Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next on to something lighter. The teen book Lockdown- Escape From Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith.

This book scared my shorts off. It certainly is a page turner with action and thrilling excitement. A few mysterious events left me shivering in bed. Lots of despair and not recommended for the depressed. The book ends on a cliffhanger <more shivers> forcing me to request the sequel from the library. A good solid "C" or 3 star book.

Since a teen thriller causes me such distress, you can be assured I won't go near one for adults.

Uncertain as to my next read.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin. It's probably just me, but I don't like the way he split this book with the last. With the last book I missed some of the characters that are in this book and vice versa. I feel like I'm only getting half of the story.

Read on, and all will be well... I don't want to say too much, just trust me on this one

[Pookeysgirl]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

Read on, and all will be well... I don't want to say too much, just trust me on this one

Ok, I'm going to trust you on this one. I'm not very far into the book yet. Thanks for the encouragement

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by beppe

I just read an interesting little book. An Iliad (2006) by the Italian author Alessandro Baricco. It is a reduction/condensation of the Homer monumental tale.

Ooh. I have that out from the library's New Books shelf, though I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. I've also got Zachary Mason's The Lost Books of the Odyssey, which is a broadly similar sort of retelling, to contrast and compare it with.

As for me, it's finals crunch season, so I haven't had as much time for leisure reading as I would like.*

Most notable recent stuff that I finished:

1) The Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Homer's The Odyssey, in an annotated public domain prose translation dating from the 1920's. I found it easier to read than the B&N version of The Iliad, which kept the verse-line cutoffs which broke up in annoying ways when I upped the text size.

A nice edition with good footnotes for various proto-Greek cultural terms and mythological references, but it's a shame that B&N has doubled the price of their e-book classics to 3.99 each, as while the extras were a pleasant added value, they were only 1.99 worth of value-add and would need a lot more background/analytical essays and stuff to merit the higher cost, imho.

2) The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which is one of her rare straight (relatively speaking) historical novels, re-released into e-book format, which I picked up during a Fictionwise sale (already own in a thick paperback with tiny squinty text).

It's a bit weird re-reading this given the subject matter and the situation surrounding MZB's 2nd husband, but the parts about the thinly-veiled history and mechanics of circus aerialist performances and the depiction of the repressive 50s attitude towards gay men and women in general were just as fascinating (and depressing) as I remembered.

Recommended with caveats for people who are interested in the latter subjects above and willing to overlook the former situation.

3) Chinese Clothing by Hua Mei. One of the few non-coursework related non-fiction books I got to finish this semester. Part of a new Cambridge University Press series of slim but informative and lavishly illustrated low-cost volumes (back of it says $20 USD retail) on Chinese history and culture from ancient to modern, apparently translated from a Chinese-language series.

Highly recommended, although mildly flawed in having a lot of references to presumably Chinese-language texts which it could include a bibliography for (and maybe add in the characters for special terms mentioned throughout the text, for people interested in looking up more info).

4) The Dickens With Love, an m/m romance former freebie from Samhain by Josh Lanyon.

This had some nice references to various Charles Dickens works, as the premise is that an underemployed-due-to-scandal rare-literature hunter is sent to evaluate the unpublished Dickens manuscript that's being auctioned off by an eccentric Englishman and hilarity ensues seduction occurs.

The writing was pretty decent, but it felt like half the story was missing as it ends right after you'd think that an unsavory type involved in the story would try some sort of theft/revenge scheme. Instead, there's the standard romance Happily Ever After in which two characters act kind of out of character in order to get to their happy place together. And the apparent scandal associated with the text was very anticlimactic, unless there was much more to it than I thought I read, because it turned out to be the sort of thing that no one cares about any more.

5) Unnatural Issue, the latest in Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series based on fairy tales set in Victorian-5th-incarnation-Georgian (if I've got my Kings George numbere right) England.

This one part-stars "Lord Peter Almsley", who's a thinly-disguised Peter Wimsley clone who's been a background character throughout the series. At 7+ books so far, the series is now digging into the more obscure fairy tales and to tell you which one would spoiler the first third of the book, so I'll just say that it's one of the more disturbing Charles Perrault ones redone surprisingly staidly.

