What book are you currently reading?

[ComradeMafia]

I finished Arrandma (my own creation, for review purposes), and Raymond E. Fiests "Riftwar" series (I like them a lot).

[Jazzmarazz]

I can't remember the last time I read a book that wasn't a textbook. I am reading the children's horror story strange forces from the strange matter series. Yup.
I brought this book to class everyday in elementary school for required reading and just went to sleep on the desk. For the 17 years this book has been out, I never read a word.

[Zaladane]

I finished book 13 of the wheel of time today!!!!! My reread through is now done!! Finally now I can read that new/last book!!! Can't wait!

[lcazor555]

Insomnia, definitely getting suspicious about the guy with the fertilizer.

[Ikusagami]

I've been slowly picking my way through the last Wheel of Time book for over a month. Honestly, for the grand finale, I find it the second weakest entry in the series after 10.
I'm sorry to say it, but Brandon Sanderson simply isn't up to the task of filling Robert Jordan's shoes. I had minor gripes with the last few books, but thought he was doing alright.
A Memory of Light feels like a failure to me. To add insult to injury, beyond weak narrative and a very poor understanding of the characters he's adopted, I keep catching modern-speak that feels glaringly out of place in a fantasy world, especially one which had it's own dialect.

[Zaladane]

I've been slowly picking my way through the last Wheel of Time book for over a month. Honestly, for the grand finale, I find it the second weakest entry in the series after 10.
I'm sorry to say it, but Brandon Sanderson simply isn't up to the task of filling Robert Jordan's shoes. I had minor gripes with the last few books, but thought he was doing alright.
A Memory of Light feels like a failure to me. To add insult to injury, beyond weak narrative and a very poor understanding of the characters he's adopted, I keep catching modern-speak that feels glaringly out of place in a fantasy world, especially one which had it's own dialect.

I think it's fantastic, about 80 pages left right now.

Just wait until you see what happens in the second half of the book it's insane. Although I do agree with your gripes, there is a lot of content and things to resolve. It does seem things are a little rushed getting through with some of the characters but considering there's like a 100 I can sorta understand it. For me the weakest of his was towers of midnight. I don't think he handled Demandred well at all or even most of the secondary players especially Logain and some of the other power wielding people, but the key people like the 3 boys and the wonder girls I think he's doing ok with. Still some people seem to be missing or pushed to the sidelines. I can't even remember or know where Thom or Domon is for example.

[Ikusagami]

Rambling Text Wall ahoy!

Holy shit. I'd completely forgotten about Thom! Where is that old bastard, anyway? Min's early viewings made it clear that he was part of the group integral to Tarmon Gaiden, too.

I'm about 600 pages in, now. Just where Rand met Big Black (played by James Earl Jones). There are some good points, but all the battlefield minutia seems to drag; it doesn't help that Sanderson isn't as familiar with Battlefield minutia as RJ was. Honestly, the bit that kept my interest best was the early scuffle at the Black Tower, and that was stuff with ancillary characters, that could have remained off-stage (and probably should have, given everything else that's going on).

But I think my biggest disappointment is. . .Moridin.
Ishy/Ba'alzamon's been one of my favorite characters from day one (literally, since he's half the cast in the prologue). I've spent so much time theorizing what exactly his secrets were, and evidently they weren't in RJ's notes, because Sanderson just wrote him off as having an inferiority complex and a death wish. Which is inconsistent with [i]everything]/i] Jordan DID write about him.
Aside from the fact he was the only forsaken to go to the darkside because of knowledge of philosophy and theology, it was confirmed that he was able to "read" the pattern, and had strong reasoning in believing the Dragon had been the shadow's champion in past cycles. Hell, he even quoted chaos theory at one point!
But Sanderson summed up his stance by having Rand say that "logic was always his downfall," and that Moridin's entire rationale was simply mathematical inevitability.
-- not something Rand would say, given how he cleansed the taint on Saidin.
But then, having a devout Mormon finish a story written by a physics professor... I guess it's natural that he'd take up a duality of faith vs. science, even when it's mythical science.
--I've read that Sanderson's books usually carry a theme of deistic vs physical god, and a blog post by one of the members of Team Jordan stated that they had to actually steer him away from writing Rand completely as a Christ allegory.

. . .Also, I'm damn sure Demandred was originally Taim.

