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What are you Reading Now?

Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones. I've watched the movie a few times, but not read the book until just now. It's good, but I keep trying to match up the story to the book and it's not quite working out. It's a good story though. :)
My friend is trying to make me read that currently.
 
confession : i am extremely bad at reading books in general. It comes from a huge amount of executive dysfunction that has gotten inexplicably worse recently. I set my goodreads goal for this year at 30 books and i've finished like 4. I guess that's better than no books. IM TRYING I PROMISE

Anyways the last book i read was Borne by Jeff VanderMeer. You gotta love ten story tall flying bears. Has anybody else read that? Would love to discuss it.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Howl's Moving Castle is such a great book. I reread it regularly. The sequels are fun too, but pale in comparison to the original. I actually saw the Ghibli movie first as well and still love the movie for the visuals. But to be honest I think the movie's plot is a mess and the book's is so much cleaner and more satisfying.

What have I been reading? Let's see...

I reread Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. It was the only Discworld book I hadn't reread before because it was the only one I didn't particularly like the first time. Maybe I just wasn't ready for it then. This time I found it highly enjoyable and very insightful.

Tried reading The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang but couldn't get quite halfway through. Nothing in it really caught my interest. And I found the prose difficult because the author uses "they" as the pronoun for the main characters, which I am not opposed to especially since it was with good reason, but the way the language was constructed often made it very difficult to tell if the writer was using "they" to refer to a specific person or to multiple people. I don't know why exactly. I just found myself often feeling confused about what the prose was talking about. I worry that this will be a problem in the coming years with a lot of fiction. I am very much in favor of a gender neutral pronoun. But using the same word to refer to an individual and to groups of people does lead to confusion, I've found. Not always. If you put thought into it you can construct your sentences so that it doesn't become confusing. Sadly, Yang did not appear to care about that.


I'm currently in the middle of 3 books.

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed has been really good... up until the climactic chapters. I just feel very... anticlimactic about them. The mystery that was built up in earlier chapters proved simplistic and easy. The villain who seemed very mysterious and threatening at first proved simplistic and uninteresting. There doesn't appear to be much to anticipate in the way of further character development. All that's left for the last 20% is a violent confrontation. I find I'm not looking forward to it. But I mean to persevere anyway.

I am also reading Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. Boy did I not know what I was in for with this book. It made it onto my list because it won a Locus award and to be fair it's a very well written novel. The characters are well drawn, the plot and mysteries of the world are compelling... what I did not know was how much sex there is on the page. And the prose is not at all coy about it. (Perhaps it should have won the "fantasy novel which uses the word 'phallus' the most" award?) I will finish the book because I am enjoying the story. I just wish the sex wasn't described in so much detail, especially considering that the MC is a masochist and thus there's quite a bit of bdsm.

Also reading Lost Horizon by James Hilton. Good adventure novel so far about a British diplomat who gets kidnapped and sent to a remote monastery in the Himalayas. Interestingly, this appears to be the origin of the idea of "Shangri-La" which I did not know before.
 
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Howl's Moving Castle is such a great book. I reread it regularly. The sequels are fun too, but pale in comparison to the original. I actually saw the Ghibli movie first as well and still love the movie for the visuals. But to be honest I think the movie's plot is a mess and the book's is so much cleaner and more satisfying.

What have I been reading? Let's see...

I reread Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. It was the only Discworld book I hadn't reread before because it was the only one I didn't particularly like the first time. Maybe I just wasn't ready for it then. This time I found it highly enjoyable and very insightful.

Tried reading The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang but couldn't get quite halfway through. Nothing in it really caught my interest. And I found the prose difficult because the author uses "they" as the pronoun for the main characters, which I am not opposed to especially since it was with good reason, but the way the language was constructed often made it very difficult to tell if the writer was using "they" to refer to a specific person or to multiple people. I don't know why exactly. I just found myself often feeling confused about what the prose was talking about. I worry that this will be a problem in the coming years with a lot of fiction. I am very much in favor of a gender neutral pronoun. But using the same word to refer to an individual and to groups of people does lead to confusion, I've found. Not always. If you put thought into it you can construct your sentences so that it doesn't become confusing. Sadly, Yang did not appear to care about that.


I'm currently in the middle of 3 books.

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed has been really good... up until the climactic chapters. I just feel very... anticlimactic about them. The mystery that was built up in earlier chapters proved simplistic and easy. The villain who seemed very mysterious and threatening at first proved simplistic and uninteresting. There doesn't appear to be much to anticipate in the way of further character development. All that's left for the last 20% is a violent confrontation. I find I'm not looking forward to it. But I mean to persevere anyway.

I am also reading Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. Boy did I not know what I was in for with this book. It made it onto my list because it won a Locus award and to be fair it's a very well written novel. The characters are well drawn, the plot and mysteries of the world are compelling... what I did not know was how much sex there is on the page. And the prose is not at all coy about it. (Perhaps it should have won the "fantasy novel which uses the word 'phallus' the most" award?) I will finish the book because I am enjoying the story. I just wish the sex wasn't described in so much detail, especially considering that the MC is a masochist and thus there's quite a bit of bdsm.

Also reading Lost Horizon by James Hilton. Good adventure novel so far about a British diplomat who gets kidnapped and sent to a remote monastery in the Himalayas. Interestingly, this appears to be the origin of the idea of "Shangri-La" which I did not know before.

Well, now I know not to read Kushiel's Dart. Using the word "phallus" in a sex scene sounds super cringey. Like, I can't think of much more cringey.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
So Lost Horizon was surprisingly good. It appears to be a good old fashioned adventure novel with a dash of mystery, but below the surface there's some really subtle psychological storytelling. As well as a lot of philosophy, which I love.

