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22 hours ago, Rooke said:

For everyone who liked the recent 'Gate' anime ('Thus the JSDF fought here', not 'Steins Gate',) the novel '1632' by Eric Flint is free on the Kindle. Definitely worth a read and it's the same sort of thing/fun :) 

Talking about Kindle...  I got the app to work on my iPad recently and I already bought 6 books or something 

-a Lovecraft novella for a dollar

-an introductory textbook to calculus

-Dante's Inferno

-Neuromancer 

-Inkheart 

-Rendezvous With Rama 

HELP

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52 minutes ago, Funyarinpa said:

Talking about Kindle...  I got the app to work on my iPad recently and I already bought 6 books or something 

HELP

Nuh uh. I'm glad people are feeling the same pain I'm feeling :P 

If you were having trouble with the Kindle app, you could have used a program called 'Calibre' to convert Kindle format books to normal ebooks, then just used a generic ebook reader Ipad app ... thingy. 

'The Rook' ( http://www.amazon.com/Rook-Daniel-OMalley/dp/0316098809 ) and 'Dire Born' ( https://www.amazon.com/DIRE-BORN-Dire-Saga-Book-ebook/dp/B018L5DJN0 ) - I read these 2 books in the past couple of days and they're amazing. 'Dire Born' feels like a marvel, comic book series, where the main character has amnesia and though has good intentions ... becomes a super villain. Written decently. The Rook is another amnesia story though the main character is more of a secret agent. Written beautifully. Pretty cheap as well, at 5 bucks US for the both of them, I've been paying 8-12 each for ebooks recently and I'm hoping to find more cheap + good series xD

Text books aren't as good on the Kindle, unfortunately. Easier to make notes, flip around, and hurl across the room when in physical format.

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19 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Text books aren't as good on the Kindle, unfortunately. Easier to make notes, flip around, and hurl across the room when in physical format.

Heh. I'm the opposite, I can't read fiction in a non-physical format, but non-fiction is mostly fine (except huge books, I can't finish big books on numerical formats for some reason).

I guess I don't really take notes (or I do it on the side instead of making unreadable scribbles in the margins) when I read nf. Nor do I hurl books across the room... wtf are you reading anyway to get you so mad?

(If I'm supposed to talk about what I'm reading too, for fiction I'm currently reading Goethe's Faust, which is pretty dope, and for non-fiction I'm on Discipline and Punish, which is fascinating like everything Foucault writes).

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Ah... I just finished Calamity, ending the saga of The Reckoners. Such great books, I can already feel the existential void in me.

I'm also reading (although quite leisurely due to its format and nature) the Necronomicon, since I found a really neat edition with his most emblematic works in my usual bookstore.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Old Man and Mr. Smith is the tale of God and the Devil taking a sojourn to Earth to find out whether they’re still relevant. Hilarities and thought provoking moments ensue:

Quote

‘Of course,’ the concierge replied defensively. ‘Although even a hotel of the highest category must ask itself questions when a potential client declares himself to be a Mr God with one “d”, and isn’t even the possessor of initials, let alone luggage.’
‘I told you, my luggage is on its way.’
‘With your friend?’
‘Yes. We both realize it is practically impossible to get a hotel room without luggage.’
‘Oh, you’ve tried before?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And so? If I may ask?’
‘And so, he has bought some luggage.’
‘Just luggage? With nothing inside?’
‘How inquisitive you are!’

Quote

'Mon Dieu,’ said the concierge, watching the struggle. ‘He looks older than God.’
‘No, we’re roughly the same age,’ observed the Old Man.
‘Bertolini, Anwar,’ ordered the concierge. The two employees of the hotel were too fascinated to move without being called to order. They now rushed forward, and helped the newcomer, whose bags seemed of suspicious lightness.
The newcomer walked unsteadily towards the desk.
‘At last!’ said the Old Man, pointedly.
‘What do you mean, at last?’ snarled the newcomer.
‘I have been engaged in small talk while waiting for you. You know how tiring I find it. Where did you get the bags?’
‘I stole them. You don’t expect me to buy them, do you? In any case I had no money!’
‘And your name is …?’ the concierge asked, pretending not to hear the rest.

