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*makes suggestions* The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt is great. It will make you want to learn Greek, Japanese and Inuit.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I must have forty books on my "to be read stack." I've tried to limit myself to just buying off of the discount rack for the time being, but I still can't seem to catch up. :-\
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. They're very long and VERY good. I only had trouble getting through one of them--but by the end of the book, it was worth it.
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Since I don't understand why anyone would want to stop reading or learning, this is no bad thing. I fully expect to be studying something new to me the day I die.
I had my reading under control before I started visiting the library regularly again. So many books there! And you can just take 'em! Agh!
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote: Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. They're very long and VERY good. I only had trouble getting through one of them--but by the end of the book, it was worth it.
-Katarain
O_o
I hated this series like I have hated few things I ever read. The writing, page by page, was awful and largely amateurish. The theme, when it finally got around to it after about three books, was simplistic. The stories were boring (not to mention derivative, in the early books). Characters, heck, entire species were introduced only to be dropped when the writer got tired (or embarrassed) of them. What happened to the gars? Dragons?
Sorry . . . I have this compulsion to trash Goodkind every time I see him praised.
(Then again, Chad, given that you believe that those who vote for Kerry are disloyal dupes or actively evil, you might really enjoy the theme of Godkind's novels. *shrug*)
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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The latest one is the worst yet. *shudder* I read them out of some sort of morbid curiosity. I still wanna know how he finishes it. It's only two more books, god willing. The simplistic morality, the repetition (I GET IT ALREADY! KILLING IS GOOD!), and the extreme, blatant, horrible deus ex machina put the final lid in the coffin. I have no respect any more for Goodkind. Uk.
On a lighter note, I have a "to read" list a mile long...
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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That's pretty much the same reason I've kept reading Jordan's Wheel of Time. Ugh. Why couldn't he have written it as a nice trilogy? Maybe kept it down to 1000 pages total?
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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I dislike having to take back books. I need them... I want to keep them forever. It's like pet sitting a really cute pet or something. gaaaaaaah! And It sucks that I don't know more Japanese!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'll still read the Wheel of Time books as they come out, and read them again and again ... but at least I was never such a FANatic as to cross-reference everything - honest. Only thought about it.
OTOH, I've had this nick for 8 1/2 years and don't plan on changing it.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I hate taking books back, too. I owe the public library over $5 in late fees. I owe the university library about $36. I kept a stack of books out over a month late. All because I rarely went to the university and it was really hot and I never wanted to walk the mile from where I had to park. LAZY!
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I do appreciate some things about WoT. Like the game of stones is supposed to be based on (or the same as?) the game go. And the world and story seem pretty well thought-out. It's just too damn long. And the characters all piss me off. Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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I always got in trouble when I was in college with library overdue fees. AND I WORKED AT THE LIBRARY!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Yeah. I liked Wheel of Time at first. It seriously needs to start to approach some kind of conclusion, though. I am feeling ripped off. But book for book, especially at the beginning, I did find them enjoyable.
-o-
Kat: if great = large, then we're in agreement.
-o-
Sorry, Adam. Honestly, I wasn't meaning that as snarky as I'm certain it came out. I literally think Chad might enjoy those books, because they present a worldview so in accordance with his own. And as far as the actual quality of the writing, one man's poison, eh?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote: (Then again, Chad, given that you believe that those who vote for Kerry are disloyal dupes or actively evil, you might really enjoy the theme of Godkind's novels. *shrug*)
No, I think much higher of those who vote for Kerry. I do harbor a certain amount of pity though.
I already have Goodking's books on my list.
I am taking a sabatical from fantasy/science fiction for a while.
Am reading up on WWII since we are in a war right now.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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If you could only see my living space! I am a world class book stacker and addict. I keep trying not to buy books, but...
Right now I wish I could read something that I wanted to read. School kind of precludes pleasure reading. So the latest Jasper Fforde novel is waiting on my bedtable till Christmas. sigh...
Posts: 392 | Registered: Aug 2004
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One of the best things about Hatrack is finding [flashing lights]New Authors[/flashing lights]. Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I've learned of several new authors from Hatrack.
It's so exciting to find a new author that you've never read and then you learn that he's written dozens of books.
I recently moved into a new home and still have boxes of books piled in my "library". My previous house had a lot of built in bookshelves, so I'll have to buy some more before I can unpack completely. Of course, that hasn't stopped me from buying more books since I've moved in. Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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You are probably fortunate. I, too, didn't care for the first book in the Wheel of Time. It remains a blatant and second-class ripoff of Tolkien. I made the inexplicable mistake of finishing it anyway, and then going on to read the next few books. Remarkably, they were (for the most part) truly fantastic reads. So I forgot about the first book and let myself get hooked. Now I am paying for that.
P.S. It's probably a good thing that I could never get past the first chapter or so of The Sword of Shannara. For all I know, I'd be in the same mess.
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I liked the premise of WoT, but it turned into an implausible fantasy soap opera for me.
All the different powers available, yet none of the characters know what is going on with the others was hard to swallow and the explanations for why they couldn't were also hard to swallow.
I don't watch soaps, but I sure felt like I was reading one while reading the WoT series.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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That's what libraries are for... Don't spend MONEY on books if you're an avid reader. Then, you can buy the really good books. Like the Ender series... I own those, it makes sense because I read them often.
