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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I might catch some flak for this, but I could not stand Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It feels like it desperately needs an editor to clean up all the twee prose tics and it also just needs to get to the loving point. There's only so much "rich people attend parties with other rich people who they do not like but are icily polite to" I can take before I give up. It's trying to deliberately invoke the prose of the time, when authors were paid by the word and consequently padded like all hell.
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Nov 1, 2015 05:32
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:A bunch of my awful friends gushed endlessly about it, I borrowed a copy and powered through about 300 pages and they had still not introduced the second protagonist. I love this book but I have to admit everything up to when Mr. Strange is introduced is rough. Especially because Mr. Norrell is pretty awful as a person and it's a bit much when the book focuses on him for so long.
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Nov 1, 2015 07:46
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ArchangeI posted:It's trying to deliberately invoke the prose of the time, when authors were paid by the word and consequently padded like all hell. Yeah, I tried to read it a few years ago, and I got what the auther was going for, but I dont like that style of writing, so a good emulation of that style of writing was insufferable to me. Made it about a third of the way through the book and returned it to the person who lent it to me.
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Nov 1, 2015 13:03
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Pastry of the Year posted:I chewed through so goddamn many of those stupid books, and worse, I was an active and eager evangelist for them. I lent out Dragons of Autumn Twilight so many times that its covers fell off. The shameful things are still at my mother's house and she never misses an opportunity to ask me if I want them back  entertainment of listening to the bums who wandered up and down to get bottles, ecstatic about finding a bunch of stuff to read. They took them all.
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Nov 1, 2015 13:41
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I might catch some flak for this, but I could not stand Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It feels like it desperately needs an editor to clean up all the twee prose tics and it also just needs to get to the loving point. There's only so much "rich people attend parties with other rich people who they do not like but are icily polite to" I can take before I give up. I don't think it's a terrible book but it could have been a few hundred pages shorter.
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Nov 1, 2015 14:53
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I forget, has anyone mentioned the Left Behind books yet? Because those are terrible as gently caress. Say what you will about Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God, but at least it wasn't interminably loving boring.
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Nov 1, 2015 16:19
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Fred Clark has built a minor Internet feifdom out of explaining, in minute detail, how terrible the Left Behind books are on every conceivable level.
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Nov 1, 2015 16:40
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How about series where the author suddenly drops everything that was interesting in favour of inane navel-gazing? Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber is a first-person account of a prince who has to contend with his many backstabbing siblings, and they all have the power to step into alternate universes as they please. What's good about the series is that it starts off sort-of random, but after a while the author links together seemingly unrelated events across books to create big world-changing twists. The plot builds an engaging cast and continuity for the first four book which it then ditches in the fifth. The Courts of Chaos is only 120 pages and about 20 of those pages have to do with the plot. The prince is all alone this time and he has no interplay with his siblings (The cast up till now is ignored). He just has the one goal but he keeps getting sidetracked, like getting his horse stolen by Leprechauns, or having a picnic under the tree Yggdrasil, or meeting a talking raven. The author pads this poo poo out with page-long stream-of-conciousness bullshit to extend his word-count. The actual ending is good but there's no build-up to it, it just happens spontaneously. It's like when Harry Potter went camping and wiped his arse with leaves for 400 pages. Inspector Gesicht has a new favorite as of 17:19 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 16:51
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Inspector Gesicht posted:How about series where the author suddenly drops everything that was interesting in favour of inane navel-gazing? Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber is a first-person account of a prince who has to contend with his many backstabbing siblings, and they all have the power to step into alternate universes as they please. What's good about the series is that it starts off sort-of random, but after a while the author links together seemingly unrelated events across books to create big world-changing twists. The plot builds an engaging cast and continuity for the first four book which it then ditches in the fifth. The last book in the series felt like he realized it was going to the last book in the series with like 20 pages to go. He just starts rapidly resolving plot threads at a rate of 1 per page but still misses a ton of them. I thought the books about the original character were much better than the ones about his son in general.
