What did you just read?

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

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Just finished Jurassic Park.

Easily in the top 10 books I've ever read. The 3rd act was completely different than the film adaptation. The book is very dark and very technical, and it honestly feels like the movie did it a disservice.

The Tyrannosaur river chase scene, the Aviary, the Raptors vs Grant scene in the nursery, etc. It was wild. What a wild trip. Especially with the final few chapters for Ian Malcolm and Dr Hammond.

Dr Hammond is a true villain.
 
slippery

slippery

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I was in the middle of reading the one where they crash a plane into a joint session of Congress when 9/11 happened. I put down the book for like a year. Clancy's stuff back then was pretty good.
 
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Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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When I did my 2nd or 3rd re-read of Gardens of the Moon, I had trouble remembering why it is so disliked. It has problems, sure, but compared to some 80s or 90s Fantasy it is light years ahead. But, I also had the knowledge of everything that comes after and the ride I was gearing up for. New readers don’t have that benefit haha.

Finished Assassin’s Apprentice last night and really enjoyed it. Immediately started Royal Assassin. Everything seems well done. It isn’t blazing fast paced, but goes smooth enough that reading flew by. All the characters are likeable, Fitz is cool and not immediately OP as a main character, and not exactly a male Mary Sue.

The only thing I can’t quite wrap my head around so far are the Red-Raiders. The main section of the book takes place over a year (?) and during this time these Red-Raiders ransack the absolute shit out of this land. I mean every other page is commentary about how more and more villages are destroyed and Forged are showing up. But like… how many villages are there? They gotta be running out at this point, this has been happening for like a decade. And why do villagers just keep living around getting killed and captured. And King Shrewd and Co are like “oh maybe we should finally build some ships?”

I’m sure this is a main plot point for the series, but it came off a little heavy handed in book 1. Fitz’s run in with them didn’t even make them seem impressive.
 
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Kajiimagi

Kajiimagi

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Nabi said:
This board got me on to asoiaf, sanderson, prince of thorns, and joe abercrombie. But god damn, I cannot get past the first book of malazan.
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I recall reading somewhere that Gardens was written about 10 years before it was released and was written as a 1 of in case it didn't take off. I've read it cover to cover multiple times and can see that, I can also see the quality in SE's writing in the next books. They still stand out as my all time favorite series of fantasy bar none.
 
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Borzak

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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS said:
Have you read any OG Tom Clancy? Because that exactly explains my experience reading Tom Clancy books (his 1984-1999 books, after his divorce his quality of work nosedived as ghost writers took over). Apparently Clancy was so accurate he was investigated by the CIA for writing about things formerly thought to be classified (he pieced together the information by reading books in the library), and even was investigated as a potential spook for the KGB.
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A lot of his info came from Larry Bond that he worked together on some stuff like Red Storm Rising. Yanked a lot of out of the Harpoon PC game by Bond in the manual back when games had printed manuals. Saw an interview of Clancy saying both him and Bond looked at Janes Encylcopedia on a number of things like Janes Encylopedia of Aviation and another Defense and Intelligence. Like he said a lot of stuff was out there but most poeple didn't look into it. So they pieced it all together in a non boring way. But you know those books were in offices all over the world of people that their job was to counter that stuff on both sides. Pretty sure that has been their market forever.
 
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Hateyou

Hateyou

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Just finished a reread of the first three of First Law series. Fuck it’s so good. The Devils had me wanting more Abercrombie. On to the next three!
 
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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

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I got 35% into State of Fear after Jurassic Park and it was a hard DNF. He must’ve used a ghost writer because the quality drop is immense between Jurassic Park (1990) and State of Fear (2004).

I don’t care that it’s about climate change eco terrorists. Rainbow Six (1998) also did that really well. Hell, the unibomber was an eco terrorist.

but the quality is terrible. We are constantly reminded all the women are “stunningly beautiful,” the descriptions of what people wear and use is hella name drop and materialistic. It’s just not good and feels like fan fiction writing. Tbh, reminds me of George RR Martin’s writing which i would also describe as fan fiction-quality.

I moved on to Andromeda Strain and am 35% through it. It’s astronomically better than State of Fear and more the same tempo / quality as Jurassic Park.

I ended up just getting over it and reading on my iPad instead. I just turn it to light mode, turn brightness down to 20%, and have it in max night mode / no blue light.
 
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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

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Read about 60% of Andromeda Strain on my iPad. My eyes are so sore from reading on an iPad. Why did I do this to myself.
 
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Mr_Bungle

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Arbitrary said:
I've done alright with whatever the reverse mode is where the paper is black and the text is white.
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He's spot on with this. I've used the dark mode on my kindle for years. I can't ever imagine going back to the standard display.
 
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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

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Almost done with Andromeda Strain. (Spoilers below)

I've gotten to the part where they have confirmed it is an extra terrestrial organism and that it can grow on anything and eats sunlight + CO2. A nuclear bomb for some reason would cause it to grow indefinitely, albeit it wasn't really explained why. He jumped in the chapter by "It turns energy into matter, and matter into energy." No sure how that worked, I re-read the chapter to confirm if I missed something, but he's just unclear and vague about it. The organism only exists in the upper atmosphere, and an atomic bomb would cause it to grow out of control.

