538 replies to this topic

[KzinistZerg]

You guys ought to read Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper series... It's very well written. SHe did a few books with Roger Zelazny before he died, i think.

[Povuholo]

A while ago I finished the saga of Darren Shan. It's a about vampires. Very different from the standard vampire child stories, and very nice. 12 books, and it got better every book. I've just started the Da Vinci code as well, because i've seen how famous it has become. And because I had finished the last book I had at that moment, the abbys. I'm not that far in it yet but I like the story.

[loveme4whoiam]

The Darren Shan books have been pretty popular in sales, and the final one (I think) called Slawter (Darren Shan may be a good author, but not a good speller ) has just been released. My sister is reading through them, which is damned surprising since she hardly reads anything, so I guess that's something in their favour.

Just started a Philip K. %&$! story, fairly short by my standards but thats not a bad thing, called Cantata-140, as it was the only one in the local library So far, seems interesting. He instantly jumps into the story and expects the reader to pick up the intricacies (poor sp) of the story and sci-fi tech-terms very quickly, which can be a bit jolting. I've only just realised that the 'scutter this character is repairing is not a robot hoover, but in fact a teleporter . Like I said, not much in the way of explanation. I shall inform further when I've finished

[karkarinus]

Just finished DVC last night. You'll be surprised when you find out that Robert Langdon is...... lol, not really!

I think the best way to describe it is enthralling. No literary masterpiece, but you won't be able to put it down until the end. See how many of the codes you can break! I got 2 of them.



Just started reading a book in Spanish about a woman author who goes to live in a huge mental asylum to write a book about her experiences. I'll probably leave it for a while though, 'cos I've vowed to start reading Terry Pratchett!

Loveme, I presume you mean Philip K. D¡ck, but the anti-swear system got the better of you! I've never read any of his work, but it looks fascinating. Check out the entry on him in Wikipedia! and particularly the part about his visions.



Anybody read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach? If not, do so!

[loveme4whoiam]

Okay, I finished Cantata-140, and I've got to say, I'm pretty disappointed. It was pretty short, as I said, but I got the feeling that Monsieur %&$! (other string of Shift-Num symbols) didn't know if he was writing a short story or a novel. He adds in quite a bit of side-stuff that would be good in a novel as they could be explored further, but in a short story seem tacked on and makes the rest of the story unwieldy. Added to that, he steams through the story at a breakneck pace which makes comprehension of the instant changes to the storyline, not helped by the aforementioned "tech-lingo" (even now, I'm still not sure what a jerry is).

Theres some attempts at philosophy in terms of racial differences, but if that is supposed to be the main "message" of the book it comes across garbled and half-cut. The characters are inconsistent in their behaviour (especially in the latter stages of the story), or at least exhibit behaviour that would have been understandable had the author taken the time to explain it.

Overall, a bit naff unfortunately. Its probably wrong to judge an author by a single book (for instance, I took a disliking to Terry Pratchett after reading Truckers when I was 7; look what a mistake I made there ) but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Perhaps I should read one of his more famous books, Minority Report perhaps, to see if those are better.

Those links turn up bad by the way karkarinus, but I had a glance at the page after searching Wiki. An, erm, interesting man to say the least.

[karkarinus]

Those links turn up bad by the way karkarinus, but I had a glance at the page after searching Wiki. An, erm, interesting man to say the least.

Um, yeah, the damn anti-swear bag of pants went and bally well anti-sweared me flipping links, the blighter!

Shame you didn't like the story - I had hoped it might be a good one for me to read.

Can you post a quotation with "jerry" in some kind of context?

[loveme4whoiam]

Erm, too lazy to do an exact quote but its generally used in the context of describing someone as old, but more as the stage post-growing old, possibly some sort of life-extension process. Its a bit hard to explain, especially since the author *string of top-row-of-the-keyboard-symbols* doesn't say anywhere in the book, just dropping it in and expecting the reader to know what it means.

[ThetaOrionis01]

Perhaps 'jerry' in that context is a corruption of 'geriatric'? Just guessing, since I haven't read the story.

[karkarinus]

Yeah, I was gonna say that judging by the context it could be geriatric. The general consensus of opinion on Cantata-140 seems to be that it is not one of Mr. D¡ck's (ha-haa! I beat the system! ) best works, and that his style is to use a kind of jargon that is apparently well-established in his imaginary societies, but does little to explain it to the reader.

[Povuholo]

The Darren Shan books have been pretty popular in sales, and the final one (I think) called Slawter (Darren Shan may be a good author, but not a good speller ) has just been released. My sister is reading through them, which is damned surprising since she hardly reads anything, so I guess that's something in their favour.

Just started a Philip K. %&$! story, fairly short by my standards but thats not a bad thing, called Cantata-140, as it was the only one in the local library So far, seems interesting. He instantly jumps into the story and expects the reader to pick up the intricacies (poor sp) of the story and sci-fi tech-terms very quickly, which can be a bit jolting. I've only just realised that the 'scutter this character is repairing is not a robot hoover, but in fact a teleporter . Like I said, not much in the way of explanation. I shall inform further when I've finished

Slawter? Is that one of his new series because I thought the saga of darren shan was over. I haven't started with his new series though.. After the da vinci code perhaps