I think I'm due for a Sanderson reading spree. All of my friends are getting into his books and loving them. And then my brother just brought home The Mistborn Trilogy a few weeks ago, so yeah...I'll be on a Sanderson kick before long.

I recently was introduced to K.M. Weiland's books. She is a Christian fiction/fantasy author. I just finished reading her book A Man Called Outlaw and then the next on my list is Dreamlander. Has anyone else read any of her books?

Ender's Game actually sounds really interesting to me as well! Though, admittedly, what really got me fascinated with the movie/book was the appearance of Asa Butterfield. He's got to be one of my favorite young actors! I'll have to check out the book.

I recently was introduced to K.M. Weiland's books. She is a Christian fiction/fantasy author. I just finished reading her book A Man Called Outlaw and then the next on my list is Dreamlander. Has anyone else read any of her books?

Not yet! But I hope to at some point.
I do know of her, though... she has a blog set up for aspiring authors. (on which she gives tips and stuff) And it's REALLY a big help. I've even chatted a little with her on facebook... she's really nice. What did you think of her book?

As for me, I don't think I've been reading anything other than the Bible. (unless nweb, fb, etc count. ) I've still been reading in order, and am now... umm... *checks* Tomorrow I will read 1 Kings 16.

I know, it's still not that far, when looking at the whole Bible. But if you look at it in terms of "I'm not skipping anything... I'm reading everything"... and if you compare it with other books on your shelf... I've done pretty well.

Wifester got me a Kindle Fire HD for my birthday and I downloaded some free books (or as close to free as I could manage. There's lots of free tomes to be downloaded out there though!) to try it out. My first book on it was David Weber's On Basilisk Station, a sci-fi book I've heard good things about.

The book is the first part of an ongoing series called the "Honorverse", which is named after the main heroine of the story, Commander (Captain at the end of the first book) Honor Harrington. To distill it down think of Star Trek/Wars but with more of a modern naval warfare approach, mixed in with a huge portion of Horatio Hornblower and you've got this one. Cmdr. Harrington is an up and coming ship commander who is super gifted in ship tactics but upsets the powers-that-be during a disasterous war games competition and is more or less banished to a far flung planet in the realm. But a power hungry galactic neighbor already has plans in motion to upset the balance of power in the region and it starts with the planet Honor is safeguarding. The story feels like equal parts space opera, sort of like Star Wars, but also very militaristic, so it's like Tom Clancy in space. My biggest problem is with the dialogue, which gets clunky at times, but if you can handle that you're in for a fairly enjoyable read. The sequel was also a free download, so I'll begin reading it here soon after I'm finished with this next book I started.

And that is...

Robert Heinlein is a legend in the Sci-Fi book community, and his best known work is undoubtedly Starship Troopers (unrelated to the like-named celluloid joke of the same name released many years later). He was a very prolific writer though and wrote a number of very well known and loved stories. Have Spacesuit - Will Travel is about a kid named Clifford "Kip" Russell whose life's obsession is to travel to the Moon. Not rich and with crummy college choices on the horizon his dad (who is a hoot and a half) sees an contest for Skyway Soap in the newspaper, specifically whoever can come up with the best slogan wins. The winner gets an all-expenses trip paid to the Moon. Kip wins 2nd place and the runner up prize is a real, authentic space suit. He falls in love with the suit and spends his whole summer restoring the obsolescent suit back to full working order. His final night owning the spacesuit, which he's named "Oscar", he takes one last walk around the fields behind his house to test out a space breather mixture (oxygen/helium) he picks up radio traffic on his spacesuit radio and ends up attracting the attention of a pair of flying saucers and getting taken up to the Mother Ship, where he is about to live out the mother of all space adventures. I'm still reading this one, but so far I really love it, and Heinlein can write some really nifty characterization while still making the story pleasantly science-based. Kip's dad is a real character too! I'll write later on how I liked it at the end.

Robert Heinlein is a legend in the Sci-Fi book community, and his best known work is undoubtedly Starship Troopers (unrelated to the like-named celluloid joke of the same name released many years later). He was a very prolific writer though and wrote a number of very well known and loved stories. Have Spacesuit - Will Travel is about a kid named Clifford "Kip" Russell whose life's obsession is to travel to the Moon.

