Writing What are you reading?

[Dagger]

Like the title says...

Lately I've been reading a lot of stuff by [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami][u]Haruki Murakami[/u][/url]. I love his writing style, the themes he addresses, everything. Most of his work seems to have some kind of magical realism element to it (which is also something that appeals to me). If you were interested in his stuff, I would suggest starting with [b]Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World[/b], since it's compact and especially well-structured.

The other day I took a break to check out the first [b]Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World[/b] novel and the third book in the Boogiepop series. On the whole I think I prefer the Kino anime to its source material, but the translation is strong, and I want to read the stories that didn't get animated, so I'll keep buying the series as it comes out. As for Boogiepop, I wasn't thrilled about how the conflict with the Imaginator (not a spoiler; it's in the title) concluded, but oh well. I do wish that it had been structured in a more non-linear fashion, like the first book.

Tomorrow, on the train home, I'm going to try finishing the last two books in this Gene Wolfe quartet called [b]The Book of the New Sun[/b]. I'm not all that revved up about the series, but it isn't utter tripe, and I take non-awful fantasy wherever I can get it, heh. It'll also make better train reading than the other books I have at hand (more Murakami plus some Yukio Mishima).

~Dagger~

[Baron Samedi]

[size=1]I'm currently reading [i]The Mallorean[/i] series by David Eddings. Sometime last week I happaned to glance at my bookshelf and saw 'Belgarath', which is a related story, set earlier on. After reading that I went and ordered out the five books of [i]The Belgariad[/i] which is the series preceding [i]The Mallorean[/i] and just yesterday I started on 'Guardians of the West' which is the first in [i]The Mallorean[/i] series.

It's a fantasy series, which is quite solidly based as far as fantasy goes. It isn't like The Hobbit or other stories lie that, as the main characters are all human, and there is only one 'talking animal' kind of thing. Can be quite humorous at points, but it tells a serious story. It's quite a good series [all of them] and well worth a read for those who haven't.[/size]

[Sandy]

[QUOTE=Baron Samedi][size=1]I'm currently reading [i]The Mallorean[/i] series by David Eddings. Sometime last week I happaned to glance at my bookshelf and saw 'Belgarath', which is a related story, set earlier on. After reading that I went and ordered out the five books of [i]The Belgariad[/i] which is the series preceding [i]The Mallorean[/i] and just yesterday I started on 'Guardians of the West' which is the first in [i]The Mallorean[/i] series.

It's a fantasy series, which is quite solidly based as far as fantasy goes. It isn't like The Hobbit or other stories lie that, as the main characters are all human, and there is only one 'talking animal' kind of thing. Can be quite humorous at points, but it tells a serious story. It's quite a good series [all of them] and well worth a read for those who haven't.[/size][/QUOTE]

That series was the one that dragged me into reading fantasy literature. Looking back now, having read hundreds of fantasy books, David Eddings' work feels so sweet and innocent but rather childish and clichéd as well. The setting is quite original, though, and the story is enjoyable in it's longevity and multiple twists and turns.

Like you said, it isn't High Fantasy like the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms, but a complete world of it's own. I have to say, though, I liked the Elenium/Tamul -series better from Eddings. It was much more mature than Belgariad/Mallorean.

As for me, I'm currently stuck reading Bruce Sterling's [B]Schismatrix[/B], which is said to be a classic sci-fi novel. I'm stuck because [I]really[/I] I should read all these books for school, so if I read Schismatrix instead I'd feel guilty. Now I just don't read anything. XP

[Arcadia]

Since all I have been doing this semester is reading [this is your warning, future English majors], I guess I will recommend a few books. Recently I finished [U]The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven[/U] and [u]Smoke Signals[/u], both of which are written by Sherman Alexie. It's Native American literature and it's actually my first foray into this genre and I have to say it's been pretty effing amazing. [u]The Lone Ranger[/u] is a collection of short stories he's written that are pretty much autobiographical and [u]Smoke Signals[/u] is actually a screenplay that was made into a movie. Both texts have a lot to do with Alexie's relationship with his father and what it's like to be an Indian on a reservation. They're incredibly emotional books, and Alexie writes so wonderfully - it's almost kind of surreal at times, which really seems to fit with the Indian tradition of visions. He's definitely a major American figure in literature, though, if anybody is interested in that.

