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flosofl posted:The novels have illustrations. At least the hardcover and trade paperbacks did. I remember being especially disturbed by an illustration in the book with the train (the 3rd one, I think).  This loving image gave me nightmares as a kid. I think the surrounding story was about how the text in the pictured book was about the kids as having the time of their life, but the illustrations were, well, this. EDIT: That one also had the image of what the wastelands look like, with all sorts of horrible deformed critters eating each other. Little Mad Drongo thought that was cool rather than scary, though. Big Mad Drongo has a new favorite as of 14:36 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 14:34
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As far as stupid fantasy novels, the drizzt books aren't bad, and I really like the frozen frontier setting of ice wind dale. Salvatore is mostly competent and they're kind of interesting. Now the shanarra books, those are some boring bog standard fantasy novels.
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Dec 5, 2015 15:25
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Rangpur posted:Hello, poster from several pages and 3 weeks ago! I believe you are referring to Level 26 by Anthony E. Zuiker, the world's first Digi-Novel! (c). I read the first third of it during a couple lunch breaks, back when I worked at Borders. I wasn't expecting amazing going in, but the book was bad. It even had an CSI tie in episode, to hook people on the book. I don't remember much except for the killer wearing a gimp suit so as to avoid leaving behind trace elements at crime scenes, and the paragraphs describing the killer greasing himself up with a stick of butter so that he could slide into his gimp suit . mania has a new favorite as of 20:01 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 18:18
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Somfin posted:Games have this thing where they need to be of a certain length to justify a certain price point. So it's sort of like the anime pervert equivalent of how 19th century others would write in a unnecessarily long winded and overwrought way because they were payed by the word?
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Dec 5, 2015 18:41
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Ambitious Spider posted:As far as stupid fantasy novels, the drizzt books aren't bad, and I really like the frozen frontier setting of ice wind dale. Salvatore is mostly competent and they're kind of interesting. Like I said, Salvatore is extremely competent at exactly one thing, and that one thing is fight scenes, and he is very very good at putting some of those excellent fight scenes into his stories. The problem comes from stuff like "Oh, hello, I am a halfling, and I use a rapier and a main gauche blocking dagger in combat. This allows me a quick fighting style, particularly when fighting two or more opponents." "Amazing, I've never seen such weapons. I myself am a human who uses a two-handed greatsword." "I hope we will have an excuse to show each other how effective our respective fighting styles are soon!"
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Dec 5, 2015 21:59
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That's like porno dialogue, except about fighting.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:01
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Senior Woodchuck posted:That's like porno dialogue, except about fighting. The mid-combat quips aren't much better, most of the time. In the Drizzt books there's a bit of pathos since the main character is frequently fighting his own family and most of the stuff he says has some emotional weight, but when it's a wandering monster encounter from table 10-Q and it's been a couple paragraphs since anyone spoke, you can bet that someone's gonna throw out a tepid boast or a half-decent pun or- worse- a verbal explanation of their combat maneuvers.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:09
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Somfin posted:E: To contribute to the thread, R. A. Salvatore's work is this for me- he's one of my favourite authors because his fight scenes are some of the best in the business and his better books are basically a series of excuses to get to those fight scenes. Every fight is described such that you know where everyone is, what they're doing, and why they're doing it, with a brisk style that I just love. Unfortunately, there's the rest of the books, and those sections always have the feeling of being things that the author really, really doesn't want to write, but he doesn't know how to get out of writing them. Salvatore writes unrepentant potboilers, but you can be assured the pot has at least been boiled with moderate competence. He'll never Shakespeare, but he'll never quite Kevin Anderson either.