I've read part of that book, though I haven't finished it yet. I own 5 books by Robert Heinlein: Have Space Suit - Will Travel, Time For the Stars, Red Planet, Podkayne of Mars, and Citizen of the Galaxy.

I love collecting vintage sci-fi.

Speaking of sci-fi, I'm going to attempt to read Dune again. This will be my third try - although I have to say, the failure of the other attempts have absolutely nothing to do with how much I was enjoying it. I adore that book every time I pick it up, and (if I ever finish it) it could very well end up being one of my favorite books. But I seem to have a difficult time getting through even short novels. And Dune is long. Very long. But we shall see how it goes.

~Riella

Not yet! But I hope to at some point.
I do know of her, though... she has a blog set up for aspiring authors. (on which she gives tips and stuff) And it's REALLY a big help. I've even chatted a little with her on facebook... she's really nice. What did you think of her book?

I really liked her book A Man Called Outlaw. I wasn't sure at first if I was going to enjoy it, because I'm not really a big fan of western novels. Which is strange, because I love western movies. Maybe I just need to find more good western novels. Anyhow, I thought K.M. Weiland told her story really well and communicated some very strong messages about justice and our role as Christians in upholding justice while respecting our elders, leaders, etc...at the same time.

She added in some plot twists and an element of mystery to her novel that really kept me on my toes and made it a little impossible to put down her book until I was done. I think you'd enjoy it if you haven't read it yet.

I haven't started Dreamlander yet. I am trying to finish too many books at once. And now with the school year started full-speed ahead, I'm deprived of a lot of free time.

My mom recently bought a book by Katie Weiland on how to outline your novel. My mom's trying to get a bit more serious with her writing and I think I'll be excited to check out Weiland's book as well, especially now that I know her advice is really helpful.

I read The False Prince a few days ago. I liked it - unexpected plot twist, good writing style, interesting characters. Like SL said, ti reminded me of The Thief a little bit. My sister told me the sequel kind of went downhill, so I might not be reading it... but I liked this one.

Also, in buying books, I found a brand new copy of Inkheart for 80 cents at my favourite thrift shop. I love thrift shop book shopping. I also got Swallows and Amazons not too long ago, so I can finally finish it!

I finished The Bell at Sealey Head by McKillip. I'm going to go back and read all the books I read three or four years ago and reread them now... because I understood it a whole lot better than I did then. (And the same goes for the Attolia books) EDIT because writing that quickly made it sound like I completely disliked the book. I understood the story more and I liked it - it's one of those fantasies that do a decent job of the "different worlds in household furniture" element. The multiple subplots kept the story going, and the descriptions were delightful morsels. The main story about Aislinn House was well-developed. However, there were some things in the book that I wasn't terribly fond of and that do keep me from liking it altogether. I liked the characters: I identified most with Judd, but I really liked Gwyneth and Emma, too. I'll try find some more McKillip to read - her writing style is sublime.

And I'm currently reading The Book Thief. Only on the first chapter at the moment, but the narration is certainly very interesting.

.... I wrote far more than I intended, because I came here for a question: in one of my textbooks, I read something by Stephen King that I liked, and I was curious to read something by him. What are some novels that you who have read his stuff would recommend? I have heard that he writes horror, which isn't really up my aisle, to be honest, so I was wondering if he wrote in another genre (mystery?). Thanks in advance!

AitB, I've read only two of King's fiction books so far. I have several more on my shelf, but those two I really enjoyed. One was his fantasy The Eyes of the Dragon, which is sort of a grown up but not too grown up fairy tale. It's very good and very clean compared to a lot of his adult fiction as far as language and graphic content go. There's only one comment that I recall giving me pause, and it's in the chapter on the king and queen's wedding night, so it's somewhat easy to see coming.

The other book of his I've read is 'Salem's Lot, which is a vampire story set in Maine. It is a literary child of Dracula and if you've read that book, you'll see a lot of influences (which are acknowledged in the text). It's also very good, but much more adult in content. The language isn't the worst I've seen from King (there are a couple of his books I've set down for vulgarity in the first few pages), but it's rough. There's some horror (very well done and spooky) and some violent content (as expected in vampire fiction). That said, if you can handle the language and such, I recommend this book because it's so well done and has some interesting characters.

