Oh, I love Beowulf. There’s something about it I just really, really enjoy. Maybe because it was the first poem of any length I read? I’ve since read the Iliad and the Epic of Gilgamesh (the first on my own, the second for history class), but Beowulf still has a special place in my heart. And it was the Seamus Heaney version, too; I’ve never read any other version so I can’t really comment on the cough lyrical beauty or lack thereof in it.

If CP lives to be a hundred years old and writes a thousand other, better books, he’s still never going to live that one down.

Funny story about Ender’s Game…I recommended it for my younger brother to read (I haven’t read it myself, though it’s been on my list for a while). Anyway, he got it from the library, got half way, and then my dad stole the book and read it instead.

Now he’s doing the same thing for The Hunger Games and my brother’s getting rather annoyed with it.

Ender’s Game! :D

squee

Right now I’m reading A Man Without a Country, by Kurt Vonnegut.

I’ll admit, I still have no idea how to say his last name.

Not fictional material, but I'm reading Jay Bahadur's _The Pirates of Somalia_.

Absolutely fascinating read, thus far.

I did a fifteen page paper on Lolita, too!

Apparently Horowitz wrote Scorpia Rising in response to negative feedback from school children about the series finishing…

Phew, I’m glad I wasn’t more revealing. OK. NO MORE ALEX RIDER TALK UNTIL YOU’VE READ IT.

...please hurry up. D:

Yes, because I totally need somewhere to rant about it, and this is the only place I have.

Please hurry, Span.

bq. And then claims that there’s no damage to his internal organs.

I missed that one, but what really got me the most was the rifles, so they have rifles that can take a guy out at six miles without any trouble and they have hover-battleships but they're still using swords?

bq. Which makes even less sense when it’s explained that the martian ammo usually explodes on contact.

That would have been straight-up awesome in and of itself.

I can understand wanting swords in a sci-fi setting but if you're going to have then that usually means you need a good reason to not have guns in use, especially the man-portable artillery pieces they're hauling around in the setting.

bq. This was almost a perfect book. And it’s reignited my desire to read fantasy. It was just so good. SO GOOD.

Every time I decide to give it (the genre) up, I find a book that brightens my whole outlook on life.

bq. :) Tell me some. I need to know the good ones and the ones to stay away from.

Okay! Um, well there's . . . uh . . . hmmm . . . uhmm . . .

bq. Your faith in the genre is inspiring, dude.

Lately when I think of the fantasy genre I also think of youtube comments, this is not a coincidence.

STEPH! STEPH! STEPH!

Have you read the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce?

There’s five series, each with a separate (female) protagonist. In chronological order:

Song of the Lioness (4 books) : Alanna is ten. She doesn’t want to become a decent young lady. She swaps spots with her brother Thom and sneaks into the palace to start training as a page. Her goal? To be a lady knight. MUCH MUCH better than it sounds.

The Immortals (4 books): Daine is fourteen. She can talk to animals. Her mom is dead, and she’s homeless. A horse trader picks her up to help bring ponies to Tortall (the kingdom where all these books are set). Stuff happens. It is MUCH MUCH better than it sounds. Happens 5 or so years after Song of the Lioness, some characters from it pop up.

Protector of the Small (4 books): Probably the best written of the lot, objectively. It is now legal for girls to train to become knights (thanks to Alanna) but no one has tried yet. Kel, a fair-minded girl of ten, decides she’s going to pave the way. It is difficult, but she refuses to give up. Happens 2 or 3 years after The Immortals. MUCH BETTER THAN IT SOUNDS.

Trickster’s Choice (2 books): Alanna’s daughter is 16. She is very sneaky and likes lying. She gets kidnapped and ends up becoming a spy for the Copper Islands. Uh, my summary was terrible. Much better than it sounds. Set some time after Protecor of the Small , maybe ten years?

Terrier (4 books?): Set hundreds of years before all the other’s, it’s about a female cop named Beka. SORRY FOR MY TERRIBLE SUMMARY. Better than it sounds, not as good as the others.

You guys talking about why you can use swords in a scifi setting? That’s done pretty well in Frank Herbert’s Dune books. It’s pretty obvious he has hand-to-hand combat simply because he thought it was cool, but he at least made up an excellent justification—personal shields make guns useless against most people, because they stop anything going too fast. In fact, even a blade can go too fast, which is why in sword fighting you have to deliberately slow your strikes at the right moment so you can actually get through a shield. This creates a problem when Paul fights without shields and has to figure out how to speed up his strikes, against all of his training.

tl;dr: swords are cool, everyone agrees on that. But come up with a justification for them. And don’t say there is no such justification, because with sufficient cleverness, there most certainly is.

It’s pretty obvious he has hand-to-hand combat simply because he thought it was cool,

I had no idea. I just thought it was an interesting well-thought out feature of the world. Yeah, and cool.

I think this is partly because of everyone who’s told me OMG THAT BOOK IS SO GOOD.

