RUN, don't walk, to buy Watchers. No kidding! If it introduces you to Dean Koontz, that's reason enough, but in my opinion, it remains Koontz's best work. A thriller with a dose science fiction, the protagonist is the dog himself, who's the product of research to produce an intelligent dog for use by the military, so this is really a thinking dog. Naturally, there's a couple of people involved who you grow to care about, but the dog is the star. I won't say anything else... just read it. Merle's Door sounds great. Will check that out.
I read fast. I'm going to hold off on the maps and just use the maps in the books for now. I am in a completely spoil free zone, and I want to savor all the many surprises this series has in store. Red Seas under Red Skies is a much slower book than Lies of Locke Lamora. It does pick up, but it's still a slower moving novel. I thought the sea part of this book dragged a lot, but you might like that since you're such an O'Brien fan. I've mentioned it before to you, but if you want O'Brien meets fantasy, you should check out Robin Hobb's Liveship Trader trilogy. It's the middle set of a 9 book series, but the middle set you could read on its own. The first and third follow a different character set in the same world, but completely land-based. I've thought a lot about the future of publishing, both as a writer and as an avid book collector. My wife offered to buy me a Kindle for my birthday, but I still can't decide if I want to do it. I collect books all the time, and they wait on the bookshelf until the whim strikes me to read it. I like having the flexibility of having a wide variety of choice when I finish one book and try to decide what to read next. The idea of having an e-reader where I could buy and read anything on the spot greatly appeals to me. So does the thought of having hundreds or thousands of books on one device for trips. I took a 3 week trip to Europe 5 years ago and read 20 books, which took up almost half my suitcase. As a writer, I see two sides. It's cheap and easy to distribute electronically. Distribution is a b**** in the publishing industry. Unless you have a good publishing house behind you to put your novel in bookstores, you have to market online. Now you can put your book up and reach a lot of folks. If you want to self-publish, you can now do easily without the heavy overhead of mass printing a novel. Still, I see how music gets torrented, and I fear the writer getting screwed of a lot of royalties. Used book sales and libraries hurt royalties already, but if people can easily rip books and e-readers are common, it could massively cut into sales numbers. I wholeheartedly agree with Deckard. Watchers is the best book about a dog I've ever read. I've always wanted a golden retriever named Einstein since this novel. I burnt out on Koontz (but I do intend to revisit his newer stuff someday...), but this was always by far my favorite book of his. Merle's Door does sound great, and The Art of Racing in the Rain has greatly intrigued me. Guess I'll have to add them to my buy list.
The second through fourth books are the weakest part of the series, but the second is perhaps by far the worst. Fizban (or Zifnab, rather) does not make much of an appearance outside of that book (or any that I can recall off the top of my head). Spoiler Haplo is also not the central character, though he is useful to tie some of the early books together.
I asked my sister about the possibility of people stealing books via the internet, as we've seen happen so much with music, movies, and television. Heck, I've had arguments here with people who honestly can't understand why I would consider it theft. You attempt to explain the effort put in by the artist(s), the money spent by the studios, etc., to produce the various media, and they babble about some "new paradigm" that makes it all cool, when the "new paradigm" is theft from the creative community, pure and simple, and the industries that enable them to make a living with their art. The delusion going on is mind boggling. Yes, my sister says theft is already a huge problem costing writers and the publishing houses millions. How this will be sorted out remains a mystery to her and to me. If that problem, and it's a big one, can be solved or at least reduced to acceptable proportions, she thinks digital book sales can be a real plus in the long run. I suspect she's going to give me a Kindle for Christmas, so perhaps I'll have more to say about digital books in the future. A very uncertain future. Meanwhile, I love my books. I have ten tall bookshelves in my house and a friend who wants to sell me three more that match some beautiful ones I already have. Soon I'll have room for more books, if only I can find room for the shelves! I'll see if I can find the first book in that series. Thanks for reminding me (again!).
That's my biggest fear about it, and I don't really see any way right now to combat it. If anything, it will just get more prevalent as more people switch to e-readers. DRM has been tried and abandoned. I understand the need for flexibility to play media on multiple devices and not be tied down to a single machine, but there's going to have be some way to limit people to a small network and not allow media copies to be played anywhere globally. We've seen Spore try to limit piracy and create an unwarranted backlash and massive amount of piracy. It's already devastated music, taken a huge dent out of gaming, made huge strides against movies and TV, and now the publishing industry is next in line. I always swore I wouldn't get one, but I think I'm going to break down and let me wife give me a Nook or Kindle. If nothing else, a lot of e-books are cheaper when it comes to new releases. I imagine if I love a book enough, I'll still wind up buying it in real print even if I have an electronic copy as well. You and I are a lot alike I think when it comes to our book collecting habits. I've always had an office with a half dozen bookcases. Unfortunately my current office doesn't have very high walls. It's the loft of a four story townhouse. Right now they're all in numbered boxes. Naturally, I have a database of every book and what box it's in for easy location. When we move into our next place, I'm going to have my father-in-law, who is a woodworker, build me custom bookcases that stretch wall to wall and floor to ceiling. I'm looking forward to sitting in that room, drinking a fly glass of wine and reading something like Shadow of the Wind.
