What are you reading right now?

[Ape]

Indeed. I did the math once as an example. If we each read, let's say, 50 pages a day, I'd read a 300 page book in 6 days. Your 50 pages divided by 20 books (2.5 pages per book per day) would take you 120 days (4 months) to finish the same book.


I refuse to fall too far behind! Since my last post I finished Darkness Falls by Kyle Mills, it wasn't bad.

Then I read....


"The Door Through Space" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Technically it is tagged as a "science fiction" novel, but really it's more of an adventure story that just so happens to take place on a distant planet. If it werent for a small number of pages where the character almost boarded flew on a space ship you could have labeled it as a fantasy novel. I didn't really like it much.

"Year Zero" by Jeff Long. This book was really cool. A biblical plague of sorts takes hold of the human race and practically wipes them all out, except for a small group working in a laboratory trying to find a cure to save humanity. They start cloning people who were crucified during "year zero" and one of the clones starts claiming to be Jesus. Pretty interesting book.

"The Turnaround" by George Pelecanos. A crime/thriller with a lot of depth. It dealt more with the characters and how they were dealing with the crime more than focusing on the action. It was pretty good.

"The Bone Parade" by Mark Nykanen. It's about an artist who kidnaps and tortures people to capture their fear and pain in his artwork. Not for the squeamish.

"Jerusalem" by Cecelia Holland. A historical fiction set during the crusades. Infinitely better than The Book of the Lion, which I read a month ago.

"Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman. A brilliant little novel with many strange theories on the flow of time. A little bit crazy, but also amazing. Since it's so short, It's hard to to recommend this. Definitely worth looking in to.

I'm currently reading "The Descent" by Jeff Long. I've only just started it, so I'm not sure entirely what it's about yet exactly. All I know is the first chapter was quite horrifying.

[piñata]

May 29, 2009 18:53:45 GMT -5 Ape said:

Indeed. I did the math once as an example. If we each read, let's say, 50 pages a day, I'd read a 300 page book in 6 days. Your 50 pages divided by 20 books (2.5 pages per book per day) would take you 120 days (4 months) to finish the same book.

Hmm. Probably about right, and I'm suitably impressed with your math skills.

Since my last post I've finished two Stephen King books:

Cycle of the Werewolf was good, but could have been great if it was a bit longer.

It was good, but could have been great if it was a bit shorter.

Both books were written early on in his career, and are therefore quite scary.

[Ape]

Well, it seems Pinata has let me fall behind again, you'd think he'd convince me to post here more often so this doesn't happen, sheesh.

(I'm not about to proof-read this, you'll just have to deal at my bad grammar and typing abilities

Since my last post I have...

Finished The Descent. It was about the discover of an enormous set of underground caves that extend across the entire world. People look at it as a sort of metaphorical hell...that is, until they stumble across demons and begin to realize that maybe it isn't so metaphorical. (that's not a spoiler, you know from the first chapter there are bad things in the caves.) I really liked it, pretty cool, and I later learned that it shares MANY similarities with the movie by the same name...I wonder if they tried to get the rights to a movie about this book and were denied, so they just edited the story a bit...

After that I read The Shepherd by Frederick Forsythe. It was just a little short story about a man flying a plane blind after all his equipment breaks down. I finished it in about an hour or 2, it was so short (yet it was a hardcover...?) Anyways, it was ok.

After that I read The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition by Stephen King. It was MASSIVE. 1,150 pages, the longest book I've ever read (followed by The Terror by Dan Simmons, which was 950, and I just read that earlier this year...) It was pretty good, but I was just about sick of it by the end. I also preferred the first half to the 2nd half, the first half being more of a post-apocalyptic novel than the 2nd half.

After that was my first comic book ever, and Predator Fan might be happy to know that I also might be a bit of a Predator fan now. It was the Aliens Vs Predator Omnibus, Volume 1, containing the first 7 or 8 comics in giant, 460 page book. It was really good, and I'll be looking to see if my library has any more AVP stuff in the future.

Then came Deeper by Jeff Long, the sequel to The Descent. It was pretty good...but it felt like a re-hashing of the first novel. Also, the ending was left wide open for a 3rd novel, but it'll probably be a LONG time before that's released and I'll probably forget much of the plot.

Then I read The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. It's about an archaeologist searching for a potentially imaginary king's tomb at the same time Harold Carter is discovering King Tut. I really did like it...but it just felt like it was just dragging on and on and on. It was enjoyable, but I was glad it was over when I finished it.

Then came my first Western ever read, The Red Raider by William Colt MacDonald. It was ok, but not really my type of book. A historical fiction set in the west would be cool...but I don't like the cowboys and indians "YEEEE-HAW!" stuff found in these kinds of books.

After that I read A Choir of Ill Children, a horror novel about a man taking care of his 3 brothers...who are conjoint triplets joined at the head that share a single brain. They each have separate personalities, but they speak as 1, each mouth/head speaking certain sounds so that when 1 talk, the individual sounds come from different mouths. It's definitely a creepy novel, lots of spooky images like the above, but the plot was a little thin and weak. Not much of a story, by the end of the book I wasn't even sure what the plot really was...but you don't really read a horror novel for the plot, so it was pretty good.

After that was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. A little novel about android servants going rogue and killing their owners to be free. It's the kind of science fiction I enjoy. Not the space travel and alien discovery stuff (Not that that stuff is bad, I just don't seem to enjoy it) but rather a somewhat realistic look into the (VERY) distant future. It was really good, I loved it.

