monkey3 Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Read Peter F. Hamilton's the Neutronium Alchemist a while back, that was ok, there's another two in the series. Sci-fi, set in the far future, man colonised most of the galaxy, living starship's etc. Read Dan Brown's Angel's & Demons and just started reading the Da Vinci Code (I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie). Didn't think much to Angel's and Demons, seemed predictable, the ending annoyed me as well the characters would not believe that "the bad guy" was the most obvious person for it to be in the book even when it looked like it was him, then they were all too quick to believe that it was in fact the person least likely for it to be. From what I've read of the Da Vinci code so far it's as if he was practially having a second attempt, so many similarities in characters and story lines between the two. Plus I think it's bloody obvious he's ripped off the idea's of those other authors, and probably the same goes for his other books. Still, I'm enjoying the Da Vinci code much better so far, probably would have even more if I'd not read the other. Next up I'll probably either buy the next two Peter F. Hamilton books or Ian M Banks' the Algebraist, that sounds good. I have just finished Peter F Hamilton's latest offering - Pandora's star \ Judas Unchained. I've read all his books and I must say the Night's Dawn Trilogy comes in a very close second to his latest. Read all Iain M. Banks' books, also very good. If you like these writers, you should also try Kevin J. Anderson (Saga of Seven Suns) and Dan Simmons (Ilium and Olympus). I'm just about to start the Neal Asher collection as I've heard good things about it. Incidently, a trilogy is 3, quartet is 4?, what is 2? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Prawn Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 IIncidently, a trilogy is 3, quartet is 4?, what is 2? A sequel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkey3 Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 A sequel But would that not just be the second book? A trilogy refers to the series, no? And surely the second book in a trilogy is still a sequel? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Favourite book ever is 1984. Love all the Huxley and Orwell type books really. Recently been reading snippets of Dave Pelzer style books, about misery of children being beaten etc. only because the gf reads them all the time. Otherwise have NO time to read really, working full time + Open Uni 2 hours a day, not to mention currently buying a house!! Shame because there are loads of books I have sitting at home waiting to be read (Down and Out in Paris and London is first on the list). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Prawn Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 But would that not just be the second book? A trilogy refers to the series, no? And surely the second book in a trilogy is still a sequel? In that case then it's a duology or a dilogy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 In that case then it's a duology or a dilogy A duet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkey3 Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 In that case then it's a duology or a dilogy lol. very good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Prawn Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 lol. very good Wasn't a joke:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Hes not ripped anything off. Basically hes taken a popular belief about christ and done something that other authors havent done.... turned it into an amazing story. Good story it may be, I still say he's ripped off the idea's of other authors (and he practically admits so in the book!), but we'll just agree to disagree I've read all 4 of Dan Browns books, and there all awesome. I would hihgly recommend any of them.. I thought Angels and Demons was "ok", predictable, and although I'm only going by two of his books, formulaic. Monkey3 : I'll check out Kevin Anderson sometime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkey3 Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Wasn't a joke:) oh He's right you know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz Walker Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Not a big reader as well. Used to until I started Envy I only read the Sunday paper if I get 10 mins! I've promised myself I'd get back into it though. Some of you guys are a bit more hardcore on the reading side Do you buy books or get them from the library? