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Books (Read 482905 times)

Started by Sepp, September 06, 2004, 07:17:29 pm
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Mog

Re: Books
#341  September 20, 2012, 06:41:09 pm
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I've just started Ender's Game by Orson Scott, because I read it's to be a movie out next year.
Oh shit, I was just thinking about that this morning!!! o_O "Like, this book would really make a great movie, with a lot of thinking, suspense every second, nice special effects. This would totally be a hit if done correctly".
Tell me what you think about it when you finish it (and only when you've finished it). :)

I liked it until the "grown" Ender.  I thought the ending was forced and a let down.  I just re-read it to make sure my previous mood didn't influence what I thought about the ending and it doesnt.  It may make a pretty good film if it doesnt reflect the kids as superheros trend, but I'm afraid it's going to because it will be released around the same time as the second of the Hunger Games -Girl on Fire.  The actor who plays Ender is a teenager, and that wont be as effective as a 6-8 year old; Harrison Ford is Colonel Graff and Ben Kingsley is Mazer Rackham  so I suspect there will be more focus on the manipulative adults.  All that doesnt mean it wont be an entertaining film of course.

I've been reading some Harlan Ellison novellas; the most recent A Boy and His Dog is excellent!  I'm not sure what to read next I may have to close my eyes and grab something.

:bow:
Re: Books
#342  September 20, 2012, 07:27:58 pm
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I thought you'd comment about the awesome twist at the end. :P
Oh well ...

But yeah, a teenager instead of a 6-8 years will not give as much impact. Let's hope they do well for Bean. He's awesome too (he has his own series of books in case you didn't know).
Did you finish reading all 5 books of Game of Thrones ?

Mog

Re: Books
#343  September 20, 2012, 07:56:25 pm
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I was kind of expecting the "twist", not exactly the way it happened but something similar and I think that would have made the perfect ending to the book right there.  I'll have to check into Bean...  I didnt know there was a series; thanks!

I finished all of the Song of Ice and Fire books and I'm waiting patiently for The Winds of Winter.   Wouldnt it be fun to open a restaurant called Ice and Fire and serve only food mentioned in the books?

:bow:
Re: Books
#344  September 20, 2012, 08:30:58 pm
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The "Wedding Menu", with 17 dishes served. :haw:
But yeah, you have some nice concept here. Too bad it's based on a very well known series and there would have to be many royalties given to the owners of the series (be it R.R. Martin, his editor and/or HBO).
But eating something like that in an environment close to the GoT's one would be mighty fun. I loved eating at "Medieval Times" in LA when I was young. :D

About Bean, there's a series of 4 of 5 books about his very youth and life on Earth afterwards.
There's also a continuity to Ender's game in case you didn't know (2 or 3 other tomes). They're good, but I don't like them as much as the first one. They're really different and focus more on sociology.
Re: Books
#345  September 20, 2012, 08:42:05 pm
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The Bean ones start to get bad after the first. Coincidentally, they were written around the time Orson Scott Card started going crazy and threatening that another civil war would happen if gay marriage was legalized.

The actual sequels to Ender's Game are better IMO.
Re: Books
#346  September 20, 2012, 09:57:07 pm
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Mog

Re: Books
#347  September 21, 2012, 03:02:11 pm
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I just checked my bookshelves and I do have Enders Shadow, so I'll get to that soon before I forget what happened.    I am about 1/3 through Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (yeah I'm on a sci-fi kick right now) and I'm not quite ready to comment on it. 

:bow:

     Posted: November 18, 2012, 01:12:15 pm
Someone LIED to me, Shades of Grey is NOT about vampires!!

 >:(

GDM

Re: Books
#348  November 19, 2012, 04:42:39 pm
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Finished reading the prose edda and saga of the volsungs

if you some of you like the hunger games I recommend reading battle royale by koushun takami more violent then the hunger games and better story

the prose edda, children of odin, and saga of the volsungs are good stories on norse myth highly recommended
beowulf is another good one
and for those who layed the video game ico read the novel version of it. Tells more of the story to it and its not bad

right now I'm reading storm of swords, perdido street station by china mieville, and monkey by Wu Ch'Eng-EN
Re: Books
#349  November 19, 2012, 04:53:22 pm
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Ive been reading more of the discworld books, some of them re reading.

sourceror, Interesting times, Eric, Snuff, nightwatch...
Those books are great. Both saddening and funny.

If you dont like discworld, you have no soul.
Re: Books
#350  November 22, 2012, 06:19:05 pm
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I recently readed two novels written by Guy Burt, both were psychological thriller with mystery and hint of horror in it. First was "After The Hole" other was "Sophie".

After the Hole is about group of teenagers who instead going on school trip, they decide to spend a few days in abandoned "Hole" near their school. Some friend of their would come for them after trip is over. At first everbody are having fun they party all the time. Days pass and they notice no one is coming for them... And that's just beginning of nightmare. Little cliched description but trust me it's not what it seems.

On Sophie I just quote official description:

Quote
In a dark room of a dilapidated house, as a storm rages outside, Matthew lights a candle and places it in the center of the floor. Its light spreads across the wall and illuminates Sophie, tied up in a chair facing him. She is frightened, fearful of what he might do next. But for now, it seems, all Matthew wants to do is talk. Talk about the events of nearly twenty years ago, about their strange childhood, and about the summer when Sophie grew up and everything changed . . . forever.

