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What is everybody reading?

Moe_Syzlak said:
I’m not sure if I ever read any sequels. When I saw the miniseries, it didn’t really ring any bells. I bought the three book box set for this reread so I’ll likely read those this time around.
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ScottCrane said:
Hope you do, I enjoyed the first three.
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I finished my reread of Dune and jumped directly into Dune Messiah. This one seems to be divisive among fans. I quite enjoyed it but more in retrospect. It’s easy to understand why many fans don’t like it. It lacks the grandiosity of its predecessor, feeling more like a Shakespearean stage play for much of it. It also reminds me of The Last Jedi where the “Hero of Thousand Faces” is shown to be a human with failings after all. I did love the structure of the novel. The near entirety of the story is laid out for the reader at the outset. As a result we experience the book much as Paul experiences the life of a prescient. Then, as Paul’s prescience and, indeed, vision fail, so too does the reader’s foreknowledge of the events. Really great stuff. I may jump right into Children of Dune, but I’ll decide that tomorrow. This book seems to serve two purposes: one, a sort of epilogue for Dune and; two, a bridge to a wider series. Having never previously read any of the books other than Dune I can’t say how successful it is for the latter. But for the former, I thought it was great.
 
I'm reading Burn by Patrick Ness, and it's got an interesting story so far. Dragons and humans co-exist, but during the 1800s laws were established to keep dragons from harming humans. The story takes place in 1957 during the Cold War, where a girl named Sarah and her boyfriend Jason are harassed for being the biracial black girl and asian boy in a mostly white town, not helped by Sarah's dad getting a blue Dragon named Kazimir, who seems to know a few things about Sarah. Meanwhile, another boy named Malcom is being sent to kill Sarah to avert some sort of prophecy that would bring dragons and humans to war. Malcom is being hunted down by two FBI agents.

Not going to lie, I was curious about where the story was headed the whole way through. Ness kept me guessing the whole time, which made the ending of part 1 of the book all the more shocking. As it turns out, dragons are manifestations of a kind of reality bending magic that exists beyond human comprehension, one that Kazimir opposes. One of the FBI agents is the Materia Thea, who tricked Malcom into causing the way by inadvertently forcing the dragon to destroy the satellite and create a ritual that would bring forth a great magical power. Sarah, Malcom, and Kazimir were sucked into a portal, Sarah's dad and Jason are dead, and Malcom's quasi boyfriend is the only left alive to explain anything to the surrounding police officers, which considering he ran away from home due to hacing issues with his sexuality, is not a good sign.

It's been an overall intriguing novel, and I hope to read more of Part 2 soon enough.
 
Moe_Syzlak said:
I finished my reread of Dune and jumped directly into Dune Messiah. This one seems to be divisive among fans. I quite enjoyed it but more in retrospect. It’s easy to understand why many fans don’t like it. It lacks the grandiosity of its predecessor, feeling more like a Shakespearean stage play for much of it. It also reminds me of The Last Jedi where the “Hero of Thousand Faces” is shown to be a human with failings after all. I did love the structure of the novel. The near entirety of the story is laid out for the reader at the outset. As a result we experience the book much as Paul experiences the life of a prescient. Then, as Paul’s prescience and, indeed, vision fail, so too does the reader’s foreknowledge of the events. Really great stuff. I may jump right into Children of Dune, but I’ll decide that tomorrow. This book seems to serve two purposes: one, a sort of epilogue for Dune and; two, a bridge to a wider series. Having never previously read any of the books other than Dune I can’t say how successful it is for the latter. But for the former, I thought it was great.
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I thought it was great too. I liked the way it takes hold of the reader immediately in the first chapter by revealing the neferious scheme of the ‘bad guys’right away. Like you pointed out, it makes the reader feel closer to Paul because of his foresight. And the book rounds off Paul’s story in a great way, but as a foundation for the next sequels I think it’s less succesful. But don’t let that keep you from reading the third book, which I find less in comparison but still quite good.

