What are you currently reading?

[Aremag]

I don't despise Holly but I can do without another Holly book.

[St. Troy]

If you want to get people fired up and see the definition of the word polarizing say this:

HOLLY

Have I mentioned that I really liked Lisey's Story?

[kingfan2323]

If you want to get people fired up and see the definition of the word polarizing say this:

HOLLY

Have I mentioned that I really liked Lisey's Story?

You have. You love it. You love Lisey's Story more or

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining?



seeking: anything DT related #246

[Aremag]

Finished I Am Legend and it deserves the classic status is has. It's also not as dated as I thought it might be due to its age. About to start of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu.

[kingfan2323]

Finished I Am Legend and it deserves the classic status is has. It's also not as dated as I thought it might be due to its age. About to start of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu.

Agree on I Am Legend. Have you read Liu yet? I plan on Tackling Three Body pretty soon.

seeking: anything DT related #246

[Aremag]

Finished I Am Legend and it deserves the classic status is has. It's also not as dated as I thought it might be due to its age. About to start of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu.

Agree on I Am Legend. Have you read Liu yet? I plan on Tackling Three Body pretty soon.

seeking: anything DT related #246

This is my first Liu. I've wanted to read his stuff but haven't gotten around to it.

[kingfan2323]

Finished I Am Legend and it deserves the classic status is has. It's also not as dated as I thought it might be due to its age. About to start of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu.

Agree on I Am Legend. Have you read Liu yet? I plan on Tackling Three Body pretty soon.

seeking: anything DT related #246

This is my first Liu. I've wanted to read his stuff but haven't gotten around to it.

Would love to know your thoughts when you have some.



seeking: anything DT related #246

[St. Troy]

You love Lisey's Story more or Stanley Kubrick's The Shining?

It's hard to say - generally, Kubrick's film is a better film than LS is a novel, but then, it is a failure and a disappointment as an adaptation, style waaaaaaay over substance.

[kingfan2323]

You love Lisey's Story more or Stanley Kubrick's The Shining?

It's hard to say - generally, Kubrick's film is a better film than LS is a novel, but then, it is a failure and a disappointment as an adaptation, style waaaaaaay over substance.

Hmm...I cant think of any other topics that get members fired up.

seeking: anything DT related #246

[St. Troy]

Hmm...I cant think of any other topics that get members fired up.

Have you tried the politics thread??

[kingfan2323]

Hmm...I cant think of any other topics that get members fired up.

Have you tried the politics thread??

Or the Cemetery Dance Thread!

I think we are covered now. Ha!



seeking: anything DT related #246

[Garrell]

Finished The Queen of Bedlam by Robert McCammon. Loved it. It is my 3rd book by him and he is already #2 in my book. Now on to the 2nd story in If It Bleeds.

[fernandito]

Just ordered Borne by Jeff Van Der Meer. I'm in the mood for some weird sci-fi and the Annihilation was a fantastic read.

[Hunchback Jack]

Finished I Am Legend and it deserves the classic status is has. It's also not as dated as I thought it might be due to its age. About to start of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu.

Agree on I Am Legend. Have you read Liu yet? I plan on Tackling Three Body pretty soon.

I really liked TBP and its sequels. Solid SF with strong characters. Not perfect, but well worth your time.

Finished The Queen of Bedlam by Robert McCammon. Loved it. It is my 3rd book by him and he is already #2 in my book. Now on to the 2nd story in If It Bleeds.

The whole Corbett series is great. So glad to hear you're enjoying them.

HBJ

[Aremag]

Finished I Am Legend and it deserves the classic status is has. It's also not as dated as I thought it might be due to its age. About to start of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu.

Agree on I Am Legend. Have you read Liu yet? I plan on Tackling Three Body pretty soon.

seeking: anything DT related #246

This is my first Liu. I've wanted to read his stuff but haven't gotten around to it.

Would love to know your thoughts when you have some.



seeking: anything DT related #246

Finished of Ants and Dinosaurs and enjoyed it very much. Not hard core sci-fi but plenty of science. It's almost like a child's fable meant to teach consequences of scientific, political and ecological decisions. I found it a simple story with a complex under layer. I look forward to checking out Liu's more hardcore sci-fi. Starting The Notch by Tom Hollland.

[kingfan2323]

Finished I Am Legend and it deserves the classic status is has. It's also not as dated as I thought it might be due to its age. About to start of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu.

Agree on I Am Legend. Have you read Liu yet? I plan on Tackling Three Body pretty soon.

seeking: anything DT related #246

This is my first Liu. I've wanted to read his stuff but haven't gotten around to it.

Would love to know your thoughts when you have some.



seeking: anything DT related #246

Finished of Ants and Dinosaurs and enjoyed it very much. Not hard core sci-fi but plenty of science. It's almost like a child's fable meant to teach consequences of scientific, political and ecological decisions. I found it a simple story with a complex under layer. I look forward to checking out Liu's more hardcore sci-fi. Starting The Notch by Tom Hollland.

Was curious about that too. Would love to hear your thoughts .

seeking: anything DT related #246

[St. Troy]

I recently finished The Outsider.

