What Are You Reading? (March 2015)
03-23-15, 02:14 AM
#26
Re: What Are You Reading? (March 2015)
My vocabulary isn't that strong so every other sentence I'm having to grab the dictionary. I feel like Hitchens puts a little too much emphasis on style and is trying too hard to impress the reader with his own vocabulary. His later writing is a little leaner and more to the point. That said, it's a great collection and his article or essay on Goya was fantastic, a work of art in itself.
03-29-15, 11:20 PM
#34
Re: What Are You Reading? (March 2015)
Just finished:
4 books and maybe about 3500 pages and I'm still not sure whether I actually enjoy reading these Malazan books or not
The ambition and world-building are mightily impressive. But I'm just finding it hard to keep track of all these things the author clearly expects everyone to know. I tried looking at some internet resources to keep track of stuff, but had to bail on that after I got hit with a whopping spoiler about a major character dying right at the top of their Malazan wiki entry. Not that death seems to mean anything in this series, since everyone either ascends, comes back as a ghost, or reincarnates into something else. In this series a lot of the action set-pieces sound more interesting in concept than in execution. Though there are occasional moments and scenes that bowl me over and keep me going.
I really liked the first "book" of this book and how it scaled back to an epic journey of a single character. Since the character didn't know what was going on, it made it really easy to get into the story. But then this kind of turns into a direct sequel to "Deadhouse Gates", which I found to be the most incomprehensible book of the series (though I loved the third book, "Memories of Ice", with its fantastic villains, surprise plot twists, and some genuine emotion).
Looking at the back cover of the next of the series, it looks like its almost a completely new story (with just a single minor character from earlier making an appearance). So that will probably have me giving it a try at some point. It is encouraging that fans of the series seem to say that it's strong throughout (right up until the end). I'll need to take a break and read something easy now though.
4 books and maybe about 3500 pages and I'm still not sure whether I actually enjoy reading these Malazan books or not
The ambition and world-building are mightily impressive. But I'm just finding it hard to keep track of all these things the author clearly expects everyone to know. I tried looking at some internet resources to keep track of stuff, but had to bail on that after I got hit with a whopping spoiler about a major character dying right at the top of their Malazan wiki entry. Not that death seems to mean anything in this series, since everyone either ascends, comes back as a ghost, or reincarnates into something else. In this series a lot of the action set-pieces sound more interesting in concept than in execution. Though there are occasional moments and scenes that bowl me over and keep me going.I really liked the first "book" of this book and how it scaled back to an epic journey of a single character. Since the character didn't know what was going on, it made it really easy to get into the story. But then this kind of turns into a direct sequel to "Deadhouse Gates", which I found to be the most incomprehensible book of the series (though I loved the third book, "Memories of Ice", with its fantastic villains, surprise plot twists, and some genuine emotion).
Looking at the back cover of the next of the series, it looks like its almost a completely new story (with just a single minor character from earlier making an appearance). So that will probably have me giving it a try at some point. It is encouraging that fans of the series seem to say that it's strong throughout (right up until the end). I'll need to take a break and read something easy now though.
03-31-15, 01:25 PM
#37
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: What Are You Reading? (March 2015)
I have a bunch of books on my Kindle I really want to read, but I keep having library books show up so I have to read those first since they have an expiration date.
Finished this
It continued the decline of that series, but at least it didn't cost me anything but time.
Next up
Finished this
It continued the decline of that series, but at least it didn't cost me anything but time.
Next up
