This year I’m toying with the idea of trying to read 52 books. A book a week. Right now I am slightly ahead – I’ve finished two books (Dresden Files – Cold Days, Iron Druid – Trapped), but they were both easy reading. Â The kind of books you can sit down and plow through. Â But now I have a thick book in front of me: A Memory of Light, book fourteen of the Wheel of Time series. 900 or so pages of condensed, thick story. Â It should take me a bit longer to read through this one.
But after I finish this beast I don’t have anything new to read. Anyone read an interesting book lately?
It occurred to me the other day that you might be interested in some old science fiction. Your dad has the complete Lensman series (EE Doc Smith) and a series by Andre Norton I think. Also, we have all of the mysteries by Tony Hillerman… Navaho policeman if that doesn’t mean anything to you.
And you would be welcome to look through anything else we have…
It’s not a series by Andre Norton, it’s the mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
This is just a ploy to make me post something, isn’t it?
Well, I just finished Cod and Salt, two of the Kindle books I was given a while back. Same author, and they were both very interesting. Salt particularly so – I’m keeping an eye open for it at used book stores and will buy it in hard copy when I find a good one.
Currently reading a book on Genghis Khan that is good, and a biography of Sargent (an artist), and Chinese Bell Murders (a Judge Dee mystery); Joseph is reading a biography of Ericson (engineer who designed the Monitor) and AD 381. All of these are recommended (and if the subject matter sounds at all interesting, exact titles and authors can be provided)
These aren’t all the books I’d recommend .. these are just the ones we’re reading right now. Which is what you asked .. you asked what we’ve recently read.
But you know I can’t just let this sit – have to recommend books. Making a new post of it. Of course.
PS. I cannot believe you are finishing out Wheel of Time. I gave up on that series about 5 or 6 books in; Joseph after about 3.
Is it just the perverse endurance challenge, or did they eventually get good again?
The Wheel of Time. It ended up being 14 books long.
I read books 1-8, then 9/10/11.. well, I more or less skimmed those. One of them I outright skipped… and I can’t remember which one. I can say that while I missed an important scene.. um, it was an expected, going to happen eventually thing. and it was just One Scene. Out of the whole book I skipped.
.. yeah, so.. anyway. Main author (Jordan) died before he could finish and Sanderson got picked to finish the series.
He took 3 books to do it. After the ” Will you just Get On With It! ” of the first 11 books, the last three Got On With It. Often times it felt a little rushed, because he left very, very little padding around Things Happening.
If you have any questions about how things ended, I’m happy to answer them. (going on the assumption you’re not really interested in reading the last few books)
Oh, here’s a cool thing about the last Wheel of Time book: The physically last page of the book is a blank page. The page before it is the last page of the story.
There is no index. There is no list of important characters/places/things, like all the other books have.
The last book goes all the way to the last page and ends.
From what I’ve read, Robert Jordan’s wife insisted on it being that way. That when you finished the books, that’s all there was. Nothing else but the ending of the book for people to think about.
Huh. I don’t know if that’s really a ‘cool’ thing. Seems more like a ‘we can make people pay for a 15th book containing the index & important characters/places/things that most authors include free at the end of their books’ thing.
Yeah, I know Jordan died. Which is sad.
But there was a sense that he was just drawing things out as long as he possibly could – it wasn’t about storytelling, it was just about what would give out first – his fans or his publisher.
So .. things I am curious about:
How long did it take the two story arcs (the girls and the boys) to come back together?
Did the girl characters reform or destroy/replace the corrupt school of magic?
Did the healing of the male magic characters happen across the board?
Was the final climatic battle scene worthy of a 14-book lead-up?
Did all of the various conspiracies finally end up biting their own tales and implode?
ps – the Lensman series mom references is fun and worth reading. We’re going to reclaim them some day for Joseph to read them
And Hillerman and Norton.. Agree with the recommendations. 🙂
The lack of an index and all that for the last book – it wouldn’t have any content that wasn’t already there for the previous books indexes/listing/ect. No new characters of consequence were added. So why not have a book that, as the final book, Just Ends.
Agree on the point of “He kept writing without really getting anywhere”. He seemed to be able to write the setup and the ending, but getting from A->B… wasn’t a strong point. Sounds like the same problem exists in the George Martin Game of Thrones books. (which I started, but never finished the first book, because I didn’t want to get into Yet Another Unending Series)
Anyway, answers.
Q: How long did it take the two story arcs (the girls and the boys) to come back together?
A: The story arcs were always coming together/breaking apart at different points in the books. There were very few occasions when all of them were together at the same time – actually, some of the big main characters made it a point to stay far, far away from the rest of the initial group for most of the books.
Q: Did the girl characters reform or destroy/replace the corrupt school of magic?
A: I assume you mean ‘fixing’ Tar Valon and the Aes Sedai? .. Sorta. The Aes Sadai had a major split, creating two groups. Egwene became the Amyrlin Seat of the Renegade Aes Sadai. She took the position and procceeded to prove she was not going to be easily manipulated, beat the rest of them at their own game, and re-united the two groups of Aes Sadai. She (and others) did force through some changes, or at least better direction/leadership, but the group as a whole isn’t all that different than it ever was.
Q:Did the healing of the male magic characters happen across the board?
A: Rand A’Thor (Dragon Reborn) and Nynaeve al’Meara (now an Aes Sadai, and quite powerful too. She had a few one-on-one fights with some of the stronger Forsaken and was able to match them) – they cleansed the male magic of the taint, 100%. But any male that had been already using it was still tainted – so many male channelers are doomed to insanity. In the Black Tower, male channelers that start to go insane get executed quickly before they can do much damage.
Q: Was the final climatic battle scene worthy of a 14-book lead-up?
A: There was a lot of fighting going on. Rand (Dragon Reborn) started his Final Fight half way through the book. This was actually something I liked – in previous books, people that got close to the break in the Dark One’s prison could tell reality in that place wasn’t right. The Dark One was already screwing with things, especially time. So Rand’s fight, in his sense of time, is probably only about a day long. Everybody else: They get to fight for a long, long week or two. (this is after most of the big battles had already been going for a while – Rand didn’t start his attack on the Dark One (and surrounding area) until most of the other battles were already underway.
Q: Did all of the various conspiracies finally end up biting their own tales and implode?
A: Some did, some didn’t. Would need to know which conspiracy you remember to answer. Too Many existed!