Authors

I've also read "Dark Side of the Sun" from Pratchett, and I thought it was great. The robot assassin programmed to be lucky, and his target who's also lucky because of...well, I'd be spoiling part of the book for you. Anyway, I liked it.

Edit - Fatman, I'd like to read Feist's Serpentwar Saga, but I can't get my hands on the books when I want to. I know OF several characters in that series, but I've never read about them anywhere. From what I can gather, the Krondor series is between the Riftwar and Serpentwar Sagas.

 

Dark Side of the Sun is oen of those under-appreciated classics. I thought it was an amazing little read.

 

I thought that was one of the greatest things about the book.

I have also read the dark side of the sun, i do not think it was as good as the rincewind books but it was still fun. I liked that about the phnobes though.

 

Has anyone read "Battle Circle?" It's really good but I have to look up the author and come back and tell you.

 

I must read that, one day. You're not the first person I've heard say it is good.

 

Update - after 300 pages of absolutely nothing interesting in any way, I gave up on Pillars of Creation.

I picked up another book - "The Free Lunch" by Spider Robinson - and it was excellent. I'd describe it, but that would kind of ruin the story.

 

Etalis, relax, shit happens, it just happens at the very end.

Also, an update on Terry Pratchett from me - I went to the local public library, and by some freak occurence, 6, count 'em, six Discworld novels were available. Needless to say, I borrowed them all. They were:

1. The Colour of Magic
2. Guards! Guards!
3. Maskerade
4. Hogfather
5. The Last (Lost?) Continent
6. Carpe Jugulum (Jugulam? However you spell it).

Also began to wonder, does it matter what order I read the books in? I read Feet of Clay before reading Guards! Guards!, and I don't think that wrecked the experience. I rather like Rincewind, so will reading the Last Continent be overly confusing, or is Pratchett the sort of author you can jump in at any point with?

 

Another update - hugely enjoyed The Colour of Magic and The Last Continent. Guards! Guards! was also very enjoyable. I'm about halfway through Maskerade, and I'm not feeling inspired to finish it. It just seems very flat for a Pratchett novel.

On the topic of The Last Continent (which some feel gives a strange impression on Aussies) it would take a helluva long time to explain all the little inside jokes that only Aussies would get. Pratchett did an amazing job just weaving them into the story. The billabongs, the beer, EcksEcksEcksEcks/FourEcks aka XXXX, the brand of beer I'm drinking right now, it's all great. Full marks there. Although, I though the Colour of Magic was funnier...the day after I read that, I woke up in the morning and was in that place where you're halfway between being awake and being asleep and I couldn't stop giggling/laughing. No book has done that for me before. Pratchett has leapt into my list of top three favourite authors. Don't know how I didn't read his stuff before this...

Edit - Forgot to add this before.

If there is one thing English authors who write, well, funny/comedy novels as it were (I'd be happy to use a different adjective if you can inform me of a better one) is capturing the Aussie attitude to pretty much everything. Ben Elton does it very well in Stark, and Pratchett does it in The Last Continent. They may not be what actually happens, but it's sure as hell the attitude, or what we'd like to be our attitude (can't always go giving people pardons for doing a really good runner, but we'd like to). It also helps add to the whole attitude the rest of the world has towards Aussies, so it's cool. Who wouldn't want a reputation for being a laid-back slack arse?

 

Hehe. Ahh the color of magic. The best book in the series. Wait until cristhmas to read hogfather. Also you should read the soul music and reaper man. Ahh the greatest books.

 

Best books

Douglas Adams books, they are very silly and funny. I advise reading one of these after every bad or boring book you read. (I wind up reading the entire series daily, no really)
Incidentally, when I grow up I am going to be Dirk Gently. (Using the term "when I grow up" loosely, of course as I use the term "driver" loosely, because you have been all over the road for the last three hours)

 

Currently I'm reading Shadows in Bronze, which is the sequel to Silver Pigs, an Ancient Roman detective story. I think that there's a whole series of them, narrated by PI Marcus Didius Falco, written by Lindsey Davis. I'd highly recommend them, they're quite funny.

Edit:
Found a list! Here they are in case any of you are interested.

Silver Pigs
Shadows in Bronze
Venus in Copper
The Iron Hand of Mars
Poseidon's Gold
Last Act in Palmyra
Time to Depart
Dying Light in Corduba
Three Hands in the Fountain
Two for the Lions
One Virgin Too Many
Ode to a Banker
A Body in the Bath House
The Jupiter Myth

 

I went back and finished Pillars of Creation, and found it to be horribly, malignantly, malodorously bad.
1. Why is it that she spends dozens of pages worrying about her fucking goat, but waits until the very end to get worked up about her mother?
2. What the hell was up with that Oba guy? He developed the character, then had him randomly appear, then randomly disappear, then die. Hello? Plot?
3. That one Sister of the Light tells Richard that if he doesn't kill Jennsen (what the hell kind of name is that, anyway?), she'll kill Kahlan. She then proceeds to spend several minutes watching Richard talk to Jennsen without even interrupting. Kill her already, you moron!
4. What's up with the whole teleporting thing? They go from Aydindril (according to the map, at the very northernmost border of the Midlands) to the Pillars (not even ON the map, they're so far south) in the space of... four or five pages? What the fuck?
5. What kind of idiot would drag a goat from northern D'Hara to the Pillars just on the offchance that Jennsen would show up and want it back? Hello? Did we not settle that the Pillars were horribly inaccessable?

And that's just what pissed me off in the last part of the book. Just let this one go.

 

Like Davids Eddings novel 's as he break the magic-user cannot wear armour
or use sword like weapon in alot of role-playing game an novel based on roleplaying games. The lance in his story alway break after being use in combat once than the knight used they main weapon the sword or axe, or mace. Also it isnot realy than medival world. In four of the Kingdom in his Elenium serie have no serfdom like we have in medival world.
I also like Belgarth the Sorcerer who was than serf than the way he enact with the King's and Queen's of the Kingdom's he help recreate.

 

In case anyone has been waiting for two years like me, I thought I would mention that A Fortress of Grey Ice from Jenny Jones is out in paperback. It's been so long since I read the first book, A Cavern of Black Ice, that I can't remember the entire story, but I do remember I enjoyed it a lot.

 

What's the book about kind of? Like the plot?

 

If I remember correctly

It's set in a fairly original world, where some people live in a gothic kind of citiy and others live in fairly barbarous tribes. The threads of the plot focus mainly on the ambition of a Primate-politician type character in the city (who uses some pretty gross and sadistic forms of magic to achieve his ambtions) and a few tribesmen from one of the less violent tribes. The whole world setting has an icy backdrop.

 

I'd just like to say that I've really got to stop hating things for no reason (except for Carl...*shudder*). I just read Thief of Time, a recent Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, and loved it. In some other thread I was professing my hate for TP before reading any of his books, but I recommend it to anybody now...whoops.

 

I am an avid fantasy reader of some years. The very reason I picked up Arcanum was that it looked like something which would strike a balence between my love of fantasy literature and my obsession of building various technological devices. Arcanum ows it's existence to the fantasy genre. Best fantasy books EVER are The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Tolkien was an inspired god.