The Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin is one of my all time favorite fantasy stories, the way he writes the chapters from a Point of View of each main character kind of grows on you as the series progresses. I think one of my all time favorite fantasy characters has to be Tyrion Lannister the Imp. At first you hate the man, but as the story progresses and the character is developed more you begin to love the man. If they ever made his books into a movie I do believe the role of a lifetime is in the character Tyrion.

However if you don't like the POV approach to the chapters in the books you will really hate it when you get to A Feast for Crows, because in that book he divides the characters in the north and the characters in the south and only the POV's from the south are in that book. So there is no Jon Snow, no Ayra, and most of the really interesting characters are not in that book. In his next book, A Dance with Dragons, he will have all the POV's that were missing in A Feast for Crows. In my oppinion he would have been far better off including all POV's in each book and having a "to be continued" at the end of the Feast. He said he had too much material to put it all in one book so he and his publisher made the decision to split it up like that and I have to say A Feast for Crows was my least favorite of the series so far.

Also if you like the Song of Ice and Fire series you should really give Steven Erickson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series a try, the author writes about a book a year so the wait is not as long as it is for George's work. The Malazan series is supposed to be 10 books long and I think he is currently on book 8.

Reading Robert Jordan's Crown of Swords. Pretty darn enjoyable. Just finished reading the part where

I finished reading The Hobbit today. Waiting for the movie.

I think it is just one more book to go as Dust of Dreams was book 9.

I've been thinking of getting one of Lovecraft's books, but which should I start with? Inn over Innsmouth? Which is the first one?

It's Shadow over Innsmouth, and to be honest it's really more of a short story than a book. The best way is to get a sort of collection or selection, so you get a whole bunch of his work in one book. You get the obvious big ones, Innsmouth, Cthulthu, et cetera, but also get lesser known stories as well.

Ahh, I knew I had got something wrong... Thanks.

Excellent series, but I never got round to the third one. I'm about halfway through Dune, by Frank Herbert. I know it's a classic, and the world is very well imagined, thought-out and plausible, but unfortunately the writing and the 1d characters are (ironically) extremely dry. I would have given up before no, only I feel obliged to finish it.

I have wondrous news for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones_(TV_series)

Here's hoping HBO decide the pilot is good enough.

Also I can not wait for ADWD, I might have to re-read the series before then

Also about Brianne...

I'm still waiting for that final book to come out.. .I hope it's done well... really too bad about Rob

There are two more to go. Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light.

A game of thrones is lying on my nightstand as well, need to get to it and read that soon. I've also got three Norwegian books to read, one about the war in Afghanistan and two I know almost nothing about, only that they take place in my local area.

I'm reading The Gunslinger by Stephen King - the first in the Dark Tower series. I'm enjoying it so far.

Stephen King is definitely my sort of writer - he knows how to write, but doesn't let the language get in the way of the story (c/f Michael Crichton, Greg Keyes). I like my fiction to be in that kind of "prose script" - simply telling the story without too much in the way of "aren't-I-clever" linguistic gymnastics. I suppose it's the opposite of writers like Cormac McCarthy or Irvine Welsh.

Interestingly, the foreword says that King actually re-wrote the version of The Gunslinger that I'm reading. He claims the original was too pretentious and full of unncecessary adjectives: a style of writing he'd learnt in class, before he developed his own no-nonsense prose. Yes, some of it is clever and quite beautiful in its poetry - but mostly it just gets on with describing the scene without worrying too much about trying to impress the reader through language use. I'd be more impressed by unexpected plot twists (again, what I like about Crichton and Keyes) and thus I'm impressed so far.

huh I thought it was just one more

but w/e... more to read ^_^

My condolences.

I read A Gathering Storm (The first WoT book written by Brandon Sanderson), and I must admit it was fairly good, much faster paced and to be honest far better than some of the mid series books. The only character that I felt didn't quite work that well with a different author was Mat, but he didn't have any major parts so hopefully that gets corrected in the next two books.

gah I didn't even realize that was out yet >_>

last I read was number 11 Knife of Dreams

*runs off to local bookstore*

it's too bad Mat isn't handled well, he was one of my preffered characters

Just finished 1984. Wow.

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester.

It was written in 1953 and was the first book to win the Hugo award. It's really good. It's sort of a sci-fi murder mystery with psychics. I like it a lot. I've read one other book that was co-written by Bester. He's quite good. I must have mooooore...

Finished reading Colour of magic & Light Fantastic by terry pratchett last week, Gotta say it's not my cuppa tea really.
So i've now returned to Tolkien and i'm reading Tales from the perilous realm, Loving it so far, it's got 4 short stories in it including the legendary Tom Bombadil.

I'd reccomend to any tolkien fan.

Chev,

So I read AS Byatt's article in The Guardian about Alice and other books she loved as a child, and thus inspired by a lady I personally consider as rather wonderful, reread the book then watched Peter Cook's (well OK Jonathan Miller, but Pete does steal it rather) film. Bit of a waste of a day in some ways, but better than watching yet another Tim Burton retelling of what as far as I can tell is the same bloody story in every film (He, not Alice). Plus I had to contend with verbiage, philosophy of space and time and the wonder of discovery. Love this music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUxpxX9_je0.
And bugger all these tired old retreadings of books you all recommended a 100 times, read summat else for gawds sake.

Nothing. I'm going to go pickup both Mass Effect books today though.

Frankenstein. It's been sitting on my bookshelf for years without ever having been read.

After that, I'm going to read Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. I'm also waiting on book three of A Song of Ice and Fire to arrive, and I picked up The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo today.

I've got a Mass Effect book. Novel. I found it boring, maybe because I haven't played the games. Although I have Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars and that was quite good, actually. I haven't played the games, though. Could never get into them.
My favourite game/novel was a BattleTech one. Based on Mech Warrior. I found it in a second hand book shop. I'd like more in the series but haven't found any.

I'm currently reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer. It's rather boring. Not as interesting as her others. I wish I'd just read it in the book shop instead of buying it <_<
In Dymocks we can do that, the people who work there even encourage it. Unlike some newsagencies here where they growl at you for daring to open a magazine unless you buy it.

I'm waiting on two other series to release their next books. Both are due around March or May

Breaking Dawn.