What have you been reading?

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I love trash culture a lot. And I plan to contribute to it with my own brand of original "outsider literature" that I am developing.

Currently reading various fanfictions for Naruto and Neon Genesis Evangelion, along with re-reading the Rational Wiki articles on "Broscience", "Mall Ninja", "Paramilitary Woo", "McDojo", "Martial Arts", "Black Belt Magazine", and "Soldier of Fortune Magazine", to help with inspiration for my Saga of Iron OD&D game (formerly under the working title Basement of Iron).

I also plan to buy some Ashida Kim ninja books and read those too, and maybe look around Wal-Mart and the dollar stores for cheap action-oriented trash novels. They'd probably be good source material for my campaign as well.
 
Return of Condor Heroes, the second book in the condor heroes trilogy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_Condor_Heroes

Been re-reading it for the podcast (doing five-chapter recaps and planning on doing discussions on of the Drama versions of it). This is the story where the One-Armed Swordsman character was drawn from, and it is a really good window into how amazing the wuxia genre can get (its multi-generational, epic, filled with eccentric characters and strange martial arts abilities).
 
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It's like a modern day follow up to Froud and Lee's Faeries
 
You don't see a lot of novels set in ancient Greece...and even fewer still by black American novelists...can't wait to start reading.
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Ronin said:
I saw this and thought of you Dumarest
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Cool...I vaguely recall Roy Thomas and Marvel doing several adaptations of classic novels, but never actually saw them in stores. Is this a new one? How's the interior art? Can't say I'm crazy about the cover, mainly because I am not a fan of the "characters-standing-around-trying-to-look-badass-as-if-they-were-teenagers-posing-for-a-high-school-yearbook-photo" cover style in vogue these days. These are musketeers, for Pete's sake! Have them dueling the Cardinal's guards in a courtyard!
 
Dumarest said:
Same artist, Victor Ambrus, also drew beautiful adaptations of The Iliad and The Odyssey.
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But sadly not The Argonautica .
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He did a Cantebury Tales as well. I've had his "How to Draw the Human Figure" book for a long time, its up there with Andrew Loomis's art instruction books in quality.
 
You can all call me a pretentious twonk if you like, but the last book(s) I bought and am reading is Kathleen Raine's two volume set of Blake & Tradition. It was tricky to get hold of them, but I've been getting into William Blake's poetry quite a lot recently.
 
I preordered this a while back but in the midst of life it ended up on a shelf and I forgot I had it. Just started reading it on Tuesday. Great stuff, but then I expect nothing less from Alexandre Dumas. The cover blurb claiming it's "a sequel to The Three Musketeers" is a blatant lie, though; it merely takes place chronologically directly afterwards but otherwise has nothing to do with it unless you count having Cardinal Richelieu as a character.
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So this arrived in the mail today...when I located a cheap copy online I did not expect it to be a hardcover first American edition 2-volume set from 1889!
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Cinq-Mars: or, A Conspiracy Under Louis XIII by Alfred Victor, Le Comte de Vigny. Hard to find in any edition, at least it was for me.
 
Whoa, translated by William Hazlitt? Awesome. I have a big thick book of his essay from Oxford press, he is a terrific essayist. I was turned onto him when I read his essay 'The Fight' in university.

I just got this huge thick book in the mail today, finally came back in print after years and years.

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I'd been reluctant to read any Sackett novels because I didn't want to get into a series, but I read somewhere that each one is written to be a standalone and I came across this "double feature" that reminded me of the old Ace paperbacks where you'd get two novels in one. I just wish it was like those where you'd turn it over and have the 2nd cover on the reverse. Bargain-priced, so I'll let the lack of 2 covers slide. About halfway through The Daybreakers and it's pretty interesting so far. Oddly, this cover image I found online is wrong as the actual book lists them in the correct order, with The Daybreakers billed above Sackett.
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Having already read volumes 1 through 3, I'm about halfway through this one now.
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Volume 4 is "Adventure Stories" and is broken up into two books and Volume 6 is "Crime Stories," so after this I'll probably jump to Volume 7. Might track down volumes 4 and 6 sometime but I'm more interested in his Westerns for now.
 