Young Mattie and Sophie lived in a world seemingly without constraints. Their cold mother barely paid attention to her children. Their father, a mere shadow in their lives, was never home. So Mattie and Sophie had the run of the gardens and the woods beyond. They played youthful games, but Sophie was extraordinarily intelligent, a fact she took great pains to hide from her teachers, so as not to stand out. Sophie was everything to Mattie, and he worshiped her. He wanted to know her secrets, the things that went on inside her brilliant mind. But Sophie was changing. And the summer before she went away to boarding school, the things she had worked so hard to conceal would come spilling out—and Mattie would have to live with the shocking consequences.

Now he’s all grown up, too, and Matthew wants answers to the questions that still darken his mind—no matter what the cost.

Both crushed my brain into pieces, especially Sophie. Burt plays with reader all the time and when you think you knew everything he twist everything back side down and you are like "WTF just happenned ?!" He left some stuff unexplained and it's only readers choice how to interprete all of this. I still didn't figured everything out of Sophie and I proably never will. That's beauty of it cuz I love such un-easy stories. Brilliant novel

Afther the Hole was little lighter and it seems like ordinary mystery book until i got to epilogue. Ending left my jaw on the floor and it took a hours before I was able to gather my thoughts. Term "being trolled by author" get entriely new meaning here.
"If our lives are indeed the sum total of the choices we've made, then we cannot change who we are. But with every new choice we're given, we can change who we're going to be." The Outer Limits S04E04

"If knowledge is power and power corrupts... how will human kind ever survive?" The Outer Limits S04E16
Re: Books
#351  December 12, 2012, 05:45:22 pm
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I just started "The bridge of Assassins" (El puente de los Asesinos), from the Captain Alatriste saga. Arturo Pérez Reverte describes VERY well the Spanish and Italian society of the S-XVII. Even using OLD Spanish language :O.
I swear there was something cool here!!

Mog

Re: Books
#352  December 13, 2012, 09:37:15 pm
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And I've finally started Ender's Shadow. and so far it's just as good as Ender's Game

:bow:
Re: Books
#353  December 14, 2012, 03:00:39 am
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And I've finally started Ender's Shadow. and so far it's just as good as Ender's Game

:bow:
Hmm, well it certainly is the best of the Bean books and it's pretty good, but the book kinda makes all of Bean's adventures seem more important than what Ender goes through. :-\
Re: Books
#354  January 11, 2013, 01:29:33 am
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Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe

This is really fucking good, a fantastic read. Amazing, even. Perhaps even incredible. And some might even go as far to say that the text devoted in this book to the Image founders alone is giant-size... man-thing.

Sorry. Anyways, this is a great read, but just don't expect a lot of text discussing the characters and storylines, the vast majority focuses on behind-the-scenes stuff. And often times, that stuff is way crazier than what was going on in the comics at the time! The section on Marvel's near bankruptcy at the hands of a corporate raider is fascinating stuff. I mean, this book even made me feel some goodwill towards Bill Jemas!!! That's saying something!

so everybody go out and read it I wanna discuss it >:[
Re: Books
#355  January 11, 2013, 01:48:52 am
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I've been reading Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw.  Yes, the Zero Punctuation guy.  Turns out he's also a novelist.

Anyway, he has a gift for taking bleak, depressing situations and making them incredibly funny.  His first book, Mogworld, is about a guy who spends the entire book trying to kill himself and it is hilarious.  This book is about a massive flood of organic-matter devouring strawberry jam that kills most of the human race, and it is also hilarious.
Re: Books
#356  January 11, 2013, 04:34:29 am
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I've been reading Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw.  Yes, the Zero Punctuation guy.  Turns out he's also a novelist.

Anyway, he has a gift for taking bleak, depressing situations and making them incredibly funny.  His first book, Mogworld, is about a guy who spends the entire book trying to kill himself and it is hilarious.  This book is about a massive flood of organic-matter devouring strawberry jam that kills most of the human race, and it is also hilarious.

So it's about an apocalypse.

With jam in it.

*obligatory MY MONEY NO LONGER EXISTS comment*

But really, I'm in a bit of a jam myself, as I really don't know what books I'd like to read. Some people recommended me some books, but I found them to be a bit boring. I did like Ender's Game, but that's the only one I remember enjoying.
Yeah, I'm in a dryer spell than the dust bowl. :p

I do like more unique plot lines, even ones that are pretty bizarre and out there. I do like realism to an extent.
The books I didn't really finish had premise with these qualities, but yeah.
Re: Books
#357  January 11, 2013, 08:01:29 pm
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Re: Books
#358  February 17, 2013, 02:31:00 am
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Just finished reading both Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert (the late, great host of Meet The Press) and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, two strikingly different portraits of Irish-American youth (well, kinda, in the latter's case)

One is the heartwarming tale of a childhood in Buffalo, New York and the life lessons imparted by a loving father (the titular Big Russ). The other is a harrowing tale of a childhood spent on a constant brink of starvation due to poverty and a father who, on the rare occasion he has a job, spends his wages on pints. Seriously, it's depressing as fuck: after the first few chapters young Frank has experienced constant, abject poverty in New York City, a dead little sister, a move to his parents' native Ireland (where they eventually settle in his mother's hometown of Limerick), the casual indifference and creulty of his extended family, and the deaths of his youngest brothers (twins, 6 months apart)... and things don't really get any better.

So yeah, despite being a total downer, it's a great read. It even won a Pulitzer! The Russert book is also a good read.
Re: Books
#359  February 17, 2013, 05:05:24 am
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Might check that out.

As for me, I've been reading the book "Art of War", the Denma translation. Its not a bad book so far, going to wait until I finish it to give it a review.
Re: Books
#360  February 17, 2013, 05:18:52 am
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