I'm reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of TIme series. I'm on Lord of Chaos, but it's hard to get into. He has so many characters, and the story is so spread out. It's really hard to push through reading about all the new characters that he throws in. Almost the entire time I'm reading one of these chapters, I'm thinking, 'When do I get to read about Rand again?'

All in all; great story, too spread out.

I've invested countless hours (probably days) into that series, I would probably have to say the first 4 or 5 books out of the series so far are the strongest books in the series. He then goes on to stretch out and create more problems before the final showdown thingy. You might be a little disappointed in some of the upcoming books if you're really interesting in following Rand, one of them I'm pretty sure just has Rand mentioned in the Prologue and Epilogue, the entire books just focuses on the "secondary" characters. I like some of the secondary characters more than Rand so I didn't really mind the books like that.

But if you're all ready at Lord of Chaos I suggest you stick with the series because you're all ready quite far into the storyline. I do believe there's only going to be one, two, or three books left for this series. I've always had to juggle that series with George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire" and Terry Goodkind's 'Sword of Truth' series so it always takes me awile to get into a new Jordan book because I have to refresh myself. I'm going to have to read them all in a row once it's all completed to get an overall feel for the series.

Rand is the coolest so far (Except Mat, but they are currently together) Perrin is annoying, Nynaeve and Elayne have too much drama without actually advancing the plot, etc. He's spread the story so thin nothing seems to be happening.

Does it seem like Terry Goodkind rips of Robert Jordan a lot to you? I mean, there are a lot of parallels. Like the Sisters of the Light/Dark, kinda like the different Ajahs, Subtractive and Additive and then Saidar and Saidin, etc.

I'm ready for the next book in the Song of Ice anf Fire series.

Overall I think Goodkind's characters are a lot stronger. They seem a little more mature. Plus there's kinda an honest brutuality to Goodkind's work, though Martin exceeds Goodkind in that factor as well.

For example, the main bad guy in Goodkind's series, Jagang, thinks his motives are actually good. Jordan just has kinda a black/white conflict while Goodkind has a bit of grey in his conflicts.

Plus I think Zedd is sooo cool.

Yea, there are parallels, but if you improve on them, why worry about the parallels. A lot of it is derivative of Tolkien's work anyways. If Tolkien can make up his own language, why can't Jordan?

But yea, I'm definately looking forward to the next 'Song of Ice and Fire' book the most.

I'm really excited because it will be all the good characters. I already suffered through A Feast for Crows where all I read about were Cersei and Brienne. Looking forward to some Jon, Bran, Rickon, and Danaerys.

Heck yes!

Though I found it hilarious at the end where Cersei gets her come-uppings. Great stuff there!

Yeah, that was great, but I hate that Margeary (sorry can't remember exact spelling) got caught up in it.

Wonder how far Tommen will be manipulated?

Just got back from the bookstore today, they had a nice paperback sale for the holiday weekend. So I was able to buy the first three books of the Riftwar series by Feist and I decided to get 1984 by Orwell for free. I'm starting with 1984 first, then moving onto Riftwar so that I can get a better overall feel for the series. I'll probably tell yas what I think about them once I'm done reading them.

Oooh, just finished "Voodoo River" myself last week. Been following that series since "The Monkey's Raincoat". Gotta love a bit of Elvis. His sense of humour reminds me of the early Kinky Friedman books. Good memories.

And todays just bought book, starting in about, oooh, two mins, is "The Hidden Assassins" by Robert Wilson. I'll let you know what it's like, though the other ones in the series have been great, so I have high hopes.

Hehe, Good taht you bought the Riftwar saga, great books And there's only the three of them. There's also the Legends of the Riftwar books, but they're a different thing lol

Are you sure it's only three? Because it looks like to me there's four of them.

Magician: Apprentice
Magician: Master
Silverthorn
A Darkness at Sethanon

It just might be that the Magician books were originally one, because it says on those two copies that it's an "Author's Preferred Edition".

So maybe we're both right.

Ahhhhhh........i have the newest edition of Magician, one big book with a load of stuff that was edited out of the first few editions.

A dream of Eagles , a 7 book series by Jack Whyte. its amazing

oh and the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide, ill have it memorized in about a week

Pablo Neruda... a Commie, a Freedom Fighter, a Stalinist... and A LOVER



I believe that the word "beautiful" is an understatement of biblical proportions here...

Neruda also wrote some crazy poems. Like 'Ode to my Socks'.

Gotta love the man who loves women that much... and also, his socks

Always enjoyed e.e. cummings, particularly "nobody loses all the time," which I always taught in freshman literature class.

Current reads:

The Lincoln Lawyer- Connelly

Witches Abroad- Pratchett

Just finished the ?third? book from Conclave of Shadows by Feist. Right up there with his best.

One day I will finish the Wheel of Time and the George Martin.

