What are we reading?

[Greybriar]

I just recently (in the last six weeks) re-read Icewind Dale.  I enjoyed it.  It read very much like a D&D adventure.  And the characters are good, if a bit stock.

I am nearing the end of The Icewind Dale Trilogy Collector's Edition and I feel it is as MetalDog described. I liked Drizzt in The Dark Elf Trilogy better.

[vyshka]

I just recently (in the last six weeks) re-read Icewind Dale.  I enjoyed it.  It read very much like a D&D adventure.  And the characters are good, if a bit stock.

I am nearing the end of The Icewind Dale Trilogy Collector's Edition and I feel it is as MetalDog described. I liked Drizzt in The Dark Elf Trilogy better.

My plan is to tackle The Dark Elf Trilogy after Icewind Dale. I was debating which to go through first, and opinion online seemed split over which way to go since Icewind was written prior to Dark Elf.

Anyone jumped into this Kindle Unlimited thing Amazon has started? $10/month for unlimited reading. The selection is a subset of the titles that they carry though. From what I can tell no Asimov, or Heinlein, but it does have Tolkien, and Clarke.

[TacticalWargames]

Anyone know what the Warhammer books are like? I'm heavily into WH40K books at the inute and wonder what the Warhammer ones I like. I have the Elves omnibus in my Amazon wish list.

[Greybriar]

My plan is to tackle The Dark Elf Trilogy after Icewind Dale. I was debating which to go through first, and opinion online seemed split over which way to go since Icewind was written prior to Dark Elf...

I read all that, too. But to read them in chronological order, I read The Dark Elf trilogy before I read The Icewind Dale Trilogy. And I'm glad I did.

[vyshka]

My plan is to tackle The Dark Elf Trilogy after Icewind Dale. I was debating which to go through first, and opinion online seemed split over which way to go since Icewind was written prior to Dark Elf...

I read all that, too. But to read them in chronological order, I read The Dark Elf trilogy before I read The Icewind Dale Trilogy. And I'm glad I did.

I guess since I haven't really started  (a couple pages in) maybe I'll jump over to Homeland and read them first.

[airboy]

Finished Monster Hunter Nemesis - which was excellent!

[JasonPratt]

Airboy,

I've forgotten the context of that title -- is it based on the popular handheld "Monster Hunter" game series?  ???

[bob48]

I've almost completed the free kindle book, von Moltke's book on the Franco-Prussian war. Its a very interesting read, but I keep wanting a map and some counters.............

Also picked up a book on the 79th Armoured Div which looks good.

[Martok]

Continuing my sojourn through The Wheel of Time, I'm now a couple hundred pages into the tenth book, Crossroads of Twilight...and I've run into "The Slog" at last. 


It's still not dragging as much as I remembered or feared it would, but the pace has definitely fallen off compared to the earlier books.  Even Winter's Heart (which isn't exactly noted for leaving you breathless and on the edge of your seat) wasn't this bad. 

It's not that the book deals with uninteresting stuff per se, it's just that a lot of it isn't terribly relevant and/or important to the main storylines.  It's almost as if Jordan decided to use CoT primarily as a vehicle for more world-building and character development in the middle of the series -- something the OCD "completionist" in me can certainly understand, but you don't want to do these things at the cost of stalling the various plot threads. 

Fortunately, I know I have only this one book to get through before everything ramps back up in dramatic fashion, so that makes it a lot easier to get through.  :) 

[MetalDog]

Martok, how much time, typically, do you spend reading?  To get through that much verbiage, you have to be spending several hours at a sitting.

[Martok]

Actually, on average I don't read more than 2 hours a day.  Maybe 3 hours a day on my days off. 

[MetalDog]

And therein lies the rub.  I am reading a series now that has slowed down considerably for me.  The first two books went fairly quick.  The third is a slog.  And in analyzing why I though that, I realized that I devoted large chunks of time to getting through the first two books.  Now that I am giving the third book twenty minutes or so at bedtime, I find I like it (the book) less. 

Having said that, remembering back to my time with Wheel Of Time, all I remember is copious amounts of time spent for very little gain.  So, you have my salute for getting through without bogging down.

[Martok]

Ironically, 2 hours a day is a dramatic reduction by my standards.  It used to be that 4-6 hours was the norm.  :-[ 

Having said that, remembering back to my time with Wheel Of Time, all I remember is copious amounts of time spent for very little gain.  So, you have my salute for getting through without bogging down.

Heh, thanks.    What seems to have helped more than just about anything else has been my own skewed memories/perceptions -- that, or I'm (for whatever reason) simply finding them a lot easier to get through now.  (Good lord, does that maturity helps in enjoying this series?  And does that, in turn, mean I've matured in the last seven years?  Gods help me...) 

Whatever the case may be, I'd recalled the pacing in books 7-10 as being much, much worse than they've actually turned out to be (in fact, CoS and PoD read almost as easily as the first 6 books for me), so pretty much all surprises have been pleasant ones so far.  And it certainly has been fun to rediscover things along the way ("Oh, right!  I'd forgotten about that!").  8)  It really has been enjoyable for me; it's almost like getting reacquainted with old friends again. 

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Hell, back when I was young, a WOT type book used to be done in 3 days! Many books were done in 3 days. Now my eyes get tired looking at a screen for 3 hrs. Fuckers.

[MetalDog]

Hell, back when I was young, a WOT type book used to be done in 3 days! Many books were done in 3 days. Now my eyes get tired looking at a screen for 3 hrs. Fuckers.

Thanks, Gramps.  Any other words of wisdom from the 19th Century?