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Gaius Marius posted:What is that haircut scarier than anything in his books
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Sep 6, 2023 01:09
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"He looks like a matchstick so the book is probably fire." lmao.
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Sep 6, 2023 01:10
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theblackw0lf posted:What are some good books that deal with first alien contact? Especially ones that explore the human response in interesting ways. Remnant Population. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, still a good book!
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Sep 6, 2023 01:21
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Wow, that's somehow exactly what I would have expected Koontz to look like judging only from his appearance on Midnight Pals.
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Sep 6, 2023 01:34
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mllaneza posted:Remnant Population. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, still a good book! Strange, couldn’t find it when I looked through your previous recent posts. Not sure how I’m missing it.
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Sep 6, 2023 01:38
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theblackw0lf posted:What are some good books that deal with first alien contact? Especially ones that explore the human response in interesting ways. The Sparrow. Maybe obvious answer: Contact.
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Sep 6, 2023 01:39
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Chairman Capone posted:The Sparrow. Read both of those. Actually was thinking of doing a re-read of Contact as it’s been a couple decades since I read it and have forgotten pretty much everything (forgetting things does have it’s benefits).
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Sep 6, 2023 01:44
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theblackw0lf posted:What are some good books that deal with first alien contact? Especially ones that explore the human response in interesting ways. Blindsight The Sparrow (as long as you ignore the author's intentions for it) Spin by Robert Charles Wilson in a very weird way Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor Rosewater by Tade Thompson Solaris/The Invincible/Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, and the related Tarkovsky movie "Stalker" Three Body Problem Shitloads of others I'm too vile to remember
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Sep 6, 2023 04:19
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General Battuta posted:
oh no what
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Sep 6, 2023 04:21
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theblackw0lf posted:Strange, couldn’t find it when I looked through your previous recent posts. Not sure how I’m missing it. Must have been in a different thread. In RP, an old woman decides to stay behind when her colony goes bankrupt and is evacuated. She can't be bothered to pull up stakes and move again. She stays behind with her garden and, finally!, some peace and quiet. Turns out this wasn't an uninhabited world after all. The weird part for me is that my mother would absolutely do that.
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Sep 6, 2023 05:34
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he's rocking the Hudson haircut from Tears of the Kingdom lol Presumably he requested to do this video given he's under Amazon and they have infinite money for marketing, but... well, it's certainly memorable! and also sorta resembles a hostage video It's delightful to know he's as weird in person as his books imply (Stephen King has the opposite problem)
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Sep 6, 2023 06:34
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NoneMoreNegative posted:I posted this over in YOSPOS but I really feel 36 Streets deserves more eyes on it I just finished it and I’m genuinely affected in a way I generally turn to genre fiction to avoid. I have personal reasons to be more affected by this novel than most, but wow.
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Sep 6, 2023 06:55
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BadOptics posted:Technically not aliens!!!! Only technically, and this stops applying by book 2.
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Sep 6, 2023 07:28
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Rand Brittain posted:Wow, that's somehow exactly what I would have expected Koontz to look like judging only from his appearance on Midnight Pals. I'm expecting him to start crying because someone says they don't like dogs.
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Sep 6, 2023 08:02
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mllaneza posted:Must have been in a different thread. I think it's still included in the Audible free to members section too, if that helps. I listened to it after a rec in this thread and really enjoyed it. I also recently read Declare and Alien: The Cold Forge based on thread recs and they were both fantastic. Picked up more books by both authors as a result. I'm currently reading and enjoying In Ascension, which is on the Booker long list. I would warn against the Audible version for that, though, it nearly killed the book for me before I switched to a hard copy instead.
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Sep 6, 2023 08:45
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There was a pretty interesting article about Koontz earlier this year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/05/03/dean-koontz/
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Sep 6, 2023 08:55
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Just finished reading Petition (Resonance Crystal Legacy Book 1) by Delilah Waan (hi!) It was pretty good, lot of showing not telling, lot of off screen world building that is either wallpaper or important to the plot but not really elaborated on. I did find it a bit confusing to follow at times but not to the detriment of enjoying the read and it was definitely less action that a lot of the fantasy I have read lately. There's a heap of politics that the main character doesn't understand and we really only see her viewpoint so it's happening around the book, influencing it but not directly addressed. Interesting magic that seems to be either based on reading and influencing people or using stored energy in crystals to perform tasks - again this is an important part of the plot but treated like you would a tap - no Stephenson infodumps or David Webber ordering a pizza here. When's the next one out?
