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Lasairfiona
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9386
Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::
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 Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 5:27 am Post subject: |
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So now I have read all the Hollows books by Kim Harrison (the titles are all amusing takes on Eastwood movies). They are silly and not very well written but I enjoyed them. The not very well written is why I borrowed them from the library. Now that I have read them all to current, time for something else.
Just started Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey. I love Cary and this is another foray into Urban Fantasy (her best books are Epic Fantasy).
Then I think I'll borrow the Dresden Files books from the library.
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After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael |
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Samsally
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 4709
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:10 am Post subject: |
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I really wanted to get into the Dresden Files and I just couldn't quite manage. I may try again in the future, but something about them was just... flat.
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cixelsyD
Joined: 09 Oct 2010
Posts: 1241
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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Just finished The Blade Itself. Great book, excited for the next one.
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TheJabawack
Joined: 05 Jul 2012
Posts: 66
Location: Caught somewhere in time
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Arc Tempest wrote: | | Slight addendum, do NOT start at or after Changes. Read everything before it in whatever order you like, but make sure you hit Changes - Ghost Story - Cold Days after everything else. |
Thank you for the advice. I think I'll try to read the books in order then.
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 14855
Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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| eureka00 wrote: | | By the way, I almost bought the damn Game of Thrones set that included giant maps so I'm not entirely innocent of enjoying a good map. |
to me, it depends on the book. "game of thrones" spends a lot of time with journeys and alliances and tactical maneuvering, so you kinda need a map to get oriented - same with tolkien's books. pratchett, however, usually doesn't do that sort of thing. i just finished "wintersmith" as well, and although there is travel between towns and between the mountains and the Chalk, i can pretty well figure out which towns are close together, and that the mountains and the Chalk are further apart and geographically different. so that's all i need.
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Snorri
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 10530
Location: hiding the decline.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 12:06 am Post subject: |
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| Darqcyde wrote: |
| Snorri wrote: | | Darqcyde wrote: | | TheJabawack wrote: | Yeah, he's a great author.
I have in mind to read his Discworld books in the proper order one of those days... |
As much as I like Prachett, I disagree with his view on maps, so for that alone I will only ever "like" him. Geography influences human interaction, especially in the discworld series, so the exclusion of maps seems just plain wrong to me. For what it's worth, I found out very recently that my view on maps and storytelling (which I've held for well over twenty years now) is the same view Tolkien had. |
If you think maps are important to discworld you don't understand how it has formed. Where Tolkien created a world with a sort of autistic attention to detail, Pratchett basically just wrote and didn't care about contradictions because the story is what's important. An accurate map or history or whatever is basically impossible because stuff was put there for humour, not making sense.
Pratchett wasn't writing like Tolkien or George RR Martin. He was making up places and histories and the like for the purposes of making a fun story. Wanting a map for a world which is a flat disc on elephants and a turtle is missing the joke from the start. It's flat out a reference to a time where we didn't have any correct idea about the geography of the world. It's a joke! |
I disagree. I don't think a map makes it more or less funny, just easier to understand. Personally, I think having different and contradictory maps each volume would have only added to the humor. Hell, having multiple maps per volume based upon feuding factions personal views seems like a missed opportunity to me. |
Having maps ruins the joke that there are no maps. And it also limits one's ability to make up new countries and places for the purposes of jokes, something which surely is more important than you...I dunno... having the knowledge that something is somewhere on a map.
The books are full of jokes and references to the very thing you believe is lacking. Pratchett literally wrote a book about an unfinished continent, he mentioned it a bunch of times for a joke and then worked it out only when writing that book. There are countries which are so small they don't show up on maps, countries that suddenly disappear, countries that are in a region so wartorn that any map will be useless the very next day and a heap of jokes about places that only get filled out with actual geography when it's needed.
I get it. As a nerd you want everything worked out completely. And I respect that, but you're missing the joke here. It's a joke about that very concept of creating extensive maps and entire fictional languages and detailed family histories and all that other jazz.
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Samsally
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 4709
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| Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:29 am Post subject: |
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For as easily as I can just see a scene play out in front of me while I read... keeping a map in my head really doesn't come naturally. I just trust the narrative will take me where I need to go.
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cixelsyD
Joined: 09 Oct 2010
Posts: 1241
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| Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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Finished the First Law trilogy, pretty good, a little over-hyped which always makes it hard for me to enjoy something.
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"I am the enemy," was the reply. "The one you thought would never come." |
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nathan
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 6269
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:01 am Post subject: |
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Science and hypothesis - Henri Poincare
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eureka00
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 1706
Location: Pretzel City
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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Why had no one given me Ender's Game to read ages ago?
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 8539
Location: Bellingham, WA
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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I haven't read it either. Someone in my book club was talking about it, but we ended up with the short book Dark Blue Suits, which is about Filipino immigrants. Next, I think, is One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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Arc Tempest
Joined: 28 Jan 2007
Posts: 4447
Location: Oregon
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:58 am Post subject: |
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The Moon is Down, still the only Steinbeck I've ever really enjoyed.
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eureka00
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 1706
Location: Pretzel City
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 1:56 am Post subject: |
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As much as I enjoyed plowing through Ender's Game I think I'm going to hold off reading any of the sequels or books of the same universe for a bit. I think The Chronicles of Amber are next. It's a big book I need to move off my nightstand (dear hubby, why didn't you buy me the kindle version?), and most sci-fi/fantasy enthusiasts worth their salt love it. I have a whole week off to get some reading done. ^_^
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Yorick
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 11972
Location: A false vacation abdicating in Ohio City
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| Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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Fast Food Nation
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Lasairfiona
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9386
Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::
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| Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:11 am Post subject: |
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| eureka00 wrote: | | As much as I enjoyed plowing through Ender's Game I think I'm going to hold off reading any of the sequels or books of the same universe for a bit. I think The Chronicles of Amber are next. It's a big book I need to move off my nightstand (dear hubby, why didn't you buy me the kindle version?), and most sci-fi/fantasy enthusiasts worth their salt love it. I have a whole week off to get some reading done. ^_^ |
Yay yay yay! That goes both for the Amber books (my hands down favorite ever) and for not reading more Ender's Game. You have to treat the rest of the Ender's Game series as a completely different series of books. The backstory of Ender's Game really isn't even necessary to read them. If you skip them, it isn't such a big deal.
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Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael |
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