Books & Lit General Discussion/Forum Announcements

The tenth one just came out. This is probably my favorite series of novels.

Well you also gotta have the games to play as well...
Books are cheaper.

So basically it's one of those Farenheit 451, scifi,fascist type of novels.

Well is this book really good or should I just read something else (like the most recent Wheel of Time book)?

Doesn't matter to me. I 'll probably forget all about the ending before I get around to reading it.

I think the bit with Marvel is just us treading a bit too carefully. I started a thread for the Valiant Comics Universe before the Marvel thread was unveiled, and Golden Miru Warrior showed up to post nothing more than his opinion that individual comic companies or series don't "need" their own threads.

Well we seem too well behaved to require much, if any moderation anyway. Now if I can just find the time to read the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer novel that's been sitting on my bookshelf...

Yeah well at least the average post per day in this forum is climbing up. I just wonder if the slack in this forum is related to low numbers of people actually reading any books, or if it's instead people have said all they have to say about the books they read.

I think he thought you were meaning that a section mod is the moderator of the particular forum. Just a guess, and I'm probably wrong. Anyway I'm wondering if anyone could suggest some good fantasy authors to me. The ones that I regularly read are Tolkien, Moorcock, Jordan, and Zelazny.

Well thanks for that info. Guess I've got some more books to read then.

I agree completely, but you forgot about number 34. Are there threads for Conan the Barbarian or Elric books in this forum? I've yet to find one for either, but I guess I should look for Elric under Moorcock as well.

Really? Both are actually quite popular sword and sorcery fantasy series that have been around for quite some time. Conan was started in the 1930s.

GMW, have you not been reading anything due to time constraints or do you need new genres, authors, or series to read?

There will probably be a heavier influx of traffic after the next Harry Potter book is released and people have had time to read it.

True. One can hope, however. You wouldn't happen to have any better ideas would you?

Well there's still the petition for it in RFS with about 20 people or so in support of it. I hope it passes, and if it does I'd still post here in Books and Lit.

Well thanks for the votes of confidence; I really do appresiate it. Just got back from 10 hours of work painting that house, and I get to go back tomorrow.

The novel Transformers: Hardwired came out on May 17th according to an employee at Borders. They didn't have their order of it in yet. So I still haven't gotten my paws on the blasted thing.

Here's a list of other potential comic book threads. If there are any interest in some of these then by all means start discussing them.

Chaos Comics- publisher of Lady Death, Evil Ernie, Purgatori, and others.

WaRP Graphics- publisher of the massive Elfquest universe of comics.

Sirius- publisher of Poison Elves, Dawn, Crypt of Dawn, Artesia, and others.

Comico- publisher of Justice Machine, Elementals, and original publisher of Grendel and Mage among others.

First Comics- Publisher of Grimjack, Dynamo Joe, American Flagg!, Whisper, Starslayer, Jon Sable: Freelance, Sable (and related titles Bar Sinister, Shaman's Tears, and Maggie the Cat which were published by other companies) to name a few.

Alternate Realities in Comic Books- DC's Earths 1,2,3,S,X,Prime, and others. Marvel's What If? and Age of Apocalypse. DC's Elseworlds and any other alternate continuities.

Warren/Harris- two different publishers, Warren published series taken over by Harris. Some of these were Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Vengeance of Vampirella, Pantha among others.

Archie/MLJ- publisher of the various Archie and related series. Publisher's original name was MLJ and also published various superhero titles.

New England Comics- publisher of the various Tick comics and related spinoffs.

Aardvark-Anaheim- publisher of Cerebus which is perhaps the most famous and longest running of the independent comic book titles.

What I'm wondering is will the forum they will possibly be moved to be a completely new forum or a subforum of the Books and Lit forum.

I see what you mean. Part of the problem about not much discussion of books going on is there simply aren't enough people posting that are reading or have read the same books. It's kind of hard to discuss something if you haven't read it or have said all you have to say. It's also just a little bit difficult to carry on a discussion with oneself too.

Maybe the various threads need some better organization. I don't know something to denote what genre the discussed series is or something. Or maybe that isn't a very effective idea, I dunno.

Maybe people ought to just make a post in this thread telling what books or series of books they would like to discuss to help spark conversation. Then the appropriate thread could be located or started.

I'm surprized that you aren't wanting to advertise the Books and Literature forum with a banner with the Joker with one of those guns that has a flag come out saying Books and Literature Forum on it.

Or maybe just the word Literature puts people off?

This is the first actual serious sci fi Transformers novel. It's the first part of a trilogy and supposedly the Autobots and Decepticons end up working together to fight off another race of aliens attempting to invade Earth. It could be the armies of the Liege Maximo or the Vok, but I really don't know. Anyway there were several of those choose your fate type Transformers storybooks in the '80s and many wonderful comics and graphic novels but no actual novel until now.

Uh oh. I think that might be from where the comics threads were moved into the subforum maybe? I guess we better get to talking or typing to raise it back up.

That explains a lot. So I guess supers and administrators look at the particular forums as a whole including any subforums.

Well I'd be more than happy to talk about the Amber Chronicles if anyone else wants to do so.

Well we also discuss some general info on what books we want to read, and new books that are due for release. Also we can talk about any kind of small or large news item or rumor in the literary or publishing world that might not relate to an existing thread or not deserve an entire thread.

