Grand unified books thread

[Slargos]

Anyone read any good fantasy recently? Is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path any good?

This.

I'm currently getting into a reading mood again, after a hiatus of a few months (or to be perfectly honest, more like a year) and I need some good suggestions for either Fantasy or Sci-fi. I'm waiting impatiently for Sanderson and I need something to cover the vast gap until he squirts something out again.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, do check Sanderson out. Mistborn was great, and Stormlight has tremendous potential.

Watch on the Rhine by Kratman. Not really good, but you'll like it.

Meh. I thought it was ok.

[Slargos]

Anyone read any good fantasy recently? Is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path any good?

This.

I'm currently getting into a reading mood again, after a hiatus of a few months (or to be perfectly honest, more like a year) and I need some good suggestions for either Fantasy or Sci-fi. I'm waiting impatiently for Sanderson and I need something to cover the vast gap until he squirts something out again.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, do check Sanderson out. Mistborn was great, and Stormlight has tremendous potential.

Patrick Rothfuss, if you haven't already read him already.

Rothfuss looks like a hilarious fat guy, and despite the fact that the premise for the book sounds unappealing, his chubby cheeks scream to me "Read it!"

[Scipio]

Anyone read any good fantasy recently? Is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path any good?

This.

I'm currently getting into a reading mood again, after a hiatus of a few months (or to be perfectly honest, more like a year) and I need some good suggestions for either Fantasy or Sci-fi. I'm waiting impatiently for Sanderson and I need something to cover the vast gap until he squirts something out again.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, do check Sanderson out. Mistborn was great, and Stormlight has tremendous potential.

Patrick Rothfuss, if you haven't already read him already.

Rothfuss looks like a hilarious fat guy, and despite the fact that the premise for the book sounds unappealing, his chubby cheeks scream to me "Read it!"

The main character is an unapologetic Marty Stu, and it reeks of Tolkienian juvenalia, but it's unaccountably readable and naturalistic.

[Ed Anger]

This is possibly only of interest to Wags:

Paranoia novels:

http://ultravioletbooks.com/

I'm sure they will suck.

[11B4V]

Finally

http://www.amazon.com/BLOOD-STEEL-MYTH-II-SS-Panzer-Korps-Prochorowka/dp/0974838942/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1323014880&sr=8-18

Photos are superb and an ass load of them. Book is simular in format and detail to his book "Last Panzer Victory". Nipe is in the camp that advocates that Hoth's redirction of II SS Pz Corps towards Prokhorovka was not planned. 8.5/10

[The Brain]

I'm reading Pyrrhic Victory, about French strategy and operations in WW1.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

on a lark I picked up a used copy of the King/Bachmann book: The Regulators. A good airplane-y kind of read. A bit predictable, but I'm almost done, so I guess it ain't that bad or I'd have moved on.

On the shelf to be read this winter... The rest of Cornwell's Alfred the Great series, The Stars My Destination (re-read after 20+ years), "Claw & Shadow" which I read so long ago, it was two books :p (Shadow Of The Torturer, Claw of The Conciliator), some Steven Berkhoff (On Food), some Vernor Vinge, Connie Willis, and a few others.

[Ideologue]

Metric fuckton of old Legion of Super-Heroes comics.

[Josephus]

on a lark I picked up a used copy of the King/Bachmann book: The Regulators. A good airplane-y kind of read. A bit predictable, but I'm almost done, so I guess it ain't that bad or I'd have moved on.

On the shelf to be read this winter... The rest of Cornwell's Alfred the Great series, The Stars My Destination (re-read after 20+ years), "Claw & Shadow" which I read so long ago, it was two books :p (Shadow Of The Torturer, Claw of The Conciliator), some Steven Berkhoff (On Food), some Vernor Vinge, Connie Willis, and a few others.

The Regulators turned me off King for good.

[Syt]

I've started re-reading Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy. I last read it when it originally came out. So with the prequels and all, the scenes on Coruscant now look radically different in my head, along with a few other things.

