What are we reading?

Started by Martok, March 05, 2012, 01:13:59 PM

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TheCommandTent

Quote from: MetalDog on April 10, 2013, 09:27:01 PM
Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 10, 2013, 09:02:05 PM
On a recommendation I just started The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

Let me recommend that you stop.  You can't get back the time you will waste on the endeavor.

Can you give me any more info/reasoning than that. :)
"No wants, no needs, we weren't meant for that, none of us.  Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."

Longdan

Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 10, 2013, 09:02:05 PM
On a recommendation I just started The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

That is time you could spend much more enjoyably lancing goat boils, scrubbing toilets and sitting in a drunk tank or mucking out barns.
The Telephone Book of Shannara etc was, for me, a dreadful experience of derivative bumpf at best and a nauseating twinky-dreck festival the rest of the time.
I will never ever get that part of my life and my literary  innocence back.  It is an abomination unto the goddess.
digni enim sunt interdicunt

MetalDog

Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 10, 2013, 10:17:06 PM
Quote from: MetalDog on April 10, 2013, 09:27:01 PM
Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 10, 2013, 09:02:05 PM
On a recommendation I just started The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

Let me recommend that you stop.  You can't get back the time you will waste on the endeavor.

Can you give me any more info/reasoning than that. :)

It's almost a direct Tolkien ripoff.  And not a well written one at that.   Let me put it this way, I read the books in my early teens.  Even then I knew that stuff was dreck.  His best book, that I read, was Magic Kingdom For Sale: Sold.  The second book in the Shannara trilogy, Elfstones of Shannara wasn't terrible, but you would have to read the first and third one to make any sense of it and that's to be avoided at all costs.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Longdan

You are right.  Oh so right.  The first part is a direct rip off of The Fellowship of The Ring but sillier and stupider and ultimately lame as a two legged dog.
There are Darkly Foreboding Signs of Bad Things and Scary Monsters! OOOOOOOHHHHHH!  And plucky little protagonists.  Since Terry Brooks was a lawyer
you'd think he could have put something truly horrible in there like a +17 Family Law Specialist but he produces a grocery clerk with pointy ears glued on
and an "elf" sign on its back.  I think I am going to be sick.
digni enim sunt interdicunt

TheCommandTent

Quote from: MetalDog on April 10, 2013, 11:24:27 PM
Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 10, 2013, 10:17:06 PM
Quote from: MetalDog on April 10, 2013, 09:27:01 PM
Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 10, 2013, 09:02:05 PM
On a recommendation I just started The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

Let me recommend that you stop.  You can't get back the time you will waste on the endeavor.

Can you give me any more info/reasoning than that. :)

It's almost a direct Tolkien ripoff.  And not a well written one at that.   Let me put it this way, I read the books in my early teens.  Even then I knew that stuff was dreck.  His best book, that I read, was Magic Kingdom For Sale: Sold.  The second book in the Shannara trilogy, Elfstones of Shannara wasn't terrible, but you would have to read the first and third one to make any sense of it and that's to be avoided at all costs.

Ok that is fair enough.  Would you have recommendation to take its place instead within the fantasy genre. :)
"No wants, no needs, we weren't meant for that, none of us.  Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."

Bison

Oh good grief.  The Sword of Shannara isn't that bad.  In fact I rather liked the Shannara series.

The Belgariad and Malloreon series by David Eddings are also good quick reads. 

Shelldrake

Quote from: Bison on April 11, 2013, 07:59:04 AM
Oh good grief.  The Sword of Shannara isn't that bad.  In fact I rather liked the Shannara series.

The Belgariad and Malloreon series by David Eddings are also good quick reads.

The Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist is also good.
"Just because something is beyond your comprehension doesn't mean it is scientific."

Dean Edell

JasonPratt

Feist's Riftwar series definitely.

Having not read any of Shannara, nor any of Eddings' books, I have routinely heard from people I trust that Eddings is much better at aping LotR. Even though the Mallorean series is itself kind of a remake of the Belgariad. (But I know someone who when moving to California kept the Mallo rather than pack the Belg, because if she was going to reread one or the other the Mallo was a superior version of basically the same story.)


Or, if we're talking about 70s/80s fantasy, may I suggest the Coramonde duology by Brian Daley? Hard to find perhaps, but it doesn't take forever to read, is packed with niftiness and details, and starts with the concept of a Vietnam APC squad being summoned to deal with a dragon and then largely ditches that about halfway through the first book because the rest of the story is strong enough to stand on its own merits.
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Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Bison

Quote from: Shelldrake on April 11, 2013, 09:33:11 AM
The Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist is also good.

This one has been on my list for sometime.

Steelgrave

If you haven't read Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series, you're missing one of the best trilogies out there. The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings are amazing and will hook you. Abercrombie has followed up with more in the same universe that are very good as well, but this trilogy should be read by anyone who enjoys fantasy.

Longdan

Quote from: Bison on April 11, 2013, 07:59:04 AM
Oh good grief.  The Sword of Shannara isn't that bad.  In fact I rather liked the Shannara series.

The Belgariad and Malloreon series by David Eddings are also good quick reads.

Bison!  You love wordcount it seems.  You should have loved some of my posts instead of reacting like you did.  Sword is written like you asked your eleven year old brother for a 300 page book report on Fellowship of the Ring.
Eddings stuff is okay and at least original enough.  There are many, many books better than the Shannarra Telephone Book. 
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LongBlade

I clicked on this thread to see what I'd missed. Last time I was in here we were on page 22. Now it's up to 50.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go back and read every post, though I'm sure there will be some excellent recommendations...
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Gusington

I told you a bookworm forum was a good idea!


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Airborne Rifles

Just finished Storm of War by Andrew Roberts.  It's a one volume history of WWII written by a Brit.  It was very interesting to read what events the British choose to emphasize and deemphasize in tha war.  Overall a really good read.

Bison

Quote from: Gusington on April 11, 2013, 10:25:29 AM
I told you a bookworm forum was a good idea!

I believe if you go back in the history of grogheads; it was I Bison who proposed a separate book forum distinct from the movie, television, and music forum.  However, my friend, I will concede my glory so you may have a victory.  8)