JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?

[Phrubruh]

I've finished the Prestige and now starting book one of "the Dresden Files: Storm Front" by Jim Butcher.



Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things -- and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a -- well, whatever.

There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get... interesting.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

[Scott]

I've been reading the Vince Flynn novels...I'm only on the second one and they are decent.  Definitely a step below Clancy but still fun stories

[Brian]

After a long hiatus, I've finally started (re-started) reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  As others have mentioned before, it seemed to take awhile getting through the initial parts of Fellowship, but things have been cruising along now.  Just about finished with FOTR, and hope to move on to TTT after that.  I hadn't really had much time to sit down and read for awhile, but the wife recently got into the Twilight books after we picked up the DVD (read all four in a week and a half), so its given me some time to read some of the books I've been meaning to get to as well.  Also, although maybe not technically a "book", I did just read through Batman: The Long Halloween as well.

[Angry Ewok]

Nathan, let me know how Suicide Collectors is.

[Darth Broem]

I just finished The Talisman by Stephen King/Peter Straub a few weeks ago.  Pretty cool book!  It got me back into King again.  I am simultaneously reading Insomnia and The Gunslinger. 

[evenflow]

Just finished the first book in the Dark Tower series. Not sure how i feel about it, the last 10 or so pages seemed to be the best. I ordered the second book anyway.

[Phrubruh]

Finished the Airman. Now reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas pčre.



This enduringly popular tale of love and revenge in the post-Napoleonic era follows Edmond Dantes as he prepares to captain his own ship and marry his beloved Mercedes. But on his wedding day, he is betrayed by spiteful enemies and arrested on trumped-up charges. Condemned to lifelong imprisonment, he befriends Faria, a priest and fellow inmate with an escape plan. When Faria dies, Edmond escapes alone. Free at last, and incredibly wealthy, Edmond enters society posing as the Count of Monte Cristo to reclaim his lost love and enact a terrible vengeance on his accusers.

[Phrubruh]

Finish The Count. Now on to Seizure by Robin Cook.



Cook constructs a promising yet ultimately wearying plot around the issue of therapeutic cloning, picking up where his last novel, Shock, left off. Readers are once again privy to the morally questionable goings on at the Wingate Infertility Clinic in the Bahamas, but its doctors are side players here. Leading the action is former Harvard biotech ace Daniel Lowell, who has formed his own company to investigate a cloning technique in which a patient with an incurable disease is returned to health through the injection of stem cells. In this case the disease is Parkinson's, and the patient is Ashley Butler, a conservative U.S. senator from the South. For political reasons, Butler opposes the legalization of Lowell's technique. Yet Butler-given about a year to live-is willing to switch sides if Lowell agrees to try out the treatment on him first. The kicker is that the fundamentalist Butler wants the stem cells injected into his brain to come from a very specific source: the Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Cook provides plenty of action as well as polemical asides about the ethics of cloning (he believes politics intrudes far too often into medical and biotech issues), yet readers waiting for a jolt or a revelation will be disappointed. Cook occasionally lets loose the propulsive narrative force that characterizes his best work, but much of the plot is stale and contrived. Readers will have to endure characters who fail to stir emotions (such as a band of corny mobsters), as well as descriptions of Bahamanian resorts that read like paid promotional material.

[Chris M]

Dan Browns "Angels and Demons" for me right now.  My wife loved the book and said I would, but I've waited a few years to read it.  She wants to go see the movie when it comes out, so I decided I need to get through the book first.

I wish I had as much time to read as some of you guys.  Having a little girl has limited how much I've been able to read lately.

[Mikey D]

Finished:



Started:


Up Next:

[Phrubruh]

Back to Artemis Fowl with the third book in the series The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer.



Antihero Artemis Fowl, now 13 years old, is back. He has used stolen fairy technology to create a supercomputer known as the "C Cube," which will render all existing technology obsolete. He meets with Jon Spiro, head of "Fission Chips," with a proposition. For a price, he will suppress his cube, and allow Spiro time to sell his potentially worthless stocks and buy into Fowl Industries. Spiro double-crosses Artemis, and in the ensuing melee he steals the C Cube and Artemis's bodyguard, Butler, is murdered. The scene is totally out of James Bond; one fully expects to hear the familiar theme music and to see the credits as it concludes. The action does not let up as Artemis teams with the fairy policewoman Captain Holly Short and other companions to bring Butler back to life, and then to retrieve the Cube from Spiro's Chicago fortress. The plot is filled with crosses and double crosses, unmarked vans, and impenetrable security systems. It's exciting stuff, but the writing is often clich‚d at worst, and merely workmanlike at best. Butler's death scene is particularly hackneyed, echoing every overly dramatic death scene one can think of. Still, this latest adventure is sure to be popular with fans of the series.

[knashdx]

   

I just picked them up over the weekend for a $1 each at a used book store sale. I like the work he has done in the past in movies/documentaries. So I am going to see how he is an author.

[Keonobi]

Just finished Clone Wars: Wild Space.  Was a bit underwhelmed.  I have had kind of a hectic schedule lately, so it took me like a month to get through it (I probably averaged about 10 pages at a time...) so I think that interrupted its flow, but the book just didn't seem to do it for me.  Firstly there wasn't much mention of the clones, who I thought would be more of a focal point, and I expected the Jedi to learn a least a few hints about the Sith, but they didn't.  Essentially all that happened was Bail and Obi-Wan bonded, which adds a "tongue in cheek" aspect to Leia's line about "You served my father in the Clone Wars".

Oh well, I'm on to the third in the Coruscant Nights series.  I think after this one I'll make an effort to get the MedStar duology.  I think Order 66 is out in paperback sometime this summer, so that's also on my list.

[ruiner]

Oh well, I'm on to the third in the Coruscant Nights series. 

Sounds like a romantic novel.

[Keonobi]

Oh well, I'm on to the third in the Coruscant Nights series. 

Sounds like a romantic novel.