Books

[SOCL]

Tofu, funny, Droma was on my mind at the very instant, and you being the creepy younger version of me who used to frequent these forums nearly five years ago, I somehow knew you would come to point his sudden disappearance out. I hoped you wouldn't, but I was wrong. Still, I think it's gotten much better from the Bantam novels, Droma aside.

 

As for Corran Horn: there was some talk about having a comic series that follows the events of the Yuuzhan Vong War. In that case, they wanted to leave Corran a lot of breathing from to star in it. What has happened to that idea since, though, is unknown. The same goes for Kyle Katarn's absence, though his situation concerns games and not comic books.

[SOCL]

My review of Aaron Allston's Betrayal, which is the only novel, much less Star Wars novel, to creep me out. Minimal SPOILERS follow:

 

The genius of Allston's Betrayal is not so much its status as the start of a new series, but its conclusion of others. The New Jedi Order era of novels prior to this one proved that the authors of the Star Wars universe have grown increasingly adept and talented at manipulating a galaxy and all inherent matters of that galaxy far, far away which is not their own original creation. We glimpse here not only a new beginning, but the true conclusion of many things before in the character of Jacen Solo, son of famed Han and Leia Solo. His struggle at the start of the Yuuzhan Vong War of the New Jedi Order was that of an idealist unsure of the line between defense and attack, an idealist so concerned with doing the right thing he incapacitates himself from doing anything at all. The agony and pain of war, perfectly played out in the novel Traitor, make Jacen into the cynic war makes all idealists, one so pessimistic he struggles to hold on to the ideals once so valued, now somewhat quaint. That struggle breeds the arrogance of one who claims to have been from one side to the other and back, claims to have the all-knowing knowledge of good and evil, a trait which tainted the otherwise successful ending of the Swarm War detailed in Troy Denning's Dark Nest trilogy, the series immediately prior to this. Legacy of the Force is, in fact, the realization of that rooting established in the New Jedi Order and the manifestations of the apparent, though no blatant arrogance of understanding the true nature of right and wrong--where the line is to be drawn between the good of the individual against the common good of the whole. This novel pushes Jacen to make a final and definite decision of where he will judge that line to lie, a point which in many before has corrupted, and yet the corruption here is not the simple good-and-evil, black-and-white of previous stories; Betrayal brings into question everything that has been set down as the known truths.

[DarthTofu]

Double post, SOCL!

 

Only because you specifically asked me not to yell at you for it am I doing so.

 

I quite liked Betrayal, and you pretty much covered my reasons for it and for liking Del Ray; No longer is it so simple to distinguish good and evil. It's very much like the scene in Traitor during which Jacen and Vergere witness a predator eating its prey and discuss whether this is of the dark side, what "Killing as much as he needs" is, etc. drawing us into moral dilemmas.

 

By and large this new series has managed to maintain some of that light heartedness from the original movies, yet still grip the reader into wondering whether some characters may yet die and where new ones will go. I especially like that it's Corellia which is rebelling, Han's home world, because that planet is one of the most-developed throughout the EU, home to a number of very well-endowed Corellians.

[DarthTofu]

Double post, oh no! Ironic, considering that I reprimanded SOCL for the same thing in my first post in this pair.

 

For an AP English class I had to read All Over but the Shoutin' and The Color of Water, both of which have their high and low points, both of which are biographies.

 

The Color of Water, the better of the two in my opinion, is a black man's tribute to his white mother; she never spoke of her past, never spoke of her side of the family, raised twelve amazing children, and didn't care at all about the color of any one's skin from when she was young on.

 

James McBride yanked the tale from his mother bit by bit, and wrote her exploit movingly, relying more on the quirks of life in his writing than any distinctive style.

 

All Over but the Shoutin', by Rick Bragg, is almost the polar opposite of the other book. The autobiography of Rick Bragg, it details his life in the South and his own mother's sacrifices for he and his two brothers.

 

It ranges from Alabama to Florida to New York to California, following Bragg's career as a newspaper reporter, and his ultimate return to his family. It is, without a doubt, the better written of the two, but the less compelling of the two stories; quite frankly life as a reporter, even a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who interviewed the dead and dying and living dead, is not all that interesting the majority of the time.

 

I recommend both books, though I would warn any potential reader that Bragg's All Over but the Shoutin' is what I'd call a "thick" read, where the reader knows that it is well-written and that they enjoy it to a certain extent, but finds themselves timing how long it take to read each page a despairing mildly at the two hundred and twelve pages left. (For the record, the length of a book rarely deters me; I was through with Deathly Hallows in two days, and it's twice as long as All Over but the Shoutin'.)

[Sinister]

I'm currently reading Star Wars: Dark Lord - The Rise of Darth Vader. I'm a little more than half-way through it and it is turning out to be a very good read.

[DarthTofu]

*Boot*

 

I just finished The Schwa was Here and Everlost, both by Neil Shustermen(sp?). Both are rather good, though both are rather a little bit adolescant in their writing styles.

 

For those of you who don't know who he is, Shustermen is the fellow Orson Scott Card originally wanted writing the book Ender's Shadow, which he took over himself instead.

 

The Schwa was Here, the more juvenile of the two, has won about twenty litterary awards and centers on a kid who just can't get noticed- The Schwa- and is almost totally invisible to most of the world, and how he has to come to terms with that.

 

Everlost is, as the author put it (I got to meet him at the Florida Council of Teachers of English awards ceremony where I got some stuff for writing a dramatic script they liked), the product of a strange mind and crappy documentaries. The whole book stemmed from him watching a clip of a large woman running down a tunnel toward the light at the end, and wondering "What would happen if she tripped on the way to the end of the tunnel?"

