What are you reading? — Page 8

DuracellEnergizer said:

I'm currently reading Stargate SG-1: The Barque of Heaven by Suzanne Wood.

It's okay, I guess, but since I'm not really a fan of SG-1 anymore, I'm not really into it; I'm only reading the book to see how good the retcon the author created to explain away one of the many discrepancies between the show and the original movie is.

 I'm interested to know what retcon that is.  I'm not a huge fan of the movie or the series, but I get some enjoyment out of both.  Do you refer to the nature of the symbiotic relationship between alien/god and host?

Tobar said:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I had read up until they leave to start the games before I saw the film on opening night. Was disappointed when the film completely failed to realize various things plainly described in the book like the city. I finished the book after and thought it was decent. As has been said before about the mutant dogs....ugh.

 

Yeah, the dogs are the big weak link.  Certain things are certainly not captured by the film, as is the case with any film.  I think I'm glad I watched it first, then read the book.  The characters are similar, but not the same.  I think I appreciate the differences and find strengths and weaknesses in both tellings of the same story.  I hope the films do better than the books for the sequels.  The sequels are definitely inferior in my mind, and not because they are less action-packed, as many criticize.  I actually like the slower parts better, and I feel the action portions are far more contrived, the characters/contenders too cliched, and the finale too depressing.  Not that I'm against a good tragedy, but this was not a good tragedy, IMO.

darth_ender said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I'm currently reading Stargate SG-1: The Barque of Heaven by Suzanne Wood.

It's okay, I guess, but since I'm not really a fan of SG-1 anymore, I'm not really into it; I'm only reading the book to see how good the retcon the author created to explain away one of the many discrepancies between the show and the original movie is.

I'm interested to know what retcon that is. I'm not a huge fan of the movie or the series, but I get some enjoyment out of both. Do you refer to the nature of the symbiotic relationship between alien/god and host?

That's it indeed.

I haven't read far enough into the book to have even received hints of how the retcon works, but it's bound to be better than the pseudo-official "Ra-once-had-an-Asgard-host" retcon.

I'm in the process of reading every Philip K. Dick novel ever published.

So far I've read 'Eye in the Sky' Very interesting concept. I don't want to ruin it. 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' Obviously the most prominent influence of Blade Runner. Not as good as the movie. (Never thought those words would seep from my lips... er fingers. 'Flow my Tears, The Policeman Said' A wild ride. Very entertaining and thought provoking. 'A Scanner Darkly' Phil was surrounded by this subject matter in his life and the emotion is very raw even through the science fiction filter.

I'm currently reading 'The Man in the High Castle' as well as the unrelated 'Game of Thrones'.

I love PKD! So many great ideas and concepts. Though, sadly, as I have gotten older, I find him unreadable. Not sure why this is. I certainly don't think him a bad writer, and I still find his ideas intriguing, but every time I pick something of his up, I feel like I could be better utilizing my time reading something else.

Catch me if you can by Frank William Abagnale, Jr.

Recently got back into comics. last I read was Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee.

I love Jeph Loeb's Long Halloween but it seems like in Hush he tried to cram as many characters as he could into the story. There were many great moments but the ending was kind of a let down. I guess it's more about the journey or whatever.

What I'm really trying to do it bridge the gap between Year One and Dark knight Returns with as few books as possible while still having it feel like a complete story. Hush was too contradictory. So far all I've got is Long Halloween. I've got hopes for Dark Victory and Death in the Family.

Went back to my true love Marvel to mix up my exploration of "renowned" comic books. I finished Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-men. I've read a few X-comics before this off and on throughout the past five years or so. But never have I been so enveloped into the story that I actually care about the characters and what they do. He's made Kitty Pryde (a character I'd heard of but never really cared to learn more about) into hands down my favorite X-man. Of course Joss produces impossibly clever plots in which any flaws seem to melt away from my enjoyment. Definitely the most fun I've had reading a comic book.

Next I'm gonna read a supposedly classic 'The Infinity Gauntlet' to familiarize myself with Thanos. I'm a bit hesitant. I have a negative preconception about 90s comics. Of the random ones I've read they seemed to be targeted toward teenagers and rely on big muscles, explosions and boobs to entertain rather than story. But I suppose I will see for myself soon enough.

BloodnoseThePirate said:

I have a negative preconception about 90s comics. Of the random ones I've read they seemed to be targeted toward teenagers and rely on big muscles, explosions and boobs to entertain rather than story.

