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Megazver posted:You mean, in comparison to the first one or in general? Because I thought the style worked in the first one. I didn't know this was a sequel. I've only read "The Devil in America" prior to this, and that story's prose didn't bother me at all.
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Jun 15, 2017 15:04
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Mother Night. The only Vonnegut I had read previously was Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, but this immediately became my favorite of the three by a wide margin.
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Jun 15, 2017 15:24
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I finished Death's End today. The conclusion of the three bodies trilogy. It's really impressive what a large scale this book has. And some of the pictures this book paints are straight up unimaginable, while also being really vivid. Probably the best science fiction novel I've read in years. No wonder Obama enjoyed it.
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Jun 15, 2017 17:40
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Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh. A decently interesting little mystery made more fun by the antics of Nigel (who sneaks into a cop's car so he can tag along with the investigation?) and how Alleyn fell in love with one of the suspects. Well handled, not soapy at all, I think, and fun to read. Next up: Salt! Then possibly more by Marsh, but we'll see~
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Jun 16, 2017 02:19
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Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire Great premise (children who have been to different magical escapist worlds and can't get back go to a school where they learn to move on), weighed down by more and more issues as I continued reading. First, there are times when it feels like the story is lecturing the reader directly, and it's a little on the nose. Second, this is not an anti-escapism story; everybody at the school wants to go back and would if they could, as it's implied that they found their doors in the first place because they didn't belong in their mundane lives. The story looks like it'll end with the main character, having bonded with some other children at the school, making the first steps to move on, but her moment of emotional growth summons the door offworld and she goes through it. In summary, a message that I'm sure goons will have no problem with at all. Then the novella keeps going with the first two chapters of an unnecessary prequel about two shitbag yuppie parents that contributed to the backstory of two supporting characters from the actual plot. Third, after that's over and done with, the author's bio goes on for three times as long as it needs to and I can almost see her straining to make herself as interesting and quirky as possible. She didn't need to do that! It's an uncannily similar experience to what I had with The Slow Regard of Silent Things: a hook that's made for me, goes on to finish with a bum note, then makes me annoyed at the author. This Census-Taker by China Mieville I loved Perdido Street Station and I enjoyed attending a lecture the author gave on the portrayal of race in fiction, so I went into this with high hopes and came out pretty loving disappointed. You could call this story "The Kid Whose Parents Wouldn't Explain poo poo to Him" and it'd be a better title, because the census-taker doesn't show up until it's almost over. Up until then there's a lot of imagery that, while nice to read, can't help but feel like it's treading water. It's not weird enough/too vague to hold my interest on its own, nor is the situation the kid is in bad enough to generate tension. Also, some parts of the novella switch between first-, second- and third-person for no reason that I can tell. I wish the question I asked at that lecture was about what Mieville was getting at with this whole story.
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Jun 16, 2017 09:28
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Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper Trash book for adolescents in which the preteen protaganists should have been viciously murdered by the antagonists who were given a hundred opportunities. Read this as a kid, read it again because my order of 8 books from the Culture series is going to take another week or so to come in. This novel is from a series of 5 and I have 4 shifts coming up the next 4 days - going to try to slam a book a day and kill this series from my childhood and then maybe donate it. VelociBacon fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jun 16, 2017 |
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Jun 16, 2017 15:53
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VelociBacon posted:The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks I loving love this book! I read it once a year. In other news I just finished Last Days by Brian Evenson. It was...ok. I think I enjoyed the mystery of it, but ultimately the main character is so insubstantial he was hard to care about, and the amputee stuff didn't really shock me (probably because Geek Love is another of my favorites).
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Jun 17, 2017 08:13
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My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. A good book. The complex interactions and relationships of a wide cast of characters is reminiscent of the brothers k, which envelops an endearing story of friendship and adolescent discovery. An enjoyable read, looking forward to the next installment.
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Jun 17, 2017 13:35
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VelociBacon posted:Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper I think you picked the wrong series. It's the Brisingamen novels that are set on the Edge.
