[October] What are you reading?

[Crothian]

I'm reading Orson' Welles' Big Brass Ring and PJ Tracy's Monkeewrench.

 

[IronWolf]

I'm reading Orson' Welles' Big Brass Ring and PJ Tracy's Monkeewrench.

So that's this evening's reading covered, what are you reading tomorrow?

 

[Crothian]

Big Brass Ring I'm going to be finishing by Thursday for class. Tomorrow I'm starting The ones who hit the hardest : the Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s, and the fight for America's soul. I finished Monkeewrench earlier tonight.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Just started on the Crosstime Engineer books I borrowed from a friend, pretty good so far.

Just finished Monster Hunter: Vendetta, which is really making me want to shoot monsters in a Shadowrun game. I mean, hell, I was figuring out how to build the shotgun and everything, and I've been jonesing for a game that has fully automatic weapons for a while.

Once I'm done with the five Crosstime Engineer books (I hear there are more...) I'm going to read the 3rd and 4th Shadows of the Apt books, which are surprisingly good.

Past that, I'm waiting for Side Jobs at the end of the month, and then Towers of Midnight, Gilded Latten Bones, and Surrender to the Will of the Night in November.

Brad

 

[Croesus]

The Hunger Games - Great start so far though I'm glad all the preamble

Spoiler

about getting dressed up for the presentations and interviews

is over. Now on to the games!

An amazing book. There are scenes that will stay in your head for a long time.

The second in the series was only fair, suffering from the typical "middle book" problem of most trilogies. I'm just starting the last book and hoping it's as strong as the first.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'm halfway through The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.

I put it on my birthday list based entirely on his Mistborn trilogy.

Right now I'm getting wow'd by Karl Schroeder's Virga: The Cities of the Air omnibus. Very different!

Far future, steam-punk themes, airships. . . it feels like Spelljammer meets science. I so want to loot this book for a RPG game.

 

[Krug]

An amazing book. There are scenes that will stay in your head for a long time.

The second in the series was only fair, suffering from the typical "middle book" problem of most trilogies. I'm just starting the last book and hoping it's as strong as the first.

Finished it. Great characterisation and world building, but I think the pacing suffered at various parts. They were certainly very concerned about eating well!

 

[Mark Chance]

Currently reading:

The Scarlet Letter and Walker Percy's The Thanatos Syndrome for a Socratic seminar at the end of the month.

Also reading Christopher Dawson's Dynamics of World History and Great Cases of Scotland Yard (by various authors).

Since I found out today I'm taking over a 5th grade class, I'll have to start re-reading The Scarlet Pimpernel in the next few days.

 

[Minifig]

I'm currently reading the very, very first Dragonlance novel.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

I'm only on chapter two, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

 

[Croesus]

Finished it. Great characterisation and world building, but I think the pacing suffered at various parts. They were certainly very concerned about eating well!

Yeah, i agree the pacing was uneven at times, but Hunger Games is still one of the best books I've read in years.

That said, I was underwhelmed by the next two. Both still have pacing issues, but even worse, they both suffer from deus ex machina, expecially the last one. In both sequels, she attempts to use the Games as a template for the story, and ends up shoehorning the story into the template. I personally found the climax of the series to be flat out absurd. I won't say reading them was a waste of time, but they're nowhere near as good as the first, IMO.

I will say that the books did remind me a great deal of Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covernant, Unbeliever. Collins dwells a great deal on doubts, despite, guilt, and so on. And for the most part, she seems to be true to her characters, in that the teenagers feel like teens, not adults. A pity the plots of the second and third books dragged them down.