What are you reading?

[Rhombaad]

'Salem's Lot: It's Stephen King and vampires, so I got about what I expected to get out of it. I enjoyed it, but not as much as some of his other novels. It took my mind of getting used to my new CPAP machine last fall, so that's a major plus in my book. The miniseries scared me as a kid. That kid at the window. Ugh. No good.

The Bounty Hunters: Somehow my first Elmore Leonard novel. I've always liked the movies based off of his work, especially Get Shorty, Jackie Brown and Out of Sight, and I loved Justified, but somehow I never got around to reading his stuff until now. Really liked The Bounty Hunters. Great pulpy western stuff. I never used to like westerns, but now I just can't get enough of them.

Fevre Dream: It's G.R.R.M. and vampires, so again, I got about what I expected to get out of it. I burned through this one and had a great time with it, but for some reason don't feel that highly about it looking back all these months later. I dunno. I enjoyed it, but just can't recommend it.

Kingkiller Chronicle: I'd never heard of these books until Walter mentioned them somewhere in this thread several years ago. I finally got around to reading them and found them pretty damn enjoyable. I don't think they're the greatest fantasy novels ever written like some people do, but I also don't think they're as bad as some others say. I thought they were competently written, I liked the worldbuilding (especially his magic system and all of the artificing) and some of the characters are pretty great. Looking forward to reading The Doors of Stone if/when it comes out, but I've got lots of other stuff to read in the meantime.

Hard Freeze and Hard as Nails: Finished the last two books in Dan Simmons' Kurtz series. Hard Freeze was great. I liked it even better than Hardcase, but Hard as Nails was a let-down. I'm hoping he writes more of them, because Hard as Nails just sort of ends with the characters in limbo. Maybe he got tired of them? It certainly felt like it. Simmons is one of my favorite authors, but every now and then he has a swing and a miss. Kind of felt like it with the last one.

 

[cijhho123]

Currently I'm into Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational about decision making and how the world around us exploit us by utilizing our irrationality. Once you start noticing how you make your decisions in your everyday life its almost feels like someone told you how a magic trick is done. Legit saved me so much money.

I'm also reading the novel of Welcome to the N.H.K. after watching the anime and being left hungry for more. It is a social commentary on the Hikikomori phenomenon in Japan where young man quit everything in their life (job, university, relationships etc) to stay at home all day - and the obvious mental and physical issue it leads to, to the individual as well as to society at large.

 

[Walter]

The English version of Tsutomu Nihei's latest manga, Tower Dungeon, came out today. I loved Blame, but couldn't really get into his other series. So when I heard he was doing something completely new, I preordered it.

And, well... it's completely new for him. Afterall, he's usually done science fiction manga with a special eye for creating architecture that evokes a sense of spatial horror. But Tower Dungeon is such straightforward fantasy material that I feel there has to be more happening than is immediately apparent.

Here's the back of the box blurb with the story setup:

"An evil necromancer slays the king and carries off his daughter, secreting her in the legendary Dragon Tower. To save the princess, her steadfast Royal Guard assays the stronghold, but the way is blocked by powerful eldritch creatures… So, to supplement their forces in the face of mounting casualties, they press ordinary folks from the surrounding villages into service—including Yuva, a sturdy young farmboy with a strong back but no experience in battle, and only a battered old helm and wooden shield to protect him."

Along the way, each level of the dungeon (labeled LEVEL 1 / LEVEL 50, etc) is populated with different fantasy creatures they must battle through. These monster designs and the architecture are the only standout visuals in the book. They may even be the main reason he created this setting.

I'm not necessarily down on it. It's just very basic, so far. And I really hope there's more to it.

Is anyone else reading this, and is possibly further along than me?

 

[Ludya]

Well, listening to the podcast and having read a few issues of conan back in my day, i realized that i heard all my life a lot about HP. Lovecraft but i never ever read one of it's book, nor any cosmic horror related written book around this subject matter to be honest, even tho i met the theories of cosmic horror through many movies in my life, i never knew how much stephen king and other authors absolutely greatly inspired themselves from the content of this writer.

So i begun to listen to audio reads of his book on youtube and other places while i'm drawing...

