A "Novel" Experience

[KvHagedorn]

Thanks for the mini-review, Gurm. I've always liked Eddings, and this book sounds pretty good. Have you ever read anything by Raymond Feist? Your review reminded me of his book Faerie Tale for some reason. That book is damned creepy.. (though some parts of it are just kinda perverse ) and he even explains the purpose of the freemasons!

Another book I enjoyed was a departure for its author in the opposite way. Chiller scribe Stephen King wrote a little book called The Eyes of the Dragon that's actually a really good fantasy novel. It's been years since I read it, but as I remember, it was a great read.

[Gurm]

King can write fantasy. I personally have never found any of his "horror" books to be horrifying in any way other than his butchery of the English language in the early ones.

However, "Eyes of the Dragon" as well as the Dark Tower series are quite good.

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I haven't read any Feist yet. It's an in-joke. Julie reads him. He's sort of down there on my list well after Martin and maybe Jordan.

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Another good book, but kind of bizarre... "Enchantment" by Orson Scott Card. Card takes a break from the Ender series and the Alvin Maker series in order to write a book about fairy tales. Turns out that all fairy tales originated in 4th-century Russia and yeah they're all real. Oops!

Lots of Jewish stuff in it though, and weird Russian versions of fairy tales, and time travel, and... err... but it isn't as out-there as I'm making it sound. It's not cutesy or anything. Hmm...

- Gurm

[Brian R.]

I seem to remember that Amazon periodically does things differently for some reason I don't remember. It is done like every 20th customer or something, possibly a poll for additional customer information without pissing everyone off.

[Jammrock]

Another good book, but kind of bizarre... "Enchantment" by Orson Scott Card. Card takes a break from the Ender series and the Alvin Maker series in order to write a book about fairy tales. Turns out that all fairy tales originated in 4th-century Russia and yeah they're all real. Oops!

Lots of Jewish stuff in it though, and weird Russian versions of fairy tales, and time travel, and... err... but it isn't as out-there as I'm making it sound. It's not cutesy or anything. Hmm...

Every once in a while Card says to himself, "I'm going to write a really messed up (he's Mormon so he can't say it the other way) book today." I love his writing to death, but he can write stuff that makes you wonder if he dropped acid in the 60's. For example:

Treason - An AWESOME book, but the main character grows extra limbs. Amongst other things.

Wyrms - I don't even want to try and explain it.

His short story collections are all way the hell out there.

Hart's Hope - Great book, messed up story. It's one of his few fantasy book. I think.

Songmaster - I think he decided to see how many plot twists he could put into a single book with this one.


I had read all of his books at one point, but I'm way behind now. Speaking of new Orson Scott Card books, the next Alvin Maker book comes out in November:

http://www.hatrack.com/

Jammrock

[Sethos]

What's the general theme of the Alvin Maker series...I love the Ender series, would you say that it's comparable in terms of "goodness"

~Sethos

[Jammrock]

The Alvin Maker series is quasi-fantasy. Quasi because it takes place in colonial North America. The premise behind the books are, "what if folk magic really worked, and how would it change the development of the North American continent." Basically if you take all the old school folk magic, like pentagrams, hexes, out-of-body traveling, etc and make them reality, stick the plot in the 1700's North America, you have the basics of the series.

It's hard to compare Ender to Alvin since they live on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. IMHO, I think that the Alvin series is just as good and Ender's when it comes to characters, plot, story, etc. But if you don't like fantasy literature, you're probably not going to like the Alvin books.

Since I like both Fantasy and Sci-fi, I like both Ender and Alvin series.

Jammrock

[Gurm]

I file Alvin Maker under "alternate history", a much-maligned and not oft-explored area of quasi-fantasy.

- Gurm

[TdB]

However, "Eyes of the Dragon" as well as the Dark Tower series are quite good.

then I can recommend "the talisman", also a fantasy novel by King. and IMO one of his best.

edit: corrected the title.

[Gurm]

I think you mean Talisman, but yes. I haven't read that one yet but I hear it's good.

...

'Course I keep hearing that "It", "The Shining", "Carrie", and "Tommyknockers" are good too... and they're each thousand-page pieces of garbage. But hey, that's just the part of me that LIKES the Enlish language talking.

- Gurm

[AlgoRhythm]

If you like alternate history, you should try Philip K. Dick's <a href="http://www.philipkdick.com/tmithc.htm">The Man in the High Castle</a>

For those of you who aren't familiar with Dick, he's the guy who wrote the novels that became Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report.


AlgoRhythm

[Wombat]

Don't forget Scanners, and they're apparently doing Paycheck, too.

[TdB]

he's the guy who wrote the novels that became Blade Runner

Hey! I think I read that book a long time ago, it was called "does androids dreams of electric sheeps" or something like that, it was actually quite good

[Sethos]

Thanx for the explination Jammrock...that sounds very interesting...

~Sethos