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rc0101

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CastlevaniaNut18

CastlevaniaNut18

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3 hours ago, EternallDarkness said:

 

seeing you post about Elevation reminded me that I never read more than 20 pages before I set it down...and forgot where, lol, so last night I found it and restarted it. 

And it's such a short book. I could have finished it in a day had that not happened. Soon as my replacement arrived, I finished it that night.

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gamer.tv

gamer.tv

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I've nearly finished Quichotte which was been a really wonderful book. Very surreal, difficult at times to comprehend (not from a writing difficulty, but an intentional reflection of insanity) and was well worth it's nomination for the Booker Prize. Next up, the intimidating Ducks, Newburyport. 

 

UPDATE: So, I tried reading Ducks, Newburyport and one thing I did not realise - it's written as a continuous prose with most run-on sentences beginning with "but the fact is...". Maybe I'm not in the right place, but I just couldn't read it for more than 2 minutes. 

 

I've instead opted for Wolf Hall which is slap bang in my genre and style of writing, so I already know I'll be a fan. 

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Chairslinger

Chairslinger

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Really whiffed on my reading challenge for 2019. Only 7 books out of 50 :lol: 

 

And most of those I read in the first few months of the year. Oh well. Starting out this year by finally rereading the full Dark Tower series. While I reread book 1 fairly often, and occasionally start book 2, I believe this may be the first time I reread the entire series since I finished book 7 all the way back in 2004.

 

Interested to read the later books again since I have such mixed feelings about them. 

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rc0101

rc0101

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On 10/28/2019 at 4:44 PM, rc0101 said:

And done. Back to Riyria Revelations series. 

Finished this series a bit ago and am onto Killer of Men by Christian Cameron. After this I’m excited to start The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre 
 

Didn’t hit my goal for read books this year but will give it a go this year. 35 books. 

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CastlevaniaNut18

CastlevaniaNut18

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Actually been making good progress in Stalin, I’m well over halfway finished. 
 

Read two novels so far this year, decided to read a shorter nonfiction. Started The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. I read her other book on the assassination of James Garfield a couple years back and she’s an engaging history writer. This should be good. 

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CitizenVectron

CitizenVectron

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Just started reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. tl;dr: would be:

 

Takes place in the future. Humanity can travel at near-light-speed, and is attempting to terraform planets. One is completed, but before a scientist can use a virus to uplift monkeys (into a newer, better species) on the planet, a war breaks out between pro-human forces and pro-future forces, and all of humanity is destroyed except for Earth, which has a small number of people live. A few thousand years later, the last people of Earth (who have rebuilt civilization from the stone age basically, using old tech found in ruins on land an in orbit) set off in an arc ship at sub-light speeds to this world, having found evidence in records that it may be habitable. The Earth is now dead, the poisons of the war fully released after the nuclear ice age ends. They arrive...only to find out that the monkeys never landed on the surface, but the virus still did. Lacking monkeys to uplift, it worked its magic on the other creatures it could find: insects and spiders. 

 

So the book follows the new human visitors and the pre-industrial spiders and ants that dominate the world. There are massive time jumps between different parts of the book as the humans go into stasis to travel around, etc. I highly recommend it, it's fantastic. I think it won a nebula prize for 2018 or something.

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rc0101

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On 1/8/2020 at 9:55 PM, rc0101 said:

Finished this series a bit ago and am onto Killer of Men by Christian Cameron. After this I’m excited to start The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre 
 

Didn’t hit my goal for read books this year but will give it a go this year. 35 books. 

Finished this. Onto book two. Also starting The Spy and the Traitor. 

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CastlevaniaNut18

CastlevaniaNut18

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Took me a couple weeks, but I finally got back to River of Doubt and finished it last night. I've been reading a lot more fiction than usual, that was my first nonfiction this year. I'm gonna focus on finishing Stalin now, before starting anything else new. I've only got a couple hundred pages left in this tome and I want to wrap it up.

 

Still reading the Harry Potter series for the umpteeth time. One the third book. It's a good one to take to work and read during downtime(when I have it.)

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Chairslinger

Chairslinger

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I finished my complete reread of the Dark Tower a few days ago. Since then I've just been reading a short story of his here and there while I try to figure out what big book or series I want to dig into :thinking:

 

After watching the show, I have little interest in trying to pick Song of Ice and Fire back up. Especially when there's still no telling when he'll finally finish it.

 

Still want to give Sanderson a few more books of a lead before I finally start Stormlight. After The Dark Tower and Wheel of Time I am not super keen on starting any series that is going to be another decade or more wait for the conclusion.

