What books are you reading now?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:53 am

Read Starship Troopers, it was awesome. Currently trying to truck through Paradise Lost, but may have to put it on hold so I can read Going Postal as it was lent to me by a friend

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:54 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Read Starship Troopers, it was awesome. Currently trying to truck through Paradise Lost, but may have to put it on hold so I can read Going Postal as it was lent to me by a friend

Going Postal is one of the best Discworld novels. Highly endorsed.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:58 am

If I was to characterise some discworld novels as serious (like the recent sam vimes one) and some as a joke (like.. most of them), Going Postal may be the funniest of the joke ones.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:04 am

Hard to tell when Pratchett's joking and when he's serious. And he's done both at the same time.

But my favorites are ones like Small Gods, the Truth, Going Postal, and Night Watch.

Going Postal is a favorite in part because of how many recurring metaphors/phrases maintain throughout the book. Glass and diamonds, hope, and angels being foremost.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:08 am

One of my favourites is Feet of Clay, though I love the entire night watch story line

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 3:28 am

I'm reading the Iliad.

Commentary so far:

1) Lots of wounds referring to the nipples.

2) Everyone: DIOMEDES, I WILL STOP YOU
Diomedes: HULK SMASH
Everyone: Oh, no I won't. Shit.

3) Zeus is a freaking hardcore dickhead whose argument when called on this is "Might makes right." He has good form for bragging, though.

Come, try me, immortals, so all of you can learn.
Hang a great golden cable down from the heavens
lay hold of it, all you gods, all goddesses too:
you can never drag me down from sky to earth,
not Zeus, the highest, mightiest king of kings,
not even if you worked yourselves to death.
But whenever I'd set my mind to drag you up,
in deadly earnest, I'd hoist you all with ease,
you and the earth, you and the sea, all together,
then loop that golden cable round a horn of Olympus,
bind it fast and leave the whole world dangling in mid-air—
that is how far I tower over the gods, I tower over men.

4) Aeneas: I WILL SLAY YOU, DIOMEDES!
Diomedes: HULK SMASH WITH POWER OF BIG ROCK
Aeneas: Shit, there goes my hip
Aphrodite: Stay away from my son
Diomedes: Move out the way, bitch.
Aphrodite: No
Diomedes: HULK STAB BITCH
Aphodite: Bitch flee to boyfriend and daddy!

5) There's also a lot of "Then such-and-such died, son of this man from this place which grows big apples and has big-tittied women."

6) Trojans: Dude, have you seen Diomedes? That fucker's CRAZY, man.
Gods: Fuuuuck did you see what he did to Ares? Shi't. He stabbed Ares in the damn intestines. Dude makes Achilles look like a wimp, man.

7) Agamemnon's an ass. Of course, a lot of them are. Except for maybe Nestor and Odysseus. Hector's not bad, either.

8) Diomedes: Who are you?
Glaucus: I'm Glaucus, grandson of Bellerophon
Diomedes: Oh, I say! Great to meet you, old boy. My grandfather was terrific pals with your grandfather, we still have a cup he brought as a gift, it's right back in the china cabinet at home, where everyone can see it and we can say "That was a gift from Bellerophon". I tell you what, old chap, let us not kill each other and when this is over I shall come stay with you for a while! And if you're ever in Greece, I'd be simply delighted to host you. You'll always be welcome in my house. Truly smashing to meet you out here in the battle, really is a coincidence. Well, I've got to be off. Battles to find and men to rally, you know how it is. I see some Trojans to engage over there. Oh, and the Greeks are back that way. Toodles![/b]

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 4:25 am

Nestor is fucking hilarious.

"In my day, we'd have already sacked Troy and been raping the horses by now. All you youngsters are shit."

Molochio · Post by **Molochio** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:54 am

The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage

Published by S.L. Mathers in 1898,
Aleister Crowley also considered it a grimoire of great importance and read it a great deal. One of the things I enjoy most about the study of Abramelin's work is that he shuns the practices of other works focused in black magic.
Disdainful of blood sacrifice and demonic pact, his principles require the utmost virtue and faith in God.

