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Books: What are you currently reading?

Agent Minivann said:
I love Dune. I'm not sure there is enough for a series, unless you bring in stuff from other books. There just isn't that much that can happen on screen. That said, there is a lot of complexity, and it is going to be interesting to see how it is done. I think the saving grace is that the director is a fan of the book, and I think he has a better grasp of the depth of the book, more so than the previous movie and miniseries. Definitely more than Jodorowski's abortive attempt. I'm so glad that was never made. I need to go back and read it again.
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I never read Dune or know anything about it , but I did just see that Modiphious Entertainment is coming out or has already come out with a Dune rpg.

They have have already done and still pumping out content for both Star Trek and Conan rpgs. Working on a Fallout rpg. They have done excellent work with their Fallout and Elder Scrolls miniatures games, which I own a lot of and play.

Sorry for the commercial �� I saw Dune mentioned here and had just seen it on Modiphious website.
 
Hahma said:
Agent Minivann said:
I love Dune. I'm not sure there is enough for a series, unless you bring in stuff from other books. There just isn't that much that can happen on screen. That said, there is a lot of complexity, and it is going to be interesting to see how it is done. I think the saving grace is that the director is a fan of the book, and I think he has a better grasp of the depth of the book, more so than the previous movie and miniseries. Definitely more than Jodorowski's abortive attempt. I'm so glad that was never made. I need to go back and read it again.
Click to expand...

I never read Dune or know anything about it , but I did just see that Modiphious Entertainment is coming out or has already come out with a Dune rpg.

They have have already done and still pumping out content for both Star Trek and Conan rpgs. Working on a Fallout rpg. They have done excellent work with their Fallout and Elder Scrolls miniatures games, which I own a lot of and play.

Sorry for the commercial �� I saw Dune mentioned here and had just seen it on Modiphious website.
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That is pretty cool. Based on what I could see of the system, this could be a lot of fun. Makes me wish I had a rpg group. And the time to be in a rpg group...
 
I'm currently reading

Evil Geniuses:The Unmaking of America:A Recent History by Kurt Anderson
 
"Where is Nuts?"
--Alan Pinkerton, telegraphing to his agents in code about Lincoln's train progress in Pennsylvania in 1861, from Lincoln On The Verge

I cannot recommend this new book too highly, and I'm sorry I'm almost finished. Its great, not only for the hairs breath espionage escapes from accident and assassination attempts, which have to be read to be believed, but a picture of America painfully evolving, with Lincoln discovering his real and vital message along the rail journey from Illinois to Washington D.C. during secession through IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, NJ, DE, and MD!

We are perhaps going thorough a similar passage today.
 
Conan is a great character but I really like one of his lesser known characters, Cormac Mac Art.
 
Oh Huh

Forgot about this thread.

In the past four months I have read,

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Seasonal Fears by Seanan McGuire
October Daye series by Seanan McGuire (16 books)
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
Swords, Spells, and Stealth series by Drew Hayes (5 books)
Dreadnought by April Daniels

Plan on reading the sequel to Dreadnought and then I'm going to pick up McGuire's Incryptid series. After that, who knows?

~Dysole, who has been reading a lot lately
 
Impressive list there Dysole. Do you prefer electronic or hard copy?
Taeblewalker said:
Conan is a great character but I really like one of his lesser known characters, Cormac Mac Art.
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Yeah, Cormac is pretty obscure, cool character.
Love how he had a sidekick.

One of my favorites is the Bran Brak and Kull crossover.

My favorite character is St Agnes and after that Black Turlough.
He had so many great characters.
One guy would re tell his past lives so each story was about a different character. That was cool because you never new how it would end for him.

The boxer stories are fun as well. Really like his HPL style stories.
 
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Preference

Paperback.

Hilariously, book 16 of the October Daye series I got an ebook instead of a physical copy because hardback was the only option and the rest were in paperback. A ton of friends all immediately understood when I explained.

~Dysole, and how she found out she had a ton of reading friends
 
This year I've read so far:

Three Rode North by Al Conroy
Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars by Robert E. Howard
Solomon Kane: The Hills of the Dead by Robert E. Howard
Swords Against the Shadowlands by Robin Wayne Bailey
Down To a Sunless Sea by Lin Carter
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

and I'm currently reading Armor by John Steakley.
 
1. Lots of history related biographies from a retired librarian friend lately: Robert the Bruce, Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, Peter the Great and Douglas MacArthur. You learn something new every time! Having now grown into a crusty old coot with lots of life experience, I read more biographies than I used to do in general, which always helps me get perspective on life!

