What did you just read?

Grimmlokk_sl said:

"Do you, sir, speak to me in such a tone?"
"And if I do, sir?"
"Well than it is at me to which you direct your imperiousness?"
"Indeed, my imperious nature is meant for you."
"I say that is a rather bold tone to take with one!"
"Bold is indeed the tone I take, especially with one such as you."
"And what is it about me that emboldens one such as you to take such a tone?"


Shit like that, FOR-EV-ER.

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lol, the author of this took and barely changed the Opening scene of "Romeo and Juliet". Sampson and Abraham have nearly the exact same conversation.

Well, that was just me winging it and imitating the style of the book. And yes, yes I did.

As for Terry Pratchett, philosopher...

Amazon.com: Philosophy and Terry Pratchett (9781137360151): Jacob Held, James South: Books

kythik_sl said:

Diskworld book 19: Feet of Clayreally made up for the previous book, Masquerade. I seriously love the character Carrot and his seemingly simple but truly complex view of the world. This book presented slavery and racism in a very interesting and ridiculous manner(Reductio ad absurdum, perhaps?). I also really enjoyed the bit about atheism, comparing it to a religion, He presents, if not defends the theological(read the book) point of view.

With a weird yet amusing coincidence I happened to startdiskworld book 20: Hogfatherearlier this week and finished it today. On the surface Pratchett seems to borrow heavily from Tim Burton's "A Nightmare Before Christmas". He has admitted that he often borrows from other stories. Adding in his own twists and tweaks. Though sticking to his style it has a deeper underlying message; the nature and power of belief.

The more I read his books the more I see why he's being viewed as a philosopher

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He is hands down my favorite author. My favorite books are his city watch books, so I recommend that you read Nightwatch next. That book made vimes my favorite character in literature.

No one cares. I know that. Typing this and then posting it here is just for me.

That having been said:

I just finished 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins.

The most important thing to know before you consider reading it is to know that the stress of the title is not 'TheSelfishGene', it is rather, 'The SelfishGene'.

What that means is that Dawkins already assumes that there is an inherent selfishness in us all (would the Christians call it Sin!?). What he argues is that that 'selfishness' is not a product of our species, our group, our family, our race, our culture, or even our proteins and amino acids. The thing that acts selfishly, actually, is the gene. The functioning unit of code. The code itself is selfish by its very nature and so must it always have been, otherwise it would not have been the code that created us. It would have been one of the failed codes that we no longer talk about.

Dawkins tries to account for human behavior by looking at it for what it truly is: animal mammal behavior. If one can understand the evolutionary origins of any human-mammal's behavior, he can then better understand his own.

Highly recommended. It was his first book and I have read the 30th anniversary edition, in which he adds a few notes but for the most part does not back away from his original work. He states openly in the foreward that he regrets a few lines of text in the book here and there (he makes a contemporary comment about British law that dates the book and reveals his own human prejudices), but for the most part he still fully endorses it in its entirety.

I read this shit. It ain't just for you. I might even read that book. Thanks for your review.

Draegan_sl said:

Fuck man, that was the first big series I ever read. I haven't had a reread in probably a decade. Such a simple book, not too complex, very predictable, but I love the characters so much.

God damn nostalgia.

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Yeah it's worth putting up with the cookie cutter Tolkien tropes and awful attempts at humor for the genuinely interesting side characters, great childhood/teen flashback. Although if you do a reread I recommend putting a few months between the prequels and the main series', or the retcons (or more likely just the shit Eddings forgot he'd already established) will annoy the shit out of you.

Last time I read them, I read the prequels first. I don't recall any real big retcons.

I don't remember him retconning much either. He did however right the same story three times between the two belgarion series and the holy knights series. Sorry can't remember any titles aside from the Belgariad.

That is true. But I enjoyed all of them all the same.

I just finished more Taltos books.

There was the Vlad book that was told from some one else's perspective. It was really strange reading it after reading like 5 from the perspective of his own storytelling/first person. I like it, but it was the my least favorite. Story was pretty week and boring. Even the annoying Cawti book had Vlad being a badass.


Reading Orca now, and I really like it so far (just started really). You have both Vlad's storytelling and some Keira perspective. I think that's pretty awesome, I like the weaving of two different writing styles.

Team Yankee by by Harold Coyle.

Mid 1980's, the Soviets invade Western Germany. The perspective is an armored Company (I guess it is more of reinforced company, hence the designation "Team) with some mechanized infantry and mechanized AT rocket carriages. Follows them for the duration of the war as they play a pivotal role in a couple of battles.

I really liked it. Couldn't put it down actually. One of my favorite things was the character progression. The characters are actually very, very interesting and it carries the book. It might sound foolish, but I believe a lot of the stuff out their nowadays has very forgettable characters. This book did not.

I'd recommend it to anyone who likes WW2 or WW3 literature. It is set in a fictional WW3, but because of the German place names and the Americans and the Soviets I could never shake the "ww2" vibe.

