Book Thread Continued

[Lard]

Read it, it's good.

I'm generally a fan of Zelazny anyway.

[Hidoshi]

Duly noted, but on a similar topic I wonder if you have anything to say on Lord of Light? I've had it for awhile, but haven't gotten around to reading yet.

Zelany is intentionally writing fiction. It visits ideas in Buddhism and carries with it the one note of prevailing bigotry in its philosophy, which is that Hindu beliefs are somehow wrong and often stupid. I feel very strongly that this is the worst part of Buddhism, and more or less leave it at that. Zelany is, as I said, writing intentional science-fiction. Herman Hesse was attempting to be actually philosophical; the problem there is that Hesse was coloured by Krishnamurti's point of view. Zelany's probably innocent, if anything.

[Lard]

Well I've finished books 5 & 6 of the Dark Tower series, and it's finally dawned on me what's been bugging me.

The first three books are about Roland, Jake, Eddie and Susannah. Books four five and six are at least partly about other people

Book four is completely superfluous to the series, save for the Blaine resolution, Book five (which I thought was good) is at least partly a sequel to Salem's Lot and Book Six is half about Mia.

I guess after seeing them work so well together in the first couple of books, having the next books focus on other people threw me off.

So far I have avoided spoilers and resisted spoiling myself. I hope the last book is good.

[Degolas]

Well, I finished up all 950 pages of 'Don Quixote'. Very enjoyable read, and a very good translation. I think finishing it earns me some bragging rights too :P

I also read 'The Time Travellor's Wife', which I really enjoyed. It avoided gimmickry for the most part, and was just very engaging and readable, especially after 'Don Quixote'.

I'm now reading 'The Life of Pi', which seems pretty good so far.

[Tooker]

Congrats on making it all the way through Don Quixote - I've tried a few times and never managed to finish.  Of course, the fact that my copy is in the original early 17th century Spanish makes for a handy excuse...  You may or may not be interested to know that at least a pretty large percentage of the books that he reads are real books - I've read a bunch of them.  They're kind of like a lot of fantasy books today - they follow a pretty basic formula, so if you like some of them, you'll probably like many of them.

I liked The Time Traveller's Wife too - was a bit nervous about it, but it turned out well in the end.  I think it was earlier in this thread that I mentioned another time travel book, which I read online, called Timely Persuasion.  If you want to check it out, it's at: http://reader.timelypersuasion.com/Introduction.html

I'm currently reading Lisey's Story - one of Stephen King's more recent books.  It's OK, but that's about as much as I'd say for it.

[DM Kyle E. Miller]

I'm currently reading the Bible.
For a class.

It's... repetitive.

[CastNuri]

Finished reading Passage to India. There was a lot of beauty to the novel and I can see the appeal to anyone who hasn't spent a good deal of their lives surrounded by Asian cultures--- personally, I loved that it played on the social politics of the English in India at the time. The only boring bits came towards the end, when Forster started lengthening his descriptions.

Currently re-reading Ender's Game. <3

[DM Kyle E. Miller]

Currently re-reading Ender's Game. <3

Good idea.

[CastNuri]

Yeah, it's probably one of my few ventures into the Sci-Fi genre that I can really appreciate.

Finished re-reading Ender's Game last night-- still greatly entertaining. Right now I'm wondering if I should start on the Three Musketeers.

[D-Rider]

I recently finished reading "Castleview" by Gene Wolfe.  It's easily the dullest book I've read in a while.

[Tooker]

I'm currently reading the Bible.
For a class.

It's... repetitive.

I'm actually proud to say I've read the whole thing, start to finish, Genesis to Revelations (which has a cooler name in Spanish - The Apocalypse).  I'm not a super-religious guy, but I feel like it's an achievement a lot of people who are more religious than me can't claim.  (I think I got 300 points for that one!)

[DM Kyle E. Miller]

I certainly recognize that as an achievement! It's a task, all right. I don't even have to read it all for my class.

[Tooker]

Finallly finished Lisey's Story (one of Stephen King's more recent books).  Feels like I've been lugging that enormous thing around for a month.  Next up is one of those Harry Turtledove alternate history books.  I like that genre, at least conceptually, but haven't read anything of his yet.

[Lard]

How was it? I have it, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Esper_Crusader]

Just Finished "Blaze" by Richard Bachman a.k.a. S. King. It was okay I guess. A sort of crime noir novel.  I'm now starting on "Duma Key" and also "The portable 'Rollins'". That guy has some issues but it's unsettling how close to home some of his ravings are hitting:\