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Dec 5, 2015 23:39
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on the other hand, he created the drow
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Dec 6, 2015 01:32
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Alaois posted:on the other hand, he created the drow That, in turn, gave us this. Worth it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tsmjkKzT3w
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Dec 6, 2015 01:56
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I submit a book called "Carrion Comfort." I honestly don't know why, I've read many other books that were written far shittier. It's just when I think about how awful the ending is, it completely obliterates the previous 90% of the book. Seriously, the book shits the bed so bad at the end it stained the box spring. it would be like if you were watching a deeply detailed political machination movie with tons of dialogue, and then it ends with an 80's action hero dropping one liners and walking away from explosions smoking a cigar. The entire novel is about these immortal psychic vampires with the ability to posses people. All the characters except two have this ability, and they basically fight each other by proxy in a big dick waving contest. there's two factions, with human detectives trying to figure out whats going on and basically being the proxy audience. It really is a figurative (and at times literal) chess match between two rival powers, complete with backstab, spies, intrigue, and what not. Think "The Hunt For Red October," but everyone has magic powers. Then you get to the awful conclusion and just go "what the gently caress?!?" nothing makes sense, no acts like they should, and it wraps up in three trite pages. As for Stephen King and the Dark Tower, you really owe it to yourself to read it. Towards the end of the series they recreate the Seven Samurai with characters throwing plates with razor edges, the Gunslingers, and a guy with a sling on one side. On the other side, they are fighting Doctor Doom clones riding robot horses who are wielding Light Sabres and throwing explosive "Golden Snitches" from Harry Potter. This is not even in the top ten of the weirdest things that happen. I actually did like it, I've read most of his works and there are direct plots in The Dark Tower relating to Green Dragon, The Stand, Salems Lot, The Talisman, Black House, Insomnia, And Stephen King getting hit by a car.
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Dec 6, 2015 18:38
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Their flashing tongues, spitting out blood and poison.
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My favorite Salvatore thing is the first two Drizz't books being very close to retellings of the first two Dune books in a D&D universe, right down to the sword fighting instructor father figure with a goofy name being resurrected as a zombie assassin in the second book.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:01
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malal posted:I submit a book called "Carrion Comfort." I honestly don't know why, I've read many other books that were written far shittier. It's just when I think about how awful the ending is, it completely obliterates the previous 90% of the book.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:22
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:and the ending is what? The entire plot is that these immortals (they can be killed, they just live forever as long as they control people) use "pawns" to fight. one of the pawns went crazy and is killed in the first act. (or so it would seem.) The humans find a way to fight into the compound where the two remaining factions are meeting to decide the next game. One faction wants to escalate the game using world powers and nuclear weapons, the other side likes it small scale. Our plucky humans find a way to break the control, and after being literal pieces on a human chessboard kill one leader, and try to kill the crazy woman who they discover is still alive. After storming the compound, they realize crazy chic had doctors make a body double with plastic surgery and isn't there but they kill everyone anyway. This is from two characters that have been detectives through most of the book. Fade to the ending where its revealed that crazy chic is far, FAR stronger then any of the other immortals. crazy chic (who hasn't really been doing much through the book except being cray-cray) is sitting on a nuke submarine that she now controls and its implied she launches nukes at the remaining immortals. Not only is it Deus ex machina, but it's ham-fisted and doesn't really make any sense. I guess the idea was a pawn could kill both sides? I dunno. Throughout the entire book her motivation was to run and hide. I'm fuzzy on the details, but it was like the ending to Hannibal but much, much worse.
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Dec 6, 2015 22:17
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I loved how there was the plot that I barely remember with some sort of military uniform pants or something, but there was also another plot about jeans. I'm not even being ironic when I say I like it. A popular brand of expensive jeans is something that an actual, real billionaire mogul would be interested in getting his hands on. It doesn't have to be all cargo containers full of cash or experimental technology. Even if that whole bit was basically so Gibson could get in that point about how men's fashion tries to imitate military gear because there hasn't been a war recently it was worth it. outlier posted:Yoiu're not alone - amongst my circle, everyone else seemed to love Zero History. I thought the London flavour sounded really fake and it turned out he wrote it up from notes provided by Cory Doctorow. But then, I live in London so maybe I'm being unfair. Same. Though I am pretty sure that hotels like that exist, and weird fashion shops run by mute Asians definitely do.
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Dec 6, 2015 22:24
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malal posted:As for Stephen King and the Dark Tower, you really owe it to yourself to read it.
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Dec 7, 2015 02:23
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malal posted:Throughout the entire book her motivation was to run and hide. I'm fuzzy on the details, but it was like the ending to Hannibal but much, much worse. Hannibal the movie isn't very good, but one of the few things I'm grateful for is the absolute omission of a lobotomised/sedated Clarice Starling being made Hannibal's pet bride to bring to watch classy operas.
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Dec 7, 2015 02:38
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I've never been able to make it through Carrion Comfort. I'm usually pretty good at powering through bad books, but that one for whatever reason I just couldn't do it.
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Dec 7, 2015 03:12
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Ambitious Spider posted:I've never been able to make it through Carrion Comfort. I'm usually pretty good at powering through bad books, but that one for whatever reason I just couldn't do it. Thank whatever deity you may or may not follow. I've never read a book with such a bad final act. I even finished "The House of Leaves" with a better taste in my mouth, and that book is just a throw away episode of "the Twilight Zone" with extra poo poo thrown in to make you feel like you earned the twist ending.
