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Gaius Marius posted:Read the Mobile Suit Gundam Novelization, it's not very good, but It's still got that Tomino weirdness. Big fan of the pube good luck charm talk that lasted too many pages. Otherwise I can't tell ifs the writing or translation that C-level, but it's still Tomino kills every to the nth power.
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Jan 19, 2023 04:53
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Kestral posted:Mine was Catcher in the Rye. As soon as I finished the book report on it, I took it outside along with a metal pot, tore out half the pages, and lit it on fire. Good riddance. Preach. I will defend it as the best book I've ever hated because I've never had anything before or since infuriate me so much. And I read some real infuriating customer service comments on the the company intranet. Seriously, if it got me that good then author did something right. And Holden Caufield is the best example of protagonist =/= hero. But also just gently caress that book top to bottom.
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Feb 1, 2023 01:19
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Gaius Marius posted:Every single person who hated Catcher read it in highschool. Every person who still hates it never grew past highschool.  Jokes on you, I liked Scarlett Letterand the symbolism of class. I also thought I am the Cheese was neat.
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Feb 1, 2023 02:05
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Everyone posted:I liked Scarlet Letter as well but preferred The Chocolate War. I also just learned that there was a 1988 movie adaption of it with John Glover in it. Well poo poo son, I was never tied down and force fed that in high school. Guess I should add it to the list. hot date tonight! posted:Empathy for fictional teenagers you say? He's rite tho, we should have empathy for the characters we relate to and the ones we don't relate to can *checks notes* die in the gutter. Unrelated, is Holden the Joker of middle grade lit?
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Feb 1, 2023 14:51
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VostokProgram posted:Not being facetious - what else are you supposed to do with these kinds of books (Gatsby, catcher, etc) if not look for symbolism and themes and all that analytic stuff? Grossly misinterpret the material and make Gatsby an icon to aspire to.
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Feb 1, 2023 18:33
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Tiny Timbs posted:Better not refer to my post, I never said I hated the book Same here. I don't like Holden, and it's not some "oh your don't understand his teenage trauma, you lack empathy." Nah, my dude, I totally get where he's coming from, I still think he's a massive prick. BlankSystemDaemon posted:Books are for reading. Oh poo poo, I've been using them as background zoom meetings. VostokProgram posted:I think back then I liked the book. Maybe I should reread and see if I still would. I sometimes reread the last chapter of a book a week later because, once it's finished, it feels like it leaks out of my mind and I can never remember the ending. Some books I can't remember much more than just how I felt, the absolutely middle of the road books I won't remember a drat thing. One of the benefits is that sometimes I forget sick twists and get to be surprised all over again. This mostly happens with trade back comics tho. SimonChris posted:Ironically, its actually older than Juliet in the play who "hath not seen the change of fourteen years". Not that this justifies showing her breasts, but Juliet is supposed to be way too young, a detail most adaptations choose to ignore. I forget, is the original time setting supposed to be one where they recognized people aren't adults until later, or was marrying off freaking children still the norm? It doesn't make it any better, but it makes me wonder if the 14 years of age is supposed to be an admonishment or a "shes still pure" as a gross as hell selling point.
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Feb 1, 2023 22:03
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pradmer posted:] I really wanted to like this. The idea of a classic Gothic Horror set in Mexico had me pumped. It could've taken place in "anytown, anycountry" for all that the story leaned on anything. The setting barely matters as the front loaded Mexican chic reads as if they did a find+replace on location names. My memory on the book as a whole is hazy as I read it years ago but it was so damned boring and, despite being in Mexico, the Hill House analogue is just generic rich white aristocrat with no redeeming features. Rather than ending up as a foundation for a new flavor of Gothic isn't really just reads as a paint by numbers Gothic story but instead of the red white and blue of England/American aristocracy it's just painted it in red white and green of Mexico, the problem is they did a shity job without priming it so you can still see the blue through the cracks. I've given up on books halfway through, but I stick with this hoping it would dome something but it's "twist" was incredibly boring if edging slightly into ... I want to say cosmic horror because it tries to evoke that, but it wasn't. It was freaking mushrooms. 2/5. So much potential.
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Feb 20, 2023 17:33
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Blamestorm posted:I still find it quite difficult to imagine AIs writing fiction that’s good enough to be competitive with anything halfway decent, particularly at novel length. I think you underestimate how low the bar needs to be for something to be palatable enough for mass market consumption. Places like Amazon do not give an iota of a gently caress about who or where or how goof something is. If a few million people want to buy it, they will sell it.