Another book I read recently [and way behind the curve, I know] is [u]Beloved[/u] by Toni Morrison. There is a reason why people think she's one of the greatest, if not [i]the[/i] greatest, writer of our times. The book is absolutely amazing, and the back and forth relationship between the past and the present is incredibly powerful. It's a kind of ghost story that takes place just after slavery is abolished, but the memory of it is by no means gone. Everything in this book revolves around memory and the way she dips in and out of it is so fluid and easy. She's just a superb writer. You don't get much better than this.

Right now I'm about twenty pages into [u]Their Eyes Were Watching God[/u] by Zora Neale Hurston and it's pretty good. I'm not really far enough into it to start passing any judgement, but I'll probably like it. I can say, however, that I generally do not like books with dialect. It slows down the reading and you start concentrating on trying to figure out the words and what the hell somebody said instead of what's going on in the story. Realism is not my favorite literary movement, that's for damn sure.

[Shinmaru]

Today I finished [i]The Things They Carried[/i] by Tim O'Brien. It's about 4/5 Vietnam-related short stories and 1/5 an examination of storytelling methods that blur the line between truth and fiction in order to strike a greater emotional truth. It's far more interesting than I probably made it sound there lol.

Most of the stories serve as mini-memorials of sorts for O'Brien's comrades and the experiences he had during the Vietnam War. There's a lot of jumping around between past and present and reshaping of the stories throughout the book, which I think works effectively to bring the reader into the murkiness and ambiguity of the war. Above all, though, the stories are just great portraits of people who were affected by the war, for better or for worse. My favorite stories are: "The Things They Carried," "On the Rainy River," "How to Tell a True War Story," "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," "The Man I Killed," "Speaking of Courage," "In the Field," "The Ghost Soliders," and "The Lives of the Dead."

"The Lives of the Dead" is one of the best short stories I've ever read. It's essentially about how people use stories to bring the dead back to life - how even when someone is gone, the memories we have and our imaginations are so strong that the dead continue to live and grow within us, continue to feel our pain and sorrow, and help us to save our own lives. It's written in such a bittersweet, affecting way, and it honestly damn near broke my heart.

In a completely different direction, right now I'm reading [i]The Menace from Earth[/i], which is a collection of short stories by Robert Heinlein. I've been meaning to read some of his stuff for a while now.

Dagger: Murakami is awesome. I've read [i]Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World[/i], [i]Norwegian Wood[/i], and [i]The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle[/i]. Of those, I'd say [i]Hard-Boiled Wonderland[/i] is my favorite.

Megan: I remember reading parts of [i]The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven[/i] during my junior year in high school... unfortunately, that's about all I remember about it other than bits and pieces of a few stories lol.

[Dagger]

Baron: Ah, I had a friend who was really into Eddings. His stuff didn't make too much of an impression on me, but I remember it being somewhat above the average, at least as far as fantasy is concerned. Not quite my cup of tea, though.

Arcadia: [b]Their Eyes Were Watching God[/b] was one of those books that I figured I wouldn't like too much, but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I had expected. Still, I couldn't fully make peace with it until the very end, if that makes any sense.

Shin: I innocently started [B] Norwegian Wood[/B] this evening and couldn't put it down. The last line just about killed me. I should have learned my lesson about reading books at night; I never know when I might come across an ending that'll make it hard to sleep. Damn. Anyway, I've read the three you mentioned, plus [b]Kafka on the Shore[/b] (which had Oshima, my favorite Murakami character thus far).

In some ways it's hard to compare them, because they're all pretty different... I'd like Hard-Boiled Wonderland the best if it didn't remind me so much of Haibane Renmei--which is unfair, given that Haibane Renmei was made well after he wrote it, but that's life. I can't get rid of the associations, and that doesn't bring the book down in my mind or anything, but it doesn't make it a completely individual experience for me. Well, whatever.