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted April 20, 2006 Author Share Posted April 20, 2006 I buy books (often at import prices) and I have the bookcases to prove it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Prawn Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 I'm reading Labyrinth by Kate Mosse at the moment. Quite good and reputed to be better and more factually correct than the Da Vinci code, which was a bit of a damp squib really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted April 20, 2006 Author Share Posted April 20, 2006 I love this piece about Dan Brown that was written by the author, Craig Clevenger. Apologies for printing it in full but it doesn't exist on the net anymore. Worth reading all the way through. Da Vinci Roulette Below is one of the early book reviews I wrote for the Santa Barbara Independent. I've had a few people ask me about it and, as it's not on the Independent's web site, I've reposted it below for the curious, and likely to my own detriment. Originally titled Da Vinci Roulette, it appeared in print on April 22, 2004. I've been cornered one time too many by someone earnestly trying to convince me that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is a great novel, when it's not. It's a fun read, I suppose; a reasonably interesting premise for a thriller with plenty of interesting factoids (though most of them seemed forcibly shoe-horned into the book) and an overall solid structure. It's the stuff that Hollywood blockbusters are made from, and Code will likely join their ranks in a few short years. But it's not a great novel for one reason, and one reason only: Dan Brown can't write. There, I said it, the emperor has no clothes, there is no Santa Claus and Cousin Marty isn't resting, he's in a mental asylum. Living in a large, glass house, I'm loathe to trash another writer and I told my editors as much, but I've had too many quiet nights with a pint ruined by some moron derailing my silence with, So, have you read The Da Vinci Code? It's awesome… Yes, I've tried… I'm about three quarters of the way through it. It's slow going, what with the blood leaking from my eyeballs every few pages, or having re-read a paragraph or a line of dialogue two or three times to ask myself, did he actually write that? People think this is good? Below are five passages I've quoted, minus the character names; two from the Code and three are not. See if you can tell which were written Dan Brown, and which weren't (answers below): 1) They walked past the huge multicolored and vaguely anthropomorphic metal sculpture that stood guard outside the station area. The sculpture always reminded [her] of how she felt after a heavy weekend: split into pieces, one eye by her toes, the other perched on her ear. 2) She was moving down the corridor toward them with a long, fluid strides… a haunting certainty to her gait. Dressed casually in a knee-length, cream-colored Irish sweater over black leggings, she was attractive and looked to be about thirty. Her thick burgundy hair fell unstyled to her shoulders, framing the warmth of her face. Unlike the waifish, cookie-cutter blondes that adorned Harvard dorm walls, this woman was healthy with an unembellished beauty and genuineness that radiated a striking personal confidence. 3) He relished the unaccustomed silence of the country and the privacy which the garden afforded. It was large, partly walled, and the remainder enclosed by a tangled hedge bordering fields that undulated from down to the village somewhere below. Wild and overgrown though it was, the garden had transmuted neglect into beauty: clematis and honeysuckle toppling over the crumbling brick walls and a confusion of rampant ivy threatening to smother the orchard. 4) Two minutes later she was creeping out of the open front door and heading for the path toward the stables. To the left of the gazebo, a heavy iron gate guarded the entrance to the grotto. She'd never been there- it had always been too overgrown- but she'd heard the gardeners clipping it back on her first morning… A quick examination confirmed that the padlock was missing. [she] brushed the orange flakes of rust from her fingers and gave the gate a shove. It swung open with an eerie creak. 5) Perfect. Now all that remained was to close and lock the door. Leaving the box on the ground for a moment, he grabbed the metal door and began to heave it closed. As the door swung past him, [he] reached up to grab the single bolt that needed to be slid into place. The door closed with a thud, and [he] quickly grabbed the bolt, pulling it to the left. The bolt slid a few inches and crunched to an unexpected halt, not lining up with its sleeve. Paragraphs two and five, above, were both taken from The Da Vinci Code. The first, third and fourth paragraphs are taken from the following: Cheap Trick, by Astrid Fox (Black Lace, 2001); The Reckoning, by Anonymous (Blue Moon, 1998); A Gentleman's Wager, by Madelynne Ellis (Black Lace 2003). As you might have gathered, those last three are soft-core porn paperbacks; Astrid Fox' and Madelynne Ellis are most likely pseudonymns for writers who realized that Anonymous was already taken (is it me, or does Astrid Fox sound like some female superhero's alter ego?). I'm not trying to be cruel, but prove a point. My first measure of a writer is how he or she handles language, and the level of writing in Code is clearly no better than pulp novel pornography. To be fair, there's likely some undiscovered and formidable talent wasting away in some of those little black paperbacks. But as near as I can tell, Code isn't much better than the bulk of those… having skimmed a number of them to find appropriate passages, I noticed that the writing in some of them was noticeably better than Brown's, though the dialogue was terrible in all of them; Brown also shares with his pornographic brethren a penchant for detailed descriptions of churches, museums and