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Nov 1, 2015 18:54
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Because of how the first series ended I never bothered with the sequel series. The Courts of Chaos reminds me of Damnation Alley by the same author, just a solipsism-ish slog with no real plot. The only good thing was the New Vegas DLC it inspired: Lonesome Road.
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Nov 1, 2015 20:21
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ArchangeI posted:It's trying to deliberately invoke the prose of the time, when authors were paid by the word and consequently padded like all hell. I love Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian but Strange & Norrel was loving poo poo and this is just an excuse. It's possible to mimic that style without being a lead brick of lovely prose.
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Nov 1, 2015 20:55
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I love Strange and Norrell as it's the book that got me back to reading, but it's fair to say the 200 page prologue is a bit of a turn-off.
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Nov 1, 2015 21:39
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I might catch some flak for this, but I could not stand Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It feels like it desperately needs an editor to clean up all the twee prose tics and it also just needs to get to the loving point. There's only so much "rich people attend parties with other rich people who they do not like but are icily polite to" I can take before I give up. InediblePenguin posted:I love Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian but Strange & Norrel was loving poo poo and this is just an excuse. It's possible to mimic that style without being a lead brick of lovely prose. Amazing, people with absolutely No Taste. But seriously, I can see why the length can be a turn-off. What annoyed me was the anti-climactic last 100 pages.
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Nov 1, 2015 22:12
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:But seriously, I can see why the length can be a turn-off. What annoyed me was the anti-climactic last 100 pages. What? If it weren't for the last 100 pages I might have written it off. I absolutely love the culmination of characters and events. My wife and I watched the series, then she read the book. I think the book is more accessible after seeing the series.
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Nov 1, 2015 23:03
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Amazing, people with absolutely No Taste. I don't know how to make that ironicat thing. But anyway, this is a really lovely way to conduct yourself in these sort of threads. It's not conversation or even arguing, just trying to score some imaginary points.
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Nov 1, 2015 23:27
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Senior Woodchuck posted:Fred Clark has built a minor Internet feifdom out of explaining, in minute detail, how terrible the Left Behind books are on every conceivable level. I have a similar reaction to it to Twilight. Like, I get WHY something LIKE this might be popular, but surely there is a less bland nothing version?
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Nov 1, 2015 23:32
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The Vosgian Beast posted:I have a similar reaction to it to Twilight. Like, I get WHY something LIKE this might be popular, but surely there is a less bland nothing version? If anything Twilight got a whole lot of authors writing better versions (with less marketing); Twilight is also responsible for Sometimes I wish Meyer were slightly more vindictive and sue ELJ outright.
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Nov 1, 2015 23:57
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Amazing, people with absolutely No Taste. IMO no fantasy novel in the world is as marvellous, nuanced, characterful and imaginative as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was hyped as being, and at times -- many, many times -- the narrative slows to a stalactite pace. It's a decent and inventive book that would have been hugely better with some crisp editing (and I don't mean the footnotes). For something that really crashed badly, but was even more ambitious, I nominate Vellum by Hal Duncan, a 2005 fantasy novel with an intended scope that makes JS&MR look like a portrait miniature. It looms up in my mind because it makes most of the errors I fear I'd make myself: it's unfathomably complicated, out-there pretentious, references far too many mythologies, and nearly all the main characters have at least three alter egos, not a few of them Mesopotamian deities. However, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't saddle anyone with a name like Phreedom Messenger or Don Coyote without very good reason. Hal Duncan doesn't have a good reason, and also, the notion of a simple linear narrative is his spittoon. I thought that reading Michael Moorcock meant I could follow any narrative weave, but for the love of me, I couldn't make head or tail of Vellum. It has a sequel, Ink, which I haven't read and never intend to. A sample of Vellum can be found here: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/vellum.htm (also, anyone who has read Vellum and/or Ink: what is Metatron, really, apart from it's borrowed Jewish name, and what exactly is Cant? Do we ever find out?)
