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Champion
 
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Last Login: Friday, November 14, 2008 1:33 PM
Posts: 301,
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| I tried to get out of fantasy by reading 'In the name of the rose' by Umberto Ecco. Was a bit of a shock and had to change the assumptions. Didn't get far, ok its been shelved. Got 'Shamans crossing' and 'Forest mage' (new Robin Hobb) for my girlfriend xmas presant and ended up reading them instead. Its an easy read and I like the whole 1700's colonial mind set mixed up with magic. Might be good background read for some maelstrom characters.
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Wag
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 11:24 PM
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Tart (12/29/2006)
About to Read "The God Delusion" by the anti-christ himself Richard Dawkins:Because all idea's are not equal... Two memes bad, four memes good. Marios
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Wag
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 9:22 PM
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Primitive Mythology, the first in the Masks Of God series by Joseph Campbell.
It's mindblowing. Just the first two chapters manage to very effectively paint all religion and mythology as little more than a complicated version of LRP. Dawkins seems like a one-issue amateur in comparison.
PD - Brother Farael of the Ordo Dictum Dominus
EOS - Some Raggard Scum, previously Some Arimin Scum
6P - System creator (now retired), Andrei Treune of Clan Suner (for the moment)
RL - Will Robinson
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Prodigal
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Last Login: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 6:53 PM
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| Just finished Perdido Street Station. Was okay, but not as good as I'd been lead to believe. Felt it was about 200 pages longer than it needed to have been. Just started on "The Night Watch" by Sergei Lukyaneko. The book on which the film was based (or vice versa)
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- Brighton Below : Organiser
- Serenity: Capt Tom Crowson
- RL: Simon / Trez
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Heroic Knight
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Last Login: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:10 PM
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Recently finished World War Z by Max Brooks. It's not a book I would have bought myself, but it turned out to be very good. The 'documentary' style really takes the genre and turns it into something very serious. The thing that really struck me is that I had assumed that it would be a comedy, but in fact it is told with a completely straight face. The ridiculousness just gets absorbed because it dispenses with the the lurid and just focuses on the idea that these are harrowing tales from the survivors of a catastrophic natural disaster.
Absolutely marvellous.
T.
--
CP - Kjell Larssen, Iron Wolves
PD - The L-plate Ref
SG - JT van Horne
Bristol Vampire - Julius Linnett, Tremere
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Wag
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 10:26 PM
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| The Tain by Morgan Llewelyn- historical novel based on the life of Cu-cullain and The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell, both great if you like that sort of thing and I do.
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Heroic Knight
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Last Login: Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:02 PM
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To be fair, I think Perdido Street Station is a tad style-over-substance. The story is quite flimsy, its certainly too long, and once the initial shock at how fantastic the world is has worn off, it can drag its heels a bit. What it does, however, is introduce a really brilliant and engaging fantasy world, which Mieville really fleshes out and expands upon in his following two books. If you enjoyed the style and ideas of Perdido Street, I definitely recommend reading The Scar, which is just as beautiful and shocking, but also has an actual story which keeps you engaged for the whole length. AND Uther Duul, who's pretty much worth it on his own.
No spoken or written word can ever be a substitute for one's own practical experience. No-one too can convince another who does not wish to believe what he is told - only the doubter loses by his incredulity - T.C. Lethbridge
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Wag
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 11:24 PM
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Richie H-R (1/24/2007)
If you enjoyed the style and ideas of Perdido Street, I definitely recommend reading The Scar, which is just as beautiful and shocking, but also has an actual story which keeps you engaged for the whole length. AND Uther Duul, who's pretty much worth it on his own.
I found Scar less irritating (Crisis energy just annoyed me from start to finish - silly fantasy mock-physics which didn't fit with the 'grim and gritty' tone) but still a bit self-consciously oh-so-gritty. Still, I liked Bellis Coldwine.
Marios
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Prodigal
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The Slaine D20 books. Grounded enough in a real culture to the interesting and quirky, with extra mythic fantasy bits woven in, and some useful improvements to the D20 system (like a downtime winter phase (almost) and a mass battle resolution system)
------<insert really amusing sig here>
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