cornflakes

A series that immediately comes to mind is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I found the books virtually unreadable due to the very poor pacing, but the movies were great. Other than that, Children of Men. The book is a competent, atmospheric look at a dying world, but the ending was too abrupt and contrived, plus it didn't make any sense. The movie is very different from the book, but I felt it worked a lot better from a story point-of-view. I also liked Order of the Phoenix the movie a lot more than the book. The book had major issues with pacing and believability in the character department (everybody is suddenly humping like jackrabbits, wth?). The movie excised plenty of the extraneous bits, which made the good bits stand out. Plus I was always a little confused by the climactic scene in the Department of Mysteries (at least I think that's what it's called), but watching the movie made me 'get' the scene.

I read the first two books. I loved the first book, finished it in two or three sessions, which is pretty rare for me. For some reason though flashes of Hogwarts kept seeping into the Magicians' Guild when I read it. I didn't enjoy the second quite as much though, mostly because of: I hated this particular aspect of the plot so much that I never felt the urge to read the third book. Oh wait, that was the third book wasn't it? In any case I didn't continue with the book after that.

Jurassic Park and Sphere were among the first full-length novels I read.... RIP Michael Crichton. I didn't even know he had cancer...

Finished reading the duology (Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained) from Peter F. Hamilton about last month, has anyone else read it? I thought Hamilton has created a fascinating universe-- the societal ramifications of memorycells, rejuvenation and wormholes are well-thought out and ingenious. However the story was very bleh, especially the Primes. I get that the Primes are merely an adversary for the Commonwealth to defeat and grow in the process, but couldn't Hamilton have at least introduced a more complex alien race that Arachnid 101? They are a single consciousness, and therefore have no art, no culture, nothing. Plus the whole thing with the Starflyer seriously needs to be shaved by Occam's Razor. The characters are a varied and mostly interesting lot, which makes up a lot for the at-times sluggish pace of the books. My personal favourite characters were Mark Vernon and Paula Myo. I haven't read The Dreaming Void, though thinking of picking it up sometime. What do you guys think of this series?