[June] What Are You Reading?

[delericho]

I've only actually read the first book. I kinda want to read more. The chicken thing and the Most Beautiful Statue in the World both seem so amazing that there's gotta be more hilarious greatness in there.

I actually made it through three books. I found that the first one was awful for about 800 pages, but then really got going for the last 200 or so... and that bounced me straight into the second book. The second book was awful for about 900 pages, but then was again pretty awesome for about 100 pages. And so I got into "Blood of the Fold"... which fortunately was just awful throughout.

I really need to rethink my policy of never leaving a book unfinished.

 

[delericho]

I finally finished "The Second Book of Lankhmar", which was good in places, but not really worth the read as a whole. In particular, that last story was awful.

I've since read "Death of Kings" by Bernard Cornwell, which was outstanding - the best book of the year so far by some way.

I'm about to start "Snuff" by Terry Pratchett. He's usually reliable.

I was also hoping to read the latest Pathfinder this month, but my book arrived last weekend having been caught in England's floods. Fortunately, Paizo are going to send me a replacement, but it's still a pain having to wait.

I'm well behind on my reading for this year - according to my list, I've managed 21 books so far, where I would normally expect to be finishing book 26 at this stage. Guess I'll need to read some shorter books!

 

[Mercutio01]

I really need to rethink my policy of never leaving a book unfinished.

I still have problems with that one myself. I'm sort of glad I didn't adhere to that because I didn't like "A Game of Thrones" for the first 300 pages or so, but I enjoyed the rest of the book enough to read "A Clash of Kings." I'm not almost done "A Storm of Swords," but I think if I had actually given up with the book when I had thought to do so, I'd have missed out.

That, however, is not the case with Terry Goodkind.

 

[Chairman7w]

I really need to rethink my policy of never leaving a book unfinished.

Delericho, I used to have that same policy, but hell... after slogging through the first half of some awful WWII novel (Steel Wave, by Shaara, I think it was) - I finally relented and said, "What the hell am I doing???"

Life is WAY too short to stick with something I'm not enjoying for some strange notion of honor, or code, or... whatever I thought it was. Now - If I'm hating a book, I close it up and move on!

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Delericho, I used to have that same policy, but hell... after slogging through the first half of some awful WWII novel (Steel Wave, by Shaara, I think it was) - I finally relented and said, "What the hell am I doing???"

Life is WAY too short to stick with something I'm not enjoying for some strange notion of honor, or code, or... whatever I thought it was. Now - If I'm hating a book, I close it up and move on!

My wife got me the Steel Wave since she knows I love history and I love fiction. So therefore I *must* love historical fiction, right?

I skimmed the first two chapters, recognized it as the tripe it was, and snuck it off to the used book store along with Orson Scott Card's Hidden Empire so I could pick up the entire Elric Saga for a few bucks of store credit. Thanks for confirming how bad the Steel Wave seemed to be.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I've since read "Death of Kings" by Bernard Cornwell, which was outstanding - the best book of the year so far by some way.

Cornwell is awesome. I adore the Saxon Stories.

 

[Mercutio01]

Cornwell is awesome. I adore the Saxon Stories.

His Arthur books are my favorite Arthurian fiction.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Someone lent me the first three of Cornwell's Saxon series and they were great. I need to read the latest.

I just finished the Elric Saga and it was pretty metal. His fight scenes should be accompanied by songs by Dethklok from Metalocalypse. I then finished Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, and you can tell why it was in Gygax's Appendix N. The battle with the troll was creepy and awesome. I also very much enjoyed the test of riddles with a giant in the story.

Now I am onto "A Canticle for Liebowitz" by Walter Miller and it is extremely good so far.

 

[Jhaelen]

I finished 'The quantum thief' (see above); I'm still undecided how good it actually is. Imho, it's just too short a novel for what it's trying to do. I enjoyed parts of it immensly, but in other parts it's a bit lacking - mainly because of too little background info.

I now started reading 'The Night Sessions' by Ken MacLeod; so far it's quite promising and thematically it reminds me a bit of 'do androids dream of electric sheep'!
But then again I think I enjoyed all of MacLeod's books so far

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

His Arthur books are my favorite Arthurian fiction.

They are awesome, but they can't beat Howard Pyle for me in that category