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Advent

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Posts posted by Advent

  2. Posted

    It's confirmed, I'm officially a Malazanite (or whatever you want to call it) I'm about 500 pages into Bonehunters right now and loving every minute of it. I'm kind of trying to hurry up the reading up right now because I want to get ready for Dust of Dreams which is supposed to be coming out here in the US shortly, I believe.

    I also ready the excerpt to the Wise Man's Fear and it sounded really promising.

  3. Posted

    I can agree with dormouse to an extent but I can't even listen to Farakhan. I'll still give Lovecraft a try but his little "On the Creation of ...." poem got my blood boiling and I'm sure that will taint my reading of him whether fair or not.

     

    On a much happier note I'm on "Midnight Tides" in the MBotF and it's pretty great I love learning more about the other races in the series. May be my favorite since "Memories of Ice".  Things are also shaping up quite nice with "Lies of Locke Lamora" and "The Blade Itself".

     

    Has anyone read the Runelords series?

     

     

  6. Posted

    complord said:

    I said started and support by secular ideals. There is no doubt religious figures joined in and helped with the struggle but the genesis was never one of theocratic making.

     

    The civil rights movement was started by proponents of religion using religious ideals - that secular people later joined in on and helped with. I'm actually surprised that this a point of debate, really.

  7. Posted

    complord said:

    Social programs and civil rights in this country were started and supported by secular ideals.

    My nephew who is all of 11 years old and who has lived in Japan most of his life knows that isn't true. The civil rights movement was FAR from secular, complord.

     

  8. Posted

    Just finished "Memories of Ice", and, yeah, the series DEFINETLY gets better.

    I have to admit the average paragraph in Gardens of the Moon seemed like this to me (as characterized by a friend):

    "Garek frowned, staring at the Um'tok. Although most Um'tok were in the service of the honat, he knew that this one was moktash to the Ughur. He dropped the krontab of drugal he was eating and stood up from the codelia. As he backed away from the Um'tok in horror, it brobtahd its bratokbrow at him and shnoogled in a gnugheer-like voice: "I am the mooha tier!""

    But once you get a grasp of the terms that makes  a lot more sense.

    Anyways, for anyone interested Brandon Sanderson has his whole book "Warbreaker" posted online! I love his philosophy: "A while back—June 2006—I started work on the novel which would follow my Mistborn trilogy. At the time, I noticed the work of Cory Doctorow, who releases all of his books on-line at the same time as the hardback comes out from Tor. At first, I thought this was insane. If you give it away for free, nobody will buy it!

    Then, I spent some more time considering. Readers can ALREADY get their books for free; I went to the library often myself as a youth. And yet, I still bought books. I often bought the very books I'd checked out from the library, as I liked them so much I wanted to read them again and loan them out to others. What do I really believe? In resenting libraries and used bookstores because they share my books without any direct profit to me? Or, would I rather look at all of that as free publicity"
     

    http://www.brandonsanderson.com/library/catalog/Warbreaker_Full-Books/

    I read some of it at the bookstore before I found this and it did seem like it could be good...

     

     

     

  9. Posted

    Woah, thanks for all the new suggestions, guys. This is really helpful and will save me from reading a lot of garbage fantasy books.

    I finished Gardens of the Moon, and, man, when Venryk said that was a difficult book to get through he MEANT it. I've NEVER picked up and put down and book so much in my entire life. It's not that it's not well-written or anything like that. It's just that you DON'T know WTF is going on for, at least, the first 300 pages of the book. I'm glad, though, that so many people told me to keep on pushing through the book because it finishes strongly and right now I am halfway through Deadhouse Gates which is much better. I am starting to like the Malazan series a lot.

    And am I the only one on this planet who didn't like T.H. White's the Once and Future King? I swear, from what I remember of it, it was horribly dull. Then again I was 16 when I read it so maybe that had something to do with it.

    I am also really liking Name of the Wind.

