Books and reading stuff

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Books and reading stuff

Post by Ivogoji »

We haven't had a reading topic in a long time, let's start one now.

So, what are you guys reading? Books, fiction, nonfiction? Comics? Stuff online?

Recently I started re-reading The Lord of the Rings from cover to cover. I finished the first volume of the History of Middle-Earth not too long ago and got an itch to read the actual story shortly thereafter. I'm also following an LotR fanfic on fanfiction.net and like to compare the author's techniques to the source material (the fanfic uses an egregious number of archaic words that exceed even Tolkien's considerable verbiage).

I'm also reading an English translation of Brand- a play by Henrik Ibsen- I found online in anticipation of analyzing several other works for my Theatre Appreciation class. The play I actually want to look at, Peer Gynt, is another script by Henrik Ibsen that serves as a sort of thematic successor to Brand and is much more famous than the latter. I hope by reading Brand I'll be able to understand the nature of the other play better and have some insight to help in the analysis. If nothing else it's an enjoyable story; very lyrical and dramatic.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by chaobreedersmh »

Am I sensing some irony there with you using big words while talking about someone else using huge words?

I don't read a lot, the last book I read was The Hunger Games, and that was for a school assignment. Before that was a book that I didn't really like too much, but felt compelled to finish reading for whatever reason. It was called Someone Like You and the main character was annoying, my favorite character was hardly in it.

I'll admit I like reading fanfiction every now and then, usually just when I'm laying down getting ready to sleep. My favorite one is one called Hide N Seek Story, it's Gravity Falls. It's really good, but unfortunately it hasn't been updated in a long time, and I'm not sure it will update.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Ivogoji »

BriannaBreeder wrote:Am I sensing some irony there with you using big words while talking about someone else using huge words?
N-no. *snort* Preposterous! Such insinuations are entirely and unequivocally without substantiation!

I haven't read any Gravity Falls fanfics in a while. I've been meaning to check them out, as I did encounter this one GF horror story that was pretty good written by an author who was quite prolific, and they've probably posted a few new stories since that time. Granted, I should probably finish reading that LotR fanfic- and couple others I've been keeping up with- before throwing any new stories onto the pile, or I'll never get through them all.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by chaobreedersmh »

Ya got me to laugh there, Ivo, nice job.

And hey what was it? I haven't read any horror fics, but I really like the darker side of Gravity Falls, so I'm interested.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

Fanfiction wise:
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Petunia married an Oxford Professor and Harry grew up surrounded by books and being raised on the scientific method and rational thought. The trope codifier and my introduction to the genre of rational fiction. Easily one of the best Harry Potter fanfics of all time. Currently awaiting the release of HPMOR's final arc.

Harry Potter and the Natural 20: Milo, a genre savvy D&D Wizard ends up in the Potterverse and must attend Hogwarts along side Harry and company. Munchkinry abounds.

Hogwarts Battle School: Dumbledore died in the first war, Snape inherited the Headmaster position and transformed Hogwarts into a school focusing on Dueling and group combat. Features a smarter than canon(though not as smart as HPMOR) Harry who is the top duelist in his Year(with Hermione a close second). Also, Harry was sorted into Slytherin.

Prince of the Dark Kingdom: Voldemort won the first war and killed the Longbottoms thinking Neville was the child of prophecy. The Potters and much of the Order of the Pheonix fled to the continent, and Harry didn't find himself at the Dursley's until his Parents were shot dead by a muggle burlar in a home invasion gone horrible wrong. Voldemort takes Harry as his protege. Also borrows heavily from pagan beliefs and feature a lot of Fye.

Nightmares of Futures Past: Harry has won. Too bad there's no one left to celebrate. Having nothing left to use, Harry takes a gamble on theorical magic to send his memories back in time. An 11-year-old Harry, armed with the memories of his war torn future self endeavors to change events for the better.

The Harry Potter fanfics of Thinking Spec, including a recursive fanfic of HPMOR.

