What are you reading now?

[gamelife]

I've been prattling on about Dune on this thread since I started it

I'm near the end of the sixth and final book and have been reading them all every day since I started with no breaks between books. I honestly never thought I'd read through a six-volume story like this(granted, the second book is about 150-odd pages and the third is probably 300, the rest are 400-500) but it sucked me in from the beginning and hasn't let go yet. The overall story deals with so many different things I can't even begin to go into any sort of detail, but it's basically an idea of science, economics, religion, technology and even linguistics 20000 years in the future(I don't even think of it as sci-fi, more like a commentary on... everything).

Written in the 60's.

Still blows my mind.

well, if Dune is good i'll defo check out the rest : )

any chance you could write a list as to what order the books go in? don't know much about the rest of the series. thanks

[charlesr]

Surface Detail has turned out to be crazy stuff as expected. It would make a great film or short series. Last night read a section about one of the Culture uber warships getting ready for a potential fight. Then he cut to 20 pages of other stuff which I had to wade through at speed to get to see what happened. The ship is hilarious.

[randombs]

well, if Dune is good i'll defo check out the rest : )

any chance you could write a list as to what order the books go in? don't know much about the rest of the series. thanks

Sure thing:

Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapter House Dune

I'd recommend getting them off eBay. I picked mine up for under ?2 each(the last three, anyway. I was lent the first and I bought the second and third from Waterstones at around ?6-7 a pop).


I started The Hobbit last week. I actually bought the three-volume LOTR boxset from Waterstones(took the poor girl ages to find it before giving up, only to find out it's in the horror section!) and, while reading the intro bit, decided to stop and read Hobbit first, so I bought that the next day. It's clearly written for children but it's often quite funny and quite violent(eagles clawing goblin eyes out with their talons. Eurgh!).

[Brad]

Currently reading The Tommy Knockers. So far so good.

[Dogg Thang]

Oh dear lord. Get out WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

[Brad]

Lol. Are you saying that because you think this story is crap or Stephen King in general? Bear in mind I generally like his stuff.

[fuse]

Just finished 'Hey Nostradamus!' by Douglas Coupland last night. Enjoyed it, but good grief did it bring me the feck down.

[Dogg Thang]

Lol. Are you saying that because you think this story is crap or Stephen King in general? Bear in mind I generally like his stuff.

Mostly just that one. And it's not even that it's crap. I really enjoyed a lot of it. And then enjoyed it less so. I stuck it out. Wished I hadn't bothered. Good beginning. But really, you might love it all so ignore me. That was just my gut reaction.

[Brad]

Hmmmm, I'll stick it out I think. Expect me back here in a few days telling you how right you were! While we're at it I've got Needful Things and Thinner next on my list. Advice?

[Dogg Thang]

I haven't read Needful Things but I really enjoyed Thinner. It's been a long, long time since I read it but I remember finding it pretty disturbing in places. And while a few King novels have let me down at the end, I seem to remember Thinner delivering on its promises.

[Brad]

Ace. Thanks bud.

[abigsmurf]

Needful Things is pretty good.

The sheriff in that also features in The Dark Half which is fairly reasonable. Just be warned, The Dark Half contains the most generic King character possible: recovering alcoholic writer who lives in Maine.

His best books are : The Shining (quite a lot different from the Kubrick film), It and The Stand. His short story collections are pretty great too.

Stop reading his novels post-accident though, his writing takes a real nose dive. Annoyingly this includes the final novel of The Dark Tower. Great series, awful awful final book.

In terms of what I've read recently:

Read Mister B. Gone from Barker. The USP of the book is that you're reading a book with a demon sealed inside it and he wants you to burn the book (kinda loses the effect reading it on a Kindle). Reasonably interesting story marred by a lack of direction and incredibly annoying sequences where the demon tries to get you to burn the book.

Need to figure out what of Barker's to read next but only a small portion of his stuff is on Amazon. Would look for another author similar in style but there are very few writers of supernatural horror, let alone ones that combine black humour, gore and eroticism in their books.

[Brad]

Cheers smurfy. I've read The Dark Half years ago. Good book but disappointing ending (often a problem for many writers it seems). I saw the mini-series of The Stand. Seems like it'd be a good book.

[abigsmurf]

The mini series is relatively faithful but the book (especially the uncut) goes into much more detail about everything. The plague half of it is particularly better done in the book.

[Stoppy2000]

Hmmmm, I'll stick it out I think. Expect me back here in a few days telling you how right you were! While we're at it I've got Needful Things and Thinner next on my list. Advice?

I read Needful Things last year as the premise sounded interesting to me, never read a Stephen King book before. The first about 200 pages are really good scene setting, but then it rapidly falls apart. The villain is lame, all the good work is undone and I will never waste my time reading one of his books ever again.

On a sidenote anyone ever read any Bret Easton Ellis (besides American Psycho)? I freaking love 'The Rules of Attraction'.