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Jun 17, 2017 15:38
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A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball Getting through the first section of this thing was a chore, but 100% worth it. This was billed as a dystopia novel, but it's really more a philosophical novel set in an unusually subtle dystopia. The weird mannerisms of Ball's writing style gave the whole thing a really alienating tone, which was irritating at first, but perfect once the story was complete. The Wilds by Julia Elliott Of the 11 short stories in this book, 1 was great ("Love Machine") 2 were good ("LIMBs" and "Regeneration at Mukti"), and the rest were disappointing. You know how some short stories end at a point that leaves the ending ambiguous? Almost all of these do, and most of the time it's like the author reached some arbitrary word limit (or just got bored) and ended the story in an unsatisfying spot for no good reason. I would have liked less focus on describing zits, bad smells, and making meat sound as disgusting as possible, and more plot. A lot of these concepts were really interesting, but ended up going nowhere fast. The majority of the stories also follow a single formula (a woman who is dissatisfied with her relationship finds herself in some bizarre situation, considers ending her relationship or cheating, then the story ends with or without any resolution.) I kept expecting some twist or framework that would draw things together, since the themes and characters were so similar, but it never happened.
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Jun 18, 2017 23:19
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Finished 2 books in the last couple of days which were both excellent, if somewhat emotional, reads. A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman is about a comedian spiraling out of control during his routine and baring his childhood trauma to the audience. Often I Am Happy by Jens Christian Grondahl is a recent widow unburdening herself to her long dead best friend. Both of the books were short and tightly written, it felt like every word was used and nothing was missing, and they were easy to get wrapped up in.
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Jun 22, 2017 21:43
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The Three Languages of Politics by Arnold King. This is more of a long essay than a book. Its basic premise is to discuss the differences in the ways conservatives, progressives and libertarians express themselves, and how it influences their thinking. It's not a science book; it has some references to empirical evidence, but is mainly about explaining how those engaged in political conversations might be trapped in their own rhetorical realms which make cross-political understanding difficult. I applaud this kind of work; too often political arguments involve people speaking past each other in ways much more fundamental than understandings of fact. The languages he identifies are victims/masters for progressives, barbarians/civilisation for conservatives, and freedom/oppression for libertarians. While the progressive and libertarian languages I already understood to be the case, the barbarian/civilisation mindset is an interesting characterisation of the conservative worldview I hadn't considered before, which has some definite truth. My only real criticism is that I think there's a little bias, not so much in his general argument, but in some of the examples he uses to buttress his reasoning. For example, he identifies progressivism with science. This seems informed by the US experience of conservatism, where there have been some very prominent and unreasonable, anti-science, conservative movements. But this seems to be a cultural artifact - if you go to Europe where the political hot buttons for right and left are different, it's the average progressive who distrusts science more. I think both tend to use it only when it serves their ends. He also uses some weak examples of conservative thinking, and I don't think he entirely understands the worldview. Nonetheless, his general argument is good, he writes with expression and clarity enough to make the book a quick and digestible read, and I like works that attempt to encourage dialogue between the political sides in an age of increasing polarisation.
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Jun 22, 2017 23:46
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The Plantagenets by Dan Jones This book was given to me by my Something Awful Book Barn Secret Santa this year because I said I wanted something non-fiction. It covers an enormous amount of ground: eight generations of English kings from 1120 - 1399. I wasn't sure if I was going to finish the whole thing because it is dense with content and I was frequently finding myself lost. It covers a massive amount of people that I was unfamiliar with, along with a lot of geographic regions in western Europe I'm unfamiliar with. However, the author has a very crisp writing style. Not a word was wasted and I kept feeling encouraged to read more. I genuinely got a better understanding of that time period now. It was almost like a real life Game of Thrones. What a brutal and bizarre time.
