"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
I'm pretty certain that nothing will ever measure up to the DT series as a whole....for me that is.
As for Slaughterhouse-5, this passage will save the book no matter what.
"Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed, he shit thin gruel. This was in accordance with the Thirl Law of Motion according to Sir Isaac Newton. This law tells us for every action there is a reaction that is equal and opposite in direction.
This can be useful in rocketry."
Sloth Love Chunk
dude, I used to think nothing was better than the whole DT series, but this series is. I'm still SK>Martin, but it's becoming a close thing.
speaking of which, anyone here read Fevre Dream yet?
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
No, but it is a title that I have been on the lookout for for awhile now.
Sloth Love Chunk
I had given up on vampire novels for a long time, mostly because this Twilight crap soured me on them, but I want to read this one.
"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the King, obey the King, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the King? What if the King massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or another."
I finished The Stand a few days ago, and now I'm starting Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille.
Finished The Dark Tower at 6:03AM on December 21, 2009.
The man in black fled across the desert,
and the gunslinger followed.
What did you think of the Stand? On par with the high praise that everyone has given it....or falling short of the legend?
Sloth Love Chunk
I absolutely loved it! I read the unabridged version, and I couldn't imagine how omitting any of it for the sake of "length" could help. The characters were brilliantly filled out, and their backgrounds were fantastic. All of them felt real to me. I think it's a testament to King's ability to make characters that Tom Cullen and Nick Andros were two of my favorites. Most authors make people who are retarded or have serious disabilities, such as being deaf and dumb, a liability for the other characters. Instead, King turned them into their own people and made them steeples of the story. Cullen and Andros are two of my favorite characters out of every book I've read, with Andros probably being my favorite character ever. I have to admit though: I hated Frannie. If you go into The Stand thread, you'll see the extent of my hate for her. My only real criticism of the book is:Spoiler:
Finished The Dark Tower at 6:03AM on December 21, 2009.
The man in black fled across the desert,
and the gunslinger followed.
Agreed on all fronts. Nick and Tom were my two favorites from Boulder, and I couldn't help but like Trashy too. Also, ditto on Frannie.
Spoiler:
Sloth Love Chunk
Finished The Dark Tower at 6:03AM on December 21, 2009.
The man in black fled across the desert,
and the gunslinger followed.
Interesting. M-O-O-N, that spells interesting.
Spoiler:
Sloth Love Chunk
I hope this isn't too off-topic, but....
I've never gotten into a lot of fantasy series (it took reading wikipedia summaries of the entire Dark Tower series to get me interested not only in that, but in Stephen King, period), and the reason used to be that I was afraid to LIKE them.
More specifically, to love them enough that I couldn't wait until the next installment (which is why I'm glad I didn't come to The Dark Tower until it was already finished). I can't really conceive of waiting YEARS for each new book in a series I love, let alone waiting YEARS for the series to conclude (and all the while the specter of the writer's mortality looming large with the later installments).
Now, however, I have the opposite fear--fear of liking the first installments enough that I want more BUT that the author either can't or won't keep up the quality in later installments, and the last GOOD volume just begged for resolution, so that it's either read the bad final volumes or constantly speculate over what might have been but never have it (and I'm not good at fan-fiction).
I've been looking up a lot of fantasy series that people have mentioned here, and that I've heard a lot about but never known much about other than the titles. But since I look at negative as well as positive reviews on amazon.com (besides looking at wikipedia summaries--so sue me, I like spoilers), I keep finding deal-breakers.
Having said that, and hoping I don't sound like my standards are impossible to fulfill, can anyone recommend a fantasy series that is complete, and that contains good quality that is maintained throughout the series from beginning to end, without dipping into unforgivable territory (heck, even the best writers have their slow days)?
I assume that you have read LotR?
Sloth Love Chunk
I second Lord of the Rings. It is probably the best, most consistent series I have ever read.
Finished The Dark Tower at 6:03AM on December 21, 2009.
The man in black fled across the desert,
and the gunslinger followed.
I'm tapped then, LotR and DT are the only two Fantasy series that I have read.
Sloth Love Chunk
Hmm, I hear Hitchhiker's is worth a read-through, but I refuse to touch it simply because of the hype.
Finished The Dark Tower at 6:03AM on December 21, 2009.
The man in black fled across the desert,
and the gunslinger followed.
I've read those and the Harry Potter books, and The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Once and Future King (and the Space Odyssey series, although those were really science fiction rather than fantasy, and I can't really think of much else I've read that I would consider a book series (even if it were meant to be a single narrative, as most of those were)....
The only other one I've read is for a kid audience, the Silverwing series.
Huh--I guess I have read more than I thought I did.... I think I've kind of forgotten the point I was trying to make with this post....
@SynysterSaint: I refused to touch the Harry Potter books when they first came out "simply because of the hype." But IS Hitchhiker's a book SERIES? (And more to the point, is it fantasy?)
It's five books long, actually. Only the first one is titled HHGttG. And yes, they are science fiction which is basically fantasy. Just futuristic fantasy
Finished The Dark Tower at 6:03AM on December 21, 2009.
The man in black fled across the desert,
and the gunslinger followed.
I've read the first two harry potter books, but I read them in spanish, which is slow going for me as it is a second language. I will someday complete the series (in spanish) but I expect it to take a while.
I have considered several book series, but have not gotten to them:
Dune
HHGttG
Space Odyssey
So many books, such a short lifetime.
Sloth Love Chunk
Just throwing this out there, but I hated the seventh book in the Harry Potter series aside from the last third or so. Before that, I just found it boring. Every other second of every other book, though, is just fantastic. Rowling knows how to write a goddamn book
Finished The Dark Tower at 6:03AM on December 21, 2009.
The man in black fled across the desert,
and the gunslinger followed.
You're not alone.
I haven't read the Dune books (although I have the first three installments), but I have seen the two miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. I'm not entirely sure, having seen those, that I'll like the Dune books, but I intend to read them at some point, so I HOPE I do like them....
(And you read them in Spanish? Why?)