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Post by grodog on Nov 19, 2008 20:10:01 GMT -6
I'm about done re-reading Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy (I wanted to check them out again to see if Ethan [4 yo] would like them or not, and I don't think they'll hold his attention quite yet). I'm still reading The Witch Must Die (a study of fairy tales), and just got CAS and Gaiman books for my recent birthday, so I'm likely to start to dig into them soon.
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Post by geoffrey on Nov 19, 2008 20:32:27 GMT -6
I'm about done re-reading Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy... I think our brainwaves must be in the same aether. We recently read REH at the same time, and just yesterday I was thinking to myself, "I'm in the mood for some light and fun books. Daley's Han Solo books are great for that." Personally, I hate virtually every Star Wars novel I've ever read. Daley's trilogy, though, is the exception. It's just Han and Chewie having adventures. None of the pretentiousness that the Force and the Jedi turned into. |
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Post by grodog on Nov 20, 2008 14:16:03 GMT -6
LOL---I just wrapped HS & the Lost Legacy last night. I think we must be channeling the same demons or we buy our black lotus from the same supplier, geoffrey  Part of what got me on the Daley novels was thinking about the old comic strip for Star Wars/Han Solo @ Star's End that ran in the newspapers aeons ago. I recently discovered that Dark Horse reprinted that, and that's what made me think about the novels for Ethan (since we've been reading some of the Dark Horse Indiana Jones and Clone Wars titles lately). I haven't read any further SW novels, other than the first two movie adaptations, and Splinter in the Mind's Eye (title?), all three years and years ago. I've heard some good things about some of Mike Stackpole's novels, but haven't really bothered with them, since (like the FR) there's likely too much canon to try to catch up on. |
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 23, 2008 5:21:23 GMT -6
Currently Reading: Night's Master By Tanith Lee.
I've always been curous about the Flat Earth books, and I'm finally gonna give it a go and read them.
So far the book is bit like 1970s David Bowie by way of Robert E. Howard and Edith Hamilton's Mythology.
Its Glam Rock Sword & Sorcery.
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Post by kesher on Nov 23, 2008 17:11:54 GMT -6
That's an apt description. I love those books.
I have a friend who may have read them all close to a dozen times...
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Post by stonetoflesh on Nov 26, 2008 13:45:11 GMT -6
Daley's Han Solo Adventures are a cargo hold full of awesome... Talk about a blast from the past!
I'm re-reading the Lankhmar stories right now. Finished Swords and Deviltry the other day, now I'm making my way through Swords Against Death.
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Post by makofan on Dec 2, 2008 8:57:05 GMT -6
I just got my hands on Chalker's Lords of the Diamond series (his only really good series IMO) and am re-reading them
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Spike
Level 1 Medium
CHAOTIC CUTE
Posts: 22
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Post by Spike on Dec 8, 2008 15:22:56 GMT -6
I'm reading two books at this time. I had started in on Victor Hugo's Ninty-Three, but following a particularly verbose account of the revery of some character or another (it's a Hugo thing), I decided to take a break and concentrate my reading time on Howard's Bran Mak Morn collection.
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yesmar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Fool, my spell book is written in Erlang!
Posts: 217
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Post by yesmar on Dec 16, 2008 23:50:53 GMT -6
I'm rereading all of the old Elric stories now! It's great to be reading these again. If you haven't read them before then you should!
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Post by kesher on Dec 17, 2008 13:34:07 GMT -6
There's nothing quite like the first time you read the Elric stories...  I like to re-read them all every few years, and it always follows the same pattern: I think, "Man! These are amazing!", and then, by the time I get to the end I'm thinking, "Man, that's enough for now!" And then I usually go and read the Corum books! (which, for my money, are his best work...) |
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Post by dwayanu on Dec 17, 2008 22:56:36 GMT -6
The Knight of Swords was the first Moorcock I read, followed (IIRC) by some of his "Dancers at the End of Time" series. For a variation on rereading the Elric saga, I understand there are some volumes reprinting early versions of those stories. One thing about that series in particular is the wide swings in style; Moorcock seems sometimes to have written at a breakneck pace, as if trying to keep up with the action.
As to Chalker, I also enjoyed at least the first few volumes of his "Well of Souls" series -- although I'm not sure how well they'd hold up on a second reading.
I tore through Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife, a tale of modern witchcraft in a college town. Then, I (at last) got started on Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series. Actually, I started reading that (or perhaps a precursor) many years ago. It's a brilliant conceit, promising plenty of adventure, intrigue and imaginative treatments of historical characters. I am reminded that I haven't read a good biography (one of my enthusiasms as a kid) in a long while.
Norstrilia, his only SF novel, is a Cordwainer Smith work I'm meeting for the first time; his short stories were (along with Van Vogt's mind benders) among my earliest favorites after getting hooked on the genre by H.G. Wells.