 

Thus Everlost was born, a realm occupied only by children up to age sixteen (No one quite knows the reason why no adults enter the realm, though some theories have been put forth) that exists both as a part of and not as a part of the living world. The living world is faded to those in Everlost, and they pass through those objects that are of the living world- including the ground (FINALLY!! A ghost story where gravity apparently applies to ghosts!) except in "dead places." A place is a dead place if A) A person died and became an Afterlight (Person in Everlost) on it, B) The place was of great significance to many and was lost to the living world, C) A random act causes an object or place to come over into Everlost.

 

Both books are well done and actually feature dynamic characters, something very few are willing to do nowdays. I'd reccomend both, and I'd also reccomend that you stear clear of the Disney Channel Original Movie that's being made out of The Schwa was Here, as Disney Channel always screws good books up.

[Defender_16]

Just about finished reading Storm of the Dead, part 2 of the Lady Penitent series.

http://www.o-love.net/realms/head_lad.html

 

And in the mail today, more than 2 weeks early I got my copy of "The Orc King."

http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/WOC/WOC9598672_500.jpeg

Even after $10 Dollars shipping & Handling it was still cheaper to buy it online from the US than buying it here in Canada.

[SOCL]

I just finished Exile (Aaron Allston), and I have to say, if the Legacy of the Force continues to be this good... Well, it's already shaping up to be one of my favorite, if not my number-one favorite Star Wars series!

[Sinister]

I finished reading Star Wars: Dark Lord - The Rise of Darth Vader. What can I say, it was a great read. It was rather interesting to see Vader adjust to not only his new life as a Sith, but also to being more of a cyborg. The ending was the icing on the cake.

 

Right now I'm reading a classic: Dracula.

[Darth_Rob]

My gf revealed that she bought me Stephen Colbert's book, but I can't get it until Christmas. Im sad.

[JediHunter]

I'm currently reading this:

http://images.bestwebbuys.com/muze/books/70/9781595230270.jpg

Its a really good book so far exposing the truth of Che and the western fools who idolize him. I'm hoping that it will gain some attention and maybe finally some of the people in this country will realize who he really was.

Anyway.. I'm also (still) reading this:

http://entropypump.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/cradle.jpg

About halfway through it.. its really good, just that i got distracted by the previous book i mentioned.. and this one:

http://www.gotterdammerung.org/books/robert-heinlein/starship-troopers.jpg

[Mad78]

That Che Guevara book looks cool. I have to try and get my hands on it.

[Eagle]

And I have to read Starship Troopers finally. But at first "Dune" will take some time again.

[SOCL]

Starship Troopers is likely one the finest pieces of both science and military fiction that exists. As a scifi novel, it is the origin of so many ideas that it would be impossible to count them all. All of the giant-robot genre stories stem from there, as do the Star Wars Republic Commando series of games and novels and (brace yourself!) the Halo series. If you liked Starship Troopers and are interested in a similar, though real story, I highly suggest Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green by Johnny Rico. Ironically, his name is the same name as the main character in Starship Troopers...

[DarthTofu]

I almost bought Colbert's book, but lately I've had too much homework for much pleasure reading. Those two I just blazed through were a bit of a mistake to start up with, since now I'm sort of behind on work.

[Mad78]

But at first "Dune" will take some time again.

I tred reading that once but never got into it. The style was just so biblical!

[Lord_La_forge]

Starship Troopers book

Dune is classic and has a lot of still very modern thoughts

[Mad78]

Dune is classic and has a lot of still very modern thoughts

I guess you could say its the scifi equivalent of LotR.

[Darth_Rob]

I went on a Dune spree in my High School days. I read the first one, loved it, and read the other ones the school library had. Unfortunatly, as is to be expected, the movie was horrible. I still remember chuckling profusely as the Harkonen (I think that was the house) Baron went floating around...

[Lord_La_forge]

I went on a Dune spree in my High School days. I read the first one, loved it, and read the other ones the school library had. Unfortunatly, as is to be expected, the movie was horrible. I still remember chuckling profusely as the Harkonen (I think that was the house) Baron went floating around...

 

Interesting, I do like that part in the movie.

[Defender_16]

While I must say that compared to most novels I read the writing in Starship Troopers felt a little dry. Other that that it was an excelent read. Other than a few minor things standing out I would have said right away that it could have been written anytime in the past 15 years.

 

Now all we need is a REAL movie or mini-series based off the novel.

 

EDIT: Wait, wait, wait. Havent we all gone over this before?

[Eagle]

Dune is classic and has a lot of still very modern thoughts

Indeed! I would say that it´s timeless. Starship Troopers was written in the 50s and Dune was written in the 60s btw.

[SOCL]

Now all we need is a REAL movie or mini-series based off the novel.

There was a cartoon/CGI television series called "Roughnecks" which was much better than the movie and touched on a lot of the themes from the novel.

 

I also remember that when Halo came out, I found it suspiciously similar to that particular TV series.........

Edited October 30, 2007 by SOCL

[Mad78]

Roughnecks was cool but the graphics weren't top notch. But the story was really cool.

[DarthTofu]

(Almost the) Greatest birthday present ever.

 

I'm aware that it isn't out at the time of posting. Check the date it's due for release: Feb. 26. My birthday, bitches! I get to pay for rated R movie tickets without having an adult of 21 years of age or older on hand, and I can go buy Revelation on the same day! Boo ya!

 

... I suppose now would be a good time to mention that I'm only about a quarter of the way through Sacrifice right now. (In my defense, it took a good five months before I could finally place a hold on it at the library)