What Are You Reading?

[caruso_stalker217]

Just finished Dawn, by Olivia Butler. Kind of disappointing, given the reputation she has.

I felt that way about Fledgling.

[TheBaxter]

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

[caruso_stalker217]

Haven't picked that one up yet, though I am a King junkie. I just finished Blood's A Rover which was excellent.

I picked up some more Ellroy (The Big Nowhere and White Jazz) from one of my local used book stores and Be Cool by Elmore Leonard. So those will probably wrap up my reading for the year.

[TheBaxter]

i'm 4 stories in. like most King short story collections, it's a mixed bag. the first story has more of King's terrible kiddie dialogue. the 2nd story is pretty pointless, feels more like a writing exercise than a story. the next two after that were better.

[Maui]

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

This was an enjoyable read for the somewhat tech savvy reader. I've read Spielberg is in the works to put this on the big screen so hopefully he can do the book justice.

[Ribbons]

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

This was an enjoyable read for the somewhat tech savvy reader. I've read Spielberg is in the works to put this on the big screen so hopefully he can do the book justice.

I liked Ready Player One okay. I read it based on some of the raves online, but I'm not a child of the '80s so I don't think I got into it as much as a lot of people. There's a bit of a Harry Potter-style wish fulfillment thing going on here, but it's also pretty clever and has a bit of social commentary. I'll be interested in seeing what Spielberg does with the material.

[Maui]

but I'm not a child of the '80s so I don't think I got into it as much as a lot of people.

The 80s tech and frequent mention of old gaming consoles made me giddy.

I saw on IMDB that they have already cast Olivia Cooke in the role of Art3mis. She has certainly proven her acting abilities in Bates Motel and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. I heard rumblings that the actor (flirtatious older brother) from Jurassic World was being considered for the Wade Watts role.

[magicmonkey]

I am reading Masquerade by Terry Pratchett. About time I caught up really... as I have never read any pratchett other than playing the DIscworld computer games. Discworld Noir being particularly memorable. Only a few pages in and eager to see how he develops the narrative! Other than that I got George RR Martin's The Armageddon Rag to be splaying.

[Wolfpack]

I am reading Masquerade by Terry Pratchett. About time I caught up really... as I have never read any pratchett other than playing the DIscworld computer games. Discworld Noir being particularly memorable. Only a few pages in and eager to see how he develops the narrative! Other than that I got George RR Martin's The Armageddon Rag to be splaying.

The Armageddon Rag. Is that the story of Brienne of Tarth's sanitary napkin?

[Maui]

I've been wanting to read this book for quite some time and lucky for me, it was under the Xmas tree. Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis.

Winner of the 2015 Giller Prize - Canada's equivalent to the Pulitzer
Winner of the 2015 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
Finalist for the 2015 Toronto Book Awards

The 2015 Giller jury citation:

'What does it mean to be alive? To think, to feel, to love and to envy? Andre Alexis explores all of this and more in the extraordinary Fifteen Dogs , an insightful and philosophical meditation on the nature of consciousness. It's a novel filled with balancing acts: humour juxtaposed with savagery, solitude with the desperate need to be part of a pack, perceptive prose interspersed with playful poetry. A wonderful and original piece of writing that challenges the reader to examine their own existence and recall the age old question, what's the meaning of life?'

[justcheckin]

I'm currently reading Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I'm a good third of the way in... it's fairly interesting, fantasy... sort of steam punk meets industrialization with lots of odd races of humanoids and a slight bit of magic.

[SilentBobX]

Just bought a John Carter set(The First Five Novels) and The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. First time reading either(aside from Hound of the Baskervilles way way back). Can't wait to start.


Mahalo

[thomasgaffney]

Also reading The Bazaar of Bad Dreams from Stephen King.

After that I have The Gatefather by Orson Scott Card, Empire Falls by Richard Russo, and The Slade House by David Mitchell (not the one from Peep Show)

[Al Shut]

Doing a in memoriam read of Eco's The Prague Cemetary. Not an easy read even the second time around.

Doing Foucault's pendulum next.

[TheBaxter]

Doing a in memoriam read of Eco's The Prague Cemetary. Not an easy read even the second time around.

Doing Foucault's pendulum next.

and after that you can complete the trilogy by slamming your head against a brick wall for a week.

