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Timotheus wrote:dear lord micky what are you saying

The book is bad, duh!

The first book does suck imo but it gets better after that. At the same time I wouldn’t blame someone who doesn’t want to read a book they think is bad for a few hundred pages just in hopes it gets better lol.

Alright, so i finished the second short story of the new Stephen King Book

This one is called: "The Life of Chuck"

This one has a 3 act structure, literally. He breaks the short story down into 3 different acts, but he tells them backwards, and they don't really seem to make a lot of sense. So it is told in the order of ACT 3, ACT 2, and ACT 1

Act 3, being first remember, is actually really great. It's mysterious and you want to know just what's going on.
Act 1, is the final part of the short story, and it has lost some of its luster but it is still okay, the ending is really creepy, but you saw it coming as they basically tell you it in Act 3.

Act 2....

Fuck Act 2. The whole act is about breakdancing in the street between an old guy and a young girl. It's cringe worthy stuff and some of the way it's written is just really poor. Has to be some of the worst King writing I've ever read.

There's a line in this act that had me laughing so hard that I sent a picture of it to a bunch of my friends.

"You're the cheese, daddy!"

Overall, this short story should have been told in order, from Act 1-3, but you could have taken the entirety of Act 2 out of the story and it wouldn't have changed anything.

5/10

I recently started Mark Lawrence's Book of the Ancestor trilogy and am currently on book 2. What I've noticed right off the bat is that Lawrence puts a lot of effort into his opening hooks.

This is the opening of the first book in the series: “It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.”

Tell me that doesn't catch your interest right away and I'll call you a liar.

Loved the first book, the second has a bit of a time skip that feels somewhat awkward but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

So, I just finished the 3rd short story of the new Stephen King book.

The 3rd short story is the title of the book, "If It Bleeds".

This short story is a follow up to King's 2018 book, The Outsider, which was recently made into an HBO show. The book was incredible, one of my favorite books he's ever written, and the show was equally as great.

Note*: The Outsider is KIND OF part of the Mr. Mercedes series that King has been writing, but only partially related.

I was really looking forward to this story, and was the whole reason I bought the book.

I was not disappointed. If It Bleeds is everything I wanted, expected and needed. It follows up the Outsider very well, talks about PTSD, and is long enough that their doesn't leave much room for wanting more. I do think the story could have been fleshed out into it's own novel, but it ends on a way that is leaving doors open for that and with the success of The Outsider, I can't see King not following up on it.

I'm going to give this one a 9/10. I was really impressed with it in what has been a somewhat disappointing book.

One more short story to go, and this one is the shortest of all, 85 pages.

Alright, double post.

I finished the 4th and final story of the new Stephen King book, "If it Bleeds"

This story was called "Rat", and there's an image of a rat on the cover, so I thought this would be the story King most wanted readers to read.

Rat was good, not great. It's about a man who is a great writer of short stories, but not a great writer of novels as he can never seem to finish one, so he goes to his fathers old cabin to force himself to write one.

I won't go into too much about the story from here out, but there's a lot of character development in such a short amount of time which is great. I thought the ending left a bit to be desired, but King is notorious for his endings not being anything special.

I'm going to give Rat an 8/10.

As a whole, Stephen King's new book "If it Bleeds" was, good not great. I felt that two of the stories could have simply been their own books to begin with. (Mr. Harrigan's Phone and If it Bleeds).

Rat was good

Life of Chuck I feel was a real waste of time.

The book on a whole is getting a 7.5/10 for me with the highlight being the title story, If It Bleeds.

Next up: "Hello, Clarice..."

Double post again

I just wrapped up reading The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.

I took a course this semester called Mystery Story and the first two books in the Hannibal Lecter series were assigned to us early on, but due to Covid, we decided to switch things up a bit. So, I had bought the books, the whole series actually.

Red Dragon was a great book and a great introduction to this universe of characters.

Here we are with The Silence of the Lambs and WOW. What a phenomenal book.

