Finished The Twelve by Justin Cronin. Book 2 of The Passage trilogy! Finally!
It was interesting read, but too long. Too much back story and details that could have been condensed quite a bit. As it is, I didn’t like the fist quarter, second quarter was okay, third was interesting, and really enjoyed the last one.
Still one book remaining in the trilogy, but need a break, will come back to after a little while.
Read some more stories from The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft.
Now reading The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore. First book of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, and The Legend of Drizzt / Forgotten Realms series (publication order).
It’s my first Drizzt, and first D&D novel and has been on my wishlist for a very long time. Just started it so can’t really say much about it, but enjoying it so far.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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I just finished Lessons in Chemistry. It started of a little dark but quickly turns into a roller coaster slice of life novel that secretly weaves a series of plot points before coming to a heartwarming end. I am starting Meditations by Marcus Aurelius with annotations for context.
I’ll probably also read a second lighter book in-between sections of Meditation cuz it’s a dense book.Cool about Drizzt! I enjoyed (what I read of) The Dark Elf trilogy… I forget how much I read, but, very cool world-building.
I finally finished books 1 and 2 of The Kingkiller books (Rothfuss) and thoroughly enjoyed them. I’m now onto Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy.
I really want to read The Kingkiller books, but not going to until the series is finished. Too many unfinished series in my life.
I might be in the minority on this, but even though the story arc is VERY unfinished, I still came away with the feeling that I just read some great stories, I know (and like) the main character very well, many of the 2000 pages made me smile broadly and/or well up with tears a few times. No regrets here, even if bk 3 never comes out. But I also do totally hear you. It’ll be worth the wait (and it’s gotta be coming… someday… lol).
I can understand that. Journey before destination. They are some very good books, but unfortunately I like to have some closure. You don’t always get that in real life, but at least in my books I want full stories, with at least some kind of ending.
Maybe if it becomes clear some day that 3rd book is never coming, which seems pretty likely at this point (just like I have come to accept A Song of Ice and Fire is never finishing), I’ll just read it with the mindset that it’s unfinished.
Just finished Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, and haven’t picked out what I’m reading next.
I think this is one of those I should have dropped rather than power through. I liked the story, but the writing style just wasn’t for me: poetic, but verbose verging on purple, imo. Is all his work like this? I vaguely remember reading “There Will Come Soft Rains” a long time ago, but I don’t remember how it was written. Also, I thought this was going to be Halloween-related, but it really isn’t.
Bingo squares: Older Than You Are (1962), Family Drama, (maybe) Plays With Words, Bookception (hard), Now a Major Motion Picture, It’s About Time, (alt) A Change in Perspective.
Yeah, sometimes it’s better to just drop the book rather than force it. Life is too short for bad books.
Just finished King’s Fairy Tale. Almost started the dark tower series, but then remembered that I needed to read Moby-Dick. So, that’s what I’m reading now.
I hope you like in depth descriptions of whales
Hmmm, not interested in that. Lol
Is the book fantasy? Like does the whale talk or something? Or is he just talking about going whale hunting(if that’s the word).Most of the book is descriptions of whales, whaling boats, whale skeletons etc. Some of it can be interesting from a historical perspective. I’m sure it was more interesting when people didn’t have access to pictures, but it wasn’t what I was expecting, that’s for sure.
Well, I can’t say anything but thank you for saving me a possible week or two of reading something I really have no interest in. I genuinely thought the whale would end up speaking and some fantasy stuff would occur.
Hugo’s Hunchback is much the same. There is genuinely a good story, with the gypsy, the priest, Quasimodo himself, and then a good half the center of the book is just a complete history of the Notre Dame cathedral.
I actually have a habit of skipping what I call “stuffing” when I sense it’s just stuff I really don’t care to know. Saves me some good number of pages. Alexandre Dumas does this a lot in his books. When I read “The count of Monte Cristo”, I skipped all the parts where he described landscapes and ocean and all that lovey shit. Lol
There’s a chapter where Ishmael gets mad that all the whales are named wrong. He spends a while renaming them better.
It’s a very odd book. I quite liked it, but it’s definitely in the recommend with caution group.
Don’t forget how he asserts that whales are actually fish and he doesn’t care what scientists say because he spoke to whalemen
Mammals are supposed to have hair. Don’t try to pretend you’ve seen a whale with a bob or braids. Ishmael was 100% right here.
Fairy Tale was great! Talisman is another great book in that vein.
Working my way through book 5 of He Who Fights With Monsters.
