What are you reading?

[J A Eyers]

Originally Posted by Desdinova

You mean Muldoon? I'm pretty sure Gennaro gets killed.

Malcolm's death is retconned in the sequel he wrote (which I think was actually just a novelization of the second movie), so I guess they were let out eventually.

I only finished it two days ago. I don't remember Gennaro being killed. I started on The Lost World today and in the bit where they account for where everyone is it says Gennaro died a few years later.

The way Ian Malcolm is brought back from the dead is a bit cheesy.

And The Lost World (so far) is far more removed from the movie of it than the original book was from Jurassic Park. And I gather that it doesn't end with a tyrannosaurus rex rampaging around San Diego either.

[Desdinova]

Originally Posted by J A Eyers

I only finished it two days ago. I don't remember Gennaro being killed. I started on The Lost World today and in the bit where they account for where everyone is it says Gennaro died a few years later.

The way Ian Malcolm is brought back from the dead is a bit cheesy.

And The Lost World (so far) is far more removed from the movie of it than the original book was from Jurassic Park. And I gather that it doesn't end with a tyrannosaurus rex rampaging around San Diego either.

It has been a long time since I read either one, and, actually, now that I think about it (and thumb through my copy), I don't think The Lost World has anything in common with the movie, at all, besides the basic premise of people going to an island that has dinosaurs on it, and the protagonist.

I liked the Muldoon in the book, as a sort of pragmatic, rationalist counterpoint to Hammond's general craziness. I still hate the way he died in the movie; he should've known better.

[Renegade 2501]

Well, Muldoon never saw the raptors hunt in the wild - he fed them cows dangling from chains. I thought it was realistic that he wasn't prepared for the from-the-side attack.

I just started reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Only a few chapters in and already I'm hooked. Shouldn't take too long to finish this one.

[noodle boy]

yeah, but muldoon was supposed to have been a big game hunter in addition to being in charge of security.

Not reading much at the moment. Started re-reading American Gods.

[J A Eyers]

I'm about a hundred pages into The Lost World now and it's certainly a lot better than the movie. I've got an awful suspicion that the one bit the movie did use from the book is that the kids are hiding in the armoured trailer (I've just got up to the chapter where Ian Malcolm lands on Isla Sorna).

[noodle boy]

Yups. That's about the only thing, IIRC. It's much better than the movie, even excusing the idiotic revival thing. Been years since I've read the book and my copy is in really bad shape.

[J A Eyers]

Ha, the kids were in the trailer, I knew it. Barely thirty pages later and they've already saved the adults once. It boggles the mind what put Spielberg off. It's like Crichton sat down deliberately to write a novel more like the first Jurassic Park film rather than the first Jurassic Park book.

Still not bad, though.

[Kimarhi Ronso]

Gennaro and Muldoon live. Gennaro almost gets it by a raptor, but still escapes.

I'm reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Writer is pretty good. The dialogue is humorous, and some of the ideas are neat.

I won't say they are original, despite the enhancements in the individual soldiers being organic, the brainpal, physical attributes, and other elements REALLY remind me of the Ghost in the Shell series.

Still good though.

[itsallgoodbabyGb]

Originally Posted by noodle boy

yeah, but muldoon was supposed to have been a big game hunter in addition to being in charge of security.

Not reading much at the moment. Started re-reading American Gods.

american gods. wonderful story

yesterday i read the story of rasputin's death in a book about his life. a very interesting and informative deconstruction of the myth of a mystic superman and the reason why he was made out to be one, nevertheless still a hard as nails cunt who survived a (possibly botched) poisoning, a severe beating or two, gun shot wounds including one to the head and ended up dying by being drowned under the ice. mental!

[Fomorian]

I'm reading Max Brooks' World War Z: an oral history of the zombie war. It's the first thing I've read in ages and I'm eating it up like a fresh-baked bun. I've started reading yesterday at midnight and I'm about halfway through!

[noodle boy]

That's a very good book, Fomorian. That stuff is gold.

[Fomorian]

It is. I'm not a good reader but this thing is eating me alive. I've had it for little more than twenty-four hours and I'm almost done with it!

