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I blame Robin Hobb for being awake this late (early?) . I just now realized how late it is, as I had been reading the Farseer Trilogy for the last, oh, eight hours.
If I had been reading Tad Williams, I would have been in bed hours ago. No matter how many people gush over Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, reading it was like pulling teeth for me.
I was 400 pages into the first book and only one signifigant thing had happened! It took me WEEKS to get that far! This from someone who read the first three A Song of Ice and Fire books in one week, and who finished Windhaven the very night he bought it. I'll be done with the Farseer Trilogy sometime tomorrow probably and I just got it the day before yesterday.
MST is so very boring. The writing is slow and clumsy, and how unoriginal. Sithi? You mean elf right? Troll? Surely you mean Dwarf (or maybe a hobbit/dwarf mix)? Why the name troll for a race? That name is so loaded, and doesn't fit the hobbit-dwarf race in the book. And if you are so obviously stealing from Tolkien, why not keep the names?
But for all the bad I've said about it, someone please tell me it gets better! I bought the whole series at once, and though I abandoned it for greener pastures (and Hobb is a MUCH better writer), I want so desperately to enjoy the series when I pick it back up.
Tom, I am very much indebted to you for recommending Martin, but I'm thinking I may be an exeption to your assertion that fans of Martin are fans of Williams (though Otherland was okay, if still extremely flawed).
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Ah, for me it's Juliet Marillier's Sevenwaters Trilogy. I'm on the second book and it's very good writing. Though I'm not sure if it's that or just my weird sleep schedule and non-decaffeinated type diet coke I had at supper keeping me up. Anyway the book is very good. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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A very small minority of people to whom I've recommended Martin and Williams think that Williams is exceedingly dull, perhaps because he waits until the middle of the first book for the bloodbaths to start.
Me, I happen to LIKE MST; it has almost the exact same pacing as Lord of the Rings, and is derivative only because it's CONSCIOUSLY derivative. (It's Tad's response to what he perceives as a certain amount of racism and simplistic morality in LotR.)
MST is slowly-paced (although the other two books, as in LotR, move faster than the first one), but I happen to like the ruminations on carrots, the sea shanties, and the establishments of character that take place before people start dying. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I also felt that MST was too slowly paced, but I enjoyed the characters and the story so much that it wasn't really a problem. Tad Williams writes a great battle scene, but you're going to have to read quite a bit more before you get to the really good ones.
I can't argue you with you on Robin Hobb. She's a fantastic writer.
I'm reading Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian trilogy right now. It's definitely keeping me up late, rather than putting me to sleep.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Xavier has pretty much captured my feelings on MST (though I did make it through most of the second book before giving up in disgust). I love Tolkien. MST had all of the tediousness and none of the beauty or epic of LOTR.
Ender's Game kept me up until 5.30am. Other books that have done a similar thing are "Order of the Phoenix" which I read until I finished it at 10.30am. The Rhapsody trilogy by Elizabeth Hayden did it, and the first four "Outlander" books by Diana Gabaldon did it too.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Most fiction keeps me awake. Once I really get into something, it's terribly hard for me to put it down.
On the other hand, the first book of the Iliad puts me right to sleep.
It does depend, however. If I'm not listening to music, it takes me 20 minutes to fall asleep reading. I've actually timed this. More than once. With music, I can read indefinitely, but without... 20 minutes. It's weird.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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The Fire-Us series has been keeping me awake lately. It's targeted at children, but some parts of it are freaking disturbing. It's bad enough to have a group of children trying to fend for themselves after all the adults died from a plague, but add some of these other things... aw, man. Read it...
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: Ah, for me it's Juliet Marillier's Sevenwaters Trilogy. I'm on the second book and it's very good writing.
I'm on the second book too, but for some reason I'm finding it much harder to drag my way through this one. As for "Daughter of the Forest," I don't think I ever put it down until I finished.
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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See, Robin Hobb just COMPLETELY doesn't do it for me. I've picked up four or five of her books, mainly because she comes so highly regarded on Hatrack, and she always strikes me as a complete hack -- kind of like a poor man's David Duncan, without the grace.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I read Harry Potter OotP in like 3 days, It's taken me almost a month, to get 2/3rds through "atlas Shrugged", how many times do I have to read about "He loves to Work.".
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Thor, just wait 'til you get to what I consider one of the worst chapters in all of English literature. You might well just give up. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I'm with Carrie on this one. If it has engaging characters that I care about, I can't dilly dally around in finding out what happens to them now can I?
My weird trait is that I've been kept up all night reading books that I've already read before! Am I bizarre or what?? OSC books usually do that for me. I wasn't up all night in Lord of the Rings until I got deep into TTT. Then it was nonstop. There are millions of others. Like I said, all it takes are characters that I believe.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I actually thought that the second book in the sevenwaters trilogy was the best. If your around the beginning, I promise it gets much better! I just got "The Da Vinci Code" yesterday and stayed up all night reading it. I suggest all of you read it because it's fantastic.
Posts: 20 | Registered: Apr 2003
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"See, Robin Hobb just COMPLETELY doesn't do it for me. I've picked up four or five of her books, mainly because she comes so highly regarded on Hatrack, and she always strikes me as a complete hack -- kind of like a poor man's David Duncan, without the grace."
I used to be a fairly faithful fan of Hobb (Megan Lindholm's pseudonym) during the first two books of the Farseer trilogy, and maybe half of the third. Her world-building is weak and her villains cliche, but I loved what she did with the Fitz character.