If it was Exile's Return, then it's the third one
Which, coincidentally, i will be starting soon, as i'm halfway through King of Foxes rightnow

Just finished Orwell's 1984. Overall, it was intruiging, though I didn't really enjoy the 30-40 pages that were 2 Chapters out of Goldstein's book all that well. I get the point of it, but I probably would've perferred a summary of the chapters rather than reading a book inside a book.

I also found it amusing that the totalitarian government decided to use "comrade" as a greeting.

A recommended read, no less. Now onto the Feist!

Well, the USSR was totalitarian, and used Comrade, and 1984 was written during all the USSR junk about where the world might go. Of course, it inspired me to write out a story about how screwed up the world would be if all that slippery slope stuff happened to Capitalism. Heh, I didn't have to use my imagination much

But, you have to agree, Brave New World tells a better story.

That I do, that I do. I completely devoured Brave New World. The only slightly annoying part was the first chapter, but it was very interesting despite all the technical jargon discussing at what metres they do certain things to the embroyos.

Wow, so many Intellectuals here...
Well, every community has it's black sheep, and in this case that's me.
I'm reading ''The Amazing Spideman''. Tehe.

Erm, your the one with Albey and Plate in your sig. Intellectuals are people with the stunning ability to hide how stupid they are.

I just finished book 2 of The Wheel of Time for the first time. I'm a little late...

Ohwell, the first few are the good ones in the series, though I think I got bored with the second one for some reason... I don't know why now, it ended really well.

Recently finished Feist's Magician, really quick read, due to it's fantastic pace. There wasn't a boring moment at all. Well maybe a teeny bit in the beginning but that's generally expected as you try to introduce characters. Really happy that it was suggested and I'm looking forward to Silverthorn.

So far, it's a bit more darker, with the undead and all. Creepy indeed...

Rainer has read the "Old Kingdom" Series by Garth Nix

1: Sabriel
2: Lyrial, Daughter of the Clair
3: Abhorsen

Rainer has also read up to book 5 out of 7 in "The Death Gate Cycle" By Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
1: Dragon Wing
2:Elven Star
3:Fire Sea
4:Serpent Mage
5:The Hand of Chaos

Yet to read:

6: Into the Labyrintrh
7: The Seventh Gate

He has also read the Entire Harry Potter series to date.

Rainer is a bit of a Bibliophile

That is never a bad thing. Books are awesome!

They are!

...after Videogames that is.

I'm reading Canterbury Tales.

I actually enjoy it, which is surprising, considering it's for school.

Do any of you have to do summer reading?

Nope! All done my mandatory English courses I just have media studies and that's more film than books.

Not that books are a bad thing.... I like books...

I finished with my summer reading. I had to read the Crucible and the Red Badge of Courage. Those books can bite me.

I'm currently reading Dragonquest. Soon I shall read Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.

I'm a fast reader. I like to say I consume books because I read so fast, while being able to comprehend everything in it.

Except, maybe, if it's really strange stuff I might as well get CliffNotes for.

I've Read the Canterbury Tales twice. Personally I never saw why so many people moaned and groaned about it. It's quite humorous.

Finished Silverthorn today. Great stuff Though it did read more like a sequel than a continuation until the connecting factor between the books was revealed. Then again, Goodkind's beginning of the Sword of Truth series didn't feel like a continuation either, later on it certainly did though.

I'm impressed with Feist's work so far and am just beginning to devour A Darkness at Sethanon as we speak.

Speaking of which, didn't the next book come out recently?

Chainfire was the last Sword of Truth book that has been released from what I know. It came out about a year ago. I remember that because all three of the main fantasy authors I read were releasing their novels about a month apart from each other. Robert Jordan released Knife of Dreams in October and George RR Martin released A Feast for Crows in November.

Or was it the other way around... Ohwell, what I do remember though was that Goodkind got out Chainfire before those two. Though your question makes me ponder if indeed there is a new one out, I'll have to do some web surfing.

Edit: After some surfing, I am happy to report that there is a new Goodkind novel, the second last one to The Sword of Truth series. It's called Phantom. This surprises me since I didn't see it when I purchased my Feist books, and I'm pretty sure I bought them after July 18th. Maybe the Canadian release date is different... I'm sure I'll find it once I finsh ...Sethanon. Many more enjoyable hours await!

A book i just finished 4 the fifth time was "Eldest". "Eragon" and "Eldest" are some of my all time favorite books. I also loved "Harry Potter". I read the entire series 8 times(I was grounded for 2 months).

I'm working through "The Teeth of the Tiger" by the brilliant Tom Clancy. Any other Clancy fans here?

definetly new goodkind book out.


Reading Phantom right now. so far so good. but withholding too much information *sigh*

I'm reading a murder mystery by David Baldacci called Hour Game. It's pretty gripping and fascinating like a good murder mystery should be. Before that I read Final Scream by Lisa Jackson which was a romance mystery that got pretty racey and touched on some forbidden type topics.

