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

I also disliked The Old Curiosity Shop, which just seemed like a complete mess to me.

I'd probably go with David Copperfield as his single best work, with Our Mutual Friend a close second. I also found Dombey and Son really powerful for a lesser known work, and also found Barnaby Rudge a nice surprise for one of his least known works.

I am sadly a speed reader myself. I fly through trades. It's horrible. and Expensive. How does one learn to 'slow down'?.

Which is why I love the Wheel of Time series LOL!! 1000 pages takes me a while. (This series is in all honesty by far my favorite )

I think it's really funny when everyone, even my waitress the other day (when i had it next to me at my table) say they make it to like book 8 and give up !!!

gah!! books 12 and 13 have been two of the best of the entire series !!! I've read them twice.

(I thought ten was allright and i think book 6 or 8 has the battle of dumais wells which is one of the best sequences of the entire series. IMO) Granted they do chug along for quite soem time, several books, (and maybe if it wasn't one of the only things i could get that i wanted to read when i was working in hong kong i might not have made it through)

... but i'm so glad i hung in there.

I can not wait for 14, and the release date keeps getting pushed back.


I'm currently in the middle of The fellowship of the rings, I am at the moment where they meet Aragorn. It's taken me quite some time to get here and I feel a bit embarassed to say I've never read the Tolkien books but i'm an avid fantasy reader!


I'm also half way through Just Kids, which i am savoring.

I started the Titus Groan series ... and it may be good, not sure yet but it makes The Wheel of Time Series look like it races along ... from what i've read so far. (it's slow and extremely descriptive IMHO). I was a little disappointed because the reviews are so kind, and the people at the book store exclaimed that i was going to love it. I'll have to dig it out one day and give it another go.

btw It's so nice to hear that other people read like crazy.

Legion World.

Good to meet a fellow WOT fan, deddy. Gotta say I'm impressed - that's about a thousand pages in one day!

And another fan! I gotta agree with ya Peebz - 11 to 13 were awesome, and almost worth the slowing down in books 8 and 10.

Book 6, Dumai's Wells, was epic, but one of my favorite battles still has to be the Cleansing in Book 9. But 11-13 are my fave books because so much happens in them.

Can't wait for 14 - I'll probably get the hardcover when it comes out, because I'll go nuts waiting for the paperback.

I just finished the Foundation trilogy. The first half of the third book (dealing with the defeat of the Mule) seemed to drag a bit, but the last half (dealing with the charming character Arkady) was really great! Arkady reminded me of Heinlein's Podkayne.

Anyway, I am currently reading Merlin's Bones by Saberhagen.

ahhh I'm such a fool, I was actually thinking of the CLEANSING battle in fact!!

The Dumais Wells battle is also epic but I was thinking of the Cleansing Battle ... that was when I was exciting they were going to get sh%^ done!

I also enjoyed Birgitte's daring rescue of Elayne ... even thought it was only like one chapter long.

Lesson learned from Agatha Christie novels:

Usually, if there is a young lady with two potential romantic interests, the love triangle will resolve itself by one of the young men turning out to be a murderer.

very much like real life.

Peebs, seeing as you are a fan of epic fantasy (ugg, how i hate that term) have you read the Malazan series by Steven Erikson? 10 massive novels and the series is complete.

And in other news, the kindle my wife ordered me for my birthday has finally arrived. Now I can easily read at work when it is slow.

I have not .... Should I, I think I will look into it.

I like to read a lot, and I like for the world to be fleshed out, so a good long series is good for me. when i like a book, i want it to keep on going. and for some reason I like fantasy a lot better than science fiction, although I do like sci fi.

looks pretty good from wikipedia! Seems like the exact type of story i'd be interested in! thanks ded!

I love my Kindle so much! Hope you bought a case/cover for it though.

I have a Sony EReader and the kindle's image quality is far superior. mine has glare, it's ok though.

Yup, got a case too, one of the ones with a light in case I start bussing to work during the winter


Peebs, I'm mostly a genre reader too, sticking mostly to fantasy with a few other genres sprinkled in to keep things interesting.

Malazan Book of the Fallen will definitely keep you busy. Its pretty confusing at first, Erikson has a very large and complex world worked out and just drops you into the story with no explaination for anything. Its a series you really have to work at to understand (I was reading at about half my normal pace to make sure I didn't miss anything) but the payoff is awesome in the end.


I recently went through a spate of reading Australian fantasy writers, some really good stuff there too.

Yeah, I loved the Cleansing because - look, something finally happens! And IMO it's always good when we get to see some Aes Sedai in action.

Mat's venture into the Tower of Ghenjei was great too

right now...nuthin' much. Reading gets to be a pain now that I have to use glasses. I get headaches.

Religious Literacy by Stephen Prothero.

Basically a call for people to learn about various religions as religion and religious belief permeates and influences the world. According to the author, various studies have found that only half of American adults can name even one of the four gospels; most Americans cannot name the first book of the Bible; and 10% of Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. This despite half of Americans identify as Protestant, a quarter as Catholis, and 10% as Christians of some stripe.

