Jim's comments (member since Oct 18, 2009)

Jim's comments from the Fantasy Book Club group.

That's what GoodReads is for, Gróin. My best friend (AKA, The Boss, my wife, Marg) & I both read a lot & often the same books. My son & daughter also do, but outside of that tight little circle, not many others do. I found that growing up too. We're a minority, be proud of it! We can take cheap trips to far away places for just a few dollars any time we want. They spend thousands each year for a few, quickly forgotten days.

;-)

If you haven't read the Empire Trilogy that Feist & Janny wrote together, you really should. Start with his 2 books; Magician Apprentice & Master, though. They set the stage.

blackrose, I used to feel the same way you did about add-ons to trilogies & still do on occasion. L.E. Modesitt Jr. keeps adding on to some of his that way. I hated the additions to his Soprano Sorceress, but I'm really happy with those to the Corean Chronicles. He's on his third trilogy, but they're separate enough in time that they can stand alone.

I've asked for the Sony 505 for Xmas from the family. I figure between the 3 kids, my mother & wife, they can afford it. My son is buying it & I inadvertently found out that they're still running $300! I thought for sure the older model would come down since they released 2 newer models in August.

I tried one. The e-ink is much easier on my eyes & I was surprised that the small screen held enough text to be comfortable, but it seemed to. I read at the computer all day & generally grab a laptop when I have long documents to read because it's uncomfortable just to sit & stare at the monitor for long periods.

All computer tech writing comes in pdf format these days, so I have some huge documents to pour through. I generally use a scratch pad to mark the pages I need to print. It's not unusual for me to print 10 - 20 pages of a 500 page document so that I can make the appropriate notes for our installation & configuration.

I've also found that a lot of new authors issue e-books & that the prices vary widely. One author who asked that I try her stuff pointed me to the least expensive site - it was about 1/2 that of another! I didn't mind paying $3 to try her novella. I'll still buy books of authors I really like, but see the e-reader as a really helpful tool.

The Sony is perfect for me because I don't need to download books to it directly. Most of my reading will be stuff I'll pull off my computer. I'd prefer to be able to control the formatting, which I don't think you can on the Kindle. With it, I'd have to email it to myself & wait for them to convert it. One road warrior said he'd been burned by that more than once. He didn't get the documents until it was way past the time he needed them.

1. the name of the wind
2. the eye of the world
3. gardens of the moon
4. the stand
5. lord of light
6. magician
7. mistborn
8. the winter king
9. reaper man
10. the lord of the rings
11. someplace to be flying
12. avempartha
13. a game of thrones
14. tigana
15. wizards first rule
16. blood bound
17. the darkness that comes before
18. A Storm of Swords
19. Gate of Ivrel
20. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
21. Legend (Gemmell)
22. Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook
23. The Wastelands, Stephen King
24. The Curse of Chalion
25. The Stone Key, Isobelle Carmody
26. Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey
27. Howl's moving Castle
28. Confessor
29. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
30. The Forest House, Marion Zimmer Bradley.
31. In the Company of Ogres by Martinez, A. Lee ;p
32. To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts

Mawgojzeta, nothing wrong with that. Entertainment is a venerable profession. I've never understood the bias against doing it horizontally rather than vertically, myself. People have been paying for it since before we had money & will continue to do so.

I'd be a carpenter/cabinet maker type. I was a remodeler for 15 years & I liked it. The pay sucked & an injury forced me to change careers. Computers pay a lot better, but aren't nearly as much fun. It's hard to get a sense of accomplishment when nothing looks different at the end of the day, which is why I go home & turn out wooden objects. I do some metal work, too. I have a small forge & such.

I also like to sleep home at nights. I did a fair amount of adventuring as a young adult, first in the Army & later I worked my way around the country for a couple of years. Once I got back home, I had no more desire for travel. What was it that Bilbo said about adventures? Something about them being nasty, uncomfortable things. I agree.

I found out how important White Oak is to the flavor of whiskey earlier this year. I turn bowls out of green wood & had gotten some White Oak from a big limb a neighbor cut down. I put it in my shop a plastic trash bag so it wouldn't dry out before I got to it. It wound up sitting there for a couple of months & my shop gets fairly warm in the summer. One day I went to move it & all this water splashed on my leg. I smelled just like a bottle of bourbon!

If you ever get a chance to watch "The Woodwright's Workshop" on PBS, you should. Roy Underhill does a 30 minute show on Colonial woodworking. He's done at least one show on coopering at Colonial Williamsburg. I saw it & went there. I saw cooper's working. It is absolutely incredible. They plane the angles on the staves by eye & practice. Wow! They make it look easy.

Go for it, Chris! You're being sucked in...

