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

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Night of Madness, by Lawrence Watt-Evans. Sadly only available in paper, not ebook formats. I have it in paper, but I've never got around to it. So I've had to improvise a solution.

It should be a quick, fun read.

And it was. As usual, we follow one character through the story, which tells of the night that Warlocks became part of the Ethshar Universe. We don't really find out much more than we know from other books, but it's still interesting and fun to read.

Next up: Man-Kzin Wars VI, edited by Larry Niven. Larry Niven lets people play in his Universe, in the period when Humanity and the Kzin were at war periodically.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Ea

Sorry, I might have mixed up your comments with someone elses - I just remembered the impression that your view of translation into French = bad! Especially from English into French. I just can't see why it necessarily always should be.

Well, I may have given you that impression, but as I said, it's more a subjective impression than anything. And I'm sure some translations are good, I'm just not sure that happens very often. A good translation requires a lot of time and care I think, and when you are paid by the word and need to make a living you probably have to take shortcuts.

[BearMountainBooks]

Finished "Take the Monkeys and Run" by Karen...Cantwell. What a great little beach read! Fun summer reading that was very entertaining, light reading. The mystery was convoluted, but fun, the romance heart-wrenching--but fun! I enjoyed this book a lot. It does have some rather over-the-top action scenes, but it fits the book and the characters so even though they're highly improbable, it didn't distract me.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...cm_cd_asin_lnk

Maria

[FlorenceArt]

Page 72 of the Millenium book, and I'm giving up. It's just plain boring. I'm sure the story is good, but I've never been a story person. I'm much more interested in style, and failing that I can get interested in the characters. The style of this book is boring, and the characters could be OK, but they don't seem to come to life, at least in the short section I've read, and I'm not interested enough to stick around, not with all the good books I want to read.

[MelC]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Well, I am now at page 22 of Les hommes qui n'aimaient pas les femmes (French version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and engrossed in the story of how the journalist bought his apartment. Not a very promising beginning, and the (predictably) awkward French translation doesn't help. I'll give it a few more pages.

Give it to around 150. A lot of people struggled with the beginning of the first book.

[neilmarr]

I'm having the same problem with the Larsson trilogy, Florence. About 120 pages into the first, *The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo*, I'm on the verge of deleting all three books.

The writing is turgid, there's no story emerging yet, I feel no connection with any characters, and the research (if any was carried out) has been so skimpy that it's impossible to suspend disbelief in utterly unreal passages. Also, the author -- possibly not ever dreaming this work would be hyped and actually take off -- makes zero concession to an international readership with his focus entirely on Swedish institutions I've never even heard of.

On to something else, methinks. Cheers. Neil

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

I'm having the same problem with the Larsson trilogy, Florence. About 120 pages into the first, *The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo*, I'm on the verge of deleting all three books.

The writing is turgid, there's no story emerging yet, I feel no connection with any characters, and the research (if any was carried out) has been so skimpy that it's impossible to suspend disbelief in utterly unreal passages. Also, the author -- possibly not ever dreaming this work would be hyped and actually take off -- makes zero concession to an international readership with his focus entirely on Swedish institutions I've never even heard of.

On to something else, methinks. Cheers. Neil

I said this, and said this, and everyone kept telling me I was nuts. I soldiered on (on my third try to read the book), and it *does* get better. I don't know if it's just me, but though it wasn't the best book I ever read, it wasn't the worst either, and I don't count it as a complete waste of time.

[neilmarr]

Maybe I'll come back to it some day, Shel, but my rare recreational reading time's too precious to waste and I reckon if an author can't hook me in 120 pages, he's not done his job well enough to merit more patience. Opinion on fiction is terribly subjective, of course, and I'm glad to hear some other pals here loved the books. Cheers. Neil

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

I said this, and said this, and everyone kept telling me I was nuts. I soldiered on (on my third try to read the book), and it *does* get better. I don't know if it's just me, but though it wasn't the best book I ever read, it wasn't the worst either, and I don't count it as a complete waste of time.

