"What are you reading?" thread.

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Chew Volume 6: Space Cakes

No other comic makes me laugh heartier than this one. This volume, though, I think wins top prize. The best, most popular, and most badass character of Chew gets their own special one-shot issue collected in this volume. And it. IS. MAGNIFICENT. But on top of that, the final issue for this volume has probably the biggest, most surprising, and most heart-breaking moment thus far in this comic. I literally sat there with my jaw wide open for several minutes.

You know how I've recommended comics to people on here before? Listen to me, now: everyone should be reading Chew. It really is one of the best comics on the market right now.
 
Shannow

Shannow

Staff member
Chew is alright, but it hasn't quite gripped me like it has others. Dunno what it is about it, but I get more of a meh from it. Been a while since I read it though. That was from the fist two volumes. Ill download a torrent of a bunch em tonight and go through it on the tablet.
 
Kovac

Kovac

Book 12 of the wheel of time finally unlocked in my region so I purchased it for kindle from amazon...

And then a few pages in i'm struck by the fact that it has been so long since book 11 that i'm completely lost. I have now backtracked to book one.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Kovac said:
Book 12 of the wheel of time finally unlocked in my region so I purchased it for kindle from amazon...

And then a few pages in i'm struck by the fact that it has been so long since book 11 that i'm completely lost. I have now backtracked to book one.
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Can't wait to hear what you think of Book 12 in two years time! :p
 
Shannow

Shannow

Staff member
Kovac said:
Book 12 of the wheel of time finally unlocked in my region so I purchased it for kindle from amazon...

And then a few pages in i'm struck by the fact that it has been so long since book 11 that i'm completely lost. I have now backtracked to book one.
Click to expand...
7 days, man, 7 days.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Took so long, and the middle books were so bad, I ceased giving a shit and am going to be damned if I suffer through the previous books again. Pity... the last book before Jordan died actually was getting good again.
 
Shannow

Shannow

Staff member
GasBandit said:
Took so long, and the middle books were so bad, I ceased giving a shit and am going to be damned if I suffer through the previous books again. Pity... the last book before Jordan died actually was getting good again.
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We know, you point that out every time a new book drops.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Just finished Dead Man's Land, a murder mystery set during World War I starring John Hamish Watson. Nice, quick little murder mystery and the use of the Holmes-verse is well-done without being overrun with references.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

I'm taking my school break to get caught up on some Warcraft reading. I'm currently working on Stormrage, then I'll be reading The Shattering, then Tides of War.
 
dill616

dill616

I'm listening to two audiobooks while I embroider pillowcases; Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice and A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin. When it comes to ebooks, I'm re-reading the Percy Jackson series (currently at the Battle of the Labyrinth) while also going through Bared to You by Sylvia Day. I legit read books like some people watch tv shows.

I just finished Insurgent by Veronica Roth and am thinking of reading Incarceron by Catherine Fisher next. I'm researching YA lit and dystopian lit by the way. Any suggestions for some good series?
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Jam, by Yahtzee Croshaw

I really dug Mogworld, so I was excited to read this. The set up is pretty similar to your average post-apocalypse survival stuff. Though instead of zombies, it's waist-high strawberry jam that consumes people. Yahtzee has a lot of really clever moments, but mostly forgettable characters (save for a few, like the two government people). The pacing, though, was quite good and I found a hard time putting it down. It's a light read, but a fun one.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Let's Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson.


To borrow a phrase from Dean Venture, "This is the diary of a crazy person."

It starts out a little wierd, then a little disturbing, and halfway through the book I'm wondering how someone hasn't beaten her to death with a shoe and called it an act of mercy.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Batman: Knightfall Vol. 2: Knightquest

DC has been re-releasing the famous 90's story where Bane breaks Batman back. For the first time, though, they also collecting the stuff with "Az-Bats," Bruce's replacement who slowly goes crazy.

Now, I'm likely biased in liking this because I was reading this when I first got back into comics. The Death of Superman drew me back in and this was one of the first Bat-stories I read at the same time. I have a similar bias for Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage.

That said, a lot of this surprisingly holds up. It helps that it's got some of the best and most well known Bat-creative teams, including Chuck Dixon & Graham Nolen, as well as art from Tom Grummet, Jim Balent, and Barry Kitson.

Is it dated? Oh, lord yes. Az-Bat's design (and later re-designs) are ridiculously steeped in 90's. Yet, the artists manage to still make it work. And seeing Jean-Paul's slow descent into madness is actually rather interesting.

That said, I'm disappointed this collection didn't have the issues with Bruce Wayne's own quest and revival. Though I think a lot of people prefer not to remember how his back was magically healed: by his psychic physical therapist that he fell in love with, but regressed into the mind state of a child the morning after she had magic back-healing sex with Bruce. No, I'm not kidding.
 
dill616

dill616

GasBandit said:
Let's Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson.


To borrow a phrase from Dean Venture, "This is the diary of a crazy person."

It starts out a little wierd, then a little disturbing, and halfway through the book I'm wondering how someone hasn't beaten her to death with a shoe and called it an act of mercy.
Click to expand...

