Have either of you tried the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind? It was written after Wheel of Time and I feel like Terry borrowed/stole some ideas from Rober Jordan but personally I think the Sword of Truth was better written.
I have not, but it’s going on my reading list. Thanks for the tip. I like longer series, especially fantasy series that you can really delve into. So the Sword of Truth fits perfectly
I liked the sword of truth series (and read the lot) but I think it was written for a younger audience than WoT - or maybe it just came out that way. What do you think? Zed is a great character, his exclamations like “bags” made me laugh when reading it.
I gave up on WoT when I got near the end of the series and had to wait for new books, then Robert Jordan died and I just never finished them. Is it worth picking them back up? I always had a doubt that Sanderson could finish them off in a fully satisfying way, even if he did have notes from Jordan.
I would say that it’s worth picking them up. Brandon Sanderson does a pretty good job. It’s not the same as Robert Jordan, but it doesn’t have to be. He does a goes job of capturing the feel of the series. And it reads differently from his own books, which isn’t easy to do. And I love how the story unfolds in the last book. There were definitely some story points I did not see coming.
I think WoT is more for a younger audience than SoT. Some parts of SoT are much more gruesome than anything I’ve encountered in WoT.
I haven’t finished WoT, I stopped on book 6. There are parts of the books I have a tough time getting through. There are many scenes where there are female characters talking about clothes and men and they just keep dragging on and on… That’s not why I read fantasy novels, most of those scenes could have been trimmed imo. SoT doesn’t really have that. Anyways, I heard Sanderson did a great job, once I finish SoT I plan to get back into WoT and finish the series.
There are definitely similarities, I agree. The setting out on a quest, multiple important characters but one that has the most important task, Rand shows some similarity to Frodo in their background, and a dark lord that’s wants to wreath the world in shadow. But then, it must be hard for a fantasy writer to not be influenced by Tolkien.
Hat an exciting question the day I start reading a book for the first time in YEARS after finishing off my schooling and life finally calming down a bit.
Started reading Animal Farm today. Never read it before and kind of jealous of the people who would have had it assigned in university and had discussions after each chapter. I think this book was made to be discuss3”Ed.
Also, oh boy oh boy. I remember reading 1984 which sticks with me to this day a decade later, I can already sense this book is going to have a similar impact. Orwell just has a way.
Animal Farm is one of my favourites. I’m really into Politics, and AF presents it in a fairly straightforward, yet utterly captivating way. It’s also pretty short so I can get through it in like two or three sessions.
I read 1984 like 15 years ago, during a time when…well frankly I was an idiot teenager who knew nothing of the world. I should go back to that at some point.
When Google+ shut,.I moved to diaspora and didn’t do very much with it.
When the great Twitter exodus happened, I signed up to Mastodon and didn’t get this federated business so wandered off.
Now with the API apocalypse at Reddit, I am here and I get it. It now all makes sense to me and I’ve been seeing how federated I can get, which is the background to ye research that went into the initial post. And the answer is “pretty federated” as everything is playing nicely with each other. In fact, I am feeling borderline evangelical as this feels like the Internet I’ve been waiting for since the late 80s/early 90. So let’s skip Web 3.0 and move on to 4.0 where everything is federated!
Me too. When I first looked at Mastodon I was like “oh those addresses are weird that will never work” for some lame, resistant to change reason. Now I’m like “bring on the alphabet soup links and whatever quirks I don’t care, the fediverse is awesome!.”
Me too. And I was all “there are different servers with different groups on them? Like that’s going to work!” But it does. In fact, it can be seen as a strength.
I would love to hear book recommendations from you. I can do software dev and I self host a few services personally, but I do guesswork at scaling services, security, automated deployments, CICD, etc. Do you have suggestions? (Agile books are also cool)
You and I are taking very different paths, so my recommendations may not be fully relevant. I’m working on guiding companies how to fix their already broken IT departments while you’re down the technology side. For starters, I’d choose a cloud to focus on, because like it or not, companies use Google, Amazon, Azure or a combination of the three. From there, I’d read probably the most boring thing you can: The well architected framework documentation!
These guides are going to make you ask yourself a ton more questions which will really guide your reading. They will cover most operational topics for that given cloud, but will also apply broadly across all operations platforms.
As mentioned, that Devops handbook is a real barn burner. It tells you what exactly you need to implement to create an environment where the technology, processes and people behind your IT are scalable.
As I said, I’m working on organizational change, and doing so requires that people will agree to work with you. All the technology in the world is worthless if you can’t get people to work with it. So these books were good. I’d recommend reading them simply to help you advance in your career:
I find nonfiction way too hard to focus on when I read it traditionally, but listening to the audio version instead has helped a lot. It becomes almost like a podcast that I can put on in the background while I do other stuff
Getting deeper into The Expanse, now on #3 (Abaddon’s Gate). Finished the two prequels “Drive” and “The Butcher of Anderson Station”, the two original books of the series, and the “Gods of Risk” interlude.
That’s what the back button’s for. But if you’re interested in audiobooks at all, I’d suggest starting with a book you’ve already read that’s pretty low stakes. Stephen Fry’s narration of Harry Potter is excelent.
By chance, I’m doing more or less the same as you. I initially read lotr when I was ~15 yo (I’m nearly 40 now). I also read it in French those years ago but I’m rereading now the real thing in English. Loving it too.
I remember when I read it the first time I was struggling with some of the dense description but it doesn’t bother me now (or I haven’t got to that bit yet)!
It makes me wonder if I’d enjoy Brave New World more as an adult, we were made to read it at school by our RE teacher (when we were about 15/16) and I found it so dreary :D
Brave new world is definitely a book you get different things from as an adult. It’s also a pretty quick read. I’d definitely recommend taking another look.
I’m laaaaazy as sin when I’ve finally got the kids to bed so I usually hold it in my right hand and then operate the thing by pressing the buttons with the same hand. If I have to move my left for anything other than moving my drink to my mouth I consider this a loss.
Book 2 in the chronological order of The Legend of Drizzt series
Not sure what happened but I used to knock back 50-80 books a year, now I barely read anymore. I’m trying to get back into it with all the books being on every electronic device so I can read wherever, and I have two physical copies of the books from different releases. Yet I’m still dragging my feet getting through it.
The frustrating thing is once I get into the book I don’t want to put it down, but once I stop reading it’s hard to start again.
I miss reading.
Incidentally, I was looking at the Kobo readers recently and they look pretty neat!
I bought a cellphone sized e reader, called the moaan inkpalm. It being so small has really helped me get more reading in. There are better ones available now, but it’s pretty cheap for what it is. I can pull it out whever i’m waiting for my family somewhere, and pick a book that i’m in the right mood/mental state for.
Sometimes a book just isn’t for you, or you need something with more fun and less substance because of all the other demands on your time and attention. I used to plow through difficult books when I had the time. Now that I generally read in 15 minute stretches that’s not nearly as easy. It’s not a black and white thing.
Hey I have The Wager in my list, but right now I’m reading The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber, it’s excellent. Going really slow because it contains so much information, I read a few pages and that sends me in a research spiral for an hour and a thoughts spirals for the day.
I’m really enjoying it and would say it is better than okay for me personally, I will be disappointed when this book is over and I have to wait for more to be recorded / released.
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