My most recent book is the sixth in the Old Kingdom series, TERCIEL AND ELINOR. It tells the story of how Sabriel’s parents met and their own battles against the Dead and other entities that trouble the Old Kingdom. Also out this year has been 25th anniversary editions of SABRIEL from my US, Australian and British publishers. I’ve written too many books to list here, but apart from the Old Kingdom, there’s THE LEFT-HANDED BOOKSELLERS OF LONDON, ANGEL MAGE, The Keys to the Kingdom Series etc etc And I also write short stories.
I just have to voice this here if anyone is on the fence like I was. Was thinking about reading Dune for years, but a lot of common criticisms get levied at it: boring, sterile, confusing, pretentious, and slow.
After watching the film I really wanted to spend more time in this universe, so I grabbed my Kindle and found myself blasting through the first 100 pages and had to force myself to go to bed. Now I keep thinking about it. I’m now at page 300 and I’m loving it more and more. Can’t wait to get past where the movie ended.
Let yourself decide if you like it. The plot, political complexities, subtle yet expert character work, immersive world building, and touches of dark fantasy/scifi is so satisfying. There is some older forms of English wording present in the text I struggle with, but nothing a dictionary can’t help. It’s not slow at all; the pacing is really satisfying and tense. The dialogue is nuanced and clever, with a smooth shifting of POV …
To start with, here’s mine
My husband rides from Worlds End towards Tarwin’s Gap, to Tarmon Gaidon. Will he ride alone? (WoT)
They’re just boots (also WoT)
It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die. (KKC)
ASOIAF and KKC wil go down as a classic even if they won’t get finished.
What are you willing to die on?
I’m a really slow reader and it takes me multiple times to focus on lines because my mind wanders. I also don’t really have a big vocabulary so I have to look up words when I don’t know them. I don’t know why I’m really typing this but I guess I just want to ask if it’s normal to read at a slow pace, especially when other people on this subreddit seem to read like a book a day.
I was bored so I actually ran though a sequence of Goodreads profiles and complied these covers to make a point.
I’m a grown man. I rarely read YA, I’ve read about 5 of these and enjoyed maybe 2. But even the other ones just keep looking really enticing to me.
I mean, individually none of them are my single favorite cover ever, but if pulishers keep instructing artists to keep chasing formulas, I much prefer this one to many others:
After all, this is sort of inevitable when different artists are trying to signify what genre a book belongs to, and what the reader should expect.
Romance novels used to have their photos of random hunks, nowadays they have their soft-pink backgrounds with minimalistic drawings that …
I bought the book a year and a half ago but I never got around to reading it. I finally decided to read it last night and I finished it in one sitting. I seriously think this book changed my life, like I can’t stop thinking about Mariam and her story. I cried so hard by the end of the book and even now when I think about it I start tearing up. I seriously don’t think I have ever had this much of an emotional reaction when it comes to a book before. I think it’s gonna be one of those books I think about for a long, long time.
It seems like it is a pretty standard part of school reading curriculums, but for some reason it wasn’t a part of mine growing up. I decided I wanted a change of pace this summer and wow, I did not expect what I read.
The book itself is noticeably flat, but that’s not to say boring. Each chapter has a climax, but in reality the story itself lacks one. It follows a young German soldier through his life at the front lines and paints some of the most emotionally charging imagery I’ve ever read in any story.
The way he describes death, feelings, context of the war and other situations is incredibly poetic. Sometimes I would finish a sentence or a chapter and have to pause and reflect on the points Remarque is making.
The way the story ended was gut wrenching too. The story talks about the deeply vibrant feelings and emotions and experiences that a young soldier goes through, talking about deep philosophical concepts. Yet on the day he dies, the bulletin reads “All Quiet On the Western …
So I recently heard of Kafka and that he is supposed to be a literary genius or something, so I picked up a couple of his books, Metamorphasis, and the Trial.
I read both and yes I think he is a genius.
