Just finished Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens.

Almost through with Robert Asprin's Phule's Company.

Trying to decide whether to read the next Phule book or read Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light.

Started reading the sequel to Dragons Can Only Rust which is titled "Dragon Reforged" by Chrys Cymri. Had to stop because the story is so linearly deterministic that it got too painful to read. Basically, the plot stolidly plows ahead and almost all details and additional story supports the plotline in a rather deterministic way.

An analogy is that the plotline resembles a tall poplar tree; it has lots of tiny little branches but they never wander off in innovative ways away from the central trunk. I like to have plotlines that are like a "regular" tree which has lots of branches that go in various directions, but overall, the tree has a good general shape and direction to it.

So, I went back to reading fan-fiction until I find another book to read. The current fan-fiction is a sequel to the movie Alien Resurrection and is titled Alien: Odyssey. It is located at:

http://www.altfic.com/alien/alien.htm

I have a habit of trying to look for "sequels" to existing movies. Since sequel plots don't exist for many movies, I usually have to find them via fan-fiction stories.

I'm about to start "Fellowship of the Ring"

Guns, Germs and Steel
by Jared Diamond

Almost finished with Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind. Finally started the Sword of Truth novels a few weeks back, I've got the whole series up to Pillars of Creation .

If you like fantasy novels and want to read one with some serious evil in it, check out the Banned and the Banished series by James Clemens. The titles all have Wit'ch in them(Wit'ch War, Wit'ch Fire). I've never seen bad guys this bad before, worse than stuff from anime. Really cool books, quite a bit different from most fantasy.

I just finished Stephen Ambrose's Comrades and now I'm about 200 pages into Dean Koontz' False Memory.

I haven't been able to find my copy of Return Of The King around the house, so I haven't been able to finish the LOTR trilogy yet!

Currently reading Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man". I had forgotten how great some of his short stories are. I will probably read "The Martian Chronicles" next.

Excellent book, you will be happy to know that that is considered to be the finest single volume on the Civil War. By the time that you are done you will know more about the Civil War era then probably 97% of the population.

Just finished reading....eh....listening to Eaters of the Dead. second time through. my first book on tape...eh...CD.

Just finished 'In Harms Way' by Doug Stanton and have just started ' The Salmon of Doubt' by the late great Douglas Adams.

The Lower Deep , by, Tom Piccirilli. This is a refreshing horror novel because it's not about Vampires. It's about Demons, and Black Magic, Necromancy, and love.


Almost finished.


Next up


I got the Scary Stories Boxed Set that includes Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, More Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, and, Scary Stories 3. Skipping through the books I must say that Stephen Gammell's art is very creepy.

After that it will be either Compulsion, by Shaun Hutson, or, The Baku, by, Edward Bryant

Just finished:

Whattaya Mean I Can't Kill 'Em? : A Navy Seal in Vietnam - Rad Miller Jr
.
And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City Students - Miles Corwin


Now Reading:

Blue Highways: A Journey into America - William Least Heat-Moon

Everything's Eventual - Stephen King

How Hitler Could Have Won World War II : The Fatal Errors That Lead to Nazi Defeat - Bevin Alexander

A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present - Howard Zinn

Atlas of World Military History

I just read Worlds by Joe Haldeman, which is the first book in a trilogy. I really loved it and I'm looking forward to the next two books when they arrive in the mail. Worlds was almost as good as his classics The Forever War and All My Sins Remembered, and it was much better than his more recent novels Forever Peace and The Coming. Although just about anything written by Joe Haldeman is at least worth reading. Currently I'm reading The World Jones Made by Philip Dick. It's one of his early novels, so it's not quite as impressive as Ubik or Electric Sheep, but it's still pretty interesting, and like all of his books, very readable.

Finished Dean Koontz "From the Corner of His Eye" 8/10

Reading - HP Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror & Macabre

After traveling for about 3 1/2 weeks out of the last 5, I've put a lot more books under my belt.

reread "The Everlasting Man" by G.K. Chesterton (absolutely brilliant work), and "the Hobbit" and "The Fellowship of the Rings" by Tolkein.

Read: most recent Krondor novel -- "Tear of the Gods".
Most recent Sword of truth novel -- "Pillars of Creation" -- got paperback in England -- very different from the others in the series -- not necessarily worse, but different.
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Akzaban"
Clive Cussler -- "Night Probe" and "Cyclops"
Melanie Rawn -- Dragon Prince Trilogy book 3.
"Armor" by some guy -- recommended on this board -- good stuff.

Now I know for a fact that there were other books I've read lately, but for the life of me, I can't remember what they were.

Currently reading "Witchcraft" by Charles Williams, and hoping to get to "Shadows of Ecstasy" by the same very soon.

Tuan Jim

Recently read:

Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America: Perestroika -- I read them for the third or fourth time, and I'm more convinced than ever that they are America's greatest achievement in drama (with only O'Neill's later plays giving stiff competition).

Ishmael Reed's The Terrible Twos and The Terrible Threes -- Reed is an amazing satirist. Neither of these are as good as his best -- Flight to Canada and Mumbo Jumbo -- but you have to love any book that takes so many shots as Reagan.

Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato and Michael Herr's Dispatches -- Two very different, but beautifully written Vietnam novels. All fans of Full Metal Jacket should read Dispatches. I can't believe that a war novel can be so poetic. Amazing.

Now reading:

Joan Didion's Democracy

Next up:

John Updike's Rabbit at Rest

Just finished up Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art by Phoebe Hoban and a reread of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 . Currently into the graphic novel From Hell by Alan Moore.

Just finished Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Myla Goldman's Bee Season. Now I'm working on a few re-reads: Racine's Andromache, a collection of hard-boiled short stories and The Essential Ellison (Harlan, not Ralph )

Finished a few plays like Sam Shepard's Fool for Love, D.L. Coburn - The Gin Game, Karen Finley - Theory of Total Blame, The Laramie Project, Grove Press collection of Modern Plays, and Eugene O'Neill's - Long Day's....

Working on: Lee Strobel - Case for Faith and Barbara Leaming - Marilyn Monroe.

Starting: Tennessee Williams - The Glass Menagerie and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I feel like quite the book reading lightweight compared to some of those who've posted in the thread already. I just finished Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander. I'm currently reading Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman.

I'm reading Rabbit, Run right now, along with The Golden Orange. That's my first Joseph Waumbaugh in years.

Honk!

I just finished "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx and I started "The Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger today. Hopefully, I'll be done with that by Saturday and I can pick up "Slaughterhouse Five" by Vonnegut.

Just started Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke. If you haven't read James Lee Burke before then you're missing something special. Before that it was 'The Final Country' by James Crumley. Next up is one of those books of Ice and Fire.....

Would you recommend this book?

I have it, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

I just finished rereading Pride and Prejudice.

I'm looking forward to getting a break from school, then I'll be able to get into something new (other than dull journal articles).

Just finished the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy.

Ostensibly for teens, I found it a fascinating read although I think I favour the first two of the three overall.

There is so much to the series that some time I'll attempt a more lengthy appreciation - either in a new thread or in this one....!

I'm trying to get ahead for a class next semester by reading Moby Dick now ....