Well, contrary to what I said earlier, I picked up the book again and read a bit more. I can see there might be a story, and even characters, in there somewhere, but I'm still not sure it's worth my time. Right now it looks on the verge of embarking on a "closed room" (or rather closed island) mystery, which I find profoundly uninteresting. Tomorrow I have to go back to the library to renew my loan on Seneca, and I think I will give back the Larsson and look for something more rewarding.

I started Patrick Modiano's "La place de l'étoile" this morning on the train. Now here is someone who knows how to write. And the fact that he writes in my native language doesn't hurt, of course. Good start, but I'll need to do some research on the literary world in France before, during and after WWII. He mentions many names I know only vaguely, or not at all: Drieu la Rochelle, Maurice Sachs, Brasillach... Wikipedia, here I come!

[poohbear_nc]

Ironically, I just finished reading "The Mermaids Singing" by Val McDermid - the book that Mikael Blomkvist reads in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" - and enjoyed it - an excellent, if predictable, page-turner about tracking down a serial killer with a psychological profiler. There's now a series featuring the profiler and the lead detective. McDermid can be a bit grisly in the details, but never boring!

[Ea]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Well, contrary to what I said earlier, I picked up the book again and read a bit more. I can see there might be a story, and even characters, in there somewhere, but I'm still not sure it's worth my time. Right now it looks on the verge of embarking on a "closed room" (or rather closed island) mystery, which I find profoundly uninteresting. Tomorrow I have to go back to the library to renew my loan on Seneca, and I think I will give back the Larsson and look for something more rewarding.

I started "Men who hate women" (isn't that the English title as well?) a few days ago. I'm right now 15% into the book. I don't like the prose that much. It's slow and plodding, and he definitely can't write dialogue so it sounds natural. There's far too much exposition - a lot of the details about the characters could have been cut, it gets in the way of the story.

But I think I actually might keep reading. The story is promising, the characters as such are interesting enough. Whether I finish would depend whether the story will stay interesting.

I've been wondering why books such as this, or "The da Vinci code" become so popular, and it struck me today that perhaps it's because they're easy to read and entertaining. I've read too much and know too much about writing that I notice all the problems, but I bet a lot of people don't. And the story is efficient enough to hook even me into keep reading. I don't feel I have to push myself through like with "The da Vinci code".

[neilmarr]

***I just finished reading "The Mermaids Singing" by Val McDermid***

Glad you liked that one, Poobear. Val's one of my oldest pals from shared newspaper days in Scotland and England in the seventies and eighties. It's great to see how well she's converted to a more honest form of fiction. Her *Wire in the Blood* TV series is huge in Europe. You seen it in the US? Cheers. Neil

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

***I just finished reading "The Mermaids Singing" by Val McDermid***

Glad you liked that one, Poobear. Val's one of my oldest pals from shared newspaper days in Scotland and England in the seventies and eighties. It's great to see how well she's converted to a more honest form of fiction. Her *Wire in the Blood* TV series is huge in Europe. You seen it in the US? Cheers. Neil

Yes - our PBS station has aired "Wire in the Blood" - enjoy it tremendously!

[pilotbob]

Ok folks I gave up on Cory Doctorow's _For the Win_. It just seemed to be dragging and not catching my attention. I didn't care about the characters and the story didn't hold my attention. I am much disappointed because I expected another like _Big Brother_ seeing that he considers both Young Adult genre.

So, _Fang_ by Patterson, a Maximum Ride book was sitting there... so I started reading it. Always fun books and a quick read. (Yes a pbook my wife bought to read and then donate to the local elementary school.)

After that I will be reading the MRBC July selection. Sci-Fi and Fantasy are my favorite genre and I have been away from them for too long. Although _The Stand_, _The Pillars of the Earth_ and _World With Out End_ were excellent diversions from my favorite genre.

BOb

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Man-Kzin Wars VI, edited by Larry Niven. Larry Niven lets people play in his Universe, in the period when Humanity and the Kzin were at war periodically.

Which was a bit odd. About 3/4 of the book was one long story, and then there was one more short story. I was expecting rather more, shorter stories.

The two stories were OK, filling in some detail after the first Man-Kzin war.

Next up: Dragon's Ring by Dave Freer. Looking interesting so far, although the inital setup is a little confusing.