In Fire Forged: A more rational take on the world of Naruto with Sakura as the main POV character. Also features a genderswapped Sasuke who actually gets along with Naruto.

Lighting up the Dark: The 9 Brained Demon fox was sealed within Naruto as an Infant, and it's influence leads to a much smarter Naruto(albeit with obfuscating stupidity the produces a facade close to his canon characterization).

Team 8: Kurenai convinces the Hokage to swap Naruto and Kiba in the team assignments, and focuses on repairing the damage a life-time of abuse by the village has done to Naruto's psyche while helping to nurture his natural skills. Kurenai also uses the relationship between Naruto, Hinata, and Shino to help repair the trauma Hinata has suffered under her father's abuse(and her father is more abusive than in Canon). Also features Rock Lee as Naruto's regular sparring partner and the Orange Jumpsuit gets discarded rather quickly. By the same Author as Nightmares of Futures Past.

Pokemon: The origin of Species: Rational take on the Pokemon universe with the games as the primary source. Join aspiring Pokemon Professor Red Verres, Aspiring League Champion Blue Oak, and Unovan immigrant Leaf Juniper as they set out on their journey through Kanto.

Non-fanfiction Wise:

Worm: A rational take on the Superhero genre focusing on an Intelligent highschool girl name Taylor with the power to control Insects and Spiders. Warning: at 1.7 million words, this thing is a monster.

Pact: The new web serial from the same author as Worm. A modern-day story of the supernatural and humans who practice magic. The story begins with the main Protagonist inheriting the Estate of his late Grandmother and learning that not only was his Grandmother involved in the secret world of Practioners and Others, but that she was a Diabolist, a practitioner who deals with Demons the vilest of the vile among others and that he has inhertied 7 life-times worth of Bad Karma from his Family's legacy.

Ra: Magic was discovered in the 1970s and is studied as a branch of physics. Magic has been described as the new electricity. Laura Ferno is one of the most talented mages(short for Magical Engineer) in the world and dreams of achieving space flight through magic alone.

Fine Structure: An older work by the same author as Ra. Every Year, a random person in the world is struck by lightning and gains superpowers. Every new superhuman or Power as they have been dubbed is twice as powerful as the one before(an thus more powerful than all previous powers put together). This has been happening for 10 years when the story begins. Also a plot thread about super-advanced science, a bianary textbook detailing all the laws of the universe(though most has yet to be decoded), and said textbook being altered to make these technologies impossible.

I'm also following the fan translation of the Ojamajo Doremi 16 Light Novels.

Edit: For Fanfiction, I forgot to mention the Infinite Loops: Yggdrasil, The super computer upon which all of reality runs, has been damaged. In order to prevent total collapse of the multi-verse, the gods have put every universe into a never ending time loop. Within each Universe, there is one being, known as an Anchor, who helps keep their universe stable and who is aware of every loop. Other inhabitants of a loop, usually those close to the Anchor may also loop from time to time, but will only remember the loops for which they were awake. Every now and then, variations to the original time line crop up or entirely unrelated universe might crossover or a character might replace someone in a different universe. Oh, and Loopers can retain new powers learned from one loop to the next, so most loopers are far more powerful than their baseline counterparts, and because many of the older loopers have live countless life-times, insanity isn't uncommon. So far I've read, the InuYasha Loops, the My Little Pony Loops, The Pokemon loops, the Yu--gi-oh loops, the spyro the dragon loops, the legend of Zelda loops, the Megaman loops.

Also, under original fiction, I forgot to mention Saga of Soul: Eriko Watanabe is and oridinary, albeit exceptionally intelligent 13-year-old Japanese school girl until she suffers a head injury and falls into a coma. During her Coma, she has a Near Death Experience, and instead of merely walking into the light or away from it, she decides to experiment and discovers that she can manipulate her surroundings within her NDE dreamscape. When she awakes from her coma, she discovers that her new found powers work in the real world as well. Before long, the Queen of the Fye informs her that thses powers are magic and recruits Eriko to defend Humanity from Magic users who wish to destroy or Conqueror Humanity. Donning the guise of Soul, Eriko becomes a Magical Girl to defend humanity from forces beyond there comprehension, not that being a superheroine is going to stop her from studying magic via the scientific method. A rationalist take on the Mahou Shoujo genre.


