The audiobook had none of the battles in it, and not a whole lot of the stuff even that the book is known for (submarine warfare especially) ... I suspect I might have just gotten a bad version of the AB, but with a book like The Stand, one that's just as enormous as RSR it's a possibility that this is what happened for you as well. The written version is a wonderfully addictive read, so if you happen to see it give it a shot. I promise you'll likely dig it.

It sounds to me like you got hold of an abridged audiobook. *shudders* Those are, in my opinion only slightly worse than abridged print books. I tend to avoid abridged books in general, but I feel doubly cheated when it's an audiobook.

The version I listened to was an unabridged production of the expanded version King came out with in the '90s (I think). It's possible that the extra bits were what made it drag for me, and there are some books that I think would be better for me in print than they are in audio. We'll see if I ever pick it up again. I know a lot of people who love it and it may just be that I'm not one of them. I'm okay with that. If I do pick it up again, I will most certainly read it rather than listen to it. I do plan on reading (or listening or some combination of the two) the Dark Tower series. Flagg's appearances in The Stand and The Eyes of the Dragon make me want to see more folks fighting him. I'm also interested in seeing the connections with 'Salem's Lot, which I've actually read a couple of times now. I'm hoping to find a copy of the revised version of The Gunslinger to start with since King is supposed to have improved some of the early parts in addition to making the book connect better with the later books.

Dot, did you reread the first three before reading the last one? (I didn't.)

@ Shtwin, if you're interested in reading the Dark Tower series then I must forewarn you. The first book is short but very divisive. If you don't like the style of it you more than likely won't like the remainder of the books. The story really picks up steam with the next book, The Drawing of the Three, and the series (in my opinion) reaches its apex with The Wastelands. The magic of King's fantasy world is in full bloom in that one and the setting and feel of it are what made so many of us love the series. Wizard & Glass (no. 4) is a good read but this is where the tale begins to venture into what the series eventually turned into. The last three books were....*sigh*. I could spend pages worth on this topic, suffice it to say that the first four books are among the most unique I've ever read as far as fantasy goes. And as you've pointed out there's lots of connections in King's other books, so that it feels like his whole production is one gigantic story at times. Except for Edgar Rice Burroughs I'm not sure I've ever seen another author do it to this scale before.

Flagg is a gloriously evil and worthy villain. There's only a few books with him in it and it makes me sad he's not in any others. Also if you think the book Salem's Lot was good, the (big surprise) 79' miniseries was so creepy that to this day it still gives me the heebie geebies. I was only 7 or so when I watched it .

1. The Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson
2. Watership Down by Richard Adams
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
4. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

There are many, many books that i really love, but the above are special in that as soon as i finish reading them i could go back to the beginning and start over.

I read The Warden and the Wolf King a few weeks ago ...

Spoiler

I didn't like the ending, either. If you're going to kill off a main character like that, you need to have some build-up, not 'oh someone needs to die by the way'. And if it could be undone so easily, why the heck did Janner die in the first place?

I agree with pretty much everything else said earlier. Deaths of characters in general needed to be much better handled than they were, the villain was disappointing (i did think him joining with the dragon was very interesting, if poorly handled), and too many characters were given poor plot lines.

I think i liked the first one best. The second and third ones were pretty good, but i'm afraid this last one was a disappointment.

The first book is short but very divisive. If you don't like the style of it you more than likely won't like the remainder of the books ... Wizard & Glass (no. 4) is a good read but this is where the tale begins to venture into what the series eventually turned into. The last three books were....*sigh*. I could spend pages worth on this topic, suffice it to say that the first four books are among the most unique I've ever read as far as fantasy goes ... Also if you think the book Salem's Lot was good, the (big surprise) 79' miniseries was so creepy that to this day it still gives me the heebie geebies. I was only 7 or so when I watched it .

I have a good friend who never finished the series (or the first book) because of some of the incidents in The Gunslinger, which is why I want to read the revised version, since my understanding is that the issues my friend had with the book were at least partially addressed in it.

I've heard that the books tend to get more lackluster in the latter half of the series. I wonder if you've read his newest addition, The Wind Through the Keyhole, which is supposed to sort of bridge the two halves of the series. I plan to read it in the proper position when I go through the series, as some of the reviews and synopses I've seen say that it makes the transition much less jarring.

I've seen that miniseries once or twice, actually. It's a decent adaptation, in my book, though I hated that Barlow didn't have any of his awesomely creepy lines, which all went to Straker. Granted, James Mason delivers them quite well. It still seems like they ripped off Barlow's character.