 

I just got an Amazon gift card for Christmas, so I am thinking I might look around for some of King's one of books or catch up with Sanderson's Mistborn series.

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Nokra

Nokra

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4 hours ago, Chairslinger said:

I finished my complete reread of the Dark Tower a few days ago. Since then I've just been reading a short story of his here and there while I try to figure out what big book or series I want to dig into :thinking:

 

After watching the show, I have little interest in trying to pick Song of Ice and Fire back up. Especially when there's still no telling when he'll finally finish it.

 

Still want to give Sanderson a few more books of a lead before I finally start Stormlight. After The Dark Tower and Wheel of Time I am not super keen on starting any series that is going to be another decade or more wait for the conclusion.

 

I just got an Amazon gift card for Christmas, so I am thinking I might look around for some of King's one of books or catch up with Sanderson's Mistborn series.

 

How well did you feel like the Dark Tower books hold up to a reread? I keep telling myself I'd like to get around to that someday but with so many new books I just never get to it, but I absolutely loved the experience the first time. :D 

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Chairslinger

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5 minutes ago, Nokra said:

 

How well did you feel like the Dark Tower books hold up to a reread? I keep telling myself I'd like to get around to that someday but with so many new books I just never get to it, but I absolutely loved the experience the first time. :D 

 

Are you asking about a reread, or your first time through the series?

 

I am pretty sure you're asking for opinions on a reread, but just so I don't go throwing spoilers at your face I want to be sure before I answer. 

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Nokra

Nokra

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13 minutes ago, Chairslinger said:

 

Are you asking about a reread, or your first time through the series?

 

I am pretty sure you're asking for opinions on a reread, but just so I don't go throwing spoilers at your face I want to be sure before I answer. 

Yeah, a reread. I read them once, almost 10 years ago.

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Chairslinger

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Just now, Nokra said:

Yeah, a reread. I read them once, almost 10 years ago.

 

 

If you read it ten years ago, I am guessing that means you read it all the way through in one go, so my main point for why I think my reread was worth it might not apply to you. So I would say yes, it's definitely worth a reread, but you'll have to decide if it is for you.

 

For me, I jumped into the series in the mid 90's after Wastelands but before Wizard and Glass, so the series is kind of divided into two sections for me. First four and last three. While waiting for the last three, I read the first four multiple times. The first book especially, because it is so short and I love it so much, I tend to read it once every year or two for fun. I've probably read that book 30 times. And in the years since the last books came out I would start in on book 2 after, but don't think I ever finished it.

 

Which is a long way of saying this reread had very little effect on my opinion of the first four books. I love them all, they're some of my favorite books ever, they're always a joy to read just for the hell of it, and if I made a list of best books in the series it would be top heavy with the earlier books. This reread was mostly for the final books in the series for me. I think I mentioned in my earlier post that this reread turned out to be my first full reread in almost 15 years. I think I may have reread Wolves a second time for a one final complete reread before Song came out, but I am not sure. And if I did, I am fairly sure that's the only one of the last three I read more then once before this most recent reread.

 

I didn't despise the end of the series, but I thought it went out with a bit of a whimper. I think King rushed the process after the scare with the car accident. I would love to know his thinking on how he would have treated the completion of the series if he would have known 15 years later he would be as active as he is. It's crazy to see him walking around as well as he does at 70 knowing they considered amputating his leg and he contemplated retirement following book 7.

 

But anyway, about the books. My opinion on Wolves hasn't changed much. I think I may even like it a bit more now since the allusions to the real world make more sense and I've had time to come to terms with that as a part of the series. I still think the books is a bit heavy on Father Callahan backstory(I just learned recently that this is probably because those parts of Wolves were initially written as a standalone sequel novel or novella for Callahan like Black House and Doctor Sleep), but I don't mind it too much even if Salem's Lot is one of my least favorite novels. 

 

As far as a new look at the series for me Song of Susannah, The Dark Tower, and Wind Through the Keyhole are the books this reread was the most for.

 

Perhaps the book that jumped the most for me was Wind Through the Keyhole. I wouldn't say it's my favorite book, but I think at the time of it's release in 2012 I wanted it to do much more heavy lifting than Sai King was aiming for. Perhaps too harsh to say I wanted it to "fix" the ending, but perhaps some patching. And that was not at all what the book was interested in doing. Which was telling one of King's most pure Fantasy tales next to Eyes of the Dragon within a young Roland story which was not much more than a framing device. Lowering such expectations allowed me to enjoy Wind Through the Keyhole much more.