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Dec 7, 2015 03:19
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malal posted:Thank whatever deity you may or may not follow. I've never read a book with such a bad final act. I even finished "The House of Leaves" with a better taste in my mouth, and that book is just a throw away episode of "the Twilight Zone" with extra poo poo thrown in to make you feel like you earned the twist ending. What was the twist ending there? I've never been able to plow through it even though I like it on a superficial level.
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Dec 7, 2015 03:35
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malal posted:Thank whatever deity you may or may not follow. I've never read a book with such a bad final act. I even finished "The House of Leaves" with a better taste in my mouth, and that book is just a throw away episode of "the Twilight Zone" with extra poo poo thrown in to make you feel like you earned the twist ending. I got like fifty pages into House of Leaves and got bored by the constant nesting of material, such that the actual story felt like it was buried under multiple layers of Don't Give A poo poo. Is it actually worth trying to finish that goddamn thing?
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Dec 7, 2015 03:36
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The easiest bit of House of Leaves to read is the Navidson Record, all the formatting stuff can get really dumb but it works most of the time. The Johnny Truant backstory is confusing af to read. Ignore all the footnotes if it's referring to other people/works, they're all made up. E: Which twist ending are we referring to? The Zampano is a made up character by Johnny Truant and all his friends he referred to had been dead the whole time or Navidson comes out of the house worse for wear and there really isn't much of a resolution, other than the family getting back together and that's it?
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Dec 7, 2015 03:39
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For some reason I've always confused House of Leaves and The Cider House Rules. I just realized this now.
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Dec 7, 2015 03:43
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Snapchat A Titty posted:For some reason I've always confused House of Leaves and The Cider House Rules. I just realized this now. This made me go read the Wikipedia article for The Cider House Rules, on the logic of "okay, so let's see what uncomfortable sexual material is in this one." I see we have, once again, the John Irving novel's inevitable Traumatizing Adolescent Encounter With A Prostitute, but this looks at least a little less misogynistic than The World According to Garp or Hotel New Hampshire. A little. I'm sure I'm about to be told off for this, but I loving hate John Irving's writing. I read Garp and HNH back in high school and hated them then, but it was recently rekindled by an interview with Irving in my local alt weekly a few weeks ago that was embarrassingly softballed (think questions on the level of "just how are you so ~creative?~") and made the dude look smug and self-satisfied as gently caress. He had several paragraphs about how he doesn't see the need to repeat himself, which is amazing given that Garp and HNH have blatantly nigh-photocopied material (Traumatizing Adolescent Encounters With German Prostitutes!).
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Dec 7, 2015 04:14
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Oh my was it really John Irving? He is poo poo. It's always a young boy talking about his weird family and how he succeeds at everything despite the odds. Also he fucks an old pro at some point, usually German, haha goddamn. Formulaic as hell.
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Dec 7, 2015 04:20
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House of Leaves is pure '90s postmodern gimmickry of the best, most dorky-fun kind. I don't know how you can't love scooting back and forth and up and down through the pages, checking all the bullshit footnotes and being too occupied with the basic act of reading it to care a shred about the "characters" at all. It's like reading pinball.
Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 08:24 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 08:20
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The Johnny Truant story is the emotional core of the book and has the best writing.
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Dec 7, 2015 09:44
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True, also the Whalestoe/Pelafina Letters (and the supplement book) are good reads on their own. They are about JT's mom going more and more insane as she's stuck in an asylum sending hopeless letters to her son.
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Dec 7, 2015 09:54
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Nanomashoes posted:The Johnny Truant story is the emotional core of the book and has the best writing.
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Dec 7, 2015 10:00
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I like the part where he adopts a small cute dog and meets a nice girl and the girl brutally + insanely murders the dog in gruesome detail for no reason and neither of these things are ever brought up or made relevant again. A+ book What part of this do you have a problem with?
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Dec 7, 2015 11:04
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Tiggum posted:Nah. The first book's worth reading, but just pretend he never wrote any more. Or at the very least, skip Wizard and Glass. There is no reason anyone should ever read Wizard and Glass. I read the first one, because everyone was gushing about it at the time and it was kinda meh. Not bad in any obvious way, but nothing really grabbed me either. Got through like 3/4 of the second one (the one with doors leading to the main characters' heads or something) and put it down when I heard that those are supposed to be the good ones.
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Dec 7, 2015 11:12
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Nanomashoes posted:What part of this do you have a problem with?