I had seen the movie growing up, but never read the book and I was not disappointed. This is one of my top 5 favorite books I have ever read. I highly recommend it.

9.5/10

Micky wrote:So, I just finished the 3rd short story of the new Stephen King book.

The 3rd short story is the title of the book, "If It Bleeds".

This short story is a follow up to King's 2018 book, The Outsider, which was recently made into an HBO show. The book was incredible, one of my favorite books he's ever written, and the show was equally as great.

Note*: The Outsider is KIND OF part of the Mr. Mercedes series that King has been writing, but only partially related.

I was really looking forward to this story, and was the whole reason I bought the book.

I was not disappointed. If It Bleeds is everything I wanted, expected and needed. It follows up the Outsider very well, talks about PTSD, and is long enough that their doesn't leave much room for wanting more. I do think the story could have been fleshed out into it's own novel, but it ends on a way that is leaving doors open for that and with the success of The Outsider, I can't see King not following up on it.

I'm going to give this one a 9/10. I was really impressed with it in what has been a somewhat disappointing book.

One more short story to go, and this one is the shortest of all, 85 pages.

Nice review! Thank you will read them next. I’ve started one called “Becoming Supernatural “ it also talks about PTSD. Something I have been diagnosed with along with ADHD.

I recently finished the 10 part Malazan Book of the Fallen series. First half was absolutely amazing. Second half was a mixed bag. Erikson is a wonderful writer though, possibly my favorite. Would highly recommend this series for anyone who enjoys epic fantasy. It's more on the grim dark side though so be warned.

Revisiting Brandon Sanderson now. Last year I read the original Mistborn Trilogy and loved it. Finished Way of King's earlier this week and am currently reading Words of Radiance. Unsure how I feel about the Stormlight Archives as a whole so far, seems a bit like a mashup universe sometimes and I'm less interested in the abilities and setting.

When I finish Oathbringer I will probably read some onsie twosie books then move on to the Thomas Covenant series.

gbruin wrote:Working my way through Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. It's written by Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology and a primatologist at Stanford. The book attempts to explain how and why any particular behavior occurs.

Have you read Blink?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40102.Blink

Fish Tacos wrote:I recently finished the 10 part Malazan Book of the Fallen series. First half was absolutely amazing. Second half was a mixed bag. Erikson is a wonderful writer though, possibly my favorite. Would highly recommend this series for anyone who enjoys epic fantasy. It's more on the grim dark side though so be warned.

Revisiting Brandon Sanderson now. Last year I read the original Mistborn Trilogy and loved it. Finished Way of King's earlier this week and am currently reading Words of Radiance. Unsure how I feel about the Stormlight Archives as a whole so far, seems a bit like a mashup universe sometimes and I'm less interested in the abilities and setting.

When I finish Oathbringer I will probably read some onsie twosie books then move on to the Thomas Covenant series.

Total respect for finishing the Malazan series. Always heard that one can be tough to make it all the way through, so I’ve never really had the nerve to try it. I’ve heard similar reviews as what you say about it starting strong and getting more hit and miss later on. I’ve ran into that one before...(looking at you, Wheel of Time).

Glad to see someone else around here has given Sanderson a shot. I personally loved The Way of Kings but once you get to Oathbringer, Roshar as a whole starts to come together a bit more. If the series clicks more with you by then, the 4th book is coming out in November.

If you liked Mistborn then you’d probably like its sequel series as well. He still has to write the last book in that set but I’ve enjoyed those books too, although they’re not as good as the original trilogy.

Malazan was an absolute joy to get through but it really depends on which characters you're interested in. For example, I forget which fantasy series was in part an inspiration for the Malazan Marines but it had focused mainly on a large company of soldiers and the relationships between them. This works in small doses in the earlier books but then book 6 spends almost the entire time with them so if those are your favorite characters you'll love it and if they're you're least favorite you'll be bored. So the varying opinions I've seen as hit or miss usually rely on which characters the reader finds more interesting and less about the quality of the work. Overall the series is extremely well written though and was one of those series that tries to undermine or satirically poke at existing fantasy literary tropes. Definitely worth a shot for anyone that's considered it.

