I might be a bit late to start this thread but drives be drives. What are you reading right now? What books do you want to get your hands on? Give and ask for Recommendations Discuss literature and authors. There's no such thing as "genre" fiction, it's all literature you hipster scum I picked up Heart of Darkness yesterday and am most likely going to purchase a copy of Day of the Jackal as well. Yes, playing Far Cry 2 made me want to read them. Next on my list is actually a book I've already read, but would like to reread, probably 5 more times because I'm that type of person. I read The Black Arrow: A Tale Of Two Roses like 5 years ago and it's probably one of Robert Louis Stevenson's least-known novels. The story is sort of like Robin Hood, except darker and it takes place during the War of the Roses. It's a revenge story. Anyways the book store I went to didn't have it, but it had like 10 copies of Treasure Island. Geez. Slightly related, when I was at the book store I was appalled at the amount of biographies there were. There's a lot of people it seems who want to make money off of the images of others. Hell, there were even books on those evil dogs Che Guevara, Reagan, and Nixon. Whatever, if it drives the drives of whoever reads them then whatever right.
Some book for my job Some book on wizards Some book about law Some book on dragons Some book about mythical men
I listen to audiobooks, so I choose books depending on the narrator and not necessarily the content, although I like character development. Mistborn has the best magic system I've seen so far in a book. An Allomancer (magic-user) has one talent, like pull objects, push objects, enhance senses, enhance strength, etc. There's are many talents but each Allomancer can only use one. The main character, however, once she discovers it, can use all of the talents. With her mentor, she has to save the city, and eventually the entire world, from destruction by an unknown evil.
Use all the powers right off the bat? There is a lot of stories that have a similar power theme, but usually the guy that can learn everything has to actually learn it from people that have whatever power he wants to learn. I assume it really has to deal with the basic fact that someone who knows everything is pretty op, but maybe the scale of this book is a lot smaller so it could be neat. I like Terry Pratchett books. Discworld novels are some of the greatest things I have read. So I got to ask, anyone know of a good author with a similar way with humor and story?
Commie, . You made my day. Edit: I'm reading a lot of Oscar Wilde Short Stories before bed. They're pretty decent but some of them are fucking atrocious.
I did not like this book very much, honestly. It kind of falls flat as Vimes gets more and more OP. I really enjoyed his collaborative series, The Long Earth though. Terry Pratchett (also Neil Gaiman) book that everybody should read if you have not What I'm reading right now: I'm actually on book 4 of the series but eh. It has really good parts and it has terrible parts. Some interesting concepts and some overdone ones - screw Isaac Asimov and the direction he took his Foundation series. Now all space operas/epics all have stupid telepathic races, bound into some collective conscious. They are the elves of sci-fi. Lazybum, as for authors with styles similar to Pratchett... I can't really say. A lot of people who like Douglas Adams like Pratchett and vice versa.
imo, from a literary point of view, adams is better then pratchett. i really liked the discworld novels, but it gets a bit stale after a few books - his writing style a bit trivial, especially in direct comparison, but that could be the translation though, that often is a problem. candles, with dostoevskij, has the best taste so far, what a surprise i'm reading foucaults "the history of sexuality" atm. edit: just read up on grants book "heart of darkness", maybe im undervaluing it ...
I just got to the 2nd book of the Hannibal Lector series. The Red dragon was hard to get through so I hope the 2nd book doesn't turn me off. It felt like I was reading a movie script, with people repeating names constantly and the weird pacing.
At least the elves in Starcraft aren't douches. Which is another thing, I'm thinking about reading all of the Blizzard expanded universe stuff. And talking about Discworld, that's a series I get the feeling I should read but I don't know if I want to. I mean there's also The Dark Tower and Wheel of Time and probably more mega-series that are must reads in sci-fi/fantasy. Shit there's also Romance of the Three kingdoms sitting in my brother's room. Life is endless. Speaking of, I was thinking of picking up Brothers Karamazov and the Quran when I was at the store but am going to push it for a later date. I want to do a lot of smaller pieces now then devote my attention to those doorstoppers.
the majority of books isnt connected story-wise. id suggest reading "the color of magic" and "the light fantastic" (they are connected) as well as "mort" (there also is a follow up but i forgot which one its quite a while). "the amazing maurice and his educated rodents" also is recommendable, its discworld aswell, but not very obvious. also the books with co-authors senor awesome posted are quite interesting (but more for the co-authors tbh ) its rather simple reads, yet immersive stories (at least it was for me when i read them) - a book shouldnt take you longer then a few days. edit: also add "guards! guards!" and "men at arms" to my discworld suggestions (they are also connected)
All discworld books are interconnected to different degrees, unlike a lot of authors pratchett actually really uses the world he built. Nearly every book contains at least a reference to a few of the other books. In general there's a few main arc involving a group of characters. Rincewind and co - original few books, color of magic + light fantastic, kind of discontinued as the other stories came out but The Last Hero was strongly related to rincewind (and it was fucking amazing) Vimes and the guards - A lot of books about these guys, also features vetinari heavily. Guards! Guards!, Thump!, Snuff, and even Jango. Feet of Clay was also awesome and in this series. The witches - Nanny ogg and co, I don't like these ones as much, generally about nanny ogg dealing with someones problems, I haven't read many buy Maskerade I think was about her and a couple others Death - Mort, Reaper man and a few other books are centred on Death, really good books, would recommend. I also don't get where the negative comparison between pratchett and adams is, Hitchhikers guide is funny, but it's nothing amazing, in general it's just lot so jokes thrown together because the setting is so absurd he can throw in whatever he wants. That said, adams had two of my favourite books of all time and that's The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Both of which are bout Dirk Gently (a detective) and the crimes he has to solve and they both have an amazing storyline with incredible attention to detail and on top of that they're fucking hilarious. The bastard had to die before he could write any more though. Fucking hell.
thus i wrote "story-wise". ofc, if all the books play in the same universe you have a lot of cross references. i havent read more then 20books of pratchett, seems ive missed some good ones. also yes, the witches - omg - i totally forgot about esme weatherwax, how could i ... its no real negative comparison i wanted to make, i just find adams writes a bit in a more complex manner - but that could be stuff attributed to translation aswell. they are both great authors, both definately worth a read. and even though one is "science"fiction and the other fantasy, they are quite comparable actually - for both the genre they write in is just a medium to convey the human made absurdities we all got so used to.