It's just bewildering to see such a B-movie subject being treated as if it was some sort of historical event, with all the unsaids and all the catastrophic cascade of cause and effect that one would expect from a war journal.

[J A Eyers]

I am currently reading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, about monks in the desert discovering a nuclear bunker and being convinced the things they find in it are holy relics. There's some cynical but still subtle satire going on here.

[MacCabbe]

That's an excellent book that I read eons ago. I shall maybe re-read it.

Re-reading "La Lune Seule Le Sait" (the moon only knows about it), which has Jules Vernes as a hero, Louise Michel as a princess to rescue, and Napoleon III as the earth emperor since he formed an alliance with some aliens. Superb book.

[J A Eyers]

Hmm, well, the main character has just died. I definitely wanted to see more of his story, but now it seems to have leapt centuries into the future. I won't get settled, as I suspect the same might happen again in the third section. Though I am intrigued as to this Old Jew character in the desert that hasn't seemed to age in the meantime...

[The Drunkk Machine]

I remember reading The Lost World and thinking it was complete crap. Then I went to the cinema to see it and a wide smile spread across my handsome face as I saw Spielberg had absolutely no intention of following it. The T-Rex going nuts in San Diego was better than the whole of Peter Jackson's Kong. And any five minutes of TLW is better than Jurassic Park 3. I'm saying this because certain ELEMENTS in this thread have suggested this is not so.

EDIT: and no, the finer points of Crichton's novel did not go over my nine year old head.

[itsallgoodbabyGb]

halfway through american gods and noticing low key lyesmith and other subtle hints throughout the book

[Descarte]

Originally Posted by Fomorian

I'm reading Max Brooks' World War Z: an oral history of the zombie war. It's the first thing I've read in ages and I'm eating it up like a fresh-baked bun. I've started reading yesterday at midnight and I'm about halfway through!

the perfect airplane book. easy read with little thought required. i liked it

reading foucaults pendulum right now, really good imo

[J A Eyers]

Yes, I think if you skip back many pages (or perhaps it was another thread), you'll find a communal Foucault's Pendulum love-in some of us had here.

I finished A Canticle for Leibowitz early today and am still unable to shake it. Once I got used to it being a trilogy of interconnected stories rather than a single flow-through novel, I was able to see where it was going. I think the sections got better as they went. The third part, which pretty much left the story exactly where it began, was probably the most emotionally affecting. Like the first part left me dangling, so did the story as a whole. I wanted to know more about the Wanderer/Old Jew/Lazarus. At the very end of the second part he seemed to be searching for Christ incarnate, but this isn't taken up in the final part. Has anyone read the side-quel, Saint Leibowitz and the Horse Woman (or something like that)?

It's reignited interest in an old story idea of my own, similar in concept, in that it's about religion post-apocalypse, and rediscovering the past, but going off at the Brother Francis angle and not looking back instead.

[Descarte]

Originally Posted by J A Eyers

I finished A Canticle for Leibowitz early today and am still unable to shake it. Once I got used to it being a trilogy of interconnected stories rather than a single flow-through novel, I was able to see where it was going. I think the sections got better as they went. The third part, which pretty much left the story exactly where it began, was probably the most emotionally affecting. Like the first part left me dangling, so did the story as a whole. I wanted to know more about the Wanderer/Old Jew/Lazarus. At the very end of the second part he seemed to be searching for Christ incarnate, but this isn't taken up in the final part. Has anyone read the side-quel, Saint Leibowitz and the Horse Woman (or something like that)?

It's reignited interest in an old story idea of my own, similar in concept, in that it's about religion post-apocalypse, and rediscovering the past, but going off at the Brother Francis angle and not looking back instead.

yeah, i saw that episode. kinda cool how humanity evolved into those voltron dudes

[Herne the hunter]

I've just started Scar Night, a new book about a city suspended by millions of huge chains over a massive chasm supposedly containing an evil god. I'm only about 30 pages in, but already I love the feel of the book.

