Books!

[ittaku]

The wheel of time... he promised a decalogy initially and then at 14 volumes he died. He had said if he beat his cancer he would have kept writing them indefinitely without ending it. I actually made it to 10 hoping I would get out of that quagmire at last and then when it didn't end I was miserable. Thumbs down for that.

Another series which was similar was the Wizard's First Rule. The story itself was spellbinding when I started reading it though the writing quality wasn't that great but somehow it didn't bother me. After 7 volumes I got sick and tired of it since the story didn't change and the writing didn't improve. First volume, highly recommended.

A much better fantasy novel was Raymond Feist's original Magician. Great novel. No need to read the 50 billion volumes that come after it, although they were all much more original sequels than the previously mentioned series and he "finished" the series with Magician's End after 20 years.

[Funyarinpa]

Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

[AaronIsCrunchy]

50 minutes ago, Funyarinpa said:

Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

I can't help you personally, but I must admit I'm intrigued so I found this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/booksuggestions/comments/3qznuo/looking_for_a_scifi_book_or_series_with_the_same/

Maybe there'll be something in there?

[arakura]

Can confirm Dune is amazing and has a fairly vast scope

[Jun Inoue]

3 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

But Discworld... is... fantasy 

[Darklord Rooke]

5 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

The Commonwealth Saga. A good entry point being Pandora's Star ... *cough* which you kinda already should have  

[Fred the Barber]

The Malazan Book of the Fallen wasn't my thing (I dropped it part of the way through the second book, if I recall correctly), but it might be yours, Funya. It was pretty awesome at times, but overall a bit dark for my taste.

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn universe is pretty big, and still has a lot of growing to do, but it's very manageable because he isolates out the trilogies rather than making one sprawling epic sharing characters. On the other hand, his Stormlight Archive is going to be at that scale, and is going to be literally the best fantasy epic series ever made, but he's only finished two (amazing) books so far.

[BookwormOtaku]

Been reading Clive Cussler's Fargo Adventures books, all of which have made for good light reading. Entertaining enough to forgive some its flaws, though considering they're the equivalent of dime store adventure novels I can forgive alot.

[Funyarinpa]

Finished House Of Leaves after reading it spottily for the last week- I'd gotten to close to 400 pages read back in February.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. Great horror book, although it's rather overwhelming (600+ pages and the book is HUGE in terms of page size).

Next up is Astronomy 101 by Carolyn C. Petersen. Figured I should start reading up further on astronomy and cosmology.

Going to hold off from Neuromancer, Inkheart, Lovecraft's works and Inferno until I get my filthy, filthy hands on an eReader, which might be until August (:c). I'll be buying it with money I have earned myself! ^o^ 

Also I'm going to read The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame and The Chocolate War for school this summer. Opinions about them? I recall very briefly reading the beginnings of The Chocolate War a LONG time ago, like 4 years long. Only heard of the other one.

 

[LiquidShu]

A question for those who have any knowledge about Japanese history, namely in regards to a collection of books titled "A History of Japan" by George Sansom. 

Simply put are these collection of books worth buying? It seems the reviews on amazon are quite extraordinary but with it being dated, I'm worried it may not hold up (though the reviews definitely make that to not be the case). Basically, I want the opinion from someone whom I can trust more so (the Fuwanovel community) vs random reviewers on amazon. I want these books for casual purposes, not for a class, and not for an essay. The books are just to help expand my knowledge on Japan as I have wanted to do for some time. 

Thanks yo. 

[Khazit]

Did anybody here read the Culture series by Iain M. Banks?

It's my all time favorite sci-fi. IMO, the Culture Minds are some of the best AI in fiction. 

Also, while technically it's not a book (it's a web serial), I want to recommend Worm: Parahuman. It's an unconventional story about Superpowered, very intense, with a lot of very creative power set, and interesting twists.

[Jun Inoue]

14 hours ago, Zenophilious said:

Reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.  This book is absolutely hilarious and I'm not even 100 pages in.  I love the sarcasm that Heller is able to inject into his writing, it's great.  Not swinging your hands while marching in a parade = genius discovery worthy of promotion.

Also finished the latest Witcher book, The Tower of Swallows.  I still like Baptism of Fire the best, but it was a good read.

I wanted to start again the Witcher series, and finish it, but the books I already had (about 3) have disappeared from my shelves 

[Flutterz]

Turns out the Shinsekai Yori novel fan TL was finished a few months ago, so I'll quickly finish up what I'm reading now and start on that.

