What are you Reading now ..... other than comics ?

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Good review of GOT.

I'm over halfway thru Book 4 now. He's great at making you think it's going a certain way, only to surprise you.

The characters are great and while there are certainly some that are "evil", most are shades of grey. Some characters that you despise get small shots of redemption.

I wrote it for you, bro.

I'm thinking about starting GoT. I've watched the first 5 episodes of the HBO series and I have to read it so I can get MOAR. It's fantastic!

Great review Bill. I've read the first three but I'm holding off on committing to any more until it looks like he's really going to finish the series. By the third book I began to get a little frustrated as the larger plot doesn't seem to be moving forward, but instead is beginning to wander aimlessly. Also, his tendency to kill off major characters and replace them with new ones in which the reader has no emotional investment makes it hard to care sometimes. I'm starting to get the impression that GRRM isn't entirely sure where he wants to go or how to get there. Maybe he'll prove me wrong though and bring the whole thing for a more or less satisfying crash landing.

I very much enjoyed HBO's treatment. I felt like the cuts they made were appropriate and overall it was a good adaptation. I'm looking to the second season. BTW, Bill the homosexual allusions you noticed are real, but GRRM is more subtle about the subject than HBO.

As you know Jeff, I bought the 4 book set. My OCD won't allow me to leave a book unread but I am able to shelve a book for many months without too much hand-wringing anxiety.

I'm not going to invest a 2+ month block of my time into the entire set all in one pop. I'm going to spread it out over the rest of the year.

Book 2 is really, really good. Although I can understand your "strategy". I'm too far into it to stop now.

#4 is pretty good, so far. However, alot of new characters and plotlines in this one. 1-3 read fairly consistent as far as the main plotlines. 4 adds alot of new wrinkles. It started off a little slower than 2 or 3 (I think just b/c of the new characters), but it's picking up.

Book 2 is really, really good. Although I can understand your "strategy". I'm too far into it to stop now.

 

#4 is pretty good, so far. However, alot of new characters and plotlines in this one. 1-3 read fairly consistent as far as the main plotlines. 4 adds alot of new wrinkles. It started off a little slower than 2 or 3 (I think just b/c of the new characters), but it's picking up.

Book 2 may be my favorite actually. I started four, but put it down after a couple of chapters. It just didn't pull me in. I give it some time though. Maybe season two of the HBO series will inspire to pick it up again.

Game of Thrones

 

Worthy pulp fiction & genre based family gothic.

 

I’m eager to read book II but I think I’ll give it a rest while I take up something else first. I hope I’ll find the series maintains its brisk pace of 10 page chapters, virtually each one ending in a climatic surprise, most being quite shocking. Its chapters don’t end in cliffhangers, they end in plot shifting payoffs. Plenty of attention-keeping entertainment in its multiple plotlines featuring dozens of characters spanning thousands of years with interpersonal & action packed moments filling every chapter.

 

Now I know what those Targaryen red dragons are all about on such things as t-shirts & posters around comic shows & malls.

 

I also recognize that the novel is an extended 800 page rape fantasy. I’d like to read the statistics on the frequency of the word rape & variations thereof, the numbers of rape scenes, rape references, rape imagery, & so forth. There’s lots of it, including gang rape, incestuous rape, murder rape, torture rape, revenge rape, spite rape, instructive rape, monster rape, corpse rape, public games rape before king and court, & other exotic & unexpected forms of rape. The rape, I believe, is exclusively a crime against women by men or by male beings. I think that there was a passing & short reference to homosexuality in the novel but I didn’t make a note & may be wrong.

 

While women suffer the most in Game of Thrones, humanity suffers too – what little of it can be found. Most of the characters mention honor, few characters have any.

 

Ned Stark & the Stark children are the strongest exception. To those who have read the book, you know how Ned’s character falls into question over Jon Snow. Though son of a king, Jon’s social status is a notch above wildling. How the reader views Ned’s transgression & rates it on the scale of sins or crimes by and against humanity probably greatly differs than how the novel’s culture does.

 

It’s a tidy little irony that Jon is the story’s most honorable & heroic character. Sure Jon displays pragmatic leadership skills offered to the greater good of the Wall detachment when halfway through the book he diverts Sam’s destiny; but Jon is also driven by sympathy, compassion, and selfless loyalty to Sam, his friend. In fact there is an additional layer of ironic complexity. On the Wall, selfless loyalty appears to be the prime virtue.

 

%20did%20you%20ever%20wonder%20why%20the%20men&f=false'>Maester Aemon contrasts love with honor. When he defines honor to Jon, he set’s honor in conflict with human nature. ”…for love is the bane of honor, the death of duty.” “We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.” It’s peculiar for any character to dwell on love and love’s relationship to humanity. I don’t know what kind of love the women might think he means.