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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Blasphemy »

I have been considering reading The Ramayana again. Other than that, I haven't read much outside of fanfictions and a spin-off Homestuck comic called Paradox Space. As for fanfictions, all I have read so far is a Kill la Kill Vampire AU story featuring my favorite pairings/ships. There are two from Teen Titans I used to read that I have been thinking about going back to lately as well, along with looking for other ones including my favorite pairing/ship.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by IvoNinja »

Bump.

I have to read Absalom, Absalom for an upcoming asignment in English Comp. class, so in addition to the plays I've been looking at I'll have one other big work to digest for school. That's okay, I've wanted to read something by William Faulkner for a long time. Maybe acquainting myself with his notorious labyrinthian prose and audaciously detailed diction will facilitate the improvement of my own writing's alleged verbosity.

I also recently purchased a volume of Daredevil comics as well as another addition to my growing library of Disney comics, this book collecting the Donald Duck stories of Carl Barks from 1948. I'll probably buy a few other volumes in the series- part of Fantagraphics current efforts to reprint as much of Disney's comic book history as possible- for Christmas this year too, as a gift to myself. The Daredevil book meanwhile collects the early issues of Frank Miller's run on the title, the lead up to his famous Elektra story arc that codified a sizable chunk of the Marvel Universe's mythos. I've been trying to get into the original Mirage Studio incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for a while, and since one of the biggest inspirations for TMNT was Miller's Daredevil, I decided to read up on it to get a feel for what elements influenced Laird and Eastman. Plus it doesn't hurt to branch out to into actual superhero comics once in a while; most of the stuff I read involves anthropomorphic critters of some kind.

Speaking of I also pre-ordered yet another volume of Mickey Mouse comic strips. I've anticipated this instalment for some time as it collects Floyd Gottfredson's work during WII. The measure of a true hero isn't in the number of lives they've saved, but in the number of Nazi skulls they've busted.

I nearly forgot to mention manga- I've reached the Mahorafest arc of Mahou Sensei Negima!, which appears to be the author's attempt to fit as many members of the (absolutely massive) cast into the action as possible, however small their role in the story before this point. It's somewhat appropriate for the Halloween season as well, given that there's a subplot involving a haunted house and the characters have an excuse to wear all kinds of outlandish costumes. This is probably the only manga I'll be reading for a while given how much other comics and stuff I've got to keep me occupied. I've been thinking about getting Soul Eater for ages though, and what better time to start than Halloween? I'm still mulling it over though.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

Since my last post, the most notable fanfiction I've read is The Sun Soul, a darker and grittier take on Pokemon that was name dropped in the Pokemon Loops as being one of the more violent variants, through I've been working through some of the author's other works on ff.net.

For original fiction, I've started on the Sword Art Online LNs, and have read roughly 100 pages of Volume 1. Kind of lost my momentum when the eBook versions I had downloaded were among the files lost in an accidental deletion(managed to recover the PDF masters, but the plain text versions I made for ease of reading were unrecoverable, so I lost my bookmark).

I've also found a resource that might allow me to read other Light Novels once I finish what's in my backlog.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Ivogoji »

Got a bunch of new comics: another volume of Daredevil comics collecting the second part of Frank Miller's run, a slim book collecting Grant Morrison's Batman: Gothic storyline (both works masterfully illustrated by Klaus Janson, unquestionably the king of gritty super hero art), and the previously mentioned volume of Mickey Mouse strips. This one makes me especially happy as it contains the original version of Love Trouble; a colored reprint of this story was one of the first Mickey Mouse comics I ever read, and it really brings back memories.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Nano »

I finished Pride and Prejudice over the summer, along with Huck Finn. I'm gonna be working on Catcher in the Rye soon as well, so that'll be fun.

