You should know- I'm using the site's services.
Hunlord
Trooper
Well done, you've just told half the storyline of books 7-10 and to anyone currently reading book 1, you've spoiled the series.Raven said:WoT; the only series were it's better for your mental health to just find out the story from the blurbs
Seriously, though, RJ could have done without half of books 7-10. The Aes Sedai politics has got to be some of the most useless trash I have ever read, especially when Egwene becomes Amylrin Seat for the rebels, and shows her power, and everyone is all happy, and then she proves herself to the others, blah blah...
...meanwhile, Rand, Perrin and Matt have clocked in 100's of death attempts, a body count in the thousands, the near destruction of the world at least three times, several wars, and (in Matt's case) several women. Seriously, the Aes Sedai politics is a waste of paper. Good trees died to give the paper that that was printed on.
And yes the Aes Sedai politics are unbelievably stupid when Tarmon Gai'Don is soon approaching and all they can think about is some White Tower 
, all I can say is: WOMEN! 
Raven
Ancient Mariner
Hunlord said:Well done, you've just told half the storyline of books 7-10 and to anyone currently reading book 1, you've spoiled the series.
Pffft...nothing happens in books 7-10. And I've hardly spoiled much...I haven't mentioned any endings...
Ahh, WoT; one of the few series where you find out where exactly anyone else is before talking to them about it...
Hunlord
Trooper
*sigh* You can't deny the greatness of book 11 though can you? I wasRaven said:Pffft...nothing happens in books 7-10. And I've hardly spoiled much...I haven't mentioned any endings...
Ahh, WoT; one of the few series where you find out where exactly anyone else is before talking to them about it...
Belenor
Trooper
Well, I'm currently reading two books. The first comes from the Star Wars expanded universe and is named MedStar II: Jedi Healer, the latter is a book by Karl May (german writer) named Ardistan und Dschinnistan. Both books seem to me being anti-war themed. The first one's story line is placed deep in the Clone Wars displaying it from the surgeons' point of view and being quite similar to M.A.S.H. The second book is a Christianists view of Islamic world, but not only this. Karl May suggests that people should try to solve conflicts without blood and violence - quite current topic, huh? Not bad for a book being a hundred years old 
But not that the book says that muslims are violent. As I read the book I understand that May wanted to say that leaders tend to solve problems by force and in the future they should win wars without violence. It does not matter whether the leader is from Europe, Asia or elsewhere, they're all in the same position. They cause wars where ordinary people suffer and are sacrificed without thought. Yeah, very current theme.
But not that the book says that muslims are violent. As I read the book I understand that May wanted to say that leaders tend to solve problems by force and in the future they should win wars without violence. It does not matter whether the leader is from Europe, Asia or elsewhere, they're all in the same position. They cause wars where ordinary people suffer and are sacrificed without thought. Yeah, very current theme.
Genghis Khan
Ancient Mariner
I am into the George R.R. Martin series 'A Song of Fire and Ice'. It is a pain waiting for new books, like someone mentioned above, especially if each book is detailed and I have to re-read the previous books to understand and keep up with the new release. Otherwise, Martin is a good storyteller, if you don't mind dark themes.
Otherwise, Martin is a good storyteller, if you don't mind dark themes.
Anomica
Trooper
I agree. I just received "A feast of crows" in the mail and had to quick read the other titles in order to remember all the names in the series. But it's a great though somewhat different series in the fantasy genre.Genghis Khan said:I am into the George R.R. Martin series 'A Song of Fire and Ice'. It is a pain waiting for new books, like someone mentioned above, especially if each book is detailed and I have to re-read the previous books to understand and keep up with the new release.
Genghis Khan
Ancient Mariner
Anomica said:
I've heard some GRRM (George R.R. Martin) fans comparing their favourite author to Robert Jordan. Has anyone read material by both authors? Is this a fair or accurate assessment?
