reading Currently Reading (non-GA)

[ReaderPaul]

On 12/7/2022 at 5:25 PM, BigBen said:

Just reread an old story by David Brin, "Thor Meets Captain America."  Before anyone gets too excited, it's got nothing to do with any movie characters you may have in mind.  Instead, it deals with a suicide mission to blow up Valhalla, in an alternate universe in which World War II is still being fought in 1962, because the Nazis formed an alliance with the Norse gods.  

Without giving too much of the plot away, let me just say that the story is a meditation on the old-fashioned ideal of the U.S. as the fortress of democracy and our human duty to confront evil, regardless of the cost.  Like the Greek gods, the Norse pantheon is not a very likeable group, so the idea of their allying with the Nazis is scarily plausible.

Well worth a read, if you can find it.

 

On 12/7/2022 at 10:24 PM, Ron said:

I like David Brin's work. Three years ago, I reread his entire Uplift series for the second time. I won't be reading the series a third time, twice in forty years is enough. It's time to pass on the paperbacks.

David Brin has written some good works.  I see that "Thor Meets Captain America" was expanded by Brin into a longer work, "The Life Eaters."  Both are available from a giant corporation founded by someone with the first name of Jeff.

[Page Scrawler]

On 2/11/2022 at 5:31 PM, Wesley8890 said:

Rick Riordan is currently co-writing a SolAngelo story!!!

I just finished reading this! The depiction of Nyx, goddess of Night, reminds me of Tolkien's Ungoliant, the mother-of-spiders. Both have characteristics reminiscent of a black hole in outer space.

[Wesley8890]

11 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

I just finished reading this! The depiction of Nyx, goddess of Night, reminds me of Tolkien's Ungoliant, the mother-of-spiders. Both have characteristics reminiscent of a black hole in outer space.

Im honestly not enjoying the book.

The whole third person pov instead of the standard 1st person associated with Riordanverse.

I really find it annoying to be told dream sequence or flashback so blatantly but it will flashforward with no warning

Also i dont really like the way nico is written. Like everytime will says something about the underworld nico is annoyed at him.

[Page Scrawler]

9 minutes ago, Wesley8890 said:

Also i dont really like the way nico is written. Like everytime will says something about the underworld nico is annoyed at him.

I can't say I blame either guy for their behavior. Will has mostly negative memories of the Underworld, so he is blind (at first) to its beautiful sides. But Nico thinks of the Underworld as his second home, and he gets annoyed because Will doesn’t seem willing to give it a second chance. It's a test of their commitment to each other: if Will can't look past his bias, can their relationship survive?

 

13 minutes ago, Wesley8890 said:

I really find it annoying to be told dream sequence or flashback so blatantly but it will flashforward with no warning

I don't know if you're reading a hard copy or an ebook, but the copy I read had a particular pattern printed on the pages where the "dream sequences" occurred. I would see the pattern on the paper and say, "Oh, okay, Nico is dreaming now."

 

20 minutes ago, Wesley8890 said:

The whole third person pov instead of the standard 1st person associated with Riordanverse.

I think the first person POV works best if there's only one protagonist. With two protagonists, as in The Sun and the Star, readers might be confused which person's story they were reading, unless they checked the chapter headings. So, the story was written in third person POV for the sake of clarity.

[Wesley8890]

30 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

I can't say I blame either guy for their behavior. Will has mostly negative memories of the Underworld, so he is blind (at first) to its beautiful sides. But Nico thinks of the Underworld as his second home, and he gets annoyed because Will doesn’t seem willing to give it a second chance. It's a test of their commitment to each other: if Will can't look past his bias, can their relationship survive?

 

I don't know if you're reading a hard copy or an ebook, but the copy I read had a particular pattern printed on the pages where the "dream sequences" occurred. I would see the pattern on the paper and say, "Oh, okay, Nico is dreaming now."

 

I think the first person POV works best if there's only one protagonist. With two protagonists, as in The Sun and the Star, readers might be confused which person's story they were reading, unless they checked the chapter headings. So, the story was written in third person POV for the sake of clarity.

Ok but heroes of olympus had like 8 povs and they were all done in 1st.

I just dont like being told DREAM SEQUENCE in big bold letters when "nico was dreaming" sufices or flashback in bold when we were literally just told that "will remembered meeting maron" or nico said "what happened was". Its just unnecessary imo much like amy ponds bitchiness

[LemonSoda]

I have commitment issues so I have uhh let's not count how many books I'm theoretically in the middle of reading. But the ones on my desk as I type this are:

Sabriel by Garth Nix. Young adult fantasy. The Abhorsen (for anyone who somehow isn't familiar with this one: a special necromancer who makes the dead stay dead) is MISSING and his daughter tries to find him, which is made more difficult by the fact that his absence means there are Dead Spirits running amok. I read this as a teen and loved it and wanted to see if it still held up. (Spoiler: it still holds up and Mogget is still my favorite.)