     

     

     

     

     

  10. Posted

    Thanks again for the suggestions, I hit up borders with a hand dandy gift card (30$) I recieved a while back and picked up the first book of Mazalan (Gardens of the Moon),  Lies of Locke Lamora, Name of the Wind, and the first Farseer book.

    Just started in on Gardens of the Moon  (80 pages in) and it is extremely well-written but now I know what everybody is talking about. The guy throws you in the middle of the world without the barest hint that there MIGHT be a suggestion of an explanation. I have to look up the people every 3 seconds because the cast is so huge. I can tell that the series is going to be good - if for nothing else there's an assasin named "Sorry". This series is awesome.

    On an amusing side note: George R. R. Martin has earned himself another dissappointed fan. My friend is just starting in on A Storm of Swords and looked like he was about to cry when I told him no one knows when the next book is going to to come out - much less when he is going to finish the series.

    And, Red, definitely continue on with the Mistborn series...it gets progressively better and the trilogy ends on a very satisfying, yet unexpected, note.

  11. Posted

    Lars said:

     like the series, the main story is better then the subplots some times, and he can get a little longwinded. I am not rushing from book to book but am liking the series for the most part.

    Oh, thanks! I will definitely give it another try then.

    And thankyou for the other suggestions, I have heard really good things about the Dresden Files and Robin Hobb.

    Oh and thanks Venryk, I have been trolling the internets after reading about your suggestions and from everything I've seen all the series you mentioned are top of line... Especially the Mazalan Empire books...I've even heard some say it's on par with ASoIaF! If so, I can't wait to get started. I'm suprised I've never heard about a lot of these series, I must be out of the loop...

    Heh, I'm going to have to get a list together before I go to the local borders.

     

    Anyone checked out the Runelords, Acacia, or Prince of Nothing series? Acacia is pretty darn good....

     

  12. Posted

    Lately, my friends and I (we have a little fantasy book exchange circle going) have been on the hunt for good fantasy book series that we haven't read yet.

    It's relatively new as I met most these guys only 6 months ago and so far I have introduced him to the "ASoIaF" series (and he absolutely loves it now - he's on A Clash of King's ) and he has introduced me to Brandon Sanderson's books (Elantris, Mistborn series, Warbreaker), which, btw, for the most part are amazing. I especially liked the Mistborn series, Sanderson has a real knack for coming up with inventive magic sytems.

    Has anybody read any good fantasy series in the the past or are currently reading right now?

    For the record I've read:

    The aforementioned Brandon Sanderson books, most "main" Dragonlance books, most Drizzt do'Urden books, about 5 of the Wheel of Time books,  of course the "ASoIaF" series, Tolkien's books, Lewis's books....etc

    The one I meant to inquire is Terry Goodkind's books. I've heard good things but I tried reading the first 100 pages of "Wizard's First Rule" and I just couldn't get into it....is it really a good series?

    Anybody got any good discussions or just want to discuss any other fantasy series you deem worth your time?

  13. Posted

    Artaban said:

    I haven't seen it yet, and was curious to hear what people think, especially after the claims of racism.  I also read one review that said their were f-bombs all over and a few sex scenes, while another claimed the only "sex scene" was a decepticon dog humping Megan Fox.  Can any one set the record straight?  

    It is quite clear that Skids and Mudflap are meant to be racial caricatures (and there are others in the movie). You get 3 guesses as to which racial group (you'll know in approximately .01 seconds within being introduced to them - GOLD TEETH, really?), but, if you miss the first guess I'm legally and morally obligated to slap you.

    Imagine Jazz from the first move except aprroximately 2,000 times worse. At least in the first movie it was kind of endearing. Kind of. At least the first movie was good, though. It's not offensive enough to where I wouldn't see the movie again but it did kind of ruin a lot of movie for me (kind of like Jar Jar Binks did). I don't know if I'd called the movie racist, though. It's not really. Just in HORRIBLY bad taste.

