nope only my school....

I love Watership Down by Richard Adams. It's a stirring tale of adventure, survival and rabbits. It's not really a childrens' book though, given that it presents a realistic portrayal of rabbit life. The rabbits get gassed, shot at, and mauled by various enemies including other rabbits. My avatar iswas a character from this very book.

I loved the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. Still do, in fact. They do tend to follow a pattern but I think that having the pattern makes them comfortable and satisfying to read.

I loved the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. They are an epic adventure about a boy and his dragon facing off one of the most formidable (IMO) villains ever created.

At the moment I am reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (the same guy that wrote The Three Musketeers). It's an intriguing tale of murder, love, manipulation and politics set in post-Napoleonic France. It's quite thick but its a compelling read as you try to unravel the various connections and motive intertwined throughout the narrative.

The only uncomfortable part of that pattern being the "foxes are always evil" pattern, it seems.

I read "Watership Down" and "Plague Dogs" in middle school. Those books wrecked me!

I am currently re-reading "The Sticks" by Andy Deane. Probably the best werewolf novel that I have ever read!

Teehee, sorry Sleet. Someone's gotta be the bad guy and it's not going to be us rabbits so...


The Plague Dogs was definitely thought provoking and moving. Did you read the original version or the one with the addendum which Adams put on later? The addendum is extra stuff which happens after the dogs are swimming out to sea.

At least mix it up! It doesn't have to be 100% of us in 100% of the books!

Well there's rats and ferrets and stoats and weasels and pine martens and wildcats too.
One rat did turn good in one of the books. And I don't think Sella and Chickenhound were all that bad originally. They DID try to help Redwall after all. They just wanted a price for their services, and that price unfortunately turned out to be higher than they had intended or expected.

To be fair, there have been good wildcats in the very book the species first showed up. And I feel for those other animals, it's just not as frustrating to me 'cause I'm not one of them!

Sella wasn't terrible, but ultimately she cared about nothing but money. She only tried to help Redwall because she felt that would pay her best. And Chickenhound tried to rob the same people who helped him, remember? Though I don't think he was evil to the core, considering he felt bad about accidental manslaughter. Regardless, they both got a villain's fate. Bah.

True. So the pattern isn't always conformed to which is nice.
Chickenhound did kind of deserve his fate at the end though. I don't think it was Sella who actually committed the man or rather mouseslaughter so she wasn't all bad. But yeah, foxes to tend to get a bad rap in those books unfortunately. And in books in general - they're portrayed as the sly, cunning, nasty ones.

If Chickenhound deserved it, that just illustrates my frustration. I wish there were a fox that didn't.

...One of their kits? Who we just don't know about? There may be somewhere in that whole big wide world. Who knows how many more books Jacques might have written? It is quite possible thast he could have had one with a good fox in the pipeline.

I'd prefer to actually read about this non-evil fox. It's much more entertaining than simply assuming one exists.

Why not write it yourself? Could be fun!

Come to think of it, is there a thread on here somewhere for writers?
As in, NOT fanfic but other, proper writing?

The fox in my book is a female master strategist and an ace with a bow and arrow. She's a red fox though, not an arctic one, sorry Sleet! Jackals are the bad guys in my story, but only one town of them. One of the good guys is a jackal too so I bring up the idea of stereotyping.

Yeah, I wondered if there was a thread like that but I never actually checked...

I don't write fanfiction though! Or at all for that matter.

Look in Media Median. If there isn't a thread there, feel free to make one!

Thanks, Sleet. I'll check it out.

I've just finished Urchin of the Riding Stars by M. I. McAllister. It's a Redwall-esque novel aimed at younger people but it was an enjoyable read. Urchin, a young red squirrel, must solve a murder and clear the name of his Captain before an ursurper uses the resulting chaos to take the throne for himself.

That's too bad. I like jackals! If Clive Barker's novel "Cabal" has taught me anything, in which the protagonists are monsters, is that the scariest, cruelest, most destructive creature in all of nature is the human.

Oh goodness, I am reading so much stuff right now. Right now I'm re-reading L.E. Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle. I love it so much.

Wow. I have read quite a few things since I last posted anything here.

I read some books on mythology, most Greek. Other than the myths themselves I discovered some good books by Joseph Campbell. "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and "The Power of Myth". They gave me a lot to think about and a greater appreciation of mythology, if that was possible.

On a lighter reading note, I have started reading "A Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The first book in his "John Carter" series. I am about half way finished with it and I really like it so far.

I am currently working my way through Our Story Begins, a collection of stories by Tobias Wolff. He's great.

Hello all.

I figure the best way to get to know someone is to know their favorite book and why. So here I am (in the merged post reincarnate).

So mine. John Dies at the End, by David Wong.

Somewhere in between weird, hilarious, and utterly terrifying, John Dies at the End turns out to be one of the most surreal, yet intelligent horror adventure I've read in a long time. It' smart and really plays on the idea of memory, time, and humanity all in one. The suspense is brilliant as well as completely straght--near dead-pan humor of the narrator.