The Call of Cthulu

Pickman's model

The Dunwich horror

The shadow out of time

It blows my mind that someone from the 1920's was capable of imagining so many futuristic and modern concepts for his time, he might have been vastly misunderstood and read like an weird excentric or someone people thought was almost crazy back in his days, now i'm interested in written testimonies of what people thought about his books and body of work at the era he published his books.

 

[Lawliet]

Is anyone else reading this, and is possibly further along than me?

Been reading Tower Dungeon for a couple of months and I'm up-to-date. It didn't click right away but I came to enjoy it. The art style is certainly crude - I was surprised this is the same guy who drew Blame!

The author will flesh out the world further as he goes, and the situations Yuva and co will get into as they progress into the tower are fun. Enjoy it for what it is: manga Dark Souls, if that makes sense.

 

[Rhombaad]

The English version of Tsutomu Nihei's latest manga, Tower Dungeon, came out today. I loved Blame, but couldn't really get into his other series. So when I heard he was doing something completely new, I preordered it.

And, well... it's completely new for him. Afterall, he's usually done science fiction manga with a special eye for creating architecture that evokes a sense of spatial horror. But Tower Dungeon is such straightforward fantasy material that I feel there has to be more happening than is immediately apparent.

Here's the back of the box blurb with the story setup:

Along the way, each level of the dungeon (labeled LEVEL 1 / LEVEL 50, etc) is populated with different fantasy creatures they must battle through. These monster designs and the architecture are the only standout visuals in the book. They may even be the main reason he created this setting.

I'm not necessarily down on it. It's just very basic, so far. And I really hope there's more to it.

Is anyone else reading this, and is possibly further along than me?

I loved Blame! so I may need to check this out. I’ll let you know my thoughts if I do.

 

[blodvind]

Well, listening to the podcast and having read a few issues of conan back in my day, i realized that i heard all my life a lot about HP. Lovecraft but i never ever read one of it's book, nor any cosmic horror related written book around this subject matter to be honest, even tho i met the theories of cosmic horror through many movies in my life, i never knew how much stephen king and other authors absolutely greatly inspired themselves from the content of this writer.

So i begun to listen to audio reads of his book on youtube and other places while i'm drawing...

The Call of Cthulu

Pickman's model

The Dunwich horror

The shadow out of time

It blows my mind that someone from the 1920's was capable of imagining so many futuristic and modern concepts for his time, he might have been vastly misunderstood and read like an weird excentric or someone people thought was almost crazy back in his days, now i'm interested in written testimonies of what people thought about his books and body of work at the era he published his books.

I really like Lovecraft. All of his cycles are amazing. I'm reading to "At the mountains of madness" by him right now. It feels so... alien and unbelievably ancient.

Also, reading the Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker. Really good stuff if you want some grimdark fantasy.

 

[Rhombaad]

I finished reading Elantris about a month ago. I'd heard something about this Brandon Sanderson guy being a decent fantasy writer, so I thought I should probably check him out. In all seriousness, he's been on my reading list for some time after my friend recommended The Stormlight Archive to me. I prefer to start at the beginning of an author's work, though, so that's what I did.

It was a slow burn, but the writing was good and the characters were interesting enough to keep me going. I'm glad I finished it, because the last part of the book is a awesome and it wraps most (if not all) of the plot points up nicely.

I enjoyed Elantris enough to read the sequel short story, The Hope of Elantris, afterwards. It was decent, but not as memorable as the original.

Since then, I've been reading the Witcher series. I finished Sword of Destiny (I read The Last Wish a year or two ago) and now I'm in the middle of Blood of Elves. I'm liking the books a lot more than the Netflix series, which I found pretty enjoyable. Can't wait to play the games.

 

[Walter]

After finishing the Black Company trilogy again, I started up Malazan book 1, since Glen Cook himself (Black Company’s author) recommended it. Sure enough it very much feels like it was written by a Cook super fan. But it is extremely opaque, and not exactly a joy to read.

Five long chapters in, there have been several pages that are essentially interminable. The writer likes to lean on one of my least-favorite fantasy writing gimmicks—shoving a bunch of new terms in a reader’s face out of context in a disorienting way to make the world feel big and lived-in, without actually doing the work to achieve that sense.

