Everybody stopped readin?

shank

Got real quiet here lately, so whats everybody readin then. Atm i'm readin Clancy's Rainbow 6, not great but not too bad either.
Btw anybody who has read Po Bronson's first 2 books(real funny)stear clear of his 3rd.

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shank@quake.ie
news.quake.ie

TwoShedsJackson

Reading is for namby pamby vegetarians who need their heads slamming in a door Actually, i've just finished reading Endymion by Dan Simmons, the third part of the Hyperion series and it was brilliant. So thats all three books in the series that i've read that were completely great. Cant find the Rise of Endymion (the last one) anywhere in town tho

Draco

I've been reading the World War series by Harry Turtledove. It's alright, but he has a tendancy to repeat himself (constantly redescribing people in case we forgot them) and who ever the editor was should be shot - it's full of spelling and punctuation mistakes.

Draco

Hecate

I forgot how.

Oh and Castor doesnt read, he just looks at the sick pictures of failed operations in those medical books

Trojan

Last week I got through Orson Scott Cards Ender series, only the 1st 3 though, Enders Game, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide. I've heard the 4th is not up to the standard of the first 3, which I thoroughly recommend to anyone into their sf.

Moving away from the old favs I tried a couple of Iain (no M.) Bankes non-sf stuff. Crow Road was excellent, Espedair Street not bad at all and Complicity the weakest of the 3. I must get my hands on a copy of The Wasp Factory. This guy is one of the best authors out there, despite The Business (his latest) bombing a bit. If you haven't read his sf stuff (he uses his middle initial M. when doing sf) get them now, they're excellent (The Player of Games being my favorite).

I'd love to know if anyone has actually finished Feersum Endjinn (ie read through all the phonetic crap!!)

Still reading Gemmell, despite his rapid endings he still is excellent.

Alastair.

Trojan

Damn this proxy!

[This message has been edited by Trojan (edited 27-09-99).]

Shinji

Haven't had much of a chance to read anything recently, but I got through Howard Stern's bio, "Private Parts", which is entertaining to begin with but then tapers off and gets samey about halfway through.

Reading a few James Herbert books at the moment... He's actually very good, one of the first authors I've read who writes realistic horror, the sort of thing that chills the blood because it COULD happen... (And I never liked rats in the first place...)

Ja,
Rob

Trojan

I'm looking for some good 2nd hand bookshops in city center. Can anyone post up a couple of names & addresses for me? I used to go to Chapters but I've lost them all. New books are an extremely expensive habit..

shank

what's Cryptonomicon like so far, I'm really looking forward to gettin my hands on that, not available from amazon uk yet.

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shank@quake.ie
news.quake.ie

Hobbes

I almost finished my last book, only the crayon broke.

Actually currently reading "The dance of the Wu Li Masters" and "Cryptonomicon", although I read so much other carp these days I'm still not that far into them.

LoLth

2nd hand bookshops:

Chapters : Middle Abbey Street (the bit with Arnotts backdoor on it)

There's a smaller bookshop on the same street, opposite side, near the O'Connell street end, sometimes has some good stuff.

Flying Pig: Excellent bookshop, Crow Street , TempleBar (same street as the Foggy Dew and the sex-shop...I heard..)

Dandelion Books: the big street off dame street just down from the Central Bank (away from Trinity), runs parrallell to Grafton street. On the right hand side as you go up. Perhaps the best 2nd hand collection around.

As for books.

I've started on hte Iain Banks stuff. Yep, Crow Road was excellent. Now I'm on to 'The Bridge' which is more than a little weird. Chapters are doing a 2 for £10 special on the non-sci-fi stuff at the mo'.

J.

ButcherOfNog

yup, i finished Feersum Endjinn

david brin, sundiver and the rest of the uplift series, good sci-fi reads me thought.

Trojan

Butcher, dunno how you managed... I've had that book for 2 years I'd say & I keep on restarting it every couple of months, just can't deal with all that cr@p!!

Love Brin though, that's a class series alright although I started reading the 2nd ones 1st! doh, never found out where the dolphin ship came from

Cheers LoLth appreciate that, I've been spending too much on new books!
Tell me what you think of The Bridge when you're done, be nice to know if it's worth the cash!

Just done reading The Shift by George Foy, kinda dark sf (only semi-)cyber novel. It's pretty good, I'd give it a 5 or 6.. quite grim at stages, but nice twists to the plot towards the end.


Take it easy.

LoLth

the bridge is good.

Unfortunately, it seems to hurry up near the end, almost like it had a set amount of pages and too many ideas to fit in properly. It also looks like he meant to develope one or two things more but didn't get around to it (or maybe they are there for you to develope yourself???). Worth the read all the same.

Just finished 'State of The Art' , really liked it (Iain M. Banks) especially the short about the tree people (forget the name) 'She loves me....' hehe. Also liked reading a story with Diziet Sma in it again.

Now, off to re-read Magician - the rewrite.

(hmmmm... payday two weeks...need books....and beeeerrrrr)

Canaboid

LoLth,

Is that as by yer man R.E. Feist. If so a rewrite u say. Interesting....
Much different ? Worth the read ? I've already done the series twice.

Draco

It's not a rewrite as such. When it was first put in to be published, it was deemed to be a bit too big, so it was edited down to a more publisher-friendly size. I haven't read the orginal version myself, but I've been told that the main difference is that it goes into the principles of the magic more.

Draco

LoLth

Nope, it's a rewrite.

The same story, and the cover proudly boasts 10,000 extra words but even the extra words are not as good as the updated Feist writing style. As he says himself in hte intro 'this is the book I would have written ten years ago if I knew then what I have learned since' (paraphrased).

Kelewan gets a better description, the house Acoma get a good appearance, the politics of the kingdom and Kelewan are detailed better. The events are basically the same , as are the characters but bits that weren't described before, or were glossed over, are given a better treatment. Minor changes are made to the exact location and circumstances of some minor events, the mines and Tomas are dealt with in a more descriptive way. All in all it is a better version of the original, but some people might thinmk it a waste of money to buy a book you've already read. It would be nice if he did this with the rest of the series (and took out all the crappy 'oh look, here's the main character. What do you know, he saved the day...again...in a very badly written and very dissappointing way...again' bits. {for example, look at the ending to Shards of a broken crown - the ultimate example of a good read ruined by a wasted ending}.

Draco, read the original and then read the rewrite, it's much more enjoyable that way. You spot little bits and pieces here and there that you would miss otherwise.