That keeps happening to me. Isn’t it disappointing?

@Spanman

Why does this depress me so much?!

Because of Alex’s reaction. ;_;

AND HOW COULD YOU NOT FINISH THE BOOK AT THAT POINT?!

I stayed up until 3am…

BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO FLAWS WHATSOEVER.

Why do people DO that? It’s like they think if you’re writing about a female character with flaws, you’re sexist. Which is stupid. Honestly though, I think that’s maybe why I never got into Nancy Drew. When I was reading Girl Sleuth, Rehak claimed little girls liked Nancy because she could do anything and look pretty at the same time. I just never really wanted to compare myself to a fictional character and be found wanting, I suppose. (Nothing against the Nancy Drew series though. Like I said, I never picked them up. The only reason I started reading the Hardy Boys is because we bought the first few as a gift for some other kid, and I read them before they were sent. I was a terrible kid, wasn’t I?)

Also, in the originals (that is, before the blue-book editions) they once got locked in a cellar by the bad guy and Aunt Gertrude had to let them out. And had to hitchhike home from New York City AND pay for their dinner by washing dishes.

But yes to world travel and exploring and getting dirty to find the truth!

I hope that if AH ever tries to lamely resurrect Alex Rider stories again

He better not do. He only wrote this one because fans pestered him. YES, I AM RESENTFUL.

Me too. D:

I’ve kind of kicked my teenage spy kick for the moment, reading some comforting fantasy in the form of High King’s Tomb by Kirsten Britain.

@Curly

^A lot of people agree that Galahad is an early example of Purity Stu.
Invinceble in battle? Check.
Pure and without sin? Check.
Literally described as “perfect”? Check.
Too Good For This Sinful Earth? Check.

Alright, the seat is the Siege Perilous, which has killed pretty much everyone else who’s sat in it

Yeah, that’s always bothered me. Sure, it looks cool – we’ve got the king (and presumably his queen sitting next to him, depending on the adaptation), we’ve got Merlin and we’ve got like 148 knights. Then there’s this enchanted chair that’s marked with a name that screams Abandon All Hope Ye Who Hath Unscorched Asses. Every once in a while, some new knight tries his luck, but the moment he touches it, the armrest burns the shit out of his hand and he realises that he’s Not Worthy. But like you said:

He should at least have to actually do something to get a reputation

And he doesn’t. It would’ve been better – but still Stu-ish – if he succeeded in some adventure where everyone else failed.
Haha, I remember an illustrated adaptation where he was this blond prettyboy wearing sparkly extra shiny ruby-red armor. Granted, everyone wore unique armor (Sir Pellinore looked very badass and Obviously Evil), but even as a kid I thought Galahad’s look was a bit too much.

Vaguely related, but has anyone read A Squire’s Tale or sequels? It’s a young adult serious based on the knights, especially as told by Gawain’s squire (no, really?) Anyway, it’s actually pretty well done, and as far as I recall, fairly well researched. And funny too, which is always a nice benefit.

^^I’m gonna have to go through that whole thing tomorrow… and I have plenty read already. :P

I read a sentence of that book and thought, ‘yuk’.

Arthur is more of an actual hero than Galahad. Same thing for Gawain, Lancelot (adulterer or not), Merlin and a bunch of others.

So true. And, while I despise Lancelot with the fiery intensity of a thousand suns, at least he actually does heroic stuff.

He wasn’t really evil, but he started out as a bit of a troll-under-bridge type bully. Then Arthur challenged him, fought him, almost died, beat him… and then he recruited him (in other words, he was a bit like Jayne ;-)). He was the first knight on Arthur’s team, and Arthur was still pretty young and inexperienced back then.

Oh yeah. Sorry, that was way back at the beginning, and it’s been a while since I read that bit. Plus, their fight lasted maybe a page. Upon re-reading it, Pellinore eventually got the upper hand, then Merlin showed up and told him he was fighting King Arthur.

he was pretty damn brave when he saved her from being burned at the stake.

I haven’t gotten to that bit yet. I’m just getting into the grail quest. I think that comes later.

Also, Percival. He was always one of my favorites – a bit Stu-y, too, but he was both a decent guy and a badass fighter IIRC.

I have read a grand total of one story focusing on Percival thus far, and I already like him more than Galahad. And it’s all for one reason – he get’s tempted. When the forces of darkness try to fool him into serving them, he’s actually fooled. Probably because the tempter happens to look like a woman, and Evil is Sexy, but still – he’s heroic, but not perfect. Heck, he’s mostly been saved by luck.

Didn’t Merlin drug him with roofies something that made him fall asleep, so he wouldn’t kill the young king?

Yeah, Merlin put the magical whammy on Pellinore. Hey, sometimes subtlety is over rated.

Re-reading The Normal Heart, and then I’m going to start on the sequel.
sob

Started ‘The Origins of Political Order’, which I’ve wanted to read for a long time. I’m about 20 pages in and it’s already very interesting, so I’m excited.