 

I’d like to read a detailed lambast of GoT’s from a feminist perspective. The honorable women are those who behave like the men – ruthless, bloody, & self-motivated. Sansa is Jon’s distaff counterpart. If only she had a p*e*n*i*s, right? Daenerys is the anti-Jon. She knows how to take charge. We know her star is on an upward trajectory when she convinces Khal Drogo to let her get off all fours & for him to go prone on his back. She shocks us more than a beheading by poleaxe when, to her Dothraki warriors & Ser Jorah, she commands “make them (a pack of public rapists raping in public) stop” & proclaims “I want no rape.”

 

The Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. The novel ends with a new vision of motherhood. Daenerys’ womb is more tomb; her stillborn pregnancy more necrotic than ectopic. She assumes the role of adoptive mother of b*a*s*t*a*r*d children in a way that would shock & offend Catelyn. As if women weren’t badly treated enough by this wintery world, the climax is a black arts assault on wet nurses.

 

Anyway, the book was fun, I’ll continue reading, & I'll continue wondering where our own culture is headed as we cheer on from the box seats to the Game of Thrones.

um, you are one smart fokker!

I reada the ASoIaF like some 'moka de crack.

That being said, I have held off on the Dance with Dragons until it gets closer to the date for the launch of season 2 on HBO.

also, like Penelope Cruz says to Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky... I am a "pleasure delayer"

Here is what I am reading now

The Complete Stories of Phillip K Dick vol 1 King of the Elves (Subterranean Press)

I finished The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman on the plane back from Sundance.

I enjoyed His Dark Materials trilogy as an adventure story but did not feel that his philosophy was greatly supported both by the characters or his own definition in the story of why there is no god. It felt thrown in there to make a point.

I am intrigued in reading a critical analysis of religion or anti religion in Pullman and will probably seek one out. Also I am drawn to read more CS Lewis to examine his Christian Allegory and compare it with Pullman in the other camp.

I dont particularly seek religious philosophy in my rollicking adventure stories but am ok with it if it is seamlessly integrated.

After I finished the Amber Spyglass I went to my backup book, a paperback copy of Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut

I say read all of his books in chronological order by publication date.

I am intrigued by this method and have thought of applying it to manydifferent authors in the past.

The main two being Faulkner and Vonnegut.

I have begun with Vonnegut by recently completing Player Piano

This thread, along with Shiverbones Cover recreation thread, are my faves on the CGC Chat Boards.

I'm a fooker alright, Neil.

I confused Arya with Sansa. When I mentioned Sansa, I meant Arya.

I'm a fooker alright, Neil.

 

I confused Arya with Sansa. When I mentioned Sansa, I meant Arya.

 

I was wondering about that part of your review.

Arya and Jon do appear to be "kindred spirits" and are definitely the most alike out of the Starks.

I'm a fooker alright, Neil.

 

I confused Arya with Sansa. When I mentioned Sansa, I meant Arya.

 

 

I was wondering about that part of your review.

 

Arya and Jon do appear to be "kindred spirits" and are definitely the most alike out of the Starks.

Yeah, that musta had you scratching your head.

Brand new Mars stories!!

Amazon says Feb 7th release, but I picked up my copy yesterday at Barnes and Noble

http://www.amazon.com/Under-Moons-Mars-Adventures-Barsoom/dp/1442420294/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328282084&sr=1-1

Just finished The Midnight Road by Tom Piccirilli. Great writing, amazing read.

"Flynn remembered the night of his death more clearly than any other in his life."

How could you not enjoy fresh noir, when a main element is a '66 Dodge Charger? I'll definitely be checking out more of this guy's work.

Finished the Slash autobiography (a great read - not quite as entertaining as Neil Strauss' "The Dirt" about Motley Crue, but very good nonetheless) and am now already halfway through Jonny Porkpie's "The Corpse Wore Pasties" (a Hard Case Crime crime novel).

Recently finished the Hard Case Crime book, read "The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management" by Daniel Strachman and re-read "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark" book that's been mentioned.

I'm now about 1/4th of the way through "Bruce Lee: Conversations - The Life and Legacy of a Legend" by Fiad Rafiq, which is an endless series of interviews the author did with Lee's former students, friends, colleagues, etc. So far, it paints the picture of Lee as a nice, but competitive guy, who really only taught martial arts to further his own skills rather than make his students better.

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I'm now about 1/4th of the way through "Bruce Lee: Conversations - The Life and Legacy of a Legend" by Fiad Rafiq, which is an endless series of interviews the author did with Lee's former students, friends, colleagues, etc. So far, it paints the picture of Lee as a nice, but competitive guy, who really only taught martial arts to further his own skills rather than make his students better.

So, instead of hiring sparring partners, he had people pay him for that honor. Brilliant!

I'm really getting into When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography Of Led Zeppelin. Got it for my 50th. A great read for an old git who still lives in the 70s