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  • Ooh, I need to add Metamorphosis to my list. Have you read Kafka's by any chance? Now there is a trippy book...
    I'm currently reading a book about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and philosophy. It makes me incredibly happy. I love Buffy. Also, my mom got me a subscription to a poetry magazine, and I just finished my first edition of that. It was extremely good, and it made me realize that people actually do speak the way my AP English teacher wants us to...silly poetry critics.
    The Taiko Dodo and Mitten of Insanity
    I promise not to funfun anymore
    Be happy cause life is good

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    • Originally posted by Dragon Writer View Post
      I've been rereading wheel of time and sword of truth - just in time on that last one, too.
      I hate the Sword of Truth books. They had so much potential, and then just... started sucking. It's like you can almost taste Goodkind turning into a flappy-headed Randpuppet midway through the fourth book. Faith of Fallen utterly destroyed any lingering joy I got out of the series (singl-handedly taking down a communist regime with a *gasp* black market, Richard? Surely you jest...) And yet, I read through to Chainfire before finally giving up in disgust. I haven't yet managed to clear them off the bookshelf, though...
      </rant>
      Originally posted by Cress View Post
      Ooh, I need to add Metamorphosis to my list. Have you read Kafka's by any chance? Now there is a trippy book...
      Gregor the bug gave me nightmares when I was 14.
      (But still a good read!)
      Word of warning, though, Ovid's Metamorphosis is an epic poem (my oversize edition runs about 600 pages) that's actually a collection of short stories / greek myths. The connecting theme is transformation, but the books don't have a lot to do with each other other then a minimal narration that sometimes connects the stories. It's awesome, but being vaguely familiar with the pantheon will make it ten million times more fun to read.

      Currently I'm reading Idaho Falls, which is about the SL-1 nuclear accident in the 1960s. I just finished the autopsy bits and funerary services (lead lined coffins and 16 inches of concrete).
      It's scary and sad but I still like it.
      I would EAT THE HELL outta that steak, then try to guilt the cow into dying just for being a cow. I'd be all "NOM NOM HEY COW YOU'RE NOT MEAT YET WHAT GIVES JERK" and then I'd glare and give it the silent treatment. Same goes for pigs and chickens... I would guilt a FLOCK of chickens into poultrycide in a heartbeat. "HEY YOU'RE A CHICKEN HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT"- Madhatte

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      • I just placed an order with Borders for a book from when I was in elementary (though I think it has been around a lot longer than the early 80's) called The Forgotten Door (author's name escapes me at the moment) but I loved that book as a kid. Another that jumps to mine (not sure why, it's a weird book) Deathman, do not follow me. I read that for the first time in Junior High and then found it in a used bookstore and bought it (it circles in the art world where a group of thieves has stolen a Van Gogh painting, and a young man spots the forgery, as I recall, it's been a while since I've read it)
        I didn't realize either until the other night that one of the authors that I loved for suspense had passed away in 2003 from cancer - Joan Lowery Nixon. The Other Side of Dark was one of my favorites from my younger years, as well as The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore. Lois Duncan is in the same vein, with Ransom, and Down a Dark Hall, and Locked in Time.
        Luckily these ones are still in print...
        There's more I can get to with a little more time to think of good ones...
        Worth reading - Forever Formula; But We Are Not of Earth; Monster Makers Inc. (by Lawrence Yep) You can find those in the Teen section at your library still I think... I know the Davis County Library in Utah still has them. (I just looked them up there)
        There is Always DEEP Shadow where there is MUCH Light!
        "I will meet the terminally clueless today...idiots and those with hairballs for brains.... I do not have to be like them, even though I would dearly love to hit them hard enough to make the empty places between their ears echo..." Rhiow - TVTQ

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        • Heh... This is getting too amusing. I want to read Inkheart - either in the translation or (if I can get a copy) attempt to read it in the original german, with a dictionary on standby. I have seen the movie twice in less than a week, and I really enjoyed it, so I want to read the book, but I can't find it anywhere . Five bookshops now, and plenty of copies of Inkdeath, but none of the first book... *sigh*

          I can't wait until Bloodhound (Tamora Pierce) comes out. It'll be at the end of the month here .