So, with all that in mind, it's just kind of sad that while reading the finale to a series I started when I was 11 (that's 20 friggin years!) and have always eagerly awaited the next entry, I'd rather be reading Dance of Dragons or the next Malazan book. :'(

[Superego]

I just did a quick search of the thread and was saddened to see that only two people have mentioned H.P. Lovecraft.

I'm currently working my way through the first of two compendiums released in the last few years - Necronomicon, a collection of his short stories. The other is Eldritch Tales. If anybody likes weird horror infused with science fiction set in the early 1900's you should check him out. I think there's ebook versions of most of his stuff and they're short enough to usually finish in a single night or two depending on how fast/often you read. The thing that endears me most to Lovecraft is his use of language. Reading a paragraph is like reading a verse of poetry while still being accessible. How he weaves pictures with arcane descriptions and archaic words and unusually spelling evokes a feeling of mystery and unfamiliarity. Normal objects that you are familiar with can take on a strange appearance in your imagination simply by his alteration of spelling, such as when a character uses a 'lanthorn' to light their way down a dark path. If anybody was interested in giving him a try, good meaty entry-points would be the seminal "The Call of Cthulhu", or "The Thing On The Doorstep" or the ghastly, fun pre-Romero zombie tale "Herbert West - Reanimator". Smaller tales I'd highly recommend are "The Picture in the House" and "Dagon" which are both only a few pages long. Three more that I'd highly recommend are "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Colour Out of Space" which are probably my three favourites.

Any other Lovecraft fans here?

[Gare]

I'm a fan of HPL, read 90% of his stuff actually, "The Whisperer in Darkness" being one of my favorites.

Hell I even watched the Nyaruko anime.

[HaMM3r]

I'm actually reading "World War Z" by Max Brooks. It's amazing and much much much better and detailed than the Pitt's movie.

[Drageuth]

Started reading A Memory of Light while I was travelling over the weekend. I'm very impressed with it so far.

[Zaladane]

Started reading A Memory of Light while I was travelling over the weekend. I'm very impressed with it so far.

I really should finish it

[Sheras]

No Longer at Ease

Alright book, I had to read it for a class. I felt like the ending came about way too quickly.

[Zaladane]

Finally finished of A Memory of Light. That ending was something else alright.

I was a little disappointed with Fain being killed by Mat so quickly. There was a decent amount of story involving Fain throughout the books and just bam they ended it rather quickly. I was really expecting more on that front.

I never saw the horn stuff coming. That was a good twist. I suppose with Mat having "died" a couple of times it was enough to sever his link with the horn so that Olver could blow it. I'm glad the little guy lived through it. Still sad that Bela died, she was one hell of a pony and had been around right from the beginning.

I'm kind of on the fence with regards to killing off Egwene though but at least she took down Demandred speaking of which his character was handled very badly. I really thought she would have gone on to rebuild the White Tower. But I suppose they had to kill off at least one of the main characters. Having those few Aes Sedai suggest Cadsuane become Amyrlin was ridiculous though. She has been put forth to become so before way in the past and had refused and gone off into the world and into partial retirement. She could just take off again, don't know why she's so worried about it. They glossed over that really fast though.

Perrins stuff was really cool and at least he finally manned up - I really couldn't stand all his moping and whining when Faile was captured by the Shaido. He did some really cool shit towards the end but at least he and Faile can now live happily ever after.

It seems that the old body swap theory was basically correct too with Rand and Ishmael. Good stuff with him riding off. And how the Dark one was reimprisoned and stuff.

They did leave a couple things though, not very big. But anyhow when did Toun get pregnant. As far as I can tell her and Mat never did it. Also the Tinkers never did find their song or did they, I don't recall seeing unless it's that one that Loial came up with about life but they never really connected the dots there. Also should have let Moghedion escape and have at least one element of the shadow still around instead of some fucking random Suldam snapping a collar around her neck. She was the last one wasn't she?

All in all it was pretty damn good. Yes they really zipped past a lot of stuff and didn't give the time to explain certain things fully but I suppose in a way that's a good thing and we finally have an end. If they did take more time and expanded we probably would have seen a 15th book. But enough is enough. The series has ended and it was a hell of a ride.



And enough of that shit

[eternal_w]

I'm reading Shin Suikoden 3