Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So what are you READING?

I finished The Midnight Club and started on another Pike book which I already read, but my parents bought me a copy (by mistake) for Christmas/my birthday. Monster.

At quarterback Jim Kline's party at the beginning of the school year, Angela Warner watches her best friend Mary Blanc arrive... with a loaded shotgun. Mary proceeds to murder football player Todd and cheerleader Kathy within six seconds and attempts to kill Jim before Angela and the police manage to stop her.

At the police station, Angela tries to learn why Mary has done what she did. And Mary tells Angela that the two she killed, and Jim, were no longer human. That they are, or are starting to become, monsters, who have already killed four people, and there may be more of them. Angela thinks Mary is crazy at first, but doing a little digging she learns Mary might not be crazy at all, but Angela fears she's becoming just like Jim and the others.

I finished that book as well.

I'm trying to read two others. Fall Into Darkness (which was made into a TV movie) and Witch.

The Hammer tribute book was OK. A little low on history and high on in-jokey humor, but there nice bits about Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

Next up is "Flowers of Evil", a collection of essays on modern Japanese horror films.

I'm reading In Search of the Woman Warrior by Richard J. Lane and Jay Wurts. I admit, I was a little put off when I realized it was written by two men, neither of whom seem to have scholarly backgrounds. The book's good, though. It discusses a lot of warrior women from myth, fiction and in real life. There's a lot of interesting stories in it. I'm not sure I like them shoving the women into four archetypes, but it's certainly better than shoving them into one archetype, which is more typical, I think. And the theories on how they represent a warriors journey are interesting.

I'm working on a biography of Mack Sennett and the Keystone/Triangle cast and crew. They had an major effect on the develop of comedy. As you might expect, there's more than enough tragedy here as well.

The prose style is stretching a bit to be off the wall, but instead its pretty dry.

I've been on a fiction reading binge. Mainly suspense fiction. The best of what I've read in the last couple of weeks:

Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts.) I love the ...in Death series. It's set in a fun, futuristic world (flying cars!) with lots of great characters and interesting mysteries. Eve and Roarke are one of best long term couples in serial fiction. (Comic writers should be forced to read this series before breaking up long term couples.) This one is about a computer gaming CEO killed while playing is top secret new game. It's a fun possible future of Geekdom. Eve, of course, thinks it's nuts. (Peabody, on the other hand, loves going undercover to a gaming con.)

Die for Me by Karen Rose. This one's not so fun, but it's a real page turner, none the less. By remarkable coincidence, it also involves computer gaming. In the present, this time. The killer in this is truly psycho; killing people with authentic historical methods. Fortunately, the book doesn't go into too much detail about the crimes. It could have gotten pretty gross. The hero and heroine (a homicide detective and an archaeologist brought in to help find the bodies and explain some of the methods the killer uses) are good, well rounded characters with solid back stories. Seeing them interact with their families is almost as good as seeing them solve the crime.

Dead Secret by Beverly Connor. I haven't finished this one, but I'm loving it. It's part of the Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation series about a forensic anthropologist running a museum and a crime lab. In this one, Diane and friends come across a decades old corpse while caving. They think it's simply caver who died in a tragic accident, but strange things start happening after the discovery. Starting with Diane and her friend getting stabbed at a funeral. Meanwhile, Diane receives a centuries old skeleton of contested ownership from England, supposedly that of a witch. I got this from the library, but they don't have all the books in the series, so I think I'm going to have to go on a book hunt when I'm finished this one.

And for something completely different -- Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce. This book got my attention with the description of a decrepit house with 11 thousand shifting rooms. I just love that sort of thing. It's a young adult book about 13 year old Flora, a young girl trying to find a way to tell her mother that she doesn't want to join the army on her fourteenth birthday (the legal age of adulthood -- where have I heard that before?) which is only a week away. Complicating things is the house. It's falling apart, and Flora and her family are forced to live in just a few rooms with no help to keep it up. Since her mother's always away, and her father's crazy, the upkeep is entirely up to Flora, so when she accidentally discovers their magical butler, who her mother banished years ago, Flora sets out to restore him with the help of her friend Udo and her dog. This book is cute, funny and extremely fast paced and action packed. It is sooo hard to put down. I was really surprised. The world is pretty fascinating, too. It combines all sorts of past cultures with some modern elements thrown in. It's pretty surreal. Flora's a great character. Short and a little chubby, but smart, sassy and determined to get things done.

Just read Keeper by Rucka - Good book.

Now reading The Hobbit

I finished Starship Troopers. It was fun.

Reading Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith currently. Pretty good.

STILL reading Return of the King. You guys warned me that the other LOR books didn't read as fast as the Hobbit.

Dev-Em, Hobbit is a good, fast and fun read. can't wait for the movie.