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Dec 7, 2015 11:43
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Tiggum posted:Nah. The first book's worth reading, but just pretend he never wrote any more. Or at the very least, skip Wizard and Glass. There is no reason anyone should ever read Wizard and Glass. I think it's because I read them as they were released, but Wizard and Glass was my favorite book in the series. I also should give House of Leaves another read, I think the issue was I read it right after reading A Choir of Ill Children and Shadow at the Bottom of the World.
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Dec 7, 2015 12:25
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I really like house of leaves. It's like the horror novel equivalent of infinite jest. I also really liked wizard and glass ( my least favorite dark tower is drawing of the three)
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Dec 7, 2015 12:52
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I quite like House of Leaves, but it's pretty much my proxy for "you need to read more" when someone says it's their favourite book. It's like Finnegan's Wake, or Soft Machine, but for edgy teens. Not bad, but just.... meh edit: that was a bit harsh. I think it's alright, it's just not the absolute high point of all literature ever as it's fans will tell you lenoon has a new favorite as of 13:51 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 13:17
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lenoon posted:I quite like House of Leaves, but it's pretty much my proxy for "you need to read more" when someone says it's their favourite book. good. tell us what the other books to be read.
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Dec 7, 2015 17:11
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The short story Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88, by Kevin J. Anderson. Read this if you thought Star Wars stories couldn't get anymore ridiculous.
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Dec 7, 2015 18:38
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The Saddest Rhino posted:good. tell us what the other books to be read. Hey, it's a good book. But really, out of everything, all books, your favourite is a fairly adequate post-modern-but-not-in-a-challenging-way book of fairly middling quality in all respects? Great if it's your favourite, I'm just wondering why. There's better versions of the same thing, they just tend to be a bit less accessible.
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Dec 7, 2015 20:31
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grate deceiver posted:I read the first one, because everyone was gushing about it at the time and it was kinda meh. Not bad in any obvious way, but nothing really grabbed me either. Got through like 3/4 of the second one (the one with doors leading to the main characters' heads or something) and put it down when I heard that those are supposed to be the good ones. Really? I read the first one, didn't like it, and I haven't read any of the others because every one I know says the series picks up with The Wasteland and I don't want to slog through The Drawing of the Three to get there.
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Dec 7, 2015 21:23
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lenoon posted:Hey, it's a good book. But really, out of everything, all books, your favourite is a fairly adequate post-modern-but-not-in-a-challenging-way book of fairly middling quality in all respects? Great if it's your favourite, I'm just wondering why. There's better versions of the same thing, they just tend to be a bit less accessible. In my experience, the enjoyment and satisfaction someone gets from HoL is pretty much directly related to their expectations going in and the amount of effort they want to invest. If you read it casually, you get a collection of individually strong stories which are connected in interesting ways. It can be good, but is nothing to go all over the moon about. Likewise, most readers who are sold on the book by the promise of straight up horror can tend to be a bit disappointed. Most people who rave about it are the type of readers that got super invested in it while reading. That, I think, is what makes it excellent and much better than your bog standard Pale Fire knockoff: no matter how much effort you want to invest, the book always seems prepared to accommodate it and still remain one step ahead of you. The text presents you with a incredibly intricate puzzlebox that draws you in the more you play with it, but at the same time is designed in such a manner that no fitting solution is ever truly possible: any grand theory that accomodates as many of the supposed clues as possible and attempts to tie everything together in a neat whole is, without exception, bound to run into conflicting elements somewhere in those 1100 pages. There is no way to "solve" the book, but it still accomodates almost any possible theory to a surprising level without relying on cheap tricks or reveals. Perhaps that is why some people grow so attached: the form makes it impossible to miss how much any reading is dependent on the particular reader, so there is a kind of personal connection and emotional investment there. It's form following content: the book is to the reader what the labyrinth is to Navidson, what Zampano's manuscript is to Johnny, etc. It is a puzzle without a solution, and the only closure it gives you is something that probably says more about you than it says about the object at hand. My apologies if I'm probably a bit biased since it is one of my favorite books, but I think the idea of a book using its form as a venus flytrap is really cool. And somehow, HoL had a really great emotional kick for me, too. I thought The Fifty Year Sword was good, as well, and did the same trick of offering an amusing ghost story on the surface, with a puzzlebox structure strong enough to accomodate most reader's solutions and labyrinthine enough to make them get lost in it, without losing an emotional core when you start to cut it apart.
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Dec 7, 2015 21:43
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