[.Volsung.]

▫ Dona ▫ said:

Actually, I enjoyed an audiobook/radio-play of We Can Remember It For You Wholesale more than the 'actual' story (now google tells me it's the story of Total Recall? The more you know!)year. ›››

Both the old (with Schwarzennegger) and new Total Recalls are only remotely based on "We Can Remember...". The short story is very amusing and the ending is fantastic, while the movies only borrow the "forgotten memories" dimension and add a typical Hollywood chase.

You'd be surprised at how many movies are based on PKD's work. Sadly, most of them are pure garbage. Blade Runner is probably the ONE good movie based on PKD's work, and believe it or not it only borrows certain aspects of the novel (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?).

yayodeanno said:

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I have that book and haven't read it yet. What are your thoughts on it? Good to see Dona also seemed to enjoy it

For those who posted covers of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K novels, are they any good? i.e. at least a few thousand miles above R.A. Salvatore?

I recently read Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, both very fast and entertaining to read. Now I managed to get my hands on the Spanish edition of some of the Witcher books, which I previously read in English, and HOLY CRAP!

The English edition of "The Last Wish" was decent, but "The Blood of Elves" was an uncomfortable read. The Spanish translation is SO MUCH BETTER! You can actually tell you're reading a talented writer, not a clumsy translation. In retrospective, this makes Danusia Stok's work almost unbearable. I was seriously missing out.

[Pham]

Well, the Empire in Chaos and Dark Storm Gathering were so so. Good for Warhammer fans, but pretty meh for new people. Would not recommend. Horus Heresy though, is very very good so far. Try looking for excerpts online.

[SlimeDynamiteD]

I'm currently reading The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer.

For those of you who don't know them:

The Iliad is the Ancient Greek tale about the Trojan War, the quarrels between Achilles and Agamemnon.
Whereas the Odyssey is about Odysseus' journey home after the fall of Troy.

Yes, I'm quite the history geek

[Guy N'wah]

SlimeDynamiteD said:

I'm currently reading The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer.

For those of you who don't know them:

The Iliad is the Ancient Greek tale about the Trojan War, the quarrels between Achilles and Agamemnon.
Whereas the Odyssey is about Odysseus' journey home after the fall of Troy.

Yes, I'm quite the history geek /> ›››

Welcome aboard. Triss000 and I are also Homer fans. Please feel welcome to share your insights. What translation are you reading?

[SlimeDynamiteD]

Haha thanks!

I'm reading the dutch translation, was thinking of getting the English translation but then thought of the poetry in them and decided it would probably be best if I read them in my own language

I'm still busy with the Game of Thrones saga in English though! But I want to see the TV season first, then read the book, then watch the next season, then read the next book

[Guy N'wah]

I'd like to read T. E. Lawrence's translation sometime. Or hear it on audio. From the bits I've read, it's deliciously over the top.

[SlimeDynamiteD]

This one is translated by M.A. Schwartz. It's a pretty heavy read though fairly interesting

[Pangaea]

SlimeDynamiteD said:

I'm currently reading The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer.

For those of you who don't know them:

The Iliad is the Ancient Greek tale about the Trojan War, the quarrels between Achilles and Agamemnon.
Whereas the Odyssey is about Odysseus' journey home after the fall of Troy.

Yes, I'm quite the history geek /> ›››

I'd like to read these some day. You hear so much about them, but few actually read it.

[SlimeDynamiteD]

Pangaea said:

I'd like to read these some day. You hear so much about them, but few actually read it. ›››

Haha yeah, I know! I was in your situation about a year ago, then I started a studying history (which I quit the same year because it was a course for history teachers, and well... Apperently I'm not teacher material )

Anyway, after that I decided to buy them and read them
Same with "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, though I didn't think "The Art of War" was THAT good...

[Squall D. Leonhart]

Luc0s said:

I like The Hunger Games trilogy and the final book, Mockingjay, is the best in my opinion, though I do wish there was less teenage romance crap and more focus on the political side of Panem and the rebellion.Regardless of the teenage romance crap, I still like the trilogy so far.

Do you believe that when I've read those books, I found the last one very disappointing? In my opinion the ending is very failing I liked the first book, and a bit less the second one, and I can say that they were actually intriguing (I read the whole saga in 3 days, just because I had an exam to do. If I haven't had it, probably I would read them just in one night). But I still think that they're just a sweetened version of the awesome and cruel Battle Royale. If you have liked Hunger Games so much, you should surely read that manga and the books that inspired it

edit: btw, I'm reading
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, Akatsuki no Tera by Yukio Mishima and For Whom the Bells Tolls by Hernest Hemingway.. and a lot of damn university's stuffs :'(

[Pangaea]

SlimeDynamiteD said:

Haha yeah, I know! I was in your situation about a year ago, then I started a studying history (which I quit the same year because it was a course for history teachers, and well... Apperently I'm not teacher material />)

Anyway, after that I decided to buy them and read them />
Same with "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, though I didn't think "The Art of War" was THAT good... /> ›››

Really funny you should mention that book, because that's another I'd love to read. A friend of mine in Sweden was reading it, and although he said it was incredibly difficult at times and he had to re-read parts to really understand what was meant, it was also very good. I'd also love to read The Prince one day, if only to see how little the world has changed in these matters to today's...

