Escapecraft

I am reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Great Book overall despite having some absurd claims in it.

Next on My Agenda

• The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
• The greatest hoax on Earth: Refuting Dawkins on Evolution by Jonathan Sarfati
• A Free People's Suicide by Oz Guinnes
• The Percy Jackson Series for School Rewards

asi1998 wrote:The Percy Jackson Series

lol

Watch the movie after reading the first book only if you want to rage and throw things at your tv. Same with Eragon, which I seriously thought about walking out of during the beginning of the movie.

I never could understand that. If a movie is different to the book, and it bothers you for some reason, just continue watching as if it was a stand-alone film. Movies can stray from the story, and still be well-made.

Railsea, by China Mieville. I really dig his stuff Scar, Iron Counsel and Perido Street Station are all very good works that any Steampunk/fantasy/ Sci fi fan should check out.

DuplicateValue wrote:I never could understand that. If a movie is different to the book, and it bothers you for some reason, just continue watching as if it was a stand-alone film. Movies can stray from the story, and still be well-made.

Not the Eragon movie. The left out literally every important plot point needed for the second book at the end of the movie. Every. Single. One.

The stuff that gets left out of the Harry Potter or LoTR movies is fine, because it isn't important to the main plot but.... my god that Eragon movie.

They shot themselves in the foot with it. Can't make a sequel. Someone should definitely give it another shot.

Anyways I'm reading a Doctor Who book based off of the not filmed scripts written by Douglass Adams aka the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Liking it so far despite the fact that it was written before many major Doctor Who events that form the backbone for the current seasons such as the last time war.

wokka1 wrote:Card has some great books, and the Ender's series are some of them, but I didn't care for this one or the sequel after it. The shadow books are good too I'm told, I've only read the first one.

The Seventh Son books are good as well.

Just finished Speaker for the Dead, and you're right - it's not as good as Ender's Game. But I still liked it, after I stopped comparing it to the first one. It's a very different sort of story. I also read Ender's Shadow a while back. It's my favourite so far - Bean is a far more interesting character I think.

I actually spotted one of the Seventh Son books in a small dusty bookstore, so I might pick it up. Card's stuff is impossible to find in the chain stores.

And on topic, I'm currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Huh, never ever knew that there was more than Enders Game...
I must rectify this.

Also Seventh Son books, that sounds like something from Garth Nix...

On another note, I have several books from James Patterson to read and The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley...
So many books.

I'm reading Slash's autobiography, it's actually quite interesting, he's not the drivelling moron I expected he would be.

On to Bram Stoker's Dracula now. I like the writing so far - the imagery is pretty nice.

Of course, it probably helps that everyone can imagine the setting pretty well already.

DuplicateValue wrote:On to Bram Stoker's Dracula now. I like the writing so far - the imagery is pretty nice.

Of course, it probably helps that everyone can imagine the setting pretty well already.

It's a good book (I remember feeling it was a little slow around the middle, but it's a few years since I read it). I went to Whitby a couple of years ago, the ruins are quite cool on a stormy day. It's a shame there's a load of tacky shops around there, parts of the town are really nice.

Just finished book 14 of the Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
Also reading Acorna's Triumph - Anne McCaffrey
and Dowsing the Dead - Ali Sparkes
After that I intend to reread the Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Panini.

Recently I've read The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje, Looking for Alaska by John Green, and have nearly finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

All of them are great books, though I was a tad disappointed by Looking for Alaska. I think it was hyped up too much. I still really enjoyed it though. I decided to read it because one quote kept popping up everywhere that I liked:
I'm enjoying Catch-22 a lot. There's been parts where I've actually laughed out loud to myself, and many more parts where I've found myself smiling. It really is more than worth the read.

I'm currently in the middle of A Feast for Crows, book 5 of a Song of Ice and Fire, but have ground to a halt. I am more actively reading the Wheel of Time (starting again from Eye of the World) and Robin Hobb's Assassin series, with the intent of working my way through to the newest Rain Wild one.
Woot.