[caruso_stalker217]

Having a kid has really cut into my reading. I think I've finished one book so far this year, The Hunter by Richard Stark and that's under two hundred pages.

I did get a chance to read the first 170+ pages of Joe Hill's novel The Fireman which I believe comes out in May. It's off to an interesting start. Looking forward to reading the rest.

[TheBaxter]

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

i'd been meaning to read this book for a while, and after seeing the trailer, i figured i'd better get to it before the movie comes out and ruins it for me. so i read it. i mentioned that the trailer makes it look like Gone Girl. there are some surface resemblances to Gone Girl (missing woman, presumed dead; chapters seesawing between different character's POVs), but ultimately it's not as clever or original as Gone Girl. GG had a killer twist that made the book go, this one is more of just your standard mystery/thriller. there's a crime, there's a bunch of suspects and red herrings (even a ginger herring), and constructed in a way to raise suspicions about one character, then shift suspicions to another. unlike GG, there's no real twist, just the inevitable answer to the question of who the killer is. i would say the answer to that question is not completely predictable but not completely surprising either. i mean, the killer is one of the people you suspect, but then nearly every character in the book at one point or another is a suspect so that doesn't mean very much. at the point where the book starts to reveal the answer to the mystery, about 2/3 in or so, it probably becomes a little too obvious a little too soon that this character actually IS the killer, so for a while there you feel like your ahead of the book/other characters in the book. ultimately it was a decent read but nothing special. and yeah, the movie trailer does "sex it up" or at least, it focuses more on the sexy aspects of the plot than other aspects, but hey, sex sells.

[minstrel]

I recently completed a reread of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, for the first time since I was a wide-eyed preteen. Stranger book than I remember.

I'm about to begin J.G. Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company. I've never read any of Ballard's work before. This should be interesting.

[TheBaxter]

Ready Player One

i liked this book. it's not amazing, it's got some flaws, but overall the story is satisfying. this book follows the "hero journey" template to a tee. if you've seen or read any Hero Journey-based story, then the overall outline of what happens here will be completely familiar. but there's enough little twists and turns to make it fresh and enjoyable.

i'm a total child of the 80s, especially film and music. not as much video games, though of course i had my Atari 2600, and later my Commodore 128 (one of the few computers that DOESN'T get name-dropped in this book; they always refer to it's weaker Commodore 64 precursor). so a lot of the references and quotes were familiar and fun, though some of the game references, and later especially the anime/manga references (never was an anime fan) went over my head for sure. in the early going, the book almost feels like an excuse to name-drop as many old tv show/movie/video game references as possible, and it sometimes comes off as a bit much. it also felt like a lot of extra, unnecessary exposition, but once the story really gets underway, that stuff takes a backseat to the story, which is pretty good and interesting enough to keep you reading. the writing itself is pretty pedestrian, but not annoying or distracting, except for those occasional expositionary diversions that don't add much.

i don't know how they're going to make a movie out of this, the rights fees alone would bankrupt a small nation. they'll probably trim it way back, but i'll be interested in seeing just how many of the book references, particularly the ones that are really integral to the story, make it into the film. the WarGames section alone could be really incredible or a complete disaster. i am disappointed, though, that they did not cast christopher walken as Halliday. i can't get the image of Walken dancing along to Dead Man's Party out of my head since reading the book.

[so sorry]

[b]Ready Player One
i don't know how they're going to make a movie out of this, the rights fees alone would bankrupt a small nation. they'll probably trim it way back, but i'll be interested in seeing just how many of the book references, particularly the ones that are really integral to the story, make it into the film. .

Wouldn't they have had the same issue with the rights for the book?

[TheBaxter]

[b]Ready Player One
i don't know how they're going to make a movie out of this, the rights fees alone would bankrupt a small nation. they'll probably trim it way back, but i'll be interested in seeing just how many of the book references, particularly the ones that are really integral to the story, make it into the film. .

Wouldn't they have had the same issue with the rights for the book?

no, you don't need the rights to something to write about it. but you do to put it up on screen. for instance, they can talk about Pac-Man all they want in the book, but to show Pac-Man in the film, they'll need to get the rights to use his likeness.

i think it's a matter of degree too. you can reference things in a book, for example, there are Star Wars and Star Trek references. but, you couldn't write a whole book featuring all Star Trek or Star Wars characters, without being licensed to do so.

