Apart from RPG Sourcebooks what’s everyone reading, or planning on reading?
I’m not such a big reader myself. I can count the amount of books I’ve read from start to finish on one hand (again, not counting RPG books! )
But I’ve decided to make an effort this year to change that. Earlier this year I started and completed The Hobbit…in under a week, I was quite impressed! The Lord of The Rings boxed set is brand new and sitting on my shelf as we speak. Going to get that started soon. Absolutely love the films, never read the books.
My recent interest in H.P. Lovecraft also led me to pick up “The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales” A penguin books compilation of some of his stories. It’s great. I’ve been genuinely creeped out by what I’ve read so far.
Picked LOTR and CoC up at the Thalia at Wien Mitte. They have a fairly large English section as it happens. Large enough for me at least.
Go get the game of thrones books (a song of ice and fire). There are 5 books at the moment and all of them are really good.
Some weeks ago I finished the hunger games series. They are quite good too, not as serious as got or lotr but quite enjoyable.
At the moment I’m diving through 3 books at the same time (because I can’t decide what to read):
Xenocide (3rd book of Ender series)
A guide to public speaking
The complete sherlock holmes collection
Also: If you like graphic novels / comics go get the Scott Pilgrim books, Sandman, Watchmen and of course V for Vendetta. Great books but not everybodys taste.
I read like I eat… daily and it’s required for living.
I confess, I hated Game of Thrones, for a lot of the reasons I hated Wheel of Time… I think the ambition of the author WELL overreached his writing ability.
Some friends just sent me a bunch of Brandon Sanderson books, and I’m in love. He’s got one completed trilogy (with an extra), 2 stand-alones and a book one of a projected ten-book series. and damn him, he’s a good enough – and more importantly, clearly organized enough – that I actually think he’ll pull it off. On the other hand, I am still going to wait until book 8 to ensure that he neither contracts a terminal disease/writer’s block, nor suddenly jumps the series to 15 books.
Don’t expect LoTR to read like the Hobbit – Tolkein wrote them very differently for different audiences. but certainly his world will be/is immediately recognizable to D&D players!
Noel wants me to dip again into the Forgotten Realms books, since that’s where our campaign is set. I read the first 6 Drizzt books and have been trying to forget them, but we’ll see if the non-Salvatore books are better. I don’t usually read “media tie-ins” but he asks so little of me. After that, I was just told to check out the Mist Griffons trilogy, but usually I can only plan one or two books ahead – It’s like with music, one day a song will spawn one playlist in my head, the next the same song will have me in a completely different mood.
Honestly, I have read a TON of S&SF, so if you let me know what you’re interested in, I can generally steer you toward/away from things.
Brandon Sanderson is a great writer. The Mistborn-Univers is really unique (at least I haven’t heard of anything close to it) and very well thought out.
Another great author, I follow closely is Patrick Rothfuss. I devoured the two books of his Kingkiller Chronicles, but now I hunger for the next one.
Something more fun to read comes from Ari Marmell: The Goblin Corps. It’s a really fun read. A bit more serious (but still fun) are his other books. I’m currently reading “Conquerer’s Shadow” and have finished his first of his ‘Widdershin’s series’.
Besides those fantasy-books, I like SF-books, though I don’t currently have any of those on the reading list.
Hoooo, yeah, I meant to order the ‘Goblin corps’ and completely forgot!
Glenn Cook’s “Black company” is also pretty good. Especially the “Books of the North”.
“A scanner Darkly” is my favourite book ever, by my favourite author ever. I highly recommend it as I do recommend “The man in the high castle”.
I also really liked the “Valis Trilogy”, although it’s very weird and certainly not for everybody.
But, I guess, the best book to start with might be “Do Androids dream of electrical sheep”, often sold under the name of “Blade runner”, the movie was the adaptation of the novel. It’s pretty short and there is a lot of pretty straightforward SF.
I also really enjoy some of Tim Powers’ books, especially “On stranger tides” as well as “The Anubis Gates”. “Last Call” is pretty good too.