Tap for spoiler
Jason has just been diverted from Japan to Indonesia as shit is fucked up.
Not currently reading anything but just finished The Fisherman by John Langan. I’m just here hoping someone can recommend some good horror from the last few years
I read a lot of horror! Here are some of my recent faves:
- Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
- I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
- Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
- The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
- Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman
What did you think of Ghost Eaters? I found it a bit boring by the end. I finished it and I wouldn’t say it was bad but it was a bit of a slog for me by the end.
It’s been over a year now since I’ve read it, so I don’t remember a lot of the details, but I did quite like it overall. There were some parts that I thought were a bit overdone, I think it’s always a fine line with horror and people have different thresholds as well, but overall I enjoyed the weird creepy things that kept piling up by the end.
I really loathed the fisherman. It felt like a bait and switch, and the framing device felt like I was being asked to accept an insane proposition. Why would they just sit there in that diner for what must have been hours listening to that guy exposit in anachronistic old-timey waffle?
I am baffled by its popularity.
Edit: conversely, and so I’m not being a negative Nancy, The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch was fun and weird and kept me interested.
I’m not sure if these will exactly fit the bill for horror for you, but they scratched a similar genre itch for me:
- The Terror - Dan Simmons
- Plain Bad Heroines - Emily M Danforth
Just started with Scalzi’s Starter Villain. No opinion yet. But it’s short, so I should have one soon.
I am working my way through the Culture series by Iain M. Banks. I’m on The State of the Art which is an anthology. All of the books up to this point have been EXCELLENT, especially Use of Weapons which is one of the best science fiction books I’ve ever read. Usually with the space opera genre and perhaps sci-fi in general, you land somewhere on a sliding scale between imaginative concepts and good writing, but Banks is one of the few that hits top marks in both areas.
Finished Words of Radiance, started Oathbringer.
They hit pretty hard back to back with the end of one and right out of the gate in the other.
Getting ready for Wind and Truth?
I might have just bought the whole series as hardcovers (target has pretty solid pricing for their books, even the preorder of Wind and Truth was only $25 shipped) as part of a binge inspired by random friends in another community convincing me I should have physical copies of some of my favorites, lol. But yeah, I’ll definitely be impatiently waiting in the finale for a good month.
Wow, that’s nice!
I’m reading A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson (Wheel of Time Book 14!). I’m only about halfway through and so far it’s been good but I liked the books leading up to it more. We’ll see how the second half goes.
I didn’t like how the books ended. Felt a bit anti-climatic to me. But at that point I was just glad that we got an ending.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the Infinite Series by Jeremy Robinson. It is a masterwork of scifi, spanning several scifi sub-genres. Each book (that I’ve read so far) is only loosely connected to the other books - it reminds me a bit of early Marvel movies where at the end Nick Fury shows up. I had read Infinite, not knowing that it was the beginning of a series, and then when I found out I decided I would read the next book, but make no commitments to continue the series. I’ve not stopped and each book just keeps getting better.
Haven’t read the series, but apparently you get crossovers in last few books.
I randomly stumbled across the dark which is much later in the series and really enjoyed it. I’ve now gone back and started from the beginning with infinite and will be continuing in order. I’m looking forward to it!
“Across the Dark”, D for Dark, D for Death. Yeah, makes sense that’s the one you stumbled upon. 😀
Not my usual thing, I’m admittedly a trashy action thriller person, but Yellowface is very much keeping my attention at the moment. It’s very well written
R. F. Kaung comes up often, should read something from him.
I think his name’s Rebecca :)
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky. The book that inspired the game. All the characters are so, so wordy, but I’m enjoying it.
It’s on my wishlist, didn’t like the game much, but the lore seemed interesting specially near the end of first game and in second game. Though having straight up Nazis didn’t feel very creative, but maybe they make more sense in the books.
There’s a kind of ‘repeating the mistakes of the past’ theme.
That first Passage book starts out so strong, and then just changes to a completely different (and far less interesting) book about 1/3 of the way in. It’s bizarre. I’m surprised you decided to read the sequel. Book one just felt like the publisher pushed Cronin to write a lame walking dead rip off.
At the moment, I am still reading “Amadeo Bordiga in the Italian Communist Party” by Agustín Guillamón. Additionally, I have started “Anatomy of an Epidemic” by Robert Whitaker, which critiques the solutions that current psychiatry proposes in Western societies; it specifically focuses on the United States.
Oh that second book piqued my interest! Onto the downloading list it goes.
