hello cw

if you fancy reading the a song of ice and fire series i will put them on dropbox for you and email the link i have bought 4 books up to now and they are amazing george r r martin is a legend.

i am after stephen erikson and james barclay books at the moment i cant seem to find  them anywhere

I've been using my Audible account solely for the Wheel of Time series. I recently finished book 6, and heard that book 7 is even less eventful, but things start to pick up again in book 8. Heh, I think there's a reason that publishers almost never take giant epic fantasy novels from new authors.

@robla: I agree with you 100% on the twilight series, though I'll restrain from using um such strong words to describe my feelings about it

@Anthony: A dance with dragons has been released last month or something. A song of ice and fire isn't for the faint of heart though. I've been trying to decide if I should try it or not. Regarding stephen erikson's books (if you're referring to malazan book of the fallen), I found a tape version of the first book and I almost threw up in disgust at the narator's quality. It was so bad that I gave up reading 15 minutes in. Unless audible releases a professionally-narated version, I'll pass on it.

@Dark: Agreed on what you wrote about WoT, though I gave up halfway at winter's heart. It was so boring at that point that I just couldn't force myself to continue; maybe when I'm out of something to read, I should just skip to book 11 . Just read Edding's bulgariad series and I found it much better than its sequel, the Mallorian. Haven't tried the other one yet though.

I've heard good things about Tad Williams as well, though I've yet to try his books. Apparently, the plot takes a while to pick up and I'm afraid I'm not the kind of person who is patient enough to wait for the good parts

Well victorious, probably because of lack of availability, I very! rarely stop in the middle of a book or a series though I might have a break. WoT I found I needed to break off and read other stuff occasionally sinse there were too many books that didn't progress the plot and too many random circles, but things did at least pickup at book 11.

That wasn't something I found with tad williams at all, ---- and I actually read the memory sorrow and thorn series in braille first off, so of couse things took longer. Like Babylon 5 that series has a part at the start which is setup, but that's one of the advantages, that the evil dictator king doesn't start off! as evil, you get to see him corrupted.

His other series tended to follow a different approach and throw you in at the deepend, especially the otherland books.

For david eddings, his stuff is not particularly serious. The badguys are terminally sstupid, the goodguys have roclocking good fun stopping them, and nobody really ever is in danger. There's a wonderful point where they're all locked in a dungeon about to be horribly sacrificed and the comment is "so, ---- when are we leaving?"

It's the humour and light hearted style that really make the books worth reading. The only problem is, David eddings does suffer from too many sequals syndrome, that's why I'd just advice people to read the first series of each set he wrote and leave the others, sinse the sequals don't tend to be as good as the originals. Thus just! the belgariad and not the malorean, and Just! the elenium and not the tanulai etc.

Another author I read recently and completely enjoyed was a lady called pamela bell, who wrote a treology of three books, the Silver city, The Wolf Within and Blood imperial.

The silver city is completely awsome, and one of the few instances where I've seen someone right an extremely realistic barbarian character who is at the same time incredibly capable. It also has a great twist on magic, that magicians need to take an addictive drug to maintain their powers which causes them to age early, and if they stop taking it they die horribly. The different societies and political situations are really well born out so that you get a distinct sense of the world.

Sadly the two other books in the series sort of go off at a tangent, and start on a huge wrant about adult relationships betwene men and women of various lands, though even betwene this you've got a great story going on over several years.

this is deffinately a more adult set and not for the faint of heart, but certainly at least the first book is extremely good and distintly worth reading.

I have to disagree about synths. Though I can read with orphius if I have to (the falcon banner series was one of those times I had to), I myself much prefer a human, the expression and quality of writing just don't come across as well even with the best syth to me, but to each his own.

I also muuuuuuch! prefer Steven Fry's reading of the potter books, because steven fry is awsome! in fact the books almost become one man dramas sinse you can virtually tell every character just by changes in his voice, such is the showing to me of a good reader, who performs the book and adds texture.

I have to agree about niel gayman, his stuff is fantastic.

i find the sharpe books do! go on a bit, ---- in fact the way sharpe got stuck into battles by random circumstances in later books was just insane, such as when he just happened! to end up at the battle of trafalga with Lord Nelson, I was waiting for him to get cryogenically frozen then woken up just in time for the first world war ;D.

I actually have recently come to really enjoy some of cornwell's other stuff, like his Arthurian warlord series and his American civil war series, though some things like his Saxon books I have yet to read.

one of the best books about war, ---- and specifically about naval warfare I've ever read is Nicholas monserat's book Running proud.

it's about a sailor in Francis Drake's fleet who sailed againnst the Spanish armada, but jumped ship before the actual battle.

For this an old Scotish witch cursed him to sale the seas forever, so the book basically involves his adventures through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as he sales around the world.

Some is themed around piracy (in the real historical sense), like when he gets mixed up with Captain Henry morgan, other parts are themedd around the workings of the admiralty when he ends up becoming assistant to Smual peeps.

The book finishes of course with him as assistant to Lord nelson.