gardens, along with many parochial authority figures. The only things keeping Dan Brown from being just another Astrid Fox are a lot of dumbed down history lessons and a lack of spanking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian C Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 I'm glad someone else pans Dan Brown. I read Digital Fortress expecting wonders but it's like a child's book. It's entirely about computers and codebreaking and yet if you've ever used computers or even fiddled with Winzip you'll know Dan Brown hasn't ever had any experience of this and didn't actually research it either - just cobbled together some vague notions from cheap TV series. It's beyond funny into embarassing, you start looking for the joke and the joke is, he's serious. Combine that with a ludicrous sub plot involving a teacher who becomes a competent spy off his own back in the course of one day and I'm left thinking that there must be a lot of people with low expectations of their books. I'm certainly not reading any more of his shite. Peter F Hamilton though, blimey - I just read Pandora's star & Judas Unchained, how epic are they?! I'm on The Reality Dysfunction at the moment and it's shaping up nicely. I'm big on scifi, give you hope for the future of mankind and it really is the last frontier Here, have an utterly fascinating snapshot of my life -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Prawn Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Here, have an utterly fascinating snapshot of my life -Ian Wow you collect dust and keep it on shelves;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 I'm currently reading 'The Time Traveler's Wife' - very good. I love reading could do it all day. The only trouble is i always finished books too quickly and feel a bit cheated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian C Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Wow you collect dust and keep it on shelves;) Who doesn't Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian W Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 agree Life of Pi is a good book. have read Fight Club but got quite bored towards the end (having watched the film) one i did read through even though i've seen the film was the first couple of Harry Potter books (girlfriend loves them) and they're actually alright for a bit of light reading.....kids books really tbh. (what does that say about me, eh) one good book Mr Nice, the Howard Marks autobiography. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Hate reading - does me no good at all - I'd rather do it than read about it. My ex was a huge fan of reading and I found it to be terribly unsociable past time. For example, whilst on holiday I like to get about and experience the different cultures, foods, water sports, diving, etc etc, but all she wanted to do was sit on the beach or by the pool fekkin reading - not my idea of fun or a holiday. Why would anyone go away to far off lands to sit and read??? You can do that at home sat under a strong lamp at anytime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt H Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 I have just finished Peter F Hamilton's latest offering - Pandora's star \ Judas Unchained. I've read all his books and I must say the Night's Dawn Trilogy comes in a very close second to his latest. Read all Iain M. Banks' books, also very good. If you like these writers, you should also try Kevin J. Anderson (Saga of Seven Suns) and Dan Simmons (Ilium and Olympus). I'm just about to start the Neal Asher collection as I've heard good things about it. Incidently, a trilogy is 3, quartet is 4?, what is 2? Duet??, duo? not sequal cos that only refers to the second book Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 I'm on The Reality Dysfunction at the moment and it's shaping up nicely. Ooops yeah, thats the one I've read, think Neutronium Alchemist is the second one? I've been meaning to buy the others. Where you up to? Gets freaky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprasteve Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 'Empire' - about the rise and fall of the British Empire -was unfailingly interesting and I recommend to anyone with even a vague interest in History. i might try that next as i'm into a bit of history at the mo. Since leaving school many moons ago i've tried but failed to get into books until last summer i grabbed almost at random a book called The Field of Swords at the book store in the airport and was hooked on it all holiday. unfortunatley i don't get much time to read but i've almost finished reading the Emperor Series by Conn Iggulden, based on facts of Gaius Julius Ceaser -fantastic and highly recommended. However, don't do what i did and read them in the order 3,2,1,4 as it gets a little confusing at times http://www.conniggulden.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
black cat Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 no......... can you tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted April 20, 2006 Author Share Posted April 20, 2006 Anyone else have a mini library in the bathroom? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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