My take on his stories was that it was a comedy, it was a comedy showing the absurdity of human behaviour and this world. I understood it as a Nihilistic comedy since most of the stuff I read, genuinely cracked me up like when the dude becomes an insect and is still thinking about his work, add a sound track to that and it’s a classic cartoon show for kids.
But then I thought to go what reddit thinks of Kafka and apparently the general consensus to me seems to be that Kafka’s writing is supposed to be soul-crushing, demoralizing and something that can make you depress.
So did I read this completely wrong. What’s the correct way of reading Kafka, is there something I need to know about the author or his messages to understand his work?
Just finished the first three books of the Vorkosigan Saga - what a ride! I wish someone had told me about them a long time ago, I don’t think the series is getting nearly the attention it deserves.
The books follow the members of the Vorkosigan family, one of the feudal ruling families on the planet Barrayar, and is loosely episodic, so you can read them in any order.
The Vorkosigan family are the main advisers to generations of Barrayaran emperors, and have to use their wits and intellect to get the empire out of trouble and slowly push Barrayaran society out of its backward nature. These are character-driven stories, and you’re sure to remember these characters for years, along with the stories that make them who they are, and how they create and define their identities in an unfriendly universe.
Miles Vorkosigan is the main character in a lot of the novels, and I can’t remember the last time I liked a character so much. He’s a dwarf who suffers from …
As a fan of Le Guin’s science fiction work, I had left this book as the last sci-fi novel of hers I haven’t read. I left it unread for years because I knew once I did read it there would be no more Le Guin science fiction novels to read, I had finished reading a couple of pretty good books but nothing that had blown me away, I had finished A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace and I had enjoyed them but I had forgotten most of the novel pretty soon after I had finished reading them, I was looking for impactful novels, I have finished reading The Dispossessed almost 4 years ago and still remember it vividly because I think about its themes often. So I decided to read The Lathe of Heaven, it was in a glass box in my room labeled “ Break in case of apathy” so I took the plunge.
Reading Le Guin at this point for me is like eating a home-cooked meal and savoring every bite because you know you only visit your parents once a year and after this …
Psychic abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, and precognition used to be staples of science fiction, with classic authors like A. E. van Vogt, Theodore Sturgeon, and Alfred Bester regularly including them in their stories. Even major authors that served as a bridge modern SF (people like Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick) regularly wrote about psychic powers. But now, I almost never see those things in science fiction. What happened? Did all the science fiction authors interested in psychic powers literally move underground? Did a cabal of Carl Sagan acolytes buy off all the major publishers?
To be clear, I don’t especially miss the psychic trope. I find it kind of boring compared to other SF inventions. But I’m fascinated by the sudden disappearance.
Why did publishers (mostly) decide to abandon the awesome painted SF covers of the 60’s-80’s in favor of bland, “realistic” ones?
I read foundation recently and the “capitalist realism” of it kind of ruined my mental image of what a galaxy spanning civilisation would be capable of
“When she returned, with her courage oozing back, Homir Munn was standing before her with a faded bathrobe on the outside and a brilliant fury on the inside.”
I’m rereading the foundation series for the first time in 40 years, and enjoying it. Like I did with the Dune trilogy.
22 movies have received an F Cinemascore from opening weekend US audiences since the beginning of the service in the 1980s. I’ve ranked and rated each one. Was it worth my time? Probably not but I love doing silly, unique little Letterboxd challenges and there were a few titles worth checking out.
1) mother! (2017) - 10⁄10. This Darren Aronofsky-directed drama was divisive on release due to its disturbing content but I think it’s a masterpiece. The acting is fantastic, the themes of the film are not subtle but they are effectively presented and it is exactly as shocking as intended.
2) Bug (2006) - 8⁄10. “The Exorcist” director William Friedkin adapted this play by Tracy Letts into a very disturbing and effective horror drama. The actors commit 100% and Ashley Judd in particular gives the best performance I’ve seen from her.
3) I Know Who Killed Me (2007) - 8⁄10. Lindsay Lohan’s cheesy star vehicle is the only movie on this list …