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Iceheart
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Awesome! I really enjoyed Wizard's First Rule. I hope you continue to like it.

 

And I too credit nightly with my very first comic book checkout at the library. Good thing I didn't buy it at Amazon, because it really would have skewed the recommendation emails they send me. :lol:

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I read that one! I enjoyed it well enough, but I had a few of his book to read on vacation last year and they were all kind of similar. I got sick of them after the first few.

 

As for me, I'm going to reread the Dresden Files novels, or at least some of them. :) I started with the second one because my bf lent his copy of the first one to a friend and never got it back.

I'm liking it, although I'm finding it hard to find the time. While reading it, I kept getting the feeling that I was reading "The Relic", which was Preston & Child. So, you may be onto something there.

 

What's funny is after I'm done with it, I'll probably move on to the Dresden novels as well.

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I read those, Pong. My boyfriend is a huge fan of those books. I'm not all that interested in fantasy, but I enjoyed them overall. Drizzt is an engaging character in my opinion.
I agree. It took me awhile to warm to Drizzt, but I loved him by the end of the series.

 

I feel genuinely embarrassed for enjoying the trilogy so much. Salvatore can write a decent battle scene, and he somehow manages to make even the most cliché stock characters and situations memorable -- but man, his exposition is just painful. And not in an "information dump" sort of way... more in a "I get disoriented and impatient when I try to write above an 8th-grade level" sort of way.

 

:no:

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Just finished Disgrace, a Nobel Prize winner (literature, duh) by J. M. Coetzee. Beautifully written -- utterly terse, even minimalistic at times, yet somehow elegant and poetic all at once. It is set in post-apartheid South Africa, and deals with a twice-divorced college professor who, at 52 and now being ignored by his favorite prostitute, decides to have an affair with one of his students. Once he gets caught, he cops to the crime, but refuses to apologize (grovel and submit to "reeducation" in his mind) to the women's studies department and salivating local press. This leads to him losing his job, pension, and moving in with his hippie/farmer/lesbian daughter, who is promptly raped by three Africans. As you can surely imagine, much hilarity ensues.

 

No, not really. It's a dark little book, and I honestly felt a tinge of queasiness upon reading the last paragraph. Yet, unpleasant or not, this was definitely a great read, and fully worthy of the awards it received. Apparently, John Malkovich starred in a movie adaptation two or three years ago, I'm gonna have to check that out, too...

 

:eek:

 

Now, more to cleanse the palate than anything else, I'm onto Dean Koontz's Relentless. I hate to say this, because Koontz seems like a genuinely nice man and he's heavily involved with CCI, but quite simply: the book is trash. Fun trash, much like a bag of Cheetos, but trash nonetheless. I'm still worried about getting that stuff off my fingers after I set down the book...

 

It's been fifteen years since I last read a novel of his, and I can remember why now. Shallow (though, admittedly likable) lead characters, utterly ridiculous side-characters, uninteresting and irredeemable evil, periodic whining about the foibles of modernity (he used to go off on heavy metal, now it's the Internet), and the importance of guns -- all written at a high school level. On the bright side, he seems to have developed a sense of humor, and he's a lot better at writing dialogue than he used to be. Still, I'll probably wait another fifteen years before giving Koontz another chance.

 

:confused:

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Finished Relentless. What tripe. So painfully amateurish. To make it all the more painful, there were some nice characters, it was fast-paced enough to keep you turning pages, and there were even a few interesting ideas sprinkled throughout, so you could see how it could have actually been quite good (was he up against a deadline?)... but I'm sorry: super-powered dogs and child-prodigies can turn even the greatest of literature into a bucket of saccharine.

 

Now I'm reading Anthem by Ayn Rand. Dated, overly philosophical and preachy, but well worth reading nonetheless (oh, and it's short!)...

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Now I'm reading Anthem by Ayn Rand. Dated, overly philosophical and preachy, but well worth reading nonetheless (oh, and it's short!)...

 

:hmm: Bad. Even for Rand, Anthem was positively terrible.

 

I'm reading The Illearth War, second of the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson. A surprisingly fresh approach to your standard, trope laden epic fantasy saga, despite the presence of the usual problems associated with that genre: purple prose, sunset descriptions that go on for two paragraphs, landscape descriptions that go on for five pages, and so forth. Pretty good overall.

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Am reading Packing For Mars by Mary Roach. It's totally blowing up my skirt! It's about NASA and training astronauts for a 500 day trip to Mars. Roach goes off on hilarious tangents, which I love, and gives the reader inside info on all the human parts of being an astronaut that rarely get discussed outside of the inner circle. It also tells about NASA training and the ridiculousness of some of the methods and conclusions.

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Am reading Packing For Mars by Mary Roach. It's totally blowing up my skirt! It's about NASA and training astronauts for a 500 day trip to Mars. Roach goes off on hilarious tangents, which I love, and gives the reader inside info on all the human parts of being an astronaut that rarely get discussed outside of the inner circle. It also tells about NASA training and the ridiculousness of some of the methods and conclusions.

Have you read any of her other stuff? She's 14 kinds of awesome. Stiff, Bonk, and Spook are her other three that I have read; I dunno if she has other titles available, and am too lazy to search right now.

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Am reading Packing For Mars by Mary Roach. It's totally blowing up my skirt! It's about NASA and training astronauts for a 500 day trip to Mars. Roach goes off on hilarious tangents, which I love, and gives the reader inside info on all the human parts of being an astronaut that rarely get discussed outside of the inner circle. It also tells about NASA training and the ridiculousness of some of the methods and conclusions.

Have you read any of her other stuff? She's 14 kinds of awesome. Stiff, Bonk, and Spook are her other three that I have read; I dunno if she has other titles available, and am too lazy to search right now.

 

 

I second that! Mary Roach is one of those writers who could write about any subject and I would still happily buy and devour the book.

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I'm going to go to the library today, and rent some audiobooks to see how I like them. I've been crocheting a lot, because I'm trying to start an Etsy store... which means I haven't read a word since I finished Siddhartha, but I have all this time where I'm just sitting around listening to music, so I might as well get a book in there.

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What did you think of the Dexter books, Gog? I read the first one after I was already obsessed with the show, and it just didn't have the same feel. I wouldn't be opposed to reading others, but I'm sure the show will remain my first love.

Well, the first book was almost exactly season 1, with a different ending. But the following two were completely different. I liked the books, but I did find the almost constant mentioning of Dexter's "Dark Passenger" annoying. Especially in the third book where Dexter "loses" IT & wonders if he's becoming normal. I do have the 4th book now & will read it after I'm done with my current book, which I should finish today. And I'm with you, the show is where I want to see Dexter's story. Can't wait for the next season to start!

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I'm glad to hear that the plot lines are very different. Maybe that would allow me to enjoy them more without constantly comparing the two.

 

It's like Shadowdog's take on the Dresden Files TV show, it's much different from the books, but at least it's more Dresden. I could probably think of the Dexter books in the same way.

 

And I'm right there with you on looking forward to the next season, although since I don't get Showtime, I can't wait for it to end so I can watch it on DVD (or on demand, or any other way I can get my hands on it!)

 

 

Icy, let me know if you discover any audio book gems. My bf listens to them at work, and he's always on the lookout for new stuff!

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Now reading the 4th Dexter book, Dexter by Design. So far, so good.

 

As for the Doctor Who book I read "Apollo 23", I enjoyed it, although it wasn't as good as the last one I read, "Prisoner of the Daleks". I found the ending a bit ridiculous, as the Doctor's solution was a bit illogical. Also the alien creatures at the end were just silly. But like I said, I still enjoyed it.

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