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Post by dwayanu on Dec 17, 2008 23:27:15 GMT -6
Oh, yeah -- I picked up a volume of the two earliest Darkover novels, plus an interesting retrospective by Bradley. I've read the latter and (the very short) The Planet Savers, but not yet The Sword of Aldones (which the author herself considers a lackluster work).
The retrospective includes a rumination on the suggestive power of such redolent phrases as "the terrible Ya-Men, who turn cannibal when the Ghost Wind blows."
I have some (relatively) new stuff on the shelf -- later volumes of David Drake's Lord of the Isles series -- but they may be old vintage by the time I get to reading them. I've also been picking up China Mieville's Perdido Street Station from time to time to read a chapter or two.
Funny how that goes! It would take more than a single lifetime to read all the old stuff I'd like to read (oddly, even if I know it's not the greatest), so the new rarely gets my immediate attention.
The last hot-off-the-presses novel that did was Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky (prequel of sorts to A Fire Upon the Deep). Reviews of his latest release are not encouraging, but those two were like lightning striking twice! (I can also recommend The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime.) Fire especially is not to be missed, for its rocking take on epic space opera.
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blackmoor
Level 4 Theurgist
The First Dungeonmaster
Posts: 115
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Post by blackmoor on Dec 18, 2008 0:49:06 GMT -6
Just finished Mike Stackpole's "Perchance to Dream" (Actually re-reading a few of the stories". And started Margret Weis' "Amber $ Ashes".. Great so far.
Dave Arneson
"Dark Lord of Game Design"
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terje
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Blasphemous accelerator
Posts: 206
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Post by terje on Feb 3, 2009 13:44:00 GMT -6
Just finished Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space trilogy, great space opera! Yesterday I began to read Greg Bears City at the End of Time.
I've also recently ordered the first three volumes of the collected fantasies of CAS and A Merritts The Face in the Abyss and Dwellers in the Mirage.
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Post by Random on Feb 3, 2009 22:04:04 GMT -6
I just finished Big Planet by Jack Vance, and I'm currently about 50 pages into The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
I have quite a stack of sci-fi borrowed from my father to last me quite some time.
I wish I had the extra cash for those CAS hardbacks. They look really nice, much better than reading from a computer screen.
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Post by garish on Feb 4, 2009 23:13:41 GMT -6
I'm again reading Fritz Lieber's "Three of Swords". I'm still amazed at what a fine template "Thieves 'House" is for a dungeon crawl.
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Post by snorri on Feb 5, 2009 4:05:18 GMT -6
I'm reading a biography of the Merovingian queen Brunehaut. A lot of ideas for plots and intrigues in a late antique world.
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Post by Ghul on Feb 6, 2009 12:26:04 GMT -6
I'm reading _Dwellers in the Mirage_, by A. Merritt. It's the third Merritt novel for me, and I am enjoying it immensely. I received for Christmas the B&N complete fiction works of HPL. While I have already read all HPL's fiction, some more than once, I am enjoying going through and randomly selecting stories I have not read in several years. Right now I'm reading _Shadow Over Innsmouth_. I find this one particularly enjoyable because the setting is one I've grown up around (well, except for Innsmouth itself, which is a sort of weird fictional mirror of Newburyport, MA).
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Post by greyharp on Feb 6, 2009 17:07:28 GMT -6
I've recently returned home from an interstate trip. I live in an isolated rural area, in an island state with a population of half a million and a severe drought of used book stores, which is incredibly frustrating for a book collector like myself. While on the mainland I found copies of Merritt's The Face in the Abyss, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, Burrouhghs' Swords of Mars, Leigh Brackett's The Ginger Star and The Hounds of Skaith, a Moorcock Elric novel I didn't have, and Karl Wagner's Bloodstone.
Just when I was thinking I wouldn't have such luck here at home, yesterday I found Philip Jose Farmer's "translation" of Ironcastle, by French author J.H. Rosny in a thrift shop.
Reading Three Hearts and Three Lions was great even just to see the inspiration behind D&D's Troll and the Pixie with the obligatory Giant Pikes. I'm currently reading Wagner's Kane novel Bloodstone and thoroughly enjoying it so far.
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Post by snorri on Feb 12, 2009 10:21:20 GMT -6
I'm reading now a book on barbarians (ie. germans and slavics) laws codes and social organisation, by Karol Modzelewski. Really interesting for any 'dark ages' and barbarian campaign. Karol Modzelewski was also a fonding member of Solidarnosc in Poland and played a great role in the freedom struggle in this country. This personnal history helps him to have a critical view on the political background of the subject historiography.
My next reading will probably be a book on Templars in the south of France.