Historically it's amazingly accurate, even told in the language of the time. This makes it slightly difficult to read, but at the same time very authentic in the way it's executed. The author even lived on Naval time while writing it, getting up at five each mornin and drinking a half pint of rum before sitting down to write (yes, he was a bit mad!).

Not an easy book, but very rewarding.

Hi Narf.

it depends what you mean. if you mean commercially available ones for free, ---- well we can't exactly discuss such things here on the forum without potentially getting into trouble.

if you mean just good books in general, there are a lot of really gread audio dramas, podcast audio fiction and the like which are donation only.

For a list see www.whitestick.co.uk's audio books page.

I particularly recommend The secret world chronicle found here a great take on the super hero idea, but with heroes who are very different, The corridor a free podcast audio novel, very much in the same vane as niel Gayman's writing, concerning travel betwene multiple worlds complete with fantastic creatures, secret organizations and a mysterious ruler of reality called the podromos.

Also The solar clipper series a set of books themed around inter planetary space travel an trade, about the life of an ordinary crewman who works his way up ranks to eventually become owner of the hole company.

Lastly, there are several great free audio dramas kicking about. There is www.darkerprojects.com which hosts a load of great free sf and horror type stuff, ---- partiularly I'd recommend the byron chronicles. The leviathan chronicles is another really good audio drama series, about secret societies of immortals, spies and aliens, and lastly there are Varient frequencies and Theatre of the midnight sun which have some great surreal and horror stories running from sf to post apocalyptic.

These are just a selection of some personal favourites, a quick search of www.podiobooks.com can turn up more.

James herbert I find a litle hit and miss. His stuff that is closer to pure sf and horror like domane and portent I rther like, but his stuff which is more mystery I'm less keen on. Also I do always find his endings a litle disappointing in his lack of climax.

niel gayman is not strictly a horror writer, his books are much closer to surreal fantasy. other worlds, monsters, changes in perception etc. For instance American Gods is built around the idea that all the old gods people have believed in over the ages like Odin, zeus etc stil exist, but are weakening in power through lack of belief sinse people are now worshipping new gods like media and technology.

Not a lot in te book is traditional horror, but much is very strange and surreal, especially the main character ;D.

As to bernard cornwell, I loved the arthurian books myself. Sharpe was where I started, but I haven't read any of those recently, so can't really give an informed opinion. The starbuck books though about the American civil war are! fairly awsome though, especially sinse the hero in that isn't a professional soldier, just someone who gets mixed up in the war for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I haven't come across the sanderson chap, I'll have to investigate.

Hi bcs.

Ah, that is sanderson. After the WoT last few books, I'd like to read more of his stuff, though sadly getting it over here in england won't be easy as with a lot of things.

WoT I did enjoy in many places, the truly huge world and it's fashions I thought were exceptionally well done, and I also liked the way instead of inventing more and more random countries for the characters to visit, something David Eddings' later books and the Sword of truth series are rather guilty of, it was all contained in the same group of nations you saw at the start of the series.

That I appreciated distinctly, as I did the way that even palces only a few miles from one another were very different.

What annoyed me mostly with WoT were the characters. Many seemed to fall into relationships, then never trust eachother (I wanted to hit various couples with a stick), everyone seemed to just go round and round in their plots where as if they just got round a table and talked!

The badguys were about as bad, in fact a lot of the time the so called big evil nasty forsaken didn't really seem that bad as they spent so much time trying to pull off some interminable plot against each other (who's details you don't even know), that accept for Semirog (appologies for misspelling, I mean the very sadistic lady), they never really did anything truly evil at all.

In fairness some characters were awsome! egwane's various troubles with the ais sidai was great, as was Nineave, even though the hole thing with Lan just seemed to be there because Jordan prefers to write about couples sniping at each other than single people.

In fact generally i found the female characters much more fun to read about than the male characters, ---- accept perin in the earlier parts of the books before he went and got married.

I also have not heard of the mistborn trilogy either.

As to steven King, I've read lots by him. some of his stuff is fantastic, and truly amazing as good as Niel gayman for surreal fantasy, ---- especially his dark tower series and some of the books like insomnea that tie into it.

Some of his books I just find rather slowand irritating, with also a bit of an unnecessary concentration on characters being unpleasant at each other.

Apparently though, much of the stuff I don't like by King, such as the tommynockers and Misery were actually written when he was suffering really seriously as an alcohollic, which I suppose shows that when he's ontop of his game, his stuff comes out well, but not when he's off.

The only King book I've read is The Shining, and for a while after that the only others I heard details of sounded more disturbing, so I've been rather reluctant to look into anything else of his (though I've been told that the like of the Dark Tower is worth looking into).

the ending of mistborn  was a bit strange but you must admit the books were fantastic alantris is pretty good too but none have a patch on sandersons the stormlight archive i cannot wait for the 2nd book of the series i urge anyone to get it.

king   hmmmmmmmmmm

Hi,
@Griffindore:
I love the harry potter audio books, but in my oppinion Jim Dale sounds a bit robotic but that's just my opinion. I prefer Stephen Fry.
Also for a bit of horror I would try the Demonata series by Darren Shann.