AR Book Club

[Avaitor]

I think my favorite parts of Feast (aside from those that focused on Sansa who really comes into her own in that book) were the ones that revealed just how deluded and unstable Cersei is. It's been awhile since I read it but I can't recall her making a single good decision in any of the chapters that featured her

She has not. I love her lesbian chapter, and how she basically ends it by saying "that was fun, but only Jaime can please me"/

[Pharass]

Currently reading a Swedish novel; Mannen fr?n Albanien (The Man from Albania) by Magnus Montelius. It's a very well-written mystery/espionage thriller in the vein of Le Carr?. The novel takes place in Stockholm during the 90's and concerns two journalists investigating the mysterious death of an accused spy who fled the country years earlier. Apparently this is the author's first novel, but I'm certainly looking forward to read more of his work in the future.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I always forget about this thread until you bump it. I read Rupert Of Hentzau finally, and it was a great sequel to the Prisoner Of Zenda if not quite as fast-paced.

I'm sort of just mulling through a few books right now deciding which to focus on.

[Pharass]

Right now I'm reading The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It's a good book, although I can't help but think that the eponymous story-within-the-story is more interesting than the main plot.

[Avaitor]

I found a vintage pulp copy of one of those short story collections which consists of stories that weren't approved for Hitch's show.

I want to find more of them. Some very cool reads in there.

[Avaitor]

Just dropped The Stand.

Stephen King at his best and his worst at the same time. It's just too much for one person, honestly.

[Pharass]

Reading Live by Night, the latest (I think) book by Dennis Lehane. It's a follow-up to his previous novel A Given Day and centers around the younger brother of that novel's main character and his career as a gangster in prohibition-era Boston.
Really good so far, Lehane continues to establish himself as one of my favorite living authors.

[Pharass]

I recently finished The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.
This was a great read, definitely one of the best science-fiction novels I've read. Basically, Stars is The Count of Monte Cristo in space (I read somewhere that the makers of Gankutsuo were originally going to make an anime adaption of Bester's novel but couldn't get the rights, but I'm not sure if that's true). However, there are differences so that Stars never feels like it's derivative of Dumas' work.

One difference is between the protagonists of each novel. In Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes starts out as a nice, but somewhat naive young man with a bright future ahead of him. On the other hand, Bester's protagonist; Gully Foyle starts the novel as a barely articulate primitive brute. Like Dantes, Foyle's quest for vengeance against the ship who abandoned him to drift in space (he actually swears vengeance on the ship itself and later in the book displays incredulity when one of his associates tells him it's pointless to take vengeance on a vessel and that he should instead focus his anger on the people who gave the order to pass him by) transforms him into a formidable being who will stop at nothing to make his revenge come true.

Another interesting aspect about The Stars My Destination is the so-called Jaunting. Basically, in Bester's vision of the 25th Century human beings have learned how to instantly teleport themselves (though it only works if you've actually been to the place you want to teleport too before and you need a mental picture of it in order to do so) which have lead to ordinary vehicles like cars or bicycles being status symbols for the wealthy.

Like I said; The Stars My Destination is a great read that I recommend to anyone with an interest in the genre. Now I need to decide if I should continue with The Demolished Man, another of Bester's novels or if I should take a pause from the SF stuff and move on to Sanctuary by William Faulkner.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I heard really good things about The Demolished Man. Most people can't seem decide between that or The Stars My Destination as the better.

I myself am reading The Haunting Of Hill House for Halloween this year. I'm not the biggest fan of The Lottery, but so far I'm enjoying this one quite well.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Just dropped The Stand.

Stephen King at his best and his worst at the same time. It's just too much for one person, honestly.

I missed this post. The Stand is more of a "project" that you have to really sit down and sort of focus yourself in order absorb the sheer amount of story. I've also put it aside for reading later and got the mini-series to watch on DVD for now.

I honestly think Salem's Lot is a much easier read and gets really good (and STAYS good, unlike a lot of his work) despite the beginning being a bit over-stuffed with town activity for my tastes but a lot of it actually pays off later so it's a small price to pay. It makes a good Halloween read, too.

[Avaitor]

Well, I do really like Misery and Carrie, but it feels like King lets himself get carried away with longer novels like the Dark Tower and the Stand.

There's promise in both, but sometimes it's just too much for me.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Salem's Lot might be long, but it's still rather centered on the main plot and is quite good overall. But I only mainly like his early stuff anyway. After The Stand and The Shining my interest in his work falls off sharply.

[Pharass]

After giving it some thought, I decided to continue with Bester and go with The Demolished Man. I'm almost finished with it and although I have a slight preference for The Stars My Destination, Demolished has been a great read and would easily get into any list of my favorite science-fiction novels. Ben Reich, the main character is a great villain-protagonist and his battle of wits with Lincoln Powell, the psychic detective out to catch him is riveting.

I've also been reading some books by Ross MacDonald and they too, are great, first-rate mystery stories. I've only read two of MacDonald's books so far, but it's easy to see why writers such as James Ellroy or Elmore Leonard hold (or held in the latter's case) him in such high regards.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I just finished reading The Neverending Story. Yeah, it definitely trumps both movies.

The first one sticks pretty close, but the changed ending in the movie makes me understand why Michael Ende didn't like it so much. The second one has Xayide and the whole memory-thing, but it's way better in the book and the ending is much more powerful for it. There's just so much going on in the book that even two movies couldn't contain it all. I have to give them credit for trying, at least.

All in all, great read!

[Pharass]

Finished Sanctuary, out of the few books I've read by Faulkner it was definitely the easiest one to get into. All in all I enjoyed it. That said, I don't think I'll ever be able to look at corncobs the same way again.

As for now, I'm currently reading the first volume of Gao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the classic works of Chinese litterature. It's pretty good so far, I was in the mood for a huge epic/saga with tons of characters and this seems to fit the bill quite nicely.