I read somewhere that Villeneuve intends to expand his take on Dune into a trilogy, Messiah being part three. That would be perfect: the complete story of Paul. Here‘s hoping…
 
ScottCrane said:
.

I read somewhere that Villeneuve intends to expand his take on Dune into a trilogy, Messiah being part three. That would be perfect: the complete story of Paul. Here‘s hoping…
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I read that too. I’d definitely be interested in seeing it but, given how faithful the first film was, I wonder if that would hold for the third film. It is completely different is scale, feeling almost more like a stage play. It would be a strange way to end an epic film trilogy.
 
mnkykungfu said:
^I didn't realize David Wong had continued the series, but apparently there's even a FOURTH book: "If This Book Exists, You're In The Wrong Universe". Thanks for bringing these to my attention...time to get reading again!
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David Wong. Now that's a name I've not heard since the days when my internet browsing consisted of articles from cracked.com.

Anyway, my current reading material is the Penguin Classics Collection of Spider-Man. Yes. The publisher behind so many translations of classic books released an entire collection of issues from the Stan Lee-Steve Ditko era of Spider-Man. I got the red and gold hardcover edition for Christmas. I'm only a third of the way through, but reading this hardcover is a true blast from the past, and it's easy to see why Spider-Man became such a popular character from the issues in this collection. One aspect I've really enjoyed about comic book Spider-Man (as opposed to the many movie versions of Spider-Man) is seeing Peter Parker as a symbol of the ideal introvert. Most of the movies seem to depict Parker as just a nerd (and yes, there is a difference between being obsessed with science and enjoying solitude. Thank you very much), but these early issues do a great job at fleshing out the webslinger in ways the movies still haven't really achieved. I highly recommend this collection if you can afford it.
 
Moe_Syzlak said:
I read that too. I’d definitely be interested in seeing it but, given how faithful the first film was, I wonder if that would hold for the third film. It is completely different is scale, feeling almost more like a stage play. It would be a strange way to end an epic film trilogy.
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Lets hope Villeneuve will be able to turn it into something more cinematic. And if the emotion is strong enough, the scale shouldn’t matter too much. (Think about the ‘I’m your father’-scene in Empire Strikes Back)
 
Eyepainter said:
David Wong. Now that's a name I've not heard since the days when my internet browsing consisted of articles from cracked.com.

Anyway, my current reading material is the Penguin Classics Collection of Spider-Man. Yes. The publisher behind so many translations of classic books released an entire collection of issues from the Stan Lee-Steve Ditko era of Spider-Man. I got the red and gold hardcover edition for Christmas. I'm only a third of the way through, but reading this hardcover is a true blast from the past, and it's easy to see why Spider-Man became such a popular character from the issues in this collection. One aspect I've really enjoyed about comic book Spider-Man (as opposed to the many movie versions of Spider-Man) is seeing Peter Parker as a symbol of the ideal introvert. Most of the movies seem to depict Parker as just a nerd (and yes, there is a difference between being obsessed with science and enjoying solitude. Thank you very much), but these early issues do a great job at fleshing out the webslinger in ways the movies still haven't really achieved. I highly recommend this collection if you can afford it.
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I discover more and more every time I do a re-read of that run. Truly one of the great comic books, it manages to be the launch of a rock-solid, timeless media franchise but also intensely personal at the same time. (Ditko and young/early Peter Parker are almost identical and both were good-hearted guys with sizeable chips on their shoulders.)
 
I recently read through near every book by John Wyndham. Probably the best author I've ever read.
Day of the Triffids,
The Kraken Wakes,
Midwich Cuckoos, and
The Chrysalids
Are probably the best out of the bunch. Day of the Triffids used to be pretty big in the UK and Midwich Cuckoos has a well-known movie adaptation, but if you ask me, all of his books are criminally underrated.
 
I just finished "If This Book Exists, You're In The Wrong Universe" today. It is by far the best John Dies At The End book. I loved it very much, and would recommend the whole series just for the sake of getting to this one. I want more, but at the same time I'd be perfectly satisfied if this was the end. I don't know what else to say without spoiling anything.
 
