Hey Bookworm, What Are You READING?

[BobCox2]

Jack mcDavitt's Stuff is pretty good.

I like The Alex Benidict novels
A Talent for War
Polaris
and
Seeker
Pretty good Mystery Hard sci-fi stuff


and I'm 1/3 through the Academy (Prescilla Hutchins) Novels

I have Read
The Engines of God and Deepsix
and Just bought
Chindi
Omega
Odyssey
and have to pick up Cauldron still.

Shogun by James Clavell.

Try King Rat by him it's older (I think it's the first he wrote and most of his stuff is tied together in a series) but they made a movie out as well, Shogun was made into a miniseries for TV BTW.

[Flux]

The Sword of Shannara

It's pretty much a carbon copy of LotrR. Fun to read, but I feel betrayed after watching the LotR movies and realizing just how much money people owe Tolkien.

I don't love Tolkien; reading LotR is a pretty tough slough, and the novels could be much better. I thought the films were far better written; preserving all of the epic moments and the depth of the world fiction, while cutting out most of the dead time and making the characters much more human and sympathetic.

But yes, the first book in the Shannara series is amazing. I read it some years ago, and couldn't believe it had been published. How was Brooks not nailed for plagiarism? Remember how every unknown author who had written anything about a boy wizard sued JK Rowling once Harry Potter got popular? They all lost, but that's b/c their work had only some coincidental similarities. Shannara book one was literally bad fanfic of LotR, with little more than the names changed. I can only conclude that Tolkien's heirs were lax about protecting their intellectual copyrights during the 1970s.

If anyone's wondering, book 2 in Shannara is practically as bad. Here's a quote from my review/rant about it from some years ago on my blog.

The story progresses step by step, cutting back and forth between the two desperate, nearly powerless elves struggling along with the magical tree seed towards their perilous destination while fleeing the deadly Nazgul. I mean Reaper. Meanwhile the other plot has a great battle where the elves try to hold off the vast hordes of besieging orcs at Helm's Deep. I mean demons in the elf city.

Will the elf and the chosen elf get the seed there in time? Will they find some way to return to the elf city just before the demonic hordes overrun it? What do you think? There's even a huge falcon to fly them to the rescue when all hope appeared lost.

...My main complaint about the plot, besides the LotR familiarity, was how convenient and silly it all was. Every time the two lone elves were screwed, they were saved by some incredibly convenient occurrence. A river god who hadn't been seen in a thousand years would sweep them up, or a gypsy they'd met earlier would reappear to pull them to safety just as a mob of thieves were about to kill them. Or a pair of witches they couldn't possibly defeat would suddenly kill each other fighting over them. Or the one person on earth who knew how to guide them to their destination would appear when they had no way to advance (this happened twice).

A few lucky breaks are necessary in a fantasy quest adventure like this one, but there must have been 6 or 8 incredible strokes of luck just in the one quest story line, and I was rolling my eyes by the 4th or 5th time they were stopped with no hope, knowing that the next chapter would bring yet another saving miracle.

I eventually read another one of Brooks' many Shannara books, like #8 or 9 in the series just to see if he'd improved over the years. He had, at least in his writing, but the book was still lame and derivative and full of boring cliched characters and fake cliffhanger plot twists from which the good guys always emerged improbably victorious.

Fantasy doesn't hold a candle to really bad genres like romance fiction, but there are a depressing number of really bad writers and terrible book series... that are nevertheless quite popular and successful.

[BRKO]

Try King Rat by him it's older (I think it's the first he wrote and most of his stuff is tied together in a series) but they made a movie out as well, Shogun was made into a miniseries for TV BTW.

I have read the book twice. It was while at high school but I remember it as one of the best prison-set stories

Have just started Age of Iron by J. M. Coetzee. This author is quite not easy to read but the apartheid experience in his books is interesting as my historical knowledge of that period in SA history is weak.

[nurman]

Seems interesting!

