Books

[Grefter]

Ciatos is talking about the first Harry Dresden book by Jim Butcher.

You don't want to know about what Jim is talking about.

[NotMiki]

You don't want to know about what Jim is talking about.

Same shit, different day.

[SnowFire]

I've read the first three chapters of Storm Front. Ugh... not sure if I can continue.

...white supremacist lit?

Orgies fueled my drug empire.

[superaielman]

Escape from Camp 14- The story and life of someone who grew up and escaped one of North Korea's concentration camps.  Shin Dong-hyuk's story is especially notable because he is the only person born into one of those camps who escape. It is an incredibly moving book that shows the depth of the evil of the North Korean regime, and I recommend it to everyone to read (In spite of it being very heavy going).

[NotMiki]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/09/30

oh hey they did a comic about me.

[Lady Door]

Speaking of!

I read Steelheart yesterday.

Imagine Mistborn in modern America, only this time there are "superheros" who really aren't all that super. Cue post-apocalyptic rebel cell.

But really, it's Mistborn with tech.

Weirdly, it felt a lot less quippy and "clever" than several of Sanderson's other works, but I was plenty okay with that. I'm kind of getting tired of characters rebounding bon mots between themselves all the time. In fact, the main character is Deliberately Flawed! Yeah, it comes across pretty clunky, but it's cute.

I won't say this is even close to Sanderson's best work, but it was enjoyable enough that I'll likely pick up the sequel when he gets around to writing it.

I'm most eagerly awaiting Stormlight Archives #2.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Dear Penny Arcade guys: stop creating reasons for me not to respect you, you're already buried in them.

[Dhyerwolf]

I'm kind of getting tired of characters rebounding bon mots between themselves all the time.

Never read Steven Erikson (well, for that among other reasons, but especially that). That has to describe nearly 50% of character interactions.

[Fenrir]

To be or not to be (The Choose your own adventure by Ryan North) is totes hilarious. The whole killing Polonius early on part was hysterical.
Also I'm near the end of Infinite jest.
Those two are now like my two favourite books and I've just read both while having never even read proper regular Hamlet.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The Years (Virginia Woolf) - This is pretty much where I feel most at home when I'm reading. It's somewhat challenging reading a book in a language not my own, but the stylistics and architecture are worth the read alone. It's a delight reading a book not about a plotline or a character set, but sensations, perceptions and things untold.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Feast of Souls- Good little fantasy book, had a hard time putting it down once I got into it. It's a book which is more about intriguing concepts than it is necessarily about the execution. The magic system's core ideas are really interesting in particular, and some good things were done with it, though I was left wanting a bit more (the stated reason for there being few/no female magisters is a bit hard to swallow) and can think of several issues related to it which the book surprisingly didn't tackle, though it could come up in the sequels. In general I enjoyed Kamala(/Ethanus) chapters a lot (they tie in most strongly with the morality of the magic system, plus I love "tangled ball of rage and emotion" characters), enjoyed the Colivar and Andovan chapters quite a bit, and was a bit lukewarm on the Gwynofar ones though they had their moments; they mostly suffer from Kostas being a shockingly dull (and obvious) villain after a good first scene. Otherwise most of the key characters were quite grey which is nice.

One minor complaint is that while the story is mostly written in third-person limited, it sometimes slips into omniscient with little warning and the scenes where it happens feel confusing as a result, and I'm not sure how much this is intended.

Totally random minor note but I was amused that after several characters describe him offscreen as a useless, arrogant, fop of a prince, Rurick ends up being kinda badass.

[Dhyerwolf]

Glad to see more people reading the series. Did Super kick you into it?

Out of curiosity, what are the items that you expected to come up which you think might come up in sequels (I won't spoil you, but I'm just interested to hear your thoughts. This is certainly one series that I wish had a lot more overall material).

[Dark Holy Elf]

The book was a Christmas present from Ciato; she mentioned it was based off both your and Super's recommendation, so.

Hmm, well, the biggest thing that I felt the book could have touched on but didn't is that magisters can use their powers to do a lot of good. What is a consort or two measured against the ability to erradicate a plague or stop a war? One life for dozens, hundreds? I was pretty surprised this angle wasn't really gone into; it seemed like almost all the magisters, even the relatively "nice" ones like Ethanus, consider themselves to be jerks; none seemed to realise that they had the power to make the world a better place.

[Grefter]

It is a tough life in the coal face of murder Elf.  Really eats away at your self esteem.

