Enjoy! I'm two stories into it and it's incredible so far. Taking a bit of a break, will probably continue it this weekend.
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Enjoy! I'm two stories into it and it's incredible so far. Taking a bit of a break, will probably continue it this weekend.
Interesting! Maybe I will check them out after I watch s1 of the show then.
Finished Starsight. Enjoyed it quite a bit, and I think it's overall a better book than the first in the series. Next, I read Ormeshadow. It was fairly short, and I didn't enjoy it that much. It was trying to do something like Wuthering Heights but without the depth of detail, character, or passion.
Currently debating what to read next.
Currently debating what to read next.
Currently reading The Wise Man's Fear.
Finished The Name of the Wind last week after being unable to put it down for several weeks, and anticipate I'll devour the sequel in a similar fashion. I also picked up The Slow Regard of Silent Things as a companion to it.
This is the same advice a friend of mine gave me, so I'm definitely following it. Finished The Way of Kings last summer and loved it.
Finished The Name of the Wind last week after being unable to put it down for several weeks, and anticipate I'll devour the sequel in a similar fashion. I also picked up The Slow Regard of Silent Things as a companion to it.
This is the same advice a friend of mine gave me, so I'm definitely following it. Finished The Way of Kings last summer and loved it.
Tempted to start a 'Rothfuss has no regard for his readership' tussle, but I'll refrain...
I have The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo on my to be read list and now I'm terribly amused by how similar these titles are. On Goodreads the author said it was a coincidence and the US title was changed to 7 1/2 Deaths, haha.
Finished 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
I have a weird roller coaster of opinions of this book as it went on. I ended up really liking it and thinking it definitely sticks the landing, I just don't think the whole ride is really all that great along the way. I don't think it really does a good job of setting up all the mystery and really putting all the pieces in front of you. It's almost like the author realized this and suddenly had to create a detective POV to better handle this for the second half of the book.
I absolutely love the concept and think the ending really comes together and it earns it's ending but everything up to that point is kind of all over the place and sometimes too repetitive for me.
I kind of hate how the whole thing is just a damsel in distress. The guys entire motivation through the entire book is to just save a woman. It just changes who and the reasoning from time to time. It's annoying that he's constantly told his loyalty and having to save the girls will screw them in the long run but he is nothing but rewarded. It just feels like a lazy fill in for the character needing motivation since we can't give him his own.
Also love that they talk about a murder mystery on a cruise ship or big boat and his next book is possibly this exact story.
Well I only just picked up Name of the Wind for the first time earlier this month, and only now just starting Wise Man's Fear, so I don't feel the same sting that others do in regards to how long it's taken him to work on and release book 3. Waiting 9+ years has gotta suck for folks who've been reading since the beginning.
It's got to come out soon, right? ...right? haha...
Finding out that book 4 of the Stormlight Acrives comes out this fall reminded me that I never read book 3, Oathbringer (despite buying the hardback on release day). So I have decided to listen to both Way of Kings and Words of Radiance on Audible (I only listen to books I have already read), before reading book 3 and book 4 when it comes out. I am about half way into Way of Kings, and it is just as good as I remembered it. What such great characters, and I had no idea how much I missed that world. Listening to it has made my trail running so much easier.
I know I bring it up from time to time, but his publisher pushed Wind like it was the 'next big thing', it sold like wild despite a horrific cover, and guess what?!? 'The trilogy is already finished!' Biggest load of crap EVER sold to the reading public. And the guy is still treated like a rock star at conventions, although maybe more as a freakshow attraction at this point...
Finished Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
The main character is a contemporary internet quipping urban fantasy protagonist while the setting and descriptions are basically death metal scifi. I mean, there were "That's what she said" jokes. It took some getting used to. I enjoyed it, but didn't exactly love it.
The main character is a contemporary internet quipping urban fantasy protagonist while the setting and descriptions are basically death metal scifi. I mean, there were "That's what she said" jokes. It took some getting used to. I enjoyed it, but didn't exactly love it.
I too struggled to get into Murakami. I tried reading both Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore as they're his most popular novels, but neither worked for me. A couple years later I picked up Sputnik Sweetheart, then After Dark and it clicked for me. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World ended up being my favorite of his works.
Currently reading Exhalation by Ted Chiang and it's already great and I'm not done with the first short story yet. I just finished his first collection of short stories and had to jump straight into his latest one.
Knives Out got me in the mood for a whodunnit/detective story. Know nothing about the author or a book, hoping it's decent.
