What you want to read this year - Totals and specifics

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mrganondorf

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« Reply #30 on: March 17, 2015, 03:14:13 am »
i liked Best Served Cold (revenge revenge revenge) although it did seem a bit longer than it needed to be.  it's got this one character, the poinsoner, i really liked him, seemed very unique

prince of thorns is good!  don't read about it tho--you don't want to catch a spoiler!  i had no idea of the 'twist' until i was halfway through the book.  the next book was pretty good, and i'm reading #3 now, liking it

i really wish i could dissuade you from reading A Dance With Dragons.  i have never been so disappointed in a book.  never.  i cannot recommend anything about it.  it begins as slow as molasses and by the end it has sped up to the velocity of a crippled snail.  it was utterly unnecessary.  everything you love about books 1-3 and maybe some of 4 -- none of it is in 5.  thinking about it makes me angry--that i wasted part of my limited time on Earth on that book wrankles me every time i think of it.  blah!

EDIT: dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune dune

SilentRoamer

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« Reply #31 on: March 17, 2015, 11:35:52 am »
So I didn't check if there was already a thread for what I posted, but SilentRoamer was kind enough to direct me this way. If I can pull off ten books I'd be pleased with that. This is what I'm hoping to get through:

Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
A Dance with Dragons by George R. Martin
Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
The Dark Defiles by Richard Morgan
The Crippled God by Steven Erikson and maybe so Esslemont novels (It's about time I finished that series)
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Birth of Classical Europe by Simon Price and Peter Thonemann

I also have two enormous tomes of Lovecraft and Poe short stories I'll be digging through

All the Dune talk is convincing me I should finally pull that one off my shelf and open it up

Welcome to the thread Camlost. I have updated and included your targets and goals so just keep the thread updated and I will do the rest :) They do a similar thing over at Westeros but it moves too fast for my liking with little content discussion so I wanted to start a smaller and more focused one here. I have received some great recs from this board and interact on a more personal level with other posters so they have a better idea on what sort of stuff I am likely to favour.

I would definitely recommend Dune - it is one of my favourite sci fi novels and am making good work through the series - thanks Madness for that rec. Also I recently read Hyperion and again this was a book that really stood out for me - thanks WIlshire for that rec.

A Brief History of Time is not too bad for sci-pop. I can recommend Steven Weinbergs first three minutes if you are interested in BBT and early universe theories. There are also some great threads over at Physicsforums discussing this sort of stuff.

I must admit I am really tempted to put Last and First Men on this years reading list! :)


Camlost

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« Reply #32 on: March 17, 2015, 03:03:03 pm »
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prince of thorns is good!
I've heard Lawrence was on point, and he must have been to have two more following PoT

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i really wish i could dissuade you from reading A Dance With Dragons
I started reading ASOIAF many years ago, long before the HBO series came out, at this point it's kind of about not wasting the time that has already been invested in it. I do want to know what happens with Tyrion, Jon Snow, and Arya's storylines though

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I would definitely recommend Dune - it is one of my favourite sci fi novels and am making good work through the series - thanks Madness for that rec
Lol, Madness recommended it to me a few years ago and I purchased a few with every intent to read them, they just never made it to the top of the list.


Madness

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« Reply #33 on: March 17, 2015, 03:29:35 pm »
Lol, SR. Thanks 8).

Yeah, Camlost, I burned through FH's Dune titles that summer. I'm surprised you still haven't gotten to it :P.

Also, Wilshire, didn't I recommend Hyperion to you?

Now if you could all just read the Jackal of Nar and The Grand Design.

EDIT: Lawrence also has two books in the The Red Queen's War trilogy. He seems to be doing something to similar as to what Abercrombie did initially. I really wish I could tolerate reading first-person with any kind of patience. Someday I'll try.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2015, 03:32:24 pm by Madness »
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Wilshire

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« Reply #34 on: March 17, 2015, 04:33:04 pm »
Yup, Hyperion came to me by recommendation through Madness, and so the chain continues.

Speaking of succession of readers, one of the people I convinced to read bakker went on to recommend him to another, who has most recently convinced a friend of his to do the same. Building a mob one reader at a time.
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Madness

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« Reply #35 on: March 17, 2015, 05:16:36 pm »
Lol - what an unfortunate algorithm that would be. We hope that each new possible Bakker reader has at least one person in all the people they recommend to that will read it and then themselves recommend it to at least one more person.
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Wilshire

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« Reply #36 on: March 17, 2015, 05:49:37 pm »
It starts somewhere :P. Besides, I'm at like 2 of 7, which is better than just 1 of x (assuming x > 7 i guess).