By the way, Anomica (and other GRRM) fans: who is your favourite character?
Mine are, roughly, for POV (point of view) characters:
1. Tyrion
2. Arya
3. Jamie
4. Eddard
5. Jon
I also enjoy immensely any parts that have Varis and "Littlefinger" because they know so much about what is going on.
The reason that Feast For Crows is hard to get into is because it introduces so many knew POV's that were secondary characters in the previous three books. It will be tought to place all of these characters in the next three books. Book #5 will have only some of the POVs. Time will tell if GRRM succeeds.
Anomica
Trooper
Well, I've read Jordan and Martin and I must say I prefer Martin. I used to think The Wheel of time was a great series of books, but the last books have been stalling so much that I'm getting annoyed. It's sort of "Let's sell as many books as possible. Nothing happens in this book or the next two, but if my readers want to see how it ends they still must buy them and hope something new will occur." It's a bloody nuisance!Genghis Khan said:
Martin's books, eventhough there's a lot of them, let things happen that drive the story line further and further. And - it's less magic. Jordan's books are a bit too much on magic (and women treating grown men as children) and not enough that carries the story on.
Favourite characters?
Tyrion, definitely. He's sardonic sense of humour is great. I've had many laughs thanks to him. I also believe he's not as bad/evil as some people think (i.e his sister).
Jamie has changed and seems to want to "change his ways" or maybe repent. His is an interesting journey.
Jon, because he's so much the wrong man in the right place and he's in for some big trouble, I think.
Arya - but I wonder what happened to her little brother, but that's for the next installment.
Brianne - I don't think what happened in "A feast of crows" is finished...
I'm looking forward to book 5, "Dance with dragons".
Genghis Khan
Ancient Mariner
Anomica said:
I always enjoyed Tyrion, since the first book; his quick wit, he's cynical at times and compassionate at other times (how he helped Bran, Sansa and Jon at various times). He is definitely not evil and when you consider the stuff he has and still has to go through just because of his dwarf stature, he is a perhaps the most moral character, even more than Eddard (well maybe not as moral as Jon). The best one-liners in the book come from Tyrion. I read that GRRM said Tyrion is most like him. Perhaps this is why he seems like the most developed character. I also enjoy when he screws up Cersei's plans.
Jamie is same as Tyrion. The more I read on him, the more I think he is moral. He took a great burden by dispatching of the mad king and lives with the branding of "king slayer". A very well developed character; multi-dementional.
I hope Jon and Danny meet and that there is something between them if you know what I mean. He'll have a huge role in "Dance of Dragons".
I don't think Brienne is dead either.
Thanks for the quick review on Robert Jordan, Anomica!
Just completed reading:
James McPherson, Battle Cry Of Freedom, a Pulitzer-Prize winning history of the US Civil War.
The most surprising thing about my experience of this book is how much I already knew about the Civil War. Before reading this book, I have never made much effort to study the war or the era; I knew only those bits I had learned way back in high school, or picked up by chance over the years. Yet, I was amazed to find that I had a very good grasp of the overall picture. McPherson's book certainly provided a level of detail I had never encountered before, but it introduced very little to me that was entirely new.
In other words, for those who want to criticize the American education system, I say: it works quite well, if I knew that much about the war.
McPherson did a great job of tackling a potentially confusing subject in a way which made it easy for me to keep track of what was going on. For example, if he had discussed the battles in simple chronological order, he would have wound up jumping back and forth from one are to another (the western theater i.e. the Mississippi area, the eastern theater e.g. Virginia and Gettysburg, the naval battles etc.). But he takes each of those major areas in chunks of about 6 months apiece - so for example, when dealing with 1863, he first covers the western theater through the fall of Vicksburg, and then goes back a few months to cover Chancellorsville through Gettysburg.
