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Right now, I am reading - The Man who Mistook His Wife For A Hat : And Other Clinical Tales. It is a very interesting read on neurology and psychology.

My anatomy teacher talked about that book, and I was actually trying to remember the name of it the other day. How did it turn out? Is it a good read? It sounded cool in class.

Michael Chrichton is the best novelist out there today, and it's a sad, sad thing whenever hollywood gets ahold of one of his story's. Eaters of the Dead could have been so good

The one thing that really irritates me about his books is that he apparently doesn't know any synonyms for the word "said". Maybe he's gotten better in recent books, but many of the books I read, it was always "he said, she said, they said, I said, you said, we said" etc. After I noticed that in his books, I fixated on it until the book became unreadable.

Terry Goodkinds Sword of Truth series makes Jordan's WoT eat shit and die.

I agree the first couple books blizowned WOT, but he's really stretching it in the later series with his overuse of Deux ex machina. Richard spends 4/5 of any book denying he's anything more than a poor, lost woodsman from the Heartlands, and crying about it, but can miraculously divine the solution to the problem when all hope seems lost. Every time. I mean.. wtf, he's lying there barely conscious and dying, but he just HAPPENS to be able to divine the *exact* measurements of all ingredients needed for a antidote for poison that no one else knew? C'mon..



I really like the George R. R. Martin books, and have just started A Feast for Crows. Love the series so far, even though it secretly pisses me off whenever he kills another character I was just getting attached to. And I <3 the character of The Hound, even though I think I'm not supposed to. Tyrion 4tw as well.

Loved The Da Vinci Code and am looking foward to picking up Angels and Demons (I think I read those out of order).


There's a bunch of other fantasy books I liked, but I can't remember all the authors off the top of my head.

lyion wrote:Tangent time..

Am I the only one who thinks R.A. Salvatore books suck complete ass? They read like an AD&D Campaign he decided to put into novel form with nice character development and the most predictable craptastic linear storyline.

You are probably right. In my case I read Salvatore, and liked his books, before I read authors like Crichton and Martin. If I went back and re-read his stuff it would probably seem pretty juvenile to me.

I feel that way because I - did - go back and re-read Weis and Hickman and lost my feeling of awe for their work. Their style is very simplistic and is no match for someone like Martin. Like I said, I'm sure the Salvatore re-read would be similar.

-Out

lyion wrote:Tangent time..

Am I the only one who thinks R.A. Salvatore books suck complete ass? They read like an AD&D Campaign he decided to put into novel form with nice character development and the most predictable craptastic linear storyline.

Nope, not the only one at all. Most people who are exposed to good writers, and there are some in the fanstasy and science-fiction fields, can't stand Salvatore, Goodkind, et al. It's just a matter of what you're used to. If you don't read much and pick up Salvatore or Anthony, you may be legitimately impressed. If you've experienced Zelazny, Cook, Martin, and Pratchett, your standards are going to be a lot higher.

I agree the first couple books blizowned WOT, but he's really stretching it in the later series with his overuse of Deux ex machina. Richard spends 4/5 of any book denying he's anything more than a poor, lost woodsman from the Heartlands, and crying about it, but can miraculously divine the solution to the problem when all hope seems lost.

Good point. It's become just as bad as Jordan's little harem of women complaining about how men screw everything up, then proceed to screw everything up.

Lol - exactly

Right now I'm reading David Weber. Finished "1632" and it was ok like all other "men out of his element" books, but once i goten into "1633" it is turning out into great series.

I don't realy have favorite, depends on mood, but i realy like 2 russian Sci-Fi writers:
Jiri Nikitin (has ton of books, all great, especialy political fiction)
and
Victor Golovachev (also bunch of stuff, love his Forbiden Reality series) wish they'd get translated, i think they'd be very popular

Maeya wrote:
Loved The Da Vinci Code and am looking foward to picking up Angels and Demons (I think I read those out of order).

I really enjoyed the Dan Brown books, but it really makes me giggle the way the catholic church has freaked out about his stuff

xaoshaen wrote:

lyion wrote:Tangent time..

Am I the only one who thinks R.A. Salvatore books suck complete ass? They read like an AD&D Campaign he decided to put into novel form with nice character development and the most predictable craptastic linear storyline.

Nope, not the only one at all. Most people who are exposed to good writers, and there are some in the fanstasy and science-fiction fields, can't stand Salvatore, Goodkind, et al. It's just a matter of what you're used to. If you don't read much and pick up Salvatore or Anthony, you may be legitimately impressed. If you've experienced Zelazny, Cook, Martin, and Pratchett, your standards are going to be a lot higher.

That's quite an elitist prick view of things

Sometimes it can boil down to as simple as different people prefer different styles


Some people love stephen king, some hate him

Minrott wrote:

I agree the first couple books blizowned WOT, but he's really stretching it in the later series with his overuse of Deux ex machina. Richard spends 4/5 of any book denying he's anything more than a poor, lost woodsman from the Heartlands, and crying about it, but can miraculously divine the solution to the problem when all hope seems lost.

Good point. It's become just as bad as Jordan's little harem of women complaining about how men screw everything up, then proceed to screw everything up.

It's beginning to piss me off and I'm only 400 pages into the first book...

I think this series might make me go on a misogynic rampage and kill women on sight brutally. TV is bad enough lately, I don't need it in my fucking books too.

The first book? Ok, think about reading the same dialogues going on between the same rotten bitches for the next 10 fucking books.

I'm already hooked and can't stop now

Tikker wrote:That's quite an elitist prick view of things

Sometimes it can boil down to as simple as different people prefer different styles


Some people love stephen king, some hate him

I can only assume you don't actually know what "elitist" means. I never implied that people who love the Salvatore are less intelligent or somehow inferior. If anything, I'm giving Salvatore fans the benefit of the doubt, by putting forth the notion that they enjoy inferior writing simply because they haven't been exposed to authors like Zelazny or Cook.

If I was being elitist, I'd have used exactly the opposite tack, and suggested that Salvatore fans had been introduced to Zelazny and were simply incapable of appreciating him.

A.M. Sperber, 'Murrow:his life and times'

xaoshaen wrote:

Tikker wrote:That's quite an elitist prick view of things

Sometimes it can boil down to as simple as different people prefer different styles


Some people love stephen king, some hate him

I can only assume you don't actually know what "elitist" means. I never implied that people who love the Salvatore are less intelligent or somehow inferior. If anything, I'm giving Salvatore fans the benefit of the doubt, by putting forth the notion that they enjoy inferior writing simply because they haven't been exposed to authors like Zelazny or Cook.

If I was being elitist, I'd have used exactly the opposite tack, and suggested that Salvatore fans had been introduced to Zelazny and were simply incapable of appreciating him.

Salvatore was great when I was 17. DRIZZT MY HERO!

I need to re-read Zelazny. Read the Amber stuff when I was a teen also. Another author I was too young to appreciate at the time is Frank Herbert. REALLY need to re-read Dune.

Been reading mostly non-fiction the past few years.

Guess my favorite current author is Brian Greene, have read The Elegant Universe twice, going to start my second go around on The Fabric Of The Cosmos soon. I could read both these books 10 times each and still have epiphanies.

Even if the String theory stuff is hard to swallow for you, his concise explanations of Quantum physics, Relativity, Cosmology are really educational.