Other than that, I recently got into this odd manga about a guy turning into a girl... But that's about it.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by retrolinkx »

^

And yet, you don't post the source.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Nano »

AP Lit?
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by retrolinkx »

^

Nah, about the manga.

Seems pretty rad.

Although, I should really keep up to date with the ones I already read which is like 7.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Nano »

Ohhh right

It's called Boku Girl and contains nudity so I'm kinda IFFY about sharing it.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Triert »

Fox, you already told us the name so you've practically shared it with us.

Besides, the forum doesn't have a rule against talking about merely talking about it, right?
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Nano »

Regardless, I meant more as in links and whatnot.

Aside from that not really no, but it's not like I wanna talk about it/go into detail. Aside from being pretty good I don't have much to say about it since it's still ongoing haha.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by reggiequeenchao »

Honestly, ever since I heard of this 'found' Bible out in Turkey I have gotten a huge craving to reread Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Which, of course I did, haha.

But I am about to reread the Harry Potter series, and maybe after that try and read the Lord of the Rings series. Got a lot to read, but so little time!
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Ivogoji »

I finally wrote that analysis on Peer Gynt I mentioned way back in the first post! ^_______^

I now intend to read all of Peer Gynt and the next two plays in Ibsen's cycle, the League of Youth and the two part Emperor and the Galilean. Now that final exams are over and Christmas break is coming up, I'll have lots of free time to get plenty of reading done.

There are also a bunch of fanfics I've been meaning to read and review on FF.net. I could stand to update some of my own now that I have the time. There's this one new story I'm thinking about starting, but I've got so many unfinished stories already I probably should set the idea aside for now.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Enzo03 »

C# 2010 for Programmers

oh, and some Poul Anderson sci-fi.
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Post by Ivogoji »

Reading holiday related stuff; First Book of Maccabees for Hanukkah and L. Frank Baum's Life and Adventures of Santa Claus for Christmas time. I intend to read the Gospels tomorrow, as per tradition.

Baum's interpretation of Santa Claus is... interesting. He uses the story to develop his whole Wizard of Oz Expanded Universe considerably. There's like a raised-by-wolves-changling-fantasy origin for Neclaus/Claus and an epic battle between the forces of good and evil in the middle of the book. I've always wanted to read it since I saw the Rankin/Bass Christmas special so many times as a kid. I might give other Baum books a go, his imaginative storytelling is pretty engaging.

I'm not sure if I'm going to buy those comics I mentioned back in October, I'll probably use the money to pitch in on our trip to the movies in a couple of days instead. There are some other items I'm looking at too; maybe I'll just put off getting more comics for a while, I'm not all finished with the volumes I've got yet.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by KuroMewsagi »

I'm mostly a manga and visual novel reader, so it'll be interesting to see what all I can talk about here without feeling guilty about possibly breaking some rules...

Nisekoi's probably the most interesting. I guess it starts off kind of like the opposite of Romeo and Juliet, so the guy and the girl hate each other but have to date each other because of family reasons. Of course it quickly turns into a harem that slowly grows bigger and bigger, and it's showing no signs of ending anytime soon (not that I'd want it to, because with how many girls there are, what are the chances that Raku would actually get to be with best girl by the time it actually ends).

I started reading the visual novel Little Busters recently. Not far enough yet to say much about it other than that it's probably the funniest game I've ever played. Group of kids want to start a baseball team, so they do. And it's somehow hilarious.

I also somewhat recently started reading D-Frag. I have no idea how to even describe what happens. It's about a game creation school club, and so they do just about everything but make games.

And that's about all I can talk about without mentioning the books with the 18+ or explicit content labels on them...
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Triert »

I've taken to read online scans of the archie comics, I hope to get to the megaman series soon.