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Feb 21, 2023 13:39
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Wungus posted:Will a community form around algorithmically developed personalized content? Not to any degree that matters. The state of popular film would get to differ. At this point, the biggest money making films are the same thing with the talking heads swapped. The new DnD movie is a Marvel movie with a fantasy cost of paint. And I'm sure people will devour it. If an AI generates a formulaic novel that hangs on the young adult tropes ala Hunger Games. Once you feed enough of those in there it will eventually generate a 9 books series where the main character and love interest will avoid actually having a relationship for 400k words and people will devour it. Web serials already blow through a million words with nothing happening and the fatigue can't be that bad if the author is making it to a million words. Will AI fully replace the novel that explores deeper themes? Nah. Will it replace the entirety of the bodice ripper romance novels? Probably?
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Feb 21, 2023 14:54
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pradmer posted:Sorry to non-US and non-Kindle goons for whom my posts are just annoying white noise. If you post something I'm interested in I see if it's on Google books. Typically the sales on Kindle are also on Google books. Almost as if the major publishes are just putting them on sale in general. Even not using amazon I still find it helpful.
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Jun 7, 2023 02:19
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zoux posted:Been playing D4 and the world is captivating, this demon infested hellworld with pockets of besieged towns. Are there books with that kind of vibe? (not the actual Diablo books) A good example would be The Warded Man the first book in the Demon Cycle (I couldn't get very far into book 2, though I can't recall why, just that I didn't like it.) Why not consume the many B grade Diablo novels?
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Jun 13, 2023 16:54
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I mean, the popularity of the Marvel cinematic universe would suggest that plenty of people "need" a fictional billionaire whose main traits are a gigantic ego and mystical inventing powers, but that kind of a person is just that - fiction. It doesn't help he's full on in Iron Man 2.
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Jul 5, 2023 00:35
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Awkward Davies posted:Deadmines baby Scarlet Monastery. I'm just hear because you guys have a style. And because it's a great place to power level since it's really easy to amass an entire wing and burn it down quickly.
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Jul 28, 2023 02:30
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:WC will always have a special place in my heart because it was my first ever MMO instance and just absolutely rocked my world in terms of what multiplayer gaming could be. I think the first dungeons on both sides were like that. Especially if you were reading the quest lines that led there. Deadmines had a build up and I remember having to get friends together and spending a day in it because we didn't know a damned thing about party comp and agrro management. Coming back on an alt even a year later was just pulling massive hordes and burnjng them down, which was a different kind of fun. But there's no recapturing that first time and being blasted by a cannon or having a murloc chef just gently caress your day up.
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Jul 28, 2023 03:08
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There's also just, real documents of not real things that might be of interest, though it'll be dry? Compendium Maleficarium, the Malleus Maleficarium are 2 that I have. There's also just gatherings of folk lore maybe? Theresa Bane's Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology, Bob Curran's Encyclopedia of Undead, and Mary Katharine Briggs Encyclopedia of Fairies are a few I've found and need to crack open. How good they are o have no idea, but it should be a thing.
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Aug 8, 2023 20:38
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I've just finished Project Hail Mary and it felt very much like the Martian but different science. Is Artemis more of the same? Also, about 1/4 into Steel Frame. I forgot how much jargon crunchy sci Fi heaps on you. Beyond that it's pretty good. It requires slightly closer reading that the power reading most casual SFF asks of you, and I'm digging it.
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Aug 20, 2023 00:28
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Captain Monkey posted:No. I tried to read System Universe and Battle Mage Farmer because they're lit rpg that are mildly praised and uh.... my god low standards sure are a thing huh? I really don't get some of the praise these things get. I can even remember which one, it may have been a Will Wright one since they had a handful of his stuff free recently, but I managed a few pages before I just quit. I mean, I liked Legends and Lattes for what it was, but some of this stuff is absolutely nothing. It's not even bad it's just the blandest grayest sense of nothing.
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Aug 20, 2023 00:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Nope AC6 is next week, I'm not sure what you're busy with until then.
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Aug 20, 2023 00:45
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Xiahou Dun posted:Old but Andy Weir has a special place for me so I wanted to respond : Dope. As soon as a wrap up Steel Frame I'll dig into Artemis. Thanks.
