Amph What book are you reading right now?

The Heroes. Joe Abercrombie returns to the best setting from the First Law trilogy, the North, for a war story about one pivotal battle. The results are pretty great. He uses a massive cast to get a view all over the battle, and he handles the cast extremely well. A battle sequence in which the point of view hops from each character to his killer is especially impressive, though Abercrombie's standard chapters are perfectly impressive to begin with. The characters are complex and interesting, though I wish they showed a little more of Abercrombie's typical ability to avoid and subvert expectations. It's still a great entry to Abercrombie's oeuvre, though -- visceral action, memorable characters, clever plotting, distinctive prose, and another successful experiment in bringing other genres into his fantasy storytelling.

 

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls. David Sedaris. Pretty great so far.

 

I finished of Donaldson's Gap Cycle. If you have not read his books, The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant being his most famous work, I will tell you this dude must love typing. Everything is long winded, much like Stephen King. I recall reading the first version of The Stand and later finding out there was another version that added 200 more pages and thought, "Good Christ. He didn't need the first 900!"

Despite that his books are not a waste of time. They have a very "I cannot wait to see what happens next" appeal, even the "boring parts".

So.

I am on to Stardoc. This is one of those books that I have seen on shelf for years but never picked it up then got interested and could not find. Now they are hardly on new book shelf at all, and I found the first book in the series. I shalt now induldge.

 

Infidel by Ted Dekker

 

Love's Labor's Lost. A bold and unconventional comedy that ends not with the customary wedding, but with bad news and any potential wedding postponed. In the relatively misogynist world of Elizabethan comedy, it's pleasant to see a play in which the ladies have the upper hand over the foolish young men the whole time, and respond to their professions of love not by melting, but by issuing an ultimatum that they reflect for a year, prove they are truly in love and not merely a horny infatuation, and then they'll consider marriage. There's a whole element of lampooning pretentiousness and grandiosity that gives the play a nice bite, too.

 

Stardoc wasn't bad. I think there are two or three in the series. Haven't read any of them in awhile though.

 

There's actually ten of them now

 

After not doing any serious reading for a while because of school, I've been going wild the last few weeks. Since early March, I've read:

Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry
Rogue Squadron
Wedge's Gamble
The Krytos Trap
The Bacta War
and Isard's Revenge by Michael Stackpole
Wraith Squadron
Iron Fist
Solo Command
and Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston
Darth Plagueis
and Cloak of Deception by James Luceno

I'm currently in the middle of The Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories by John Jackson Miller. Finished Precipice, Skyborn, Paragon, Savior, and Purgatory and started Senteniel. Planning to start Revan by Drew Karpyshn and The Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks tomorrow.

In other reading besides Star Wars, I'm slowly working my way through the Bible: up through I Kings so far. Starting Dirk Pitt: Pacific Vortex by Clive Cussler tomorrow as well.

 

I have been out of the loop for awhile on those! I think I read the first two and I have number three in the reading pile.

 

25 signs you are addicted to reading

1...8...9...15...20...22...23...

 

8 is definetly my dream home.

 

VadersLaMent holy crap thank you

3, 8, 9, 19, 20, 23...


#13 - mph, my honeymoon may be similar to that...

#17

 

"I Could Pee on This" and other poems by cats.

 

Alright, so it is a lot different than ASOIAF though I wouldn't say that it is bad at all. By the end of the Iron King I was very eager to start the next book. It is set in France, and follows starts about 7 years after the fall of the Knights Templar.

There is a lot of intrigue and drama. Worth reading in my opinion.

 

I'd say most of those 25 apply to me, especially the 'stack of books by the bed' one. And #7 was me when I still had cats. #8 looks like my living room a bit, though mine is less organized..... #9 is defintely me. I can't go into Waterstones and come out empty-handed.

Modly warning - a couple of the entries have language not allowed here (and NSFW).

 

Finished Bloodlines and onto Tempest. Bloodlines has to be Traviss' best work imo.

 

17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma. It's about a girl who can suddenly see the ghosts of girls who went missing and died when they were 17 - runaways and abductions. Their stories may tie together, even though they span quite a few years . It's eerie and sobering but very well-written and well-researched, as well as an interestingly chilling story.

 

Finished Sentinel, Pantheon, and Secrets: only Pandemonium left to read in LTOTS: TCS, which I hope to finish tomorrow night. About a third of the way through both Revan and The Phantom Menace.

On a side note, I find it interesting that the Lost Tribe stories alternate between P and S titles: Precipice, Paragon, Purgatory, Pantheon, Pandemonium. Skyborn, Savior, Sentinel, Secrets, and the comic Spiral. Any clue as to why Del Rey/JJ Miller did the titles this way?

 

Red Country. The latest from Joe Abercrombie. The blend of fantasy and western is really fun, though it does make for some odd wrinkles in the existing setting. As you'd expect, it's a massively bloody slog through an awful world, with an artistically added dash of hope that keeps it from being too depressing. Abercrombie's stories are getting a little too incestuous, and it's not breaking a ton of thematically new ground, but there's enough fresh there, and it's enough of a pleasure seeing Logen again, that I can't mind. Still great fun.

 

Just finished reading:



now reading:

 

Just finished Erik Larson's "In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin". Excellent book.


Sent via Mojave Courier service

 

Started Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris today.

 

Finished Wraith Squadron. The humor was great. Onto Iron Fist.

 

Lord of the Rings-The Fellowship of the Ring. I haven't read this in ages and I am really appreciating it as an older and wiser reader.

 

Still working on the ninth Wheel of Time book. Have finally gotten to the point where, despite reading them back to back, I'm like, "Who is this again? Screw it, I don't care."