"To the sincere and earnest student of occultism this work
cannot fail to be of value, whether as an encouragement to that
most rare and necessary quality, unshaken faith; as an aid to
his discrimination between true and false systems of magic; or
as presenting an assemblage of directions for the production of
magical effects, which the author of the book affirms to have
tried with success."

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:36 pm

Don Quixote is a legitimately hilarious novel.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 12:54 am

Man, I haven't read "Don Quixote" in ages. It was awesome though!

I finished reading Alan Campbell's "Scar night." While sometimes ploddingly slow and uninteresting writing, the setting is awesome and the plot has a good pace that overshadow the plod. It is an interesting take on Angels and one that doesn't mask a "this is Jesus" characteristic like other fiction that involves Angels.

I'm trying to get interested in the second book in the series "Iron angel." it is good but again it takes a while to get into it.

Alan campbell is one of the few actual authors that I've seen who put an interesting twist on fantasy while also writing original interesting characters.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:04 am

I just re-read Revolt in 2100 for the 4th or 5th time. Heinlein really is my favorite Science Fiction writer.
I think Heinlein, Brust and Butcher could keep me happy in literature for years.

violence in the media · Mon Feb 14, 2011 4:57 pm

I am just now, for the first time, reading that actual Conan stories. They are way more awesome than I was expecting.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:01 pm

How rapey is it? I have shied away from reading them because I was told that there were rape scenes in it and I don't want to read that.

violence in the media · Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:02 pm

Well, for reference, I'm reading through the compilations that put Conan's adventures in chronological order that was released back in the 60's, and I've only finished the first two books so far, so I can't speak definitively.

However, there hasn't actually been any rapey-ness thus far. Conan is actually pretty explicit about not forcing himself on women, including not holding a woman to a deal she made with him (her ass for freedom) when she was captive of another tribe. He reasoned that, since she made the deal under the duress of her captivity, that holding her to it would be the same as physically forcing her.

Now, rape is an implied thing that happens in the world, but the closest instances it's ever come to happening in a story that I can think of was in The Vale of Lost Women (the story I already referenced) where some horrible starbeast was going to do some...thing to a naked girl tied to an altar, and The Frost Giant's Daughter, where Conan was driven to a mad lust by Atali as she lured him across the ice and into a trap.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:16 pm

I read 200+ pages of a 1,000+ page Conan Centennial collection.

I ended up mailing it to a friend.

They were cool at first. It helps to know where the character comes from. Conan himself is more than just an overmuscled thug. He isn't unintelligent or uncivilized.

But after a while...Well, the racism is pretty heavy, especially in the opening summary of the Hyperborean age and its people and how they developed.

And it really gritted my teeth when this queen/highborn lady of Shem (where the people are pretty dark-skinned) was white-skinned and was all "See the evidence of my nobility!"

There was only one pseudo-rape. One of Conan's Women of the Month got tied up and whipped by the Hot Evil Chick This Month, and then afterwards got molested by some black formless cloud thing.

But after a while, this happens:

1) Any other heroes shown on-page in the story -will- die and Conan -will- live, this being a very subtle implication that Conan is better than them.

2) Conan is better than you. One story got really grating with it, him fighting someone described as the most skilled duelist in the world, but Conan is just flat-out faster and stronger than he is, even if his skill isn't as much. This shows up a lot. Showing up a lot is fine, but it's like how all of the other famous heroes who show up on page are there to fail and die when Conan lives and succeeds.

They were cool in short bursts. But eventually, they stopped being fun for me. The thing I probably liked most was Conan being brighter than your normal thug.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 8:49 pm

In my opinion, Going Postal is the best Discworld Novel bar none. Maybe because I feel like a con artist anyway. Plus while it's wacky it also makes a sensible point about economics.