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Aug 21, 2023 01:41
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Jimbozig posted:Here's another vote for Artemis being Andy Weir's worst. It was okay, but I agree with all of the aforementioned problems. Plus some privatized space program BS. Plus the authoritarian strongman (but a woman) with a heart of gold trope. He seems to like those, since he did another one in PHM. He seems to not want to deal with how international cooperation actually works so he just says "and all the countries just picked someone badass and made her the boss and she is good at it." Re: girlboss trope: I really hope it's not some wierd objectivism thing he's trying to slip in. Because it sure does have great man theory vibes. ToxicFrog posted:Steel Frame was great and I really want to read Origin Complex. Just waiting for it to come out on not-Amazon. I went into this knowing gently caress all but it's pretty good and has mechs. I figured I'd get some gritty Alien aesthetic and maybe some armored core/cyber punk themeing. I'm 70% And trying to figure out when the transhumanism and evangelion are going to fill me withexistential dread.
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Aug 22, 2023 03:42
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I aspire to one day write something that gets a reductive poo poo post on Tumblr.
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Aug 22, 2023 14:58
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Ravenfood posted:I'm on book 19 
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Sep 2, 2023 20:32
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The thing is I don't think I've seen any series be 19 books deep and maintain quality the entire time, much less improve. I'm almost 40, I guess it's time to get really into boats as my schtick.
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Sep 2, 2023 23:14
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buffalo all day posted:Jack Reacher is good through 19-20 books imo, though much like Aubrey-Maturin there’s a distinct 12-or-so book peak (without fail --> never go back). Scratches a different itch but also incredibly good. I don't know why,but I expected jack reacher to just be airport schlock but I guess I can add that to me TBR. Also, a 12 book peak is more than most authors can even put up. Hieronymous Alloy posted:There's basically two tricks that make the series work. This is just the odyssey with extra steps. Ravenfood posted:The improvement plateaus a bit. You can think of it more as a really good intro, a few books to really get into the stride, and then off to the loving races. But for almost 20 books. I don't know that I've got 20 books I can consider great, much like a dozen in a single series. Y'all are killing me. My TBR is only 273, I guess I should put it back over 300.
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Sep 3, 2023 01:23
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Ah, poo poo man. Amazon nuked Robert Bevan's account so no more caverns and creatures for a while at least. That's just Amazon. The company I work for branched out into Amazon and got their entire account nuked for "review manipulation" despite multiple requests from in house legal they wouldn't tell anyone what exactly they'd done or how to fix it. The company resorted to an outside third party that specialize in resolving these issues and they also got stonewalled and said they expect we were boned. On day 40, the final day of appeals the account was activated without warning, comment, or explanation. We're now selling again but with all the momentum for 8 months of ads and product being SEO optimized all gone. So that team is crawling back up and we're on the cusp of being fired some something they had no control over. Spoiler: the owner was absolutely committing review fraud and not telling anyone.
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Sep 7, 2023 13:54
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Remulak posted:They take Kindle Unlimited manipulation very seriously, but this wasn't the case here so wtf? The company I'm working for had their vendor account banned. Amazon still bought stuff from us and sold it themselves, but our fulfilled by Amazon and direct sell stuff was shut down. Told us it was due to review manipulation. All the appeals were stonewalled, even the one from in house legal counsel. Even spending 5k for a third party "we'll unfuck your account" got nothing and they said they'd never seen such a lack of response before. On day 40, the final day of the appeal timeline, the account was reinstated without any notice. No one at Amazon would ever tell us specifics, thought given the owner once sent out an email telling everyone to give 5 stars to our products on Walmart (but to it from home because we did it from the office a few years ago and they caught us and deleted the reviews and told us to stop it) then I'm positive the owner did exactly what amazon says we did. That being said, amazon does not give a poo poo. The owner here was like "but they make money when we make money" we make them in the thousands, singular, the don't give a flying gently caress. And until something comes along that can eat their lunch, the won't give a poo poo.
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Sep 8, 2023 00:38
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WarpDogs posted:The big illustrated book is absurdly well crafted, especially if you're at all interested in books as a physical medium. The paper weight alone is astounding, which is not a sentence I expected to ever write. Here's a picture comparing it with another doorstopper: I work in an adjacent industry where we produce paper, board, foam, etc for retailers and having the Earthsea Tome in hand made me go "this thing was loving expensive to make" I had seen shittier paper presented for fountain pens and middle grade mixed media. It really is kinda crazy how hard they went on this book. The drawback is you have to be reading it propped up somehow. If teens are like I was and try to lie in bed and hold the book over them, it's going to confuse them when they drop it.