Finished Infinity Gaunlet. Wasn't as bad as I feared. I just really dislike the old comic book writing in which they explain in detail what is happening that we can easily infer from the art. The story was set up with a lot of happenstance. At various points the characters even announce that them being in a certain place or doing a certain thing is due to mere luck. The overall story is about Exploringpeople's minds on absolute power. I enjoyed that aspect but it was just way too long and filled with what felt like... filler. None of the characters were developed or had an arc except for Thanos, which is understandable because it wasn't created as a standalone story necessarily.

I really liked the style of the art and bright colors but it had no place in a story about the inevitable end of the universe. I wouldn't recommend it as a story but as a character study of Thanos it was interesting. He literally wants to court death. Huh.

I guess the writing style is a matter of taste. I've started Neil Gaiman's sandman. This is the stuff I like.

The Bizarro Starter Kit

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/3am-review-the-bizarro-starter-kit/

The Bizarro Starter Kit introduces ten writers from that genre, not a new genre the authors acknowledge, but a new term. The Kit is a joint production between Raw Dog Screaming Press, Eraserhead Press and Afterbirth Books (imprints which are as underground and anti-mainstream as their names suggest), the voices gathered under a rickety Charles Addams-style umbrella are different from each other and the works span short stories to novellas. Bizarro claims it does not “defy categorization so much as deny it”, but there are some distinct styles: the isms (surrealism, magic realism, irrealism, absurdism, metrosexualism) and some self-invented tags (like blender, brutality chronic, “tweaker lit”, “Walronian fiction”, the horrible).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_fiction

Counting the days till the next Thursday Next book: "The Woman Who Died A Lot"  (should just order the UK edition... the US release is two months away.)

http://www.jasperfforde.com/subindex/tn7subindex.html

Right now I'm reading 'The secret history of Star Wars' - not sure which edition it is but I've spotted quite a few typos...otherwise it's quite good so far. 

Planning to start reading 'from the mountains of madness' after hearing a fair bit about it recently. - I read a synopsis and it sounds interesting. Anyone read it? - no spoilers please.

I just finished reading the infamous Jedi Academy Trilogy by the infamous Kevin J. Anderson. Beyond the general inanities, I actually found the first two books readable. Sure, the characters are rather flat and the Sun Crusher is probably the stupidest non-PT/SE concept to come out of the SW universe, but they were pretty much a quick, easy read, and some parts were even engrossing; I actually enjoyed reading the Kessel sections in Jedi Search (the first book). The third and final book, Champions of the Force, though ... that was painful; it seems the stupidity and cringeworthiness was dialled up a thousandfold for this entry. I ended up having to force myself to finish reading this, and I don't usually have to do that, not with any book.

With that out of the way, I've started reading I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole. It's supposed to retell, in part anyway, the Jedi Academy Trilogy story from the viewpoint of another character unmentioned in the original three books. It'll be interesting to see how this book compares and contracts with Anderson's story.

I read that trilogy a bit over a year ago.  I agree, some parts were fun and interesting, some plain dumb.  This is my review I gave in November in the What do you LIKE about the EU? thread:

darth_ender said:

You know, I remember when I first heard of the the Jedi Academy Trilogy...I couldn't have been more than 11 years old, and my friend had read all three.  He described the book to me, particularly the Sun Crusher, and Exar Kun/Luke's disembodiment.  I remember thinking the ideas were rather stupid.  I still think they are pretty dumb, but I've learned to enjoy the EU better, as I've said many times on her before, by reading the books somewhat in isolation instead of part of a large continuity.  I didn't like a dinky little ship being more powerful than the Death Star before, but when I finally read the trilogy mere months ago, I didn't mind it as much because I sort of let go of the idea that this had to exist in my personal Star Wars universe.  I just let it be, and decided that I could like the Sun Crusher as its own plot device.

Since I'd rather discuss the Thrawn Trilogy, but never gave much of an opinion on the Jedi Academy trilogy before, I will mention my likes and dislikes, and hopefully I can steer back towards the previous conversation.