[Maui]

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid.

Ribbons, check it out and don't read any spoilers on this book. Be curious your thoughts on this. Quick read, only 300+ pages, a real mind f**k.

[Ribbons]

Will do!

[Fievel]

Just finished City of Mirrors - the final book of The Passage trilogy. Holy shit what an amazing ride this was! Justin Cronin is a new favorite writer for me. Unfortunately, given that his previous books were not nerd genre material, I have a strong fear that he won't revisit this type of genre writing.

A big thank you to whoever recommended The Passage years ago. I have thoroughly enjoyed my trip through that world and stories.

Bring on the film now, Ridley Scott!!

[TheBaxter]

i finished reading Oliver Twist.
i read the Dickens out of it.

[so sorry]

i finished reading Oliver Twist.
i read the Dickens out of it.

But do you want some more?

[TheBaxter]

i finished reading Oliver Twist.
i read the Dickens out of it.

But do you want some more?

it took me over half a year to read it, so probably not.
but i do suddenly feel less offended by Donald Trump's star of david tweet.

[TheButcher]

PRINCE LESTAT

aka ANNE RICE GOTTA EAT
aka ANNE RICE GOES ALL STEPHEN KING AND STARTS WRITING ABOUT IPHONES AND SHIT
aka ANNE RICE GOES ALL GEORGE RR MARTIN ON STEROIDS AND PUTS ABOUT A THOUSAND NEW CHARACTERS IN HER BOOKS AND GIVES EACH ONE THEIR OWN CHAPTER
aka ANNE RICE GOES ALL GEORGE LUCAS AND STARTS OVEREXPLAINING VAMPIRES MIDICHLORIAN-STYLE
aka ANNE RICE GOES ALL TOLKIEN AND WRITES A BUNCH OF APPENDICES AND SHIT TO MAKE HER FICTIONAL WORLD SEEM EVEN BIGGER AND MORE COMPLEX
aka ANNE RICE GOES ALL (insert modern-day YA author name here) AND INVENTS HER OWN BRAND OF VAMPIRE 'LINGO' AND OVERUSES IT THROUGH THE ENTIRE BOOK

i was excited when i found out anne rice was writing more Vampire Chronicles books. i went back and re-read the first 5 VC books (the only ones i'd already read, and that i heard this book was a direct sequel to those 5 books specifically). what i learned re-reading those books is that there's just as much moping and self-loathing as i remembered, but not quite as much story as i thought. Interview had the most stuff happening of all those books. i stopped reading after Memnoch cause it seemed like Rice was just going back to old characters and repeating herself. apparently stuff actually does happen in those later books, since the new book refers to characters and events that happened in them, which was a bit confusing. anyways, despite their flaws, i do like those early VC books. sure the mopey vampire is a cliche, but Rice invented the cliche so she gets a pass.

Prince Lestat is really a disappointment. as mentioned, the vampires suddenly figured out how to use technology, and Rice overdoes the tech references. at the same time, unlike King, she doesn't really seem to understand her own references as well so they are more vague and repetitive. she also, as i mentioned, felt the need to create a massive new cast of characters (so massive, there's a 3-page long bio section at the end explaining who each person is) and in true GoT style, titles each chapter after one of these characters (but unlike GRRM, instead of only using 6 or 7 characters with repeated chapters, she gives most of these characters a single chapter and moves on). the most disappointing thing, i think, is the quality of the writing. Rice has always been a flowery writer, too flowery at times probably. but still it always had an elegance to it. not here though. the writing is pedestrian and shaky. Rice seems a bit rusty. it probably doesn't help that she decided to invent a series of terms (summarized in a glossary at the book's beginning) to refer to various aspects of vampire life that i believe (though i can't say for sure, not having read some of the later VC books) are completely new, or that maybe were used once or twice before but here become codified into an entirely new vocabulary. and then she rams those terms down your throat on nearly every page of this book. suddenly a vampire's ability to fly is called the Cloud Gift, and the ability to set someone on fire is the Fire Gift, and the root of vampire power that resides in the oldest vampire is now the Sacred Core (everything is dutifully capitalized in this way). all these things existed in prior books (at least the 5 i read) but not in Capitalized Letter, used-by-every-character form. the idea that the vampires all suddenly decided to use the same lame terms for their powers and such is distracting, and the need to shoehorn those terms into nearly every page of the book results in prose that is clunky and obnoxious.