That's where I've been. My summer reading which I don't really usually do but a girl at work gave them to me and said they're good books. I have one more after this one that she gave me. So, where has everybody else gotten off to?? Been very quiet around here lately when I check in. I know Rainer is playing a different game and frequents the forums for that game. Is everyone else on vacation (like Minque) or playing different games than Oblivion or did they actually get a REAL LIFE??

I wished I had a real life, I frequent the forums often during the boring hours at work, but I don't see many conversations and I can't think of much to say . I was thinking about starting a thread talking about desserts, just so I could rant about how much I like ice cream but then I decided to do some writing instead.

But, keeping in topic, I'm soooo close to finishing A Darkness at Sethanon, and then I'm gonna rush to the bookstore and get Phantom, because I so eager to see what Goodkind does in the current situation he has setup at the end of Chainfire. 2 more books to go and then I will probably reread the whole series to get a good overall feel of it.

I finished Darkness at Sethanon not too long ago. Things were all fine and dandy but I didn't quite understand how the heck this Dreeken-Korin fellow reappeared after millennia when the guy who killed him died a long time ago due to old age. (Then again, he displayed shapeshifting so it could have been another Valheru who just wanted to be creepy.)
Other than that, no problems. I loved the battle at that big city whose name I've forgotten. Not Sethanon, but the city that blew up real good.

I've also read the Conclave of Shadows books written by the same author. The story was interesting but I had the distinct feeling that some people were simply clones of 'the old gang'. (the guys who kicked behinds at Sethanon and all) For example, take Caleb. If that guy didn't look like Martin, I don't know what he is. Super archer, hunter, likes to spend time in the woods and lived with the elves for a while.

My favorite character from the two Conclave of Shadows books is Magnus. I just loved him.

I'm meaning to buy some of the books I read here that people like so much. Gotta make a list. I just found out that there's a bookstore right acrost the street from us - well, acrost a 6 lane highway and Hooters is directly acrost and a cool gameroom called Rocky's Replay, so I didn't notice the bookstore til recently.

I can always tell when it's Thursday because that's Biker Night at Hooters and motorcycles are everywhere around here all night.

But I will need some good books to read because we aren't allowed to swim in the pool right now due to the fact that there's a HUGE crack in the cement walk on the side near the boatramp to the lake. I think someone took a boat too large down into the lake and musta cracked the cement sidewall on the way down the ramp. So now I've got to read instead of swim while doing laundry. Ratzzz!!

During last several days [well, some 10 days, to be precise] I've used spare moments of time to re-read Dostoevsky's "The Gambler"... boy oh boy, gotta love that flaming monologue in 4th chapter it is the pinpoint-accurate description of just how flamboyant and vagabond-ish Slavic spirit is. The best and the worst, Apex and the Gutter, all at the same time.

Now I am trying to re-read a tale of Tristan and Isolde - "Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut", by Joseph Bedier. The Legend of that tragic love is something that struck me hard when I was young.

Thanks for the link Milanius. I loved that tragic love story at a young age too. That's a beautiful picture that they have there too. Which reminds me ... I have a picture for you. It's one of yours that I customized for my Morrowind mod, if you'll allow me to use it. Think I'll pm it and see what you think.

Finished "A Darkness at Sethanon", a very nice finish if I ever saw one. Interesting that all hope seemed to be lost and yet they still succeeded at the end. The final denounment is a bit weird, but sastisfying enough.

Now I begin Phantom! YAY!

I read 007 (James Bond, if you don't know, which is highly unlikely) books. I've finished a lot, but when I go back to school (god, the day before Eigth Grade, and lost my schedule), I'll start a For Your Eyes Only (guy that looks like a Nazi, move your head!) After I'm done with that, I'll read Octopussy and The Living Daylights. I also read a book called Greek Legends and Stories. Off topic ( to self):

Does anyone play 007 Nightfire here? You know, besides TES games?

Oh Abu - I love James Bond movies. I worked in a discount store where I could've gotten the whole collection cheap and so wish I had now. Seen all the bonds but this latest new blondie - what's his name? Kinda cute but I don't know if he's bondish enough yet.

A James Bond book was the first racey book my girlfriend & I read parts of in grade school. It belonged to her brother.

Finished Goodkind's Phantom. All I have to say is OMG WHEN IS THE CONCLUSION COMING OUT!!!

I completely devoured this large, roughly 600 page book. It definitely exceeds his last couple previous works (just because Pillars of Creation and Naked Empire seemed tacked on somewhat, they haven't even referred back to those books since then). All the discoveries that were made astounded me, referring back to even the first book! And I thought for quite a wile that the first book didn't really involved the main conflict in this book. It amazes me. I'll be dying to see the ending, given the circumstances Phantom ended on.

I don't think that spoils anything, so if anyone wanna PM about particulars, go ahead.

I have to agree Phantom was great wasn't fond of the ending simply cause it was such a cliffhanger.

He did a great job with tying the series together.

Anyways currently reading Cobra Event. It's a rather old book, but it's so yummy*well not really). but it's about biological weapons and whatnot. quite susepnsful.