 

Song of Susannah was unique in the series in that it's the only one that isn't really a standalone book. The good thing about rereading Song now is that you don't have to wait 7 of 8 months(or however long it was) for the next book to come out so any real animosity you feel towards the book for not telling any complete narrative is gone, because you can just start right on the next book. While I would still rate Song last on the list of mainline books, I found myself enjoying it more because what does happen in it is pretty good reading.

 

The last book is the one where I would say I was hoping to change my opinion the most, but still can't say I changed it as much as I would have liked.

 

The one thing I definitely have mellowed on is the overall scope of the ending. I thought the first books in the series set up a lot more of a metaphysical, ethereal battle than the one shown in the final book where it's just Roland standing in a field, if you know what I mean. Something more akin to parts of IT and the ritual of Chud. But going back through, I appreciate the narrative hodgepodge King wove together with the Breakers, the Beams, and the Tower. The Breakers especially built on stuff King  had written about since the very beginning of his career that had nothing to do with the Tower. And even not being immersed in the lore for a long time, on a second reading I caught a few more things that I missed the first time through. Like the Prim and how Magic co-mingled with technology and the great old ones and stuff like that.

 

However, I can't say my opinion changed too much on the back half of the book. There's just no getting around that it's a badly paced book. I found myself trying to find ways to narratively switch Mordred and Dandelo with saving King and the battle of Blue Heaven. Those two things clearly would have been much better penultimate climaxes in the book preceding the actual Tower. I think I am able to look at the deaths more objectively now. Jake's and Oy's were well done, Eddie's remains frustrating and could have been done better with very little effort, and I still don't know how anyone could see Susannah's ending as anything other than a nightmare. I would rather be Roland looping around the wheel than caught in a bizzaro world like Susannah. 

 

Which brings me to the finale. I thought the book ending on a high note at least. The scenes in the Tower were well done, and the ending was dark with a little hope which tends to be a nice mixture for King books. The ending is also interesting and pretty unique in how it's multiverse and multiple turnings offers the possibility of adding onto the story without retelling the whole thing. Because Roland was sent back to the "beginning" with a possibility of redemption the Revisions, movie, or upcoming series all could have served not just as an adaption, but as a retelling of the tale with a more positive ending for Roland and his ka-tet. Of course, King never did the revision of Drawing that he talked about, and the movie.....well as the song says I can not save you, I can't even save myself :p but perhaps the upcoming series can serve as a retelling that allows for some changes to the ending.

 

I guess I really started rambling at some point. Not sure if that serves as a good or bad argument for you to reread the series. But all I can say is that I think the first 4 novels are always worth a reread just for fun. Book 5 is a good novel in it's own right. And the last 2 are worth rereading as long as you don't mind the last book dragging a big in the last half. Sounds like you  may not have read Wind Through the Keyhole at all, since you may have read the series before it came out. It's definitely worth a read as long as you don't expect too much main story progression from it(on the other hand, if you really enjoyed the bulk of Wizard and Glass set in Mejis you may really enjoy seeing Roland and another of his friends from his younger days). As I said, it's the book my opinion may have changed the most on.

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CastlevaniaNut18

CastlevaniaNut18

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2 hours ago, DarkStar189 said:

I bought this for my kindle a few weeks ago when it was on sale.  Haven't started it yet.  Did you get far into it?

I finished the first book in a few days. I’m going to continue the series, but I like to pace myself and I don’t read them all back to back to back. I like to vary my reading so I don’t get burned out on one genre. 

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Nokra

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On 1/26/2020 at 1:09 PM, Chairslinger said:

 



If you read it ten years ago, I am guessing that means you read it all the way through in one go, so my main point for why I think my reread was worth it might not apply to you. So I would say yes, it's definitely worth a reread, but you'll have to decide if it is for you.

 

For me, I jumped into the series in the mid 90's after Wastelands but before Wizard and Glass, so the series is kind of divided into two sections for me. First four and last three. While waiting for the last three, I read the first four multiple times. The first book especially, because it is so short and I love it so much, I tend to read it once every year or two for fun. I've probably read that book 30 times. And in the years since the last books came out I would start in on book 2 after, but don't think I ever finished it.

 

Which is a long way of saying this reread had very little effect on my opinion of the first four books. I love them all, they're some of my favorite books ever, they're always a joy to read just for the hell of it, and if I made a list of best books in the series it would be top heavy with the earlier books. This reread was mostly for the final books in the series for me. I think I mentioned in my earlier post that this reread turned out to be my first full reread in almost 15 years. I think I may have reread Wolves a second time for a one final complete reread before Song came out, but I am not sure. And if I did, I am fairly sure that's the only one of the last three I read more then once before this most recent reread.