These sorts of things, when used too often, will send my mind wandering from the page. Can you blame me? I’ve been assaulted by gangs of unexplained Capitalized Names of Things bereft of any context. In a single page, these two passages can be found: “A’Kyronis took a beating in the Panpot’son Wastes” and “The T’lan Imasse refused to acknowledge the new empress, and they marched themselves into the Jhag Ohdann”.

In instances like these, I realize I may have read a full page or even two, yet have no idea what anyone said or what happened. I’ll simply have to reread it and hope I can fend off the psychic attack this time.

I’ve read plenty, but books don’t normally disorient me like that, and I’m a Gene Wolfe veteran, so there’s something really uhh special happening with Malazan!

I’m complaining because I find this so strange, but I can’t even call this bad. There’s cool stuff here. It’s just often hard to grasp. And yes, a part of me likes solving riddles like this, but I also feel like some of this opaqueness isn’t intentional, it’s just not written by an experienced person. Oh well. I’ll definitely stick with it through the end of the first book.

 

[Lawliet]

After finishing the Black Company trilogy again, I started up Malazan book 1, since Glen Cook himself (Black Company’s author) recommended it. Sure enough it very much feels like it was written by a Cook super fan. But it is extremely opaque, and not exactly a joy to read.

Five long chapters in, there have been several pages that are essentially interminable. The writer likes to lean on one of my least-favorite fantasy writing gimmicks—shoving a bunch of new terms in a reader’s face out of context in a disorienting way to make the world feel big and lived-in, without actually doing the work to achieve that sense.

These sorts of things, when used too often, will send my mind wandering from the page. Can you blame me? I’ve been assaulted by gangs of unexplained Capitalized Names of Things bereft of any context. In a single page, these two passages can be found: “A’Kyronis took a beating in the Panpot’son Wastes” and “The T’lan Imasse refused to acknowledge the new empress, and they marched themselves into the Jhag Ohdann”.

In instances like these, I realize I may have read a full page or even two, yet have no idea what anyone said or what happened. I’ll simply have to reread it and hope I can fend off the psychic attack this time.

I’ve read plenty, but books don’t normally disorient me like that, and I’m a Gene Wolfe veteran, so there’s something really uhh special happening with Malazan!

I’m complaining because I find this so strange, but I can’t even call this bad. There’s cool stuff here. It’s just often hard to grasp. And yes, a part of me likes solving riddles like this, but I also feel like some of this opaqueness isn’t intentional, it’s just not written by an experienced person. Oh well. I’ll definitely stick with it through the end of the first book.

This is about the usual response to Gardens of the Moon, so you’re not alone in this, Walter. The opaqueness is absolutely intentional, and the series is strongly designed for re-reading, where you encounter these terms again later but with better insight. It’s like if FromSoft’s Miyazaki tried his hand at a novel: you’re supposed to piece a lot of things together. But yeah, that doesn’t exactly make for joyous reading, as you said. The first book is basically the “barrier to entry” for this series; most people drop it or finish the book and go on to read the rest of the story.

The good news, though, is that if you get past Gardens of the Moon, you will be treated to one of the strongest parts of the story, Deadhouse Gates. All the other books in the series are also better than the first one. It can only get better from there, in other words.

Also, you don’t need to read the books in order of publication, by the way. Book 3 picks up from where the first one ends. Book 5 is in a new continent entirely, with a new cast of characters and narrative. The books will all converge by the end, but the first five are not linearly connected. You can always put Gardens on the side and try Deadhouse instead, if you’re still interested.

Anyway, this series is monumental and absolutely ambitious - 10 door-stopping books totaling at around 3.5 million words. It dwarfs most other works out there. Its core fanbase makes similar claims about it that we make about Berserk (“best series ever”, etc), so you should have an idea of what you’re tackling. I’m Team Berserk though, needless to say.

 

[thanatos0x]

Hello, first time posting here.

Currently reading C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, and for manga; Yasuhisa Hara's Kingdom (now on Vol. 36!)
Both are pretty damn good, for different reasons that's for sure!