Reading anything?

[The Burgomaster]

On my trip to Brazil, I read the following trashy Doc Savage pulp novels:

* THE ANNIHILIST
* DUST OF DEATH
* THE TERROR IN THE NAVY

I also started reading an Avenger novel (similar to Doc Savage books) titled THE SKY WALKER.

On the serious side, I'm working my way through THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (one of my all-time favorites).  I just received UNCLE TOM'S CABIN in the mail . . . I might read that one next.

[BoyScoutKevin]

"Toughest broad there is alive. Wears clothes made from a vampire's hide."

The Anita Blake series. Picked it up and started reading it again.

What is unusual about this, is that usually I'll come upon something on my own, but this was introduced to me by a fellow employee at the place where I use to work. I read most of the early ones, then someplace, as much as I like Laurell K. Hamilton, and she is one of my favorite authors, I found her books increasingly unreadable, so I gave up on the series. But I picked up one of her later ones, "Blood Noir," and found it as enjoyable as her earlier ones. The next one after that, "Skin Trade," also looks good, and I might give it a try.

If someone is interested in starting the series, it's hard to tell that someone where to begin. While her latest ones are better written than the earliest ones, and can be read as a stand alone novel, the earliest ones do provided needed information. And the less said about her middle period, the better.

Anyway, as I said, whatever one thinks (IMHO) she understands her male characters better than most female writers. Heck! I'll even say she understands her male characters better than most male writers. There is a scene of a deathbed reconciliation between a father dieing of cancer and his illegitimate stripper werewolf of a son, in "Blood Noir," that is the nearest thing to a tearjerker, that I've seen in many a day.

Next time: "Graphs and Novels."

[Psycho Circus]

I'm starting "Koko" again for the 3rd time. Yes, it's that good. 

[Derf]

Just finished Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. It was pretty good, though I thought the ending could have been stronger. It's set in a slightly alternate time line, where Israel lost the Six Day War and was temporarily granted some land in Alaska. That lease is ending, and the Yiddish police force is about to be disbanded and all the people evicted. One policeman, on the skids, takes on a case that has been officially closed (a murder that happened in his building). He wrestles with his faith (or lack thereof), his nation's identity, and his failed marriage while he investigates. I plan to read Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay in the near future. Right now, I'm getting into Terry Pratchett's Nation, one of his non-DiscWorld novels.

[AndyC]

I'm starting "Koko" again for the 3rd time. Yes, it's that good. 

After IT and From a Buick 8, there's another recommendation from Circus I'm determined to check out. I remember seeing the cover on store shelves, but hadn't looked into it until now. So far, the clown's taste in horror/thriller novels has been impeccable. Anyway, still have some of Koontz's Frankenstein and a Slade thriller to finish before I get around to it.

[SkullBat308]

[indianasmith]

Just finished Louis Freeh's MY FBI, a memoir of his troubled years as head of the Bureau. A good read.

[InformationGeek]

My English Class is now reading Tuesdays with Morrie.

[AndyC]

About halfway through the conclusion of Koontz's Frankenstein, and it's proving to be a good read. Very interesting and fast paced.

Waiting on the next Slade thriller to arrive. Believe it or not, the cheapest way to buy a copy was to get a used one from England on eBay. So far, I've read about half his dozen Special X thrillers. There's apparently a new one coming out soon, with grisly murders at the Winter Olympics. I'm trying to avoid reading them out of order, but I discovered Slade around the 11th book, and I do get the new ones when they come out.

While I'm waiting for that, I have a new book on deck - Frozen Beneath, by Brian Horeck. Apparently, he's local, or at least in the general area. I see a display of these books every time I'm in the supermarket, and after about a year of wondering if I should, I finally bought a copy. It's actually a brilliant bit of marketing to have his books in grocery stores along a major tourist route. People are constantly going through there in the summer. They stop in to grab some supplies before moving on to wherever, quite a few will want something to read, and there's an eye-catching display of these books, promising "Blood, Gore and So Much More!" I've managed to avoid learning too much about the story, except that two guys make a horrifying discovery while ice fishing. I'm looking forward to it.

