i read a book
Sep. 9th, 2008 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
memelainaokay, i've read several books this month since coming home from denvention. but this weekend i just sat down and read one practically straight through with only brief breaks for food, shopping, and church. i read S. M. Stirling's The Scourge of God. at least when i started this one (unlike the last one) i KNEW that it was not going to finish the story. i feel a little silly admitting it (after all, stirling alwasy writes trilogies) but i was three quarters of the way through The Sunset Lands before the realization struck that i was not going to get to "finish" the story.
i bought Scourge of God in hardcover (which has to please the author) and read it eagerly, almost greedily. i'll do the same for the next one next year. but did i really like it? i'm not sure. i want to see how the story ends. i want to have more to do with the characters. but i feel kind of like i did after watching the Jackson Lord of the Rings films - like they wasted a lot of time on sword thrusts, beheadings, and spilling blood when there was so much more really important stuff they could have focused on. there are Steven King elements in this book which, although they were foreshadowed a bit in the last, still make it different from Stirling's other work. gods and demons are walking along with the Hero (note capitalization) and his chosen companions.
i'm also reading Elizabeth Peter's Laughter of Dead Kings. perhaps enjoying it more, but not reading it with the engrossed directedness that i lavished on the Stirling. this is the first non-Amelia book that has come out in a decade. which is nice, because i just can't focus on anymore Amelia stories, much as i liked the first ones. i did get an older, older Barbara Michaels (Sons of the Wolf) out of the library and listen to it in the car.
and when returning it i picked up anne mccaffrey's Cities in Space - which i had never read. and (you guys know i am slow, right?) i figured out about midway through that she is setting up to join these "Talents" books as pre-cursors to the "Rowan" books - which I've also never read, although I did read the original short story. so now i guess i have more mccaffrey in front of me.
does anyone else listen to books in the car? i do it almost exclusively these days. i used to listen to NPR but then even that got to be too much for me, and i always have an audio book (and a spare) for any bit of driving i need to do. sometimes, i even have a fast food lunch and sit and listen for half an hour. but i try really hard NOT to take the audio book out of the car.
in some ways this month feels like the first month after i got out of college (and out of grad school) - reveling in the freedom to read WHATEVER I WANT without sixteen other thing pushing at my time. did i mention that i'm never running another worldcon again?
i bought Scourge of God in hardcover (which has to please the author) and read it eagerly, almost greedily. i'll do the same for the next one next year. but did i really like it? i'm not sure. i want to see how the story ends. i want to have more to do with the characters. but i feel kind of like i did after watching the Jackson Lord of the Rings films - like they wasted a lot of time on sword thrusts, beheadings, and spilling blood when there was so much more really important stuff they could have focused on. there are Steven King elements in this book which, although they were foreshadowed a bit in the last, still make it different from Stirling's other work. gods and demons are walking along with the Hero (note capitalization) and his chosen companions.
i'm also reading Elizabeth Peter's Laughter of Dead Kings. perhaps enjoying it more, but not reading it with the engrossed directedness that i lavished on the Stirling. this is the first non-Amelia book that has come out in a decade. which is nice, because i just can't focus on anymore Amelia stories, much as i liked the first ones. i did get an older, older Barbara Michaels (Sons of the Wolf) out of the library and listen to it in the car.
and when returning it i picked up anne mccaffrey's Cities in Space - which i had never read. and (you guys know i am slow, right?) i figured out about midway through that she is setting up to join these "Talents" books as pre-cursors to the "Rowan" books - which I've also never read, although I did read the original short story. so now i guess i have more mccaffrey in front of me.
does anyone else listen to books in the car? i do it almost exclusively these days. i used to listen to NPR but then even that got to be too much for me, and i always have an audio book (and a spare) for any bit of driving i need to do. sometimes, i even have a fast food lunch and sit and listen for half an hour. but i try really hard NOT to take the audio book out of the car.
in some ways this month feels like the first month after i got out of college (and out of grad school) - reveling in the freedom to read WHATEVER I WANT without sixteen other thing pushing at my time. did i mention that i'm never running another worldcon again?
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 04:15 pm (UTC)I don't blame you. NPR in an election year = all election news, all the time. Oh, once in a while they spend 10-15 seconds on a major news story, like the Olympics or a hurricane (but only if it's going to make landfall somewhere in the US), but otherwise, they spend their time analysing the details of absolutely everything to do with the upcoming election to death. You wouldn't mind so much if they actually had something new and newsworthy to report, but most of the time, they don't.
It was the worst when there was a three week gap between primaries -- there was nothing to report, and yet they spent half of each and every newscast reporting it anyway. Gahhh!
Audiobooks may indeed be the solution -- either that, or I need to burn some new music CDs. Something nice, peaceful, tranquil, soothing... just not so soothing as to put us to sleep!
Congrats on the reading. Think I need to hit up a library or something. There's nothing in my house to read at the moment. It's very frustrating to have to read the same dozen books over and over again...
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 12:14 pm (UTC)I only use audio books on long trips in the car. For short drives around town, I find it too frustrating to stop and start listening to the story.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-26 05:09 am (UTC)I am almost never alone in the car, and trying to hear what's being said on a book-on-CD with my wife and/or kids making noise sounds fruitless and frustrating.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 05:14 pm (UTC)Like you, I find it difficult to read the Emerson series.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 09:57 pm (UTC)