2. My self study Venice project, starting with a hard to get The Secret Venice of Corto Maltese: Fantastic and Hidden Itineraries by Hugo Pratt, Guido Fuga, and Lele Vianello a good pal found for me, after I failed to buy it on my trip to Venice, and it turned out seemingly not available back here in the USA (check out the International Amazon site)! I like to call that city "Disneyland For Adults." There was so much to see there in the four or five days I had years ago, but this book reveals much I didn't get to see.

Pals of the artist and creator of the graphic novel character Corto Maltese, an ex merchant seaman Indiana Jones type of adventurer around WWI (yes, I do own the obscure Corto board game by Metagot) was Hugo Pratt, who roamed his native Venice write down some of the many walks they took together there. I've also read several novels about the more well known fictional Venician detective Comissario Guido Brunetti by Donna Leon, an American who lived in that city for years, and draws unforgettable portraits of the society there. So in this way I get to revisit the amazing City by proxy! I'll be showing the pal who got me the book some travel videos of Venice I have soon as a reward, since he's never been there (his girlfriend has).
 
Plague-of-Shadows-3.jpg


Plague of Shadows - Michael Wisehart
 
quozl said:
This year I've read so far:

Three Rode North by Al Conroy
Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars by Robert E. Howard
Solomon Kane: The Hills of the Dead by Robert E. Howard
Swords Against the Shadowlands by Robin Wayne Bailey
Down To a Sunless Sea by Lin Carter
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

and I'm currently reading Armor by John Steakley.
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I finished Armor and also read The Stalking Moon by TV Olson and Black Gate 15 (a fantasy anthology from 2011 I picked up from a library sale.)

Just started Tarzan the Untamed by E.R. Burroughs.
 
Terry Pratchert's Discworld series; I've read more than ten of them so far. Borrowing them from a pal. I love some of the characters and am old enough to catch many of his pop and other cultural references.

Having just finished watching all Five Seasons of The Last Kingdom on disk, I discovered I could get all 13 books by Bernard Cornwell (I'm an old Sharpe fan) from Amazon for 39% off, and they arrived. I'm about halfway through the first one. Before this purchase I read a selection from it online, and liked what I read. Also many posters on BGG recommended them. Once you start you literally don't want to put it down; luckily I'm retired.
 
After The Last Kingdom, I continued reading historical novel series.

The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon is a seven volume series on the French and English kings at the start of the Hundred Years War. George R. R. Martin credits it as one of his sources for Game of Thrones, but this earlier series from the 1950s is not as well know here in the States, as it was not translated and made available until fairly recently. This French series had two TV series which were never translated/subtitled into English. The author was a member of the French Resistance in WWII and eventually the head of the Academie Francaise, that nation's famous top literary association.

Just finished Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian Trilogy about Britons vs Saxons in post Roman Britain. He has a great mechanism where the last surviving Arthurian warrior is writing the story of his old times. His patron princess wants him to include more of the romance tales that have sprung up since then; but he sticks to what actually happened.

This clever device reflects on the author's picking and choosing which aspects of the Arthurian legends he keeps and which he discards in his own unique telling of the "King Arthur" stories as opposed to the mostly unknown history of those 'Dark Age' times about which little is still known!
 
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Most of this last year I joined the local Science Fiction book club. Each month a member chooses a book for us to read and discuss, and I recently did one myself, which resulted in a session in which the 8 attendees (of perhaps 12 total members) enjoyed. This gang has been around for years.

We've read the following during my tenure in the group, which is made of up mostly older folk. These have included both old classics I never read and brand new volumes:

We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor*
Willful Child by Steven Erikson*
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Mountain In The Sea by Ray Nayler
Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
An Accidental Goddess by Linnea Sinclair (my presentation)
A Fall Of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke
The Night Shift by Natalka Burian

Five More Books:

*The first books of trilogies I completed on my own

Red Shirts by John Scalzi (as suggested by the group)
 
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Rereading Chris Knowles The Secret Sun Synchromystic Handbook and am looking forward to eventually reading Knowles's Our Gods Wear Spandex and The Spandex Files: The Death, Rebirth and Re-Death of Comic Book Heroes.
 
Currently reading The Complete Works which includes both Handbook and Discourses from Epictetus, my personal favorite stoic philosopher. I've noticed it's quite a bit easier to read, less nihilistic, and contains more actionable knowledge than Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
 
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Well met!

gbizzy said:
Currently reading The Complete Works which includes both Handbook and Discourses from Epictetus, my personal favorite stoic philosopher. I've noticed it's quite a bit easier, less nihilistic, and contains more actionable knowledge than Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
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Read Meditations. Stoicism and elements of Buddhism in the martial arts have similar philosophies. Epictetus quotes show up constantly on my Facebook feed. Guess I'll have to go to the source . . .

 
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