Read any good books lately?

I will second the recommendation for anything Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game and its sequels as well as the parallel series in Ender's Shadow are amazing. I'm actually more of a fan of Bean in the Shadow series than the rest of Ender's travels, but they are both excellent.

I'm also working on Game of Thrones, currently at Storm of Swords, and have been enjoying it at well - minus the adult content which is rather unnecessary (but way better than what HBO does).

But my all time favorite is Raymond E. Feist. He isn't the best author out there but I get lost in his stories and Midkemia is the backdrop for all my other fantasy worlds. He has about 50 books set in Midkemia (also counting the Kelewan saga which is different, but connected) and it's so much fun to explore the history of this world. From young boys growing up to protect the world to political intrigue to gods and men. It has everything. I've read each book at least twice and I still have yet to get bored with them. If anyone is into fantasy at all, I must insist on trying out Feist.
 
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Took a four day break from Game of Thrones to read R. A. Salvatore's Homeland, the first book in the aforementioned Night Elf Trilogy/Legend of Drizzt series. My gosh. Loved it. I'd be working on the second book now, but I kinda lost most of the week to the book, and I need to make sure I'm on top of things first for school and what not (and I'm finishing Game of Thrones in the meantime).

The book basically revolved a character I love in a world I want to see destroyed. It's a very fun read that is rather fast paced, but Salvatore still throws some really thought provoking stuff in there, though often subtly (issues of breeding hate within a society and egalitarianism show up, for example); there's even some Christological stuff in here. I so can't wait to move on to the next book.

It's also fairly tame in terms of objectionable material.
 
I'm also working on Game of Thrones, currently at Storm of Swords, and have been enjoying it at well - minus the adult content which is rather unnecessary (but way better than what HBO does).
Trust me: Skip books 4 and 5 and read plot summaries. A Song of Ice and Fire got so bloated that Martin split his characters across two books; A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons run in chronological parallel. Unfortunately, even while tackling only one half of the story in each book, the plot crawls along at a snail's pace.

People are quick to point out that Tolkien himself said that Lord of the Rings is not an allegory, but Tolkien's faith is so clearly evident throughout the series. Similarly, Martin's world view heavily influences A Song of Ice and Fire:
I suppose I’m a lapsed Catholic. You would consider me an atheist or agnostic.
Source: EW interview: George R.R. Martin talks 'A Dance With Dragons'

When I read LotR, I feel encouraged by Tolkien's writing, the beauty of his world, and knowing that good will ultimately triumph over evil.

When I read ADWD, I felt discouraged reading about an ugly world filled with cruel people. After five books, ASoIaF now feels like the "Old Man and the Sea" of fantasy, awkwardly beating the reader over the head again and again and again with the message, "The world is cruel, people are cruel, there is no god, and there is no hope." (Except where Hemingway's "classic" was stretched out over ~130 pages, ASoIaF now stands at over 3,000.)

Yes, the heart of man is indeed wicked, but there is beauty in the world God created and kind people, while frequently enduring trials, do often succeed. It feels like Martin builds up character momentum and "good feelings" for no other purpose than to smash the reader's hopes to pieces. It works the first few times, but it just feels like a tired formula after a while.

While I agree that Martin is a talented writer, the hopeless tone of his world wears on a reader after a while. But even Martin's nihilistic style wouldn't be nearly as terrible if he would just get on with it. It feels like the "fat" could have been trimmed from AFFC and ADWD and easily been condensed into one book.

Maybe I'm still bitter about Robert Jordan's A Wheel of Time series starting out so wonderfully (I still recommend books 1-3 of WoT to fantasy fans) and then becoming a dreadful chore to read. The same thing has happened with ASoIaF and it's a real shame.

/rant
 
It feels like the "fat" could have been trimmed from AFFC and ADWD and easily been condensed into one book.

There's actually a BUSINESS reason why this occurs.

Imagine, that the author had a story they wanted to tell, which ran roughly 230K words.

Now, consider that there's a 'sweet spot' of words to cost which makes the difference between a HC version of the book being profitable and being super-profitable for both the author and the publishers.