Favorite part hands down is when David, the main guy, is on the phone with the recently deceased John, discussing the single other cop in the interrogation room who has no reflection in the one-way mirror and only exists in David's head.

He has a small, broken moment where he simply moans into the phone, "I don't get it."

Just some great writing all around.


Okay--you're turn I suppose. Go on. And hello! Nice to meet you, yeah? Yeah.

Reading the Maze Runner Trilogy. Not very impressed.

What is it about about and what doesn't impress you? Plot, writing, or does the dialogue come from the rejected lines from bad soap operas?

That sounds very cool and totally my kind of book!

Apologies for the interruption. Greetings, my name is Nyaliva. A pleasure to meet you! *extends out hand for a handshake*

My own favourite book tends to waver so much it'd be quicker to just post my book case. I recently finished Edgar Allan Poe's work of short stories, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed, but the first book I took the chance to deconstruct for something other than an English assignment was The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

One of the most fantastic combinations of spectacular sci-fi concepts with crushingly insightful prose, it's one of those rare experiences where I expected a thrilling sci-fi classic and ended up with one of the most engaging deconstructions of the human condition I've ever read. There's one part which really stood out for me and left me so emotionally engrossed that I loved the book instantly. I'd love to quote it directly but I fear without at least knowing the premise of the story, it would lose a great deal of its impact. Needless to say, it's very close to being my favourite.

Welcome to the forums Curmudgeon!
May I offer you a link to The Welcome Thread? That would be the best place to introduce yourself and get to know some of the other members of the forum.


As for my favorite book, I couldn't say. What I can tell you are my favorite writers though. They would be, in no particular order, Stephen King, RL Stine, and (from our very own forum right here) Penwrite.

I loved reading Goosebumps as a kid and eventually moved on up to the Fear Street series. RL Stine never failed when it came to writing a good book that I could get lost in.

Once I reached High School and had run out of all of the RL Stine I could find (in the school library anyway), I decided to give Stephen King a try since he seemed to write very similar books. I have to say, Misery is the only book I didn't enjoy every sentence of. The first half was just way too slow. (Not good seeing how it was the first one I read. Fortunately, I enjoyed the second half of it much better, so I got another book of his when I finished)

Penwrite writes a lot of MLP fanfiction, and I just love how he pieces together his plots for them. And how he isn't afraid to approach the darker aspects of life, but not cross the line with them. At least, not cross it too much...

I've read the first 9 books of the how to train your dragon series (I have no interest in the spin-offs). While it has a good overall story, many things bother me like:
1)Many of the key plot elements come from "coincidences" or "luck" and not from actual planned actions.
2)While it is a continuing story the character development is backstabbing itself. For example,in the book How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse, Stoick finally accepts that Fishlegs is a good friend to Hiccup and that Hiccup's cousin Snotlout, isn't a good person, but then, later in the series, Stoick goes back saying that Fishlegs isn't a good friend and that Hiccup shouldn't hang out with him.
2.1)How Hiccup always saves the day, show everyone he's smart and always in the following book the other vikings turn themselves back to default mode and go back calling Hiccup an useless viking.
3)Any good character, aside from Hiccup, Fishlegs and Camicazi are complete idiots.

The plot.

I just got a new book in the mail today and I can't wait to read it! "Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr." by Rudolf Grey! Ed Wood has always been a fascinating person to me. His lack of ability never stopped him from trying.

I am almost finished with "A Princess of Mars". So far it is a really good adventure story and I can see the huge influence that it had on fantasy literature. I think I might have to try one of Robert E. Howard's books next.

I'm re-reading A Song of Fire and Ice. I think these series needs to be read no less then two to three times to really understand it.

That series seems to have a really neat mythos but I just can't get over all the vulgarity.

I just finished Stephen King's Joyland. It's an amazingly breezy read. Enjoyable.

I just finished reading "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. It is a work of philosophy by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius about various lessons on life. I highly recommend it. It gave me a lot to think about.

I've finally finished reading Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. It's the story of a man who is wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit and who, after escaping and becoming rich, seeks to exact his revenge on those who caused his imprisonment. Filled with political intrigue and a fascinating look at early 19th centry Paris, it's an engrossing tale of mayhem and ethical dilemmas with a healthy dose of murder and theivery thrown in for good measure. I highly reccommend it.
Be forewarned though - it is LONG. It's near 1000 pages in hard copy (It was over 3000 on the small screen of my iPod)!

Currently making my way through John Gardner's Grendel. Its a weird one but I like it so far.

Almost done with A Dance with Dragons and then will be moving onto City of Bones. I hope it's not a bad book.

City of Bones and the series it's attached to is a pretty good YA fantasy series. There's a tad much teenage angst in there, but that's to be expected I guess.

I'm now currently reading the latest book in Namoi Novik's series. Guys, honestly if you love dragons, more so -smart- dragons, you really, really need to go and pick up this series because it's that good. Only downside is that there's a lot of 'traveling' in the series so if that turns you off, beware.

I found a good paper back version of "Cabal" by Clive Barker that also includes several of his short stories! So, I am currently re-reading "Cabal". If you have not read it I highly recommend it.