FullAuto Posted November 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2011 Been reading a lot, but the best lately have been graphic novels. Nemesis, by Mark Millar (Kick Ass) is a pretty good one, fairly short but very dynamic, which wonders what if a Bruce Wayne type chap was evil? You then have a Batman-level villain, and that's exactly what happens here. In some ways it exposes just how ridiculous superheroes are, their inhuman levels of skill, determination, foresight etc. It's a great read. I Kill Giants is an indie comic entirely removed from superheroes, and it made me cry. I was careful not to drip any on the pages, of course, but its a wonderful tale about a young misfit and her attempts at giant killing with her magic warhammer, plus the usual ins and outs of school and family life. Superb, 10/10, sad but very beautiful and human. Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft is by Joe Hill and is pretty good. I'm not too fussed about the art or the colouring, but there's some good lettering work, and the story is interesting. Some very innocent fantasy stuff mixed with the darkest and cruelest bits of reality jabbing through. I've just bought the first book, looking at buying the next three today. That good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Strike Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 I'm reading, right now, one of the Starfist series on my e-reader, I can't remember which one off the top of my head. I'm also reading Watch on the Rhine, John Ringo and Tom Krantman. They are both good individual writers, but teaming up, great, and I'm reading Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. I saw the first season already, but the book does follow along, and gives a little more depth to the show. Good reads are the Vampie earth series by E.E. Knight, Mass Effect series by Drew Karpshyn, anything by both Barb and J.C. Hendee, and, of course the Honorverse by David Webber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silencer_pl Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 I've mostly read Forgotten Realms books. Any story written by R.A. Salvatore about Drizzt Do'Urden is great, also books from Elaine Cunnigham are great - specialy 'Daughter of the Drow' trilogy swept me away and Evermeet: Lands of the Elfs. Also Ed Greenwood is nice to read. Mass Effect series are also good - light and nice to read. I've also read the cycle of the dragons about the Dragonlance - Dragons of spring, summer, autmun and winter, and Twins Trilogy. Toy Wars from Ziemiański the author of Achaja - don't know if it has foreign distributions but if yes - the story here is superb. Lot's of modern language but not to such a degree like in Bulletstorm. From no Sci-Fi, Fantasy I recommend - Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield - bit of fiction story but its great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 I've been reading Songs of Fire and Ice series for the last few months. First two felt incredibly good, then things started dragging and dragging. I'm reading the fourth book now and I'm convinced the whole series could be condensed into two or three books. Right now it seems as though R.R. Martin means to continue with the story forever. People die, new people arrive into the never ending story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted November 3, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 From no Sci-Fi, Fantasy I recommend - Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield - bit of fiction story but its great. I quite enjoyed that! Right now it seems as though R.R. Martin means to continue with the story forever. An accusation that has been levelled at Martin, Terry Brooks, etc, is that they fell in love with Tolkien's stuff, never got enough of it, and simply want to do their own never-ending version. If you can't fit it into a trilogy, you're probably suffering from diarrhoea of the brain, and even writers who only do trilogies need their heads looking at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Strike Posted November 4, 2011 Report Share Posted November 4, 2011 The thing is, I read a ton of fantasy and sci-fi. But I stick with what I know. Martin is a good, but long writer. Terry Brooks is a good writer, but also a little on the long side. Robert Jordan is another one. In all of the books published before his death, Jordan said he would write until the day they nailed his coffin shut. And actually he did write until he died. Had he lived longer, he would have done more, and even did a dark parallel to the Wheel of Time series. And you can also add E.E. Knight to the list as well. But he does keep things short and easy to follow, as well as grab your attention and keeps it. I also like the fact that at times he does a reminiscing with the main character, and folds it all into everything. Anyway, good writers can do trilogies, and you are pretty much done. Others, they can do more, and still you are hooked until they are done, or you are. r.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books are pretty much trilogies that you can pick up one set of, read it, and be done. But he does hook you into the world, and you need to either go back or go forward. Brent Weeks has one great trilogy out, and he is writing another series, I think, that is different from the trilogy he has out. I've not read the new stuff, yet. I will sooner or later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted November 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2011 Permanence, by Karl Schroeder. Peter Watts mentioned it in Blindsight's excellent afterword, so I picked it up. A good look at differing methods of space travel and the societies that they create, the possible inferiority of intelligent sentient tool-users to other species, and why over a long enough timescale, no species may survive, no matter how advanced. Fascinating. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. If you're an 80s child, this book will ring a lot of bells, but unfortunately Cline is a writer only in the most literal sense of the word. He's just not very good, and action, emotional scenes, etc are made pedestrian by his lack of skill. A shame, because the plot about finding secrets in a life-consuming online game, and the way it influences real life, is quite good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted November 7, 2011 Report Share Posted November 7, 2011 An accusation that has been levelled at Martin, Terry Brooks, etc, is that they fell in love with Tolkien's stuff, never got enough of it, and simply want to do their own never-ending version. WHAT?! Had I known that sooner I wouldn't have started reading!!! Last I heard was that Martin means to end the story at 7 books and that almost made me stop reading in the middle of third one. Before that I thought the 4pack my brother bought me from Amazon was it and I thought I was getting somewhere. If you can't fit it into a trilogy, you're probably suffering from diarrhoea of the brain, and even writers who only do trilogies need their heads looking at.MOST true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted December 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2011 Reamde (not a typo) from Neal Stephenson. Really damn good, it's the first novel in ages that ricochets back and forth around the globe and the reasons for this happening don't feel like a flimsy excuse just to have exotic settings. It kicks off with a robbery in an online game (okay, Stross got there first with Halting State) and rapidly gains depth and scope. Good prose, well-plotted, a cast you give a shit about, and some right arse-kicking. 