I've been dared to read War and Peace (this is what happens when you take dares from your mum). In probably the least-deep analysis of it ever, I'll say it's pretty damned good, if a bit of a slog.

So, would you recommend War and Peace, or did you give up on it? I ask because it's been in my "To Read Eventually, Maybe" list for a while now.

Since Catch-22, I've read Murder on the Orient Express (I'm not a huge Agatha Christie fan, but I enjoyed it), Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (I was avoiding the witches series for some strange reason, but I'm glad I got around to it - brilliant as always), and Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (weird, but oddly entertaining. The ending sort of just trailed off, but as it was a memoir I think this can be forgiven).

I've just started Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick today. First impressions involved lots of the eye-rolling that sci-fi tends to bring me to, but I'm sure I'll start to get into it soon.

Witch series is all well and good... but the guards and the Unseen University series are where it's at.

Also the Death books, those are fun.

M477h3w1012 wrote:Witch series is all well and good... but the guards and the Unseen University series are where it's at.

Also the Death books, those are fun.

Going Postal and Making Money were good too.

Also don't forget some of their old Adventure games like Diskworld Noir

Yeah, I've read some from all of the series, and I think the Death series is my favourite. He's just such a great character.

I own the complete discworld series now. Took me a while to find them all in english. Read The long earth last week. Co-written by Pratchett. Waiting now on The long war.

DuplicateValue wrote:So, would you recommend War and Peace, or did you give up on it? I ask because it's been in my "To Read Eventually, Maybe" list for a while now.

I've just started Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick today. First impressions involved lots of the eye-rolling that sci-fi tends to bring me to, but I'm sure I'll start to get into it soon.

I'm still reading it, sort of. It's a good book, it's just... Daunting. Every time I think about going to pick it up I'm reminded that there's still half a billion pages in the damned thing left. It doesn't help that there are large parts that are entirely about philosophy rather than the narrative, it can get a bit off-putting. If I had a bit more motivation I'd probably enjoy it more.

I didn't enjoy Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? much, although I did read it a few years ago so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it went over my head though. He has a terrible, terrible writing style.

SMWasder wrote:It doesn't help that there are large parts that are entirely about philosophy rather than the narrative, it can get a bit off-putting.

By this, do you mean Robinson Crusoe-style boring religious rants that add nothing to the narrative, or something even tangentially related and about the story?

Because if it is the former than the rather, I suggest we revive the book-burnings.

War and Peace is a great book to brag to people that you've finished it. I have those rights, go me.

It's pretty good, pretty ambitious (well, that goes without saying), and I even felt sad at points (which is rare for me when it comes to books).

Recently I've finished reading a book called The Kindly Ones (POV of an SS officer) as well as World War Z, and now I'm reading something called Fortress Israel.

Read GoT again, the alchemist of souls aswell as some 40k books. Also bought some of the later series of the wheel of time series (€2 each was a bargain ) and reading at the moment Phantom by Terry Goodkind

Iron_Fang wrote: Also bought some of the later series of the wheel of time series (€2 each was a bargain )

It was. Also, the ending of book 12 almost made me explode with happyjuice.

I got 4,8,9,11,12

Got upto Death Masks of the Dresden Files and have Blood Rites on the way, inbetween this though I've started reading the Mortal Engines Quartet again as who doesn't love a series that has moving cities that eat other moving cities.

I loved that series

SMWasder wrote:I didn't enjoy Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? much, although I did read it a few years ago so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it went over my head though. He has a terrible, terrible writing style.

I finished it today, and I know what you mean. I can't say I particularly enjoyed it, but it wasn't bad. He has a habit of making what should be captivating action segments sound uninteresting and unimportant. I think it might be because he says things in a matter-of-fact way rather than a sensational one. It's like "this is what happened, and how it worked out" - there's no embellishment.

In saying that, there was one part I was particularly impressed with, where the book transitioned from following the point of view of one character to another entirely seamlessly within the same passage. So much so that I didn't realise it had happened until a bit after.