I had problems with the way The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle concluded. It was like he got tired of writing and let everything come crashing to a halt simply because the bare threads of the plot could be cut off at that point. I mean, I can't complain about it too much, but it was a soft landing after the rest of the book. Norwegian Wood did a better job of ending swiftly yet in an emotionally satisfying way (even though it had less closure!).

You notice weird things when you read a lot of works by the same author in a narrow time frame. Murakami seems to mention wells at least once in all of his novels. :animeswea

Oh, and I recently read [b]Sexing the Cherry[/b] by Jeanette Winterson for English. No doubt I'll be able to sort out my thoughts on it once we actually discuss it in class, but it left me flabbergasted, even though normally I'd be all over that kind of book (seriously, in terms of how the plot is organized, it's like Gabriel Garcia Marquez on crack).

Next on my hit list: [b]Kokoro[/b], by Natsume Soseki. I'm also working my way through a volume of the complete poems of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Crane][u]Hart Crane[/u][/url]. I really like his stuff, even if much of it makes zero sense to me. A couple of years ago, I came across an excerpt from his "Voyages" in my Norton Anthology--back then I'd been in the habit of trawling it for good poetry in class when I was bored (and often it seemed like the truly good poems ended up being all the stuff we [i]weren't[/i] reading).

[i][size=1]"There's
Nothing like this in the world," you say,
Knowing I cannot touch your hand and look
Too, into that godless cleft of sky
Where nothing turns but dead sands flashing.

"--And never quite to understand!" No,
In all the argosy of your bright hair I dreamed
Nothing so flagless as this piracy.[/size][/i]

A lot of Crane's work reads like gibberish, but every once in a while the meaning just leaps out of you, and that makes it all worth looking at carefully.

~Dagger~

[Raiyuu]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS]Try Murakami's short fiction, as well as his novels. I had to read [i]Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,[/i] from the collection [i]After the Quake,[/i] as part of my Creative Writing degree, and it was one of the most professionally executed surrealist shorts I've ever come across. He's one of several authors on my Christmas list this year.

Right now, though, I'm wading through [i]The Diamond Age[/i] by Neal Stephenson, which is very dense, long, wordy, and (so far) not nearly as good as [i]Snow Crash,[/i] the book that got me into Stephenson in the first place. Where [i]Snow Crash[/i] was an effortlessly cool, slick, shiny piece of near-future cyberpunk that didn't take itself overly seriously, [i]The Diamond Age[/i] is a plodding far-future epic that never quite seems to know where it's going. It jumps and stutters forward in time without much structure, its future-science feels flawed, characters change their minds on a Confucian technicality when their obedience to Confucianism hasn't been properly built up.

So don't buy that, but pick up [i]Snow Crash[/i] if you're into sci-fi. The future is full of tiny economically independent country-franchises, the fastest way to deliver a parcel is by giving it to a kid with a skateboard and a magnetic harpoon, and pizza boys carry samurai swords and aren't afraid to use them. There are a couple of large infodumps of Sumerian philosophy/mythology, but I forgave him that because there's a pirate in it called Bruce Lee, and because the Sumerian stuff is actually relevant by the end.[/FONT]

[Claire]

[FONT=Arial]At the moment, I'm barrelling through [B]A Clockwork Orange[/B]. My friend had it at lunch one day, and I picked it up out of interest. I've been wanting to see the movie for a while now (mostly because a few of my friends really like it), but the book sucked me in. It was a little hard to understand at first, because the narrator uses a made up slang nonchalantly, as if the readers have spoken it all their lives. It's relatively easy to pick up, though, and there are probably plenty of sites on the internet that shed some light on the nadsat. Anyway, it's now one of my favorite books, and I want to see the movie even more.

I was also reading [B]the Shining[/B], but I got interrupted by ACO. I was inspired to read the book by the movie (which coincidentally shares the same director as ACO). Granted, Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick weren't very fond of each other, and Kubrick viewed King as inferior - the movie has a lot of differences from the book, but the basic story is generally the same. I really love the way Stephen King wrote it, involving sudden interupptions of a character's thoughts. He describes things so vividly. I'd like to finish The Shining, but I had to return it to the library today (I probably owe a fine for it being overdue. =[ ).