[BRKO]

Have just finished The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert.
Three hours of reading and mixed feelings but I finished only 30 minutes ago. The book has surely whet my apetite with multiple notions of cheese and food in general. Its the food that plays one of the main roles here.

I have yet to read the legendary Dune.

[Vivi]

Have just finished The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert.
Three hours of reading and mixed feelings but I finished only 30 minutes ago. The book has surely whet my apetite with multiple notions of cheese and food in general. Its the food that plays one of the main roles here.

I have yet to read the legendary Dune.

I have already dated the Kwisatz Haderach so I don't think I have to bother reading the books, especially not since he, despite the legends, had a poor sense of direction and was rather lousy at time travelling. Although I've got to give him credit for never bringing home any vomiting worms.

I'm doing some reading for work, mainly picture books at the moment.

[Oshi]

I just finished Jordan/Sanderson's WoT 13, Towers Of Midnight. Enjoyed it for the most part, but a few too many things seemed to go all the good guys way, possibly so that they could wrap up the series by book 14 instead of delaying it again *shrug*.
Next up is most likely Hamilton's latest "Void" book, the exact title of which I have forgotten (almost certainly great, love his stuff) or this random sci fi I got for my birthday a half year ago "Surface Detail," Ian M Banks...

[nicro tower]

I just finished Jordan/Sanderson's WoT 13, Towers Of Midnight. Enjoyed it for the most part, but a few too many things seemed to go all the good guys way, possibly so that they could wrap up the series by book 14 instead of delaying it again *shrug*.
Next up is most likely Hamilton's latest "Void" book, the exact title of which I have forgotten (almost certainly great, love his stuff) or this random sci fi I got for my birthday a half year ago "Surface Detail," Ian M Banks...

I don't know, I feel as if WoT still has a lot of things to resolve by the end, and the past two books haven't really moved the plot forwards that much.

[Flux]

I just finished Jordan/Sanderson's WoT 13, Towers Of Midnight. Enjoyed it for the most part, but a few too many things seemed to go all the good guys way, possibly so that they could wrap up the series by book 14 instead of delaying it again *shrug*.
Next up is most likely Hamilton's latest "Void" book, the exact title of which I have forgotten (almost certainly great, love his stuff) or this random sci fi I got for my birthday a half year ago "Surface Detail," Ian M Banks...

I last read Jordan's book 10 or 11, years ago, and haven't read any since, or really paid attention to the efforts of Sanderson to finish things off. A friend of mine has read Sanderson's earlier work and says he's very good (much better than the rambling/wandering Jordan, in her opinion) and she's confident he'll wrap the series up nicely. Oddly, she's only read the first 2 and the last 4 or 5 books in the series, since Jordan's bored her.

However, from what you guys say I'm not really looking forward to rereading the whole thing some day, once Sanderson finishes it up. After all, the real problem since about book 6 was the lack of plot advancement. Endless treading water with more things happening, but mostly the books were lost in subplots with Mat and Perrin off doing their own thing and Rand flirting with his harem.

I had hoped that stasis would be broken by Sanderson moving rapidly towards a finale/conclusion...

[BobCox2]

I tried that series a number of times and quit due to the lack of plot and waded through it all recently just because I heard it was getting a ending.
Then they announced the ending book had been split up and now I feel like I was scammed.

MEH

By comparison
At least with Roger Zelazny's Amber series he finished it up really and then did a revisit with Melin, Corwins son and a new series that although a great follow up was somewhat of a separate expansion so that when it was left incomplete I can just use my imagination on it's ending but still feel the original series was complete

I like that a lot better so My hint would be for Writers not to milk it so much, you can always go back if the readers demand more.

One thing that bugs me is when he died his estate had that John G.B. guy hack a cheap series on it and this is a case unlike Jordans where the Author did not want anyone else writing in his world.

IMHO
Niven has done a Great job with His Known Space universe stuff in that he has shared areas with other writers like the Man Kizn Wars and left others to himself only setting thing up for when he goes pretty well.