[superaielman]

Supervolcano book 3: Oh god. Turtledove trying to write slice of life. There is some fascinating concepts and bits of story, but it was buried under a pile of awful writing and boring characters. I  can't call this full lazy turtledove because he does a fascinating job examining some of the breakdown of society, but god. The Vanessa character is bad bordering on offensive (spoilers: after literally fucking and sucking in a refugee camp  for internet access instead of asking her father for help, she spends the next book being bitter and getting swindled. Uh.)  This book would've been far better if it had spent more time focusing on the world and less of Turtledove attempting to write characters.

E: Good grief there is so much to pick at this book. For a novel that sells itself on being an end of the world book, it doesn't do much actual focusing on the end of the world. FFS, there's a two page section or so devoted to Colin's family cat attacking balloons and generally being a cat.

[Lady Door]

Read The Rithmatist (Sanderson) this week.

I know it's a juvenile novel, but it ... was not one of his best. There were some really awkward passages. Sanderson seems to be suffering from Famous Author syndrome, which is what happens when one becomes best-selling and his editor backs off to let his genius flow.

Nothing really happened and I never got a sense of high stakes. I mean, the whole concept is the chosen people can animate chalk drawings. Yes, some of those chalk drawings can actually attack people, but... how serious can you be while you're scribbling on the ground with chalk?

If you've read other Sanderson works, you will definitely recognize him in this one. The way he treats religion, the way his main character is nothing special except that he works hard to become special, the way the bad guy is (SEMI-SPOILER) the "last guy you'd expect" (/SEMI-SPOILER), the way there's a whole religion set up around these magic powers...

I'd give it a 6/10. Borrow it, don't buy.

[Lady Door]

Read a couple of John Green books to see what all the fuss was about. Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns. Had I read these in high school I would have been deeply impressed. As a working stiff approaching 30, however, they really sounded like crazy teen over-exaggerations and "deep moments." I can see why they've been popular, but I'm not sure I'm on the hype train. 7/10.

Reading Words of Radiance, #2 from Sanderson's Stormlight Archives. It is a MASSIVE book, but I'm hooked. I love the world and I don't mind the obviously Sandersonian characters. I've stayed up until 3am the past two nights because I just want to keep reading it. I will probably finish it by this weekend, all the while cursing that I'm not still a college student with the ability to sit down for 8 hours doing nothing but reading for fun.

[Shale]

I also have Words of Radiance, I finally got into it in earnest on the train today, and it's been damn good so far. I'm just past the first big spoiler, which I really should have seen coming, in hindsight.

Signing in a couple weeks, too! That should be fun.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Better than the first one, then? I can't say I've been that inspired to pick up the second.

[Lady Door]

I have no comparative rating. I just enjoy these kinds of books. I liked this one!

Managed to miss signing in San Francisco due to flying suddenly to Seattle... only to have just enough time to make his afternoon signing in Seattle before flying back down. Win~

[Grefter]

I have no comparative rating. I just enjoy these kinds of books. I liked this one!

What are you doing on my internet.

[Lady Door]

Well, I'm a self-avowed female, so I'm pretty sure I'm just a figment of the internet's imagination anyway.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Female nerds don't exist, you must be a man.

[Shale]

Not quite done Words of Radiance yet, but I'm far enough along to be pretty certain that if you didn't like the first book much, there's no need to check out the second. It's a lot of moving pieces around in preparation for the Epic Fantasy Stuff that Way of Kings promised, and development of characters you've already met, but there's not much new. The most interesting addition to the world is the chapters told from a Parshendi viewpoint, and those are only in the interludes for some reason.

[Lady Door]

Female nerds don't exist, you must be a man.

See? I've been told I don't exist all over the place.

--

He had a great explanation for the layout of his books at the reading. Basically, he wanted to tell Dalinar's story. Then he realized he wanted to tell the story of quite a few other people all struggling for/against the same target. Then he realized one of the best ways to break the story up -- and since it's 400,000 freaking words it kinda does need to be broken up -- by offering glimpses of that same struggle from the sides by way of looking into the non-main characters' worlds. Each of the books, and each of the books' titles, is based off of the story that becomes central: in the case of the first, Kaladin, and in the second, Shallan. You can tell whose "story" it is by the flashbacks, and the book titles are a book from the in-world universe that, generally, has some significant meaning to the character who receives the focus for the book.

Anyway, he said he realized what made him, as a reader, want to keep reading through all of the story and really look forward to the next installment in a single POV were those brief breaks from the main storyline. It breaks the intensity up, allows the anticipation to build, and brings you right back to where you left off, refreshed. The interludes are important, but they are supplementary.