Meanwhile, I'm actually writing y thesis on Paradise Lost. I wish you good luck with it Prak. It's long been a favorite of mine but I'm glad I read it in a class. Huge sections of the book are incredibly boring and wasteful. The good parts are gold though. I'd love to discuss it with you.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:32 pm

IDK Going Postal seems less humorous to me than his earlier books. It reads much more like a 'Made for TV' adventure novel. The mint book (Making Money? I can't remember the name) is much the same.
I much preferred The Fifth Elephant and Small Gods. Actually, I think Small Gods was the best.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 1:23 am

Blasted wrote:IDK Going Postal seems less humorous to me than his earlier books. It reads much more like a 'Made for TV' adventure novel. The mint book (Making Money? I can't remember the name) is much the same.
I much preferred The Fifth Elephant and Small Gods. Actually, I think Small Gods was the best.

Indeed, Small Gods was probably the best stand alone book, and the various Night Watch series tend to be my favorite(s) as a whole.

Going Postal and Making Money are not bad by any means, but run a little too high one simple gags and in jokes derived from other books.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:32 am

Going Postal was pretty good. It cut back on a lot of the humor, but it had enough to give me the laughs. And the stuff about glass and diamonds and hope were a very good recurring element.

Small Gods is the one I break out on people. That, or Feet of Clay.

I'm re-reading The Truth right now, myself. Mr. Tulip's trips through the museum is one of my favorite bits of Pratchett, ever.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 4:14 am

Maxus wrote:7) Agamemnon's an ass. Of course, a lot of them are. Except for maybe Nestor and Odysseus. Hector's not bad, either.

Everything else seems pretty spot-on, but Odysseus is a total dick in the Iliad.

I've been reading Dresden Files. It's not as good as the TV show.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 4:22 am

Just started, did you? Keep reading through. They really start kicking ass in Summer Knight and Death Masks.

Edit: Odysseus gets a pass from me because he didn't want to be there to begin with. They were ready to kill his son to make him go (well, sort of). I mean, been away from home ten years, yeah. He's still a better guy than Agamemnon.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 4:58 am

Maxus wrote:Just started, did you? Keep reading through. They really start kicking ass in Summer Knight and Death Masks.

I'll stick with it then. Having just made it through the second, his writing gets better and less sexist, but the plot is worse.

Maxus wrote:Edit: Odysseus gets a pass from me because he didn't want to be there to begin with. They were ready to kill his son to make him go (well, sort of). I mean, been away from home ten years, yeah. He's still a better guy than Agamemnon.

'If you tell me I won't kill you.'
'Just kidding!'

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:08 am

His first three aren't that great, but the third one handles a Paladin-type guy very well.

The fourth and fifth are when he has enough background to get some awesome continuity going

You know how he buys pizza for the fairies as payment? That becomes important. It's pretty hilarious, so I'll spoil for you if you don't want to see.

The fairies start calling him the Pizza Lord or the Za-Lord and he gets about fifty of them who say they're his. They clean his house and exterminate the spiders and rats for him. Toot-toot becomes the head of them and, size being an indication of rank/power for the actual fairies, he gradually grows to about a foot tall as the Za-Lord's Guard becomes more numerous. When Harry talks with a Sidhe noble in one of the later books, she refers to Toot-Toot as "Your small retainer". Like, really. Buying pizza once a week for the fairies got Harry enough of a following that he could qualify as a minor lord or some such if he wanted to follow the proper channels.

But, yeah. The first three books? All of the women Harry meets are sexy. That tones down as he goes along. The characters get developed enough that they do some really good stuff. Marcone? Awesome. Murphy? Really awesome. Michael the Knight of the Cross Paladin should be required reading for playing a Paladin. The other paladins are as awesome as he is. Injun Joe in book 4? Really really awesome. Morgan? He gets more sympathetic the more you learn about him.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:58 am

wrote:
'If you tell me I won't kill you.'
'Just kidding!'

Did not notice this.

Haven't reached that far. But heard of the incident. Wasn't it Diomedes that killed the guard, while Odysseus was right there?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:51 pm

The Knights of the Cross are all pretty awesome, especially the atheist. Also, over the course of the series it becomes increasingly clear that the main reason Morgan has his job is that he's quite possibly the baddest man on the planet.