I'm currently reading Stephen King - The Dark Tower II: Drawing of the Three

I love the Unseen University faculty books. The wizards. I recommend The Last Hero for a first timer and in general. It's relatively short, brilliantly introduces several major players, locations and parodies of Discworld, and is wonderfully illustrated by Paul Kidby, Pratchett's latest enslaved artist.

And its got both the Silver Horde and the UU faculty. Only Interesting Times can say that too.

Funny, it's actually the first book of the discworld series that I've read, I got it for nearly nothing, hard cover all black and gold.

In my opinion Moving Pictures is where Discworld stops being good and starts to become...something else, I very much recommend it as a first.
Part four of that series (Wizard and Glass) is one of my top five favourite books ever, srsly you´ll love it.

Have just finished my Warcraft books (Alright but not recommended to people who are not die-hard fans of the universe) and am back onto the intellectual with Science of the Discworld 3, after that I shall finally get round to reading Stephen King´s Green Mile and see how it shapes up to it´s film conversion.

"What do you think of the South displaying the flag that represented generations of bigotry and oppression in congress?"

"I'm from the South, my daddy's from the South and my daddy's Daddy's from the South. We're all from the South."

"I'd be ashamed to be from the south, now what's this about a flag?"

Also: Bully not so tough since being molested.

I fucking ADORE the Onion.

I haven't seen the full film but my vibe of the book was that it was 80% an excellent, atmospheric book and 20% stupid fantasy, feel-good bullshit. Still very worth reading though.

I'm currently reading two books;
Meša Selimović - Fortress
H.P. Lovecraft - Call of Cthulhu

They're quite different genre-wise, but highly enjoyable.

I'm reading EVE: Empyrean Age, and the Planet Hulk Omnibus.

I'm about to start Twilight. Maybe I'll get a clue into as to how all the minds of teenage girls have hacked so suddenly.

I am reading Jaco - The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius. The first half is inspiring, the second half is sad...

I finally finished The Stone Key by Isobelle Carmody earlier this week. It was a hard slog, especially seeing as I only have about 15 minutes a day on the train to read a 1000 page book. Whilst I liked the story and I love the characters, there is something not quite right about a book where one character says to the main character/messiah figure "I heard about XYZ happening and I didn't believe it until someone said you were involved so it made sense".

I just started iWoz, the autobiography of Steve Wozniac which, thus far at least, is hilarious.

Just finished Orcs by Stan Nicholls, was very good and could possibly be the best non Pratchett fantasy I´ve read in a long long time. The plot and vividness of the world was awesome and the dialogue was brilliant, if wholly unconventional.

Fantasy creatures yelling ´Fucking bastards´is just so refreshing in an odd way.

I have Orcs, though I haven't started it yet. Perhaps I shall.

Prepare yourself. That series begins a downward spiral of stupidity and hubris that begins in the fourth book and continues to the last. These books are so full of things that contradict themselves that they are almost unreadable. The fact is, he forgot what he wrote in the first couple of books. Also, the ending is typical King. He has made a career out of writing books with nonsensical, anti-climactic endings, and this is no different. In fact, this is one of the worst. The man is a hack.

I'm reading Gulliver's Travels.

BM, 'Orc's is a truly fantastic book(series), though the plot at times does seem a little forced; it all fits together a little too conveniently. Assuming yu've got the same omnibus addition that I read, the short story at the end is set before the first book, rather than after the last as it's position would suggest; that was a disappointment for me when I read them, so be aware of it in advance. :p
Really great books though.

Discworld is amazing; I finished 'The Truth' about two weeks ago and will be reading the next pretty much as soon as I buy it. :p
I'd personally say 'The Fifth Elephant' is one of the best, though I wouldn't recommend reading it first if only because of spoilers. 'The Last Continent' is another great one, but for a first read I'd suggest either 'Guards Guards' cus it's the first in the City Watch plot arc, which is one of the best, 'Small Gods' or 'Moving Pictures' because they're fantastic and fairly stand-alone, or just start at the beginning with 'The Colour of Magic'.
Personally I found the first four not as good as the rest; 5, 6 and 7 (I have the wikipedia list here so I'm not doing this by memory :p) are sort of transitional but it's after that that, in my mind, the series takes off and becomes basically incredible.