Yeah I definitely want to revisit the Mistborn series for era 2. I'm beginning to figure out sanderson's flavor. The same way MB had a magic system with 3 disciplines or paths the physics of it could take it seems like SA is setting up something similar. Were you a fan of Elantris / Warbringer?

Sanderson can be fairly numerical with his magic systems. In Mistborn you have the metallic arts that can be used either through Allomancy, Feruchemy, or Hemulurgy. With Stormlight you get the 10 surges used with Surgebinding, but as the series progresses you’ll find some other ways the magic manifests itself.

If you start enjoying his Cosmere books as a whole, Elantris and Warbreaker are worth a read. Elantris was his first major published book, and to be honest I’m not a huge fan of the story itself, but it’s still a bit of an interesting read to see what’s going on at a different planet in the Cosmere.

Warbreaker is actually a free book as a PDF on his website, and it’s definitely worth a read if you enjoy Stormlight. If you read Warbreaker before Stormlight you’ll actually be able to pick out a number of cameo appearances in Words of Radiance and Oathbringer. The book itself takes place on another planet called Nalthis, but there’s some connections between Nalthis and Roshar, so it’s kind of a very loose prequel to Stormlight.

Andy92 wrote:Allomancy, Feruchemy, or Hemulurgy.

Be honest, did you remember all 3 or did you have to look them up?

Fish Tacos wrote:

Andy92 wrote:Allomancy, Feruchemy, or Hemulurgy.

Be honest, did you remember all 3 or did you have to look them up?

I may be the resident Sanderson nerd...I knew those off the top of my head.

Fish Tacos wrote:

gbruin wrote:Working my way through Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. It's written by Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology and a primatologist at Stanford. The book attempts to explain how and why any particular behavior occurs.

Have you read Blink?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40102.Blink

Yeah. I've read I think 3 of Gladwell's books and they're pretty good. Books like Behave and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg cover lots of the same territory that Gladwell touches on but with a lot more depth. Not that one approach is better than another, but I prefer more sciencey/textbooky stuff with lots of data and citations for those kinds of topics. The heavy nature of those kinds of books would turn off a lot of casual readers for whom Gladwell is perfect.

I just finished reading Hannibal by Thomas Harris. This is the 3rd in the Hannibal Lecter series and picks up seven years after Silence of the Lambs did.

This is the longest book in the series, at over 500 pages. The first two books move at a very fast pace, keeping you wanting to read more and more. Hannibal, however, is a bit more of a slow burn. The book takes its time to tell its many story lines and serves as a finale for the story of Clarice and Hannibal Lecter. The next book in the series is a prequel about Hannibal Lecter.

The book is really good. It's not great, but it's really good. I just don't think there's ever going to be any topping Silence of the Lambs, and Harris knew that. He tells a different type of story here and it works very well.

I won't go too much into spoilers here, but there's a character Jack Crawford who was a main point in the first 2 books that was just kind of wasted here. I felt more could have been done with him.

The ending was also radically different from the movie, but was also radically different from what I expected and I'm torn as to how I feel about it. I think as characters it fits both Clarice and Hannibal, but story-wise I feel like it may have fell a little flat.

I'm going to give Hannibal a 7/10. It's a really solid book, but still leaves just a bit more desired. You could probably take out some of the subplots here and the book would have been much better.

Is that what you just finished Micky? That's the book you just read, Micky? You didn't read anything else, MICKY?!

Was the book better than the movie, Micky? I thought the movie was garbage and way too long.

Inconquerable wrote:Was the book better than the movie, Micky? I thought the movie was garbage and way too long.

I’m going to say yes, but I wasn’t crazy over the movie either. The book also suffers from being too long.

And yes Cam it’s all I’ve read