the story itself is ok. a bit of a retread of Queen of the Damned, and most of the plot points (the identity of the mysterious Voice, the ultimate way in which this character's threat is dealt with) are predictable, but towards the end there are some interesting things going on. it's just it takes too long to get there, with too many new, pointless characters introduced along the way (some of which i'm sure will become more useful in the future books Rice says she has planned), and distracted by too much stupid crap like a vampire doctor who's researching vampire biology. at least by the end of the book, the vampires are not mopey any more though. well, not AS mopey i guess.

Rice says she had so many new ideas she had a hard time deciding what to put in or leave out. it shows. so there's more VC books on the way. i don't know if i'll read them. i can't exactly say i'm thirsting ( ) for more.

Anne Rice Just Changed Everything You Thought You Knew About Vampires

[TheBaxter]

thanks for reposting that review of mine. i have the new Anne Rice book waiting for me to pick up at the library, and now i'm a lot less excited to read it. not that i was particularly excited to read it to begin with. i remembered that Prince Lestat was bad and i didn't like it (that's about all i remembered about it), but re-reading my review reminds me of HOW bad it was and WHY i didn't like it. i'll still read the new one, though, cause i'm a sucker. hopefully that last book was her shaking off the cobwebs, and she'll learn from the mistakes in that book, cut back on the vampire lingo and tech talk, and focus on fewer characters.

[Ribbons]

hopefully that last book was her shaking off the cobwebs, and she'll learn from the mistakes in that book, cut back on the vampire lingo and tech talk, and focus on fewer characters.

Not bloody likely!





...you guys see what I did there, right? Bloody? Because vampires? Guys?

[Peven]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

[so sorry]

thanks for reposting that review of mine. i have the new Anne Rice book waiting for me to pick up at the library, and now i'm a lot less excited to read it. not that i was particularly excited to read it to begin with. i remembered that Prince Lestat was bad and i didn't like it (that's about all i remembered about it), but re-reading my review reminds me of HOW bad it was and WHY i didn't like it. i'll still read the new one, though, cause i'm a sucker. hopefully that last book was her shaking off the cobwebs, and she'll learn from the mistakes in that book, cut back on the vampire lingo and tech talk, and focus on fewer characters.

I read the spoiler-filled review of her new book, and I await your review with bated breath...

[TheBaxter]

yeah, i stopped reading when i hit that spoiler warning, so i still have no idea what's coming.

[TheBaxter]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

[Wolfpack]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

Your pun is a little long in the tooth.

[TheBaxter]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

Your pun is a little long in the tooth.

bite me.

[Peven]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

Your pun is a little long in the tooth.

bite me.

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever because he responds with "bite me" when he can't think of anything clever to say.....ha.......ha..................ha

[TheBaxter]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

Your pun is a little long in the tooth.

bite me.

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever because he responds with "bite me" when he can't think of anything clever to say.....ha.......ha..................ha

fine. don't expect me to ever go to bat for you.






get it? because vampires turn into bats? amirite?

[Fievel]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

Your pun is a little long in the tooth.

bite me.

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever because he responds with "bite me" when he can't think of anything clever to say.....ha.......ha..................ha

fine. don't expect me to ever go to bat for you.






get it? because vampires turn into bats? amirite?

[Wolfpack]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

Your pun is a little long in the tooth.

bite me.

That's an idea I can really sink my teeth into.

[Peven]

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever for using the british slang "bloody" literally.....ha........ha.........................ha

you're sharp.




you know, because, fangs? they're sharp too? get it? huh?

Your pun is a little long in the tooth.

bite me.

yeah, you're THAT American guy who thinks he's SO clever because he responds with "bite me" when he can't think of anything clever to say.....ha.......ha..................ha

fine. don't expect me to ever go to bat for you.






get it? because vampires turn into bats? amirite?

i think you struck out with that one

[Peven]

because you know.........................






bats........................................









...........................baseball...............................get it?

[TheBaxter]

we're talking about vampires, not baseball. stop trying to throw us a curveball.

[Al Shut]

You know damn well that vampire baseball is the only worthwhile form of baseball.

