What are you reading?

[Injektilo]

Just finished Dean Kootz's 'Twilight Eyes'. Excellent story - it's the first of Koontz's novels I've read, and although I've heard he tends to be a little pretentious in the way he tells his story, I really enjoyed it.

Have now started on 'Strange Highways' and it's shaping up to be just as good. It's actually a series of short stories, the first half of the book being the 'main' one and it's already got off to an amazing start...

[Smithenstein_old]

Books I've read in 2004:
The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
The Silmarillion
Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth

Currently reading:
Alien vs. Predator (movie tie-in)

[Conner Macleod]

'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman. It's basically a modern day war between ancient and neo gods, with a human as the protagonist, fighting alongside the ancients. As time has passed, the old gods of lore have almost faded into oblivion, but they remain rather potent nonetheless and they make a final stand vs. the worshipped icons of materialism, technology, commercialism and so forth. It's a rather interesting look at history, society, religion and America's ethnocentrism, which lies at the core of America's problems. There are far more nuances to it than I've described, but it'd take too long to explain it more in depth. I'm at the final part of the book and it's been very intriguing so far.

[J A Eyers]

I read Stephen King's "On Writing" the other day, the first book of his I've actually read (though his novellas "The Body" and "Shawshank Redemption" were splendid). I did start "It", but like "Hearts Of Atlantis", gave up on it. That was eight years ago, however, so now I'm giving it a second go. I hadn't actually taken the bookmark out from 1996 - it was a cinema ticket to see "The Nutty Professor".

Anyway, currently on page 150, and my other main discovery is that King basically ignores every single piece of advice he gave in "On Writing". Hmm, go figure.

[Conner Macleod]

Originally posted by J A Eyers:
though his novellas "The Body" and "Shawshank Redemption"

I read 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption', which was excellent. Still haven't read 'The Body' though. Both books however had superb movie adaptions, in fact 'The Shawshank Redemption' I'd have to say is the most honest book translation I've ever seen on screen because it completely captured the essence of the characters, the setting and the story. Two of the best movies I've ever seen.

[J A Eyers]

Stand By Me differs from The Body in that the main character of the film is Geordie (Wil Wheaton's character) and the main character of the novella is Chris (River Phoenix's character). It doesn't change much of anything else (hell, even some of Richard Dreyfuss' narration is lifted word for word from the source text), but I think the film works better. Stephen King thinks the same, I gather, regarding Stand By Me the only adaptation he thought improved on what he wrote.

[thenewscientist]

Holy Crap! Conner, I just finished 57 minutes ago, American Gods, I found it a fantastic beautiful and brutal book, as I don't have much experience of AMerica perhaps I missed some nuances, but I know a lot of the classic history of gods so hopefully I did not miss a trick there.

EDIT- Eurgh a bit rambly there, but I had to get it out of my system. I am also reading Fools Fate by Robin Hobb, The last Continent by Terry Pratchett and Kaleidoscope Century by John Barnes.

[SM]

Since last posting I've read...

Shatterpoint (Star Wars Clone Wars novel) - Matthew Woodring Stover

Essentially Apocalypse Now, with a big battle at the end. Terminally slow and repetetive at time, with the action at the end almost making up for it.

Survivors Quest (Star Wars) - Timothy Zahn

Promised a lot but there wasn't really the expected pay off. Far from Zahn's best, but his worst is a lot better than some others.

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

Picked it up quite by chance at the library, and managed to knock it over in a couple of days. Fantastic and quite amazing how close the film stayed to the source material.

Lieutenant Hornblower - C.S. Forrester

Even better than the first Hornblower book. Extremely well written adventure on the high seas.

Currently reading:

Hornblower and The Hotspur - C.S Forrester

Entertaining, though hasn't lived up to Lieutenant Hornblower as yet.

The Science of Star Wars - Jeanne Cavelos

Varies between occasionally fascinating to generally a good cure for insomnia. Suffers by trying to explain things with hard science, that clearly went meant to be explained with hard science.

[d_kukuk]

i just finished "The catcher in the rye" last night. i like it overall. then i picked up "Nine Stories" by the same author and read the first two stories last night.

[thenewscientist]

I just, since last posting, read the Marylin Manson autobiography. It is, I can honestly say, is the best, funniest, saddest, most bizzare and most disgustung autobiography I have ever read.