Perhaps the most interesting part is his research into the home-front politics of both the Union and the Confederacy. He gives a great amount of detail about the civilian opposition which Lincoln and Davis faced in waging war. I knew there had been some opposition, but I hadn't known that it had been so great. In addition to public documents like political speeches and newspaper editorials, and of course the surviving correspondence of the big names, he also includes many quotes from diaries and letters of ordinary people to show what the simple folk thought of the war. The most eye-opening bit was all the blatant racism from white folks when Lincoln made it clear he intended to free the slaves. The racism from southerners was expected, but I hadn't know how virulent the racism in the north was.
I'd absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in military history, as the detailed descriptions of battles, campaigns and strategies are superb.
Next up: Jacquez Barzun, From Dawn To Decadence: 500 Years Of Western Cultural Life, 1500 To The Present
I can already tell that this one looks like a steaming load. It starts with the Protestant Reformation, but it only takes a few pages before the author drops this turd:
"Dozens of cults have latterly arisen in the Christian West: Buddhism, Islam, Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, Dr. Moon's Unification Church..."
Buddhism is 1400 years old and Islam 800. Those are religions, not cults, and are observed by hundreds of millions. Lumping them in with the Moonies displays extraordinary ignorance. "New" to the West or not, they deserve more respect. Nor is Yoga or TM a cult. I understand the author is writing about mainstream Western culture, which inevitably means a Christian culture - but that doesn't mean he is right to treat other cultures like dirt.
Meh, I'll read the book anyway. Maybe the author just starts out by putting his foot in his mouth, and it gets better.
James McPherson, Battle Cry Of Freedom, a Pulitzer-Prize winning history of the US Civil War.
The most surprising thing about my experience of this book is how much I already knew about the Civil War. Before reading this book, I have never made much effort to study the war or the era; I knew only those bits I had learned way back in high school, or picked up by chance over the years. Yet, I was amazed to find that I had a very good grasp of the overall picture. McPherson's book certainly provided a level of detail I had never encountered before, but it introduced very little to me that was entirely new.
In other words, for those who want to criticize the American education system, I say: it works quite well, if I knew that much about the war.
McPherson did a great job of tackling a potentially confusing subject in a way which made it easy for me to keep track of what was going on. For example, if he had discussed the battles in simple chronological order, he would have wound up jumping back and forth from one are to another (the western theater i.e. the Mississippi area, the eastern theater e.g. Virginia and Gettysburg, the naval battles etc.). But he takes each of those major areas in chunks of about 6 months apiece - so for example, when dealing with 1863, he first covers the western theater through the fall of Vicksburg, and then goes back a few months to cover Chancellorsville through Gettysburg.
Perhaps the most interesting part is his research into the home-front politics of both the Union and the Confederacy. He gives a great amount of detail about the civilian opposition which Lincoln and Davis faced in waging war. I knew there had been some opposition, but I hadn't known that it had been so great. In addition to public documents like political speeches and newspaper editorials, and of course the surviving correspondence of the big names, he also includes many quotes from diaries and letters of ordinary people to show what the simple folk thought of the war. The most eye-opening bit was all the blatant racism from white folks when Lincoln made it clear he intended to free the slaves. The racism from southerners was expected, but I hadn't know how virulent the racism in the north was.
I'd absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in military history, as the detailed descriptions of battles, campaigns and strategies are superb.
Next up: Jacquez Barzun, From Dawn To Decadence: 500 Years Of Western Cultural Life, 1500 To The Present
I can already tell that this one looks like a steaming load. It starts with the Protestant Reformation, but it only takes a few pages before the author drops this turd:
"Dozens of cults have latterly arisen in the Christian West: Buddhism, Islam, Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, Dr. Moon's Unification Church..."
Buddhism is 1400 years old and Islam 800. Those are religions, not cults, and are observed by hundreds of millions. Lumping them in with the Moonies displays extraordinary ignorance. "New" to the West or not, they deserve more respect. Nor is Yoga or TM a cult. I understand the author is writing about mainstream Western culture, which inevitably means a Christian culture - but that doesn't mean he is right to treat other cultures like dirt.
