What did you just read?

Yeah she's kind of a pill that drags down the series a lot as it goes on. Between that and him eventually leaving the city more the later books were a big letdown.

He always jumps around a bit in time, whether from book to book or within a single book.

Going through the wiki here's what I can remember in quick form.

Book 4, Taltos, is a good one. Lots of good backstory on Vlad and some good adventure stuff. It gets more in to the mystical aspects of the world.

5. Phoenix, he leaves the city for a while but the bulk of the book is there. He handles a couple really big jobs that he really has no choice not to. Pretty good.

6. Athyra, is when he leaves the city for the whole book. It's actually pretty fun because it's a mostly straightforward story that focuses all on him and using his skills to solve shit.

7. Orca, is barely a Vlad book as I recall. It's mostly Keira the Thief. Not a bad book, but not a good Vlad book...if you know what I mean.

8. Dragon, is a good little return to form. I think it takes place before a few of the previous books. Lots of Vlad with his Dragaeran..."friends". Plus Vlad in an army and actual battles. Fun stuff

9. Issola, decent. Back to "current" times. Biiig happenings for the world/city, even though it's barely in the city. Even more Vlad with the Drags. More mystical/pantheon stuff. Lots of Sethra Lavode if I recall right, which is generally good. She's a pretty cool character.

10. Dzur, back in the city, that's good. Lots of awkward shit with the wife, that's bad. We finally meet the legendary Mario, good. It's a decent book, lots of politics in the city which I enjoy.

11. Jhegaala. this is where the wheels really start to come off in earnest. Again it's not really a bad book, but it's all out if the city and instead of Vlad using his skills it's like a fairly straightforward adventure with some political elements. Kind of drags on while sort of forcing in world-at-large elements. If you've read the Dresden Files books, I'd maybe compare this to Ghost Story.

12: Iorich. I totally forgot about this one. It's actually pretty good. Vlad has to assemble a crack team, legal and otherwise, to conduct an investigation to get Aliera off death row. Good stuff, good politics, lots of Vlad type thieving etc action.

13: Tiassa, fuck this book. It sort of ties the series in to his other related series set in the same world but hundreds of years before,The Khaavren Romances. I hated the Khaavren Romances. It's written in the style of Alexander Dumas' d'Artagnan Romances apparently. I found it fucking insufferable. The conversations in these books made me want to burn the book and piss on the ashes.

"Do you, sir, speak to me in such a tone?"
"And if I do, sir?"
"Well than it is at me to which you direct your imperiousness?"
"Indeed, my imperious nature is meant for you."
"I say that is a rather bold tone to take with one!"
"Bold is indeed the tone I take, especially with one such as you."
"And what is it about me that emboldens one such as you to take such a tone?"


Shit like that, FOR-EV-ER.

Anyways, Tiassa has one of those characters(or maybe more) and I hate it. And Vlad basically shows up as a cameo once or twice.




Nope, fuck that book.

Weirdly I am still looking forward to reading the latest book,Hawk. Vlad is in the city and is the main character again. I have hopes much too high...

Grimmlokk_sl said:

My Own Kind of Freedom, a shortFireflynovel(168 pages) by Steven Brust, author of the Vlad Taltos books. He does a really good job with the dialogue, which is like 80% of what's needed for something like this. It's basically just a good longer episode of Firefly in text form. I'd highly recommend it if you are Jonesing for some Firefly action.

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Read it. Decent.

I think he made the captain act much too good guy though, and he was basically incapable of explaining why. The captain was just "acting funny" and other nonsense. In the show he didn't jump into good guy situations much, just picked neutral/chaotic good options when he had to make a choice on the way out of a shit situation. Morality was somewhat optional, and this author reflects that in some early dialogue, but doesn't have the captain make any effort to adhere to that behavior.

Also read Sixth of the Dusk and Legion: Skin Deep by Brandon Sanderson. They're both really short, unfortunately.

I enjoyed the beginning of a new setting in Sixth of the Dusk. It was this meeting of civilization and deep woods trapper type thing, but of the same type of people, not europe vs. iroquois or something. Of course the trapper folk live in this semi-magical place and the civilized folk are trying to figure out HOW the magic works in typical Sanderson style.

Skin Deep is more interesting to me, but I liked the last one more than this one. It's a detective style book but the detective is some weird savant schizo who stores his diverse skillset in some kind of multiple personality disorder. It's just so brief, so it's like an episode in a tv show rather than a season. There is a ton of potential in this series, and he doesn't give it enough of his time, so I'm trying not to get too invested. Part of why I like this series is that I actually had the idea for it long before Sanderson wrote Legion, so I enjoy seeing his take on the concept take form.

67% into Pandora's Star and I'm pretty sure Hamilton got in my top 5 writers. So much good stuff, I can't read fast enough. Can't believe it's the same guy that wrote fuckin' Misspent Youth.

gogusrl_sl said:

67% into Pandora's Star and I'm pretty sure Hamilton got in my top 5 writers. So much good stuff, I can't read fast enough. Can't believe it's the same guy that wrote fuckin' Misspent Youth.

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Hamilton's series are quite different - the commonwealth ones are all pretty similar, but Mindstar Rising etc may as well have been written by a different person.

I just finishedThe Forever Warafter having it on my reading list for about a decade. It kinda drug in the middle but was a great read. Definitely a reaction to the author's experiences in the Vietnam and it's supposed to be a rebuttal of sorts to Starship Troopers. But its been so long since I read that, I'm going to have to go through it again so I can compare the two while they're fresh in my memory. Deals with themes like why we start wars, fight them, continue to fight them with some ideas about bigotry in sexual identity.