[Dempsey]

The last thing I read was stephen kings 'night shift'-bunch of short stories.
I might begin on stephens 'the stand' soon.

[SeeD]

I've started reading the entire "Ender's Game" series over again. Card's writing is entertaining and thought provoking, especially when he gets into the very in-depth sci-fi stuff.

[Renegade 2501]

I'm finishing up Watchers by Dean Koontz, the imitation Stephen King. It's not a bad book, but some of the dialogue is a little...odd.

[Dempsey]

I'v now started on the 1400 page 'the stand'. So far its jumping from story to story to get to know the characters. It's a little frustrating, but also makes me more interested in whats going on. Looks like a good read though.

[Kensomniac]

I'm starting to read a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories.. heard he has written very scary stuff.. decided to give it a shot. Reading "The Dunwich Horror" now.

[Innominata]

Originally posted by J A Eyers
Today I started reading "Meg" by Steve Alten. It's the one about the giant prehistoric sharks that are found to have survived deep in the Mariana Trench. I bought it for 40p years ago after a poster named Kodiak1 raved about it around here, but have only just got round to reading it. So far, so good. 50 pages in one sitting, which is quite rare for me.

I've read that book quite a few times and I have to say it has one of the most intense climaxes I've ever read....The Trench and Primal Waters (the two sequels) are better all around though.

[J A Eyers]

I don't know. I thought it was a little bit ridiculous when he rammed his submarine into the shark's mouth... then climbed out and crawled through its chest to cut out its heart.

[Innominata]

I didn't like that much either, what I loved was everything else right before it though (the shark is on a rampage for like 70 pages straight if I remember right).

[J A Eyers]

Yes, I thought the bit where all the boats, the helicopter and whatnot get attacked and everyone's in the water was well handled. I also picked up The Trench cheaply as well, and the first one was good enough to make me want to read it one day.

[SM]

I'm finishing up Watchers by Dean Koontz, the imitation Stephen King. It's not a bad book, but some of the dialogue is a little...odd.

I read an arseload of Koontz back in the early 90s. Watchers wasn't bad, but it got to a point where all the characters in each book were interchangeable with characters in other books. It felt like I was reading the same characters each time in slightly different situations.

I got rid of all my Koontz books before we shifted a couple of years back, except for The Bad Place, which was my fave. All about teleporting hermaphrodites...

[BullpupDFWM]

I'm in the proccess of finishing Clancy's latest offering.... The Teeth Of Tiger.... its average..... but it beats Red Rabbit, what a balls up that was, c'mon Tom, you can do better.....

After this I'm starting on Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama's autobiography

[J A Eyers]

From Tom Clancy to the Dalai Lama in one step. How... peculiar.

[BullpupDFWM]

I read Interview With the Vampire a few weeks ago, I actually found it quite moving.... go figure.....

[SM]

I found Interview... a much better read than The Vampire Lestat.

[T-Man]

Last month I finished The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, which took about two months of my time.

I've just finished the first book in another series I've started, The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind.

[*Zeus*]

Just began reading Fire And Rain: The James Taylor Story by Ian Halperin(sp). It's a good documentation with some fantastic investigative journalism (LOADS of interviews), but its somewhat chronologically disjointed. It's still good.

That, and I'm half reading Stupid White Men. Absolute rubbish compared to Dude, Where's My Country?. I think he needed a better cause than half of the issues he brings up in the book if he truly wished to shine as an author.

[BullpupDFWM]

EDIT: I had something really elaborate and earth shattering written, but the browser fucked me.

[Seifer]

Survivor By Chuck Palahniuk.

Waiting on Dark Tower 7 which should be out on 9/21

[J A Eyers]

I read Survivor last summer. I thought it was great, better and more involving than Fight Club, funnier, and also sadder.

[Seifer]

Originally posted by J A Eyers
I read Survivor last summer. I thought it was great, better and more involving than Fight Club, funnier, and also sadder.

Yes, I've caught myself laughing out loud at some passages. Though, it reminds me alot of Fight Club, especially with how the main character knows 'how to remove blood from a fur coat' & 'how to treat tear stains on a pillow case'. It reeks of Tylers method of making napalm with equal amounts of orange juice and gasoline.