My sister thinks people like us will still buy "the real thing" if we love the novel, history, or biography. I have to wonder how many will actually do it. Enough to make printing them worthwhile? Heck, will places I haunt, like Half Price Books, much less a superb bookstore like Book People here in Austin, be able to survive? Will the ones that do become more like museums or curiosities? "Antique and collectible" stores for the avid "hobbyist?" Is that the future for literature printed on paper? Sadly, it probably is. I've lugged books around Europe. How can I not get one of those darn things? I'll feel guilty when I do, as strange as that may sound to some people.
I get current events/news/etc. to be replaced online, but why a book?!? I don't get it. And BTW, I'm reading Isaac's Storm which is an awesome retelling of The Great Storm in Galveston. Any history buff will like it.
It's good. My late grandmother remembered the 1900 storm. She was a kid when it hit, living in a wood frame house in the Heights with my great-grandparents. While she sat on a bed, with the wind howling outside and the house crowded with family and some neighbors, the house floated down the street. A lot of folks don't realize that it hit Houston pretty hard. Nothing like Galveston, of course. There still hasn't been anything like The Great Galveston Disaster in this country in all the years since it happened.
you are going to love Deadhouse gates. It is amazing. one of my favorite books of all time. If you can accept that the central characters in the books differ per book and that you do not understand everything on your first read of the series, you will love this series. I'm jaleous of people who still have the whole series ahead of them. I'm on my first re-read and i'm almost finished with Memories of Ice. that is the book that you start understanding the bigger picture to the whole series. Enjoy.
I finished Deadhouse Gates. While I enjoyed it, I liked Gardens of the Moon better. I didn't mind having new characters to follow. I just preferred the ones in the first book better than the second. I also felt things were left hanging more in the second book. There are 8 more books to go, so I say that with a truckload of salt. All in all, I'm really enjoying this series and am plowing through Memories of Ice. arno_ed, I see what you mean. I'm definitely starting to get a feel for more of the overall scope and direction of the series. At least, I think so... I got a Kindle for Christmas, which I'm excited about. Now I just have to figure out how to incorporate this into my book buying and reading habits. I think I might use it for books that I want to read, but aren't that excited to have in my collection. I figure if I can save money on the electronic copy for a so-so book, that's a winning proposition. I don't think it's right to torrent music or books. As an author I am dead set against stealing from a writer, but I find myself posed with an ethics choice. Is it wrong to download a copy of a book I own a physical copy of? With music on CD, it's easy to rip it to MP3, but that's not possible with books. One of the greatest advantages of the Kindle for me would be to take dozens of books with me on holiday. However, I don't really want to drop over a hundred books to buy the electronic form of a book I already own. Deckard, I'm particularly interested in your take on this.
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You should check out one of Larson's other books; Devil in the White City. While I liked Isaac's Storm, Devil was much better IMO. About a serial killer in Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair. I love the way Larson mixes history with fiction. Reading Tom Robbin's newest "B is For Beer". So far classic Robbins!
Just finished this... Good book. The author spends a lot of time setting the stage and establishing the emotional climate on both sides, so you really have to pay attention in order to keep some things straight, particularly all the familial relations and Sioux names. This is a good history of the Sioux War and spends a great deal of time in dissecting and theorizing on the death of Crazy Horse while he was more or less in the custody of General Crook, a man he had bested on the battlefield.
Just started reading Trauma Room One by Dr. Charles Crenshaw. He was a resident in the trauma room and operating room as both JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald died. I'm only on about page 30 or so, but I'm highly skeptical of this guy. I'm a staunch Oswald alone believer, and this guy is overly dramatic off the bat. Not only that, but I've worked with residents and doctors, etc. Even a trauma doctor of 30 + years would not be able to distinguish entrance and exit wounds in a situation such as that. I'll still read though, because the subject fascinates me.
I am reading: Why We Suck. A Feel Good Guide To Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy And Stupid. Written By Dr. Denis Leary
