What are you reading?

[Raistlinmc]

I read and loved Holly already - great, creepy detective story, though I wouldn't call it horror, really - and have jumped into Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts. So far, it's freakin' stellar. It's got serious Margaret Atwood vibes with a dystopian-ish setting that feels dangerously close to the current reality we're living in. Good, good stuff so far.

 

And as for Sanderson? Yeah, he's awesome, no doubt about it. I've read all his stuff that's been released so far, I think, and I'm stoked that the "secret series" stuff he wrote recently during the pandemic is finally starting to get published. I'll be lining up for those too, I'm sure!

[dystmesis]

I read the Mistborn trilogy, it was okay. Not enough to make me want to read the sequels (in basically a different setting). I couldn't get past the TWO prologues for Way of Kings. 🤪

My favorite aspect of Mistborn is when I realized

Show this

Vin was being lied to, and the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter were actually important to the plot.

Another series I've seen compared to Mistborn is Powder Mage, probably because the author is a member of Sanderson's writing circle and they're both 'revolutionary' urban fantasy stories. Again it's a case where I read the first trilogy but didn't finish the second, I just wasn't as interested in the characters and got tired of the constant POV shifts that seemed to serve mostly as a speedbump for story.

An urban fantasy story I wish I could recommend is Lord of the Mysteries, which is certainly the best modern Chinese fantasy work I've read, although the prose is really not very good. I have no idea if this is the fault of the translation or the original author.

Edited September 27, 2023 by dystmesis (see edit history)

[PixCO]

Decided it was finally time to actually read all of Discworld. I'd picked up a book or two before but it never really grabbed me like Douglas Adams or even Greg Costikyan. Almost finished with Thief of Time and I'm happy to see Susan finally start to work well as a character

I'm alternating that with superheroics through Drew Hayes and Richard Roberts. Just finished "Villain's Vignettes: Volume 1" and I wish Drew would go back to the Powereds universe. I might give that a re-read again once I finish "Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Giant Monster".

[Elysium777]

Currently reading Winterborn by Stuart Grosse and various manga like One Piece, Twilight Princess and Frieren

[cailano]

Just finishing up Salem's Lot. My next and possibly final book for the year (cause holidays be trippin') will be Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. I read The Book of the New Sun tetralogy at the beginning of this year and found it one of the most unique sci-fi reads I'd ever experienced. Urth is the coda to the series and should put a bow on the year nicely.

[Saberfan]

I am currently reading through the old Ravenloft novel Dance of the Dead again, which is probably my favorite of the bunch alongside Knight of the Black Rose and Scholar of Decay. I was also retreading a few tabletop RPG books last night, including Bloodlines & Black Magic, City of Seven Seraphs, Embers of the Forgotten Kingdom, and The Genius Guide to the Talented Witch. I can speed-read to some extent and that enables me go through so many books at one time, although it definitely makes staying occupied a little more difficult.

[Raistlinmc]

Fun fact about Salem's Lot: a buddy of mine - 42 year old dude - still sleeps with a pillow over his face every single night so that the vampires from that book won't bite his neck. He read it when he was 11 and hasn't had a night without a pillow over his head ever since. :)

As for me, speaking of Sanderson, I'm reading his YA sci-fi trilogy that starts with Skyward. It's not going to reinvent sci-fi or anything, but it's fun, it's quick and it's entirely appropriate for adults right down to around age ten or so I'd say. Good stuff, all in all.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Raistlinmc (see edit history)

[leons1701]

It's actually four books, book four is out at the end of the month. There's also a couple of novellas, and they're not bad either.

[Raistlinmc]

Really? That's great! More for me to look forward to then. :)

Thanks Leons!

[cailano]

On 11/4/2023 at 12:33 PM, Raistlinmc said:

Fun fact about Salem's Lot: a buddy of mine - 42 year old dude - still sleeps with a pillow over his face every single night so that the vampires from that book won't bite his neck. He read it when he was 11 and hasn't had a night without a pillow over his head ever since. :)

As for me, speaking of Sanderson, I'm reading his YA sci-fi trilogy that starts with Skyward. It's not going to reinvent sci-fi or anything, but it's fun, it's quick and it's entirely appropriate for adults right down to around age ten or so I'd say. Good stuff, all in all.

Haha, I wonder if there is therapy for that...

The King book that scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid was Pet Semetary. My mom had a small collection of King books that I don't think she even read. There were three: Carrie, Firestarter, and Pet Sematary.

I quietly borrowed Carrie first and loved it (although it was a heck of a way for an eleven-year-old boy to learn how menstruation worked.) Then I read Firestarter and geeked out on that. Neither novel scared me at all. I just gobbled them up as dark fantasy stories.

Then I read the last one and got absolutely traumatized. I read the whole book in three days and didn't sleep well for about a week after. I was also afraid of our cat, who looked similar to the one on the 1980s cover. That's when my mom caught on to what I'd been reading.

It also made me miss "cemetery" on a spelling test.

[Raistlinmc]

As a father of three now, I genuinely wish I'd never read Pet Sematary (and no, not for the misspelling issue, though that's a whole other problem). The scene with the kid - if you've read it, you know it - is something I wish just wasn't in my brain at this point in my life. It's a good book, no doubt about it, but I still wish I hadn't read it.

I put it in what I call the Requiem for a Dream category: impressive art that I wish I'd never seen in the first place. :)

[cailano]

@Raistlinmc, that's how I feel about the movie for It, with the clown in the gutter scene.

King is not afraid to have horrible things happen to kids or to families in his stories. Salem's Lot had it, too

But yeah, the scene you're talking about was messed up. Lives in my brain, too.

 

[yxanthymir]

Finished When True Night Falls by C.S. Friedman. It reminds me a lot of Lord of Rings. It is a long journey for a impossible mission, with a lot of Deus Ex Machina to make it work. Same structure of the first book. It is an interesting book, but it can definitively annoys a person. Probably I will read the last one as I am curious to know how it will end, but I will definitively be annoyed a lot.

Started The Anubis Gate by Tim Powers. And it is a great book.

[Raistlinmc]

19 hours ago, cailano said:

@Raistlinmc, that's how I feel about the movie for It, with the clown in the gutter scene.

King is not afraid to have horrible things happen to kids or to families in his stories. Salem's Lot had it, too

But yeah, the scene you're talking about was messed up. Lives in my brain, too.

 

"We all float down here...," has been stuck in my head for decades now! :)

[leons1701]

17 hours ago, yxanthymir said:

Started The Anubis Gate by Tim Powers. And it is a great book.

Anubis Gate is pretty darn good. Powers is one of those authors that I always seem to love when I'm reading him and then is immediately forgotten for another five years or so. Really need to make a deliberate effort to track down some of his stuff I haven't read.