Did anybody mention Terry Pratchett, yet? He is wunderbar.
Finally, I also enjoyed at least the first tomes of the “Honor Harrington” series.
Heartily agree with the Phillip K Dick, Terry Pratchett and Tim Powers endorsements. The Valis trilogy makes somewhat more sense if you read Divine Invasions by Lawrence Sutin and realize how heavily autobiographical it it.
As for Pratchett, find someone who has read Pratchett first and get recommendations. Generally it’s 2-3 books into each storyline before they get good, and the Rincewind storyline should be avoided altogether.
I find for fantasy that Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy is greatly underappreciated.
For SF, I can recommend SOME Heinlein, most Asimov, some Orson Scott Card (especially Ender’s Game, but definitely NOT the whole series), Gibson, and the first few Dune books. For lighter SF, Anne McCaffery’s older stuff is great.
Ok, we’ve reached the end of what I can dredge out of my brain tonight.
STOP after Xenoxide. I realize if you are anything like me you’ll keep reading no matter what you hear (read ALL the books!) but truly, they go right off a sharp cliff after that. At some point in his life OSC’s religious beliefs started overshadowing his writing abilities, and Children of the Mind (and the subsequent Shadow series) are well entrenched in that later writing style.
[quote=“Siobhan”]
STOP after Xenoxide. I realize if you are anything like me you’ll keep reading no matter what you hear (read ALL the books!) but truly, they go right off a sharp cliff after that. At some point in his life OSC’s religious beliefs started overshadowing his writing abilities, and Children of the Mind (and the subsequent Shadow series) are well entrenched in that later writing style.[/quote]
Yeah I’ve heard of that but I really want to finish all the book series that I started. I’ve already realized (halfway into Xenocide) that in the course of the books religion becomes a major topic and exactly because of this I want to finish it. I’m a atheistic agnostic but I’m interested in religion so it’s kind of interesting how individual beliefs can change ones writing style.
[quote=“TwoEyes”]Yeah I’ve heard of that but I really want to finish all the book series that I started. I’ve already realized (halfway into Xenocide) that in the course of the books religion becomes a major topic and exactly because of this I want to finish it. I’m a atheistic agnostic but I’m interested in religion so it’s kind of interesting how individual beliefs can change ones writing style.
What’s OSCs religion? Haven’t looked him up yet.[/quote]
OCS is Mormon. While I have nothing against Mormonism in particular – I find it no better or worse than most major world religions – he is now an extremist. For example, he is in charge of a group that threatens secession from the US if they ever legalize gay marriage. I will no longer spend money on his books, because I won’t give a dime to support his causes. Fortunately, that’s an easy vow for me to make, since I already own all his good ones.
Like I said, I understand completely the “read ALL the books” mentality – I did, after all. Just be prepared for a completely different experience and level of quality.
Yeah, after reading some of his non-fiction rants, Card went straight to my short list of authors I won’t be buying, too (also known as the Piers Anthony file).
I don’t really think it’s a matter of religion, though. I see it more as his political views tainting his writing.
Mormonism is HIGHLY focused on family-before-all, including strict gender roles. You will see this more and more as the series progresses (I am assuming you plan to read into the Shadow books).
when someone’s political views are based in any version of “god said it,” that’s a religion problem. Their political views are formed then, by their religion.
Reminds me of Westboro, disrupting a funeral and hindering family and friends to say goodbye in peace is imo just despicable, and they justify doing it with the Bible. Which is my main problem with religions, scripture can be used to justify pretty much anything. I’m on the same page as Bill Maher who said that the Bible was written at a time when people didn’t know better on how Earth was created and it was their way of trying to make sense of it, and yet some people take it literally.
Well I’ve got my copy of “The art of public speaking” and “The complete sherlock holmes collection” from there. Both are really awesome but I’ve seen a lot of interesting stuff like Through the looking glass and alice in wonderland while skimming through the fantasy stuff. They really have a very large collection!
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