One classic I at least have started on is "War and Peace". Read about half of it some years ago, but then stopped reading for some reason. If I ever get through the Ice and Fire books (these days I only read at evenings in bed, and far from every day), these are some of the books I'd like to read.

Also picked up four books of Johan Galtung (basically the father of peace research) at an even with him a month back, and I'd like to get through those as well.

Guess I should read a lot more than I actually do!

[M4xw0lf]

Second volume of A la recherche du temps perdu. Slow progress, I've not been reading that much lately.

[Svart Djevel]

Pham said:

Finished Dark Storm Gathering. Overall a good book. Much better than Empire in Chaos. But its still stereotypical fantasy.

I did start reading Horus Heresy though, Horus Rising to be exact. Only 5 chapters in but I am already hooked. I love the style in which the author writes and all the personal, universal but also political elements mixed in. Looking forward to reading the first 15 books that are at my disposal. Also the books are absolutely beautiful. Very simple but the bronze lines and letters are very stylish.

›››

Horus Heresy, hm, I have to look after this book.

ON:

[SlimeDynamiteD]

Pangaea said:

Really funny you should mention that book, because that's another I'd love to read. A friend of mine in Sweden was reading it, and although he said it was incredibly difficult at times and he had to re-read parts to really understand what was meant, it was also very good. I'd also love to read The Prince one day, if only to see how little the world has changed in these matters to today's...

One classic I at least have started on is "War and Peace". Read about half of it some years ago, but then stopped reading for some reason. If I ever get through the Ice and Fire books (these days I only read at evenings in bed, and far from every day), these are some of the books I'd like to read.

Also picked up four books of Johan Galtung (basically the father of peace research) at an even with him a month back, and I'd like to get through those as well.

Guess I should read a lot more than I actually do! /> ›››

If you have some classics you recommend please do tell!
I finished the second book of the Ice and Fire books last year, I'm waiting for season 3 to come out on TV and then I'll start with book 3 xD

And shouldn't we all read more than we actually do?

[Pham]

Finished Horus Rising and also False Gods, the second novel in the Horus Heresy series. And it is glorious. I absolutely recommend everyone (even non War40k fans) to check the books out. It describes the history of the 40k Universe and how Chaos come to be what it is today. The novels are bloody fantastic.

Now, onto the next novel!

[Aaden]

Just finished the Darth Bane Trilogy, which was disappointingly mediocre. After all Karpyshyn was lead writer on KotOR and Jade Empire and the reception of the trilogy seemed good overall, as well. But for the most part, the books were boring and even repetitious - "Discover long forgotten Holocron with Secrets of the Dark Side, go get it, be more powerful than ever" over and over again... The interesting parts (Des becoming Bane, Creation of the Rule of Two, the finale) were buried in hundreds of pages of shallow stuff.

All the greater will be the new shores, I'll set sail to now: Now that it's (about to be) finished, I'll finally start The Wheel of Time and I'm really looking forward to it, I hope it won't fail my great expectations!

Interestingly, without even reading this thread, I've decided to do some more 'serious' reading, and plan to read some of those important books throughout the centuries (and which seem particularly interesting to me). And funnily enough, for starters I've narrowed my selection down to The Iliad, Il Principe and The Art of War, all of which were mentioned here, recently.

Because of personal interest, I'll also add Peter von Danzig's longsword fencing manual. But that really is more of a manual (and the primary source for my fencing school), and no philosophical, historical or narrative work.

[Squall D. Leonhart]

I've finished To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. It was really a wonderful book, very interesting and with a lot of nice teachings It's really a shame that I've read it so late.. but I'm glad that I've finally read it

[Guy N'wah]

Squall D. Leonhart said:

I've finished To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. It was really a wonderful book, very interesting and with a lot of nice teachings />/> It's really a shame that I've read it so late.. but I'm glad that I've finally read it />/> ›››

This is also a case where the movie yields nothing to the book. Gregory Peck played his alter ego so well that some of his friends called him "Atticus" for the rest of his life. If you haven't seen the movie already, now that you've finished the book, it would be a good time to see it.

[Squall D. Leonhart]

Indeed, I think to see the movie as soon as I can Interestingly, a friend of mine, without knowing that I was reading the book, has told me that either the movie and the book were really wonderful. The book was actually even more nice than I expected, so I have no doubts that the movie will be very nice too

[yayodeanno]

I didn't find it really interesting during the first pages but now that I'm about to finish I consider myself a fan. It's an odd mix of mystery and fantasy, with a modern day wizard in the role of a private eye.