Oh, and actually the first book in the 'Witches' series (which is also my favourite; man I wish he'd written more after 'Carpe Jugulum) starts with 'Equal Rites', not 'Wyrd Sisters'.


Book I last read was Dracula, which I finished earlier this week; great book, with only a few moments where the olde English was offputting; some great moments though after reading it I was already thinking of a way to improve the ending a little bit :p. Better than 'Frankenstein' anyway, which IMHO, was dryer than a particularly dry desert in the middle of the dry season with an extra portion of global warming on the side, and no coke.

That's quite handy to know since I was literally going to start reading that book tonight; I got into the series the same way Havoc did in fact.
And I disagree with OANST about book 2 in the series. But then I disagree with OANST about most things, including his sig.

I never mentioned book 2. I had no problem with that one. It's the fourth where things start to get super shit. And believe me. It gets much, much worse as the series goes on.

I loved the fourth, it was the last chapter of the fifth I had a problem with, up to and especially the ending of the seventh.

The man even apologises for the ending in the book.

Have started The Variety of Life by Colin Tudge.

The problem I had with the book is that it is the first one in which King obviously forgot the way his world works and what he had previously written. Some of the stuff is small, such as Susan wearing jeans through the whole book while Roland states in The Drawing of the Three that he has never seen the crotch of a woman who wasn't naked before. Other things were major, such as Flagg and the man in black all of a sudden being the same person. Roland has memories of seeing both Flagg and the man in black togethor. Explain that.

I was forced at gun point to read "To Kill A Mockingbird" by my english teacher...

Biggest. Load. Of. Horse. Shite. Ever

How could you not love Atticus? He shoots rabid dogs for god's sake. I mean, come on.

With great ease, my dear OANST, with great ease

Are you sure it wasn't your teacher holding you at gun-point that you hated about it?

When in doubt King has the plot device that he's not just fashioning a universe but a ten dimensional aleph-umptyplexal multiverse. We know from information contained in the books themselves that there are at least three John 'Jake' Chambers's, two Eddie Deans's and one and a half Oys, it is therefore not impossible to imagine that there might be two Flaggs, especially since the man who pushed Jake into the car and gave Susannah MPD is cited as being an otherworldly version of Flagg in the first place, of course this raises even more questions about the nature of King's multiverse such as why an army of Flaggs did not storm Mordred and take him down instead of Flagg receiving the most disappointing death in literary history.

The best reason I can give for Kings' stylistic errors is the twelve years between the publication of The Waste lands and Wolves of the Callah, although this is little more than an excuse and I am reminded in a passage in the old edition of The Green Mile where Percy manages to wipe the sweat off his forehead while in a straightjacket, showcasing Kings mortality and lack of omniscience that most of his diehard fans would steadfastly deny.

Contradictions with previous novels aside, I still stand by my previous statement that Wizard and Glass is a truly superb book. Riddling trains, western romances and cheesy The Stand references all in one book, what more could you ask for?

A coherent story?

How could you not like To Kill a Mockingbird? Atticus Finch is like my own personal Jesus. Or so I vaguely recall.

I just finished Timbuktu yesterday, by the request of my mother and Fionn Regan. It's unbelievable. Five thumbs up, super emotional and well-written. I have to check out the rest of Paul Auster's stuff, he's fucking quality. Also, the book is better if you're a dog person.

I've been reading "The last Hero" By Terry Pratchett, which was recomended by Bullet Magnet, I'm really enjoying it!

For some reason I didn't envision Bullet Magnet recommending something as pedestrian as Terry Pratchett. Sometimes even I can be wrong.

