GameFAQs Books & Literature discussion

So I WAS reading Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams, but very suddenly my mood shifted from fantasy back to science fiction, so I've abandoned that temporarily and started in on Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer.

Never saw the TV show, for which I'm now thankful. The book is decent, and I feel like it's building towards something awesome. The writing itself leaves a bit to be desired, but he makes the technical sciency stuff easy to swallow. This is really one of those books that will be made or broken by the ending.

I'm reading To hell and back by Lilith Saintcrow. Another good book is Urban Shaman by C.E.Murphy.

At the moment, the Hobbit. Haven't read it for a long time... Don't know what I'll read after that.

Right now I'm pulling double duty.

First up is Infinite Jest. I'm really liking it so far, it's hilarious, well-written, and confusing all at the same time. I have no clue where its going, but I suspect that's not really the point here. All I can tell you at this time is that it's kind of about a family with a tennis playing tradition, French-Canadian separatism, a mysterious film (possibly called "Infinite Jest"?) made by the patriarch of said tennis family, with some giant feral babies and roving herds of hamsters thrown in for flavor, and it's all happening in a world that's not quite our own.

I'm also reading The Annotated Archy & Mehitabel by Don Marquis, which is really good too. When I put my shelves together I was sort of shamed by the utter lack of poetry (and plays, for that matter) so I picked this up at the library. They're taken from a series of newspaper columns by Marquis, written in the 1916 to early 1920's era, and are the supposed output of a vers libre (free verse) poet whose soul has transmigrated into a cockroach, Archy. He writes on a typewriter by pressing his head down onto the keys, one letter at a time. So it's mostly free verse, and they range from social commentary to goings on in the animal and insect underworld to tales told by Mehitabel the cat, who claims to be the transmigrated soul of Cleopatra.

Here's a sample of Archy's work, one of my favorites:
freddy the rat perishes

I'm reading the 4th book in the Hyperion series, Rise of Endymion. It's going pretty slowly thanks to all the reading I have to do for my classes, but so far I'm enjoying it.

I'm reading Fever Crumb byPhilip Reeve. Really enjoying it so far.

Rusty wrote: "At the moment, the Hobbit. Haven't read it for a long time... Don't know what I'll read after that."

I read The Hobbit a few months ago. It's a great book.

I didn't like that book or any of J.R.Tolkiens books.

I'm reading 'The Desert Spear - Peter V Brett' Book 2 of the Demon Trilogy. And so far the book is going great, about 250 pages in.

I started "The Name of the Wind" about three weeks ago. Really enjoying it, but I've been finding it hard to put a decent amount of time into it - until last night. I picked it up with the intent of reading a couple of chapters to help get me a bit sleepy, but ended up reading 'till 2am. Still nowhere near finished, but kind of surprised at how I got hooked in.

Have to start "All's Well That Ends Well" today or tomorrow for one of my classes. Already read two Shakespearean plays in the last month, so not exactly looking forward to it.

I'm on my third Robert J. Sawyer book, Factoring Humanity. Obviously the fact that I'm still reading his books means that I don't hate them.

But at the same time, the first two left me underwhelmed, and the third one seems headed that way too. To be fair, Calculating God was a LOT better than Flashforward, and the ending, while a bit too abrupt, was more satisfying.

And they're very fast reads, so I'm more willing to stick with it and see if anything changes.

My complaints about the books aren't really too major, I guess. Sometimes characters don't seem to behave in believable ways, sometimes they use bizarre or convenient leaps of logic to arrive at the conclusion necessary to drive the plot forward (this is a big problem in the one I'm reading now), and sometimes the narrative comes to a screeching halt while he stops to explain one scientific principle or another for three pages.

If Flashforward is anything like the TV show, I think I made the right choice to avoid it.

David wrote: "If Flashforward is anything like the TV show, I think I made the right choice to avoid it."

Actually, from what I understand, the book is nothing at all like the TV show (which is especially odd because apparently, Sawyer is involved in writing and consulting on the show).

For one thing, the jump in the TV show is like six months or something. In the book, it's 21 years. The book also deals pretty heavily in science, something you probably wouldn't see in a mainstream drama.

And in the book, there just wasn't the "intrigue" there appears to be in the TV show. I'm seeing people use words like "spy" and "mole" when talking about the show, and there just isn't any of that in the book.

Really, as unimpressed as I was with the book, it was still a lot better than the TV show sounds.

That's interesting to hear. Heavy in science isn't something I'm outright interested in. I don't know, if I didn't have a "to-read" list about 30 books long (and quite a few of them are first books in series, so it probably balloons out to 50 or so), I'd probably consider picking it up. But, until I've made a dent in all these unread book lying around, I'm not likely to add anything new.

Right now I'm almost done with Light by M. John Harrison. Honestly, not liking it too much. I don't really like the dialogue, the way the characters act, and the seemingly pointless things they say (see: Chuck Palahniuk). For most of the book it's three storylines, which presumably get tied together in the end, and I'm only sticking with it because I expect a great ending.

There's a sort-of sequel, Nova Swing, which I won't be reading right away, but I still may read it eventually if Light finishes off strong.


I've also finally started Jack McDevitt's Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt, which is the only thing of his I haven't read; it's a heavy, unwieldy hardcover, so instead of carrying it around with me, I'll try to read a story or two a night for a couple weeks. Normally I'm not into short stories, but I make exceptions for my favorite authors.

I've just finished reading "Othello" - I skipped over "All's Well That Ends Well", and will be back to that in a month or so. I'm currently trying to finish "Twilight" for my popular fiction class, and I've recently started "Fool Moon".

Continuing "Fool Moon", and about to start "Murder on the Orient Express".

Light was pretty bad, so I skipped Nova Swing and decided to try Stephen Baxter, finally.

I'm about halfway through Manifold: Time, and so far it's amazing. If this finishes strong, I'm definitely sticking with him.

Today I finished reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling and now I've just started Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones.

Manifold: Time did finish pretty strong, so I've moved onto Manifold: Space, though it's slow going. Just haven't been motivated to read much lately. Still, I'm excited to have finally started reading Baxter, and that I seem to like his work, at least so far.

I just finished Paper Towns, which was very good, and The Hunger Games, which was entertaining but not amazing. I do plan to read the other books in the series, though.

Next I'm finally (after at least a year) getting around to the 4th book in the Temeraire series. I don't really remember what happened in the 3rd book but hopefully it will come back to me.

I'm reading Nightshade City by Hilary Wagner. It's really good.

I've hit another lull. I haven't been reading much, and just bouncing back and forth between Manifold Space and a Star Wars book I've been in the middle of for like a year.

I managed to read Stephen King's Blockade Billy while waiting for my car to be inspected, but it was a complete piece of crap.

I'm currently reading the codex alera books, on the second one about half way through.
I will finish these then will start on some of the books I stole from my sister when I was visiting her the weekend.

Some that I borrowed were.
-The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
-The Way of The shadows - Brent Weeks
-The Braided Path - Chris Wooding