[Funyarinpa]

Spent an hour today surfing Kindle's store for cheap shit to buy. Ended up downloading like eight different public domain books and bought full collections of Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes for a couple bucks each. Wheeeeee

Also trying to read Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle", while I enjoy it greatly I have very little time to read nowadays. 

[Fred the Barber]

I recently re-read Yukio Mishima's novella Sound of Waves. Mishima has always got something interesting to say, even if I don't agree with the worldview he idealized in Sound of Waves, and it's nice to get a reminder that there's high-falutin' literary Japanese fiction out there beyond just Haruki Murakami, as well as the pure-entertainment Japanese fiction I more often experience.

I'll probably re-read Mishima's short story collection Acts of Worship soon as well, but I don't know if I have the fortitude to attempt the Sea of Fertility tetralogy again...

[Funyarinpa]

This thread ain't dying, oh no

Took my sweet bloody time with it, but finally finished reading Cat's Cradle. It's my first Vonnegut novel, and even though many of the themes likely went right over my head (I suck at analyzing books, metaphor, symbolism and the like), it was very enjoyable even if just as an eccentric journey. After playing 999, seeing the origins of the idea of ice-nine was great.

Now will be moving on to finishing The Chocolate War for my summer reading assignment, then moving on to The Hunchback of Notre-Dame for the same reason. After that I will go back and finish the A Wizard of Earthsea quartet (only read the first book last summer, about halfway through my reread of that and it is absolutely wonderful- sadly had to cut it off due to school reading).

[Okarin]

Big sci-fi sagas...

- Arthur C. Clarke -everyone knows about these.

- The Ender saga (Ender's Game etc...)

- Battletech novels, they cover different time frames, but the Clans are always cool, and Stackpole is a good writer as far as I'm concerned.

- Chung-kuo, I think, but I know very little about it.

For some reason sci-fi tends to come in one-shot novels.

[Khazit]

21 minutes ago, Okarin said:

sci-fi

I just picked up Vacuum Diagram - Xeelee sequence, by Stephen Baxter.

It's my first "hard" scifi.

[Funyarinpa]

Wow, almost ded for half a year, sheesh. 

Read "Shades of Grey" by Jasper Fforde and while decent, I didn't find anything memorable about it. 6/10

Currently rereading Dune on a whim, and it is far, far better than I remember. The sense of scale. The barrenness. The Fremen, the Bene Gesserit. Everything about Arrakis. It's amazing. 

[AaronIsCrunchy]

I read Irvine Welsh's "Filth" again a couple of months ago - bloody brilliant. Writing in Scots English really helps me get their voices right in my head.

Currently reading "The Watchmaker of Filigree Street" by Natasha Pulley, and so far, it's shaping up to be a really good piece of magical realism. I'm hoping it stays that way - I really love how each character feels so nice and filled out.

[Funyarinpa]

On 1/9/2017 at 10:21 PM, Funyarinpa said:

Currently rereading Dune on a whim, and it is far, far better than I remember. The sense of scale. The barrenness. The Fremen, the Bene Gesserit. Everything about Arrakis. It's amazing. 

So, finally finished that Dune reread, and I have to say that it is definitely in my Top 10 books now. Don't even want to read the rest of the saga though, both due to length and the fact that Dune itself feels very complete.

I was planning on moving on to Murakami's Norwegian Wood, but I don't think that'll be happening just yet. Don't think I could move from Dune's sheer scale and might to Murakami's muted surrealism. Will read Ursula K. Le Guin's The Farthest Shore before that.

[Jun Inoue]

Decided to go back on some Wr 40k reading with Eisenhorn. Let's learn a bit more about the Inquisition of the God-Emperor

[Fred the Barber]

So the fourth and final Lightbringer book came out, and when I thought about reading it, I realized I remembered basically nothing from the previous three, so I started re-reading the series from the beginning about a week ago. I've finished two books, just barely started the third... why are these books so long... but they're good so I guess it's fine.

[Funyarinpa]

I was fine, cheery and all, this morning. 

I read fifty pages of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood.

I now feel like the loneliest person on Earth.

Great book.

[BookwormOtaku]

Currently listening to the audiobook for the fourth Wheel of Time book (stopped reading them back in high school, listening to them now as a refresher and boy is it better than I remembered, though even slower than I remembered ). Just finished the flashbacks on Rand's end...and I can't help but notice something. Is it just me or do he and Matt have better chemistry than he does with any of his love interests?