I'm a bit stuck on Kushiel's Dart and Throne of the Crescent Moon. I've gotten about halfway through Kushiel and feel like I should have finished by now. It is a LONG book. I probably just need a break from it. I'm nearing the climax of Throne but just don't feel all that interested in how things play out. I want to finish it since I've come this far, but I would probably feel more enthusiastic if this were a series book. It feels like it should be, but the author hasn't written anything else in this setting so far.

So I read another Vampire Hunter D novel. Number 5, the Stuff of Dreams. It was easily the best so far. I'm not one who usually likes vampire stories, but these books are just so unique and engaging. I find I enjoy reading about D even though he's practically perfect in every way (except for the whole "people hate him because he's a dhampir" thing). There's 20+ books in the series so I'm trying to pace myself, but part of me wants to just buy them all and binge read.

I've also started The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden which I've heard praised all over the place. A Russian setting, which isn't common, but I'm 13% of the way through the book and have no idea what it's supposed to be about. That always kind of annoys me.
 

Gurkhal

Auror
Took a break from "Beren and Luthien" and is now reading "Quietly Flows the Don" because I can't read enough about the Cossacks.
 
So Lost Horizon was surprisingly good. It appears to be a good old fashioned adventure novel with a dash of mystery, but below the surface there's some really subtle psychological storytelling. As well as a lot of philosophy, which I love.

I'm a bit stuck on Kushiel's Dart and Throne of the Crescent Moon. I've gotten about halfway through Kushiel and feel like I should have finished by now. It is a LONG book. I probably just need a break from it. I'm nearing the climax of Throne but just don't feel all that interested in how things play out. I want to finish it since I've come this far, but I would probably feel more enthusiastic if this were a series book. It feels like it should be, but the author hasn't written anything else in this setting so far.

So I read another Vampire Hunter D novel. Number 5, the Stuff of Dreams. It was easily the best so far. I'm not one who usually likes vampire stories, but these books are just so unique and engaging. I find I enjoy reading about D even though he's practically perfect in every way (except for the whole "people hate him because he's a dhampir" thing). There's 20+ books in the series so I'm trying to pace myself, but part of me wants to just buy them all and binge read.

I've also started The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden which I've heard praised all over the place. A Russian setting, which isn't common, but I'm 13% of the way through the book and have no idea what it's supposed to be about. That always kind of annoys me.

I've been wanting to read the Bear and the Nightingale for a while now. Tell us how it turns out.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I've been wanting to read the Bear and the Nightingale for a while now. Tell us how it turns out.

I finished it a week or so ago. It was a bit of a slow beginning but turned out pretty good. It took several chapters for the actual central conflict of the book to become apparent, which is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. And the "action" climax was a bit rushed. And I really disliked how the author turned this one abused, unhappy character who had no control over her life into a villain. But other than that it was pretty enjoyable.

After that I read our very own member Svrtnsse's Emma's Story (which you can pickup on Amazon). It was a very well written story with charming characters. My only issue was that i didn't find the ending satisfying. But Svrt says he will probably write a sequel so I'll look forward to that!

I also read Tanith Lee's Night's Master, the first book in her Flat Earth series. It was very different from most novels in that it was a series of vaguely connected stories starting and ending with Azhrarn the Demon Lord. It was a good read, but being a person who loves Worldbuilding, my one complaint is that it didn't matter in the least to the stories whether the world was flat or not. It was merely a fact recorded by the narrative.

Then the other day I bought and binged all 4 volumes of the manga The Promised Neverland that are out in English so far. IT IS LITERALLY AMAZING I WOULD GIVE IT 100 STARS IF I COULD. But of course it ended on a cliffhanger and I am DYING. But the currently published volumes seem to be coming out in English about 1 every 2 months, so I should be able to get a few more before the anime comes out in January '19.

I haven't started anything new since The Promised Neverland. It's one of those stories that takes over your mind and I'm having trouble thinking about anything else.
 
The Promised Neverland. I've never heard of it. What's it about?

Right now I'm rereading Mort. I read Neverwhere and Stardust on Monday, and tried to read American Gods, but the constant swearing made me give up for now.
 

Yora

Maester
I picked up Hyperborea by Clark Ashton Smith again. They are fun stories and this time I am looking specifically at how they are structured and what makes them work. It's the best example I can think of for stories that are really all about showing the setting and giving impressions of how things work there while being very light on plot, which is where my own interests as a writer are and which suits my own strengths and weaknesses.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I picked up Hyperborea by Clark Ashton Smith again. They are fun stories and this time I am looking specifically at how they are structured and what makes them work. It's the best example I can think of for stories that are really all about showing the setting and giving impressions of how things work there while being very light on plot, which is where my own interests as a writer are and which suits my own strengths and weaknesses.

I need to read all of those too! I read all the Zothique stories a while back. Zothique was a bit too dark for me. But I still want to read the Averoigne, Hyperborea and Poseidonis stories.
 

Yora

Maester
After having read Hyperborea and having heard the reputation of Zothique, I was very disappointed by the later. I like Hyperborea way better, no contest.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I finished two books while off on vacation--East of Eden by John Steinbeck, and A Town Called Alice by Nevil Shute. Both were fascinating and both broke nearly every rule in the book about how to write.

Seven hour plane rides focus one's mind wonderfully.
 
I'm reading 20000 Leagues Under The Sea in French so it's quite a challenge, but I enjoy it. I started reading it to take a break from the miserableness of Les Miserables.
 
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