    This was a a lot more "adult" film than I expected, tbh.

  14. Posted

    Artaban said:

    So, everyone from conservative radio hosts to liberals at Newsweek and the (formerly?) socialist citizens of Russia have been saying it...  We're not living in the Republic of the United States of America, but in the Socialist States (or State--singular--if the federal government bails out the bankrupt state gov'ts) of America.  Do you believe this is true, and what are the implications? 

    I'll provide some statistics and research in a bit.  If you want to do your own research, you could consult Glenn Beck's frequent "March to Socialism" segments, Newsweeks February 9th, 2009 issue (pictured below), or the editorial from the Russsian Magazine, Pravda, which was entitled, "American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper". 

     

    Newsweek

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I'm a bit confused...what exactly is the threshold that  we cross over from capitalist to socialist? All the gov't bailouts? The take over of Gm? It seems to me, that we would need a clear definition of socialism to truly judge this (as others have said).

    Yes and no, I believe it's true - certainly we have socialistic tendencies like Medicare and such but, I wouldn't go as far to say we are exactly socialists. It seems the best economic system would have a little bit of both mixed together and then some.

  15. Posted

    LiquidIce said:

     

    With prosecutions, it doesn't sound like a very good idea since the actions were legal at the time according to the government of the day. Not that I'm any kind of expert on US law, but it seems like retroactive prosecutions would set a bad precedent, even if you're going after morally filthy people in this specific case.

     

     

    I don't know about that whole "it was legal at the time" thing. It seems to me be a great way to justify many an immoral action.

    But, yeah, the precedent it would set (because our system is, after all, based on precedent) would be awful. How far could it actually be taken? 10 years back? 20 years back? 50 years back? It would get messy real fast.

     

    @LOB - Yeah, the political retribution would be....ugly to say the least. In practice it would be horrible but in theory I'm all for it. If it's immoral - it MUST be punished.

    @Dormouse - If you don't mind me asking, did were you waterboarded for military training?

    @Artaban - It was also used on those 3 detainees hundreds of times. HUNDREDS. Anywho, I do agree with basically all of what you wrote. And you can feel free to bring up any subjects to debate....no one's stopping you....I've been feeling contentious lately and there's a rare few people I can get into debates with (which one would think is strange considering I'm in college). ;)

    Btw do you still maintain your blog? I used to drop by everynow and then and I kept on intending to leave a comment or two but never got around to it. What's the address again (if you do)?

     

    In general, I never understood how people never followed their logic to it's entailment. If waterboarding ISN'T torture then why aren't police allowed to interrogate suspects with it?

     

     

     

     

  16. Posted

    I figure since I've been gone a long time it's time to start to get back into things witha contentious topic.

    Does anyone here think, like I do, that waterboarding is torture? If so, why? And how far should we take it? Prosecutions?

    If no, why not?

    I admit that a little further back than recently I believed that while it was wrong it was acceptable in some circumstances, but, strangely, a conservative who used to assert that waterboarding was NOT torture changed my mind about it.

    What does everybody else think?

  19. Posted

    JerusalemJones said:

    Advent said:

     

    the movie was horrible.

     

    s'all.

     

     

    Horrible? Hmmm....

    it followed the comic book, kept the characters intact, has many, many people at my store suddenly interested in the comic book (and enjoying the movie), was adequatedly directed, acted and written. Sorry, Advent, but just throwing out "horrible" doesn't cut it. If you mean "It wasn't anything like the comic" then you are right -- the comic book could never be properly translated into a film. And if you were expecting that, you were bound to be disappointed. But if you can't back up your opinion with reasons, I can't give it any weight.

     

    Lol. You know I only give well backed up reaons when it comes to topics like philosophy or religion. Otherwise, I just don't care. lengua.gif

    I'll get back to you on this, though, since you asked so politely. I don't have the time right now. :)

     

     

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