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Jun 27, 2017 04:24
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All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders This one is kind of a mess. The first third is one of those really stark YA stories where children are mistreated by adults and they can only depend on themselves and each other. After a timeskip, the middle part is more slice of life, with the main characters' two-dimensional understanding of the world changed to that of twenty-something millenials', where the characters talk about personal stuff before the final act turns into a disaster movie. All of that coexists with both super-scientists and a magic school that seems directly inspired by Brakebills from The Magicians. What holds this weird, slapdash gumbo together is the very well-done relationship between the main characters; the two of them rely on each other more than anyone else, yet their differences cause relatable and believable emotional tension from them. Best of all, they actually talk their problems through and figure them out in a healthy way, which is more than I can say their dumbass colleagues. I would give this one a mild recommendation anyway, though not nearly as much as... A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers  At least for me it is. This is the story of two people who were made as essentially slaves in an oppressive system, have escaped from it, and are trying to get used to having what could be considered a good life in a fascinating, comfortable sci-fi world. It alternates in time between the past experiences of a clone made to work in a factory, only to survive on her own for a while and eventually get off planet; and her friend in the present, a former ship's A.I. who has to pass as normal in a human-looking body (this is a better book than all of Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy, by the way). Like the Anders book, the character relationships are very strong, but unlike that book, there a lot of touches that I found fascinating, from the alien species that evolved to communicate emotion through colors instead of having a sense of hearing to little touches like the clone woman having a nostalgic fondness for a children's educational simulation series. The world feels very relatable, in that on the surface daily life is mundane but peppered with fascinating culture and nice people to socialize with, but it actually has systemic problems baked into it that make the protagonists' lives more tense than they should be (sweat shops in out of the way places we don't think about, certain people having much less rights than others). If I were to criticize one aspect of the book, it's that the culture is so in line with what real first-world culture is like right now (some chapters end with instant messenger conversations) that it'll probably feel dated in a few decades, and if we actually get to space with aliens I doubt the result will be like this. But who cares. This book's fantastic. Solitair fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 07:29
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Jam by "Yahtzee" Croshaw. It was a wrthwhile read but nothing special. Uneven quality and an ending that could perhaps have been done a bit better. But thoroughly humorous and enjoyable.Rolo posted:Mother Night...this immediately became my favorite of the three by a wide margin. Still my favorite Vonnegut.
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Jun 28, 2017 02:38
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Butch Cassidy posted:Still my favorite Vonnegut. It's so good 
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Jun 28, 2017 04:07
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Butch Cassidy posted:Jam by "Yahtzee" Croshaw. It was a wrthwhile read but nothing special. Uneven quality and an ending that could perhaps have been done a bit better. But thoroughly humorous and enjoyable. Yahtzee like the game nerd?
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Jun 28, 2017 04:50
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Ya, he's written a few books by now.
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Jun 28, 2017 11:12
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are they as full of  edgy humour as those old videogame cartoons he used to make?
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Jun 28, 2017 11:54
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I have and will never read them.
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Jun 28, 2017 14:49
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Mr. Squishy posted:Ya, he's written a few books by now. why?
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Jun 28, 2017 22:33
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Why do birds sing?
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Jun 28, 2017 22:38
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StrixNebulosa posted:Why do birds sing? To fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
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Jun 28, 2017 22:40
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The Vegetarian by Han Kang I wish I had read this when it was the book of the month, or for a college course, because I feel like discussing it would really help in processing it. I'm not sure I enjoyed this book, but I appreciated that its weirdness was precise, disturbing, and complicated, which is a rare combination.
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Jun 29, 2017 02:08
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Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins. It was ok, I picked it up after reading Book Barn recommendations. An issue is the author making characters lazy archetypes, such as plucking Irwin from a Tom Clancy plot summary. He's a combat veteran who was decorated, but now has a drinking problem and mentored a kid? Alright, sounds good. He won the Medal of Honor? Ok, that's a little much but fine. Everybody he meets is in awe of his mysterious past, and he chews tobacco in front of the president who thinks he is so cool he invites him to poker? Dial it back there. I had a similar issue with David. He started out interesting as the warrior with combat as his catalog. He is prone to violence and killed the two deer Caroline loved? Ok, interesting so far. He's marching into a police station and is unstoppable, and all the security cameras magically turned off? Hmm, getting close to Terminator but ok. He casually mows down Delta Force, and two helicopters with one shot? Is he playing GTA with cheat codes on? Why not add "then a million of the world's most experienced soldiers with tanks advanced on David, and he killed them all with a spork, and everyone was like woah!" Plus he's wearing a tutu, because