Pedestrian? Not at all. Discworld is full of satirical references to highly complex scientific and social theories and histories. Whole books are based on them. In Pyramids, for instance, protagonist Teppic meets all the Discworld's Greek philosopher equivalents as they make all the same mistakes their real counterparts did. The Last Hero chart's the Discworld's first manned space flight (in which arrangements are actually made to return the Chelonauts alive to terra firma) and follows many of mankind's own space faring events.

Why, Discworld magic is clearly based on radiation, general and special relativity, quantum mechanics and particle theory. Even Death keeps running afoul of Heisenberg's Indeterminacy Principle. I could go on.

Keeping in line with the Pratchett love I've just started to read Nation, rather different from the Discworld books but keeps the same line of humour and satire so far.

Wow, I didn't know that was out yet, I thought he was still working on it.

I just finished reading Oedipus Rex as part of my courses set text list, this play is definitive proof that revelations can be just as awesome and mind blowing when you have full foreknowledge of them. Certainly the best non-Shakespearian play I have ever read.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra next, am anticipating excellence.

Just finished the Bourne series. All Bourne does is bitch and moan about his terrible life between each killing spree of faceless minions. I didn't really like it.

I'm reading several books on building a hydrogen generator, which I'm in turn building a prototype to add onto my cars- essentially making them hydrogen-gasoline hybrids. Should get about 70+MPG with this arrangement. You'd be surprised what a simple device this is, basically making a car run on water.

No fiction right at this time, aside from some occasional online fan fiction....

Gross.

Finished 'Wizard and Glass' a few days ago. The section in Mejis did drag on far too long :(

See, now you've removed my hope for the rest of the series! :fuzmad:

Don't worry. #7 will keep you up at night.

I finished going through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows earlier this week. I grew up with those books, and I love 'em.

Currently reading The Half Blood prince, and enjoying it.

Except that anyone I know who knows cars assures me that books on hydrogen generators are pure fiction.

Trust me on this one; I used to work in Ford Australia's emission testing lab. If there were an easy fix to improve MPG, the car companies would jump on it and advertise how much cheaper their cars are to run than everyone else.

Yes, "books" per se, but not e-books. I've got a couple of ebooks on this stuff.

I know a lot of guys here (I'm talking about 4) who have each independently built their own generators. One of them is rigged up on a newer EFI vehicle and runs solely hydrogen- the fuel injectors are basically inoperative and the hydrogen is fed into the intake plenum. He has had to modify the computer though to compensate for the mixture and timing.... biggest drawback is heat- generator runs HOT and engine runs TOO HOT!

Another guy I know (personal friend) is working on his own version to use on carbureted vehicles, which essentially produces gasoline-hydrogen hybrids- this equals the effect of about 30-50mpg on an old car. One of mine in fact, a 1954 chevrolet has gotten about 35 mpg on test runs using his prototype system. Considering the original mileage was about 15MPG, huge improvement.

The main trouble is that hydrogen does not provide a satisfactory amount of upper valve lubrication and really causes a lot of oil consumption problems after only about 15,000 miles of use.

The car companies can not simply 'market' systems like this as these systems have already been patented, the trouble is that the patents are bought up by "interested parties" and essentially 'shelved' so the technology cannot be developed.

It's like there's an entire 'subculture' of people fed up with buying gas and are taking things into their own hands to find a practical alternative- the hydrogen technology has been around since the mid 1930s so this is nothing "new".... it's just, yet again, nothing that you're going to find 'mainstream.' Trust me on this, I was amazed when I first got into this a couple of years ago and now at the increasing number of people building and using these systems. Of course, again, these cannot be 'marketed' to the public for obvious copyright infringements.

What a world.

Nate, I know this is considered off topic (thought it is technically 'what I'm reading :p) so if you'd like to discuss it more I think it ought to be moved to a new thread because I think there are lots of points we can explore from our firsthand experiences.......