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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). gently caress Vellum. It's 500 pages long but feels like a thousand, Hal Duncan uses four different fonts to designate about nine different timelines/points-of-view, the single gay character is conveniently disappeared halfway through the book, and it features the most over-written Irishman in history. Oh, and the only female character of note is the butt of every mid-00s Edgy As Heck trope at once. It's especially frustrating because there are real nuggets of greatness hidden in the swamp, and it'd be nice to know where it goes in Ink, but I absolutely do not want to read another of these bloated tomes.
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Nov 4, 2015 11:42
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Cumslut1895 posted:this is a pretty bad book: What self-respecting monster can be trounced by the power of filial and maternal love? Some character-building defeat-me-in-graded-installments Harry Potteresque monster, that's what. Like SurreptitiousMuffin said: that's not a proper monster, that's an overzealous life coach. Give your child the good stuff, well-proven to haunt the reader's nightmares for decades. Give them Struwwelpeter:  http://germanstories.vcu.edu/struwwel/daumen_e.html So successful was Heinrich Hoffmann as a childrens' author that he was commissioned to write a book of tales involving only girls, to be directly translated for the English-speaking market. The amazing result, Slovenly Betsy, is available complete at Project Gutenberg, illustrated along the following lines (the fate of a girl who loves sweet things too much):  And what happens to crybabies? They literally bawl their eyes out: And now the poor creature is cautiously crawling And feeling her way all around; And now from their sockets her eyeballs are falling; See, there they are down on the ground. My children, from such an example take warning, And happily live while you may; And say to yourselves, when you rise in the morning, “I'll try to be cheerful today.” Be happy, kids! Amazingly, in his day job Hoffmann was a psychiatrist, who worked in very demanding conditions in a charity hospital, and took a particular interest in schizophrenia (the relapse rate among his schizophrenic patients, about whom he took exhaustive notes, seems to have been unusually low by modern standards, let alone those of his era). also  From Hillaire Belloc's 'Cautionary Tales for Children: Designed for the admonition of children between eight and fourteen years' Either Belloc had never met a child between 8 and 14 years, or he had met many, and knew their tastes all too well. Right, back to the truly terrible books.
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Nov 4, 2015 22:54
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Gertrude Perkins posted:gently caress Vellum. It's 500 pages long but feels like a thousand, Hal Duncan uses four different fonts to designate about nine different timelines/points-of-view, the single gay character is conveniently disappeared halfway through the book, and it features the most over-written Irishman in history. Oh, and the only female character of note is the butt of every mid-00s Edgy As Heck trope at once. It's especially frustrating because there are real nuggets of greatness hidden in the swamp, and it'd be nice to know where it goes in Ink, but I absolutely do not want to read another of these bloated tomes. I could cope with the cool biker chick who's into Santeria, the fookin' ancient Irishman who looks all of twenty, the blandly evil bureaucrats of Heaven and their personality-wiped minions (enough with these guys forever), and the occasional straight lifting from V for Vendetta. I could cope with it, because if you realised that your life was a well-integrated, disposable interface for some multiverse entity that had an agenda of its own, and was essentially immortal (but not you! You can die easily) – and that agents were scouring your universe, trying to recruit people like you into one side or another of an allegedly holy war – you might well go on the run, trying your utmost to destroy whatever part of you might be flagging you up as one of these benighted things. The parts of the book that deal with this are actually good, if over-written. But Duncan spreads them out over hundreds and hundreds of self-indulgent pages of quasi-mythological wankery. Fook you, Hal Duncan. Strom Cuzewon posted: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. More is available here from Google Books. I'm bizarrely, sadistically eager to get someone else to read this epic mythological wankfest. Have at it.
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Nov 4, 2015 23:14
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You wanna scar your kids for life take them to see the musical adaptation of Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter. Some really creepy puppets in there. For other terrible books, I have to say anything by Gregory Maguire. I wanted to like his books, especially the ones dealing with classic fairy tales (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Mirror, Mirror) but they're just...badly written and confusing. Mirror, Mirror especially has this hosed up moment where Snow White wakes up from her enchanted sleep to find she has already undergone puberty, and then she suddenly experiences like, seven years' worth of menstruation at once. The prose in Mirror, Mirror is also really confusing and switches styles and perspectives with no warning, and reading it made me feel kind of dizzy. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister isn't quite as bad, but it's still not great. And gently caress Wicked. The musical is alright but that book is horrible and confusing.
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Nov 4, 2015 23:28
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Carnival of Shrews posted:Give your child the good stuff, well-proven to haunt the reader's nightmares for decades. Give them Struwwelpeter: Well, now I get this joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpBJsVw000w
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Nov 5, 2015 00:41
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coronatae posted:And gently caress Wicked. The musical is alright but that book is horrible and confusing. I have long maintained that Wicked is fundamentally lovely fanfiction. The bit you mentioned from Mirror, Mirror reminds me of the bit in Wicked where Elphaba is comatose for an entire pregnancy and childbirth, and then nobody bothers to tell her that the resulting kid is hers -- is this kind of thing, like, a thing for Maguire?