why not. Could have used more surprises, the fates of most characters are obvious from their first pages. There's a white rapper keeping lions on his property? Ok he's dead meat, no need to drag out his fate out over a whole chapter. I also wasn't a fan of godlike characters relying on CNN for updates on how the world was doing. It got better near the end but I wasn't a fan of the author's overexplaining every mysterious element. He is good at setting up an interesting universe, with each librarian being responsible for a different catalog but weak at narrating what a global crisis would look like. The White House and Capitol building are destroyed with the President missing, and CNN cuts away to report on a woman who thought she saw an odd elephant in California? The sun disappears and is replaced by a black orb leading to massive crop failure, a giant invincible UFO is hovering over the east coast, and somehow Irwin learns the nearby Barnes & Noble is still up and running? (The Irwin in prison segment was a poor choice for a finale. Whatcha in for? Well I punched the President, held him at gunpoint, and launched nukes, so the judge gave me ten years but let me keep my chewing tobacco.) The book was weakened by the audiobook version. The narrator gave Caroline a ditzy valley girl voice, which made her frequent "Oh Steve, you're so silly!" moments tiresome. Would have preferred for the powers of the librarians to be more limited. It was interesting when Caroline is introduced walking along covered in blood, and can speak every language or learns skills from a forbidden catalog, but not when she starts warping through concrete, crashing helicopters, accessing time travel, raises the dead, or rearranges the solar system. The Father character was well done, along with the creepy bull. The flashback reveal of Caroline's childhood was the best part. Overall the book was tolerable, it reminded me of Three Body Problem in that it was best when the author was focused on high concepts and world building, but ground to a halt whenever characters start talking to each other. It felt like a third of the story could have been cut (whenever the red shirt military shows up) and it would have been improved.
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Jun 29, 2017 17:55
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins. I liked that book a lot, and I like Caroline and Steve as characters, but boy does Erwin not belong in this story at all. At first I interpreted it as "look how much this power fantasy protagonist from another genre is almost useless in this situation," but I don't remember any indication that Hawkins was doing that on purpose.
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Jun 29, 2017 23:41
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Library at Mt Char is unrefined. The core bits that work are really good, but everything that doesn't is really bad. And Erwin is the biggest problem. My understanding is he's something you'd see in a John Ringo novel (having never read John Ringo, so I could be off). He had no place in this kind of story.
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Jul 1, 2017 08:11
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Dave Eggers - The Circle (or: an autobiography of geeves' ex-girlfriend) Haven't seen the movie and the only thing I know about it is that it has Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. I picked it because I had some time to kill when I was a couple hours early to see Baby Driver. The prose wasn't great, the story wasn't thrilling, but I got accustomed to the bland read and powered through it yesterday waiting for any sort of climax in the story. This book quickly turned into a hate read as I wondered if Eggers dated my ex and that she inspired the character of Mae and a few others. The book amplifies - to great hyperbole - the role and idiocy that most social media and consumerism have become, the cult-like lifestyle of some companies in SV are rumored to have, and even some potential consequences outside of Mae's immediate sphere of influence, we even see them put into motion, but keeps the story tightly focused on Mae which I thought was good. The book, IMHO, ultimately fails because Eggers' prose isn't great and he doesn't trust his readers and decides to hit them over the head with terrible metaphors then describes the metaphors in detail, even if you agree with Eggers and it's clear you are supposed to. This is unfortunate, because there are some good subtle moments that work because Eggers leaves them well-enough alone. The book starts out in a way that could be seen as an attempt at satire (with out being "Silicon Valley") but instead turns into an overbearing nod (intentionally or not) to books like 1984, Jennifer Government and Company Every character in this book is loathsome, except for Mae's parents. It turned more into a waiting game of when Mae would realize she's been seduced by The Circle's constant positive reinforcement at the expense of everyone she holds dear or that everything would eventually crash down around her. But it's not hard to expect that what happens in South Park's Troll Trace episodes would happen here (or at least that's what I was hoping would happen). Mae's descent into the story's antagonist because of her ego and want of acceptance is nothing new, but unexpected as normally these stories, the loyal acolyte 'wakes up' from cult during the third act. Even here, Mae the acolyte, sleeps with the founder of the cult, though she doesn't realize who is until the end and she finds him wrong and contemptible because he's been usurped by better thinking men. Ty/Kalden's character is another uninteresting soapbox for Eggers who remains an enigma not even for plot reasons but a weak goddamn metaphor that Eggers feels he has to explicitly tell his audience about. Annie instead took over for Mae as the would-be protagonist, but Eggers just conveniently boxes her up to further drive home the point of what a terrible person Mae has become and her belief in the ends justify the means. Actually Annie is quite likable as well throughout the book if you remember that you're reading her through Mae's point of view. Even if Annie volunteered for something out of jealousy, it's clear throughout she's a good person and cares for Mae. Mercer, Mae's ex, had promise but was just bigger mouth piece than Ty/Kalden for Eggers to soapbox from. Mercer is left as a one-dimension character who should have just loving severed from Mae, but was too proud that he was anti-establishment. His ending is surreal as hell, and I can't be the only one who thought that the people who went searching for him were going to walk up to the house to find Mercer waiting with a shotgun. Cutting out Mercer's later soapbox letters while keeping the end would have had more impact.