I've been reading some of the Redwall Series by Brian Jacques. And they are awesome! I read the first book which is 352 pages in 2 days The world building is convincing. And they are just a lot of fun to read. I would definitely recommend them to anyone who's a fan of Lewis or Tolkien.

I really liked the Redwall Series too. I've got another one of Brian Jacques books, but I'm having a harder time getting into it.

I finally read The Hobbit - well, actually listened to it (I listen to a lot of audiobooks in the car). I enjoyed the story, but I realized why I have never been able to read Tolkien - it's his writing style. His style of writing is poetry and I've always had a hard time with poetry. So, while I might like the story, it's the delivery that I don't care for - and I realize I just stepped on a lot of toes there, but I'm not saying that Tolkien isn't a great writer. I'm saying that his style is one that is difficult for me to follow. I also had difficulty with the poetry books in the Bible (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Job). I admire people that get poetry, I wish I did - but no amount of studying seems to help. Although, I did find a translation of the Bible that I actually understand the poetry books

My issue with the Redwall series was after a few books in, I realized they're all the exact same story (with the exception of Mattimeo) so I had no reason to read more than a handful. My favorites are Martin the Warrior and Mossflower.

Jacques certainly had a formula for a lot of the Redwall books. There are some that are better than others, and I generally felt he did a lot of more original stuff in the older books (ie: before and up to Taggerung).

I love the Redwall series as well, but definitely after a while, you can detect one of the typical story patterns arising. Two of my favorites are "Redwall" (being the first one actually written, I think it is one that feels the most original) and "Mossflower". I think I might have also really liked "Salamandastron." Of course, it's possible that I prefer these because they were some of the first ones I read.

parableproductions, I can definitely sympathize with what you're saying about some authors, and some types of writing, being harder to understand than others. Tolkien can certainly be hard to understand sometimes. It's at least partially due to the amount of detail he included. C.S. Lewis, for example, wrote in a style that is easier to understand (at least in his Narnia books). It's possible that it may help for people to watch the Hobbit/LOTR movies first, and then proceed to read the books -- that way, they know what the storyline is already, and they may be able to figure out which parts to skim if necessary.

I know at least two people who, when they started trying to read The Fellowship of the Ring, got caught in the prologue of the book and had a hard time getting through it. In the case of FOTR specifically, if someone is reading it for the first time and has absolutely no prior knowledge of Middle-earth, I would certainly recommend skipping the prologue. (There is one spot which details Bilbo and Gollum which it might be beneficial to read, depending on whether or not the reader has read The Hobbit, but for the most part, the prologue can be skipped.)

There are also 2 specific chapters in FOTR which are hard to read. One is near the beginning where Gandalf is talking to Frodo about "the shadow of the past" (I believe that's the title). The other is the Council of Elrond. Pretty much every single person I know who has read FOTR has gotten stuck trying to get through the entire council chapter. Whereas in the movies, the conversations are more condensed, and they can visually show the reader/watcher what is happening. This is why I believe seeing the FOTR movie first may be more beneficial for many people!

Got a question for my fellow Avatar:The Last Airbender fans. Did you know there are books? I've been on a kick rewatching the original series and found by complete accident that there are three trilogies of books, The Promise, The Search, and the Rift (the last is not out yet) and without reading any spoilers (because I haven't watched Korra yet) it looks like they fill in between the two TV series. I ordered the first set called The Promise. Has anyone else read them?

I have not read them yet, but I really want to. I especially want to read The Search because it answers the fan favorite question

Also, it should be noted that these are graphic novels (i.e. long comic books). That only adds to the attraction for me.

THE PRETENDER

Exciting news, guys!
The wait is almost over!

3 official announcements from the creators/writers of the cult TV series - Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W Van Sickle:

1st announcement - The immediate launch of the new official website. It's a beauty. Check it out: www.thepretenderlives.com

2nd announcement - The first series of graphic novels (6 issues, each containing 22 comic pages + other materials) will be entitled: "The Pretender: The Centre Chronicles". These GNs will concern the origins of The Centre.

3rd announcement - "The Pretender: Rebirth" (first novel) will be available on October 7th, 2013. The second novel will be entitled: "Saving Luke" and be available by Christmas, 2013/early January 2014.