Besides that, I can't say I was ever much of a text reader. When I was younger I did read Judy Blume's series "Tales of a fourth grade nothing." After which, I only remember reading Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry Finn.

Ironically, I consider myself a writer. But I have a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes to correct, however I do have help in that department at the very least.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

Recently went on a search for CD Audiobooks, but haven't had much luck.

Been on a Harry Potter Fanfiction binge for the last month or so and want to re-read Rowlings Canon. Found a Audio CD version of all seven books on Amazon for roughly 250 USD, which while expensive, is within what I'm willing to pay. Sadly, it appears to be based on the US version(Book 1 is listed as Sorcerer's Stone on the product description page) and between most good fanfiction using terminology more in line with the UK version if not thoroughly Britpicked, and having read the US versions of the Books in Hardcover the first time around, I want an audiobook of the UK versions.

I want to read the Twilight Saga and Luminosity(the former because I want to know what the hype is about and for familiarity with the canon, the latter because Rational Fanfiction is one of my favorite genres(and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is what got me back into the Harry Potter fandom). Found an Audio CD version for roughly 160 USD, which not significantly more expensive than the above mentioned HP set when you consider Twilight is only four novels to HP's Seven, it's a bit expensive for something that will be a first read.

Want to reread the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings(both of which I spent the better part of a school year listening to in unabridged book-on-tape format from the school library back in middle school(picked up the Fellowship of the Ring specifically because it was the longest book-on-tape the Library had at 15 tapes and things just continued from there) and even doing a first read of the Samirillion(sp?), but so far, the best I can find is an Abridged version on 9 discs and I don't do abridged versions if I can avoid them.

Not quite a audio book, but I recently obtained mp3s of the Original Radio version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though I've so far only listened to what would correspond to the first volume of the novel adaptation.
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Re: Books and reading stuff

Post by Ivogoji »

Ordered 'The Five Books of Jesus' by James Goldberg on Easter, just got it yesterday. I'm a little bit more than half way through it now and will probably be finished tonight. It's a retelling of the four Gospels (and part of The Acts) as a single narrative, divided into five books that parallel the first five books of the Old Testament; the first is called Bereshit (Genesis), the third is called Vayiqra (Leviticus), and so on. Goldberg is good at a saying a lot of different things with just a few words. He picks excellent words too; the language in this book flows smoothly and lyrically from each event to the next almost without ever slowing down. The substance of the book is familiar to anyone who has read the Gospels. Goldberg is a Mormon like myself (gotta represent, support LDS lit yo), so of course what he adds to the familiar story is the most distinctly Mormon of Mormon things: missionary work. No picturesque scenes here, no off-screen teleportation. When Jesus' entourage wants to go somewhere, they have to walk. And walk. And walk. And sleep on the ground at night, and get covered in dust, and get so hungry and so tired. The practical concerns of organizing the crowds Jesus attracts, locating suitable housing for thirteen plus men whenever they reach a new town, gathering information from locales when venturing into strange territory, etc. are treated in detail. Few adaptations of Jesus' life will ever capture the brick and mortar of a traveling preacher's ministry the way this book does. I might write an actual review some day comparing and contrasting The Five Books with other works based on the New Testament, since the subject really interests me, but I won't do it here.

Reading the Mirai Nikki manga these days. It's decent, surprisingly less violent than some of the other stuff I've read (it definitely tries though), but lives up to its reputation. Wish Crazy Awesome Exploding Power Ranger Guy 12th were the real protagonist though, it would be more interesting that way :\/ I actually got into the Future Diary franchise from listening to the anime soundtrack- or rather the Mirai Nikki Inspired Album, which consists of music that isn't actually in the anime but fits the characters. Thinking about hitting up some Legend of Zelda manga; there's a lot of it out there, but I've never given any of it my time. I like the Oracle of Seasons and Ages manga's art style, I'd probably read them first.

I've been reading Disney comics as usual, but I'll talk about that and other stuff later in the comics threads.
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