Shadowlander: yes, same character. I didn't like King Solomon's Mines at all, but Allan Quatermain was really good. Wiki has a complete list of all the Haggard novels that AQ appears in. It includes Marie, which I've also read, but Allan Quatermain is my favorite. The Wizard (non-AQ) is another Haggard fav.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Quatermain

So my sister tells me a few people would like an explanation for my lower opinion of The Warren and the Wolf King. I haven't read anyone's comments yet because I'd like to form my opinion into words without influence. I'd like to read what everyone thinks about the book though. It would be wonderful if you could convince me how amazing TWatWK was because I was disappointed.

Massive spoilers follow of course.

EDIT So I guess I feel the same exact way as everyone else. Grand.

Shadowlander: Allan Quatermain is adventurous, but Marie (set in South Africa) is a must-read if you want to understand AQ’s somber personality. He endures real tragedy as a young man at the hands of a vindictive Boer. The Wizard tells the story of a confrontation between an African witch doctor and an English Protestant missionary. I’ll let you find out who wins. Haggard’s stories have lived with me for 8 years. That’s how good a writer he is. Other people rave about Dickens, Eliot, and Kipling. But for storytelling, Haggard is a master. Why doesn’t BBC adapt his novels? Why do they rehash major writers (Austen, Bronte, Dickens, etc) instead?

This week I’m reading a Christian trilogy set in 1961-62 Algeria and southern France: Two Crosses, Two Testaments, and Two Destinies. Author Elizabeth Musser is a Protestant missionary in Lyon. I didn’t know about the political and religious situation in these two countries until reading these novels. I’m horrified to learn that the U.S. funded FLN (Arab Muslim terrorism) in Algeria, just for oil, and that France treated war refugees badly. A Catholic friend, in his late 20s, lives near Lyon. What did his parents and grandparents live through?

I'll be sure to see if my wife can bring it home from the library. I've always had the idea that Quartermain was involved in stories of high adventure, sort of like a proto-Indiana Jones type of figure. If that's even just partially true I'd probably like it.

Is AQ a proto-Indiana Jones? Yeah. You'll love Allan Quatermain!

Allan Quartermain is the protagonist in a whole series written by H Rider Haggard in the late 1800's. There is a reason why BBC mighn't serialise these books, such as changing attitudes to Africa, apartheid, the Boers, colonialism etc. during the 1960's and well beyond. Or, more likely, because it is Hollywood film rights at stake. Some of H Rider Haggard's books include She (Ayesha) and King Solomon's Mines,which has been filmed multiple times. I read these books as a child as they were in that small classroom library we had in 5th & 6th class, and also through our local library.

Personally I prefer John Buchan's rather similar adventure novels which include The 39 steps, Greenmantle, a WW1 novel, and Prince of the Captivity which is set between the two world wars.

Re: The Warden and the Wolf King conversation.
Soooo... My husband read it two days ago and was like "Um, yeah, without giving away any spoilers, it's really emotional and I don't think you'll want to read this for another year or two."

Okie dokie.

For the record, he did like it.

I haven't read anything by John Buchan, although I've seen two adaptations of The 39 Steps. I've also read The Four Feathers (1902) by A. E. W. Mason. This excellent work of fiction is set in British colonial Egypt. The 2002 adaptation was pretty good, better than the 1939 one.

Well, this got me excited, so it will probably excite other people. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Biography is set to release in November! Laura Ingalls Wilder's original autobiography in hardcover with historical notes and census data and photographs and maps.

The official site only says November, but Amazon's release date is November 20th.

I haven't read 'Little House on the Prairie' (and sequels) since grade school. I barely remember them. That's cool though.

As I'm into little children's books at the moment, did anybody hear about that new Dr. Seuss book, 'Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories.' It was on the news the other night, I guess it's a compilation of short stories he did for old newspapers or magazines? Very cool.

Anyways, I finished 'The Martian Chronicles' last night. There were things I liked about it and things I didn't. The story itself was odd though. It felt like somebody had written a book about humans moving to Mars that I hadn't read, and 'TMC' was a bunch of fan fiction stories written by different people surrounding this missing story. They just didn't seem to jive together. So on the whole, even though there were definitely parts I liked a lot, the book as a whole isn't converting me to sci-fi any time soon.

shastastwin recommended trying 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' and after reading the summary, I might have to try finding it. I'm not usually much for 'dark' reading, but as long as it doesn't get gory (which it looks like this one steers clear from), I'm usually willing to give it a shot.