After finishing the JDATE series, I'm at a loss for what to read now. I've started reading the Kingdom Hearts novelization that I got a while ago, but it's really not great and I don't particularly want to finish it. I have Heir To The Empire on hand and thought about reading that, but I really don't feel like it right now for some reason. Nothing that I have sounds appealing to me right now. My mom is offering to let me borrow one of her books, which I might take her up on, but that leads to the problem of too many options.
Will keep you all posted.
 
Reading the prologue-trilogy of Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (aka the Fever Crumb trilogy). Just started part three, and I recommend it highly to everyone who enjoyed the movie and / or the other Mortal Engines books. It has all the suspense, fun, wit and emotion that made the original quartet so great.
 
I’m currently on my fourth or fifth attempt to read Infinite Jest over about 20 years. In previous attempts I don’t think I ever got even 200 pages in. I’m about 500 pages in now and finally feel a rhythm with this book. So I think I’ll finish it this time. 😬
 
Jrzag42 said:
After finishing the JDATE series, I'm at a loss for what to read now. I've started reading the Kingdom Hearts novelization that I got a while ago, but it's really not great and I don't particularly want to finish it. I have Heir To The Empire on hand and thought about reading that, but I really don't feel like it right now for some reason. Nothing that I have sounds appealing to me right now. My mom is offering to let me borrow one of her books, which I might take her up on, but that leads to the problem of too many options.
Will keep you all posted.
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Update: I have borrowed the Twilight series from my mother, which I am very excited to read. I haven't read enough culturally significant literature.
 
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Completing my Thing edit recently put me in the mood for finally reading the original Campbell story, "Who Goes There?", on which the films were based. I chose to read "Frozen Hell", which is the recently surfaced extended version of the story: https://thescribblingman.wordpress....iew-frozen-hell-john-w-campbell-jr-1938-2019/

I'm also currently working my way through a Robert Sheckley collection, Harold Pinter plays, some apocryphal writings, a book on Apocalypse Now, and am thinking of starting Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy in the near future.
 
Flea market season has started! It's a bit wet outside today, so not many vendors, but I managed to grab a copy of Shadows Of The Empire! I had the N64 game as a child, but it was always too hard for me, so I'm excited to finally experience the story. I even had the action figures for Dash and Xizor lol. I'm going to read it as soon as I finish Twilight.

Oh yeah, so I borrowed the Twilight books from my mom, I'm nearing the end of the first one. It's really easy to read, and plenty entertaining, I just wish the awful romance wasn't at the forefront. I'd read a whole book about vampires playing baseball. When Edward admitted to watching Bella sleep every night, I nearly quit. I definitely want to read the whole series, but I will be taking breaks in between (as I mentioned with SOTE).
 
I just got back from vacation and need a new book. I’m debating whether to go with the quick read of Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams or to delve into the much more committing Underworld by Don DeLillo. I’ll probably go for the shorter read.
 
Jrzag42 said:
Flea market season has started! It's a bit wet outside today, so not many vendors, but I managed to grab a copy of Shadows Of The Empire! I had the N64 game as a child, but it was always too hard for me, so I'm excited to finally experience the story. I even had the action figures for Dash and Xizor lol. I'm going to read it as soon as I finish Twilight.
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I missed the fine print at the bottom of the cover, written in a color that blends in with the background. This is Shadows Of The Empire...the junior novelization. I was wondering why it was so thin...
 
I'm currently reading "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas. The first installment of a YA high fantasy book series.
 
100 pages into New Moon, and I've already cried once. TO BE FAIR, I already wasn't doing so hot, and reading an unexpected realistic portrayal of depression in my dumb vampire book didn't help. Spending months on end, dead inside, just going through the motions, while people around you are getting concerned but you get defensive and exile yourself from them, I can relate to that. But anyways, I just found the idea of crying at a Twilight book to be absurd and funny. The context surrounding the depression is stupid though, just considering how terribly the relationship is written to begin with.
 
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