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Nov 2, 2015 00:16
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lord funk posted:What? If it weren't for the last 100 pages I might have written it off. I absolutely love the culmination of characters and events. Don't mistake, it was still good, just not satisfying enough. Jerome Agricola posted:I don't know how to make that ironicat thing. It was a joke, dude. Which is why it's immediately followed by "But seriously..." But seriously, I managed it in like middle school, you scrubs better up your game. BravestOfTheLamps has a new favorite as of 00:25 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 00:17
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theres plenty of books I read in middle school that I don't really consider worth my time now, though.
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Nov 2, 2015 00:24
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Literally the only thing I remember from that Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell is that I liked the way the writer would repeatedly describe colors with things that have no color. "Her gown was the color of rainwater", " his eyes were the color of spiderwebs", and the like. I vaguely remember liking the book alright, but can't recall a thing about the plot or characters or anything.
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Nov 2, 2015 01:11
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The footnotes prevented me from enjoying Dr Strange and Mr Norrell. Footnotes in fiction and creative nonfiction piss me right the gently caress off. It's like that one person you know who's always dropping asides only humorous to him or her.
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Nov 2, 2015 01:53
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queserasera posted:The footnotes prevented me from enjoying Dr Strange and Mr Norrell. Footnotes in fiction and creative nonfiction piss me right the gently caress off. It's like that one person you know who's always dropping asides only humorous to him or her. The only book I ever read that used them effectively was Love in a Dead Language by Lee Siegel, but he's really, really not for everyone.
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Nov 2, 2015 01:57
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What comes to mind is that really disturbing scene where Strange, under Wellington, reanimates a company of dead French soldiers. They're all naked, groaning, half-decayed and some of them have been castrated. Wellington chooses to burn them to ashes. All of this is described in same stiff upper-lip tone the author uses to talk about breakfast.
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Nov 2, 2015 02:00
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queserasera posted:The footnotes prevented me from enjoying Dr Strange and Mr Norrell. Footnotes in fiction and creative nonfiction piss me right the gently caress off. It's like that one person you know who's always dropping asides only humorous to him or her. Look at this rear end in a top hat who doesn't like Bartimaeus or Discworld or Infinite Jest or I could go on
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Nov 2, 2015 02:06
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Look at this rear end in a top hat who doesn't like Bartimaeus or Discworld or Infinite Jest or I could go on I like Discworld, but the footnotes are pretty annoying. In most cases they could just go in the main text or in brackets and be far less disruptive. I feel like a lot of them are just there because they became a sort of trademark style, so he felt he needed to include them.
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Nov 2, 2015 04:14
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Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy is a good lesson in how to not do footnotes.
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Nov 2, 2015 04:28
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Look at this rear end in a top hat who doesn't like Bartimaeus or Discworld or Infinite Jest or I could go on Who has two thumbs and hates trite textual storytelling? This guy! (Now I'm trying to think of a book that was published maybe 2009-2010 where the authors came up with the "innovative" idea to include YouTube links to filmed scenes during the chapter breaks. They copyrighted this under a twee portmanteau, and it's not cinenovel, but I can't remember what it is. Argh.)
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Nov 2, 2015 05:05
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Look at this rear end in a top hat who doesn't like Bartimaeus or Discworld or Infinite Jest or I could go on It can be done well, but the footnotes in Strange & Norell span over entire pages, forcing you to break out of the narrative plot you're following to go into another plot, read it until you're done with it, then backtrack to another plot that has very little to do with the one you just left. It makes the world feel a lot more alive and expansive, but it also makes the book an absolute chore to read.
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Nov 2, 2015 05:30
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Crow Jane posted:The only book I ever read that used them effectively was Love in a Dead Language by Lee Siegel, but he's really, really not for everyone. It's used in the entertaining but not great by any means 40k Ciaphas Cain series, but it at least makes sense there, since it is supposed to be the posthumously published series of diaries of a historical figure, and the footnotes are used by the in universe editor to explain the in universe historical context of what's going on.