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          • I recommend:

            Witch Season- Jeff Mariotte
            Wicked- Nancy Holder and Debbie Vigue
            City of Bones Trilogy- Cassandra Clare
            Time of the Eagle- Sheryl Jordan
            Light of the Oracle; The Healer's Keep; The Seer and the Sword- Victoria Hanley (Read those in reverse )
            Wicked Lovely - Melissa Marr
            Beka Cooper- Tamora Pierce
            The Chronicles of Elantra (Can't remember author)
            The Witching Hour- Anne Rice (VERY mature content though)
            The Faery Reel: written by various authors
            Shadowbred: The Twilight War- Paul S. Kemp
            and Magic Study by Maria V. Snider
            Magic exists everywhere you look because you choose to see it. Magic exists inside of me because I welcome it. Magic and energy are one and the same. Energy and magic will always exist.

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            • I'd definately recommend:

              The Freedom writer's Diary
              A series of Unfortunate events- Lemony Snickett
              Elsewhere- Gabrielle Zevin
              The shadow Children Series- Margaret Peterson Haddix


              And I believe everyone, male or female, should read: The Barcode Rebellion- Suzanne Weyn

              I've heard it has a prequel, but this contains all of the important information.
              The Promised Land is a State of Being. - Me

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              • I am pleased that the past 2 weeks have replenished my supply of new books. Among the new recruits are: Princeps' Fury, by Jim Butcher, Starclimber, by Kenneth Oppel, and The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King. All three are the latest in seria, but if you feel like beginning at the beginning you will not be disappointed. Princeps is sword and sorcery, Starclimber is steampunk (with a Beanstalk, yet!), and Language is a mystery set shortly after WWI. I am pleased.

                I also handed one our our library patrons (after she wished for more books like The Forgotten Door) a collection of Zenna Henderson's short stories. Ingathering is all of her stories about the People, gentle intergalactic refugees who settled on earth around the time of the American Civil War. For the last century and a half, they've been just trying to fit in, which is hard when, although you look like Earthlings, you have casual telepathy, TK, and an assortment of other powers which could get you burned as a witch until fairly recently.
                Last edited by meteorite; May 8, 2009, 03:12:50 AM.
                "Thus is Balance maintained." A Wizard of Earthsea
                "Condensing fact from the vapor of nuance." Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

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                • Originally posted by Garrett Fitzgerald View Post
                  Oh, btw, does anyone have their collection up on LibraryThing? I have to finish cataloging mine one of these days...
                  I signed up yesterday. Or maybe the day before. I'm working my way through my shelves, trying to do an entire shelf at one sitting. This does lead to a certain randomness in the selection, as I often have hardbacks and paperbacks on different shelves. The process has been greatly aided by my subverting a short script to use my Android phone's camera as a barcode reader and push ISBNs into LT. Just short of 500 books done, now...
                  -- Rick.

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                  • Originally posted by meteorite View Post
                    ... a collection of Zenna Henderson's short stories. Ingathering is all of her stories about the People, gentle intergalactic refugees who settled on earth around the time of the American Civil War. For the last century and a half, they've been just trying to fit in, which is hard when, although you look like Earthlings, you have casual telepathy, TK, and an assortment of other powers which could get you burned as a witch until fairly recently.
                    Ingathering well and truly rocks (love the NESFA press and I keep hoping DD will be a GoH at Boskone so we can get a collection of her farflung stuff), since it's getting harder and harder to find the Hendersons, and it collects stuff that wasn't in the other editions. I always thought of Zenna Henderson's "People" stories as Escape to Witch Mountain done right, as perverse as that seems. It also struck me a few years later that Henderson was the only other author aside from L.M. Montgomery that I knew who named a heroine Valancy. There is a slight (slight) element of schoolgirl/prairie romance, ala L.M. Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder to some of the stories--librarians and school teachers appear often as the narrator.

                    I also loved the fact that Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice had obviously read all of those books, too, when they got around to writing Promised Land.
                    New to the board? Please take the time to read the YW Board-Specific Rules, or Why We're Not Like Other Boards FAQ.

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                    • Escape to Destiny

                      I just finished reading the book. I read it straight thru. I never do that not even the YW book which I really like. Its about a boy who becomes an orphan and all things that happen to him. The authors (Jim Laughter and Victor J. Bretthauer) create an entire universe for him with a lot of other people in it, all have histories of their own. Know one just shows up with out a story and disappears without a reason. As you can guess I really like this book. It's available on amazon.