I just finished book 4 + 5 of Shadowdance:

Shadowdance series by David Dalglish

I'm surprised David Dalglish doesn't get mentioned more on here. I really like his stuff - it feels like a lighter version of Joe Abercrombie. He has a huge, pretty well developed world and the writing is generally straight to the point without filler/rambling chapters and meaningless characters. He has 4 series (~20 books) that all take place in the same universe, and IMO every one of them is definitely worth reading.

I read the first couple of his half orc books two or three years back. They were pretty simplistic and disjointed in my opinion. He also couldn't write action worth a Damn. I guess he's become better since then?

Commander Vimeseh_sl said:

I read the first couple of his half orc books two or three years back. They were pretty simplistic and disjointed in my opinion. He also couldn't write action worth a Damn. I guess he's become better since then?

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It's funny how someone like Salvatore can write these ridiculously detailed and intricate sword fights and shit but everything outside of fights is like something a 15 year-old wrote. Or Brandon Sanderson created these impossibly huge and complex worlds and magic systems and interesting male characters then he'll have a bunch of clumsy cliched female characters(see also Jordan, Robert).

Different strengths for different authors.

Draegan_sl said:

Last time I read them, I read the prequels first. I don't recall any real big retcons.

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The worst one was the last 1/3 or so of each of the prequels being devoted to Belgarath & Silk/Polgara respectively chasing/hiding from Chamdar while knowing that his alias is Asharak the Murgo (Polgara reveals to Salmissra that Asharak is Chamdar hundreds of years before Garion is born, and Belgarath/Silk are chasing him down under the name Asharak right up until he kills Garion's parents), only to get to the Belgariad where they're all sitting around wondering who this Asharak guy is. There are a bunch of other relatively minor ones, but them not knowing that Asharak is Chamdar is a pivotal plot point for the first two Belgariad books, so going directly from them chasing him to them having no idea who he is was pretty disconcerting.

Or Brandon Sanderson created these impossibly huge and complex worlds and magic systems and interesting male characters then he'll have a bunch of clumsy cliched female characters(see also Jordan, Robert).

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Patrick Rothfuss is just as bad re: female characters. I also wouldn't call RJ's male characters particularly interesting - Rand is the generic prophesied savior with a really annoying guilt complex, Matt is the generic rogue/trickster archetype (although he becomes a bit more interesting once he gets some character development under Sanderson, as I recall) and I can't even remember the name of the third one, he's so boring - just that he was a pussywhipped blacksmith with some magical wolf telepathy thing going on and that I skipped half of his chapters. Granted they were better than most of his female characters, but Jordan's main thing was the world building - he managed to create an interesting setting (especially for the era) that wasn't generic Tolkien/D&D inspired medieval European high fantasy. He also created some interesting villains (the ones who weren't villains cause "yeah I'm evil" or because they were jealous of Rand's past life), some of the best parts of the series were the Forsaken POV chapters, their scheming against eachother and comparing the current era to the one they'd lived in before being trapped.

As a genre fantasy just doesn't have much going for interesting female characters. Even Robin Hobb writes better male characters, and she's a woman. The only fantasy author I can think of for interesting female leads is Kate Forsyth (not sure if her books are even sold outside Australia), and maybe China Mieville (if you count him as fantasy).

I like how Butcher portrays his women. The differences between Summer / Winter especially. The rest of the women seem to have a problem staying alive or out of trouble...

I started to think about how high fantasy could be enriched by rounded and complex female characters like those we've seen in some of the best contemporary dramas... Then I imagined Skyler from Breaking bad or Nurse Jackie in westeros and figured naaaah, let's just have more Felisin.

Vlett_sl said:

I like how Butcher portrays his women.

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Except for the whole "Every single woman in the world is a GD supermodel" thing.


Thinking about it, weirdly, Joe Abercrombie(specifically in the 3 stand alone First Law books) has some pretty good female characters. Non-traditional. Though I suppose the fact he frames most of them in traditionally male roles might be considered a crutch by some, except for the wife in The Heroes. She was pretty great on her own as just a sort of hyper motivated overly supportive woman behind the man. Merchant chick in Red Country was awesome, as was Chickmayor. Just weird to me, when you think Abercrombie you think dark and gritty and brutal. But when I was trying to think of some female characters I really enjoyed it was some of his that came to mind. I'm sure one of you will have some literary reasons I'm wrong about them, to which I say "go eat a fart".

Grimmlokk_sl said:

Except for the whole "Every single woman in the world is a GD supermodel" thing.


Thinking about it, weirdly, Joe Abercrombie(specifically in the 3 stand alone First Law books) has some pretty good female characters. Non-traditional. Though I suppose the fact he frames most of them in traditionally male roles might be considered a crutch by some, except for the wife in The Heroes. She was pretty great on her own as just a sort of hyper motivated overly supportive woman behind the man. Merchant chick in Red Country was awesome, as was Chickmayor. Just weird to me, when you think Abercrombie you think dark and gritty and brutal. But when I was trying to think of some female characters I really enjoyed it was some of his that came to mind. I'm sure one of you will have some literary reasons I'm wrong about them, to which I say "go eat a fart".

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Glen Cook's female characters are pretty solid too.

Finished Commonwealth and Void series, loved them both but Hamilton really needs to work on the endings (still worth reading for the other 99%).

Started Wool now, loving this as well (half way through the first book so far).