The Goblins Fan Forum

Currently reading (sporadically) Glenn Cook's The Black Company series.

Book 2 of Robert Jordan's Wheel of time, but I'm finding it more of a chore than anything to read. Just can't compare to Raymond Fiest works (Riftwar Saga comes to mind).

They get better. I'm on book 9 now. The plotlines are starting to remind me of George RR Martin. Twisted and complex in fun ways... but without the incest and constant deaths of favorite characters.

Just finished The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F. Hamilton.
Already waiting for the next one... (there's an original trilogy (Commonwealth saga -but only two books), a second trilogy (Void Trilogy) quite far further into the future, and this new trilogy (The Chronicle of the Fallers) plays in the same universe a bit before the second trilogy).

That guy writes everythin in trilogies, but, once in the flow, writes so fast, this one again will be cut down to two books (which are bigger and thicker than the announced versions).

I love the vastness of his universes, although the Fallers could just as well be placed standalone, as the connection points are minimal during the first book, it just needs slightly less background info that way.

Just finished Gray Lensman (having previously ready Triplanetary, almost given up on Doc Smith, and been recommended to this specific book before I passed judgment on the entire series). Still slogging through H. Rider Haggard's "She". In both cases my reaction is much the same - "arrrgh, this is SO FRICKEN DATED i can't stand it" - but in the latter case, "dated" is also followed by "and unbearably maudlin". When I'm done with this one I'm officially refusing to read anything prior to the 21st century until I get the taste of 1900 out of my brain.

(My one ray of light is Girl Genius, but I don't count comic books as occupying the same category of "reading" as books.)

Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" is an amazing read so far. No wonder he's listed among the greatest of the genre.

Let's see. I was reading both the Prydain Chronicles and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. Both have 5 books, and I got both series all wrapped up into one book each. I had to drip Hitchhiker's guide after the third book because it wasn't interesting to me anymore. (in the third to last chapter or so, I realized that I didn't understand the last 80 some pages, and even worse, I didn't care that I didn't understand it)

I'm still going strong on the Prydain Chronicles though. I'm partway through the fourth book. I also read "Memoires of a Teenage Amnesiac" recently. I first read it in high school, and it was just as good now.

SamWiser wrote:Let's see. I was reading both the Prydain Chronicles and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. Both have 5 books, and I got both series all wrapped up into one book each. I had to drip Hitchhiker's guide after the third book because it wasn't interesting to me anymore. (in the third to last chapter or so, I realized that I didn't understand the last 80 some pages, and even worse, I didn't care that I didn't understand it)

I'm still going strong on the Prydain Chronicles though. I'm partway through the fourth book. I also read "Memoires of a Teenage Amnesiac" recently. I first read it in high school, and it was just as good now.

The Britain Chronicles?
All those Welsh names....
I'm torn between "interesting, but fantasy, so... meh..." :shrug:

And indeed, the Hitchhikers Guide is partly very.... absurd and not easy to read, less easy to follow.
Book 4 gets better again, but remains absurd.

They're supposed to be absurd.

Wolfie wrote:They're supposed to be absurd.

There is a difference between being absurd in subject matter, and being absurd in execution. No matter how much objective quality is not your primary interest, it is still possible to do well or poorly at the task of crafting whatever it is you intend to create. A book about being absurd can be written at any quality level, including "absurdly good", and a book about anything, including "absurdity", can be written in an absurdly bad fashion.

I don't recall the third and fourth Hitchhiker's books enough to be able to weigh in on how they compare qualitatively to the first two, which are adequately imprinted upon my consciousness so that I could pretty well discuss them in comparison to each other (though I don't think I could come up with any verdict as simple as "one's better than the other", I could just name various things I liked about them both and not come to any conclusion - and in the case of book 1, my assessment would derive as much from various adaptations of the book - or, er, "dysaptations" in the case of the radio serial, which actually predated the written version - as from the book itself). I pretty much only clearly remember three scenes or bits between both of the later volumes (and all I know about the last one is a Wikipedia summary, which doesn't fill me with desire to actually read it).

Has anybody read Vance's "Dying Earth"? I fell in love with the first book and I'm currently struggling with the third one - "Cugel's Saga". Why struggling? Well, tell me, could Vance have chosen a worse main character than Cugel? That guys is a lot less likeable than Pacino as Scarface and that's saying a lot! Throughout the "Eyes of the Overworld" I was wishing him dead. Ugh, but Vance's style is too good to put the books away!