 

I didn't despise the end of the series, but I thought it went out with a bit of a whimper. I think King rushed the process after the scare with the car accident. I would love to know his thinking on how he would have treated the completion of the series if he would have known 15 years later he would be as active as he is. It's crazy to see him walking around as well as he does at 70 knowing they considered amputating his leg and he contemplated retirement following book 7.

 

But anyway, about the books. My opinion on Wolves hasn't changed much. I think I may even like it a bit more now since the allusions to the real world make more sense and I've had time to come to terms with that as a part of the series. I still think the books is a bit heavy on Father Callahan backstory(I just learned recently that this is probably because those parts of Wolves were initially written as a standalone sequel novel or novella for Callahan like Black House and Doctor Sleep), but I don't mind it too much even if Salem's Lot is one of my least favorite novels. 

 

As far as a new look at the series for me Song of Susannah, The Dark Tower, and Wind Through the Keyhole are the books this reread was the most for.

 

Perhaps the book that jumped the most for me was Wind Through the Keyhole. I wouldn't say it's my favorite book, but I think at the time of it's release in 2012 I wanted it to do much more heavy lifting than Sai King was aiming for. Perhaps too harsh to say I wanted it to "fix" the ending, but perhaps some patching. And that was not at all what the book was interested in doing. Which was telling one of King's most pure Fantasy tales next to Eyes of the Dragon within a young Roland story which was not much more than a framing device. Lowering such expectations allowed me to enjoy Wind Through the Keyhole much more.

 

Song of Susannah was unique in the series in that it's the only one that isn't really a standalone book. The good thing about rereading Song now is that you don't have to wait 7 of 8 months(or however long it was) for the next book to come out so any real animosity you feel towards the book for not telling any complete narrative is gone, because you can just start right on the next book. While I would still rate Song last on the list of mainline books, I found myself enjoying it more because what does happen in it is pretty good reading.

 

The last book is the one where I would say I was hoping to change my opinion the most, but still can't say I changed it as much as I would have liked.

 

The one thing I definitely have mellowed on is the overall scope of the ending. I thought the first books in the series set up a lot more of a metaphysical, ethereal battle than the one shown in the final book where it's just Roland standing in a field, if you know what I mean. Something more akin to parts of IT and the ritual of Chud. But going back through, I appreciate the narrative hodgepodge King wove together with the Breakers, the Beams, and the Tower. The Breakers especially built on stuff King  had written about since the very beginning of his career that had nothing to do with the Tower. And even not being immersed in the lore for a long time, on a second reading I caught a few more things that I missed the first time through. Like the Prim and how Magic co-mingled with technology and the great old ones and stuff like that.

 

However, I can't say my opinion changed too much on the back half of the book. There's just no getting around that it's a badly paced book. I found myself trying to find ways to narratively switch Mordred and Dandelo with saving King and the battle of Blue Heaven. Those two things clearly would have been much better penultimate climaxes in the book preceding the actual Tower. I think I am able to look at the deaths more objectively now. Jake's and Oy's were well done, Eddie's remains frustrating and could have been done better with very little effort, and I still don't know how anyone could see Susannah's ending as anything other than a nightmare. I would rather be Roland looping around the wheel than caught in a bizzaro world like Susannah. 

 

Which brings me to the finale. I thought the book ending on a high note at least. The scenes in the Tower were well done, and the ending was dark with a little hope which tends to be a nice mixture for King books. The ending is also interesting and pretty unique in how it's multiverse and multiple turnings offers the possibility of adding onto the story without retelling the whole thing. Because Roland was sent back to the "beginning" with a possibility of redemption the Revisions, movie, or upcoming series all could have served not just as an adaption, but as a retelling of the tale with a more positive ending for Roland and his ka-tet. Of course, King never did the revision of Drawing that he talked about, and the movie.....well as the song says I can not save you, I can't even save myself :p but perhaps the upcoming series can serve as a retelling that allows for some changes to the ending.

 

I guess I really started rambling at some point. Not sure if that serves as a good or bad argument for you to reread the series. But all I can say is that I think the first 4 novels are always worth a reread just for fun. Book 5 is a good novel in it's own right. And the last 2 are worth rereading as long as you don't mind the last book dragging a big in the last half. Sounds like you  may not have read Wind Through the Keyhole at all, since you may have read the series before it came out. It's definitely worth a read as long as you don't expect too much main story progression from it(on the other hand, if you really enjoyed the bulk of Wizard and Glass set in Mejis you may really enjoy seeing Roland and another of his friends from his younger days). As I said, it's the book my opinion may have changed the most on.

