What book are you reading now?

Just finished the Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Now reading:

Seduced by Midnight by Laurell K. Hamilton. It's book 3 of her fairy series. Laurell is the author of Anita Blake so I thought I'd read the fairy books too. They're pretty good. The writing style is much like Anita Blake but she differentiates the characters just enough so you're not thinking, "Ugh! This is just like her other books!" ^_^

Hannibal. This year I read Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, and loved them both. Of course I love Silence of the Lambs, the film, but I usually don't enjoy novels like this, because it seems like detectives chasing serial killers are ninety percent of what is out there. (In general fiction, excluding genres and the such, I'm not a giant Sci-fi or fantasy reader.) Hannibal is good, I never saw the movie, so everything is ocming to me as a nice suprise (much like Red Dragon did.).

A couple of books since my last post, I'm now reading the new Wheel of Time novel, The Gathering Storm. It's the first of three books written from Robert Jordan's extensive notes and unfinished manuscript that will complete the series. (Once it became clear that he wouldn't live to finish the series himself, he made detailed outlines and apparently wrote the actual ending of the story.) So far I'm still in the prologue.

I've always considered starting The Wheels of Time series. I've heard nothing but good. I'm just not sure if I'm into the sword & sorcery subgenre of fantasy, not having really read many.

BlueMaxx wrote:I've always considered starting The Wheels of Time series. I've heard nothing but good. I'm just not sure if I'm into the sword & sorcery subgenre of fantasy, not having really read many.

It is good. Well, a lot of it is. The thing with Wheel of Time is that it's long. There are 12 books right now, with 2 more coming to finish the story, and most of the books are 700-1000 pages each. Some of the later volumes have prologues that are 90 pages.

Part of that is because Robert Jordan tends to be very detailed with his descriptions, and part of it is the sheer complexity of the story once it gets past the first few books.

The first 5 books are very good, with #4 (The Shadow Rising) and #5 (The Fires of Heaven) being my favorites. After that, he basically wrote one really long novel spread over books 6-11. The middle books of that aren't as good, but everything comes together again in book 11 (Knife of Dreams), which wraps up a huge number of storylines and clears the way for the endgame. That's where the new book picks up.

I just finished reading Twilight:Eclipse.

The first 5 books are very good, with #4 (The Shadow Rising) and #5 (The Fires of Heaven) being my favorites. After that, he basically wrote one really long novel spread over books 6-11. The middle books of that aren't as good, but everything comes together again in book 11 (Knife of Dreams), which wraps up a huge number of storylines and clears the way for the endgame. That's where the new book picks up.

That's a pretty good description of how the whole Wheel of Time series breaks down.

1-5 are for the most part non stop awesome/action/general go go go, yeah there's some politicing in them, but for the most part the arrival of the Dragon Reborn in Jordan's world turns the whole place on it's head and the first 5 books are the ones that deal with the inital reaction to that event.

Starting at Lords of Chaos (Book 6) you see the world partially under the Dragon's control and it becomes allot more political on pretty much every front since the main characters are in far different roles than they were at the begining of the series.

That's not to say that the last part of the series isn't exciting, it is, it's just shifted in a different direction, there's still plenty of action, but instead of jumping in head first as the first 5 books do there are decisions and consequences that have to be weighed before action is taken.

Plus RJ always loved shaking things up like a snow globe at the end of every book to further frustrate his readers, lol.

Currently I'm on The Child Thief by Brom. Damn good story!

After a false start a while back I've just started reading Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Now I'm reading The Last Chancers by Gav Thorpe.

Black House by Stephen King & Peter Straub Love it! can't wait for the 3rd in the series

I Hate Your Guts by Jim Norton

I just started re-reading A Clockwork Orange today.

Under the Dome, by Stephen King. It may be my favorite King book since The Stand. I'll have a review of it when I finish -- it's 1072 pages long!

I just finished The Pact by Jodi Picoult. Kristi got me to read something of hers, and I supiingly loved it. Just a super good read, it's suspenceful, has a bit of mystery to it, and is heartbreaking in parts. Though all but two of the chacters were horribly unlikable.

I'm currently reading Time And Again by Jack Finney. A great story about time travel using only the power of the mind!

Currently reading World War Z by Max Brooks. I'm about halfway through, and its awesome so far! Its such a different take on how to tell a post-apocalyptic zombie story...feels very real. Great stuff!

comicgeekelly wrote:I just started re-reading A Clockwork Orange today.

Love that book. Took me a chapter to get used to the slang, but once I was immersed, I swam in it. Great stuff.

Bigtymin504 wrote:Currently reading World War Z by Max Brooks. I'm about halfway through, and its awesome so far! Its such a different take on how to tell a post-apocalyptic zombie story...feels very real. Great stuff!

I enjoyed that, too. I've never experienced story-telling to that degree and in that style.

I finished "The Tomb of Hercules" which is the follow up novel to "The Search for Atlantis" by Dan Mcdermont Both books in my opinion were incredably predictable but still a fun read. I like the characters in it and will probably read the next 2 coming out early next year.

Right now I started "The Furies" by Bill Napier
"An unidentified object crashes from the sky into an Arizona canyon, releasing anthrax spores and leaving innocent victims in its wake. Investigators are shocked by what they find in the rubble: a swastika. They call upon former spy and World War II–era weapons expert Lewis Sharp for help. Could this be a biochemical weapon designed by the Nazis half a century ago—or is it an elaborate hoax? Sharp is convinced that it’s the real McCoy and he warns that two more killing machines are still out there, primed and ready to strike…

The attacker has left a cryptic note hinting at an another attack. Now, it’s up to Sharp to piece together a sixty-year-old mystery—one that spans from a convent in Hitler’s Germany to Hollywood, the Executive Branch to shadowy third-world governments. Sharp and his colleagues have just five days left to stop the weapon from unleashing mass destruction—and leading the world to the brink of a whole new kind of war…"

I am about a quarter of the way through Star Wars: 501st. Awesome stuff so far. Karen Traviss does a marvelous job personalizing all the different clones and is a master of writing about subterfuge and Spec Ops. I'm hooked.

I'm doing the Dean Koontz Frankenstein trilogy right now. Some interesting ideas, but it feels like his writing has really dropped off since Dragon Tears, Hideaway and his other classic stuff.

just finished reading Animal Farm in my school library and i liked it, maybe i'll try looking up the movies based on it sometime. I was able to spot the comminuist parralels since i went over the russian revolution & cold war just last semester history class in spring.

Finished Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk; well done, and couldn't put it down and killed it in a few hours. Sometimes I feel ripped off if I drop $12 on a book and breeze through it, but this wasn't a bad finish, plus I usually lend my Palahniuk books out, so they definitely get use.

Lovecraft Unbound, an anthology published by Dark Horse Books