« Last Edit: March 18, 2015, 03:06:51 pm by Wilshire »
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Camlost

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« Reply #37 on: March 18, 2015, 02:34:06 pm »
I'm 4/3 in TSA introductions. I've been very selective in choosing who I think will actually take to it though. TDTCB can be difficult for new readers I've found

One of those was a girlfriend though who I suspect didn't really love it but read the whole of the Prince of Nothing for my/discussions' sake.

Another of those (the +1) was an  intro psych prof I had years ago that I introduced Neuropath to via a first day "get to know each other" exercise. About two months later he pulls me aside during a break to ask if I'd ever heard of/read the Prince of Nothing, "it's majestic" he claims. I replied it was my favourite and I was half way through JE at the time and we had a long conversation that extended our class break twice as long. That night he went out and picked up the rest of the series

Wilshire

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« Reply #38 on: March 18, 2015, 03:09:43 pm »
I'm not selective as I think that anyone who enjoys fantasy, generally something like Malazan/GoT or other large fantasy works, has a fair shot at liking Bakker. Feels too much like elitism to suggest otherwise, though that doesn't make me correct :P (see: poor suggestions to readers ratio).
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Camlost

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« Reply #39 on: March 19, 2015, 01:52:04 am »
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I'm not selective as I think that anyone who enjoys fantasy, generally something like Malazan/GoT or other large fantasy works, has a fair shot at liking Bakker. Feels too much like elitism to suggest otherwise

Perhaps selective wasn't the most accurate term. If I'm ever asked, I'm quick to mention TSA and keen to discuss it, but I'm a little more careful to whom I suggest it. I try to gear my recommendations to the person and that which I know they've read.

As an example, my younger brother reads a fair amount of fantasy himself, but it is predominately in the YA category. While I would love for him to pick up TSA, and everyone for that matter, I had my suspicion that it likely wasn't his "taste" confirmed when he picked TDTCB off my shelf to give it a go and couldn't overcome the density of the narrative.

Besides, if you take out the prof and placating girlfriend, my successful recs is halved lol

SilentRoamer

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« Reply #40 on: March 19, 2015, 06:16:05 pm »
You are both ahead of me. I am 0/4 - 2 didn't bother starting it and the other 2 were the same as Camlost lenders - "overcome by the density of the narrative". Quite annoying as I know one of the lads well enough to know he could really get a handle on a lot of the series more subtle nuances and discuss the series at a deep level.

I generally wouldn't reccomend TSA to someone unless I knew their reading preferences and had some knowledge of their previous reads - its not exactly a genre intro novel. :P Although if anyone asks me my favourite novels TSA usually comes into the conversation.

SilentRoamer

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« Reply #41 on: March 21, 2015, 06:59:56 pm »
Finished Children of Dune last night. Absolutely epic. My assumption is:

(click to show/hide)

Alia is such a great character.

Anyway having a little break from Dune so started reading First Law, enjoying it so far. Comparisons in mind - although there have been a few unpleasant scenes they don't seem to have the same gut impact that Bakkers brutal scenes do. However Abercrombis is a really nice pacing change from Herbert and I am finding it a much easier read - the narrative seems straight forward without being prosaic and boring. About 80 pages in so see how this one goes.

SilentRoamer

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« Reply #42 on: March 28, 2015, 07:13:12 pm »
So I finished The Blade Itself.

I actually really enjoyed the book from the 70% mark onwards:

(click to show/hide)

For me what stood out was the humorous tone which I think Abercrombie pulled off exceptionally well. I mentioned on Skype the other day the scene where Jezal was admiring his own jaw for a page or so was great. Ferro is also hilarious, swinging her arms round and hissing at people.

Anyway think I am going to move straight onto Before They are Hanged. Think I will finish this series then finish Dune.



« Last Edit: March 30, 2015, 08:21:56 pm by SilentRoamer »

SilentRoamer

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« Reply #43 on: April 09, 2015, 01:33:40 pm »
Ok so I finished Before They Are Hanged on Monday. I really enjoyed this book, the pacing was great, the character development was believable, Abercrombies ever present dark British humour jumped from the page at me. Really, really enjoyable.

Now in the unenviable position of not owning the third book of a series (I was expecting it to take me a bit longer), so I will have to go and buy this - and soon.

So now not having the third book to read in the series I decided to take a different tact and rather than hit the last 3 books in Dune I decided to read Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination, then onto Last Argument of Kings and then back onto the last 3 Dune books.

Making good progress through my list and hitting/finding a lot of the classics which I have been after.

Royce

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« Reply #44 on: April 09, 2015, 04:14:43 pm »
I just started Paul Kearneys "Monarchies of God" series which I know very little about, so that might be a good or a bad ride.