I think I still have Going Postal chucking about somewhere, but I haven't gotten round to reading it yet. I'm looking forward to it, though.

I'm flitting restlessly between: The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss, The Blair Years by Alistair Campbell, and Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis.

I've nearly finished The Price of Temptation, a gay Regency bodice-ripper a friend lent me yesterday (it's not a long or complicated read...). It has the most fabulous cover: Harlequin meets Tom of Finland!

just finished "flight" by sherman alexie and it was fantastic in a short enough to easily read in one sitting kind of way

I need a book to read on my flight to Chicago! and home from Chicago as well.

I've read ever Pratchett book out there, including Carpet People, Dark Side of the Sun and Strata.

So - please give me your suggestions. Maybe we'll do a poll thingy or something.

I do so wish that Making Money was out now instead of having to wait for October. sigh.

My likes: well, Pratchett is prolly my favourite, with Neil a very close second. Douglas Adams is odd and amusing - I like children's/young adults fantasy too. Generally fairy-tale type stories or humour, not a big fan of scary.

Do you like Diana Wynne Jones? A few of my favorites of hers are Deep Secret, the Chrestomanci books and Archer's Goon. She's the one who wrote Howl's Moving Castle. She dedicated Hexwood to Neil Gaiman.

She was my English teacher's mum in sixth form! She donated a ton of books to the school - it was half the fiction section.

*is jealous*

*is also jealous*

DWJ is indeed utterly glorious - Deep Secret is her best, IMO, and A Kind of Wild Magic is also fabulous, as is Year Of The Griffin.

If you are in the mood for something light and funny, what about Tanya Huff's series which begins Summon the Keeper, then has The Second Summoning, followed by A Long, Hot Summoning? (Don't go for her Blood series, though, which I enjoyed but did find scary.)

Brent just mentioned Alexie Sherman - his Reservation Blues has a nice mix of fantasy, comedy and drama.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Hive,

*is jealous three*

My favourite DWJ is "Fire and Hemlock", but that seems to be a bit of a lover or hate it book.

quote:

And lets face it, who doesn't love druids?

I much prefer them to clerics, but I wouldn't say I love them. Then again, I wouldn't wanna get off on the wrong foot with Dale Cooper because of something silly like druids. That book sounds good.

I'm reading Lian Hearn's The Harsh Cry of the Heron, very very slowly. It's great.

haven't yet read Diana Wynne Jones. I have looked her up in our library which is useless, because they don't have her books.

I shall have to go to Borders! but I'll do it next week so's I won't be tempted to read them before the flight

I just finished a new Sara Douglass book - anyone else read anything? Apparently it's new, gonna be a series, set on the same world as Tencendor and ties in Threshold, sort of. I am happy it's new, not so thrilled it's gonna be a series 'cos now I have to wait a bazillion years till the next one comes out - it's clever that it makes Threshold tie in, but...

I have a problem with her books. Book 1 of whatever series starts out just great. Book 2 continues, but we sorta begin to lose the inertia from that first book and so she has to add more to the mix - usually more of the same (sex, battles, intrigues, sometimes some fairly violent imagery) only different characters.

By Book 3 everything is hopelessly mired and she makes the bad guy have a change of heart and now a guilt-ridden angst spewing automaton. If Book 3 is the last, well, she just sort of quickly brings all the characters together (whereas before they were plodding all over the landscape) and makes a big battle and ends it.

Otherwise we move onto Book 4 - more guilty angst, some wild tangents thrown in, all the "good guys" still hate the "bad guy" because oh, he can't possibly be good now, just remember all the horrible things he did to you! other deluded character says - oh but he loves me now! More sex and violence and then we end with everyone finally convinced that bad guy is really a good guy and they all kill or contain the Evil Energy.

She writes great characters, don't get me wrong. She writes a pretty hot sex scene too. Battle scenes are epic. It a good world to work on - there's magic and gods and evil ice creatures and witches and kings and flying birdmen. So why am I often left vaguely dissatisfied? Because she writes soap opera. Which is fine - Lord of the Rings can begin to feel that way sometimes - it's just that she gets soooooo caught up in the love/betrayal/rise of the evil death lord part of the soap opera that it feels like nothing gets truly resolved and we get to book 3 or 4 and she just figures that all the bad guys have to get good and everyone ends up happy.

Which is kinda why I liked Threshold - I had no idea it was set on the world with Tencendor. And yes, we did have bad guy turns good, but it was all contained in one story! There was a beginning a middle and an end, all in one book! When she works on series she gets stuck in the soap opera mobius circle of a storyline... it plods along, takes twice as long to get there and we end up right back where we started.

So yeah, I'll read 'em, 'cos I'm always desperate for new books, but it looks like the library will probably have this series, so that's where I'll go for it.

I'm intrigued, but I cannot work out whether you would actually recommend them to a new reader or not!

actually, I can't tell you if I would recommend it! I enjoyed the Tencendor books moreso than the Darkwitch series.

hmmm... read Threshold and then tell me if you liked that.

I liked The Axis trilogy and the trilogy after that - The Wayfarer Redemption (these are the Tencendor books) but well... I *am* a sucker for melodramatic soap opera.

I guess I'm just somewhat embarrassed to admit that I like it. It's like admitting you like romance books.

I'm finishing up on On Writing and now moving onto Cell, as I'm currently having some sort of wierd zombie craving.

I'm also going through Anansi Boys and I think its going to take some time to get through because I'm trying to dig out every morsel of infomation and meaning out of it as best as I can. Somehow, I found it harder to get through the second time around, boredom kept overwhelming me.

Since we're now recommending books and authors I'm taking this opportunity to recommend Carrie Vaughn and Kitty and the Midnight Hour.

Kitty is a werewolf. Kitty is a DJ. The alpha male in her pack is abusive, she gets calls from listeners who think vampirism is all so wonderfully cool, and the head of a certain government research program wants her as a (unwilling) test subject.

Carrie's into abusing genre tropes.

I would definitely also recommend Diana Wynne Jones, although so far I've only read Howl's Moving Castle - but that one I loved. (So did you ever meet her, Domi? I'm jealous, too!) Other than that I have to admit I don't read that much fantasy, I really go for classics with the odd Pratchett or Henning Mankell in between, plus books I get as a present.

I've finally finished The Dark is Rising & have now moved on to Through the Looking Glass - I read Alice in Wonderland years ago & now finally wanted to read the second book. I'd also read the "Jabberwocky" several times before but just that. And Alice strikes me as a bit of a bully.

quote:

Originally posted by Maeve:
It's like admitting you like romance books.

Well, just a few posts above yours I had admitted to reading a book whose cover looks like this...

I think I win the prize.

Ooh, that does look pretty bad, Hive.

I think I'd get myself a fake bookcover for that one.