For the first time, I just can't finish this book because it's just so bad.

Here is a sample of a good translation

http://www.amazon.com/Perfume-Story-Murderer-Patrick-Suskind/dp/0375725849

 

Never read DaVinci.

But current series of novels (that I wish were on eBooks) is the Jim Butcher series Dresden Files. All of them.

 

Another sample of what I read

http://www.amazon.com/Instance-Fing...9266210?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177709877&sr=1-1

 

No, it wouldn't have.
No one replied to this, cuz they hate you as much as I do.
Never come back here, or I'll spray you in the eyes with WD-40.

 

This kind of auto-flaming is unacceptable IMHO!

 

I'll take the warning. Fucker deserved it.

 

The last book I put down was the the fourth book in the "dark Tower" series by King. I just started to get bored. I'll finish it eventually.

Other than that the only book I have put down was one by Anne Rice's Pen Name. It was about Venice in the middle ages. I was able to skip over and accept the gay porn, but when she castrated the main character on page 144 (I'm pretty sure about that page number too), it was to much. I put it down and didn't pick it back up.

Funny thing was that my dad knew I liked Anne Rice, so when he was in the airport one day, he picked up that same book, about a week after I put it down. His plan was to read it on the plane then give it to me when he got done with it. He didn't even read as far as I did. i think it was probably the gay porn that got him to stop.

 

Was it "Cry To Heaven"?

That's about castrati opera singers.
Ma read it, and said she dug it.
I'll take her word for it, don't appeal to me.

 

How bout the Anne Rice books? I enjoyed all the Vampire and Witch stories.

 

Ilium & Olympos, Dan Simmons

 

But not Hyperion, huh?!

 

"Hyperion"

But that has definitely been longer than five years since he read it anew.

He has read it since, but like I said it wasn't new.

 

You said new, Slick.

Hyperion is gold, I&O are just as good.

I mean to read some of his detective noir novels.

 

Waiting for the Galactic Bus, Kingdoms of the Wall, Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, pretty much ANYTHING by Neil Gaiman.

 

Gaiman makes me sick.

Alan Moore is twice the brain, and twice the man.

 

I shoulda left that new part out. But the early books discussed in the thread were older than 5 yrs so I figured people weren't paying attention to that.

I'm just glad I got some people to talk about books.

 

Eh. I like Gaiman's style.

 

I'm elitist scum.

 

Off the top of my head...

John Stakely Armor Starship Troopers ripoff that takes a fantastic turn.

Ken Macleod The Stone Canal He has other books, but I would start with that one, definately in my top ten. He's a knuckle dragging socialist, but the protagonist in that one is a libertopian.

Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon, The Baroqe Cycle If you haven't read them you aren't cool.

 

Heh. Ironically, I finished that book in like, a weekend. Ironic because by about page 4 I was amazed at how terrible it was, but the chapters end with cliffhangers that made me go "OK. Now I've gotta find out how THAT turns out."

 

Have you READ Neverwhere? If not, even if you dislike Gaiman, you should.

 

One day I was very bored at work so I wandered down to the dollar store and they have this selection of paperbacks. Mostly crap, but there was one called Camelot 30K. It was a science fiction book, and the back cover description was interesting. But I figured how good could it be as it was at the dollar store, but then again what the hell it's only $1 and if WW3 ever happens I'll need stuff to burn for heat so I picked it up.

It started off interestingly enough, but when you find out the aliens are some sort of prawns or crawfish living on and iceball and speak some sort of wierd, stilted medieval language (al least thats how it came through in English), which at first makes some sense since the book is called Camelot 30K, though in reality the aliens call their country Camelor, until you relalize no reason is ever given for the connections. And the book seemed to be heading for a semi-interesting twist but it got kinda messed up and was too apparent too soon on and so the ending seemed to drag. I kept thinking up better ways to have done it.

All in all one of the most bizzare books I've ever read and the only reason I finished it was that I was hoping the end was going to be different than it was - though it wasn't too bad - or that some reason was given for the apparent connection to midieval earth culture.

On the subject of books never finished, the only fiction book I started and just came to dead stop on was Foundation. I know, I know, the great Isaac Asimov - but I couldn't get past the hyphenated combo names (i.e. plas-steel; I hated TekWar for the same reason) and some of the other things that I guess are hard-scifi staples, but I don't care for. Which I guess is why I don't like the genre much. I like sci-fi blended with other things like fantasy, mystery or even horror or suspense.

 

We're going to read the DaVinci ("de DaVinci"?) Code in detective lit class next.

Based on what I've heard of it, I want to find a quiet place all to myself when I start reading. Maybe I'll actually hear the clunk as my brain abruptly downshifts about five gears from The Name of the Rose.

 

Dan Brown is no Umberto Ecco. Check Baudolino.

 

^ ^^ No kidding . Through the first thirty-odd pages so far, I give him a few points for the irony with the bishop. But that's about it. Someone should have explained to him that when people talk about a novel having "several layers of meaning", they don't mean the writer said something rather difficult to understand and then explained it a couple times over for the somewhat denser and downright moronic people in the audience.

 

I lost interest in Trek novels 20 years ago.

Bet we'll see that on Scifi someday.

 

Well, my brother liked this one:
Monument by Ian Graham
http://www.amazon.com/Monument-Ian-...4224801?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177934753&sr=1-1

It's lying here, waiting to be read, after Angels & Demons, The DaVinci Code, The Amulet Of Samarkand and The Golem's Eye(both by Johnathan Stroud)...

The Dan Brown novels are fluffy detectives, but nice enough to read if you don't go in with high expectations...