Meh, I'll read the book anyway. Maybe the author just starts out by putting his foot in his mouth, and it gets better.
Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
SinisterMinisterX said:
That really surprised you? I was always told that the north didn't care that much about freeing the slaves because they were "far away" in the south, but when the Union became a safe haven for blacks and they started coming up escaping the south, people were just as scared and racist as people in the south. OH never mind. I remember where I read it, in The Fiery Cross, the history of the KKK from the 1860s to the 1980s. Good book.
Been reading a lot of science fiction lately, most recently the first two volumes in Robert A. Heinlein's majestic Future History series - The Man Who Sold the Moon and The Green Hills of Earth. The series consists of a number of short stories dealing with various scientific advances, the development of space travel, colonization of the moon and all the rest and is, on the whole, very good. The series doesn't flow perfectly and the stories don't read as a linear plotline, so there's a lot of blanks you have to fill in yourself and, naturally, the stories vary in quality (from classics like "The Roads Must Roll", "The Man Who Sold the Moon", "It's Great to be Back" and "Logic of Empire" to decidedly lesser works like "Space Jockey") but it's a marvellous reading experience nevertheless. Heinlein is undoubtely one of the finest science fiction writers of all time, if not THE finest.
Right now I'm reading The Martian Way and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov, which is a very old volume I picked up for $3 in a second-hand bookshop in San Francisco. After that I think I'll read something not science fiction.
Right now I'm reading The Martian Way and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov, which is a very old volume I picked up for $3 in a second-hand bookshop in San Francisco. After that I think I'll read something not science fiction.
The following is entirely off-topic:
So Shadow claims that he is the "Resident Zappa-freak". I beg to differ.
Shadow joined last.fm on 11 June, 2006. In the 132 days since then, he has listened to 410 Zappa songs. That's 3.1 per day.
I joined last.fm on 16 October, 2005. In the 370 days since then, I have listened to 2030 Zappa songs. That's 5.5 per day.
Shadow, you may be a Zappa fan, but you are not yet a Zappa-freak like me.
So Shadow claims that he is the "Resident Zappa-freak". I beg to differ.
Shadow joined last.fm on 11 June, 2006. In the 132 days since then, he has listened to 410 Zappa songs. That's 3.1 per day.
I joined last.fm on 16 October, 2005. In the 370 days since then, I have listened to 2030 Zappa songs. That's 5.5 per day.
Shadow, you may be a Zappa fan, but you are not yet a Zappa-freak like me.
A
Anonymous
Guest
The following is entirely off-topic as well: SMX, being a freak is a mental state and as such it can hardly be expressed by only statistical means...SinisterMinisterX said:
SinisterMinisterX said:The following is entirely off-topic:
So Shadow claims that he is the "Resident Zappa-freak". I beg to differ.
Shadow joined last.fm on 11 June, 2006. In the 132 days since then, he has listened to 410 Zappa songs. That's 3.1 per day.
I joined last.fm on 16 October, 2005. In the 370 days since then, I have listened to 2030 Zappa songs. That's 5.5 per day.
Shadow, you may be a Zappa fan, but you are not yet a Zappa-freak like me.
That is one way of looking at it, yes. You can however also claim that the important part isn't how many Zappa songs you listen to, but rather how many Zappa songs you listen to in relation to the other music you listen to. A real Zappa-freak's listening will naturally include a large percentage of Zappa music.
We see then that I have listened to 410 Zappa songs, which represents approximately 21.5 per cent of my total 1906 songs.
SinisterMinisterX has listened to 43206 songs, but only 2030, as little as 4.7 per cent, are Zappa songs.
So who is the bigger Zappa-freak?
(probably SMX, but what the hell)
A
Anonymous
Guest
Alright, alright. I haven't said a word.... 