I'm waiting for [B]Eclipse[/B] by Stephenie Meyer to come out. I read the first two books in the series, [B]Twilight[/B] and [B]New Moon[/B], really fast, which I sort of regret. I pulled an all-nighter and read the last 200 or so pages of Twilight in a couple of hours, spending the rest of the morning writing my own vampire story. I got New Moon a few days after that and read the five-hundred something pages in a total of only approximately seven or eight hours. I'm a vampire fanatic, and these books are pretty much perfect for that. The only problem is that some parts of them drove me absolutely crazy; such as [spoiler]over two-hundred pages without the main vampire character, Edward, in New Moon,[/spoiler] and [spoiler]that the main character, Bella, has yet to become a vampire[/spoiler]. I'm really hoping for that to happen in the next book, because it really is making me angry that it's taking so long.

I might try to get my hands on [B]Fight Club[/B] or [B]Party Monster[/B] next. My lunch table has a kind of book club, because two of my friends a voracious readers. I'll have to pester them to give me something good.[/FONT]

[eleanor]

[QUOTE=Dagger]Like the title says...

Lately I've been reading a lot of stuff by [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami][u]Haruki Murakami[/u][/url]. I love his writing style, the themes he addresses, everything. Most of his work seems to have some kind of magical realism element to it (which is also something that appeals to me). If you were interested in his stuff, I would suggest starting with [b]Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World[/b], since it's compact and especially well-structured.

[/QUOTE]

[color=dimgray] Mm. I really need to get a move on and read more of his stuff. I liked [b]Kafka on the Shore[/b], so I'll probably go out and get either [b]The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle[/b] or [b]Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World[/b]. Though I did have some problems over [b]Kafka on the Shore[/b], probably because all of the metaphysical stuff just didn't appeal that much to me.

But if you like magical realism, my strong suggestion to you is to read [b]100 Years of Solitude[/b] by Gabriel García Márquez, who basically made magical realism mainstream. I will love him forever.

[quote name='Shinmaru']Today I finished The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. It's about 4/5 Vietnam-related short stories and 1/5 an examination of storytelling methods that blur the line between truth and fiction in order to strike a greater emotional truth. It's far more interesting than I probably made it sound there lol.[/quote]

I read the short story version of [b]The Things They Carried[/b], which I really loved. Is the book worth buying or should I just borrow it? I'm incredibly fussy about books, so a lot of times I end up buying novels and end up not liking them. >_>

Right now in my language class we're reading [b]The Scarlet Letter[/b] by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I'm definitely not a fan of romantic literature, but it's coming along nicely enough. I'm only on chapter 5, so it's still too early to tell if I really like it or not.

But when I have some free time, I really want to read some stuff by David Sedaris. I've read a couple of his personal narratives and they're great, so I'm going to borrow [b]Me Talk Pretty One Day[/b] from my friend when she's done reading it.

:animesigh I've got this huge list of books I want to read, but I never get around to it. [/color]

[Arcadia]

I kind of love [u]The Scarlet Letter[/u]. It's one of those books that I've read a couple different times for school, and each time I read it I like it more and more. Hawthorne drives me a little crazy sometimes with his going on and on about bushes and light and babbling brooks and all that, but he's still a great writer, and incredibly good with characterization. I appreciate that aspect of his stories a lot, but, much like [u]Wuthering Heights[/u], most of the time I have the overwhelming urge to strangle each and every one of the characters. Also, I don't like Puritans.

Depending on what version you have, a lot of them come out with essays about the novel or the author, in addition to the text itself. I have the Norton Edition and I've got to say, they always do a really good job with that. There are critiques in there from Hawthorne's own time, as well as more modern ones that deal with theory. The one thing that really amazes me about the ones contemporary to Hawthorne is that a lot of the people writing thought that the book wasn't Puritan enough. Early America really scares me sometimes (not that I don't feel the same way about present day America, but hey).

[Retribution]

[quote name='Lunox][color=dimgray]I read the short story version of [b]The Things They Carried[/b'], which I really loved. Is the book worth buying or should I just borrow it? I'm incredibly fussy about books, so a lot of times I end up buying novels and end up not liking them. >_>[/color][/quote]
[size=1][B]The Things They Carried[/B] was absolutely amazing. If you go into it expecting some sort of war novel, you'll be pleasantly shocked that it's not about war.