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Nov 5, 2015 02:16
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That and also he really likes to describe women taking a piss. I saw it in Wicked, Confessions, and Mirror, and I'm sure if I looked elsewhere I'd find more examples. Specifically, he writes about a woman peeing and there being steam rising from the pee. gently caress you Maguire.
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Nov 5, 2015 02:18
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coronatae posted:You wanna scar your kids for life take them to see the musical adaptation of Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter. Some really creepy puppets in there. Wicked is edgy teenager as poo poo. The musical is also pretty teenage, but in a more likable way.
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Nov 5, 2015 03:07
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i don't know anything about Wicked except Defying Gravity is a p good song to listen to when you need a pick-me-up
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Nov 5, 2015 15:33
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The Saddest Rhino posted:i don't know anything about Wicked except Defying Gravity is a p good song to listen to when you need a pick-me-up Picture that, but with an hour of talking before and after.
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Nov 5, 2015 15:39
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good or bad talking?
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Nov 5, 2015 15:45
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I think in the book a dude has sex with a tiger, in a scene that is bizarrely glossed over.
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Nov 5, 2015 15:50
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The Saddest Rhino posted:good or bad talking? idk, it's not Defying Gravity so I didn't pay attention.
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Nov 5, 2015 15:52
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I feel like you can't throw having sex with a tiger in as a throwaway detail, unless you are William S. Burroughs.
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Nov 5, 2015 16:03
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You don't yadda-yadda sex with a tiger!
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Nov 5, 2015 16:32
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The musical is really far removed from the book, aside from a really skeletal version of the plot. The show veers much more back toward the original Baum books and especially the movie, and is sort of fanfiction-y in a much more bearable way. I'm in to theatre, though, so I've always liked it. I put the book down halfway through and haven't regretted it. Edit: and yeah, the tiger sex thing was weird, but made weirder by the glossing over. Like, you just wrote about how a named character was strapped to the belly of a sentient tiger in a sex club. You'd think that would get more attention than, "that guy was never the same after that night." Poor Miserable Gurgi has a new favorite as of 16:38 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 16:35
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Someone mentioned The Felsic Current at the start of this thread and I can sort of remember there being some hilarity about that book and its author, was that on Something Awful or somewhere else?
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Nov 5, 2015 19:05
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StoneOfShame posted:Someone mentioned The Felsic Current at the start of this thread and I can sort of remember there being some hilarity about that book and its author, was that on Something Awful or somewhere else? It was here. Archives are down at the moment, but there was a whole thread about J. F. Bibeau being a weirdo in The Book Barn, and someone turned up who knew him personally.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:33
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That book is amazing. "Frannie! Stop burping up goblin asses!"
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Nov 6, 2015 04:52
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I really need to get a digital copy of Felsic Current so I can start a Let's Read with a "do at least a chapter a week" toxx attached, because otherwise, I am never going to actually make myself read that loving thing. I've never managed to get more than about ten pages into it without my hindbrain demanding I do anything else, anything. "Have you cleaned the cat boxes? Should you do it again? Is it time to mop under the refrigerator? Just STOP READING FELSIC CURRENT HOLY poo poo"
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Nov 6, 2015 05:13
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I don't think digital copies exist, but paper copies have gone down to 15 cents.
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Nov 6, 2015 06:46
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I don't think digital copies exist, but paper copies have gone down to 15 cents. I am sincerely considering buying a second copy of Felsic Current so that I can send it to one of those PDF-conversion houses, where it will be shredded and converted to a form that's easier to copy-paste particularly terrible chunks of for the Internet. What a world we live in.
