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This week, I are mostly reading....

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    #572
    John
    Registered Users Posts: 12,135 ✭✭✭✭John


    Closing Doors wrote:
    Oh so it's kind of different drafts of how he constructed the world rather than background info? Thanks for the insight btw.

    Exactly. And a lot of the notes are just the relationships between the languages and previous versions of the languages or old English.


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    #573
    Closing Doors
    Closed Accounts Posts: 226 ✭✭Closing Doors


    John2 wrote:
    Exactly. And a lot of the notes are just the relationships between the languages and previous versions of the languages or old English.

    Hmmm....doesn't sound overly interesting. And they managed to milk, what, 10/11 volumes out of it? Is it literally just his notes slapped in a book or there a commentary etc. ? Sorry to be asking so many questions....


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    #574
    John
    Registered Users Posts: 12,135 ✭✭✭✭John


    It's all his various drafts for all the books he did and then a commentary by his son (who seems to be just as obsessed as his father). There's some nice things like correspondence from CS Lewis about the Silmarillion and alternative and unfinished stories. I say give one a go and then see how you go from there.


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    #575
    secret_squirrel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,357 ✭✭✭secret_squirrel


    Personally I found them turgid pieces of crap. They offer an insight into his obsessive World building - but very little readable prose.

    Dont expect them to be anything like the LOTR trilogy.

    One for Tolkien completists, uber nerds or budding obsessive authors only tbh.

    Is it me or is there the faint hint of cash-in about them?


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    #576
    John
    Registered Users Posts: 12,135 ✭✭✭✭John


    secret_squirrel wrote:
    Personally I found them turgid pieces of crap. They offer an insight into his obsessive World building - but very little readable prose.

    Dont expect them to be anything like the LOTR trilogy.

    One for Tolkien completists, uber nerds or budding obsessive authors only tbh.

    Is it me or is there the faint hint of cash-in about them?

    Just a faint hint. But it's like b-side and unreleased song compilations, won't appeal to the general reader but it's gold to the hardcore fan.


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    #577
    secret_squirrel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,357 ✭✭✭secret_squirrel


    John2 wrote:
    Just a faint hint. But it's like b-side and unreleased song compilations, won't appeal to the general reader but it's gold to the hardcore fan.

    Excellent way of putting it.:)


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    #578
    John
    Registered Users Posts: 12,135 ✭✭✭✭John


    Right I'm taking a break from these oft-mentioned Tolkien books and getting in the Christmas mood with some more Poe and some HP Lovecraft. Yes Christmas is weird in my house :)


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    #579
    Jay Tomio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 35 ✭Jay Tomio


    Recently finished Umbero Eco's The Mysteriosu Flame of Queen Loana, now reading Paul Auster's Leviathan, and Jeffrey Ford's Cosmology of the Wider World.


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    #580
    dudara
    Registered Users Posts: 33,518 ✭✭✭✭dudara


    Just finished Stephen Baxter's "Coalescent"

    Don't know what to read next!


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    #581
    Undergod
    Registered Users Posts: 2,858 ✭✭✭Undergod


    Robert Ludlum's Bourne Trilogy- nearing the end of 'Identity'

    Might as well be considered an entirely different story to the movie. He's not a great author.


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    #582
    Dagnir Glaurung
    Closed Accounts Posts: 304 ✭✭Dagnir Glaurung


    August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn. I don't know if I spelled that right ;)


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    #583
    Jay Tomio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 35 ✭Jay Tomio


    Putting other books down as I just got The Thousandfold Thought by R. Scott Bakker today.


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    #584
    Setun
    Registered Users Posts: 3,805 ✭✭✭Setun


    Just finished Lord of the Flies. Excellent. And now for On the Road...


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    #585
    secret_squirrel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,357 ✭✭✭secret_squirrel


    Undergod wrote:
    Robert Ludlum's Bourne Trilogy- nearing the end of 'Identity'

    Might as well be considered an entirely different story to the movie. He's not a great author.

    Considering the book was written a decade or two before the movie its not surprising its different. IMO the 3 bourne novels are easily his best works.


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    #586
    gaf1983
    Registered Users Posts: 1,209 ✭✭✭gaf1983


    Love all the people - Bill Hicks.

    As it's really a collection of his stand-up gigs with a few essays thrown in for good measure, can become very repetitive at times.


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    #587
    Jay Tomio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 35 ✭Jay Tomio


    Finished R. Scott Bakker's TheThousandfold Thought - powerful, the best completed epic sequences in at least 25 years IMHO.


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    #588
    supersheep
    Closed Accounts Posts: 656 ✭✭✭supersheep


    Just finished A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - thanks to my girlfriend for lending it to me. Pretty damn amazing. I actually felt a sense of loss on completion...


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    #589
    Nimrod's Son
    Closed Accounts Posts: 664 ✭✭✭Nimrod's Son


    Ring was a decent enough yarn. I started Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck yesterday.


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    #590
    Vangelis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 719 ✭✭✭Vangelis


    Reading Virginia Wolfe's "The Voyage Out".
    Next will be Jean Paul Sartre's "The Imaginary".
    I simply can't wait!! :D


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    #591
    tSubh Dearg
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 5,555 ✭✭✭tSubh Dearg


    supersheep wrote:
    Just finished A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - thanks to my girlfriend for lending it to me. Pretty damn amazing. I actually felt a sense of loss on completion...
    I know exactly what you mean. I think that A Prayer for Owen Meany is the best of his novels.

    In other news, I'm currently reading Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins. It's very good, I'm really enjoying it.


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    #592
    arbeitsscheuer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,391 ✭✭✭arbeitsscheuer


    "Libra" by L.J. Doyle


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    #593
    Andy-Pandy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,848 ✭✭✭Andy-Pandy


    The human Stain by philip roth


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    #594
    dudara
    Registered Users Posts: 33,518 ✭✭✭✭dudara


    Just finished "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire. Didn't think much of it to be honest, it really didn't live up to the expectations I'd had.

    Just started "The Oxford Murders" by Guillermo Martínez. So far, it's really good.


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    #595
    Jay Tomio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 35 ✭Jay Tomio


    Crytsal Rain by Tobias Buckell and Summer Isle by Ian R. Macleod


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    #596
    Jim
    Registered Users Posts: 14,181 ✭✭✭✭Jim


    Player Of Games - Iain M. Banks.


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    #597
    Night_Rocker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 69 ✭✭Night_Rocker


    Would it be cool if i posted an unfinished story i'm writing and get general criticism from you guys? Just to let me think what you think and if it's goin alright.


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    #598
    Night_Rocker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 69 ✭✭Night_Rocker


    Please pay no attention to the name. I have no idea what i was thinking.


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    #599
    Vangelis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 719 ✭✭✭Vangelis


    Night_Rocker wrote:
    Please pay no attention to the name. I have no idea what i was thinking.

    Who wrote this?


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    #600
    secret_squirrel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,357 ✭✭✭secret_squirrel


    Night_Rocker wrote:
    Please pay no attention to the name. I have no idea what i was thinking.

    You will get far better quality of criticism in the Arts -> Creative Writing forum to be honest.


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    #601
    Tusky
    Registered Users Posts: 17,065 ✭✭✭✭Tusky


    Hells Angels - Hunter S Thompson


This discussion has been closed.
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