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Nov 2, 2015 05:30
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Crow Jane posted:The only book I ever read that used them effectively was Love in a Dead Language by Lee Siegel, but he's really, really not for everyone. i found them really entertaining/effective in The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
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Nov 2, 2015 09:20
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Carnival of Shrews posted:IMO no fantasy novel in the world is as marvellous, nuanced, characterful and imaginative as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was hyped as being, and at times -- many, many times -- the narrative slows to a stalactite pace. It's a decent and inventive book that would have been hugely better with some crisp editing (and I don't mean the footnotes). I have to read these books. It sounds like Gaimans worst excesses, by way of Illuminatus! and written by a man who comma splices every third sentence. The only line in that sample that didn't have me eye rolling was "It's August 4th, 2017. Sort of." From a review of Ink: "Here the conflict is reproduced in passages from a host of different books, including a cowboy novel by Joe Campbell, a thriller by R. Graves and of course, inevitably and recursively, Ink by Hal Duncan." gently caress this guy so much. I love him.
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Nov 2, 2015 10:19
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Carnival of Shrews posted:My bad book pick is Wraeththu: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit by Storm Constantine, with the proviso that she wrote this book very young and has apparently since revised it. I know this post is from way, way back, but this is funny to me because I live on the same street as Storm and have met her via a mutual friend a few times. She's a really cool lady who has a very interesting and skeptical view on paranormal matters. I've not read any of her books, and probably won't ever. Also Nthing those Wilbur Smith books as loving weird. My mum bought me The Quest, the one with the penis growing back wizard shaman guy (we enjoyed some of his more normal books) and I have to say it was one of the funniest but most odd books I've ever read. He refers to his penis as a 'man-root' which still cracks me up to this day. There are some funny reviews on Amazon for it- quote:A man between 100 and 200 years old, who witnesses the passing of information between a dying man and a woman through the dying mans semen??? A man who had his penis and testicles cut off a century or more before suddenly having a new one???? I have had a more satisfying read after buying 'The Big Issue' on Waterloo Station. quote:It starts off with the now 156 year old Taita, the eunuch, having his 3rd eye opened allowing him to see another person's aura, upon his return to Egypt, he finds that the nile has dried up, and the land plagued by disease and pestilence.............oh and giant man eating toads!
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Nov 2, 2015 14:50
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Alaois posted:i found them really entertaining/effective in The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz That was just a really great book in general. Tbh, I forgot it had footnotes till you mentioned it.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:07
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The Vosgian Beast posted:I forget, has anyone mentioned the Left Behind books yet? Because those are terrible as gently caress. If you're talking about the Jonathan Edwards sermon, that contains one of the most badass sentences ever written about God: quote:What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down? Any book about the End Times should just reprint old Puritan sermons and leave it at that.
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Nov 2, 2015 18:23
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If you think the Wraeththu books are bad, the RPG will ruin you.
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Nov 2, 2015 22:22
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this is a pretty bad book: I should read this to my kid, right?
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Nov 2, 2015 22:36
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Cumslut1895 posted:this is a pretty bad book:
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Nov 2, 2015 22:38
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Inspector Gesicht posted:I love Strange and Norrell as it's the book that got me back to reading, but it's fair to say the 200 page prologue is a bit of a turn-off. BravestOfTheLamps posted:But seriously, I can see why the length can be a turn-off. What annoyed me was the anti-climactic last 100 pages. Okay, so if I just read the part between those 300 pages, I should be good, right?
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Nov 2, 2015 22:47
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Zamboni_Rodeo posted:Okay, so if I just read the part between those 300 pages, I should be good, right? Eh, that'd be a half-measure. Watch the TV adaptation if you want the whole story. SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Badrear end book. It's different. It will make your kid awesome. He'll make homemade weapons and fight monsters and poo poo. Where the gently caress does an 8 year-old get a dove for a magic trick?
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Nov 2, 2015 23:19
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