;-)

Lots of Colonials made whiskey because it was the best way to use extra grain & transport it to market. One of the big rebellions in the early days of the US was the Whiskey Rebellion because the government of PA was taxing small whiskey producers higher than the bigger ones, I think. Part of the mess to pay for the Revolutionary War. I'd say it was a very valuable skill.

I fiddle around a fair amount with Colonial carpentry & do some blacksmithing. I like visiting places like Colonial Williamsburg & Shaker Villages. It's pretty amazing how much time & work it takes to do the simplest tasks without power tools. You need to have a lot of people because there aren't enough hours in the day.

It's also amazing how much our technology is built on itself. Try making the simplest items & you find you need a file or a drill bit. Did you ever try to make either? Incredibly difficult.

Growing food would be tough. Many of the big staple crops are a generation ahead of a variety of blights that killed the previous generation. Soils are worn out & need commercial fertilizers. Think of how much time it would take to grow a crop & then prepare & preserve it.

Add in fighting Sauron or whatever on top of it. Ugh! Just fighting off bugs & rabbits off the veges would be tough. I think a crash or a big bad guy would be enough. Both would really be a drag.

I understand, Becky. It's interesting to look into another culture like that & I think Clavell did a wonderful job of showing it. Of course, I know nothing about the culture other than through his & other books, not all that many of them, so I have no idea how accurate his depiction is.

If you like "Shogun" you really should go on to the rest of the series. I think you'll really like them. I believe I've reviewed all of those I read here on GR, if you're interested. I'll go look & so so, if I haven't.

I really liked "Shogun", both the book & the movie. My favorite in the series is the book "Tai Pan" though. (The movie is good, but too short.) I've read that several times & Dirk Straun was awesome. I didn't care much for "Gaijan", but loved "King Rat" & "Nobel House". I got tired of it after that, though. "King Rat" was also a great movie, but in all cases I liked the books better.

The lack of freedom in the ancient Japanese society is truly horrific. All that honor & duty are part of a constrictive social structures that may seem admirable on the surface, but could you imagine the poor people living with them? <shudder>

Zen & other philosophies are all fine, but even immersed in the culture from birth, it's hard to break the survival instincts. Here, we don't have it. Instead, one of our leaders says something & we mock him.

Anyway, I've known pacifists, people who really tried to be good. In my experience, most folks aren't too far away from animals when the heat is on. It takes a lot of training or a stronger will than most have to put 'women & children first' into practice.

I'd kill to save my own life, more than likely. If my family was at stake, I'd kill most anyone, with very few reservations. Me & mine matter more than anyone else unless there are very clear, hard proofs otherwise.

I doubt anyone who says they wouldn't. They've probably never been in a life or death situation. If they have & still choose to die, the race is better off without them anyway.

I prefer a book to be as long as it needs to be, but no longer. I find too many of the large books are padded in one way or another; repetitive, needless description or aimless wandering of the story. There aren't many books that need to be huge tomes & if they do, they should probably be broken up for the paperback sale. Jordan's books - which I've never been able to read - haven't fared well due to their size. They tend to fall apart.

Vlad from Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series.

Great souled Sam (Mahasamatman) from Lord of Light & Conrad (Pan) from This Immortal both by Roger Zelazny.

They're all arrogant, too. They're practical, tough & caring, too.

I also loved "Ender's Game". Surprisingly, I really liked "Ender's Shadow" too. I didn't like anything else in the series, but I liked those two a lot.

I've read it a bunch of times.

Janny wrote: "A few books fall apart completely - they were magical the first time, but feel ridiculously thin, seen from a more matured standpoint. You had to be just the right age to appreciate them."

You're right about that! I loved a couple of books by Christopher Stasheff. I reread a couple & it was just not the same. I don't think his writing is very good, something that I didn't mind when I was younger, but is grating now. As much as I'd like to, I'm NOT rereading The Warlock in Spite of Himself simply because I have such fond memories.

Some books really strike different chords on later re-reads. Some are mood dependent, others have more to do with reading or life experience. It depends on how close to home or complex the book is.

For instance, Creatures of Light and Darkness was an experimental piece in many ways. It leaves a lot to the reader's imagination & certain pieces tend to jump out or wrap me up more than others each time. The Einstein Intersection is another one like that. Both wrap myth into SF & are purposefully vague in many ways.

Not all re-reads need to be like that for me, though. Some are just fun worlds to revisit. Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series or Robert E. Howard's Conan series fall into that group.

I just got two books by Sue Dent- Never Ceese A vampire . . . a werewolf . . . Can Two Who Were Wronged Make It Right? & Forever Richard. Can't wait to read them.

I re-read some books. It's hard to find time, though. Sometimes I want to discuss them & it's been years. Other times, I just want a nice relaxing read.