Finished Best Served Cold. Dragged really hard for me. I wouldn't say it was bad, but predictable through most of it and I felt like the characters were much more simple and still less believable than the trilogy. Shenkt, Cosca, and Friendly are great though.
I just started that yesterday and finished the first section. I'm hoping to read through The Heroes and Red Country, and maybe start the next First Law trilogy this year too. I was already a little turned off by the Grimdark/Mature Fantasy tone in Best Served Cold which surprised me since that was never a problem with the first three books. Hopefully Monza can grow on me. It's cool that there are already returning characters from the series too.
Yeah, I'm still only like 20% into BSC even though I absolutely adored the trilogy. I dunno, nothing about it was really grabbing me. If worse comes to worst I'll just read a summary or something, since I really want to continue with the other books and I'm super excited about the sequel trilogy.
I liked Best Served Cold, the ending is refreshing in contrast to the original trilogy while still being in line with them.
I like how things end up alright for Monza, but the cost is absolutly astounding and she turns a good man trying to change for the better into a complete and utter monster. Also nice to see Bayaz get fucked just this once.
I also love the ending. The whole Shivers thing is just disappointing I guess, from the perspective of what I wanted to happen but also from the perspective of wanting him to be an interesting character. He goes from treating this like a job so he can become a good honest man afterwards to an easily manipulated stupid brute. One of the things I love about Abercrombie is the characters that you root for despite them being bad people and I think that most of the characters in this book missed that, they are either good people or bad people. Monza is like John Wick or something. Singularly focused on her revenge and in the real world, definitely fucking shady, but within the world of the First Law she is a pretty good person. The bad shit she is known for in her past was not actually her, she never kills anyone but the people who murdered Benna unless it was an accident (still because of her shit planning).
Morveer is another weird one. It's hard to understand his motivations in the second half of the book. What did Cosca do to him that made him try to poison him? I don't remember Cosca doing anything to Morveer. Like I guess Orso has hired him to break up Monza's band but he is definitely having his own little revenge marathon, and by the point he tries to kill Cosca Orso has already lost. I understand him wanting to kill Monza. Otherwise I do like his character throughout, he is basically your carry in a game of Dota 2 mentally and everyone else are the people who see him truly.
As for why it's predictable; I never really thought there was a chance Monza would fail. The exciting stuff then becomes the character interactions along the way. I will also say that I don't really enjoy battle scenes in fantasy and there are a good number in the back half.
Morveer is another weird one. It's hard to understand his motivations in the second half of the book. What did Cosca do to him that made him try to poison him? I don't remember Cosca doing anything to Morveer. Like I guess Orso has hired him to break up Monza's band but he is definitely having his own little revenge marathon, and by the point he tries to kill Cosca Orso has already lost. I understand him wanting to kill Monza. Otherwise I do like his character throughout, he is basically your carry in a game of Dota 2 mentally and everyone else are the people who see him truly.
As for why it's predictable; I never really thought there was a chance Monza would fail. The exciting stuff then becomes the character interactions along the way. I will also say that I don't really enjoy battle scenes in fantasy and there are a good number in the back half.
I liked it still, but where the first trilogy for me are all fantastic 5/5, this one took me a long time to finish.
Finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and This book is one of the most depressing books I've read in my life.
I'm about 50 pages into the Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.
I'm about 50 pages into the Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.
Abercrombie's Great Leveller trilogy (Best Served Cold , The Heroes and Red Country) are the author trying on different styles (revenge, battlefield and western) in the same world and I'd say very successfully so. I'd recommend you keep reading as I believe that BSC is the weakest of the three.
Finished Deadhouse Landing from Esslemont last night. Esslemont is not the writer that Erikson is but it's still fun to be back in the world of Malazan. His books fill in some of the world building gaps from the main novels, I just wish that they weren't so centered on the Crimson Guard.
I would say some of the complaints there about Best Served Cold are definitely alleviated by developments in the later books, particularly things like certain characters being a bit simplistic and a lack of anti-heroes (or just plain bad people) to root for. When I first read the First Law Trilogy I couldn't stop until I'd read everything from that universe, and a big part of it was how interconnected even the stand alone works can sometimes be. Wonderful moments of "Oh shit look who it is!" in various books, which is a real testament to how wonderfully written his characters are for the most part. He also has some blogs on his website where he went back and reread the books to research for the new series, they're well worth a read.
Hey guys. I dont know where to go to. But there is this sequel book i want to read: Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman. But it is said to take place after HDM. Should i read hdm first before Secret Commonwealth?
