[diamondgeezer]

Sudden curiosity attack - anyone here ever read the Gormenghast trilogy?

[tEAbAG]

jiga wa?

Never heard of it.

Always up for a good read though.

Explain.

[neo_hermes]

Have never heard of the trilogy. where can i find a copy?

[diamondgeezer]

... a bookshop?

Click this

[mikhael]

Looks interesting. I might have to pick that up next time I need a fantasy-ish novel.

[Geezer]

I read 'em.  A long time ago.  A friend of mine thought they were wonderful.  So I read them.  My memory is that they were very dreary and slow going.  As I recall, the most exciting thing in one book was that a blimp floated past a window...  I suppose if I tackled them again, my mature self would come away with the brilliance of their writing or something - but I don't think I'm gonna do it.  Once was enough.

[diamondgeezer]

Oh it was hard work, there's no doubting that. But then so was Lord of the Rings to most all people, certainly the first time around.

What I'd really like to know is what people made of the third installment. The first two were wonderfully eccentric, whereas the third one was just weird and confusing.

[karajorma]

I read about 200 hundred pages of Titus Groan and then gave up in disgust. Too much description far too little action.

Parts of LotR might have been a bit of a slog but there was always soething going on.

[diamondgeezer]

So you're going to dismiss it without reading more than 200 pages of it?

Tell you what, try and track down the BBC production of it - superb viewing, without the effort required in reading the book. I read the book after seeing it on TV, and perhaps it helped that I had these huge sweeping vistas in my mind's eye as I read. Great cast as well - Christopher Lee as Flay

[karajorma]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
So you're going to dismiss it without reading more than 200 pages of it?

Tell you what, try and track down the BBC production of it - superb viewing, without the effort required in reading the book. I read the book after seeing it on TV, and perhaps it helped that I had these huge sweeping vistas in my mind's eye as I read. Great cast as well - Christopher Lee as Flay

If a book is boring me to tears after I`ve read nearly half of it, it's pretty likely that the following 200 pages will also bore me too. I only bought it cause I was in France, bored and managed to find it in a small bookstore that sold second-hand English books.

I did watch the TV version which was slightly more interesting (as you say Christopher Lee was in it) but I then missed the final episode. It's a mark of how uninterested I was in the show that I can`t raise a single bit of even mild disappointment for that fact.

[diamondgeezer]

*shrugs* your loss

[neo_hermes]

looks interesting...but i'll continue to read my Alternate history and sci-fi books.

[Stryke 9]

Yes, I read them half of the time I'm ever reading fantasy books.

Which is never, because all modern fantasy is lame ripoffs of Lord of the Rings, and nobody in the genre has had an original idea since age 9. You work it out.