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I've completed my most recent once-every-few-years read-through of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels. Still the best goddamn books ever written.

Being in a fantasy mood, I'm trying to figure out what to read next between starting Patrick Rothfuss' stuff, the First Law stuff, and the book whose title I can never remember when I need to but that I've been meaning to read for probably a decade or so now. Something (Song, maybe?) of Paksomething. It's a book that gets mentioned now and then in discussions of how to properly portray paladins, and was apparently written by a female former Marine officer. That's all I know about it.

I'm about a third of the way into Forward the Foundation, the last of Isaac Asimov's huge series of Robot/Empire/Foundation novels (which all take place in the same universe, just at different points in time). The story gets really weird at times, but Asimov did a fantastic job in bringing his various novel series together; the entire plot of Prelude to Foundation is basically one giant mirror for the conflict between the Spacers and the Earthpeople in his earlier Robot novels, even if it is a bit transparent about it.

Really a fantastic series of books. I'm going to be sad to finally finish it.

 Locclo wrote:
I'm about a third of the way into Forward the Foundation, the last of Isaac Asimov's huge series of Robot/Empire/Foundation novels (which all take place in the same universe, just at different points in time). The story gets really weird at times, but Asimov did a fantastic job in bringing his various novel series together; the entire plot of Prelude to Foundation is basically one giant mirror for the conflict between the Spacers and the Earthpeople in his earlier Robot novels, even if it is a bit transparent about it.

Really a fantastic series of books. I'm going to be sad to finally finish it.

I think I made it thought the second of Asimov’s foundation series. I was never a fan of his writing style, but it has been a while. I did read the three foundation books by the 3-Bs (Brin, Bear, and Bendford) and recall liking them. But then, David Brin is probably my favorite author overall (even if his last book felt phoned in)

I just reread Prelude to Foundation again. It was written later than the other Foundation series but it sums things up nicely. Of course, writing it later gave him much more opportunities to foreshadow the following events.

Next would be Foundation. Salvor Hardin!

 Nevelon wrote:

 Locclo wrote:
I'm about a third of the way into Forward the Foundation, the last of Isaac Asimov's huge series of Robot/Empire/Foundation novels (which all take place in the same universe, just at different points in time). The story gets really weird at times, but Asimov did a fantastic job in bringing his various novel series together; the entire plot of Prelude to Foundation is basically one giant mirror for the conflict between the Spacers and the Earthpeople in his earlier Robot novels, even if it is a bit transparent about it.

Really a fantastic series of books. I'm going to be sad to finally finish it.

I think I made it thought the second of Asimov’s foundation series. I was never a fan of his writing style, but it has been a while. I did read the three foundation books by the 3-Bs (Brin, Bear, and Bendford) and recall liking them. But then, David Brin is probably my favorite author overall (even if his last book felt phoned in)

I really think Asimov improved over the years. Having read them all in one giant chain, it seems like his earlier stuff was really devoid of details and anything approaching action. It's especially apparent in Foundation (the first book, that is), because almost everything that happens happens off-screen, and all that the readers get is dialogue about how the characters are reacting to the events of the books. It isn't until Foundation's Edge (though he makes a much better effort in Second Foundation as well) that the world really comes to life, and we get a chance to see some varying cultures and (shock of all shocks) physical descriptions of characters.

If you haven't already, I recommend giving his Robot novels a try (The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, and Robots and Empire) - they're much more action- and character-driven than the Foundation books. His writing style is definitely not for everyone, but I feel he did a far better job of making his books engrossing in his Robot novels, rather than the Foundation ones.

squidhills wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Unrelated to what I'm actually reading, but I've discovered Thug Notes on YouTube.

Thank you for telling us about this. I have a new favorite Youtube channel!

It's hillarioius because it's "Thug Notes".

It's amazing because I have learned more about books than I ever did in school

 d-usa wrote:

squidhills wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Unrelated to what I'm actually reading, but I've discovered Thug Notes on YouTube.