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Oct 1, 2023 21:53
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Nuclear Tourist posted:No argument there, but it's still a tiny little unassuming grave marker in a huge old cemetery and you could easily walk right past it unless you know what you're looking for. I suppose the decorations that people sometimes put on it make it stand out a bit though. I think it's appropriate. The dude was pretty unassuming at a glance. The marker absolutely fits him.
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Oct 8, 2023 00:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:New Benedict jacka ain't bad I read the entire Alex Versus series straight through in 5 weeks. I cannot explain why, considering, having finished it, I do not like the series. I must have liked some part of it, as I kept moving along. I think reading it that quickly may be part of the problem as, instead of having time to ruminate on each book, I just moved to the next one. And seeing reviews of people comment on characters changing so much over the course of the series was bizarre since they all felt flat, rushed, and like their development was tangential to the main character brooding. Alex Versus is basically Batman though. He has foresight and an incredible ability to prepare but is absolutely outclassed by everyone around him and manages to come out on top anyway. Maybe I'm just jaded. The most recent Dresden didnt land for me, and I'm a weirdo who likes the second book with the werewolves that everyone seems to blow off.
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Oct 17, 2023 04:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I suspect the fantasy doorstopper market these days is mostly filled by Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson, by himself, writes more doorstoppers on the side than a stable of authors would pump out in a decade. I don't what that says about whom, but to outpace Stephen King is a dear unto itself
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Oct 17, 2023 17:40
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I mean, someone earlier called out Croaker's dream of underage girls as problematic. But conveniently left out the part where Croaker said it was a terrible dream and he didn't like it. Context matters and just having "morally adverse" content doesn't make the author anything. I'm not sure how we're supposed to, on one hand, have death of the author, but in the same breath draw conclusions about their core moral compass. By that logic most horror authors should be imprisoned because they all want to engage in snuff? People like to thought police others and I don't get it. It's not like terrible intrusive thoughts are something people happily cultivate. Read the book, discard personal opinions about the authors, if the content is unappealing you can just stop reading the book and not vilify or sanctify the author according to your preference. Also, this all correct, I'm attracted to Amazons so I married a 6ft blonde woman. I no longer need to have physically strong women in my fiction. Thank you, please remove.
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Nov 9, 2023 16:35
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ulmont posted:Please don’t misparaphrase me. I used that dream to note that it isn’t that surprising that characters in the series are later shown to have sexual attraction to Darling. Wasn't talking about you. It was a few posts before you pulled the correct quote and gave it context.
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Nov 10, 2023 18:37
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Welp, Bookshelves and Bonedust was pretty good. I was wondering WTF was going on and realized I was only about 40% through the book. Thought it'd be shorter for some reason. Wait, I thought it was a prequel
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Nov 13, 2023 06:50
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I was looking the the Google books store of the best of 2023 because I obviously hate myself and saw a book called the Fourth Wing. Are new books just blatant slapping together of other books ideas and calling it good? And not even make any real innovation? Because the summary read as what if they dragon riders of pern went to Hogwarts and Hogwarts was in Westeros? I mean, I get mashing up 2 concepts to make something new. That happens all the time, but I didn't realize it was going to be that blatant . Am I just old and cranky?
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Dec 3, 2023 20:02
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Fair enough. Maybe it's just that I haven't looked at the general population's idea of best in a while since I have a backlog that's already big enough that, mathematically, I'll die before finishing it. But it just through me for a loop how unabashedly blatant some of the one to one copies are. But I guess people getting into fantasy today won't have read Pern or even GoT and are more likely to be reading Shadow and Bone, I guess? Like you said, at least they're reading. While I haven't read Fourth Wing, if its doing as you say to at least get people reading them that's better than the alternatives.
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Dec 3, 2023 20:33
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StrixNebulosa posted:Yeah. There's always been rip-offs, and rip-offs that get popular. Fair enough, a friend just reminded me about 50 shades of grey. I'm good on books, between the rec from here and what I've already got, I could never get another rec and id still have a lifetime of reading. I think my TBR is over 600books at this point. Though I tend to slap entire series on there so it can teim quick if I don't dig something. After Alex Verus I'm not going to slog through something because I'm hoping it'll improve. Right now it's Hill House and Werewolf in Paris before I crack into Hyperion.