As for [B]The Scarlet Letter[/B], I think I would've liked it had it been more accessible. The long-winded and roundabout prose was somewhat frustrating. Hawthorne's a brilliant writer, but a very tough read.

Currently, I'm reading [B]Macbeth[/B], which was a decent play. The plot is interesting, but not really complex or involving as something like Oedipus Rex. And to me, there was a lack of development when compared to something like Romeo and Juliet or Othello. But I'm counting my blessings that we don't need to read something lame like King Lear.[/size]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR=DarkOrange]The most recent book I read was [B]The Joy Luck Club[/B]. I love the style of being in vignettes and the dark, melancholy tone is what drew me into liking it. Each story was cool in it's own way, though I honestly couldn't stand a couple of them.

I found all 4 of the secind stories of the younger generation girls to be pretty boring. Perhaps because they were too much like everyday life, plus they were too much alike.

My favorite stories are of the St. Clairs and the Hsus. Just imagining the [spoiler]bloody carcass of the deformed baby as it rose from the table[/apoiler] was crazy as hell and that much interesting.

I'm not reading anything at the moment, though the minute I can get my hands on it I'll be blazing through the hird [B]Boogiepop[/B] novel. While I like the first one most, all of them are great.[/COLOR]

[kalon]

Right now, I'm reading [i]The Gates of Rome[/i] by Conn Iggulden. It's the first of the [i]Emperor[/i] series which follows the life of Julius Caesar, as well as those around him. I'm reading the novel for world history, but I like it enough that I want to pick up the others in the series. It's not something you'd read to get an accurate history, but for a basic overview of Caesar's life, it's pretty good.

I count comics as reading, so I have to mention [i]Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall[/i]. It's a prequel to the Fables series. I picked it up on a whim, and I fell in love with it. It's done by different artists, so each story has a fresh feel to it. It's fractured fairy tales, but if you don't mind mature themes, it's a great book. Snow White takes on the role of Scheherazade, and relates some of her own stories and those of other fables to the Sultan of the Arabian Fables. I want the rest of the series now.

I've gotten into the very beginning of Vertigo's [i]Sandman[/i] series because, lucky me, I got [i]The Absolute Sandman[/i] Volume One as an early birthday present. I can say nothing more intelligent except that I am in love. I don't usually go for American comics, but from the first page it clicked with me. I adore it.

Also, I have [i]Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World[/i] and [i]The Little Prince[/i]. I haven't gotten a chance to read them, but I've heard good things about the first, and my mom loves the second. I'll probably have enough time read them come winter break, and I'm looking forward to both.

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR=DarkOrange][B]If you plan on reading this novel DO NOT hilight the spoilers!!![/B]

OMG!! I just finished the third [B]Boogiepop[/B] novel and it was amazing!!! I was disheartened cuz I didn't like the second one as much, but the third one sucked me right back in!!

I cannot even begin to describe how happy I am that [spoiler]Taniguchi Masaki and Orihata Aya got a happy ending![/spoiler] The reason I say this is because their relationship was a lot like one I was in with the same characters and [spoiler] their ending was much better than mine.[/spoiler]

Once again this book was brimming with excellent quotes that I'll find myself wishing I could use more often (just watch my sig!) and Boogiepop him/herself was even cooler this time around.

[spoiler] I was extatic when Spooky E blew his own face off. That's what he gets for messing with poor Orihata![/spoiler][/COLOR]

[Aaryanna_Mom]

Recently I?ve been reading the Harry Potter series. I?ve watched the movie, but never read the books. But since I got a copy of the first couple of books in large print I?ve sat down and started reading them. I?ve really enjoyed it since finally reading the books has helped to put the missing pieces together in the movie.

I can see why it?s done so well because it?s written on a very simple level and yet it?s entertaining for both kids and adults. It almost reminds me a bit of a fairy tale format in the way it is written.

I?m sure most of you have already read the series, but if you have not, I would recommend it as it?s a nice leisurely read and yet its presented in an easy to understand format that?s fun to follow.