Thank you for telling us about this. I have a new favorite Youtube channel!

It's hillarioius because it's "Thug Notes".

It's amazing because I have learned more about books than I ever did in school

What kind of weirdo learns about books in school? The only thing I learned about books in school is that I read them too fast.

Started re-reading Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. Finished "On a Pale Horse" and now I'm reading Times book...so many paragraphs I have to go back over when he's writing the time traveling parts.

Recently finished reading "The Dwarves" by Markus Heitz, a great read I thought.
An unforgettable series of books would be the Aeons Gate Trilogy from Sam Sykes, the characters in that book made it so enjoyable and just brilliant I found.
Being over halfway through "Blood Song" by Anthony Ryan, it's hard for me not to recommend this book for lovers of fantasy.

Basically my taste in novels at the moment revolves around the fantasy genre.

 Marine_With_Heart wrote:
Recently finished reading "The Dwarves" by Markus Heitz, a great read I thought.
An unforgettable series of books would be the Aeons Gate Trilogy from Sam Sykes, the characters in that book made it so enjoyable and just brilliant I found.
Being over halfway through "Blood Song" by Anthony Ryan, it's hard for me not to recommend this book for lovers of fantasy.

Basically my taste in novels at the moment revolves around the fantasy genre.

i read through the dwarves books last year, and really enjoyed them
made it through the newest iron druid the other night and found it, ok, but it seems like it doesn't stand up to the previous books for me

Just read:
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: Read this a few years ago and really loved it. This is my third time through, and it's still fantastic. Fantastic writing, a very interesting structure to the story (it's essentially a man telling the story of his life in an inn while strange and sinister events linked to that story happen in brief "interludes"). I especially enjoy all the parts in the Arcanum (the University of the setting).

The Arabs, a History by Eugene Rogan: Starts out a little dry but becomes very engaging as you read on. A history of the Arabian peninsula and North Africa from their conquest by the Ottoman empire into the collapse of the empire, the european colonial period, the first and second world wars and finally the stretch of 60 years since then. The more modern stuff is especially engaging as he has a wealth of sources to draw on. Some might find the perspective of the book too "pro-Arab", but I found it really educational.

Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss: This is the second book in the series started by the Name of the Wind. It's an odd book- parts of it I wouldn't like at all if they were written by a less talented author, other parts are really excellent. Unsure of I like this more or less than the first one- the parts away from the University are somewhat sadder for it, but it also has some of the best moments of sheer brilliance that I've seen from the author so far.

Not sure what I'll read next. I've got a long plane journey tomorrow, so I will probably pick up a "serious" book to read for that.

Reading Horns, by Joe Hill. It will be a movie starring Harry Potter soon, and I want to say "I read the book". Heh. feth you!

I'm now about halfway through Furies of Calderon, written by Jim Butcher (who also wrote the absolutely delightful urban fantasy series, The Dresden Files). I went into it not expecting to like it as much as Dresden, since it completely lacks the great sense of humor and memorable lead character that makes that series so great, but it's not bad. What I find really neat is that he does a great job of showing the whole story as it unfolds by jumping between a few key characters' POVs, all of whom are very directly involved with the conflict as it's happening (rather than being, say, a lord who's manipulating things behind the scenes or someone who's just hearing about the heroes' exploits). The action gets really intense at times, and as is fairly typical of Butcher's work, gak just keeps getting worse and worse for the main characters as time goes on. Plus, the are still a few little hints of his sense of humor, which keeps things from being too serious all the time.

Oh, and it has a great story for how it came to be: Butcher was challenged by one of his readers to write something good by starting with a lame premise. Butcher told him to choose two things to mash together (the lost Roman legion and Pokémon), and from it came the Codex Alera series.

The first book is the weakest in the Codex Alera series. Once the not-wolfen get introduced it really takes off.