I don't own Goodkind's series, but I think I would later in my life when I have money for them.
-Katarain
Edit: I own at least two, maybe three, copies of Ender's Game--although one isn't in my possession any longer.
quote:Once upon a time, I was in the 7th grade, and looking through a rack of fantasy/science fiction books at the bookstore.
An older woman told me that if I liked this stuff I just HAD to read Terry Goodkind.
Since I was young and gullible, I believed her....it was a big waste of my money.
Im sorry you felt that way. I personaly picked up my first goodkind book at randome. it took all my strength to get through it because in the begining the plot was slow and the writing was verry amature (it was his first book) in the end, upon finishing his first book I was in aw. ever sense then terry has impressed me with the development of his skill and the power with wich he is later able to display his message (faith of the fallen was in the end one of the most powerfull books i have ever read).
terrys books can be slow at times and the first one is filled with amature writing, but in the end he almost always leavs you feeling great and wanting more (with the exception of PoC wich just sucked and SoTF wich was slow and only the last chapter of so made it worthwhile)
Posts: 33 | Registered: Oct 2004
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I got sick of trying to keep track of what was happening in the Wheel of Time series, and especially of how it just seemed to have an infinite number of meaningless endings, with whatsisname vanquishing yet another ultimate bad guy just to have another all lined up as an excuse for another book in the series. Jordan's just turned it into a moneyspinner. As for Terry Goodkind's books, I really enjoyed the first few, and felt that he had come up with some genuinely new ideas (the Mordsiths, for eaxmple, were chilling, but they later lost their mystique and became jokes), but what really killed the whole series dead for me was the 2nd to latest one. I can't remember the title, but it had that ridiculous Nazi Germany-style sculpture on the cover, and was just an excuse for an Ayn Rand style political tract. The bits about people falling down in adoration in front of the statue were flat out laughable! That book did absolutely nothing to advance the story. At the end the situation was exactly as it had been at the beginning. In other words, nothing happened. I took the whole series to a second hand bookstore after that. Another one to stay away from is the book by Robert Newcomb,"The Fifth Sorceress". Absolutely the worst fantasy I have ever read. I gave that book 252 pages of my time, but I just had to dump it. I usually never let a book beat me, but that book wasn't worth it. Badly written, full of inconsistencies and cliches. Don't add it to your stack.
Posts: 867 | Registered: Dec 2003
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"Yeah. I liked Wheel of Time at first. It seriously needs to start to approach some kind of conclusion, though. I am feeling ripped off. But book for book, especially at the beginning, I did find them enjoyable."
I liked it, too. Loved it, in fact. i think i started to lose interest by Book Five, and actually put the Wonter one back after a fw chapters.
What started to annoy me, aside from the ratio of book length to plot resolution, was the fact that all the women kept getting spankings. It started to really creep me out. Usually I can separate author in real life from author, but that just got under my skin.
Once the series is finally finished, I will probably read the last book. If I am still alive.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Tom: EW!!!!!!!!!!! Shuddering at the thought. And I think he(Jordan) is a professor, isn't he?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote: I shall be a student of literature and learning forever.
Sounds like heaven.
I think that the Wheel of Time would be remembered with fondness for a long time if Jordan haad limited it to 8 books. I loved those books for a long time, but Jordan betrayed my trust, and I don't even know what book he is on now.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I had a bit of a problem getting into th first Jordan book, it moved a bit slow. However, i could tell it was a ton of set-up, so I picked up the second...and loved it.
I still lkie the series, but it has wandered off track so far that I doubt he will even be able to save it.
But I still really like the first 5 or so books. The Great Hunt was fantastic.
I really liked Goodkind too, at first, but the quality of his writing has really dropped as far as I am concerned.
I lost all intrest after FotF...I had the opposite reaction to it. I HATE that book, adn thought it was poorly written, did nothing to advance the storyline, adn was one of the most transparently political books I have ever read.
I have read Ann Rand, and while I don't agree with her "philosophy", even the Fountinhead is better written than FotF.
Usually I miss any political rantings in Fantasy novels because I am captured by the story...but in FotF I never once got into the story, and the political rambelings were distracting.
I found it to be one of the worse written things I have ever read.
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One of my favorite series is The Dread Empires Fall. The new book comes out tommorrow YAY! It's by Walter John Williams. The First two books are The Praxis, and The Surrendering. The new one that comes out tomorrow is called The Orthodox War. They're very well writen. Basicly it's aa science fiction novel about a 10,000 yeear old empire where the last of the ruling species has just died and one species goes into revolt against all the othere. My favorite parts are they battles, antimatter and starships traveling at significant fractions of the speed of light are awesome. Posts: 67 | Registered: Oct 2004
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For the 15th time I started A Game of Thrones yesterday. This time, I actually managed to get into it and I'm now about halfway through. It's so long! I spent about 7 hours yesterday reading it and I'm still only on page 500. Normally I'm a really fast reader.
I do get periodically discouraged because bad things keep happening to everyone and good things never happen. One of my friends gave me a spoiler about Dany, who's one of my favorite characters, so I always just think about how that's going to happen and plunge back.
But seriously, has it occured to Martin that good things happen in life as well as bad things?
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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