[Shinmaru]

I finished [i]The Menace From Earth[/i] a while ago. Most of the stories were enjoyable, with a couple being pretty damn good. "By His Bootstraps" is my favorite in the collection; I'm a total sucker for time travel fiction, and even though the story is essentially a recounting of one ginormous time paradox from (technically) multiple points of view, it's a fun read. The story is a bit predictable, but in a fun way: I had a good time reacting like, [spoiler]"OMG I bet a future Wilson was the one who called his past selves before their fight; I wonder why?"[/spoiler]

"The Year of the Jackpot" is a fun 'end-of-the-world' scenario story, "Sky Lift" is decent, "Goldfish Bowl" is interesting though the message is pounded into your head by the end, and "The Menace From Earth" is bizarrely enjoyable considering its subject matter. "Columbus Was A Dope," "Project Nightmare," and "Water Is For Washing" are okay.

I also read [i]Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States[/i] by (duh) Dave Barry. It's a great, bizarre twisting of American history from the very beginning ("deflowering a virgin continent" as the book puts it) to the George H.W. Bush administration. Lots of funny stuff in this; I'd say my favorite gag is the running joke where Barry randomly mentions at various points that while white men seem to be doing all of the important things throughout history, women and minority groups were also making significant contributions, though no exact contributions are ever pointed out. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff stuff made me laugh a lot too. The Winston Churchill "quotes" were also fantastic ("Madam, I may be drunk, but BLEAAARRRGGGHHH").

Really, pretty much everything in the book is great. Dave Barry is quickly becoming my favorite humor writer; I expect that I'll be ripping through as many of his books as possible while I'm on vacation.

But right now I'm finishing up [i]The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein[/i] by (who else) Robert Heinlein. The stories are mostly good, though I honestly didn't finish a couple of them because I didn't feel up to it. I've just got "--All You Zombies--" to go, which is the story I've most been looking forward to reading.

After that, I have no idea what I'll read lol. I've got a bunch of books just waiting to be read.

[Guest Phaedrus]

[i]Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance[/i] by Robert M. Pirsig. [i]Ender's Game[/i] by Card, [i]Confessions of a Philosopher[/i] by Bryan Magee, [i]Childhood's End[/i] by Arthur C. Clark, [i]Evolution[/i] by Stephen Baxter, [i]The Years of Rice and Salt[/i] by Kim Stanley Robinson, [i]On the Road[/i] by Jack Kerouac.

[kalon]

This will be short, because I have to get back to reading. Neil Gaiman is an absolutely amazing writer (note the incredible understatement). [i]Fragile Things[/i], a short story compilation, possesses my brain. I haven't read them all, but "Harlequin Valentine" steals my heart due to my obsession with the zanni character, and "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread" makes me laugh loudly enough to make people look at me funny. Must... get back... to reading now. (Call me a zombie coffee girl.)

[Rachmaninoff]

[QUOTE=Baron Samedi][size=1]I'm currently reading [i]The Mallorean[/i] series by David Eddings. Sometime last week I happaned to glance at my bookshelf and saw 'Belgarath', which is a related story, set earlier on. After reading that I went and ordered out the five books of [i]The Belgariad[/i] which is the series preceding [i]The Mallorean[/i] and just yesterday I started on 'Guardians of the West' which is the first in [i]The Mallorean[/i] series.

It's a fantasy series, which is quite solidly based as far as fantasy goes. It isn't like The Hobbit or other stories lie that, as the main characters are all human, and there is only one 'talking animal' kind of thing. Can be quite humorous at points, but it tells a serious story. It's quite a good series [all of them] and well worth a read for those who haven't.[/size][/QUOTE]I just started that series myself over the holidays. So far I?ve been enjoying reading it. The characters are easy to relate to and the overall storyline so far is well thought out. I started with The Belgariad and I?m on the fourth book in that part.

About the only thing I don?t care for is David Eddings tendency to have a bit of the war of the sexes attitude between his characters. It was funny and endearing at first but it?s starting to get a little annoying. I?d like to take [spoiler]Ce?Nedra if I remember correctly, and give her a good spanking. [/spoiler] Other than that though I?m looking forward to finishing the fifth book and then getting The Mallorean books to read.