I'm currently about 70 pages into A Scattering of Jades by Alexander C. Irvine. I can't say for sure what it's about, but it seems to be centered around Aztec mythology, which is pretty damn cool.

[Ape]

Since my last post I...

Finished A Scattering of Jades. It wasn't bad, but it was hard to get into at first.

Then I read The Preservationist by David Maine. It was a 'retelling' of Noah's Ark with some modern, crude humor. I really liked it.

After that I read the Predator Omnibus, Volume 1. The first 300 pages were all part of one story, but then that story was cut-off and the last 100 pages were completely unrelated. Kind of annoying.

Then I read The Laughter of Dark Gods. It was a collection of short stories set in the Warhammer universe. Like any collection of short stories, some were good and some weren't. Overall it was worth reading though, as most of them were pretty good.

Then I read Incredible Hulk: Return of the Monster. It was much better than the Predator Omnibus because the story actually concluded. The art was AMAZING and the Hulk was, of course, a badass. =P

After that was Mars Crossing by Geoffrey A. Landis. It was a "hard" science fiction that I could actually wrap my head around, unlike Saturn Rukh, which read like a physics textbook. It was pretty good.

I just finished Disquiet by Julia Leigh, a simple little novella where not a lot happens. Sort of a psychological drama that, while not a lot happened, had a lot of depth. I really liked the atmopshere, the people are just crazy at times yet the whole thing had this weird, calm feeling.

I'm not reading anything now...need to get to the library.

[Ape]

In the last month I've read:

River Runs Red by Jeffrey J. Marriotte. It was part thriller part horror with some almost-fantasy undertones. There was a magical cave and some kids stumbling around and some unleashing of great powers and an epic fight between 2 gods that created the earth... ...yea, anyways, I liked it well enough.

Over There: The United States in the Great War, 1917-1918 by Bryon Farwell. It was a nonfiction novel recounting America's involvment in World War 1, both good and bad. I actually learned a lot from it. I knew our involvement in the war was a little lackluster but I didn't know the details. At first I thought it was just going to be filled with excuses by an American author but it was pretty honest. A little dry at times though.

Bump in the Night by Isabelle Holland. A quick little (180 page) suspense/thriller about a little boy who gets kidnapped by a...let's say, "creepy" guy. Fortunately nothing "strange" happened before it ended. It wasn't bad.

Jarhead by Anthongy Swofford. Loved the movie, and the book is great too. Anthony Swofford was marine who served in the Gulf War, and this is a memoir about his experiences. Very good.

The Sky People by S.M. Stirling. This is a science ficton/alternate history novel where life is discovered on Venus and the United States and Russia compete to get there first (See: The Cold War re-imagined) On Venus, the book feels more like an adventure/fantasy novel. Lots of exploration and "monster" (aka dinosaur) encounters. I loved it. A great book.


Currently reading Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott. It's a TERRIBLE little novel about "real" hauntings... ...Gah, I can't believe people actually believe this garbage. *slaps forehead*

[piñata]

Hmm. Books I've recently finished:

The Diamond Throne by David Eddings: Vintage Eddings. Will have to get the rest of the series (The Elenium), which may be even funnier since he does seem to be ramping up the sarcasm with each book.

Star Wars: Betrayal by Aaron Allston: Will have to get the rest of this series (Legacy of the Force) as well. Really good, really dark cliffhanger ending in this book, but Allston's sense of humor (which is much like Eddings') is still there through all but the last 10 pages or so (which are exceedingly grim).

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King: Quite possibly the best Stephen King book I've read. And he managed to put it together without a single f-bomb (which, if you've been living under a rock for the past twenty-five years and have never read Stephen King, is extremely unusual for him).

[Ape]

Since my last post I've:

Finished Haunted America by Michael Norman. Arguably one of the worst books I've ever read.


In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World it Created by Norman Cantor. It's a nonfiction history book about mideaval europe during the Plague. A little more history than I expected, it was a bit of a drag a lot of the time.

Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones. One of the most original and interesting fantasy novels I've read. Very unique story, I really liked it.

Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones. This is a "sort of" sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm. It takes place several years later and follows a different cast of characters. The plot was much less original (it's just a "wizarding school" book, like Harry Potter or the Black Magician trilogy) but I still really liked it. Diana Wynne Jones seems to be a really good writer.

A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong. A very short book on how religion has evolved with the human race. It was pretty okay, although I disagreed with many of her opinions.

Atticus by Ron Hansen. A surprisingly good novel. It follows a man as he travels to mexico to recover the body of his dead son, who seems to have committed suicide. Only when he gets there he begins to suspect it was murder. Definitely a page-turner.

Detective Story by Imre Kertesz. Hungarian literature translated to english. Apparently won the Nobel prize for literature...not sure why...

The Vietnam War by Maurice Isserman. A nonfiction history discussing The Vietnam War. The politics were boring and the descriptions of the war, I felf, were a little innacurate.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. A potentially AMAZING book that gets ruined by the authors annoying tendancies to repeat herself over and over and over again. It drove me a bit crazy.

Manga Shakespeare: Julius Caesar. This was William Shakespeare's story Julius Caesar, with a futuristic setting (Helicoptors and tanks and futuristic armor) written in a comic book format. It was...interesting. *shrug*