What are you reading right now?

[piñata]

Tell it like it is, Ape.

And yes, all of Tolkien's books (at least the ones that take place in Middle-Earth) are connected. All of Stephen King's books seem to somehow be connected to The Dark Tower as well, but that's less of a big deal than it is with Tolkien, and the references are often one-liners in Stephen King's books (for example, in Cell he mentioned that an amusement park ride was named after a children's book that appeared in the third Dark Tower novel).

[Ape]

Its not like the chapter titles in Children of Hurin completely spoiled what was going to happen or anything.

I just finished it. My progress was slowed by the arrival of Oblivion in my life, which has consumed my free time, my finger joints, and a small percentage of my soul I believe.

[piñata]

apekiller said:

Its not like the chapter titles in Children of Hurin completely spoiled what was going to happen or anything.

LOL. That's pretty much par for the course with Tolkien. You're not going to get many chapter titles like the ones in the book I'm writing ("A Hundred Ducks" will confuse a lot of people, until I reveal what it means).

[Ape]

Went to the library today. Going to start The Hobbit later.

[piñata]

How'd you like Children of Hurin? I'm still not too far into it, so I'm curious what other people think.

[Ape]

I liked it. I can't compare it to his other books yet, but I like his writing style. It took a chapter or 2 to get used to it, so I was completely lost and had no idea what was really going on during his 'childhood.' But after I got the hang of his style, I found it actually read faster than most books. It seems like it flows in a way. Normally while reading I feel like i'm constantly pausing as when it changes to a different speaker or a new paragraph begins, but while reading Children of Hurin the words seem to just flow continuously. I read it very fast and enjoyed every minute of it (except for when the story was being spoiled by the chapter titles.)

The Hobbit is the same. I'm only a couple chapters in and I already really like it. I've also already found things in the book that I've heard quoted in music and stuff that I didn't know about. For example, in the song the dwarves sing while in Bilbo's house, there are 2 lines, "Over the frosty mountain cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old." My 2 favorite lines in an Einherjer song

[piñata]

Yeah, Tolkien gets quoted a lot by songwriters.

I'm almost finished with Eragon by Christopher Paolini. To tell the truth it's not quite as good as I expected it would be, but it's still pretty good (I just expected it to be the next awesome Harry Potter-type thing, and it only barely falls short of that). I do like it enough that I'll be reading the next Eragon book, though.

[Ape]

I finished The Hobbit already. It was great, and I couldn't put it down, which is why I read it so fast. It was probably a mistake reading it though, because now I really want to read the Lord of the Rings.

I know its not what you meant when you said Eragon wasn't like Harry Potter, but you might want to check out the Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan. Storyline-wise, its somewhat similar to Harry Potter (I even thought it was a bit of a rip-off of Harry Potter when I was midway through the 2nd book.) Plus, its very good. I think you would probably like it. I heard there are more books in the works too.

Anyways, I'm reading The Odyssey by Homer now. Was hoping to get the Illiad but my library didn't have it, go figure.

[Ape]

I finished the Odyssey, It wasn't bad. I mostly just liked it because I was interested in the mythology. *shrug*

I'm about to read The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins

~Self Mergery~

The Stone War is AWESOME! So awesome that its worth making a double post.
Or maybe not, I'll merge myself...eventually.

[piñata]

What's The Stone War about? I've never heard of it.

[Ape]

Its another one of those post-apocalyptic books. In this case, New York was decimated, but no one knows exactly how it happened. All the survivors have different stoires about how it happened(riots, earthquake, hurricane, etc) so no one really knows what went on...yet. All I can say, lots of weird things are happening around the survivors and its not likely that any of the natural disasters are true.

[piñata]

Sounds cool. I'll have to check that one out once I finish some of the books I'm currently reading.

I'm going to finish Eragon sometime this week I think, but I've started 3 other books so I don't know when I'll get to the bookstore again.

[Ape]

I think its amazing.

Its funny, I used to always think my favorite type of book was the typical traditional action-y swords and shields type of fantasy book. I thought I wasn't a big fan of wizards or books that took place in more recent times and stuff like that. But thinking about my favorite books, and those books that I just can't stop reading, they've all been modern post-apocalypse books(Armageddon's Children, The Stone War) and books based around magic (The Black Magician trilogy, Harry Potter)

Also, I definitely have a preference for female authors.

Just some random thoughts. *shrug*

[piñata]

I tend to like during-the-apocalypse slightly more than post-apocalypse (Stephen King's Cell, which is a frackin' masterpiece, comes to mind).

I also tend to like a mixture of both magic and swordplay in my fantasy... when one is focused on a lot more than the other, it gets boring. I believe I've complained about the main character's lack of willingness to kill (he's a fucking pussy) in the Harry Potter books on this site before... what those books needed, especially toward the end when things got really close to an actual war, was more swordfighting.

[Ape]

The Stone War is somewhat during-the-apocalypse. It happens in the beginning of the book, but you don't read about it happening to the main character. You get bits and pieces of what happened throughout the book though.

I'm a huge fan of the swordfight. In movies, in video games, in everything. But in books, I think reading a swordfight can be a little boring sometimes. Especially 1 on 1 swordfights. If its a big group, I'm fine with it. But when a writer goes into a lot of detail about 2 people fighting, it slows the action down alot for me. When it takes 2 lines to describe each half-second move, it just kills the action and slows the pace down a ton.

I should be going to the library in a day or 2(almost finished with The Stone War) so I'll have to see if The Cell exists in my town.