Supergods by Grant Morrison

This book recounts Morrison's development as a creator (and a human being), more or less chronologically. His life story was typical enough, although we can see that his activist father and the difficult conditions of the 1970s and Thatcher's Britain influenced his writing.

I didn't know that he had started out as an artist, as well as a musician.

Morrison's insights into and comments about comics of each era are very interesting. In some cases, it's his own viewpoint; in others, he offers the reader insider, behind-the-scenes information. It made me want to go back and reread the books he mentions.

His writing has reflected his personal mindset at a given time; he was heavily into drugs and drinking, which isn't a big revelation when you read some of his earlier works, like The Invisibles. Then he had a very mystical experience, and we got All-Star Superman....

More gossip would have been fun; Morrison lets out a few tidbits, but he's overall very much the gentleman and no doubt he pulls his punches when it comes to the publishers and his fellow creators. I certainly can't fault him for that.

His description of the Batman TV serials and movies was hilarious, as were some of his encounters at conventions and with fans.

Particularly interesting was his discussion of Iain Spence's Sekhmet Hypothesis (which I had never heard of), which links cycles in popular culture to sunspot cycles. According to Spence, we alternate between punk and hippie culture, to use contemporary terms. Morrison shows how this has played out in comic books, and claims that we are now embarking on a period of hippie culture: interest in the spiritual, peace, long hair, loose clothes,etc. - although he seems to apply the Sekhmet Hypothesis with a grain of salt.

The original content for this book was, according to an interview with Morrison, cut by half. I would really like to read the rest. Still, the 417 pages that did get published were fascinating and thought-provoking.

FC, you've sold me on Supergods. I had been aware of it for a while, but given my extreme ambivalence about Morrison's public image and works, it was always going to be a hard sell.

I still think he's a bit Bowie-esque, often using mystique to sell mediocrity. But like Bowie, he's offered plenty of good ideas (and plenty of bad ones, and plenty of ugly ones -- the killing of Darkstar being the worst offender IMO. Then again, it's the job of the EDITORS to tell him when he's off-base.)

Still, lifting the curtain to reveal the man behind it should make for an interesting read, to say the least.

Best of all, my library carries it.

Re: Dickens- my favorite's BLEAK HOUSE. Which I really need to reread sometime soon. There ought to be a word for the adjustment our 21st century brains have to make before enjoying 18th or 19th century literature. It takes me about 70-80 pages. So worth it once that 'snap' snaps, though.

I've tried WAR AND PEACE a half dozen times and haven't been able to crack that one, though.

Re: Christie-- For those that like her, but have exhausted her body of work, there's an author from New Zealand named Ngaio Marsh who has a similar style. Her main character is Roderick Alleyn. The first two have just become available on Nook. Maybe they're available on Kindle, too?

I just started rereading the Pliocine Exile, a four part series by Julian May. It'd been out of print for awhile, but was also recently made available on Nook.

It's sort of like Terra Nova, in that people from the near-future are traveling to the distant past. In May's book, it's mostly people who are unable to adjust when Earth makes contact with and joins an intergalactic federation kind of deal.

It starts slow, in fact the main characters don't really show up for quite a while. Once they do, though, it's a good sci-fi/fantasy combo. I love when combining the two genres is done successfully.

Before that, I finished OUT OF OZ, the last book in Gregory Maguire's reimagination of the Oz stories. It packed quite a punch, while leaving some perplexing questions open to interpretation. One neat thing the writer did was sprinkle names of songs and lines of songs from WICKED, the musical based on his initial entry in the series, throughout the book as lines of dialogue, or in narration. It's a good thing to read about a writer who appreciates adaptations of his work. In fact, he thought a couple of ideas that the adapters used for the musical version were ones he wished he'd come up with- like the origins of the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. You'd have to read other books in the series. This isn't one a reader could start with and comfortably tell what was important or even what was going on, I don't think.

I eagerly await the last WHEEL OF TIME book, as well. That's one I'll definitely download, though.

I read War and Peace when I was about 20, and it didn't do much for me. It's probably one of those books I should try to re-read.

I'm currently reading The Quantum Prophecy: The Gathering by Michael Carroll, a super-hero novel -- the second of a trilogy -- that shows how fun, exciting, and worthwhile super-heroes can still be (for those of us not interested in DC or Marvel's current offerings).

My review can be found at my blog .

Thanks, He Who. I may check it out.

Cliche' time: There's a bunch of this year's National Geographics stockpiled in the break room at work. So I've been reading them a lot.

So far, the most interesting piece I've seen is about "Seed Banking" in an attempt to preserve food diversity around the world. The monoculture approach to having everyone everywhere focus on a few breeds of livestock or grain is routinely linked to crisis and famine a la' the Irish Potato Famine of the 19th Century. Reading about Melaku Worede, who's been instrumental in preserving species for the benefit of farmers in his native Ethiopia, has been awesome. I may have to name a planet after him in my fic. Or maybe even a whole solar system.