I really like the Dark Tower series, although they get really odd in books six and seven.
There are actually two versions of The Gunslinger! Both good, but the original is a bit more spare, laconic in places, I might almost say straightforward in its mysterious tone? The western aspect of it is very clear. King went back and revised it years later so that the language meshed more with books 4-7.
It came to my attention last year that many of my friends, despite being aware of my affection for American Vampire, have not yet tried out this series. They claim to not be comic readers themselves (LAME) and/or seem to be of the opinion that vampires are played out. While I will admit that the series is not for everyone, I wanted to take a moment to clarify just how awesome it is. Caveat: Before we go any further, I should mention for anyone new, American Vampire is a currently-running comic book series which is “suggested for mature readers.” That means there is nudity, sex, and graphic violence. Just FYI. Okay! I first heard about AmVamp in Spring 2010, when I was finishing up my series of reviews of vampire novels , both classic and modern. I found it somewhat randomly; I was researching something else related to the books I was reading and saw that Stephen King was involved with a new comic book about vampires. I had just re-read and loved Salem's Lot , so I decid...
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, Book 1) Martha Wells, 2017 Premise: All Murderbot wants is to be left alone to watch tv. Unfortunately, if it doesn't want its free will to be discovered, it still has a job to do, and someone's trying to kill the people it's supposed to protect. This was an absolute delight. Going in, I thought was that this was a novella from the point of view of a killbot. What I found was a snarky sci-fi adventure with a protagonist whose general misanthropy is not entirely genuine, but this never falters into pathos. The humans call it Security Unit, or SecUnit, but a murderbot is what it calls itself. The reason why is a mix of black humor and cynicism. Murderbot is not only hiding its sense of humor but also its free will from both the humans it's assigned to and the shadowy Company that owns it and financed the scientific mission they're on. A SecUnit has consciousness, but it isn't supposed to be able to choose for ...
This is Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee's View Today's Question is: Do You Judge a Book by its Cover? Yes, much of the time. I mean, a poorly done cover isn't a guarantee I won't read the book, but if I'm in a store or the library, it means I probably won't pick it up. Online or on the Kindle Store, I more use cover art as a quick judge of genre if I'm not sorting by genre. For example, when I'm clicking through cheap or free books, I won't click on any romance or lit-fic looking covers. For ebooks I'm more likely to buy/read based on the description than the cover, but I'll still judge the cover. If it looks like complete crap, that could be an indication of the quality of the writing, so it has to be a consideration.
I'm thinking of reading The Gun Slinger! Love the covers :)
ReplyDeleteI really like the Dark Tower series, although they get really odd in books six and seven.
ReplyDeleteThere are actually two versions of The Gunslinger! Both good, but the original is a bit more spare, laconic in places, I might almost say straightforward in its mysterious tone? The western aspect of it is very clear. King went back and revised it years later so that the language meshed more with books 4-7.
I'm thinking of re-reading them, myself.