The Goblins Fan Forum

Oh yeah

Professor Corey Olsen, an English Professor at Washington College, has done heaps of it. He has recorded many of his classes and a lot of it is available for free download. Additionally he has started an online university dedicated to the idea of studying online (to reduce costs) and providing courses on things that you might not be able to get at a more traditional college.

Take a look here for the joy of it all

"Tale of Two Cities" By Charles Dickinson
Great book, pretty hard to get past the Victorian era writing style.
One of the coolest little things I find about the book is, that when it was originally written it was written for a news paper every Sunday. So only one chapter would be made a week and you cab see that in the writing, because every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, almost like if you where watching a Tv show.

Reading "World War Z" again. I put it on hold at the local library a month or so before the movie came out, and I just got it. Never saw the movie, but the book is good/depressing.

Hmm ok - I just looked at that in my local bookshop the other day - opted to buy Joe Hill's NOS4R2 instead. But maybe I will have to put that on the list for my next visit

"Lord of the Flies". The most disturbing and unpleasant, yet in-depth and convincing study of human nature's "dark side" that I've ever read. It really gets to you, even more so after you realize that the heroes' homeland is most probably non-existent, as is the rest of the world (it could as well be set during the Great War of Fallout franchise). That book is pretty darn good!

Working on Brave New World; it has definitely turned out to be more horrible than I remembered, at least in the first couple chapters. Once you're all grown up and properly indoctrinated, the worst you probably have to put up with is ennui if you're a high-caste or mindless drudgery (which you are yourself too mindless to really object to) otherwise. But the whole "electrocuting babies" part of the indoctrination is quite adequate in its awfulness. Still doesn't compare to 1984, but then not much does.

I actually enjoyed Brave New World, it definitely was interesting. I located an old series by Marget Weis recently and I am currently trying to find the third book. The series in question is her Star of the Guardians series, which is in my opinion better than Dragonlance.

I'm reading "Fool" by Chrisopher Moore. I'm finding it pretty funny and a nice, light read.

Arydra wrote:I located an old series by Marget Weis recently and I am currently trying to find the third book. The series in question is her Star of the Guardians series, which is in my opinion better than Dragonlance.

A quick search turns up the 3rd book:


and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_the_Guardians
indicating 4 books in the series.

Just finished the third book in the "Flavia de Luce" series by Alan Bradley. Good time killer, but not as good as the first two in the series.

Just started "On the Steel Breeze" this morning, the 2nd book in the Poseidon's Children (Akinya Space series) trilogy of Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space).
If it's half as good as "Blue remembered Earth" it'll be great. But the series is hard SF, so not everyone's fun. (No faster than light travel, as always with Mr. Reynolds. And humanity will now start a massive colonisation effort.)

Just finished a book called "Life as We Knew It". It's kind of a disaster type book. It gets really sad at some points, but its a good book.

Done with the first installment of the Mistborn Trilogy by Sanderson. Astonishingly innovative system of magic, fantastic personae and a believable if somewhat apocalyptic world. Great read!

Just started a rather well-known Trilogy in Four Parts.
Don't panic!
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

After having heard the radio show, having seen the BBC series, having seen the movie, now I want to read the book(s).

Having been distracted by The Return of the King and A Feast of Crows, I am finally reading NOS4R2, which I'm rather enjoying. I can see the influences of Joe Hill's father in parts of the book

Unlucky-for-Some wrote:NOS4R2

I have no idea what this means.

Google is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOS4A2 (northern American title) tells us, that the same book is called NOS4R2 in the UK.

It's just a book title, as was to be expected.
Weirdly, it does not seem to be an abbreviation, but the title seems to be a 1337-way to pronounce "Nosferatu".

Ah, I assumed that it was something along the lines of ASOI&F or THG:CF (names that require abbreviating seem to be trendy these days). I wonder how exactly the UK publishers came up with "nosferartu" (-deetu?). Is it actually pronounced like that over there? I can maybe see that for certain accents, but I wouldn't have thought they would qualify as the mainstream (my knowledge of the particulars is vague so I won't try to figure it out beyond that).