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Sep 6, 2023 09:27
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:oh no what I'd be interested to hear about this too, having liked The Sparrow a lot.
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Sep 6, 2023 11:04
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Moonlit Knight posted:I'd be interested to hear about this too, having liked The Sparrow a lot. It’s described in an afterword in some editions. She consciously wrote it to be an apologia for Christopher Columbus and his actions in the new world, her idea being that his atrocities, slave taking, etc were mistakes borne of “radical ignorance”. She was reacting to the broader cultural reappraisal of him that accompanied the 500th anniversary of his voyage, trying to get back some of his gloss as a good, if flawed, man. I quite liked the Sparrow when I first read it but it’s a bit like Fahrenheit 451, where the author explaining their intent and conception of their own work makes it come off as a cruder and worse book. GhastlyBizness fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Sep 6, 2023 |
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Sep 6, 2023 11:20
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GhastlyBizness posted:It’s described in an afterword in some editions. She consciously wrote it to be an apologia for Christopher Columbus and his actions in the new world, her idea being that his atrocities, slave taking, etc were mistakes borne of “radical ignorance”. She was reacting to the broader cultural reappraisal of him that accompanied the 500th anniversary of his voyage, trying to get back some of his gloss as a good, if flawed, man. lmao wtf  I'm glad the edition I read didn't have that included, it might have overshadowed how much I liked the book if I'd seen it right after.
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Sep 6, 2023 12:58
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GhastlyBizness posted:It’s described in an afterword in some editions. She consciously wrote it to be an apologia for Christopher Columbus and his actions in the new world, her idea being that his atrocities, slave taking, etc were mistakes borne of “radical ignorance”. She was reacting to the broader cultural reappraisal of him that accompanied the 500th anniversary of his voyage, trying to get back some of his gloss as a good, if flawed, man.
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Sep 6, 2023 13:03
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DurianGray posted:lmao wtf Having read a synopsis of the book that says one of the priests gets raped and put through the local equivalent of footbinding but it's OK in the end because the experience helps him recover his lost faith, I'm not sure why you need authorial intent to have a yikes moment. Perhaps it's not entirely accurate, but still.
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Sep 6, 2023 13:17
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Jedit posted:Having read a synopsis of the book that says one of the priests gets raped and put through the local equivalent of footbinding but it's OK in the end because the experience helps him recover his lost faith, I'm not sure why you need authorial intent to have a yikes moment. Perhaps it's not entirely accurate, but still.
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Sep 6, 2023 13:24
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Jedit posted:Having read a synopsis of the book that says one of the priests gets raped and put through the local equivalent of footbinding but it's OK in the end because the experience helps him recover his lost faith, I'm not sure why you need authorial intent to have a yikes moment. Perhaps it's not entirely accurate, but still. Oh it is very yikes but initially, I read it as a fairly profound critique of catholicism. The above is kinda like finding out Orwell was intending Animal Farm to be an apologia for the meat industry.
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Sep 6, 2023 13:27
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Jedit posted:Having read a synopsis of the book that says one of the priests gets raped and put through the local equivalent of footbinding but it's OK in the end because the experience helps him recover his lost faith, I'm not sure why you need authorial intent to have a yikes moment. Perhaps it's not entirely accurate, but still.
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Sep 6, 2023 13:40
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Jedit posted:Having read a synopsis of the book that probly should have just bailed on writing the post at this point
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Sep 6, 2023 13:44
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Jedit posted:Having read a synopsis of the book that says one of the priests gets raped and put through the local equivalent of footbinding but it's OK in the end because the experience helps him recover his lost faith, I'm not sure why you need authorial intent to have a yikes moment. Perhaps it's not entirely accurate, but still. I mean, if you go into the book already thinking that the Catholic church is flawless and perfect maybe you could force that reading out of it, but I would agree with others that that is a misleading synopsis and absolutely not the impression I left the book with.