Wow, thanks a lot for your very thorough response, that was entertaining to read. I think I actually did read Wind Through the Keyhole, but I honestly don't remember much of it. I think that a reread would be completely worth it based on just how many fond memories were brought up by reading through your post and being reminded of some of the highs and lows of the series. Wizard and Glass was one of my absolute favorite novels when I read it, and I think the series might be worth a reread just to get to that one. Thank you again!

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CastlevaniaNut18

CastlevaniaNut18

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I joined Book of the Month a couple weeks ago, so I'm gonna read my first one, The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James. So far, so good. It's an early access, too! Doesn't release to to the general public for another few weeks.

 

I may finish it before I move on the Goblet of Fire in my HP-a-thon.

 

Down to about 130 pages in Stalin. The end is in sight! I think I'll enjoy part 2 of that series more, since it covers the Ukraine famine and lead up to WWII.

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EternallDarkness

EternallDarkness

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2 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I joined Book of the Month a couple weeks ago, so I'm gonna read my first one, The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James. So far, so good. It's an early access, too! Doesn't release to to the general public for another few weeks.

 

I may finish it before I move on the Goblet of Fire in my HP-a-thon.

 

Down to about 130 pages in Stalin. The end is in sight! I think I'll enjoy part 2 of that series more, since it covers the Ukraine famine and lead up to WWII.

 

Definitely interested to hear about The Sundown Motel.

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Chairslinger

Chairslinger

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On 1/27/2020 at 7:48 PM, Nokra said:

Wow, thanks a lot for your very thorough response, that was entertaining to read. I think I actually did read Wind Through the Keyhole, but I honestly don't remember much of it. I think that a reread would be completely worth it based on just how many fond memories were brought up by reading through your post and being reminded of some of the highs and lows of the series. Wizard and Glass was one of my absolute favorite novels when I read it, and I think the series might be worth a reread just to get to that one. Thank you again!

 

 

For a long time Wizard and Glass was my second favorite in the series. I think it probably still is, but maybe by a smaller margin.

 

King gets a lot of praise for DT(and some criticism) for being such a crazy mixture of genres. Horror, Western, Scifi, Dystopian. Hell, it's even got some Goodfella mobster stuff in there. But it is often left out that tucked in there is possibly the best love story King ever wrote. 

 

I always love reading King's forewords and such because they give such interesting looks into his writing process. I remember he wrote that a great example of what made Wizard and Glass a tough book for him to write was summed up in two scenes. In the one where Roland wins his test of manhood King was writing as a 20 something college student. In a scene that takes place only hours later that would send him to Mejis he was writing as a nearly 50 year old man with a wife and kids. How was he supposed to write the story of Roland's passionate first teenage love?

 

Rereading now, I myself see the story a little differently at nearly 40 than I did at 20. A little more frustration with the blindness of their love, I suppose. But it's still a wondefully written book and, like I said, probably still my second favorite in the series.

 

Also, funny story I had completely forgotten about until this reread. On my very first time reading Wizard and Glass I made an incorrect assumption about something. Now, it was pretty clear from past allusions that Susan was going to have to die sometime in the course of that story. So I was bracing myseld for that. But I had also equated mentions of Alain and Cuthbert's inevitable doom with the Susan story. So right up until the end, I was certain poor Alain and Cuthbert were gonna bite the bullet in Wizard and Glass, as well. I was so confused when they didn't, but upon rereads I am fairly certain it was pretty much solely my fault for assuming.

 

If you do reread the series, a question to ask might be where to read Wind Through the Keyhole. Most of the time when a book, or even a movie, has a prequel that is written later I would suggest reading it in the real world chronology, not the book chronolgy. For an easy example, you don't start with the Phantom Menace, you start with The New Hope, if you know what I mean.

 

No matter the authors intent, they can almost never hide the fact that the later book feels more like other later books.

 

That said, even though there is a little of that going on with Wind Through The Keyhole I actually read it where King places it in there series(4.5, after Wizard and Glass, before Wolves) and liked it there. The main reason is because in a lot of ways the end of Wizard is like a deep breath, and what follows in 5, 6, and 7 is mostly a dash to the end where most of what takes place in those books is condensed into just a month or a little more. If you find yourself eager to get to the endgame after Wizard, then by all means go straight to Wolves. Personally, I enjoyed reading Wind Through the Keyhole as a pallet cleanser before heading for the home stretch.

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