Finished the Hobbit. Reading a half hour or so at a time at lunch when I can. Great read, and looking forward to the movie(s) as well.

Gotta find what's next on the list.

waiting for y the last man volume 4 to be released.

meanwhile am burning through the walking dead.

i bought volumes 4 and 5 tpbs off of amazon and bought 3 to tide me over yet ... i've already finished it and now have to wait two days because of this labor day while 4 and 5 come.

so i have nothing to read at the moment.

any suggestions? looking for something similar.

thaaanks

A couple a years ago I read Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Several times in the book he spends pages just listing the type of fish and sea plants the protagonist saw. :snore:

I just bought a bunch of books (non-fiction).

The one I just finished is "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son" by Tim Wise. The book examines white privilege. Mr. Wise argues that 1) racism still exists, 2) that white privilege applies to all white people regardless of their economic status, 3) that white people need to acknowledge the privilege in order to combat racism, and 4) how the privilege actually hurts white people even as they benefit from it. He will make his point and then back it up with examples and personal anecdotes. The book is very straight forward and does not have a holier than thou attitude. Mr. Wise tells of some of his own mis-steps and when he was wrong. A couple of times he would write something to the effect "When will you..." but right after the "you" he would put in parentheses "will we".

The book does make you think.

I'm currently reading 'The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard'. A collection by Del Rey.

http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Storie...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1285772424&sr=1-1

I've never read much pulp fiction (or anything by Howard) before and I have to say... I'm *loving* it! Absolutely perfectly what I need to be reading right now in between all my boring Uni study.

None of the stories have been particularly scary so far (though I'm not very far into it and it's a big book) and it's very much in that old-school horror vein where only the wicked get punished and the good/virtuous people usually escape from their horrible circumstances relatively scot-free. But as a diverse collection of short mysterious adventure/thriller stories with spooky/creepy undertones and larger than life characters - it's excellent.

It's gotten me definitely interested in tracking down some of Howard's other works (especially Solomon Kane) and also learning more about the man. I can't believe he committed suicide at only 30. What a tragedy!

Has anyone else read much of Howard's work? Any recommendations?

Not much lately. The damn diabeties has made it so my eyes can see great from three feet away and further, but close up...? pure shite. So, I'm not used to the glasses yet.

Really miss reading.

I'm still chipping away at "Dust of Dreams" by Steven Erikson.
Feels like I've been reading it for ages. Seems like lately the only time I really get to read is when I go to bed. So, 20 or 30 pages a day is all i manage.

Really good book though, tons of character moments and its really densely plotted. Almost every detail matters!

I love the early 'Anita Blake' books by Laurel K. Hamilton (the ones before it became soft-porn) and 'The Dresden Files' series by Jim Butcher (the last one really shocked the *you-know-what* out of me).
Currently I am reading 'Let the right one in' on which the movie (2 movies with the same title actually) 'Let Me In' is based..... totally disturbing.

Just finished Devil May Care, the latest James Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks.

Read Dickens' "The Chimes" for the first time this afternoon. Let's just say there's no mystery as to why it's not as popular as "A Christmas Carol"...

Ghost of a Chance by Simon Green. The plots are see through thin, but the characters he creates are just phenomenal.

Just got A Hard Day's Knight by Simon Green. Loved it. Like I just said above, the plots are somewhat thin, but thats really okay, cause the characters and the depth of writing about those characters is freakin' outstanding.

I always loved that old pulp stuff. Very fun. I liked a lot of the classics as well, such as Poe and Verne.

i just finished 'Changes' from the Dresden files

Just read the novelization of "The Wicker Man". Lot's of expansion on the themes and the characters, but of course the same end... poor Howie. LoL!

Gilded Latten Bones by Glen Cook. Its part of the Garrett series, which I have read for years.

I hate to say it but so many of my favorites are winding down now, it seems.

Piers Anthony seems to have abandoned anything except Xanth, which frankly doesn't have the old appeal. Robert Asprin... has died. Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer. Louis L'Amour is dead. Robert B. Parker is dead. James Lee Burke seems to be winding up his Robicheaux series. Spider Robinson seems to have closed down Callahan's. Roger Zelazny, the Great One as I call him, is gone. J.A. Jance seems to have closed out JP Beaumont. Dick Francis is having help from his son, and while its good, it doesn't have that old feel.

But I have found one or two that I like. Simon Green is good and A. Martinez is doing some really fun stuff.

I go into the bookstore looking for new stuff in the Scifi/Fantasy and it seems that the overwhelming majority is fantasy romance vampire stuff for women and teen girls.

No one seems to want to put out any stuff thats just fun scifi any more. At least, nothing that seems like it's in my wheelhouse.