Whatcha readin'?

Crossroads of Twilight right now... once I force myself to finish it I'll either start the Sovereign Stone series, or read Naked Empire (book 8 for Sword of Truth) if it is out by the time I finish.

 

A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin.

Been 3 or 4 years since I even tried fantasy. Cant finish Jordan, no matter how much I pimped him way back when. Promised a friend Ive give the genre another try (with Martin). Been pleasantly, though not overly surprised. I like how he de-emphasizes the cliche plot devices (critters & magic) or just leaves them out, while focusing on characterization. He also gets away with some fairly graphic language without leaning on it too often. Downside is that the plot itself is fairly derivative & he's loathe to hint at what direction he's going with it. I think he purposefully changes directions just to keep you guessing.

Just got done reading "a painted house" by Grisham. Nice that he tried a departure from his template, but too much of an anecdotal period piece with no real evolution & very subdued conflict & resolution. Wouldnt surprise me to see it on one of those Oprah book club lists though. In a word: boring.

 

Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ.

On deck:
Armageddon (Left Behind series)
Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard
Men are Like Waffles, Women are Like Spaghetti by Bill and Pam Farrell

 

I have 150 pages to go, very intreguing.

 

I stopped reading these after Desecration (?). It got to the point where there were no unknowns anymore. What keeps it interesting for you?

 

Several things, really. I find Revelation absolutely fascinating, and the way LaHaye and Jenkins have integrated it into the storyline has been pretty good, I think, in a storytelling 'it could be this way, but not necessarily' kinda way. Plus, there's the investment of the other 9 or 10 books I've read, and with only a couple more to go, I can't bring myself to quit now. Plus, I'm really looking foward to seeing how they write the return of Christ. I wanna see how they illustrate the opening of the biggest can of whoopass in history. My wife's been reading them, too, and it's been neat to talk about the books and the developing storyline.

But I'm not so into the story that I'm willing to put my life on hold for a weekend or burn vacation time to read it. It's been sitting on my shelf collecting dust for months, and it'll be there when I get to it.

 

i quit during the book before the most recent one.....did the ever actually free the california guy? the spent enough time tryimng to rescue him.

 

The George R Martin books, Clash of Kings etc., are incredible. Widely reviewed as the modern Lord of the Rings. I've loved all of them so far, have the next one on order already (should be out in September, I think).

 

Right in the middle of ex FBI Profiler John Douglas book "The Cases that Haunt Us"...an interesting read and very similar to his other books.

 

I like Martin, but that's quite a stretch Bootay. I think he's like Jordan should have been if his editors had done their job instead of milking his series by allowing him to drag it out into ridiculousness. When Jordan is forced into brevity & cohesiveness, I think he's every bit as good, maybe better (the forsaken stuff is just completely badass). But it's been a long time since I read a Jordan book like that. Instead it's a lot of bitchy women smoothing skirts & dropped & misplaced plot lines amidst all the scene shifting.

I'll give RR major thumbs up for readability. I'm tearing through Clash of Kings. 550 pages so far in about a week. That amazing given how busy I usually am.

I already have the next one. Can't wait to read it.

edit - have you ever seen a picture of Martin though? I saw it on his website. SCARY.