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Nov 6, 2015 07:08
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coronatae posted:You wanna scar your kids for life take them to see the musical adaptation of Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter. Some really creepy puppets in there. I loved Wicked when I first read it because I really enjoyed Maguire's depiction of the different places and peoples in Oz. I even thought the t(T)iger sex scene was amusing. Then I made the mistake of reading all the sequels. Everyone is always Secretly Gay and that annoys me. Like, loving be gay or don't be gay, but we don't need a ridiculous song and dance about it every time it comes up. You wrote Wizard of Oz fanfic, Mr. Maguire, we accept you for who you are. Now, please, write a character who isn't constantly discovering and re-discovering their own sexuality. Also, holy poo poo, sealing your vagina shut wtf NOT OKAY WEIRD, speaking of genital mutilation. And going back to whoever brought up To Sail Beyond the Sunset, holy poo poo that was a weird book to read at the age of twelve. My mother loves both Heinlein and Piers Anthony and I am frequently confused/upset by her choices. She's a feminist, for chrissakes. I would also like to nominate: Mirror Image by Danielle Steel. Granted, this is a low-hanging fruit, but I was forced to read this at my grandma's due to a lack of other available books and it is such a turdburger. Actually contains the line "She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And so was her sister." They're twins, but come on. Anyways. there are some rich and beautiful twins and they LOOK ALIKE but their personalities are SO DIFFERENT (think Sweet Valley High, but set in the early twentieth century.) Anyways, they go to New York City and the Jessica Wakefield one meets a MOST DASHING AND DANGEROUS MARRIED RAKE. And they DO SEX. And she gets PREGANANTED!!!!!!!!! BUT THEN SHE FALLS OFF A HORSE AND IS UNPREGANANTED and the twins can FEEL EACH OTHERS' PAIN. So their dad makes the Jessica one marry some guy who the Elizabeth one secretly likes. Jessica one hates her new husband, so they pull a Twin Switch and she runs off to survive the sinking of the Lusitania, during which twin senses go crazy. Meanwhile, Elizabeth One and Husband Guy fall in love and make babies. Then Jessica One becomes an ambulance driver in WWI and takes up with a foxy married guy, because that worked so well the first time she tried it. And she also becomes great with child. And then they die after the battle of Ypres and the Elizabeth one takes her sister's baby home to raise and then after exactly five minutes of being angry about it, Husband One is like "okay, let's get married for reals and legitimize our new baby twin girls who of course will have very different personalities." I remember this fifteen years after the fact because it was so profoundly stupid. The other fine Danielle Steel tome I read is called Malice. In it, a beautiful and noble eighteen-year old girl has been raped by her father for the past five years because her mother had cancer and was unable to perform sexually. So, her mom offered up their thirteen-year old instead of...I don't know, telling him to find a hooker? Then, after her mother's funeral, she shoots her dad and goes to jail, even though the people in charge of her case make a big deal about her vag being full of scar tissue from all the brutal dadrapes. Then an angry lesbian in jail takes a liking to protagonist Grace and, in the course of attempting to rape her, sprinkles crack on her boob and licks it off because that is how one does the crack! Then Grace gets out of jail and is hired as a secretary at a modeling agency, even though everyone tells her she should model because she is so hot. The sleazy photographer guy drugs her and takes boobie pics of her when she's passed out, and molests her. He doesn't rape her and he is pretty much the only one in the story who doesn't. Anyways, Poor Hot Suffering Grace quits that dark-sided modeling agency and gets another clerical job working for a big-shot politician. I guess no one ever did a background check for that nasty murder? Grace also volunteers at a battered women's shelter. Politician thinks she is super hot, as well as an absolute oval office, because she hates all men and is rude to them. One night, Grace is leaving the shelter when she is attacked and probably raped by a shelter client's partner. Politician Boss nurses her back to health in the hospital and they get married, have babies, and build the perfect life...until those nasty nude photos surface! Then they move to Switzerland to start over. Like you do. Somewhere, a ghostwriter needs to be loving fired and possibly beaten to death. I also really hated Eat, Pray, Love.
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Nov 9, 2015 12:12
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I need a goony takedown of Eat, Pray, Love so hard. Please make this happen!
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Nov 9, 2015 12:39
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Zamboni_Rodeo posted:Okay, so if I just read the part between those 300 pages, I should be good, right? apart from this post, you shouldn't ever listen for goons' opinions
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Nov 9, 2015 14:26
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Hogge Wild posted:apart from this post, you shouldn't ever listen for goons' opinions This is the unofficial motto of every sub-forum in The Finer Arts
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Nov 9, 2015 14:28
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Scandalous Wench posted:I need a goony takedown of Eat, Pray, Love so hard. Please make this happen! I actually liked the Current Releases review of the movie version which is essentially a goony takedown (it was written in 2010, before Professor Clumsy read one too many SMG posts and demanded every review contain Zizekian feminist deconstruction of Godzilla or whatever was going on near the end there) but the movie is of course not the book
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Nov 9, 2015 17:28
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Scandalous Wench posted:I need a goony takedown of Eat, Pray, Love so hard. Please make this happen! The book has loving ruined the town. Not in a weird snooty hippy way, but in a "all this tourism money has gentrified it so hard that most of the locals can't afford to eat" kinda way. I meal that would cost 7000 rupiah (70c USD) in Surabaya costs upwards of 20,000 in Ubud. Compared to everywhere else in Indonesia, the prices are ridiculous and it's swarming with homeless. There's a very real feeling of resentment from the locals and I don't blame them at all. Also in the weird snooty hippy way though, the town is overrun with obnoxious "spiritual" couples who are furious that they're not the only other white people there. They wanted a cultural experience, dammit. They wanted magical foreigns to make their souls complete.
