I asked this question a few months ago and figure I’d ask every few months because it was great to see the large response and it was nice to get book recommendations to add to my ever expanding pile to read. The book I most recently finished was The Cat Who Walked Through Walls by Heinlein and I’m currently reading The Strong Shall Live which is a series of short stories by Louis L’Amour. I have found a ton of his books at yard sales and they are usually sold for a quarter or 50 cents a piece so I have quite a few and this is the first one I’m reading. Also found the book Lonesome Dove along with L’Amour’s stuff. Anyway, what are yall reading?
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If we count audiobooks I'm currently going through the Wheel of Time series. I'm on the last book Jordan wrote before he died, and while aside from book 8 (nothing happens in book 8) it isn't awful, if this ranks as one of the greatest modern fantasy series, the genre is incredibly sick (or maybe I just don't like the genre as much as I thought I did.) I think the problem large comes from the fact that every book after the first adds at least one character to the cast of "main" characters so you go from seven or eight to past double that a few books in, and they all have their own story (or share a story with one of the other main characters) which means if you don't like a character at some point you have to spend a few chapters reading their story, or (in the reverse) if there's a character you particularly like, you may go (at least almost) a whole book without anything major happening for them.
I enjoyed the series but I get the criticism. The show totally ignores the source material
(Forgive me if my spelling on anything below is incorrect. As I mention I'm going through the series on audiobook so I haven't actually seen how almost anything is spelled and I don't feel like looking them up right now.)
It probably doesn't help that one of the more recent series I wen through was Dune, so I can't help but compare Rand to Paul/Leto II, the Aes Sidae to the Bene Gesserit, the Ael to the Fremen, etc. and while Dune is a slog (I think by page count it might be the longest series I've ever read, and that's only Frank's six books), I think it's definitely better written. Each book has a main cast of about eight, of which about three actually have their own storyline. I also don't recall being irritated by the flaws in Herbert's characters, whereas the flaws in Jordan's (particularly female) characters often grate on me, which I think is a combination of the fat that the narration in Jordan's books is essentially "in the head" of whoever is the central character at that moment, and that the flaws often remind me of people I know (or know of) in real life that I find somewhere between irritating and incensing.
If not for the fact that I know that the show takes my problems with the series and makes them even worse, while simultaneously destroying the parts of the series I like, I'd probably watch the show out of morbid curiosity.
The showrunner wanted to update for modern audience and add crap that isn’t in the books. Also I’m so tired of constant race swapping. The book already had people of different races once they left their village.