It's also got WWI-era magickal zombie attacks in the English countryside, for those who've always wanted to read about WWI-era magickal zombie attacks in the English countryside.

Standard Lackey disclaimers apply: expect a lot of self-justifying internal monologue ranting from the villain's point of view†; more ranting, whining, and angst from the hero/heroine's point of view (not so bad this time, actually); a number of deus ex machinations to help the plot along; Sudden Realization of Romantic Feelings All Along; and Ye Aulde Funetically Speilt Dialektikal Aksent rife among the speech of the lower classes (surprisingly not that bad this time around; I guess faux-Yorkshire doesn't bother me as much as made-up apostrophe-dropping).

I did like the historical background detail of English countryside life and WWI preparations, although some of it felt like it was going into overload for the benefit of the severely Commonwealthily-deprived. I'm only a Canadian and even I know how Xmas pantos work and don't need every little thing of the bare basics described to me over most of one page without adding much to the story beyond infodump.

Now onto this year's Hugo Voter Packet, which I'm only about 20% of the way through, with voting due on Sunday.

Mild recommend if you already like the series and can get this from the library as I did.

* Also I've been doing online gaming which is eating up my eyeball time like crazy. But I expect I'll get bored with that pretty soon.

† Look behind you!

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by carld

Just coming up for air from Ghost Story. It's a really enjoyable read, very dark, but with lots of Dresden's typical humor.

I'm about 250 "pages" (ebook pages) from the end. It is darker and not as much fun as the previous books, IMO. I keep waiting for the punch line...

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Charlie and the chocolate factory

Loved this. Love most of Roald Dahl, come to think of it.


ETA: Oh, about that punch line? FOUND IT!!

Spoiler:

Harry Dresden meets The Princess Bride. OMG still laughing hysterically!!

[WT Sharpe]

Just finished the forth and latest installment in the Spacejock series, Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch by Simon Hayes. This one started a bit slower than the others, but soon had me hanging onto my seat. It was a rip-roaring good adventure/comedy. (This one won the Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation's award for 'Best Professional Long Work' for 2008.)

[maianhvk]

I finished Fantastic Mr. Fox, Charlie and the chocolate factory and the great glass elevator. Oh and 3 latest volumes from Lucky Luke.

Now what?

Tale of 2 Cities? To Kill a Mockingbird? 1984? Wuthering Heights?

[Sorilla]

I am trying a NEW author, Sophia Sharp, just 18 yo , her first book - "Shattered".
Run into it on my mobile phone via a recommendation site Thriftyreads ... I know, I know, I am cheap cat

[caleb72]

Shattered Wings is a bit of a struggle. The story is fine. The editing (or lack of it) - not so much.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

I finished Fantastic Mr. Fox, Charlie and the chocolate factory and the great glass elevator. Oh and 3 latest volumes from Lucky Luke.

Now what?

Tale of 2 Cities? To Kill a Mockingbird? 1984? Wuthering Heights?

To Kill a Mockingbird would be my suggestion, if you haven't read it before. There's a reason it's a classic (not that the others aren't, of course)...

[maianhvk]

Originally Posted by orlok

To Kill a Mockingbird would be my suggestion, if you haven't read it before. There's a reason it's a classic (not that the others aren't, of course)...

Too late, I started reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Man, it is hilarious!!

[orlok]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Too late, I started reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Man, it is hilarious!!

but...but...that wasn't one on your list!

(mutter...women...mutter...mutter)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Too late, I started reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Man, it is hilarious!!

Yes, utterly splendid. I'm a little biased in favour of the original radio series. I urge you to avoid the dreadful film. The TV series is interesting in a "what people did before CGI" kind of way.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next: Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie. Her 23rd book.

I did enjoy that. A fascinating murder mystery, with the return of Mr Satterthwaite and, of course, Hercule Poirot.

Next, another Grantville Gazette, #31, edited by Paula Goodlett.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Too late, I started reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Man, it is hilarious!!

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Yes, utterly splendid.

Despite my earlier curmudgeonliness (), I do agree. All of Douglas Adams' works are excellent. You should also try the Dirk Gently series when you get a chance.