comics- rereading my 100 bullets comics, going to pick up the last one at the store tomorrow (been putting that off for a while).

great great comic series if you're into crime stuff...it's almost like sin city in a way. really fantastic.

reading genghis: hill of bones or something like that, the third part of that genghis series. i really enjoy those alot, i'm sure it'll be done soon. so far, so good.

I finished Crime and Punishment monday night, I loved the whole thing until the epilogue.

reasons:

Started reading The Satanic Verses on Tuesday, enjoying it so far but not quite sure it is going to keep my interest for 500+ pages.

zer0, Dostoyevsky himself was imprisoned by the Czar and sentenced to death in the morning. At the last minute before he was to be executed, the Czar ordered that he be freed. This display of sheer implacable, whimsical power was said to have had a devastating impact on the D Man's psyche, and has been argued was a strong influence on his future fiction, which became in some ways more normative and conservative.

I didn't care for the ending and found it false too. Kind of felt like the sort of ending the studios made Hitchcock put on his movies, which you know Hitch didn't care for would otherwise never have done.

Wolves of the Calla was also my favorite. Song of Susannah was my least favorite King worked many of the characters from his other books into the Dark Tower series so you might consider reading some of his other stuff first such as Eyes of the Dragon and Salem's Lot.

Reading Algernon, Charlie, and I, subtitled A Writer's Journey, by Daniel Keyes. It's about his writing in general and his writing of Flowers for Algernon in particular.

I saw the very good Cliff Robertson film of it, "Charly," when I was a kid, but have never read the original story until now. It's in the back of the book, and I'm reading it now. I've read a couple chapters at the front of the book about Keyes putting his ideas for the story together, but don't want to get too ahead of myself, so I'm just reading the story now. Only read a little of that last night, but like it so far.

And I think it's not all that easy to pull off portrayals of mentally handicapped people. He's doing a pretty respectable job of it so far.

Hey Guys:

Any recommendations for new authors to try? Preferably with a lot of books written. I basically find an author, read everything they have read, and then try and find a new author.

Authors I like:
Thriller: David Baldacci, Lee Child etc
Fantasy: Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, Raymond E Feist etc
Historical Fiction: Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden

Cheers

Richard Price for contemporary urban drama. A number of his works have been made into movies, too, so it can be fun to see how they got realized on screen. One of the most gifted dialogue writers out there. "The Warriors" is a good start.

I tend to read everything an author writes, too. Good show.

I didn't know this, thanks for posting.

You'll see what I believe is a reflection of this scene at the end of Woody Allen's movie, Love and Death, which is my personal favorite of his.

Just finished Neuromancer, really great. Reminded me a lot of Cowboy Bebop. I had to pay closer attention and reread some passages more times than usual, and had to Wiki something like every other page, but it was worth it. I still don't think I got it all and I'll prob have to read it at least once more.

What other Gibson books do I need to check out?

Currently five chapters into Ender's Game, pretty much the polar opposite of Neuromancer stylistically. Sometimes I appreciate the simplicity, but occasionally it feels a bit bland, almost like a children's book or something. The story also feels like it's headed toward being Harry Potter in space, not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive are the second two of the "Sprawl trilogy." Personally I think Count Zero is the best of the three, though obviously Neuromancer was more of a kick when I first read it since it was so unlike anything else. The three are related, but it takes a bit of concentration to figure out how (though that's the same for all Gibsons).
Middle trilogy is the Bridge Trilogy - Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties, which are great, alright, and outstanding in that order. ATP is magic.
Final (current) trilogy is Pattern Recognition (probably his best) and Spook Country - the third is currently being written!

Interesting about Ender's game; I didn't read it straight after writing as dense and complex as Gibson, but I can see what you mean. Are you enjoying reading it, though?

It's ok, but it's feeling more and more like a young adult novel than anything else. Like it's just a standard teen story about how to get through school when everyone's picking on you, but in space. Hopefully we get to fighting aliens sometime soon, or at least something more exciting than a bunch of little kids being dicks to each other.

Enders Game is now often categorized in Young Adult at major bookstores. I guess a lot of people share your sentiments, Landon.

I have gone back for bits and bits of Cryptonomicon and I just can not take any more of it. It's great that he put a story around the people that formed cryptology, but I'm 200 pages in and still can't figure out the plot arc. If someone asked me what it was about, all I could tell them is, "The history of cryptology," which is the same as anyone else has been able to tell me, including the people that go ga-ga over the book. It's a shame. There are some precious gems of prose on almost every page.

Edit: Maybe I have figured out the plot arc. The problem is that I don't find it very interesting?

LF Enders Game is a light SF. Very Good, well written but not much new. Could have been written in the 60s as it has that teen style used back then. I actually liked Speaker of the Dead better, but it is totally different. It depends on my mood sometimes I want to read something like that and can't get into the denser stuff.

Currently reading "This is your Country on Drugs" a secret History of Getting High in America. Not the best writing but the content is very interesting.

The basic idea is in every society people want to get high and always find a way. And goverments always try to regulate, ban or control. AND the result is what common sense would tell you.......people find a different way to get high.

Temperance movememt of 1800s leads to Bayer inventing heroin and its growth. Not the needle in the arm, but the powder to "take away the wearyness", the toothpaste additive, etc. Reagan in the 70s trying to stop pot...causes populartiy of coke and crack. Stopping the sale of one of the ingrediants of Meth, results in a replacement that make Meth even stronger. How stopping big bulky shipments of pot makes growers start growing more in the country and breeding stronger stuff.

Only half way ...

I tried Cryptonomicon too and got about 200 pages in myself if I recall before I put it down. A friend told me that the story really takes off after about the first 1/3rd of the book (probably right after I quit reading) but I had already moved on. I'll probably give it another go someday...

I loved Cryptonomicon and thought it was a fairly easy read...I couldn't get through the first book of The Baroque Cycle.

LOL Read the first in Baroque...interesting but "where is the story?" and almost quit. The story takes off after the first book. I like both but Baroque Cycle>>>>>Crypto

Need to reread both one day

I'm now at the part of EG where



I don't like where this is going.

Yeah thats pretty hilarious

Finally finished Ender's Game. It was ok, I guess. The characters and the writing in general were pretty bland, and a lot of stuff didn't feel as heavy or exciting as it could've been. But there was some cool stuff in there as well, and it was pretty easy to get through, so whatever.

Gonna stop by Books-A-Million tomorrow and see if I can get the rest of the Sprawl trilogy, or maybe some other ****.

American Roulette by Richard Marcus. Quite the story

My dad finally talked me into trying out Jack Vance. Anyone familiar with his work?

I just started:

I wish I started reading fiction earlier, I'm overwhelmed by how much literature is out there and by a desire to "catch up."

So far I've read Slaughterhouse Five, Metamorphosis, Dune, Blindness, and Blindsight. I enjoyed every one of them quite a bit.

Possible considerations for my next book: Ulysses, Breakfast of Champions, Notes From The Underground, Invisible Cities, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

There's a few series (Song of Ice and Fire, Red/Green/Blue Mars, In Search of Lost Time) that interest me too but I think I'm still too early in my reading career to be trying to tackle any story that spans that many pages.

Words of wisdom and suggestions from seasoned readers greatly appreciated.