[BTM]

"Toughest broad there is alive. Wears clothes made from a vampire's hide."

The Anita Blake series. Picked it up and started reading it again.

Anyway, as I said, whatever one thinks (IMHO) she understands her male characters better than most female writers. Heck! I'll even say she understands her male characters better than most male writers. There is a scene of a deathbed reconciliation between a father dieing of cancer and his illegitimate stripper werewolf of a son, in "Blood Noir," that is the nearest thing to a tearjerker, that I've seen in many a day.

Here's the thing, I used to LOVE the series, especially the older ones.  I preferred her early attitude of, "I don't date vampires, I kill them."  Then somewhere along the way, the novels starting sliding downhill, becoming less about her and her cases and more about her increasingly complicated love life.  Now a lot of the later novels are pretty one sex scene after another, interspersed with loooooooooooooooong conversations about vampires, werewolves, monsters, their powers, her powers, and the new powers she gains every time she has sex with someone (I'm not joking.)

At some point in series she's gotten to where she HAS to have sex or she'll literally go insane or die or some stupid nonsense.  This has lead to her doing whatever guy's available, regardless of whether she even likes the guy, or in some cases, has even meet him before.  Seriously, if a MAN wrote a story like this, he'd be accused of writing some adolescent fantasy.

As for the knowing males part, she knows some things a lot of women don't, I'll give her that, but I find it REALLY unrealistic that all these handsome guys are willing to share ONE girl, and don't seem to mind that fact that she doesn't want them getting tail on the side (unless it's with each other.)  I can't think of many guys I'd know that'd be happy with that arrangement.  It kind of comes across as more LHK's fantasy than anything based in reality.

[3mnkids]

Horror Show~ Greg Kihn~ yep, the Greg Kihn that brought us the song jeopardy     Its pretty good so far

[ER]

I just read The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt.

Contrary to its billing as the latest installment of her fiction set in Victorian England (Angels and Insects, Possession, etc.) when I was finished I was left feeling she had actually pulled a cunning slip on her readers by writing what was essentially a novel about World War One: even though that event comes in only in the final four-score pages of the book itself. Only by spending six-hundred pages giving us such carefully rendered characters could Byatt do the near impossible and make a twenty-first century person care deeply about the tragedy of a long-ago war. As one by one the likable, complex individuals we'd spent so much time with, first as Victorian children and then as Edwardian adults, were shredded on the battlefields, Byatt's prose became powerful in a way most war fiction is not. I've long thought A.S. Byatt among the most clever of genre authors active today, and now I'm even more certain of that.

[BTM]

I just got done reading the first three Nightside books by Simon R Green.  

The books center around John Taylor, a detective who works in the Nightside, an alternate dimension in London that, as its name suggests, exist perpetually in a state of night (3am to be exact.)  The series combines everything from gumshoe noir, to fantasy, horror, and sci-fi.  The Nightside is a sort focal point for all types of beings, including the usual stock and trade like vampires, werewolves and shape changers, but other things as well, like living cars, incarnated gods, even cybernetic beings.  John left the place five years ago because he was being relentlessly pursued by various enemies.  As the first novel (Something From the Nightside) starts he's living a rather miserable, if ordinary, existence in London.  Against his better judgment, he takes a case to find a wealthy woman's daughter who's gone missing.

Anyway, it's a very interesting series, although so far but the books have been oddly short concerning the depth of things that can be explored with the setting.  Still, it the synopsis sounds interesting, I recommend picking them up.

[Jim H]

I've read the first three Nightside books.  I've also read some longer books by Simon Green, like The Man With the Golden Torc.  He does a great job with world building stuff, but he seems to get lost a bit in his own plot threads in longer works.  Seems like he is better at the short novel than the full-length novel.

BTW, The Man With the Golden Torc series is in the same universe as the Nightside books.  I think the later books have some characters cross over.

[Fausto]

Just finished reading Haggards She as part of a world history class. I've read better, but I've read worse, as well. Somehow, reading it as part of a school assignment kind of kills the enjoyment factor.