM
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Mark and J.P.'s ideas sound better than anything I've actually written. smile

Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #379542 07/04/12 12:58 PM
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I'm not sure which one was written first, Avatar (James Cameron's) or these books "The Lodestone Trilogy" by Mark Whiteway but....

[[The following are not really spoilers if you read book covers....]]

The Lodestone books involve an indigenous, humanoid race with cat like tails who end up fighting the visiting, and more advanced, humans who are there for a rare mineral, lodestone, that is found only on that planet. There is also a giant 'tree of life' type scenario as it moves on. Sound familiar?

Again, I'm not sure which was written first and there are certainly lots of difference as well but the similarities are hard to avoid. To it's credit, the Lodestone books involve much more complex plots, but then again, Avatar was written as a blockbuster movie, not a trilogy. I don't want to compare them too heavily. They are very different writings.

I think I found it via a review on Wired.com. Pretty good sci-fi if you can get over the similarities to Avatar. The mineral is much better explained and the imagined physics of how it works is central to the storyline. Worth my $7.00 for the whole three books for sure.


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Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #380843 07/30/12 05:42 AM
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My progress on The Wheel of Time has slowed, and I really can't slow down if I want to have all of the currently available books read by January, when the final volume is set to be released. I've been reading on the Kindle, which is nice, but I think there are even more typos than in the print versions, and I remember always noticing typos in those. To be fair, they're huge manuscripts, and I'd hate to be the editor, but it just seems weird that such glaring errors can survive multiple printings and then a digital version. The digital versions would be so easy to correct. In any case, I just finished book 6, Lord of Chaos, and the ending still makes me smile. I've always considered the first six solid reading, with A Crown of Swords being the first where Robert Jordan started to lose me with his meandering, but it's been a while since I've read them, and I'm hoping I'll be less put off this time around.

Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #380851 07/30/12 12:00 PM
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I just finished a four chapter demo of "Red Shirts". An intriguing and humorous concept. It's a Star Trek (ish) universe where the the ensigns and lower ranks have caught on that they are always doomed to a horrible death on away missions and that there must be some ominous reason behind it. Unfortunately, Scalzi's writing style didn't gel with me at all. I'm not sure if I'll buy the book.

Switched to "Neuromancer". Some classic science fiction (it invented the term "Cyberspace.") that I missed in the early 80s. It revolves around an ex computer hacker who 'jacks in' to a 3D Internet of sorts called, yup you guessed it, The Matrix. A former employer had him made biologically incompatible to ever do it again and so he becomes a drug addicted hustler in a futuristic, underworld city in China. Of course, he is given his ability back for one last 'do it or die' job involving a powerful artificial intelligence.

The author invented so many of his own words, slang and techno lingo that the book was actually a very frustrating read for the first 1/4 to a 1/3 but now that my brain has adapted to it, it is very intriguing. Full of over-the-top characters, plot twists and, of course, the classic "Can AI be considered a true life form?" dilemma.


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Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #380855 07/30/12 12:41 PM
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Hi Charles,

I felt the same way about book 6/7 (loved 6, disliked 7), but now that I've reread them all at the same time, I don't mind so much. I've always seen 7 as a "getting people places" book, and it still is, but it's a lot less troublesome to be able to continue reading once they've GOTTEN there.

I just finished The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Pretty good stuff, but does suffer from the "made up words" syndrome. About 25% of the way through it, I was wondering "Why am I reading this?" but I actually couldn't stop.

Before that, I reread the Oxford Time series by Connie Willis. Highly recommended, if you can handle huge emotional swings.


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Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #380856 07/30/12 12:50 PM
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Ken,

I'm going to check out The Way of Kings.

I remember reading Connie Willis' The Doomsday Book years and years ago.



And. . . . I've got The Wheel of Time in my Amazon cart, wondering if I want to start rereading this series now. I've got a copy of WOT already, but it's pretty yellowed from age. Need a new one.


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Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #380857 07/30/12 01:00 PM
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If all you've read is The Doomsday Book, you know what I mean about emotional swings. To Say Nothing of the Dog is mostly silly and funny, despite the topic. Blackout/All Clear is back to The Doomsday Book level of things. There's also a short story she wrote before the rest of it called Fire Watch, which fills in a little info.


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Re: So what are you reading tonight?
CV #380859 07/30/12 01:13 PM
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I'm going to check out more of her stuff. Like I said, it was years ago, and I think the bookstore only carried The Doomsday Book. Ha ha, it was a little outside of what I was looking for at the time, but now I appreciate her doing something different with the genre.


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"Nothin' up my sleeve. . ." --Bullwinkle J. Moose
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