Metal Reviews

Yeah, that shit's pretty boring. Book 11 is better though, and hopefully 12 will be good even though RJ died :(.

One of the worst books I've ever read. I reccomend you read the last POV chapter from each major character and leave it at that, because the whole fucking book recaps what other characters you don't care about were doing when book 9 was finished (hint: they were doing their hair, and taking baths, and debating what clothes to wear). Book 11 is slightly better in that it has actual plot progression, but I thought it was still a pretty bad book, though a huge improvement over, say, books 8-10.

As for The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, which I just finished: I loved it. I can't say I understood a lot of it, but I really liked the unreliability of Severian's narration, which forces you to approach the book critically and reevaluate the many characters and Severian's own actions. As nearly everyone says, the writing itself is beautiful- its one of those books where you want to read a paragraph aloud every once in a while, even if you have no clue as to what the paragraph means. I enjoyed trying to figure out the many Christian symbols and themes (the New Sun was a beautifully handled symbol, and I really enjoyed what I understood of Wolfe's resurrection theme)- anyway, I'll have to read The Urth of the New Sun and then reread this thing sometime again next year, hopefully understanding and figuring out a bit more as I do, as everyone says you should do. And everyone who likes sci fi or fantasy a bit needs to give this a try. I can't promise you'll like it, like I might for George RR Martin, but it is completely different from anything you've ever read and is simply a beautiful book. An example of Wolfe's writing:

Hey, I picked that book up last week. I'm a little intimidated after reading the first chapter twice and still not really knowing what's going on; the writing, as you said, is amazing but it's kind of annoying when you read a part over and over and just have no idea what's going on. But, I'm going to stick with it because it's definitely making out to be one of the more interesting things I've ever read.

As for WoT, I'll admit that CoT sucks, but as a fanboy (WoT being the first book series I really loved) I have to say that Knife of Dreams is at least a good book, if not great. The first six are classics, though.

Don't worry if things don't make sense as you're reading them, or if you don't know exactly whats going on. Its a book thats meant to apparently be reread over and over, and Severian also only explains the meaning of events he's described hundreds of pages later (for example, you'll find out why Vodalus was in the cemetary halfway into book II, though there are clues laid out). Just try to get through the beginning, which I also found really difficult, and it should ease up a bit.

finished The Prince. tried to pick up Elephant Memory but you have to read each line 2 or 3 times until you understand it, and i can't be arsed.

now looking for a new book to pick up.

Just finished Mere Christianity and now reading The Screwtape Letters. I guess you can say that I'm now an official CS Lewis fan. He really knows what Christianity's all about (something I, unfortunately, can't say for a lot of other Christian authors).

Sometime, I'd like to hear the audiotape version of TSL, partially because I'm also a big John Cleese fan.

I highly recommend it, even though it may be repulsive at times. I managed all the way through to the final passions, the murderous ones, and had to put the book aside when messieurs started CENSURED.

Hm, I'm not too sure, can you elaborate on what you mean by neomarxist?

I am not too much into the very philosophical end of political writing so I have never really got to grips with a lot of the stuff like the Frankfurt school etc. Just reading the Gramsci was a bit much for me at times. I am more into the development of the labour movement and how marxism comes into this in a practical sense, plus revolutionary marxism in the 20th century.

There are still a couple of things I'd recommend though. You could go for Tony Cliff, who was the founder of the British SWP (I guess one of the world's most influential Trotskyist parties) and it's most important theoretician. He was the one that developed the theory that the USSR was state-capitalist rather than socialist- which in part just seems like an easy way to absolve marxist-leninism of Stalin's actions, but also makes some sense if you read his writing about it. You can read his whole book "State Capitalism in Russia" here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/w ... /index.htm

Also it's good to look at journals rather than full books, in my experience. I guess the defining journal of the "New Left" scene, which would be called neomarxist is the New Left Review. It has quite a lot of theoretical articles, a few for free but for others you'd probably have to subscribe.

http://www.newleftreview.org/

Myths and Legends Explained from the DK series. Interesting/fucked up stuff.

I meant basically anyone who still studies or advocates marxism in some form. The Frankfurt School is what I was referencing to as convoluted. There are more current writers like Fredric Jameson or Terry Eagleton which are readable and I was looking for something along those lines.

The Tony Cliff sounds interesting so I'll be checking that out.

Cool, you could also look into Alex Callinicos, Perry Anderson or Eric Hobsbawm, just some names that spring to mind.

I ordered a couple of fanboy novels the other day from Amazon:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed



and

Star Wars: Republic Commando-Order 66

Terry Pratchett- Small Gods

Finally getting into Hell's Angels by Hunter Thompson. Those guys are such hardasses. The underlying sociology and analysis by Thompson is really, really interesting and when combined with the stories some of the best non-philosophical nonfiction I've read in a long time.

finished East of Eden today (awesome book!), now gonna read another section of that history of Philosophy book

Ah I've read that about a year ago. It's not bad but due to the rave reviews I'd read before I was expecting more. Still, this should rate among Pratchett's top 10 though not in my top 5. I personally prefer novels about the watch (ie Sam Vimes and co).

Watch novels are my favourite of his too, although i enjoyed Small Gods a lot. my favourite Pratchett book i've read is The Truth (the one about the newspaper)

Finished reading The Watchman. It was kind of trippy that I purchased the book a few weeks before the trailer appeared on The Dark Knight. Once I saw the trailer, I made sure to read the book promptly. I have a bad habit of buying books only to read them months, even years later.

Great book! Intelligently written, and thought provoking (that's an uderstatement). I had to go back and re-read previous chapters to understand all the little hidden meanings contained in the frames, both in the words and the art and how they worked together to build the story. Made for an interesting read, even more so since this is only the second graphic novel I've ever read. Blows away all the Marvel comics I read in the early 90s as a kid.

Now reading: Black Water - The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill

Well, it was my second time reading it and I agree that its pretty different from some other Pratchett books- most of it is not laugh out loud funny in the way that say, Guards Guards, but I think that its a great satire of religious structures and ancient philosophy.

George RR Martin- Tuf Voyaging

Now reading: Douglas Adams - Mostly Harmless

On a sidenote, the moving company just arrived today and brought me my lot of unread books among other stuff. Hooray!