[Ribbons]

[TheBaxter]

thanks for reposting that review of mine. i have the new Anne Rice book waiting for me to pick up at the library, and now i'm a lot less excited to read it. not that i was particularly excited to read it to begin with. i remembered that Prince Lestat was bad and i didn't like it (that's about all i remembered about it), but re-reading my review reminds me of HOW bad it was and WHY i didn't like it. i'll still read the new one, though, cause i'm a sucker. hopefully that last book was her shaking off the cobwebs, and she'll learn from the mistakes in that book, cut back on the vampire lingo and tech talk, and focus on fewer characters.

I read the spoiler-filled review of her new book, and I await your review with bated breath...

well, i'm a few chapters in, and i can say thankfully that this book seems to be an improvement over the last. even though the beginning includes the same glossary of "vampire slang" terms as the last one, so far she is barely using them in the book itself. and also, though the book continues the structure borrowed from GoT, where each chapter is named for and told from POV of a single character, this time it's restricted to just a handful of major characters, and at least half of those chapters are "Lestat" so that bodes well. unlike last time where she devoted single chapters to characters who appear and disappear and don't seem very important. the writing seems much improved too, not like the ham-fisted writing of the last book.

so overall, even though i'm only about 15% of the way in, i'm feeling encouraged.

[TheBaxter]

thanks for reposting that review of mine. i have the new Anne Rice book waiting for me to pick up at the library, and now i'm a lot less excited to read it. not that i was particularly excited to read it to begin with. i remembered that Prince Lestat was bad and i didn't like it (that's about all i remembered about it), but re-reading my review reminds me of HOW bad it was and WHY i didn't like it. i'll still read the new one, though, cause i'm a sucker. hopefully that last book was her shaking off the cobwebs, and she'll learn from the mistakes in that book, cut back on the vampire lingo and tech talk, and focus on fewer characters.

I read the spoiler-filled review of her new book, and I await your review with bated breath...

ok, here we go...

so like i already mentioned, this book improves on a lot of the things i found so annoying about the previous book. the overuse of "vampire slang," the overcrowded cast of new and minor characters, the technobabble, and the just plain bad writing, are all for the most part substantially reduced here. the book is more focused, better-written, and less full of itself.

the story the book tells, probably, is not as good as the previous book, though it's certainly.... original.

i guess you'd call the vampire chronicles books "gothic horror"... this book is pretty much straight-up sci-fi. vampire sci-fi. maybe that film Lifeforce comes to mind (a film based on a book called The Space Vampires which might be a spiritual descendent of this book... that might be spoilery, but not quite, the vampires here aren't actually space vampires... well, not precisely...)

i mean, i like sci-fi. and i like vampires. i'm not really sure i like to see them mixed together. and probably not to see the sci-fi stuff suddenly injected in a 40-year-old vampire series that hasn't previously dealt with sci-fi subjects. feels a bit forced. i could see where this was going, and i knew i probably wasn't going to like it, but i made the decision to just go along with it and hope for the best and not try to prejudge it until the book was finished. so now that i've finished the book, i think i can say that i really don't particularly care for taking these books in this direction.

if there's one particular criticism i had of the last book, that was even worse here, it would be this one: aka ANNE RICE GOES ALL GEORGE LUCAS AND STARTS OVEREXPLAINING VAMPIRES MIDICHLORIAN-STYLE
Prince Lestat got into that scientific over-explaining of vampirism that i didn't care for (the Strain book series had some of the same problems, but not nearly to this extent) but it was nothing compared to what goes on in PLatRoA. i mean, we LITERALLY get vampire midichlorians here (except Rice calls it luracastria). this is not a good thing. it might seem odd that someone like me who is so pro-science and anti-religion is so turned off by a book series that goes from a religion-based view of vampires to a purely scientific explanation, but you know what? the Bible is damn good fiction. i get enough science in the real world, when i read a book, i want to escape into worlds where not everything is explained, where there are mysteries and where magical stuff can happen that doesn't have a scientific reason behind it. though i do have to admit a certain satisfaction at seeing Anne Rice (a woman who started off as a small-c catholic, then became a big-C CATHOLIC who even wrote an entire series of books about Jesus, before she rebounded all the way back to pure atheism) casually throw in some major digs at christianity here and there, in particular her suggestion that Jesus was nothing more than an alien-built synthetic lifeform sent to earth specifically to start a religion based on making humans worship suffering so that they could then feed off of that suffering. i can only imagine how much crazier this book would have been if Rice had ever been a Scientologist.

so final verdict... i enjoyed the book more than the last one. it's better written and i enjoyed it more while reading it, but i think the direction this series has gone in might be going down a path i can't or don't want to follow.