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Nov 9, 2015 21:25
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Considering the book appears to literally be "a rich white woman is paid to take a vacation and told repeatedly how special and awesome she is by all the locals" none of this surprises me at all
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Nov 9, 2015 22:22
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Oh that is awful.  Sadly not entirely surprising. Now I like that stupid book even less. Also how condescending is it to reduce entire countries to a particular cloying verb? It makes my blood boil.
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Nov 9, 2015 22:30
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Scandalous Wench posted:Oh that is awful. Oh wow the title really does mean "Italy = eat, India = pray, Indonesia = love." 
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Nov 9, 2015 22:53
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The woman who wrote Eat Play Love randomly wound up as a guest on some completely unrelated comedy podcasts lile MBMBAM and she's actually really funny and chill.
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Nov 9, 2015 22:53
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James Garfield posted:Oh wow the title really does mean "Italy = eat, India = pray, Indonesia = love." From what I can tell Indonesia gets "love" because it's where she hooked up with a businessman from Brazil, not because of any actual qualities inherent to the country or anything
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Nov 9, 2015 22:56
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"Fun" Ubud story: I went there with my sister to chill out during Eidul Fitri and all the other white people just ignored me. I went back alone later and suddenly all the white guys were super aggro. It was this weird hostile thing where they were all watching me like hawks and holding their wives closer. I'm pretty average looking and was just minding my own business, but I got treated like some sorta Fabio dude who was trying to steal their wives away. I just wanted to sit somewhere pretty and read a book. If you're a white guy in Ubud without a woman nearby, the rest of the white people lose their poo poo. Because of Eat, Pray, Love you see, it's a romance town and nobody could be there because it's got nice temples to walk around in or anything. I was working in Eastern Java and Bali was a nice change of pace but goddam the Australian frat bros have ruined Kuta, and the "spiritual" yuppie couples have ruined Ubud. on the plus side, the vet's office has renamed itself "Eat, Spay, Love" and I got a little laugh out of that. rant over, but I've spent a lot of time in Indonesia and I have strong opinions about Bali.
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Nov 9, 2015 23:09
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I'm pretty average looking and was just minding my own business, but I got treated like some sorta Fabio dude who was trying to steal their wives away. I just wanted to sit somewhere pretty and read a book. If you're a white guy in Ubud without a woman nearby, the rest of the white people lose their poo poo. This actually sounds pretty awesome, I want to spend a vacation standing around destroying yuppie marriages by proximity.
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Nov 9, 2015 23:16
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:on the plus side, the vet's office has renamed itself "Eat, Spay, Love" and I got a little laugh out of that. This is adorable. 
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Nov 9, 2015 23:45
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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. How representative is the first book? Before the series apparently goes off the rails, I mean. I found the setting/premise interesting, but the protagonist was enough of a Mary Sue that it all wound up seeming like kind of bland wish fulfillment. quote:It's like when Harry Potter went camping and wiped his arse with leaves for 400 pages.
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Nov 10, 2015 00:42
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There's a couple hundred pages of the last Harry Potter book that's basically him, Ron and Hermione hiding out in the woods while they try to figure out their next move and also resolve some sexual tension (but not in the way tumblr would like).
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Nov 10, 2015 00:45
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:"Fun" Ubud story: I went there with my sister to chill out during Eidul Fitri and all the other white people just ignored me. I went back alone later and suddenly all the white guys were super aggro. It was this weird hostile thing where they were all watching me like hawks and holding their wives closer. Yeah, I found some actual jungle peace in Ubud after hiking way far away from town for hours, but there were still "Yoga spaces" and poo poo being rented out to bored housewives for ridiculous prices. Kuta was Australian Cancun; I was only in Kuta to do mushrooms because of my flights, tbh. Was supposed to go to the Gilis, but the weather sucked. Boo. That said, I still enjoyed Ubud- hopped on some pretty cool tours and ate well. As for the book itself, I just have a very low threshold for navel-gazing and found it a little patronizing towards the people she met, especially the Balinese, although I think Elizabeth Gilbert is probably a super nice lady. I was just the wrong audience for the book.
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Nov 10, 2015 01:00
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bringmyfishback posted:I was only in Kuta to do mushrooms because of my flights, tbh. Most of the time I spent near Kuta was just at the hotel bar being told repeatedly how loving hilariously midget boxers go at it by a dude covered in tattoos none of which could have cost more than $20 whose girlfriend was actively, literally destroying his credit cards with scissors in their hotel room. The little Kuta getaway was a sabbatical from his regular routine of selling weed in Australia. ...that said I would still go back, the beaches were awesome. McKilligan has a new favorite as of 04:47 on Nov 10, 2015 |
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Nov 10, 2015 03:39
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