Is it like Lena Dunham's character (or any character) from the show Girls?
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
dill616 said:
Is it like Lena Dunham's character (or any character) from the show Girls?
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I don't know, I haven't seen Girls. But so far it is about a lady with crippling social anxiety disorders that make her say outrageous things to strangers of varying levels of veracity. And she can't just shut up... she always is compelled to double down on every wierd and inappropriate (and usually false) utterance all in the name of "salvaging this" so she doesn't look like the psychotic she-beast from hell she really is. And every other paragraph seems to end with a humorous, but increasingly desperate sounding "Stop judging me!"

It's not really her fault though, if the book is to be believed (and with her track record of what she tells strangers, maybe that is an issue). How she describes her childhood is more than enough to create a complete monster dressed in the meat of a human being. If the stories are true, it was a nightmare of poverty and insanity... for example, her father routinely waking her up in the middle of the night to introduce her to the blood-encrusted carcasses of dead animals he'd pulled over his hands to use as puppets, and throwing live bobcats on visitors. Just to name a couple things off the top of my head.
 
Sparhawk

Sparhawk

Currently reading Terry Pratchett's Snuff after waiting for 16 freaking months for it to be out in paperback. Enjoying it so far, it's another adventure of Sam Vines, but not in the city...

Just finished reading all the Ender series by Orson Scott Card. I think he did a good job with the series so far (there are still a couple of books in the pipeline) and created some decent characters. Weakest part of the whole thing to me was the character of Achilles, he started as just a kid, but somehow became the most dangerous human to ever exist, but really didn't flesh out the reasoning behind his success.

After Snuff I'll be reading the Tales of Alvin Maker series from OSC.
 
Sparhawk

Sparhawk

On the other side of my reading, I just finished the Iron Man TPB Armor Wars Prologue (collecting issues #215-224). I had kinda forgotten how much fun Iron Man used to be, but found this trade and the Armor Wars trade on a good sale on Amazon, so I got them. Some of the fashions of the late 80s can be funny to see today, but the art was strong, conveyed the story without having to have it explained (like some modern comics seem to need to do) and the story itself had a destination in mind. I enjoyed reading these for the first time in years, and I'm looking forward to reading Armor Wars again.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Finally got Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw's Mogworld in ebook format at a reasonable price ($6). Incidentally I've noticed a lot of ebook prices have come down to about 6 bucks lately.. hopefully that means some kind of deal has finally been struck so that e-books can now cost non-stupid prices.

Anyway, about halfway through it, and it's worth reading. Starts off kind of slow but a couple chapters in he starts to get into the swing of things and the iconic yahtzee similes and metaphors start being bandied about, and things start happening. It's not gripping, per se, but it's enjoyable light reading. Also? It's pretty long. Not a doorstopper, but longer than many of the later Feist novels.
 
Wahad

Wahad

Picked up the Greywalker series' first book by Kat Richardson on recommendation from a friend. Loved it! The magic is innovative, the characters are great (especially Carlos, hell yeah), and it's (urban) fantasy with a female protagonist that doesn't sleep her way through her problems and can actually kick some ass! Gonna be looking for the others as soon as I can.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

I almost posted in the Dresden Files thread, but chose not to because I wanted to avoid spoilers. With that said...

Holy crap, am I ever digging this book. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get into the series, honestly. Not for a lack of interest, believe me, as people have told me if I loved Simon R Green's Nightside series, then I would love this. Damn, they were right.

Also, anyone who enjoys them are going to love the hell out of my novel when it comes out. :)
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Just got done reading Divergent by Veronica Roth. Ok, this book was clearly, clearly meant for preteen girls. I was led to believe it was attempting to emulate the hunger games, but the only thing it has in common with it is a dystopian future in which humanity has segregated itself. After that, it's 90% about a 16 year old not able to figure out why she feels funny "down there" whenever this boy is around, and being absolutely dense about anything that doesn't involve heights.

All that I could forgive. But it spent a long time building up slowly and then suddenlytheclimaxofthebookandWTFit'soverintwochapters followed by "to be continued..." with NOTHING resolved and only more questions raised. A story should stand on its own, in my opinion, even if the book is obviously meant to be one in a series. It doesn't.

That said, it's not SO bad I stopped reading it, and I've started the next one just because I want to find out the Answers to the Big Questions. But there'll only be so much "he touched my face and the emptiness inside me suddenly wasn't so profound, but I was scared of what could come next" repeated ad nauseum I can put up with.
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

ThatNickGuy said:
Storm Front by Jim Butcher

I almost posted in the Dresden Files thread, but chose not to because I wanted to avoid spoilers. With that said...

Holy crap, am I ever digging this book. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get into the series, honestly. Not for a lack of interest, believe me, as people have told me if I loved Simon R Green's Nightside series, then I would love this. Damn, they were right.

Also, anyone who enjoys them are going to love the hell out of my novel when it comes out. :)
Click to expand...
I read up to book 6. I liked the first couple of books. As with most series, though, the story seemed to lose a lot of the punch it had in the beginning. After reading the sixth one I didn't think it was worth reading any more.
 
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