[caruso_stalker217]

I've just started The Autobiography of James T. Kirk and if this thing isn't a sexy tell-all about all the alien punani he got over the years then I will be very disappointed.

[so sorry]

thanks for reposting that review of mine. i have the new Anne Rice book waiting for me to pick up at the library, and now i'm a lot less excited to read it. not that i was particularly excited to read it to begin with. i remembered that Prince Lestat was bad and i didn't like it (that's about all i remembered about it), but re-reading my review reminds me of HOW bad it was and WHY i didn't like it. i'll still read the new one, though, cause i'm a sucker. hopefully that last book was her shaking off the cobwebs, and she'll learn from the mistakes in that book, cut back on the vampire lingo and tech talk, and focus on fewer characters.

I read the spoiler-filled review of her new book, and I await your review with bated breath...

ok, here we go...

so like i already mentioned, this book improves on a lot of the things i found so annoying about the previous book. the overuse of "vampire slang," the overcrowded cast of new and minor characters, the technobabble, and the just plain bad writing, are all for the most part substantially reduced here. the book is more focused, better-written, and less full of itself.

the story the book tells, probably, is not as good as the previous book, though it's certainly.... original.

i guess you'd call the vampire chronicles books "gothic horror"... this book is pretty much straight-up sci-fi. vampire sci-fi. maybe that film Lifeforce comes to mind (a film based on a book called The Space Vampires which might be a spiritual descendent of this book... that might be spoilery, but not quite, the vampires here aren't actually space vampires... well, not precisely...)

i mean, i like sci-fi. and i like vampires. i'm not really sure i like to see them mixed together. and probably not to see the sci-fi stuff suddenly injected in a 40-year-old vampire series that hasn't previously dealt with sci-fi subjects. feels a bit forced. i could see where this was going, and i knew i probably wasn't going to like it, but i made the decision to just go along with it and hope for the best and not try to prejudge it until the book was finished. so now that i've finished the book, i think i can say that i really don't particularly care for taking these books in this direction.

if there's one particular criticism i had of the last book, that was even worse here, it would be this one: aka ANNE RICE GOES ALL GEORGE LUCAS AND STARTS OVEREXPLAINING VAMPIRES MIDICHLORIAN-STYLE
Prince Lestat got into that scientific over-explaining of vampirism that i didn't care for (the Strain book series had some of the same problems, but not nearly to this extent) but it was nothing compared to what goes on in PLatRoA. i mean, we LITERALLY get vampire midichlorians here (except Rice calls it luracastria). this is not a good thing. it might seem odd that someone like me who is so pro-science and anti-religion is so turned off by a book series that goes from a religion-based view of vampires to a purely scientific explanation, but you know what? the Bible is damn good fiction. i get enough science in the real world, when i read a book, i want to escape into worlds where not everything is explained, where there are mysteries and where magical stuff can happen that doesn't have a scientific reason behind it. though i do have to admit a certain satisfaction at seeing Anne Rice (a woman who started off as a small-c catholic, then became a big-C CATHOLIC who even wrote an entire series of books about Jesus, before she rebounded all the way back to pure atheism) casually throw in some major digs at christianity here and there, in particular her suggestion that Jesus was nothing more than an alien-built synthetic lifeform sent to earth specifically to start a religion based on making humans worship suffering so that they could then feed off of that suffering. i can only imagine how much crazier this book would have been if Rice had ever been a Scientologist.

so final verdict... i enjoyed the book more than the last one. it's better written and i enjoyed it more while reading it, but i think the direction this series has gone in might be going down a path i can't or don't want to follow.

I would have expected you to fly off the handle with the whole aliens thing.

[TheBaxter]

sorry to disappoint you. the aliens angle i think was a mistake and a step in a very wrong direction for the series as a whole, and definitely worthy of several 's

but, the previous book was so bad, that it set my expectations way too low for there to really be much chance of this book upsetting me. even with the aliens, it still managed to be a better book than the last one.