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Dec 3, 2023 23:06
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I looked at Goodreads and found I have a habit of forcing myself to read an entire series even when I'm not enjoying it in the hopes it gets better. Alex Verus is overrated. I thought the first book was fine, but as it went I felt likemit was all being made up as it went along. So many times the author switches from giving the magic a structure to the flipping back to oooooOoOOoOO magic is mysterious. Despite 13 books and some pretty significant events, Alex himself never struck me as anything more than a 16 year trying to impress others by looking deep and mature. Fred the Vampire Accountant starts out cute and maintains that vibe, but it's very one note and stays that way. S o as long as you don't get tired of that, it's fine. I'll check in but it was probably hurt by me reading them all back to back. This and Verus may have benefited by having something else between entries, Between Two Fires should not be as good as it is. It actually reminded me a little of Pillars of Earth, but that might be the setting. It was also my first exposure to Catholic horror in writing and boy did that touch some core memories. The worst thing about it is that there's nothing else quite like it, tho I'll be giving Ash a shot soon. Battlegrounds of Dresden fame was read shortly after the Verus marathon and it feels like a Butcher is spinning his wheels. The stakes keep rising but after the last batch of people that Harry cares about get killed, I find I'm just tired of watching him get beat up. This book also felt off since everyone pretty much had infinite magic juice so it was basically a book long Michael Bay explosion. Reading it right after Verus didn't do either seipries any favors, the urban fantasy burnout was probably too real. The Princess Bride, once you remove the surrounding set up that is really shittily sexist, is basically the movie. Its clearly a book meant to have been a film from the jump but it works in both forms really well. The movie edges out because holy poo poo is there just a lot of sexism in the book. In hindsight I don't think there's a single positive female portrayal in the book. I read the Destiny Grimoire Anthologies. It doesn't have a narrative but it sure paints a wild picture of an alien world and species and it does it well. A shame the games are a train wreck but, boy, did they have a neat as hell core premise. Andy Weir is fine. He's mostly inoffensive and each book iterates on the same idea and by the third instance it's wearing thin. I think I actually like Artemis the most out of the three books. Steel Frame hasn't stuck with me. I liked it while reading it and afterwards. But I haven't thought about it since. I feel like I've seen what it's trying to do in too many other places before I read it so none of the events, themes, or ideas really stood out to me. Wounds and North American Lake Monsters were a mixed bag. I didn't care for NALM and Wounds was better, but I'm finding a lot of the horror being recommended falling flat for me. I thought maybe I just wasn't into the genre any more but Between Two Fires really worked for me so who knows. Satan Loves You feels is slick and snappy and incredibly easy to read but it also feels like a fleshed out and edited version of something I would've read in a high school creative writing class. Which is good! There's nothing wrong with light camp reading. A Short Stay in Hell was well paced and sized as a novella that expands on a very brief story by a different author (Library of Babel). It probably incidentally does a better job of exploring existential horror than most cosmic horror, and for that I enjoyed it. Finished the year off with The Haunting of Hill House. I have to read more Shirley Jackson, she manages to wrote in a way where I was along for the ride the entire time. Even when things go off the rails and the book ends as suddenly as it does I was right there nodding along following the train of thought right into a wall. While the horror on it is a nothing burger compared to modern horror, the perspective and rhythm convey the rise and crash of fear really well.
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Dec 28, 2023 06:39
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I keep misreading Between Two Fires as Between Two Ferns and it's a very different book that way.
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Dec 28, 2023 13:55
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General Battuta posted:I have an interview in this month's Clarkesworld, posting it here probably counts as self-promo but maybe it's fun. Give it an ogle So what you're saying is if I want to make a living as an author my social media should consist of SA and booktok. Ok lemme tweet that out.
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Jan 2, 2024 15:24
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Remulak posted:His best work is and will always be Sandkings. Not even close, it's a PERFECT story at the perfect length, not one word wasted. I constantly forget he did Sandkings because it feels like something I'd find in a compilation of the best Sci Fi of 1965. It's such a vibe and every single line builds towards a blindingly obvious ending that still fucks you up. I also have a vague recollection of an alternative Sci Fantasy series he did that was excellent but short lived because ASoIaF took off and he didn't do anything else once it popped. Aces Wild was pretty cool. There's an alternate dimension where everyone's expecting him to die before he finishes his SciFi epic. There's no timeline where he actually finished any of it.
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Jan 13, 2024 01:09
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