Om nom nom Penta eat novels!

[Penta]

Well, no, not really. But my novels arrived today, and I just finished reading Book I of the Destiny trilogy:

Quick, non-spoilerific review: I was confused by the way the book was structured (physically, not literarily) with all the time jumps. It worked well enough, but slowed down my reading by a good bit.

That said...Maybe that was a good thing, because I read the whole book (in paperback) in under one afternoon. So 4-5 hours.

What. The. Hell.

It's not a criticism of David Mack, but...I'm wondering if I'm unusual in reading that fast? I seem to recall fic taking me much longer when I read it even a year ago, and I don't recall anything happening to my brain to make it go faster...

 

[Rush Limborg]

It's not that unusual to me.

Heck--it only took me 4-5 months to read War and Peace front to back.

Or 2-3 months to read Atlas Shrugged.

The cases of Sherlock Holmes were a breeze to read--an hour each, on average, not counting the novels.

So...speed-reading isn't that unusual. Just make sure you didn't miss anything....

 

[Thrawn]

The average Trek novel these days is actually quite a bit longer than the average Trek novel a decade ago. Compared to a year ago, should be about the same; the Destiny books are certainly no slouches in wordcount. They were all posted on here around when the books were published.

I just blame David Mack and his incessantly readable prose

 

[Penta]

An update: Just finished book II of destiny. Yes, not a day after book I, and that was with 12 hours of sleep time.

I wish I could read for school this quickly.

That said, I do like how the Trilogy's turning out.

The only annoying part of all this is that the five books I picked up (Destiny trilogy and books 5 and 6 of Titan) were supposed to last me at least the week of my spring break from school.

 

[elaithin]

Yeah, I'll always read a new book that quickly if it's good.

 

[DorkBoy [TM]]

I used to read that fast when I was a kid. At least with Trek books. Especially Peter David, his early books I could easily devour in a 4 hour sitting.

I've found that I read slower and slower as I get older. Sometimes I think I was smarter when I was a teenager. But I think a lot of it has to do with having kids - you just don't get any uninterrupted reading time. Certainly not in 4 hour blocks. I am happy if I can get 30 minutes at the end of the day to read. And after spending an hour getting the boy to stay in his bed (he's 2) I'm often too exhausted to read at all. He's already interrupted me once just writing this post.

As a kid I read a book a day. Not just Trek, but other great sci-fi novels too: Herbert, Asimov, Clarke, whatever I could get my hands on. I read The God Emperor of Dune in one sitting, during the breaks in between standardized tests (I'm a fast test taker) - by far the best Dune book. Still got 99th percentile on the tests, so its not like I was just filling in answers. I did hurry so I could get more reading time though.

I am doing pretty good now if I can get through a Trek book in a week, and I just don't have the energy to read anything more complicated anymore. I did read Startide Rising by David Brin a few months back. Took me a month to finish, but it was awesome.

All of that to say, enjoy it while you can.

 

[seigezunt]

Yeah, that's my issue: time. Part-time stay at home dad, home business, going to school (again!), and reading a bunch of other stuff....