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Jul 2, 2017 21:46
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i love a good synopsis in the style of the author
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Jul 2, 2017 21:56
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fridge corn posted:i love a good synopsis in the style of the author Christ, what did this book do to me? Edit I do hope the scene in which Mae's mom gives her MS suffering father a handjob with lotion is in the movie. 
geeves fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jul 2, 2017 |
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Jul 2, 2017 22:04
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geeves posted:Mae's mom gives her MS suffering father a handjob with lotion i do not understand why people read dave eggers
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Jul 2, 2017 22:23
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I finally finished I, Claudius although to be fair I started it late. Now I have to read the next soonest.
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Jul 3, 2017 00:44
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It - Stephen King I liked it and I enjoyed the characters, but the story drags itself a bit after the first part and there is that scene near the end that felt out of place and really weird (what the gently caress was he thinking when he wrote that?)
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Jul 4, 2017 00:02
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The Sirens of Titan What a good book.
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Jul 4, 2017 03:38
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badguyfromthegame posted:It - Stephen King I need more cocaine!
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Jul 5, 2017 00:49
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Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders I've always enjoyed quirky sites and roadside attractions, and have long been a fan of the Atlas Obscura website. It's one of the first things I check whenever I travel somewhere new. What odd location can I find around here? I was pumped when I heard they were producing a book and ordered it when it first came out last fall. I've been reading it slowly since then and just finished it. Even though this is a large book, I didn't want it to end. It's great to digest a few pages of it every few days and inspires me to get out traveling more. If your aren't familiar with Atlas Obscura, they have well written articles about crazy and unique sites across the world. The weird museums, abandoned asylums, volcanoes, creepy monuments, utopian communities... there is more here then you can ever imagine. In fact, they probably even feature some cool place by you that you had no idea existed.
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Jul 9, 2017 18:24
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Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee It's fine. I like the aesthetic of hexarch culture and a lot of the esoteric yet horrifying weapons they can use, as well as the servitors and the mechanics of how Jedao and Cheris coexist. However, I still felt lost much of the time in what I'm sure is supposed to be a relatively straightforward mil-SF battle of wits, and the emotional core of the story is something I've seen before in books like Ancillary Justice. Maybe I'll pick up the sequel later, but I could also forget to continue this series until it gets another Hugo nom.
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Jul 9, 2017 22:09
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The Mirage - Matt Ruff An alternate history novel where Christian terrorists crash planes into "the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad, and a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. The fourth plane, believed to be bound for Mecca, is brought down by its passengers." I loved it. It ends up boiling down to a political thriller/Tom Clancy-esque, governmental-intrigue kind of thing, but it totally worked, at least for me. It does get super-meta and delves into alternate-dimension stuff but it's not annoying like John Scalzi's Redshirts (one of my least favorite books ever) because it serves a narrative point and acts as motivations for the heroes/villains, rather than just being cutesy. The characters are generic archetypes (one has a secret, the main character lost a wife in the attacks, etc.) but they were still fun to follow around and they grew/changed in interesting ways. It reminded me of a season of 24 and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's a strong recommend from me, even though I got roasted for my Last Policeman recommendations.
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Jul 9, 2017 22:33
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Captain Hotbutt posted:The Mirage - Matt Ruff There surely must be a word for this particular sort of awful
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Jul 9, 2017 23:40
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fridge corn posted:There surely must be a word for this particular sort of awful There is literally no other living author besides Matt Ruff who could be trusted with this premise.
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Jul 10, 2017 04:34
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