For this reason, I am suspecting it is a deterrent sent from another civilization/alien race. After decades at the speed of light, the alien civilization finally saw humans had the ability to have nuclear weapons, then they sent these organisms to earth (which got there decades later because space is REALLY big/distant), and these organisms live in the upper atmosphere as a nuclear deterrent because "yall can't behave." Just a suspicion at this point. Will probably wrap up the book by tomorrow (85% through).

If that's not the case, it would make a very interesting premise for a story.
 
Kajiimagi

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Gave up on Dune Frank Herbert re-read mid book 3. I just got exhausted reading (again) about the 'golden path'. This is 100% on me because I have read these so (maybe too) much. I realized I was making myself read these in lieu of reading for enjoyment.

Now I am reading the (4) books that make up the Hyperion Cantos. I'm reading book 1 - Hyperion. I forgot how amazing these were. I honestly don't recall if I've read the last 2, but I have an omnibus edition with all 4 in it.
 
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Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Kajiimagi said:
Gave up on Dune Frank Herbert re-read mid book 3. I just got exhausted reading (again) about the 'golden path'. This is 100% on me because I have read these so (maybe too) much. I realized I was making myself read these in lieu of reading for enjoyment.

Now I am reading the (4) books that make up the Hyperion Cantos. I'm reading book 1 - Hyperion. I forgot how amazing these were. I honestly don't recall if I've read the last 2, but I have an omnibus edition with all 4 in it.
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I really want to do Hyperion after Farseer trilogy. Top of my list for sure.
 
INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

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Kajiimagi said:
Gave up on Dune Frank Herbert re-read mid book 3. I just got exhausted reading (again) about the 'golden path'. This is 100% on me because I have read these so (maybe too) much. I realized I was making myself read these in lieu of reading for enjoyment.

Now I am reading the (4) books that make up the Hyperion Cantos. I'm reading book 1 - Hyperion. I forgot how amazing these were. I honestly don't recall if I've read the last 2, but I have an omnibus edition with all 4 in it.
Click to expand...
Children of Dune is my favorite of the Duners but I’ve only read them all once. I’m sure re reads gets a bit sluggish.

then again I also don’t think Leto II was correct about the Golden Path. It was just the only future he saw of humans surviving, but not the only future where humans survived. I felt vindicated in Chapterhouse when it was revealed that Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit also shared this perspective.

I read the first 5 chapters today for Planet of the Apes (1963) (English translation), and man it’s not great. Decided to DNF the book and just watch the 1968 movie instead with Charlton Heston. (To clarify, it stars Charlton Heston, I’m not watching it with him).

i normally prefer just to read the book and skip the movie entirely, and my friends podcast did an episode about the 1968 movie and how they loved it, so I wanted to try the book. It’s not good lol. I like 1960’s Scifi, too. Andromeda Strain is 1969, Dune is 1965, etc.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS said:
Children of Dune is my favorite of the Duners but I’ve only read them all once. I’m sure re reads gets a bit sluggish.

then again I also don’t think Leto II was correct about the Golden Path. It was just the only future he saw of humans surviving, but not the only future where humans survived. I felt vindicated in Chapterhouse when it was revealed that Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit also shared this perspective.

I read the first 5 chapters today for Planet of the Apes (1963) (English translation), and man it’s not great. Decided to DNF the book and just watch the 1968 movie instead with Charlton Heston. (To clarify, it stars Charlton Heston, I’m not watching it with him).

i normally prefer just to read the book and skip the movie entirely, and my friends podcast did an episode about the 1968 movie and how they loved it, so I wanted to try the book. It’s not good lol. I like 1960’s Scifi, too. Andromeda Strain is 1969, Dune is 1965, etc.
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Have you read Tiger! Tiger! aka The Stars My Destination? I remember liking it and being surprised it was 1956. I need to revisit some of those older SciFi books. Was going through all the Masterworks at one time but think I stopped bc I couldn’t buy them all in matching editions.
 
INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

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Intrinsic said:
Have you read Tiger! Tiger! aka The Stars My Destination? I remember liking it and being surprised it was 1956. I need to revisit some of those older SciFi books. Was going through all the Masterworks at one time but think I stopped bc I couldn’t buy them all in matching editions.
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I’ve tried reading it a few times, including this summer, and I just personally can’t get past the jolting thing. The instant teleportation thing is just a little too immersion breaking for me, much to the skin of FTL travel.

If I read scifi, I prefer hard scifi with no space aliens.

Have you tried Cold as Ice by Charles Sheffield?
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS said:
I’ve tried reading it a few times, including this summer, and I just personally can’t get past the jolting thing. The instant teleportation thing is just a little too immersion breaking for me, much to the skin of FTL travel.

If I read scifi, I prefer hard scifi with no space aliens.

Have you tried Cold as Ice by Charles Sheffield?
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I can see that with the immersion. No on Cold as Ice. Will add it to my reader and work it in.
 
Hateyou

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Just finished a reread of Best Served Cold. Good shit, on to The Heroes next!
 
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