Break The Spine.

[Tawmis]

As drastic as that sounds for a subject header - what this is about - is books. So I meant book spines.

So awhile ago, I purchased Book 1 of Dragonships of Vindras (by Weis & Hickman, who wrote Dragonlance). Now - I absolutely loved Dragonlance. I mean, easily - my second favorite set of books just behind Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit. (And let's be truthful - nothing is going to usurp LoToR/The Hobbit, because when my 4th grade teacher read The Hobbit to the class - it was to me - what STAR WARS is to many for movies).

Anyway - that's besides the point. Weis & Hickman continued to write awesome books together, including - The Darksword Trilogy (though admittedly had a bizarre ending) and then the very inspirational (to me) Death Gate series.

So when I heard they were working on a new series called "Dragonships of Vindras" - and that it was going to be very "Viking"'esque - I was ALL over it.

I read the first book and was blown away. Weis & Hickman, masters at writing (together) - continued - somehow - to show they were not done improving and kicked so much arse with the first book.

I only recently read the second and finished and was - once more - blown away. I have been avidly hunting down a release date for the third book - and got a hold of Margret Weis herself who confirmed it's going to be awhile, much to my dismay (and I even read VERY slowly because of stuff like this!)

Anyway, if you enjoy fantasy books (but not over the top fantasy), I'd recommend Bones of the Dragon and Secret of the Dragon.

Got some books you enjoyed? Share them!

Got some books you're looking forward to? Post'em!

[AndreaDraco]

I'm currently reading Shadows Return, the fourth chapter of the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling. The first three novels are amazing and the fourth one is very good too, even if it is admittedly really quirky and different in tone from the previous three. I just got news that the fifth book, The White Road, published at the end of May, has just been posted by Play.com and I can't really wait to have it, since I'm reading Shadows Return very slowly so that I'll have the sequel to start right away as soon as I read the last page.

After that I'll be probably reading Flewelling's second saga, The Tamir Triad.

[Tawmis]

Oh! Just remembered - having finished the 2nd Dragonships book - I picked up my copy of Stolen Throne. Got about 50 pages in and put it down. Perhaps because the Dragonships books are so utterly fantastic - but I found Stolen Throne (Dragon Age) very slow... and not as descriptive... Like if a book has no pulled me in by 50 pages, something's wrong... but I don't understand how the same person can be responsible for a captivating video game.

So right now, I am reading Richard A. Knaak's book Dragonlance: Night of Blood, which deals with one of my favorite mythological creatures - Minotaurs. (The plus side, the trilogy is already done with Tide of Blood and Empire of Blood).

I first got to read Richard A. Knaak when he wrote Legend of Huma, then wrote the amazing Kaz the Minotaur.

He's one of the few people who I think, other than Weis & Hickman, can do Dragonlance justice. So I am very eager to dive into this new trilogy of his.

[BBP]

The book I'm reading the most now is a Dutch literary classic, Camera Obscura by Hildebrand. It's a bundle of amusing stories set in the Dutch mid-1800s and paints a beautiful time-frame.
There's also some Anthony Burgess novel I recently started on, but the name has escaped me. And there's James Joyce's Ulysses, in which progress is beyond slow. And Mozart and the Wolf Gang. And Gysbrecht van Aemstel. I love reading plays.

[Akril]

I've got to admit, the first coherent question that came to my mind after first reading the title of this thread was "Books??"

When it comes to my favorites, I can't recommend Jasper Fforde's work enough. Most of his stuff is so unique that it's practically unclassifiable as a genre. The Thursday Next series contains alternate universes, time travel, vampires, werewolves, extinct species brought back to life and an entire world within the realm of fiction. As I've mentioned before, his series was also one of the prime inspirations for my game, Adventure: The Inside Job.

The Nursery Crime series is similar to the TN series in some ways, but also has its own unique flavor and charm. At it's core, it's a detective/mystery series, but the many genre-defying tendencies of the story (a detective who isn't an alcoholic loner, but a man with a happy marriage and several kids!?) make it a unique experience. Characters from poems, nursery rhymes, mythology and fairy tales coexist with real life characters in present-day England*, and as the series' title suggests, some of them become entangled in some peculiar and horrific crimes.


As for other authors, Robert Sheckley has become one of my favorite authors of classic science fiction (stuff from the 50's to the 70's). His short stories are witty, insightful, humorous, dark at times, and have some killer twist endings (sometimes both literally and figuratively). The aliens and robots he writes about aren't just humans with green skin or metal bodies -- they truly are completely different creatures. For instance, one of his short stories ("Warrior Race") tells of a culture whose concept of warfare is killing not the enemy, but themselves. This may sound ridiculous, but as it turns out, for the humans that come to this race's world, the sight of these people slaughtering themselves is so horrifying that they are forced to retreat in order to stop the bloodshed.

Alas, most of Sheckley's stories are out of print these days, but most of his best short stories are collected in Masque of Mañana. There is also a collection of his novels, but his novels have never really entranced me the way his short stories have. Even Dimension of Miracles, the book which was said to have inspired Douglas Adams' The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, felt a bit lacking to me (of course, maybe I'm a bit biased, having been exposed to H2G2 years before I even heard of Sheckley).

Like many early science fiction authors, lot of Sheckley's early stories have been eerily prophetic as well. Read The Prize of Peril (which was written more than sixty years ago) and tell me if you don't feel a few chills.