We do agree that she's a hack -- after I read her end to the trilogy, I gave up in disgust. I have her other books waiting for me back in my apartment, but I don't think I'll read them until there's no other option to it. But for what it's worth, the first two books weren't awful.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Allow me to once more sing the praises of my fellow Canadian, Guy Gavriel Kay. Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan are fantastic, and his Fionvar Tapestry is interesting if you want more "conventional" (Tolkien-derived) fantasy.
Also, as I've said numerous times on this board, William Gibson's Neuromancer is in a class by itself.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I might not have too much company around here, but I really love some of Jack Chalker's earlier stuff - the Well World series (the first five, anyway), And the Devil Will Drag You Under, and the Lords of the Diamond series. The Dancing Gods Books were just fun.
Unfortunately, his latest stuff just doesn't do it for me anymore. I just finished the third book in his Tales of the Three Kings trilogy. It's a disappointment. The books are too short to deal with the plot and the characters in the series. In fact, the whole thing just comes racing to an end in the final 30 pages of the last book. Sad, because Chalker is a writer I used to be able to depend on for a fun read. It was all too easy to put the newly-purchased final book aside last night and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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mack, the books beyond the first one are not worth reading.
I know full well that you will proceed to read them, but when you are done remember that I warned you .
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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By all means make up your own mind, but at the very least, do not expect the following books to be similar to the first.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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The Tripods Trilogy, by John Christopher, which I have just recently picked up again has kept me up late for the past several nights. SO good. There was also a BBC movie based on it from 1989, which I watched last night..
Posts: 1789 | Registered: Jul 2003
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If you're ever in the Randolph/Bethel area of VT, try and find me and my Stephen King library!
Now, as for the topic: I think I read the 5th HP in one day - had to drag me from the car to put it down, most of the time.
Right now, I've been struggling through The Grapes of Wrath and Faulkner's While I Lay Dying. Very similar books, and hard for me to follow or get through, but I'm still trying.
Posts: 70 | Registered: Jul 2003
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Books that keep me up: Most anything by OSC. The Hyperion/Endymion series by Dan Simmons. Empire Falls. The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Nobilis by R. Sean Borgstrom. Some RPG sourcebooks The Phantom Tollbooth.
Books that put me to sleep: Almost all the books assigned in a modern american literature class last semester (except Empire Falls) Godel, Escher, Bach (it's interesting, but it puts me to sleep) The Scarlet Letter (how the hell did this become a classic? I'm convinced that Hawthorne is a crackhead ) Posts: 903 | Registered: May 2003
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I don't know about Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, because I've never read it. (Can never find any but the final book in the library.) However, Tad Williams' Otherland series is one of those that have kept me up 'til the wee hours. There are very, very few books I have read that compare.
I also add my vote for Robin Hobb. Strangely, the much-maligned last part of the third Farseer book was one of my favorite parts. However, the Liveship trilogy was even better.
quote:kind of like a poor man's David Duncan, without the grace
Interesting. Duncan's Magic Casement was one of perhaps ten books in my life that I was totally unable to force myself through. Never came back to Duncan after that.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Lawguy, I recommend that you simply go buy the books instead of waiting to get them at the library. I checked out the first one from the library and was halfway through it when I decided to just buy the rest. I didn't regret it. And I've enjoyed the other stuff by Tad Williams that I've read since then (Tailchaser's Song and Otherland—I haven't had time to read War of the Flowers yet). Ignore whatever Xavier says about the series—he's just upset that someone had the gall to "steal" from Tolkien.
[ August 04, 2003, 01:06 PM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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No Jon Boy (and bite me by the way), I was upset because the writing is terrible and boring in the extreme.
I don't care if someone steals from Tolkien, but it certainly makes the story unoriginal. I have no particular affinity for Tolkien, but its kind of frustrating to read a story in a world which someone already did, and better.
I actually think that maybe my dislike for MST is because I didn't care for Lord of the Rings as much as most others did, and so don't get as much enjoyment reading a cheap knock-off.
(Sorry about the bite-me comment, but don't belittle my opinion and then state faulty assumptions about my reasons for that opinion )
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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"I don't care if someone steals from Tolkien, but it certainly makes the story unoriginal."
I just want to point out that the story itself is most emphatically not stolen from Tolkien. The racial elements, in fact, are only MARGINALLY stolen; what Tad was trying to do was to take the recognizably Tolkienified cliches of fantasy and kick 'em between the legs. Admittedly, he did this by using OTHER anthropological analogues, but to each his own. *grin*
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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hey tom, how come you didn't like The De Vinci Code? I found it facinating... Actually, while I loved the story, I loved the random facts that were splattered all over it, it made me feel like I learned alot at the same time Posts: 20 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I read and enjoyed War of the Flowers, but I wasn't really intrigued by the main character -- which, in a book that largely centers on the emotional growth of the main character, is kind of a death knell. Far more than any of his recent work, War of the Flowers really focuses on a single plot thread -- and, unfortunately, it's a plot thread that was really similar to a story (released in the same month, so it's not exactly derivative) I read all of two days before I picked up the book. I might like it better on a re-read, but it's not a must-own like a few of his others.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
. I just now realized how late it is, as I had been reading the Farseer Trilogy for the last, oh, eight hours.![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
This from someone who read the first three A Song of Ice and Fire books in one week, and who finished Windhaven the very night he bought it. I'll be done with the Farseer Trilogy sometime tomorrow probably and I just got it the day before yesterday. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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to SK's ability to get you to really care about characters, and actually be frightened that he'll actually kill them off. 'cause he'll do it, too.![[Mad]](mad.gif)
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) The question, of course, is can it rival Noah's OSC collection? 'cause if it can, I'm THERE.