The prologue has an insane angel trapped in a temple slaughtering countless monks who try to get in to kill it. After the prologue it skips 2000 years into the future where a young angel (I'm assuming he'll turn out to be the first's descendant) is on the roof of his quarters at the temple watching escapee heretics being brought in across the desert expanse around the chasm and waiting for a moment when no-one is looking so that he can fly (an action highly illegal except by airship, and punishable by whipping).

I believe it's the author's debut novel, and it's atmosphere is very successful at drawing the reader in. My only gripe is that it's the first of a trilogy. It seems nowadays that people aren't allowed to write fantasy that doesn't come in threes.

[Descarte]

anyone heard of riddley walker? i was thinking of getting it. looks neat

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen.

[MacCabbe]

Are you the author of these lines ?

[Descarte]

Originally Posted by The Real Mac Cabbe

Are you the author of these lines ?

no. i guess the premise of the book is that the whole thing is written like that, and on the outside its just some book about this kid walking around, but when you decipher through what its saying you find out about the real plot, which is supposedly pretty dark

also ordered teh book of dave, which is about some depressed english cabbie who hates women and writes a journal about it. 1000 years later its found and a religion forms based on it.. apparently its written in pikey, or whatever that shitty english dialect is

[Injektilo]

Let The Galaxy Burn : Various

Collection of W40k short stories. A lot of them are balls, but I'm enjoying the few Abnett ones. Got a good sense of writing in the first person.

Was pleasantly surprised to find a Ravenor story in there.

[BorderCollie-san]

I am reading a book of short stories, travel sketches, essays etc by Truman Capote. In one of the essays he writes about his friendship with Marilyn Monroe, and we learn that Norma Jeane had a filthy mouth:

MARILYN: I remember. But I don't have any money.
TC: You're always late and you never have any money. By any chance are you under the delusion that you're Queen Elizabeth?
MARILYN: Who?
TC: Queen Elizabeth. The Queen of England.
MARILYN (frowning): What's that cunt got to do with it?

[Herne the hunter]

Originally Posted by Injektilo

Let The Galaxy Burn : Various

Collection of W40k short stories. A lot of them are balls, but I'm enjoying the few Abnett ones. Got a good sense of writing in the first person.

Was pleasantly surprised to find a Ravenor story in there.

Have you read any of the Horus Heresy books, Inj? I used to be into WH40k in a big way until a few years ago, but I'm tempted to read the heresy novels because I always wanted to know more about it. My favourite part of White Dwarf was always the Index Astartes articles that told the history of the different marine chapters.

Also; do any of the books have much tyranid action?

[Injektilo]

The only Tyranid one I read was Warrior Brood and it was rate shit. There are one or two Tyranid stories in Let The Galaxy Burn that are quite good and they crop up once or twice in the Draco trilogy, but that series was very convoluted and hard to follow.

My mate's lending me the Horus books once I've done with the current batch, he says they're decent...

I'd recommend giving Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy a go, one of the finest contemporary sci-fi novels I've read. I've got a thing for the Inquisition.

[Herne the hunter]

I was never much into the whole Inquisition thing. My main love was tyranids and the whole good vs evil thing between the Imperium and Chaos (the twist being that they're BOTH evil since Chaos are demonic and the Imperium are nothing short of fundamentalist nazis).

Any Ork-based stories? If so, do they talk in comedic cockney fashion like they always did in White Dwarf's fiction?

Also; any Warhammer books yet? I'd be interested in reading about Orc goings on since they were the only force I liked in WHFB.

[Conner Macleod]

Originally Posted by BorderCollie-san

I am reading a book of short stories, travel sketches, essays etc by Truman Capote. In one of the essays he writes about his friendship with Marilyn Monroe, and we learn that Norma Jeane had a filthy mouth:

She was also highly intelligent and quite knowledgeable, specifically about politics, which she was quite involved with. In fact the FBI kept a dossier on her, keeping tabs on wherever she went and listened in on her phone conversations. She was interested in communism and well the McCarthy followers weren't too crazy about that notion so she was spied on quite frequently.

Anyway I'm reading 'The Watchmen' by Alan Moore, pretty darn cool so far.