What are you reading right now? (possible RotE spoilers)

[fool-ish]

These beings read the first of the single books. Unfortunately someone made a mess of it... many lines were messed up, others had missing words and sentence structure was at times lacking...

The story was of similar quality to her other works... Good worldbuilding, but only ok story quality. Still, better than 'thul feared. so a palatability level of boiled cabbage rather than boiled hay...

Boiled cabbage/hay! What a great expression that is! I confess, I didn't read the next story in the omnibus...far too exasperated by the first one and non-too far in at that! It's sure put me off this author and I won't be reading anything else of hers anytime soon. It seems to be a common thing within this genre, an awful lot of jumping on bandwagons and as a result, an abundance of 'boiled hay' for the masses!

I'm enjoying the current series that I'm reading though, so things aren't all bad

[Farseer]

Currently reading a manga called 'Bunny drop'. It's about a 30 year old guy who finds out about his grandfather's illegal 6 year old daughter at his funeral, and he decides to become her guardian. It's a very touching series.

Another for my to-read pile.

['thul]

The later books become a bit better actually. Stories more, really... all below 100 pages...

The hardest part is that it seems each book only has a few minor parts in common (beyond same world, of course)

Sort of like taking a single character or three that is only mentioned in one book, then focusing on them in the second. and new ones for each book. Some parts are fairly predictable, though... The concept of "true love"/"soulmates" is rather ingrained in the whole. The quality of the stories is still mediocre, but the world is well-built.

No wonder there's a lot of stories in her (L. J. Smith's) worlds written by ghost writers... The worlds are excellently built, yet the stories stuck onto the worlds aren't nearly as excellent.

Even at its mediocre level, it is better than the later stories in the "Anita Blake" world. This at least is consistent in quality. Those "stories" were just excuses for the author to stick in silly amounts of low-quality erotica.

[joost]

Finished the three volumes of Bunny drop that I own (there are 7 more, but only upto volume 7 have been published so far and I haven't bought them all yet). At times funny, at times sad, most times very touching. I really liked it.

Now started Ghormenghast. It's supposed to be a classic in the fantasy genre but I'm not really into it yet.

[fool-ish]

The later books become a bit better actually. Stories more, really... all below 100 pages...

The hardest part is that it seems each book only has a few minor parts in common (beyond same world, of course)

Sort of like taking a single character or three that is only mentioned in one book, then focusing on them in the second. and new ones for each book. Some parts are fairly predictable, though... The concept of "true love"/"soulmates" is rather ingrained in the whole. The quality of the stories is still mediocre, but the world is well-built.

No wonder there's a lot of stories in her (L. J. Smith's) worlds written by ghost writers... The worlds are excellently built, yet the stories stuck onto the worlds aren't nearly as excellent.

Even at its mediocre level, it is better than the later stories in the "Anita Blake" world. This at least is consistent in quality. Those "stories" were just excuses for the author to stick in silly amounts of low-quality erotica.

Well you made a better go of it than I did. True love/soulmates I can deal with...I could fully imagine Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont together in A Discovery of Witches, for example. In LJ Smith's book, it just didn't work for me. *shrugs* I dunno, maybe I'm just a bit too long in the tooth for all that schoolgirl stuff

---

Finished the three volumes of Bunny drop that I own (there are 7 more, but only upto volume 7 have been published so far and I haven't bought them all yet). At times funny, at times sad, most times very touching. I really liked it.

Now started Ghormenghast. It's supposed to be a classic in the fantasy genre but I'm not really into it yet.

I've got Ghormenghast on my 'to read' list. I do believe it's not to everyone's taste and that the prose is 'different' to that which most people are used to, and so quite difficult to read at times. However, it appeals to my gothic sensibilities, so will probably give it a go at some point. I wasn't actually aware it was a literary work until quite recently. I knew the name only from the TV series the BBC aired back in 2000.

['thul]

It gets a bit tiresome when pretty much all the main characters are exposed to it... especially when its even predictable whom their soulmate will be almost from the beginning. In some of them, it could be as easy as: "Who is the heroine? Who is the male villain of same (physical) age? There you go." Not always, but it was that way in several of them...

The real annoyance for these beings is the fact that the digital edition was horribly made. two lines stuck on top of each other and such... or a 1-character-wide full line...

[joost]

I've given up on Gormenghast for now, just couldn't get through it, and started a reread of Elenium.

['thul]

sensible reread choice, joost...

do you have a whale available for petting?

[mmmmmmm]

I am reading Gormenghast but I may abandon it for the time being because I only have time to read on the train to and from work at the moment and it isn't the kind of thing I can dip in and out of

[Farseer]

Yes, I'm not one for dipping in and out with most novels. Even with RotE rereads, I find I end up having to swim laps (or oceans).