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weemadando wrote:I read Batman: Year One the other day. Man, what a fucking pile of Frank Miller pap. As soon as we got kung fu fighting whores I remembered exactly why I went into this book with zero expectations.

Is Frank Miller's work just shitty in general?

[R_H] wrote:

weemadando wrote:I read Batman: Year One the other day. Man, what a fucking pile of Frank Miller pap. As soon as we got kung fu fighting whores I remembered exactly why I went into this book with zero expectations.

Is Frank Miller's work just shitty in general?

I actually like Year One over his other Batman 'opus', The Dark Knight Returns. Same with his Daredevil run. But he's mostly overrated nowadays.

[R_H] wrote:

weemadando wrote:I read Batman: Year One the other day. Man, what a fucking pile of Frank Miller pap. As soon as we got kung fu fighting whores I remembered exactly why I went into this book with zero expectations.

Is Frank Miller's work just shitty in general?

Mostly but his very early work...he was better or about par with most writers of the comic genre. That metric is debateable of how much you consider said works decent, but back then he was reigned in by editors and had no name, thus again even more debateable how much was truly him.

Year One had certain hints that he also had in Daredevil of his views of women, men, and where it all stands.

But as for the thread, reading the Night Angel trilogy. Not the most worthless read but jarring in usage of modern thoughts and terminology in a supposed 1500-1600 era world.

I'm almost finished with The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. The last few chapters are beautifully written -- I'm not sure how else to describe it, but I find they build so well upon the principles established in the previous chapters.

Just starting the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.

Just started Imperial Life in the Emerald City. It is written by a reporter who was in Baghdad just after the US invasion, and chronicles the mismanagement and political bickering that caused a lot of the early screw ups. The information in the book was used as a basis for the new movie Green Zone, but don't be fooled (even though my particular copy has Matt Damon's face plastered on it.) the book is not an action-adventure romp about the search for WMDs.

"Stalinism in the Ukraine in the 1940s" While it was for school I found it a very good read. Strangely for being such an interesting topic it is one of the few English language monographs on the subject. Even stranger despite its title the majority of the book concerns the 1950's onward.

Just started reading Atlas Shrugged. I will see if Ayn Rand is as bad as some people think.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Flemng

A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change by Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries
Eastern Europe Since 1945 by Geoffrey and Nigel Swain

I've run out of sci-fi and fantasy since the Oxford city library is crap and I don't have the money to buy books, so I'm feeding my interest in Eastern European History using fairly random picks from the relevant sections of the university library.

X-Wing: The Krytos Trap, which will be followed up by The Bacta War and Isard's Revenge.

My QAC site isn't exactly high-traffic. Gotta have something to do for five freaking hours.

After finishing two trilogies on Drizzt Do'Urden from the Forgotten Realms by Salvatore, I'm now reading Eve: The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales. I'm having mixed feelings about this one, characterisation is somewhat patchy, with some characters being interesting and others less so. However, it does add more background to the Eve Online experience.

Star Wars: Millenium Falcon by James Luceno. Despite my aversion to EU books these days.

Just read through the Dark Tower series.

What a shite ending.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:X-Wing: The Krytos Trap, which will be followed up by The Bacta War and Isard's Revenge.

Way to miss out the actual decent books of the series there.

Myself I'm re-reading Robin Hobb's Tawny Man Trilogy. (Fool's Errand, Golden Fool, Fool's End) I'm a bit iffy on whether to pick up the latest Rainwild stuff. I though Fool's End pretty finished off that setting for me. I actually liked her new setting in the Soldier's Son books.

I finished Spellwright by Blake Charlton (reminds me of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy), and am trying to read (for the fourth or fifth time) The Malpractice Myth. I'm also re-reading The Judging Eye, but I put it down and haven't picked it up again yet.

Broomstick wrote:Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Flemng

He wrote that? Anyway, I'm reading The Bear and the Dragon, by Tom Clancy

Darth Nostril wrote:Just read through the Dark Tower series.

What a shite ending.

On many, many levels.

In fact, the current theory is that the entire last book is a big middle finger aimed at all the fans who bugged him over the years to write the Dark Tower series, which he seemed to lose interest in just after (or even a little before) book 4.

Total money makeover by Dave Ramsey so as I take full advantage of the low expenses while in the Navy.

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:

Darth Nostril wrote:Just read through the Dark Tower series.

What a shite ending.

On many, many levels.

In fact, the current theory is that the entire last book is a big middle finger aimed at all the fans who bugged him over the years to write the Dark Tower series, which he seemed to lose interest in just after (or even a little before) book 4.

well, Holmes was offed temporarily by Doyle for awhile. He got better though.

I just finished reading Neil Gaiman's complete works so far.

Thanas wrote:I just finished reading Neil Gaiman's complete works so far.

Would you recommend them?

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:

Darth Nostril wrote:Just read through the Dark Tower series.

What a shite ending.

On many, many levels.

In fact, the current theory is that the entire last book is a big middle finger aimed at all the fans who bugged him over the years to write the Dark Tower series, which he seemed to lose interest in just after (or even a little before) book 4.

I actually kind of liked the very end to the series (it definitely had an emotional impact), although I thought large parts of the last book were shit (although that's an improvement over Song of Susannah and Wolves of the Calla).

I found a book by Brian Billick (the ex-Ravens coach) about the NFL at the library. It has distracted me from my other books.

Guardsman Bass wrote:
I found a book by Brian Billick (the ex-Ravens coach) about the NFL at the library. It has distracted me from my other books.

I'm guessing that I'll never find that in a library in Australia - let me know what it's like and if it's worth tracking down on amazon/ebay.

Right now I'm reading Drew Bowling's Tower of Shadows, which is the first volume of his series The Tides of Fate. I'm starting to get very near the end of the book, but here is an excerpt that gives a very good picture of the book in general:

Tower of Shadows, pg. 307 wrote:As Wren charged into the carnage, a pirate dived at him with a spear. With a mighty swing of the rapier, Wren lopped off the tip of the weapon, following through to take off the pirate's head. Instantly, he spun to blcok a sword stroke. An ax glanced off his shoulder. He kicked a nearby chair at the swordsman and turned to slash blindly with his rapier, catching the ax wielder in the face. Wren jerked his rapier free and continued forcing his way through the melee, thrusting and cutting in all directions.

This is, naturally, after the guy has already been wounded several times, beaten severely, tossed down a couple of flights of stairs and knocked unconscious, all within the last hour or so. And given how he's unarmored, I'd like to know what his skin is made out of that an axe blow doesn't even faze him, even if it was a glancing hit.

Next up on the list is Ian C. Esslemont's Return of the Crimson Guard and then Jennifer Fallon's Wolfblade trilogy.