What's I find really grating, though, is Zahn's dialogue. Characters hardly ever just say anything. Instead the call, comment, conclude, interrupt, nod, agree, disagree . . .

When they do say something, it's either with an adverb (calmly, excitedly, sardonically, conversationally) or a description of their voice (Mara said, her voice cold) or while doing something (he said, picking up another piece/reaching for his gun etc.). There's only a handful of plain, simple "he said/she said" or dialogues with just beats inserted into them.

It's really rather comedic to me when you pay attention to it.

[Ideologue]

I know the vast majority of people hate that, but I sort of like it.  Maybe it's because I like comics and movies better than books, and that sort of visual or emotional information is already (albeit more seamlessly) embedded in those media.

[Syt]

Yes, but I think you can show this also through character's actions and reactions and don't have to fall back on lazy telling.

But perhaps that's just me. I equally dislike the excessive use of the -ing to describe when a charecter does something parallel to another action ("Drinking his coffee, he surfed the internet."), or worse, with "as" added ("Sitting in his chair as he drank his coffee, he surfed the internet.")

Just my personal preferance.

[Sophie Scholl]

I've started re-reading Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy. I last read it when it originally came out. So with the prequels and all, the scenes on Coruscant now look radically different in my head, along with a few other things.

What's I find really grating, though, is Zahn's dialogue. Characters hardly ever just say anything. Instead the call, comment, conclude, interrupt, nod, agree, disagree . . .

When they do say something, it's either with an adverb (calmly, excitedly, sardonically, conversationally) or a description of their voice (Mara said, her voice cold) or while doing something (he said, picking up another piece/reaching for his gun etc.). There's only a handful of plain, simple "he said/she said" or dialogues with just beats inserted into them.

It's really rather comedic to me when you pay attention to it.

I loved those when they first came out, but looking back I'm pretty sure it was solely because it was all that was out there other than the movies and comics.  I absolutely despise Zahn now.  As you mentioned, the dialogue is terrible and the magic ability of characters to pop in everywhere at the exact moment they're needed and usually in large numbers is grating as hell to me.

[Syt]

Yeah, I guess it was the same for me. I hated a lot of the Expanded Universe, because of the way they treated the main characters. It's kind of like season 5 of Babylon 5. Yeah, there's some good bits, but a lot of tension is gone now that the main storyline is resolved and a lot of it is a shadow of its former goodness.

I always preferred EU stories about new or minor/background characters (like the Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina/Jabba's Palace collections). I guess that's what I like about the Old Republic setting. I still need to check out the Legacy comics, set 120+ years after the movies. I also liked the first two or three X-Wing books (very much because it didn't focus on the known characters) when they came out, though I'm not sure they've stood the test of time, either.

I guess when it comes to Star Wars I might be more of a comic book guy (loved the Marvel comics when I was a kid).

[Sophie Scholl]

Yeah, I guess it was the same for me. I hated a lot of the Expanded Universe, because of the way they treated the main characters. It's kind of like season 5 of Babylon 5. Yeah, there's some good bits, but a lot of tension is gone now that the main storyline is resolved and a lot of it is a shadow of its former goodness.

I always preferred EU stories about new or minor/background characters (like the Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina/Jabba's Palace collections). I guess that's what I like about the Old Republic setting. I still need to check out the Legacy comics, set 120+ years after the movies. I also liked the first two or three X-Wing books (very much because it didn't focus on the known characters) when they came out, though I'm not sure they've stood the test of time, either.

I guess when it comes to Star Wars I might be more of a comic book guy (loved the Marvel comics when I was a kid).

Have you read any of the Karen Traviss Clone Wars Era books?  They're fantastic stuff in my opinion.  I don't think they involve major characters other than maybe being mentioned in the background or incidental run-ins.  They're actually my biggest gripe against Lucas and his empire right now, as they were all ret-conned away before the series finished so that the Clone Wars cartoon could change the way Mandalore and Mandalorians worked to make us of in a few episodes.