Well after my try of Short Stories collection with Warriors i decided that Short stories are not for me so I'm done with it. I have my reading schedule for the next month all figured out. I am going to go back and forth between Mistborn and Dune. so it's gonna be.

1. Mistborn #2 (Well of Ascension)
2. Dune #3 (Children of Dune)
3. Mistborn #3 (Hero of the Ages)
4. Dune #4 (God Emperor of Dune
5. Mistborn Alloy of Law
6. Dune #5 (Heretics of Dune)
7. I will fill this slot with another book I just don't know which one yet.
8. Dune #6 (Chapterhouse: Dune)

So yeah that should keep me busy.

Also I hear Dune #6 ends with a cliffhanger and happens to be the last book in the series written by Frank. Is there anything I should do about that or should I not even bother? Cause nobody likes a story with no closure be it happy, sad, great or bad.

My very own personal opinion:

The events in Heretics and Chapterhouse are very distant in time to Dune, Mesiah and Children. Although the novels have interesting ideas I did not feel that connected to the characters, and, after reading the Chapterhouse trilogy of prequels and reading some of the reviews in Amazon of the sequels, I decided I could live with the six novels the way they are even if I never find out what was supposed to happen afterwards.

The Blood of Elves, or rather the Dutch translation which appeared in stores only a few weeks ago. The Last Wish & Sword of Destiny (combined in one book) are sold since april, so I'm quite hopeful that they'll have everything translated in a short amount of time (only four books to go, so about a year and a half at this speed?)

If you want closure on the original books, read Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune. They were written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and were based on notes on the planned seventh book left by Frank Herbert. Probably the closest you'll get to resolution.

As to what I'm reading, I've currently got two on the go:

The Last Dark by Stephen R. Donaldson
The Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson

The Mistborn books are brilliant, really good read.

I'm re-reading Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy, the third book, although I haven't been reading much at the moment so I've been reading it for a while. Really great books though.

Ok that will work. Thanks.

Wild Cards: The Origin

Next week, on my library will arrive the first book of The Witcher :)

I really enjoyed The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. What did you think?

I loved the book, it was a bit of a challenge going from regular structured books to reading an old style (language and structure) book but it was well worth it. Tolkien really seems to have mastered the old Edda style of verse very well - helped of course by his educational background in Anglo-Saxon language and literature.

It's good to see someone else reading Tolkien's non-middle earth books (not that those books are bad of course). It seems that some people are put off by The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún because of its writing style and love/romance element, but I would definitely not class this book as a romance novel.

<-- Contains spoilers, so anyone wanting to read the book skip this part :) -->
I thought it was a nice complex story (especially given its age). As strange as it sounds, I liked how almost everyone ended up dead or miserable. I'm not keen on all these constant happy endings that a lot of books (films & games as well) seem to have. I felt so sorry for Gudrún during the book, but I loved the depth of the story, the battles, the dialogues and the relationships between the characters.
<-- End spoilers -->

Have you read Tolkien's version of Beowulf? It was released a short while ago but I've not had chance to read it yet - it's a bit pricey as well at the moment. I hear it is one of the best (if not the best) English translations of the Old English text.

I am currently reading the Rogue Agent series by K.E. Mills, and really enjoying them. If you are interested in fantasy novels with a bit of a mystery theme then I heartily recommend them.

Currently Gun Machine by Warren Ellis.

I'm still not entirely sure what I want to read next. I keep saving my bigger door stoppers to a later date and never get around to reading them... but I really like to read the shorter books as soon as I can.

EDIT: Also, if you can read PT-BR, feel free to check my new personal blog out, where I review stuff I like. :)

Speaker for the Infinity

I'd read "The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs", the epic poem, while in college, but the details were hazy and obviously the two versions are quite different. Nonetheless I was glad I had some knowledge of the story beforehand. Not to mention Wagner's opera and lots of lyrics in viking and black metal songs ;).

As a Tolkien aficionado and amateur "Sagas" scholar I was deeply interested in his take and was not disappointed in his treatment.Then again who am I to judge someone like him? ;)
His usage of the language was beautiful and clever and, a word that is used far too often and has lost a good deal of meaning but which is wholly deserved here , epic.
I too mourn the fact that so few people are aware of the master professor's literary works and consider it even more tragic that most people still haven't read his works, just seen the film adaptations.

I haven't read his translation of Beowulf, the copy I own is the one I'd say most people in the English-speaking world have read, translated by the Irish Nobel-prize winning poet Seamus Heaney (RIP).

You are right about his usage of the language being clever, beautiful and indeed epic. I think he was one of the better authors to deal with old texts and poems such as these as he was one of the few men who could actually understand the language and structures they were written in.

The thing I have always loved about Tolkien, even from a young age, is that with his books, such as The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, he never dumbs them down. Too many translators and writers end up either dumbing the text down for the general reader (which I understand, they want to sell to as many people as possible after all) or they break the flow of the verse/poem.

Take Beowulf for example, many authors seem to change the structure of the story, use translations that don't match what the original text intended, and some even add new content and characters. But with Tolkien, he never seemed to have intentionally betrayed the original text in order to dumb it down - The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun can be quite a hard read for many people just because he kept it as intact as possible and did not dumb it down.