Best Served Cold is the weakest of the 7 books by a long shot. Of the sequel trilogy The Heroes was easily my favourite. But I'm also a huge military history nerd so an entire book that looks at every side of one single battle was right up my alley.
Edit: dammit meant to add that into my previous post.
Edit: dammit meant to add that into my previous post.
So, how to explain this. Book of dust is a total new material containing three books, it is now on second book. His dark material is something else which is already complete series. Both to happen in the same universe.
Who are y'all favorite thriller writers?
Just finished "wayward" by Blake Crouch and He's 3 for 3 with me. Dark matter and Recursion were great. Gonna try and read the sequels soon but since schools started I might have less time.
I also think Gillian Flynn is 3 for 3 with her books.
Recommendations?
Just finished "wayward" by Blake Crouch and He's 3 for 3 with me. Dark matter and Recursion were great. Gonna try and read the sequels soon but since schools started I might have less time.
I also think Gillian Flynn is 3 for 3 with her books.
Recommendations?
Just makes sense to me to read the first trilogy first. You might as well? They're great books anyway and I'm SURE the following trilogy makes plenty of references you won't get without reading HDM.
Upon further inspection it appears the new books are direct sequels following the main character from HDM. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to start at the beginning.
Yes, read HDM first. HDM is about Lyra growing up and finding her destiny in the world, The Secret Commonwealth is about her not really having a place after fulfilling her destiny. Also, events in TSC will not really mean as much unless you know what happened to Lyra and her daemon.
It would be sort of like jumping from Revenge of the Sith to A Force Awakens.
My wife did the spoiled milk thing with me with Gone Girl. She passed it to me and said, 'Do you hate this as much as I do?' Yes, yes, I did.
I'm in the same boat, so I suggest you check out Alphabet Squadron. Probably the best of the new books, IMO.
I followed up my promise and finished Les Miserables today.
That ending tho
Finished Paul Theroux's The great railway bizarre last week. It was interesting enough. The introduction states he mostly wrote it because his publisher was willing to give an advance for a travel book which they never would for his fiction.
Ends up being interesting in a kind of historical document way almost since he goes through Iran pre-revolution and Vietnam just as the Americans are pulling out but the war is still technicality going on.
I absolutely love Fuminori Nakamura. The Thief and The Gun in particular are 5/5 books for me, and Evil and the Mask is neat too. Lots of interesting philosophy and psychology nestled in genre stories.
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OP
OP
I read Dune Messiah and I have no idea what to think of it. On the whole it didn't feel as compelling as the original, at all, yet I blew through 2/3 of it in a single day.
I have no idea if the ending is good or bad, either. There's still so much I don't fully understand.
I'll have to give it some time before I move on to Children of Dune.
As for what's next, I really don't know- I'll probably continue Sandman.
I have no idea if the ending is good or bad, either. There's still so much I don't fully understand.
I'll have to give it some time before I move on to Children of Dune.
As for what's next, I really don't know- I'll probably continue Sandman.
Read through Volume 3 of Sandman (pretty nice but definitely the least interesting of the volumes so far) and Einstein's Dreams (decent little book).
I ended up restarting The Great Sea by David Abulafia on a whim for my next book, but I'm not so sure that that's wise when I have to look up terms like 'neolithic' for the book to make sense to my history-inept brain. It's the first time ever that I'm trying to learn history on my own time, except for reading Guns, Germs & Steel (which I dropped about 60% through because I wasn't retaining any information).
From the 10ish pages I read so far I learned that briefly some kind of cult existed on Malta which is really cool. They got colonized :(
I ended up restarting The Great Sea by David Abulafia on a whim for my next book, but I'm not so sure that that's wise when I have to look up terms like 'neolithic' for the book to make sense to my history-inept brain. It's the first time ever that I'm trying to learn history on my own time, except for reading Guns, Germs & Steel (which I dropped about 60% through because I wasn't retaining any information).
From the 10ish pages I read so far I learned that briefly some kind of cult existed on Malta which is really cool. They got colonized :(
I enjoyed this one a lot, mostly because it was vaguely Kino's Journey-ish lol.
Went through 20th Century Ghosts over the past few days and it was a fun enough read. It definitely frontloaded the best material, which kind of set me up for disappointment with the later stories, but whatever.
So, i don't read much myself, but i want to do a present for my sister who reads a lot for her birthday!
I know she really liked that one book, i am pligrim from terry hayes
Can you recommend me something similar that isn't too well known? I rather give her something she didn't read yet
thanks
I know she really liked that one book, i am pligrim from terry hayes
Can you recommend me something similar that isn't too well known? I rather give her something she didn't read yet
thanks