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Sep 6, 2023 14:12
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Yeah, uh, that's one tendentious reading of what the Sparrow is about. Yikes. It's not even fully accurate! It's a personal favorite of mine, and I strongly recommend it. e: Looking at an interview where she talks about her own take on her book, it seems to be less about Columbus qua Columbus than the overall European interaction with American civilizations. Which is more defensible, but still too kind to the likes of Cortes, Pizzaro, and even Magellan. The majority of deaths caused by Europeans in the Americas was through diseases and it was 400 years prior to the wide acceptance of germ theory. Likewise, the fall of the Triple Alliance was catalyzed by the Spanish expedition, but only occurred because of how loving awful they were to their imperial subjects and how ready to rebel those subjects were. That fits better with the portrayal of the missionaries and what results from their misunderstandings borne of ignorance, rather than the unredeemable cruelty of Columbus. Maybe she's tying it more to Columbus in the afterword that's in the books themselves, but I don't have a copy of that. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Sep 6, 2023 |
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Sep 6, 2023 15:05
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Megazver posted:There was a pretty interesting article about Koontz earlier this year: He's a...peculiar fellow. I knew about his love of golden retrievers so I could breathe easy that the dog in the current Koontz book I was reading would be fine but nope! Beheaded on the porch in the second chapter.
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Sep 6, 2023 15:10
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zoux posted:He's a...peculiar fellow. SF&F Megathread: Beheaded on the porch in the second chapter.
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Sep 6, 2023 15:12
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metal gear wiki 3: yikes hunter
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Sep 6, 2023 16:26
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zoux posted:He's a...peculiar fellow. I think I've read that one!
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Sep 6, 2023 16:27
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Gaius Marius posted:What is that haircut
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Sep 6, 2023 17:19
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GhastlyBizness posted:It’s described in an afterword in some editions. She consciously wrote it to be an apologia for Christopher Columbus and his actions in the new world, her idea being that his atrocities, slave taking, etc were mistakes borne of “radical ignorance”. She was reacting to the broader cultural reappraisal of him that accompanied the 500th anniversary of his voyage, trying to get back some of his gloss as a good, if flawed, man.
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Sep 6, 2023 18:09
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Jimbozig posted:I'd say it's like Ken Burns but really it's more like Ken Burns' hair is trying to approach the majesty of Koontz's I mean, it's definitely a hair piece right?
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Sep 6, 2023 18:10
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Awkward Davies posted:I mean, it's definitely a hair piece right? Allegedly it's a hair transplant. 
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Sep 6, 2023 18:42
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Didn't Mary Doria Russell change her religious views later in life? I wonder how that impacted, or if it was in time to impact, her metaphor for The Sparrow when she wrote the sequel (which I haven't read, but would still like to read someday).
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Sep 6, 2023 19:28
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zoux posted:He's a...peculiar fellow. Keep reading, you'll understand.
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Sep 6, 2023 20:07
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He somehow manages to involve a dog into everything he does and has now topped that list to "included in a commercial for my book". He's 77 I think, so I can't really fault him for, well, anything. Hair, dog love, etc. Dude made a career out of writing weird poo poo, found a way to include dogs, and bought the... hair he wanted. He's living his best life. Oh yea, new murderbot short story/novella on Amazon. Found it the other day.
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Sep 6, 2023 20:21
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torgeaux posted:Keep reading, you'll understand. Showing up with the identical dog the very next day kind of gave it away. The PI just went to meet with the crazy cult lady, that's where I'm at, and it seems to me that he's setting it up so the kid is the antichrist, or is mistakenly so, but that there is indeed some supernatural apocalyptic poo poo going on We've all been traumatized by Dog Death, in fact for many of us it was our first sad book, and to be betrayed in this manner by our nation's foremost golden retriever liker... Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:He somehow manages to involve a dog into everything he does and has now topped that list to "included in a commercial for my book". He's 77 I think, so I can't really fault him for, well, anything. Hair, dog love, etc. Dude made a career out of writing weird poo poo, found a way to include dogs, and bought the... hair he wanted. He's living his best life. 
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Sep 6, 2023 20:44
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