• 🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
  • It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!

What is your favourite book?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Deleted member 157129

D

Deleted member 157129

Well, taking the wise words of good ol' VGsatomi into consideration:

You know when you find a good book, when you WANT to finish it.
-VGsatomi

There's really only one book that has succeeded: Dan Brown's Deception Point. However, it'd be wrong to say this is the only book I've enjoyed. Naturally, having read Lord of the Rings it is pretty high on my list, The Hobbit no less deserving. I also read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons to much satisfaction. A Norwegian book ought to be mentioned as well, Erlend Loe's Doppler is a masterpiece on 150 small pages. Last, not to be forgotten, Stephen King's The Gunslinger. I have regrettably not read the entire Dark Tower series yet, so I can't really comment on it as such, but out of those I have read I liked The Gunslinger better.
 
Level 21
Joined
Sep 22, 2007
Messages
2,772
i quite enjoyed the wheel of time, books 1-6 and 10/11-13. the ones in between that involved Perrin bitching and whining for about 3 or 4 books and not being able to do one thing over the course of that time. it was really annoying. While I liked the slow pace of Jordan and the extreme descriptive style he had, Sanderson's taking over with a faster pace and more mystery explaining is also quite gratifying. Looking forward to A Memory of Light.

I enjoyed the Sword of Truth series up to the 6th/7th book, where Kahlan gets beaten and bad things happen and then Richard starts to triple his monologue length every time; meanwhile, Terry Goodkind turns into a sick fuck and has rape and death in every second page while sex scenes take up 4+ pages. Not so gratifying. I couldn't even get through the last 3 books, I was so sick of that.

There's another good (I found it was quite good) series called Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky, quite original concept in a lot of ways and good writing. The plots gets a lot better towards the later books, some really great stuff thought out there and put into action quite effectively. Haven't read any in a while so I'm probably not really up to date on that.

Eragon series...well, I quite liked them overall. That said, I hated the exclusive use of "aye" which just gave a painful impression of a little boy who wants medieval times really badly, and the worrying amount of violence and acceptance of it in later books. Whenever people call fighting honourable and there isn't a single sentence on the negative effects of all of the violence and all that, it's always a bit worrying. It got reaaaallly excessive in the fourth book especially. I didn't like Brisingr so much because Paolini tried to get less fast paced and odd stuff towards his style, and it failed. Badly. The campfire conversation that took about 50 pages was probably my least favourite part of the series. And I've read WoT, so that's saying something.
And of course, there are the many blatant rip-offs from David Eddings's The Belgariad - Brom's storytelling role, the silver shiny palm that lights up when you cast magic, the familial relation of Brom, along with a lot of other similarities that I forget and then get a bit annoyed at finding whenever I read it. There was a massive one in the 4th book that really was annoying. And of course the ultimate similarity between Eragon/Star Wars, obvious there.

The aforementioned The Belgariad along with its sequel series The Malloreon (and their accompanying books Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress (?)), and the series The Elenium & The Tamuli all by David Eddings are also some of my favourite books, with a really nice, easy style that you can just absorb really easily and quickly. Great for easy reading really. Lovely stuff.

On the topic of the violence and that, Tim Willock's The Religion is quite brilliantly written and extremely entrapping. It's also very graphic and shows the less nice sides of the combat and violence as best as I've ever seen. Definitely worth a read, really enjoyed it. Deep plot and characters and all that.

LotR, while being ponderous and slow, I enjoyed that, though I should very probably re-read it because I didn't pay that much attention during the reading of it. Was a bit of a trial even at that point.

And lastly on fantasy, Jonathan Straud's Bartimaeus trilogy is also a great read. Quite well written, excellently thought out magical, political and general societal setting and all sorts of other stuff that I like in my books.

Goiiing away from fantasy, The Great Gatsby is a brilliant book and I don't need to say much more about that, while it's a bit trying to read at points, it is quite rewarding and does prove many points effectively. I read it during my rowing season last year, and reading that while being tired 24/7 practically and still enjoying it is saying something.
 
Level 7
Joined
Jan 28, 2012
Messages
266
i quite enjoyed the wheel of time, books 1-6 and 10/11-13. the ones in between that involved Perrin bitching and whining for about 3 or 4 books and not being able to do one thing over the course of that time. it was really annoying. While I liked the slow pace of Jordan and the extreme descriptive style he had, Sanderson's taking over with a faster pace and more mystery explaining is also quite gratifying. Looking forward to A Memory of Light.
The aforementioned The Belgariad along with its sequel series The Malloreon (and their accompanying books Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress (?)), and the series The Elenium & The Tamuli all by David Eddings are also some of my favourite books, with a really nice, easy style that you can just absorb really easily and quickly. Great for easy reading really. Lovely stuff.
You sir have excellent taste.

I would say that my favorite book at the moment is 'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss, I like his second book 'A Wise Man's Fears' as well but it adds elements to the story that I find couldn't care less for.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rui
Level 12
Joined
Jul 7, 2009
Messages
1,030
Dug through my sister's old books and found two of which interested me, Solar by Ian McEwan and Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCain. I have yet to read the latter but Solar, which I am halfway reading through is, I have to admit, pretty good.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top