What have you been reading lately?

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AuthorTopic: What have you been reading lately?
Canned
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You can't judge a writer by there age.
Have you even tried reading Eragon?

I think the Inheritance trilogy is very good.

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Posts: 1799 | Registered: Sunday, February 4 2007 08:00
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quote:
Originally written by Iffy will bring you happiness.:

You can't judge a writer by there age.
Have you even tried reading Eragon?

I think the Inheritance trilogy is very good.

Of course I have, and I have to say that I didn't find much of anything original in it. To all young aspiring writers: go to college and train in English and what not before actually writing your first book.

EDIT: Although, you really should try Where's Waldo. It's a brilliant book on par with many of the greatest tomes in known history.

[ Tuesday, September 18, 2007 16:26: Message edited by: Turtleking ]

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Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00
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By Goldenking:
quote:
To all young aspiring writers: go to college and train in English and what not before actually writing your first book.
Nah. Release early, release often. ;)

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Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Councilor
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Meh. Training only plays a small part in creating an engaging story. Aside from reading other people's work and practicing, there's no formula.

That said, I don't like the series at all. Eragon was okay, just not very orginal. But Eldest was flat-out bad, primarily because it was boring. Heroic main characters should not sit around for an entire book and let themselves be upstaged by their peasant brother.

Dikiyoba recently killed an afternoon by reading Extreme Measures by Michael Palmer. Not a showstopper, but well worth the lost afternoon.

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Nalyd is currently reading Dune. A nice classic that most everyones at least heard of. He just finished Isaac Asimov's third autobiography, which was surprisingly interesting for an autobiography.

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Posts: 1636 | Registered: Wednesday, January 5 2005 08:00
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quote:
Originally written by Dintiradan:

By Goldenking:
quote:
To all young aspiring writers: go to college and train in English and what not before actually writing your first book.
Nah. Release early, release often. ;)

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When things go wrong... don't go with them.

Basically, you need to get good experience, and a structured environment for practice tends to help with that process. Obviously, Christopher Paolini is a decent writer, especially for his age, but at this point he's an amateur that got a good break.

Now, as for me, I am currently finishing up Flowers for Algernon, a fairly good read. Difficult towards the beginning and end due to the misspellings and improper grammar.

[ Tuesday, September 18, 2007 17:06: Message edited by: Turtleking ]

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Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00
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Learn good grammar, punctuation, and spelling, no editor will even look at your manuscripts without it.

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Unless you're famous, of course.

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Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00
Apprentice
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And given that Flowers for Algernon was written in the PoV of a clinically retarded man who undergoes an intelligence enhancing experiment, it fits quite well.

Right now I'm just reading the Algerian (or in the original version Algerine) captive for school.

This is only until the ninth of October, when Fatal Revenant comes out! All Hail Donaldson!

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Posts: 33 | Registered: Saturday, April 2 2005 08:00
Shaper
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I found Flowers for Algernon to be heart-breaking. Good, but... eh, I won't spoil it.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was... well, to be honest, I didn't actually care much for it. I found that it had way too many story lines going at once, moved too slowly, and at times was repetitive or tedious. It focused way too much on details that had to be remembered for later and not enough on telling the story. Maybe that's why I preferred [i]The Hobbit[i].

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Posts: 2686 | Registered: Friday, September 8 2006 07:00
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Wow, Thomas Covenant. That really takes me back. Back to when I was a pre-teen reading a book that was extremely disturbing (well, one scene in particular): Lord Foul's Bane, and those that came after it.

Oh, and it was a looong time ago. Before the author of Eragon was born, I'd wager.

Oh, and from what I saw of the movie, there's nothing particularly bad about Eragon, just nothing that I haven't seen 100+ times already since the early 1980's when I started reading/watching fantasy type stuff.

If anything I think its a good "primer" book for young readers to get their feet wet in the genre. But not for guys like me who've read/seen this sort of story all before.

I've found myself going back and reading a lot of Robert E. Howard lately. Stuff that pre-dates Tolkien and has similarly (if not as fleshed out in incredible detail like Tolkien's) rich lands and maps, but was written raw, with powerful language and imagery (some not so politically correct) that you don't see in the sanitized conversation-heavy books these days. Oh, and if you think the Arnold version of Conan is anywhere close to the books Howard wrote...you're in for a big surprise.

Here's a good collection chock full 'o goodness: Here

Edit : I hate page stretchers.

[ Wednesday, September 19, 2007 06:49: Message edited by: saunders ]
Posts: 102 | Registered: Monday, September 3 2007 07:00
Shock Trooper
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quote:
Originally written by Nioca:
The
Lord of the Rings trilogy was... well, to be honest, I didn't actually care much for it. I found that it had way too many story lines going at once, moved too slowly, and at times was repetitive or tedious. It focused way too much on details that had to be remembered for later and not enough on telling the story. Maybe that's why I preferred [i]The Hobbit[i].[/QB]
You want way to much detail, that is what the WoT is. Eleven books and now they wont be finished. I rather enjoyed Robert Jordan's WoT even with the great detail that took pages to read.