Finally finished the Wheel of Time series... it only took me 3.5 months. O_O Of course there were several major holidays, some birthdays and other big events to slow down my reading.

I... am at a loss as to what to read next.

Wolfie wrote:Finally finished the Wheel of Time series... it only took me 3.5 months. O_O Of course there were several major holidays, some birthdays and other big events to slow down my reading.

I... am at a loss as to what to read next.

Not knowing your preferences, I cannot make a terribly tailored recommendation, but strictly on the basis of my own opinions, I would certainly recommend David Brin's "Brightness Reef", as long as you're not hopelessly dependent on conclusive endings (which Brin seems to have something of a phobia for). I recall "The Uplift War" as being very good as well, but read it long enough ago - before the entire rest of the series, which I consumed in relatively short order - that I can't be entirely sure how much of my fondness was just based on "OMG i've never read anything like this before", and how much can survive the scrutiny of a better-experienced reader.

On a similar basis, I recommend Orson Scott Card's "Speaker of the Dead" to pretty much anyone (unless they're deadly allergic to Portuguese names and/or mild references to Catholicism), and "Ender's Game" somewhat more conditionally. Both are good, but I'm less confident that "Ender's" can stand entirely on the basis of its own merits, given that it was originally written as a short story and then expanded into a novel-length prequel to "Speaker" (I'm probably oversimplifying the process; I think Card has gone back to the Ender well a number of times, most likely with mixed results).

I saw the movie for "Ender's Game" and was slightly impressed. I may have to pick it up.

Wolfie wrote:I saw the movie for "Ender's Game" and was slightly impressed. I may have to pick it up.

I was surprised by how adequate the movie was. They left a lot of good stuff out, certainly, but I figured the book for unfilmable and they actually got really close.

Having the original author involved with the project (unlike, say, anything by Alan Moore) definitelyhelped, I'm sure.

I've been listening to the audiobooks of the Discworld series. I'm getting close to the last books so I'm trying to conserve that series by reading other books in the middle.
I recently read the Magician trilogy by Lev Grossman. It was a very grim take on urban fantasy. Everything was so delightfully down to earth and dull despite being about magic and fantastical worlds.
I read some reviews before reading the series and people were saying the main character came across as whiny and unlikable, but to me he just felt like a real person who was struggling to find purpose to his life.
There weren't really many happy endings in this series. At best the characters would break even after going through horrible stuff. Would recommend. If you're into that sort of stuff I mean.

"Songs of the Dying Earth"! An absolutely amazing ride through one of the best fantasy worlds done by famous authors paying homage to one of the masters of the genre. Incredibly well-written!

"Hexed" - book two of the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. It's first-person, and it reads a bit young imo, but I do enjoy the characters and plot. I've also been listening to a number of Doctor Who audiobooks to and from work. "The Resurrection Casket" is my particular favorite of the lot (David Tennant's reading is brilliant in every one, however).

I'm about to start "The Martian" by Andy Weir. It's a book recommended to me by my Dad. We tend to share a quirky taste in books and he's been howling about this book for weeks. So I finally Kindle'd it.

He was right about "The Art of Racing in the Rain", so I'll trust his call on this one too.

John Dies At The End by David Wong. Inspired in its lunacy. It is to be read by all. We insist.

The film was rather a letdown, by comparison, but those who watched it with me and who hadn't read the book first said it was enjoyable. I think they did a good job with what they included, but there was rather a lot to get into one film, and so they left a fair bit out.

Wolfie wrote:I'm about to start "The Martian" by Andy Weir.

I've heard good things about this one.

It was great. I could learn a few things about snark from that book. awesome.

thesilence wrote:John Dies At The End by David Wong. Inspired in its lunacy. It is to be read by all. We insist.

That book freaked me out. It was an awesome book, and I would recommend it to just about anybody, but I wouldn't read the sequel if you paid me. Too dark for my taste.

nikohl wrote:The film was rather a letdown, by comparison, but those who watched it with me and who hadn't read the book first said it was enjoyable. I think they did a good job with what they included, but there was rather a lot to get into one film, and so they left a fair bit out.

Some of the omissions were both obvious and appreciated (notably the exceedingly scatological aspects of the beginning and one of the later chapters). However, we are profoundly saddened at the omission of one of the most profoundly character-defining lines, which we shall paraphrase from memory:
It would not have taken a great deal of effort to include that.