Super Fake Love Song by David Yoon. Another young adult, this one contemporary. Nerdy Sunny Dae meets super cool girl Cirrus Soh and maybe possibly lies to her about his hobbies (and convinces his friends to go along with this) in an effort to impress her. It alternates between making me laugh and filling me with second-hand embarrassment. 

The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes (translated by David Staines). 12th century medieval Arthurian Romances. Because sometimes I just want those old-fashioned morals where someone says "sure I've been hanging around this garden beheading every knight who enters, but I didn't have a choice, I promised my lady I would do anything she asked and this is what she asked." and everyone responds "we understand completely, you can't break a promise to your lover even if you were a dumbass and didn't bother to check terms and conditions before promising to obey her." #Couplegoals 

Chivalry logic aside, Chretien is a great narrator and I love every single time he talks to the audience. Would love to hear this read aloud as intended, it must be an incredible experience. 

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg. A group of geriatrics decide to create a gang and commit crimes because they think jail will be more pleasant than their retirement community. I'm not enjoying this nearly as much as I thought I would given the hysterical premise and the fact it's marketed as humor. The opening was the funniest part of the book and then it turned out to be a dream sequence. Disappointing. But I'm only a quarter of the way through, so maybe it will turn around. 

[Zuri]

On 5/30/2020 at 1:25 PM, Brayon said:

Those LOTR books are perfect for curing insomnia. Tolkien was a crap writer, and can put anyone to sleep.

I wouldn't go as far as considering his writing "crap", but I have to admit that I don't find his writing itself outstanding. I'm writing a blog series about writing and in that context, I noticed that Tolkien delivered one example of a shortcoming, I also found in a story I was editing for someone: Not introducing things that solve problems until you need them, sometimes can feel a little cheap. It's similar to the concept of deus ex machina. Additionally, at the point of introducing that plot device, it wasn't really needed anymore.

On the other hand, his worldbuilding work as well as crafting iconic conlangs is justifiably praised.

On 5/30/2020 at 5:43 PM, Brayon said:

It's just my opinion, that the Peter Jackson adaptation for his epic movies, are far better than what little I have read.

Actually, the adaption very literal and true to the originals plot since Jackson is a fan of Tolkien's works. However, he made the smart choice to leave out some of the first chapters in the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs, that don't add much to the story and the movie's runtime would suffer as it is already not that short. The only thing, fans miss in the movie adaption is Tom Bombadil, and even though, he's a fascinating legendary figure, in Fellowship, he doesn't do much despite being overpowered and having a wife whose primary traits are described as being pretty and a formidable host for the Hobbits (could come off as a little sexist if you ask me).

---

I'm currently reading "Thrawn" by Timothy Zahn after finishing "The Picture of Dorian Gray":

'Thrawn' is very much the re-introduction of the character Mitth'raw'nuruodo into the Star Wars franchise after being declared non-canon (or 'legends' in Star Wars jargon) after the acquisition by Disney. The novel is written by Thrawn's inventor, who also wrote the famous legends novels about Thrawn. Instead of following Thrawn along on the zenith of his power after the Empire collapsed, and the New Republic couldn't get a hold of the galaxy yet, like in Zahn's legends novel, in the new novel, we witness Thrawn's rise to power shortly after the birth of the Empire before the Rebellion.

He is found on a remote planet and brought before the Emperor, who's fascinated with Thrawn, and therefore supports him in climbing the military ranks in records times. Not everyone likes that, especially because he's non-human, but his success proves him right despite his non-conventional methods. Like in the legends trilogy, Thrawn is incredibly smart, but has far more political opponents.

Edited May 18 by Zuri
typo

[Ron]

I'm currently reading Winter's Heart (book 9 of 14) in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. I've read this book and others in the series several times as the time between Jordan's books in the series often arrived years apart, and, so, I reread or skimmed the previous books to get myself in the right contextual frame of mine to go forward with each new release.

It has now been a little over thirteen years since A Memory of Light, the last book of the series came out which is as long since I've reread any of the books. Perhaps it's just the time that has past, or the time and place where I find myself in life, or because I can read each novel knowing that the next is waiting on my bookshelf and there is an end in sight to the series that I find myself immensely enjoying each book. I don't commiserate with a friend who read the books alongside me over how long it's been between books, or mind that a book of considerable length only covers a few days for the characters (of which there are a great many), nor do I devour them as if they are the most delicious pastry.

What I do is spend time with each book and read at leisure. I go into the glossary and find the author's guided pronunciation for names, titles and places and correctly work them into the story -- the first time around I just barreled through and chose my best interpretation of what I thought something should sound like, I was often wrong -- which does influence the foreign nature of this fantasy world and helps it come alive in a way that it didn't previously (who'd have thought, right? *laughs*).

Considering all the time I have spent with this author's work (also Brandon Sanderson who finished the series after Jordan's death) I can say that I know the books quite well, much still seems fresh in mind even after all these years and yet I come across bits and pieces that I had forgotten. There are also upcoming parts I anticipate because I know they are coming and that's a joy. So, I highly recommend rereading old favorites in rotation with new books of favorite authors and the work of new-to-you authors.

I highly recommend this series.