Quote

‘Never mind about that,’ Mr Smith went on. ‘It’s not the fact of my expulsion. That I have had to live with and I would probably have left on my own sooner or later. It was the motive! You had to rectify a terrible oversight in the Creation, which was otherwise handled with competence.’
‘An oversight?’ asked the Old Man, betraying what almost amounted to nervousness.
‘Yes. With everyone white, how could they recognize you for what you are?’
‘What are you saying?’ The Old Man licked his lips.
‘White needs black in order to be recognized for what it is,’ said Mr Smith with terrible precision and lack of his usual fuss. ‘When all is white, there is no white. You had to push me in order to be recognized yourself. The motive was … vanity.’
‘No!’ the Old Man protested. Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘Oh, I hope not!’
‘You have a debt of gratitude towards me which no amount of contrition can ever hope to repay. Until my expulsion, nobody, not even the angels, understood you or felt the warmth of your radiance. With me to supply the background of darkness, the contrast, you became visible for what you were, and still are.’

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Man-Mr-Smith/dp/0745141072

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As part of a proofreading scheme that I do (basically involves reading scans of books and then correcting the scan's mistakes) I'm reading Darksong Rising by L. E. Modesitt and... to be honest, it's totally not my thing. It seems like your typical 'normal person falls into fantasy world and shit happens yadda yadda' fare so far, and I'm not sure how likely it is to change. And I've got another 400 pages to go. Sigh...

Also reading 'Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism' by Marcel H. van Herpen which is actually pretty excellent. It's a little wordy, but van Herpen goes into every single (relevant) aspect of Putin's international political action brilliantly. Helps me understand Eurasia better as a whole too, which is always a bonus.

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8 hours ago, AaronIsCrunchy said:

As part of a proofreading scheme that I do (basically involves reading scans of books and then correcting the scan's mistakes) I'm reading Darksong Rising by L. E. Modesitt 

You might want to consider reading more modern books. With publishing companies losing money, they've recently started cutting down their editing departments significantly, so much so that people are constantly (not really constantly, but constant relative to before ...) complaining of proofing errors. It seems sometimes done by software these days, so you'll get words which are spelt correct but they're the wrong word, and it happens far more often than it used. Which is sometimes funny, cause you see shit like this :3

freshly-ground-black-people.jpg

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25 minutes ago, Funyarinpa said:

Taking opinions on ebook readers. Namely the Kobo Glo HD 

Took a tablet so I can emulate gamez and read mango on it. Probably less good in terms of reading comfort but I'm fine with it so far.

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Can't say anything about that one, but I've been using a Kindle PaperWhite for years now, and I was using an older Kindle before that. I have only good things to say about them, and I expect the newer ones are even better than the now relatively old one I have. It's convenient when traveling, and having a single-purpose device for reading is worth it to go a little easier on your eyes, IMO.

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3 hours ago, arakura said:

I thought I should at least read the first. You don't think so? 

Like Rooke said, the first one is pretty good, so the risk there is that you get pulled into the long, aimless slog that comprises the remainder of the series.

I didn't think the second was that good, but the third was highly enjoyable. And then the rest of them just... kept... coming...

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The wheel of time... he promised a decalogy initially and then at 14 volumes he died. He had said if he beat his cancer he would have kept writing them indefinitely without ending it. I actually made it to 10 hoping I would get out of that quagmire at last and then when it didn't end I was miserable. Thumbs down for that.

Another series which was similar was the Wizard's First Rule. The story itself was spellbinding when I started reading it though the writing quality wasn't that great but somehow it didn't bother me. After 7 volumes I got sick and tired of it since the story didn't change and the writing didn't improve. First volume, highly recommended.

A much better fantasy novel was Raymond Feist's original Magician. Great novel. No need to read the 50 billion volumes that come after it, although they were all much more original sequels than the previously mentioned series and he "finished" the series with Magician's End after 20 years.

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Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

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50 minutes ago, Funyarinpa said:

Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

I can't help you personally, but I must admit I'm intrigued so I found this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/booksuggestions/comments/3qznuo/looking_for_a_scifi_book_or_series_with_the_same/

Maybe there'll be something in there?

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3 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

But Discworld... is... fantasy :pyaa:

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5 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

Is there any sci-fi series out there that's as expansive as The Wheel Of Time or many other fantasy series ("decalogy" being a word, for one, is incredible)?

I suppose Discworld counts, but I have literally no other ideas- the closest thing I have is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

The Commonwealth Saga. A good entry point being Pandora's Star ... *cough* which you kinda already should have :P 

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