And for simplicities sake, let's say that that sweet spot is somewhere between 150K and 180K words.

Now, that 230K word story could be written as is, and the book would probably be profitable (especially for an established universe for an established author like ASoIaF). BUT, if the author takes that book, chops it in half, and throws in some 'fat' to generate two books that are in the sweet spot range, now at a minimum, the author gets twice the royalties (because there's two books), but what is more likely to happen, is that he will get more royalties on a PER BOOK basis due to the cost structures associated with a book that runs in the sweet spot.
 
There's actually a BUSINESS reason why this occurs.
I posited the same theory about Wheel of Time (i.e. Jordan padded all books after the fourth to rake in the cash), but I didn't want to believe the same of another fantasy series again. Then I read A Feast for Crows and couldn't help but think the same of Martin.

The beautiful thing about Lord of the Rings is that not a single word is wasted. The story may start at a slower pace than most readers are accustomed to these days, but even the opening scenes are laying the groundwork for important events near the end of the story.

How many words should a story be? However many it takes to tell the story--no more, no less.

Perhaps that answer is overly simple and perhaps a bit naive, but there's a leanness to Tolkien's and Lewis' writing that simply is not present in any modern fantasy I've read.
 
The beautiful thing about Lord of the Rings is that not a single word is wasted. The story may start at a slower pace than most readers are accustomed to these days, but even the opening scenes are laying the groundwork for important events near the end of the story.

How many words should a story be? However many it takes to tell the story--no more, no less.

Perhaps that answer is overly simple and perhaps a bit naive, but there's a leanness to Tolkien's and Lewis' writing that simply is not present in any modern fantasy I've read.

I was always under the impression that Tolkien didn't actually have the storyline firmly in place when writing LOTR. Examples of potentially "wasted" areas are the forest with Tom Bombadil and the whole center of book two, leading to the battle of Gondor. Even with the amazing job that Peter Jackson and crew did bringing the story to the big screen, it felt like that section just dragged....on...and....on....and.....on.

and on.

ugh.
 
Well.. regarding Peter Jackson and RotK - that movie had like 3 endings before it finally ended. This also goes for Revenge of the Sith where the last 15 minutes should either have been put before Vader wakes up or cut entirely. That movie NEEDED to end with Vader taking his first breathe on the table through the mask. I was half way out of my seat when I first watched it in the theater thinking that was the ending. Nope..

/backontopicnow
 
Anything by David Drake, a solid look at war and the way to win it by not wasting lives.
 
If you like fantasy, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson is an excellent read as well.

Although his character's tend to be a little too introspective and he uses way too many "ten dollar words", the first and second trilogy are 2 of my favorite fantasy series of all time.

Donaldson created some really unique characters and a very rich world that has quite a few biblical undertones. Covenant is an anti-hero protagonist with leprosy from our world who is translated to "the Land" and can't believe it isn't more than a dream (hence the Unbeliever). The first series is all about him fighting internal demons and trying to reconcile that the Land is real in spite of his unbelief, and the struggle against the Land's enemy, Lord Foul the Despiser (sort of like Lucifer).

A lot of people say he borrows too much from Tolkien, and in the first chronicles, they are probably right - Covenant white gold wedding ring possesses wild magic for example. But it is still worth a read.
 
In case anyone's looking for sci-fi... William Gibson is one of the titans of hardcore high tech sci-fi. "Burning Chrome" is a great collection of his short stories. "Neuromancer" starts one of his really hard-core trilogies, and "Pattern Recognition" starts his newest (and lighter toned) series.

Also, "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell is a powerful sci-fi book about faith and loss and contacting aliens.

Not sci-fi but good literature, "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel is the story of a boy who survives a shipwreck only to be stuck in a life boat with a tiger. It's amazing. His next book "Beatrice and Virgil" is one of the most powerful books I've read in the last year.
 
Must agree "Neuromancer" is a good book, but if made into a movie it would be a hard "R". Just a little warning, and just double checked with my dead tree copy.
 
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