How should the story idea be suggested? Should someone just post one, or it be put to a vote or what? Should later posted stories by the same author be kept in the same thread?

I didn't realize that there was anything wrong with a 40 page thread.

I know that would be very time consuming. I'm sure it would be worth the hassle but still time consuming. Maybe we could have people post what they think is the single best book and explain why. Then the first hundred different books could be a Top 100 of sorts that way?

I take it you mean a popular thread that focuses on neither Harry Potter nor Lord of the Rings?

Anyway, those are just a couple of series that are extremely popular currently so naturally more people would be discussing them.

I would rather be talking about the Wheel of Time series myself.

Well I'm certainly interested. However we do this is fine with me whether we post our own list with reasons why or PM votes. It's all fine with me. Who would want to or mind the least of being in charge of this if we go about voting via PM? Anyone besides DivineDragon?

Well I hope I didn't rain on your parade by applying to moderate the Books and Literature Forum, Divine Dragon.

I'm still working on my picks for the 100 greatest books awards. The only problem that I'm having is a lot of the ones I'm considering are series.

There's been what, ten books or so in the Elric series? There is also the Tales of the White Wolf anthology which had several rather good Elric stories by other authors. The Dreamthief's Daughter was a dark episode in the saga even for Elric I think. Elric and another version of himself Ulrik from WWII era Germany both fail in their quests. Then worlds collide and Elric decides to show Hitler and the Third Reich what hell on Earth really is.

The Elric series is very dark in a rather extreme manner. I'm meaning dark as in completely and utterly devoid of hope, especially for Elric. I guess that is to be expected when one makes deals with demon gods and carries a vampiric sword.

Perhaps we need a thread for Elric, Moorcock, and his other series?

An interesting sidenote on Michael Moorcock: he has written lyrics for the band Blue Oyster Cult.

H.G. Wells is another good one. I really liked Time Machine and Invisible Man. I brought up the topic because I got to looking through the threads and the Literature part as the academic types would consider it is grossly outweighed by popular genre fiction.

Comic Book shaped Marshmellow pieces huh? Where did that come from?

Anyway back to the topic at hand, or in this case keyboard, as far as literature goes I do believe there is a thread for Treasure Island.

The only problem is I read that one when I was in 8th grade, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at about the same time.

Congratulations to both Divine Dragon and The Living Angelus. I'm sure both of you will do an excellent job moderating this forum.

As far as DD's opinions on comics are concerned, all I have to say is a very emphatic .

I don't think your being made fun of. It's probably just a bit more fun to type TLA as opposed to The Living Angelus when someone wants to address you in a post, or maybe I'm way off base.

Anyway Whitecloak recently signed my guestbook addressing me as Big Mac, which I thought was amusing (I prefer Burger King and am not much of a fan of Mark Maguire though).

Proceeding on to what I was wanting to ask. Has anyone here read any of the Maggody series by Joan Hess? It's a hilarious mystery series set in this one stoplight, redneck town in Arkansas.

Koloth, you are just determined to give me a swelled ego or make me blush aren'tcha?

I picked up a new book yesterday. It was the first in a new Amber Chronicles series. It reveals how Amber was created and has Dworkin (who might still be sane at this point) leave the Courts of Chaos to create Amber.

I think I might have to wait even longer now to start on the HP series.

quote Whitecloak

I like em. I think they're the best thing ever to happen to the forum. Whoever is responsible for that must be a genius.

A genius perhaps. Or possibly a madman? Either way I like the Homer pic and the "a word is worth a thousand pictures" motto.

You mean which one is the best picture? I rather like all of those quite a lot.

I haven't seen that one with the Aiel and Rand on the cliff before. It's a pretty good illustration I think.

So basically you lead yourself down the ol' garden path?

What's the deal with this forum lately? I see a lot of people visit and not post. Is it because of school starting or what? It wasn't that long ago that the PPD here was in the low 70's.

Amen that CDX and Smoke should stop by more. What about Koloth and KngAlaric for that matter? Then there's also Thanquol, not to mention others that have disappeared.

Uh, for what exactly? Not posting as much lately, not enjoying modernist prose, or enjoying modernist poetry?

Best of luck, Akuma, and take care!

On another note why has this forum been slipping in popularity of late? *Shameless Plug Alert* I mean Comics is ahead of B&L, barely ahead but ahead nontheless.

I hope it's because everyone is off reading new books to discuss here in B&L assuming people are still reading.

To tell the truth I kind of even miss the Harry Potter fanboys.

quote CyberdramonX

It was a short story collection. It had tales of various dragons... St. George and the Dragon, Leviathan, some Aztec dragon, etcetera.

The name was Dragons: A Natural History. I don't know who wrote it and I let my history teacher borrow it. It's cool though. Very short... Just over 100 pages. Only $8 (it's hardcover)

I've either read that book or a very similiar one. I think I still have it somewhere. Actually I think I know where it is, but the one I'm thinking of is a paperback.


'cloak how am I not supposed to miss you? You never write. You never call.

Nope, I haven't. I've been having to do so much reading for my classes, along with papers and homework, and work as well that I haven't had the chance. I've been wanting to, but I guess I'll just have to make the time.