1,000+ pages, so in the event you don't like it, it makes a satisfying thrown missile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted February 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 Just ran through two books by Chris Knopf, The Last Refuge and Two Time. Both bloody good novels, with one of the best protagonists I've met in ages. They're mysteries, or at least investigative stories, but Sam Acquillo isn't a copper or PI or coroner or reporter. He's a retired engineer whose life went fairly wrong, he's divorced and hardly speaks to his daughter, no close friends or family, and he lives on a modest property he inherited in a rich area. He spends his time drinking (he sometimes starts in the morning, which is excellent), trains sporadically due to boxing when he was younger, and occasionally does a bit of manual labour. His life is kind of shit but also kind of ideal, in that he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. He's in his early fifties, so he's still active and strong but is also well aware of his limitations. He's very well rounded, one of those characters who seems real. He drinks, but he's not the bitter alcoholic stereotype. He doesn't investigate crimes every five minutes. He can have a fight but he's not invincible. He doesn't reconcile with his daughter over a course of cheese and sentiment biscuits. He doesn't attract women like shit attracts flies. His career as an engineer informs his view of the world (e.g. he tends to see problems in an engineering context, he approaches problems methodically, thinks about factors and variables, systems and processes). Great pair of books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2012 The Looking Glass War, John le Carre. About twenty years after WWII, the Cold War is in full swing, and a hopelessly outmoded British intelligence section launches an operation in East Germany. It's fascinating, in a way, because it's horrifically hypnotic, there's a constant sense of impending doom, of people failing, things going wrong, without respite. Although it's 100% spy fiction, it's basically a horror story. It's easy to see how writers like Charles Stross and Tim Powers took that sense of dread and used it for their own supernatural spy novels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2012 FreakAngels is quite good so far. Entirely online, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted March 5, 2012 Report Share Posted March 5, 2012 Currently I'm finishing A Dance with Dragons, from A Song of Ice and Fire series. If Martin decides to write more than seven books of who ate what or who wore what at what exact time, I'm gonna have a little chat with the guy... Right now I'm pretty happy I'm going to have a pause with the series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorondor Posted March 6, 2012 Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 FreakAngels is quite good so far. Entirely online, too.Fantastic time waster. Thanks for the tip, FA! Oh, and the coincidence is not lost on me either: FreakAngels - FA... :: Who's your favourite character? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 LOL! Jack has a nice no-nonsense air about him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted March 6, 2012 Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 No no no, now I've done it. I checked FA and must stop reading it. I could only read it at work and this is REALLY not a good time. Looks great though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorondor Posted March 6, 2012 Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 I checked FA and must stop reading it. I could only read it at work and this is REALLY not a good time.Impossible. Very nearly wet myself in the Interludes - so be prepared to stifle yourself silly, SV! Jack has a nice no-nonsense air about him.No-nonsense indeed (no spoilers from me). He's a solid pick. I probably like Arkady the most - she's kind of 'out there' yet not at all unresourceful. There's plenty of 'wordliness' to go around in the others, but she is probably the last one where a sense of innocence remains. :: Ta-ta! *Off to FAngels again!* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 Even though it's online I can see myself buying the graphic novels. I also didn't know I wanted a FreakAngels throw until I saw they existed, and then I did want one. And I saw they were sold out. And I cried. Actually, my favourite so far is Kaitlyn. A sheriff, but sexy. Sigh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Crossed webcomic. Very NSFW, looks like they will copy the FreakAngels format. I really enjoyed the first volume from Ennis and Burrows. It was great, and I recommend it without reservation if you're not of a sensitive disposition. Family Values, by Lapham and Barreno, wasn't as good, as it often covered the same ground as the first volume, although it was still worth reading and I don't feel hard done by having bought it. A new series, Badlands, marks the return of Ennis and Burrows, and I'll be snapping that up. I'll be reading reviews of the Crossed stuff by others and maybe buying it, maybe not. I hold out high hopes for Crossed 3D and Psycopath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted March 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Crossed: WYWH Chapter 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoXTheRoXStaR Posted March 22, 2012 Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Masterpieces of Terror And The Unknown Selected By Marvin Kaye I was at the library this week and picked up this gem.It's a collaboration of short stories that deal with; Vampires, Ghosts, Aliens, Werewolves, Demons, Gargoyles, Living dead, Evil Teddy Bears, etc. Some notable authors are; Stephen Crane, H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, Richard Matheson, Bram Stoker, Jack London, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Orson Scott Card. Plus many other authors including the ones mentioned above who have at one time written stories of the Macabre. Check it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted May 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2012 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell. Mitchell is this good: upon reading a book of his, I immediately went online and bought everything he had written. He's a genuinely excellent writer. This tale of a Dutch outpost in the otherwise-isolated Japan of the 18th century is fascinating because it seems like a fantasy novel, yet you know it is not. The Dutch present a recognisable, if slightly basic, Anglo-Saxon viewpoint you can empathise with, amongst a very foreign culture. Slow-paced, but a good read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted June 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 Three Bags Full. A mystery in which some sheep try to solve the murder of their shepherd. An interesting read, actually, and fairly well done. Requires you to get past the idea of anthropomorphised sheep, but other than that, fairly solid. Could do for sheep what Watership Down did for rabbits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted July 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 1, 2012 Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. I don't remember it being this good. All tens, cry the judges. A boy falls off a roof one snowy day in Copenhagen. A neighbour, Miss Smilla, is an inuit from Greenland, who spots various clues due to her knowledge of snow and ice. She investigates, and it is great. If anyone is asking why there aren't any hardcore female protagonists, point them this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 I finally finished FreakAngels. Freaking awesome. Almost cried in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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