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                      • Has anyone else read anything by Karen Marie Moning? I downloaded a free ebook of her Darkfever (yay for Random House Free Library on Stanza), and I really enjoyed it. Its set in moderd Dublin, and draws strongly on celtic mythology. I've just managed to find Bloodfever (book 2) in a bookshop in Cairo of all places. Its a little bit romancy, but not too much.

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                        • I recently for a class had to read No Impact Man, but it was one of the books I've had to read for school that I'd actually recommend to other people. It was one which I started before I had to read it and finished it and was sad it was done before we were expected to start it.

                          It's a nonfiction book, which people should know, but one which was well written. It is an environmental based book, but it doesn't have the problem that I find with many of those - its a positive book. It doesn't tell us what we're doing wrong and how we need to change everything because what we're doing is horrible. Instead, its one man and his family's quest to be zero net impact by the end of a year of changing his lifestyle. Rather than telling us to do what he's doing he goes to an extreme to show what it is like to be an extreme so that we can make our own choices at what to change. Much of the project ended up being a project on looking into what of what we do that hurts the environment ends up being a net positive to us, where net positive is defined in terms of happiness. Does it make us happier to have a TV? Does it make us happier to eat takeout instead of cooking? Does it make us happier to have a washer and drier? Truthfully some of it does make us happier, but not all of it; in fact possibly surprisingly little of it does.

                          If you're at all interested in this I'd recommend looking into it. It's not what I'd normally read but both me and my boyfriend enjoyed it and we've already recommended it to both my parents and his mom.
                          We will remember you PM. And your little GingerBear.

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                          • Not sure if this is appropriate to post in this thread or not, but would you like to have a library in your home? I would LOVE to have an extra room put aside that was big, had tall ceilings, lots of built-in bookshelves, big windows, a fireplace, and a few different types of reading areas (a big writing desk, an armchair, a couch, etc.). It would have to have nice, thick, soft carpeting. That would mean lots of $, though.
                            "...Some of growing up is the knitting together of our cognitive webs, and some things take time and experience to make sense...." - Taran

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                            • Eric: That would be HEAVEN. Seriously. Oh, by the way, what's your sig from? The only Taran I know is Taran Wanderer, from the Chronicles of Prydain, and I don't remember him saying that...in fact, he mostly kind of bumbled through that series.

                              So does anyone love Deep Secret and Hexwood as much as I do?? (Although that might be impossible.) After I read D.S. I was inflicted with a craving to go to a fantasy con. On a node, preferably. And for extra points, in a hotel named after a nursery rhyme and with a ghostly Scarletti tinkling from the parking lot.

                              Hexwood made me feel like my brain was coming apart. In a good way.

                              Hee, I just read through about 50 pages of this topic.

                              Oh! Re: Redwall. I agree with Kathy Li. Too long, and too humanlike.

                              If you want to see a series that has the 'too long' syndrome in the extreme, look out for Warriors by Erin Hunter. The first series of six was pretty good, if aimed for lower grades. Then came another series of six. And another. And now, another. And they are getting progressively more horrible because seriously, there's nothing left to write ABOUT. It's about feral cats, and everything that could have plausiblely and entertainably happened already did so in the first few books. Meh. When will they STOP?

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                              • Originally posted by SilveredBlue View Post
                                ... After I read D.S. I was inflicted with a craving to go to a fantasy con. On a node, preferably. And for extra points, in a hotel named after a nursery rhyme and with a ghostly Scarletti tinkling from the parking lot. ...
                                With Neil Gaiman looking fanciable in a black leather jacket, when he's not eating his breakfast while still asleep (yes, DWJ was using Neil Gaiman as her influence for that scene with Nick being asleep--he says it actually happened at a Milford SF conference, though, not an SF con). He also mentioned that the hotel may actually exist. It does crack me up how Charles Vess noticed that Neil was in the book and drew him into the cover:



                                Man. I need to reread The Ogre Downstairs. I love the "Greek" the soldiers are speaking when they sprout from the dragon teeth.

                                And should I mention [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Enchanted-Glass-Diana-Wynne-Jones/dp/0061866849]Enchanted Glass[/ame]? Yes,I think I should.
                                Last edited by Kathy Li; January 7, 2010, 10:07:09 PM.
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