It’s extra great because my Civics teacher is letting me read it in place of a lot of the class activities. :D

putting down Gawain

What?
Leave Gawain alone!
Leave him alone!
I’m serious!
He’s a decent yet realistically imperfect human being, for Loki’s sake!

I really wish I could go back in time and slap Malory upside the head.

Can I stow away on your Delorean so I can do the same?

Or, put simply, Gawain is being practical

Exactly.

I was thinking more along the lines of a phone booth, myself

I’ll admit – phone booths are cool. too. XD

Finished the grail quest, and, good grief, did Galahad get stued up by the end. He didn’t have to struggle for anything, at all. He even got to be a king for a little while. The real kicker about that, though? The king had locked Galahad up when he first came to his kingdom. WTF? And then, when he dies, he literally Ascends to Heaven.

Now I’m going to take a break. Here’s hoping The Stolen Throne will clense my palate.

I keep hearing that too, and it disturbs me. Twilight has made me instantly suspect of anything even remotely approaching paranormal romance. But I haven’t tried them myself.

^ Yes, yes it is.

Although, I have to wonder how much of the horribleness comes from said established author co-writing the books with her teenage daughter.

Any Tamora Pierce fans here to share my horror?

For non-fans, this book is about a medieval lady knight. So their clothing is an atrocity, not to mention the weird punk look Alanna (the girl) has going on. And the book is not about her being torn between two men ! Yes, technically she is with two different guys at different points in this book, but it is a minor subplot! Barely! WHY ARE WE IGNORING THE MAGIC AND THE FIGHTING?

Childhood=ruined :(

EDIT: Also, is it just me, or do the guys look like Edward/Jacob knockoffs? NERD RAGE.

Also, is it just me, or do the guys look like Edward/Jacob knockoffs? NERD RAGE.

It’s not just you.
The punk chick is cute, though.

@Apep – I’d also like to believe that. I’d also like to believe that the Clash of the Titans remake never happened. ;-)

And only two Terminator movies, and only one Mulan, and no live action Dragonball movie adaptation ever….

Oh, I’m tempted. The problem is my ‘to read’ pile is big enough as it is.

@ Klutor: And only two Spiderman movies, and only three Pirates of the Carribean movies, and only two Shrek movies…

^^Yes, they’re extremely quick reads. You could read the whole Song of the Lioness series in a single day.

@ WW & No One:

Okay, looking at Amazon, I can get the entire Song of the Lioness series in mass market paperback (the non-crap covers) for about $27, or for my kindle for about $26. I’ll try to remember to get those once I’ve made a dent in the ‘to read’ pile.

In other news, I hear the Vampire Academy series is apparently not just Better Than It Sounds, but also worth reading.
Has anyone here tried it?

FRICKING AMAZING. Stupid name, stupid covers, stupid character names, but it is AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING.
Rose Hathaway kicks SERIOUS butt, and when she’s an idiot, people call her out on it. Also the forbidden romance is actually forbidden. The worldbuilding is epic, and the plot is good and well-foreshadowed and things are thought through. Another thing is, her friend is sort of like the Sue of the story, and she isn’t. So that’s interesting.

The fourth book, which is all I’ve read up to so far, is a bit too plot-convenient-y for my tastes, but still well worth reading.

And things that aren’t what draw me to it, but are the opposite of Twilight in every way are: chasteness, pretty much no angst, awesome magical powers (if a bit cliche) and actual vampiring..

Also, that cover is ALL WRONG. Why isn’t Alanna’s hair naturally red? Why does she look so vulnerable? Why isn’t Jonothan-type hotter? Isn’t he meant to annoyingly bedazzle every girl who looks at him? Why is George-type glaring at Jonothan when he was pretty much the one who initiated him into manhood? (And come to think of it, why does George look like a teenage boy instead of, I don’t know, a twenty-five year old man? Not to mention Jonothan’s meant to look a bit older, too.) And what the hell are those clothes? THEY DID NOT HAVE EYELINER BACK THEN. AND ALANNA WOULD NOT BE CAUGHT DEAD IN SOMETHING SO CLINGY.

Ahem.

Ahahahaha, Klutor. In the books it’s sort of an older buddy thing- come on, dude, have a beer! Meet my awesome friends! Wooooooo!

Etc. And Alanna does not wear emo-kohl/eyeliner! She does occasionally wear period-style makeup, but it’s rare.

:-O
I’m sorry, what?
That sounded awfully… Rescudon-esque.

facepalm couldn’t think of the right expression. That was definitely the wrong one.

Anyway, the funniest thing is, in a Tamora Pierce book, it could happen….

Also, Alanna’s not Egyptian.

Captain Jack isn’t Egyptian, either.
Then again, no one’s really sure what he is, anyway.

Sexy.

Ba-dum-TISH.