Edit: Has anyone read the "Edge Chronicles"? I found the first three to be rather good.

[ Tuesday, September 18, 2007 19:33: Message edited by: Rowen ]

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Posts: 228 | Registered: Monday, October 21 2002 07:00
By Committee
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I can't imagine his estate won't find someone to piece together his notes, especially if there's a rough draft, and finish it - too much money to be had. It just goes to show: you got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em, know when to write more story, and know when to end.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Infiltrator
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Oh wow, I hadn't realized he was dead yet. I knew he was terminally ill, but I was hoping for him to finish the series before he died.

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Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00
Law Bringer
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The last WoT book was fairly decent after the last few before it were just milking the franchise. It'll probably get finished just because the publisher can't afford to lose a best selling series. There have been worse ones that are still going strong.
Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00
La Canaliste
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Safe Area Gorazde, by Joe Sacco. Non-fiction graphic reportage. Gripping.

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Posts: 387 | Registered: Tuesday, March 1 2005 08:00
Agent
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Profile #516
quote:
Originally written by Rowen:

Edit: Has anyone read the "Edge Chronicles"? I found the first three to be rather good.

Yes, I read the Edge Chronicles. Pretty good stuff, not exactly what I expected when I started, but definitly a good series.

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"I'm happy I'm the mentally disturbed person I am." -Nioca
"Yes, Iffy is a demon." -Iffy
Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
Profile Homepage #517
quote:
Originally written by Turtleking:

...
Why do you lot care about a book written by a sixteen year old.
...

Why should we care about online posts written by a thirteen year old? :P

There are plenty of prodigies who had made great achievements at an early age in various fields, so nothing besides envy should cause the work of a teenage author be judged more harshly than that of an adult. As for the book itself, that kind of literature is read for entertainment, rather than a deeply meaningful look at complexities of life. If I want the latter, I can re-read War and Peace. And for a very light reading, the book was pretty fun.

PS Back on topic, the book I read most recently was "My name is Asher Lev" by Chaim Potok. Currently I am reading the sequel "A gift of Asher Lev".

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Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
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I think I liked "The Chosen" the best of his works.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
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I don't know if antone said this before necause i'm not reading 22 pages, but Amber Spyglass beats anything anyone anywhere can think of or write.

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Posts: 157 | Registered: Saturday, August 25 2007 07:00
Guardian
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Well, it was a very good book, despite the fuzziness towards the middle. Quite admirable, along with the rest of His Dark Materials. Not Nalyd's personal favorite ("Khai of Khem", if you can manage to read it through all the gore), but certainly a good book.

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Posts: 1636 | Registered: Wednesday, January 5 2005 08:00
Law Bringer
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Profile Homepage #521
quote:
Originally written by Starman1985:

I don't know if antone said this before necause i'm not reading 22 pages, but Amber Spyglass beats anything anyone anywhere can think of or write.
Amber Spyglass had more than 22 pages, but the rest were awesome as well.

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Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
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Funny, I was happy to read the first two of Pullman's books, but somehow lost interest at that point. I think it was the building towards this climactic battle with, apparently, God. Pullman's title for his trilogy is a quotation from Milton, in which the 'dark materials' are God's. And Pullman's novels make a number of emphatic references to real and imagined theistic religions.

But the God of theism is the author of reality, not a power that one could possibly defeat. So by the end of book 2 I felt that Pullman's 'Authority' was a bait-and-switch. I thought he had been talking about God all along, but clearly he was really only talking about some merely superhuman tyrant. The actual theology of HDM seems to be entirely unexamined atheism.

Atheism per se is fine, of course, but unexamined anything is a letdown. I was disappointed with how what looked like a novel theological theme dissolved into banality. It was like learning that the Matrix was physical reality after all, and that bit about everything being virtual had been a joke.

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Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
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I just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (yes, it took me two months to finish, mostly because I couldn't find time to read it - spoilers below).

It was good, but the happy ending bothered me (the series was getting darker, I felt like the happy ending ruined it), and I didn't like the fact that almost none of the young adults die, whereas so many grown, experienced adults die. It also didn't seem like Harry really did much to defeat Voldemort, the Elder Wand just happened to fall in his possesion (well, he did win Malfoy's wand, but still..), and he didn't destroy any of the Horcruxes himself (he destroyed the diary back in book 2 but that's it). However, it was fast-paced and exciting. Looking forward to seeing it on the big screen, despite the fact I'll be 20 or 21 once it comes out.

Not my favorite of the HP books (that honor would go to book 3), but still a good conclusion to the series despite the ending.

[ Saturday, September 22, 2007 08:33: Message edited by: BainIhrno ]

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Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, October 25 2004 07:00
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I actually felt a bit of sympathy for Rowling about the ending. On one hand, many readers wanted Harry to die. On the other, it would send out a message that evil is greater than good. So she came to a compromise.

Fans would have been upset by the ending, no matter how it ended.

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