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Lawhead wrote a series, I forget the name of, and I've been tearing through the first few books. Hood and Scarlet. As one might glean from the titles, they're a take on the Robin Hood myth (a personal favourite of mine), done in a sort of gritty fashion that really catches my interest. It doesn't neglect the original stories, just gives them a nice new coat of paint. The paint, in this case, being glue and sandpaper. A nice follow-up after a quick re-read of the Corwin books of the Great Book of Amber.
I've read a couple of things by by Lawhead. I read the Song of Albion trilogy so long ago(eighth grade) that I really could not tell you much about it. I've read Taliesian, Merlin, and Arthur, which were a decent take on you know what. Though not as good as Mary Stewart in my opinion. The most memorable book that I've read by Lawhead is Byzanitiam which is about a monk that gets captured by pirates while transporting an ornate rendition of the Book of Kells to Constantinople.
I thought Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle was a fantastic series. I guess my only gripe was that they used the Celtic names for dudes like Lancelot, so at the time, I wasn't quite sure who was who aside from the more obvious names. My senior year English teacher recommended it to me, and I have yet to go back and thank him for recommending the series to me, because it's what got me back into reading after blowing it off for so long. I just hope he still works at that school.
I've been (re)reading some of the Conan books, mostly the ones Robert Jordan and/or L. Sprague de Camp did, and those have been fantastic reads. The book I'm close to finishing is not written by Jordan though. It's called Conan the Valorous written by John Maddox Roberts. I think he's done a pretty good job with Jordan's Hyborian Age.
Anyway, the story here is that Conan is tasked with bringing a parcel given to him by the Stygian sorceress, Hathor-Ka, to Ben Morgh before the autumnal equinox. Normally, he'd never have anything to do with sorcery if he can help it, but he was tricked into swearing by Crom that he would do the job he was hired for before he learned all the details behind it, and Cimmerians are not known for giving their word lightly.
What follows is action, adventure and asskicking in only the way Conan can deliver. It's not a Robert Jordan story, but it's shaping up to be a pretty good one.
I have read the Second Chroicles of Conan by Jordan, which was quite enjoyable. Nowhere else have I seen the word callipygian used.
I have never read any Conan books other than that particular collection, though I have read some of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series by Fritz Leiber, which are in the same vein.
I goofed and said they were Robert Jordan stories earlier. While he has done some Conan stories, I meant to say Robert Howard. I am sure this will not be the last time I make this mistake. Anyway, I'm very familiar with Jordan's work, especially his The Wheel of Time series, which is what I think he's most famous for. I'll definitely have to check out those Chronicles books he did.
I'm thinking about getting the new big paperback books of all of Howard's Conan stories. I know my dad has quite a few of them, but I know he doesn't have all of them and I'd definitely like to read them sometime.
Ironic that you happened to mix him up with someone whom has also written Conan books. I used to always get Stephen R. Donaldson and Stephen R. Lawhead mixed up in my head.
I'll read some of Howard's Conan books if you read some of Jordan's.
This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.
Currently reading The Algebraist. It's hard sci-fi, written about human interaction with the rest of the galaxy 2000 years in the future, mostly concerning their interaction with an ancient gas-giant native race called Dwellers. Covers a wide variety of themes, quirky at some points, almost h2g2 humor, but deadpan delivery. The author has a keen understanding of human nature and ambition.
Sounds interesting. I have been contemplating the acquisition of his new book "Matter" which just recently came out. The only book that I have read by this author is Inversions, which is about two friends from a space-faring culture that insert themselves into two different countries on a pre-industrial world to test their differing theories on how best to bring about social reform. An excellent book and definitely not your typical speculative fiction.
This is definitely one of the more complex books that I’ve read in the past months. The various layers of the narrative (the Navidson documentary, the academic discussion of the documentary, Zampano’s interpretation, Truant’s interpretation, the editors’ version and finally the author’s story) make it way too difficult to explain what is going on in the book, I tried to summarize it, but failed. The complexity is one of the things that made me enjoy the book, but also one of the things that annoyed me the most. The strongest point of House of Leaves is ironically the only one that never existed, the Navidson documentary. The story of the house and the darkness inside is well written, and the academic discussion that was created around it kept me interested until the end. It is well written, has some memorable passages (Navy burning the book as he reads it, the analysis of Navy’s decision to return to the house).
Unfortunately, the book doesn’t stop here, and ends up being too complex. The main flaw is Johnny Truant’s story. The writing style here is annoying, the character speaks in long sentences that fail to keep your attention (especially if you compare it to Jose Saramago or Oe Kenzaburo, who manage to create complex page-long sentences that are just begging to be reread for their beauty and structure) needlessly distracts, and is in general uninteresting if you take away the growing madness. I had no interest in his family, so the inclusion of the letters written by his crazy mother served no purpose. Another aspect that gets annoying is the typography. Again, there are some nice finds like the scène where Navy climbs a ladder and the layout follows this process, but most of the time it feels too random, and it interrupts the flow of the story (you have to read parts of the book in front of a mirror, other moments you end up constantly turning the book around to keep up with the typographic structure).
The Navidson Record was an enjoyable read, but the rest of the book, the other layers of the story, the countless footnotes and especially the appendices that only add to the confusing atmosphere, taking the fun of reading out of it. This is the only novel by Danielewski that I’ve read, but it was interesting enough to check out his later books, hoping that he strays from making his books to complex.
I pretty much just skipped over the the whole Truant fiasco and ended up enjoying this book quite a bit. I did find the bit with the letters from his mother to be very good, independent of anything else in the book. But hey, I'm a sucker for some good tragedy. I also enjoyed many of the poems in the back.
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