I just finished reading Louis L'Amour's book 'Taggart'. It's the first book of his I've read and I wasn't really that taken with it... it was pretty basic, and predictable. Manly men talking about what it means to be manly men, that sort of stuff.
Maybe I've seen too many westerns... and too many spaghetti westerns and anti-hero westerns... it just seemed plain-jane to me.
Is there something of his I should have read instead?
 
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Simlasa said:
I just finished reading Louis L'Amour's book 'Taggart'. It's the first book of his I've read and I wasn't really that taken with it... it was pretty basic, and predictable. Manly men talking about what it means to be manly men, that sort of stuff.
Maybe I've seen too many westerns... and too many spaghetti westerns and anti-hero westerns... it just seemed plain-jane to me.
Is there something of his I should have read instead?
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I don't know your tastes well enough to recommend one in particular.
 
Dumarest said:
I don't know your tastes well enough to recommend one in particular.
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Well, right off I can say that your avatar is from a TV show (High Chaparral) that I found more interesting than Taggart. It's got more complex characters and the natives sometimes have names.
 
Just started Iron Angels. FBI bumps into the terrifying supernatural. Really good so far and co-written by an FBI Special Agent.

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Simlasa said:
Well, right off I can say that your avatar is from a TV show (High Chaparral) that I found more interesting than Taggart. It's got more complex characters and the natives sometimes have names.
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Maybe try one of these. They are different varieties of Western stories.
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But there are so many with different types of plots and characters, I couldn't tell you what you might enjoy best.
 
Mankcam said:
TOLKIEN.
It seems I have come full circle back to Tolkien these days, except I'm taking the time to read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
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I tried The Silmarillion a couple of times, never finished. (And for comparison, I've read James Joyce's Ulysses four times ... ) Maybe I'll give it another go sometime.
 
ah, just looked it up on Wikipedia..

"Following a similar path to such pulp writers as Frank Belknap Long, Wellman also wrote for various comic books (what he called "squinkies") and wrote the first issue of Captain Marvel Adventures for Fawcett Publishers. Later he would be called into court to testify against Fawcett in a lawsuit by National (DC Comics) about plagiarism of Superman by the creators of Captain Marvel. Wellman testified that his editors had encouraged their writers to use Superman as the model for Captain Marvel. Though it took three years, National won their case. He also contributed to the writing of the comic book The Spirit while the franchise's creator, Will Eisner, was serving in the US military during World War II. Wellman also wrote for the comic Blackhawk."
 
It's always interesting to me to learn how people lived and what they ate. A historical RPG setting comes alive to me more when I can describe things as simple as what sort of vittles your cowpoke has on his breakfast plate.
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Fairly slim volume chock-full of interesting anecdotes and history.
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Reading these and realizing how much I prefer Gene Colan's Batman to Jim Aparo or Neal Adams. Very moody and evocative art. I bet it would look even better in black and white since Colan is known for his pencil work and shading.
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I'd like it better if DC would release collections of issues in sequence instead of collections by a particular writer or artist as they have been doing, as some of these have gaps in the sequence due to a guest artist. Also, they are charging you twice for some of the same stories because they are printing some in both "Batman by Gene Colan" and "Batman by Gerry Conway," for instance. I'd rather just get 20 issues of Bronze Age early '80s Batman/Detective in a volume so I can read them as they were originally intended to be read.
 
Listening to the audiobook of Delany's epic and surreal sf novel. Very tactile and evocative, the future has never been so late 60s! Seems a natural for an Over the Edge campaign.

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My six-year-old daughter desperately wanted to check this out at the library. So I let her (both kids have their own library cards). You can't tell from the photo but this book is huge, must weigh five or ten pounds.
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Can't wait to recruit her into playing Privateers and Gentlemen or Pirates of the Spanish Main!
 
Dumarest said:
My six-year-old daughter desperately wanted to check this out at the library. So I let her (both kids have their own library cards). You can't tell from the photo but this book is huge, must weigh five or ten pounds.
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Can't wait to recruit her into playing Privateers and Gentlemen or Pirates of the Spanish Main!
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Parenting, you're doing it right.

I must ask: why not Flashing Blades for piratical derring-do?
 
Finished Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse '#3), just started The Vagrant by Peter Newman, which reads like Final Fantasy meets Space (not in space) Marines in a post apocalyptic...earth?
 
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