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Fandomaniac
Level 4 Theurgist
I've come here to chew bubblegum and roll d20's and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Posts: 191
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Post by Fandomaniac on Feb 21, 2009 9:41:18 GMT -6
I'm currently reading Berserk, a really cool Japanese manga, which mixes both fantasy and horror. Berserk is about Gattsu (Guts in the english translation), the Black Swordsman, who in his search for vengeance, wanders around the world slaying demons. Berserk was also made into a 25-episode anime series and is on my list as a "must see" for anyone interested in fantasy and horror. For more info, here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserk_(manga) |
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Post by snorri on Feb 21, 2009 15:53:22 GMT -6
I finished recently a book on assyrian king Assurbanipal life. Very living description of this civilization, a must for any sword & sorcery campaign. Assurbannipal fights lions alone to prove he's a great king (and unlike his ancestors he do that on foot rather than riding) ; he learns astrology, magic and rituals, and priests around him fights demons to protect him; destroy full cities, send their people to slavery and tears because they were so nasty with him ; hang his opponents next to the town gates and is happy to have an opponent head hanged in his garden - for weeks... It makes looks Carcossa a fairy tale  Now, I read a book on vikings establishments in western Europe, but nothing very valuable for rpg - apart the Normand duke Rollon, converted to christianism but still sacrificing humans to northerne gods. Never be too prudent... |
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Post by welleran on Mar 17, 2009 7:34:29 GMT -6
I am half way through Jack Vance's Lyonnesse trilogy (currently on The Green Pearl). Although his Dying Earth series is the proto-D&D classic, I really like this series, too. Definitely good D&D idea-pillaging material.
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Post by cadriel on Mar 17, 2009 8:14:57 GMT -6
Last week, I finished The Fallible Fiend by L. Sprague de Camp. I found it really enjoyable, and will be reading the other Novarian books sometime in the near future. I love the idea that the "man-eating demon" is a quiet, philosophical type on his home plane.
Currently I'm on Hiero's Journey by Sterling Lanier - only about a dozen pages in, but it's intriguing so far.
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Post by stonetoflesh on Mar 17, 2009 15:26:01 GMT -6
I'm reading Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber, a urban fantasy/mystery story set in 1970s San Francisco. It's fairly entertaining so far, but certainly not one of his best.
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Post by codeman123 on Mar 23, 2009 1:44:49 GMT -6
Lately been reading alot of Bukowski's stuff and rereading lotr for the 4th time now..
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Post by ragnorakk on Mar 26, 2009 18:38:59 GMT -6
Finally getting my hands on the third and last book of Vance's Lyonesse trilogy. It has been
an epic battle to get this series read...I stumbled across the first book about two years ago
and started reading it, never having read Vance before. During the first third of the book I remember
literally asking myself "Why I am reading this?" - I didn't think it sucked (though the first part was
a slow build) - I was just kinda baffled by it. It's one of the strangest expereinces I've ever had reading
a book. It's like it confused me enough to keep reading...
And then *BOOM*, it was there - one of the best fantasy books I've ever seen! I went from curiously
interested (and curious as to why I was interested) to totally immersed in the space of a page!
books two and three are (of course) out of print.
several months ago a friend of mine (who I made read it when I was done) ordered the second off eBay.
today he sent me an email saying that he's got a bid on the 3rd!!!
I read a lot - though my recent discovery of forum/blog life has cut into reading time. Mostly sci-fi and
non-fiction (any John McPhee fans out there? WHUP! WHUP!), Really liked Michael Flynn Wreck of
the River of Stars (after the first 60 or so pages)...Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen
too
While I'm at it ;DREAD EVERY WORD WRITTEN BY STANISLAW LEM! ;D
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Post by vladtolenkov on May 1, 2009 10:37:23 GMT -6
Just started (re)reading King's The Gunslinger. I read it about twenty years ago and never got past the first book--despite the fact I found it interesting and evocative. I'm going to give it a another go. We'll see if I ever get to the Dark Tower. . .
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Post by ragnorakk on May 1, 2009 14:01:02 GMT -6
Finally got books 3 & 4 of Gene Wolf's Book of the New Sun, so reading 3.
Just finished his book 'The Knight' which I thought was fantastic. His writing
in general blows my mind - a recent discovery for me.
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akiyama
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 103
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Post by akiyama on May 14, 2009 11:34:02 GMT -6
I just read "King Solomon's Mines" by H. Rider Haggard. I totally recommend it. It's surprisingly D&D-ish for a book that was written over 120 years ago.
A book I'm halfway through is "Microtrends" by Mark J. Penn, an opinion pollster, about surprising trends in the US. One thing I notice is that some trends concern the increasing popularity of pasttimes thought to be "old-fashioned", such as knitting, archery or classical music.
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