Another science fiction author I've found a few good stories by is Clifford D. Simak. The best novel from him that I've read so far is The Goblin Reservation, but sadly, I've failed to find any that have the same spark that this story did. It's a bit like the Thursday Next series, only with the addition of aliens. I actually thought the story would make a good adventure game, and I was psyched when I found that someone on the AGS forums had the same idea.


*It's a little like a modern-day King's Quest in that respect.

[AndreaDraco]

Resurrecting this old thread to say that I'm finally reading Sherlock Holmes!

I read A Study in Scarlet in Croatia, and as soon as I got back I bought The Sign of the Four. I liked the first two novels so much that I ordered a massive volume containg all of Sherlock's novels and short stories, and I've just begun the first story of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia.

I'm also reading Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler these days. I'm in a noir/hard-boiled period

[BBP]

Earthly Powers is the Anthony Burgess novel I started on back then, of which I couldn't remember the name a few posts back. Things sorta got inbetween, but I continued reading it. It's a great book, insightful and funny.

[DeadPoolX]

I rarely read fiction. I don't know why, but most of the time fictional stories just don't interest me.

More often than not, I read non-fictional informational books (i.e. psychology, economics, etc) and enjoy those. I'm reading a really interesting book called Generation Me. The author is part of this generation (apparently it includes everyone from the early 1970s onward) and details interests, wants, demands and expectations GenMe has in life.

GenMe has been told that they are "special" and to "put themselves first before anyone else." The message "you can do anything" has been perverted to mean "if you want it, you'll have it no matter what." The book also talks about how GenMe is more depressed than earlier generations (at least those on record) and the overall economic difficulties facing GenMe, such as a lack of jobs and obscenely high housing and daycare costs. The book also states how a college education means less today than it used to and how two college educated parents in a dual-income home actually make less today than one high school educated parent in a single-income home decades ago.

The message seems depressing, but it's not. At least not to me. Maybe I'm sick in the head, but it's nice to know that Maia and I aren't alone in facing some of these problems -- especially those related to monetary concerns.

[Jules]

My sisters got me into reading A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Even though they are meant for children, I find them clever and witty and sometimes cute and funny. There are thirteen books with thirteen chapters each, to make them especially unlucky.

I just finished the first and second books, The Bad Beginning and The Reptile Room, and now I’m off to the third, The Wide Window.

[BBP]

My sisters got me into reading A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Even though they are meant for children, I find them clever and witty and sometimes cute and funny. There are thirteen books with thirteen chapters each, to make them especially unlucky.

I just finished the first and second books, The Bad Beginning and The Reptile Room, and now I’m off to the third, The Wide Window.

I audioread a bit of those, for guessable reasons, but since availability is low around here if you don't shop through Internet, I had to stick to YouTube. They are great!

[dotkel50]

Resurrecting this old thread to say that I'm finally reading Sherlock Holmes!

I read A Study in Scarlet in Croatia, and as soon as I got back I bought The Sign of the Four. I liked the first two novels so much that I ordered a massive volume containg all of Sherlock's novels and short stories, and I've just begun the first story of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia.

I'm also reading Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler these days. I'm in a noir/hard-boiled period

I love all of those authors Andrea. I'm currently re-reading Rex Stout's books. For those who haven't heard of him, his main character is an obese, orchid raising, gourmand detective named Nero Wolfe, who lives in and hardly ever leaves his New York brownstone. His assistant, Archie Goodwin, is a wise-cracking detective who does most of his legwork. These stories were written in the 1930's through the 1970's. I highly recommend them to all.

[JasefWisener]

My sisters got me into reading A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Even though they are meant for children, I find them clever and witty and sometimes cute and funny. There are thirteen books with thirteen chapters each, to make them especially unlucky.

I just finished the first and second books, The Bad Beginning and The Reptile Room, and now I’m off to the third, The Wide Window.

I've read all of them except the very last one. By the time I finished book 12 my expectations for the ending were so high that I couldn't let myself be disappointed.

[Datadog]

I'm reading the Percy Jackson books right now. Definitely a blatant knock-off of Harry Potter, but I enjoy it's humor and constant shoehorning-in of classic Greek myths. There's a certain B-movie quality about the books that I like. Yes, I know these are meant for kids and teens, but they're still more fun to read than some of the "adult" books my relatives have been throwing at me lately.

[Rath Darkblade]

I'm reading Rowan Atkinson's biography.

Resurrecting this old thread to say that I'm finally reading Sherlock Holmes!

I read A Study in Scarlet in Croatia, and as soon as I got back I bought The Sign of the Four. I liked the first two novels so much that I ordered a massive volume containg all of Sherlock's novels and short stories, and I've just begun the first story of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia.

I'm also reading Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler these days. I'm in a noir/hard-boiled period

Heh. I've been listening to dramatisations of "The Maltese Falcon" and "Farewell, My Lovely". Pretty good. That was the first time I ever 'read' (or, more properly, heard) the original Falcon, even though I knew of the characters for many, many years: for instance, Signor Ferrari is clearly Mr Gutman, Ugarte is clearly Joel Cairo, etc.

[Jules]

My sisters got me into reading A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Even though they are meant for children, I find them clever and witty and sometimes cute and funny. There are thirteen books with thirteen chapters each, to make them especially unlucky.

I just finished the first and second books, The Bad Beginning and The Reptile Room, and now I’m off to the third, The Wide Window.

I've read all of them except the very last one. By the time I finished book 12 my expectations for the ending were so high that I couldn't let myself be disappointed.

Wouldn't that be a very good reason to finish the 13th? Or are you superstitious! <--superstitious shades