NOS4R2 (or possibly NOS4A2 - although I must say this doesn't sound right to my ear) is a vanity plate on the car belonging to the antagonist in the book. As you can probably guess from the Nosferatu reference he thinks of himself somewhat as a vampire - not literally though, I am about half way through the book and have as yet seen any blood drinking at all. He is a supernatural monster of sorts that preys on children in some way, but so far that doesn't seem to involve biting them

Done with the Mistborn trilogy - can someone, please, either give me a reason to live or just shoot me in the face with a handful of coins from an Allomantic Push? Seriously, I hate finishing books, they just leave me so... empty. Got to get the Alloy of Law! NOW!

Recent books? I read waaaay too fast. Books I love are over too quickly, even series, because I can't make myself put them down to take a break for the day. I could go on for a while about any of them, good points and bad, but will confine it to PMs if anyone is curious. In no particular order over the past two weeks:

- Without Remorse by Tom Clancy. For some reason I like the first two, this one followed by Patriot Games, much more than the others.
- Various books in the Nightside novels by Simon R. Green. To whomever wasn't sure how they felt about the Secret Histories a few months ago, this is the setting and series his writing style really belonged to; wierd and dark and hilarious.
- All of C.J. Cherryh's Fortress series. Sword-and-horses fantasy, very light on the magic, which is a subtle and abstract thing. Readers tend to either love or hate her writing, especially this series, and none more so than the first Fortress in the Eye of Time. If slow pacing and ornate language drive you nuts, definitely avoid these. If you like reading for vivid settings, details significant after later revelations, and dry, sharp humor in dialogues, they're great. My favorite is the second book, which moves faster and sees more of the world.
- Cold Days and parts of Changes by Jim Butcher. I hope we see Tilly again.
- Sojourn by R.A. Salvatore, the third of the Drizzt prequel trilogy and his first arrival on the surface world.

Next week may be for scifi or espionage novels. Life? What life?

I just got through Divergent by Veronica Roth. It was... alright.

as for Salvatore, I refuse to read any of his new work. He pissed me off with one particular book and now I won't read his stuff. Even his old books that I already own I am loathe to read, despite my love of the characters.

I don't understand. Wanting to avoid his new stuff I can see, but why refuse to reread things you already know you like? If I'm having fun I don't care who wrote it any more than I pay attention to who the artist is when I hear a song I like for itself.
(What book was it you hated, by the way? I haven't looked at anything after the orc war; I was losing interest by the later books.)

Through 2/3 of The Golden Compass.

Gryphonic wrote:I don't understand. Wanting to avoid his new stuff I can see, but why refuse to reread things you already know you like? If I'm having fun I don't care who wrote it any more than I pay attention to who the artist is when I hear a song I like for itself.
(What book was it you hated, by the way? I haven't looked at anything after the orc war; I was losing interest by the later books.)

I avoid them because I am such an avid reader. If I read a book that is in a series, I have to read the series from beginning to end, even if it encompasses more than one series, like the Drizzt books do. Knowing how it ends in "Ghost King" makes me want to throw my collection through a window and then burn it.

A writer has the ability and right to do with their characters what they will, but what Salvatore did to the characters by the end of Ghost King, just to get rid of them, was offensive and needless to me. I hated it and so I won't read his stuff anymore. Childish? Maybe. But I got emotionally invested in those characters throughout their "lives" and how he destroyed them pissed me off.

I'm reading 'Legend' by David Gemmell at the moment because a mate told me she'd never speak to me again if I didn't It's pretty standard swords & sorcery stuff, but it's enjoyable and easy to read. Reminds me a bit of the Magician Saga by Raymond Feist in that regard, but I'm not complaining. It's a nice easy read.

I read 1984 recently and I was a little underwhelmed. Room 101 is a terrifying concept, but it was a lot less frightening to read than I'd been led to believe by others who'd read the book. Don't get me wrong, I understand why it's a classic and I understand the cold war feel behind it all, I guess I just expected worse after hearing what everyone else thinks about it. Maybe I just need to be less cynical and stop reading Game of Thrones... I also started Farenheit 451 and Brave New World but got distracted with work before I could really get into them so they're back on the shelf for now.