Grimmlokk_sl said:

I've read posts from both of you for years. Massively disappointing, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

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I'm sorry. I'll try to up the quality of my future posts.
*hangs head in shame*

Finished with Pandora's Star, started on Judas Unchained. My only complaint would be the politics part of the book (he's no Herbert), everything else was awesome and everyone should read it.

I recently re-caught the zombie bug so I thought I would dive in the big shit pile that is zombie fiction looking for that elusive gem. I came up with Slow Burn and actually just finished book 3. Its 28 days later type of zombies (not undead) and goes for a nice twist on the perspective. The main character is likable and the banter between characters is very natural. Hell, the banter is why I liked the book including the pages of text messages.

If you are looking for a zombie book I would recommend it, if you are just looking for a good book well ... maybe. You cant go too wrong for 99 cents for 3 books.http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Burn-Box-...LFCBBI?ie=UTF8

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

I first picked this book up expecting it to be very dry. It was quite the opposite. The author explains each concept in a very basic, yet non-condescending, way. The content was presented in a very engaging manner. While reinforcing each concept with real world examples as the book progresses.


Discworld book 18; Masquerade even though I love "Phantom of the Opera", I had a hard time really getting into this book. Pratchett does do an interesting job injecting modern entertainment into his world. Although, similar to previous novels involving the arts; movies and music with rocks in it, it felt a little forced in a fantasy world.

I've been on a bit of a Nostalgia binge:





And currently working through:



God fantasy covers were terrible in the 80's and 90's. Who the hell did they hire to do those?

Although to be fair, most of the fan art that popped up when I searched for those covers was even worse.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution - Kindle edition by Francis Fukuyama. Politics Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Haven't finished it - in point of fact, just started it. I don't think the title requires any sort of elaboration - if it piques your interest, I'd recommend it. It's an abnormally scientific - both in its references and its style - treatise on how early modern politics came to be. It goes without saying that the subject is politically charged, but it's one of those books that seems shorn of any obvious bias. I'd wager that conservatives would consider it too liberal and liberals too conservative.

Randin_sl said:

I was given the Sword of Truth series recently, and just finished book 2. For the first 70% of book 1, I honestly couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about with this series (really, for a lot of book 1, if you set aside some of the more unpleasant imagery, the language used makes it read like it was written for an audience that's maybe 13 years old), but most of the way through the first book something clicked, and I found myself really enjoying it.

I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that the series starts to get weird later on down the line, but I'm sufficiently hooked at this point to see it through to the end.

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So, out of a strange sense of obligation to finish a series once I start it, as well as a perverse sort of entertainment in seeing what new thing Goodkind was going to pop his hate-boner over, I actually finished the God-damned Sword of Truth. And Christ, people were not exaggerating about how bad it gets. Goodkind *really* wishes he could've boned Ayn Rand, doesn't he? Each successive book devotes more and more word count to his poorly thought-out and smugly self-righteous Objectivist sermonizing. Somebody needs to slap this man. And stop letting him write books.

On a more positive note, while taking a break from Goodkind's tripe, I read Ready Player One, which I picked up after going to a thing that the author spoke at, and that was a fun little read. It's a sci fi book about an MMO and nerdy 80s pop culture, and thus probably up the alley of most people here. Worth a read if you're going through a dry spell of books.

The tasteless nerds here shit their pants over Ready Player One. Ignore that it's a fucking retarded Willy Wonka rip off, because it's basically a list of nerdy old pop culture bullshit and apparently that's all the retards here need to consider something a good book.






The further removed I get from reading the book the more I hate it....it's weird.

It's a fun list of nerdy shit. It's a shit book.Awfuldialogue, stupid story, shitty characters.

Reading it I was mildly amused for the first half and just trudging through the second half when I realized it wasn't going to get any better.

I realize I'm coming off as hating even more than I actually do. I don't regret having read it like Snow Crash or Lord Foul's Bane. I just get stupid internet angry when people talk about it like it's anything but a shitty nostalgia pile for dorks.

Azrayne_sl said:

IEddings

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Fuck man, that was the first big series I ever read. I haven't had a reread in probably a decade. Such a simple book, not too complex, very predictable, but I love the characters so much.

God damn nostalgia.

I just finished the 4th? Taltos book (I think the title was Taltos) where he goes into to Paths of the Dead and meets Morollan (however you spell his name) for the first time. I really liked how this book was written weaving in how he started and the current story while the beginning of each chapter kind of built up to an event in the last chapter (he was preparing a spell).

Next up is a book that continues the after the book where Cawti acts like a stupid bitch. I think it's called Phoenix.

Diskworld book 19: Feet of Clayreally made up for the previous book, Masquerade. I seriously love the character Carrot and his seemingly simple but truly complex view of the world. This book presented slavery and racism in a very interesting and ridiculous manner(Reductio ad absurdum, perhaps?). I also really enjoyed the bit about atheism, comparing it to a religion, He presents, if not defends the theological(read the book) point of view.

With a weird yet amusing coincidence I happened to startdiskworld book 20: Hogfatherearlier this week and finished it today. On the surface Pratchett seems to borrow heavily from Tim Burton's "A Nightmare Before Christmas". He has admitted that he often borrows from other stories. Adding in his own twists and tweaks. Though sticking to his style it has a deeper underlying message; the nature and power of belief.

The more I read his books the more I see why he's being viewed as a philosopher