Things I liked:
The concept of Luke re-establishing the Jedi Order with an Academy
The general idea of Exar Kun, though I feel he was poorly executed
The corruption of a student, though again the execution wasn't fantastic, and his repentance was pretty lame...but I'll save this for the second part of this list
A rogue admiral with her fleet
Kessell
Kinda liked the Death Star prototype, though another Death Star is cliched
Grew to like the Sun Crusher

Things I did not like:
The Blobstacle Course--absolutely worst idea
Admiral Daala's ongoing charisma in spite of her repeated failure[EDIT: what I mean is, why on earth would her stupid crew continue to follow her as she repeatedly killed off thousands of the men beneath her with her incompetence--she never does ANYTHING to prove herself worthwhile - 9/5/12]
Exar Kun's defeat
Another fallen Jedi who, in spite of repeated warning that "once you start down the dark path..." manages to return to the light, as well as the self-inflicted tragedy surrounding this character
The Maw administrative staff and the ridiculous 'humor' surrounding their escapades
The nature of glitterstim spice
The description of Sabaac, which I used to think was a game that required some level of skill 

What's funny is while I was looking for my review, the comment just before mine was this:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I kinda like the Jedi Academy Trilogy; it's how I'd imagine those old pulp magazines to be - not particularily well-written, but entertaining nonetheless.

 DOUBLE STANDARDS!!!

;)

darth_ender said:

What's funny is while I was looking for my review, the comment just before mine was this:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I kinda like the Jedi Academy Trilogy; it's how I'd imagine those old pulp magazines to be - not particularily well-written, but entertaining nonetheless.

 DOUBLE STANDARDS!!!

;)

After a year buggered up by bad weather trying to find my feet in the garden I forked out on this :

I heard the chap on the radio and he seemed to make sense.

Basically the idea is to plant stuff in the garden that costs more to buy, are generally difficult to get hold of in supermarkets and will grow here in the UK.

As opposed to stuff that is cheap and easy to get in the UK (like spuds, onions etc) and is more effort than it's worth (certainly the case with most spuds).

He reads well.

Throws in a few recipes and the like as well as insecticide free pest control techniques and I got it less than the cover price.

Well, now you should jump into my Enderverse thread and read my reviews (skipping the spoiler sections of course).  They're all very different books, but they are all interesting takes on the characters.  I'd love to read a review from someone else, as it gets a bit lonely in that thread *cricket chirps*

FYI: Ender's a stud.  That's why I am he :)

Here are the last couple books I've read.

I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole

This is definately better than the Jedi Academy Trilogy, and certainly one of the better Star Wars novel, period. It's nice to see Stackpole call out the stupidity Kevin J. Anderson presented with the JAT and get some more insight and development into Luke's students at the Jedi academy and their training. It does drag a bit in the middle, but it picks up again in the final third. I'll definately keep my copy and give it another read again in the future.

A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson

Not a bad book, and I liked exploring how the main character had to deal with all the negative thoughts and emotions coming off from his neighbours and colleagues after the development of his psychic abilities. However, the story isn't very meaty or scary. The film adaptation with Kevin Bacon is definately better, IMO.

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Now this was an enjoyable read. It's definately better than the film adaptation - not that the film was bad, mind you - doesn't feel as rushed, and you get more insight into the characters. The ending, though, isn't as good as the film's.

Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine by Voronica Whitney-Robinson.

Lame, by-the-numbers tie-in to a game I've never evened played. I'm definately giving my copy over to the nearest thrift shop; maybe whoever reads it after me will enjoy it more.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick.

God, I loved this novel. There's nothing I can say but that the themes deeply resonated with me. I'm definately buying a copy the first chance I get.

The only problem I had with the novel has nothing to do with the book itself, but with the publishers who keep classifying it as part of the VALIS trilogy; regardless of the few themes shared between TTOTA and VALIS & The Divine Invasion, the character/entity/force of VALIS itself is not present/mentioned/alluded to in this novel, and the inclusion was obviously made arbitrarily so the publishers could "complete" Dick's unfinished trilogy and make money off a big bound collected edition. Honestly, they should have just included Radio Free Albemuth into the trilogy; unlike TTOTA, VALIS itself is actually in this novel - hell, RFA was the original VALIS until Dick scrapped it and left it to go unpublished until 1985, three years after his death.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

I was able to empathize strongly with the character since I often feel many of the same emotions (read into that what you will), so that made the novel more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been; unlike others, I didn't find the vampire plot very interesting ("scientific" explanations for vampirism leave me feeling cold, more often than not). Another plus for the book were the short stories packaged with it. All-in-all, it was another good read from Matheson - better than A Stir of Echoes, but not as good as Hell House in some respects. In the end, I feel like seeing The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and The Omega Man with Charleton Heston again, and never seeing I Am Legend with Will Smith - never.

I am now currently reading The Graveyard Companion, a collection of horror/dark fantasy short stories by Gray and Shaun Usher (I've never heard of them, either). I'm more than half way through the book, and for far I've found the stories I read to be rather dry. I don't think I'll be hanging onto my copy once I'm through with it, but if any of the last few stories turn out to be exceptional ... who knows?