I quite liked it, much more than The Institute (which I seem to use as a measuring stick for recently read King), although not as much as I enjoyed the Hodges trilogy (I have no real complaint about The Outsider; I just found the Hodges trilogy more gripping). And while I did prefer the Hodges trilogy, I'd expect most readers to prefer The Outsider, as it seems more of what King usually does (less crime oriented, more supernatural oriented, although both works contain both components).

Some bits reminded me of some of the intriguing elements from Desperation (which overall I didn't like).

I could've done without the reference to ka, but hey, no harm done.

As I've said before, I like Holly and look forward to reading more of her in If It Bleeds (which I don't yet have, but hopefully will get and read later this year).

Let's see how The Outsider holds up against my King bugaboo checklist:
- the ending made sense
- no "just 'cuz" anywhere
- no real spoilers of note

3 for 3! Go Stevie go!

Of particular value:

Spoiler:

I had no idea that:
- Ollie would snap
- Terry, Howie, and Alec would die
...which I really appreciate (he occasionally telegraphs key character deaths: Eddie (DT), Mattie in Bag of Bones, Edgar's daughter in Duma Key) - remember, Steve: suspense is when you DON'T let the reader know what's coming.

Overall, a good read.

[St. Troy]

From Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, I read The Thief Of Always by Clive Barker.

FYI, TTOA is one of Barker's few "child friendly fables," and therefore a good Barker entry point for anyone unenthusiastic about seeing horribly disgusting things happen with human bodies.

I read this once before, possibly 20 years ago, and while I'd recalled some basics, I'd forgotten a lot. It was just as good as I remembered - possibly even better - and I strongly recommend it (especially to those turned off by the likes of Hellraiser).

[St. Troy]

Yesterday I started The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker...which is mighty different from The Thief Of Always.

I've been waiting years to read this; it is quite good (and disturbing). Barker is a hell of a writer.

[Hunchback Jack]

I just finished Mythos by Stephen Fry, read by the author (an audiobook). It is Fry's retelling of the Greek Myths (or the more gods-oriented ones, anyway; "Heroes", the follow-up, deals with the human-oriented myths). It was entertaining, and very interesting, but as a narrative it (inevitably, perhaps) fell apart a bit by the end. What started as a pretty cohesive series of events fragmented into individual stories containing a bewildering number of different characters, who appear to play their role and then never appear again. No real sense of how much time has passed between stories. Not enough connections between them to pull the disparate stories together.

Not something to read in a single sitting; it probably works better as a bathroom book.

Now reading Jurassic Park (for the first time). The story and subject matter are solid, but the writing is a bit flat. Things happen, and we are told about them. Characters say and do things, but we are not really privy to what they think or feel. I don't really care what happens to them. The dinosaurs are cool, though.

HBJ

[webstar1000]

I just want to say that Houses Under the Sea by Caitlin R. Kiernan is one of the finest short stories I have ever read. Definitely top 10, possibly top 5. Wow! Just wow.

Hey I can’t send you messages man! I tried but your box must be full.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kingfan2323]

The Institute was so weak. I enjoyed the Outsider as well.

[Ricky]

Hunchback Jack, I read Jurassic Park a few years ago and agree with everything you said. Good story, propulsive plot, but you can really tell that MC was a scientist first and a writer second.

[Heather19]

Hunchback Jack, I read Jurassic Park a few years ago and agree with everything you said. Good story, propulsive plot, but you can really tell that MC was a scientist first and a writer second.

Maybe that's why I've thoroughly enjoyed the books of his that I've read. Same with The Hot Zone. I love when science is incorporated into books like that, but that might just be the scientist in me talking


Currently reading The Patience of a Dead Man by Michael Clark. It's about a man who ends up buying a haunted house, and it's part of a trilogy. Enjoying it so far.

[St. Troy]

I finished The Hellbound Heart a few days ago; I very much liked it.

As a very short work (164 non-dense pages; I don't know the word count), it didn't have time to go into much, just enough time to lay out an incredibly intriguing idea: Lemarchand's box, a "three-dimensional jigsaw" with "six black lacquered faces" with no readily apparent solution, but which, once opened, "began to tinkle a short rondo of sublime banality" before possibly opening a doorway "to pleasures no more than a handful of humans had ever known existed."

Going from the first chapter to the second was a bit jarring, as the opening of a world of horror gave way to simple domesticity, but the story was tight and suited the premise (Barker can do short).

The bottom line is that, after having read back-to-back Barkers (THH and The Thief Of Always), I am now pretty much manic to read more of him (luckily I've pretty much forgotten the Barker novels I own and have already read). I'll have to wait a bit, as I've started something else (If You Could See Me Now by Peter Straub) and I've promised my daughter that I'll read one of her recommendations (I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith (author of The Hundred And One Dalmations)) immediately after that, but then, more Barker: Weaveworld, possibly a break for Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Cabal, possibly a break for William Peter Blatty's Legion, then The Great And Secret Show and Everville back to back, another break, then Sacrament, which will exhaust my Barker supply (except for a few stories I have that also appear in the Books Of Blood, which I don't have, but will wait to read until I do). I've already ordered Imajica, hope to get the BoB soon, and later this year, Galilee, Coldheart Canyon, and Abarat.